Voters in the Mahtomedi School District will be asked this fall to approve a $28 million referendum to fund improvements that district officials say will benefit safety and security, academics, performing arts and athletics.

Among the proposed improvements are a new front entrance at Mahtomedi Middle School and other safety and security improvements.

Mahtomedi High School would get a “hallway circulation” remodel, choir and band classroom improvements, new mechanicals, a weight room addition and safety and security Improvements. Athletic Field 1 would get new turf and lights.

The referendum also would also pay for safety and security improvements to Wildwood and O.H. Anderson elementary schools and disability access and seating improvements at the Chautauqua Fine Arts Center, among other projects.

The school board voted unanimously last month to go out for the bond referendum. It is expected to be the first part of a multi-phase bond referendum process.

“It’s not easy because we have so many needs,” School Board Member Kelly Reagan said at the April 28 meeting. “Getting started somewhere is important. I have been from day one somebody who has felt like this should be something that impacts a lot of students and a lot of people in our community.”

The Mahtomedi Public School District serves approximately 3,176 students across its six schools.

School board member Ryan Domin said at the meeting the Mahtomedi community has been clear about what they would like to see done with facilities in the district.

“I’m supportive of this because this is part of a bigger vision,” Domin said. “If this was all we were focused on doing, I probably wouldn’t feel the same way, but we’ve really taken that community feedback, and I can see how we can align that back to our strategic plan.”

Addressing safety and security is key, he said, but so is addressing other “aging mechanical systems that, if we don’t address them now, could ultimately be far more costly down the line.”

Domin encouraged residents to contact school district officials with ideas to work on private partnerships.

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Superintendent Barb Duffrin said school district officials have been working since 2021 conducting research, meeting with stakeholders and reviewing options for the facilities improvement bond.

“The list of items that we’re going to, hopefully, address has been distilled from a very long list of needs,” said school board member Paul Donna. “Of course, we can’t do it all, but I think we’ve done a really good job of distilling down to what’s really needed today versus what we can look at and maybe wait for a couple of years and build partnerships and tackle those down the road.”

District officials will submit the proposal to the Minnesota Department of Education for review and prepare for a special election in November.

Minnesota United at Houston Dynamo

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Shell Oil Stadium, Houston
Stream: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV
Radio: KSTP-AM 1500
Weather: 87 degrees, sunny, 16 mph north wind
Betting line: MNUFC plus-175; draw plus-230; Houston plus-150

Form: Minnesota (6-4-2, 22 points) has won two straight by a combined score of 7-1, including a 4-1 blowout of Inter Miami on Saturday. Houston (2-4-6, 10 points) has lost two of three, including a 3-1 home loss to Seattle last weekend.

Quote: “What top teams do is they put (the Miami win) aside and say we haven’t won more than three games in a row this year,” Wil Trapp said Tuesday. “This is our opportunity to do that against a team that is desperate to win.”

Recent matchups: Loons tied Dynamo 1-1 in Texas last July, giving up an 82-minute equalizer to Sebastian Ferreira. Houston won 2-1 on a game-winner from Sebastian Kowalczyk in the 72nd minute in April in St. Paul.

Absences: Anthony Markanich (ankle), Owen Gene (ankle) and Kipp Keller (hamstring) are out.

Context: Amid a stretch of nine games in 30 days, head coach Eric Ramsay is expected to rotate or change his starting XI this week. “Across the sort of 20, 21 players that we’ve got fighting for starting positions, we can be really competitive,” Ramsay said. “Having made my decision, I’m very happy with what we are going to go with.”

Check-in: Houston misses center back Micael, who was sold to Brazilian club Palmeiras reportedly for a club-record fee of $6 million in February. MLS denied Houston’s request to have Femi Awodesu’s red card appeal, and he will be suspended for Wednesday. Awodesu has played 1,027 minutes.

Prediction: Minnesota has scored at least three goals in its past two MLS matches, and Houston is 22nd in the league with 1.6 goals conceded per match. These trends continue. Loons win 2-0.

By DIDI TANG

WASHINGTON (AP) — Online shoppers in the U.S. will see a price break on their purchases valued at less than $800 and shipped from China after the Trump administration reached a truce with Beijing over sky-high tariffs.

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An executive order Monday from President Donald Trump said the tariffs on low-value parcels originating from China and coming through the U.S. Postal Service will be lowered to 54%, down from 120%.

It also says a per-package flat rate — as an alternative to the value-based tariff — will be kept at $100, rather than being raised to $200 on June 1 as previously decreed. Packages shipped by commercial carriers are subject to the general tariff, which also has been cut.

The new rules go into effect Wednesday.

They are part of a broader agreement by the Trump administration to drastically lower import taxes on all Chinese goods from 145% to 30% following weekend talks in Switzerland with Chinese officials. China issued a public notice on Tuesday lowering its own tariffs on U.S. goods to 10%, down from 125%.

However, the reductions are temporary, allowing the two sides to negotiate a longer-term deal in the next 90 days.

Izzy Rosenzweig, founder and CEO of the logistic company Portless, said U.S. brands are “very excited” about the broader tariff cut. The import tax is still high, but not as prohibitive as when it was 145%, which amounted to a trade embargo.

On the low-value shipments, online purchases had been coming into the U.S. duty-free for several years under the de minimis rule, which exempted them from the import tax.

Popular shopping sites such as Shein and Temu that offer ultra-low prices took advantage of the duty-free rule by shipping directly from China to U.S. buyers, bypassing more cumbersome customs paperwork.

President Donald Trump terminated the exemption on such parcels originating from China and Hong Kong on May 2, following criticism that it not only resulted in lost tariff revenue but also allowed illicit drugs and unsafe products to flow into the U.S. without adequate scrutiny.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said as many as 4 million low-value parcels were coming into the U.S. every day — many of which originated from China.

Shortly before the exemption ended on May 2, prices on many items sold by Shein rose. Temu apparently halted shipments from China and tapped its existing inventory in the U.S.

John Lash, group vice president of product strategy at the supply chain platform e2open, said he expected the volume of low-value packages would now rise but not back to previous levels. The $100 flat rate, he said, means that higher-value packages could get less of a hit, because the effective duty rate could be as low as 13%.

Neither Shein nor Temu immediately responded to requests for comment Tuesday about the lower tariffs.

The Minnesota Wild were eliminated from the Stanley Cup Play-offs on May 1, and a giant sinkhole opened up on West Seventh Street — a block away from the Xcel Energy Center — exactly one week later.

Coincidence?

Yes. Still, some businessowners are calling the timing a small blessing. No one wants a gaping hole running some 35 feet into the ground to open in front of their business. But if it had to happen, better that it take place in the post-season lull after professional hockey has let out and before the height of the summer concert season.

At the Downtowner Woodfire Grill, there’s been “no impact on our business,” said general manager Patrick Johnson, shortly after Tuesday’s lunch rush. “It’s been busy.”

That sentiment was shared by a driver for Domino’s pizza, a server at Tom Reid’s Hockey City Pub and other frontline staff at West Seventh Street businesses. Private contractors under the supervision of St. Paul Public Works will spend up to two months repairing the man-sized sink hole that opened on the evening of May 8, forcing ongoing partial road closures between Chestnut and Walnut streets.

Officials with the Xcel Energy Center said their day-to-day operations and events are not impacted by the sinkhole. They reminded fans attending Wednesday’s Minnesota Frost game that they need to plan ahead due to road closures connected with the sinkhole.

General traffic is being detoured between Kellogg Boulevard and Grand Avenue, though West Seventh in that stretch remains open for local business access, with one lane open in each direction. Sidewalks are unaffected.

“We don’t want through-traffic there,” said Lisa Hiebert, spokesperson for St. Paul Public Works, on Tuesday. “This is why we’re saying local business access only.”

Otherwise, there have been no direct water or sewer impacts reported by businesses, according to the city.

City crews are examining whether water may have loosened and weakened the earth in the affected area.

“It’s a good argument for why we need to reconstruct roads,” Hiebert said. “What we can say is a lot of time, sinkholes are caused by voids caused by water, but it’s still a little early to say what it was and what it wasn’t. Sources of water can come from many places.”

Filling the hole will be no simple patch job. Contractors will have to dig more than 30 feet through sandstone and limestone, assess damages and then rebuild the sanitary sewer tunnel.

The work, which began Monday, will involve installing new utility connections for surrounding businesses, building out a new shaft to the surface and then replacing the road surface, without damaging a 20-inch water main. To ensure worker safety, crews will install temporary supports for the depth of the project.

“Nobody ever wants things like this to happen, but this is a good example of how quickly the city and the agencies came together to limit impacts to businesses in the surrounding area,” Hiebert said. “The businesses, everybody was really great to work with.”

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