Star Tribune
Solar garden growth sparks debate in Hugo
Concerned that small towns and counties might not have the resources to develop an effective solar ordinance, the Center for Rural Affairs surveyed every local solar ordinance in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota to create a model of best practices. Their guide shows how counties across the region set down rules for solar arrays for everything from setbacks to decommissioning, ground cover, glare, height restrictions, screening, and operations and maintenance.
“I can say this is an issue that’s not unique to Hugo,” said Cora Hoffer, a spokesperson for the Center for Rural Affairs.
Local opinion was split at a Planning Commission public hearing in July, but the Commission ultimately did not recommend a solar garden ban. (Richard Tsong-Taatariii)
Hugo adopted a solar ordinance in 2016 that included zoning restrictions and a requirement that solar gardens be limited to parcels of at least 10 acres. It also requires ground-mounted systems that can’t be taller than 15 feet.
The first solar farm in 2018 was a 1 megawatt installation near the intersection of 165th St. N. and Henna Avenue North known as the FastSun Solar Farm. It drew complaints, according to a history of the issue prepared city planner Max Gort, and the City Council enacted a moratorium on solar gardens in February 2023 to allow time for more study.
The city eventually increased property setbacks for solar gardens from 50 feet to 100 feet, adding a 200-foot setback for public rights-of-way and dwellings on adjoining property. The revisions also restricted the size of solar gardens to five acres, required trees at least six feet tall at the time of planting be installed as screening, and required that ground areas not occupied by equipment be planted with native, pollinator-friendly plants.
After making the modifications to the city’s solar ordinance, the City Council lifted the first moratorium in July 2023.
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.
