Good Wednesday morning. Too many local election results to cram into your Digest, but you can check them out here. 1. St. Paul’s trash system survives referendum. Voters across St. Paul resoundingly defeated a ballot referendum aimed at upending organized trash collection, or at least forcing residential trash haulers back to the negotiating table to rework a five-year contract with the city midstream. The “Yes” votes in support of keeping the city’s new trash program outpaced the opponents 63 to 37 percent. Precincts in Payne-Phalen, Dayton’s Bluff and the Greater East Side voted “No” in the strongest numbers, but heavy turnout among “Yes” voters throughout much of the rest of the city produced an undeniable victory for proponents of city Ordinance 18-39, which laid the legal groundwork for organized collection a year ago. “I knew that the larger the number of people who voted, the better a shot we had of winning,” said Javier Morillo, chair of the “Yes for St. Paul” campaign. “We knew that people agreed with organized trash collection, but in a low turnout, off-year election, a small but loud minority can have a disproportionate impact. I’m thrilled. The city sent the right message tonight.” Pioneer Press
2. Who’s footing the bill for Sanders’ rally? Minneapolis’ Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey and President Donald Trump tangled over Twitter, nearly escalating to a lawsuit over extra costs of hosting the president’s campaign rally in the city last month. So, how would the city handle a similar campaign rally for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders just a few weeks later? The answer: it’s complicated. Sanders held a campaign rally with U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar in Minneapolis on Sunday at Williams Arena on the University of Minnesota campus. Unlike the Trump rally, which was held in the city-owned Target Center, a spokesman for Frey said they were told the university was coordinating with the Sanders campaign to handle costs. The university confirmed that it didn’t seek any assistance from the city to staff the rally, and officials plan to charge the Sanders campaign for all the extra costs, even if they don’t know how much yet. “While the costs associated with this event will not be finalized until after Sunday, the University requires that all expenses related to this event are paid for by the Sanders campaign,” University spokesman Jake Ricker said in a statement. MPR News
3. DHS contracts violate state law. The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) violated state law more than 200 times over the past year with $52 million in contracts and grant commitments to vendors, Indian bands and other state government agencies without proper documentation, according to records obtained by the Star Tribune. In some cases, agency employees allowed vendors and grantees to perform work or services as if they were being paid by the state, even though contracts and agreements had not been finalized and signed. In other cases, employees bought products, such as software, without required permission. DHS officials said Tuesday that the agency has backstops that prevent money from actually going out the door in these situations, but several legislators contend the violations put the agency at risk for misuse of taxpayer dollars and weaken the agency’s leverage in ongoing negotiations with vendors. “We broke the law,” DHS Chief Financial Officer Alexandra Kotze wrote in an April e-mail, responding to one internal report that detailed more than $300,000 in violations. “We need to be able to explain internally and to the [Department of Administration] how we will prevent this in the future.” Star Tribune 4. Trump campaign hires Minnesota director. The former executive director of the Minnesota Republican Party is joining President Donald Trump's re-election effort as Minnesota state director. Kevin Poindexter's shift to the campaign was announced by the state party on Tuesday. "Our organization is strengthened by these important moves and these new efforts help get us one step closer to a successful 2020," Chairwoman Jennifer Carnahan said in a prepared statement. The hire comes as the president and his allies ramp up efforts to make Trump the first Republican presidential candidate to win Minnesota since 1972. The campaign has hired at least 20 paid staff, with top officials pledging to spend $30 million. Trump, who lost the state by a 1.5% margin in 2016, highlighted the push during an October campaign rally in Minneapolis. Star Tribune 5. Omar finalizes divorce. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and her husband Ahmed Hirsi have agreed to formally dissolve their marriage. In a court filing Tuesday, both Omar and Hirsi agreed to share custody of their three minor children. And neither party requested any alimony or child support payments. Under the agreement, the children will live with Omar in Washington DC, where they go to school. Omar and Hirsi were married in Minnesota last year. However, Omar has said the two had been religiously married for two decades. MPR News
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