Star Tribune
North Shore residents fear marina sale will harm community
KNIFE RIVER, Minn. — The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is exploring a sale of the Knife River Marina, a 100-slip basin that has for decades anchored the tiny North Shore village popular for its smoked fish and Norwegian heritage.
The state agency has managed the Lake Superior marina for more than 20 years, and extensive deferred maintenance projects and repairs are expected to cost more than $19 million. As the DNR weighs those future costs, officials say they are also considering whether that money could benefit more users elsewhere.
But residents say the marina is a defining characteristic of the tight-knit community, and they worry a sale could result in costlier services for commercial fishing and other boating, or worse, housing developments along the shore.
Fishing has historically sustained the lives of many residents, Pat Meyer, president of the Knife River Recreation Council, told DNR officials at a town meeting in September.
“This was a working village, a fishing village,” she said. “And we don’t want to lose it.”
The DNR has issued a series of short-term contracts to Sailboats, Inc. to operate the marina, and a long-term lease to that company or another provider could be an alternative to a sale, said Phil Leversedge, of the DNR parks and trails division.
The Knife River Marina is the only commercial marina the DNR fully owns and maintains in the state. The Silver Bay marina is owned by the DNR, but is run and maintained by the city of Silver Bay.
Since assuming ownership of Knife River Marina, which is on Office of School Trust lands, the DNR hasn’t been able to invest enough money to meet the marina’s needs, Leversedge said. The marina serves a relatively small group of boaters, he said, and the agency needs to weigh “where we can get the biggest bang for our buck.”
“Is it public water access that would serve literally thousands of boaters? Or is it a marina with individual docks that serve a smaller clientele? That’s all part of the discussion,” he said.
About half of marina users live in the region, and the other half come from the Twin Cities and elsewhere.
Whatever it decides, the state agency intends to keep public access to the lake and a stretch of beach that runs in front of the marina. The DNR’s intent is for the marina to continue operations, but under a different model, Leversedge said. The channel maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would remain in its hands.
‘A jewel of the North Shore’
The land where the marina now sits has “always been a long-fought for property,” resident and marina tenant Randy Ellestad said, as early villagers sought a harbor that could withstand northeastern wind and waves.
Residents in the 1940s banded together as a cooperative to buy land and pay for construction of a channel, and eventually formed a nonprofit to secure federal money. Later, the U.S. Army Corps built a break wall, and in the early 1970s, the residents gave up their rights to the property, handing it over to Lake County for further development.
“It became a jewel of the North Shore,” Ellestad said. “There aren’t many harbors like that on the Great Lakes.”
In that exchange with the county, commercial mariners were promised free use of the marina because of their early investments, but that didn’t come to pass. Going forward, they’d like that promise honored, Ellestad said.
Steve Dahl is one of two remaining commercial fishermen who uses the marina, spending most days out on the lake before sunrise, catching cisco, also known as lake herring, and lake trout.
He’s fished Lake Superior for more than three decades in his 18-foot skiff, and he pays about $700 per season to use his slip from April to December.
If a developer bought the marina, “I’d be done,” Dahl said. “There’s enough pressure [to survive as a small commercial fishing business.] Let alone have a developer come in and get rid of us.”
Land adjacent to the marina is zoned for residential use, and only a small parcel can be developed, a representative from the Lake County zoning department said at the meeting last week.
But several other nearby acres of land are owned by the county, and Knife River resident Lee Bujold said the marketing of a 100-slip deep water boat basin will attract developers. Privatization of the marina could also result in housing built to subsidize millions in marina rehabilitation.
“It seems to me this isn’t just about this boat basin,” she said. “It may be great for Knife River and it may have the opportunity to change us irrevocably.”
Leversedge said the next step for DNR would be an appraisal of the marina before any decision on a sale in 2024.
“STEP Academy is in a financial crisis,” IQS warned in the letter. “If the board does not take sufficient and responsible action, the school will be unable to continue operations.”
One of the authorizer’s concerns was resolved Thursday night when the board accepted the resignation of superintendent Mustafa Ibrahim, who served as the school’s top administrator since 2012. Two STEP board members also stepped down.
IQS first placed STEP on probation for contract violations in 2020. Most of its complaints have centered on Ibrahim’s actions, with IQS accusing him of operating without proper board oversight and making unilateral decisions that have sometimes hurt the school.
The situation didn’t reach crisis levels, however, until the costs of the school’s 2022 expansion into Burnsville wiped out STEP’s financial reserves. Its fund balance, the most critical indicator of a charter school’s financial health, fell from $2.7 million in 2022 to $54,461 in 2023, state records show.
In a 2023 letter to the school, IQS said STEP “significantly overspent” on renovating the Burnsville facility. It alleged that Ibrahim violated procurement rules by entering into budget-busting agreements without first obtaining board approval.
In a statement to the Star Tribune, Ibrahim blamed STEP’s financial problems on IQS. He said the nonprofit has abused its power by creating “unnecessary barriers and distractions” that have destabilized the school. Ibrahim accused IQS of attempting to “wrest control” of the school and replace its Black leaders with “hand-picked white professionals.”
A judge acquitted a 37-year-old man of threatening to harm St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Maplewood Mall and concluded that the defendant’s intention was to buy the shopping center and run for mayor.
Andrew Thomas Grzywinski, of St. Paul, was found not guilty late Thursday afternoon by Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann on two counts of threats of violence.
The suspicion took root when Grzywinski sent a former girlfriend a text on Dec. 27, 2022, showing an assault-style gun on a window ledge, with a message that read, “Maplewood Mall is my idea, and Mayor of St. Paul is an end goal,” according to the charges filed in December 2022.
The woman alerted Woodbury police because Grzywinski was staying at a hotel in that city. A Woodbury police investigator said Grzywinski had been hospitalized Dec. 15-22, 2022, in Pensacola, Fla., “on a mental health hold,” the charges read, and a doctor there said Grzywinski’s threats should be taken seriously.
Woodbury police then notified their counterparts in Maplewood and St. Paul, leading to his arrest and charges.
In returning his verdicts in writing, Guthmann said, “The text message does not state or imply a threat to commit an act of violence. There is nothing expressly or impliedly threatening about the words ‘Maplewood is my idea,’ and the existence of a gun in the background of a panorama photo of a hotel room containing many other objects does not reasonably change the character of those words.”
The judge continued, “To conclude that defendant’s text was intended as an express or implied threat to the Maplewood Mall or anyone inside is entirely speculative and without support in the evidence.”
Guthmann’s filing noted that Grzywinski, who owns his own heating and cooling business, was not mulling or making any threats against the mall or the mayor but had been telling various people close to him that he wanted to buy the mall and run for mayor.
Star Tribune
Critics say Duluth judicial candidate fought improvements to domestic violence work as city attorney
Johnson said this week he felt a victim advocate position was important, but needed to “ask the hard questions” first.
“You have to be careful of what you take on,” he said, when potentially adding employees, considering potential future budget cuts. “I explore all options before jumping into something and that’s what we did with that position.”
After Holtberg’s phone call with Johnson, she said she sought advice from others and brought the opportunity and Johnson’s initial response to former Mayor Emily Larson. Larson confirmed this week that she then directed Johnson to apply for the grant. Funding was awarded to the city, and the position remains grant-funded today. Johnson said he doesn’t think Larson told him to apply, but said her administration was part of the discussion.
“We got it done, and we got it done in a way that’s stuck with the city,” he said. “Just because you ask hard questions doesn’t mean that it’s bad … that’s what I do, and as judge I’ll ask hard questions.”
Retired city prosecutor Mary Asmus said recently that Johnson told her at the time that if that position was added, he would probably need to dismiss someone from the office’s criminal division. This was at a time when criminal caseloads were high, she said. Johnson said he doesn’t recall saying that, but noted that grant funding isn’t guaranteed to last, inevitably affecting budgets and staffing.
“I don’t think he understood the importance of a victim services coordinator to the prosecution of a domestic violence case,” Asmus said, and “he was the first Duluth City Attorney in four decades who had never prosecuted criminal cases for our office.”
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