Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Yet Another Reason To Worry Over the Boundary Waters
Remember that wall Trump was going to build to keep people from walking into our country via Mexico? Well, think of the Border Lands Conservation Act as another version of this, but the “wall” this time is granting the Department of Homeland Security full access to land along our northern and southern borders within 100 miles. If passed, it would give the DHS the ability to police all kinds of protected national parks and wilderness, including the upper third of Minnesota.
The bill already has the support of U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN), whose district includes the Boundary Waters. He’s also the author of the bill introduced in February that would allow copper nickel mining in the area. Since then, he’s been avoiding town halls, labeling his protesting constituents as “fake” and “paid agitators.”
U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Tina Smith (D-MN) have both said they oppose the bill, as does U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN). “It would allow the Department of Homeland Security blanket permission to bulldoze, destroy, and fence off our public lands so they become inaccessible to visitors,” McCollum tells Sydney Kashiwagi and Bob Timmons at the Star Tribune.
MN-Made Video Game Sets to Educate à la Oregon Trail
A new educational video game is being play-tested in high schools across Minnesota, but this time no one's dying of dysentery. Cofactor is a new role-playing game where players fight against and try to prevent the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disease that impacts deer, elk, and moose, and is on the rise in several Minnesota counties.
Students can opt to play as a hunter, a natural resource manager, a scientist, or other characters while making choices with ecological, regulation, and ethical implications. “Student consensus so far is that they would enjoy playing the game in their free time, which is a sign we’re on the right track,” says project creator Thomas Seiler. “My favorite review described Cofactor as ‘not cringe.’” High praise from a teenager!
St. Paul Votes on Whether the City Can Enforce Laws
OK, that headline is not entirely fair. Obviously St. Paul does have… [doublechecks] yes, it does have police. But when it comes to smaller civil infractions—an unshoveled walk, for instance, or a trash-strewn yard—the city can only send angry letters, or, under certain circumstances, send work crews and then bill the property owner for labor costs.
That could all change. This election St. Paul voters are being asked whether to amend the city charter and allow the city to issue civil citations to those who break city ordinances.
According to Frederick Melo at the Pioneer Press, the city would, if the ballot measure passes, be permitted to issue fines for “animal-control violations, neglected construction sites, errant landlords who fail to respect building codes or rent control requirements, illegal discharges to storm and sanitary sewers, and employers who sidestep the city’s minimum wage or sick and safe time rules.”
Not to get on a soapbox or anything, but this seems like… a basic thing that cities do? But it is apparently a point of contention in our state capital.
We love you, St. Paul. But we may never understand you.
Keys Closes in Downtown Minneapolis
Keys Cafe has been around for a half-century, and it has been in downtown Minneapolis since 1993. But the all-day breakfast joint is closing its Foshay Tower location this Friday, November 7.
Owner Carol Hunn-Gregory expressed regret in a statement. “We have loved Minneapolis and being in such a beautiful historical building,” she wrote.
Keys opened on Nicollet Mall in 1993 and moved to the Foshay in 2005. Eight Keyses (is that how you say it?) remain open, including two in St. Paul.
