Star Tribune
Duluth students’ Climate Club inches toward a solar victory, seven years after founding
“We’ve been promoting solar, the board’s been promoting solar, been lobbying for solar,” Magas said. “We just have to do so in an affordable, responsible way.”
The Lincoln Park project would be a collaboration between the school district, the city and Minnesota Power; the school and the city would each get a portion of the power generated. The application begins in January.
“That would be an opportunity that the solar club is really excited about, and I am, too,” Magas said. Though it would still need to be approved, Magas said there are some factors that may help their chances. “The site is perfect, it’s got a lot of good perks with it being associated with learning and the schools. It’s very visually prominent with it coming up out of the city; it’s perfectly poised for catching sunlight.”
Magas noted more potential roadblocks for the smaller proposed array at Stowe Elementary, including costs and structural concerns over the weight of the solar panels on the roof. The district is having an engineer review the school’s building plans.
The district was preapproved for $500,000 from a new state Solar for Schools grant for the Stowe array, or 50% of the estimated cost of the installation.
The Climate Club said an extra 40% of the total cost could be paid for in the form of tax credits awarded through the federal Inflation Reduction Act, leaving a bill of around $100,000. The deadline for the school to complete its final Solar for Schools application is Dec. 20.
Republican Aaron Paul is challenging the results of the House District 54A race, alleging in a notice of an election contest that Scott County elections officials engaged in “deliberate, serious, and material violations” of state election law when they lost 21 ballots yet declared DFL Rep. Brad Tabke the winner by a 14-vote margin.
“Scott County election officials unlawfully lost and failed to count significantly more ballots than would be needed to change the announced result of the election, meaning at the very least the actual victor is in absolute doubt and at worst the candidate who received fewer votes has been announced as the winner,” reads the notice, which a Republican public affairs director shared with the Star Tribune and other media outlets Monday.
Paul is asking the court to declare a vacancy for Tabke’s seat once his current term ends, giving voters the chance to decide a winner “pursuant to Minnesota law governing special elections.”
Reid LeBeau, Paul’s attorney, and David Zoll, Tabke’s attorney, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The notice is the latest twist in the Shakopee-area race that will determine the distribution of power in the Minnesota House. DFLers and Republicans will share power for the first time since 1979 if Tabke prevails; if Paul ultimately wins, Republicans will have a slim one-vote majority.
The race has been tightly contested since Election Day, when Tabke appeared to have a 13-vote lead over Paul.
Early returns showed Paul, a Bloomington police officer, ahead in several precincts by small margins. Tabke, a former Shakopee mayor who has served two nonconsecutive House terms, maintained advantages in northeast Shakopee and a precinct north of Shakopee High School.
A few days after election night, Scott County officials rescanned some ballots cast in Shakopee after a scanning machine malfunction. The updated unofficial results increased Tabke’s advantage to 14.
Star Tribune
Minneapolis investigators said arson to blame for apartment building fire that killed 2
Minneapolis fire investigators said Monday that an apartment building fire that claimed two lives last summer was intentionally set.
The blaze broke out around 9:40 p.m. on Aug. 13 inside the four-story building in the 1500 block of 11th Avenue S. Fire officials said at the time they were looking at arson as a potential cause.
Assistant Fire Chief Melanie Rucket followed up Monday in a statement that “the cause of this fire is incendiary/intentional.”
Rucker added the fire originated in the interior rear entrance and extended upward in the stairwell to the roof.
Dozens of residents were displaced by the blaze. Some hung out third-floor windows seeking to breathe, the blaze still raging, as they called for help. Fire crews initially ended their search with no fatalities recorded.
But two days later, fire officials were alerted that one resident was unaccounted for. Fire crews were directed to a fourth-floor unit and found a man’s body there. Later that same day, the Fire Department disclosed that a second body was found on the same floor.
Officials have yet to release either victims’ identity.
Law enforcement said Monday it is searching for a man who left his home in Duluth on Sunday to go ice skating on a bay across the border in Superior, Wis.
Deputies from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office were sent to Woodstock Bay, where Gregory Richard Garmer intended to skate on the frozen surface, said Sheriff Matt Izzard.
The sheriff said in a statement that Garmer left his home about 1 p.m. Sunday and “did not return as scheduled.”
A law enforcement search was started and continues Monday.
Izzard is asking is asking the public to review whatever images may have been captured on cameras of the St. Louis River and surrounding bays in the hope of spotting Garmer.
The sheriff said Garmer was last believed to be wearing a red hooded jacket, black pants, hat, gloves and scarf. Anyone with information about Garmer’s whereabouts is urged to contact the Sheriff’s Office at 715-394-4432.
