Star Tribune
Twin Cities detail plans to remove remaining storm debris
Two storms downed scores of trees across the Twin Cities last week, creating a significant amount of cleanup work for both Minneapolis and St. Paul. A week after the storms, where do both cities stand with downed tree removal and other remaining work? Here’s what they told us:
There are likely fewer than 80 fully or partially downed trees left in Minneapolis, said Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board spokeswoman Robin Smothers, who added that the bulk of the damage was in the north, south and southwest parts of the city.
There are no reports of fully blocked streets left, but there still are some partially blocked streets, blocked parking lanes and blocked sidewalks, Smothers noted on Tuesday. The Park Board’s forestry department hopes to clear the 470 remaining storm-related work orders — which range from small debris pick-up service to downed limb and tree removal — by the end of this week. The Park Board, which is a semi-autonomous governing body of the city of Minneapolis, hopes to have all debris pick-up requests cleared by the end of next week if no new storms arrive.
In total, there were 1,152 work orders in Minneapolis due to the storms on Aug. 26 and 29.
St. Paul
Initial estimates indicated that more than 2,000 trees were damaged or knocked down because of the storms last week, according to St. Paul spokesperson Clare Cloyd.
The hardest-hit areas included the Como Park, North End and East Side neighborhoods, Cloyd said. All streets that were completely blocked have been cleared since the storms.
City crews were still working on Tuesday to clear partially blocked streets, but were expected to complete that work by Wednesday.
It will likely take the city several weeks to address the remaining downed trees, brush piles and hanging branches that are not blocking streets, Cloyd said. St. Paul would then focus on removing any remaining standing damaged trees.
Star Tribune
Twin Cities man guilty of murder for fatally stabbing fellow group home resident nearly 2 dozen times
The staffer told a 911 dispatcher that she didn’t hear anything further from the room and said “something isn’t right.”
A police officer arrived and saw a shirtless Adams running from the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses across the street and into the group home. In a Kingdom Hall trash can, police located a “badly bent” and bloody kitchen knife inside a garbage bag. Another bag held a pair of blood-soaked gloves.
Officers located Rahn in his room with stab wounds to his neck and back. Medics declared him dead at the scene.
Adams gave various accounts to police about how and why Rahn was stabbed.
The medical examiner found stab wounds to Rahn’s face, neck, upper body and elsewhere. He also suffered at least 20 stab wounds to one of his hands, which are “consistent with defensive wounds,” the complaint said.
The title track from the coming album by FKA Twigs, “Eusexua,” isn’t exactly euphoric or sexy. Produced by FKA Twigs, Koreless and Earthearter, the track runs on nervous, hopping 16th-notes and distant chords under FKA Twigs’ whispery soprano before a beat fully kicks in. It’s anxious and tentative at first, wondering about a primal, possibly dangerous, possibly life-changing attraction: “Don’t call it love — eusexua.” Later, as the rhythm revs up, she promises, “You feel alone, you’re not alone.” But the propulsion falls away, leaving her “on the edge of something greater than before,” but dangling.
JON PARELES, New York Times
Suki Waterhouse, “Model, Actress, Whatever”
Stardom, by definition, is one of the rarest occupations. It’s also a wildly disproportionate topic for songwriters to take on. The immensely sly, self-conscious and droopy-voiced English model, actress and songwriter Waterhouse takes up the self-pity of a star in “Model, Actress, Whatever,” the title song of her new EP. It’s a slow-building waltz about what happens after making it big: “All of my dreams came true/The bigger the ocean, the deeper the blue,” she declares. She musters grandiose orchestral production to sum up a feeling of emptiness.
JON PARELES, New York Times
Administrator David Hough told the County Board that much of the rest of the new spending is directed at employee salaries and benefits. The county workforce is expected to remain flat at nearly 10,000 employees.
The proposed capital budget includes $100 million for the Blue Line Light Rail extension. Another $45 million is slated for projects at HCMC, including a new parking ramp that will help make room for the eventual construction of an inpatient hospital tower.
Commissioners will meet with department leaders over the next two months to work on specifics of the 2025 budget before approving it in mid-December.
Ramsey County officials pitched a 4.75% maximum levy increase for 2025, as expected, late last month.
Ramsey County is on a rare biennial budget cycle, meaning it approved its 2025 budget last year, anticipating this year’s 4.75% increase. There’s a caveat, though: Then-County Manager Ryan O’Connor said at the time that cannabis sales tax could lower the 2025 levy. It didn’t, former Interim County Manager Johanna Berg said last month, because the county doesn’t have a sense of what that revenue will look like yet.
The 2025 supplemental budget is $848.5 million and represents a 5% increase from last year. That’s slightly larger than the 2025 budget approved last year, largely because of grants the county accepted to cover therapeutic youth treatment homes and violence prevention services. Property taxes fund about 46% of Ramsey County’s 2025 budget.
