Star Tribune
Ramsey County substance abuse court celebrates 20 years of sobriety support
Vilye Yang knows how the Ramsey County drug court works. He counts himself among the hundreds who veered off the dangerous path of addiction thanks to it.
As he stood before the group of court workers and fellow addicts in recovery Friday, Yang, 37, told the story of how he was born and raised in St. Paul as the son of Laotian immigrants. Recreational drug use with friends, he said, ballooned into a decadelong addiction that felt like “a very long and lonely road.”
That road soon landed him in jail, where a representative of Ramsey County’s Adult Substance Abuse Court offered him a way out in return for entering its treatment program. It was there that he learned how to wash clothes, budget his food, care of himself, and most important, stay clean.
“When I was in jail, and when I was in treatment and in drug court, [the] only thing I was thinking about was, ‘Please God, just give me a little bit of normal. I just want to have a normal life,'” Yang said. “I just want to live a normal life, normal job, and just for things to be normal. It took a long time for that to really happen.”
Yang was among dozens gathered Friday in the Ramsey County Courthouse to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the Adult Substance Abuse Court, a drug court that partners substance use offenders with social workers, probation officers and others in order to help offenders find sobriety.
Old and new graduates gathered for the event, catching up on each others’ lives and to hear testimonials about the court’s effectiveness. Chief Ramsey County District Judge Leonardo Castro said the court is critical for helping people with substance abuse and mental health disorders.
In 2020, he said, more than 91,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States. In the country’s prisons, 65% of all inmates have a substance abuse disorder, and $80 billion is spent on incarceration annually. He cited federal data that shows participating in treatment court can reduce offenders’ chance of recidivism by up to 26%.
“So it doesn’t matter what angle or what perspective you have as it relates to treatment courts … [they] are necessary, and they work,” Castro said.
Evidence of treatment courts’ success is mounting now, but it was not so easy to prove before.
Joanne Smith, the first woman to be appointed chief judge in Minnesota, said that when she founded the Ramsey County program in October 2002, she did so on “a wing and prayer.”
Hennepin County already had launched a drug treatment court years prior, but many clients were breaking the law again soon after leaving it. It was hard to convince potential stakeholders that the court could be successful, but Smith said she saw many Southern states normalizing treatment courts as way to reduce jail populations.
“And I thought, with my Northern arrogance, what’s wrong with us? Why aren’t we doing this?” Smith said. “When I see an obstacle, I see an opportunity. That grows out of my stubbornness, or my perseverance. We faced many of those along the way, but we never gave up. And here we are 20 years later.”
The court is one of 70 treatment courts across Minnesota, with at least one in each of the state’s 10 judicial districts. Among them are DWI Court, Veterans Court, Mental Health Court and Juvenile Drug Court. The Ramsey County program is designed to provide participants with the opportunity to break the cycle of substance abuse by using assessment, drug and mental health treatment, strict supervision, random testing and regular court hearings, along with immediate sanctions and incentives to help participants stay drug free.
Hundreds of people have graduated from Smith’s court, and it has earned national recognition that has included invitations to mentor other jurisdictions’ courts.
Yang acknowledges that recovery isn’t easy. More than a dozen years later, he still has nightmares of using drugs. But through all that time, he has remained sober. He’s the manager of a manufacturing facility, and in 2016 he bought a house — and a Cadillac. He’s also a proud father of seven children, ranging from 11 months to 18 years.
“Yeah,” he said. “Life is good.”
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DULUTH – The Minnesota and Wisconsin transportation departments will make upgrades to the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge in the summer of 2025, in preparation for the structure to become the premiere route between this city and Superior during reconstruction of the Blatnik Bridge.
Built in 1961, the Blatnik Bridge carries 33,000 vehicles per day along Interstate 535 and Hwy. 53. It will be entirely rebuilt, starting in 2027, with the help of $1 billion in federal funding announced earlier this year. MnDOT and WisDOT are splitting the remaining costs of the project, about $4 million each.
According to MnDOT, projects on the Bong Bridge will include spot painting, concrete surface repairs to the bridge abutments, concrete sealer on the deck, replacing rubber strip seal membranes on the main span’s joints and replacing light poles on the bridge and its points of entry. It’s expected to take two months, transportation officials said during a recent meeting at the Superior Public Library.
During this time there will be occasional lane closures, detours at the off-ramps, and for about three weeks the sidewalk path alongside the bridge will be closed.
The Bong Bridge, which crosses the St. Louis River, opened to traffic in 1985 and is the lesser-used of the two bridges. Officials said they want to keep maintenance to a minimum on the span during the Blatnik project, which is expected to take four years.
Red Wing will celebrate the grand opening of its first permanent set of pickleball courts next week with an “inaugural play” on the six courts at Colvill Park on the banks of the Mississippi, between a couple of marinas and next to the aquatic center.
Among the first to get to play on the new courts will be David Anderson, who brought pickleball to the local YMCA in 2008, before the nationwide pickleball craze took hold, and Denny Yecke, at 92 the oldest pickleball player in Red Wing.
The inaugural play begins at 11 a.m. Tuesday, with a rain date of the next day. Afterward will be food and celebration at the Colvill Park Courtyard building.
Tim Sletten, the city’s former police chief, discovered America’s fastest-growing sport a decade ago after he retired. With fellow members of the Red Wing Pickleball Group, he’d play indoors at the local YMCA or outdoors at a local school, on courts made for other sports. But they didn’t have a permanent place, so they approached the city about building one.
When a city feasibility study came up with a high cost, about $350,000, Sletten’s group got together to raise money.
The courts are even opening ahead of schedule, originally set for 2025.
REDWOOD FALLS, MINN. – A truck crashing into a school bus left nine with minor injuries Wednesday morning in rural Redwood County, a statement from the Redwood County Sheriff’s office said.
The bus driver, serving the Wabasso Public School District, failed to yield when entering the intersection of County Road 7 and 280th Street, the statement said.
Deputies received word of the crash around 8:15 a.m. and identified the bus driver as Edward Aslesen, 72, of Milroy.
The nine injured passengers on the bus were transported to local hospitals, the statement said.
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