2024 election: Minnesota House District 26-B
WINONA, Minn. – Incumbent Greg Davids, of Preston, an insurance agent, sought re-election to a ninth term in the Legislaure. He was challenged by Allie Wolf, of Spring Valley, a college grad in computer science.
> Davids (Republican): 12,284 (62.74% (75% precincts)
> Wolf (Democrat): 7,258 (37.07%)
2024 election: Winona County Board (District 3)
WINONA, Minn. – Josh Elsing, a St. Charles-based real estate owner, sought re-election unopposed. The seat is nonpartisan by law. District 4 comprises western and mostly rural reaches of the county.
Elsing: 2,793 (98.28%), 15 of 16 precincts.
2024 election: Winona County Board (District 4)
WINONA, Minn. – County Board member Greg Olson sought a fourth term. His challenger was real estate agent and laundromat owner Jerald Hettenbach. The seat is nonpartisan by law. District 4 comprises central and West Side neighborhoods of Winona.
> Olson: 1,976 (62.22%). 15 of 16 precincts.
> Hettenbach: 998 (33.45%).
2024 election: Winona County Soil and Water Conservation Board (District 3)
WINONA, Minn. – Incumbent Bill Rowenkamp, a Gilmore Valley dairy farmer, who has been on the Boared eight years, was challenged by Lynn Carlson, an enviromentalist who served seven years on the Winona Bluff Country Co-op board and Dale Hadler, a conservationist who served five years on the Winona County Parks and Environmental Committee, The seat is nonpartisan by law
> Rowenkamp: 7,822 (42.86%), 47 of 49 precincts.
> Carlson: 6,439 (35.28%),
> Hadler: 3,386.(21.29%).
2024 election: Winona County Soil and Water Conservation Board (District 2)
WINONA, Minn. – Thomas Lindsey ran unopposed.
> Lindsey 16,986 (99.18%, (47 of 49 precincts)
2024 election: Winona City Council (mayor)
WINONA, Minn. – First-term incumbent Mayor Scott Sherman sought re-election. The seat is nonpartisan by law.
Sherman: 9,120 (96.51%), 15 of 16 precincts.
Also: 2024 election: Winona City Council (at-large)
2024 election: Winona City Council (at-large)
WINONA, Minn. – Political newcomers Jason David Dicus, owner of Computer Dock, and Al Light. a reired media producer, sought the at-large Winona City Council seat vacated by Aaron Repinski after a single term. The seat is nonpartisan by law
> Dicus: 5,829 (59.08%), 15 of 16 precincts.
> Light: 3.975 (40.29%)
2024 election: Winona City Council (1st Ward)
WINONA, Minn. – Steve Young, an insurance agent, sought re-election unopposed.
Young: 2,566 (98.5%), 4 of 4 precincts.
2024 election: Winona City Council (3rd Ward)
WINONA, Minn. – Jon Krofchalk, a real estate developer, and Samantha Zierden Shortridge, who works in the Winona State University nursing depatmemt, sought he City Council seat vacated by Pamela Eyden, who chose not seek re-election after 12 years. The seat is nonpartisan by law. The Third Ward comprises downtown Winona and the Winona State neighborhood.
> Samantha Zierden Shortridge: 1,204 (66.74%), 3 of 4 precincts.
> Jon Krofchalk: 594 (32.93%).
2024 election: Winona School Board (Position 3)
WINONA, Minn. – No candidates filed for this School Board position. Jack Hedin and Lisa Zarling had offered themselves as write-in candjdates.
Write-ins: 347 (5 of 5 precincts)
2024 election: Winona School Board (Position 4)
WINONA, Minn. – Gregory Fellman, a former School Board member and a retired accountant, and Monica Siegfried, of Pickwick, a health and safety Manager for a local manufacturer, sought this School Board seat.
. > Siegfried: 2,148 (50.13%), 11 of 11 precincts.
> Fellman: 2,100 (49.01%%).
2024 election: Winona School Board (Position 5)
WINONA, Minn. – Martin Stickney was unopposed for this School Board position.
Stickney:2,962 (97.63%), 13 of 13 precincts.
Driver stopped for weaving: Cannabis at fault?
WINONA, Minn. – A Winona driver was stopped for crossing the fog line near Fifth and Main streets and tested for being under the influence. A blood sample was taken from Lyda Ann Catlin, 45, to be checked at the state crime lab for a drug in the cannabis family, police said. The traffic stop was about 3:40 p.m.
Plea is guilty in Amish buggy hit-run
PRESTON, Minn. — A Spring Valley woman pleaded guilty to hitting a horse-drawn Amish buggy with her sedan in February and injuring two children. It was a hit-and-accident. Brittany Edgar, 32, entered plea to one felony count of criminal vehicular operation. Five other charges were dropped in a plea deal. The dropped charges included leaving the scene of collision, driving carelessly, and giving false information police. Judge Jeremy Clinefelter scheduled sentencing for late December. NOTE: This case is unrelated to a separate Amish buggy accident in September near Spring Valley with two fatalities and charges against twin sisters
Earlier: Driver sees judge about crashing into Amish buggy
Earlier: Hit-run charges levied in February buggy wreck
Earlier: Loose ends still in car-buggy collision
Driver hurt at Chatfield’s Mill Creek Road
CHATFIELD, Minn. – A Chatfield driver suffered injuries, all less than serious, in a collision west over the Mill Creek bridge in Chatfield. Hanna Wahlers Elshoff, 81, was taken 24 miles to a Rochester hospital. The other driver, Larry Donald Ladassor, 84, of Stewartville, was unhurt. The accident was about 2:05 p.m. Police said that Elshoff, in a 2007 Saturn Ion, was heading north on Mill Creek Road, and that Ladasor, in a 2018 Subaru Outback, was heading west on State Highway 30.
Early voters in Winona at record level
WINONA, Minn. — Like most of the country, a large Winona County voter turnout was expected for the general election, said county Auditor-Treasurer Chelsi Wilbright. More than 20% of registered voters submitted ballots before election day, Wilbright said. There have been more than 6,900 early ballots, easily double 2016, she said. The year 2016 is a common benchmark because turnout in 2020 was depressd by the CoVid pandemic. By law the early-ballot tallying cannot until polls close at 8 p.m.
College scores
Soccer (women): Saint Mary’s 3, Gustavus Adolphus 0
Minnesota due proceeds from drug price gougers
ST. PAUL, Minn. – The State of Minnesota will share in a $48 million settlement against two manufacturers for inflating and manipulating prices of their generic prescription drugs. Keith Ellison, the state’s attorney general, said that the Minnesota share would be determined later. Attorneys general from 50 states brought the action ganst Heritage Pharmaceuticals and Apotex. Ellison noted that further litigation is pending stll against against 30 corporate defendants and 25 individual executives.
Verbatim
Ellison: “Minnesotans want to know why the cost of prescription drugs keeps going up. Well, look no further than the conspiracy of corporations and executives scheming to reduce competition, raise prices, and line their pockets at your expense.Today’s settlements will return money to the people of Minnesota, and that our cooperation agreements will make it easier to hold the rest of the conspirators accountable.”
Drug pricing
The price for 50 tablets of Heritage Pharmaceuticals’ doxycycline tablets, an antibiotic, soared from $20 to $1,800 in just seven months. The company also produces the diabetes drug glyburide under the brand names Diabeta, Glycron Glynase Pres-Tab, and Micronase. Apotex produces the widely used generic cholesterol medication Lipitor.
Cops: Farmer stole semi-truck loads of crops
DECORAH, Iowa – A northeast Iowa farmer was charged with stealing $175,000 in corn and soybeans from other farmers’ grain bins, driving the truckloads to elevators, selling the crops, and pocketing the proceeds. Charged with ongoing criminal conduct and theft was Kurt Patrick Krauskopf, 47, who has a Decorah address. The criminal complaint says the thefts were in 2023. Krauskopf also was charged with chopping $8,500 worth of corn for silage on roughly eight acres belonging to another farmer.
Walz to LaCrosse fans: Get out the vote
LACROSSE, Wis. – Minnesota Governor Tim Walz reiterated talking points from the Harris-Walz campaign for the White House in a quick LaCrosse stop. His main message — go vote: “Your vote is your power. Don’t let them take that from you.” Walz and Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz spoke at The Main, a small venue in downtown LaCrosse that can accommodate 300 people. It was full. Also speaking was U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, who is seeking re-election.
Vance faults Harris for bunch of U.S. crises
LACROSSE, Wis. – Vice presidential candidate JD Vance, addressing a small crowd of exuberant Republicans, stressed Wisconsin’s potential to put Donald Trump back in the White House. He spoke at small but packed venue inside the LaCrosse Center. He repeated his overstated stump-speech point that illegal immigrants have created multitude of U.S. domestic crises, including a housing shortage – and said that the Democratic presidential Kamala Harris was single-handedly responsible. Harris has let 22 million immigrants into the country and they have to sleep somewhere, he said.
$250,000 bail for I-90 construction zine fatality
SPARTA, Wis.—Bail was set at $250,000 for a Sparta man accused of negligent homicide in a three-vehicle crash that killed a road construction equipment operator on Interstate 90. Monroe County Judge Mark Goodman ordered Isaac Morales, Jr., 25, be held in jail in lieu bail.
Earlier: Cops: Driver drunk in fatal I-90 crash
Venezuelan silent on Prairie du Chien sex charge
PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, Wis. – A man who’s become a poster boy for Donald Trump’s claim about Mexican outlaws overrunning the Mexico border appeared in court and decline to enter a plea to a sexual assault charge. It wasn’t clear whether Alejandro Coronel Zarate, a Venezuelan, knew enough English to understand the charge. On his his behalf, Crawford County Judge Lukas Steiner entered a plea of not guilty. The judge also continued bail at $10,000. Coronel Zarate, age 26, is accused of sexual assault with force, child abuse, battery, strangulation, and disorderly conduct. The charges stemmed from a September incident in Prairie du Chien. A woman reported being choked and sexually assaulted. Also, she said, her daughter was injured.
Earlier: Trump doubles down to stir immigration paranoia
Earlier: Trump eyes Prairie du Chien as anti-migrant prop
Earlier: Vance: Migrants causing Wisconsin health crisis
Earlier: Suspected Venezuela terrorist surfaces in Wisconsin
Assault update: A strangulation charge
WINONA, Minn. – A Winona man arrested after the bloody beating of a girlfriend and a police stand-off Friday has been released from the hospital and jailed. Aaron Thomas Swedberg, 36, had stabbed himself deeply into a leg during a drawn-out stand-off with police. At the emergency room a doctor cleaned out, dressed and bandaged the wound and turned Swedberg over to police. His recovery is continuing in jail. The girlfriend also was treated at the hospital and released. Swedberg was booked on multiple charges— felony assault, strangulation, and causing substantial bodily harm.
Swedberg. On the mend behind bars.
TGI Friday eateries into hard times
DALLAS, Texas — The once-trendy TGI Friday chain of casual-dining restaurants and drinkeries has entered bankruptcy. In the past past week dozens of locations – thought to total 200-plus — were shuttered, leaving 163 properties still operating. At its peak the chain had more than 600 units. The Dallas-based chain had been scaling back for several years since the CoVid pandemic. In the first wave of closings was the location in the LaCrosse suburb of Onalaska.
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