If the figures are bona fide, this is good news.Olivia LaVecchia at City Pages reports: “Between 2007 and 2011, the number of teens giving birth in the state dropped by more than 30 percent. That number's from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report out [Thursday], which shows a remarkable decline in teen births nationwide. The rates dropped at least 15 percent for all but two states during the four-year period. (One of the two outlier states is our neighbor, North Dakota, keeping good company with West Virginia. Neither state reported a significant change). The country's rate overall plummeted by 25 percent, to a record low for teen births. As usual, Minnesota's at the top of the pack. We're one of seven states in which the birth rate for 15-to-19-year-olds dropped a whopping 30 to 39 percent.”
In the PiPress, Tad Vezner reports: “A 17-year-old grandson of state Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer was taken into custody Thursday evening after authorities were called to her Big Lake home on a report of the teen threatening himself and family with a shotgun. … The 17-year-old, identified by Kiffmeyer's husband, Ralph, as their grandson, was threatening to harm himself and his mother, according to law enforcement scanner traffic. The boy's mother called 911 from outside the home. The boy was taken into custody without shots being fired or anyone being injured, Ralph Kiffmeyer said, adding that his wife was not at home during the incident. ‘He (the grandson) was spending some time with us, the last six to eight weeks,’ Ralph Kiffmeyer said. ‘We tried to help out a situation, the usual teenage disagreement with parents.’ ”
A cloud is coming to Minneapolis. Greg Avery of the Denver Business Journal writes: “ViaWest is expanding to Minnesota, building its first data center there in coming months and opening the first part of it in early 2014. The Greenwood Village-based data center company bought 28 acres in the Minneapolis area and has designed a 150,000-square-foot data center to house and manage clients’ computer servers or host their cloud computing services. … ViaWest said it expects to achieve the same reliability certification for its Minneapolis center that it achieved for its newest data center, in North Las Vegas.”
At MPR, Tom Robertson has a story about state assistance for American Indian businesses: “[A] Red Lake tribal member has opened a new restaurant [in Bemidji]. It's believed to be the first American Indian-owned restaurant in the city. Owner Marv Hanson tapped into a little-used state fund intended to help American Indian entrepreneurs. … Red Lake's high school dropout rate is among the highest in the state, and half the tribe's adults are unemployed. Hanson pushed tribal members to continue their education so they could compete in the mainstream economy. Now, he wants to be a role model for would-be entrepreneurs in Indian Country. Native-owned businesses are rare. A survey conducted in the early 2000s by the Minnesota American Indian Chamber of Commerce found around 2,500 businesses owned by Native Americans. Chamber officials say the recession took a toll on Native-owned businesses, and they guess the number might now be half that.”
Taconite for schools … Explains John Myers in the Duluth News Tribune:“Minnesota’s per-ton tax on taconite iron ore produced in the state will increase a dime this year, and the extra money will be dedicated to help rebuild and retool Iron Range schools. The taconite provision was included in the 2013 Legislature’s final omnibus tax bill, which Gov. Mark Dayton signed into law Thursday. The per-ton tax on taconite will increase to $2.56. Half the increase is part of an annual inflationary increase — this year, about 5.3 cents per ton produced. But there’s also an additional increase of a nickel per ton. … Of the $2.56 total tax, mining companies can apply for a rebate of up to 32 cents per ton to pay for any new capital improvements that add to the productivity or longevity of their Iron Range plants, such as pollution-control equipment, upgrades or new technology.”
“No comment” might have been the easier way to go. On the Strib’s AccessVikings blog, Dan Wiederer reports on an interview with Adrian Peterson: “[I]n the interview with [Bruce] Murray and [Amani] Toomer, Peterson had far more ear-catching comments. Specifically, when asked about the Vikings’ release of punter Chris Kluwe earlier this month, Peterson didn’t steer around the obligatory request for comment on Kluwe’s activism in favor of gay rights and marriage equality. Said the reigning league MVP: ‘To each his own. I’m not with it. But I have relatives that are gay. I’m not biased towards them. I still treat them the same. I love them. But again, I’m not with that. That’s not something I believe in. But to each his own. I’m sure the Vikings organization did not release him based on that. They know Kluwe. They’ve been knowing him for a long time. And they know he’s outspoken. But it hurt me to see him leave. He was a good friend of mine and a really cool guy, man. Probably one of the smartest guys I’ve ever been around, man. Different.’ Is it outrageous for Peterson to speak candidly on the gay marriage topic? No. Is it a bit dangerous, potentially stirring up an unwanted storm? Absolutely."
What?Nancy Ngo of the PiPress tells us: “First came the food trucks. Now, fashion trucks can rev their engines, head to downtown St. Paul and sell their products. Shops on wheels have been on the rise around the country and locally, and St. Paul is making efforts to welcome them to the neighborhood. … Under the ordinance, fashion trucks must follow the same parking restrictions as other vehicles. In addition, parking is limited to downtown and operating hours exclude rush hour and late night. And that's only if shop owners have a mobile retail license with the city, which costs $72 a year — the same amount as for food truck or peddling licenses.”
Economics columnist Ed Lotterman writes in the PiPress about requiring tornado safety construction: “What about the issue of building codes? Why don't more houses in this tornado-prone area have basements or safe rooms? Why did the destroyed Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore apparently lack storm-proof spaces? Why don't building codes in tornado-prone areas require greater provisions to protect human life? … A … response that libertarians would make, is that homeowners and school boards have better incentives than anyone else to weigh risks versus cost. If they judge that the expected value of probable damage is less than the cost of avoiding it, they are better off to simply run the risk, as some historically did. Having government second-guess such decisions by the people who bear both costs and benefits would simply make society poorer. That view was common for decades in economics. And it resonates with those who place a high value on individual liberty. But most economists would support zoning and building codes to the extent that they avoid the creation of external costs — or decisions by one person that harm others.”
For Midwest Energy News, Dan Haugenlooks closer at the Solar Energy Jobs Act just signed into law: “[T]he bill has several other components that could rival the solar standard’s impact, from expanded incentives and net-metering reforms to the creation of shared, community ‘solar gardens.’ … Over the next seven years, investor-owned utilities in the state will need to add an estimated 450 megawatts of solar power to their systems — up from about 13 megawatts today. … Most people today don’t have an opportunity to claim these incentives, though. Cina said only about a third of Minnesotans own a rooftop that’s sunny enough, strong enough and angled correctly for installing solar panels. That’s why solar supporters are particularly excited about a new program created in the bill known as community ‘solar gardens.’ The concept will let customers buy individual solar panels in shared, community solar installations. The electricity generated by a customer’s panels would be credited on their utility bill the same as if it were on their own rooftop.”