The Lakeland City Council has nixed a plan to purchase a commercial building in town for its next city hall.

The council voted 3-2 on Tuesday night not to buy the Telus commercial building at 84 St. Croix Trail S. for $525,000; Mayor Bob Craggs and council member Canaan Martin voted in favor of the purchase.

The Lakeland City Council voted on Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025, to not move forward with plans to purchase the Telus commercial property at 84 St. Croix Trail South for a new city hall. (Courtesy of the City of Lakeland)

Lakeland City Council member David Millard said a majority of residents who came to a recent open house and spoke at a public forum were in favor of building a new city hall on city-owned land just north of the city’s water department building at 1190 St. Croix Trail S. The location – a concrete slab – is the site of where a city hall that was under construction was destroyed by an apparent act of arson in 2016. No one has been charged or convicted in the case.

“I was so encouraged by the time and energy and effort that some of our citizens put into looking into the details regarding both the building and what new construction would look like,” Millard said. “It’s nice to have that input, because sometimes we feel like we’re just alone at these meetings.”

Millard said many residents expressed concerns about the size of the Telus building – 1,860 square feet – and its lack of accessible parking.

“They said, ‘Don’t buy this little building that is just kind of barely adequate,’” he said. “There’s no handicapped parking, there’s no room for expansion, and you’re kind of relying on a neighbor to park if we have bigger meetings like elections, and access is poor. I think it was going to take a lot more money to bring it up to anywhere close to what we need.”

Instead, Millard said, many residents support building a smaller city hall building than was previously planned. He supports the construction of a building that could be expanded in the future, he said.

“Everyone is saying that the one we were going to build maybe was a little elaborate, and we can downsize that,’” he said. “Some citizens have said, ‘Let’s look at some of these smaller post-and-frame buildings that other cities have built.”

Temporary quarters

City officials have spent years trying to determine what should be done with the current city hall, an octagonal building at 690 Quinnell Ave. N., which was built as a Baptist church in 1868. Structural problems include bowing exterior walls, a sagging roof frame and cracks in the basement walls. Mold and water infiltration in the basement also are an issue, city officials say.

City staff has had to move out of the building and into the city’s water department building because of all the issues.

Craggs said he was in favor of purchasing the Telus building because it is centrally located and could have been move-in ready almost immediately. There also would be no need to address the continued increase in construction costs, he said.

“I’m very disappointed,” he said. “This fit our needs with just some changes. We could have essentially purchased the property and been able to move into the building sometime next year after some configurations were made. Now, with the interest in moving into new construction, it will take at least 18 months, if not more.”

A new city hall is estimated to cost $1.4 million, he said.

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Millard said the city has $550,000 in capital costs set aside for a city hall and a $2.1 million “rainy-day fund … for this type of need. We would not have to bond for this.”

Brian Zeller, a principal and broker at Telus Property Services & Solutions, a real-estate management company, said he thinks the council is making a mistake.

“It’s unfortunate,” he said. “It may not have been a 20-year solution, but at the very least it was a 5- to 10-year solution. This was a way to get something done that they’ve been trying to get done for 10 years. … We’ll put it back on the market. We’ve had a lot of interest. It will sell.”

Telus is moving its corporate headquarters to Hudson, Wis.

By DEE-ANN DURBIN

The Campbell’s Co. said Wednesday it has fired an executive who was recorded making racist comments and mocking the company’s products and customers.

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Martin Bally, a vice president in Campbell’s information security department, was named in a lawsuit filed last week by Robert Garza, a former Campbell’s employee who said he was fired Jan. 30 after he reported Bally’s comments to a supervisor.

The lawsuit was filed in Michigan, where both Garza and Bally live. Campbell’s is based in Camden, New Jersey.

In the lawsuit, Garza claimed he met with Bally in November 2024 to discuss his salary. During the meeting, which Garza allegedly recorded, Bally described Campbell’s as “highly process(ed) food” and said it was for “poor people.”

Garza claimed in the lawsuit that Bally made racist remarks about Indian workers, whom he called “idiots.” Garza said Bally also told him that he often went to work high after consuming marijuana edibles.

Campbell’s said Wednesday it first learned of Garza’s lawsuit last week. After listening to portions of the recording, Campbell’s said it believed the voice was Bally’s. Bally was fired Tuesday.

“The comments were vulgar, offensive and false, and we apologize for the hurt they have caused,” the company said in a statement. “This behavior does not reflect our values and the culture of our company, and we will not tolerate that kind of language under any circumstances.”

Garza’s attorney didn’t respond when The Associated Press asked for a copy of the audio recording.

But according to Local 4 news in Detroit, which interviewed Garza and played a portion of the recording on air, Bally said Campbell’s products were unhealthy during his expletive-filled rant.

“Bioengineered meat. I don’t want to eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer,” Bally said.

Campbell’s defended its chicken Wednesday, saying it comes from long-trusted U.S. suppliers, is raised without antibiotics and meets high quality standards.

“The comments heard on the recording about our food are not only inaccurate, they are patently absurd,” Campbell’s said.

Larry Kopp, the chairman and founder of The TASC Group, a strategic communications and public relations company, said Campbell’s should have fired Bally and reached a settlement with Garza as soon as it learned of the incident.

“If they had settled they would not be in this mess,” Kopp said. “Recordings like these are devastating and should never see the light of day.”

Garza is seeking monetary damages from Campbell’s, Bally and from his former manager, J.D. Aupperle. Garza said he told Aupperle about the conversation with Bally shortly before he was fired.

Campbell’s said Wednesday that Aupperle remains employed by the company.

Last December, Gophers star defensive end Anthony Smith told the Pioneer Press his goal was to be a first-round pick in the 2026 NFL draft.

“Being in the green room and my name being called, literally, the first day,” Smith said before the playing in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.

The conventional wisdom was the Battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe against Wisconsin on Saturday would be his final regular-season game, but the redshirt junior was not bidding farewell when asked about his future in Wednesday’s news conference. The Shippensburg, Pa., native has one more year of eligibility remaining for next fall and appears to be contemplating using it.

“I don’t know yet,” Smith said Wednesday. “I got to focus on this week. Like always, my goal has been to go to the NFL, whenever that happens.”

Smith was then asked a similar question on whether he will walk on Senior Day at Huntington Bank Stadium. He was noncommittal on participating in those festivities Saturday, which are not a guarantee on whether a player is coming back or not.

Smith has been considered the only candidate to potentially continue the Gophers’ streak of having a first- or second-round pick in six straight drafts since 2020. But his stock might be slipping; he was left off The Athletic’s list of Top 50 draft candidates earlier this fall.

At 6-foot-6 and 285 pounds, Smith has a Big Ten-leading 10 1/2 sacks in 11 games as well as 37 total pressures, according to Pro Football Focus. But his season has been up and down, including a season-low 40.9 overall grade from PFF in the 38-35 defeat to Northwestern last Saturday.

One litmus test for draft stock is how a player performs against the best of the best, and Smith did not show out against Ohio State (zero pressures), Iowa (one pressure) and Oregon (two pressures and one sack).

If Smith does return for next fall, it would be a big boost for the Gophers D-line. Minnesota will lose a handful of key interior linemen, including fifth-year senior tackle Devein Eastern, sixth-year tackle Jalen Logan-Redding and sixth-year tackle Rushawn Lawrence.

That trio has run out of eligibility, but it’s wait and see on Smith.

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By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK (AP) — As the Justice Department gets ready to release its files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, a court battle over sealed documents in Maxwell’s criminal case is offering clues about what could be in those files.

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Government lawyers asked a judge on Wednesday to allow the release of a wide range of records from Maxwell’s case, including search warrants, financial records, survivor interview notes, electronic device data and material from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida.

Those records, among others, are subject to secrecy orders that the Justice Department wants lifted as it works to comply with a new law mandating the public release of Epstein and Maxwell investigative materials.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump last week.

The Justice Department submitted the list a day after U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer in New York ordered the government to specify what materials it plans to publicly release from Maxwell’s case.

The government said it is conferring with survivors and their lawyers and that it will redact records to ensure protection of survivors’ identities and prevent the dissemination of sexualized images.

“In summary, the Government is in the process of identifying potentially responsive materials” that are required to be disclosed under the law, “categorizing them and processing them for review,” the department said.

The four-page filing bears the names of the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Jay Clayton, along with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

FILE – In this July 30, 2008, file photo, Jeffrey Epstein, center, appears in court in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Uma Sanghvi/The Palm Beach Post via AP, File)

Also Wednesday, a judge weighing a similar request for materials from Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case gave the department until Monday 1 to provide detailed descriptions the records it wants made public. U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said he will review the material in private before deciding.

In August, Berman and Engelmayer denied the department’s requests to unseal grand jury transcripts and other material from Epstein and Maxwell’s cases, ruling that such disclosures are rarely, if ever, allowed.

The department asked the judges this week to reconsider, arguing in court filings that the new law requires the government to “publish the grand jury and discovery materials” from the cases. The law requires the release of Epstein-related files in a searchable format by Dec. 19.

FILE — Audrey Strauss, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks during a news conference to announce charges against Ghislaine Maxwell for her alleged role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein, July 2, 2020, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

Epstein was a millionaire money manager known for socializing with celebrities, politicians and other powerful men. He killed himself in jail a month after his 2019 arrest. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking for luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

In initial filings Monday, the Justice Department characterized the material it wants unsealed in broad terms, describing it as “grand jury transcripts and exhibits.” Engelmayer ordered the government to file a letter describing the materials “in sufficient detail to meaningfully inform victims” what it plans to make public.

Engelmayer did not preside over Maxwell’s trial, but was assigned to the case after the trial judge, Alison J. Nathan, was elevated to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Tens of thousands of pages of records pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released over the years, including through civil lawsuits, public disclosures and Freedom of Information Act requests.

In its filing Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 18 categories of material that it is seeking to release from Maxwell’s case, including reports, photographs, videos and other materials from police in Palm Beach, Florida, and the U.S. attorney’s office there, both of which investigated Epstein in the mid-2000s.

Last year, a Florida judge ordered the release of about 150 pages of transcripts from a state grand jury that investigated Epstein in 2006. Last week, citing the new law, the Justice Department moved to unseal transcripts from a federal grand jury that also investigated Epstein.

That investigation ended in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges by pleading guilty to a state prostitution charge. He served 13 months in a jail work-release program. The request to unseal the transcripts is pending.