The commission drew hundreds of public comments, including input from electric utilities, state lawmakers, local elected officials, environmental nonprofits, Gov. Tim Walz’s pollution regulators, North Dakota’s governor, the forestry and paper industry and labor unions.

Wind, solar and nuclear power drew broad support as the PUC considered the issue. Wood and garbage burning were more controversial.

A dozen environmental organizations and some DFL lawmakers wanted the PUC to decide any electric plant that emits carbon at the point of generation — such as incinerating wood and garbage — would not be considered carbon free.

The state’s biggest electric utilities, as well as the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and the state Department of Commerce, said the law should take other factors into consideration.

They backed a “life-cycle analysis” of net emissions. Supporters of wood burning argue it can be carbon neutral, since wood would emit greenhouse gases as it decomposes or if it burned in a wildfire.

Affordable housing rents are based on an area’s median household income, with lower rent caps for people making less than the median income — in Rochester, about $118,000 for a family of four. DMC officials are looking for rental units with caps for residents who make half to 80% of that amount, while Quaye and R&R Properties want to set rents slightly higher to cater to Mayo Clinic workers.

Quaye said she and her staff were frustrated by DMC’s process. She pointed out that R&R Properties’ funding request changed to $6 million last month after resizing a federal housing loan for the project, and later offered to cap the rent of 18 units at 110% of the area median income.

The board unanimously voted against funding the project, arguing it would take up too much of DMC’s project budget when larger apartment projects had received less money.

“In this case … I think it sets a precedent that could be very dangerous,” DMC Board Member R.T. Rybak said. “I want to look at a far lower level of subsidy that would be sustainable for the many other housing projects we have to be part of.”

But members also noted it was important to work with the developer. The property along 2nd Avenue is “critical” to the Discovery Walk corridor as it takes shape over the next few years.

Rochester is facing a growing housing crisis. A 2020 housing study found the city needed about 14,000 new housing units — a mix of multi-family, single-family, townhomes and condo developments — to keep up with the city’s expected population increase. Demand will be compounded as Mayo Clinic’s $5 billion downtown expansion gets underway over the next few years.

“She’s doing it for the right reasons, but I don’t know if she knows what she’s doing,” Singharaj said of Miyaguchi.

Until the end, Miyaguchi insisted the hotel was on its way to becoming a temple, that the rooms were clean, the walls free of mold. She said she invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into the hotel, but was not able to provide receipts. She would show visitors the fresh white paint on the walls, and would tell them she could still win over the judge, if only she could get a lawyer.

On Monday morning, the demolition crew arrived. Miyaguchi confronted them, to no avail.

Jenness was also there Monday. He passed the golden Buddha, which had been taken out of the hotel and placed in the back of a semi-trailer, next to a pile of plastic flowers, an American flag, and a shop vacuum. The demolition crew lugged bed frames out of the rooms and piled them in the parking lot next to uprooted toilet bowls.

Jenness inspected the motel rooms. He peeled back the wallpaper, revealing a leopard-print pattern of black mold. He gestured at the ceiling, where rings of mold had broken through a coat of fresh white paint.

In court, he and the city had argued that Miyaguchi kept painting over her problems, that he had seen her and volunteers putting primer over black mold. “If you cover it up, it’s just going to come back,” Jenness said . He pulled up a corner of carpeting and pointed at the rot in the wooden floorboards.