Good morning and welcome to Wednesday.
A tax on mountain biking? Fewer Minnesotans are hunting and fishing, and that’s a problem for funding fish and wildlife habitat and other outdoor programs.MPR’s Dan Kraker has the story : As more and more anglers and hunters stop fishing and hunting, there are fewer people replacing them. And that's a big issue — because for decades the state has relied on license and registration fees and taxes on equipment to fund a significant portion of its natural resource conservation and management. So the DNR is asking for some help. It wants people around the state to weigh in on how best to fund outdoor recreation and conservation. "The time is really right. We haven't seen … foundational investments in Minnesota's conservation and outdoor recreation systems in a generation or more,” said DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen. Much of the state's outdoors infrastructure — from state park facilities to fish hatcheries — was built in the 1950s and ‘60s, Strommen said. Some of it dates back to the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. "So it's really time, I think, for us to think about how we revitalize that system, how we can invest in that system,” says Strommen, “so that it serves not only the users today, but users in the future."
Derek Chauvin is expected to plead guilty to federal charges of using excessive force against George Floyd last year.
A former Minnesota Teacher of the Year and current elementary school principal, Ryan Vernosh underscored the depth of the levels of stress and burnout last week when he resigned from a state education policy board and then outlined why he did so on social media. Vernosh posted his resignation letter on Twitter, citing the pressures of teaching during COVID and increased threats to his safety over pandemic protocols at his school, Brimhall Elementary in Roseville. But his primary reason for stepping down, he said, was his own mental health. “I've received threats that I should kill myself, threats that I will be hung through military tribunal. [I have] been told that they're monitoring me on social media and things like that,” Vernosh told MPR’s Cathy Wurzer. “And it ebbs and flows.”
State officials say they don’t know exactly how much money is coming from the new federal infrastructure law, and that Minnesota will have to match about 20 cents of every dollar it gets.Bill Salisbury reports for the Pioneer Press : To qualify for $4.8 billion in federal road and bridge grants over the next five years under the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law that Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law in November, Minnesota state and local governments will have to chip in nearly $200 million a year in matching funds. That was an early estimate that two state House committees heard Tuesday during their first hearing on what the federal government’s historic investment bill will mean for Minnesota roads, bridges and other transportation infrastructure. In general, federal grants will provide 80 percent of the funding for qualifying projects, and state and local governments will have to foot the remaining 20 percent of the bill, Ben Husch, federal affairs adviser for the National Conference of State Legislatures, told Minnesota lawmakers during the remote hearing.
From MPR’s Brian Bakst: The Minnesota AFL-CIO, a labor federation made up of more than 300,000 union members, has a new president who will make history. Bernie Burnham is the first person of color to lead the organization. Burnham is a Pacific Islander. She assumes the role in February when current president Bill McCarthy retires. Burnham got her labor start as a teacher who led the union for Duluth’s educators for several years. More recently, she has been a vice president of Education Minnesota and co-chair of the Minnesota AFL-CIO Committee on Racial and Economic Justice. The AFL-CIO is made up of more than 1,000 affiliate unions.
An Associated Press review of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by former President Donald Trump has found fewer than 475 — a number that would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and their 79 Electoral College votes by a combined 311,257 votes out of 25.5 million ballots cast for president. The disputed ballots represent just 0.15 percent of his victory margin in those states. The cases could not throw the outcome into question even if all those votes were for Biden, which they were not, and even if those ballots were actually counted, which in most cases they were not. The review also showed no collusion intended to rig the voting. Virtually every case was based on an individual acting alone to cast additional ballots. | 