Zimmermann returns to Minneapolis from Colo. prison
Former Minneapolis City Council member Dean Zimmermann will finish serving his prison sentence in a Minneapolis halfway house.
Zimmermann arrived outside the Volunteers of America facility on Lake St. Thursday afternoon with his wife and one of his sons.
After a 23-hour bus ride from Colorado where he served the bulk of his sentence, Zimmermann was upbeat and looking thinner.
He joked that losing 55 pounds in prison was due to a simple formula -- "Eat less. Move more."
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Zimmermann was convicted in 2006 on three counts of bribery. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, but his time was reduced after he took part in a drug treatment program.
Once he has completed the remaining six months of his sentence, Zimmermann says he plans to start a solar energy business. A member of the Green Party, Zimmermann was sounding the alarm about global warming years ago.
According to Zimmermann's wife, Jenny Heiser, Zimmermann tried to start something of a green revolution while in prison in Colorado.
She says Zimmermann got some of the prisoners to start vegetable gardens, and tried to get the prison to start recycling. But she says prison officials quashed both of those efforts.