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St. Paul picks 5 finalists for police chief job

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A citizen-led search committee on Monday selected five finalists for the St. Paul police chief post, only one of whom comes from outside the department.

Now the hiring decision falls to Mayor Melvin Carter, who plans to make an offer to a candidate later this fall, after a pair of community forums and private interviews. Carter’s selection will require approval from the City Council.

The finalists are Jacqueline Bailey-Davis, a 25-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department currently serving as police staff inspector in the standards and accountability division/audits and inspections unit; Pamela Barragan, St. Paul police’s unit commander for community partnerships; Kurtis Hallstrom, senior commander of St. Paul’s eastern district; Axel Henry, commander for St. Paul’s narcotics, financial intelligence and human trafficking division; and Stacy Murphy, St. Paul’s assistant chief of police.

“Selecting a police chief is one of the most critical decisions a community must make,” Carter said in a statement. “While I look forward to learning more about all of the finalists, our city is blessed to be served by a department with such strong internal candidates.”

Only two candidates from outside the department have been hired as chief in the past century, according to the St. Paul Police Historical Society. The city has never appointed a female chief, though Kathy Wuorinen filled the role in an interim capacity for two months in 2016.

The public will have the opportunity to engage with candidates at upcoming forums, at Washington Technology Magnet School at 6 p.m. Oct. 11 and the St. Paul Event Center at 11:30 a.m. Oct. 12. The events will be livestreamed on the city’s Facebook page. Residents can provide feedback and submit questions for candidates ahead of time by emailing mayor@ci.stpaul.mn.us.

The hiring process, which is laid out in the city’s charter, has been on the minds of many in St. Paul since last fall, when former Police Chief Todd Axtell announced he would not seek a second six-year term at the department’s helm.

Carter appointed Jeremy Ellison, formerly a deputy police chief overseeing support services and administration, to serve as interim chief once Axtell retired in June. Ellison did not apply for the permanent role.

The new chief will inherit a department prioritizing its gun violence prevention and response efforts, a reaction to escalating crime trends in recent years. Carter has proposed a 2023 budget of $130 million for the department, which continues to face a staffing shortage in the wake of a pandemic hiring freeze and uptick in officer departures.

About two dozen members of the search committee — which was appointed by the City Council and includes representatives of nonprofits, businesses, the NAACP, other public agencies and the police union — met for two hours Monday to vote on the finalists. The candidates were not named during the meeting.

According to city staff, about 40 people applied for the job, but only 18 met the job posting’s minimum qualifications. Last month, the search committee winnowed the candidate pool to eight contenders, six of whom work for St. Paul police.

One external candidate withdrew from the contest last week after receiving another job offer, according to the city’s human resources staff. A Texas-based search firm hired by the city recorded interviews with the remaining seven for search committee members to view before Monday’s meeting.

“I think the questions that were posed focused on the kind of city we both are and that we want to be — thinking about diversity and inclusion, procedural justice, the kinds of communities that exist in St. Paul,” said Sasha Cotton, co-chair of the search committee.

The group’s conversation ranged from members’ personal interactions with applicants to their responses to interview questions, particularly one about how the candidates would groom more women and people of color for leadership roles within the department.

“I don’t have any doubt in my mind that any of the five will be a great chief,” said Kathy Lantry, the committee’s other co-chair.

The first year of the new chief’s six-year term will be considered a probationary period of sorts, meaning the mayor can remove the chief with council approval. After that, a chief can be fired only for cause by the mayor with the votes of at least five of the council’s seven members.

The new chief will be paid $130,000 to $182,000 a year, depending on his or her experience and qualifications.

Last week, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey nominated a veteran law enforcement official from Newark, N.J. — whom he heralded as a “change-maker” — to be the city’s next police chief. The appointment of Frey’s pick, Brian O’Hara, will be contingent on approval from the Minneapolis City Council.



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Former Duluth East hockey coach Mike Randolph violated employee conduct policies

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Not all of the interviews were negative; a fair amount of players and parents reported positive experiences with Randolph, some saying they never witnessed him belittling players.

“To me, he was fabulous,” one parent said, noting their child “blossomed” under Randolph.

Terch wrote he was not able to substantiate an allegation that Randolph received payments from the East End Hockey Boosters, although he did find “unusual financial management practices” by the booster club, including a misrepresentation to parents about the use of at least some of what they paid, a commingling of funds between events and “unorthodox” accounting practices. Several parents said they felt they had overpaid many times without explanation. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension began investigating the former East hockey booster club in 2023 for alleged embezzlement. The status of that case is unknown.

In response to the report’s release, Duluth Public Schools Superintendent John Magas said in a statement that he can’t discuss personnel matters, but the district takes all reports from students and families “very seriously.”

“Our primary goal is to ensure that students have the best possible experiences, both in the classroom and in extracurricular activities,” he said. “We are committed to thoroughly investigating any concerns brought to our attention and taking appropriate action” to maintain safe and positive learning environments.

St. Thomas Academy didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.



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How Trump tariffs would shock U.S., world economies

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Gas prices would increase by as much as 75 cents per gallon in the Midwest, where most refined products come from Canada, according to Patrick De Haan, an analyst at GasBuddy. Overall, the Peterson Institute for International Economics said Trump’s tariffs would cost the typical household $2,600 per year; the Yale Budget Lab said in an estimate released Wednesday that the annual cost could be as high as $7,600 for a typical household. As a share of their income, the poorest Americans would pay 6 percent more with 20 percent tariffs, compared with 1.4 percent more for the richest 1 percent, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank.

“We’re not talking about caviar — these are things that people have to buy. They’re essentials,” said Neil Saunders, a managing director at the analytics company GlobalData.

Economists say it would take several painful years for alternative domestic producers to emerge for many goods. For instance, almost all shoes and 90 percent of tomatoes sold in the country are imported, according to the Peterson Institute. And the United States does not even have the climate necessary to produce many food items – such as coffee, bananas, avocados, to say nothing of Chilean sea bass – at the necessary scale to meet domestic demand, said Joseph Politano, an economic analyst who has written on the subject on his Substack.

Trump’s tariffs would also reverberate through Wall Street and global markets, inviting turmoil that would affect investors and companies worldwide. Those effects would probably be felt quickly.

During Trump’s first term, stocks fell on nine of 11 days in 2018 and 2019 that the United States or China announced new tariffs, according to a study this year by economists with the Federal Reserve and Columbia University. Comprehensive tariffs would cause a swift one-time jump in prices before reducing economic growth about six months later, according to economist David Page, head of macro research for AXA Investment Managers in London.

Many analysts are hopeful that a stock market panic would dissuade or prevent Trump from carrying out his plans. The investment bank UBS projected that a 10 percent universal tariff could lead to a 10 percent contraction in the stock market. U.S. multinationals are heavily dependent on foreign subsidiaries, and retailers, auto manufacturers and other industrial sectors would be hit the hardest, according to UBS. Chris McNally, an analyst at Evercore, said Trump’s 10 percent tariff plan could cause a more than 20 percent decline in General Motors’ earnings, with slightly smaller declines for Ford and Stellantis.



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On the Wisconsin-Iowa border, the Mississippi River is eroding sacred Indigenous mounds

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Bear and other members of her tribe are serving as consultants on the project, as is William Quackenbush, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin, and his tribe. They also lead teams of volunteers to help care for the mounds, which includes removing invasive European plants and replacing them with native plants that reduce soil erosion.

Some are skeptical of this manmade solution to a manmade problem. There are some tribal partners who’ve expressed that the river should be allowed to keep flowing as it wants to, Oberreuter said. Snow also acknowledged that people have been hesitant about making such a change to the natural bank.

But, she pointed out, “The bank is (already) no longer what it was.”

When the berm is complete, Snow said, there’ll be a trail atop it that visitors can walk. That may help protect the mounds better than the current way to see them, which is to walk among them, she said.

The Sny Magill Unit has been part of Effigy Mounds National Monument since 1962, Snow said, but it’s not advertised like the rest of the park. That’s in part because there are no staff stationed there to properly guide people through the mounds. But if people visit respectfully, she believes it’s one of the best places to take in the mounds because it’s on a flat, walkable surface, unlike the rest of the park, which is on a blufftop.



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