Star Tribune
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey plans to run for re-election in 2025
Mayor Jacob Frey says he plans to run for re-election next year.
“I’m preparing to do so (run) but not making any formal announcements yet,” Frey said in a text Monday.
Frey was elected mayor in 2017, defeating incumbent Betsy Hodges, after representing Ward 3 on the Minneapolis City Council from 2014 to 2018. His first term was rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic, George Floyd’s murder by police and subsequent unrest that destroyed city blocks and rippled across the globe.
While a majority of City Council members called for defunding the police, Frey resisted and instead promised reform, angering a crowd of protesters that marched to the door of his townhouse days after Floyd’s murder. Minneapolis residents sided with him when they rejected a 2021 ballot measure to replace the police department with a new Department of Public Safety, and re-elected Frey.
Police reforms continue to dominate his tenure, as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring due to discriminatory policing. Meanwhile, the police department continues to hemorrhage officers: The department has about 578 sworn officers, down from nearly 900 in 2019, a 36% decrease.
The Rev. DeWayne Davis, lead minister of Plymouth Congregational Church, announced plans to run for mayor on Oct. 17. Before his ordination in 2012, he worked as a congressional staffer. He co-chaired Frey’s Minneapolis Community Safety Work Group that recommended public safety reforms.
Minneapolis Council Member Emily Koski said Monday she’s “strongly considering” running for mayor. She campaigned with Frey in 2021, when she was elected to represent Ward 11 in south Minneapolis, and was considered one of his top allies on the council. But she broke ranks with Frey on his $15 million plan to replenish MPD ranks; sided with the council’s progressive majority in overriding Frey’s veto of changes to rideshare regulations; and voted against Frey’s proposal to build a new Third Precinct police station downtown.
If Koski runs, she’d be following in her father’s footsteps: Albert Hofstede was a council member before being elected Minneapolis mayor in the 1970s.
The new center aims to connect the East Lake Street community with services related to housing, community safety and more.
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A $5 billion facility to manufacture jet fuel for airplanes is coming to Moorhead.
DG Fuels, a Washington D.C.-based energy company, announced they’re putting a sustainable aviation fuel [SAF] plant in Clay County, bringing 650 jobs to northwestern Minnesota’s border with North Dakota.
The facility, which expects to start production in 2030, will convert agriculture and timber waste into jet fuel, according to a statement from Greater MSP, a Twin Cities-based regional development organization.
“We not only want to lead the world in de-carbonizing air travel” at Minnesota-St. Paul International Airport, said Peter Frosch, CEO of Greater MSP, in an interview, on Monday. “But we want to produce that SAF in Minnesota.”
The selection of Moorhead, Frosch continued, was evidence of the concerted push from the Minnesota SAF Hub — which includes, government, universities, nonprofits and companies, including Bank of America and Delta Air Lines — to ramp up production of SAF in Minnesota.
The project is also a win for Moorhead.
“With the largest shovel-ready industrial site in the state of Minnesota, we are excited and prepared to compete on the national stage for this economic development opportunity,” said Moorhead Mayor Shelly Carlson, in a statement.
While SAF can be produced from biomass streams, including corn stover, industry experts look to perennial crops, as well, such as camelina and other oilseeds as possible sources for feedstocks.
A western Minnesota man received a 7½-year term Monday for holding a woman captive in her St. Catherine University dorm room in St. Paul for four days while he raped, beat and waterboarded her before she escaped.
With credit for time in jail after his arrest, Labatte is expected to serve the about five years of his term in prison and the balance on supervised release.
The sentence matches the maximum that was spelled out in the plea agreement between the defense and the prosecution.
A spokesman for the County Attorney’s Office said prosecutors will ask for Labatte to receive the full 7½-year term.
According to the charges and other court documents, the woman went to security at the Catholic women’s university to report the abuse she endured from Labatte, whom she had dated and who had become jealous over texts, photos and social media content tying her to other men. School security alerted police.
She told police that Labatte squeezed his hands around her neck and raped her. He also forced her into the bathtub and “engaged in waterboarding by covering her mouth with a wet washcloth,” the charges said. At one point, he brandished a knife and threatened to kill her.
The woman escaped after persuading Labatte to let her go to the cafeteria; instead she went to police. As she told police what happened, Labatte was calling and texting her cellphone, which he had given back to her under the condition that she take a photo of herself getting food. He texted at one point asking why police were outside.
