Latest news with #JimNash
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
‘Last wish come true': Bringing the zoo to a veteran in Massillon
MASSILLON, Ohio (WJW) — For 22 years, Jim Nash served in the United States Navy as a corpsman and senior chief, including during the Gulf War. 'He loves his time in the service he loves talking about the service anything everything he wants to be remembered for his time in the navy,' said his daughter Cindy Nash. Aboard the USS Guam, he participated in Operation Eastern Exit, the evacuation of more than 280 people from the United States Embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1981. Ohio hiking trail voted one of the country's best Now a resident of Sprenger Assisted Living in Massillon, where he is enrolled in hospice care, the 71-year-old veteran was honored Wednesday with an emotional and surprise pinning ceremony conducted by Wellspring Hospice. The ceremony brought tears to his eyes. But it was not his only surprise. 'I think he loves animals and so he told us his last wish was to go to the zoo,' said Erica Myers, Sprenger's marketing director. Unable to go to the zoo, however, the assisted living home worked to bring the zoo to him. 'He's battled MS for over 30 years he was still in the service when he got that and he just never gave up,' said Cindy. Barkheimer Barns & Nickajack Farms brought animals — including a baby monkey, baby tortoise, baby goat, baby prairie dog, a rooster and an armadillo — to the nursing home as a surprise. 'He's immobile, he's bed bound, but he still has a smile on his face every single day,' said Cindy. 'The last big thing that we were able to do together, we took him to the Akron Zoo and so he's been wanting to go back to the zoo,' she told Fox 8. Akron Zoo sets attendance record 'It's very special, we are just entirely thankful that we have the opportunity to do so,' said Sarah Barkheimer of Barkheimer farms. 'I feel very honored and blessed to give back to someone who served 20 years in some small way to make his last wish come true,' said Myers. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CBS News
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Chicago's former Wax Trax! Records building officially gets city landmark status
The Chicago City Council this week officially designated the former Wax Trax! Records building in Lincoln Park an official Chicago landmark. The City Council approved the designation at its meeting on Wednesday. The old Wax Trax! Records building is located at 2449 N. Lincoln Ave., about half a block northwest of the six-way intersection with Halsted Street and Fullerton Avenue in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. The two-story Renaissance Revival-style building was constructed in the 1880s, the city said. From 1978 until 1993, the building housed Wax Trax! Records. Founders Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher opened the first Wax Trax! store in Denver in 1975, and moved to Chicago and opened the Lincoln Park store three years later. Wax Trax! stocked both new and used records and cassette tapes and later CDs and videos. The store opened in the era of disco, but its original focus was punk, post-punk, rockabilly, glam, English R&B, power pop, psychedelic and psychopop, mod, European synth pop, and new wave — to name a few, as listed in order in a summary to the city this past winter. Soon enough, Nash and Flesher branched out from just running a record store and founded the Wax Trax! Records label. The first release on the label was a release by the Chicago punk group Strike Under in 1981, the summary noted. The Wax Trax! store moved to 1657 N. Damen Ave. in Wicker Park in 1993. Jim Nash died in 1995, and the record store then closed the next year. Flesher died in 2010. The building most recently housed the Lincoln Park Institute for Oral & Cosmetic Surgery. Meanwhile, Jim Nash's daughter, Julia Nash, and her husband, Mark Skillicorn, resurrected the Wax Trax! label in 2014. They also led the push to preserve the original Wax Trax! home. The landmark designation now in place protects all exterior elevations of the building, the city said. Adam Harrington Adam Harrington is a web producer at CBS Chicago, where he first arrived in January 2006. contributed to this report.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Finalizing fraud prevention: Results from committee prompted by Feeding Our Future
The Brief The House fraud prevention committee wrapped up its 2025 session this week. It produced only one bill that seems likely to pass this year, but Republicans credit it with a culture shift. Democrats say they already passed a lot of fraud prevention into law during the trifecta, including a pre-award risk assessment for grant recipients. Creating a statewide Office of Inspector General was a bipartisan priority, but whether it lands under executive or legislative control is still to be determined. ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - The new House fraud prevention committee has wrapped up its work for the year. How useful it was depends on whom you ask. Prevention production 2025 goals and bills It sounds like only one bill originating in the Republican-led committee will make it into law this year, but quite a few bills attempt to address fraud and the GOP says that's because their work helped change the culture. In the wake of Feeding Our Future and investigations into autism center scams, the GOP started 2025 with a goal that fit into the palm of Rep. Jim Nash.\ "This is the very simple note," said Rep. Nash, (R-Waconia) as he held up his hand. "It's right here. It says 'fraud equals bad.'" Protecting taxpayers 'More than skin deep' The House fraud prevention committee is the only one with a Republican majority, but Democrats who served with them say the work is more than skin deep. "It's easy to say 'fraud is bad', said Rep. Emma Greenman, (DFL-Minneapolis). "That's a bumper sticker. I think actually protecting people and the services that they rely on, protecting taxpayers requires a stack of bills that we have been working through." What's changing? Audit report cards Nash didn't serve on the fraud committee, but he got bipartisan support for his anti-fraud bill requiring report cards from the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) detailing audit performances by anybody up for a new grant. "There will be four (new) full-time (auditors) once that bill gets signed into law," Rep. Nash said. Answering to auditors Direct complaint The entire fraud committee also signed a letter emphasizing a complaint the OLA has had since at least 2007 — direct grants from legislators to nonprofits. Those often get less oversight, and Republicans said they'll address the issue in 2026. "We will have some sort of a policy bill where any legislative earmarks have to go through a process that includes risk assessment, that includes analyzing 990 and capacity," said Rep. Kristin Robbins, (R-Maple Grove), who chaired the committee. Democrats say they also want to minimize those direct grants and want them to be better scrutinized — so much so, they already created a pre-award risk assessment during their trifecta. "That is required right now," said Rep. Dave Pinto, (DFL-St. Paul). Inspector's office Who's in control? One more GOP priority has been to create a statewide Office of Inspector General under legislative control. That seems likely to happen, but possibly within the executive branch instead of the legislative branch because that's the only way the office can have police powers. What's next Republicans plan to keep the fraud committee until around next year, and they say they already have 530 fraud hotline reports to go through before the next session.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
House passes housing budget, must hash out differences with Senate
The Minnesota State Capitol. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society. The Minnesota House passed a housing budget bill Tuesday, featuring funding boosts for homelessness prevention and affordable housing development, plus $100 million in bonds for financing housing developments statewide. But the Senate's housing budget, which passed the chamber last week, is about $62 million smaller than the House version and it doesn't include bonds. The details must be hashed out in conference committee and re-approved by both chambers before the legislative session adjourns on May 19. Neither the budget bill nor a housing policy bill that passed Thursday includes the sweeping zoning reforms proposed by a bipartisan coalition of advocacy groups and lawmakers, including all housing committee leaders. Those bills would have allowed apartments in areas currently zoned for commercial use; legalized duplexes on every residential lot in the state; required municipalities to allow higher-density development along transit corridors; and barred city governments from requiring builders to use certain materials, colors or designs. Supporters of those bills argue that they would encourage the construction of more housing, alleviating Minnesota's housing shortage and lowering prices. The outlook is bleak for those bills, as city governments and their lobbyists oppose any legislation that rolls back local control over zoning. In floor discussion of the budget bill, housing leaders said the budget doesn't go far enough in addressing the shortage. 'I'm a little disappointed,' said Rep. Jim Nash, R-Waconia, a member of the housing committee and the coalition pushing for zoning reforms. Regulatory reform is needed to make a major dent in the housing crisis, he said. The 'Yes to Homes' coalition got one minor win: the House budget bill instructs the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency to prioritize developments in communities that have zoning rules that make it easier to build multifamily homes, allow smaller homes and don't require certain materials or designs. The House housing budget contains significantly more funding than the Senate version for a homelessness prevention program. The Family Homelessness Prevention and Assistance Program, or FHPAP, provides emergency assistance to families that are at risk of homelessness, or who have already lost their housing. Lawmakers have allocated between $7 and $10 million per year to the program between 2014 and 2023; during the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers directed $120 million to the FHPAP for 2024 and 2025. The House budget would give the program $50 million in 2026 and 2027; the Senate budget allocates $30 million. Jenny Larson, executive director of Three Rivers Community Action, which manages FHPAP in several southern Minnesota counties, said despite state investments, the program is already oversubscribed. Her agency opens up a round of funding every quarter, and they are never able to help all of the families in need, Larson said. Brooklyn Park resident Ta-Metta Gaines, who lives in the embattled Huntington Place apartments, works as a customer service representative for a health care company. She fell behind on rent while dealing with medical issues, she said, and she's looking for a new place to live as Huntington Place's future is in limbo. When she became homeless after her landlord died, FHPAP helped her come up with a security deposit and first month's rent to move into a new apartment. Now, FHPAP is helping her get caught up on past-due rent, and covering some of the cost of relocating, Gaines said. 'I'm just imagining what type of things can actually go on if they remove those funds, and how many people will be destitute,' Gaines said. While the House housing budget authorizes the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency to issue $100 million in bonds to finance housing projects, lawmakers and Gov. Tim Walz have not agreed on targets for a bonding bill. Bonds are a tool governments use to finance infrastructure projects, including housing. Bonding bills require a 60% majority to pass the Legislature, so they require robust bipartisan support. Walz and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say they want to pass a bonding bill this session, in addition to the regular two-year budget. If the parties can't make a deal on bonding — as was the case last year — the bonding in the housing budget is likely to be eliminated in conference committee.
CBS News
06-03-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Bipartisan group of Minnesota lawmakers announces affordable housing package
For many Minnesota families, housing costs eat up more of their budget than anything else. A bipartisan group of state lawmakers say they have a blueprint to fix that. On Wednesday, the coalition — which includes conservatives and progressives from the Twin Cities metro and Greater Minnesota — announced a package of bills to tackle what they call a crisis. The state is more than 114,000 affordable homes short of the need, according to the Minnesota Housing Partnership. Half of all renters are considered "cost-burdened," meaning they spend more than 30% of their monthly income on rent, which represents more people than at any other time in the last decade, the group's latest report said. "We hear it all the time: Housing costs too damn much," said Rep. Mike Howard, DFL-Richfield. The bills have yet to be published, but the legislators said the proposals will cut down on red tape in order to build more starter home options — like townhomes and duplexes — and ensure they're approved by cities in a timely manner by streamlining that process. Another plan would require local governments to allow more options in commercial areas. Notably, Minneapolis recently loosened its rules so vacant office space could be converted into apartments. Others focus on lifting parking directives and removing aesthetic requirements — the mandated use of premium products as the minimum construction standard — that supporters say are barriers to development. "As I have said in the past, housing is a North Star issue. Every person needs to find their way home — like my kid in the Navy always told me, I know I can go home to our North Star in Waconia," said Rep. Jim Nash, R-Waconia. "There are so many people that don't have that opportunity right now, so Republicans and Democrats and progressives and liberals are all saying, 'Let's fix this.'" Last year, legislation aimed at the same goal failed to get enough support to pass. This group says these bills are different and answer concerns from cities. The proposed changes do not force development where core government services cannot support that expansion, for example. "That's one thing that we heard loud and clear from cities is that we want to have more choice and to apply these reforms in the way that makes sense for our communities. And these bills reflect that," Howard said. Minnesotans need to make nearly $100,000 a year to afford a median-priced home, the Minnesota Housing Partnership detailed in its report. Meanwhile wage growth has not kept pace with the increase in rent and the price of a home. The proposals are only policy changes, meaning they don't impact the state budget, which will face some constraints this year as lawmakers try to spend wisely to avoid a $5 billion deficit in future years.
