Minneapolis City Council wants tougher penalties for Surdyk’s

If you thought this was over … . Adam Belz reports for the Strib, “The city’s response to Jim Surdyk’s disregard for state liquor law took another turn Tuesday, as Minneapolis City Council members rejected a tentative settlement reached with the liquor store owner a week ago. A 10-day suspension of Surdyk’s liquor license and $6,000 fine are not stiff enough penalties after Surdyk opened his northeast Minneapolis shop on Sunday, March 12, a council committee said. Committee members ordered city staff to negotiate a more severe punishment.” The counterbalancing free publicity might be in peril by the time this thing actually ends.

Once again, an embrace of the river. Says Tim Nelson for MPR, “A Phoenix developer on Tuesday unveiled a $225 million plan to rebuild St. Paul’s riverfront. Don Cardon laid out his vision for the five-acre site where West Publishing stood for decades before moving out more than 20 years ago. The buildings there, including a former county jail, were finally demolished last month. ‘This is going to be kind of a front door,’ Cardon said, of the project, which calls for 325 units of housing along with retail space running down Kellogg Boulevard, just west of the Wabasha Bridge, and as many as 1,200 parking stalls below street level.”

Can Prince out Tupac Tupac? Mike Vulpo at E! News says, “In honor of the one-year anniversary of the iconic singer’s passing, RMA has released a new song titled ‘Deliverance’ on iTunes and Apple Music. The track is part of a special six-song EP titled DELIVERANCE that will be available this coming Friday. The EP disc version will also be released nationwide on June 2. According to a press release, the six songs were recorded in the studio between 2006 and 2008 when Prince was an independent artist. The majority of sales will benefit Prince’s estate.”

Condolences. David Montgomery in the PiPress reports, “The leader of Minnesota’s Bureau of Mediation Services died Tuesday after complications from a staph infection. Josh Tilsen, 67, was a 29-year employee of the bureau, which resolves contract disputes and grievances between state employees and state managers. He had been its commissioner since 2011, and previously worked as a hearing officer and mediator and as manager of administrative hearings.”

Another loss. Also in the PiPress, this story from Mary Divine, “The Minnesota Supreme Court will not review the case of a father whose son died of a rare brain disease after swimming in Stillwater’s Lily Lake in 2012. The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Jim Ariola’s petition for review of a state Court of Appeals ruling in January in his lawsuit against the city of Stillwater. Ariola, of Wyoming, Minn., is the father of Jack Ariola Erenberg, who was 9 when he died on Aug. 6, 2012, of a disease caused by infection from the brain-eating amoeba Naegleria fowleri. … In his appeal, Ariola had argued that city officials were liable for the boy’s death because they knew about the danger in Lily Lake but did nothing to warn swimmers.”

Tourism or mining?  In the Duluth News Tribune John Myers writes, “With claims by some mining critics that tourism is a more sustainable option than copper mining for northern Minnesota, and with the federal government mulling a moratorium on new mining near the Boundary Waters, industry officials fired back Tuesday with a new study that claims mining jobs still drive the regional economy. Mining supporters say the study offers proof that mining and tourism can co-exist but that tourism doesn’t stand up to mining in terms of economic impact.”

These, of course, are “so-called scientists.” Maura Lerner of the Strib says, “Ordinarily, Geoffrey Rojas doesn’t think of himself as a rabble-rouser. As a physicist, he spends his days in a University of Minnesota lab, using high-tech gadgets to analyze how surface materials interact. But in his spare time, he’s laying the groundwork for a mass rally in St. Paul on Saturday as part of a global event called the March for Science. So far, 13 rallies are planned across Minnesota, from New Ulm to Grand Marais, in concert with the national march in Washington, D.C., and more than 500 satellite marches around the world. Rojas, the vice president of the Minnesota march, says the event is a grass-roots effort to protect science from what he calls an unprecedented assault — including threats to slash government funding and attempts to censor research on climate change.” They’ve probably never even heard of The Chinese Hoax.

In and interview with the AP’s Jon Krawcznyski, Kevin Garnett sounds off on the Wolves: “Retirement has not extinguished the fire that burned in him for 21 NBA seasons, nor has it healed the wounds opened during an acrimonious split with the Minnesota Timberwolves last summer. When former team President Flip Saunders brought Garnett back to Minnesota in a trade in 2015, the two talked about KG eventually becoming a minority owner. Then Saunders suddenly died after a battle with lymphoma and the Wolves were forced to move on with new leadership. … Garnett believes that promises were broken and he left last summer after a tense buyout negotiation with owner Glen Taylor.”