Good morning, and happy Monday.
Gov. Tim Walz said, “We got this wrong,” referring to the vetting or lack thereof of Erin Dupree, his choice for the director of the new state Office of Cannabis Management.MPR’s Brian Bakst reports: On Saturday, Walz took responsibility for a flawed vetting process of the choice he made to hire Erin DuPree as the first director of the state’s new Office of Cannabis Management, but he didn’t explain how the mistakes happened or how he intends to avoid similar errors in the future. “Not the finest hour,” is how Walz described the series of events at a MinnPost event Saturday. “Look, one of the responsibilities – and I take it and the buck stops with me – is the appointments of literally thousands of people, whether it's to positions of judges, or senior Cabinet positions, or to boards, many of you serve on some of those. And in this case, the process did not work.” When pressed by MinnPost reporter Peter Callaghan about how vetting failed to find problems with DuPree’s background, Walz didn’t offer a direct answer. “I was under the impression that the system up until this point – 2,699 times – had worked right,” the governor said. “It didn’t this time. So I'm going to go back and ask again, how do these things fall through the cracks? How do we get this right?”
So what happened to DuPree?Brian and MPR’s Matt Sepic with help from APM Reports found she ran a business that sold products that exceeded state limits on THC potency, owed money to former associates and accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in tax liens. “I have never knowingly sold any non compliant product, and when I became aware of them I removed the products from inventory,” DuPree said in a statement announcing her exit Friday evening. “Conducting lawful business has been an objective of my business career. However, it has become clear that I have become a distraction that would stand in the way of the important work that needs to be done.” MPR found a couple people to whom DuPree owed judgements: “It kind of scares me what she would do in that position,” Lois Ziolkowski, 67, who is owed $2,600 said. “She’s not trustworthy.” Another person who sued is Teri Smith, a fitness trainer employed at a failed wellness business run by Erin Wambach-Holgate, as she was known at the time. Smith said Friday she and other employees sometimes went without pay. Smith won a $10,000 judgment in 2013. She still hasn’t been paid. “She’s a really big talker. She sounds good when saying it, but when you call her out on anything you better be aware that you might end up getting bit,” Smith said. “The snake will come out.” The Star Tribune was on the story too and unearthed DuPree’s sales of non compliant cannabis products.
While questions about how well Walz and his staff vetted DuPree linger, the governor appears to be moving past the controversy over school resource officers after Attorney General Keith Ellison released an updated opinion last week on a new law about what kind of physical restraints are allowed in schools. MPR’s Estelle Timar-Wilcox reports: Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association General Counsel Imran Ali praised the new guidance in a letter to members on Friday. “MPPOA thanks Governor Walz, the Attorney General, and legislative leaders for their work towards finding a temporary solution to return SROs back to Minnesota schools,” the letter reads. Walz reiterated the Attorney General’s conclusion in an interview with MinnPost on Saturday. “What we’re saying is, you can use all appropriate force in the protection of life that you need to, and you don’t need to wait until you’re punched or something like that,” Walz said. The peace officer association said that the opinion from Ellison is a temporary step in the right direction, but not a permanent solution. Law enforcement is asking the legislature to revisit the issue in next year’s session and codify the rules. “If this law is unable to be fixed statutorily next session, law enforcement agencies will need to re-evaluate their relationships with school districts and their SRO programs in the long term,” Ali wrote in the letter.
The auto workers strike has come to our region,MPR’s Mark Zdechlik and Feven Gerezgiher reported: More than 5,000 workers at 38 General Motors and Stellantis parts distribution centers are now part of the strike, UAW President Shawn Fain said Friday. That includes the Stellantis Mopar Parts Distribution Center along Highway 55 where striking workers carried signs and waved at passing vehicles. Mopar workers argued Saturday that a two-tiered wage system puts the company at a disadvantage in the labor market. New hires and temporary employees are paid less than half the wages of long-time staff for the same work, while missing out on benefits like profit sharing and holiday pay, according to health and safety coordinator David Carlson. “You can go to Target and make $20 an hour. You can go to Amazon and start off at $20 an hour. Why would you start here at $15 an hour?” asked Mopar employee Jeff Stevenson. Meanwhile, workers at the General Motors Parts Distribution Center in Hudson, Wis., plan to strike in shifts around the clock. "We're out 24/7,” said Steve Frisque, president of UAW Local 722. “We'll be out here until they tell us anything different till we get a contract. So that takes a day or that takes two months. I hope it doesn't take two months but we are out indefinitely we're not going back in until the international gets a contract and we ratify it and then we will go back to work.”
Arlen Erdahl, a former Minnesota secretary of state and congressman has died.The Pioneer Press reports Erdahl died Thursday at the age of 92 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. He and his twin brother, Lowell, were raised on a farm near Blue Earth, Minn. Erdahl’s earliest political experience was campaigning with his dad for Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party gubernatorial candidate Floyd B. Olson. He was a Republican who was secretary of state from 1971 to 1975 and served in Congress from 1979 to 1983. "Arlen Erdahl was a dedicated public servant of tremendous reach whose positive influence was felt for decades at the Office of Secretary of State,” said Steve Simon, the current secretary of state. “I had the pleasure of joining him for both public and private celebrations over the past few years. My condolences to the Erdahl family." | 