Star Tribune
Elk politics, a new hiking trail, pot use in state parks part of legislative mix
Big grant money for the outdoors, coupled with $100 million in proposed bonding, will be in play at the 2024 legislative session along with policy proposals ranging from marijuana limitations in state parks to a repeal that would allow more elk to roam in Minnesota.
Committee action started this week when state Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, led discussions in his Environment and Natural Resources Committee on a measure to help the DNR move from paper licensing to a fully electronic system. If lawmakers iron out the new law this session, fully electronic outdoor licensing would go into effect early next year.
Hansen’s committee also took up the $77.6 million Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund bill. The proposed grants, derived from state lottery proceeds and already approved by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR), would pay for 101 different projects — more than ever before. “I think there’s a little bit of everything in there,” said Becca Nash, LCCMR executive director.
One of the highlighted grants in the package is a $426,000 proposal for what would be an all-new, 110-mile Driftless Area Hiking Trail likened to the Superior Hiking Trail. Like the Superior, the new blufflands backtracking trail in southeastern Minnesota would be shepherded by volunteers. Plans for the initial phase include planning the route and obtaining land permissions.
Bob Meier DNR assistant commissioner, said the agency’s large share of Gov. Tim Walz’s $983 million bonding bill this year is vital to address a huge backlog in capital improvement projects. The borrowing is needed to salvage aging state park facilities and repair other run-down assets, he said.
A year ago, the DNR was buoyed by $150 million in new funding from the Legislature to help get more people outdoors. But where last year’s win at the Capitol paid for modernization of fish hatcheries, shore fishing facilities, improved access to state lands and other new attractions, this year’s bonding proposal is meant to “take care of what we have,” Meier said.
“It’s really a huge iceberg under the water that we are trying to preserve,” he said. The backlog of deferred work totals more than $800 million.
As politics play out at the Capitol through May 20, the DNR will seek approval for a mixed bag of game, fish and parks priorities. Near the top is an effort to repeal a law that is stifling plans to expand the population of wild elk in Minnesota. The DNR wants to manage an existing herd in northwestern Minnesota for growth, partly to create a surplus of animals that could be moved to the Arrowhead region for an ambitious project to re-establish the animals there.
For that to happen, the Legislature must repeal a 2016 law that prevents the DNR from raising elk population goals unless two years pass without an increase in elk damage to crops and fences. DNR attempted the repeal last year but pulled back in order to better communicate the plan.
The DNR’s Capitol agenda in 2024 also includes cannabis control. The agency wants the authority to control where in state parks visitors can smoke pot. “We wouldn’t necessarily ban it,” Parks and Trails Division Director Ann Pierce said. “There might be certain areas where you can and cannot use it.”
She said the agency will be asking the Legislature for the same control over cannabis usage already granted to local units of government. The chief concern is keeping it away from areas frequented by children. As it stands, the DNR prohibits alcoholic beverages in state parks but it can’t infringe on visitors’ legal use of cannabis. Pierce noted that the DNR is reviewing its policy against alcohol in state parks.
Another DNR pursuit this year will appeal to hunters who harvest big game from other states.
It proposes to amend the state’s carcass import ban to allow hunters to bring whole heads from moose, deer or elk if delivered to a licensed taxidermist within 48 hours of entering the state. Taxidermists will be required to use a lined landfill for their biological waste, reducing the risk of spreading chronic wasting disease and other wildlife diseases.
Regarding fisheries, the agency is pursuing a statutory change to reclassify lesser-known native species from the unprotected rank of “rough fish.” The change to “native rough fish” would separate them from carp species and add them to various fishing regulations to protect them from exploitation. Species like redhorse, buffalo, bowfin, gar and mooneye would benefit.
Wolves have been a hot topic across the forested northern tier of Minnesota, where there’s been a groundswell of angst and claims that wolves are to blame for a dearth of deer. Last year at this time, state Rep. John Burkel, a Republican from Roseau County, introduced a bill requiring an annual open hunting season on wolves in Minnesota if and when the federal government returns wolf management to the state.
Eight fellow Republicans continue to share sponsorship of the measure, but Chairman Hansen — a gatekeeper on game and fish legislation — said there’s no chance it becomes law this year.
Wolf politics could also arise at the Capitol this session if residents of northern Minnesota and deer hunters who hunt in the region challenge a proposed $996,000 research grant from LCCMR to the University of Minnesota’s Voyageurs Wolf Project.
LCCMR’s Nash said she’s heard there could be opposition to the grant. There has been a backlash against the wildlife research group by citizens who believe wolves are over-abundant and responsible for undeniably low deer numbers in the north.
Regardless of any potential fight over wolves, the LCCMR bill is certain to be a big ticket this year for lovers of the outdoors. Here’s a partial list of individual grant proposals included in the package:
· Science Museum of Minnesota, to reconstruct historical lake conditions in Minnesota walleye fisheries to identify factors linked to past success to guide effective management in the uncertain future. ($1.12 million requested)
· Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, to run an information campaign to “Get the Lead Out” of fishing tackle with the goal of protecting loons and other wildlife. ($258,000)
· DNR, to assess movements, survival and causes of mortality of Minnesota elk while developing a noninvasive, safer method to estimate population size. The life history information will inform the proposed plan to re-establish a wild elk herd in northeastern Minnesota ($993,000)
· Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, to connect students from northeastern Minnesota to the wilderness in an education project called “The Boundary Waters is Our Backyard.” Especially aimed at schools in Ely and Cook County. ($582,000)
· DNR Fisheries, to expand youth and family fishing opportunities in urban areas. ($1.16 million)
· University of Minnesota Duluth, to study the distribution and population status of three small weasel species in Minnesota. It’s to fill “key knowledge gaps” about the critters. ($400,000)
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
