Star Tribune
Bloomington offers more subsidies to German tech company
German tech company SICK is building new Bloomington offices, with millions in help from the city and Port Authority.
The Bloomington Port Authority has agreed to offer the company more than $12.1 million in subsidies for its growing campus near the Mall of America. Bloomington will pay half the cost of building a parking ramp, and is giving the company a huge discount on city-owned land. City and port officials say the subsidies make sense because SICK and other tech companies are pivotal to making Bloomington’s local economy less dependent on the megamall and surrounding hotels.
“I appreciate the port’s focus and the [City] Council’s focus on a strategy of supporting our hospitality industry — and diversifying our economy,” Council Member Shawn Nelson said before both bodies voted unanimously to approve the subsidies this week. “This is an exact project that does that.”
SICK — short for the company’s full name, Sick Vertriebs-GmbH — is a German company that makes sensors, some of which are used for autonomous vehicles. The company has had Minnesota offices in Savage and west Bloomington, but will consolidate staff at the new office.
The company is slowly building a campus in Bloomington’s South Loop district, beginning with a logistics and production building that opened in the fall of 2022. The city and the company agreed in early 2021 on four phases of possible development and up to $30.4 million in city subsidies.
Part of the subsidy is the markdown on city-owned land.
Bloomington will sell the land for SICK’s office building, about 3½ acres, for $1.2 million. That’s just more than a third of what the port authority deemed the land’s value to be.
Bloomington bought the land in 2010 in part for the construction of Lindau Lane near the Mall of America, and as part of the port’s commonly used strategy of buying land and holding out for an optimal development proposal.
The port authority will use tax increment financing left over from older projects in the area to pay for half the cost of building a 550-stall parking ramp, estimated to cost between $20 million and $25 million. SICK will pay the other half.
Bloomington will own the ramp, and has agreed lease it to SICK during the day for $1 per year for the next 50 years.
The parking ramp will be reserved for SICK employees between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. and open to the public overnight until 6 a.m. The port authority has subsidized other parking ramps in Bloomington, said Jason Schmidt, assistant port authority administrator, but those ramps have been open to the public at all hours.
The office and parking ramp are expected to open in mid-2026, at which point SICK will move about 170 employees from its current office in west Bloomington to the new office. SICK expects to bring about 75 other North American staff to the Bloomington office in years to come.
To get the subsidies, SICK has to pay those workers no less than $38,000 per year. SICK has told Bloomington median pay for the office workers is about $94,500.
Mohamed Omar is the new board chair of Hennepin Healthcare System, the organization that runs HCMC, making him Minnesota’s first Somali American hospital board leader.
The health care system board permanently appointed Omar to the position Wednesday at their regular meeting. He had served as interim chair since Babette Apland stepped down in September.
Omar has been on the volunteer board for three years, working on the finance, investment, audit and compliance committees. He is the chief administrative officer at the Washburn Center for Children and previously was chief financial officer at the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund.
In a statement, Omar said he was excited to lead a hospital board in the state with the largest Somali American population in the U.S. He said he shared the health system’s dedication to providing “equitable, high-quality care.”
“My commitment is to deepen our community engagement, build more authentic connections between patients and team members, and build a confident future together,” Omar’s statement said.
CEO Jennifer DeCubellis and Nneka Sederstrom, chief health equity officer, praised Omar’s selection to lead the board. They said more inclusive leadership with a commitment to ending health disparities are key to HCMC’s success.
Hennepin County Board Chair Irene Fernando, who is also on health system board, said she was excited to work with Omar. She said county leaders are dedicated to good stewardship of the “state’s last public safety-net hospital.”
“As the first Hennepin County Board Chair of color, I know how impactful it is for our communities to see themselves represented in public leadership,” Fernando said.
DULUTH – The Superior National Forest has lifted its forestwide campfire ban, including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, effective Friday.
Recent rain and humidity have improved conditions across the national forest’s 3 million acres, forest officials said in a news release.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has also lifted fire restrictions in Cook, Koochiching, Lake and northern St. Louis counties.
Fire danger is still a concern this time of year, said Karen Harrison, DNR wildfire prevention specialist.
“As leaves fall and vegetation continues to dry out, it’s important for people to be cautious with anything that can cause a spark,” she said.
The national forest imposed its broad campfire ban nearly two weeks ago, after a third wildfire, named for Bogus Lake, was discovered on forest land. No significant fire activity has been reported in recent days for any of those three fires. A fourth fire inside the forest, the 8.5-acre Pfeiffer Lake Fire, started Oct. 17. It was contained within 24 hours, the Forest Service said.
Much of northeast Minnesota is still classified in the “severe drought” stage by the U.S. Drought Monitor.
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris was asked this week if she thought Donald Trump was a fascist, and she replied ‘’Yes, I do.’’ She subsequently called him the same thing herself, saying voters don’t want ‘’a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.’’
But what exactly is a fascist? And does the meaning of the word shift when viewed through a historical or political prism — especially so close to the end of a fraught presidential race?
An authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is often associated with the far right and characterized by a dictatorial leader who uses military forces to help suppress political and civil opposition.
History’s two most famous fascists were Nazi chief Adolf Hitler in Germany and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Known as Il Duce, or ”the duke,” Mussolini headed the National Fascist Party, which was symbolized by an eagle clutching a fasces — a bundle of rods with an axe among them.
At Mussolini’s urging, in October 1922, thousands of ”Blackshirts,” or ”squadristi,” made up an armed fascist militia that marched on Rome, vowing to seize power. Hitler’s Nazis similarly relied on a militia, known as the ”Brownshirts.” Both men eventually imposed single-party rule and encouraged violence in the streets. They used soldiers, but also fomented civilian unrest that pit loyalists against political opponents and larger swaths of everyday society.
Hitler and Mussolini censored the press and issued sophisticated propaganda. They played up racist fears and manipulated not just their active supporters but everyday citizens.
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