Franklin Township approved its tax levy for 2023 and announced that Scott Neumann was re-elected as a township supervisor during its annual meeting Tuesday, March 14.
Before the meeting, election polls were open at the township hall from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Neumann, who will serve a three-year term, ran unopposed and won the election with 23 votes. Adam Duske, Dwayne Bauman, and Gene Hayes each received one write-in vote.
Township Clerk/Treasurer Stephanie Russek presented the township’s proposed 2023 tax levy, which was approved for $1,062,759, a 10% increase from the 2022 levy of $966,950, marking the township’s first levy increase in four years.

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Since 2018, Liz and Kevin Otto, owners of Otto Transfer, have provided “Share the Road” training to 250 Delano driver education students, teaching them how to operate cars safely around commercial vehicles.
Share the Road is a highway safety program established by the American Trucking Association (ATA). The program aims to reduce the number of car-truck accidents. It dispatches truck safety professionals to communities nationwide to teach car drivers about truck blind spots, stopping distances, and how to merge safely around large trucks.

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With nearly 2,900 bills introduced to the MN House this session, efforts from both parties to abolish the state’s social security tax have ramped up in the last month.
Minnesota is one of twelve states in the US that tax residents’ social security benefits. Senior married couples can subtract a maximum of $5,450 from their income, and single filers can subtract up to $4,260. The subtraction amount decreases as you move up the income ladder, starting at $82,770 for married joint filers and $64,670 for singles.
The tax has recently been a popular issue in the legislature, especially the last session when Democrats, Republicans, and Governor Tim Walz agreed to eliminate the tax as part of a broader tax bill.
Ultimately that deal fell apart before the session ended. While Democrats and Republicans both campaigned on the issue, some Democrats and the governor have changed course and no longer support fully eliminating the Social Security tax.

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Working as an operations manager for JEM Technical, Dale Skogman took up woodworking about three and half years ago as a way to decompress from his day job.

“I had been to some training sessions that recommended finding passions outside of work in order to decompress and destress, and I was able to find woodworking,” said Skogman. “I can come home tired from work, and as soon as I get out here, it’s new energy. I really enjoy it, it makes me happy, and I go back to work the next day feeling recharged.”

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Taking the first steps of addressing one of the City of Delano’s short-term goals, the Delano City Council considered ways to improve a section of the South Fork of the Crow River at its meeting March 7.
Specifically, the council looked at ways to improve the 4,500-foot section of the river between the Hwy.12 bridge and the Granite Works Apartments. The overall goal is to protect and enhance the existing canoe/kayak access ramp and interface at Riverfront Park, enhance recreational water use and navigability of the river, protect infrastructure, and stabilize riverbanks at key locations which have high erosive potential.

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Minnesota National Guard and Air National Guard members recently returned home after spending two weeks training in Norway as part of the 50th US/Norway Reciprocal Troop Exchange, commonly referred to as NOREX.
Among those returning home was Delano Special Education Teacher Stephen Nelson.
“For me personally, it means a lot,” said Nelson. “It’s a great honor, and it’s humbling because to set this up and have this opportunity, people had to come up with the idea and put the work in to start this exchange. So I feel a lot of gratitude for a group that started this.”
Starting in 1973 with an agreement between Norwegian Home Guard Major General Herluf and Chief of the National Guard, Major General Francis S. Greenlief, NOREX is the longest-running exchange program between any two nations.

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