Star Tribune
Hugo plans to rework city solar ordinance again
Hugo will rework its solar ordinance one more time as it searches for a way to make room for the projects without upsetting some local residents who consider them ugly and out of character for the Washington County city.
That was the consensus after a workshop session last Thursday between the City Council and the Planning Commission, said Rachel Juba, the city community development director.
“They want to resolve this as soon as possible,” she said.
Hugo has debated solar farms since the arrival of the first one in 2018, when a 4,000-panel farm sparked local opposition. An outright ban on future solar farms was considered, but with local opinion split, local elected officials have instead sought a compromise measure that would allow the farms in some form.
The city’s ordinance review committee will consider making changes to the ordinance, Juba said, including one that would increase the minimum lot size for a solar farm to 20 acres. The solar array can be as large as 5 acres, and the thinking was that a larger plot of land would make the array less visible to adjacent property owners, Juba said. The committee will also consider how to prevent a solar farm operator from placing the solar array at their property’s periphery if it’s near buildings or homes on adjacent lots.
Community solar gardens are the largest type of solar in Minnesota by far, producing some 865 megawatts of power, or more than the amount of power from residential, commercial and industrial solar combined. The Department of Commerce has approved 48.5 megawatts of new solar gardens so far this year, with another 6.3 megawatts under review. A 5-acre solar farm typically produces about 1 megawatt of energy.
The aptly named Type/Variant house is ever changing.
Built in 1994, the copper siding-clad home was shiny and brown. As it aged, the copper oxidized, giving the panels their own patina, some a blue-green, others a deep brown.
Client Richard Polsky and Minneapolis architect Vincent James drew inspiration from rural industrial structures in Wisconsin and Minnesota, envisioning each cubic part of the home as simple, elegant timber-like features.
“We selected copper siding after seeing one of [Polsky’s] artworks — a beautiful copper etching composing a set of plates of simple variations,” James said in an email. “They loved the evolving copper color as it weathered and that the changes were outside of their control.”
The home, which won the American Institute of Architects Honor Award for Architecture in 1998 as well as the American Institute of Architects Minnesota Honor Award in 1996, even garnered a New York Times feature for its ingenuity and modernist look. After decades of enjoying all the seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom home has to offer — from its artistic forms to fishing on the nearby lake and tapping maple trees on the property — the Polsky family recently listed the Hayward, Wis., home for $4 million and hope to find buyers who will relish it the same.
“[Us kids have] spread out quite a bit over the years. It was a place for my parents to go every summer. It was getting harder for them to get there,” said Polsky’s son Charlie Polsky. “It’s sad that the house is for sale. But it’s a house that needs to be used.”
Richard Polsky always had grander ideas for his land in Hayward, about a 2 ½-hour drive northeast from the Twin Cities. A professor at Columbia University, he interviewed artists and was interested in how they expressed their views creatively.
“My father, who is turning 93 this year, is a lifelong artist and has been interested in aesthetic and space for a long time,” Charlie Polsky said. “We started interviewing architects in the mid-90s, and he had a vision for what the house should be in terms of materials and how it is built.”
A federal judge ruled this week that a middle school principal being an ally for LGBTQ rights does not mean she gets the legal protections of someone in a marginalized group.
U.S. District Court Judge Patrick J. Schiltz on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Mary Kay Thomas against the school board of Marshall, Minn.
Thomas, formerly a principal in the Marshall school system, sued in 2021 after she said she had been discriminated against because she advocated on behalf of LGBTQ students. She said she faced opposition after ordering a Pride flag hung on the walls of the school cafeteria, and after she helped students establish a Gay‐Straight Alliance.
Schiltz, in his judgment, accepted that Thomas, after her advocacy, was disciplined via suspension, asked to resign and eventually assigned to an administrative position — created just for her — in a small, windowless office.
However, Thomas, as a “straight, cisgender woman,” falls outside of the categories protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Schiltz argued. Title VII protects employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.
“Thomas was discriminated against because of what she advocated, not because of her sex — because of what she said, not because of who she is,” he wrote in his judgment.
He also said that Thomas could not provide an example of a specific instance of anti-LGBTQ discrimination. Her advocacy against bigotry present in broader society was not protected by Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Title IX aims to prevent discrimination in education, the judge said.
Jeremy Williams, school superintendent for Marshall, welcomed the court’s decision, calling it “well-reasoned” in an emailed statement.
Record store Electric Fetus, a mainstay of Minneapolis’ music scene since 1968, started carrying K-pop albums around 2020, said Jim Novak, the store’s music buyer. Now, nestled between R&B CDs and electronic vinyl albums, a K-pop end cap offers a few hundred physical records, less than 10% of the 3,000 physical albums offered in the store, according to Novak.
“It’s currently driving a whole different generation of people into our shop,” Novak said.
Novak appreciates the thought put into K-pop physical releases. Each album takes a different shape: a classic CD case, a thick cardboard box or even a notepad. These different forms make it fit best as its own end cap, he said.
Novak, who designed the section, said he is still learning what the genre means to its fans. When he sees a young group flip through the CDs, he can’t help but feel excited.
“It is really encouraging to see young people be so into physical media,” he said.
K-pop albums often come in different shapes, sizes and formats, encouraging a new interest in physical merchandise. (Ayrton Breckenridge/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Sweet Escape opened in 2022 in the Maplewood Mall and often brings Twin Cities K-pop fans together through events hosted at the mall’s Center Court.
