Dear Neighbors,
School Safety Bill
With just a few weeks left of the session, we’re putting together our larger bills in different issue areas. There’s lots of good bills and ideas, but not everything makes the final cut. I’m happy to see a couple of my provisions included in these bigger proposals.
Our education proposal has a number of important measures to help improve school safety. One of these is from my bill to create threat assessment teams in schools. The goal is for these teams to more easily identify and report a student showing signs of violence or aggression. I think this is a key piece of the puzzle to make sure our students, teachers, and staff are safer in Minnesota classrooms.
Preventing Distracted Driving
Another one of my bills that’s going forward is my legislation to increase penalties for those who kill or harm others while they’re driving and distracted by their cell phone. We’re seeing technology grow faster than the law, and I think it’s time for the law to catch up. I’ve worked with a number of families who’ve lost a loved one because a distracted driver caused a serious accident. Sometimes, this can carry as little as 30 days in jail. There’s no way to make it right when a loved one passes away from a preventable accident, but I think there should be more significant punishments for offenders when these incidents occur. The punishment is much more severe for a similar scenario if the driver is under the influence of alcohol, and I think texting and driving should carry a comparable punishment if the driver kills or hurts an innocent victim.
Fighting Addiction
Our larger bill related to Health and Human Services includes my bipartisan legislation, HF4135, which includes funding for the Minnesota Recovery Corps Grant. This is a program designed for people with direct or indirect experience with recovery to serve other individuals who are trying to sustain their own recovery. From my own experiences, I see this as a crucial tool in helping connect recovering addicts with those still in the throes of addiction. To have this included in our HHS proposal is a good start to this legislation being signed into law.
Honoring Local Volunteers
Those who give their free time to help their neighbors are true local heroes. This week, I was able to help honor two such residents who’ve gone above and beyond. Ray Kane of St. Paul Park (top photo) was named Volunteer of the Year for the city. Likewise, Justin Fox (bottom photo) was named Cottage Grove Volunteer of the Year. Thank you to both Ray and Justin for serving our communities!
Please Contact Me
As always, please call or email my office if you’d like to discuss any issue facing our state. I continue to have great discussions with local residents sharing their opinion. Thanks to everyone who’s contacted me or visited in St. Paul; it’s important for me to know what you think about these topics.
Enjoy the weekend,
Keith