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St. Paul mayor and city council meeting to reach budget compromise

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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.”



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New LGBTQ community center with a co-working cafe opens in Uptown Minneapolis

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The founders of Queermunity, Minneapolis’ newest LGBTQ social club and resource center, remember the first summer after the pandemic very well. Group chats lit up amidst a flurry of excitement as people started to go back out again to try to make much-needed, social connections.

But bars and dance clubs are only a part of the answer, co-founder Hilary Otey said.

“We can talk, we can be together, we can get drunk. But how do you actually rebuild community with authentic interactions?” Otey said. “Nothing wrong with a lesbian bar… but there has to be more and different opportunities.”

There are 300+ LGBTQ community centers in the U.S., so why shouldn’t the Twin Cities have one, business and life partners Otey and Kayla Barth wondered. Their new space opened in Uptown last month.

While the cities boast many opportunities for LGBTQ-centered services as well as queer nightlife, there hadn’t been a place centered around the other forms of social wellbeing, Otey said. They both dreamed of a space with lots of options for activities, including those that are family friendly, alcohol free or that start before 10 p.m.

“We really wanted to focus on creating a space that met the needs of folks whose needs were not being met elsewhere, who didn’t have a space where they felt included and connected,” Otey said.

The space, at the previously vacant 3036 Hennepin Ave. beside Magers and Quinn Booksellers, offers a cafe, co-working, and space for groups to rent.

Queermunity also hosts a variety of social events. In the three weeks since opening, Queermunity has hosted a craft circle, yoga, trivia, quiet reading and even a pop-up group wedding for couples looking to marry ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Coming soon? A spades night, sound baths, grief processing sessions and gender-affirming haircuts.



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How some Minnesota schools are tackling chronic absenteeism

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A group of school districts across Minnesota say they are figuring out better ways to get student attendance back on track, with the rate of chronically absent students stubbornly high even years after COVID school closures.

Earlier this year, the Legislature voted to send $4.7 million to 12 school districts to try to figure out how to get attendance rates back up. The districts — Burnsville-Eagan-Savage, Chisholm, Columbia Heights, Cook County, Mankato, Minneapolis, Moorhead, Northfield, Red Lake, Rochester, Sauk Rapids-Rice and Windom — presented early results from their year of experimentation to a legislative commission on Dec. 2.

The districts say the funding is making a difference, helping them buy software to better track attendance, and hiring people dedicated to dealing with attendance.

“Not many districts the size of Chisholm have the opportunity to have someone committed to that role,” said Carrie McDonald, the director of teaching and learning for the district of about 650 students situated about an hour and a half north of Duluth, during the Student Attendance and Truancy Legislative Study Group meeting.

While a small district like Chisholm is using the personal relationships its new attendance coordinator can develop with students, bigger districts like Moorhead are trying to find systems to keep students on track.

“Having a staff person who notices a kid is not in school and reaching out to that kid is not a system we can rely on,” Moorhead’s Isaac Lundberg told the commission.

Though different school districts need to use different ways to reach out to students and families, they agreed on a need to find uniform systems to document attendance in schools, and compare results across districts.

Students are missing school for all kinds of reasons, and chronic absenteeism — defined as missing 10% of school days or more— was a growing problem across the country even before the pandemic.



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Twin Cities suburbs adopt odor rules before cannabis sales start

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The odor ordinances could be put to the test when cannabis retail shops open, as soon as next year. Land, the city attorney, said several businesses, including two tobacco stores, have already applied for conditional use permits to sell certain cannabis products in Hastings.

And she added that as the process unfolds, city officials could always opt to modify the rules.

“That’s the nice thing about ordinances,” she said. “It is the law until they decide to change their mind.”



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