St. Paul will be the first fire department in Minnesota with a fully electric fire truck, the mayor and fire chief announced Wednesday.

Rosenbauer, a design and manufacturing company, has started the build process for St. Paul’s truck and delivery is expected by 2025. It’s planned to coincide with the completion of a new Fire Station 7 on the East Side.

The city is requesting federal funding for the full cost of the fire engine, which is $1.8 million. A traditional diesel fire engine is $850,000 to 900,000, according to St. Paul Fire Deputy Chief Roy Mokosso. Los Angeles, which also purchased the Rosenbauer RTX electric fire truck, is estimating $25,000 a year in fuel savings and 50 percent savings on maintenance, Mokosso said.

“It brings us all the critical green energy benefits of an electric vehicle, while meeting the high safety and efficiency standards we have for all our fire equipment,” Mayor Melvin Carter said in a statement.

The city’s “Climate Action & Resilience Plan” focuses on achieving carbon neutrality in city operations by 2030 and citywide by 2050.

“In addition to furthering climate goals, this investment helps reduce diesel emissions and supports firefighters’ overall health and wellbeing,” the city said in a statement.

The standard life of a fire apparatus in St. Paul is 15 to 20 years, Mokosso said.

The new truck’s final assembly will happen at Rosenbauer’s facility in Wyoming, Minn.

— Mara H. Gottfried

City adds housing aid for Rondo descendants

The city of St. Paul is accepting applications for its expanded and newly revised home down payment and rehab assistance fund, which includes additional funding for descendants of Old Rondo through the city’s new Inheritance Fund.

Direct descendants of families who were displaced from St. Paul’s historic Rondo neighborhood due to construction of Interstate 94 are eligible for $100,000 in forgivable loans for home down payments and $55,000 for non-emergency home repairs. Those numbers go up to $110,000 and $80,000, respectively, if the property is located within Old Rondo. Eligibility is capped for families earning up to 100% of area median income.

Interstate construction, which took 12 years, began in 1956, displacing more than 600 families and sidelining an estimated $100 million in lost generational wealth.

“We are proud and excited to be leading an effort to rebuild the generational wealth lost by families of Old Rondo who were displaced in order to build I-94,” said St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, in a written statement. “We’ve heard public apologies for decades. Now we’re taking action to help restore what was suddenly stripped away.”

Through an expansion of a program launched three years ago, the city offers all families earning up to 80% of area median income up to $40,000 to use towards a home down payment, closing costs, property inspection or non-emergency home repair. First-generation homebuyers are eligible to receive up to an additional $10,000.

After completing an intake form, eligible applicants will be placed on a waitlist and will receive an application packet in the mail on a first-come, first-served basis as staffing and funding allows.

For more information, visit stpaul.gov/inheritance-fund.

— Frederick Melo

Executive director leaving SPNN

Martin Ludden, the executive director of the St. Paul Neighborhood Network cable access station and media center, plans to step down this summer after six years in the post.

During his time at the helm of the nonprofit community media and technology center, Ludden built out new community-driven documentary programs and invested in the organization’s staff and infrastructure, in part by creating a paid family leave program.

Ludden, a former public relations executive, also oversaw improvements to the nonprofit’s technology and facilities, including a comprehensive review of the organization’s policies and community impact, with a focus on diversity and inclusion.

The center has served as a public forum in advance of St. Paul City Council and mayoral elections, as well as political referendums on organized trash collection and rent control.

SPNN’s “Fresh Vantage” grants support documentary works by emerging filmmakers from communities of color, the LGBTQ community and other groups. The nonprofit also offers the New Angle Fellowship, a seven-month documentary filmmaking fellowship geared primarily toward ethnic filmmakers.

SPNN has formed a search committee composed of board members and staff and plans to hire a new executive director by June to allow for transitional overlap with Ludden.

— Frederick Melo

Boy, 6, dies after falling through pond ice

A 6-year-old boy died Sunday after he fell through the ice in central Minnesota’s Aitkin County.

The East Central School District identified the boy as first-grade student Owen Benjamin.

The Aitkin County Sheriff’s Office responded to the incident, reported at 1:36 p.m. in rural McGrath. According to the report, Benjamin was next to a dock on a small lake in an area normally used as an ice-skating rink, but it was covered with snow. He was found and removed from the waist-deep water by a family member. He wasn’t breathing.

The Ramsey County medical examiner’s office confirmed the cause of death as freshwater drowning.

— Forum News Service