Star Tribune
Historic Osseo cemetery gets a modern name
A 155-year-old Osseo cemetery has been renamed for the second time, and is now known as the Open Gate Cemetery.
The graveyard at 124 W. Broadway was established by the Freie Gemeinde, a society whose name roughly translated from German means “free community” or “free thinkers.” The society considered themselves “the friends of truth, uprightness and honesty,” said Larry Phenow, president of the Rudolph Niggler Cemetery Association, which owns and operates the grounds.
In 1918, the Freie Gremeinde Cemetery was renamed the Niggler Cemetery to recognize a land contribution from Rudolph Niggler and his wife, Elizabeth. The gift doubled the size of the cemetery on the southwest side of Osseo.
Phenow said changing the name to Open Gate is part of an effort to increase local awareness of the cemetery. The new name is also meant to better represent the society’s founding values: a cemetery available to all, regardless of race, creed, color or religion, Phenow said.
The Niggler Association will soon be renamed the Open Gate Cemetery Association.
Tim Harlow
Dakota County
More youth using library since county dropped fines
Young people are increasingly getting library cards, checking out materials and generally engaging with Dakota County libraries — a shift that county officials are crediting in part to the decision to eliminate youth fines in 2022.
Margaret Stone, Dakota County libraries director, said that although recent data is “a little wonky” due to COVID-19, she believes a “good proportion” of the uptick is due to ditching fines.
From 2019 to 2022, the number of young people applying for library cards has increased 41% and the number of youth materials checked out has risen 30%.
The number of average daily users who are youth went up in 2022 compared to 2019, the last normal year for data before the pandemic. Average daily use — measured by recording any time a juvenile library card interacts with library software — jumped 19%.
The Dakota County Board will consider eliminating all fines during 2024 budget discussions, Stone said.
The county budgeted for $220,000 in fine revenue in 2022 but only collected $73,000, she said.
Erin Adler
St. Louis Park
Anti-idling program growing
Signs discouraging idling cars could pop up around more of St. Louis Park’s parking lots this spring and summer.
The signs are part of the “Idle-Free SLP” campaign launched last fall, inspired by a student project at St. Louis Park Middle School. With the signs and a page on the city website, the city is trying to raise awareness of the financial, health and environmental costs of running parked vehicles.
This spring, the city is again offering free aluminum anti-idling signs to anyone who owns or manages a parking lot. Email City Sustainability Specialist Ellie Rabine at erabine@stlouisparkmn.gov to get a sign.
Josie Albertson-Grove
Golden Valley
Planning commissioner appointed to City Council
The Golden Valley City Council has appointed Sophia Ginis to finish the term of departing Council Member Kimberly Sanberg, who is moving out of the city.
Ginis has served on the planning commission since October 2021 and has also served on the city Board of Zoning Appeals. She works as director of community affairs at Metro Transit.
Other finalists for the seat were Roger Bergman, Stephen Ettel, Andy Johnson and Stephen Merriman. The council interviewed candidates earlier this month and voted to appoint Ginis.
She will be sworn in next month and serve until January. Voters will choose a new council member this fall to serve a term beginning in 2024.
Josie Albertson-Grove
Star Tribune
The U.S. Army prepares for war with China
The Pentagon would not go into detail about how American trainers are helping Taiwan build defenses. But making clear to the Chinese that an amphibious assault would be fraught is part of the U.S. military’s deterrence plan.
Army officials also say they hope joint exercises with Pacific partners will show Chinese military officials all the capabilities that the United States has and can bring to bear.
The officials point out that more than a quarter of the service’s 450,000 active-duty troops are already tasked to the Pacific. But they define that region liberally, to encompass troops not only in Japan, South Korea and the Philippines but also in Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon and California. Taiwan is more than 6,000 miles from Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington, a separation the Army refers to as “the tyranny of distance.”
Docked in Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Army vessel Maj. Gen. Robert Smalls will be critical to getting all the apparatuses of the Army into the Pacific theater. The 300-foot-long ship, which recently arrived from Norfolk, Virginia, via the Panama Canal for the exercises, can beach itself, discharging 900 tons of vehicles and cargo — and, if necessary, troops — onto islands.
Capt. Ander Thompson, the commander of the 7th Engineer Dive Detachment out of Pearl Harbor, was part of a detachment that spent several weeks this past summer with Filipino military divers clearing debris from a strategic port in the northern Philippine island of Batan, about 120 miles south of Taiwan.
The operation, which also deepened the harbor, will give Army and Navy ships better access to the port should conflict break out. Batan is near the Bashi Channel, a potential transit point for American forces headed to the Taiwan Strait.
Star Tribune
Minnesota school board election endorsements caught in culture wars
For a handful of school board candidates across the state, the final weeks of campaigning have included an effort to lose support — or at least distance themselves ― from an organization known for backing conservative candidates and wading into local culture wars.
At least four candidates have stated publicly that they had not connected with or sought support from the Minnesota Parents Alliance before seeing their name appear on the group’s online voters guide. Some candidates said they were not aware of such an endorsement until voters reached out to them with questions about it.
“Without my knowledge or consent, I was added to the Minnesota Parents Alliance recommended candidate list,” Todd Haugen, a candidate for the Bemidji school board, wrote on his campaign’s Facebook page. “I did not seek this endorsement, and I have now requested more than once to be taken off of the list.”
The Minnesota Parents Alliance bills its voters guide as a nonpartisan resource, though the group lists several conservative groups, including the think tank Center of the American Experiment, on its list of resources for candidates.
The organization’s executive director, Cristine Trooien, said the voter guide recommendations are based on an independent evaluation of candidates’ campaigns, public engagement, and input received from parents and community members. Trooien launched the group in 2022 as a response to equity efforts in schools. Its initial goal included recruiting and supporting school board candidates who would champion ‘parents’ rights’ in education.
The group, and several others like it — on both sides of the political spectrum — cropped up during the pandemic, when tensions flared in school board rooms across the country as parents fought over mask mandates, curriculum and policies involving gender and race. Increasingly, school board races are drawing more money than ever — largely a result of outside groups lobbying amid those ongoing culture wars.
In general, endorsements aren’t new to school board races. Political parties, teachers unions and other educational organizations have long declared their support for candidates that align with their missions.
Minnesota Parents Alliance, Trooien said, does not coordinate its voter guide recommendations with candidates or require them to pledge their allegiance to the organization. She sees that as the antidote to what she called a “quid pro quo endorsement process” by teachers unions and interest groups, which offer support in “exchange for prioritizing that organization’s agenda at the board table,” she said.
Star Tribune
Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine is arrested in New York for a possible parole violation
Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine was arrested in New York City on Tuesday for alleged parole violations that were set when he was sentenced several years ago to two years in prison in a racketeering case.
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