St. Paul is expanding eligibility to the CollegeBound initiative by partnering with St. Paul Public Schools (SPPS) to give more pre-K students access to college savings bank accounts. 

Through CollegeBound, children enrolled in pre-K at a St. Paul public school will have access to a savings account and other career and college readiness resources, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said in a statement. 

The program already enrolled about 14,000 children in savings accounts, accumulating over $3 million since 2020, Carter said. 

“Investing in our children from birth is one of the surest ways we can realize a fairer, more resilient future,” Carter said in the statement. “Our CollegeBound Elementary expansion unlocks proven financial benefits for more families to grow the educational confidence of more students.”

Sue Arvidson, a counselor for SPPS overseeing the expansion, said the public school’s direct partnership with CollegeBound makes it easier to help students prepare for the future.

“In working with the schools, we’re able to tap in directly to what the school counselors are already doing in our schools to make sure that students are prepared,” Arvidson said. “We’re able to make it more concrete for them and their families as they connect with this concept that there’s actually a savings account there for them.”

The city is working with Bremer Bank to set up the savings accounts and create opportunities for families to add bonuses to these accounts, Bremer President and CEO Jeanne Crain said in a statement.

“Bremer has been the proud financial partner of CollegeBound Saint Paul since its inception, and the tremendous growth of the program is inspirational,” Crain said in the statement. “This pioneering program is helping to improve access to higher education for families across this community.”

Bremer Bank is helping support a “school deposit day” each year from elementary through high school where activities will help teach students about saving money, Arvidson said.

“In a developmentally appropriate way, we’re starting to build that concept of putting something off in savings for that greater payoff later in their life,” Arvidson said.

In addition to the CollegeBound partnership, SPPS is working to introduce the idea of college and career readiness skills early on in students’ education, Arvidson said.

“Starting in kindergarten, all students receive a unit on college and career readiness where they spend some time really talking about their identities, understanding their likes, their talents and trying to make a connection with a future career,” Arvidson said.

Arvidson said the SPPS is working on ways to engage and connect with families to help set up students for success down the road. 

“Part of what’s getting built this year is connections with our family engagement department in SPPS so that families can learn some of the concepts of wealth justice, and understand steps that they can be taking even when their children are young to help them to be prepared for their future,” Arvidson said.

Currently, the program is fully funded through grants and business services, Arvidson said. As long as funding continues, the program has the potential to grow.

“I’m an eternally optimistic person,” Arvidson said. “I think the more we can show its impact, the easier we’ll have to continue to raise those funds.”

Sixty newly planted trees along the Mississippi River in St. Paul were uprooted and vandalized in November, costing around $40,000 in damages.

Street trees planted along Shepard Road near Upper Landing Park were destroyed, with some thrown into the river on the night of Nov. 13, said Clare Cloyd, St. Paul Parks and Recreation spokesperson, in a statement.

“We are disappointed in this act and the negative impact it has on the neighboring community and our urban forest,” Cloyd said in the statement.

The trees were planted less than a month before the vandalism in October, Cloyd said.

“We are actively working with local law enforcement to gain more information about this incident, which we believe occurred overnight and likely caused nearly $40,000 in damage,” Cloyd said in the statement.

The St. Paul Police Department did not have any updates on the investigation as of Tuesday, Cloyd said. Approximately 14 trees were recovered and replanted, while the remaining 46 planting sites were filled and covered.

Tree Trust, a local non-profit, worked with St. Paul public school students to plant the trees in October, according to a newsletter from Tree Trust. Over two days, 37 St. Paul high school students planted around 250 trees near Lower Landing Park and Upper Landing Park, including the 60 vandalized trees.

St. Paul is working with Tree Trust to figure out the next steps in replacing the damaged trees, Cloyd said in the statement.

“Obviously we are past the planting season for the year given the weather, so we will work with Tree Trust to determine a plan for how we revisit and replace in this area next spring,” Cloyd said in the statement. 

Cloyd in the statement said the students worked during their break for the Minnesota Educators Academy conference, also known as the MEA break, to plant the trees. 

“These trees were planted last month during MEA break in partnership with Tree Trust and local high school students, who invested significant time and effort in this planting to help green our community,” Cloyd said in the statement.

St. Paul began working with Tree Trust to help restore the urban tree canopy in the wake of the invasive Emerald Ash Borer beetle infestation that required the city to remove almost all ash trees on city property. 

The city completed its structured ash tree removal in June. Any ash trees removed in 2024 will be replaced with a new tree in 2025.

The partnership between Tree Trust and the city allows for more trees to be planted in the city and gives young people the opportunity to get involved in the community, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said in the Tree Trust newsletter. 

“This partnership with Tree Trust is important. We want young people to learn to be stewards of our environment and to create opportunities for young people to grow up and work in our community,” Carter said in the newsletter.

St. Paul announced they are relieving over $40 million in medical debt for around 32,000 residents as part of Mayor Melvin Carter’s Medical Debt Reset Initiative.

The city is partnering with Fairview Health and Undue Medical Debt, a non-profit that works to erase medical debt, to use $1.1 million from the American Rescue Plan to eventually relieve around $110 million in medical debt over the next few years, according to a statement from Carter’s office. 

Under Undue Medical Debt’s model where they work alongside the hospitals, $1 gets rid of $100 of medical debt, the organization’s CEO Allison Sesso said.

“That’s why we’re able to, for very low amounts of money, get rid of medical debt,” Sesso said.

The average amount of debt erased was $268 with the highest totaling $104,972, according to the city’s statement. 

Residents who qualify will receive letters in the mail notifying them that their debt was erased, the statement said. 

In the partnership, St. Paul provides the funds for Undue Medical Debt to work with healthcare providers to get the data necessary to analyze and relieve patient medical debt, Sesso said. They give that information to the mayor and city to write and sign off on the letters.

“What it does is it creates an opportunity to talk about the issue of medical debt and its impact on people,” Sesso said.

Fairview Health President James Hereford said in the statement that through this partnership with the city and Undue Medical Debt, the community can become stronger and healthier. 

“Health is not only about buildings, hospitals, or clinics – health care is about meeting the needs of patients where they are and doing whatever we can to improve health outcomes and decrease cost,” Hereford said in the statement. “Our partnership with the City of Saint Paul and Mayor Carter reflects our longstanding dedication to seek innovative solutions that have long challenged the health care sector.” 

Even among people with insurance, around 54% of adults have medical debt, Carter said in the statement, which can impact all areas of someone’s life.

“Medical debt is a major barrier holding our neighbors back from prioritizing their health,” Carter said. “By removing the burden of debt, we invest in the long-term health of our entire community.” 

Sesso said there are many problems in the healthcare system. Someone may have to go to a doctor or hospital that is not covered by their insurance, making it hard to avoid debt.

“Medical debt is a unique kind of debt because you don’t really control if you get into it,” Sesso said. “The number one predictor of whether or not you end up in medical debt is whether or not you get sick.”

An important part of Undue Medical Debt’s work is to encourage policymakers, hospitals and insurance companies to do more to solve the issue fundamentally, Sesso said.

“By doing this work, we’re talking about this issue in a way that we hope that there’s bigger solutions that we can’t put forward,” Sesso said. “We have a public policy department that really thinks about solutions that are bigger than us as an organization.”

Climate activists are sounding the alarm about Project 2025’s plans to prevent the U.S. from meeting its climate change goals.

Project 2025, a conservative Republican plan for President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration, proposes restructuring the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and opening public lands to oil drilling.

The plan proposes rollbacks on many of President Joe Biden’s clean energy policies and “reinstate the Trump-era Energy Dominance Agenda.” 

While Trump denied involvement with Project 2025, over half of the 307 contributors to Project 2025 currently or used to work on Trump’s campaign, according to The New York Times.

Project 2025 and its climate proposals have been criticized by environmental groups like the Sierra Club, which condemned the plan in a statement earlier this year.

“Simply put, Project 2025 would be game over for climate progress,” Sierra Club spokesperson Melissa Williams said in a statement.

Project 2025 calls for reopening the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska for development and expanding oil drilling in the state.

“This will permit construction of a new 211-mile roadway on the south side of the Brooks Range, and open the area only to mining-related industrial uses,” Project 2025 reads.

More drilling would increase pollution and toxic waste, hurting the environment and posing risks to public health, Williams said in the statement.

“It would give corporate polluters the keys to our government, allowing them to rewrite our laws, bypass Congress and undermine the will of the people, and further poison our air and water as they profit,” Williams said in the statement. 

The proposed privatization of the National Weather Service could hurt the organization’s ability to forecast extreme weather events, which could become more common as climate change continues, according to the Sierra Club’s statement. 

The Sierra Club is not the only organization opposed to Project 2025. The Center for American Progress (CAP) also released a statement condemning the proposal, specifically citing its potential climate impacts.

“The dangerous policies outlined in Project 2025 would threaten our democracy, increase pollution and energy costs, further exacerbate the climate crisis, and make life harder for communities already struggling,” CAP spokesperson Courtney Federico said in the statement.

Other groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earth Justice and the House Committee on the Budget released individual statements condemning Project 2025’s potential negative climate impacts.

Trump pledged to leave the Paris Climate Agreement like he did his first term, according to reporting from The Washington Post. He also campaigned to open public lands to oil companies for drilling, which aligns with Project 2025 proposals.

During his campaign, Trump said he would roll back restrictions on power plant emissions.

Other potential roll-backs Trump may enforce in his second term include the Endangered Species Act, Biden’s environmental justice initiatives and ending climate disclosure rules for corporations. 

Both Project 2025 proposals and Trump’s released environmental plans would prevent the U.S. from effectively combating climate change, Federico said in the statement. 

“By advocating for a ’whole-of-government unwinding’ of U.S. climate policy, Project 2025 puts forward a vision that threatens global efforts to counter climate change effectively,” Federico said in the statement.

The Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board (MPRB) announced ice rinks at Powderhorn Park and Webber Park will remain closed this winter due to budget and climate change concerns.

The closures originally included Windom Northeast Park, but the MPRB has since reversed that decision, according to an MPRB statement. However, up to three more ice rinks may close next year.

The MPRB has to address an around $1.5 million gap in funding from the city budget. One way MPRB is dealing with the declining funding is by decreasing the number of public ice rinks from 22 to 17 over two years, as well as reducing operation hours.

Ice rinks at Powderhorn Park and Webber Park will not open this winter under the current MPRB recommendation, the MPRB statement said. The Lyndale Farmstead Ice Rink is being considered for closure in winter 2025-2026. 

The MPRB has until the city finalizes the budget on Dec. 10 to decide what ice rinks will remain open.

Powderhorn and Webber were chosen due to the rinks being built on water bodies, making them harder to maintain, MPRB spokesperson Robin Smothers said. The other ice rinks were chosen due to proximity to other rinks or other maintenance or construction issues.

Along with budget concerns, the MPRB said the closures were motivated by last year’s warm winter, where skating was only possible for about one week, according to reporting from The Minnesota Star Tribune. The city spent nearly $890,000 in January to upkeep the ice rinks, breaking down to almost $111,000 each day.

Minneapolis Titans Youth Hockey Board President Cory Larson said he was sad to hear the city might close down more rinks.

“I think it’s important to keep (the ice rinks) open,” Larson said. “It brings the community together and allows for a nice way to be outside and away from the stresses of the world and all the screens.”

Having a free ice rink option makes skating more accessible for everyone, Larson said. 

“It’s just that indoor ice time can be so expensive,” Larson said. “It’s nice to have an option where you don’t need to pay for it.”

Larson said if more ice rinks close in the future, it may become more difficult for kids to find a low-cost rink.

“I think (there’s) a private rink downtown that maybe they could still use, but they have to pay for that,” Larson said. “The other indoor rink in the neighborhood is rented out for a month in advance, so you can’t just go there. So there would be no option really.”

With fewer free public ice rinks, kids may not develop an interest in skating and hockey, Larson said. 

“(Kids) wouldn’t know what they’ve been missing,” Larson said. “So I think our numbers would dwindle.”

Minnesota is planning to expand Highway 252 in the North Metro despite opposition from advocacy groups and city officials in Brooklyn Center and Minneapolis.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) is proposing turning the highway into a four- to six-lane freeway to improve safety and the flow of traffic. Construction is anticipated to begin in 2028.

MnDOT is hosting a virtual public meeting on Wednesday to discuss next steps for the project.

Expanding Highway 252 would disproportionately harm the communities of color Highway 252 goes through, said Alex Burns, advocacy and policy manager of Our Streets Minneapolis.

“A half-century after the wave of highway construction in America demolished and displaced communities of color to accommodate suburban commuters, MnDOT is doing the same thing here in 2024,” Burns said. “And they are proposing to build a new freeway through the two most racially diverse cities in the state of Minnesota.”

The state could potentially need to demolish dozens of homes and businesses to expand the highway, Burns said.

“They’re going to double traffic and pollution in what’s already an environmental justice community,” Burns said. “They’re going to cut off Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park residents from the Mississippi River.”

While the current state of Highway 252 is unsafe, other strategies include reducing lane widths, improving pedestrian crossings and narrowing intersections that would improve driver and pedestrian safety without hurting the local communities, Burns said.

“I think that that is absolutely something that is feasible,” Burns said. “It would be a lot cheaper, it would be a lot quicker to implement, and it would be a lot less destructive.”

City officials urge MnDOT to consider alternatives

Our Streets is not the only group against the expansion. The Brooklyn Center City Council and Mayor April Graves rejected the state’s plans in September, asking that MnDOT explore more options.

In a statement from September, Graves said MnDOT asking for opinions on Highway 252’s design options before the environmental impact study was completed proves that MnDOT feels the environmental study is “merely symbolic.”

“If safety and equity are truly goals of this project, then I would expect that we would want to study alternatives that are not all freeway options to ensure we have a true understanding of how to best address the long-standing safety issues on 252,” Graves said in the statement.

MnDOT completed an equity and health assessment in 2023, which recommended the state look at non-freeway alternatives for safety improvements for Highway 252.

Burns said that even with those recommendations from their report, these alternatives have not been properly explored by MnDOT.

“That report has just been completely sidelined and ignored,” Burns said.

Minneapolis passed a resolution in 2020 against adding lanes to Highway 252 and instead encouraged expanded public transit in North Minneapolis and better protections for pedestrians and cyclists.

Burns said it is important community members of Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center and North Minneapolis understand how this project will affect them. Our Streets has begun a door-knocking campaign to educate residents about the potential highway expansion.

“If they’re interested, (we’re) offering them opportunities to either share their story with us or to get in contact with MnDOT and their elected representatives,” Burns said.

Additionally, Our Streets started a campaign for people to send letters to MnDOT and elected officials near Highway 252 and ask them to consider alternatives.

Burns said that MnDOT’s claims of the expansion being safer for drivers and pedestrians are misleading.

“What they’re saying right now is that a new freeway will reduce crashes on Highway 252 because the faster that cars are moving, the less congestion, the less crashes,” Burns said.

MnDOT needs to listen to community input from the residents this project is directly impacting before it expands the highway, Burns said.

“We just wanna make sure that before it’s too late, people have an opportunity to make their voice heard,” Burns said.

The Minneapolis City Council will vote on whether to create a Labor Standards Board by the end of the year.

If passed, the board would give recommendations to the council and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey regarding proposing new or updated labor regulations.

The board would comprise five employers, five employees and five community stakeholders, Council Vice President Aisha Chughtai (Ward 10) said in a statement emailed to the Minnesota Daily.

“There are clearly defined parameters for each seat ensuring that there are small and large employers, unionized and non-unionized employees, and community stakeholders such as consumer advocates or economic experts so that no one group or one interest can dictate policy recommendations,” Chughtai said in the statement.

Additionally, at least one representative of employees, employers and community stakeholders must support any recommendation that goes through the board before it goes before the council, Chughtai said in the statement.

Former city Council Member Elizabeth Glidden (Ward 8) supported the proposed board in an op-ed article in the Minnesota Star Tribune in August.

“This would be a place where you have that unique construction of bringing together the worker perspective with an employer perspective and a community perspective, which I just see is really valuable,” Glidden said.

Outside of being a useful tool, the proposed board is also an issue the frequently divided council and Frey can align on, Glidden said.

“This is something that could help continue to show that there are ways that, even where we kinda see sometimes this mayor and council are on different paths, that they’re off the same path (on this issue),” Glidden said.

Chughtai said in the statement she is hopeful the board will pass it as it is an easy way to improve the lives of working people.

However, misconceptions regarding what the proposed board would actually do have pitted small business owners and working-class people against each other, Chughtai said in the statement.

“Disinformation and fear-mongering about a Labor Standards Board — which is simply an advisory body to the Council — seems strange unless the special interests groups simply object to the equal presence of workers,” Chughtai said. “They’ve made it clear that it’s in their interest for policymakers to never hear from everyday Minneapolitans that make up the workforce.”

The board would not have the independent power to pass laws or change labor regulations.

Part of the board’s purpose is to facilitate conversation between business owners and working-class people, Chughtai said in the statement.

“The Labor Standards Board would be able to increase employer/employee engagement and do so on the basis of specific sectors, avoiding policy recommendations that take a one-size-fits-all approach,” Chughtai said in the statement.

Glidden said cities weighing in on workplace protections is not uncommon and the board is an opportunity to address labor issues within the city.

“I think (the board) is a unique opportunity for there to be sort of more of a formalization to conversation about what may be a rising issue,” Glidden said.

Shots were fired from a vehicle near the University of Minnesota St. Paul campus Friday morning, according to a SAFE-U alert sent out by the University.

The incident occurred near the intersection of Como Avenue and Raleigh Avenue at approximately 5:30 a.m., spokesperson for the St. Paul Police Department Sergeant Mike Ernster said in an email to the Minnesota Daily.

The shots were fired at an apartment building along Como Avenue, Ernster said in the statement. No one was injured and the shooting is being investigated.

Those with any information are encouraged to contact the St. Paul Police Department.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated. 

The Metropolitan Council received the WaterSense Excellence Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for saving approximately 30 million gallons of water in 2023. 

The award was for the Met Council’s work in water conservation efforts and in promoting the “WaterSense” label on products such as toilets, irrigation controllers and spray sprinklers, said Henry McCarthy, an environmental scientist for the Met Council. The WaterSense label indicates that a product helps conserve water usage. 

While the name of the specific award has changed over the years, this is the third time the Met Council has been recognized by the EPA for their work promoting the WaterSense label and water conservation, McCarthy said.

“WaterSense has recognized us for our efforts in getting the broader consumer public connected with these labels, and keeping an eye out for them when they’re making purchases,” McCarthy said.

Additionally, the Met Council works with the University of Minnesota’s Turfgrass Science Program to promote lawn grass mixes that save water and educational activities on lawn care and turf mixes that help to conserve water usage, the Met Council Principal Engineer of Water Resources Greg Johnson said.

Johnson said Gary Deters, an educator for the Turfgrass Science Program, helped develop low-input turf mixes, which are lawn grasses that require less water to grow. The program puts together about 25 activities per year to educate people on these mixes.

“The advantage is they use about half as much water or less than half as much water as your standard Kentucky Bluegrass,” Johnson said. “When you look at the water usage across the metro, in the summertime, communities use about one and a half to three times as much water in the summertime as they do in the wintertime, and the vast majority of that water is being used to water Kentucky Bluegrass.”

The Turfgrass Science Program also works to improve turf mixes to withstand future water demand in the Twin Cities metro, Johnson said.

Water conservation is important as the water demand will grow over the coming years, Johnson said. By 2050, it is projected that the Twin Cities area will go from using around 400 million gallons of water per day to around 600 million gallons.

“We also have parts of the metro region where the aquifer levels have been declining significantly,” Johnson said. “We have to find ways to conserve water and to become more sustainable in the future just to allow all this growth to occur.”

The WaterSense program is just one way to promote conservation work, McCarthy said.

“A big part of it is just sort of introducing these small behavior changes,” McCarthy said. “Whether it’s going to the store and specifically looking for that WaterSense label when you’re making a purchase, to just being a little bit more aware of if you are leaving the tap on when you’re washing your hands or shaving.”

Other ways the Met Council is promoting water conservation is through the Minnesota Technical Assistance Program, which targets water conservation in industry and manufacturing, Johnson said. The Met Council has also funded internships for engineering students to come up with ways to save water in the industrial field.

John Schadl, a spokesperson for the Met Council, said water is a vital resource that the Twin Cities needs to protect as demand for water grows nationally.

“We’ve been really lucky here, but as growth starts to put pressure on these resources, you’re gonna see this become a bigger and more contentious issue in the future,” Schadl said. “So that’s why it’s so critical to have these conservation things in place and be planning for that right now.”

Whether St. Paul’s Lock and Dam No. 1 will be removed is still uncertain as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues its research into the lock and dam near the old Ford factory. 

Locks and dams hold back water in the river to make pools of water for easier boat navigation along the river. The study into Lock and Dam No. 1 is exploring options to transfer the property management from the federal government to another entity and new opportunities for the site, including removal, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Patrick Moes.

In the wake of the closure of the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in 2015, the U.S. Army Corps announced three different studies would take place to see if the federal government should continue to operate the three dams in the Twin Cities, Friends of the Mississippi River spokesperson Colleen O’Connor Toberman said.

The three locks and dams in the Twin Cities are the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam, the Lower St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in Minneapolis, and Lock and Dam No. 1 in St. Paul.

“For almost 10 years now, we’ve known these disposition studies need to happen, yet the Army Corps has not completed a single one of them,” Toberman said. 

The studies look at the impacts of a possible change in management of the locks and dams, Moes said in a statement to the Minnesota Daily. 

“The study is looking at five different options for Lock and Dam (No.) 1 to include no changes; complete deauthorization of the site; partial deauthorization, which would mean that we continue to own and operate some of the features at the site; and potential opportunities for new opportunities at the site outside of the existing navigation authorization,” Moes said in the statement. 

When the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam was closed to keep invasive carp from entering the Mississippi River, it made the downstream Lower St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam as well as Lock and Dam No. 1 effectively obsolete, Toberman said. If Lock and Dam No. 1 were removed, it would drastically change the state of the river.

“When you make a dam, you’re basically turning a river into a lake,” Toberman said. 

Although discussions of the dam have been ongoing for years, it is hard to know when a decision regarding the dam will be reached, Toberman said. 

“I always tell people, if dam removal ends up being the best option, it’ll take 10 or 20 years easy before any dams are removed,” Toberman said. “This is a very, very complex project, and the Corps does not move quickly.”

The Friends of the Mississippi River have been working with Owámniyomni Okhódayapi, an Indigenous non-profit organization, to engage with Indigenous tribes about the effects of the potential removal, Toberman said.

“It’s really important to us that Dakota tribes are well represented in this process,” Toberman said. “There are several sacred sights directly in the stretch that these locks and dams have turned into lakes, and have been artificially impounded.”

Dam removals generally benefit the local ecosystem, however, there is a lot to consider about how landscape change in the river would affect the Twin Cities, Toberman said.

“Every bridge around the locks and dams needs to be studied for whether or not a changed water level would require adaptations to maintain the bridges’ structural soundness,” Toberman said. 

Other potential effects of the removal include the return of seasonal flooding along the river on the floodplain, Toberman said. This includes the trails and parks along the river.

Additionally, storm drains would have to be lowered to meet the new water levels as the removal of the dam would lower the water removal, Toberman said.

“We need to understand the costs, given the how developed of an area we have around the river here,” Toberman said.

With Lock and Dam No. 1’s construction over a century ago, removing it would be a major change for all communities involved, Toberman said.

“No one alive remembers the character of the river at this point before they were built,” Toberman said.