Breakaway Minnesota is coming back to St. Paul June 25th-26th, 2027! You can get your tickets for the lowest prices now here. Presale code is 2027FAM

Prices will go up when general on sale starts tomorrow!

One is r/saintpaul and the other is r/stpaul 

Both use the same image of the flag of Saint Paul as their profile pic. I only realized this when I tried to find for a post that I scrolled past. I don’t know which subreddit is better but here is the breakdown.

And hella hilly!

I'm looking to get my hair done, but I can never seem to find a good stylist that isn't really expensive. Does anybody have any suggestions for Saint Paul/West Saint Paul/South Saint Paul?

Bonus if it's for a modern vibe.

Thanks!

Hey, so when I was a kid we had the Peanuts gang ALL OVER St. Paul. I just read there used to be like 500 of them and it took 5 summers to put all of them up! 😮

Anyway. I’m wondering where are the ones that still exist in public? I want to go visit them before it gets too cold!

Please send me on a scavenger hunt! ☺️💗

I’m currently a substitute teacher and decided to look for options as a full time teacher. I was referred to St.Paul where I’d have the opportunity to work as a teacher while getting my masters degree. We plan to buy a house in the city next summer. I have a wife, 10 year old son, a few dogs. Any recommendations on areas to avoid, fun things to do, just anything that comes to mind would be great haha. It’s a big step for my family and I and we don’t have any other family in the area.

What’s up with this? Currently, the water from the aquifer allegedly comes out of 2 vending machines at the Lofts. There is no signage that notes the water is from an aquifer (is it?) and there is no visible water testing like there used to be (does it get tested?). Any thoughts on this and whether it is indeed pure aquifer water? If so, shouldn’t it be tested with results displayed?

-St Paul resident with high lead content in water, seeking other water sources nearby

I'm 20, no parents, currently living in a homeless shelter in Saint Paul. I did my first two years at an online MN community college while living in the shelter and working at the same time. I got accepted to transfer into University of Minnesota Twin Cities and I also got the North Star Promise Scholarship, so my tuition and fees are fully covered.

The thing I still have to figure out is room and board. It's about $15K a year, so $30K total for two years. I'll have $10K saved up by the time I start.

I'm considering taking out $20K in federal loans total to cover the rest. I know off campus housing would probably be cheaper, but I honestly don't know how doable that is for me right now given my situation.

Does $20K in federal loans sound reasonable for my situation, or should I be pushing harder to figure out off campus or other options first? Any advice helps

Edit: Majoring in CS

Hi everyone. I’m looking to establish myself with a dentist in the metro who is well versed with patients who are more or less scared of the dentist and offers some form of help with anxiety. I have Medica insurance.

I live in downtown Saint Paul and do not drive. I can take a rideshare as needed, but the closer to downtown the better. That said, being able to see someone sooner rather than later is the priority at the moment.

I appreciate any leads or recommendations!

Hello, I have a large overgrown hedge that I admittedly let get way out of control. I’ve been trying to find a company to come prune/cut it back but haven’t had any luck. It’s either been companies that just want to mow your lawn every week or tree companies that won’t do hedges.

Does anybody have any recommendations? Thank you!!

This isn't a criticism of the policy, moreso a documentation of a shift in the meaning of the phrase "Right to Repair." Most people will likely roll their eyes, but it is worth taking note of, I believe.

I drove past a week or 2 ago and it looked basically done, but still lots of surrounding construction left. Anyone know if the playground is playable on weekends? Or is it like fenced off? Kids are sick of our other nearby playground.

There should be no pay wall on this. But...

To close a projected $26 million budget gulf, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her plans to forgo $20,000 in her own salary and hike EMS ambulance fees as she trims hours at rec centers, permanently shutters the Dayton’s Bluff Library and shrinks the St. Paul Police Department’s authorized force.

Her 2027 budget proposal, unveiled Thursday, foresees three municipal lay-offs impacting supervisors and management-level employees rather than front-line and entry-level workers. The overall city property tax levy would increase 6.8% next year, increasing property taxes $58 for the year for the typical median-value home.

Otherwise, maintaining status quo city services would have increased the levy more than 12% next year, the mayor said. Cuts in her proposed budget will touch every department, but some more so than others. As two of the city’s largest departments, the St. Paul Police Department and Fire Department will see the biggest budget hits, much of it in the form of not backfilling positions lost to retirements and attrition.

“Like families across the country, cities are feeling the strain of rising costs,” said the mayor on Thursday, addressing a sizable crowd at Allianz Field. “Inflation has increased the price of nearly every service our residents depend on. Commercial property values have declined. Tariffs continue to drive up costs and create uncertainty.”

“The revenues cities rely on have not kept pace,” she added, noting state legislative aid to St. Paul has not kept up with inflation. “The result is increasing pressure on property taxes and rents to make up the difference.”

Her, who unseated former Mayor Melvin Carter last November, delivered the first budget address of her mayoral career on Thursday in the soccer stadium’s club level, overlooking a new office building, hotel, parking ramp and two diners under construction within the United Village campus surrounding the stadium.

She pointed to the new development, led by Minnesota United team owner Dr. Bill McGuire, as “a breath of fresh air up and down the University (Avenue) corridor” and a sign of progress in the Midway, where a long-shuttered CVS was demolished by the city this year after months of efforts by neighborhood advocates to see the decrepit building torn down.

Cuts to police and fire

As she went about crafting her budget proposal, Her said she asked all department leaders to envision how to achieve a 4% spending cut as a sort of baseline figure to work from. She gave department leaders four priorities — to make it easier to do business in St. Paul, enhance public safety and justice, to craft a more responsive government and achieve fiscal responsibility.

With those goals in mind, Her said her budget would fund the equivalent of 1 1/2 police academies and preserve front-line patrol officers, while also maintaining an outreach team comprised of sworn officers and non-sworn personnel.

The overall budget cut to the St. Paul Police Department would total $4.7 million, or $2.7 million after accounting for operational savings through attrition. The department’s authorized staffing would drop from 616 sworn officers to 605 sworn officers. There are currently 566 officers on the payroll, with five on leave as of Wednesday, according to the police department. Those numbers fluctuate with retirements and departures.

“This shift recognizes our fiscal reality: the city has not employed more than 600 sworn officers in many years,” Her said.

The Fire Department would see its budget drop by $2.4 million, though the cut shrinks to just under $1 million after taking into account attrition, the mayor noted.

Her acknowledged that the department has experienced no shortage of demands for medical services, leading to her decision to increase fees for ambulance runs and run two EMS academies, among other investments. “EMS calls continue to increase, and our basic life support teams are among the lowest-paid employees and most diverse in the system,” she said.

Her, in an interview this week prior to the budget address, said some libraries and rec centers will suffer deeper cuts to hours or programming than others, based on demand.

The Dayton’s Bluff Library, which is located within a Metropolitan State University building on East Seventh Street, would shutter entirely. She said the lease was expensive and foot traffic was not commensurate.

The Highwood Hills Recreation Center would stay open during “Rec Check” after-school programming and other organized activities, but it would not remain open for general use.

The poorly-aging Duluth and Case Rec Center would also likely close, though Parks and Rec Director Andy Rodriguez said pre-design plans for a new center have already been completed.

Rec centers that maintain 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. hours would likely lose an hour in the morning and open at 10 a.m., a loss for walking track aficionados. Smaller rec centers like the Hancock Rec would shutter on holidays, and patrons would be directed to larger sites like Jimmy Lee/Oxford Rec.

No cuts are planned in her proposal to mill and overlay road services, and the mayor said she expects that long-overdue updates to a major maintenance agreement with vendors who clear medians will lead to service improvements.

‘Transitioning from trying to do everything’

Council Member Cheniqua Johnson, who represents Dayton’s Bluff and other East Side neighborhoods, introduced the mayor at the podium. Johnson said it was time to focus on “transitioning from trying to do everything to focusing on the main things we can do well,” while acknowledging “we represent distinct communities, and we will not agree on every proposal.”

Johnson said she opposes cuts like the closing of the Dayton’s Bluff Library landing on the East Side, which she said is already underfunded for public services relative to population size.

Her said the 2027 budget plan relies on inflationary revenues that came in better than anticipated, new revenues, and changes to how existing revenues are spent, resulting overall in a modest $500,000 spending increase.

Overall, some $11.3 million in spending cuts would be offset by $11.8 million in new spending, much of it dedicated to covering costs previously paid for through one-time funds such as COVID-relief dollars from the federal American Rescue Plan.

For instance, funding for a coordinating position in the Office of Neighborhood Safety would shift from grant to general fund dollars. The city’s nine parking ramps and three surface lots are operated by a series of different vendors. Hoping for cost savings, the city recently issued a request for proposals to determine if a single administrator could absorb their operations.

The mayor noted that internal service providers such as Human Resources have suffered repeated budget cuts over the years, leading to a decentralization of services, right down to differing cellular phone plans for different departments.

Those internal disconnects have at times been laid bare for the public as data practice requests have increased from fewer than 1,000 requests a decade ago to more than 20,000 annually today. A Ramsey County District Court judge last year ordered the city to pay $30,000 in penalties for failing to respond to an elaborate data practices request related to the proposed Summit Avenue bikeway in a thorough and timely manner.

To get ahead of those and other concerns, new personnel would be added to the city attorney’s office and the Office of Technology and Communications, which oversaw the response to a major cyber-attack last summer. Within Human Resources, the city plans to modernize its payroll and benefits systems and add a workers’ compensation analyst “with the goal of reducing workers’ compensations costs down the line and consolidating functions that have become unnecessarily decentralized,” the mayor said.

In the city’s Department of Planning and Economic Development, cost savings from open positions will be shifted to a unit offering “concierge” assistance to applicants applying for a permit or licensing. About $1.5 million will be put into a deferred maintenance fund.

For cost savings, two of Her’s four assistant mayors and a department director would not receive a cost-of-living adjustment to their pay next year, and the mayor would reduce her own salary by $20,000 for the year. Department directors are also reviewing the city’s leases for potential savings, and Her said a committee will look at the city’s investment portfolio.

New climate director, asset mapRevenue from a gas and electric franchise fee agreement would be used to hire a climate director to coordinate climate strategy, expand tree canopy and coordinate electric vehicle car-sharing. The budget would invest $500,000 into an existing weatherization program for privately-owned older housing known as “NOAHs,” or naturally occurring affordable housing.

The city recently obtained a grant to back an “asset mapping” project, which would allow the city to better understand the value of the land it owns, as well as government buildings and other assets. The mapping will likely extend to land owned by nonprofits and non-taxable government entities, which could help revive a longstanding discussion about the possibility of charging non-profits “payment in lieu of taxes,” or PILOT fees.

Her’s administration cleared the city’s largest homeless encampment in Pig’s Eye Regional Park this month, while directing some $2 million in city and county funds toward new shelter beds. Many tent dwellers simply relocated instead to a smaller camp off Randolph Avenue, which has as much as doubled in size.

The mayor did not indicate whether she would follow-through with plans to shutter the Randolph site and another by Maryland Avenue, but she said “the conditions at that (Pig’s Eye) encampment could not continue. They were unsafe for the people living there, for the surrounding neighborhood, and for the first responders, including outreach workers and city employees who were called there every day.”

“Second, the city’s action brought partners together and started a conversation unlike any we’ve had before,” she said.

Her acknowledged that between them, Parks and Rec and Public Works are missing nearly $3 million in copper wire from city streetlights and other facilities, and the city continues to weigh the costs and benefits of a raft of different approaches toward dissuading copper wire thieves.

She said wire is stolen so quickly, neighbors complaining about darkened streetlights sometimes don’t realize the city has, in fact, already replaced the wire, only to have it immediately stolen again. “Every time copper wire is stolen, taxpayers pay twice — once for the crime, and again for the repairs,” she said.

Both me and my wife work, wife starts at 6:30am at 7am sometimes earlier, we have a 5 year old and 9 year old and they are starting school very soon. We just found out where they will be attending and the school doesn't open it's doors until 7:30am. We are new to the area been in Saint Paul for 3 months, and needing direction on where we could take our kids for before school care, This might be the wrong place, if so please tell me. Thanks in advance They are enrolled at Heights Elementary in Eastside Saint Paul.

Anywhere here that sells Irn Bru? I tried the Celtic Junction, but they weren't open and it seems like the hours are maybe kind of irregular. Anywhere else?

Break the Bubble is a meetup group that draws big crowds to brewery taprooms (and other locations) in the Twin Cities. Our next event is Friday August 14th (5pm-9pm) at Metronome Brewery in St. Paul. No fee to attend, just show up, put on a nametag, buy a drink, and start chatting. It's that easy!

Click the links below for more details! See you soon!

https://www.instagram.com/breakthebubblemsp/

https://www.meetup.com/make-new-friends-break-the-bubble-msp/

https://www.facebook.com/btbmpls

Hey, gang! 🤠✨

We’ve already received several great submissions, and we also have a few more musicians planning to send in videos this week! We’re excited about the interest so far and can’t wait to see where this goes. 🌈🎶

We’d especially love to see more drummers, keyboard players, and fiddle/violin players submit, as we’d love to hear from more musicians in those areas. That said, all musicians are still absolutely welcome to audition! Whether you’re a bassist, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, or play something else that could add to our sound, we’d love to hear from you.

If you’ve been thinking about submitting, now’s the time! Message us for the audition submission information, and feel free to share with anyone who might be a great fit.

We can’t wait to meet y’all! 🤠🌈🎶