Aug 23, 2020 |
Minnesota lawmakers are pushing an effort to provide amnesty to minors who have been sexually assaulted while drinking or using drugs.
Under the bipartisan measure, sexual assault victims and those assisting them would be protected from prosecution for certain controlled substance and alcohol violations. Sponsors of the legislation hope to encourage more sexual assault survivors to report without fear of prosecution.
“Even though [prosecution] doesn’t happen often, it’s a deterrent for victim-survivors to report. We want to make sure that we can say with certainty … that you will not be prosecuted if you were drinking when you were assaulted,” said Trish Palermo, president of the University of Minnesota’s Student Association, which worked with lawmakers on the bill.
The measure is modeled after a “medical amnesty” law passed in 2013, which allows minors who have been drinking and have a medical emergency to dial 911 without being prosecuted.
Rep. Cheryl Youakim, DFL-Hopkins, the main author of the House measure, said the proposal would help eliminate ambiguity in the reporting process.
“I do think it’s all about … the perception for students. A prosecutor may not prosecute for it, but students don’t know that,” she said.
Katie Eichele, director of the U’s Aurora Center, said in a statement that victims already face many barriers to reporting their assaults, and this proposal would “open as many doors as possible” to encourage them to come forward. The Aurora Center offers services to students and others who have experienced assault and harassment.
In a statement, Rep. Marion O’Neill, R-Maple Lake, called the measure a “common-sense proposal” that will help victims feel safe when reporting their assaults to law enforcement.
“This policy puts victims first and has the potential to save lives,” O’Neill said.
Prospects for the measure are still uncertain. The bill missed a legislative committee deadline last week, and Youakim said she may now push for an informational hearing or ask for a rules waiver to allow a legislative hearing.
Palermo said she hopes lawmakers will come together this year to support the legislation.
“It’s not a huge ask. It seems like a very obvious thing that we should already be doing,” she said.
Aug 23, 2020 |
It took weeks for the Minnesota Department of Health to find the source of a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Hopkins that killed one person and sickened 23 others last year.
Now a state representative for the west metro suburb wants to make sure it never takes that long again to figure out where an outbreak began.
State Rep. Cheryl Youakim, DFL-Hopkins, introduced a bill earlier this month that would create a state registry of cooling towers, often the source of widespread cases of the respiratory disease.
Cooling towers extract heat through the evaporation of water and release water vapor and droplets into the atmosphere. But they can produce aerosolized water particles contaminated with Legionella bacteria, which can make people sick if inhaled.
A registry, Youakim said, “would prevent more people from getting sick in an outbreak because you’d be able to find [the source] more quickly.”
Youakim said she has received pushback from building owners who don’t want to be fined for failing to register and from cooling tower manufacturers who think a registry would lead to more regulations.
“I’m starting very simple,” she said. “It may eventually be the way we need to go.”
Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, is sponsoring an identical bill in the Senate.
The bill would require owners of buildings with cooling towers to register the tower with the state health commissioner. Owners could be fined up to $1,500 if they failed to do so, according to the bill’s language, and would need to follow inspection and cleaning guidelines for cooling towers outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Alliance to Prevent Legionnaires’ Disease, a nonprofit coalition supported by cooling tower manufacturers, said registering towers won’t prevent future outbreaks.
“The focus … on building equipment is misplaced,” said Daryn Cline, who works for the Alliance and cooling tower manufacturer Evapco. “More must be done to better monitor and disinfect against Legionella in the public drinking water system.”
But Dr. Janet E. Stout, president of the Pittsburgh-based Special Pathogens Laboratory, said the bill would make investigations more efficient. “This is about education and making sure people know the proper way to operate cooling towers,” she said.
After September’s outbreak, Health Department investigators determined within days that the cause was a cooling tower. But they had to search for it using satellite maps because there was no registry. It wasn’t until they received a tip that they were directed to a tower at the Citrus Systems plant in Hopkins.
A genetic match was found between the bacteria from the plant’s tower and infected patients. The tower was sanitized on Sept. 27.
“Within two days they had figured out that the source was a cooling tower. It took them up to three weeks to find that cooling tower,” Youakim said.
More than 110 people contracted Legionnaires’ disease in Minnesota last year, a sharp increase from the 50 to 58 who came down with it annually from 2012 to 2015. Most people exposed to the bacteria are not infected, but smokers or people with a weakened immune system are at an increased risk.
Aug 20, 2020 |
It remains to be seen how much weight Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state officials will give to the CDC’s evolving guidance on opening schools. The governor is expected to make an announcement Thursday.
In a statement Friday, state Education Commissioner Mary Cathryn Ricker said CDC guidance is one of several factors officials will consider moving forward.
Legislators on both sides of the aisle said there should not be a one-size-fits-all decision regarding moving forward with in-person classes, online learning or some combination of the two.
Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, who chairs the Senate education policy and finance committee, said: “Everyone wants the children to be back in school, but it has to be safely.”
While Nelson said she’s not pushing to send every child back into their classroom, she also doesn’t want Walz deciding the issue unilaterally. Parents, teachers and school district officials — the people “on the ground” — should decide for themselves, she said.
Rep. Cheryl Youakim, DFL-St. Louis Park, who chairs the House education policy committee and whose husband is a teacher and whose son begins teaching in the fall, said distance learning has not worked well for every student. She said many students with special needs lost ground.
“There’s a science about why kids need to be in school,” she said. “And there’s a science about how to get them there safely.”
Aug 20, 2020 |
As most Minnesota students wring the last bit of freedom out of their summer break, a few of their peers are already catching the bus, pulling out fresh school supplies and settling into their classrooms.
Though the vast majority of the state’s schools won’t be back in session until after Labor Day — a requirement under state law — a few districts granted special waivers are getting a head start on the new school year. First up: the Southland School District, near the Iowa border in southeast Minnesota, where some students started Monday with learning conferences and all students were back in class on Wednesday. This week, students in a dozen more school districts, most of them in southern or west-central Minnesota, will join them.
By the time most schools open on Sept. 3, 26 districts around the state already will have their school year well underway. Unlike in recent years, however, few students in the metro area will be back early; Minneapolis Public Schools are returning to a post-Labor Day start for the first time in six years, and just one suburban district, Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools, is sending some of its students back early to accommodate construction in the spring and summer.
Overall, the number of districts that sought early start waivers dipped slightly this year, and many granted a waiver still opted for a typical September start. But the perennial discussion about flexibility in school calendars has showed little sign of disappearing.
After the past school year, in which a particularly cold and snowy winter threatened districts’ ability to get in enough instructional days, some lawmakers and school leaders say they expect the debate over starting before or after Labor Day will continue into next year’s legislative session.
“That’s an interest that has never waned, never gone away,” said Kirk Schneidawind, executive director of the Minnesota School Boards Association. “Local governments, local school boards who set the [school] calendar feel they should have the authority to set the start and end dates of the calendar year.”
Changing traditions?
Minnesota is one of only a few states that require schools to start after Labor Day.
The law was drafted with the input of resort owners and others, who said a shorter summer for students would shrink a needed labor force and reduce attendance at the State Fair. It has only a few exceptions, including for districts accommodating a construction or remodeling project that costs at least $400,000, or for districts along the state line that want to match their schedules with those of schools in neighboring states. Occasionally, there are other special situations, like when the Eastern Carver County School District modified its school year in 2016 to accommodate the Ryder Cup golf tournament.
Minneapolis schools, meanwhile, attempted a multiyear experiment to see if an earlier start and longer school year would help shore up the district’s budget and raise student achievement. (The schedule change had minimal impact on either goal, and an overwhelming majority of parents surveyed wanted to return to a post-Labor Day start.)
This year, state lawmakers proposed two separate bills — neither of them ultimately successful — that would have allowed more districts to start before Labor Day. Some were particularly interested in helping schools prepare for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years, in which Labor Day will fall later than usual.
Rep. Cheryl Youakim, DFL-Hopkins, said she introduced a bill giving all schools the flexibility to start before Labor Day to ensure districts don’t end up scrambling to make up snow days at the end of the year — and that the Legislature doesn’t end up having to sort out a last-minute plan to forgive missed days, like it did this year.
“I think we definitely have to seriously look at the 2020-2021 school year, because I don’t want to have to go through another snow days bill,” she said.
Lobbying for later start
Youakim said she expects another debate in the 2020 session but believes changing state law will be an uphill battle. Leaders in the hospitality, grocery and gas station industries, along with representatives from the State Fair, have lobbied against pushing back the start of the school year. In addition to fears about shrinking the youthful summer labor force or threatening fair traditions, parents and families have also voiced concerns about changing holiday and vacation plans.
In the Southland district, attended by about 450 students, middle school and high school Principal Scott Hall said there was some consternation about this year’s early start. (Voters in the district passed a bond referendum last fall, and a major construction project will be underway this year and next summer.) There were worries about vacations and State Fair entries, but Hall said school leaders are trying to work with families and students.
“As a district we’re being as flexible and understanding as we possibly can,” he said.
Working around fair, MEA
Elsewhere, however, early start has become a regular transition. Springfield Public Schools, about an hour’s drive west of Mankato, have started in August for a decade, and this year classes will begin Monday.
Superintendent Keith Kottke said the district seeks the annual waiver based on academic benefits of an altered school calendar; the district avoids major interruptions to curriculum by being able to end the first quarter of classes just before the annual October break for the Minnesota Educator Academy teachers’ conference and ends the first semester before the winter holiday break.
Kottke said the district starts the year with two four-day weeks to accommodate students who participate in the State Fair and runs into few attendance problems.
Plus, he said, operating under a different calendar from most schools in the state means Springfield can nab top speakers and trainers for teachers before they’re already booked elsewhere.
“We’ve been able to find some great professional development and speakers that are available because we’re not on the same schedule,” he said.
Aug 20, 2020 |
Almost two years ago, a Green Line light-rail train sailed through a red light in St. Paul and smacked into a sedan driven by 29-year-old Nic Westlake, who died within days of the crash.
The tragedy left Westlake’s family and friends struggling to make sense of why a vibrant young life was suddenly and inexplicably cut short. They soon discovered something else: A loophole in state law that prevented the operator of the train from being charged.
The Westlakes and their supporters, as well as two key lawmakers, successfully pushed through legislation at the Capitol this session that holds light-rail operators accountable under the state’s reckless and careless driving laws.
Yet the family says there’s more to be done to make light rail safer — and they hope to do so either through more legislation or through litigation pending against the Metropolitan Council, which operates public transportation in the Twin Cities.
“We’re uniquely positioned to take up this cause,” said Westlake’s mother, Lisa Westlake, of Rapid City, S.D. “We care about [safety] a lot. This shouldn’t happen. These are solvable problems.”
Because the Westlake lawsuit is pending in Ramsey County District Court, Metro Transit spokesman Howie Padilla said “there is little we can say on the remaining issues, but it is absolutely true that we are saddened anytime someone is harmed on our system. We take seriously our commitment and responsibility of providing a safe and secure transit system.”
A jury trial is scheduled for this fall.
“The whole issue is the problem with how the Green Line was put on University Avenue,” said Ryan Timlin, president of Local 1005 of the Amalgamated Transit Workers union, which represents light-rail operators. “We knew it would open up doors for things like this to happen. The trains should have been elevated or underground.”
The operator of the train that hit Nic Westlake’s car, Abdellatif El Maarouf, still works at Metro Transit but doesn’t operate light rail or buses, Padilla said.
Green Line collisions
Gathering at the Dancers Studio in St. Paul recently, the Westlake family exudes a sense of quiet purpose. This is where Nic honed his skills as a world-class ballroom dancer with his partner and fiancée, Neli Petkova, who was injured in the crash. Recently, the grand ballroom at the studio was named in his honor.
A block away, the Green Line rumbled by with a dull clang. Light-rail trains travel regularly from downtown St. Paul to Target Field in Minneapolis, mostly snaking along the busy spine of University Avenue. Because of its inches-away proximity to pedestrians, bikes and all forms of motor vehicles, collisions with light-rail trains along the route are not uncommon.
Since beginning service in 2014, there have been seven fatal crashes involving the Green Line, according to Metro Transit. The Blue Line light rail, which began operating in 2004, counts 14 deaths along its route between downtown Minneapolis and the Mall of America.
The Westlake family is calling for Metro Transit to install video cameras in LRT operators’ cabs.
“We have no idea why the driver missed that red light in our case,” said Nic Westlake’s older brother Peter. “There are cameras from every other angle [in light-rail trains]. We can’t tell what’s going on, especially with someone operating a huge vehicle that impacts thousands of people every day.”
They’re also pushing for bigger and brighter signs alerting LRT drivers when a traffic light turns red, now indicated by a series of horizontal and vertical bars that the family says are difficult to see. There are 68 of these intersections along the Green Line’s 11-mile route.
The family is also suggesting that the advertising wraps that encapsulate trains don’t cover the front cab, which they say should be brightly painted. The train that killed Nic Westlake was wrapped in a dark purple advertising sheath.
“If Nic had caught something [bright] out of the corner of his eye …” his mom says, her voice trailing off. “I understand the value of advertising, but this advertisement drove into my son.”
The family also believes automatic braking equipment should be installed in light-rail trains, which would head off collisions or runs through a red light.
“If I can go out and buy a brand-new car today and it can stop me from getting into a collision, there’s really no reason why a light-rail train running on rails couldn’t do the same,” Peter Westlake said.
The path forward
Whether more legislation is needed to achieve the Westlake family’s goals is unclear.
“Obviously any legislation needs sponsors and the logical place for a family to start is with their own legislators,” said Eric Janus, a professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul.
Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, who co-sponsored the bill at the Capitol, said “in spite of personal pain of loss, the Westlake family worked to produce good by pushing for a much-needed update in our traffic laws.”
The House co-sponsor, Rep. Cheryl Youakim, DFL-Hopkins, said Peter Westlake and brother Seth “were with us every step of the way. They were amazing.” Hearing their story “helped to put a human face on the legislation,” she said.
Janus said it’s not unusual for a family or an individual to push for change in the law after experiencing a tragedy, but more typically that occurs at the behest of lobbyists, nonprofit organizations and other organized entities, or the lawmakers themselves. Still, he said “people pay attention to the vivid images they have of particular stories or situations.”
Peter Westlake testified at the Legislature about his brother, and the law’s loophole. “It’s nice to see some small change; hopefully some life we’ll never meet will be saved,” he said.
“I think Nic would be really proud to know that he helped make the LRT safer,” he said.
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