Letters - Aug 2025

Misleading headline
As someone who works with the Sisters of St Joseph, alongside Project Home, I was concerned that the shelter is being called an “overnight” shelter. As it clearly states in the body of Jane McClure’s article [in the June 2025 edition], the young families can stay for up to two and one-half months, providing some stability for them. It’s not typically used for one night stays. If the Bandana Square community understands the efforts by the Sisters to provide effective, calm housing for young families in need, they may be more accepting.
Susan Armstrong

Editor’s note: Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Susan. We have adjusted the headline on our website and will be more careful in the future given that the term “overnight shelter” typically refers to a shelter being used just for single overnights versus the longer use proposed for the Bandana Square site.

Thanks, Melvin Giles
Just a short “letter-to-editor” thanking Melvin Giles for his wonderful column. I just want to reach out and say publicly my unending gratitude for Melvin’s Peace Bubbles column in the Monitor. I never met Melvin personally, but I always appreciated his positive words and the grounding influence he’s had in my life.
Tom Eichlersmith

Pump the brakes on data centers
The following letter was sent to Governor Tim Walz in May:
The League of Women Voters of Minnesota is proud to be nonpartisan, neither supporting nor opposing candidates or political parties at any level of government, but always working on vital issues of concern to members and the public. We envision a democracy where every person has the desire, the right, the knowledge and the confidence to participate.
LWV Minnesota has serious concerns that public input has not been considered regarding the environmental, fiscal and local impacts of data centers in our state.
The League believes that democratic government depends upon informed and active participation at all levels of government. Citizens should have the right to know about proposed actions, including data centers proposed by big tech companies. In particular, there are two issues with data centers that we believe deserve more time for consideration.
First, we believe that the conservation and development of natural resources must be done in the public interest. Allowing companies to forgo the Certificate of Need process at the Public Utilities Commission eliminates the public’s opportunity to observe and weigh in on the in-depth discussion and analysis of need for the project and assessment of alternatives bearing on the environment and local area. Second, we believe that extending sales tax breaks for data centers until 2062 fails to maintain an equitable and flexible system of taxation for our state, depriving us of significant revenue for essential services.
We must have more discussion about the harms and benefits of data centers and create a framework to protect our water, energy consumers and neighbors of these massive facilities.
Please pump the brakes until the public has more information about data centers.
Thank you,
Michelle Witte, League of Women Voters of Minnesota Executive Director