"Who are you to judge? You never made a mistake? You never made a poor decision?" he says. "It's not like I went to a nursing home and stole money out of everybody's purse as they were sleeping."

Isaac Storandt, who fatally injured 2004 Chaska High School graduate Michael Dixon earlier this year, has been charged with three felonies, according to a Dixon family press release.

On March 12, Dixon, a University of Wisconsin-Stout student, was crossing a street near the Menominee campus when he was struck by a Storandt’s vehicle.

Our Thanksgiving holiday is largely about cooking — the No. 1 cause of residential fires.

It’s a fact that has cost Minnesotans nearly $38 million since 1990, according to a Minnesota Department of Public Safety press release.

In 2009, 49 percent of all fires in our state started in the kitchen, and on Thanksgiving weekend alone, 82 residential fires destroyed $1.3 million in property.In addition to the fact that stove fires can start so quickly, they’re dangerous because they don’t behave like other fires.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) Office of Traffic Safety today named the state’s 13 “most dangerous” counties for impaired driving, and Carver County is No. 13 on the list.

The dangerous counties, in order from 1-13, are Hennepin, St. Louis, Anoka, Ramsey, Dakota, Olmsted, Wright, Washington, Scott, Rice, Stearns, Itasca and Carver. These counties will be targeted with extra DWI patrols through September 2011, including Thanksgiving Eve, Nov. 24.

An enhanced statewide seat belt Oct. 8-28 enforcement campaign resulted in 13,302 seat belt tickets.

The Chaska Police Department issued 10 tickets during the campaign, and the Carver County Sheriff’s Office issued 82, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) Office of Traffic Safety.

“Don’t veer for deer” is the message to Minnesota motorists as the state’s deer population becomes more active during mating season — at a time when deer-vehicle crashes historically spike.

Editor’s Note: Barrie Anderson works for Chaska Farm and Garden, where a lawn ornament baby goat was stolen. Anderson wrote this poem on behalf of “Momma Goat, Papa Goat and Auntie Goat” who “asked to have this poem submitted to the Herald in an effort to have our goat returned.”

By Barrie Anderson

Please return our darling goat,

As she needs her winter coat

The days are darker, the air is cooler,

And we miss our baby goat.

By Mollee Francisco

After more than six decades in Montana, the Pride of Chaska is finally home. The city’s first motorized pumper received a warm welcome last Thursday morning as it went on display at the Chaska Fire Station.

Dozens of current and retired members of the Chaska Fire Department were on hand to see the 18-foot trailer carrying the pumper make its way into town. Several of the department’s current fire engines met the trailer at Highway 212 and Engler Boulevard to form a small parade to the station.

By Richard Crawford

Victoria Elementary School was briefly locked down and a Laketown Township man was jailed following a high-speed chase Tuesday.

According to the Carver County Sheriff’s Office, the incident began at 10:06 a.m. when a sheriff’s deputy began following a vehicle near the intersection of County Road 11 and County Road 43 in Victoria.