TakeAction Minnesota is backing just one DFL incumbent facing opposition in St. Paul City Council contests.

St. Paul City Council member Lee Helgen was denied endorsement by DFL party activists at Tuesday night's Ward 5 convention. The two-term incumbent led on all four ballots over challenger Amy Brendmoen, but failed to clear the 60 percent threshold required for endorsement. No balloting was permitted after 9:45 because Como Senior High School, the site of the convention, needed be vacated.

Amy Brendmoen is running for the St. Paul City Council seat in Ward 5. She will be seeking to oust two-term incumbent Lee Helgen.

When Kathy Lantry’s mom was growing up in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood of St. Paul in the 1940s, the Sacred Heart Church held Masses in both English and German. Today the Roman Catholic parish still conducts Mass in a pair of languages, but the non-English service has changed to Spanish.

The St. Paul City Council has voted unanimously to file a legal brief in support of a lawsuit challenging Gov. Tim Pawlenty's authority to make unilateral budget cuts. St. Paul lost roughly $5 million in state government aid last year owing to cuts implemented by Pawlenty and expects to see its funding reduced by more than $11 million in 2010.