About us
East Metro News covers Maplewood, North St. Paul and Oakdale, and the North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale school district (ISD 622). Inver Grove Heights joins in early 2027.
These cities have about 83,000 residents and almost no daily local news coverage. City councils, school boards and planning commissions make decisions every week that affect taxes, streets, schools and neighborhoods. Most of those decisions are public but go unreported. We report them.
How we work
We watch city and school district websites, meeting agendas, police and fire releases, the National Weather Service and Metro Transit throughout the day. When something new is posted, our software drafts a short story from the official record, using AI for routine items.
Then a person reads every story before it is published. Metro News Admin checks each draft against its source, fixes it or throws it out. Nothing reaches this site without that review.
Every story links to the public records it is based on, so you can check our work. Stories that name a person accused of a crime, or that involve a death, a minor or someone's health, are written by the editor, not drafted by software. Read our Ethics and AI policy for the details.
What we publish
- Breaking alerts: severe weather, major road closures and public safety news.
- City hall, school board and planning decisions, before and after the meetings.
- Development, business and environment news, including the 3M settlement projects.
- The Morning Brief, a free email at 6 a.m. with the weather, alerts, meetings and top stories.
Who pays for this
The site is free to read. It is paid for by advertising and local sponsors. Advertisers never see stories before they are published and have no say in what we cover. Ads are always labeled. See Advertise.
Contact
Questions, tips and corrections: editor@example.com. More ways to reach us are on our Contact and tips page.