Star Tribune
These 22 Metro Transit graduates will make the wheels on the bus go round
Like most graduations, this one featured balloons, a deluge of photos, well wishes from relatives and friends, solemn words of wisdom — and sheet cake with “Congratulations Graduates” inscribed in sugary cursive.
But this first-of-its-kind ceremony celebrated 22 bus drivers who received their diplomas Tuesday at Metro Transit’s North Loop Garage in Minneapolis. They will soon take the wheel as critical players in the Twin Cities’ transportation infrastructure.
“Without you, there is no transit,” said Metro Transit General Manager Lesley Kandaras.
Metro Transit created the graduation as one way to mark progress in its struggle to attract drivers to the fold in recent years. “It’s always good to celebrate milestones,” said David Stiggers, president of Local 1005 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), which represents drivers, light-rail operators and others. “This is not an easy job.”
Metro Transit added more than 400 bus drivers last year as service is slowly restored following a precipitous decline during the pandemic and as new bus-rapid transit lines are being added over the next two years. Currently, there are 1,180 bus drivers and light-rail operators, about 120 below budgeted levels, according to Brian Funk, chief operating officer.
In recent days, ATU members voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new contract that calls for 15% pay increase over the next three years. Under the agreement, drivers will start out earning more than $27 an hour. The contract must now be approved by the Metropolitan Council, which operates Metro Transit.
No one on Tuesday sugarcoated the challenges the new drivers will face, especially as Metro Transit grapples with crime, homelessness, mental health and substance abuse aboard trains and buses.
Metro Transit has deployed a multipronged strategy to combat these issues. More police and community service officers are patrolling trains and buses. Social workers and other advocates are directing those in need to programs that could help them.
While overall crime on Metro Transit buses and trains increased 32% in 2023 compared with the previous year, it dropped by 25% between the first and final quarter of the year.
Ron Forrest, Metro Transit’s deputy chief operating officer, told the drivers they will have to deal with passengers who are hostile, anti-social and suffering from addictions. “You’re about to go out and do something that’s challenging,” Forrest said. “That’s the reality.”
Several bus driver graduates said in interviews Tuesday that they’re well aware of those challenges, but remain undeterred and confident their training can help defuse tough situations.
“I’m ready for anything,” said Will Perry, of Minneapolis, who worked with special needs kids at a previous job as a school bus driver.
Annette Hernandez, another graduate from Minneapolis, said she recognizes the struggles some passengers may be experiencing. “I’m an understanding, compassionate person,” she said.
According to the Federal Transit Administration, there was a 121% increase in serious assaults against transit workers nationwide between 2008 and 2021, the most recent data available. Local assault data were not available. This prompted the Biden administration last year to require transit agencies to conduct a safety risk assessment and adopt mitigation strategies to minimize or eliminate assaults on operators.
Under Minnesota law, a person who violently interferes with a transit operator could face up three years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Keith Alexander, of Minneapolis, said he applied at Metro Transit after seeing job openings advertised on the side of the Route 14 bus. “I worked downtown. I know what goes on,” he said.
After working in finance and sales for several years, Alexander said he likes the prospect of a steady job.
“I was tired of waking up in the middle of the night worrying about some number and checking my email,” he said. “Here, once you leave, you know you did your job.”
An 18-year-old man was arrested after a shooting Monday afternoon in downtown Minneapolis wounded a 14-year-old boy.
According to a statement from police, officers heard gunfire about 4:22 p.m. and found evidence of a shooting in a parking lot near N. 5th Street and Hennepin Avenue. A few minutes later, they arrested the suspect in an alley behind the police department’s First Precinct station, 19 N. 4th St., and recovered a gun.
A couple minutes after that, Metro Transit police identified the 14-year-old victim at N. 8th Street and Hennepin Avenue, where he had run and perhaps attempted to board a bus. He was taken to HCMC with a wound that was apparently not life-threatening.
Police investigators were working to establish what led up to the shooting. The suspect was booked into the Hennepin County Jail for the shooting and unrelated warrants.
“This is yet another clear example of the very real problem of the gun violence we have in this city,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in the statement. “MPD will continue its focused efforts to root out this problem that has such tragic results.”
Gun violence swelled in Minneapolis and across the nation in 2020 and 2021 but has slowed since. Criminologists have attributed the rise to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, fallout from the police murder of George Floyd and increased gun carrying.
Star Tribune
Four things to know about Theodora Gaïtas, the newest member of the Minnesota Supreme Court
As she was ceremonially sworn in Monday as the newest member of the Minnesota Supreme Court, Theodora Gaïtas made Socrates an honorary Minnesotan.
Gaïtas, a Minnesota native and University of Minnesota graduate who grew up in Greece, told those assembled at the Minnesota Historical Center that they all had brought her to this moment. She drew on her heritage, calling it philia, the Greek word for loving friendship. In a more Minnesota vein, she said that good people make good law and that the good people of the state would continue to guide her career.
Gaïtas’ appointment capped what Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan called “an extraordinary moment of transition” for the state’s highest court, with three new justices joining in the last year.
Here’s four things to know about Gaïtas, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in April and officially started in her new role on Aug. 1.
Gaïtas spent 15 years as an appellate criminal public defender before Gov. Mark Dayton appointed her to the Hennepin County District Court bench in 2108. Gov. Tim Walz named her to the Court of Appeals in 2020.
Court of Appeals Judge Keala Ede, who has known Gaïtas for 25 years, noted that only two Minnesota Supreme Court justices before now had ever served as a public defender. He said Gaïtas will bring a perspective that has eluded the court, as nearly half of all justices have been former prosecutors.
“Her firsthand experience with the ways our criminal justice system affects individuals, their families and our communities will assist her in rendering equal justice under the law,” Ede said.
The arrival of Gaïtas and Sarah Hennesy this year returns the Supreme Court to a 4-3 female majority. Minnesota became the first state in the country with a majority of women in 1991 that included Rosalie Wahl, the state’s first female justice, who was referenced several times Monday.
The man shot by law enforcement during a 15-hour siege in rural western Minnesota had been paranoid and acting erratically, leading his family to call authorities about his behavior, court documents say.
Kasey Paul Willander, 27, was behaving strangely Saturday afternoon while possessing a knife and a bow, his mother told a Yellow Medicine County sheriff’s deputy around 3:15 p.m., according to the search warrant from the Kandiyohi County Sheriff’s Office.
Willander left before deputies arrived at the home in Clarkfield, 15 miles south of Montevideo, the search warrant said.
Two hours later, law enforcement said it received a call that Willander had a rifle and was at another relative’s home nearby.
These relatives were forced to barricade themselves in their home as police used an aerial drone to search for Willander, who was hiding in a grove of trees on the property, the warrant said.
As deputies evacuated his relatives from the home, Willander pointed a long gun at the officers, the warrant said.
A standoff ensued. Willander boarded up windows in the home and destroyed cameras on the property, the warrant said.
Police SWAT teams surrounded the home, the Yellow Medicine County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Monday. Willander again shot at the officers.
