Good morning, and welcome to another Friday.
Law enforcement agencies across the state issued more than 20,000 speeding tickets in July as part of an organized effort to tackle the problem. MPR’s Nina Moini reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave the state funding to step up speeding patrols across 291 law enforcement agencies during the month of July. The St. Paul Police Department issued the most speeding citations at 770 for the month, followed by the Eden Prairie Police Department at 367. During the campaign, 47 agencies reported people driving at speeds of 100 mph or more, including 152 mph reported by the Eden Prairie Police Department. Drivers can lose their license for six months for going 100 mph or more.
Inflation was up 3.2 percent year over year across the country in July, according to the federal government, but in the Twin Cities the increase was only 1 percent. Marcus Bansah, an assistant professor of economics at St. Olaf College, told MPR’s Cathy Wurzer things are better here because of the cost of housing and energy. A story this week by Bloomberg News took a closer look at housing’s role in the inflation rate. No place in the U.S. has put inflation in the rearview mirror quite as fast as Minneapolis. In May, the Twin Cities became the first major metropolitan area to see annual inflation fall below the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent. Its 1.8 percent pace of price increases was the lowest of any region that month. That’s largely due to a region-wide push to address one of the most intractable issues for both the Fed and American consumers: rising housing costs. Well before pandemic-related supply chain snarls and labor shortages roiled the economy, the city of Minneapolis eliminated zoning that allowed only single-family homes and since 2018 has invested $320 million for rental assistance and subsidies. That helped unleash a boom in construction of apartments and condos in the region that proved to be a powerful antidote against inflation, given that the cost of shelter accounts for more than a third of the overall U.S. consumer-price index. Minneapolis shelter prices were up at half the nation’s annual pace in May.
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter says he’s using money from the state to help hold down property taxes in the new budget he proposed Thursday. The Pioneer Press reports: Carter proposed keeping property taxes fairly flat for owners of median-value houses — and buying $100 million of medical debt citywide. Before a crowd of onlookers at Highland Bridge, Carter unveiled an $820.5 million budget proposal for 2024 that would increase the city’s property tax levy — the sum total of all taxes collected from property owners — by 3.7 percent. Owners of median-value houses ($267,400 for 2024, up from $266,300 this year) could actually see a property tax decrease of about $26, due in part to large commercial and industrial properties gaining value at a faster clip.
Former President Donald Trump’s legal problems could be cutting into some of his political support. While national polls show Trump remains the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination next year, MPR’s Mark Zdechlik reports some who have backed him in the past are hoping someone else will end up as the Republican candidate. You can hear some of that ebbing support even in Minnesota’s Sherburne County, a Republican stronghold where Trump won big over Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. “Since everything, I’m kind of shying away from being a strong supporter as I used to,” said Kevin Lillo, 44, referring to the three criminal indictments Trump faces. But the discontent with the presidential frontrunners isn’t just on the Republican side. As she prepared for a picnic at Lakeside Park in Big Lake, Katie Kipka said she was worried about the direction of the country. “We are one nation under God,” said Kipka, 40. “And for being indivisible, we are awfully divided.”
Gov. Tim Walz appointed former health commissioner Jan Malcolm Thursday to lead a task force to examine the future of the University of Minnesota's health care system. Walz says the group will develop recommendations to support world-class academic health education, research and care delivery by the Health Sciences Programs at the university and ensure that Minnesotans can continue to receive high quality care in a financially sustainable way. Walz says the group will make its recommendations to him in January. The future of the university's health system was called into question when Sanford Health announced its merger with Fairview Health Services. That merger is now off. The U has proposed a new medical campus that would incorporate buildings now held by Fairview and require a $950 million dollar state investment.
And the New York Times was all over Walz’s visit to the Iowa State Fair on Thursday: Mr. Walz came to the fair to tout his party’s policies and promote President Biden’s re-election campaign amid the thicket of Republican White House hopefuls who aim to knock Mr. Biden out of the Oval Office. During a tour of the fair’s midway, Mr. Walz ticked through all the usual Biden campaign talking points, discussed how Minnesota’s state fair is superior to Iowa’s (“There’s no shame in being second,” he said), wondered if anyone would heckle former Vice President Mike Pence during his appearance Thursday afternoon and chowed down on a pork chop on a stick. | 