Star Tribune
Minneapolis sets record for potholes following snowy 2023
Minneapolis had a historically bad year for potholes in 2023, with more complaints than in any other year on record, according to a new report from the city.
In total, Minneapolis had nearly 9,400 calls to the city’s 311 line regarding potholes, up from roughly 2,900 in 2022.
The main factor was the icy weather: The Twin Cities had the third-snowiest winter on record from 2022 to 2023. That extra snow melt ravaged city roads, seeping through cracks in the asphalt before refreezing and expanding, causing the pavement to swell up before vehicles drive over the swells and break them open.
A city spokesperson said the data on potholes does not go back for the entire history of Minneapolis, but she noted that 2023 is believed to have had the most in one season.
The city’s report included pothole data from 2017 to 2023. It showed that pothole reports previously spiked in 2018 and 2019. In those years, there were roughly 5,000 and 5,300 reports, respectively, of potholes in the city.
Minneapolis car-repair shop owners said last winter was the worst for potholes and frustrating, too, for the length of time it took for the city to patch the holes.
“We were seeing the potholes everywhere, and everyone had to keep avoiding them because the city wasn’t patching them fast enough,” said Stanley Pryor, owner of the Autopia repair shop in south Minneapolis. “We were getting customers trying to get paid by the city, because it was causing a lot of damage to their vehicles.”
It took 19.4 days on average to fill a pothole in 2023, compared with 7.7 days in 2022 and 5.4 in 2021.
One difficulty with repairing potholes is the city cannot fix them with a more permanent solution until the weather warms enough each spring to fill in with a hot asphalt mix. Until then, cities are limited to using a temporary “cold mix” of asphalt that lasts only a few weeks. The city’s report showed that the average time it takes to fill a pothole increases in years with a larger number of potholes.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey directed the city’s Public Works team in May to use additional overtime and weekend hours “to make sure we are filling as many of the potholes as we can while we wait for a permanent fix.”
The city was ranked as having some of the worst potholes in the country in studies this past year. The insurance comparison website QuoteWizard analyzed search statistics related to potholes and determined that Minneapolis ranked second in searches for pothole remedies and complaints related to potholes in 2023. In first place? Los Angeles, where excessive rain last year soaked into cracks and weakened the roads, before the city’s notorious traffic caused further damage.
Statewide, Minnesota ranked first among states for pothole searches online. USA Today conducted a similar study about search results and ranked Minneapolis as the third-worst city in terms of potholes in 2023, behind New York and Los Angeles.
Pryor and Bill Miller, owner of Bill The Tire Guy shop in north Minneapolis, both said they sustained significant vehicle damage because of potholes. Pryor said he crashed into a car ahead of him that abruptly stopped because it hit a large pothole. Miller, meanwhile, said his car was totaled after it hit a pothole.
“It knocked the front end out of line, and I had to junk it,” Miller said.
Star Tribune
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. — The school district superintendent dressed up as the school mascot, Thor, on football nights. He read the graduation address in both English and Spanish. He even set up office hours in the cafeteria, granting easier approachability to students.
But now, two months into the school year, Daniel Ludvigson is gone. Or, rather, “on special assignment,” according to the terminology of the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle School Board, which voted 4-3 earlier this month to remove him as superintendent. The move came weeks after voting to not renew his contract, which expires at the end of the school year in June.
Four board members — two of whom voted to oust Ludvigson, including Board Chair Kelly Lemke — are up for re-election next week.
The dismissal is the latest blow in this central Minnesota community on the edge of the prairie. Over the last nine months, the town of 3,400 residents and seat of Todd County has lost its mayor, a city manager, two school board members, and now its superintendent.
Students walked out earlier this month in support of Ludvigson. Signs in support of Ludvigson can be seen across town on the lawns of apparent Democrats and Republicans alike. And last week, hundreds packed the American Legion off Hwy. 71 to eat beef sandwiches and sign support letters for Ludvigson, who only swung by to pick up his child for hockey practice.
In a time of great divide in America, this fight has nothing to do with politics.
“You’ve got Harris buttons and Trump hats side-by-side, arm-in-arm,” said Amanda Hinson, a former local newspaper reporter who is concerned the board is not being upfront about why they placed Ludvigson on special assignment. “We want transparency in our government.”
Lawn signs around Long Prairie, Minn., now include people weighing in on the dismissal of Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson by the school board. (Christopher Vondracek)
School board members say Ludvigson has repeatedly shown he is not ready for the prime time of a school district bigger than the one in central North Dakota he arrived from two years ago. They have twice disciplined Ludvigson, but did not state the reason for placing him on “special assignment,” beyond insinuating that staff are fearful to raise official complaints.
Rain and potentially heavy snow are on tap Thursday around the Twin Cities, just before families set out for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Temperatures were expected to drop throughout the day, creating conditions for flurries. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. covering the Twin Cities metro area and parts of south-central Minnesota. Steady rain drenched the Twin Cities on Thursday, making for a soggy morning commute.
“As colder air begins to move in this morning, the rain will transition to heavy snow from west to east with snowfall rates of an inch per hour at times into early afternoon,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said in a weather advisory.
The Twin Cities and surrounding areas could get between 2 and 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service. The winter weather advisory is expected to affect Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington and Le Sueur counties.
It’s unclear how much of the snow will actually stick, with warm surface temperatures likely leading to melting on contact in many areas.
“Exact totals will depend on snowfall rate, surface temperatures, and melting — which increases uncertainty with the snow forecast,” the weather service said in an early Thursday briefing.
“Thundersnow possible!” the weather service emphasized.
The good news for Halloween revelers is that the snow and rain are expected to wrap up in time for trick-or-treating, though temperatures will remain in the 30s with a sharp windchill.
An off-duty Washington County sheriff’s deputy caused a head-on crash while under the influence of alcohol and injured a couple in the other vehicle, officials said.
The crash occurred about 10:40 a.m. Sunday in Afton on Hwy. 95 at Scenic Lane, the Minnesota State Patrol said.
Campbell Johnston Blair, 58, of Hastings, was heading north in his Subaru Crosstrek, crossed into the opposite lane and collided with a southbound Ford Expedition, the patrol said.
Blair and the other vehicle’s occupants, 38-year-old Erik Robert Sward and 36-year-old Heather Lynn Sward, both of Lake Elmo, were taken to Regions Hospital with non-critical injuries, according to the patrol.
The patrol noted the alcohol use by Blair was involved in the crash.
Blair, who was driving a private vehicle at the time of the crash while off-duty, has been a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office since 2020 and is currently assigned to our Court Security Unit.
The Sheriff’s Office has been asked for reaction to the crash involving one of its deputies.
Suspect “led us to the evidence” in Montana camper’s brutal killing, initially thought to have been bear attack
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
Snow and rain on Halloween
Suspect “led us to the evidence” in Montana camper’s brutal killing, initially thought to have been bear attack
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town