Good morning, and welcome to Friday. Here’s the Digest.
1. Minneapolis council to vote on putting a fee on grocery bags. Paper or plastic? If Minneapolis city leaders get their way, either one will cost you. Council members are expected to vote Friday on a plan to require grocery stores and other retailers to charge customers 5 cents for every bag they take.
The measure has its supporters in the community. At a public hearing this week, Minneapolis resident Josie Winship said plastic bags are a big driver of the city’s litter problem. She brought a sample to show council members. “I walked 12 blocks, which is about 1 mile in my neighborhood in Seward and I collected this bag of trash in that amount of time, plastic. It’s approximately 1 cubic foot for a 30-minute walk.” Single-use bags have been in the crosshairs of city leaders for years. In 2016, council member Cam Gordon drafted an ordinance to ban plastic bags outright and require retailers to charge customers a nickel apiece for paper bags. Passing the bag ban was easy; the council approved it 10-3. But a year later, just before the ordinance was to take effect, the Minnesota Legislature — then controlled by Republicans — banned cities from banning bags. MPR News
2. Minnesotans with ties to Ukraine dismayed by how the country is being portrayed in impeachment hearings. At least 17,000 Ukrainian Americans live in Minnesota, according to census estimates. Many families settled in northeast Minneapolis in the 1940s and 1950s. It has been a closely knit community through Ukrainian churches, schools, choirs and other cultural guilds. “Our life when we were growing up as kids was to be part of that community. We danced. We had to ‘date Ukrainians,’” said retiree Luba Lewycky, 69, who lives four-and-a-half blocks from the house where she was raised. She has watched a fair amount of the House hearings, sometimes while on the treadmill at the gym. She admitted it’s been difficult. “To finally see Ukraine in the limelight of the press and the media — only to see it in this particular instance or this particular way rather than seeing Ukraine as the beautiful culture and country that it is,” she said. Lewycky isn’t viewing the hearings through a Republican versus Democrat prism. It’s unfortunate that Ukraine’s leaders had to entertain requests for investigations their U.S. counterparts wanted in order to free up vital security assistance, she said. “I think the Ukrainian government, the new president was put into a no-win situation,” she said. MPR News 3. Feds award housing help to Minnesota. Eugene Ivy was 12 when he first became homeless. After living for a time with a grandmother, he and his mother for years bounced from shelter to shelter. The lanky 20-year-old believes he finally found stability this week when he moved into the new Ain Dah Yung Center on St. Paul’s University Avenue, a 42-unit supportive housing community that offers mental health counseling and other services for young people who may need the extra TLC. “I feel blessed,” said Ivy, flanked by news media and state and federal officials. “Coming from where I’m coming from, I know nobody has to give you anything. They didn’t have to give me anything.” On Thursday, officials with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development joined Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and community housing leaders at the Ain Dah Yung Center to announce nearly $5.4 million in competitive grants for housing voucher programs across Minnesota. The rent subsidies, targeted to non-elderly individuals and families struggling with trauma and disability, are expected to help more than 590 recipients lease housing in the private market, including 96 families across St. Paul and Ramsey County. Pioneer Press
4. Omar calls for spending $1 trillion over 10 years on housing. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar introduced legislation Thursday meant to ensure affordable housing is available to anyone in the United States who needs it. The Democratic congresswoman from Minneapolis’s plan would pour a whopping $1 trillion into affordable housing projects over a decade, with a goal of creating 12 million new units in that time. The legislation would also establish a permanent federal funding stream aimed at making homes more affordable. “Every American deserves a safe and stable place to live, but unfortunately, our current free-market housing system is not meeting the needs of working families,” reads a briefing on the proposal released by Omar’s office. The briefing says Omar’s proposal would be the first large-scale federal investment in affordable housing since President Franklin Roosevelt’s new deal. Her office said it’s the opening volley in what will be a package of affordable housing bills from a group of progressive House Democrats. The National Low Income Housing Coalition found that no U.S. metro area currently has an adequate supply of rental housing for their poorest residents, according to Omar’s office. Omar’s bill would lift a federal prohibition on spending on new public housing projects, then pour $1 trillion into those efforts through several programs. Star Tribune
5. Chamber says taxes and health costs are too high. Despite observable signs of economic growth, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce this week warned that the state's high taxes and rising healthcare premiums could stunt its ability to compete with the rest of the country. "We're not as competitive as we could be in the tax space, and that's an artificial headwind for businesses who are competing nationally and globally," said chamber president Doug Loon on Thursday. Citing the findings of the Federation of Tax Administrators and other groups, the chamber this week reported that Minnesota's corporate income and sales tax rates rank fourth and 18th in the nation at 9.8 percent and 7.43 percent, respectively. Employer-sponsored health insurance, meanwhile, continues to be among the highest costs of doing business in the state. Based off of Kaiser Family Foundation data, the chamber reported that health insurance premiums in Minnesota cost an average of $6,781 compared to the national average of $6,715, making them the 21st most expensive in the country. Employee contributions make up nearly $1,600 of the state figure, according to the foundation. Despite those findings, the chamber reported signs that Minnesota's economy is growing. Speaking at a chamber gathering at the Mall of America on Thursday, Loon and other Minnesota business leaders hailed the state's growth in the measures of gross domestic product and annual exports as a win. Inforum | 