Year: 2018

EXCERPT: “The University of Minnesota Morris Center for Small Towns (CST) has been awarded an operating support grant for 2018-2019 by the Otto Bremer Trust. This award will help further CST’s work with small towns and community groups across Minnesota . . . CST provides research, education, and program support to Minnesota communities of fewer than 5,000. ...

EXCERPT: “Two extra lanes for safety and commerce. That’s what a recently funded project promises for stretches of Minnesota Highway 23 around Paynesville. Local businesses and governments joined together and lobbied hard for the upgrade in the last year. Lawmakers and Gov. Mark Dayton granted bonding money to the project in May . . . ‘This is an ...

  We’re back again with Tim Velde, Yellow Medicine County farmer and member of the Center for Rural Policy and Development’s board representing Minnesota Farmers Union. This week Tim and Jim talk about a top concern of farmers, access to health care and health insurance.

EXCERPT: “Nobles County commissioners are in the midst of planning an Urban Lawmaker Tour in mid-July. The event is targeted to metro-area legislators and will feature a day-long bus tour July 13 to discuss everything from agriculture regulations to management of state-owned lands, broadband, water, mental health and Local Government Aid . . . As they ...

EXCERPT: “CentraCare Health-Long Prairie will receive $700,000 from the Minnesota Legislature to be used toward a Regional Community Well-Being Center after Gov. Mark Dayton signed the Omnibus Bonding Bill, which totaled $1.5 billion in projects across the state. Local lawmakers Rep. Ron Kresha, R-Little Falls, and Sen. Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa, authored the original bills in ...

EXCERPT: “The United States does not stack up favorably when compared to other nations with advanced economies when it comes to childhood poverty worldwide, according to a new report, which considered factors such as the lack of access to quality food, high adolescent birth rates and a child dropping out of school. Out of 175 nations, ...

  We catch up this week with Yellow Medicine County farmer Tim Velde, a member the the Center for Rural Policy and Development’s board representing Minnesota Farmers Union. Tim talks about how the one bill that always passed, the federal Farm Bill, was held up and why.

EXCERPT: “The Benson paper, like many in the most rural parts of the state, struggles to hang on as populations shift and subscriptions fall off. Digital advertising generates only a fraction of the revenue at small papers in Minnesota – 5 percent or less at most weeklies, in Anfinson’s estimation. Indeed, while daily newspapers have embraced ...

EXCERPT: “It’s not just neighbors and residents spurning landfills anymore. It’s the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which hasn’t authorized a new municipal solid waste landfill in the northeast quadrant of the state since 1993. The agency’s hesitance to do so has become an issue for local waste management authorities. Faced with the closing in 10 years ...