Star Tribune
Trump campaign misses deadline to pay St. Cloud for rally
ST. CLOUD – The city of St. Cloud has sent a second invoice to the Trump campaign after it missed the Oct. 10 deadline to pay for about $209,000 in city services incurred at a July rally.
The invoice, dated Sept. 10, breaks down the costs borne by the city that went above and beyond typical city services: about $63,000 for police costs, $62,000 for costs related to a change in a construction project near campus, $60,500 for public services, $21,000 for fire department costs and about $2,000 for IT-related costs.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance visited central Minnesota on July 27, speaking to a capacity crowd of 8,000 at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center while a large crowd gathered outside the arena to watch the speeches on a large screen.
Police helped block roads and direct traffic before the event and, when the campaign left the venue, city vehicles — including plows and construction trucks — blocked the cross streets of a main route near campus.
St. Cloud City Administrator Matt Staehling said Monday that the city doesn’t bill the White House for official visits but it does for campaign stops and other events that requires city services such as the annual Earth Day half-marathon.
St. Cloud State Athletic Director Holly Schreiner said Monday that the campaign paid the university’s $35,000 fee in August.
Minneapolis tried for years to get the Trump campaign to cover $530,000 in overtime and expenses after a 2019 rally at Target Center. The city eventually received about $100,000 in compensation.
Star Tribune
On the Wisconsin-Iowa border, the Mississippi River is eroding sacred Indigenous mounds
Bear and other members of her tribe are serving as consultants on the project, as is William Quackenbush, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin, and his tribe. They also lead teams of volunteers to help care for the mounds, which includes removing invasive European plants and replacing them with native plants that reduce soil erosion.
Some are skeptical of this manmade solution to a manmade problem. There are some tribal partners who’ve expressed that the river should be allowed to keep flowing as it wants to, Oberreuter said. Snow also acknowledged that people have been hesitant about making such a change to the natural bank.
But, she pointed out, “The bank is (already) no longer what it was.”
When the berm is complete, Snow said, there’ll be a trail atop it that visitors can walk. That may help protect the mounds better than the current way to see them, which is to walk among them, she said.
The Sny Magill Unit has been part of Effigy Mounds National Monument since 1962, Snow said, but it’s not advertised like the rest of the park. That’s in part because there are no staff stationed there to properly guide people through the mounds. But if people visit respectfully, she believes it’s one of the best places to take in the mounds because it’s on a flat, walkable surface, unlike the rest of the park, which is on a blufftop.
Priore criticized his opponents’ stance on TCAAP. “On the one hand, you have two candidates, Kurt Weber and me, with a forward-thinking, fresh perspective and strategic vision,” he said, arguing others want to defer and delay the city’s long-term needs.
Priore listed his other priorities for the city as public safety, and comprehensive planning for more and better trails.
The most recent campaign finance reports do not cover the fall and show little raising or spending for any candidate. Priore’s report indicates he received $600 from Fabel’s campaign fund.
David Radziej was appointed to the Arden Hills City Council in 2022, and has been involved with the city for more than a decade through work on its Economic Development and Finance councils, as well as TCAAP planning groups. He lost a reelection bid in 2022.
In an interview, Radziej raised concerns that the new density limit for TCAAP is out of character for Arden Hills and said he fears adding housing units at the expense of commercial development will harm the city’s tax base.
“I’d like it to be developed. I’d like to hold harmless the current taxpayers,” he said in an interview.
Two months after getting a ticket for being on her phone while driving, a woman was on her phone again when struck a motorcyclist at an Anoka county intersection and killed him, according to a newly filed search warrant affidavit.
The crash occurred on Oct. 5 in Oak Grove at the intersection of Viking and Lake George boulevards NW., the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office said.
The Sheriff’s Office identified the motorcyclist who died at the scene as Kelly Matthew Linder, 49, of Albert Lea, Minn., and the SUV driver as Jessica Marie Pietrzak, 31, of St. Francis. Court records show that Pietrzak was ticketed in August by a St. Francis police officer for driving while on her phone.
According to state Department of Public Safety statistics, distracted driving was a factor in 132 traffic deaths in Minnesota from 2019 through 2023.
Linder was stopped shortly before noon on eastbound Viking Boulevard and waiting to turn left onto Lake George Boulevard when Pietrzak hit the motorcycle from behind, the Sheriff’s Office said.
A search warrant affidavit this week from the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office disclosed that a witness who stopped to help Pietrzak after the crash told law enforcement that Pietrzak said “she was not paying attention and had been on her phone.”
Then as more people stopped to help, Pietrzak “began telling people that the sun was in her eyes, and she did not see the motorcycle,” read the filing, which led to the court allowing investigators to collect data from her cellphone.
The filing pointed out that the sun at that time of the day was not in a position for it to affect her vision. Also, the filing continued, Pietrzak’s entire front windshield has a dark tint. She’s been ticketed twice for that dark windshield in recent years, according to court records.
