Monday roundup: Lifting the veil on oil trains, tax dodgers, local pol out of jail

My colleague, energy reporter David Shaffer, has finally shaken loose records on oil train traffic in Minnesota. The state had previously refused to release those records, claiming they were prohibited from doing so for security reasons, but the federal government's about-face on the issue earlier this summer demolished that argument. In Shaffer's report Saturday, the records show that 50 trains each week - each carrying 1 million gallons of oil - traverse the state.

The records from BNSF and Canadian Pacific feature far more warnings about the perils of their release than actual information. But it's definitely a step forward for public awareness about the hazardous cargo rolling through Minnesota every day.

Data reporter Jennifer Bjorhus acquired and analyzed property tax databases from a dozen metro counties to produce her Sunday story on the biggest tax debtors and how they get away with it. You can see a list of those top debtors here. She also explained how Hennepin County came to possess an old grain elevator on Hiawatha Avenue in Minneapolis.

Big-dollar donors are grabbing a large share of contributions to Minnesota politicians, according to an analysis of campaign finance data by my colleagues Rachel Stassen-Berger and Glenn Howatt.

In the next installment of the "Bees at the Brink" series, environmental reporter Josephine Marcotty describes the battle between bee advocates and pesticide manufacturers over a widely-used agricultural chemical linked to massive hive deaths.

The Star Tribune's business staff produced its annual ranking of the 100 best-paid CEOs of Minnesota public companies, led by Ameriprise chief James Cracchiolo's astonishing $92 million haul last year.

The former food executive in Georgia whose salmonella-tainted peanuts killed nine people, including three Minnesotans, is going to trial.

Here's the column:

Fresh from the county workhouse, LeAnn Sargent will have plenty to talk about when she rejoins the Maple Grove City Council next month. The foul language of her fellow inmates, the fattening jailhouse cuisine, confinement in a cell with only one or two breaks each day.

Sargent thinks her 23 years on the council outweigh a couple of months behind bars for a misdemeanor conviction of financially exploiting her elderly father. She missed five council meetings while serving her sentence, but thinks she can take up right where she left off.

"I'm going to go and do my job," Sargent, 63, said last week.

That idea has been understandably tough to stomach for her fellow council members and the mayor. At an April 21 council meeting, they spoke, one by one, their faces grim, and called on her to resign.

State law says only a criminal violation of the oath of office or an "infamous crime" can force a council member to step down, and the courts have interpreted that as a felony. Sargent got a big break from a relatively new judge, Luis Bartolomei, who sentenced her for a misdemeanor because he didn't want to force her off the council.

County Attorney Mike Freeman is making a long-shot appeal to overturn the sentence. Short of that happening, neither the people nor the politicians of Maple Grove can dislodge Sargent from her seat. Maple Grove has no mechanism for recalling electing officials, unlike some metro cities.

With 64,000 residents and a $35 million city budget, Maple Grove is hardly a sleepy suburb. Yet the scope of this controversy is a new one for Mayor Mark Steffenson.

"I don't expect her to resign," Steffenson said. "As the mayor leading the city as a whole, I have to do what I can to make sure we work together … That may be difficult. We'll do the best we can."

The voices calling for Sargent's ouster have quieted. Maybe it's the summer lull, or perhaps the empty seat behind Sargent's nameplate as the council considered a sewer extension, swore in new police officers, or praised the success of Maple Grove Days.

Except in this case, evidence emerged that Sargent had taken advantage of her power-of-attorney to help herself to her father's money. The voters kept her in office that fall, but this year, she pleaded guilty to one count of financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult. She agreed to pay restitution of $107,348 to her late father's estate and $12,918 to her half-brother, and apologized in court.

Two weeks later, Sargent apologized at the council meeting, but said she was determined to stick around and mentioned the Hwy. 610 extension as one thing she'd like to see through. She also said that only one side of the story had been told.

Sargent repeated that sentiment in my conversation with her last week, and she sounded anything but repentant.

"Instead of putting my dad in a nursing home … I lovingly took care of him for two and a half years," she said. She didn't get some things in writing from him, she said, and that's why she pleaded guilty.

The branches of the trees were still bare when she entered the Hennepin Adult Corrections Facility. Inside, she found herself the oldest resident of the women's section, with her own "cement slab" room.

Then there's the food. A pat of butter is a treat to be enjoyed, with consequences. "They talk about going to college and the freshman 15. In the workhouse … you have the workhouse 15."

And the vulgarity. "I wasn't there to judge anybody. I got along with them fine. When they did swear, they'd look at me, 'Sorry, Mom.' "

Sargent read many books. A few times, she did "suicide watch," keeping an eye on inmates at risk of hurting themselves.

On July 5, Sargent said goodbye to her fellow inmates, some of whom were bound for Shakopee for much longer stays. They hugged her and thanked her for asking them to watch their language. "I basically said, 'Eventually, you're going to get out of here. You're going to want to get a job. That type of language isn't going to win you any Brownie points.' "