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.”
DULUTH – The owner of a Hermantown, Minn., mobile home park where residents often live without water pleaded guilty to several violations Monday in St. Louis County Court.
Steven Schneeberger of Twin Cities-based Elevated Management was charged with six misdemeanor counts related to the operation of Maple Field mobile home park. Those include unpermitted work and failure to provide potable water, safe living structures related to fire hazards and exits, and adequate storm shelter. Judge Jessica Fralich will sentence him Jan. 2.
The city filed a complaint earlier this year after investigating anonymous reports from residents, the bulk of whom are renters. Hermantown building official Brandon Holmes, who characterized conditions as “deplorable,” found that every single one of the 50-plus homes has at least one code violation. One unit has already been torn down, two are condemned and several others may be.
Attorneys for the city and for Schneeberger discussed a rehabilitation plan for Schneeberger to follow, along with likely probation. Schneeberger said little during the remote hearing, except admitting his guilt to each count.
Residents say they’ve made repeated requests for improvements, especially when it comes to problems that pose threats to public health and safety, like mold, severe water damage, fire hazards and broken locks and windows. But little is done, they say, and affordable alternative housing options during a regional shortage are slim.
One resident so far has been displaced when his home was condemned. Hermantown officials have said they have been working quickly to avoid displacing others, with extreme weather already here.
Schneeberger had told residents via email that they shouldn’t allow Holmes entry in order to inspect their homes, noting those who owed rent faced eviction by a potential new owner. He called Holmes an “adversary” of the residents.
The Minnesota Department of Health is also investigating the park, which Schneeberger is attempting to sell. He has owned it since 2021.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has vetoed a resolution the city council passed Thursday urging the University of Minnesota to rescind any discipline and asking prosecutors not to charge people in connection with an Oct. 21 protest at the university opposing the Israel-Hamas war.
Council members voted 7-6 to urge authorities to back off discipline and charges against the protesters, and expressed solidarity with “nonviolent campus activism opposing war and supporting Palestinian human rights.” Nine votes would be needed to override Frey’s veto.
The university disputes that the protest at Morrill Hall was nonviolent, saying protesters spray-painted security cameras, broke interior windows and barricaded exits, trapping staffers for “an extended period of time.” University police and Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies arrested 11 protesters.
In his veto letter, Frey wrote that non-violent protest is a fundamental right but the protest was “neither peaceful nor protected speech.”
“There is no First Amendment right to damage property, break windows, barricade doors, and endanger people’s safety,” he wrote. “It appears that the council has taken a position simply because it aligns with a cause they support, rather than the basic principles of law.”
The university said the protesters caused over $67,000 in damage to doorways, walls and flooring; violated multiple university polices; and caused emotional harm to employees as they piled up furniture and copy machines to prevent workers from leaving.
“Some employees initially hid under desks or in bathrooms, while many unsuccessfully looked for alternative exit routes, because most exits were blocked,” U President Rebecca Cunningham wrote in a letter to Frey. “Several were afraid to leave their locked spaces for an extended period of time.”
Star Tribune
ATF director, federal law enforcement leaders in Minneapolis this week for multi-day summit
Dettelbach began Monday by imploring the room to make the case in their respective corners of the country for Congress not to slash ATF’s budget further next year. He said Congress cut the bureau’s budget by $50 million last year and he has since heard talk of a far steeper cut next year.
“That will mean that we will not be able to provide the services to you, our partners that we want to. We’re a small agency. We can’t take that kind of cut without talking about closing down whole areas of operations in this country.”
Dettelbach hailed the ATF’s gun tracing and ballistics investigation programs. The latter, he said, helped generate 200,000 leads for police around the country in 2023. Also last year, Dettelbach said, agents traced 645,000 guns used in crimes. Agents can turn around emergency trace requests as quickly as within a half-hour, Dettelbach said, such as the firearm used in the July attempted assassination of Trump during a Pennsylvania rally.
Dettelbach later said in an interview that new firearms trafficking and straw purchasing statutes passed as part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022 have so far led to more than 1,000 new charges.
Dettelbach and others Monday credited programs such as the PSP with helping drive down violent crime in many corners of the country in the past year. While O’Hara said Minneapolis recently exceeded its 2023 homicide total, overall shootings are trending downward in the city this year.
“Our partnerships in the gang cases, working those in concert with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, we are looking to make an impact and you can already see the fruits of our labor,” added Alvin Winston, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Minneapolis division, in an interview Monday.
