Star Tribune
Bloomington wants to delay closing Hennepin County garbage incinerator
Bloomington officials want to slow down plans to close Hennepin County’s waste-to-energy incinerator in downtown Minneapolis, saying they are worried alternatives won’t be viable soon enough.
Pushback from the suburbs that use the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, or HERC, could be a major new complication in the drive to close the incinerator between 2028 and 2040. For Bloomington, even the 16 years until 2040 is not enough time to divert almost all of city’s waste to composting and recycling to the point where the incinerator is no longer needed, city staff and council members said in a letter to the county.
“We are confident that our community will struggle to meet the goal of an 85% diversion in the accelerated timeline outlined,” read the letter signed by the City Council this week to be sent to Hennepin County Commissioners.
Other cities could raise similar worries, with feedback from cities due to the county on Monday.
Reaching the county’s goals to reduce trash will take more staff and money, Bloomington’s letter read, and could take well over a decade.
Hennepin County is pushing to close the incinerator for several reasons. State aid for a new anaerobic digester — to deal with organics recycling — is conditioned on a timeline to close the HERC. A renewable-energy plan passed by the Legislature in 2023 no longer considers burning trash a preferred source of energy. And activists have been raising concerns about the health impacts of the incinerator, one of the largest sources of several air pollutants in the county.
In the short term, Bloomington predicted more refuse would go to landfills if the incinerator is closed before cities have time to reduce the amount of trash they produce. The letter warned of the potential for other pollution and climate impacts of closing the incinerator, both from trucking trash farther and from methane emitted by landfills.
“It does not appear that adequate consideration and study of the environmental justice impacts of closing HERC, beyond the neighborhoods surrounding the facility, has been undertaken,” the letter read.
Bloomington is one of 16 Hennepin County cities that contract with waste haulers that bring all residential trash to the incinerator, according to a Hennepin County report.
St. Louis Park is planning to raise concerns similar to Bloomington’s, a city spokesperson said.
Star Tribune
Two more victims from encampment shootings identified as Mayor Frey says, ‘This is about fentanyl.’
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner has identified three murder victims from two separate shootings at homeless encampments this weekend in Minneapolis as three others were left with life-threatening injuries.
Christopher Martell Washington, 38, of Fridley, and Louis Mitchell Lemons, Jr., 32, of Brooklyn Center, were identified Monday afternoon as the two men who died from multiple gunshot wounds on Sunday afternoon in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue. Deven Leonard Caston, 31, was identified as the victim at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. that happened Saturday.
Minneapolis Police Spokesman Sgt. Garrett Parten, said it was unclear if there was a connection between the shootings but “we can’t rule it out.”
The city has dealt with several shootings in and around homeless encampments this year. Mayor Jacob Frey attended a news conference Sunday after the shooting on Snelling Avenue and said the city needs to continue to provide options for people seeking shelter. But, he said, encampments are not an alternative answer.
“Yet again we have more people that are dead,” he said. “We need to be honest and realistic about what is happening right now. We need to call a spade a spade. This is not about a lack of shelter. This is about fentanyl.”
Officers initially detained three people in the shooting of Washington and Lemons Jr., but were released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No charges had been filed in either shooting as of Monday.
Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of Sunday’s shooting. She said officials need information about what happened to better understand how to address situations like this long-term.
“This is an absolute tragedy, and this type of violence should never occur within our city,” she said. “It really makes me think about how we need to look at this more systemically and not just take a whack-a-mole approach and expect the problem to go away.”
Inside Paper Source, which has been in the mall since 2016, senior sales lead Carrie Helman-Menard said foot traffic has changed at the mall.
“It is quiet,” she said. “This street was a lot different even, you know, six years ago. The hobby stores down that way closed. Salut, closed. Anthropolgie, closed. J Crew, etc. There were a lot more people bustling, shopping.”
Grand, she said, can be that way again, but it “needs businesses. Needs people.”
A new development at Grand and Victoria could be just what’s needed, she said.
“People will come,” she said, pointing to her store’s customers continuing to walk through Paper Source’s door. “They get excited that something’s here. People are grateful. They’ll come in here and say, ‘Oh my god, I’m so glad you’re here.’ So that feels good. A lot of people want that hustle and bustle back.”
Simon Taghioff, president of the Summit Hill Association board, said Parritz made “an information only” presentation to the board earlier this month. Parritz, he said, shared “a lot of optimism in how it could transform that corner in a positive way.”
Star Tribune
Sentencing set for Monday morning for a Minnesota man who was drunk and speeding when he hit a woman’s SUV and killed her.
A man with a history of driving drunk received a four-year term Monday for being intoxicated and speeding when he hit a woman’s SUV on a southern Minnesota highway and killed her.
John R. Deleo, 54, of Lake Crystal, Minn., was sentenced in Brown County District Court after pleading guilty to criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the crash on Aug. 17, 2023, in New Ulm at Hwy. 68 and S. 15th Street that killed 82-year-old Sharon A. Portner, of New Ulm.
With credit for the two days he was in jail after his arrest, Deleo is expected to serve the first 2⅔ years years of his term in prison and the balance on supervised release.
A week ahead of sentencing, defense attorney James Kuettner asked the court to spare his client prison and put him on probation for up to five years.
Kuettner pointed out in his filing that Deleo stayed at the crash scene and attempted “to aid Portner, and he left [her] side only when directed to by law enforcement.”
The attorney also noted that Deleo has been sober since the crash, and therefore, at a particularly low risk for reoffending.
According to the criminal complaint:
Police arrived to find the two damaged vehicles near 15th and S. Broadway streets. Emergency responders took Portner to New Ulm Medical Center, where she died that day.
