Star Tribune
New daycare facilities come to Minnesota’s Camp Ripley
LITTLE FALLS, Minn. — Camp Ripley’s newest recruits are some of the smallest in the military base’s 90-year history.
Daycare centers, a first for the Minnesota National Guard, are opening in the heart of the sprawling 53,000-acre training facility outside Little Falls.
Through the gates, past the guards, stands a row of sturdy base housing that is being converted to full-time childcare. Camp Ripley has worked for months to renovate and child-proof the facility, fence off secure outdoor play areas and line up childcare providers. The result, they joke, may be Minnesota’s most secure daycare.
Inside the first facility to open, preschoolers roam the colorful playroom, pushing toy trucks underfoot, checking out the window occasionally to see if mommy is coming. Nearby, babies napped contentedly, ignoring the happy babble.
The Department of Defense offers a range of childcare subsidies and services to military families and a growing number of bases have facilities on site. But carving out space on a military base for babies and swing sets requires an investment of time, effort and base resources. But it was a much-needed service Camp Ripley could offer the people serving this country.
“The Minnesota National Guard and the Army, in general, are just moving toward family-first,” said 1st Lt. Colton Rossow, Camp Ripley’s public affairs officer, crouching to admire a toy truck one of the youngsters wanted to show off. “We understand that our soldiers care about their families, and we care about our soldiers.”
Camp Ripley needed childcare providers who could accommodate the schedules of military parents, from long days to weekends when duty calls but the babysitter calls in sick.
Camp Ripley needed people like Nicole Rhode and Karissa Gross.
Star Tribune
Vandals uproot 60 new trees on St. Paul riverfront tossing many in the Mississippi River
Sixty newly-planted trees along St. Paul’s riverfront were uprooted Wednesday night, and most were tossed into the water, in an act of vandalism costing tens of thousands of dollars.
“I’m incredibly sad. It’s hard to fathom,” said Karen Zumach, the director of community forestry for St. Paul-based non-profit Tree Trust, which contracted with the city to plant the trees with the help of high school students in October. “I like to think that trees are the least controversial thing we deal with these days.”
The trees were planted over two days along Shepard Road, in the area of Upper Landing Park and the Sam Morgan Regional Trail.
Photos taken by city staff Thursday showed a long row of piles of upturned dirt circling around holes in the ground where the trees once stood. All but 14 of them were tossed into the Mississippi River, rendering them unsalvageable, Zumach said.
The St. Paul Parks and Recreation Department estimated the damage comes to $40,000.
The St. Paul Police Department confirmed Thursday it received a report of the vandalism and an investigation is ongoing. The city parks department said in a statement the vandalism is believed to have occurred overnight.
The 14 trees that did not end up in the river have been reinstalled, Zumach said. The process to replace the others has yet to be determined, but the planting season has already passed.
About 25 high school students helped plant 250 trees while school was out during the annual MEA conference for state educators in October, Zumach said.
The Minneapolis City Council was unable to override Mayor Jacob Frey’s recent veto of an ordinance that would give some organizations first dibs on buying certain rental housing units in an effort to preserve affordable housing.
Under the proposal, if the owner of certain rental units wants to sell, they would have to give certain “qualified organizations” the first shot at buying their property, with exceptions for sales to renters or family members, for example.
Frey wrote in his veto letter that “now is not the time to make it harder to invest in our city’s housing stock.” He said while he agrees with the goal of preserving affordable housing, he doesn’t believe the ordinance will accomplish that in the current housing market.
“I appreciate the intention behind this ordinance, and in a different housing market when investment was more free-flowing, I may have a different perspective,” he wrote.
Supporters said the proposal would keep thousands of units of affordable housing available and prevent large investment firms from gobbling them up — and potentially hiking rents to reap profits.
The council voted 7-5 to override Frey, but needed nine votes.
Council Member Jeremiah Ellison, who co-authored the ordinance, argued when it was before the council on Oct. 31 that it would help small, local developers buy property that’s now being bought up by national investment firms or hedge funds.
Council Member Linea Palmisano said she was torn on the ordinance when it was before the council, saying the city has an affordable housing crisis, but that she was concerned about unintended consequences, such as whether first-time home buyers wouldn’t be able to compete. She voted for it then, but voted against an override on Thursday.
Hills-Beaver Creek held off a late Mountain Iron-Buhl rally to win the first Nine-Player state semifinal Thursday at U.S. Bank Stadium, 26-20.
The Patriots had a 26-14 lead late, but fumbled the ball away at their own 5-yard line. Mountain Iron-Buhl capitalized on the turnover and scored right away, making the score 26-20.
Mountain Iron-Buhl got the ball back with 43 seconds remaining and moved into Hills-Beaver Creek territory, but Sawyer Bosch intercepted a pass to end the threat.
Hills-Beaver Creek will face the winner of the Fertile-Beltrami-LeRoy-Ostrander semifinal in the state championship Saturday, Nov. 23 at 10 a.m.
