Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt was “disappointed” and visibly frustrated Tuesday after the County Board delayed a vote on her plan to reduce the number of prisoners in the jail to comply with a state order.

Witt asked county commissioners Tuesday to approve up to $8 million for agreements with 21 counties to temporarily house inmates from the state’s “busiest jail.” The “joint powers agreements” would allow Witt to send inmates to other counties in the case of emergencies, safety concerns and overcrowding.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections ordered Witt to reduce the jail population from about 850 to 600 by Dec. 5, citing violations of staffing levels and regular well-being checks of prisoners. There were 662 inmates in the jail Tuesday evening and 182 in other facilities.

Commissioners were surprised by Witt’s request for $8 million that the sheriff concedes is not in her budget. They also questioned why it hadn’t been sent to them sooner so it could be thoroughly reviewed.

“We just got this today,” said Board Chair Irene Fernando. “We just haven’t had the opportunity to review it with the diligence that $8 million merits.”

Instead, commissioners called a special meeting for Dec. 3 and voted 5-2 to ask staff to come up with other options, including expanding the temporary capacity at the adult corrections facility in Plymouth. They also gave County Administrator David Hough the OK to negotiate deals with three to five nearby counties at a lower cost.

Several commissioners also took issue with Witt’s proposal to possibly send inmates to far away counties to meet the new state capacity rules. Witt has inmate housing deals with five counties and hopes to add 16 more.

A man on a scooter has grabbed or tried to grab at least five females on a St. Louis Park trail over a span of several weeks this fall, officials said Tuesday.

Reports to police say the incidents tied to a suspect in his late teens or early 20s have occurred on the North Cedar Lake Regional Trail in St. Louis Park and Minneapolis between Oct. 9 and Nov. 12.

“At least five females have reported incidents where the suspect has approached on an electric scooter and either attempted to or successfully grabbed them over their clothing,” a statement from police read.

Incidents have taken place between the trail’s Dakota Park and Cedar Lake areas, police said.

The physical description offered by police was too broad to help the public possibly identify the suspect.

Anyone who has also been similarly targeted or has information about a possible suspect is urged to call the police tip line at 952-924-2165, or email info@stlouisparkmn.gov and include your contact information.

The first time I noticed that Trump’s red Make America Great Again hat had come into vogue was at the Lake Region Threshers Show in Otter Tail County, locally known as the Dalton threshing bee. (If you’ve never been, you should go. It’s amazing.)

It was 2016, and as my small son and I walked around the grounds, admiring the huge century-old tractors and getting a free ride on the steam engine, red hats were everywhere. One man was wearing one that said, “Make Dalton Great Again,” which made me chuckle, imagining this small farming community as a long-ago mighty empire.

I always thought Trump looked like a goof wearing that hat. I mean, who wore a feed-style cap with a suit? But all around me, men were wearing them like they’d finally found a club they actually wanted to join.

Skeptics mocked The Hat. They laughed at the idea that a chauffer-driven New York billionaire with a gilded penthouse, who’d never shoveled manure or speared pike from a darkhouse or driven a semi-truck, could think that a red cap would endear him to men who had done all those things. They laughed that parts of his hats were evidently made outside the United States, or that they were made in the U.S. by people he has disparaged.

Many a lesser politician would have slunk away from The Hat and the mockery it engendered. It would have faded into the background as a tried-and-failed campaign prop shunted aside in favor of more traditional apparel like buttons or T-shirts.

Not Trump. He did as he always does in the face of criticism. He doubled down. The Hat took on the air of defiance, a symbol of a man who never backed down, a man who never apologized. A man who made his own atmosphere, critics be damned, using their own momentum against them. Hat sales went through the roof. There were knock-offs and parodies. Finally, the people had a politician who didn’t scurry off at the faintest hint of criticism, but who stood his ground, stood boldly and took it all, mockery and adoration alike. The hats linked the powerful and the powerless, the rich and the barely-making-it, the city slicker and the cowboy.

The mockery continued. He pronounced the books of the Bible “One Corinthians” and “Two Corinthians” instead of “First Corinthians” and “Second Corinthians.” Haw haw! Some Christian. (Never mind that “One Corinthians” and “Two Corinthians” was exactly the pronunciation I and many other kids learned in Sunday School.) He didn’t have a 2016 campaign office in New Jersey. He spelled coffee “cofveve” in a Tweet. Haw haw. A stable genius, all right!

But he continued to gain in the polls, with politicians falling over themselves to support him. And as he kept winning, his critics began to look like wolves unable to take down a majestic stag. They looked like loser wolves.