Don Davis
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Don Davis has been the Forum Communications Minnesota Capitol Bureau chief since 2001, covering state government and politics for two dozen newspapers in the state. Don also blogs at Capital Chatter on Areavoices.
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ST. PAUL—A couple of businesses are moving to Windom, a 4,646-population community in southwest Minnesota, but the mayor there worries that the city cannot handle much more growth. The limiting factor may be the city's need for a new sewage treatment plant to meet state and federal guidelines. Mayor Dominic Jones, who in his private life is director of the Red Rock Rural Water District, said the mandated sewage plant would cost $15 million if it could be built now, but the city cannot afford it.
ST. PAUL—The University of Minnesota wants the state to help fund routine repairs and for the first time in years is not seeking new buildings. "There are no new bright shiny projects in this," university President Eric Kaler said Wednesday, Feb. 21, about the school's public works funding requests. "We want to renew what we have." With buildings across the state that combined are about the same size of five Mall of Americas, Kaler said many facilities are more than 50 years old and built in times when students and professors had different needs.
ST. PAUL — The chance of winning a special election, and thus taking control of the Minnesota Senate, will be a major factor as Democrats decide if and when to sue the Senate president, who also is lieutenant governor. On the first day of the 2018 legislative session Tuesday, Feb. 20, one senator protested the fact that Michelle Fischbach, R-Paynesville, remains in the Senate after she automatically became lieutenant governor when that job opened. No formal action was taken against Fischbach.
ST. PAUL — Karla Bigham says she will work with people of both parties as she begins her term in Minnesota's closely divided state Senate. The Cottage Grove Democrat took the oath of office as senator Tuesday, Feb. 20, an hour before the Legislature convened for 2018. The special election she won last week kept Democrats just one vote behind Republicans, 34-33. Bigham said voters in a Feb. 12 special election sent the message that they want a bipartisan senator.
ST. PAUL — Minnesota lawmakers will be drawn into a gun debate that has blossomed since last week's Florida school shooting that left 17 dead. Protect Minnesota, an anti-gun violence group, will lead a Capitol rotunda rally at 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 22. Among legislation those art the rally will oppose are giving gun owners more freedom to defend themselves and to carry guns without permits.
ST. PAUL — Wellstone Action has trained thousands of "progressive" candidates and campaign workers, and claimed to have helped 1,000 get elected. Their website describes the group's mission: "Founded to carry forward the work of Paul and Sheila Wellstone, we arm progressives with the strategies and skills to win. We develop political leaders. We strengthen movement organizations. We ignite change." In 2012, the group's then-executive director, Ben Goldfarb, told Forum News Service that the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone's name was a key.
ST. PAUL—Ice seems simple enough: Get water cold enough and it freezes. True, but the science of ice is much more complex, especially when it is in real world bodies of water. Scientists agree on a couple of things: No ice is fully safe and the thickness, and thus safety, of ice can vary greatly in a very short distance.
ST. PAUL — The 2018 Minnesota Legislature opens at noon Tuesday, Feb. 20, and there are plenty of questions about what topics might be debated. A few things are given:
ST. PAUL—Joel Schaberg can be forgiven if shivers go through his body when he thinks back to that early December 2017 day. "We got sick of waiting for the lakes to freeze over," Schaberg recalled about an early-season ice-fishing adventure. "It felt safe and it was shallow, so if you fell in it was no big deal." But Forest Lake, in a Minnesota town of the same name, was not ready for ice anglers, as he and a friend discovered. They thought they were ready, knowing the dangers. They did not just walk onto the lake, but used kayaks instead.
ST. PAUL -- Political organizations targeted a pair of Minnesota special legislative elections, only to see voters opt for no change in political power. A Democrat will replace a Democrat in the state Senate while a Republican takes over for a House Republican after elections Monday, Feb.