Minnesota Now

Today Minnesota Chippewa Tribe officials are counting the votes in a referendum that could dramatically change who can be an enrolled member of the tribe. The tribe includes 6 Native bands - Mille Lacs, Leech Lake, White Earth, Bois Forte, Grand Portage and Fond du Lac. MPR reporter Dan Kraker has been following the story is here to give us the details.

You think it’s hot here? Try the record-breaking 104 degrees in eastern England! MPR’s chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner joins host Cathy Wurzer for a look at weather news here and abroad.

Last night the small town of Morris, Minnesota authorized the Stevens County Sheriff to hire two new deputies. They'll need those officers based on last week's vote to discontinue than 140-year run of Morris's city police department at the end of the year due to staffing issues. Morris Mayor Sheldon joined host Cathy Wurzer to share more.

It’s now been 20 years since 20-year-old Joshua Guimond disappeared from the campus of St. John’s University.

On Nov. 9, 2002, Guimond had been playing cards with friends at an on-campus apartment. He started walking home around midnight. He was never seen again.

Now, a new podcast from Josh Newville – a Twin Cities civil rights lawyer – claims to be turning up new leads in the long-unsolved case. It’s called “Simply Vanished.”

Host Cathy Wurzer talked with Newville about the podcast.

Vegalia Jean-Pierre is owner of the business “By.Vegalia.,” which creates digital brushes to draw Black hairstyles.  And in 2020, the Plymouth native also launched a TikTok account, where she amplifies representation in digital arts by drawing Black digital characters. Jean-Pierre’s social media presence now at nearly 600,000 followers and it landed her a $50,000 grant which she has used to  grow her innovative business.

A St. Paul restaurant owner testifies before a congressional committee today about the impact of crime on his staff and business. We'll talk with him about what he wants to see happen.

We're in the dog days of summer, and phenologist John Latimer shares his latest observations of nature in the great north.

The contentious rent control ordinance in St Paul went into effect in May and it's already being challenged in the city council. We'll get the details on what's at stake.

Wonderful juicy Minnesota strawberries are in short supply so far this summer. We'll find out why.

And a Minnesota artist was just awarded 50-thousand dollars for a new tool she created to draw digital textured hair. The impact is profound! We'll talk with her.

It’s berry season in Minnesota! Wild and farm-raised blueberries and strawberries are available this time of year — usually. But this year the early summer strawberry crop has been pretty dismal. Why? Tonya Sanner runs Firefly Berries in Olmstead county, which is in southeastern Minnesota. She joined Cathy to talk about what happened to her berries.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

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We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

St. Paul is weighing two appeals to its new rent stabilization ordinance this week, including Minnesota's first ever challenge to a rent increase by a tenant under a rent control law. It's a key test of the 3 percent rent hike limit voters approved last year, and of the possible fate of a similar measure in Minneapolis. They're both navigating the first rent control measures ever in Minnesota that advocates say can help ease the affordable housing crunch and opponents say is making things worse. MPR reporter Tim Nelson has been following this issue and joins me now to talk about it.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

It’s officially the dog days of summer — and by that we mean your dog is inside because it’s too hot in the sun! But seriously, there’s a lot more going on right now than just the heat. Our friend John Latimer makes it his business to observe the changes in nature as the seasons progress and he’s here today to tell us about what he’s been noticing outside. John is a phenologist, heard weekly on KAXE Radio in the Grand Rapids area.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here

A Twin Cities chef and restaurant owner will testify Tuesday before a congressional subcommittee on how crime and gun violence has affected his business.

Brian Ingram, the founder and CEO of Purpose Driven Restaurants, says Republican Congressman Tom Emmer asked him to testify.

The committee will talk about how mass shootings harm communities, but the owner of The Gnome Pub and Hope Breakfast Bar in St. Paul — which have been burglarized seven times since 2020 — says he will focus on how crime of all kinds has affected his community before he appears before lawmakers.

Chef Ingram spoke with host Cathy Wurzer from the Capitol. Below is a transcript of their conversation.

This transcript has been edited for clarity. Use the audio player above to listen to the conversation featured in the broadcast.

I'm good. A little nervous about today, but I’m doing well.

Yeah, it is risky to talk about. I mean, it's not good for business when you're talking about crime in your cities. But if we don't take a stand now, I'm not sure we're gonna have cities to take a stand for later. So for me, that's our biggest thing is if we can get our lawmakers to stop the fighting kind of with each other and just do some common sense things and help make our city safe again.

I mean, when we have repeat offenders that are breaking in and robbing us and get released within 24 hours, break in and rob us again, and they have rap sheets that are 30, 40, 50 crimes deep, something needs to change with that. And that's really what we're just hoping before more people get murdered, more people get assaulted, that change has to happen.

No, I've had lots of talks with (Mayor Melvin Carter) kind of over the past, but I think it's more of, I don't even know if it's lawmakers now. Now it's between our judges and prosecutors and stuff. I think it's just kind of grown out of control. And for some reason it became a political situation instead of a common sense situation. It seems like if you are pro-police or you’re anti-violence, that that makes you Republican. And that's so crazy to me that this is our city and these are, this is happening to all of us.

Every time my restaurant was robbed, nobody ever asked me what political affiliation I had when our staff has been assaulted. When our guests have been carjacked, nobody ever asked them what their political affiliation was. So that's really our hope.

Common sense to me is if you've done the same crime repeatedly, that shouldn't be an instant release within 24 hours, we should do some fact finding. We should really understand the nature of your crimes, why you've been doing these crimes. And if these mental health and those things that need to take place, that needs to happen.

But if you've done a crime 40, 50, 60 times, something needs to happen and you need to be taken off the streets before you commit violent crimes or before somebody gets killed. Even in my instance, I've walked into our restaurants when people have been inside the restaurant and, by the grace of God, I didn't get shot. And that's so scary to me that we arrive at our restaurants with alarms going off and sirens going off within our restaurants before the police do, because there's not enough officers on. And just the casual kind of cavalier attitude of these criminals. I mean, they break into the restaurants, they hear the sirens, they hear the alarms and they walk around. When you're watching these videos, they're walking around with impunity. They truly believe nobody's coming and nothing's going to happen to them. And that's a really scary thing.

Oh my gosh, yeah. I think we see it over and over every single day. So I'm a huge proponent of that. I mean, we fed protestors during the George Floyd murder and we called it out just like that, this was a murder and that those folks should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. And we believe that full-heartedly, but we also believe that there are criminals that are taking advantage of that situation that's happening today.

There are criminals that actively know that they can get around with impunity and something has to happen with that. I mean, those two aren't exclusive of one another, you can be for police reform and you can be for a change that must and has to happen, but that doesn't mean that we stop holding criminals accountable. And again, if you have a long rap sheet and you've done these things over and over again, you have to be locked up.

No. Well, we love our city. We live in our city. My kids have grown up in this city. I've got a brand new baby at home that we live in this city. We live literally in downtown St. Paul. I had to move off of West Seventh because I was walking with my new baby last summer and we were walking by the Freedom House (day shelter) and somebody walked out and pulled out a gun and just started firing it in the air. And we no longer felt safe and had to move a few miles away.

But, it's our home. It's where we continue to invest. And our goal is to continue to love on our community and do everything we can within our community. And sometimes that means taking a stand. And then taking a stand a year and a half ago, and COVID hit, and we shut our restaurants down before the mandates to feed our community. And I think we're doing the same thing now. We're trying to love on our community and bring change to our community. And our streets have to become safer. We're just seeing it too often every single day about these assaults and just rampant crime that's taking place.

Oh gosh, we're hoping. We close at 10 p.m. right now at the Gnome, our Hope Breakfast restaurants always close early, but any of our dinner stuff, our Apostle Supper Clubs, all of the new concepts that we're going to be opening in St. Paul, we're planning on closing at 9 p.m. or 10 p.m., unless change comes. I mean, it's leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars out there because we just won't be open after that. Our staff doesn't feel safe. Our guests don't feel safe. And if it means closing early, so I know my guests make it home safely, then that's what we're gonna do. So our goal is hopefully to get back to a time where guests can stay out and enjoy.

Man, that's such a tough thing. And for me, it was such an honor that this isn't just a Republican event. This is a Democratic event. Maxine Waters had to approve me being here as well. I think I've been very vocal. I voted for Mayor Carter. I vote Democrat probably more often than I've voted Republican. This isn't a party line at all. And, that's my biggest thing that I'm trying to talk about, is I'm just talking about, how do we make our city safe again?

And for me, this isn't a political thing. And I think that's really why I'm here is we've got to get over this infighting. We've got to get over all of this stuff that's happening. And we got to start doing the work of the people. And that's really what I'm hoping my voice can lend to is, “let's do some common sense things that can immediately make change in our city.” And then of course let's work on police reform. Of course, we need to figure out gun violence. We paid for seven funerals last year for young kids that were hit by stray bullets. All of that stuff has to be addressed, but that doesn't mean you stop addressing the other.