Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
Sorted by date Results 1 - 16 of 16
It's responsible for ensuring public schools get quality teachers, yet the Minnesota Board of Teaching is getting progressively poorer marks from administrators, legislators, teachers and education advocates. The board now faces its toughest exam - a 10-month investigation by the Office of the Legislative Auditor - the equivalent of going to the principal's office. "People from the outside feel they are not well served. The laws are not getting implemented. I mean, we joke sometimes, and say...
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Minnesotans faced 39 school operating levy referendums on the ballot this fall, fewer than in any election since 1996, nixing one of every four proposals at the polls. Chalk one up for taxpayers? Not exactly. Many school boards had already unilaterally raised school levies on their own long before Election Day, without seeking voter approval. The 2013 Minnesota Legislature gave school boards the authority to effectively go behind the backs of local taxpayers that decline to...
ROSEVILLE, Minn. - The game plan called for electronic pull-tabs to score up to $350 million for the Minnesota Vikings' controversial billion-dollar stadium, now under construction. Yet Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, and state legislators' projections turned out to be more overly optimistic than any fan's preseason expectations, leading to an industry shake-up and the departure of the Las Vegas player that provided most e-games. "The one manufacturer, disappointed as I think everybody was as far...
ROSEVILLE, Minn. - The game plan called for electronic pull-tabs to score up to $350 million for the Minnesota Vikings' controversial billion-dollar stadium, now under construction. Yet Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, and state legislators' projections turned out to be more overly optimistic than any fan's preseason expectations, leading to an industry shake-up and the departure of the Las Vegas player that provided most e-games. "The one manufacturer, disappointed as I think everybody was as far...
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - Minnesota Vikings bird-loving fans are flustered the NFL franchise won't ante up a million bucks for bird-safe glass at the stadium now under construction. "Blatant refusal to replace the glass because birds will die crashing into the windows has now convinced me this project is an embarrassment and horror to our Flyway and to our State. Conceit and greed is now painfully obvious and everyone involved should be ashamed," wrote Mary Madeco-Smith on City Pages website....
Old tanks, jeeps, artillery and other military leftovers used to end up in city parks. Now, hardware from the Iraq and Afghan wars often winds up in the hands of police and other law enforcement agencies - items from "paperclips to airplanes" at essentially no cost, courtesy of the Law Enforcement Support Office of the Department of Defense. A state Department of Public Safety briefing video for law enforcement ticks off the gear: ambulances, armored vehicles, helicopters, handcuffs, riot shield...
LITTLE CANADA, Minn. — Andrew Henderson may be a political novice, but name recognition will be the least of his challenges. Henderson, 30, was charged with two misdemeanors connected to videotaping deputies and an ambulance crew dealing with a man outside his apartment building. The welder turned cop-watcher gripped this small Twin Cities suburb for 15 months. Now, Henderson is running for a seat on the City Council. “I have a donation page for my campaign, which people have been donating to, which is awesome,” said Henderson, who has announce...
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - One county government wants to eliminate waste, a noble - and necessary - goal. So, some 3,000 workers returned one morning to find their trash cans replaced with what amounts to glorified Big Gulp cups. The "cans" came with a logo stamped on the side: "This is all the GARBAGE I make!" "They removed the normal waste containers from all the offices and replaced them with these small garbage-can-shaped quart containers with lids," said Danny Nadeau, chief of staff to Hennepin...
EDINA, Minn.- As a law officer, former Todd County Deputy Sheriff Mark Grinstead didn't miss much. After all, why try to avoid something when it's a lot easier to just hit it? Grinstead, it must be said, hit many things - deer, cows, trees, buildings and snow banks, for example. In 17 years, he had 33 wrecks. Grinstead racked up about $100,000 in losses while patrolling the rural county roads. A certified emergency vehicle instructor, Grinstead served as a Todd County field training officer,...
HINCKLEY, Minn. - For a high speed passenger rail line, the proposed Northern Lights Express has taken a long time to get up and running, with much farther to go before reaching its destination of $1 billion in funding. As the gears of government grind along on ridership and other studies, local opposition to bringing back the abandoned Amtrak 155 mile route from the Twin Cities to Duluth continues to gain steam. "I think there's a lot of unknowns and I think people, when it's unfamiliar to...
Fraud and abuse continues in a government-run phone service for low-income Americans, and the cost of the Lifeline program continues to escalate in Minnesota, a Watchdog Minnesota Bureau review shows. Despite a supposed federal crackdown on the service, the program remains the gift that keeps on taking from consumers, who pay a Universal Service Fund fee on their phone bills to underwrite the "free" plans. Lifeline began in 1985 as a subsidy to provide basic land-line phone service to...
ST. PAUL, Minn. — MNsure‘s top official resigned Tuesday following a Watchdog Minnesota Bureau report that she took a two-week Costa Rica vacation in late November, during the rocky rollout of the state $150 million health insurance exchange. April Todd-Malmlov‘s abrupt resignation came during a closed emergency session of the agency’s board of directors. Subsequent reports revealed that Todd-Malmlov was accompanied on her tropical getaway by Jim Golden, Minnesota’s Medicaid director, raising possible conflict of interest and other concerns....
ST. PAUL, Minn.— As thousands of frustrated Minnesotans were notified about glitches and errors in their applications on the state insurance exchange, April Todd-Malmlov took a two-week break. Problem is, Todd-Malmlov is MNsure executive director. Her vacation, in November, included a trip to tropical Costa Rica. Watchdog Minnesota Bureau obtained an out-of-office email reply from Todd-Malmlov’s state account, stamped Nov. 24. The email was from an applicant, who contacted her after trying for more than a month to obtain insurance coverage thr...
CHASKA, Minn. - Thirty. That's the magic number in the Affordable Care Act for hard-pressed Minnesota school districts scrambling to avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties and new health coverage costs. That's the cut-off that triggers the ACA requirement for schools to provide health coverage to paraprofessionals, cooks, bus drivers and other non-licensed employees working 30 or more hours a week. It's also the magic number that triggers the so-called "pay or play"...
MINNEAPOLIS - The extreme-green makeover of the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building is like an ad on late-night TV. You know, those ads in which the seller fills the offer with so many bells and whistles the customer - the taxpayer in this case - orders way more than he needs? The Whipple project is costing as much as 40 percent more per square foot than a new office building, according to some critics, and we're buying it. An online General Services Administration video even sounds like a...
ANOKA, Minn. — After years of rhetoric and rulings out of Washington, D.C., reality is hitting home as Minnesota counties scramble to implement and pay for what one frustrated county board leader calls the “not so Affordable Care Act” for local property taxpayers. “Locally, we are just beginning to fully realize how unaffordable the Affordable Care Act will be to carry out, specifically the publicly-funded medical assistance (Medicaid) portion of this law,” said Rhonda Sivarajah, chair of the Anoka County Board, in a recent op-ed. “After ye...
