Regional reporter roundtable: The latest news from Cook County, Elk River and Rochester

CATHY WURZER: On Minnesota Now, we want you to know what's going on in your part of the state. And one way we do that is to check in with journalists around Minnesota to find out what their communities are talking about.

Today, we're going to do a little reporter roundtable. I'm joined by Jim Boyle, an editor with the Star News that serves the communities of Elk River, Otsego, and Rogers northwest of the cities. Jim, how are you?

JIM BOYLE: I'm doing wonderful. Thanks for having me, Cathy. I appreciate it.

CATHY WURZER: Welcome. Welcome, Jim. Jeff Kiger is also with us. Jeff's a columnist and business reporter at the Post Bulletin in Rochester, of course, home of the Mayo Clinic in southeastern Minnesota. Hey, Jeff. How are you?

JEFF KIGER: Hello. Doing well.

CATHY WURZER: Nice to have you here. And representing the Arrowhead Region is Brian Larson, editor of the Cook County News Herald based in Grand Marais. Brian, good to hear your voice.

BRIAN LARSON: Yeah. Good to hear yours, too, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Thanks for being with us. Brian, I'm to start with you. I know you're working on a story that's coming out, I believe this week, on J1 workers. J1 workers. Now, folks who don't understand, this is a big deal. These are folks who fill some pretty important jobs in towns like Grand Marais that see just these huge influxes of tourists every summer. Talk a little bit about what they do and why is it important.

BRIAN LARSON: Well, first of all, we don't have enough employees in our area to fill all the jobs that need to be filled. And so during the two years of COVID, when these kids couldn't come over, it was a pretty stark time here. Businesses had to close for a day or two a week or shut their hours down very minimal-- to minimal stances. And so with these kids back now, we can operate much more efficiently and serve all these fine guests we have in our area.

CATHY WURZER: So Jeff, you're down--

BRIAN LARSON: What these kids--

CATHY WURZER: Go ahead.

BRIAN LARSON: What these kids do is they work in hotels. They make beds. They clean rooms. They work in restaurants. They wait tables. They do dishes. Some cook. They work at resorts, doing similar things. Cabin cleaning. Canoe maintenance. They do a lot of jobs that maybe aren't highly skilled, but very necessary to do, and they're hard workers. They often work two jobs.

CATHY WURZER: I'm curious, Jeff. Jeff Kiger, down there in Rochester. Are you seeing something, a similar situation, when you have worker shortages in Rochester? This is a little bit different in Grand Marais. It's a tourist-based situation with the J1 workers. But are you seeing worker shortages?

JEFF KIGER: We've seen some, mostly in some of the-- more like the fast food restaurants. The hotels have struggled a little bit, but for the most part, they've kept staffed here, at least most recently.

CATHY WURZER: So Brian, some of the problem, of course, too, is you have a housing shortage-- an affordable housing shortage on the north shore.

BRIAN LARSON: Drastic.

CATHY WURZER: Yes, exactly. Where do these-- where these J1 workers end up staying?

BRIAN LARSON: Well, they stay in bunkhouses. And so a lot of kids will stay in one house. And they work so much, you know, 16 hour days for these kids is just not uncommon at all. Tremendous workers.

But it is hard to find them housing, so I will say that. It's a conundrum up here. We have very good-paying jobs that we can't fill because there's no housing for those workers to come and live in, either. So it's very tough right now.

CATHY WURZER: By the way, how old are these J1 workers, generally speaking?

BRIAN LARSON: So you know, they're 21, 22, 23 years old. They're not-- I call them kids. And they major-- they often speak three or four languages, and they'll major in, like, physics or chemistry, architecture. They are very smart kids. They adapt fast. They don't seem to mind working jobs far beneath their skill level.

And they also bring a lot of personality. We're an old county. We're the second-oldest county by age out of Minnesota's 87 counties. And so they bring a lot of personality, too, and it's really great that they're back on a lot of levels. It just adds to people's enjoyment when they come and visit our area.

CATHY WURZER: That sounds like it's going to be a good story. Say, Jim Boyle, I didn't want to leave you out of the fun here. Let's talk a little bit about what's happening in your neck of the woods. I know we're going to switch gears here and talk about a new dock installed in Elk River. A dock?

JIM BOYLE: Yeah. Yeah, it's creating quite a bit of excitement. It's something that's been on the radar for a very long time. It was talked about way back in 2015, and it was kind of after a park in downtown Elk River was built in 2006, and they began having a concert series there in 2007. And that's been going strong ever since.

And the thing about it is that when Hoisington Koegler, the group that put it together for the city, they came back in 2015 with ideas. OK, what's the next step? Now that the park needs to be expanded and bigger, what are some other ideas? And one of them was to include a dock at the base of the park.

And while that didn't transpire quickly, the park was expanded in 2017. And then from there, people in the background continued to push for this dock, including folks like the representatives of the Downtown Elk River Business Association, Fred McCoy, a downtown business owner and owner of McCoy's pub.

And they just kept pressing, including Chris Carlson, who had a successful business in Elk River called Sportech, and he has a foundation that he has since created. And then he put some money on the table to the tune of about $57,000, and that just kind of continued the discussion, even well after the park was expanded.

Once that was known, the city kind of was saying, let's see if we can fund raise the rest. And those efforts were not truly successful because they were not able to raise more funds, but the interest was still there.

And downtown Elk River gets a lot of discussion at the city level and at the community level about what can make it better, and eventually, the city kind of said, hey, even though we can't raise this money, the interest is there. Let's go ahead and fund it.

And they did that, and so about $110,000 is what it took to get it funded. It's a dock that will go in the spring and come out at the end of the year, and then go back in for the following year. And so people are really catching on to this and creating a lot of excitement.

CATHY WURZER: So if I decide to moor my boat on this dock next year, I can go then walk up to downtown Elk River and maybe have a burger and a beer?

JIM BOYLE: You absolutely can, and you've got several choices. You can walk right up. It's a beautiful park overlooking the river. And there's McCoy's Pub, there's Sunshine Depot, there's a new place coming called The Edge Bar and Boutique this fall. I think part of the excitement of everything that's going on downtown.

There's also a really good pizza place called Pompey Pizzeria, and then a 1950s type restaurant in Daddy-O's that's down there as well. The Olde Main Eatery is another one, if you want to go for a good breakfast or lunch.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you.

JIM BOYLE: Yeah, so just lots of opportunities.

CATHY WURZER: I'm wondering-- you know, of course, Jeff in Rochester, you're no stranger to this. This was a big project for Elk River, obviously, but you all have been just building, building, building in Rochester. That's another whole story, obviously.

But I want to kind of focus in on a story that you had, that you broke August 11th. And when I saw it, I thought, really? I had no idea that this person lived in Rochester. We're talking about a very popular 41-year-old Scottish pop star who was found dead.

JEFF KIGER: Well, he-- and we're not-- I wouldn't say he was living here, too. The confusion, I think, has been that he was in the Berkman Apartment complex, but there's also a hotel within that complex. And he was in a hotel room.

CATHY WURZER: Ah. I see. Tell me about this person. Who was he?

JEFF KIGER: Well, he was, like you said, a popular Scottish singer, much more popular than I had any idea. But he was on a couple of singing competitions and gained a lot of popularity in the very early 2000s. And then went on to record an album and had, like, a number one hit and had a popular album, and then also performed a lot in the West End stage doing musicals, too. So he was very well-known, actually, and this has generated a lot of interest.

CATHY WURZER: I should say, his name is Darius Campbell Danesh. What do we know about his death so far?

JEFF KIGER: Very little, to be honest. He was found-- the police got a call of a deceased person. They arrived. It was late Thursday on a [INAUDIBLE]. They came into the hotel room, found him deceased, unresponsive. And they've been doing toxicology and looking into this. We do not have a cause of death. That's the big question that's not been answered yet.

CATHY WURZER: Well, another question I guess I have is what the heck was he doing in Rochester?

JEFF KIGER: Well, that is a good one, too, and it's also not as clear. Where the Berkman is, right next to Saint Mary's. A lot of people do stay there when they're undergoing outpatient treatment. So there's [INAUDIBLE] there, possibly. But we don't know that. The Mayo Clinic hasn't confirmed anything along that lines. But that is, obviously, the typical reason that people come to Rochester.

CATHY WURZER: And obviously, this was front page news.

JEFF KIGER: It was. And also, as a kind of sideline to this, all summer long, we've been seeing-- and we always see many fairly well-known faces pop up in Rochester on occasion. But the actor Gerard Butler has been showing up at a lot of public events here throughout the summer, at the county fair [INAUDIBLE].

He was a close friend of Darius, and they had been traveling together, at least some earlier in the summer. So that seems to make that connection, but we don't know much more about that, either.

CATHY WURZER: I'm sure you'll find out more, though. I appreciate the time for all three that you had kind of took some time out of your lunch hour here to join us. I appreciate it. I also appreciate your work. Thank you all for doing what you're doing.

JEFF KIGER: Thank you.

JIM BOYLE: Thank you, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Talk to you all later. Brian Larson has been with us. Brian, of course, is in the Grand Marais area. Cook County News Herald in Grand Marais. Jeff Kiger is in Rochester, Rochester Post Bulletin. Jim Boyle has joined us, too. Of course, Jim is with the Star News of Elk River, Otsego, and Rogers.