Star Tribune
Edina residents Heather Edelson and Marisa Simonett running in special election for open seat on Hennepin County Board
Two Edina residents will face off Tuesday in a special election to decide who finishes the term of a now-vacant District 6 seat on the Hennepin County Board.
State Rep. Heather Edelson faces real estate agent Marisa Simonetti in the race to replace Chris LaTondresse, who resigned last summer to lead a St. Paul affordable housing nonprofit. Edelson and Simonetti were the top two candidates after an April 30 special primary narrowed the field of six who filed for the seat.
It’s a nonpartisan contest, but Edelson, a DFLer, and Simonetti, a Republican, differ ideologically.
The Hennepin County Board has seven commissioners who oversee a budget of nearly $2.7 billion. The county is the second-largest government in Minnesota, after the state bureaucracy, with nearly 10,000 employees.
Commissioners approve budgets for the county attorney and county sheriff as well as HCMC and more than a dozen health clinics. The board also oversees human services programs, property tax collections, solid waste disposal and 41 library branches.
Edelson, in her third term at the Legislature, said she had already decided not to run for a fourth term at the Capitol when the District 6 seat became vacant. Edelson joined the District 6 race when the special election was pushed to mid-May and wouldn’t interfere with her final legislative session.
Edelson says she’s running for the County Board because it would give her an opportunity not just to craft public policy but to work on how it is implemented.
“I like to work on issues; I like policy. I’m a worker bee,” Edelson said.
She says the County Board would give her a more hands-on approach to government that can impact people’s lives: “That is something you get to do more of at the county level.”
Edelson said her time on the House Human Services Policy Committee would give her unique insight into a big portion of the county’s operations that focuses on providing social services. She’s worked as a therapist and says mental health services would be one of her priorities as a commissioner.
Simonetti has never held public office. She said she entered the race because she is concerned about rising crime and residents’ increased tax burden.
She said the County Board could benefit from a more frugal voice.
“People are frustrated on the financial aspect,” said Simonetti, who noted that Hennepin County property taxes rose 6.5% this year, the biggest increase in more than a decade. “I think people feel like they are getting less value and paying more.”
Simonetti also said the board should do more to support law enforcement and address rising crime. She has been critical of the money Hennepin County has spent on the Southwest light-rail project.
Whoever wins the May 14 election won’t have much of a break from campaigning, if she wants to hold on to the seat after 2024. The District 6 seat is one of three on the County Board up for election in November.
Both Edelson and Simonetti have signaled they will run again for the seat in November. That could also mean running in a summer primary, given the previous interest in the seat.
District 6 has 66 precincts and includes the communities of Edina, Hopkins, Mound, Minnetonka, Wayzata, Long Lake and Shorewood.
The lead pastor of Lakes Area Vineyard Church in Detroit Lakes said that a missionary was killed in an act of violence Friday in Angola, Africa.
Beau Shroyer moved there in 2021 with his wife, Jackie, and five children. They were working with the missionary organization SIM USA, founded in 1893 in Charlotte, N.C. SIM USA president Randy Fairman shared in a message to the Lakes Area Vineyard congregation that the Shroyers were one of the first families to move to Angola after pandemic lockdowns eased.
Fairman said many details are still unknown about Shroyer’s death. He said he got a call Friday “informing me that Beau Shroyer was killed while serving Jesus in Angola and is now with his Savior.”
“It is my belief that from his vantage point, he can see how his family will be cared for, and it is not hard for him to trust our good Father,” Fairman wrote. “From our perspective and the perspective of Jackie and the kids, we now must trust Jesus in a season that we never imagined. We must trust Him without requiring Him to give us an understanding of why He allowed this. It is difficult and stretches our faith.”
Troy Easton, lead pastor of Lakes Area Vineyard Church, said in a message to congregants that “Moments like these create so many unanswerable questions for us and it adds to the pain to know that we may never understand why our Father has allowed something like this to happen.”
“As more details became available regarding what’s next for the family, what arrangements are being made to celebrate and honor Beau’s life, and practical ways you can love and serve them, we will be certain to share them with you.
Along with his wife, Shroyer, 44, a former Detroit Lakes police officer and real estate agent, leaves behind children Bella, Avery, Oakley, Iva and Eden.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
This year, its jump-scares and lore landed it on Forbes’ list of “7 of the World’s Scariest Haunted Houses” alongside a 160-room mansion in California filled with “occult oddities,” a house built on an old cemetery near Chicago, and a haunted theme park in New Zealand built on the grounds of an old psychiatric hospital. The Haunted Ship, as the Irvin is known in October, is open just one more night — from 6:30 to 10 p.m. on Halloween.
“But this isn’t just a manufactured scare factory,” according to Forbes’ scare scouts, who reportedly visited the ship and had the VIP experience — which includes controlling the dialogue of a disembodied skull as visitors stream past. “In 1964, a sailor died on the ship during a boiler room accident, prompting the Duluth Paranormal Society to investigate the ship. Employees have reported seeing unexplained shadows, hearing phantom footsteps, and had objects thrown at them while doing maintenance work.”
The pilot house of the William A. Irvin is covered in cobwebs during October, a stop on the VIP tour of the seasonal Haunted Ship. (Jana Hollingsworth / The Minnesota Star Tribune)
The tour twists through the ship’s nooks, crannies and areas specific to its life on the Great Lakes — like a few gruesome dining areas where bloodied limbs are scattered about. There are creepy clowns and Victorian-era beings who stare wordlessly. A sink runs with bloody-colored water and a skeleton sits in a muddied bathtub surrounded by its innards.
The VIP experience offers a chance to roam through the ship’s living quarters alongside an ethereal character in the role of Irvin’s second wife. She sashays through the space with tales from the past, then allows you entry into private spaces where a saw blade rests in a sink and a body meant for the morgue vibrates with electrical waves on a bed. It offers a chance to dip into the pilot house, where wheels and gears are draped in cobwebs, offset in the opposite direction by a fresh perspective on the Aerial Lift Bridge.
The view from the Haunted Ship offers a new perspective on the Aerial Lift Bridge. (Jana Hollingsworth / The Minnesota Star Tribune)
There are countless dark corners for jump scares, strobe lights and tight spaces with hidden exits. There is a place designed to trigger claustrophobia. And there are mind-bending questions: Is that a person in that chair or isn’t it? Who is making that growling-moaning sound? What is that smell?
The final question is answered at the exit of the ship, where there is a running tally of how many people haven’t been able to finish the tour (90 as of Friday night) and how many have wet their pants (35).
How many people have opted out of the Haunted Ship? (Jana Hollingsworth / The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Police said they will be releasing details Monday about the shooting death of a 23-year-old man last week in New Hope.
Carnell Mark Johnson Jr., of Bloomington, was shot in the chest Thursday in the 7300 block of Bass Lake Road and died that same day at North Memorial Health Hospital, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said.
A police official said more information will be released about the shooting later Monday. No arrests have been announced.
