Star Tribune
St. Paul mayor and city council meeting to reach budget compromise
The middle ground: a 7.2% increase.
In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Deputy Mayor Jamie Tincher said Carter, too, would like the levy to be lower. But proposing a 5% increase would mean an additional cut of $6 million from 2025 city services — a reduction that could increase fire response times, slow the processing of license applications and reduce parks and rec and library services.
“He doesn’t have a path to do that without reducing services that will be felt by the people who are currently getting them,” Tincher said.
If the two sides cannot agree on a tax levy for 2025, state law would require the city to institute this year’s levy. That, Tincher said, would lead to drastic cuts in city personnel and services, as costs go up every year because of things like health care, insurance and previously negotiated salary increases.
The gap between revenue and costs then, she said, would be $16 million.
Tincher was asked if this year’s negotiations felt “different.”
Star Tribune
A 27-year-old woman, who was not wearing her seatbelt, was killed on Friday after head-on car crash with a boom truck in Otter Tail County
A 27-year-old Fergus Falls woman died Friday afternoon after colliding with a boom truck just outside Ottertail, Minn., in Otter Tail County.
The woman, traveling southbound in a 2004 GMC Envoy, was not wearing a seatbelt when she hit a boom truck, which was traveling northbound, on Highway 78, the Minnesota State Patrol said. The truck’s driver, 23-year-old Henry Francis Gibbs, of Battle Lake, was injured but not taken to a hospital.
A crash report notes that the road was wet. Deputies from the Otter Tail County Sheriff’s Department, as well as local fire and rescue and Perham ambulance, responded to the incident.
The woman’s identity will be disclosed by law enforcement later on Saturday.
A 55-year-old woman from Sebeka died in a crash in Otter Tail County just over a week ago. On Thursday, two Pelican Rapids residents were hurt after a head-on collision in the county, as well.
Star Tribune
Why Minnesota is projected to face a future budget deficit, and what lawmakers might do about it
Minnesota had a record surplus two years ago. Now, it’s projecting a deficit on the horizon. How did the state get here?
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Star Tribune
Change your tree ordinance or we might sue
Holly Gillis, her husband, Ethan Bassett, with one of their two children, Grant, 2, outside their Edina home. (Glen Stubbe/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Neal said the city began enacting tree preservation ordinances about a decade ago, after hearing from residents who worried that too many old trees were being removed during redevelopment. The latest controversy stems from a change that took effect in 2023.
When people are seeking building permits in Edina, they need to submit a tree protection plan that details which old trees will be protected and how. If the trees are being removed, the applicants need to outline how they’ll replace them.
Trees that are being removed are assigned a dollar amount based on their species and size, and applicants must place money in escrow until they can prove that comparable replacements survived. There are exceptions for some trees that are considered invasive or threatened, such as ash trees.
City officials said they have reviewed 455 permits since January 2023, of which 68 required an escrow. They estimated that 3,677 trees were preserved during that process, and 755 were removed.
“The goal is to reduce the amount of old-growth trees that are removed for development projects,” Neal said. “That’s the goal. If we can do that by cooperating and helping people site their building and their construction in a way that reduces tree damage, that’s great. That’s one way to do it. But another way to do it is to build in some financial incentives and disincentives that encourage people to preserve trees rather than remove.”
Gillis and her husband, Ethan Bassett, moved to Edina from Ohio. When they were looking for houses last year, the market was tight, and they struggled to find an existing home they liked. They decided on a sloped, heavily wooded lot that had been zoned for residential but didn’t yet have a house on the site.