Lake Calhoun name officially changed to Bde Maka Ska

Done deal. Says Dave Chanen in the Strib: “It’s official, at least in Minnesota: Lake Calhoun, the biggest lake in Minneapolis, will now go by its original Dakota name, Bde Maka Ska. Tom Landwehr, commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources, announced the DNR’s approval of the new name Thursday. Whether or not the U.S. Board of Geographic Names now chooses to keep Lake Calhoun on federal documents, he said, the state will recognize the Indian name for the lake.”

Allegations at the Guthrie. MPR’s Marianne Combs reports: “The Guthrie Theater is launching an investigation after allegations of sexual harassment by a former employee. The female carpenter resigned earlier this week after working on the Guthrie staff for three and a half years, a position she described as a ‘dream job.’ She posted what she said was her resignation letter to Facebook. … On Thursday, the Guthrie Theater released the following statement over the signature of Director Joseph Haj … The statement promised that Guthrie management would take ‘appropriate actions’ and said it was determined to bring “meaningful cultural change’ to the organization.”

Can’t make it up. Says Kirsti Marohn for MPR, “A program that would have offered free nitrate tests for homeowners with private wells has run into a roadblock in south-central Minnesota. Brown County recently became the first Minnesota county not to accept the Department of Agriculture program after citizens voiced concerns that the data could be used to target farmers for additional regulations. … Commissioner Dave Borchert said he’s an environmentalist and lost a baby brother to blue baby syndrome in the 1950s. But he said there were too many unanswered questions about the state testing program and what would be done with the data. ‘I just felt at that particular time I didn’t have enough information to support it,’ Borchert said. ‘I’m certainly not against clean water.’” 

From the St. Cloud Times: “St. Joseph residents reported that at least a dozen white nationalist posters were displayed prominently in the city on Wednesday, according to the police department. An area resident reported the signs to the police department early afternoon. … Ray Sjogren, a St. Joseph resident, said he first spotted the posters leaving the post office on Wednesday. … Each poster contained a logo and the name of a group: ‘St. Cloud State White Student Union.’ St. Cloud State University spokesman Adam Hammer said in an email Wednesday night that the group is not a registered student organization.” 

The Strib reports: “The Minnesota GOP’s Executive Committee voted Thursday night to grant party chairwoman Jennifer Carnahan’s request for a personal commission on large donations to the party. In December, Carnahan outlined a proposal that she receive 10 percent of major donations, retroactive to the final quarter of 2017. Her payout for the final three months of 2017 would be more than $24,000. … Carnahan’s predecessor, Keith Downey, also received a commission, but it was lower than what she requested.”

Hey, we weren’t all that wild about Amazon anyway. But Apple …  The story at Fortune, by Don Reisinger says, “Nearly 240 cities offered bids for Amazon’s HQ2, but the company on Thursday announced that it had narrowed the list to 20 metropolitan areas …. All of the cities that bid for Amazon’s HQ2 offered an array of tax breaks, perks, and other special offers to lure Amazon’s HQ2. Now, though, it’s Apple’s turn. But exactly how Apple will go about choosing its next campus location is unknown. Apple only said in its statement that it will announce a new campus location later this year and didn’t say that it would publicly solicit bids like Amazon. The company also hasn’t made public how much space it needs, how big of a campus it’s planning, and what kinds (if any) economic breaks it’s seeking.” That’s beyond that $50 billion they don’t pay taxes on, right?

Finally, the latest from Dee DePass’s Starkey Labs trial coverage in the Strib: “[Chief information technology officer Robert] Duchscher said he was surprised and delighted three years ago when he was unexpectedly called to meet with [former Starkey President Jerry] Ruzicka, who laid out a generous employment contract that promised him a job for years, a 5 percent annual raise and a ‘loyalty bonus’ that would be paid at the time of his retirement or termination. …  Duchscher testified that [CEO Bill] Austin told him in September 2015 that he had never known about or approved the contract and that it was so generous no company owner ‘in their right mind’ would have signed it.”