Star Tribune
Minnesota nursing board considers firing its executive director after licensing, discipline delays
The Minnesota Board of Nursing set an emergency meeting Thursday to consider replacing its executive director amid complaints of delayed licensing approvals and disciplinary actions.
Kimberly Miller became director of the nursing board in August 2021 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. That crisis and the fall 2022 nursing strike flooded the board with licensure and temporary permit requests. But complaints and the board’s own budget request suggested problems beyond those events.
While Miller “took the brunt of the COVID mess” her leadership resulted in multiple complaints from workers, many of whom quit, and even clashes with board members, said David Jiang, who resigned from the board in August 2022 to attend law school in California. Jiang in his resignation letter to Gov. Tim Walz faulted the board for a lack of oversight, and allowing Miller to handle the staffing problems she helped create.
“It’s been over a year since we’ve been aware of these issues and its always been punted,” Jiang said in an interview Wednesday.
The Star Tribune in January reported that nursing school graduates weren’t getting cleared by the board to take their licensing exams, delaying their start dates at hospitals and clinics and contributing to the statewide nursing shortage.
ProPublica and KARE 11 in April reported on the board’s delayed disciplinary actions that allowed nurses accused of dangerous practices to stay on the job. The two media outlets first reported on Tuesday that the board had scheduled the emergency meeting.
Internal documents provided by former nursing board staff showed that delays started with the use of a single, tightly-controlled email account for multiple board activities. Questions and complaints to that inbox would sit for 30 to 60 days before they were assigned to appropriate board staff. In some cases, board staff would be pressing nurses with second or third requests for information that had already been filed to the inbox.
“The delay in responding to practice questions is unprofessional and reflects poorly on the Board,” said one email from a board staff member to Miller.
The board’s most recent biennial report showed that the time to resolve disciplinary complaints had increased to 250 days, and that last June there were 320 complaints that remained unresolved after more than one year.
Eric Ray quit his job as a discipline program assistant shortly after Miller took charge of the board. In a recent email to the Star Tribune, he said the delays are even worse than reflected by the statistics. The timeline doesn’t start until Miller codes complaints for investigations, Ray said, and many of those complaints sit for weeks in the board’s inbox.
Ray said it “is truly alarming from a public safety standpoint” and that a handful of disciplinary cases remain unresolved after five years.
The Minnesota Office of Management and Budget had received and reviewed multiple complaint about Miller, but spokesperson Patrick Hogan said privacy laws prevented elaboration on them. Nursing board president Laura Elseth confirmed Thursday’s meeting but said state privacy laws prevented her from discussing the “nature of complaints” against Miller.
Walz had requested funding increases to maintain the nursing board’s current level of service, including $237,000 per year to add three staff members.
“The Board is not able to meet consumer and applicant expectations for timely licensure processing,” the budget stated.
The nursing strike led to a doubling last year of “licensure by endorsement” applications by nurses in other states who were seeking to move to Minnesota or provide temporary nursing care for short-staffed hospitals and clinics. However, state officials expect that demand to continue this year, as burnout has caused a nursing shortage statewide and a continued need for contract and temporary nurses to cover shifts in Minnesota.
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.
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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