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Senator Goggin, Minnesota Senate pass legislation to reopen businesses
The Minnesota Senate on Thursday passed bipartisan legislation to allow all businesses to operate without restriction as long as the business owner maintains a COVID safety preparedness plan. This will allow Minnesota businesses to open their doors at their own pace while providing all the safety possible for employees and customers.
“This is about common sense,” said Sen. Mike Goggin (R-Red Wing). “These businesses should be allowed to reopen following the same safety precautions that big box stores are taking.”
This bill will give the power back to individual business owners and workers to decide what measures they need to operate their business safely. It would prohibit a Governor from closing businesses by Executive Order unless there is a majority vote of the legislature. It would also require a notice of 14 days after a vote before taking effect, giving businesses ample time to prepare for the s
Reporter
MARSHALL Â It’s no surprise to area residents that there was a child care shortage in greater Minnesota even before COVID-19. But the pandemic has put pressures on child care providers and families that are already having a negative effect on the state’s workforce and economy, Sen. Tina Smith said Friday.
“Child care is part of the basic economic infrastructure we need in this country, just like housing and transportation. Our economy isn’t going to work if families can’t find safe, affordable, good quality child care options,” Smith said.
In a virtual press conference Friday afternoon, Smith called for support to help stabilize child care providers in the short term and make sustainable changes in the long term. Smith said aid funding for child care providers is part of a recovery package currently being addressed by Congress.
Page Amendment would ensure all Minnesota children have a civil right to a quality public education.
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Nevada Littlewolf | ×
Editorial cartoon by Shannon Walters of Duluth
The Minnesota state constitution has been amended over 100 times since its ratification in 1857, though one provision of the constitution has remained unchanged: Article XIII, Section 1. The education provision.
The provision from 1857 designed our public-school system to be “uniform” and “adequate.” Minnesota’s public-school system is functioning exactly how it was designed. But Minnesota children and families deserve more than “adequate” from the compulsory system.
An October 2019 study by the Minneapolis Federal Reserve showed that Minnesota leads the nation in education gaps by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The problem persists in all 87 counties of the state. Most troubling, these gaps have been widening over the last two decades and getting worse with the pandem
Pandemic pushes more S.D. reservation residents to seek homeownership
Nick Lowrey
South Dakota News Watch
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed more Native Americans living on reservations in South Dakota to seek homeownership, a potential step toward greater family financial security and community stability in some of the state’s most impoverished regions.
But long-standing institutional, economic and geographic barriers continue to block some reservation residents from buying a home.
During the first six months of 2020, 193 people enrolled in first-time homebuyer and financial literacy classes offered by reservation-based community development groups as a prelude to buying a home. During all of 2019, 190 people enrolled in the courses, according to data collected by the South Dakota Native Homeownership Coalition.