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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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Why Minnesota is projected to face a future budget deficit, and what lawmakers might do about it

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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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Change your tree ordinance or we might sue

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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.



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Veterans recall life of Charles Sehe, Mankato survivor of Pearl Harbor attack

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MANKATO – A neon green sign at VFW Post 950 silently mourns one of Minnesota’s most acclaimed and well-documented wartime heroes, spelling out taps for “Charles Sehe, Pearl Harbor Vet.”

Sehe died at age 101 on Nov. 3 at his Mankato home. He was the last Minnesota survivor to have served on the USS Nevada during the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

After surviving what became known as the Day of Infamy, Dec. 7, 1941, which forced the U.S. entry into World War II, Sehe served on the Nevada throughout the conflict, including on a mission that brought him within sight of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France. After coming home, Sehe became a researcher and academic, eventually teaching at Minnesota State Mankato for 23 years.

“This guy’s a hero,” said James Mason, sergeant in arms at the Mankato VFW, officially Morson-Ario-Strand VFW Post 950.

Mason, a gruff former Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, shared photos of Sehe at the post during a lunch in late November. He became friends with Sehe about a decade ago.

The Pearl Harbor attack left lasting psychological scars on Sehe, and he had a hard time talking about it with most people. But among other veterans, Sehe would open up, said Mason, 78. The two men would talk for hours over a beer or a breakfast at Hy-Vee, meeting several times a month. Sehe took an interest in the experiences of younger veterans, especially Marines, said Mason, and they in turn were fascinated by Sehe’s story.

Sehe grew up poor in Geneva, Ill., according to a 2015 oral history with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. His father, a former horse trainer, lost his job during the Great Depression. Sehe recalled always being hungry, eating lunches of sugar sprinkled over lard spread on bread. As a teenager he got a job at a bakery where he’d eat cake crumbs off the bottom of the pans.

When World War II started, Sehe joined the Navy, despite not knowing how to swim. When he arrived at the USS Nevada, he was awed at the sight of the battleship, as he’d never seen a vessel larger than a canoe or clam boat.



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