First look: World-class Winona concert hall
Biesanz stone, of course. Architectect Jason Woodhouse said the acoustically balanced concert hall will stand 54 feet at its tallest. The street-side facade will be locally quarried Biesanz stone and floor-to-ceiling windows.
Inaugural concert still Summer 2025
WINONA Minn. – A long-waited peek at the proposed Masterpiece Hall concert venue and art museum, a $35 million project, was released philanthropists Bob Kierlin and Mary Burrichter. The site, next to the Winona library on West Fifth Street, has been leveled for a year. Now, pending final city clearances, construction is planned to start this spring. Target for a debut concert: Summer 2025 for a full house of 700 Beethoven aficionados.
Mayo bullying catches legislator unawares
BRIGHTON, Minn. – The sponsor of a House bill to assure adequate hospital nursing care, Sandra Feist, said an ultimatum from Mayo Clinic to kill the bill was unexpected. “I was surprised,” Feist said. “I had been working diligently with Mayo for many weeks to identify language that would address their concerns without gutting the bill.” Feist said there have been months of debate and negotiations with hospital leaders and more than a dozen significant changes. The bill, called Keeping Nurses at the Bedside, aims for nurses and hospital staffs to establish workload standards. The standards would apply to hospital preparedness and to incident response rates. The in-house hospital committees also would establish eligibility for nursing scholarships, for education loan forgiveness, and for mental health programs for health care workers.
Feist. A second term House member elected from north Minneapolis area. A lawyer. A Democrat.
Winona Daily ends home delivery, cuts frequency
WINONA, Minn. – The Winona Daily News, with fewer than 2,400 subscribers and not even a daily since 2020, announced a retrenchment to three times a week publication. The paper once claimed a press run of 14,000 and seven-day-a-week home delivery in seven counties. Todd Krysiak, the newspaper’s LaCrosse-based absentee editor. announced also that the paper is abandoning home delivery and will be mailed to remaining subscribers jut of a printing plant in Madison, Wisconsin. In a Page One announcement Krysiak acknowledged changing news consumption habits, shifts in advertising trends, and rising newsprint costs. The new publication schedule: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. In an upbeat spin, Krysiak promised that every issue will be a “Sunday reading experience that’s bursting with local news. “More content, more sections, more pages,” he said. It was unclear how local coverage can be stronger. Although the paper now has three news reporters, it recently limped along for months with only one. At its height, the Winona newsroom had a staff of 14.
Verbatim
Krysiak: “Every day, you’ll find the best of local, national and international news and features on our digital platforms, including our website, our mobile app, our newsletters, our social media channels and our E-edition. If you love the experience of reading the printed newspaper page after page, our e-edition could become your new best friend on days when a print edition is not delivered to your home.”
Krysiak. Executive editor of LaCrosse Tribune. From afar he does double duty for Winona Daily News, which like the LaCrosse paper is owned by the financially struggling Iowa-based Lee Enterprises newspaper chain.
Once at prominent downtown corner. The Winona Daily News was founded in 1855, before the city had paved streets. It is the second oldest continually publishing newspaper in Minnesota. For most of its history the nameplate was the Republican-Herald. In the 1940s Winona had the third largest circulation in the state with the Republican-Herald, bested only by the Twin Cities and Duluth. In 1955 the paper was renamed the Daily News. A Sunday edition 1961 made it a true daily — seven days a week. Lee Enterprises purchased the paper in 1980 from local publisher Bill White.
Week’s summary: Ending May 6, 2023
GOVERNANCE: Mayo’s $5 billion ultimatum: Our way or no way
GOVERNANCE: How they voted: Marijuana legalization / 2
GOVERNANCE: How they voted: Paid family leave / 1
GOVERNANCE: Dems: Van Orden a rail safety hypocrite
GOVERNANCE: Rezoning Garvin Heights farmland for housing
GOVERNANCE: Tuckered Minnesota senator votes online from bed
ARTS: Film for Cinco de Mayo: Human exploitation
COLLEGES: WSU takes extra time for classroom redesign
COLLEGES: Faculty union blasts “secrecy” in St. Cloud layoffs
CLOSE CALL: Child dog-bite victim home recuperating
CANDLES: Tears mix with hope at vigil for Maddi
HEALTH: Ranking: Winona patient safety OK, not stellar
TOURISM: River cruises plan record Winona Levee visits
COMMERCE: New train soon to a depot near you
RESCUE: Fisherman’s boat swept away in flood, him too
CRIME: New police challenge from looser marijuana law
CRIME: South Dakota end of trail for fleeing ex-priest
CRIME: Sheriff relieved at Matter’s 25-year sentence
103 mph chase ends with speeding ticket
LAMOILLE, Minn. — At 103 mph, a Winona County deputy decided to break off a chase on Highway 61. Suspecting the driver had turned into the Green Terrace trailer court, the deputy spotted the car parked and located the driver. The deputy said Rafael Wilson Ramirez-Santiago, 27, of Winona, admitted to speeding. The deputy reminded hum that the limit is 65 and wrote out a ticket. This was about 11:50 p.m.
College scores
Baseball: Sioux Falls 7, Winona State 6
Baseball: Winona State 2, Sioux Falls 0, doubleheader
Baseball: UW-LaCrosse 13, UW-Eau Claire 1
Baseball: UW-LaCrosse 3, UW-Eau Claire 2, doubleheader
Softball: UW-Whitewater 3, UW-LaCrosse 2
Softball: UW-LaCrosse 11, UW-Whitewater 1, five innings, doubleheader
Mayo’s $5 billion ultimatum: Our way or no way
ROCHESTER, Minn. – The financially powerful Mayo Clinic is bullying the Legislature to back off bills to improve hospital staffing and to curb rising health-care costs. In an investigative journalism piece, the Minnesota Reformer reported that Mayo has threatened to kill $5 billion in newinvestments in Rochester and build in another state instead. Why? The Legislature is pondering these bills:
> Keeping Nurses at the Bedside bill, to give nurses a role in setting hospital staffing levels.
> Health Care Affordability Board bill, to create an agency to help rein in health-care costs.
The hard-ball message to lawmakers, from Mayo’s chef lobbyist, Kate Johansen, is an ultimatum. In an email, Johansen said in effect: Gut the bills. The email went to Governor Tim Walz and legislative leaders. The email said that Mayo’s decision on whether to move its expansion plans elsewhere was is “time sensitive.” The decision, she said, would be made in a matter of days. “Because these bills continue to proceed without meaningful and necessary changes to avert their harms to Minnesotans, we cannot proceed with seeking approval to make this investment in Minnesota. We will need to direct this enormous investment to other states,” she said.
Mayo’s clout
As Minnesota’s largest private employer, Mayo Clinic is a a self-serving heavyweight in the state’s public policy in the past. Mayo’s major leverage in recent history has been its Destination Medical Center project to strengthen the clinic’s role as a global magnet for health care. In 2013, the Mayo extracted $500 million in state funds for the project. The Clinic’s claim was that the project would generate billions of dollars in private investment in Rochester. The best estimate is that the Destination Medical Center project so far is succeeding and has drawn $1.2 bullion in private investment and continues to do so. A distinction between the 2013 and 2023 Mayo demands is that time the Clinic is opposing legislation designed to improve the quality of public health services and to reduce medical expenses for the public.
Hospital staffing
The Keeping Nurses at the Bedside bill would require hospitals to form committees made up of nurses and other hospital staff to create “core staffing plans” to set ceilings on how many patients each nurse can safely care for. A public grading system report on how well hospitals comply. The bill is supported by the Minnesota Nurses Association. Hospitals have spoken against the bill, saying it would raise staffing costs, lead to closing hospital units, and force hospitals to turn away patients. Worth noting: Eight other states have similar requirements. California and Massachusetts have even more stringent, government-mandated nurse-to-patient ratios. Mayo Clinic says the bill would impede the automation of many of the functions nurses. Also, says Mayo, the public grading system could tarnish its reputation.
Transparency on patient costs
The Health Care Affordability bill would create a board to monitor patient costs for health care and report to the public regularly. This likely would take the form of rank-listing hospitals as a consumer-friendly mechanism in choosing hospitals. The bill’s sponsors have noted that hospital charges have skyrocketing and are likely to worsen as the population ages. Rising costs would eventually would require the state to care for people in need. Mayo has called the bill “extremely problematic.” As drafted, the bill would face “a huge threat the well-being of Minnesota’s health care,” Mayo says. In recent financial reports, Mayo has complained about rising expenses exceeding revenue from patients.
In 100 miles 1 million items or thereabouts
Dodging rain drops. Scattered rain sent purveyors and their merchandise inside their garages, then out again, in the 100-Mile Garage Sale ritual up and down the Mississippi this first weekend of May. This on Randall, an otherwise little-known Winona back street on the West End. Image: Steve Lunde
Five tires slashed on pair of cars
WINONA, Minn. – A woman told police that three tires on one of her vehicles and two on another were slashed overnight. This was in the 1150 block of West Broadway. The woman suspected an ex-boyfriend. Police asked him. Not me, he said.
Lost your emu? Call cops up in Grant
GRANT, Minn. — Just as the caller had said, deputies found an emu strutting in the sunshine and happily eating apples. The huge bird, a flightless species native of Australia, was glad to see the deputies. “Super friendly,” they said. Where did the emu come from? Although they’re fast walkers, like 30 mph, Australia is a long way from Grant in the far north St. Paul suburbs.
Soft-feathered creatures. Among birds, they are second in height only to ostriches. Some are 6-foot-2. They forage for plants and insects. They can go weeks without eating. They drink infrequently, but when water’s around they take in copious amounts.
Image: Washington County sheriff
Tears mix with hope at vigil for Maddi
Flames of hope. Clergy from several churches lit candles at the aisles to be passed through the pews until everyone had a symbolic flame. The vigil ended with everyone raising a candle and singing “You Are My Sunshine.”
Father: “Don’t stop until she’s found”
WINONA, Minn. – Hundreds of townspeople filled every pew in First Congregational Church for a vigil to bring Maddi home. Her family and college sorority sisters were tearful with memories and simultaneously hopeful that Maddi, age 26, mother of two, would be found. Her father pleaded as firmly as his broken voice would allow:
“When you leave here tonight you should be thinking: Not here. Not in our town.
“Someone knows something. Someone saw something.
“Make this your battle cry: Where’s Madeline? Where is she? Make it loud. Don’t stop until she’s found.”
Whoever is responsible, justice will be done, he said.
Missing from memory montage
A slide-show montage of photos from Kingsbury family albums was shown on a large screen. Notably absent from hundreds of photos was anything with the father of Maddi’s children — Adam Fravel. He is the last person known to have seen Maddi the day she disappeared. To Maddi’s family, Fravel has been persona non grata. He has not been invited to her family-organized searches and news conferences nor or to either of two vigils — this even though he’s concerned: “I want the mother of my 5-year-old and 2-year-old to be found and brought home safely,” he said. “I want that more than anything” Fravel, a software engineer, is seeking custody of their children. Social workers took the children from Fravel at his parents’ home Mabel, 45 miles from Winona, after police declared Maddi an “endangered missing person” whose disappearance was “suspicious.” Police have been consistent that Fravel is neither a suspect nor a person of interest. The children, meanwhile, are being well cared for temporarily in a home selected by social workers, Maddi’s family said.
College scores
Baseball: Winona State 5, Sioux Falls 5, suspended due to weather
Baseball: UW-LaCrosse 12, UW-Eau Claire 2
Baseball: UW-Eau Claire 5, UW-LaCrosse 2, doubleheader
Rain ruins Cinco de Mayo street event
ROCHESTER, Minn. – Wind-whipped rain forced cancellation of the 10th annual Beer Street block party downtown. The storm blew in from the west. There was no Plan B. Hundreds of celebrants retreated to nearby bars and eateries – or went home for a quiet evening of make-it-yourself tacos and nachos in front of television and a Tecate brew or two.
Cops “looking at everything” in Maddi search
WINONA, Minn. – Five weeks after Maddi Kingsbury disappeared, Winona police continue to receive tips and leads in the case. Deputy Police Chief Jay Rasmussen said every bit of information is catalogued and examined. Kingsbury 26, mother two, disappeared from her Winona home March 31. Police have suspended the massive multi-county ground searches that marked the first two weeks, including one weekend with 2,600 volunteers. Family and friends continue to sweep areas that police recommend as bearing examination.
Quest for interim UM president narrows
MINNEAPOLIS – Four finalists have been named to become the University of Minnesota’s interim president until a full national search can be organized to replace Joan Gabel. Three of the four have UM connections. The fourth is Jeff Ettniger, the retired chief executive of the Hormel food giant based in Austin. Chosen from 21 applicants:
> Jeff Ettinger, of Hormel, currently chair of the Hormel Foundation governing board. He ran for Congress unsuccessfully in 2022.
> Myron Frans, senior UM vice president for finance and operations.
> Mary Holz-Clause, chancellor of UM-Crookston.
> Thomas Sullivan, retired president of the University of Vermont and former UM provost and senior vice president.
Public interviews are scheduled for Monday.
Earlier: UM president leaving in July
Cyber-crooks stole staff, some student data
ROCHESTER, Minn. – What originally was called a “cyber security incident” was indeed a ransomware event, Rochester school officials acknowledged. The FBI has been called in. No ransom was paid, according to Superintendent Kent Pekel. In a ransomware attack, an outside party seizes control of an organization’s digital records and threatens to erase them if a ransom payment is not made. District officials knew from the. beginning that the invasion of their network was for a ransom but decided not to say so until now, four weeks later, to protect the integrity of the investigation, Pekel said. He confirmed that personal information involving some employees and also some student workers was stolen. It was not believed that personal information involving other students was accessed.
Feds to iron mines: Cut mercury emissions
WASHINGTON — In a tribal-friendly crackdown on the iron-mining companies in Minnesota and the Michigan Upper Peninsula, the U.S, Environmental Protection Agency proposed new limits on mercury emissions. Mines operated by Cleveland-Cliffs and U.S. Steel have ignored earlier federal limits on mercury. In 1990 Congress set mercury emission standards, but EPA never enforced them. Tribal objections have gone unheeded. The new EPA order, from the Biden Administration, would require a 57% reduction of mercury emissions. The Minnesota mines affected by the EPA order produce half of the mercury emissions in the state.
Mercury profile
Mercury, also known as quicksilver, is the only metallic element that is liquid. It is highly toxic. Mercury emerges from cinnabar deposits when they are ground in milling. Mercury poisoning results from inhalation of mercury vapor or ingestion on any form. A serious result is Minamata disease. It also is a risk factor for autism.
South Dakota end of trail for fleeing ex-priest
FLANDREAU, S.D. – Police picked up a former Catholic priest wanted in Winona County in a case of sexual misbehavior. A warrant for the arrest of Ubaldo Roque Huerta was issued in Winona after he skipped a court date in September. It was believed for a while that he fled and relocated in his hometown of Rushmore in southwest Minnesota. His arrest on April 25 was in Flambeau, population 2,300, across the South Dakota border about 90 miles from Rushmore. He has been held in the Moody County jail in Flambeau awaiting return to Minnesota. It’ll be a 315-mle trip shackled back to Winona.
Earlier: Cops stymied on finding ex-priest in sex case
Earlier: Ex-priest misses court date on sex charge
Huerta profile
Huerta was ordained as a priest for the Winona Catholic Diocese in 2008. He was immensely popular for flamboyant services in Spanish. He chose robust hymns, danced in the pews, and led worshippers in enthusiastic song, hand-clapping and revival-like merriment. His parish duties were cancelled by Bishop John Quinn in 2018 for reasons on which the Diocese never elaborated. Huerta lost his clerical status 2021, again without official elaboration. Huerta had served in these parishes: The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart and St. Casimir, in Winona; , St. Borromeo, in Charles; St. Aloysius, in Elba; Holy Redeemer, in Eyota, and St. Francis of Assisi. in Rochester. The sexual misconduct charge was filed after a man showed up corporeally bleeding and bruised at the emergency room at the Winona hospital.
Video: 2019 Spanish service
Video: 2019 Spanish service
Police: She was too fast, too drunk
WINONA, Minn. – A North Mankato driver was stopped for speeding and then arrested for drunken driving. Police said Jenna Lee Lenz-Hansen, 28, failed field sobriety exercises and tested for 0.16% alcohol in her blood — twice the legal limit. This was about 3:20 a.m. at Highway 61 and Vila Street near the Gundersen Clinic.
Lenz-Hansen. Speeding in 45 mph zone.
New vigil for Maddi; no weekend search
WINONA Minn. – Organizers of ground searches for the missing Winona woman Maddi Kingsbury these past five weeks will skip this weekend. Instead, they invited well-wishers to a vigil at 7:30 p.m., Friday, again, like last weekend. at the Lake Park war memorial. If weather is bad. the vigil will be at First Congregational Church. About searches, the family and the Minnesota United volunteer group said in an inline message: “After speaking with law enforcement, we have decided that we will not be hosting a public search this weekend. The areas police would like us to focus on this weekend are smaller in size. We are confident these areas can be adequately searched by the smaller groups of friends, family and sisters.”
Earlier: Yucatan still focus of latest Maddi searches
Earlier: Public invited to lakeside vigil for Maddi Kingsbury
College scores
Baseball: UW-Eau Claire 5, Saint Mary’s 4
Baseball: Saint Mary’s 8, UW-Eau Claire 7, doubleheader
Softball: UM-Duluth 4, Winona State 1
Softball: Concordia of St. Paul 9, Winona State 0, five innings
Softball: Saint Mary’s 11, Augsburg 3
Softball: Saint Mary’s 12, Augsburg 11, doubleheader
Softball: UW-LaCrosse 2, UW-Eau Claire 0
Softball: UW-Eau Claire 4, UW-LaCrosse 2, doubleheader
Film for Cinco de Mayo: Human exploitation
WINONA, Minn. – The 1954 film “Salt of the Earth,” reviled at the time as Communist propaganda, will be shown at the Winona Arts Center to mark Cinco de Mayo. Time: 7 p.m., Friday. Tickets: $5 at door. The evening snack platter: Salsa and chips and non-alcoholic sangria. The film is now considered a classic. The story was built on a strike against a powerful mining company in New Mexico and how exploited miners and their families navigated the strike.
Rarely screened. Opened in New York City but was rarely seen in the United State for another 10 years. Fearful of the McCarthy Red Scare at the time, 12 theaters screened it.
“Salt of the Earth” profile
The plot centers on a 15-month 1951 strike by miners in New Mexico. Director Herbert J. Biberman cast actual miners and their families. The film is considered one of the first from a feminist social and political point of view. It was blacklisted in part because it was endorsed by the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, whose leaders had been called Communists. The project was denounced in Congress. Edgar Hoover’s FBI investigated allegations, never proven, of hostile foreign financial backing. Paranoid critics predicted the film would be used overseas as anti-American propaganda. The American Legion called for a nationwide boycott.
Anti-Communist vigilantes attacked the film crew during production and burned homes of union members. Rosaura Revueltas, the leading lady, abandon the set under threat of imprisonment and deportation. She fled to her native Mexico. Then the FBI pressured Mexican federales to interfere with shooting her remaining scenes.
The film was processed and edited in secret locations in California. The negatives were closely guarded. Film-processing labs were told not to work on the film.
Teacher ‘s career accomplishments honored
WINONA, Minn. — A retired Winona teacher. Margie White, received an educator award from the South East Retirement Association of Minnesota. White began teaching first through fifth grades in Dakota and then was 35 years at Washington-Kosciusko in Winona. White was a faculty union representative in negotiations to merge county schools into Winona District 861.
White. Bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Winona State University.
Ranking: Winona patient safety OK, not stellar
WASHINGTON – In a new rating of patient safety, Winona Health was ranked 32nd in Minnesota. The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit health care watchdog, gave the hospital a C rating on a school-like A to F scale. The leading Minnesota hospital was Essentia Health’s Saint Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth. Several Mayo Clinic hospitals received an A grade. An exception was the Mayo hospital in Red Wing, which, like Winona Health, received a C. There were no D’s or F’s in the state. The ratings:
A grades
> Essentia Health Saint Mary’s Medical Center
> Mayo Clinic Hospital – Saint Marys Campus
> Cambridge Medical Center
> United Hospital
> Lake Region Healthcare
> Methodist Hospital
> Abbott Northwestern Hospital
> Mayo Clinic Hospital – Methodist Campus
> Lakeview Hospital
> Owatonna Hospital
> Buffalo Hospital>Mayo Clinic Health System – Mankato
> Mayo Clinic Health System – Austin
> Mayo Clinic Health System – Fairmont
B grades
> Hennepin Healthcare
> Olmsted Medical Center
> Northfield Hospital
.> Fairview Range
> Ridgeview Medical Center>
> M Health Fairview Southdale Hospital
> Mercy Hospital
> Mercy Hospital – Unity Campus
> M Health Fairview Northland Medical Center
> M Health Fairview Ridges Hospital
C grades
> North Memorial Health Hospital
> Mayo Clinic Health System – Red Wing
> Sanford Worthington Medical Center
> Alomere Health
> CentraCare – St. Cloud Hospital
> Winona Health
> St. Luke’s Hospital
> M Health Fairview Lakes Medical Center
> Grand Itasca Clinic and Hospital
> Essentia Health – Saint Joseph’s Medical Center
> M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center – West Bank Hospital
> Essentia Health – Virginia Clinic
> CentraCare – Rice Memorial Hospital
> Sanford Bemidji Medical Center
> Essentia Health St. Mary’s – Detroit Lakes
> St. Francis Regional Medical Center
> Regions Hospital
> Hutchinson Health Hospital
> M Health Fairview St. John’s Hospital
> M Health Fairview Woodwinds Hospital
> Maple Grove Hospital
Leapfrog’s measures
Leapfrog used more than 30 measures of hospitals’ ability to protect patients from preventable errors. Considered were communication with nurses and doctors, staff responsiveness, and communication about medicine and discharge information. Hospitals were asked to use a Leapfrog survey of patients, but, Leapfrog noted, Winona Health did not do so.
Great concerns
Leah Binder, Leapfrog chief executive, expressed concern about growing incidence of:
> Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus infection.
> A central line-associated bloodstream infection.
> Catheter-associated urinary tract infections.
Compared to rankings that covered the period immediately before the CoVid outbreak, the analysis found an increased infection ratio nationwide for all three infections. “We recognize the tremendous strain the pandemic put on hospitals and their workforce, but alarming findings like these indicate hospitals must recommit to patient safety and build more resilience,” Binder said.
River cruises plan record Winona Levee visits
WINONA, Minn. – Cruise companies have purchased Winona docking privileges for 31 landings by five river boats this tourist season. This compares to 26 dockings in 2022.
American Countess (245 passengers): September 6.
American Heritage (150 passengers): October 5, 9.
American Queen (417 passengers): August 8, October 3.
American Serenade (175 passengers): August 28, September 1, 12, 15, 26, 29; October 10, 13.
American Symphony (175 passengers): June 27; July 1, 12, 15, 26, 29; August 9, 12, 23, 26; September 6, 9, 20, 23, 26; October 4, 7, 18, 21.
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