mn_am1
A week after Gov. Pawlenty announced plans to unallot local-government aid, cities and counties are starting to name new cuts they might make on top of ones made last December. In Owatonna, it’s fireworks and the community band. In Bemidji, it’s liquor store management and community development. In Kandiyohi County, they’re weighing furloughs and pay freezes but wary of whack-a-mole: If they cut Family Services, juvenile justice costs will jump. And next time, without today’s one-time fixes, state cuts could be four times as bad.

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning … 

HOUSTON: We’re not worthy of state cut, city cries. Officials have heard that Houston’s protest — that the state’s own tally of 989 residents puts the town in line for the less-than-1,000 exemption from local-aid cuts — may succeed where other cities’ won’t. [Caledonia Argus]

MINNEAPOLIS: Hip-flask futures ride on regents banning beer. The University of Minnesota — which wanted to sell alcohol only in premium seating areas at the new TCF Bank Stadium, before the state Legislature nixed that — decides today whether to make the place entirely wet or dry. [Minnesota Public Radio]

CASS LAKE: People vent about pollution at St. Regis site. It’s been a federal superfund site almost as long as it was a paper mill. [Bemidji Pioneer]

DULUTH: Marathoners’ dousings disabled timing devices. Overheated runners at Grandma’s Marathon didn’t get their official times because water they poured over their heads trickled in sufficient quantities to crap out Dutch-made time chips that were strapped to their shoelaces. [Duluth News Tribune]

AVON: Lake Wobegon Park somehow snags 35th anniversary “A Prairie Home Companion” show. Garrison Keillor will broadcast his national radio program live from the park along the Lake Wobegon Trail on the Fourth of July. [Stearns-Morrison Enterprise]

FERGUS FALLS: Ninetieth anniversary of “cyclone” observed. One hundred people walked around Lake Alice, some portraying survivors of the legendary Great Fergus Falls Cyclone that ripped through town in 1919. [Fergus Falls Daily Journal]