Showing posts with label Hugo tornado. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hugo tornado. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Week of June 1, 2008

E-waste collections increasing: Tuesday's Star Tribune had a good editorial about how the e-waste bill I worked on in 2007 is helping consumers get rid of old electronics for free. Best Buy has now set up free e-waste collections in selected stores in three states that have electronic waste recycling legislation: Minnesota, California, and Maryland.

Legislative Reference Library: One of the resources available to legislators and the public alike is the Legislative Reference Library, located in the State Office Building. They are the repository for a lot of legislative reports and statistics compiled by state and other agencies. They have a great web site where can link to these reports.

Visit last week to Lino Lakes: Last Thursday, Senator Rummel and I tagged along with a group from State Farm insurance to look at how they are responding to storm damage. They took us to their temporary auto claims center in a parking lot in Hugo. Drivers with hail damage drove up under a tent, a claims adjuster inspected the car on the spot and entered data into a computer in a nearby trailer with a satellite dish, and the driver drove away with a check for the repairs. State Farm told me that they had handled more than 5,100 cars in four days. (This is just for one company.) Another insurance company had a similar operation set up in a lot in Centerville. We also visited a home in Lino Lakes north of Birch Street to see how the claims team assessed the damage on a private home.

Study finds Minnesota tax burden average: The Minnesota Budget Project analyzed our tax burden and found it average compared to other states. We have higher income and business taxes but lower property taxes, while other states have higher property taxes and often higher sales tax.

Minnesota Minute: A group called E-Democracy is out to "promote the online video contest hosted by the Bell Museum of Natural History as part of the Minnesota Sesquicentennial celebration. The museum is looking for videos that celebrate the natural places in Minnesota and the efforts to take care of them. Basically, the contest entails producing a 1-5 minute video of a person's experience in Minnesota's natural world and their efforts to preserve it. To submit the video, you simply upload the video to YouTube with the tag of MyMinnesotaMinute. The website http://minnesotaminute.org/ has more details."

"North Oaks tells Google Maps: Keep out, we mean it": The Star Tribune had an article in the last few days about how it asked Google to remove North Oaks from its "Street View" feature. North Oaks' roads are actually private property, so Google was technically trespassing when it took pictures of addresses from the street. The article tells you how to "take your home off Street View." First, go to http://maps.google.com, enter the address and when the image comes up, click on "Street View." Click on "street view help" in the image window, then click on "report inappropriate image."

Monday, May 26, 2008

Tornado & Storm Damage, Memorial Day

On Monday, Memorial Day, I made a quick tour of the district to check on storm damage after yesterday's heavy weather.

Please keep the families who just lost their homes, suffered loss of human life, or who were injured just to the northeast of district 53A in Hugo in your thoughts and prayers. The Twin Cities chapter of the American Red Cross has set up a center in Hugo today and the Governor will be visiting. You can contribute to the Red Cross effort on-line.

The Star Tribune reports this: "Donations toward the tornado relief effort can be sent to: The Hugo Relief Fund, Lake Area Bank, 1400 E. Hwy. 96, White Bear Lake, MN 55110. Volunteers at the Hugo Fire Department are accepting donations of water, food, personal care, bedding and other items for the storm victims. There is no call out yet for volunteer labor. The Hugo Fire Dept. is at 5323 140th St. N., in Hugo."

Lino Lakes in my legislative district suffered a lot of hail damage. Just about every home I saw just off of Birch Street and east of 35E showed major holes in the siding from golf-ball sized hail. There were quite a few broken windows as well, but no one seems to have lost a roof. Just a half-mile south in Shoreview, there was no damage whatsoever.

Storms like this attract unscrupulous contractors offering to fix your house. If you are going to be requiring work on your home, the Attorney General's office has a handy primer for how to protect yourself as a consumer.

The City of Lino Lakes has a great web page about dealing with solicitors offering to fix storm damage.

Today is also Memorial Day, a time when we remember those who have fallen in our nation's service. PBS has a nice web site where you can read and submit eulogies for those veterans.

While most Americans recognize the service of those who served roughly from World War II to the present, I've been on a personal mission to recognize two earlier veterans in my family.

My great-great-great grandfather Sgt. John Gardner served in the 131st Pennsylvania Infantry during the Civil War. In December 1862, he was mortally wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia. His wife gave birth to their tenth child a few months later. He is buried in a small church cemetery outside Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania but when I visited there about 15 years ago I found that all the grave markers from that period had either been neglected or vandalized many years before. The army will actually give you a new white marble headstone if you pay for installation, but my sister and I have struggled for years to get the cemetery association to respond to us so that we can put up a new grave marker for this veteran.

John Gardner's father James Gardner served in the War of 1812 in the Pennsylvania militia. When the British burned Washington, the Governor of Pennsylvania called up the militia to defend Baltimore, and James's unit took part. I have located James's wife's headstone in Millersburg, Pennsylvania, and I think James's grave is next to hers. But again, the grave marker is gone so I don't have any proof that he is there yet.

So be grateful that Americans are tending graves and putting out flags in cemeteries nationwide today. Make sure that those veterans are not forgotten!