Star Tribune
Minnesota’s first electric firetruck launches in St. Paul
With a chime, automated message, and hum of its battery-powered engine, Minnesota’s first electric fire truck whirred to life Friday to mark its first day of service in St. Paul.
City officials and state legislators cut a ribbon before praising the Rosenbauer RTX truck, which was assembled in Wyoming, Minnesota with features especially tailored towards St. Paul. Mayor Melvin Carter praised the truck’s features and design before taking a test drive Friday. Carter said the truck’s compact size allows ease of access to more businesses, adding that its features will help protect residents and firefighters. The new engine’s arrival comes amid one of the deadliest fire years in St. Paul’s recent history, including a January blaze that claimed the lives of four young children.
“It does so many things and creates so many operational advantages for our fire department,” Carter said. “This will help us to improve the level of service that we provide to both our community and for our fire fighters.”
The rig’s height adjusts for firefighters to grab equipment with more ease, and to traverse rain and snow that has stranded diesel fire trucks in St. Paul before. Its wheels rotate, allowing the rig to pivot and turn around tight corners. Cameras show a 360 degree view around the engine, ditching side mirrors in order to save space, and a backup generator keeps the truck running through shifts that can stretch past 12 hours.
“This truck is all wheel drive, so that’s going to be very very beneficial in the wintertime. That’s not something you would typically find on a fire apparatus,” Todd McBride, Rosenbauer America’s Sales and Marketing Manager, said at Friday’s ceremony.
Additional trucks are on order for the cities of Roseville, and Superior, Wisconsin.
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, center, in gray suit, cuts the red ribbon in front of the electric fire truck with St. Paul Fire Chief Butch Inks, St. Paul City Council member Nelsie Yang , in beige coat, and her son Txongka Xiong, 2, along with other St. Paul Fire Department officials during a press event at St. Paul Fire Station 1 in St. Paul on Friday. (Leila Navidi/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Fire Department Chief Butch Inks is excited for the new rig, explaining that it’s the first time St. Paul’s added to its total number number of fire engines in 66 years. Inks expects it will cut money his department spends pumping 2,000 gallons of fuel into diesel trucks every year. But Inks said he is most excited for the truck’s impact on firefighters’ health.
According to the nonprofit Minnesota Firefighter Initiative, fire service workers across the state suffer cardiac disease, emotional trauma, and cancer “at rates nearly twice as high as the general public.” Much of that is caused by fires and by diesel engines spewing fumes where firefighters sleep.
The Minnesota State Auditor’s Office has ended its review of controversial Orono land deals that transferred property rights to city officials and became a point of debate in recent elections.
The City Council in recent years vacated public rights-of-way on property for Planning Commissioner Bob Erickson and Council Member Matt Johnson. Critics said the moves potentially made their land more valuable while also reducing public access to the lakeshore.
A group of former Orono mayors asked the auditor’s office in 2022 to investigate, saying they believed the deals represented a conflict of interest and went against longstanding policies aimed at preserving public access to Lake Minnetonka. Officials who defended the deals, meanwhile, described them as an effort to clean up century-old land records that hindered development.
In a September memo, shared with the Minnesota Star Tribune this week, the state auditor’s office wrote that it was clear the land deals had been controversial.
“However, we do not see a basis for further OSA inquiry into them, as such inquiry would have to be based in determinations that either are for courts to decide (e.g., were the vacations beyond the broad discretion afforded to the City Council for such matters) or left to the will of the voters, who ultimately judge the wisdom of the City’s elected council members in their exercise of the power given to them,” the memo said.
Neither Erickson nor Johnson could immediately be reached for comment.
In an interview Friday, State Auditor Julie Blaha said her office’s review focused on two main points: whether Orono city leaders overstepped their authority and whether there was a conflict of interest.
Blaha said the transfers didn’t “hit that bar of being clearly outside the public interest in a way we could decide that,” though she left open the possibility “a court could decide that.”
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s choice to head the Interior Department, will also lead a newly created National Energy Council that will seek to establish U.S. ‘’energy dominance’’ around the world.
Burgum, in his new role, will oversee a panel that crosses all executive branch agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation and transportation, Trump said in a statement. As chairman of the National Energy Council, Burgum will have a seat on the National Security Council, Trump said.
”This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation,” Trump wrote. His new policies will help drive down inflation, win an ”arms race” with China over artificial intelligence and even expand U.S. diplomatic influence around the globe, Trump claimed without explanation.
He accused the ”radical left” of engaging in a war on American energy, in the name of fighting climate change. His policy of energy dominance, which he also espoused during his first term, will allow the U.S. to sell oil, gas and other forms of energy to European allies, making the world safer, Trump said.
Trump has called oil and natural gas, along with minerals such as lithium and copper, ”liquid gold” that should be exploited to the maximum extent possible.
We will ”DRILL BABY DRILL,” expand ALL forms of Energy production to grow our Economy, and create good-paying jobs,” Trump said.
Burgum, 67, was elected North Dakota governor in 2016, his first campaign for elected office. A former software executive, he led Great Plains Software, which Microsoft acquired for $1.1 billion in 2001. Burgum has also led other companies in real estate development and venture capital.
Burgum has taken a pro-business style as governor of a state where agriculture and oil are the main industries. He’s pushed income tax cuts, reduced regulations, and changes to animal agriculture laws and higher education governance. Burgum also emphasized a ”data-driven” approach to governing, advocated for a Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in the state and prioritized engagement with tribal nations.
Star Tribune
Onetime Stillwater guard given 2¼-year term for helping murder inmate distribute meth in prison
A onetime corrections officer at Minnesota’s high-security prison in Stillwater received a 2¼-year prison term Friday for helping an inmate distribute meth inside the prison’s walls.
Faith Rose Gratz, 26, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in St. Paul after she pleaded guilty in November 2022 to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.
The inmate, Axel Rene Kramer, 37, was sentenced Wednesday to a 15-year term after pleading guilty to the same count. His sentence will run concurrent with the 24-year term he received in 2010 in Cottonwood County for aiding and abetting second-degree murder stemming from the shooting of Alberto Samilpa Jr., 20, of St. James, Minn., in 2007.
State Corrections Department records show that Kramer was to have been released from prison about eight months ago and then be put on supervised release until November 2031.
Ahead of Gratz’s sentencing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office told the court in writing that “on the phone, law enforcement found thousands of text messages between Kramer and Gratz. Many of the messages were mundane or discussed a burgeoning romantic relationship between Kramer and Gratz. However, numerous times over the several months of messaging, Kramer instructed Gratz on how to obtain drugs.”
Gratz and Kramer “discussed … getting married once Kramer was out of prison,” another court document read.
After her prison stint is up, Gratz will be on supervised release for two years.
According to federal court documents:
