Star Tribune
Bill would provide Andover with $9M to tackle water contamination issues
The north metro city of Andover could get $9 million in state funding to address water contamination issues that have prevented some residents from being able to safely consume tap water in their homes.
State Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, on Tuesday introduced a bill that would provide some of the money needed to connect about 50 homes in the Red Oaks neighborhood to the city’s water system. Residents there have been forced to use bottled water to drink, cook food and brush their teeth since high levels of the cancer-causing 1,4-dioxane were found in private wells.
“These contaminated wells are a public safety hazard for people in our district, not to mention the significant inconveniences they are causing,” Niska said. “Safe drinking water is one of those things you take for granted, until you don’t have it.”
Getting state funding to connect homes to the city’s water system and addressing what caused private wells to become contaminated is a top priority for Andover, said City Administrator Jim Dickinson.
“I’m positive it is moving forward,” Dickinson said of the bill. “It has bipartisan support.”
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the Minnesota Department of Health found concentrations of 1,4-dioxane above 1 microgram per liter in homeowners’ wells while conducting testing near the closed Waste Disposal Engineering Landfill in August 2021. Anything above 1 microgram per liter is cause for health concerns, according to the Health Department.
Retesting of wells in June and July in the neighborhood off Bunker Lake and Crosstown boulevards showed little change, the MPCA said.
The agency has provided bottled water for the past 1 1⁄2 years to homes where sampling values were detected above safe levels. It will also provide bottled water to any additional homes found to have unsafe 1,4-dioxane levels as testing continues, the agency said.
Use of the synthetic industrial chemical as a stabilizer for chlorinated solvents ended in 1995, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Drinking contaminated water is the primary way people are exposed to 1,4-dioxane, the MPCA said.
In 2019, Gov. Tim Walz declared the defunct Andover landfill, now a Superfund site managed by the MPCA, one of the most toxic sites in the state. More than 6,600 barrels of hazardous waste were disposed of there in the 1970s. The 2019 bonding bill included $10 million to begin cleaning it up.
But officials are not positive the 1,4-dioxane contamination is coming from the landfill, and recent MPCA data indicated the landfill is not the source, an agency spokesman said.
“Additional site investigation is necessary to determine the source and fully define the extent of the contamination,” the spokesman said.
In the meantime, the MPCA will continue to conduct routine sampling in the neighborhood. The agency also is coordinating with the EPA to evaluate potential sources of contamination in the area.
“Those investigations can continue, and should, but not to the detriment of people in our district continuing to suffer health risks,” Niska said. “Public safety is a chief responsibility of government and we owe it to the people we serve to abide by that principle.”
Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover, previously authored legislation regarding this issue and is a co-author of Niska’s current bill. Sen. Cal Bahr, R-East Bethel, is carrying a companion bill in the Senate.
Niska said he hopes to soon bring his bill to the House Capital Investment Committee with the goal of having it included in a bonding package this session.
Star Tribune
Former Hubbard County official, school bus driver gets six-year sentence for sex crimes against students
A former Hubbard County commissioner and school bus driver was sentenced Friday to six years in prison for sex crimes involving minors.
Daniel J. Stacey, 60, was charged in April 2023 with criminal sexual conduct and electronic solicitation of a minor, both felonies, in Beltrami County District Court. He was then charged in November with nine additional felony counts related to criminal sexual contact with a minor.
Stacey pleaded guilty in June to four felony counts as part of a plea deal that dropped the remaining charges. His attorney, Joseph Tamburino, declined to comment Friday on the sentence, and officials with the Nevis school district did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.
Stacey resigned from the Hubbard County Board in January 2023 and was placed on leave from his school bus job during an investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) that began after the parent of a Nevis student filed a complaint.
In an email Friday, Hubbard County Administrator Jeffrey Cadwell said he had no comment other than that Stacey’s actions “did not occur within the course and scope of his duties with the County and the County was completely unaware of them.”
According to a criminal complaint, Stacey offered to mentor a 13-year-old male on his bus route. He brought the boy to his property, asked him to watch pornography and tried to touch him in a sexual manner, court documents state.
The boy told investigators that Stacey told him not to tell anyone, and helped him rehearse what to say about doing chores at his property. Investigators said they found footage showing times Stacey would deactivate the school bus camera when the boy was the only student left on the bus.
A second criminal complaint outlines similar allegations against Stacey with a minor who was 14 years old.
Star Tribune
Woman charged as investigation into attack on north Minneapolis homeless shelter continues
A 33-year-old woman has been charged with two felonies in connection with an attack on a north Minneapolis homeless shelter that forced 54 women and children to relocate last week.
Eureka D. Riser, 33, of Minneapolis, is charged with second-degree rioting with a dangerous weapon and first-degree damage to property, according to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. She was in custody Friday, a day after Minneapolis police confirmed her arrest.
Riser, also known as Eureka Willis, is alleged to have been in a group of at least three people who on Sept. 5 went to St. Anne’s Place, 2634 Russell Av. N., and threatened residents, smashing doors with a baseball bat.
Residents were forced to vacate the shelter, leaving it boarded with plywood and watched over by armed security. Building managers estimate that property damage amounts to more than $10,000, according to the county attorney’s office. Additional charges may be brought against others involved.
“This violent attack on some of our most vulnerable community members, unhoused women and children, in a place where they had gone to seek shelter and safety cannot be tolerated,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement.
Hoang Murphy, the CEO of People Serving People, which operates the shelter, said earlier this week that the four-hour episode was the culmination of an argument between shelter residents and neighbors over street parking that started days earlier and spilled over into violence.
According to the criminal complaint, which cites surveillance footage, Riser allegedly swung a baseball bat against the shelter’s doors, shattering glass while residents were inside. Another member of the group pointed what appears to be a gun at the front door of the building, the complaint says.
Residents have since been relocated to a hotel for safety reasons, costing People Serving People $9,000 a night — a figure that Murphy called unsustainable.
Star Tribune
6 months in jail for man shot by Minnesota deputies while resisting arrest
A man who was shot and wounded by sheriff’s deputies in east-central Minnesota while resisting arrest received a six-month jail term Friday.
Leo H. Hacker, 71, was sentenced in Pine County District Court in connection with his guilty plea in two cases of assault, and obstructing and fleeing law enforcement in connection with his clashes with deputies in February 2023.
Hacker’s sentences will be served concurrently and includes Judge Jason Steffen setting aside a three-year sentence sought by the County Attorney’s Office. Steffen’s terms also include five years’ probation and community work service.
According to the charges in each case and related court documents:
On Feb. 21, deputies tried to pull over Hacker’s pickup truck on a gravel road about a mile from his Pine City home. As two deputies approached his vehicle, he drove toward them. Both deputies opened fire on Hacker and wounded him.
Hacker was wanted at the time on charges of second-degree assault and obstructing law enforcement in connection with allegations that he pointed a gun at a deputy outside his home on Feb. 14 and angrily defied orders to drop the weapon.
At one point, Hacker warned the deputies that if they did not leave, he would return with “something bigger,” the charges quoted him as saying.
The deputy was there to seize Hacker’s SUV stemming from a dispute over his unpaid attorney fees, the charges read. However, law enforcement outside the home “determined that based on the totality of circumstances, it was in the interest of safety to leave the scene at that time” and instead seek a warrant for Hacker’s arrest, the criminal complaint continued.
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