Star Tribune
Andover High School teacher leads effort for more understandable driver’s tests
From a snug nine-seat classroom at Andover High School, teacher Amna Kiran gets to know her English-language students so well that she helps them navigate subjects from math and science to the written driver’s permit test.
“It’s not a job for me. It’s a passion; it’s something I love to do,” she said of teaching English to about 38 students a year whose native languages include Arabic, Oromo, Ukrainian and Spanish.
Her level of devotion, attention and persistence is about to change Minnesota law — with bipartisan support. Because of Kiran’s efforts, the driver’s permit tests next year will likely be written in clear, direct English.
Both the House and Senate have already passed a bill that began with Kiran. If the House concurs with minor changes made by the Senate, the bill will head to Gov. Tim Walz for his signature.
The origins of the bill date to 2019 when Kiran, who has three master’s degrees, saw a well-prepared student repeatedly fail the written test. The teacher, who speaks multiple languages and emigrated from Pakistan in 2007, started doing her own research. She learned that native English speakers also found the text perplexing.
“I don’t want to make the test easy but it should be understandable,” she said.
She wrote letters to the state Driver and Vehicle Services, but didn’t get anywhere. In March 2023, she brought a bound version of her research and some 1,500 signatures on a petition to a constituent coffee session with Sen. John Hoffman, DFL-Champlin.
Her pitch: “A valid test is supposed to test what it needs to assess,” she said.
Hoffman got it. He took the research and showed it to Sen. Clare Oumou Verbeten, DFL-St. Paul, who understood immediately as her mother, a native of Senegal, learned English as an adult. Oumou Verbeten sponsored the bill along with Rep. Brad Tabke, DFL-Shakopee.
Kiran drafted the first version of the bill, adhering to Federal Plain Language Guidelines, adopted in 2010 for federal agencies. Minnesota adopted a similar standard in 2014 with an executive order signed by Gov. Mark Dayton. The order requires state agencies to use “language commonly understood by the public.”
The bill requires the state Public Safety commissioner to develop a new test by Feb. 1, 2025, using “clear, simplified language.” Grammatical standards include addressing the test-taker directly as “you,” using the active voice and omitting excess words.
Many of the requirements are strong advice for all writing: use familiar words, minimize the use of abbreviations and keep the subject, verb and object close together.
The bill advises avoiding either/or and neither/nor, omitting double negatives and terms like “except for” and “unless.”
Kiran provided multiple examples from the old test that don’t fit the new standards.
Question 1: “Backing up is not allowed on freeways or expressways except for:”
The problem: A double negative.
Suggested alternative: “Backing up on freeways is allowed only for:”
Question 2: “Anyone who flees a police officer using a motor vehicle may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than”
The problem: Complex phrasing and sentence structure with potentially unfamiliar words.
Suggested alternative: “Anyone who runs away from a police officer using a motor vehicle may be sent to jail or prison for a maximum of”
Question 3: “On urban or town roads, the legal speed limit under ideal driving conditions is ____ unless traffic signs indicate otherwise:”
The problem: Complex phrasing and sentence structure.
Suggested alternative: “When the speed limit is not posted on city or town roads, the legal speed limit is:”
A committee from the Department of Public Safety will be responsible for monitoring and reviewing the new test. By Feb. 1, 2026, the Public Safety commissioner must submit a report to the Legislature on test implementation, expenditures and feedback.
The cost is a one-time payment of $212,000. Oumou Verbeten said the amount will cover the cost of translating the new test into other languages.
Oumou Verbeten is hopeful the effort spreads. “In general, this place could use more adopting of plain language standards,” she said. “I’m excited to see what this spurs next for us.”
As colleagues congratulated her in the high school hallways last week, Kiran acknowledged she was impressed by her successful advocacy. “I did not know that a layman could have that much say,” she said. “It’s seriously great.”
Richfield voters approved a half-cent sales tax to raise $65 million for a new community center, updates for Veterans Park, and a new educational facility at Wood Lake Nature Center.
But in Roseville, results were split: Voters approved a half-cent sales tax for one of two city projects on the ballot, saying yes to a $64.2 million facility for the public works and parks departments but no to a $12.7 million license and passport center.
Voters in Cottage Grove rejected a half-cent sales tax for 25 years that would have funded three projects: $17 million for improvements to Hamlet Park to include a new building, play equipment, a skateboard park and other amenities; $13 million for improvements to the 33.3-acre Mississippi Dunes Park; and $6 million for improvements to the River Oaks Golf Course and Event Center that would include pickleball courts, indoor multi-sports simulators a winter mountain biking course and other amenities.
Cottage Grove Mayor Myron Bailey said the city tried to make it clear that the half-cent sales tax would cover all three projects, but some voters may have thought that each required its own tax. The projects remain part of the city’s long-term capital improvement plans and may be picked off one by one as funding allows. The Hamlet Park skateboard park, for example, is planned for construction in three years, Bailey said.
The Mississippi Dunes riverfront park may be eligible for state or federal funding, so the city will start looking for other options to move that piece forward, he added.
Greta Kaul and Liz Navratil contributed to this story.
Star Tribune
No prison for man whose drunken Lake St. crash severely injured counterculture character who later died
Case suffered numerous injuries from the crash, among them: trauma to his brain, a shattered spleen and numerous broken bones.
Judge Burns explained in his verdict filing that Nieves was not charged with criminal vehicular homicide, because “it is unclear from the record as to whether the victim died as a result of this accident or other issues. The court notes that [Nieves] is charged with criminal vehicular operation as a result of the injuries sustained by the victim, not based on his death.”
As a hippie, he fully embraced a drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. His counterculture adventures and misadventures ranged from getting kicked out of the Army, painting water towers across the Midwest, riding a motorcycle across Europe, living in Copenhagen and driving across the country with a collection of old brass beds to sell in San Francisco.
After he sobered up, he even achieved a degree of respectability. His passion for going to concerts with a camera, talking his way backstage and hanging with the likes of the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead resulted in a book he co-authored and published in 2019: “When the Stones Came to Town: Rock ‘N’ Roll Photos from the 1970s.”
According to his online obituary, Case “never stopped collecting — vinyl records, vintage toys, metal signs, rock posters, you name it. Also collected were friends. Everywhere he went, Fred’s jovial nature, infectious sense of humor, and boundless font of fascinating stories drew people to him.”
Star Tribune
A judge put a Kandiyohi County sheriff’s deputy on probation for on-duty crash while drunk
A Kandiyohi County sheriff’s deputy has been put on probation for being drunk when he crashed his squad vehicle while on duty.
Christopher Todd Flatten, 40, of Atwater was sentenced Tuesday in District Court after pleading guilty to fourth-degree drunken driving in connection with the wreck on July 18 east of Willmar in Gennessee Township.
Judge Amy Doll’s sentence includes two years’ supervised probation and sets aside a 90-jail term. Flatten also was ordered to pay $415 in fines and fees.
The deputy, who joined the Sheriff’s Office in late April, was put on “critical incident leave” at the time of the crash, a statement from Sheriff Eric Tollefson read. There has been no follow-up from Tollefson about Flatten’s job status since he was sentenced.
According to the criminal complaint:
Two State Patrol troopers were sent to County Road 4 near the intersection with E. 1st Avenue and saw the squad SUV in a field and a uniformed Flatten unresponsive and behind the wheel. Flatten was removed from the squad and taken by air ambulance to St. Cloud Hospital.
Soon after the crash, a trooper went to the hospital with a court order to collect a sample of Flatten’s blood to test for drug or alcohol impairment. However, Flatten refused to allow the blood draw to occur. The trooper did detect an odor of alcohol coming from Flatten and noticed that the deputy’s speech was slurred, and his eyes were bloodshot and glassy.
