Star Tribune
Church buys shuttered Rochester movie theater for $5 million
ROCHESTER — After bouncing from school auditoriums to community centers, husband-and-wife pastors Andy and Christy Cass are ready to set down roots for the burgeoning church they founded five years ago.
Echo Church, a nondenominational church that has garnered a following with its approachable, music-driven services, announced this week it has purchased the former Cinemagic movie theater on Superior Drive in northwest Rochester.
The church paid $5 million for the 44,000-square-foot building, Andy Cass said. The immediate plan is to host worship services in one of the building’s 12 theaters before gradually expanding “at the pace of people’s generosity.”
“We are going to grow into this building like I grew into my childhood sneakers,” Andy said. “You just buy it a couple of sizes large, but in a couple of years you will fit into it really good.”
Echo launched in September 2019, just months before the start of the COVID pandemic. When stay-at-home orders prevented the church from holding in-person services, the Casses, who said they felt called to start the church, pivoted toward digital media. Using Andy’s background in video production, the church was able to continue building connections online during an otherwise isolating period.
The church had long considered buying the former Castle building downtown, where it held “portable” services once restrictions were lifted. But when those plans fell through, they turned to the Castle’s eventual owner, David Arnett, setting off a series of discussions that led them to the theater, also owned by Arnett.
“When we started this conversation, I really didn’t know how it was going to work, but we were able to do it,” Andy said. “I would just call it a miracle.”
Since they announced the purchase of the theater to their congregation, dozens of volunteers have stepped up to start converting the former theater into a place of worship. That work includes “putting some lipstick” on the property with new paint, flooring and furniture. It also means doing a deep clean of the entire building.
ST. CLOUD – Sherburne County officials said Saturday the county will pay for the recount of a close legislative contest, in an effort to quash rumors about how ballots were counted on election night and uploaded to the Minnesota Secretary of State website.
On Thursday, county officials announced updated vote counts that widened the gap between DFL Rep. Dan Wolgamott and Republican challenger Sue Ek, in a race that could have implications for which party controls the House.
The totals were updated after county staffers identified absentee ballots that were counted on election night but weren’t included in the unofficial totals posted to the Secretary of State’s website, due to an “an incomplete transfer of data from [one] scanner to the state election reporting system,” according to Sherburne County Administrator Bruce Messelt.
In a release Saturday, Messelt said: “Contrary to circulating rumors, no votes were ‘lost’ and none were ‘found.’ ” He said all ballots cast were properly received, documented and counted, “and chain of custody maintained.”
However, he said, some ballot totals failed to upload to the Secretary of State’s website “due to an improperly cleared or partially damaged memory card that did not fully collect and transmit results from some of the processed mail-in ballots.” The memory card subsequently sent some generic data designed to test the reporting system prior to the election, creating “inflated vote totals that later decreased once the error was discovered.”
On Wednesday morning, the Secretary of State’s Office showed Wolgamott had a 28-vote lead over Ek. Updated results now show a difference of 191 votes, with Wolgamott having 50.36% of the vote and Ek 49.4%.
The change prompted Minnesota Republican Party Chair David Hann to call for the Secretary of State’s Office to investigate the results of the District 14B race and pay for a recount.
In a release Friday, Hann said initial reports on election night had Ek winning by four votes with 100% of the precincts reporting. Shortly after that, results showed her losing by 28 votes.
One person is dead after a police shooting Saturday afternoon in St. Paul’s West Seventh neighborhood.
According to St. Paul police, the shooting occurred just after 1:45 p.m. at the intersection of Bay Street and Watson Avenue. No officers were injured, according to the department.
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating, and authorities were expected to share more details at a press event.
Saturday’s shooting comes nearly two weeks after St. Paul officers shot an armed man charged with killing three people at a Minneapolis homeless encampment. Earl Bennett, 40, was listed in critical but stable condition after the shooting remains in custody.
Bennett was charged with three counts of second-degree murder for shooting three people in a tent before fleeing. He was also charged with attempted first-degree murder for a shooting at a Minneapolis sober home.
This is a developing story. Check back with startribune.com for further information.
Authorities have arrested and charged a man for trying to sneak nearly 5 pounds of fentanyl through Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Eduardo Alexander Santillan-Rivera, 24, was charged Monday by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office with first-degree sale of drugs and importing a controlled substance across state lines. He appeared in court Tuesday, and his next hearing is set for Nov. 25.
Santillan-Rivera remained in custody Saturday with bail set at $200,000. According to the charges:
Airport police became suspicious about a package arriving at MSP from San Bernardino, Calif., on Oct. 31, and had a drug detection dog inspect it. When the dog confirmed their suspicions. police drafted a warrant to investigate the contents.
They found nearly 5 pounds of fentanyl. Two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and there are 453,592 milligrams in a pound.
Officers traced the package to the 2300 block of Garfield Avenue in Minneapolis, and left it there on Nov. 1 to see who would claim it. According to the charges, Santillan-Rivera arrived in a black sedan at around 11:40 a.m. to pick up the package. He walked it back to his car before police arrested him.
Santillan-Rivera at first said he was just stealing the package and didn’t know what was inside, but later admitted that he lied. He told investigators that a Mexican drug trafficking organization had paid him to move the package and that the same organization had paid him in the past to move cash and other deliveries. He added that he wanted to return home to Mexico.
