Here’s a brewing bureaucratic nightmare. In the Strib, Randy Furst reports, “The city of Minneapolis began the process this week to revoke the 62 rental licenses of Stephen Frenz, one of the city’s biggest landlords. … The case revealed that Spiros Zorbalas, a landlord banned by the city, was a business partner in Frenz’s properties. Thousands of tenants could be affected if the city strips Frenz of the rental licenses.”
Rubber bullets and anti-terror armored vehicles won’t play so well against this crowd. Says the AP, “Hundreds of clergy of various faiths joined protests Thursday against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in southern North Dakota, singing hymns, marching and ceremonially burning a copy of a 600-year-old document. … More than 500 clergy from around the world gathered with protesters on Thursday at a campfire at the main protest camp … .”
A Reuters story by Elizabeth Dilts and Dan Freed says, “Wells Fargo … fired hundreds of brokerage employees for improper sales practices, three U.S. senators said on Thursday, widening the scope of a scandal which the fourth-largest U.S. bank has so far characterized as a retail banking problem. In a letter to Wells Fargo Chief Executive Tim Sloan, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden and Robert Menendez questioned the bank’s disclosures about those employees’ dismissals in required regulatory filings. The letter is the first indication that customers of the brokerage business, known as Wells Fargo Advisors, may also have been affected.”
The Minnesota Voters Alliance is doing what it must do. Says Rachel Stassen-Berger of the PiPress, “Five days before Election Day, a Ramsey County judge will hear the case of election judges against the state election rules. The election judges, through a series of lawsuits sponsored by the Minnesota Voters Alliance, are questioning the interpretation of a law that requires judges to give ballots to voters who have been challenged as ineligible to vote but then self-certify that they are, in fact, permitted to vote.”
Not your most sympathetic defendant. Mathias Baden of the Forum News Service says, “In their first comments, lawyers for Lili Huang are arguing they have a right to conduct an independent investigation of the allegations against their client, accused of enslaving and assaulting her children’s live-in Chinese nanny in Woodbury. … Huang, 35, is facing five felony charges — labor trafficking, felony seizing passport with intent to violate labor trafficking, false imprisonment, second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, and third-degree assault causing substantial bodily harm — after she allegedly detained, enslaved, beat and starved the victim. When the alleged victim was found, she had two black eyes, bruises, broken ribs and a broken sternum, charges say.”
Ross Raihala of the PiPress spitballs likely acts for the renovated Palace Theater in St. Paul. “Minnesota Public Radio’s 89.3 The Current has proven it can break acts in the Twin Cities. Given the Palace’s proximity to MPR’s studios, it seems like a no-brainer that the venue will house plenty of the station’s marquee names, those too big for the nearby Fitzgerald Theater and its capacity of about 1,000.”
Kind of like moonlighting. Tory Cooney at the PiPress says, “A former Ramsey County data analyst who shared private work information and sold pirated movies was sentenced to 40 hours of community service and ordered to pay a $3,000 fine Thursday in Ramsey County District Court. ‘I was stupid . . . It was wrong’, Charles Henry Lyght, 53, of St. Paul said at sentencing. ‘I was dumb for a period and I regret it.’”
For the AP, Kyle Potter writes, “Politically and geographically, Minnesota is flyover country … But this year, a tossup race for an open swing seat in the southeastern Minneapolis suburbs, a rematch of the costly Iron Range fight from 2014 and a race in the western suburbs where Donald Trump has become an issue have combined to unleash a deluge of political ads on Minnesota voters. A week out from Election Day, outside political groups had spent more on attack ads in those three districts alone than was spent throughout the entire state in 2014 — even with Sen. Al Franken on the ballot statewide for re-election that year.”
Stribber Paul Walsh says, “A Shakopee High School student raped a girl in the boys’ locker room ‘for a long time’ after luring her out of class on the pretext of joining him on a trip to a water fountain, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday. … The Shakopee School District sent a vaguely worded note to families Wednesday about ‘an alleged situation on Tuesday involving two of our students at Shakopee High School’.”
And this from Sally Jo Sorensen on her Bluestem Prairie blog. “The influx of independent expenditures by the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors Fund (NARF) into municipal races has been news in Rochester, Minnesota’s third-largest city. … With development anticipated to blossom as Rochester’s DMC (Destination Medical Center) ramps up, it’s not hard to ascertain the national group’s purpose in spending on candidates it believes will help members’ business interests. But what’s the stake in North Mankato … ? According to campaign finance records on file at the South Central Minnesota city’s website, the same political fund had spent $4,758.83 in independent expenditures by October 13 for a single mailing supporting the candidacies of Tom Hagen for Mayor and Matthias Leyrer for City Council.”
What’s the stake?
“…But what’s the stake in North Mankato … ?” No one donates thousands of dollars to candidates for mayor and city council in a relatively small Minnesota town unless “an understanding” has been reached regarding some issue that will come before the city council and the mayor. Sally Jo and the rest of us don’t even need to know what that something might be. There ain’t no free lunch, so whatever it is that’s going on, or about to go on, in North Mankato, is a deal, a policy, an action, or some combination thereof by city government from which realtors expect to profit.