Trout Reintroduced to Ellen Lake

Ellen Lake in northern Crow Wing County will get its rainbow trout back.
Tim Brastrup, Brainerd Area Fisheries Supervisor for the DNR, told KLKS news they had to kill off species that had been illegally introduced. He says someone stocked the lake with bass and suckers which are incompatible with trout.
Recently, we learned that netting in Mille Lacs Lake indicated the walleye population was substantially down. Some sportsmen doubted the report. Brastrup says netting is a fairly accurate means of determining populations. He says warmer water temperatures, due to climate change, can result in higher mortality when walleye are stressed from catch and release. He also says warmer water is hard on the cisco population, on which the walleye feed.

SJODIN FAMILY SETTLES WITH STATE

Dru Sjodin's family has reached a financial settlement with the State of Minnesota. The family was preparing to sue the state for more than a $1-Million dollars in a wrongful death suit. The $300,000 settlement cancels the lawsuit. Alphonso Rodriguez was sentenced to death last year for the young Pequot Lakes' woman's kidnapping and death in 2003. Rodriguez had been released from prison rather than committed as a sexual predator. Corrections Commission Joan Fabian told KARE-TV that Minnesota has made significant changes in the way it handles sex offenders because of the Sjodin case.

EMILY ORDERS SECOND EAW

The Emily City Council has ordered an environmental assessment worksheet on a second Roosevelt Lake development, Roosevelt Shores. It's a 16-unit project on the western shore. Meanwhile, work has begun on the EAW for a 48-lot development - Northern Lights Over Roosevelt Lake. The studies are normally prepared and paid for by developers and reviewed by local governments before being sent to the state's Environmental Quality Board. The EQB could call for the more rigorous and more expensive Environmental Impact Study. The Northern Lights study should be completed by next January.

BRAINERD MUSIC DOWNLOAD CASE NOT OVER YET

Jammie Thomas' attorney Brian Toder wants a new trial. A federal jury said earlier this month that the Brainerd woman downloaded 1700 music files, and assessed damages for 24 specific tunes at just over $9,000 a song. Defense attorney Toder told the judge that she could have bought all those songs for $24 so the verdict is out of proportion, amounts to punitive damages, and therefore unconstitutional. The jury said Thomas should pay the record industry $222,000 plus attorney fees. Some jury members wanted to charge Thomas the maximum, roughly $3.6 Million. Thomas said earlier that she's innocent of the charges. Toder said he wants to challenge the amount of the verdict as well as the definition of 'copyright infringement'.

LEVY REFERENDUM INFLATION FACTOR

Some of the school district levy referenda - perhaps all of them - on Minnesota ballots next month will include an inflation factor. The amount a school board is allowed to raise may increase by a factor of inflation each year of the levy. Crosby Ironton School District Business Manager Bill Tollefson said the automatic increase is something new in education finance. Both Brainerd and Crosby Ironton levy referenda include the inflation factor. Tollefson said the factor could apply each year in the ten year referendum and add onto the amount raised the year before.

NORWEGIAN EMBASSY CLOSING

Governor Pawlenty wrote a letter to the new ambassador from Norway, asking him not to shut down the Minneapolis embassy. Pawlenty said there are 800,000 Norwegian-Americans in Minnesota and he hopes Norway reconsiders closing the embassy on the eve of Minnesota's 150th anniversary. The current US Ambassador to Norway, Benson Whitney from Minnesota would also be disappointed. The new Ambassador from Norway, Wegger Christian Strommen is coming to Minnesota next month and the governor said perhaps they can talk more about it then.

BRAINERD BURGLAR SUSPECTS ARRESTED

Two Brainerd men were arrested last Thursday around 3pm. Crow Wing Sheriff Todd Dahl said the owner of a house on Pine Beach Road saw 43-year old Paul David Goetze leaving his house. Goetze was arrested nearby. Deputies saw a white pickup was seen leaving the scene and Brainerd Police later arrested 60-year old James Richard Oren. Authorities found items from several area burglaries in the truck. The investigation continues and the county attorney's office is considering felony charges.

LOBBY GROUP WANTS FARM BILL CHANGES

A Minnesota farm lobby group spokesman says he wants to encourage marketplace competition through next year's farm bill. Dennis Olson is the senior policy analyst for the Minnesota-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and he says current federal farm subsidy program is badly broken. Olson's group says it wants more competition, more subsidies for smaller farms and better enforcement of a law restricting corporate farm operations.