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.
A driver who hit and killed a man who ran into a busy Minneapolis street has been spared prison and was sentenced on the lesser of two charges.
Camoreay L. Prowell, 38, of St. Paul, was sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty in Hennepin County District Court to failing to stop for a traffic collision in connection with the death of Wilson G. Chinchilla, 26, of Minneapolis, on Oct. 19, 2022, on West Broadway near N. Logan Avenue.
Judge Hilary Caligiuri set aside a 13-month term and placed Prowell on probation for three years. He has about 3½ weeks left to serve in jail. As called for in the plea agreement, the more serious charge of criminal vehicular homicide was dismissed.
When asked about dropping the higher charge, the County Attorney’s Office said in a statement, “This office weighs the specific facts of each case to determine the appropriate resolution. In this instance, the charge for which Mr. Prowell was sentenced [Thursday] is correct and appropriate.”
The complaint said that Prowell was driving at the time after his license had been canceled. Court records in Minnesota revealed he’s been convicted three times for drunken driving and at least twice for driving after his license had been revoked.
According to the criminal complaint:
Police found Chinchilla’s body in the left lane of westbound West Broadway. Video surveillance showed that he ran out of a nearby home moments earlier toward the street.
Witnesses told police that a speeding SUV hit Chinchilla, slowed briefly as it continued west, then made a U-turn and returned to the scene of the crash. Prowell stopped, looked at the body and left.
Mychel Stowers was released on parole from prison about seven months ago after he pleaded guilty to second-degree intentional murder in 2008 for fatally shooting a man in a drug deal gone wrong. According to charging documents, Stowers was living at a halfway house and granted a pass to visit his ex-wife at her North End apartment on the same day that she was killed.
Mychel Stowers’ description also matched the man witnesses saw fleeing Damara Stowers’ apartment moments after the shooting. One witness said they heard no fights or arguments before four gunshots rang. They heard another gunshot five seconds later, and another witness reported seeing a heavyset man with a white shirt and blue shorts run south afterwards.
The apartment’s owner said they were preparing to evict Damara Stowers, adding that her ex-boyfriend, a stocky man in his 30′s or 40′s, was living with her.
Police heard reports of a carjacking minutes later, finding a man shot in his leg on 99 Acker Street. Surveillance footage reviewed by authorities show someone approach that man and point something at him before a flash appeared. The man fell and the shooter ran away, but returned moments later to take the man’s vehicle and leave. That man was treated at Regions Hospital for a broken femur from a gunshot wound.
Authorities believe the gun used to carjack that man on Acker Street was the same used to kill Damara Stowers in her apartment.
There have been 25 homicides in St. Paul so far this year, according to a Minnesota Star Tribune database. There were 28 by this time last year.
The Minneapolis Police Department is on track to rack up $26 million in overtime this year — about $10 million over budget — as the number of extra hours officers work continues since a flood of officers left the force after George Floyd’s 2020 police killing and unrest that ensued.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara provided the OT figure to City Council members during a budget presentation Thursday in which he added that the department has about 210 vacancies.
“We’re using overtime every day to do the most basic functions of a police department,” he said. “It is critically low staffing right now.”
Last year, MPD paid nearly $23 million in overtime — about half of that “critical staffing overtime,” in which officers are paid double their hourly wage.
Overtime is being driven by a wave of resignations and retirements at the department, which had 578 sworn officers as of Thursday, down from nearly 900 in 2019, a 36% decrease that has left it with one of the nation’s lowest ratios of officers to residents.
MPD was averaging about $7 million in overtime prior to 2020, when it shot up to $11 million and has increased every year since, reaching $23 million last year.
Mayor Jacob Frey has proposed a $230 million budget for MPD next year, a 6% increase from 2024, or $13.7 million. Of that, $13 million is budgeted for “constitutional policing” to comply with a state human rights settlement. State and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring for civil rights violations.
Most of that goes to personnel, which comprises 77% of the budget, according to MPD Finance Director Vicki Troswick. The mayor proposes 966 full-time total MPD employees next year, compared to 935 this year. Of those, 731 sworn officers are budgeted for 2025. The city charter requires the city to employ 1.7 officers per 1,000 residents, or 731 officers, although the city has struggling to reach that number amid a nationwide law enforcement staffing shortage.
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