CHICAGO — As the rain started and stopped throughout Wednesday afternoon, the Twins waited inside the visitors’ clubhouse at Rate Field, ready to play.

Their long wait — the Twins and White Sox were delayed for 3:20 before their series finale, the third rain delay in their first six games — was ultimately worth it. Once they finally hit the field, the Twins salvaged the day by winning their second consecutive game in Chicago, this one a 6-1 win, sending them home from their season-opening road trip 2-4.

It came on the backs of Pablo López, who threw seven innings of one-run ball, Byron Buxton, who had a pair of extra-base hits, including his first home run of the season, and Harrison Bader, who hit his team-leading third blast of the year.

López, who endured a lengthy rain delay before his first start of the season as well, was sharp from the get-go on Wednesday. He allowed just four hits, and got some good defense behind him, including a diving catch from Buxton in center and a basket catch on the run from shortstop Carlos Correa.

It wasn’t until the seventh inning that the White Sox broke through with second baseman Brooks Baldwin launching a solo home run. But by that point, the Twins had a large lead well in hand.

In the first inning, Buxton crushed a breaking ball left over the plate, sending it 446 feet out to left-center field. The Twins pushed the game out of reach a few innings later in the fourth when Bader, for the second consecutive day, hit a three-run home run, depositing a pitch into the left-field bullpen.

And in the fifth, Correa started a rally with a double. In addition to making a nice defensive play, Correa finally collected his first — and second — hit of the season after days of hard contact. Correa was 0 for 18 before watching a ball roll through the infield and into right, raising his hands to the sky as he saw the ball reach the right field.

In the dugout, his teammates teased him, raising up their hands as if to single for the ball, which teams collect when a player records a memorable hit.

Correa came around to score on a Buxton double — his second extra-base hit of the day — and Buxton scored the Twins’ final run on a Ty France hit.

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FCC Environmental Services will continue to collect residential trash across the city of St. Paul using 560 Randolph Ave. as its base of operations, at least for the next 90 days.

At the urging of Mayor Melvin Carter, the city council voted 6-0 on Wednesday to extend the mayor’s emergency declaration, which temporarily overturned a zoning challenge that had left the trash hauler’s chosen dispatch and maintenance site off-limits just before the start of its citywide contract.

“I will be supporting this … because it’s a critical responsibility of the city to collect trash,” said Council President Rebecca Noecker, who had led efforts two weeks prior to block FCC Environmental from the site.

“I do this without changing my strong position,” she added, blaming the hauler for any last-minute fumbling. “I continue to believe this is not the right site.”

Dispatch center

Noecker said she expected that the mayor’s office and FCC Environmental will use the next 90 days to scout out a better location for what will be a $25 million dispatch center, maintenance facility and compressed natural gas station for the company’s trash trucks. FCC Environmental has made no secret that while it intends to launch service with about 30 trucks, that number might more than double as it expands its presence in the Twin Cities and adds more municipal accounts.

The hauler purchased the former Randolph Avenue tow lot last August and then sought official clarification from the city that its existing “light industrial” zoning would allow trash truck cleaning, maintenance and dispatch, as well as a compressed natural gas refueling station. In response, the city zoning administrator last January called the uses comparable to those of a Public Works yard, which is indeed allowed under “I-1” zoning.

Expressing concern about safety and environmental impacts on their residential neighborhood, members of the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation appealed that finding to the city Planning Commission, which supported the stance taken by city staff. The neighborhood federation then appealed again to the city council, which voted 5-0 on March 19 to support the appeal and overturn the zoning decision, with less than two weeks to go before the April 1 start of citywide trash collection under the new hauler.

State of local emergency

Carter then issued the council a strongly-worded letter, saying the council had “plunged the city into crisis.” He followed that up this week by signing a “state of local emergency” declaration that went into effect Tuesday, just as FCC Environmental was scheduled to begin collection on residential routes citywide.

The emergency declaration could only be for three days without further council action, which was granted Wednesday, but not without some words of warning from the council president. Noecker said the next 90 days should be dedicated to finding an alternate location, and “not be used to undermine the council.”

So far, it does not appear that the company is on board. The Planning Commission’s zoning committee is scheduled to review a site plan for FCC Environmental’s proposed truck facility on April 10, and the full Planning Commission will consider their recommendation a week later.

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Tori McKinney scored a career-high 26 points, and Mallory Heyer added her second double-double in as many games as Minnesota beat Belmont, 75-63, to win the second Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament at Hinkle Fieldhouse on Wednesday in Indianapolis.

The Gophers finished the season with five straight tournament victories to be the last team standing in the 32-team WBIT. They hoisted the program’s second postseason trophy, and first since the 2012 team won the 16-team Women’s Basketball Invitational under Pam Borton.

The Gophers (25-11) improved to a healthy 9-1 in postseason games under second-year coach Dawn Plitzuweit.

Minnesota’s Amaya Battle pulls up for a jumper in the first half of the Gophers’ WBIT championship game against Belmont on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. (Zach Bolinger / Gophers Athletics)

McKinney, a freshman guard from Minnetonka, was the hot hand early, scoring 19 first-half points as the Gophers took a 37-23 lead into intermission. Heyer, who had 13 points and 15 rebounds in the semifinal victory over Florida, finished with 18 points and 18 boards.

Amaya Battle added 17 points, seven rebounds and five assists for Minnesota. Banks scored 17 points for the Bruins.

Heyer’s layup with 1:56 left in regulation helped the Gophers hold off a late run by Belmont (26-13), giving the Gophers a 71-58 lead. The Bruins trailed by as many as 24 but made it interesting late when McKinney was on the bench with four fouls.

They finished the third quarter with a 5-0 run, then used a 12 run to pull within 63-53 on a layup by Jailyn Banks with 5:20 remaining. After trading baskets, Belmont cut its deficit to single digits, 67-58, on a 3-pointer by Kendal Cheesman with 3:17 remaining in regulation.

Grocholski missed a pair of free throws, and Banks hit a jumper to pull the Bruins to within 71-63. In the end, however, Minnesota made just enough free throws to put the game away, 5 for 8 in the final 1:20.

The Gophers blitzed the Bruins early, opening a 14-3 lead on a 3-pointer by Heyer with 2:10 left in the first quarter. That lead ballooned to 16 a couple of times before intermission, the last on another 3-pointer by Heyer.

Minnesota’s chances to put this one entirely away were undone by turnovers late in the second quarter. Before that, the Gophers were outsourcing Belmont off turnovers 14-0. But Minnesota coughed the ball up five times in the last 4 minutes of the first half, and the Bruins scored five points off of them.

Still, a 37-23 lead was auspicious as the Gophers started the second half, especially considering leading scorer Grace Grocholski didn’t have a point, 0 for 2 from the field, although she did have four assists and a steal. The Gophers, in fact, recorded 13 assists on 15 baskets before intermission.

Minnesota turned up the heat early in the third quarter, however, holding the Bruins to one field goal in the first 4:20 — a 3-pointer by Kendal Cheesman — to take a 50-26 lead on McKinney’s layup.

Minnesota freshman Tori McKinney celebrates a 3-pointer in the first half of the Gophers’ WBIT championship game against Belmont on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. (Zach Bolinger / Gophers Athletics)

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The St. Paul City Council has been without a seventh voting member since Feb. 5, when former Council President Mitra Jalali stepped down from her Ward 4 seat.

After two months without a council member representing Hamline-Midway, Merriam Park, St. Anthony Park and portions of Como and Mac-Groveland, many voters expected the council to appoint a temporary replacement on Wednesday. For the second week in a row, the council did not, though not for lack of trying.

“This process is not what I had hoped it would be,” said Council President Rebecca Noecker, at the end of a lengthy and sometimes emotional discussion about the behind-the-scenes politicking and lack of transparency that derailed an appointment process now likely headed to the mayor’s desk.

“We all have a lot of reflecting to do,” Noecker said. “The decision, in this case, would go to the mayor.”

Deadlocked, failed votes

Early in Wednesday’s meeting, Noecker made a motion to suspend the rules and introduce a special resolution to sponsor Lisa Nelson as the interim Ward 4 member, but the council deadlocked, 3-to-3, on whether to allow the motion to move forward.

Without majority support, the motion failed.

Council members Anika Bowie, Cheniqua Johnson and Saura Jost voted against the motion, with Jost participating remotely from San Diego. Noecker, HwaJeong Kim and Nelsie Yang voted for the motion.

Jost later made a motion to introduce her own resolution, under suspension of the rules, sponsoring Matt Privratsky as the interim Ward 4 council member. That motion also failed 4-2, with only Jost and Johnson voting yes.

Later in the meeting, the council called a recess, and members exited the chamber for an extended period. Some returned visibly emotional. Soon after, Kim introduced yet another motion to suspend the rules and reconsider the previous vote, drawing strong remarks of frustration from Johnson.

“This process has been anything but the standard we’ve operated under,” said Johnson, calling the behind-the-scenes politicking “painful” and embarrassing. “When we left the room today before the recess, we didn’t have a (majority). … That discussion that happened after the recess was not transparent.”

After further remarks from other council members, Kim’s motion failed, 3-to-3, with Kim, Noecker and Yang voting to support it and Bowie, Johnson and Jost voting against.

Mayor may have to step in

Without majority support for a new council member, the seat remains empty, raising the likelihood that St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter will have to appoint someone this month to fill the Ward 4 vacancy through the Aug. 12 election. Under the city charter, the council has 30 days to fill a vacancy, and Jalali officially left city employ on March 8. The next scheduled council meeting is April 9.

If no one is appointed by April 7, the mayor would then have 10 days under the city charter to appoint “a qualified voter of the ward.”

Council members acknowledged the stakes are high. The new appointee may cast tie-breaking votes on a variety of issues, including looming budget questions and what’s likely to be a hot-button discussion over the future of the city’s voter-approved rent control ordinance.

At the mayor’s urging, Noecker and two other council members plan to introduce an amendment this month eliminating rent control protections for residential properties constructed after 2004. In a trade-off of sorts intended to soften the blow for renters, Johnson plans to sponsor a series of tenant protections, to be introduced around the same time.

“We have big votes before us,” said Bowie, criticizing “us playing a game of chess” to fill the council vacancy. “It’s very important who is in this seat.”

A sticky process

Efforts to fill the Ward 4 seat since Jalali’s departure have proven procedurally sticky. Jay Willms, who was recently named chief of council operations, screened 20 applications. After conferring with city clerk Shari Moore and others at City Hall, he whittled the pool to four finalists.

With the goal of filling the vacant seat by early April, the council interviewed the four finalists in mid-March, including Nelson, a former art conservator turned neighborhood advocate, Privratsky, a lobbyist for the clean energy industry who had previously served as Jalali’s legislative aide, artist and community organizer Sean Lim and nonprofit consultant Melissa Martinez-Sones.

Noecker was on bereavement leave and unable to attend the meeting on March 26, when the council was initially scheduled to vote on an appointee. Over the objection of Kim and Yang, Jost took the opportunity to offer an amended resolution in favor of Privratsky, with the stated expectation the final resolution would be voted upon by the full council later that week.

Instead, during a special convening of the council last Friday, Noecker withdrew the resolution from the agenda, closing the meeting in three minutes without a vote. By that time, Martinez-Sones had withdrawn her name from consideration.

Both Noecker and Jost then attempted to introduce their favored candidates on Wednesday, without success.

Separate from the interim appointment process, candidates also are organizing campaigns to run for the seat this summer. At least three candidates have come forward to seek the Ward 4 office, and the winner of the Aug. 12 election will serve through 2028.

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