St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter has officially appointed Matt Privratsky to fill a vacant seat on the city council, restoring a voting Ward 4 member to the post the council tried and failed to fill on its own.

The Ward 4 seat had been held by former Council President Mitra Jalali, who stepped down on Feb. 5 and officially left city employ on March 8. Privratsky, a lobbyist for clean energy developers, served as her legislative aide from October 2018 to October 2021.

“Matt’s history of community action, prior service in City Hall, and alignment with former Council President Jalali make him the perfect choice,” said Carter, in a written statement. “I am honored to appoint him to fill this vacancy until Election Day.”

Privratsky is expected to be sworn in on Wednesday, in time for public hearings on a major amendment to the city’s rent control ordinance and a raft of tenant protections, issues that had left the six other members of the council divided over whom to appoint to fill the Ward 4 seat.

After interviewing four finalists, members of the city council attempted, multiple times across two weeks, to recommend Privratsky or Hamline-Midway neighborhood advocate Lisa Clare Nelson as the council’s preferred choice, but the motions were repeatedly blocked or voided by fellow council members.

Under the city charter, the council has 30 days to fill the vacancy or the decision falls to the mayor, who has urged the council to repeal rent control for buildings constructed after 2004, with the goal of jumpstarting lagging housing construction.

The two other finalists were artist and community organizer Sean Lim and nonprofit consultant Melissa Martinez-Sones, who withdrew her name from the running amid the council’s public and highly-charged infighting.

Privratsky is a former director of public affairs for Fresh Energy and launched his career at the Minnesota Rural Electric Association after serving as news director for a Morris radio station. He is currently the director of government affairs for Nokomis Energy, a Minneapolis-based energy developer.

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Minnesota is 14-3 since March 1 and currently owns the longest winning streak in the NBA with five-straight victories.

That suggests the Timberwolves are playing some of the league’s best basketball. And yet Wolves coach Chris Finch was lamenting his team’s performance after Saturday’s narrow escape over a depleted Philadelphia squad.

Yes, the Wolves won, but they weren’t at their best in doing. And, frankly, they haven’t had to be at their best over the last month-plus.

Since Minnesota got healthy, the schedule has been wildly easy. That 17-game run includes just five games against teams with records above-.500. In those five games, they’ve beaten the Nuggets twice — with Denver missing Aaron Gordon in one game, and Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. in the other — and the Pistons, who were without Cade Cunningham and Tobias Harris to open the affair, and numerous others after an ejection-inducing scuffle.

They’ve lost to a skeleton Pacers squad at home, and were blitzed by full-strength Indiana on the road.

Sandwiched in between those games are a bunch of wins against non-playoff competition, which has helped Minnesota surge up the Western Conference standings. But what has the recent stretch said about the Wolves and their potential for a deep playoff run?

Perhaps little?

On the negative side, there are still the mind-numbing mistakes when a game nears its conclusion, and the defense isn’t consistently the dominant version upon which this team’s success rests.

Positively, the offense looks great for longer periods of play, Rudy Gobert has returned to all-star, game-wrecking form and Anthony Edwards appears to have reacquired the rhythm of his lethal outside jumper.

But even the positives need to be taken with a grain of salt given the lackluster level of competition. The already low standard of play for NBA cellar dwellers only wanes as the campaign nears its conclusion and organizations do anything within their power to ensure they don’t pick up an accidental win that could prove to be the difference between selecting fifth and first in the draft.

Like Minnesota, other contenders in the West are playing well of late. But many of them are notching impressive victories that provide evidence as to how they’ll stack up in two weeks time when the playoffs begin.

Golden State convincingly beat the Lakers on Thursday. The Lakers blew out the conference-leading Thunder on Sunday. Houston has beaten Oklahoma City and the Warriors in succession.

Minnesota hasn’t had a chance to prove its mettle at full strength in months. Donte DiVincenzo, Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert all missed strings of games in January and February. Since they’ve returned, legitimate challenges have been few and far between.

Have the Wolves truly grown and evolved as a group to the point where they can topple a fellow top-six team in the West in a best-of-7 series? That’s anyone’s guess.

Some evidence to the good or bad will finally appear this week in the form of road games in Milwaukee and Memphis, teams that should be equally as motivated as Minnesota to improve their respective playoff positionings.

How the Wolves fare this week could finally provide some insight into what’s to come in the weeks to follow.

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A man is suspected of being under the influence of alcohol and speeding on Interstate 94 in Hudson before he went onto the shoulder and then crashed into David Burley, co-founder of Blue Plate Restaurant Company, according to a criminal charge filed Monday.

Burley, who was riding a motorcycle and wearing a full-face helmet, died at the hospital in St. Paul on Sunday. He was 58.

David Burley died when his motorcycle was struck by a car near Hudson on Sunday afternoon. (Courtesy of Fluence Media)

The St. Croix County District Attorney’s Office charged Andre Lamont Mathews, 33, of Brooklyn Park, with homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle.

“Preliminary investigation indicates the car was in the right lane and attempted to overtake traffic by using the right shoulder when it struck a guardrail causing it to veer back into the right lane where it collided with a motorcycle,” the Wisconsin State Patrol said in a statement Sunday. Both Mathews’ car and Burley’s motorcycle “traveled across the roadway” and struck the median concrete barrier, the statement continued.

A Hudson police officer told a Wisconsin trooper he could “smell an odor of an intoxicant emitting from” Mathews, and a trooper at Regions Hospital reported the same thing, according to the criminal complaint. Lakeview Emergency Medical Services took Mathews to Regions Hospital.

Burley had also been brought to Regions, where he died. A trooper saw that his helmet had damage to the front and right rear.

“This breaks my heart so much,” Brian Ingram, Twin Cities chef and restaurant owner posted on social media Monday. “Such a good man taken by someone making bad decisions.”

‘Weaving in and out of traffic’

Two people reported seeing Mathews’ vehicle, a 2011 Infiniti G25, “operating at a high rate of speed and weaving in and out of traffic for several miles prior to the crash,” the complaint said.

The crash happened at 2:48 p.m. Sunday on westbound I-94 at milepost 1, according to the Wisconsin State Patrol.

A trooper met with Mathews in a trauma room at the hospital. He “appeared to be disoriented and lethargic,” was not answering questions “appropriately and stated he did not know where he was or if he was driving,” the complaint said.

Andre Lamont Mathews in an August 2018 booking photo. (Courtesy of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office)

Mathews would not submit to an evidentiary test of his blood, and law enforcement applied for and received a search warrant to draw his blood for testing. It could take four to six weeks for a toxicology report to come back, according to the State Patrol.

The St. Croix County District Attorney’s Office is seeking a longer sentence for Mathews, if he’s convicted, due to a past offense. He was sentenced for possession of cocaine in Hennepin County in 2018.

Mathews remained hospitalized as of Monday afternoon; he was listed in fair condition. An arrest warrant was issued for Mathews along with the complaint. An attorney for him wasn’t listed in the court file.

When a Minneapolis officer pulled over Mathews in November 2017, he saw what appeared to be a bottle of Brandy or a similar liquor bottle on the front passenger seat floorboard.

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Police found a handgun under a rear seat of Mathews’ vehicle, which had been reported stolen, according to the criminal complaint in that case. He was prohibited from possessing firearms because he had an armed robbery conviction from July 2009 in Kankakee County, Illinois.

An officer bringing Mathews to jail in 2017 heard him grinding his shoes against the floor of the squad, and found Mathews had a white powdery substance all over his hands and clothes; it was also on the floor of the squad and seat where Mathews was sitting. There were several pieces of suspected crack cocaine, which later tested positive for cocaine, the complaint said.

By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM and MIKE STOBBE

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday said he plans to tell the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention soon to stop recommending fluoridation in communities nationwide. Kennedy also said he’s assembling a task force to focus on the issue.

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Also on Monday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it is reviewing “new scientific information” on potential health risks of fluoride in drinking water.

Kennedy told The Associated Press of his plans after a news conference in Salt Lake City.

Utah last month became the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water, pushing past opposition from dentists and national health organizations who warned the move would lead to medical problems that disproportionately affect low-income communities.

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation barring cities and communities from deciding whether to add the cavity-preventing mineral to their water systems. Water systems across the state must shut down their fluoridation systems by May 7.

Kennedy praised Utah for emerging as “the leader in making America healthy again.” He was flanked by Utah legislative leaders and the sponsor of the state’s fluoride law. “I’m very, very proud of this state for being the first state to ban it, and I hope many more will,” he said.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who appeared with Kennedy at the news conference, said his agency was launching a renewed examination of scientific studies on the potential health risks of fluoride in drinking water to help inform any changes to the national standards.

“When this evaluation is completed, we will have an updated foundational scientific evaluation that will inform the agency’s future steps,” Zeldin said. “Secretary Kennedy has long been at the forefront of this issue. His advocacy was instrumental in our decision to review fluoride exposure risks and we are committed to working alongside him, utilizing sound science as we advance our mission of protecting human health and the environment.”

Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the CDC. In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and in 1962 set guidelines for how much should be added to water.

Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer, has called fluoride a “dangerous neurotoxin” and said also it’s been associated with arthritis, bone breaks, and thyroid disease. Some studies have suggested such links might exist, usually at higher-than-recommended fluoride levels, though some reviewers have questioned the quality of available evidence and said no definitive conclusions can be drawn.

Fluoride can come from a number of sources, but drinking water is the main one for Americans, researchers say. Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population gets fluoridated drinking water, according to CDC data. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water was long considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.

About one-third of community water systems — 17,000 out of 51,000 across the U.S. — serving more than 60% of the population fluoridated their water, according to a 2022 CDC analysis. The agency currently recommends 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water.

But over time, studies have documented potential problems. Too much fluoride has been associated with streaking or spots on teeth. Studies also have traced a link between excess fluoride and brain development.

A report last year by the federal government’s National Toxicology Program, which summarized studies conducted in Canada, China, India, Iran, Pakistan and Mexico, concluded that drinking water with more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter — more than twice the recommended level in the U.S. — was associated with lower IQs in kids.

Stobbe reported from New York.