Minnesota could become the first state to permit use of marijuana for medical purposes while not allowing patients to smoke it — setting it apart from the District of Columbia and 21 other states that have already legalized medical marijuana. A compromise at the Legislature this year, however, still hinges on whether some groups consider the final deal restrictive enough.

Among the sticking points: 

• Whether patients have access to up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana leaves to vaporize
• Whether Minnesota — the 12^th-biggest state by square miles — should have three, or 24, or 55 dispensaries
• Whether 5,000 or 35,000 Minnesotans should be covered

Gov. Mark Dayton and House and Senate lawmakers are trying to strike a deal on medical marijuana with just six days to go before the May 19 adjournment deadline. The medical marijuana bill has appeared all-but-dead at several points this session, with Dayton reluctant to sign a proposal that law enforcement officials opposed.

A last-minute observational study compromise struck between cops and legislators in the House has won the governor’s approval, but senators — who passed their version of the medical marijuana bill with a veto-proof 48-18 vote last week — prefer a more expansive law.

Minneapolis DFLer Scott Dibble, the Senate bill author, said some of the House proposal’s restrictions make it “inadequate and unworkable” for senators.

The upper chamber opted on Tuesday to head into a conference committee this week to strike a deal with the clock ticking on the legislative session.

For now, all three parties say they are willing to make compromises to get something passed before adjournment. “I hope they work out a bill that we can all support,” Gov. Mark Dayton, who raised the profile of the issue this session with his initial opposition, said Monday.

“We want to do anything we can to [alleviate] the pain and suffering of children and adults who suffer from diseases and afflictions that might be helped by medical marijuana, but we want to do it in a way that’s not going to open it up to even more people for greater harm.”

Vaporizing leaves, or just liquids?

The House and the Senate medical marijuana bills allow the state Department of Health to administer a medical marijuana program that does forbids patients from smoking the plant.

While neither bill allows smoking, the Senate proposal allows approved patients to obtain 2.5 ounces of plant-form marijuana at any one time. Patients could then ingest the marijuana in various forms under the Senate bill, including crushing and heating the leaf form to just short of combustion.

Sen. Scott Dibble

For Dibble, having access to the whole plant is only way patients can get the therapeutic effects that medical marijuana can offer. The House bill, authored by Rep. Carly Melin, DFL-Hibbing, allows approved patients to use medical marijuana in an oil or pill form. They can also vaporize a liquid form of medical marijuana under the supervision of a practitioner.

In an expansive letter to the House and the governor sent Sunday, Dibble said digestive absorption is slow and uneven with pill and other forms of medical marijuana, which “does not allow patients to receive immediate benefit” or “very precisely limit their own dosage to alleviate symptoms.”

Using the plant form also opens up the number of people who can receive treatment, Dibble said.

The House medical marijuana bill allows coverage for a list of eight illnesses, including seizure disorders, cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and other disorders that cause severe muscle spasms, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, HIV and AIDS. An estimated 5,000 Minnesotans fall under those categories for treatment, but the Senate bill would cover roughly 35,000 Minnesotans. Dibble’s bill includes illnesses like intractable pain, which he says should be included because there’s no other known treatment for the disease.

Even so, Dayton prefers the House bill — which also passed last week with a wide 86-39 margin — noting that it’s hard for him to imagine a scenario where people walk away with several ounces of plant-form marijuana and not abuse the system.

"It's to me impossible to believe someone is going to buy 2.5 ounces of marijuana and not smoke it or not sell it to someone else who will," Dayton said. "It just defies common sense in my judgment." 

Big state, few dispensaries?

The House version allows for only one in-state medical marijuana manufacturer run by the Department of Health, plus three satellite distribution centers. Dayton prefers that proposal to the Senate version, which allows for 55 dispensaries around the state.

Dibble says he’s willing to drop that to 24 dispensaries, or three per congressional district, but he’s worried too few facilities would make access difficult for people in the rural, far-flung regions of the state. “Minnesota is a big state. It takes 7.5 hours to drive from International Falls to Worthington. Asking an ill person to drive several hours to get what they need … will put relief out of reach for many,” Dibble wrote. 

Each state with legal medical marijuana treats distribution centers differently, said Karmen Hanson, a program manager with the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Some calculate the number of dispensaries by population density or by county, while some allow for homegrown options if patients are too far from a dispensary. 

Rep. Carly Melin

Rhode Island allows for six dispensaries, despite being one-seventieth of the size of Minnesota.

“Looking at ratio of population-to-dispensary, the one with three satellite locations would seem low compared to other programs out there,” Hanson said. “That’s purely by the numbers. Each state is unique in how it handles its program based on the need.”

Dibble also says putting the state’s medical marijuana in one place could risk the entire treatment program if there’s, say, a fire or bad crop.

Still, Dayton said he’s still concerned it would be too difficult to police problems under the Senate bill with so many facilities, not to mention the security and credentials of dispensary workers. The House proposal — a study — gives the Department of Health and its commissioner more direct control in determining patient dosages.

“There’s no doctors involved,” Dayton said. “There’s nobody … assessing what is the proper dosage, what is too much to get behind the wheel of a car.” 

Compromise possibilities

But there are things Dayton says he likes about the Senate bill.

For instance, The Senate version makes it a felony for any patient caught diverting his or her own supply of medical marijuana. The House proposal doesn’t include specific penalties.

The Senate proposal also lays out specific security measures at laboratories and other facilities, but the House proposal does not, Dibble said.

“I am convinced a middle ground exists,” Dibble concluded his letter. “We can sensibly provide relief to thousands of Minnesotans while ensuring cannabis only reaches those who need it for medical purposes.”

If you're not too pleased with Minnesota's road conditions these days, you can hustle over to the State Capitol Tuesday morning (10 a.m., Room 125) and sign a band-aid.

According to MoveMN, a coalition of 170 groups pushing for better roads and public transit, the giant band-aid on which it has collected 2,000 signatures symbolizes the kind of help the state Legislature gave our ailing and incomplete transportation system this session. (If you can't attend, you can sign the group's petition.)

It's not as though there wasn't acknowledgement that more is needed. In 2012 a transportation funding committee appointed by Gov. Mark Dayton calculated that the state has to spend $21 billion over the next 20 years merely to maintain its the roads and bridges and $50 billion to create a "world-class sytem," including transit in the Twin Cities and in Greater Minnesota.

'Nice gesture, but it doesn't do the job'

The Legislature this year instead appropriated just $11.4 million to fix potholes in 87 counties and another $3.6 million for cities, for a total of $15 million. "That's about $100,000 per county," says Margaret Donahoe, executive director of the Minnesota Transportation Alliance, a prominent member of MoveMN. Considering that each pothole costs about $1,000 to repair, "It's a nice gesture, but it doesn't do the job," she adds.

No kidding. According to James Erkel, director of the Land Use & Transportation Program at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, it doesn't even do the Job du Jour — taking care of the roads in 2014. He analyzed state auditor reports, which set forth what cities and counties plan to spend on roads this year. Here are the data:

The Legislature's one-time fix of $15 million is 1.3 percent of the current expenditures that cities and counties plan for this year alone and a pathetic 0.9 percent of everything they plan to spend.

"You can't even really call it a band-aid," says Erkel. "Band-aids provide at least some beneficial effects. This is more like one of those little dots." I think he means the ones you use for the tiniest of boohoos on a hypochondriacal 2-year-old. 

That's a crushingly disappointing finish to a year when the stars seemed to align and point toward progress. MoveMN, which got off the ground late last year, united about 170 disparate transportation groups which previously had been at each other's throats: The Minnesota Transportation Alliance, which includes construction and engineering groups, unions and city governments, nornally in favor of road-building to the exclusion of all else; Transit for a Stronger Economy, a consortium of 50 groups plumping for light rail, buses and other mass transportation; and biking-walking groups.

What's more, the DFL holds all the reins of power, and the party platform [PDF] calls for "well-designed and maintained roads and bridges throughout the state" and "increased investment in Minnesota’s transportation and infrastructure, on a regional and statewide basis, including public transportation, mass transit, commuter rail corridor, light rail, buses, pedestrians and bicycles." The state also found itself with a $1.23 billion budget surplus, an amount that would encourage legislators, one would think, to get a little bit spendy on transportation infrastructure.

And, what MoveMN asked for wasn't exactly earth-shaking. It was merely looking for the Legislature to provide ongoing sources of revenue that would be devoted to transportation — so that projects wouldn't be subject to the political whims of whatever party happened to be in power.

Among the proposals:

• Close the leased vehicle sales tax loophole. In 2006, voters endorsed a constitutional amendment requiring that the existing motor vehicle sales tax be earmarked transportation. But the measure did not include sales taxes from leased vehicles. That was partly fixed two years later, but only a portion of the money is devoted to transportation. Allocating all of the leased vehicle sales tax to highway and transit funding would raise $32 million annually, without increasing taxes.

• Increase the sales tax by ¾ cent in the seven-county metro. Currently, the transit tax is 1/4 cent. The extra amount would bring total annual revenues for transit to $335 million; a small portion could fund bike and pedestrian connections in the metro.  
• Tax wholesale fuel. Because cars have become so much more efficient, the gas tax no longer produces enough money to maintain and repair roads. A 5 percent sales tax on wholesale fuel, also called the fuel gross receipts tax, would stabilize the source of transportation funding and increase with inflation. Minnesota’s current gas tax would remain the same. The new sales tax would raise an estimated $360 million annually in new transportation funding.

This rather modest program managed to survive the House and Senate transportation financing committees, but it got stuck in the tax and financing committees.

There were all manner of excuses from legislators. It is not a "budget year." It is a short session. It's an election year. "They raised the gas tax in 2008, and that was an election year," says Donahoe, sounding a bit frustrated. Nonetheless, the DFL leadership did not want legislators to have to vote on new taxes before running again, says Erkel. Another negative: lack of support from the state's Chamber of Commerce, which hadn't recovered from the sting of tax increases passed last year.

Donahoe says that MoveMN will be back to do battle in 2015. The governor and the DFL leadership have both promised to make transportation finance a priority next year — if they're re-elected, of course. 

CC/Flickr/Mark Dayton

Gov. Mark Dayton signed the Women's Economic Security Act on Sunday.

Now that Gov. Mark Dayton has signed into law our Women's Economic Security Act, I pause to think about women and families all over the world. Last fall, I attended a conference in Washington, D.C., and met an Afghani woman, Shinkai, who, like me, is a mother and an elected official. I quickly discovered we shared similar hopes and dreams for our children and families. I was thinking about her last month as I watched — along with people around the world — as Afghanistan held democratic national elections.

Rep. Connie Bernardy

While we may not know the results of these elections for months, many observers estimate that around 7 million eligible voters cast their ballots on April 5. An estimated one-third of the 7 million voters were women. With a record number of women running for provincial council seats, and the first-ever woman on a leading national ticket, women felt more invested than ever in this election.

Here in the United States our foremothers have walked these steps toward full political participation. As a woman, a mother and a state legislator, I deeply appreciate the heroic efforts of those who have come before me, winning women’s suffrage and a voice in the realm of political discourse. Minnesota women continue those leadership efforts with the Women's Economic Security Act and their support for other initiatives like raising the minimum wage to help women and their families.

Reason for hope

Afghanistan is welcoming a new dawn of women’s political participation. After years of Taliban rule, enforced silence and captivity for women all over Afghanistan, this recent election marks one of the first opportunities any have ever had to participate in the running of their country. The women of Afghanistan have reason to be hopeful. Women’s participation has allowed lasting peace to be built in generations-long conflicts from Northern Ireland to Liberia.

How do we make sure that this glowing hope for change in Afghanistan is not extinguished in our time? The Women, Peace, and Security Act (WPS) of 2014 is the key. This act expands upon the first-ever National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security (U.S. NAP) introduced on Dec. 19, 2011, by President Barack Obama’s executive order. The National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security recognizes the critical role of women in preventing and resolving violent conflict and building lasting peace. It aims to protect women and girls from rape and gender-based violence and guarantees equal access to humanitarian aid in crisis situations. This plan calls for women’s meaningful participation and decisionmaking in all matters of peace and security.

As a mother and a legislator, I engage on local issues to advance the concerns of my constituents — from the economy and employment to health care. In addition, I understand that true security will not be achieved by force of arms alone. We must support the Women, Peace, and Security Act because empowering women is associated with lower poverty, higher economic growth, better nutrition and education of children, and other outcomes vital to the security of our communities. From here at home to the world at large, women’s voices and participation are crucial for building the world we want to live in.

Women and political transformation

No matter the outcome of the Afghan elections, our message remains steadfast: Women will continue to work to ensure that Afghanistan does not forget them. Women are being recognized as a powerful voting bloc, and it is increasingly apparent that candidates must address women’s rights. The new president of Afghanistan must take note of the influence women held on this election, and respond accordingly.

We must support the Women, Peace, and Security Act so that this transformation of political participation is possible all over the world. Shinkai is running for re-election in the fall parliamentary elections and will continue to be an inspiration and role model for her country and the world over.

Rep. Connie Bernardy, DFL-District 41A, is an active member of the Women Legislators' Lobby (WiLL), a program of Women's Action for New Directions (WAND).

WANT TO ADD YOUR VOICE?

If you're interested in joining the discussion, add your voice to the Comment section below — or consider writing a letter or a longer-form Community Voices commentary. (For more information about Community Voices, email Susan Albright at salbright@minnpost.com.) 

DFLers in the Minnesota House of Representatives will be short one vote the rest of this week, as state Rep. John Lesch heads up to Camp Ripley for National Guard training.

The DFL holds a 73-61 House majority, but will need Republican votes to pass a bonding bill due to a 60-percent-majority requirement. Lesch's absence may mean they need one more.

Lesch, from St. Paul, joined the Guard in 2009. He's been called to "inactive duty" at the north central Minnesota camp through May 18, says a statement from House leaders.

Lesch's aide at the Capitol said the six-term legislator was not available. Asked if this call-up was a surprise, the aide said: "No comment."

Lesch works as a prosecutor in St. Paul when not legislating.

Creative Commons/Graeme Maclean

For the study, an international team of researchers collected 24 hours of urine samples from 783 Italians who were over the age of 65 and living in two small towns in Tuscany, Italy.

Once again, research points out what by now should be obvious to all of us: No single compound in food is the “magic ingredient” that will help us live longer, healthier lives.

In this case, the compound that’s not the be-all-end-all of health is resveratrol, an antioxidant found in red wine, grapes, peanuts, dark chocolate and a few other foods. It’s been long touted (mostly by supplement manufacturers and on the shakiest of evidence) as a preventative for a host of age-related diseases and conditions as varied as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, dementia and, yes, even wrinkled skin.

The new research in this case is a study conducted in Italy and published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. It found — to the surprise of the study’s authors, who had hypothesized a different outcome — that people who consume a diet rich in resveratrol do not live any longer than people who eat lower amounts of the antioxidant. Nor are they any less likely to develop heart disease or cancer.

Conducted in an Italian wine region

For the study, an international team of researchers, led by Dr. Richard Semba of Johns Hopkins University, collected 24 hours of urine samples from 783 Italians who were over the age of 65 and living in two small towns in Tuscany, Italy. The amount of resveratrol metabolites in the samples was then measured and recorded. (None of the participants was taking resveratrol supplements.) Based on those measurements, the participants were divided into four groups and followed for nine years.

During that time, 268 of the participants (34.3 percent) died. The researchers compared those participants’ earlier resveratrol levels with those of the participants who were still alive. They found no meaningful association between resveratrol concentrations and mortality, even after adjusting for such factors as age and gender. A similar proportion — about one-third — of the participants in each resveratrol quartile had died.

The same was true for the 174 (27.2 percent) of the participants who developed heart disease during the nine years of the study and the 34 (4.6 percent) who developed cancer. The proportion of people across the resveratrol quartiles who were diagnosed with heart disease ranged from 22 to 28 percent, and the proportion diagnosed with cancer ranged from 4.3 to 5.0 percent.

In other words, the incidence of disease in each of the groups was essentially the same.

“This study suggests that dietary resveratrol from Western diets in community-dwelling older adults does not have a substantial influence on inflammation, cardiovascular disease, cancer, or longevity,” the researchers conclude in their paper.

‘Doesn't stand the test of time’

“The story of resveratrol turns out to be another case where you get a lot of hype about health benefits that doesn’t stand the test of time,” said Semba in a statement released with the study. “The thinking was that certain foods are good for you because they contain resveratrol. We didn’t find that at all.”

That’s not to say, Semba and his colleagues stress, that foods containing resveratrol are not healthful.

“It’s just that the benefits, if they are there, must come from other polyphenols or substances found in those foodstuffs,” Semba said. “These are complex foods, and all we really know from our study is that the benefits are probably not due to resveratrol.”

Unfortunately, supplement manufacturers have persuaded the American public otherwise. As Semba and his colleagues point out in their study, annual sales of resveratrol supplements in the United States have reached the $30 million mark.

Yet, the researchers add, “there are no data concerning its safety in high doses or for long-term supplementation in older people, who often have [several medical conditions] for which they are taking multiple medications.”

As I’ve said repeatedly about these “red wine” pills (and all supplements that claim to prevent health problems): caveat emptor.

You’ll find an abstract of the new study on the JAMA Internal Medicine website, but, unfortunately, the study itself is behind a paywall.

As is the way in politics, when the 2014 Legislature convened back in February there was no shortage of rumors about the issues that threatened to erupt. For the most part they were pretty predictable — extensions of the red-hot controversies of years past involving entrenched interests.

No one could have predicted that when lawmakers crashed into a final, political pothole it would be an 11^th hour, backroom tussle over what's known in education policy circles as the “PSEO gag rule.” The phrase in question limits what colleges and universities can tell high school students interested in earning college credit.

In theory, the final step for the 2014 education policy omnibus bill, which removes the gag, is a simple yes or no vote on the Senate floor of the same conference committee report the House last week approved 80-49.

But last-minute division has put Senate DFLers in a political pickle. To avoid an embarrassing floor debate within their own caucus, leaders are thought to be toying with a series of options that are all variations on a parliamentary deus ex machina.

In an effort to be there when it happens, a small army of education advocates — many of them usually on opposite sides of the issues — has taken up occupancy in the Capitol hallways. In addition to the gag rule, the bill contains a painstakingly negotiated series of policy provisions educators are anxious to see pass. A no vote or the tabling of the bill would mean widespread pain.

PSEO stands for Post-Secondary Enrollment Options, a state program that allows 10^th-, 11^th- and 12^th-graders to earn credit from Minnesota’s institutions of higher ed. The idea behind the 30-year-old initiative is to give students access to rigorous and specialized coursework and to college.

Research has proven that students who participate in PSEO are twice as likely to go on to higher ed and twice as likely to finish a post-secondary degree. And in an age of spiraling student debt, the program has legions of fans who believe more high schoolers would take advantage of it if they knew more.

'Good for kids'

Rep. Linda Slocum

“This is just plain good for kids,” said Rep. Linda Slocum, the Richfield DFLer who proposed removing the six-word gag clause. “We wring our hands about the college debt and this is an effort to do something about that.”

Right now, state law says that colleges and universities can tell students and parents only about PSEO’s “educational and programmatic” advantages. They cannot extoll the fact that the state pays for the college courses, which means students can graduate from high school with two years of college completed — for free.

School administrators counter that the “free” credits cost $60 million per biennium — money they’d prefer to spend in their own classrooms. They object to the idea that colleges can “recruit, solicit and advertise” among their students.

The president of the Minnesota State College Student Association, Kelly Charpentier-Berg, participated in PSEO in 1995. The only reason she knew about the program, she said, is because the alternative learning center where she was finishing high school was located on the campus of Pine Technical College in Pine City.

When she graduated, Charpentier-Berg had 14 credits under her belt and the confidence to go on to college. Now as head of the student group, she hears frequent complaints from new high school grads who are upset that they didn’t know about the state-funded college credits while they were still eligible.

By contrast, high school students are frequently told that Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and college in the schools programs, all of which can shorten college tenure, are money-savers for students and families.

“For example, North St. Paul High School points out that via college in the schools, its students earned 1,286 college credits in the 2012-13 school year,” explained a letter to lawmakers signed by representatives of a number of education groups. “The [school’s] website explains, ‘This translates to a tuition savings of more than $595,000 for the families of those students who take advantage of this opportunity.’”

Plus, the vast majority of the PSEO money stays in public education. According to state data obtained by the Center for School Change, which has tracked the program for years, 84 percent of PSEO credits earned in 2013 were obtained from public institutions; 73 percent at the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system (MNSCU), and 11 percent at the University of Minnesota. More than $23 million of the $27.8 million in tuition reimbursements went to state institutions.

At the same time, Minnesota college students have the fourth-highest level of debt in the nation, at more than $31,000 per student.

“As legislators, you often request a ‘fiscal impact,’” proponents of eliminating the gag wrote in their statement. “Providing fiscal impact information to families and students also makes sense.”

Long-term grumbling

There's long been bipartisan grumbling about the gag clause, but removing it had little traction until this year. As part of a series of tweaks to PSEO, Slocum got interested in a debate over how schools should “weight” the courses when grading.

PSEO’s appeal is part of the reason that schools have moved to adopt Advanced Placement and other college-level coursework. Yet PSEO was the only effort at increasing rigor that was singled out when it came to what administrators could tell students and families.

At the same time, the Center for School Change’s Joe Nathan was finding inconsistent compliance with a portion of the law that said high schools had to give students timely information about their PSEO options.

In its education policy bill, the state Senate ultimately voted to require better and more timely disclosure from schools. The House adopted Slocum’s proposal removing the words that limited what higher ed could say about PSEO.

The conference committee that reconciled the bills adopted both changes. The House last week adopted the entire package, even as a schism was opening in the Senate. Greater Minnesota DFLers, in particular, are said to fear that PSEO could cut into their already diminished enrollment.

'Follow the money'

Senate leadership, meanwhile, is said to have little stomach for what seems to be shaping up to be a fight. The various options supposedly under consideration for use as early as Tuesday morning include stripping the PSEO provision from the policy bill and tucking it into a “must-pass” provision such as the finance bill or sending the measure back to the conference committee.

For her part, Slocum wishes her colleagues in the upper chamber would just drop the hammer. “In education, you’ve got to follow the money,” she said. “It’s not about the kids, it’s about the adults in the room when you follow the money.”

When Oscar-nominated actor Barkhad Abdi took the stage Monday night, the crowd of about 100 that filled Safari Restaurant and Event Center in Minneapolis burst into cheers.

“I’m sure a lot of you recognize me from ‘Captain Phillips,’” he said of his riveting performance in the 2013 movie that won him a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor last year. “But I’m not here to talk about that.”

Abdi instead spoke about the importance of a money-transfer system — known as “hawala” — that serves Somali-Americans who send money to loved ones abroad and provides a lifeline for the fragile economy of war-ravaged Somalia.

Abdi was joined by U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, Minneapolis City Council member Abdi Warsame and other officials at a roundtable discussion hosted by Oxfam America and Adeso to talk about ways to improve the flow of money from Somali communities in the United States to Somalia.

In recent years some U.S. banks have refused to work with Somali money-transfer operators because of federal anti-terrorism laws. But last week, a bill sponsored by Ellison that would ease regulatory barriers on these money transfers passed the House with bipartisan support. The legislation is now on its way to the Senate.

Like many Somalis, Abdi used to receive money transfers, or remittances, via hawala from relatives in the United States when he was growing up in Yemen. Today, if Abdi wants to send money to his uncle in Somalia, he said that he would go to a hawala in Minneapolis. “And within a few minutes,” he added, “I [would] get a text message saying that he received the money.”

Like Abdi and millions of Somalis around the world, Warsame said that hawala services are also important to him: He sends money to his mother, who lives in Mogadishu, through the money wire-service system.

“My mother is a very privileged individual,” he said. “She travels around the world. She’s from London; she goes to Mogadishu. Even to her, it’s very important that she gets her money when she needs it.”

But many local services are going out of business because their partners, including U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo, have terminated partnerships after unfolding reports of money laundering.  

Kristin Toretta, an officer with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, said that while the majority of money transmitters are legitimate and provide transparent means to send money, some money transmitters in Minnesota and elsewhere send funds to Al-Shabab, a Somalia-based cell linked to the militant Islamist group Al-Qaeda.                     

“As long as money transmitters have been operating as integral part of the U.S. economy, they have also existed alongside of abuse of the systems,” said Toretta. “This has included financial fraud, funding of human trafficking, drug cartels and terrorist organizations.”

Ongoing investigations

When the FBI learned five years ago about the disappearance of dozens of Minnesota men who authorities said joined a terrorist group in Somalia, agents investigated local mosques and raided money-transfer businesses.

Agents also interrogated some members of the Minnesota Somali community, including college students, looking for information about their connection with the missing young men.

Those investigations led to the 2011 convictions of Amina Farah Ali, now serving a 20-year sentence in prison, and Hawo Mohamed Hassan, who is serving 10 years. The Rochester, Minn., women were found guilty of conspiring to funnel money to al-Shabab fighters from 2008 through 2009. Authorities learned that Ali used money-transfer services in Minnesota to send $8,600 to the fighters, although no Minnesota businesses were charged or closed down.

Just a few months after Ali and Hassan were convicted, partner banks — U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Franklin Bank and St. Paul-based Sunrise Community Banks — suspended their services. The move has shaken the Somali-American community, which sends an estimated $215 million to struggling family members in Somalia each year.

Following the bank suspensions, community leaders and others organized demonstrations that led to hundreds of Somalis closing their accounts at Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and other financial institutions. The community also pushed for legislation that would support free and secure flow of remittances to Somalia.

U.S. House passes remittance bill

Last week, the House passed the Money Remittances Improvement Act, intended to limit regulatory barriers and to allow hawalas to easily provide services to their global customers.

Ellison said Monday that banks gave him two reasons they don’t want to work with hawalas: Regulations the banks have to comply with are complex and banks want to avoid potential fines imposed under federal laws if an improper money transfer occurs.

If adopted, the new law would improve oversight of institutions like hawalas and reduce multiple regulators. Toretta added that the bill would help the federal government make more efficient use of resources.

MinnPost photo by Ibrahim Hirsi

Panelists included: Rep. Keith Ellison; Kristin Toretta of the U.S. Department of the Treasury; Aden Hassan, representing one of the money-transfer services; and actor Barkhad Abdi.

But Ellison said there is still a lot of work to do, urging the audience at the event to call their representatives in the U.S. Senate and urge them to support the legislation.  

“In politics, if you’ve an issue that is really important but nobody is fighting for it, it ain’t going nowhere,” he said. “But if you’ve got an issue that is not very important but … a whole lot of people are pushing for it, it will go somewhere.”     

Even though the Senate has yet to take up the legislation, it was a night of celebration for Warsame.

“What happened on the sixth of May is worthy of celebration,” he said of the passage of the House bill, “because I never believed that a House run by our Republican friends would ever have passed such a motion.”

Birth of hawalas

Before the civil war broke out in Somalia in 1991, little was known about the money-transfer system. Only a few people, mostly students and government personnel, lived outside the country. Families depended on incomes generated in their own country, with little to no expectation of financial contributions from family members outside Somalia.    

But the civil war changed all that, resulting the collapse of governmental institutions and some private businesses. As a result, Somalia has become isolated from the rest of the world and millions have fled to neighboring countries, Europe, Canada and the United States.

Now, as business owners, professionals, cab drivers and factory workers, Somali-Americans and Somalis living in other countries share their paychecks with struggling relatives and family members in Somalia.

Remittances provide Somalis with the basic needs of life, including food, housing and clothing, according to a 2013 study, “Keeping the Lifeline Open: Remittances and Markets in Somalia.” Remittances also allow families to send their children to schools and invest in small businesses.  

The Somali diaspora sends home approximately $1.3 billion each year, with 16 percent of that coming from Somali-Americans, according to the study.

This flow of money led to the birth of hawalas in the 1990s, with over 20 Somali-owned money-transfer companies now operating globally. The big names of the hawala services in the Twin Cities include Dahabshiil, Amal Express, Tawakal Express and Amaana Express.

An unofficial estimate has that the average Somali-American family sends from $300 to $500 in remittances every month; service providers charge $5 for each $100 sent.

“This service is cheap, compared to any other Western companies,” Abdi said.

Ibrahim Hirsi can be reached at ihirsi@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter at @IHirsi.

Minnesota DFL party officials have posted the schedule for their May 30 - June 1 state convention in Duluth, where Gov. Mark Dayton and U.S. Sen. Al Franken will be formally endorsed for reelection.

There won't be many surprises this year, with incumbents getting the nod in most state-wide races, including State Auditor Rebecca Otto and Attorney General Lori Swanson.

There will be a contested battle to replace Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who isn't seeking reelection. State Reps. Debra Hilstrom and  Steve Simon are seeking that endorsement.

The schedule for events at the DECC, (Duluth Entertainment Convention Center) on the waterfront:

Friday, May 30

• 2 p.m., final screening by the Nominations Committee.
• 3-5:30 p.m., registration 
• 4-5 p.m., training sessions 

Saturday, May 31

• 8-10 a.m., training sessions
• 10:30 a.m., call to order
• Morning and early afternoon, endorsements for State Auditor Rebecca Otto,  Attorney General Lori Swanson; followed by Secretary of State battle between Hilstrom and Simon.
• 4 p.m., or thereabouts, endorsement for  Gov. Mark Dayton and new Lt. Gov. running mate, Tina Smith.
• 5 p.m. or so, endorsement of U.S. Sen. Al Franken.

Sunday, June 1

•  10 a.m., call to order
• Platform and Constitution committee reports and elect 16 state directors.

One of our favorite things about spring, right up there with bluebells and daffodils, is the Walker’s announcement of its new performing arts season. Year after year, we see that once again, we’re in for it: months of thrilling, challenging, enlightening, provocative, puzzling, transforming, sometimes infuriating events. This year – the Walker Art Center’s 75th anniversary – the more than two dozen programs include five world premieres, multiple commissions, residencies, and co-presentations with the Cedar, the SPCO’s Liquid Music series, Northrop and the Soap Factory. Performers will come from as far away as Africa and Japan and as near as our own backyard.

As in the past, the 2014-15 season is defined by curator Philip Bither’s willingness to go out on a limb. An evening of music, video, digital sounds and performances rooted in quantum theory? Why not? How about a night of traditional Middle Eastern shaabi and dabke music, sung in Arabic and Kurdish, supercharged by synthesizers and trance rhythms? Or a play in which “Dante’s Inferno” meets “Paradise Lost”? An action-opera based on the last days of Edgar Allan Poe? A Sacred Steel version of John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme?” Flannery O’Connor’s “Wise Blood” as a New Orleans-style opera-exhibition? Bring it on. Isn’t art also about taking chances and yanking chains?

What always grabs us first is the music, in which we are never disappointed. (Hurray for last year’s Yo La Tango, Erik Friedlander, Brad Mehldau Celebration and Burnt Sugar, to name a few.) This year brings, among others, Chilean hip-hop heroine Ana Tijoux (Oct. 4), Dawn of Midi and Nils Frahm (Nov. 15), the Campbell Brothers performing John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” (Feb. 26, 2015), the legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette’s “Made in Chicago,” with Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams and Henry Threadgill (free jazz giants from Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians; March 12), The National’s Bryce Dessner (April 3-4), “Border Music” with David Hidalgo of Los Lobos and jazzer/power-rocker Marc Ribot (April 18), and the return of Walker favorite Jason Moran with Robert Glasper, two young lion jazz pianists (May 2). Browse the whole season here. Mark your calendars for Sept. 11, when Bither will preview the season at a free event in the Walker’s McGuire Theater.

The Walker also announced its Summer Music & Movies series, which takes place all four Mondays in August at Loring Park and Walker’s Open Field. This year’s theme, “Playing with Time,” is an homage to the Walker’s exhibition “Christian Marclay: The Clock,” a 24-hour montage on the passage of time as portrayed in films, which opens June 14. Aug. 4: music by The Cloak Ox, followed by “High Noon.” Aug. 11: music by ZuluZuluu and the film “D.O.A.” Aug. 18: The Handsome Family and “Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” Aug. 25: Marclay’s “Graffiti Composition” and “Screen Play” with music by Laurent Estoppey, Ikue Mori and Anthony Coleman, introduced by Marclay.

Photo United Artists Corp/Photofest ©United Artists Corp

Rudolph Maté’s "D.O.A.," part of the Walker's Summer Music & Movies series.

After ending its 2013-14 season with Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman (“Maus”) and a full house, Friends of the Hennepin County Library has unveiled the 2014-15 season of Pen Pals, the longest-running literary series in the Twin Cities (this will be year 18). October 2: the preternaturally prolific Joyce Carol Oates in conversation with literary critic Michael Dirda. One night only. October 23 and 24: Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. March 12 and 13, 2015: Richard Blanco, the fifth inaugural poet of the United States. April 16 and 17: Jodi Picoult, the New York Times best-selling author of 22 novels. May 7 and 8: Chip Kidd, a graphic designer and associate art director at Knopf whose iconic creations include the T-Rex image for the cover of “Jurassic Park.” Subscriptions are on sale now. Individual tickets go on sale August 11.

For its seventh annual Summer Festival, Skylark Opera will present “From Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill,” directed by Frank Theatre’s Wendy Knox (who most recently directed the acclaimed production of “The Threepenny Opera” at the Southern) and Leonard Bernstein’s operetta “Candide,” directed by Bob Neu. “From Berlin to Broadway” stars Christina Baldwin, Dieter Bierbrauer, Vicki Fingalson and Bradley Greenwald. “Candide” features Peter Middlecamp, Gary Briggle, Kathleen Humphrey, Jennifer Maren, Jennifer Baldwin Peden and Andrew Wannigmann. The two run in repertory June 13-22 at the E.M. Pearson Theater at Concordia University in St. Paul. FMI and tickets ($15-$45).

The Jon Hassler Library at Central Lakes College in Brainerd has been designated a National Literary Landmark and will be dedicated this Friday, May 16, at 3 p.m. A reception in the library will follow the dedication ceremony. Born in Minneapolis in 1933, a life-long resident of Minnesota, Hassler taught English and humanities at the college (then known as Brainerd Community College) from 1968-1980; he wrote and published his first novel, “Staggerford,” during that time. Today the Hassler Library houses all of his published works, along with several unpublished works and artifacts. Hassler also taught at three Minnesota high schools, at Bemidji State University and at St. John’s University in Collegeville, where he served as Writer in Residence. He died in 2008 at the age of 74.

The Knight Foundation reports receiving 866 applications for this year’s Knight Arts Challenge St. Paul. They were expecting 700, so this was a big showing. What’s next? No later than July 14, everyone who applied will receive an email either inviting them to submit a full proposal or informing them of Knight’s decision to decline the application. The winners will be announced in September 2014. This was the first year of a three-year, $4.5-million commitment Knight announced in January. So if you never got around to applying this year, there’s always 2015 and 2016. And if you don’t make the first cut this year, you can reapply next year.

Did you take part in “One Day in the Twin Cities,” the metro-wide, open-to-anyone documentary filming event on April 26? If you did, don’t forget to upload your footage. Meanwhile, here’s a first look at what people saw and heard and caught on their video cameras and smartphones. It made us fall in love with the cities all over again.

Jazz singer Cassandra Wilson returns to the Dakota next week, and if you want to see her, don’t wait until the last minute for tickets. Unless you’re Prince, who showed up last time she was here and commandeered the mezzanine. Wilson is a riveting performer who’ll wrap you around her baby finger, whether she’s singing a jazz standard, the Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville” or “O Sole Mio.” Monday-Tuesday, May 19-20. Sets at 7 and 9 p.m. FMI and tickets ($40-$50).

Comedian, author and TV star Bill Cosby will perform two solo comedy shows at Orchestra Hall on Saturday, May 31. Tickets are on sale now ($35-$98) for the 2 p.m. matinee and the 8 p.m. evening show. This will be Cosby’s first time at Orchestra Hall in five years. The Minnesota Orchestra does not perform on this program. 

Our picks for the week

Tonight at the Dakota: Jane Monheit. Blessed with a sultry stage presence, great hair and fabulous pipes, Monheit came in second in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition at age 20 and was immediately proclaimed the next great jazz singer. That’s a heavy burden, and her progress since then has been a bit spotty; we have never loved any of her albums all the way through, and some of her live performances have been underwhelming. At 36, after 16 years in the business, she has found her way to the music of Judy Garland. Her latest program, “Hello Bluebird: Celebrating the Jazz of Judy Garland,” has been winning raves. And she still has the presence, the hair and the pipes. Sets at 7 and 9 p.m. FMI and tickets ($40-$35).

Wednesday at the U’s Boynton Health Service: PAWS. Interacting with animals is good for you. Petting a dog, even a chicken can positively affect blood pressure, heart rate, and stress levels in humans. Stop by the weekly PAWS (Pet Away Worry & Stress) session at the U and see for yourself. Trained volunteers from the University’s Animal-Assisted Interactions (AAI) program will be on hand, along with their furry, fuzzy and feathered companions. Woodstock the Therapy Chicken is a frequent guest; you can follow him on Twitter (@TherapyChicken). 3-5 p.m. in the Roen Room (1st floor, room W120). Free and open to the public. Also next Wednesday, May 21.

Wednesday at Common Good Books: Rep. Keith Ellison discusses his book “My Country, ’Tis of Thee: My Faith, My Family, My Future.” The first Muslim elected to Congress, Minnesota’s Ellison writes about himself and his dreams, his conversion to Islam, and why his private beliefs play no part in his politics. 7 p.m., free.

Photo by John Whiting

Ragamala's Aparna and Ashwini Ramaswamy dance during a rehearsal as Rudresh Mahanthappa plays in the background.

Thursday-Sunday at the Walker: Ragamala Dance and Rudresh Mahanthappa: “Song of the Jasmine.” A collaboration sparked in 2007, when Ragamala’s Aparna Ramaswamy saw jazz artist Rudresh Mahanthappa perform at the Walker, this program treats classical Indian dance and modern jazz as equals. We were allowed to watch it evolve, starting at an early rehearsal in December, and it’s one of the most exciting things we’ve ever seen. Here’s a preview in the Star Tribune. Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Walker’s McGuire Theater. FMI and tickets ($20-$30). P.S. Both Mahanthappa and Ragamala’s Ranee Ramaswamy are Doris Duke Performing Artist Award winners.

Thursday-Saturday at Open Eye Figure Theatre: Four Humors Theater presents “Star City: A Russian Space Farce.” We saw Four Humors make merry with “Lolita” at last year’s Fringe. Later that year, they plunged us into darkness and scared us silly at the Southern with “The Murderer Did It!” And now they’re satirizing the Russian space program. Is there nothing this company holds sacred? The play is getting great reviews and ends May 17, so it’s time to light that rocket. FMI and tickets ($14-$15).

Starts Friday at the Fairgrounds: Art on a Line. Described as the Midwest’s single largest art event, this annual show, now in its 12th year, gets lost in the media frenzy of Art-A-Whirl (which we’ll talk about on Friday, never fear). Since it opens at 10 a.m. Friday, we’re telling you about it today in case you want to get there early. More than 90 artists working in acrylics and watercolors will bring more than 4,500 works to the Fine Arts Building at the State Fairgrounds, many already framed and all available for sale. All through the three-day event, you can watch demonstrations of water-based media techniques including acrylic, gesso, gouache, collage and traditional watercolor. Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

It begins … officially.Says the Strib’s Janet Moore of today’s ground-breaking for Minneapolis' big Downtown East project, “During a a 50-minute presentation that preceded the actual groundbreaking, officials repeatedly called the Downtown East project ‘transformative’ to an area of downtown that has long resisted ambitious development. Work has already begun on the site, home to the Ryan Cos. project near the $1 billion Vikings stadium that includes two 18-story office towers for Wells Fargo & Co., 24,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 193 market-rate apartments and an urban park spanning nearly two city blocks.”

At MPR, Tim Pugmire writes, “Competing House and Senate bills to legalize medical marijuana in Minnesota are headed to a conference committee that will try to craft a compromise. The Senate triggered the negotiation process today by formally declining to accept a more restrictive version passed by the House last week. Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, the chief sponsor of the Senate bill, has said the House bill falls short in providing access and security. But he said it’s now time for some give and take.”

Washing their hands of him … . The AP reports, “Rutgers announced Tuesday that it has dismissed quarterback Philip Nelson from its football program after he was charged in connection with an assault that left another man critically injured in Minnesota. Head football coach Kyle Flood made the announcement Tuesday in a statement.” The Mankato Free Press reports that the second alleged assaulter, 21-year-old Trevor Shelley, has been arrested.

Just in case anyone else feels the need … . Jon Collins of MPR reports, “A man who jumped into the Mississippi River as part of a social media stunt last week was charged Monday with disorderly conduct in Hennepin County. Joseph Mark Sanislo, 19, was filmed last week jumping off the 610 West River Bridge in Brooklyn Park as part of the ‘Cold Water Challenge,’ an online campaign that originally was intended to raise money for charity. Alarmed bystanders called 911. Fire, police and state law enforcement officers responded, along with specialized diving and marine units.”

The AP story of an international teacher who killed himself in Luverne, Minnesota this past March says, “The discovery of a man the FBI regards as one of the most prolific pedophiles in memory has set off a crisis in the close-knit community of international schools, where horrified parents are being told their children may have been victims of a favorite teacher, and administrators are scurrying to close teacher-vetting loopholes revealed by [William] Vahey's abuses.”

Increase your commuting advantage by the full exercise of your precious Second Amendment rights. Tim Harlow of the Strib reports, “Authorities briefly partially closed a downtown Minneapolis freeway Tuesday morning as they executed a ‘high risk’ traffic stop to detain a motorist who allegedly brandished a gun at another driver. The incident began about 6:45 a.m. on eastbound I-694 in Brooklyn Park, where the driver flashed a gun to another motorist.” So what do you think? Too much or too little coffee?

That guy aside … . Harlow files another piece saying. “The motorist who brandished a gun at a fellow driver on I-694 in Brooklyn Center during Tuesday's morning rush hour must have been an anomaly because Twin Cities drivers are among the most courteous in the nation. So says the 2014 ‘In the Driver's Seat Road Rage Survey.’ The Twin Cities ranked No. 6 when it comes to driver etiquette among motorists in the 25 largest U.S. cities. And that is a huge improvement from five years ago when Minneapolis-St. Paul was home to some of the least polite drivers in the nation.” Among the worst?  … Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Boston. Boston ... a real shocker, there.

The latest on the “miracle baby” who is still surviving that 11-story fall. Matt McKinney and Mary Lynn Smith at the Strib say,“Doctors, family and community members are dubbing Musa Dayib ‘the miracle baby’ but he still must recover from some very severe injuries, including fractures and a concussion. They credit his young age and lucky landing spot for his survival. ‘If you and I fell that far, we would be dead,’ Dr. Tina Slusher said from the pediatric intensive care unit at Hennepin County Medical Center. ‘He’s a baby and … he happened to land on a very small patch of mulchy area. … He’s a kid’.”

Bob does … Frank?Says Reed Fischer at City Pages,“After the massive, epic tangle of 2012's Tempest, Bob Dylan could be in a blue mood for his next studio album. Today, the legendary Minnesota-bred artist unveiled a cover of the 1945 Frank Sinatra hit "Full Moon and Empty Arms" and what could be the cover of his next album. … The quiet, contemplative track doesn't differ greatly from Sinatra's recording, but the the pedal steel adds a personal touch. For late-period Dylan, this is a fantastic vocal.” You can hear it at the link. But when Bob covers Iggy Azalea you’ll know it’s really, truly, finally over … . 

CC/Flickr/Bill Koch

According to reports, Otter Tail Lake was very busy on opening weekend.

The day was perfect for the state fishing opener and a larger number of anglers than usual took advantage, the Fergus Falls Journal reported. Jim Wolters of the Fergus Falls Area Fisheries Office said a rainy Saturday morning and Sunday was just perfect. “Saturday morning just set up to be ideal. It was calm and the sun came out.” Otter Tail Lake was very busy, as were Walker Lake and Fish Lake, according to Wolters. Traffic on the lakes slowed on Sunday, but Mother’s Day festivities tend to take people off the lakes, he said.

A little farther south, the West Central Tribune in Willmar has a gloomier report. “As openers go in west-central Minnesota, this one was fair to cloudy. The weather was mild (in the 50s) but the lakes are cold and the fish, overall, seemed disinterested.‘It was terrible,’ said Steve Mitlyng, who for 40 years has run Mitlyng’s Bait and Tackle on Lac qui Parle, near Watson. ‘Worst opener I’ve ever seen. I think three people caught fish.’ Late ice-outs, windy, cool conditions and water temperatures in the 50-degree range made a lackluster opener virtually a given, Mitlyng said.”

The soggy weather is nothing but rainbows and unicorns for farmers who have been fighting drought, writes Nathan Hansen of the Winona Daily News. “The moisture has helped free the region from drought conditions, and after this most recent spate of storms things should be cooler and drier for the next few weeks. National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Welvaert said the region has seen south and southwest air flowing in from the Gulf of Mexico. That air brings a lot of deep moisture and has been the main culprit in the number of rain in recent weeks. But over the next week or so the air patterns will shift, bringing in cooler air and potentially drier days the rest of May,” writes Hansen. “The drought that has kept southeast Minnesota abnormally dry or worse since last fall has receded. At the drought’s worst last October, portions of Winona, Wabasha and Houston counties were under severe drought conditions, which stuck around through much of the winter and into early spring.”

The University of Minnesota-Crookston has been a baccalaureate-granting institution for 20 years, and last weekend it graduated its largest-ever class, according to the Crookston Times. “In all, 430 students earned their degrees, with 250 actually attending commencement before the largest crowd anyone could recall in Lysaker Gymnasium. Among the graduates was also the largest online-only class ever, of 168. Of those, 40 online graduates attended commencement, setting foot on the Crookston campus for the first time,” the newspaper reported.

There’s a student attending Duluth Denfield High who definitely does not want to let go of her Spanish 5 class, reports Brady Slater of the Duluth News Tribune. “During the school’s annual talent show Wednesday, Maria Puglisi sang her song, ‘Let It Go,’ from the film ‘Frozen,’ entirely in Spanish. She did so, the junior said, as a protest for the school not offering a section of Spanish 5 in the coming 2014-15 school year. ‘I wanted to get my point across in a beautiful way,’ said Puglisi, who was the eighth performer and drew a standing ovation from more than half the crowd, some of whom held placards that read ‘Save Spanish 5.’ ” At issue is that not enough students signed up for some advanced classes and Principal Tonya Sconiers had to cut Spanish 5, German 5 and Civil and Criminal Law, all courses that would have offered college credits.

It’s all very hush-hush, but it appears the Spam Museum will be relocating to downtown Austin, reports Trey Mewes of the Austin Daily Herald. “Multiple sources confirm Hormel Foods Corp. is in the final stages of a deal to move the Spam Museum from its location at 1101 N. Main St. to the so-called fire site at the 300 block of North Main Street in downtown Austin. … Hormel spokespeople declined to comment. Multiple sources, including city leaders, business owners and Hormel employees, indicate a deal is all but done. The sources declined to be quoted on the record as the deal has yet to be completed.” Mewes said Austin’s Community Development Director, Craig Hoium, would neither confirm nor deny the move. A little boilerplate: “The Spam Museum is Austin’s largest tourism attraction and features the signature Hormel meat invented in 1937. The museum opened in 2001.”

Here are a couple of stories to bum you out. The Hibbing Daily Tribune gave a laundry list of 17 people arrested by agents of the Boundary Waters Drug Task Force during a recent drug crackdown. Here’s a list of the drugs these people are accused of either holding or selling: Clonazepam, marijuana, oxycontin, methamphetamine, morphine, morphine again, meth again, more meth, meth and prescription medication, synthetic marijuana, more synthetic marijuana, meth again, heroin and oxycodone.

And this last one isn’t a Minnesota story, but it deserves a mention. Anna Burleson of the Forum News Service reports that the University of North Dakota’s American Indian Student Services Center is angry over students who wore T-shirts that depicted an Indian drinking from a beer bong with the words “Siouxper drunk.” UND President Robert Kelly said he was appalled, but also said the shirts were worn during Springfest, which is organized by a local pizza restaurant and not the university. That doesn’t mollify student leaders in the American Indian community. “Damien Webster, an Indian Studies major, said he thinks university administration is allowing ‘open mockery’ of Indian students. ‘If this was against black students or Asian students, there would be a huge uproar about this, but there’s not,’ he said. … Webster said he always tries to take a step back from whatever the issue is and realize that young people make mistakes, but this time, it’s different. ‘There’s a lingering logo issue, but then there’s plain right and wrong,’ he said, referring to UND’s retired Fighting Sioux nickname. ‘It’s wrong for Natives to feel on the defensive all the time because people can openly mock them.’ ”

Very few people would argue that the Boundary Waters aren't one of the most beautiful and important natural landmarks in the state of Minnesota, if not the United States as a whole. For that reason we should make whatever effort possible to protect the Boundary Waters from anything that could compromise its ecosystem or natural beauty. Unfortunately, there is now a major threat looming that could spell disaster for the Boundary Waters region if various proposals go forward.

Out-of-state mining companies have been applying for permits to open sulfide mines near the Boundary Waters, mines that are sure to leave a toxic legacy that would contaminate the clear, clean waters with sulfuric acid and other waste minerals, killing fish and wildlife and damaging ecosystems.

This would be a severe and potentially irreversible blow to the ecosystem of the Boundary Waters, and something we must stop.

Fortunately, there is precedent for an active public to prevent dangerous mining such as this. As detailed in a recent MinnPost article, "A look inside the campaign that killed a sulfide mine at Yellowstone's door," a potentially disastrous gold mine scheduled for creation just outside of Yellowstone National Park was shut down in the mid-90s after a major outcry from citizens and activists, as well as a revelation of the mining company's unsafe waste-disposal practices. My work with Environment Minnesota is devoted to making sure the same will happen to the mines proposed for the Boundary Waters.

To protect the Boundary Waters from toxic mining, I urge the president to make the watershed off-limits to sulfide mining.

MinnPost welcomes original letters from readers on current topics of general interest. Interested in joining the conversation? Submit your letter to the editor. The choice of letters for publication is at the discretion of MinnPost editors; they will not be able to respond to individual inquiries about letters.

Two architectural firms have been selected to design the $97 million renovation of Target Center, which will have more windows and an exterior design that will wrap completely around the building. (You can see more images here.)

“When Target Center was built, downtown ended at the back side of the building,” said Convention Center director Jeff Johnson, who will serve as renovation construction manager.

Back in the late '80s, there was no need to worry about the north facing façade. But with the addition of Target Field, and the North Loop's revitalization there is now a need for an exterior design that wraps completely around the building, Johnson said.

The renovation cost will be split between the City of Minneapolis, which will pay $48.5 million, the Timberwolves and Lynx, which will pay $48 million and AEG Facilities, which will pay $5.5 million.

“This is something we can afford,” said Council Member Lisa Goodman, who chairs the Community Development and Regulatory Services Committee and sits on the advisory board for the Target Center renovation.

“This will be a real transformation of what is perhaps one of the ugliest buildings in town,” said Goodman as the exterior drawings were released to the public.

The Architectural Alliance was established in Minneapolis in 1970 and has worked locally on the TCF Stadium, the Guthrie Theater and the Central Library in Minneapolis. Joining them will be the Sink Combs Delthlefs firm, which has worked on athletic facilities for the University of Michigan, the University of Colorado and Ohio State.

“This is step one of a multi-step process,” said Goodman, “but it does give the public a sense of what we’re looking at as it pertains to the exterior of the building.”

Most of the budget will be spent inside the center, with new dining and bar areas, more premium seating and new restrooms.

“This is a great asset and we’re looking forward to a great investment that will be on time and on budget,” said Council Member John Quincy.

Contracts with the architectural firms are expected to be signed by June 1 with construction beginning in spring 2015, after the Timberwolves have completed their season.

It is too early to determine if any basketball games will have to be moved to another venue, according to Johnson, but “the hope is that we don’t have to move.”

The renovations should be complete by November 2016.

Minnesota Timberwolves/Minnesota Lynx

A rendering of the redesigned Target Center from 6th Street.

CC/Flickr/anthonylibrarian

Immigration-driven population growth will charge Minnesota’s economy and provide extraordinary opportunity for international market expansion.

Minnesota is changing. We’re not the state that we were 100, 50 or 25 years ago. We’re not even the state that we were in 2007 as the Great Recession began roaring across all 87 counties. Today, we’re older, poorer and more diverse. That means that Minnesota’s public policy initiatives must change to match Minnesota’s needs. What worked in 1964 or 1994 won’t work in the same way in 2014.

If current demographic trends continue, by 2020, more Minnesotans will be 65 or older than will be school-aged. This has never happened before. The simple reason is twofold.

• First, the baby boom generation is aging in good health, likely to live longer than any previous generation. Boomers have been the largest demographic group at every stage of their lives. We shouldn’t expect that to change now thanks to better health care, diet and dramatically safer workplaces and roads.
• Second, the birthrate is down. People in their 20s and 30s are having fewer babies and having them later than earlier generations.

 John Van Hecke

This generational bulge will fade over the next 25 years as baby boomers slip quietly into that good night. In public policy terms, we have to both plan for where we’d like to be in 25 years and plan for the demographic reality immediately before us. It’s not one or the other but both.

Health-care costs, poverty on the rise

Given the demographic shift toward a growing number of older Minnesotans, health-care costs related to an aging population will increase. Even with a healthier, better prepared aging population, costs associated with care experienced during the final two decades of life is more expensive than health care during the first two decades of life. This is not new news. We’ve known that care costs increase with age for a very long time. Changing demographics, however, mean assessing a particularly noticeable spike in eldercare costs.

Minnesota’s poverty rate is on the uptick. The resurging state economy will mitigate some of that growth but undereducated, lower-skilled workers lost ground in the Great Recession. As job growth in areas requiring post-secondary educational degrees increases, high school graduates and especially high school dropouts will find extremely limited opportunities for returning to work at pre-recession income earning levels. Absent additional schooling and training, these workers are at great risk of becoming a new, permanent underclass. That shift, in turn, will increase pressure on public resources as workers without post-secondary educations approach retirement with greater than average health-care needs and little or no retirement savings.

Minnesota’s 1995 poverty rate was 9 percent. In 2011, that figure jumped to just below 12 percent. Since the Great Recession’s recovery, high income earners have expanded both annual income and their total percentage of wealth, while middle- and low-income earners’ incomes and accumulated wealth percentages were flat or declined. This is not a sustainable phenomenon. This income trend, if continued over time, suggests unsettling long-term negative consequences for community and family social stability.

Let me say this again, only more bluntly. A very small slice of Minnesotans will make a lot of money; their incomes will rise steadily. Most Minnesotans’ incomes will remain stagnant. A much larger slice of Minnesotans, larger by both percentage and raw numbers than the wealthiest group, will experience real income decline. Most Minnesotans will become poorer rather than wealthier simply because their incomes won’t keep pace with inflation.

The real money is in mass-scale retail

Conservative policy advocates will dismiss my data-driven observations as progressive whining. But, those same leaders are ignoring the lessons of Minnesota’s post-World War II economy. It’s much more profitable to sell a lot of stuff to many people rather than sell a few pricey items to a few people. A few luxury stores will always do well, but the real money is in mass-scale retail at Target, Costco, Sears, Supervalue and the like.

For that sector to continue growing and earning profit, they need middle- and low-income customers with a rising rather than stagnating or falling incomes. The get-tough policy crowd may love wage stagnation but they are truly cutting off noses to spite faces.

Immigration is Minnesota’s great economic growth promise. Seven percent of Minnesotans are foreign born, suggesting that immigrants clearly recognize Minnesota’s promise and potential. That’s down, incidentally, from 20 percent in 1920 when pretty much most of us of were migrants or first-generation offspring. Plus, immigration is projected to exceed Minnesota’s birth rate by 2032.

Immigration-driven population growth will charge Minnesota’s economy and provide extraordinary opportunity for international market expansion. And the best part? We’ve done this before. Minnesota’s track record of immigrant economic development is exemplary. Immigrant business growth can and will mitigate the wealth accumulation threat casting a shadow across Minnesota and the U.S.

We need responsive public policy

Minnesota’s public policy initiatives must quickly evolve to meet present and future circumstance. We always need strong schools, affordable health care, robust infrastructure and good jobs, but we need responsive public policy to achieve the best return on public investment.

Because Minnesota changes, policy must change. Minnesota’s future success depends on it. We can sprint forward or fall behind; we just can’t remain in place.

John Van Hecke is the publisher of Minnesota 2020, a progressive, new media, nonpartisan think tank on whose website this commentary originally appeared.

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Courtesy of the Wilder Foundation

Metro Transit bus #841 to become a mobile food market.

Mobile food markets will be hitting the streets of Minneapolis this summer to bring healthy food to neighborhoods now described as ‘food deserts.”

The Twin Cities Mobile Market, a Wilder Foundation project, has purchased a decommissioned city bus they are renovating to serve North Minneapolis and St. Paul’s east side. But before they could bring their grocery bus to Minneapolis, they needed a city ordinance change.

Currently, Minneapolis mobile food vendors can only sell pre-packaged foods, and only in designated senior citizen high rises without licensed grocery stores.

The mobile market will be stocked with fresh vegetables, fruit, dairy products and meat.

“Our goal is to make healthy food accessible and affordable,” said the Wilder Foundation’s Leah Driscoll.

Under the new rules, mobile markets will be limited to parking lots and private property and will not be allowed to sell within 100 feet of a licensed grocery store or farmer’s market without the consent of that merchant.

“We created an opening for another business model to operate in the city where we can have these mobile grocery stores,” said Council Member Cam Gordon, who worked to change the ordinance.

“We’re going to see another place where you can get food here in the city,” added Gordon, who speculated that many customers will walk to the mobile markets parked in their neighborhood.

“We’re ready to focus on low-income communities,” said Brian Noy of Urban Ventures, which has purchased a refrigerator truck and will be ready to sell groceries at nine Minneapolis sites by July, including the Phillips neighborhood and on the north side.

Each mobile market will be required to offer at least 50 fresh fruit and vegetable items and at least seven varieties. They will not be allowed to sell alcohol, tobacco or tobacco products. Non-food items can be offered for sale but should not make up more than 10 percent of the market inventory. 

As you know, MPR has a keen interest in the Central Corridor/Green Line LRT … . Laura Yuen reports, "Test trains along the route connecting St. Paul and Minneapolis have been taking an hour or longer to travel from one end to the other, exceeding initial projections of 40 minutes. Met Council officials say they're working hard to shave off those extra minutes in the weeks leading up to the June 14 launch.” Simple … fewer stops.

At least one big money donor still sees traction in fighting Obamacare. The AP says, “An outside political group's new television promotes Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Honour as having the toughest stance against the nation's new health care law. … Compete Minnesota, a well-funded group airing it, aims to lift up Honour in a crowded GOP field by focusing on an important issue for the party's primary voters.” I.e. … The Base.

If not new stadium construction, it is at least stadium re-construction … . Says Eric Roper in the Strib, “The $97 million overhaul of downtown Minneapolis’ Target Center will feature lots of glass, a metallic-looking facade and better connections to downtown and Target Field, based on renderings released Tuesday.” Work will start next spring, or “Shoulder Winter” as we now think of April, May and June.

So much for navigating down the Mississippi in Minneapolis: the PiPress's Dave Orrick reports Minnesota's congressional delegation expects the Upper St. Anthony Falls shipping lock to be closed within a year. The reason: to block invasive carp, who might otherwise breach the lock's dam.

He is a what … ? Tim Harlow and Joy Powell at the Strib tell us, “Authorities partly closed a downtown Minneapolis freeway briefly Tuesday morning as they made a ‘high-risk’ traffic stop to detain a motorist who allegedly brandished a gun at another driver. Turns out the driver was an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms … The State Patrol took the man into custody but released him after officers learned he was an ATF agent who was carrying proper credentials.”

In the Faribault Daily News, Jaci Smith writes, “Another victim of former Shattuck-St. Mary's school teacher and dorm parent Lynn Seibel has filed suit, alleging the school knew of the abuse several of its students suffered there and did nothing about it. ... in the fall of 2000, Seth Hedderick, also employed by Shattuck although no longer at the school, encountered naked students in the hall of the dorm who told him they couldn't have clothes on because it was a ‘naked dance party’ that Seibel had orchestrated. Hedderick reported the incident to headmaster Gregory Kieffer, who did nothing in response.”

The community is rallying to help the family of the so-called “miracle baby.” In the Strib, Mary Lynn Smith says, “Owners of the Cedar Riverside Plaza apartments met with community members Tuesday evening to talk about measures to keep small children from opening the patio doors and education measures to help parents keep their children safe. Members of the Somali American community also agreed to set up a fund for the family, which is distraught over the Sunday accident.”

Look who’s back in the news … . Stribber Randy Furst reports, “Patricia Kerr Karasov, a former Hennepin County district judge who was suspended without pay in 2011 and who later retired from the bench, sued a group of law enforcement agencies and others on Tuesday, claiming her driver’s license records were searched in violation of state law. … Karasov was censured and suspended without pay in 2011 by the Minnesota Supreme Court over questions about the validity of decisions she made in cases while living outside her judicial district … .”

Would you like that Super-Sized?WCCO-TV reports, “An assistant manager at a Lakeville McDonald’s has been charged with criminal sexual conduct after allegedly touching two employees — one of whom was under 18 — in inappropriate ways. According to the criminal complaint, Marco Antonio Arevalo-Santiago, 27, allegedly engaged in inappropriate conduct on four occasions with an underage male employee. The victim claims that in his first encounter, Arevalo-Santiago rubbed his pants pocket for about 20 seconds while asking about the length of his ‘French fry’.”

The Chicago Blackhawks again ended the Minnesota Wild's season, this time one round later than last year, with a 2-1 overtime win to take the series 4-2. If you really want to dwell on the lamentations of the faithful, see here, here and here. At least the Twins won in a walk-off.

MinnPost file photo by Karen Boros

Marion Greene

Marion Greene defeated Anne Mavity in the race for the Hennepin County Board seat vacated by Gail Dorfman. Greene won by 474 votes, netting 3,401 to Mavity’s 2,927. Both candidates are DFLers.

The Hennepin County Canvassing Board is scheduled to meet and certify the results today. The earliest Greene could be sworn in would be May 21.

Greene will fill out the remainder of Dorfman’s term that runs through 2014. An election for the term beginning in 2015 takes place this fall, with an August primary.

The County Board District includes St. Louis Park and the southwest quadrant of Minneapolis.

Greene carried her former legislative district around Lake of the Isles and Cedar Lake, while Mavity carried all but one precinct in St. Louis Park where she is a member of the City Council.

Greene outpolled Mavity 704 to 110 in four precincts of her legislative district, where residents have strongly opposed Southwest Light Rail plans to co-locate freight and the commuter rail in a popular recreation area between the lakes known as the Kenilworth Corridor.

Mavity’s strongest showing was in four St. Louis Park precincts that gave her 551 votes to Greene’s 139. St. Louis Park residents were strongly opposed to re-routing freight trains through their community, and prevailed.

Mavity also carried seven Minneapolis precincts in the areas along Minnehaha Creek where she grew up, as well as one Lyndale neighborhood precinct. (Note: this story originally incorrectly placed some of these in the Linden Hills neighborhood)

Voter turnout for the contest was about 6 percent or 6,353, just 112 votes above the total cast in the six-way primary election two weeks ago.

A few years ago, Adam Wahlberg and his friend Martin Kuz were tossing around an idea for a book. Kuz, a journalist who focuses on military issues, wanted to write about PTSD, but he couldn’t afford to write a book with no publisher lined up. So Wahlberg had an idea. “We’ll put it out!” he said. After all, tons of people were self-publishing, e-publishing, and how hard could it be?

“People warned me: 'You won’t make any money, it will consume your life and bank account'— and it’s all true. It’s all true!” said Wahlberg, who quit his job as an editor at Super Lawyers magazine (a spin-off of Law & Politics) to establish Think Piece Publishing, named after a line in the film “Almost Famous” about writing and deadlines. The Minneapolis-based press didn’t end up putting out a Kuz book, but another PTSD-themed piece appeared in Wahlberg’s email one day.

A different PTSD book

“Losing Tim,” by Janet Burroway, chronicles the aftermath of her soldier son’s suicide. Tim Eysselinck was a career military man, serving in the Army and reserves before taking an assignment as a military contractor charged with mine removal. Burroway describes him as a born soldier, enthralled with military life from childhood, despite her own pacifist stance. But during his time in Iraq, he became disillusioned and depressed. In April 2004, he shot himself in the head in front of his wife. He had a 3-year-old daughter. His grieving mother took to the page.

Wahlberg said of "Losing Tim,"“I loved it. It’s this very journalistic memoir in some ways, and she asks a lot of hard questions about the military, but it’s also so beautifully written, just an unbelievably lovely prose poem, in a way.” Burroway, who now lives in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, has numerous books, including “Raw Silk,” which was nominated for a National Book Award, and “Imaginative Writing,” which Wahlberg describes as the “Bible for MFA students. “She’s this regal, distinguished giant of writing, but the topic is hard. No one outside of Joan Didion has done such empathetic, intellectual writing about grief. I felt unbelievably lucky that this is my first project with Think Piece.”

Eysselinck isn’t counted in the tally of soldier suicides because at the time of his death, he was working outside of the military. “This is a hidden crisis. Many, many military personnel end up working for private companies contracted by the military,” says Wahlberg.

Advocacy in words

Wahlberg isn’t afraid of dealing with hard issues. In fact, he’s attracted to them. Perhaps it’s in his genes. “My mother was a renowned counselor with the Wilder Foundation, and I grew up sort of immersed in the language of it, and social and mental health issues and advocacy have been a really natural topic in my life. I admit I’m attracted to people who lead strange, difficult lives or overcome challenges. I’m in awe of Hazelden, where resurrections happen every day.”

After he began to work with “Losing Tim,” Wahlberg found himself thinking about Honeydogs musician Adam Levy, whose son Daniel committed suicide at age 21 in 2012. “I was at a show a couple months after [the suicide] and it was hard to be in the room at times, but he never broke. I wondered, how is this guy even standing?”

That question stuck with him, so Wahlberg asked Levy if he’d go on film to discuss how he carries on, as a parent and an artist. The three-part documentary, by Kevin Featherly, ends up being a both a tribute to Daniel Levy’s own creative work as a visual artist, and a deep and honest discussion of suicide and its impact on a family. It became Think Piece’s first film piece. The one-man publishing house was beginning to find its mission. 

The next book, expected later in 2014, is “How to Survive: The Extraodinary Resilience of Ordinary People,” by St. Paul writer Andy Steiner. “She gets into these questions I’ve always had, about how people carry on when, like Adam Levy, the worst thing you can imagine happens to you. Because terrible things happen every day, eventually to nearly everyone, and yet we carry on. So Andy writes about how people handle death, a partner’s seismic change (coming out as gay), heart attack, bankruptcy, suicide and depression. And she uncovers how people manage to be at peace with those events.”

The book can be broken down into individual chapters, and Wahlberg envisions selling them as e-books for $1.99 each. “I want them to be sharable, affordable and immediate and put them where they can do some good.”

It’s an altruistic impulse — but altruism isn’t usually good business.

The matter of money

“I haven’t figured out how to make money doing this yet. I’m just sort of following it; like a ouija board, it’s taking me where it wants to go. I’m spending this first couple of years establishing the brand with good content. I didn’t set out to be an entrepreneur and I’m not sure I even like that aspect of things, but I feel strongly about the mission that’s sort of come about — if I wasn’t a journalist, I’d be in advocacy of some kind. So this is my way of bringing those things together,” Wahlberg says.

His business model is simple and ethical: He pays his authors and artists for their work, and splits the profits with them. In his first year, he ran through his savings, and Think Piece is a sideline to his other activities, which include studies at the Humphey School and a job as senior editor at Twin Cities Business magazine. But he’s just getting started with Think Piece, and he’s always looking for ways to make the press sustainable. Other publishing houses are struggling with the same thing. But he realizes his role is not just to publish, but to advocate for people in trouble.

“I’m a fairly ebullient fellow, but I admit I’m drawn to these hard topics, the whole dark and light thing, and the incredible strength people can muster when it’s needed. I’m hoping the works I bring out there give people solace. Solace is a great thing — it’s not fun, you can’t take it home like an iPhone and love and enjoy it. But we all need it, sometime.”

Expanded gas and oil development of federal lands has been a point of pride for the Obama administration — the cornerstone, even, of the president's "all of the above" program for enhancing energy security and curtailing greenhouse gas emissions while ensuring, of course, that the environment is looked after as well.

On that last point it might seem better, at a glance, to have more of the current fracking boom on federally controlled lands and somewhat less of it on the private or state-managed lands where regulation has been so contentious and plainly inadequate.

Dream on, I guess.

It turns out that the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees energy development on lands owned by the American public and, separately, by its Indian tribes, hasn't inspected more than about 40 percent of the 3,700 recent wells it considers at high risk of contaminating groundwater or causing other environmental harm.  

Also:

• BLM continues to approve drilling operations under outdated rules on well spacing, which may sound like a technical detail but in fact is the key method for maximizing energy production, minimizing surface disturbance and making sure underground assets aren't being stolen.
• Because the bureau gets so far behind in the paperwork on gas and oil royalties, there are at least long delays and possibly long-term losses in producers' payments both to the U.S. Treasury (for which such royalties are among the largest non-tax revenue sources) and also to Indian tribes, for whom  they may be one of the only large revenue streams.

These are among the most appalling findings in a new report from the Government Accountability Office, ordered by Congress in late 2012 and released yesterday.

I don't know which is more appalling: 1) its list of undisputed oversight failures; 2) the responses from BLM overseers in the Interior Department that well, you know, there's just never enough time (or money, or staff) to do things right, or 3) the sense none of this is really likely to change.

Because, as the report notes, these findings are hardly the first of their kind:

Our past work has highlighted the importance of Interior’s oversight of the roughly 700 million subsurface acres for which the federal government holds mineral rights, and we identified a range of weaknesses. For example, we reported, in March 2010, that Interior did not have reasonable assurance that it was collecting its share of revenue from oil and gas produced on federal lands, and that it continued to experience problems hiring, training, and retaining sufficient staff to provide oversight and management of oil and gas operations in part because of the department’s human capital challenges. In February 2011, we added Interior’s management of federal oil and gas resources to our list of  government programs at high risk of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement or in need of broad reform.  In 2012, we reported that the extent and severity of environmental and public health risks associated with oil and gas development depend, in part, on federal and state regulations.

18th-century view of lands

The current boom in energy production is driven by two technological advances above all:

• Directional drilling, which enables operators to sink a vertical well and then gradually change the bit's orientation so it drills at a diagonal or even perpendicular angle to the initial shaft, at various depths and for long distances.
• Injection of fluids to fracture shale formations, followed by delivery of silica sand or other "proppants" to hold open the new fractures while the gas is withdrawn.

By extending the reach from single wellhead over or a large area, these techniques have greatly lowered the unit cost of producing natural gas. They have also extended the range of potential damage underground from each wellhead; the degree to which that can be assessed, monitored, prevented and mitigated is hotly contested and far from settled.

Clearly, directional drilling can minimize the amount of surface that must be consumed for drilling pads, roads, pipelines and all of the other infrastructure associated with gas production.

So, assuming there's going to be any drilling at all on a particular patch of land, it certainly makes sense to sink as few shafts from the surface as possible, to space them as close together as is practical, and to place all owners of the mineral rights under a "communitization" agreement that allows all to share in the sale without each having to drill a separate well.

And yet BLM, the auditors find, is working from a rulebook that hasn't been updated in more than 20 years, with the last revisions coming before the fracking boom got under way. Amazingly, it still applies its regulations in the 640-acre increments established in the 18th century laws that governed homesteading and the forced relocation of Indians from their land — in exchange for unwanted private property rights it still fails to defend— even though modern drilling can extend over areas twice that size or larger.

Despite requirements to evaluate such rules every five years and revise them as needed, the auditors found,

BLM has not recently reviewed its guidance related to communitization agreements, which addresses well spacing. BLM’s guidance states that the agency usually will not approve or, in the case of Indian lands, recommend approval of agreements combining more than 640 acres for oil or gas production irrespective of well location and federal or Indian acreage within a unit.

According to federal officials and industry representatives we spoke with, BLM’s guidance on communitization agreements is inconsistent with industry practices because the limit of 640 acres does not accommodate horizontal drilling. ....

A unit larger than 640 acres may be needed to allow operators to maximize oil and gas resource recovery and prevent waste. Due to the economic and strategic importance of oil and gas, BLM’s guidance should provide reasonable assurance that well spacing will provide for maximum allowable production, thereby ensuring the federal government, tribes, and individual Indian resource owners are capitalizing on the development of the resource.

14,000 wells in four years

More than 14,000 wells were drilled on federal or Indian land managed by BLM from fiscal year 2009 through fiscal 2012. Of these, 3,702 were designated as high priority for inspection because of their potential risk to contaminate groundwater, trigger seismic events, release hydrogen sulfide or create other problems.

BLM's policy is to inspect every such high-priority well at critical stages of drilling, production and closure, but it turns out the agency doesn't even count them all. Of the 14,000 wells drilled in that four year period, the BLM database lacked a priority classification for 1,784, or about 13 percent. Moreover,

Our review of available data from AFMSS determined that more than 2,100 of the 3,702 wells that were identified as high priority in BLM’s AFMSS database and drilled from fiscal year 2009 through fiscal year 2012 were not inspected. BLM officials told us that the agency has limited staff to complete drilling inspections, which is consistent with our prior report stating that Interior’s human capital challenges have made it more difficult to carry out some oversight activities and that the agency conducted fewer inspections because of inspector vacancies.

And then there's the money.

By law, BLM is required to sign off on how the proceeds of a "communitization" project are shared — and federal royalties paid — within 120 days of receiving the developers' proposed agreement. As a matter of policy, it promises to do it within 30 days when the deal involves Indian land the agency is administering in trust for a tribe. However:

[W]e reviewed data for 61 Indian and federal wells drilled from fiscal year 2009 through fiscal year 2012 in the state of Oklahoma and found that BLM averaged 229 days to approve Indian communitization agreements and 126 days to review federal communitization agreements. BLM officials told us that they are unable to review the agreements within the required time frame because, in part, the agency does not have the staff needed to review them.

As a result of these delays, approval of a communitization agreement may lag production and delay royalty payments to the federal government, tribal nations, and individual Indian oil and gas resource owners. According to several tribal and federal officials we met with during our review, the delay to process communitization agreements has resulted in a delay of royalty payments. This is a concern because, according to a 2010 BLM report, individual Indian oil and gas resource owners may rely on revenue from oil and gas development to pay for daily expenses such as food, shelter, health, and education.

Those are the main findings of the report, which ends in a set of tepid recommendations that the Interior Secretary and director of BLM fix all the things that are broken, and have stayed broken, despite many earlier reports recommending similar repairs.

If you think your stomach can take it, all 52 pages can be read here.

Patrice Salmeri has seen addiction and recovery at both ends of the continuum: first on the treatment side as a counselor and assistant clinical director at Hazelden’s youth treatment center in Plymouth, and now on the recovery side as director of the StepUP program at Augsburg College.

“On this side, you get to see the living part,” she said during an interview Tuesday in her campus office. “You get to see what happens afterwards, when they start to live and thrive and develop and delve into deeper things in their lives that have both gifted them and held them back.”

Salmeri has overseen the program, which offers counseling and sober housing, for 12 of its 17 years. She has watched it grow — from serving 20 or so students a year to 150 a year. She has watched two of its graduates go on to replicate the program on other Minnesota campuses (at St. Scholastica and St. Cloud State). And she has just said her goodbyes to the 30 2014 StepUP graduates, 10 of whom received high honors.

A sculpture on her windowsill — of butterflies seeking moisture — serves as a metaphor for the process of letting go.

“When butterflies first come out of the cocoon, they go in a group to the mud because they’re dehydrated,” she explained. “I got to see that once Up North. It’s just like the students. They’re coming out of a cocoon and their wings are wet, so they can’t fly yet. So we nourish and support and encourage. And they fly one day.”

Salmeri and Augsburg will be host June 5-7 to the 5^th annual National Collegiate Recovery Conference, a gathering of several hundred professionals representing more than 30 recovery programs on campuses across the United States. As she prepares for the conference and to take on a leadership role as the new president of the national Association of Recovery in Higher Education, she reflects with gratitude on her work, on her own gifts and on overcoming those things that once held her back.

MinnPost: What drew you to this field?

Patrice Salmeri: I want to say it was a fluke, but it wasn’t a fluke; it was fate I believe. I was studying to be a clinical psychologist at Trinity University in Chicago when I ran out of money. I decided to go to the College of Lake County. A friend had said there were some classes I’d enjoy taking, and it turned out they were all in the addiction program.

I took a couple of classes, and realized ... this was [a picture of] my family.

I was in my late 20s, maybe even 30. One of the professors, the chair of the department, offered me a scholarship. I went that route, and for me it was a healing of my heart and an opening to a whole new world to discover that this is what addiction is, this is how it plays out, and this is how it played out for me. And what can I do to help other people see it sooner?

I realized I had to move my own self forward. Until I did my own personal work, I couldn’t help anybody else because I’d be working on an empty tank.

MP: What does it take to work with young people in recovery?

PS: Persistence, for sure. Patience, which I have a lot of — for everyone but myself [laughs]. Respect — the ability to treat young people with respect. They don’t get a lot of respect, especially when they’re using.

I’ve been gifted with this ability to see who they can become rather than who they are at the moment or who they’ve been up until then. I go with the acorn theory — that we are born with what we’re supposed to be inside, and we spend our lives becoming the oak tree.

I think everybody has within them what they’re supposed to be. It’s about finding the goodness, searching for truth and overcoming trauma and negative past experiences. If they’re willing to — it’s not an easy journey, but a lot of people do it.

MP: How do you help young people make that transition from treatment to a college campus, where sobriety gets tested at every turn?

PS: I think most of it is encouragement. Some of the messaging is around, “Just try it.” “Trust me on this.”

They have to have six months clean and sober before they come here. We don’t require treatment, but a majority come from a treatment experience. We have an intensive orientation before they move in. One of the very first things we do is a ropes course. Some upper-class students will join us, and there’s a lot of affirmation, a lot of cheering on. And a lot of comparing it to the steps. If you’re stuck on a certain height on a climbing wall, we’ll ask, “How are you doing with your third step?” and “What does that say about trusting people?”

My colleague Tim [Brustad] says all the time, “Don’t be afraid to ask the question, but be sure you can handle the answer.” When [the students] ask to go to clubs, for instance, we always check the venue out on the computer, and ask why they want to be there. Some people get upset [if the answer is no]. And others completely understand and almost feel safer, and they can tell their friends, “I’m not allowed to go,” versus, I have to make that choice or not.

MP: What happens if you have a student who is not amenable to a Twelve Step program?

PS: Sometimes they come right in at their intake interview and say, “My parents want me to be here. I want to be here. But I don’t want to work the Twelve Steps.” We have some options for them. A student has to have a “sponsor,” go to two meetings a week, and meet all the obligations of what we say is a healthy recovery life. We’ve had Red Road [Native American] students. We’ve had a few students who enjoy SMART [self-help] recovery.

We do believe in abstinence as the goal; we are not about harm reduction. One of our students goes to meetings through his church. He’s a community advisor [for the younger students] and has applied for a SAMSHA [Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration] internship. We’re crossing our fingers.

MP: What about people who are on buprenorphine or other medications to assist withdrawals or curb cravings?

MinnPost photo by Sarah T. Williams

A gift from a student hangs on Salmeri's office

wall.

PS: You have people in three different camps: The camp that says, absolutely not — if you’re on any kind of medication you’re not clean and sober. You have the camp that says, absolutely — you’re doing a disservice, you’re killing people if you don’t offer that. And then you have the camp in the middle, which is kind of where we are, that says, this is an individual approach.

We had a student who was already on withdrawal medication when he came, and he wasn’t using it as a lifetime maintenance drug. His doctor was very on top of things as far as communicating with us. And he [the student] wanted to taper off — that was his goal. And he said he wanted to taper off in a safe environment. What better place to do it than here?

Would we want the whole population to be on [medication assisted treatment] at the same time? Absolutely not. But one or two or three students — that’s not a problem. We really want to handle students individually.

MP: What trends in drug use have you seen on campus?

PS: Among the general population? Definitely a rise in opiate painkillers. And trading drugs for drugs: “I will trade you a Xanax for an Adderall; I have a test to study for.”  With alcohol, first-year students have a misperception of what college is supposed to be — more of the Animal House viewpoint that everybody drinks in college. And that’s what they tell their parents. But in fact 70 percent of students don’t drink to the point of blacking out or having a problem with alcohol. It’s just that the 30 percent gets all the attention.

All the programming on our campus is drug- and alcohol-free. So if someone were drunk or high, they would be cared for by our public safety or residence life staff to make sure they are safe if they need to be transported to a hospital. We also have a rule that if you call about somebody else, you’re not going to get in trouble; you’re going to get immunity for saving a life, which I think is a wonderful thing.

A couple of years ago, I saw a trend toward K-2 and bath salts. It didn’t last very long. Once it became illegal and people got scared, they decided to try other things. And the same with energy drinks. They’re still very popular on campus, don’t get me wrong.

MP: Do you think the presence of the program has had an impact on campus culture across the board?

PS: Definitely. Our students are the first ones to say, if someone’s in trouble, I really want to talk to them. If someone ends up in the dean’s office for an alcohol or marijuana violation, they might be referred to StepUP.

We used to have a committee of faculty staff that would meet about spreading the word, getting the message out. After a while, we didn’t need it anymore because they were already spreading the word. We have a faculty member who introduces herself by saying, “Hi, my name is so-and-so and I’m in recovery.” And our students just go crazy, clapping.

This is a great place. It’s pretty transparent, and the people are very much about doing what’s best for the student — whether it be the hard decision to fail them in a class, or whether it be, “How about if I walk you over to StepUP? Would that be easier?” Of course it would. Going alone is hard.

I’ve met the most wonderful people here — everyone from the janitor to the president. The president [Paul Pribbenow] calls us all by name, and the program has flourished under him.

MP: How do you measure success with your students?

PS: A lot of people measure success by statistics, by numbers: Our abstinence rate is 93 percent, our GPA is higher than the college’s [at large]. A lot of people would say you can’t measure using qualitative data or by the essence of people. So I probably wouldn’t pass a research class right now.

Graduation is the best day around here. We have our own graduation on the Friday before commencement. I said before that I was gifted with this wonderful ability to see people as they are going to be. I get to watch that at graduation. ... I measure success when my eyes meet theirs when they get their medallion and their diploma.

MP: What will be your legacy here? What will you leave behind?

PS: I hope that I will leave a nurturing environment that is both a place to heal and a place to discover — not just yourself but the world around you. How do you interact with people? How do you communicate? How do you talk to a professor? How do you talk to yourself? How do you fall in love?