An Iron Range city councilor who has a “long and contentious history with Minnesota Power” allegedly cut a wire on his property last week, knocking out power to three towns.

Joseph Christopher Vaida, 63, of McKinley, faces three felony charges after reportedly disrupting the utility’s service to the city and neighboring communities of Gilbert and Biwabik.

Vaida, according to a criminal complaint, had demanded Minnesota Power remove the wire from his property a week earlier. He was reportedly arrested near the scene with wire cutters and an ax, while the severed wire was found wrapped in barbed wire “to hinder any attempts to investigate or repair the damage.”

Joseph Christopher Vaida, 63, of McKinley

According to court documents:

A Minnesota Power employee spoke with the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office days before the incident.

The representative said Vaida contacted the company May 12 to complain that he believed a guy wire for a power pole was anchored on his property, outside of an easement, and that the utility had seven days to remove it or he would cut it down.

A guy wire is a tensioned cable that runs diagonally from a freestanding pole to add stability. Minnesota Power indicated the easement had been in place on Vaida’s property since 1990 and that the company was looking into the issue but wouldn’t be able to resolve it within a week.

A sheriff’s deputy spoke with Vaida, who responded: “Nope, they don’t got no time.” He began listing other issues he had with the utility and said he doesn’t “give a s—” because “Monday at noon it’s going down, period.”

The deputy advised Vaida he would be criminally charged if he caused damage to the wire and recommended he resolve the situation in court, to which he replied, “Don’t even go there with me,” and ended the phone call. He then called Minnesota Power to reiterate his demand.

The power was knocked out to the three cities shortly after noon May 19. Crews were able to quickly restore service to Gilbert and Biwabik, but indicated they would not go to Vaida’s McKinley property to fix the pole until he was located. A representative also said the ground around the pole was hazardous and could potentially electrocute anyone who got too close.

Deputies went to Vaida’s home and stopped him driving a pickup truck nearby, finding metal cutters and an ax inside the vehicle.

Minnesota Power employees ensured the area was safe and led a deputy to the cut wire, which was surrounded by “no trespassing” signs and barbed wire. It also appeared there had been recent digging in an attempt to remove the anchor from the ground.

St. Louis County prosecutor Aaron Welch told the court Vaida has engaged in “many instances of intimidating and disorderly conduct toward Minnesota Power employees.”

“The defendant’s behavior presents a clear risk to the safety of the public and Minnesota Power employees,” Welch said. “His entirely needless acts damaged critical infrastructure, causing disruption to the citizens of a significant portion of the community, so say nothing of the risk of harm to himself and starting an additional forest fire.”

Vaida was arraigned last week on charges of damaging utility property, damaging an electric line and first-degree property damage with a foreseeable risk of bodily harm.

Judge Robert Friday set bail at $10,000 with conditions or $50,000 without. Records show he was released on bond after making his initial court appearance Thursday. His next court date was set for June 9.

Vaida was elected to the McKinley City Council with 37 votes in 2018, one of two candidates victorious from a field of three. He was reelected in 2022 with 26 votes; no other names appeared on the ballot, but 52 write-in votes were cast.

McKinley, which is about 8 driving miles east of Virginia, had a population of 103 at the 2020 Census.

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One by one, Frost players made their way onto the stage at Xcel Energy Center on Wednesday night as they were introduced at the start of the ceremony celebrating the team’s second consecutive PWHL championship.

Each one wore a big smile and a black T-shirt with an interesting message printed across the front: Minnesota vs. Everyone.

The shirts were made up in response to the rough treatment first-year player Britta Curl-Salemme received from fans in Ottawa following her game-winning goal in overtime in Game 2 of the best-of-five PWHL Finals.

Curl-Salemme had made a similar comment in the locker room following the game, and the message resonated with her teammates. Now, with their second title in hand, there can be no debate — the Frost do indeed stand apart from the rest.

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter reiterated the point as he spoke to the crowd on what he proclaimed to be Minnesota Frost Day.

“We refer to them as the PWHL champion Minnesota Frost,” the mayor said. “But we need only to say the PWHL champion, because they are the only ones to win it.”

And only those who were in the locker room truly know what it took to make it happen.

“When you start this journey as a professional athlete, the goal is to win a championship,” said Frost captain Kendall Coyne Schofield. “That’s the vision, the mission, from Day 1. So to see it through two years in a row is very special.

“Being in many championship settings, I realize that I hate losing more than I like winning. It’s something that drives me. It’s been a special year to say the least.”

Wednesday’s event ended with the players sticking around to sign autographs, and not one of them offered any hint that they were in a hurry to leave.

Watching Lee Stecklein patiently work her way through the crowd of well-wishers, one couldn’t help but sense that the 31-year-old Roseville native truly was living a dream. The former Gophers star has spoken often about how grateful she is to be able to be playing professionally in a stable league.

And to be doing it in her hometown.

“I was thinking the other day, I was lucky enough to win a state championship in this building 10 years ago,” Stecklein said. “To think I would be back here to play in a professional league and to win a championship here, it really is incredible.”

Stecklein was not named the most valuable player in the playoffs, but she certainly was deserving. She led all scorers with four goals and four assists while continuing her role as a shut-down defender.

“Lee Stecklein is one of the greatest defenseman to ever play this game,” Coyne Schofield said. “People don’t talk about it enough. If you look at Lee’s track record, she has won at every level she’s played at.

“It’s not because Lee Stecklein’s been on great teams; it’s because Lee Stecklein had made teams great. I can’t emphasize that enough. I know I wear the ‘C’, but she’s the backbone of this team.”

Stecklein said she feels she is still playing at the top of her game.

“Some things change, some things are harder than before,” Stecklein said. “But getting to play in a league like this, with the staff that we have, you’re able to keep getting better in so many ways.

“I think any competitor will say you want to keep improving. Whether it’s my best or not, I’ll never know. But I know there’s still things I can work on.”

Change comes with every passing season, but it figures to hit the Frost especially hard with the upcoming expansion draft. Credit should continue to go to former Frost general manager Natalie Darwitz, who did a masterful job of putting together a championship-caliber roster prior to last season.

That foundation was added to by coach Ken Klee, who ran last year’s draft while continuing to push the right buttons behind the bench.

“You look at the roster we had last year, and it was so deep,” Steckelin said. “So to come in this year and to be able to add players like Britta Curl and Claire Thompson, I mean …

“And then down the line with people I didn’t know as well. Brooke McQuigge, Katy Knoll, and continuing to add depth with amazing players who got better as the year went on, which was incredible.”

As the Minnesota Legislature blew its deadline to pass a $66 billion budget last week, legislative leaders and Gov. Tim Walz said they hoped lawmakers would return to the Capitol for a special session to enact new state spending by the end of May.

That’s looking less likely by the day as disagreements over a budget framework deal reached by leadership continue to slow progress. As of Wednesday, lawmakers working in mostly private groups hadn’t produced any major public progress on two-thirds of state general fund spending — K-12 education, health and human services.

If there isn’t a state budget by June 1, thousands of state employees will start getting layoff notices warning of a potential government shutdown on July 1. Lawmakers must pass a budget by the end of June or the government runs out of funding.

“Even though it’s slower than we would like, things are going well,” Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth said at her last availability with the media last Thursday. Nearly a week later, there had been little extra progress.

House Speaker Lisa Demuth (Courtesy photo)

Special session

There was hope that there might be some kind of deal by the end of Memorial Day weekend. Now it looks like lawmakers won’t return until next week at the earliest.

Even if they reached a deal on all budget items on Thursday, final preparations might take at least 24 hours after bills are posted. The governor said he won’t call a special session until all legislation is ready to go.

There are a few areas of spending the Senate and House passed at the end of session — public safety, agriculture, housing and veterans affairs bills passed. But the biggest parts of the state budget remain unsettled. Deals on taxes, transportation and energy remain elusive as well.

A “global deal” on the budget announced two weeks ago by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor-majority Senate, DFL-GOP tied House and the governor has been troubled by disagreements over finer details.

Senate Majority Leader Erin P. Murphy. (Courtesy of the Minnesota Senate)

There has also been public opposition to a provision cutting state-funded health care for adults in the U.S. without legal status. DFLers ranging from self-described progressives to moderates say they oppose the change, which Republicans asked for in top-level negotiations.

Opponents gathered outside the governor’s office in the Capitol to protest the cuts on Tuesday, Forum News Service reported. While they oppose the cuts, Walz, House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman and Senate DFL Majority Leader Erin Murphy have indicated they’ll support them in order to prevent interruption of other state services.

Not ready to move forward

It’s hard to tell how close members are to a deal.

Discussions have mostly been happening in private “working groups” on various budget areas rather than committees. One of the few groups that is public is working on taxes, which has shed some light on the difficulties in the process.

Lawmakers working on the taxes bill weren’t in complete agreement last week about how the agreement will shape their decision-making.

Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, said they’d seek further guidance from leaders on how to proceed. And this Tuesday, she showed frustration with House lawmakers who didn’t appear to be ready to move forward with their own offer.

Sen. Ann Rest.

“Let it be known to our leaders that the House cannot even accept their own proposal,” said Rest, the Senate Taxes chair, as the committee went into recess.

Unique dynamics of co-leaders from both parties in the House working with the DFL majority in the Senate have complicated negotiations. The last time the House was tied was in 1979. Murphy called the House a “two-headed monster.”

Working groups have already passed their leadership-imposed May 21 deadline to finish work on bills, so leaders from both parties said they are getting more closely involved. It’s possible they could take control of bills from committee chairs.

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President Donald Trump has commuted the federal life sentence for infamous Chicago-born Gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover, abruptly ending Hoover’s yearslong quest to win early release under the First Step Act passed during Trump’s first term.

The two-page order said Hoover’s sentence was considered served “with no further fines, restitution, probation or other conditions,” and directed the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to release him “immediately,” according to a copy of the document provided by Hoover’s legal team.

The controversial move — part of a slew of clemency actions announced by the White House this week — appeared to have already sparked Hoover’s transfer out of the supermax prison compound in Florence, Colorado, that he’d called home for the past two decades.

But Hoover isn’t going free — he’s still serving a 200-year sentence for his state court conviction for murder. Officials with the Illinois Department of Corrections have previously said they would push for Hoover to finish his state sentence in federal prison due to security concerns.

On Wednesday afternoon, Hoover was listed in online state prison records as an inmate at Dixon Correctional Center in western Illinois, though it was unclear if he’d already made it there. The records show a parole date of October 2062.

In a statement to the Tribune, Hoover’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, called Trump’s decision “a historic development” after years of fighting in federal court.

“The courts have demonstrated a complete unwillingness to consider Mr. Hoover’s rehabilitation,” Bonjean wrote. “Sometimes the courts do not do the right thing. But thanks to the work of so many advocates and supporters keeping Mr. Hoover’s voice alive and ultimately the president taking action to deliver justice, we are thrilled to see Mr. Hoover released. Now it’s time for the IDOC to do the right thing.”

An IDOC spokesperson could not immediately be reached.

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Once one of the nation’s largest street gangs, the Gangster Disciples became a major criminal force under Hoover’s leadership, with operations that spread to dozens of U.S. cities and were as sophisticated as many legitimate corporations, including a strict code of conduct for members and a franchise-style system for drug sales.

“They had armies of lawyers and accountants. They had their own clothing line, music promotion company, political action committee. They had a structure that helped them insulate the leaders from the drugs and the guns,” Ron Safer, a former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Hoover in the 1990s, told the Tribune in 2012.

For years, Hoover has been housed in solitary confinement at the supermax prison in Colorado, which counts a number of high-profile and notorious detainees, including Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Sept. 11 terrorist attack plotter Zacarias Moussaoui, and Jeff Fort, the Chicago gang leader who founded the El Rukns.

The Illinois Prisoner Review Board last year heard arguments for Hoover’s release, but ultimately denied the request, records show. The review board won’t hear his case for another four years, records show.

Addressing board members last year, Hoover said he is a 73-year-old man who views the world much differently than when he went into prison, records show. A summary of his statements to the board said, “He regrets the wrong choices that he has made and the harm he has caused.”

“He argues that he is not a threat to the community, and that he will not do what he once did,” the summary of Hoover’s statement continued. “He would not make the same mistakes, and he admits today that he did make those choices in the past.”

Trump’s order was first reported by the news site NOTUS.

Reached by phone Wednesday afternoon, Hoover’s sister, Diane Cooper, said, “I’m just happy. (Trump) did a very good thing.”

“They can say what they want,” Cooper, 70, said. “I’m behind him 100%. He needs to be home. Right is right and wrong is wrong.”

Cooper said she didn’t know “anything” about a state sentence that might keep her brother behind bars. Representatives of Gov. JB Pritzker’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Hoover’s son, Larry Hoover Jr., posted a photo to his Instagram account Wednesday afternoon of someone holding up Trump’s signed order with the words “Almost home!!” and two praying-hands emojis.

Federal prosecutors have vehemently opposed any breaks for Hoover, now 74, arguing he did untold damage to communities across Chicago during his reign on the streets. They argued he has continued to hold sway over the gang’s hierarchy while imprisoned, even promoting an underling he’d secretly communicated with through coded messages hidden in a dictionary.

Hoover’s attorneys, meanwhile, have claimed that decades behind bars have left him a changed man and that prosecutors have unfairly painted him as a puppet master to try to keep him locked up.

At a hearing last year, U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey asked Hoover’s defense attorney point-blank: “How many other murders is he responsible for?”

“I don’t know what the methodology is for determining that,” attorney Bonjean replied, somewhat taken aback by the unusually blunt query.

“So many we can’t count?” Blakey shot back.

After Bonjean said she couldn’t “put a number on it,” Blakey went a step further and asked if Hoover himself would like to weigh in.

“He probably has the most knowledge of all,” the judge said.

At that hearing, which Hoover attended via a live link from prison, he told the judge he’s “had a chance to reflect on my life and the trouble that my existence has caused in the community.”

“Here in (the supermax) you’re locked up at least 21 hours a day. You go away in your cell and reflect on every aspect of your life, and you see things differently,” Hoover said. “You see things you’re proud of and you see things that maybe you’re not so proud of, and you realize that life is too short.”

If he were released, Hoover said, he would counsel others how to avoid gangs, not join them.

“I just want to say that I would be a credible risk if you were to allow me to go back to the world,” Hoover said.

Blakey had not yet ruled on Hoover’s motion.

Hoover was convicted in state court in 1973 of the murder of William Young, one of Hoover’s gang underlings who was shot to death that same year after he and others had stolen from gang stash houses. He was sentenced to 200 years in prison.

In the early 1990s, before Hoover was charged in federal court, former Chicago Mayor Eugene Sawyer lobbied the IDOC parole board on his behalf, arguing that Hoover could help stem Chicago’s street violence if he were allowed to return home, the Tribune reported at the time.

Hoover was indicted in federal court in 1995 on charges he continued to oversee the murderous drug gang’s reign of terror from prison. He was convicted on 40 criminal counts in 1997, and then-U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber sentenced him to the mandatory term of life.

“I don’t always agree with the guidelines,” Leinenweber told Hoover during that hearing. “Sometimes I think they are too draconian. But in this case, I agree with them 100%.”

Before last year’s hearing, prosecutors alleged that during a prison visit with his common-law wife in August, Hoover asked her if his lawyers wanted him to bring a copy of the “Blueprint” to Thursday’s hearing, which the U.S. Bureau of Prisons considers “a blueprint for how to organize a prison gang,” including governing principles, methods of discipline and a membership application.

The motion also revealed that an email message was sent Aug. 26 by a known Gangster Disciples member to 123 fellow gang members in federal prison referring to Hoover as “Dad” and using “coded terminology, in the form of a basketball analogy, to instruct all incarcerated GDs to stay out of trouble and temporarily suspend gang activity” until Hoover gets a ruling in his case.

“IN SUPPORT OF THESE CHALLENGING TIMES, THERE WILL BE ZERO TOLERANCE FOR ANY INCIDENTS ON THE COURT,” the all-caps message read, according to the prosecution filing.

“This communication is deeply concerning,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia Schwartz wrote at the time. “It demonstrates the continued power high-ranking GD leaders, and specifically Larry Hoover, hold over the GDs (and) underscores the extremely high risk of recidivism and the danger to the community if Hoover is released.”

Schwartz also said that Hoover’s life sentence was appropriate, given his place as one of the most dangerous criminals ever prosecuted in Chicago’s federal court.

But Hoover’s lawyers argued it’s the government that has proselytized the myth of Hoover as some arch-criminal who can still command the masses — because it suits their endgame of keeping him locked up.

“It is not in dispute that many people from all walks of life, including politicians, celebrities, community activists and people who self-identify as GDs, support Hoover,” Bonjean wrote in a 2022 court filing. “Indeed, the fact that Mr. Hoover is supported by individuals who are not gang members is what frightens the government the most. The government does not want to see a rehabilitated Hoover. It wants to hold on to its narrative of Hoover as the most notorious dangerous, and violent man on the planet.”

Bonjean argued in the September hearing that Hoover should be looked at as a human being, not a monster. He entered prison illiterate and has since earned his GED and taken classes on robotics, art history and the life of Abraham Lincoln, she said. A voracious reader, Hoover “would have a PhD by now if that type of programming was available to him,” according to Bonjean.

She also said it’s “rubbish” to think Hoover is still commanding gang members, some of whom weren’t even born when he entered prison. “If Mr. Hoover is held responsible for every criminal act by those who self-identify as a GD, well then I guess he’s toast,” she said.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

ckubzansky@chicagotribune.com

scharles@chicagotribune.com