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North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live is a daily, five-minute newscast that shines a spotlight on the stories and perspectives of Minnesota’s diverse communities, including Black, Latine, Asian American, East African individuals, people living with disabilities, LGBTQIA2S+ residents, laborers, veterans, and those from Greater Minnesota.
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HOST: You're listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, a daily newscast about what it means to live in Minnesota.
ANCHOR: Today, the free speech debate in Forest Lake heats up, prompting police to remove a resident from a school board meeting. Then, a northern county is seeking solutions to its housing shortage. And, more driverless cars are going to be on the streets of Northcentral Minnesota.
I'm Chantel SinGs.
Police removed a man from the Forest Lake School Board's August meeting after he criticized the Board President for displaying a car with a Confederate flag at a past event. Forest Lake is about 25 miles north of the Twin Cities. Under a new rule introduced by the board president, anyone removed from a meeting faces a six-month ban from district committees. Repeat offenders will be barred from school property. The incident comes as the board weighs whether to drop language in the student dress code that bans Confederate flags, swastikas, and KKK imagery. The clash has drawn larger crowds, sparked public comment, and deepened divisions between the board president, the community, and even his fellow board members.
In today's main story, like many places around the state, Cook County is facing a serious housing shortage. That has officials in Minnesota's eastern-most county searching for answers. Ngoc Bui has more.
Ngoc Bui: With Lake Superior at its southern edge, people flock to Cook County for its beauty. But while visitors won't find a shortage of places to stay, year-round residents and those looking to move there are struggling to find a place to call home. Up-to-date information isn't available. But a few years ago, Grand Marais's community radio station WTIP reported that the county assessor estimates some 70% of the housing stock in Cook County are second homes or cabins. Another 4% are vacation rentals. This leaves Cook County residents with very few options.
Kirsten Wisniewski: You know, that's something that the school struggles with every year, as they have new teachers coming in, and they lose teachers every year who can't afford to stay here just because of what's available. The hospital struggles with that. You know, all of these different what we'd think of as kind of basic services.
Ngoc Bui: Kirsten Wisniewski has been reporting on housing for WTIP. She said there's a growing discussion about how to balance the needs of visitors and locals.
Kirsten Wisniewski: It really is shifting that outlook from saying, sure we want people to be visiting, to how do we maintain that tourism economy without cutting off permanent residents' access to things like housing and services.
Ngoc Bui: Jeff Brand heads the county's Housing Redevelopment Authority, or HRA. He said building more homes isn't going to be easy when there's so little land to build on.
Jeff Brand: Well, 10% of the land in Cook County is actually land that's developable. A lot of the shoreline is not developable. It's owned by the state of Minnesota or other entities.
Ngoc Bui: Building on this terrain can also be quite a feat.
Jeff Brand: I'd say that the construction that has occurred for residential in particular was the easiest to build. It's a little bit more challenging to deal with, either the bedrock or the other side of things, the wetlands.
Ngoc Bui: Still, the HRA has just managed to complete a 51-unit mixed-income apartment. Another apartment building is set to open by the end of the year. Brand said local officials are also looking at zoning. The County Board of Commissioners just allowed for the creation of what's called residential open space overlay districts, or ROSO districts. That means property owners who choose to rezone could build several small houses on a portion of their land. Wisniewski explained these districts would only be possible on land outside of Grand Marais and away from the lakefront.
Kirsten Wisniewski: And the other part of that that's helpful for folks who are looking to create slightly higher density kind of neighborhood vibes on a single parcel is that they can have shared resources, like a shared driveway or a shared septic system.
Ngoc Bui: The county is hosting a series of town halls this month to share more information about this new possibility. This is Ngoc Bui for North Star Stories.
ANCHOR: You are listening to North Star Stories.
Go-MARTI, the free driverless transit system, is expanding beyond Grand Rapids in September. AMPERS station KAXE reports that Go-MARTI is adding 60 stops in Cohasset, Deer River, and Ball Club. The transit system is also expanding its hours to 10 am to 9 pm Monday through Saturday and eight to three on Sundays. Since launching in 2002, the pilot program has aimed to fill gaps in existing rural transportation with five autonomous vehicles in Grand Rapids. Starting in September, Go-MARTI will have more than 150 stops.
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HOST: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota. Online at ampers dot org.