Good morning, and welcome to Friday. It’s been another long week, but at least we survived the fall back. Here’s the Digest.
1. Carter asks public to help reduce St. Paul violence. St. Paul city leaders are turning to residents to help curb a deadly surge in gun violence since the summer. There have been a total of 29 homicides including one police shooting death so far this year. The numbers were daunting and disturbing to the dozens of St. Paul residents who gathered at Central Baptist Church near Snelling Avenue and Interstate 94 for the first of three community meetings organized by Mayor Melvin Carter in response to the violence. Police say a total of 145 people have been shot in St. Paul so far this year. That compares to 135 who were shot last year by the end of November. Of the 29 homicides in 2019, firearms were involved in 26. ”What I hear you tell me is we need a new approach, what I hear you tell me is we can’t expect our police officers to do everything,” Carter said to open the meeting. He said the city should have a holistic approach to public safety that examines issues surrounding poverty, substance abuse and mental health, and for that he wants the public’s support, especially as the city council is preparing a budget for next year. ”We are actually a city that is fundamentally safer than most any comparable cities to our size around the country,” Carter said.St. Paul police chief Todd Axtell has pulled seven or eight of his officers from a regional violent gang task force led by the FBI and returned them to St. Paul on a temporary basis. He’s also moved a forensic specialist from narcotics to DNA analysis to track down suspects more quickly. MPR News
2. Nobles close to re-upping for another six years. Minnesota lawmakers are poised to reappoint Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles to another six-year term. A subcommittee of the Legislative Audit Commission discussed the matter Thursday and voted to forward its positive recommendation to the full commission for action on Nov. 15. Nobles, 72, was first appointed as legislative auditor in 1983. Over 36 years, he has largely defined the nonpartisan position. The Office of the Legislative Auditor conducts independent reviews of state agency finances and management. Nobles told lawmakers that he wants to continue in the job. “I don’t sit on high and manage the Office of the Legislative Auditor,” Nobles said. “I get down and do the work, and that’s the way at least I think I need to be as legislative auditor.” The office has a financial audit division, headed by deputy Chris Buse, and a program evaluation division, headed by deputy Judy Randall. The panel also advanced the reappointment of both deputies. Nobles has enjoyed broad, bipartisan support at the state Capitol over 36 years. He has conducted numerous investigations into state government departments and programs, often highlighting questionable use of taxpayer money along the way. But Nobles’ reappointment met resistance from one lawmaker on the panel, who also abstained from the vote. Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL Rochester, questioned Nobles’ neutrality on issues. She said she is troubled by what see views as “editorializing” in reports. “Sometimes, very frankly, it feels to me as though you’re playing for headlines,” Liebling said. Nobles responded that the language he uses in reports is often aimed at getting legislators to take notice of the problems he has found. MPR News
3. New St. Louis Park council member says her voice is needed. When Thom Miller decided to retire from the St. Louis Park City Council, he asked Nadia Mohamed to help him find someone to run for his seat who’d reflect the city’s increasing diversity. After two weeks of searching, Nadia decided she wanted it. “I realized how much my voice is needed,” Nadia, 23, said Wednesday morning after making history, winning Miller’s at-large seat to become the City’s Council’s first Muslim and first Somali member. Nadia won easily with 63 percent of the first-choice votes in the race to replace Miller. It sent a message that St. Louis Park is a place to “be inclusive in the day-to-day decision-making levels in the city,” she said. Nadia came to St. Louis Park as a Somali refugee at age 10 and enrolled in St. Louis Park public schools. After graduating from high school in 2015, she said she struggled as an adult to feel at home in a city where social circles are often segregated. “That’s when I started realizing how much I felt like a visitor in my community,” Nadia said in an interview. She wanted to help build connections between different cultural groups. “A lot of times you don’t get to have that space where you’re connecting to community members of different races and different cultures,” Nadia said. “I wanted to build that space.” Sahan Journal
4. Who should decide what voter information is public? The Minnesota Supreme Court must decide whether the state, at its discretion, can prevent access to certain kinds of information about voters that could be used by a private group to investigate voter fraud. Andrew Cilek, who runs the Minnesota Voters Alliance, believes that illegal voting was common in 2016 but not investigated by the state or county attorneys. To prove it, he sought state data that would show which voters were registered, information that also includes a voter’s birth year, address, phone number and voting history, as well as the status of his or her voter registration and reasons for any challenges to their status. Secretary of State Steve Simon initially produced some of the information Cilek sought, but said he had discretion to prevent release of additional data, including the names of what are called inactive voters — those who are no longer eligible perhaps because they had been convicted of a felony or had died or whose status had been challenged. That information, Simon maintained, would violate the privacy of voters. Cilek sued and won at both the district court level and at the Minnesota Court of Appeals, so Simon took the case to the state Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on the case Tuesday. MinnPost
5. Walz asks for federal disaster aid for NW Minnesota farmers. Farmers in northwest Minnesota need emergency assistance to deal with difficult if not impossible harvest conditions, Gov. Tim Walz wrote in a letter to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The first-term governor wrote a letter to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue on Thursday requesting emergency assistance for farmers unable to harvest their crops this fall due to harsh weather conditions. In particular, Walz asked for a disaster designation to be issued for Becker, Clay, Kittson, Lake of the Woods, Mahnomen, Marshall, Norman, Pennington, Polk, Red Lake, Roseau and Wilkin counties. "Our producers are hardworking, but due to extreme weather conditions, many were unable to harvest their crop this fall," Walz wrote. "Northwest Minnesota needs access to federal aid to recover and endure the effects these losses will have in the coming years." Flooding conditions during the spring along with record rain and snow accumulation in October made fields unworkable and impassible. Some crops molded in the fields, while others, like sugar beets and potatoes became lodged in frozen soil. Inforum | 