Star Tribune
Planned Parenthood to cut staff, consolidate health care centers in Upper Midwest
Planned Parenthood will consolidate some of its clinics and eliminate dozens of positions in the Upper Midwest, the organization’s leaders announced Tuesday
Across Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and the Dakotas, 36 positions will be eliminated in the entity called Planned Parenthood North Central States, including nine current staff members and 27 open positions.
The decision comes 19 months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion and returning the power to regulate abortion to individual states. Since then, two dozen states, including the Dakotas and Nebraska, have moved to ban abortion or further restrict the procedure to earlier in the pregnancy than Roe’s standards; courts have for now blocked bans in three of those states, including Iowa.
The nonprofit’s leaders blamed the post-Roe landscape as well as factors such as increasing costs and provider shortages for its decision.
“As the volatility in the health care landscape continues and the cost of providing care climbs, we have a duty to continually change and adapt so that we can continue to meet the essential needs of our patients and community,” Ruth Richardson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, said in a statement. “This decision was not easy. Planned Parenthood is focused on creating a footprint that is sustainable long term, with reliable access to both medication and procedural abortion in every state where it is legal.”
The organization will also consolidate some of its more than two dozen health centers across the five-state region while expanding abortion access and the size of other health centers.
In the coming year, the health center in Woodbury will consolidate into the Rice Street Health Center in St. Paul.
The affiliate stressed that while its number of physical locations will decrease, the restructuring will increase its capacity for patients treated in person and virtually. Its flagship Vandalia health center in St. Paul will increase abortion patient capacity and appointment options. A health center expansion in Omaha will increase exam rooms from four to 12, and a consolidation of two health centers in Des Moines will expand abortion appointments to three to four days per week.
“It’s obviously a concern anytime we lose providers or locations or access to service, especially in a moment when we have become sort of an island in Minnesota,” said Sen. Lindsey Port, DFL-Burnsville, chair of the Reproductive Freedom Caucus. “I’m looking at this in the context of the broader health-care crisis we’re in. Consolidations, layoffs, difficulty hiring: these themes exist throughout the health care world at this point. Reproductive health-care clinics across Minnesota are not just abortion providers –— they’re health-care providers. It’s an integral part of our lives.”
Abortion opponents said Planned Parenthood’s decision was more about shifting its resources to provide more abortion care, especially in Minnesota communities bordering states with restricted access.
“Planned Parenthood is a business, and the decisions they make are business decisions, not morality,” said Tim Miller, executive director of Minnesota-based PLAM Action, a sister organization to Pro-Life Action Ministries. “I don’t buy it for a second that their bottom line is seeing a crunch. It’s a strategic business decision. They look at the upcoming market and they’re refocusing, like any shrewd business would do.”
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.
