Bremer Bank, one of the largest Minnesota banks by deposits, has been acquired by Old National Bank, which is based in Chicago and Evansville, Ind.
Bremer, a St. Paul-based farm lender that serves Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin, was established more than 80 years ago by German immigrant, banker and philanthropist Otto Bremer, who established a charitable trust as its largest shareholder and parent company. The three trustees of the St. Paul-based Otto Bremer Trust were closely involved in helping the board of the Bremer Financial Corporation court Old National for the acquisition, according to bank officials.
“We are now writing a new chapter,” wrote bank president Jeanne Crain, in an open letter published to the Bremer Bank website Monday. “When our majority shareholder, Otto Bremer Trust (OBT), reaffirmed their interest in transferring ownership of Bremer, the Bremer Financial Corporation Board and OBT trustees worked collaboratively to identify an acquirer with a commitment to customers and connection to community similar to our own.”
The purchase, which has yet to be finalized, is subject to regulatory approval.
Crain said the transition to the Old National name, brand and services will take several months, but customers can expect no immediate changes. Her letter gave no indication about whether Bremer offices, or the charitable trust, would eventually relocate from downtown St. Paul.
“While our name will change, we are pleased that following the completion of the transaction, we will have expanded banking capabilities and enhanced resources to serve you,” she wrote.
The sale represents a bit of an about-face for Bremer, which had been embroiled in multiple legal disputes between the trustees and the bank board over what was then deemed efforts to manufacture a hostile takeover of the board by selling voting shares. Those efforts, the first step toward positioning the bank for sale, were frozen during years of legal fighting that involved in Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office, which regulates charities.
Old National Bank was founded in 1834 in Evansville and maintains approximately $40 billion in deposits, compared to about $13 billion in deposits for Bremer Bank.
This is a developing story — watch this space for updates.
BEIRUT (AP) — Diplomats and other officials say there have been several sticking points in ceasefire talks to end the war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, even as conditions for an agreement appear to be ripe.
Israel’s military has killed nearly all of the militant group’s top leaders, but it continues to fire missiles into Israel. Tens of thousands of Israelis who were evacuated from the border months ago are pressuring their government to go home. And the world wants to stop regional conflict from spreading after more than a year of fighting.
Following the latest visit to the region by a U.S. mediator, Israel hit central Beirut over the weekend, and Hezbollah responded with its biggest barrage in weeks as each applied pressure to reach a deal.
A man stands in front of a destroyed building after Sunday’s Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Members of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Israeli soldiers take cover on the side of the road during an alert of incoming rockets, near Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel Sunday Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A man checks his damaged apartment which was resulted from Sunday’s Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Residents pass in front of a destroyed building that was hit Sunday night in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A Civil Defense worker uses a skid loader to remove the rubble in front of a destroyed building that was hit Sunday night in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A member of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A man walks past a damaged building after a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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A man stands in front of a destroyed building after Sunday’s Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost daily since the day after Hamas-led terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, setting off the war in Gaza. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Israel launched a widespread bombardment of Lebanon two months ago, then a ground invasion. More than 3,500 people in Lebanon have been killed, many of them civilians.
More than 70 have been killed in Israel, over 40 of them civilians. In addition, over 50 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive.
Here’s a look at the proposal and the sticking points.
A proposed two-month ceasefire to start
The proposal under discussion to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah calls for an initial two-month ceasefire during which Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah would end its armed presence along the southern border south of the Litani River.
The withdrawals would be accompanied by an influx of thousands more Lebanese army troops, who have been largely sidelined in the war, to patrol the border area along with an existing U.N. peacekeeping force.
An international committee would be set up to monitor implementation of the ceasefire agreement and of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, which was passed in 2006 to end a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah but never fully implemented. Hezbollah never ended its presence in southern Lebanon, while Lebanon said Israel regularly violated its airspace and occupied small patches of its territory.
It is not clear whether a new deal would be any more successfully implemented than the one in 2006.
Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, told Israeli Army Radio on Monday that the deal aimed to improve surveillance and enforcement of the previous resolution. While he said there were still certain points that needed to be finalized, a deal was close and could be clinched “within days.”
A U.S. official said negotiations continued to progress on Sunday, but the parties still need to work out some outstanding issues to close the deal. The official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the private talks, declined to detail the outstanding issues.
Israel wants freedom to strike Hezbollah and other disagreements
Two Western diplomats described several points of dispute to The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing negotiations.
They said Israel was asking for more guarantees to ensure that Hezbollah’s weapons are removed from the border area. Israeli officials, concerned about the possibility of Hezbollah launching the kind of attack that Hamas carried out from Gaza into southern Israel, have said they would not agree to a ceasefire deal that doesn’t explicitly grant them freedom to strike in Lebanon if they believe Hezbollah is violating it.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the sensitive talks, said the issue remained a point of contention, although he said the talks were headed in a “positive direction.”
Lebanese officials have said agreeing to such a deal would violate Lebanon’s sovereignty. Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem has said the militant group would not agree to a deal that does not entail a “complete and comprehensive end to the aggression” and does not protect Lebanon’s sovereignty.
Lebanon and Israel have also disagreed over which countries would sit on the international committee overseeing implementation of the deal and Resolution 1701.
In a sign of progress, Israel appeared to have dropped its opposition to France, which has remained close with Lebanon since its colonial rule there ended and has recently been at odds with Israel.
On Monday, an official familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing behind-the-scenes negotiations, said that France would be part of the monitoring committee. Lebanon’s deputy parliament speaker, Elias Bousaab, also said Israel had accepted France.
But Lebanon has refused to allow Britain, a close ally of Israel. It was unclear Monday if Lebanese officials had dropped their opposition following Israel’s concession.
Meanwhile, Israel does not want to enter into negotiations on 13 disputed points along the border as part of a ceasefire deal, the diplomats said.
Both sides have an interest in ending the war
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest of Iran’s armed proxies, is expected to significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of war between Israel and Iran directly. It’s not clear how it would affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it has now dropped that condition.
One diplomat said there are fears that if no ceasefire is reached, the war will expand further into Syria and Iraq as Israel attempts to cut off the supply of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah. Israel has carried out regular airstrikes on Iran-linked groups in Syria and has threatened to strike in Iraq, where Iran-backed militias have periodically launched drone attacks on Israel.
Geir Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, said during a visit to Damascus on Sunday that ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon are critical to “avoid Syria being dragged even further into the conflict.”
Meanwhile, analysts say Hezbollah has been weakened but continues to keep up steady fire into Israel, including strikes far from the border.
On Sunday, Hezbollah fired about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel, wounding seven people in one of the militant group’s heaviest barrages in months, in response to deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut. Violent clashes continue in southern Lebanon as Israeli forces attempt to take control of strategic towns.
Israel says its goal in the war with Hezbollah is to enable displaced Israelis to safely return home. In Lebanon, a quarter of the population has been displaced, and parts of the country, particularly in south Lebanon and areas south of the capital Beirut, have been destroyed.
In Lebanon, where officials and residents are anxious for war to end, an initial rush of optimism dissipated after the Biden administration’s point man on Israel and Lebanon, Amos Hochstein, left the region last week without a deal.
Many now believe no agreement will be reached before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed from Washington.
Members of the St. Paul City Council have officially asked the mayor to cut up to $6 million in spending from the budget proposal he unveiled in August, with the goal of limiting the city’s 2025 property tax levy increase to no more than 5%. St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s $855 million budget proposal currently calls for a 7.9% levy increase, raising alarm with fiscal watchdogs and some everyday residents and council members.
“We are hearing really clearly from our constituents that tax increases are a burden, and we’re trying to respond to what we’re hearing in a way that’s really responsible and doesn’t cut out needed services,” said Council Member Rebecca Noecker, in an interview Friday. “We’re pushing back pretty heavily on the mayor’s budget proposal.”
Council Member Cheniqua Johnson said there’s been no formal vote among the seven members, but “I’m also supportive of no more than a 5% tax levy increase at this time,” she said. “That would send a strong message, showing that we’re hearing our neighbors. … Throughout public testimony, we’ve heard a lot of concerns about growing taxes, the cost of inflation. I’ve definitely been hearing it all year.”
Council President Mitra Jalali said not all council members were on board with the request to rein in spending, and the exact amount of a requested reduction is still up in the air.
“Every year we do budget negotiations. Members significantly want to reduce the levy. Not every member agrees with that,” said Jalali on Friday. “I think the final amount of reductions is still in play. There’s a lot of appetite to respond to property tax stress, but there’s (also appetite for) funding important investments.”
“The proposal from the council has just come in,” said Jennifer Lor, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, on Friday. “We’ve received the request. We’re working through it and we’re really hoping that by Dec. 18 we can get some common ground.”
Some fiscal changes have already gone through. The mayor’s office had proposed adding a franchise fee to residential Xcel Energy gas and heating bills in the months of November and April, with the goal of raising money for a home weatherization program and other initiatives, including funding a climate action coordinator. On Wednesday, the city council voted to limit the fee increase to April alone, effectively cutting the $4.25 million in projected revenue in half across the next two years.
Tax hearing
The city council’s budget calendar currently calls for a Truth in Taxation public hearing to be held at 6 p.m. on Dec. 2, followed by the council’s final adoption of the 2025 budget and tax levy around 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 4. The sizable spending cut request from the city council raises the likelihood that vote may have to be delayed a week or two.
By state statute, the council has until Dec. 18 to finalize the new budget and tax levy.
Jalali noted that Thanksgiving, which always falls on the fourth Thursday of November, lands almost at the end of the month this year. The council usually has about a week between Thanksgiving break and the final levy vote to hash out budget differences with the mayor’s office, but the calendar this year has been unforgiving.
There is no council meeting scheduled Nov. 27, the day before Thanksgiving, and the next meeting won’t be until Dec. 4, offering little time to work things out.
“We actually lost a week and might add one in,” Jalali said.
Areas that could be cut
Noecker, who acknowledged this likely was the most contentious budget season of her tenure, said that to get to $5.5 million to $6 million in spending reductions, council members have taken a hard look at ongoing staff vacancies, particularly positions that have been sitting unfilled for at least a year.
“In our mind, if it hasn’t been filled in a year, there’s no need to be carrying that fiscal load,” she said, noting in some cases the budget proposal could better reflect hiring realities. “We looked at attrition. If you budget for a new position in 2024, that person is not actually hired Jan. 1, 2025. There’s a big delta there.”
The council members have also been “pushing back against new positions that may not be justified. If you need a new mechanical inspector, show us that you’re not able to keep up with the work without one,” she said.
The mayor’s budget proposal calls for the addition of four firefighters, but the St. Paul Fire Department has noted that’s a carry-over from the current year’s budget, which called for the four new firefighters to be hired in 2024. Some council members have called for adding three more firefighters next year on top of that, for a total of seven.
“Things that we know are basic services that need to be added, we’re adding,” Noecker said. The mayor’s office, for instance, had called for continuing to offer free swim lessons for kids, but the mayor’s budget proposal does not maintain free Sunday open swims at the Oxford Community Center and Great River Water Park on Lexington Parkway.
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