The Swift County Monitor reported on Wednesday that state senator Lyle Koenen, DFL-Clara City, state representative Tim Miller, Swift County District One Commissioner Gary Hendrickx, and County board chair and District 3 Commissioner Pete Peterson met privately with representatives of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and Goff Public about reopening the private prison in Appleton.
We embed the article below. The date of the meeting is not noted by the paper.
According to the article, Swift County believes that having CCA lease the facility to the State of Minnesota is a better option for the state than building new prison space. Swift County administrator Mike Pogge-Weaver told the paper that a lease for the prison would bring jobs to the area and keep the prisoners under state control.
Board Chair Peterson was less forthcoming about the details of the private meeting, which also included county and city staffers, as well as elected officials, lobbyists and representatives of the private prison behemoth. Peterson told the local paper:
"We had a very good discussion, a very interesting discussion, a very frank discussion, and that is all I am going to say at this time," Peterson said.
Bluestem hopes that somebody took notes.
For our earlier coverage of the plan to re-open the prison, check out the links below:
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We've just gotten surprising news that the request by Duininck for a variance was turned down by the Renville County Board of Adjustment and Appeals at this morning's hearing.
In an email to Bluestem, Clean Up the River Environment (CURE) Water Program Coordinator Ariel Herrod writes in part:
This morning, about 20 people attended the hearing, although only 4 landowners were notified. . . .
At the end of the hearing, and to everyone's surprise, the Renville County Board of Adjustment and Appeals denied the variance request, citing the arguments made throughout the morning that issuing the variance would not "maintain the essential character of the locality."
. . .[T]he option still remains that Duininck will sue in an attempt to overturn the decision. However, without such a lawsuit, this mining project has effectively been stopped in its tracks, because residents in the area were given the chance to speak up.
The site, on the floodplain, was close to the Minnesota River and about a half mile from the Joseph R. Brown Wayside Park. The Brown mansion was destroyed in the 1862 US Dakota War. We enjoy taking guests to the Upper Minnesota River Valley to the site, which is also a favorite of geocaching enthusiasts. Please thank the county by visiting its lovely riverside parks and spending some money on your way up or down the river valley.
The wayside park is also within easy driving distance of Upper Sioux Agency State Park and the Swedes Forest and Gneiss Outcrops Scientific and Nature Areas (SNA).
Photo: The Joseph R. Brown Wayside Park is home to the ruins of "Farther and Gay Castle," the Brown family mansion that was burned in the 1862 US-Dakota War. We love to tell the story of Indian agent and inventor Joseph Brown's role in renegotiating treaties (and those terms' impact on the run-up to war) and the courage and eloquence of his French and Dakota wife, Susan Frenier, whose Dakota name is Hinyajice-duta-win (Soft Scarlet Down), in securing the lives of her children and hired hands when they were captured in fleeing the fire.
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With the attack of the killer (but can-able) tomatoes in our vegetable garden, it had been a couple of days since we last checked the Minnesota 7th Congressional District Republican Party's Facebook page for the delightful brew of urban legend and misinformation posted there.
We were not disappointed, for a wealth of Internet comedy had accrued there; two posts rise to the top of the bath water. We'll look at the second gem in another entry, as that nugget relates more to a seasoned flack funded by energy interests flooding a policy discussion with misinformation, material the admin dubs "some easy information."
We've placed a screenshot at the top of this section to given readers the full flavor. The MN07 GOP Facebook page admin posted this headnote above the article:
Not sure 'surrender" is the right word here. Someone Explain the use of taking an ID Picture if the State is going to allow Pictures of full cover - for Islamic Reasons? And they will try Minnesota next.
Unpacking this one will take two steps. First, as the Snopes Urban Legend Reference page notes in Hat Chancy, this take on Illinois' policy is mostly false:
WHAT’S TRUE: Illinois issued a flyer to DMV employees reiterating religious exemptions to driver’s license photo requirements after a Sikh advocacy group lodged complaints about DMV compliance.
WHAT’S FALSE: Existing state guidelines for photo ID changed under pressure from Muslim extremists and now allow Muslims to pose for ID pictures with their faces obscured.
Readers can check out the explanation, which includes the fact that while religious exemptions of head covering is allowed, the driver's face must be uncovered. Henry Haupt (Deputy Press Secretary for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White) emphasized nothing had changed:
Illinois law allows a person to wear a religious head covering when photographed for their driver’s license or identification card, provided it does not cover the person’s face. This is because the photograph plays an integral part of identifying the holder of the driver’s license and identification card.
To clarify further with an example, a head scarf covering the hair of a customer would be allowed, but an article of clothing covering the entire face, except the eyes, would not be allowed.
In addition…. we did not change any procedures; this has simply been a public awareness effort to ensure that customers and employees are aware of the long-standing procedures that govern photos for driver’s licenses and identification cards in Illinois.
The next step? Looking at Minnesota's law. we found this help page of examples of acceptable photos online at the Minnesota Department of Public Safety website:
We also recalled that changing Minnesota's law to make everybody become bare-headed in their driver's licenses had come up sometime in recent memory, and Mr. Google quickly took us to Sharon Schmickle's March 2009 MinnPost article, Bill in Legislature prompts dispute over Muslim women's headscarves:
Muslim women dressed in flowing headscarves have become a familiar image in Minnesota's human landscape even while debate flared elsewhere over head garb worn for the sake of Islam.
Now a bill before the Minnesota Legislature shows that this state isn't immune to the global controversy.
The bill makes no mention of any religion. Instead, it would require that the full head and face be shown on driver's license photos and state ID cards except for headwear needed in connection with medical treatments or deformities.It's a simple matter of public safety, the bill's chief author Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, told the St. Cloud Times. Law enforcement officials need unobstructed images in order to identify people, and it isn't safe or fair to allow some people to partially cover their heads.
Read the rest at MinnPost. According to the revisor's page for the bill, the language was never heard in committee in either chamber. The MN07 GOP is simply and plainly ignorant of Minnesota law and recent legislative history--but that won't stop it from fear-mongering on Facebook.
For ourselves, Bluestem is grateful that DPS drew the line at allowing hipsters to wear stingy-brimmed fedoras, as there ought to be some boundaries. Seriously.
Screengrab: Another cray urban legend posted as fact by our brethren and cistern at the MN07 GOP Party Facebook page. It doesn't provoke outrage but hilarity.
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Our friends at Clean Up the River Environment (CURE) alerted Bluestem to a public hearing at 8:30 am on Thursday, August 27th, in Olivia regarding Duininck Inc.'s request for a variance to mine gravel less than 1000 ft from the Minnesota River in Renville County.
As the map shows, and CURE writes, the proposed pit is also near one of our favorite places to take friends visiting the Upper Minnesota River Valley:
Duininck Inc. controls a little less than 20 acres in the Sacred Heart South Township, and while they have ignored that particular parcel for years, they are now planning to reopen the gravel mine. Surrounding areas are Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program land vibrant with wildlife, and the historical Joseph R. Brown Wayside Park is only a half-mile away. The pit is also in the Minnesota River floodplain, and, according to locals in the area, floods frequently.
The Joseph R. Brown Wayside Park is home to the ruins of "Farther and Gay Castle," the Brown family mansion that was burned in the 1862 US-Dakota War. We love to tell the story of Indian agent and inventor Joseph Brown's role in renegotiating treaties (and those terms' impact on the run-up to war) and the courage and eloquence of his French and Dakota wife, Susan Frenier, whose Dakota name is Hinyajice-duta-win (Soft Scarlet Down), in securing the lives of her children and hired hands when they were captured in fleeing the fire.
Right now, it's a lovely and peaceful place, but given the way sound echoes in the valley, we're concerned about the proposed project. We'd rather be able to hear migrating wild swans each spring in the river bottoms than mining equipment.
According to Renville County Ordinance (Chapter Seven, Section 2.7), an Interim Use Permit for a new or expanded mining operation can only be granted if the property is at least 20 acres in size. As Duininck only owns or has a permanent easement on 16.98 acres, Duininck cannot reopen this gravel mine without receiving a variance from the County Board of Adjustment and Appeals. The meetings of the Renville County Board of Adjustment and Appeals are public, and interested persons can be heard during the meetings.
While the staff of the Board of Adjustment and Appeals have duly noted that the ordinance requiring that mining parcels be at least 20 acres was in place before Duininck bought the property, Duininck insists that they did not know about this provision. This sounds like a lack of due diligence and respect for the community where Duininck hopes to extract resources.
If you can join us at the meeting, please do. Even if you can’t, please share this news with friends and acquaintances in the area. It’s just not right that these decisions can be made with minimal citizen input.
Public Hearing Time and Location: Thursday, August 27th at 8:30 am Renville County Government Services Center 105 South 5th Street, Suites 312/313 Olivia, MN 56277
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White Earth Nation has resubmitted its proposal, "Protecting Forest Wildlife Habitat in the Wild Rice River Watershed," for consideration for a grant by the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council (LSOHC) for Fiscal Year 2017.
The Ojibwe band is requesting $2,188,000 to acquire the land and protect 2,034 acres of forestland, riparian corridors, and open meadows that are home to bald eagles, trumpeter swans, black bear, gray wolves, whitetail deer, grouse and "much more," according to the proposal (see fact sheet and proposal embedded below.
While Steve Green, R-Fosston, objected to the proposal over issues related to payment in lieu of taxes (PILT), the proposal has been opposed by those irate over Ojibwe bands prohibiting wolf hunting on tribal lands. Traditional Ojibwe religion and culture cherish the gray wolf.
According to the Indian Land Tenure Foundation's Chris Knopf, the Wild Rice River proposal wasn't the only proposal that raised PILT issues, but it was the only one shot down by the legislature because of the issue. In a phone interview, Knopf said that the legislature should address perceived PILT problems separately, rather than punishing one grant applicant over the matter.
The dynamics are already in play in published summaries of the council members' comments. Council member Jane Kingston commented: "No PILT for 2034ac/$2.1M," while frequent native sovereignty critic Ron Schara wrote, "Need to discuss this proposal about changes. Legislature already eliminated it???"
Representative Denny McNamara, R-Hastings, raised the question of using the concept in the proposal, but stripping it from the control of the indigenous nation: "Should consider as a DNR WMA or AMA."
Susan Olson welcomed the re-appearance of the proposal: "Thank you for bringing this project back to the Council, it should never have been removed by the legislature for the last funding cycle. Good job addressing all of the points of contention raised by legislators during discusions of the bill. **Note re: criteria #8 - phrasing is specific to only restoration or enhancements, so a straight acquisition will be penalized because it is not possible to award any points based on the criteria."
Another wild card in the Council's future? Outdoor advocate Dill's death created a vacancy. Bluestem will have more more when we learn about the recommendation of Minority Leader Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, to fill the seat on the Council.
Bluestem believes it's a fine conservation project, made more urgent because the timber company that currently owns the property is actively offering more than 1500 for sale and the land may slip from public access if these games continue.
The Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council was established by the legislature with the responsibility of providing annual funding recommendations to the legislature from the Outdoor Heritage Fund. The Outdoor Heritage Fund, one of four funds created by the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment, receives one-third of the money raised by the tax increase.
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Not long ago, a middle-aged friend who's a double amputee living with intractable pain explained how his condition had been treated for years with addictive opioid painkillers, though he'd recently made the decision to quit using the prescription medications.
Now his hope is that those in his situation soon will be included in the state's medical cannabis program.
He and other Minnesotans will have a chance to weigh in on this option in a series of meetings the Minnesota Department of Health's Office of Medical Cannabis is holding around the state.
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) Office of Medical Cannabis will hold a series of community sessions around the state this fall offering members of the public the opportunity to learn more about the state’s medical cannabis program. Participants also will have the opportunity to provide input on the question of adding intractable pain to the list of medical conditions that qualify people to participate in the program. . . .
Minnesota’s 2014 medical cannabis statute requires the health commissioner to make a determination on whether intractable pain should be added to the list of qualifying conditions before giving consideration to the addition of any other condition. Legislation passed in 2015 requires this determination be made by January 1, 2016.
The Office of Medical Cannabis is responsible for organizing opportunities for public input on this question and has established an advisory panel to make a recommendation to the commissioner. Intractable pain is defined in statute as “a pain state in which the cause of the pain cannot be removed or otherwise treated with the consent of the patient and in which, in the generally accepted course of medical practice, no relief or cure of the cause of the pain is possible, or none has been found after reasonable efforts.”
Here's a list of the meetings; we're happy to see one in Willmar, which will be a 25-minute drive for our friend.
Dates (2015)
Time
City/County
Event Location
Wednesday, August 26
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Rochester
Rochester Public Library 101 2nd St. SE Rochester, MN 55904
Thursday, August 27
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Willmar
Kandiyohi Health and Human Services 2200 23rd St. NE #0030 Willmar, MN 56201
Monday, September 14
TBD
Hennepin County
TBD
Tuesday, September 15
5-7 p.m.
Moorhead
Minnesota State Community and Technical College (M State) 1109 28th Ave. S. Moorhead, MN 56563
Monday, September 21
5-7 p.m.
Mankato
Blue Earth County Library 100 E. Main St. Mankato, MN 56001
Tuesday, September 22
TBD
Grand Rapids
TBD
Wednesday, September 23
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Hibbing
City Services - Memorial Building Arena 400 East 23rd Street Hibbing, MN 55746
Tuesday, September 29
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Woodbury
Globe University 8147 Globe Dr. Woodbury, MN 55125
Wednesday, September 30
TBD
St. Paul
Wilder Center 451 Lexington Parkway North St. Paul 55104
Tuesday, October 20
TBD
Bemidji
TBD
Tuesday, October 27
5:30-7:30 p.m.
St. Cloud
St. Cloud Public Library 1300 W. St. Germain St. St. Cloud, MN 56301
Photo: A medical cannabis product.
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Life News, which describes itself as "an independent news agency devoted to reporting news that affects the pro-life community" with a weekly readership of 750,000, picked up self-proclaimed ex-satanist Zachary King's sensational account from the Lepanto Institute, a conservative Catholic group founded last year by anti-choice activist Mitch Hichborn. It is known mostly for attempting to stoke outrage against Catholic Relief Services for employing a gay man in a same-sex marriage as its Vice President of Finance.
King also believes that Protestants use a "made-up version of the Bible" (beginning around the 8:30 time marker here), a statement which Bluestem suspects would not be looked upon kindly by Representative Miller's Dutch Reformed neighbors in Prinsburg.
The now-blind ex-Satanist's introduction to the demonic when he was a mere slip of a boy playing Bloody Mary and Dungeons & Dragons, but he quickly moved of Satan's career ladder to doing magic spells for the rich and powerful (discussion begins around 25 minute mark in the Youtube posted by the San Felipe Chapel in Los Angeles. King claims that Masons, the Bohemian Grove club and Skull & Bones call on satanic high wizards for magic.
Bluestem suspect that members of the fraternity at Yale, such as former President George W. Bush, would be as surprised by that claim as the good souls in Prinsburg would be about the Scripture they read, and while Bluestem thinks that no one ought doubt Representative Miller's deeply felt position on life, we hope that he acquires the critical thinking skills to match.
While only one of Miller's friends "liked" the post, it was shared by Child Protection League founder Michelle Lentz while generating a fun conversation between Miller and a friends about evaluation of sources and the conspiratorial impulses of public figures like Bill Clinton:
Mark LundgrenI'd be careful with this one, Tim. It looks like a fake story plant. It's SO outrageous that conservative Christians are especially going to go for it and then, when it's proven to be false, ALL the videos and stories about PP will be thrown into doubt. I'm not saying it isn't true--just check your sources thoroughly first. Remember, they will do ANYthing to deflect attention from themselves.
Tim MillerFair enough. But it was printed in LifeNews who does a very good job of vetting themselves. They are a highly recognized and respected news source. I will look deeper. If I find it to be false, I will retract.
Tim MillerAlso, while this is no proof, I have had first person testimony years ago from another person involved in the occult where something similar occurred.
Mark LundgrenAs I said, I'm not saying it isn't true. The timing and shock factor just seemed a bit too convenient. And disinformation is how guilty but powerful people get themselves out of the public eye. Bill Clinton used to do it all the time with false news stories to distract people from the truth when he was involved in some scandal.
Here's the screenshot in case Miller follows through and pulls the post:
Well okay then: King's schtick, promoted by groups associated with the fringe of American Catholicism, is simply another Clinton false flag conspiracy. We'll forget about those emails ASAP.
We're not surprised that Miller has heard this sort of thing before. While anything at the Patheos progressive Christian site needs to be viewed critically, Slackivist Fred Clark does seem to have done his reading for The Satan-selling con-men are boring. Their Satan-buying audience is fascinating. He notes how King's material is lifted from earlier "ex-satanist" grifters:
King is just the most recent “Satan seller” stepping up to meet the unmet demand for this shtick ever since Mike Warnke was exposed as a liar and a fraud. There’s a huge audience desperate for someone to come along and take all the money and adulation they used to shovel at Warnke, and we can hardly blame a guy like Zack King for taking advantage of that opportunity. Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, grifters gotta grift. . . .
* We can, however, criticize Zachary King for his shoddy craftsmanship. He’s got the hair and the look, but apart from that he seems like a hack. Most of his patter is lifted, verbatim, from stuff written decades ago by guys like Warnke and Bob Larson. There’s no originality, no flair, no sense that he’s moving the story forward or making it his own. That’s just lazy. And it makes him the con-man equivalent of a joke-thief.
King’s only innovation seems to be his decision to focus on a less-tapped-out niche audience. Warnke’s and Larson’s shtick played well among white evangelicals, so King seems to be testing how it works among far-right Gothic Catholics. That’s shrewd, but he doesn’t seem to have fully explored the different approaches needed to milk that audience. Warnke raked it in from evangelicals through the collection plate and scary direct mail fundraisers, plus he sold books and albums and VHS tapes. King, likewise, is working the speaking circuit and selling DVDs and, eventually, books. (He needs to get his butt in gear and finish those, even if that means hiring a ghostwriter — that’s what Larson and Hal Lindsey did and it worked for them.) . . .
We suspect that this is the material that Miller once heard. If not, perhaps he can be forthright in sharing more of the circumstances.
It appears from me doing even the smallest amount of digging, I have uncovered possibly a huge satanic conspiracy. On printed page 11 of 19 on the Wikipedia Pepsico printout, last paragraph, it states: "In 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama initiated a campaign to end childhood obesity entitled "Let's Move," in which she sought to encourage healthier food options in public schools. improve food nutrition labeling, and increased physical activity for children. In response to this initiative, Pepsico, Campbell's Soup, Coca-Cola, General Mills and others partnered in an alliance called the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation."
If you remember from earlier, these guys have promised to cut sugar and transfat from foods. Is it mere or simple coincidence that all of the companies partnered with the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, that's closely linked with Michelle Obama, are also linked with Senomyx, which uses aborted baby kidneys in their research and development of artificial flavor enhancers.
If I might add one more link to the chain, can anyone guess than one of the most abortion-friendly presidents we've ever had is? President Obama. Now it comes full circle. Whether they were doing this to make money, to really make children happier, or to slap God in the face by using aborted babies for research, this simply cannot continue. You cannot make your body healthy while destroying your soul.
Snopes.com Urban Legend Reference Pages examined the controversy over Senomyx in a 2011 post, Senomyxed Messages, which was last updated in April 2015.
Perhaps Miller will back down and pull the Facebook share, but he could go even deeper down this rabbit hole if he's having a bad evening. Given that Lt. Gov Tina Smith started her career at General Mills, so maybe Miller will contact General Mills to demand whether they're using baby kidneys in flavor research, as well as supporting marriage equality.
There's political damage to be done here--not just an erosion of critical thinking skills--and the guy who's not King of Minnesota might be just the one to do it.
Images: Dana Carvey as the Church Lady (top); Lego Dungeon and Dragons (second from top); screengrabs of Miller's personal Facebook page, which is open to all Facebook users.
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The latter piece contains language from an unnamed Republican legislator that makes us wonderful who's the designated majority caucus potty mouth:
State Rep. Kurt Daudt (R-Crown) was salty during the early springtime in 2014.
Democrats in the Minnesota Legislature, Daudt carped, were squandering $90 million in taxpayer cash for a new four-story Senate Office Building.
“Here we are," said Daudt. "Democrats in St. Paul are about to spend between $60 and $90 million of taxpayers’ hard-earned money to build themselves an office building. This looks horrible.”
But about the same time Daudt was railing about waste, he was working behind the scenes to secure a posh redecoration of his own digs as part of the Capitol's massive renovation, according to a GOP legislator, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to run afoul of Daudt.
"Kurt's not a bad guy," says the source. "But this is fucked because here he was beating the shit out of the Democrats at the same he was angling and negotiating to decorate his new office with fancy shit. It eats away at our credibility." . . .
According to the GOP lawmaker, that cash [an extra $2 million] is earmarked for such things as a $10,000 ceremonial door for Daudt's office, vintage hardwood floors that the speaker "insisted on," and "fancy leather furniture" that will hark back to the days when Theodore Roosevelt was president.
What are Minnesotans to do when both Senate Majority Leader Bakk and now Speaker Daudt appear to require quality construction and furnishings in St. Paul? How can we flourish with slow or no broadband, pock-marked roads and dangerous rail crossings while our leaders craft more backroom conference committee deals behind that closed $10,000 door or rocking in those high-end chairs in committee rooms where the recording equipment's been turned off?
Entirely coincidentally (we think), a lobbyist forwarded photos of an invitation to the House Republican Campaign Committee (HRCC) 20th Annual Elephant Annual Golf Tournament at the Bunker Hills Golf Club on Monday, September 14, 2015, in Coon Rapids (invitation cover at the top of this post).
The enclosed list of prices for sponsorships caught our eye, since that platinum sponsor is $10,000:
We were struck by the fact that $10,000, directed to the restoration, would pay for that fancy door. That insight led us to dream big by proposing one simple trick that will solve the problem of making the role of money in policy-making more transparent.
It's taken for granted now that lobbyists write the laws for our legislators, mostly, while they and their clients foot the bill for political campaigns and independent expenditures. Attack ads on the airwaves assault the voters' tranquility, while our mail boxes are besieged by mean-spirited over-sized junk mail savaging one candidate, canonizing the other, or both.
Indeed, as both Condon and Zukowski report, these hit pieces often concern legislators spending on their swanky office suites.
We can put an end to this waste. Let's make government more efficient by cutting out the middleman. Instead of having special interests foot the bills for political campaigns, buy the legislators, then write the laws, let's just sell the state capitol outright and let the lobbyists use the space to do what they do anyway.
Let's not reduce the size of the state legislature or whack one chamber, as reformers repeatedly suggest. Let's get rid of the entire experiment. Let's be honest about the purpose of the building and let the new owners foot the bill.
Photos: Elements from the invitation to go golfing with the HRCC. While we're using a Republican invitation, the DFL caucuses host similar fundraisers.
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In 2014, Tim Miller (R-Prinsburg) was adamant in his opposition to expanding public assistance for broadband. Miller said:
I believe that private industry is doing that work, and if there's anything that state can do, it can facilitate that work for private industry to earn profit so that they can expand high-speed throughout all of this district.
If there are school districts, if there are any public facilities, if there are any regions that need remedial help, I would consider that through legislation, but I would not be in favor of public funding of expanding.
Bluestem was pleasantly surprised to read something quite to the contrary in an email we received on Friday:
What is the future of broadband in the State of Minnesota?
This is one of the top questions I've heard from residents since the end of the 2015 session, and I can tell you that I expect broadband to be a top legislative priority in 2016.
When you think of ways to enhance economic development in Greater Minnesota, reliable broadband technology ranks near the top of the list. Most people recognize that what was dedicated to broadband last year isn't enough to meet our needs, and both Republicans and Democrats understand that we need to revisit this topic again next session.
In the Minnesota House, I had few opportunities to vote for broadband this session. I supported legislation during a Minnesota House Greater Minnesota Economic and Workforce Development Policy Committee hearing that allocated $50 million to broadband, and also voted for the new law that ultimately allocated $10.58 million to the Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant Program.
That grant money is now available for distribution, and I encourage cities, counties, businesses, non-profits, and other eligible applicants to consider applying before the September 15 deadline. Full details and application materials can be found on the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development website at http://mn.gov/deed/programs-services/broadband/grant-program/
Recently I signed a letter of support for a local company that provides broadband service to 6,000 rural residents in hopes of helping it secure some of the grant funds. If successful, the funding would be used to enhance service levels within its current wireless coverage areas. . . .
We're glad to see that Miller has changed his heart, discovering something other than just pushing to re-open a private prison in Appleton that's owned by a corporation with headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, where the profits gained from keep people in prison would flow.
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Update: City Pages has corrected its copy, without acknowledging the correction, from "hasn't had a single seizure" (screenshot below) to "she hasn’t had a single drop seizure." [end update]
It's early days, but a Hibbing couple are ecstatic about their daughter's initial response to treatment with medical marijuana.
"We gave her her first dose on Friday morning," Angie Weaver said on Monday about 9-year-old daughter Amelia. "She had a seizure-free day." . . .
Amelia had no seizures on Friday and none on Saturday, Angie Weaver said. As of Monday afternoon, she had had a total of two seizures since starting to take the medicine.
"We know and we understand that Amelia has a very serious medical condition," Angie said. "But all the advocating and all the fighting and all the work was worth it for just one drop-free day."
The Weavers picked up the first 20-day supply of the drug on Thursday at the LeafLine Labs distribution center in Eagan, Minn. . . .
The activism paid off. Since medical weed became legal and Amelia received her first prescription from LeafLine Labs, she hasn’t had a single seizure. The 9-year-old is sleeping, speaking and catching up to the other kids in school.
Amelia has seen drastic immediate results from medical cannabis. She has not had one drop seizure since her first dose from LeafLine. She has only had a handful of short GTCs. She's smiling, sleeping, and making cognitive gains!!!!
The Weavers are being forthright about the improvement. Du is the one who doesn't understand the clickbait story she's compiled.
What City Pages' reporter didn't get, but DNT's John Lundy did
According to the Dravet Syndrome Foundation website page, What is Dravet Syndrome?, a "GTC" is an acronym for a form of seizure: "generalized tonic-clonic seizures." On its Medical Information page, the group notes that Dravet Syndrome is "a progressive disorder characterized by multiple seizure types."
Medical cannabis is producing astonishing results for Amelia Weaver, but she's still having seizures, though even the GTCs are reduced by cannabis. Our readers who have the means to help the family to pay for the drug should do so, as well as work for the expansion of the program to include more types of treatment.
City Pages? Try a correction.
Here's the original passage:
Accuracy in reporting
This isn't the first Du story to catch our eye. In Pro Tip: restore the vote, but try to avoid bad info on gun rights while you're advocating for it, we examined how Du circulated a claim by a Restore the Vote advocate about Minnesota's new gun suppressor law that people convicted of felonies could possess silencers but not vote. She failed to check Minnesota's statutes (and language in the new law as well); despite a number of comments that document the issue, the story remains uncorrected.
Bluestem supports making medical cannabis available to patients of all ages who need it, restoring the vote to people convicted of felonies who have served their time, and gun rights. We also like accuracy in reporting, which we learned in our eleventh grade Journalism class with Mom Burdick in St. Peter High.
Photo: From the July 27, 2015, John Lundy story, Hibbing couple thrilled by daughter’s early response to medical marijuana" which ran above the cutline: "Amelia Weaver, 9, started receiving medical marijuana treatments Friday for a rare form of epilepsy. Her parents say that her seizures have decreased dramatically since treatment began. (Submitted photo)."
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AFSCME will fight this with every tool at our disposal. Private corporations shouldn't profit from human incarceration. Corrections is a core function of government.
AFSCME Council 5 is considered a close ally to Governor Mark Dayton, as its October 2009 endorsement of the maverick candidate--who did not seek DFL endorsement at the party's 2010 convention--gave the veteran political leader's campaign a boost.
Swift County Monitor: Board voted 4-1 to hire PR firm for prison effort
Even within leadership in Swift County, there's a sliver of disagreement about hiring a public affairs firm to lobbying for the re-opening of the prison, the Swift County Monitor reported last week in County votes 4-1 to hire PR firm for prison effort:
Swift County’s Board of Commissioners voted 4 to 1 to hire Goff Public, a Twin Cities public relations and lobbying company, to help it persuade state legislators to house prisoners at the Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton.
Only Commissioner Eric Rudningen, District 5-Kerkhoven, voted against allocating $10,000 from the County Board Discretionary Funds to retain Goff Public. Commissioners Gary Hendrickx, District 1-Appleton; Ed Pederson, District 2-north Benson; Pete Peterson, District 3-south Benson; and Joe Fox, District 4-Hegbert Township voted in favor of the expenditure.
Currently, the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) has about 550 state prisoners in county jails throughout the state, Pogge-Weaver told the board at its meeting Aug. 4. “The DOC doesn’t believe that is an effective way to deal with their inmate population.” The problem is only going to get worse. The DOC estimates that by 2018 there could be 900 to 1,000 inmates in facilities outside their system, he added.
To address the problem of an expanding prison population, the DOC will ask the Minnesota Legislature to approve $85 to $100 million in bonding in 2016 to expand its facility at Rush City by 500 beds, Pogge-Weaver said.
The county has further heard that the DOC will request further bonding in 2018 or 2020 for a second 500-bed expansion, he said.
With the Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton vacant, our region has a compelling story for use of this existing facility versus constructing of new prison space, Pogge-Weaver told commissioners.
The results showed that offenders who had been incarcerated in a private prison had a greater hazard of recidivism in all 20 models, and the recidivism risk was significantly greater in eight of the models. The evidence presented in this study suggests that private prisons are not more effective in reducing recidivism, which may be attributable to fewer visitation and rehabilitative programming opportunities for offenders incarcerated at private facilities.
An earlier study in 2003 of prisoner perceptions of those opportunities includes a contrast of the actual services themselves.
The issues of "fewer visitation opportunities" is also a problem for securely transporting the prisoners to and from the prison itself, as Appleton, on the state's extreme western prairies, is not served by a four-lane highway. This aspect would remain for the Appleton facility regardless of who owns the campus, which originally a city-owned, non-profit private prison facility.
We're hearing that alternatives to having CCA operate the prison include having the corporation lease or sell the facility to the state. It's been suggested before. The 1994 legislature ordered a study, released in 1995, of the feasibility of the state purchasing the city-owned prison facility, which at the time could house 516 inmates. Pages 4 and 5 consider impact on visitation and the cost of the seven-to-eight hour round-trips to the Twin Cities (pdf here).
In 1996, the state representative then serving the area, the late Chuck Brown, offered a bill to have the state buy the prison; the language did not have a co-author or senate author, and Brown withdrew it within two weeks of its introduction in January. On July 25, 1996, Walter Parker reported in the St. Paul Pioneer Press article, "Appleton to sell prison it built":
The little southwestern Minnesota town of Appleton (pop. 1,500), which built a private prison six years ago hoping to grow its own jobs, is selling the operation after being in default for years.
But the prison remains open and operating at near full capacity, housing 508 prisoners from Minnesota, Idaho and Colorado, according to Warden Hoyt Brill, who arrived two years ago from Colorado with a contingent of inmates.
"We'd like to be around for a while and this looks like our best option," said Brill, referring to the proposed sale of the prison to Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corp. of America, the nation's largest private prison operator.
The proposed sale, for $22.5 million, is outlined in Ramsey County District Court documents filed by the trustee for bondholders who bought $28.4 million in Appleton city bonds in 1990 to finance the prison. The city loaned the proceeds to Appleton Prison Corp., a nonprofit firm that built and operated the institution. . . .(Nexis All-News Database, accessed August 20, 2015)
Photo: The CCA-owned Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton.
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Readers wouldn't know that the peanut butter sector is doing well if they were to visit our favorite venue in Minnesota for unintentional stand-up comedy, the official Minnesot 7th Congressional District Republican Party Facebook page.
Legendary Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich is now RACIST!
The Peanut Butter Jelly Sandwich has now been judged Racist by a Progressive/Socialist Principal, Verenice Gutierrez, of Harvey Scott K-8 School in Portland, Oregon. Like our page if you also think this is overstepping the bounds of Political Correctness. It seems that White Bread is something akin to “White Privilege”, as reported by the Conservative Post, and Gutierrez wants to eliminate all things that relate this coarse thinking (conservativepost.com).
So the PB & J Sandwich, which is wholesome nutrition for kids and a lot of fun to make and eat, is being taken off the School’s Lunch Menu so it will no longer offend certain Minorities as Somali or Hispanic Students. . . .
Unfortunately, the need to flood outrage over political correctness has gotten the better of the page administrator's critical thinking skills (and those of the 21 readers who have so far shared the outrage). The story of "racist peanut butter and jelly sandwiches banned" was debunked back in 2012 by Polifact Oregon, with the Snopes.com Urban Legends site ruling it false more recently in June 2015 as the fodder continues to have a life of its own.
How fair is it for pundits to take a news story that includes the word racism in the first paragraph and boil that down into a headline about a racist sandwich?
The Education Action Group says it’s fair game, given the story and the fact that an educator singled out the sandwich in a lesson about cultural competency. But come on. Read the original story. Gutierrez is quoted as suggesting to staff: "Americans eat peanut butter and jelly, do you have anything like that?" That’s not an indictment of the sandwich.
Portland Public Schools did not spend half a million dollars to label the sandwich "racist." The principal never called the sandwich racist. The Portland Tribune never said the principal called the sandwich racist. And yes, we don’t usually weigh in on lunch, but who could resist? The statement is inaccurate and silly.
We rate the statement Pants on Fire.
More recently, in Peanut Butter Jelly Crime, Snopes.com conducted a FACT CHECK: Are Portland schools banning peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for being racist?, concluding that the claim in the Conservative Post article--shared by the Minnesota 7th Congressional District Republican Party Facebook page--is false. The entry continues:
Amid a then-current national debate over the Confederate flag (and its historical significance) the web sites Conservative Post (CP) and Joe for America published articles, both titled “Peanut Butter and Jelly Deemed Racist.” (The former was published on 24 June 2015, the latter on 25 June 2015.)
In the context of a debate regarding the reclassification of common items as potentially racially offensive, the notion that something as harmless and American as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches could be next had a ring of truth to some unsettled Americans. But extraordinary claims such as this require extraordinary substance to be considered credible, and this one had some glaring weaknesses. . .
The Snopes post concludes:
As noted, the Portland Tribune reporter who penned the original article (not Gutierrez) was responsible for the turn of phrase “the subtle language of racism.” Gutierrez’s quoted remarks simply observed that children of different cultures might not eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches commonly, at home, and therefore might be more accustomed to different foods. Not only was this brief remark made nearly three years prior to its circulation in 2015, but it was broadly misconstrued as “Portland schools ban peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for being racist” even though the remark in question in no way hinted at such a course of action.
It's also worth noting that the Gutierrez quote concerned using an example used in classroom instruction, rather than the menu in the lunchroom, and even within the context of instruction, the goal was to extend the examples, not ban PBJ sandwiches.
Have some schools banished PBJ sandwiches? Yes, but not for concerns over "political correctness." "Bluestem has discovered news coverage going back to the 1990s of peanut butter bans in schools, but those are related to peanut allergies (a source of controversy, though not one over identity politics; rather the concern is for the safety of individuals living with lethal allergies, as the New York Times reported in Nothing's Safe: Some Schools Ban Peanut Butter as Allergy Threat).
Minnesota's Seventh Congressional District is a perennial target for the NRCC to flip from Representative Collin Peterson's control. Given the silliness posted on social media by the district Republicans, Bluestem suspects that it may stay that way until Peterson's retirement.
Screengrab: Oh noes! Someone is coming for your kids PBJ sandwiches!
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Hormel Foods Corp. continued to post record profits over the past quarter despite a severe shortage in turkey livestock and decreasing international sales.
Hormel announced Wednesday $146.9 million in third-quarter net earnings, up 6 percent from $138 million. . .
The profits come even though one division of the meat-packing giant was set back because of the avian flu pandemic earlier this year, Mewes reports:
. . . Jennie-O Turkey Store reported a 45 percent decrease in its segment profits after avian flu outbreaks in Minnesota over the summer dramatically affected Hormel’s turkey stock. At one point, 55 farms which served Hormel had been closed because of the flu.
Despite what Ettinger called an “unprecedented shortage” in turkey supplies, Hormel has repopulated about two-thirds of its turkey supply at company farms and expects to operate at normal capacity by the end of the fall, barring further flu outbreaks. Still, Hormel expects turkey volume struggles through the beginning of 2016. . . .
Photo: The Jennie-O Turkey Store plant #4 located behind the Jennie-O headquarter in Willmar, pictured here in West Central Tribune file photo.
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The resignation of Houston County planning and zoning administrator Bob Scanlan was formally announced Tuesday at the Houston County Board of Commissioners meeting by Human Resources Director Theresa Arrick-Kruger. His final day with the county is Aug. 21. No reason was cited during the public meeting and Scanlan was not available for comment on Wednesday, but Commissioner Teresa Walter said he's accepted a new job elsewhere. . . .
Tuesday's announcement ends a controversial era in the state's southeast corner, where some silica sand critics have been so boisterous that law enforcement has removed them from public meetings.
Scanlan was suspended for three days last year by the county board after an independent investigation determined that he retaliated against some people who were opposed to frac sand mining. The investigation, which included interviews with 26 people, concluded that Scanlan had subjected mining critics to bogus zoning violations, sent an angry email to the boss of a citizen opposed to silica sand mining, and violated other ethics and conflict-of-interest regulations while generally acting as an advocate for the mining industry.
Those findings, revealed publicly in March via data requests by numerous media outlets, sparked an uproar among critics, including the Houston County Protectors, an opposition group that's worked for three years to ban all silica sand operations in the county. . . .
The local opposition group issued a press release Tuesday announcing Scanlan's departure with a headline that used 30 exclamation points.
Boese also reports that the Houston County Protectors filed an ordinance amendment proposal Tuesday that would ban all operations related to silica sand. The language was accepted by The board county board accepted the amendment for discussion at an upcoming planning commission meeting.
An environmental group on Tuesday proposed banning large-scale frac sand mining.
The Houston County Protectors offered the county board what the advocacy group described as a “thoughtful, balanced” amendment to the county’s mining ordinance.
Representing the Houston County Protectors, Ken Tschumper told the board the proposed change to the county’s mineral extraction ordinance “resolves much of the controversy … by proposing two significant changes” — prohibiting frac sand mining and resolving problems with nonconforming mines.
“I encourage you to read and study this proposed amendment carefully,” Tschumper told the board. “I think you will find that it is a thoughtful, balanced and substantive effort by members of Houston County Protectors to find common ground among most of the opinions and views on what is workable and what is problematic in Section 27.”
Readers can learn more about the Houston County Protectors at the group's website, The Sandpoint Times. Silica ("frac") sand is used in fracking oil and gas from shale; the boom in this technology has led to a demand for frac sand, which must be mined. South Eastern Minnesota's Driftless Region is home to many sand deposits.
Photo: A mine in Houston County via Sandpoint Times: "Based on records received from the Houston County Zoning and Planning Department, this is the Mathy Construction Co./Bonanza Grain Inc. Quarry. It is located two miles east of Caledonia, MN. It is one of approximately 120 permitted/existing "construction/aggregate" mines in Houston County."
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Checking out the Central Minnesota Tea Party web site, we noticed this Warning!:
Morrison Countyto be the recipient of 1000 Islamic refugees from Somalia! All American communities like Willmar and St. Cloud have been inundated, now they have their sights set on this community. Please read and consider the following . . .
By executive order, President Obama announced that he will dramatically increase the number of Muslim immigrants for a total of 100,000 per year for the years 2012-2016. Did you know that Little Falls is planned as the main OVERFLOW for these folks into Public Housing? There is currently a large number of applications for this housing at our local HRA which is verified! After Little Falls, who’s next? Brainerd, Wadena, Long Prairie?
And of course, there will be Jumping Jihadists:
Our government has no idea who they let into our country. The FBI admits under oath they have no idea who these people are, and currently do not have the resources to handle the ISIS/jihadist threat currently in the Muslim community. . . . .
Oh my. This level of panic certainly calls for a fact check.
Authorship
First, while the post is unsigned, Bluestem has seem some of that rhetoric before in a letter to the editors of the Morrison County Record, Brantsner story missed the mark, which concludes:
They [people at Minuteman Ron Branstner's talk] want their community to remain a safe place, and they understand that the FBI has absolutely no idea who these people are that are coming into our country. — Chad Olson, Ft. Ripley
According to Whoisology and ICann Whois, Olson is the administrator of the Central Minnesota Tea Party website. Perhaps "The FBI admits under oath they have no idea who these people are" and "the FBI has absolutely no idea who these people are" are simply stock phrases that all anti-refugee activists repeat, but there's a good chance that it's Olson talking on the post.
Refugees to be resettled in Morrison County?
Whomever the author is, he or she echoes a claim that the Morrison County Record reported California Minuteman Ron Branstner made at an anti-refugre event in July:
Brantsner told the group that if refugees were resettled to the city of Little Falls, residents likely wouldn’t know, because it is all done “in stealth.”
He told them to call the school district to see whether refugees or immigrants had enrolled as one way to find out.
Bluestem contacted the Minnesota Department of Human Services, which operates the Resettlement Programs Office. A spokesperson told us that no refugees had been resettled in Morrison County, although it is possible Somali people have moved there on their own after being originally settled elsewhere.
Nor were any of the National Voluntary Agencies that handle resettlement in Minnesota working to place anyone in Morrison County.
While anti-refugee activist fear-monger about "secondary resettlement," there's nothing stopping the free movement of people living legally within the United States. Nor is this a new phenomenon in the country or state. Perhaps the most recent example of secondary migration by refugees to and in Minnesota is that provided by Twin Cities Hmong communities, which drew family and clan members from other states and from rural Minnesota, as the State Department's policy in the 1970s was to scatter Hmong refugees between urban and rural communities.
We contacted Morrison County about the rumor, and Brad Vold, Director of Social Services for Morrison County, returned our called. He wasn't aware of any efforts to resettle refugees in Morrison County, observing that it would be quite difficult to sneak a group of 1000 people of any sort into the Central Minnesota community.
According to the county's homepage, 32,872 people live in Morrison County, so he has a point. Little Falls? According to figures released by the United States Census Bureau, 8,232 people resided in Little Falls in 2013. Sneaking 1000 New Americans into the town might prove tricky.
Public housing takeover?
According to Vold, there's a two-year waiting list for vouchers for subsidized housing in Morrison County, which might be the "currently a large number of applications for this housing at our local HRA which is verified!" that the post mentions, but the waiting list isn't for 1,000 refugees.
Vold said that the part-time director for the county HRA had recently mentioned the two-year waiting list at a county budget meeting; while he didn't remember the exact number of families on the waiting list, but thought it was between 50 and 80 households.
In short, for all the fearmongering going on, the claim doesn't appear to have merit. It does seem to be part of a national wave of anti-refugee sentiment.
Texas Congressman Brian Babin has introduced a bill to "pause" admission of refugees to the United States, while Donald Trump's immigration policy plan, plumbed in-depth by the explainers at Vox here, would require refugees and asylum recipients (who are legal residents eligible for public assistance "and many of them use it as they often lack the skills they'd need to find employment in the US — especially when they first arrive here from a refugee camp or their home countries") to demonstate "that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and other needs before coming to the U.S."
Other anti-refugee activism in the region: the case of Fargo
The latest article shared by the Central Minnesota Tea Party, Fargo, ND (and everywhere else) to be slammed with new refugees in next seven weeks, is crossposted from Refugee Resettlement Watch. The post cites a report by WDAY which featured a clickbait headline blurred the distinction between total refugee numbers for the fiscal year and those coming in the next two months, making it appear that the area might be flooded with new residents.
LSS said last week it expects to resettle more than 100 additional refugees in Fargo-Moorhead by October. It expects to resettle a total of about 400 new Americans in Fargo-Moorhead this year. It typically resettles 500 people statewide each year, and this year should be no different, according to [CEO of Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, Jessica] Thomasson.
The petition does not explain why the placement of refugees in Fargo should end. But some signers wrote that too many resources are being spent on refugees rather than on people who already live here.
She rejected the claim that refugees are a burden on the community, saying that moving to the U.S. is "an opportunity they take very seriously."
"The people we work with are employed very quickly, they work very hard," Thomasson said.
In fact, the resettlement of refugees benefits the local economy, which is plagued by a workforce shortage, said Lisa Gulland-Nelson of the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corp.
She said it was good to "bring in refugees who are willing to work, supporting them and connecting them with the resources that they need so that they can integrate into the community and really get jobs."
We share that sentiment, rather than the fears of newcomers. According to the article, LLS has been resettling refugees in the area since 1946. Thomasson took the high road in refusing to speculate about the motives of those signing the petition:
She declined to say if she believed the petitioners were motivated by racism or bigotry, saying instead that "these are really emotional and often very personal conversations for people. They have very strong beliefs and strong opinions."
Photo: Little Falls, Minnesota.
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An ambitious development is on the horizon in Chaska, a payoff city officials have been looking for since the Hwy. 212 expansion linking Chaska and Eden Prairie gave Carver County its first-ever access to a freeway.
Up to 10 office and industrial buildings and a grocery store will go up in what is now a vast plot of farmland in the southwest corner of town.
“The northeast corner of our city is almost all industrial, but that was mostly built in the 1980s and 1990s, and it’s basically full,” said Kevin Ringwald, Chaska’s director of planning and development. “We need to add some more opportunities to add new jobs.”
The city expects to begin work next year on roads and utilities for the 60-acre Chaska Creek Business Park to be developed by The Opus Group at the corner of Hwy. 212 and County Road 10. And Chaska has actively marketed itself as an ideal spot for data centers that can bolster tax rolls and draw other businesses — a strategy that’s also been employed by other metro communities such as Shakopee, Eagan and Woodbury.
Our local source knows the area well and a comparison of both plans seems to indicate that this is the same building site.
Here's the latest iteration of the site the EdCampus website:
And here's the Chaska Creek site:
We're pretty sure that's the same building site. It seems unusual for the same property to be used to market two different visions for prime real estate.
Are the alternative plans for the EdCampus site something foreign citizens should know about before they sink their future into this project? Steward reports:
The EB-5 program provides permanent green cards to foreign investors who invest $500,000 to $1 million in businesses or economic development projects that create or preserve at least 10 jobs for U.S. workers. . . .
Liberty Minnesota promises “several exceptional projects to offer foreign investors. Our first project through this regional center will be called EdCampus,” a Chaska venture with openings for 296 investors. Applicants pay a $5,000 deposit to hold their place in a specific project, with the balance due within 90 days.
We're curious to learn the explanation for these competing plans. Another reader following the story suggests that this is simply Chinese-style development at its finest. To understand the allusion, we recommend reading Reuters' Wade Shepard's The myth of China's ghost cities.
Here are the plans for the Chaska Creek site--not an EdCampus in sight.
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A developer seeking billions for a proposed high-speed rail line between Rochester and the Twin Cities has federal approval to launch Liberty Minnesota Regional Center, an EB-5 immigrant investment center.
North American High Speed Rail group has been quietly negotiating with the Minnesota Department of Transportation to conduct a feasibility study and for exclusive rights to build an elevated line along the 84 mile Highway 52 corridor.
The Minnesota-based group plans to raise much of the estimated $4.2 billion — in private capital from foreign individuals and governments, including China — to finance the rail project. The EB-5 program provides permanent green cards to foreign investors who invest $500,000 to $1 million in businesses or economic development projects that create or preserve at least 10 jobs for U.S. workers. . . .
Liberty Minnesota promises “several exceptional projects to offer foreign investors. Our first project through this regional center will be called EdCampus,” a Chaska venture with openings for 296 investors. Applicants pay a $5,000 deposit to hold their place in a specific project, with the balance due within 90 days.
Curiously, the EdCampus came up last year as an illustration of what the building might be like for Expo 2023, a project association with the same group that's seeking to establish the private high-speed rail to Rochester.
We expect that some developer will finance and build one large building of some kind and make it available to us in 2023 for the fair. One concept we have is for a large, beautiful glass, three-story building with lots of divided spaces. Kind of like the EdCampus in Chaska, which has flexible spaces on the inside. That would be the ideal. . . .
That's an unfortunate analogy, since the EdCampus has yet to be built--and the concept has been floating around for years without gathering much more than Minnesota Shiny Object Syndrome praise.
The project was first be proposed in 2008--and in 2013, the Star Tribune's The Drive (and other sources) reported that a planned park and ride for the project was shifted to East Creek, while describing the project as one that "never got off the ground":
The original plan was to build a park-and-ride lot at the proposed EdCampus, an educational hub to be built by a private developer with buildings leased to local postsecondary institutions. That project never got off the ground, so SouthWest changed course and built on the East Creek site.
Perhaps this outfit can make something of the facility, although Bluestem suspects that what was cutting-edge in 2008 is merely more expensive in 2015--and possibly more inflated.
Witness the pitch given to the Carver County commissioners in 2008:
Although the transit hub described in the 2008 document remains, the Chaska Herald reports that Southwest Transit shifted it to East Creek. Perhaps the template should be adjusted. It can't be that hard; the cost for developing the facility has more than doubled since 2008, while the construction workforce has exploded from 175 jobs in 2008 to 2,106, although though the square feet of the redesigned building and number of students served has not changed with the design.
The "professional community" and support staff working on the site has ballooned from 400 to 1,049, a growth rate that might make University of Minnesota administrators--scolded here in the Wall Street Journal--green with envy.
NAHSR Board Chair Joseph Wang is Liberty Minnesota Regional Center Co-Chair
Watchdog's Steward reports that Joe Sperber, NAHSR CEO is also Liberty Minnesota owner. But there's another connection between the HSR group and the EB-5 center: Joseph Wang.
The company estimates the project would cost $4.2 billion to build. A sizable amount of that money — $1.4 billion — would come from Chinese investors, according to the documents. North American High Speed Rail Group Chairman Joseph Wang formerly worked for China's Ministry of Commerce. The company's business plan states the Minnesota rail project would be "the first in the U.S. to leverage a relationship with China in the (high-speed rail) market."
Wang also serves as co-chairman of the Liberty Minnesota Regional Center, according to the Management Team page for the Liberty Regional Centers website, which provides a list of his skills, though it's a bit vague on specifics:
Joseph Wang is Co-Chairman of the Liberty Minnesota Regional Center.
Well-educated. He went to several top universities in the US and China.
Well-experienced. He served at US and China governments, universities and foreign business in China and American companies.
A successful entrepreneur. He founded and/or led several international companies.
A scholar. He holds professorship at many US and Chinese universities and has had several books in business published.
A friendly ambassador. He has developed good working relationship with politicians and business people in both the US and China and has make many cooperation and exchange possible. He has also helped hundreds of Chinese students enter American universities.
A keen volunteer. He serves on board of many non-profit organizations, and
A career planner. He has helped many people find jobs and settle down.
According to an enrollment agreement online at the University of St. Thomas, Infolink is "a subsidiary of Joseph Wang Enterprises, Inc." Joseph Wang Enterprises, Inc has been a corporation operating in California since 1999 (search portal here).
Questions about capacity
Post Bulletin staff writer Josh Moniz reported in Irreconcilable: Anti-rail group redoubles efforts that those attending a Citizens Concerned About Rail Line (CCARL) expressed concerns about ownership of high-speed rail line by a foreign government:
Several members expressed serious concern that a U.S. infrastructure project would involve Chinese investors. When asked, Meadley confirmed Chinese government funds will be part of the possible funding, but added that planners sought funding from several sovereign funds.
"I think it's a very, very, very legitimate concern, and I'll leave it at that," Drazkowski said.
Earlier in the meeting, he said any issues with air rights leasing would be compounded if they were controlled by a foreign government.
Indeed, the chief concern of many residents long has been that they end up paying for a train that doesn't serve their communities--it's a revolt against taxation without transportation. Bluestem is left wondering whether this group of private business people--we noted some issues that CEO Sperber had experienced in our post, Who's got a ticket to ride on private Zip Rail?--that we wonder whether this group business cronies has the capacity to pull off this deal, the EdCampus development and the World's Fair.
The details are lacking. When did Joseph Wang work for China's Ministry of Culture? What successful projects has the Empyrean West/Liberty Regional Center completed? Who foots the bill if all or part of the line gets built and the company goes bust?
While their virtues many be many, these folks don't strike Bluestem as the second coming of Dagney Taggart. More transparency and less Minnesota Shiny Object Syndrome would be go a long way on the short line from the Twin Cities to Rochester.
Photo: An elevated high speed train in China. A shiny thing that would never stop in Pine Island.
Earlier Bluestem posts on the Ziprail/Private High Speed Rail line
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Fans of Ron Erhardt's take on avian flu, delivered in remarks on the Minnesota House of Representatives, should groove on the cause of the disease posited in a letter to the editors of the Dairyland Peach rom Irma Achmann of Avon.
With this chicken flu over now and no one seems to have gotten too shook up. What if this is a brand of germ warfare spread by drones?
If a semi drove from Washington State to Atlanta and dropped a drone every 300 miles or so with an infected load of manure, one or three in Minnesota, that’s all it would take.
What if they come along next fall with a super flu and dropped it among medium sized cities? What would we do? Millions of dead people.
This letter would have made more of an impact when the chicken flu was half done. If you find a dead drone, call authorities. You might find more drones then dead wildlife.
If any of our vigilant readers sees a semi dropping off a load of manure and a drone in their neighborhood, contact the authorities but not before texting us exclusive photos, along with an identification of what sort of manure is being spread around.
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“This is a huge economic issue,” [Paul] Marquart [DFL-Dilworth] said after listening to the stories. “If we were talking about these issues with electricity or phone, there would be a crisis in rural Minnesota.”
[House Minority Leader Paul] Thissen [DFL-Minneapolis] said he thought the next legislative session would address the needs. “There’s broad and near-universal agreement that we need to make these investments for the state of Minnesota,” he said.
It's good that Thissen says "near-universal agreement," because rural broadband isn't on the mind of one legislator who serves parts of Kandiyohi and Renville Counties, along with all of Chippewa and Swift Counties.
Miller embraces private prison, rejects public spending for rural broadband
In the August 12 edition of the Clara City Herald (no website, but here's the Facebook entry that mentions the article), Representative Miller talked about the past session and his priorities for the coming session in "Tim Miller reflects on freshman year in legislature." We embed the article below.
This is a curious piece, and not just because of the lede:
With this being his first year as a legislator, everything was new, but Representative Tim Miller of Prinsburg didn't necessarily find a lot of surprises. "There's a lot to learn, there's the whole committee process, different meetings you have, lobbyists who come to your office. We had the majority this session so there's the tendency of lobbyists spending more time in your office because you're a freshman.
He mentions constituent visits in the next paragraph; Bluestem hopes that the lobbyists lollygagging in his office didn't get in the way.
But not one word about broadband. Instead, Miller's been working on re-opening the Corrections Corporation of America's (CCA) private prison in Appleton:
He said they're hoping to get some more work done and go in the right direction for the privately owned Appleton prison. Miller said he's been working on getting that open again soon. "We're working with the state and I won't go into details right now, it's literally been just conversation but the good news is its [sic] conversation we have hadn't since they closed, so we are moving in the right direction, but it's a little premature to start spectulating."
We have heard scuttlebutt that one scenario is for CCA to lease the facility to Minnesota's Department of Corrections to operate under an AFSCME contract, one source suggested to Bluestem. However, even this option requires spending bonding dollars on a private facility.
Curiously, CCA and its ALEC allies have worked to increase penalties. Source Watch reports:
Since its founding in 1983, CCA has profited from federal and state policies that have led to a dramatic rise in incarceration and detention in the United States -- a rise of 500 percent over the past thirty years.[5][6][7] As of 2011, around half of all prisoners in state facilities were there for nonviolent crimes, and half of inmates in federal prisons were serving time for drug-related offenses.[8]
Studies have shown that for many offenses, incarceration has little if any impact on public safety, and that time in prison actually increases a person's likelihood of committing more crimes.[9][10]
According to the Justice Policy Institute: "While private prison companies may try to present themselves as just meeting existing "demand" for prison beds and responding to current "market" conditions, in fact they have worked hard over the past decade to create markets for their product."[11]
What exactly did Miller learn from those lobbyists in his office, educating him about the process and their clients' needs? Whatever that might be, he certainly wasn't hearing what those working for rural broadband were saying.
Some CCA donations to Minnesota campaigns might be trickling into Minnesota elections this year, Bluestem has disocvered.. Open Secrets's database for the Republican State Legislative Committee reveals that CCA gave the group two contributions this year ($10,000 on May 16, 2014 and $25,000 on February 21, 2014).
On Halloween, the Republican State Legislative Committee handed out $30,000 to the trick or treaters at the Minnesota Jobs Coalition Legislative Fund (first October 31, 2014 24-hour notice pdf here). The candy joins an earlier $250,000 sent to the group's St. Paul office (Pre-General Report pdf here).
Questions about the ethics of private prisons prompted the launch of the National Prison Divestment Campaign, with $60 million pulled earlier this year, Mother Jones magazine reported in April.
For now, the potential for re-opening the Appleton prison is creating part-time work for lobbyists and political operatives, none of whom live in Western Minnesota. Those small business owners and citizens in rural Minnesota? Speaks for itself.
Photo: Representative Tim Miller who says he had a lot of lobbyists in his office earlier this year. Apparently the ones working for rural broadband didn't register on the dude.
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As the map above illustrates, targets included one on Minnesota's western prairies. We took to wondering about what that target might be. Rebecca Terk's canning recipes? The secrets of Riverview Dairy's massive milk product? An inventory of emergency generators and go-karts at Representative Backers business? The secrets of a liberal arts education at the University of Morris?
Our friends offered a number of fun suggestions, but Gustavus Adolphus math professor Max Hailperin gave the most plausible reading of the Greater Minnesota readings on the map:
Does look like a bunch of university towns, of the kind that don't do advanced military-related research but do attract some students and faculty members from China (as do all colleges and universities today). Morris, Bemidji, La Crosse, Mankato, for example.
It's Winona, rather that LaCrosse, but his point stands. An educated conclusion, but not a certainty. At the Post Bulletin, Josh Moniz looks at the map in Southeastern Minnesota site among Chinese hacking victims, and comes away with a different take:
In southeastern Minnesota, there is a single red dot that appears to be located in the Winona area. However, the map does not list which entities the dots represent.
Winona is home to several colleges and the headquarters of several corporations, including medical device companies. If the dot doesn't represent a precise geographic location, southeastern Minnesota has several high value targets ranging from Mayo Clinic to biotech firms.
Here's the news clip with more about the spying:
Map: The targets of Chinese cyber espionage operations.
If you appreciate Bluestem's posts, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen P.O. Box 108, Maynard MN 56260) or use the paypal button below:
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