In today’s stories: A monument in St. Cloud will now honor even more Minnesota Veterans. Why some lawmakers want to reduce the mandatory minimum fine for running a school bus stop sign. And, national recognition for two former Minnesota Lynx players.
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HOST: You're listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, a daily newscast about what it means to live in Minnesota.
ANCHOR: In today's stories: A monument in St. Cloud will now honor even more Minnesota Veterans, why some lawmakers want to reduce the mandatory minimum fine for running a school bus stop sign, and national recognition for two former Minnesota Lynx players. I'm Gracie J.
A new monument in St. Cloud will soon honor more than five- hundred additional area veterans. The display is organized by the Disabled American Veterans and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 428. The new section will expand the current monument on Division Street in St Cloud, which already recognizes about 15-hundred veterans. Any honorably discharged veteran can have their name included. There is a fee to help cover the costs of the memorial. The dedication ceremony will take place on Memorial Day. The two organizations hope to add names each year.
Coming Up, as Minnesota rolls out cameras to catch drivers who ignore school bus stop arms, lawmakers are considering a bill to eliminate mandatory minimum fines. Xan Holston reports on why the two efforts may not be at odds.
Xan Holston: On a winter afternoon in Willow River, the school bus stopped to let children off. An approaching van stopped for the bus. The truck blasting up the road behind it didn't. Instead, the driver swerved into the shoulder and shot past the van, nearly hitting an eight-year-old boy as he crossed the road.
The whole thing was caught on video by one of about 8000 school bus stop arm cameras now installed across Minnesota, thanks to a state-funded grant program.
Mike Hanson: We saw and continue to see an epidemic of drivers who, quite honestly, for one reason or another, either through lack of knowledge or just plain deliberate action, are not stopping at those stop signs as the law requires.
Xan Holston: That's Mike Hanson, Director of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Office of Traffic Safety. He said the cameras are giving law enforcement the evidence they need.
Mike Hanson: The number of violations that are being reported and that are being acted on by law enforcement have gone up significantly.
Xan Holston: Since the grant program started in 2022, the state has awarded more than $15 million to school districts, and about two thirds of all busses in the state now have camera systems. Hanson said the number of drivers being charged has doubled.
But while enforcement is ramping up, some lawmakers want to change how violators are penalized. Minnesota law currently requires a minimum $500 fine for anyone convicted of passing a school bus with a stop arm extended. Representative Cedric Frazier, a Democrat from New Hope, a West Metro suburb, has introduced a bill that would remove the mandatory minimum fine.
Rep. Cedric Frazier: The fact that you have a law in the book itself is not a deterrent, unless you have some significant education.
Xan Holston: Frazier questions whether the threat of a fine is effective if people don't even know about it, and points to data that shows that most drivers don't re-offend.
Rep. Cedric Frazier: From 2015 up until now, there's been 10,000 convictions, and only 23 individuals have committed a second offense.
Xan Holston: That's just 0.23 percent. Frazier has pushed to end mandatory minimums in other areas of the law too. He says that laws with automatic penalties like this one can be too "one size fits all." They also don't take into account all the other penalties convicted drivers face, from insurance rate hikes to potential jail time.
Rep. Cedric Frazier: You're talking about multiple areas of consequence and accountability that don't go away.
Xan Holston: In the Willow River case, the driver was fined just the $500 minimum and given a suspended jail sentence with two years' probation. But Hanson from the Office of Traffic Safety says the fines send a clear message.
Mike Hanson: Anything that takes away from that consequence is not necessarily going to act as the deterrent that we want.
Xan Holston: The bill to repeal the $500 minimum fine is still moving through the legislature. Meanwhile, more cameras are going on busses, which means more drivers will be caught whether the fine stays fixed or not. For North Star Stories, I'm Xan Holston.
ANCHOR: You are listening to North Star Stories.
Two Minnesota Lynx Players are heading to the Naistmith Basketball Hall of Fame. Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles [FOULS], recently found out they will be inducted into the basketball hall of fame in September. Moore led the Minnesota Lynx to four WNBA championship wins before leaving basketball to focus on criminal justice work. Fowles shared in two of the Lynx's championships during her career. At retirement, she was the league's all-time leading rebounder. Fowles played in the WNBA for 15 years--eight of those with the Minnesota Lynx.
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HOST: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota. Online at ampers dot org.