It’s Beagles on Wheels for rural folks
Legal outreach. Justice Bus to make rural southeast Minnesota rounds.
A Legal query? Lawyer will come to you
RUSHFORD, Minn. — Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services is hitting the road with legal help for seniors and low-income people. The agency’s Justice Bus, a mobile legal office, plans six stops this week for face-to-face interactions. The goal, said paralegal Jenna Sverynsk, is “to build attorney-client relationship and trust fort people might not have time to get to us or how to reach out for help.” The next stops:
> Rushford: SEMCAC Food Shelf, 113 East Jessie Street, Tuesday, 9 to 11 a.m.
> Caledonia: Public Library, 231 East Main Street, Tuesday, 12 to 2 p.m.
> La Crescent: Public Library, 321 Main Street, Tuesday, 3 to 5 p.m.
> Wabasha: Public Library, 168 Alleghany Avenue, Wednesday, 9 to11 a.m.
> Plainview: Highway 42 and Broadway Avenue, Wednesday, 12 to2 p.m.
> St. Charles: City Park, 719 West Sixth Street, Wednesday, 3to5 p.m.
Post-Minneapolis DFL brawl finger-pointing
MINNEAPOLIS – The brawl that shut down the nominating process for a Democratic convention for the City Council began as incumbent Aisha Chughtai was getting ready to deliver the first speech of the convention. Her challenger, Nasri Warsame would have had the chance to speak next. Neither got to make their speeches. In later statements:
> Chughtai, a community organizer in her first term on the Council, said more than a dozen of her supporters and Democratic Party volunteers were assaulted. She said Warsame delegates charged the stage assaulting her and her supporters as she was about to begin her convention speech. Her supporters, Chughtai said, had to lock themselves in a hospitality room to get away. “What happened was horrifying, unacceptable, and indicative of the growing threat to progressive, pro-people candidates and movement leaders,” Chughtai said.
> Warsame, a public housing executive and himself a former City Council member, said that his campaign manager was assaulted by a Chughtai staff member. He posted a picture of himself visiting an injured supporter in the hospital. “Violence and unfairness have no place in democracy,” Warsame said.
Earlier: Democrat chief ponders expelling Minneapolis brawlers
Angry son arrested after threats to mom
MINNESOTA CITY, Minn. – Deputies arrested a Winona man after a foot chase that followed complaints from his mother of terroristic threats The mother, scared, had called police to her Minnesota City address about 12:10 p.m. that that her 22-year-old son was banging on her door. Deputies mediated the situation. He left. In the evening the mother called again that the son was on phone and threatening to kill her and a brother. Officers found Jake Andrew Jonsgaard at a Winona address. Informed he was under arrest, deputies said, Jonsgaard fled on foot. One deputy ran faster and caught him.
Jonsgaard. He was booked for domestic assault, terroristic threats, fleeing.
Dark murder mystery drama opens at Winona High
The Manninghams. Jonathan Roberts as Jack Manningham. Lacey Korb as Bella Manningham. You fIgure out the era: He’s reading the Winona Republican Herald..
Theater du Mississippi asks you to be a sleuth
WINONA, Minn. — Theater du Mississippi is began on-site rehearsals Monday if Patrick Hamilton’s murder mystery “Angel Street” at the Winona Hugh School, a bigger stage than its usual. Curtain: Thursday and Friday at 7.p.m. nd Saturday at 2. Tickets: $15 to $20. The set is one evening at the home of wealthy couple Jack and Bella Manningham. About Jack, played by Jonathan Roberts:“He’s a terrible, terrible man, a bit devious and a terrible husband.” Manningham appears to be trying to drive his wife insane. The jig unravels with the arrival of a quirky detective named Rough, played Vonte Thompson, a first-time Theater du Mississippi actor.
Chatfield collision injures two persons
CHATFIELD, Minn. – A Rochester woman and a young passenger were injured albeit not seriously in two-vehicle collision on U.S. Highway 52 at 300th Street. Amy Lynn Sinnwell, 38, and a boy, 10, whose name was no released, were taken 24 miles to a Rochester hospital. Police said their 2021 Dodge Challenger and a 2008 Chevy Silverado driven by Tayler J Shaw, 31, of Chatfield, collided at the intersection. Shaw was unhurt. This was about 7:20 p.m.
Townspeople eulogize teen hockey player: EV42
REEDSBURG, Wis. – People rallied in sympathy for the death of a 13-year-olds middle-school hockey enthusiast who was killed when stuck by a truck while boarding a school bus. Firefighters and paramedics in nearby Baraboo designed stickers to honor Evelyn, pale blue in her team colors with two hockey sticks and her jersey number 42. Proceeds from selling the stickers, at $5, will go the Gurney family. All around Reedsburg, where Evelyn went to school, merchants showed pale blue EV42 symbols of sympathy and support. An online appeal quickly raised $77,000 from 1,100 donors. Supportive messages came from throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota and northern Illinois, where Evelyn played.
Stickers of sorrow. Everywhere. On windshields, backpacks, store windows, even wrapped around jugs of water.
Bouquets at her school. Classes cancelled in Reedsburg.
Kingsbury custody issue: Blacked-out documents
WINONA, Minn. – The attorney for Adam Fravel objected to massive blacked-out sections of documents that the Winona County Social Services agency presented in the Maddi Kingsbury child custody case. Fravel, age 29, is the father of the children, age 5 and 2, and he’s gone to court for custody. At a hearing Fravel’s attorney, Tom Braun, waved a page of County documents to show almost everything blacked out. “I’m left to guess what’s in these,” Braun told Judge Mary Leahy. Braun said he’s handicapped in making the case for custody if he can’t know what evidence the County is presenting to deny custody. Apparently the redacted information is a result of a complex overlapping of separate although related issues: First, the police investigation into Madi’s disappearance, a possible criminal issue, and, second, the child custody case, a civil issue.
Background: After the 26-year-old Kingsbury disappeared March 31, Social workers went 40 miles to Fravel’s parents home in Mabel, where he had taken the children. Backed up by deputies, the social workers took the children. Although police have investigated Fravel’s whereabouts the day of Kingsbury’s disappearance, they have said repeatedly that he is neither a “suspect” nor “person of interest.” Both are legal terms. Kingsbury’s family, however, blames Fravel, and her parents have custody for the time being.
At the hearing. Fravel sat with his attorney. Tom Braun of Rochester. Kingsbury’s parents sat at another table. The assistant county attorney representing the county Social Services Department. Rebecca Church, defended the redacted documents as intended only for the judge to see. Church accused Braun of a “fishing expedition” to learn evidence that police have against Fravel. At the same time, Church said she doesn’t have access to police information herself because of a firewall policy between her office sand police. Judge Leahy has set another hearing for June 6.
Fravel. He had no comment as he entered the Winona County Courthouse trailed by his counsel, Rochester attorney Tom Braun, and an aide.
Updating and filling voids
Among revelations at the hearing and interviews as principals came and went:
> Children. The two have been living with her Kingsbury’s parents as guardians. The County assured the court that children are receiving age-appropriate mental health support.
> Freeze out. The Kingsburys assiduously avoid speaking poorly about Fravel to the children, the County told the court. Braun noted, however, the family’s “significant disdain” for Fravel, which has been unstated but obvious publicly in news conferences, vigils and volunteer searches from which he was excluded.
> Break-up. Kingsbury and Fravel had been living with the children in a townhouse on Kerry Drive on Winona’s West End, but the relationship was disintegrating. She was looking for a new place for herself and the children.
> Disappearance detail. New details emerged in courthouse interviews to fill out what’s known about the disappearance: Fravel and Kingsbury dropped their children at daycare in the morning and returned to the townhouse, where she had a home office for her job with Mayo Clinic. Fravel reported he left for errands and came back later to find Kingsbury gone but didn’t report it. Later in the day her family called police after being unable to raise her by phone or email. Fravel has steadfastly denied anything to do with the disappearance.
No serious injuries in Silo school collision
LEWISTON, Minn. – A car turning off the highway to drop a child at the Silo Lutheran school about 7 a.m. was rear-ended. Madonna Joan Gasca Hernandez, 26, of Altura, was ticketed for careless driving. Although not appearing seriously hurt, she was taken 19 miles to the Winona Hospital to be checked over. No one in the struck car was hurt.
$487 million fine for kickbacks to eye doctors
Unpretentious quarters. At 5715 West Old Shakopee Road in suburban Bloomington.
Tipster led to federal prosecution, huge fine
ST. PAUL, Minn. – A Minnesota manufacturer of cataract surgery equipment was fined $487 million for kickbacks to eye doctors in a Medicare fraud scheme. The judgment was against Precision Lens of Bloomington and owner Paul Ehler. Federal Judge Wilhelmina Wright ordered the fine after a trial that found that 65,000 false claims were submitted to Medicare. Damages incurred by Medicare were calculated at $131 million. The judge tripled the fine as punishment. The kickbacks included high-end vacations, some by private jet, to skiing, fishing, golfing, hunting, sporting and entertainment destinations. Among them: Broadway shows, the Master’s golf tournament, and the college football national championship game.
Whistleblower reward
Precision Lens and Ehler maintained a secret slush fund for the kickback, federal prosecutors said. Whistleblower Kipp Fesenmaier, who brought the fraud to the attention of prosecutors, will receive a percentage of the damages as a reward. Said U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger said: “The government often relies on whistleblowers to bring fraud schemes to light that might otherwise go undetected.”
Barge commerce re-opens on Upper Mississippi
WINONA, Minn. – After almost two weeks tied up in temporary berths because of flooding, barges are moving again through locks all the way from Guttenberg to Minneapolis. Lock No. 1 at Minneapolis was re-opened first by the Army Corps. The 11 others followed, including Lock 5 at Minnesota City and 5A at Fountain City.
Earlier: Navigation blocked by flood waters at Alma
Democrat chief ponders expelling Minneapolis brawlers
MINNEAPOLIS – Politics as a blood sport will not be tolerated, the state Democratic chair, Ken Martin, said for a brawl that broke up a City Council nominating convention for a central Minneapolis neighborhood. Martin said the Democratic Party will consider expelling anyone involved. At least two people were injured. Martin said he will call an emergency meeting to assess what happened. Supporters of candidate Nasri Warsame jeered as incumbent City Council member Aisha Chughtai prepared to speak. Then Warsame the supporters stormmed the stage. Pandemonium erupted. There were no arrests, police said, because combatants’ were dispersing by the time officers arrived, Officers withessed only the poster-strewn n aftermath.
Chughtai. City Council incumbent.
Warsame. Ward 10 challenger.
Verbatim
Martin: “Harassment and violence are unacceptable, and we expect candidates and their campaign teams to work hard to curb such behavior when it comes from their supporters, staffers or volunteers. Warsame and his team took the opposite approach at today’s convention by escalating the situation and encouraging conflict.”
How they voted: Gun restrictions / 1
ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Minnesota Senate voted 34-33 to create two restrictions on guns, both called common-sense restrictions by advocates. The restrictions were recommended by a joint Senate-House committee. Still to come: Will the House also adopt the joint committee recommendations? How southeast Minnesota senators:
For public safety budget, with gun restrictions
Liz Boldon, D-25 (Rochester)
Against
Gene Dornick, R-23 (Hayfield)
Steve Drazkowski, R-20 (Mazeppa)
Rich Draheim, R-22 (Mankato)
Jeremy Miller, R-26 (Winona)
Carla Nelson, R-24 (Rochester)
Earlier: Minnesota Senate passes gun limits
Winona college machining team takes national title
GREENVILLE, S.C. – A four-student advanced manufacturing team from Minnesota State College Southeast won the national Project MFG competition and $100,000. With lathes and mills the Winona team created a stainless steel hip replacement implant within 20 hours over three days and within budget restraints. The team:
> Austyn Warren, as programmer.
> Ivey Wadmen Vehrenkap, CNC machinist.
> Brad Bishop. manual machinist
.> Ellery Kiesel, welding.
The team trained on a three-axis machine on campus and a Haas five-axis machine at Rushford Manufacturing.
Next generation machinists. From the 26-course machine tool curriculum at Southeast.
ATV driver critically hurt in rollover
Rain-slickened emerging undergrowth. Four-wheeler landed upside down. Image: Vernon County sheriff
Disaster on deep-woods venture to top off weekend
HILLSBORO, Wis. – An all-terrain vehicle overturned in remote country after dark near Hillsboro and crushed the driver. Family members pulled Francis J. Stanek, 66, from under the machine. He was airlifted 50 miles to a LaCrosse hospital. He was in critical condition. The accident was about 8:30 p.m.
175 entrants in Root River triathlon
Guiding athletes to shore. Boy Scouts from Troop 53 pull canoes and kayaks from the river after the triathlon’s first leg. About 80 volunteers in all were involved. Image: Mike Beckman
Event raises $11,000 in 25h running
HOUSTON, Minn. – The Houston Lions Club raised $11,000 for community projects with its annual Root River triathlon. There were 175 entrants from11 states. The route: Canoeing 6-1/2 miles down the Root River from Houston to Mound Prairie, biking seven miles back to Houston, and running 3-1/2 miles to finish. This was the event’s 25th anniversary.
Iowa kids hurt in Brownsville crash
BROWNSVILLE, Minn. – Two Lansing, Iowa, boys, age 13 and 6, were injured in a collision and taken 16 miles to a LaCrosse hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Houston County Sheriff Brian Swedberg did not release their names. Their driver was Samantha Rae Bly, 33, of Spring Valley. She was uninjured. The Bly vehicle, a 2013 Ford F150 pickup, and a 2010 Subaru Forester driven by a 17-year-old girl collided at Highway 26 and Main Street about 3:15 p.m. The name of the teen-age driver also was not released by the sheriff. She was unhurt.
Fountain City music fest: Lonely Knees
FOUNTAIN CITY, Wis. — The 2023 Fountain City “Rhythms by the River” concert season begins Thursday with Lonely Knees at 6 p.m. The Rochester-based band is known for Be Gees covers and Americana music. Local artist John Rislove opens 5:30.
Lonely Knees. Expect to hear “Staying Alive” and other BeeGee hits from their 1958 to 2003 run.
Driver had lots of explaining to do
WINONA, Minn. – The open bottle of Sminoff on the floor of his car wasn’t the problem for Cody Joseph Koscianski, 19, of Winona, when police stopped him about 1:45 a.m. Under a white cloth in the back seat was a fully loaded Taurus 9mm handgun, police said. In the glove box was a loaded magazine. Worse, Koscianski didn’t have a gun permit. He said he didn’t know where the gun came from – wasn’t his. Nor, said a passenger, was gun his. About the Smirnoff, Koscianski failed sobriety tests on the spot, like walking a straight line. His blood-alcohol measured 0.14% — almost double what’s allowed. The stop occurred after an officer reported Koscianski’s car weaving over the center line, overcorrecting, and almost hitting a parked car. This was at Third and Huff streets.
Koscianski. Uncapped vodka in car, also a handgun.
Limbo: What next for Masterpiece Hall
Big glass cube. One issue for Winona Historic Preservation Commission purists is the 46-foot glass corner that almost abuts 1898 public library.
How more flexible will $35 million donors be?
WINONA, Minn. – The design criteria for the 700-seat concert hall proposed on Fifth Street follow criteria laid out by Bob Kierlin and Mary Burrichter, the benefactors behind the $35 million project. Kierlin and Burrichter had no intention of creating the brouhaha that’s erupted over the design, said construction contractor Peter Schwab, who has been intimate on the project since its inception. Architect Jason Woodhouse noted that the design already has been modified once – after the State Historic Preservation Office called the structure too large. The state agency found that the design would detracting from the historic junior high school it replaces. The agency also said the exterior materials weren’t compatible with neighboring historic structures. Although adjustments were made in response, Woodhouse said that reducing the size of the building wasn’t feasible: A 700-seat concert hall is large by its nature. Schwab noted that Kierlin and Burrichter have been willing to go over budget to do the building Their goal, he said, is to create a new catalyst for the city’s economic development.
Verbatim
Jason Woodhouse, architect: “The design was not to compete with what’s around it but complement it — not try to match it but be in harmony with it.”
“Art galleries and performance spaces can’t have many windows, as sunlight could degrade historic paintings or interfere with the concert hall’s lighting.”
Architectural hangups
The Winona Historic Preservation Commission has delayed a certificate of appropriateness for the propose Masterpiece Hall. The Commission’s concerns include:
> Inconsistence with the city’s downtown zoning code the requires window and facades that comport aesthetically with historic structures.
> A wholly glass box at the corner adjacent to the classical revivalist Winona library built in 1898.
> None of the brick of the next-door historic Laird-Norton building built in 1918 now a Winna State art and design center.
> Solid walls that are windowless backdrops for the junior high school behind the concert hall on Sixth Street. The school has bene remodeled into a historically faithful apartment building.
> Stark limestone slabs and street-to-roof windowing in a minimalist modern spirit.
> Too much street-view limestone and granite and too little brick to fit with other recent downtown renovations.
City staff has endorsed the design. The final decison rests with the City Council. Meanwhile, the Historic Preservation Commission has asked architects to come up with drawings from more angles and perhaps revisions.
President to unhappy profs: Let’s restart
THIEF RIVER FALLS, Minn. – The beleagured president of Northland College, whose faculty has called for her to step down, Sandy Kiddoo issued a statement that she will seek “collaborative conversations” with faculty. Last week the faculty took an overwhelming “no confidence” vote against Kiddoo. The vote was 96%. Said faculty President Brent Braga: “The aim of the vote was both to alert local administration, as well as the system office in St. Paul, that faculty are deeply dissatisfied.” Votes of no confidence are rare. Seldom does a campus president survive.
Verbatium
Kiddoom on enrollment losses and changes she’s made in her two years as president: “I fully understand the concerns, anxiety and discontentment among the Northland community. I am committed to continued collaborative conversations on how I can improve and work together to provide high-quality and affordable education opportunities for our region.”
Verbatim
Malhotra, MinnState chancellor, who said in 2021 when he appointed Kiddoo that he was impressed with her record of a collaborative management style elsewhere: “The best way to resolve these differences is through robust engagement and identifying structures and practices that will address the concerns. I am committed to working with faculty leadership and President Kiddoo so that Northland can continue on a sustainable and accelerated path forward.”
Week’s summary: Ending May 13, 2023
GOVERNANCE: Minnesota Senate passes gun limits
GOVERNANCE: Legislators nod yes to free college tuition
GOVERNANCE: Dog-breeding limits still on County agenda
GOVERNANCE: Solon: Mayo late opposing health-care bill
GOVERNANCE: How they voted: Family leave / 2
GOVERNANCE: Legislation advances to ban faked video
POLITICS: Luck of the draw: Spitzer to County Board ballot
ARTS: Awkward place to be: Preservationists feel fenced in
ARTS: Pulitzer book prize for the George Floyd story
COLLEGES: WSU chief now next MinnState chancellor
COLLEGES: What next for Winona State leadership?
COLLEGES: Hormel leader to UM top job coming year
COLLEGES: Accreditors OK Southeast College nursing degree
JOURNALISM: Winona Daily ends home delivery, cuts frequency
RIVER: Army Corps’ dam disposition study moves ahead
COMMERCE: Engine fire halts ethanol train into Winona
Earlier: Week’s summary: Ending May 6, 2023
College scores
Baseball: UW-LaCrosse 7, UW-Whitewater 2
Softball: UW-LaCrosse 2, UW-Stevens Point 1
A rescue after boat gets away on Mississippi
ST. CLOUD, Minn. – Firefighters in a rescue boat found a man who had jumped into the Mississippi River to catch his boat, which had gotten away in the rapid current. The man was fine, stranded on an island. The man and his son had been upstream on another island when the boat got away. The son called 911 as he watched the boat and his father disappear around a bend. This was south of St. Cloud near the St, Cloud Country Club. What about the boat? It too was recovered.
Fists end Minneapolis Ward 10 DFL convention
MINNEAPOLIS – A free-for-all brawl ended the Ward 10 Democratic nominating convention for City Council. The convention chair, Sam Doten, called off the meeting amid the chaos. No choice, he said: “It was no longer safe.” Things had calmed before police arrived. A man in his 30s was taken at a hospital with injuries, albeit apparently not serious. An unjured woman was treated at the scene. What happened: City Council member Aisha Chughtai took the stage. Some supporters of her challenger, Nasri Warsame, jumped on stage, shouting, banging on tables and waving signs. Amid pushing and shoving, Doten repeatedly banged a gavel to quiet the melee. It didn’t work. Bridget Siljander, who was on the stage with other Chughtai supporters, later told a reporter: “I was scared some of us might die,” Siljander said she feared a stampede. The Chughtai-Warsame contest has been highly charged, mostly between young people on Uptown apartments and old-timers in Victorian streets.
Mayhem at the podium. Tempers lead to violence and stop Democratic nominating process.
Driver dies in head-on dump truck crash
Fire erupted. The dump truck has slid off the shoulder and polowed through earth into the borrow pit. The crash was between Coates and Hampton. U.S. Highway 52 was closed all afternoon. Image: Minnesota Transportation Department
Three vehicles in construction zone pile-up
COATES, Minn. – A driver died when his sedan veered across the median and struck a dump truck in a construction zone. First-responders said that Gabriel Christopher Lilja, 29, of St. Paul, was dead when they arrived. The crash was about 11:45 a.m. on a four-lane straight stretch of U.S. 52 50 miles north of Rochester. Lilja was heading north toward St. Paul. The State Patrol said the driver of the dump truck, George Bardon, 39, of nearby Welch, was taken 20 miles to a St. Paul hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Debris from the crash struck a third vehicle, which rear-ended the dump truck. The driver, Deborah Dolsky, 66, of Apple Valley, was not injured.
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