A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
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After flirting for weeks with a resolution that calls for wolf management in the state, the Carlton County board voted unanimously Tuesday to appeal to federal and state legislators to delist gray wolves from endangered species protection. The board agreed to send letters to Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, as well as Rep. Pete Stauber, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and local state legislators, Sen. Jason Rarick and Rep. Jeff Dotseth. "We are hopeful that you will support this effort to delist...
A Carlton man accused of felony attempted murder in February will undergo a psychological screening first to see if he is suitable to take part in court proceedings. That was the result Monday of a hearing for Jacob Clarin, 37, who is accused of assaulting a fellow resident Feb. 21 at Lake Venoah Board and Lodge outside Carlton, in Twin Lakes Township. Clarin appeared in an online Sixth District Court hearing Monday before Judge Rebekka Stumme. A prosecutor with the Carlton County Attorney’s Office and a public defender both agreed and recommen...
One of Carlton County's longest-serving employees received statewide recognition last week for her exemplary work in the recorder's office. Kristine Basilici, Carlton County recorder and registrar of titles, earned a member-of-the-year award last week during a conference in St. Louis Park of the Minnesota Association of County Recorders. Auditors, treasures and recorders from all 87 counties were on hand when Basilici received the honor. She received a brass and wooden plaque "in recognition of...
Authorities in Carlton County Sixth District Court charged a 37-year-old Carlton man with attempted murder Feb. 23, two days after he allegedly attacked another resident in a local halfway house using a weapon made with a railroad spike. Jacob Robert Clarin faces up to 20 years in prison for a second-degree felony attempted murder charge, labeled “with intent-not premeditated.” A second felony, assault with a dangerous weapon, carries a maximum seven-year sentence and $14,000 fine. The attack occurred Feb. 21, when Carlton County She...
Joint meetings of the Carlton and Wrenshall school boards that had been scheduled to commence the first Monday in March have been put on hold. Instead, the smaller consolidation committee will meet at 5 p.m. Monday in the boardroom at Carlton High School. The committee, or consolidation team, meetings are open to the public, and feature superintendents as well as board chairs for both districts. Carlton and Wrenshall districts are moving toward consolidation into a single district as soon as the 2025-26 school year. School boards from both...
With plans for a first-ever city hall followed by cascading improvements from there, city leaders in Wright are aiming big in an attempt to provide more for residents and families. "Wright has always been the wild, wild West of Carlton County, and everybody kind of turned a blind eye to us and what's happened out here," city councilor Terri Lott told the Pine Knot earlier this month. "It was our business." Lott, mayor Donovan Ranta and fellow councilors Jerri Haugan and Gene Lott, Terri's...
A week ago, the Pine Knot used a photo to highlight the earliest teardown of the Pinehurst Park ice rink on Feb. 13. Later the same week, we found a group of youngsters playing basketball in the park on Feb. 17, in subfreezing temperatures. It was 28 degrees at around 9 p.m., when the boys were playing pickup basketball - maybe the earliest day in a year in which we've seen ballers on the basketball courts....
Carlton County is short by up to 50 units of entry-level housing for new homebuyers, 350 units of affordable apartments, 60 units of workforce rentals and scores of units for seniors who desire to own, scale down or transition into settings such as assisted living. That was the stark tale told by a Comprehensive Housing Needs Analysis presented to the Carlton County board earlier this month. Presented by LOCi Consulting of St. Paul, the analysis left commissioners thankful for the information....
The Carlton County board pumped the brakes on a resolution lending support for delisting the gray wolf as a federally endangered species during its meeting Tuesday. The proposed resolution would have featured letters sent to federal legislators, including Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith and Rep. Pete Stauber. Instead, the board tabled the resolution until its 4 p.m. meeting Feb. 26. The proposed letter requests a return to state management of the wolf. Fewer deer sightings and harvests in northeastern Minnesota during November’s deer hunt h...
Adopted by the state in 2016 and first practiced in 2020, the presidential nomination primary gets its second go-round in Minnesota on March 5. That's when the state will join 14 others as part of Super Tuesday. To prepare locally, the office of the Carlton County auditor and treasurer conducted one of its series of hourlong training sessions Monday at the Transportation Building along County Road 61. Roughly 40 election judges and township clerks were in attendance, as the county trains its ros...
Following a packed public hearing last month on policing in Moose Lake, the end of the city's police department unfolded in comparatively quiet council chambers on Wednesday. The council and mayor voted 3-2 to contract with Carlton County Sheriff's Office to provide law enforcement services to the city, effectively disbanding the city's police department. Its lone remaining member, interim chief Chad Pattison, pleaded for an opportunity to rebuild the department, which saw two officers resign...
Cloquet residents converged at the public library Feb. 1 to address the future of what one resident called "the superhighway" through town. The resounding message: no more roundabouts on Minnesota Highway 33. "A roundabout, in my opinion, on Cloquet Avenue would kill my business in Dunlap Island," said NorthEastern Saloon and Grill owner Bert Whittington, citing the parade of industrial truck traffic through the neighborhood on the way to USG, Upper Lakes Foods and Sappi paper mill. "If you did...
The largest private sector union in the city of Cloquet ratified a new contract last week with the Sappi paper mill. United Steelworkers Local 1163 completed a three-year deal with the company that includes a 10.5 percent pay increase over the life of the deal, along with improved health care coverage. Union president Jay Arntson called it “the best offer” the union has seen from Sappi ownership. The deal covers 384 members in the production departments. “Since Sappi owned the mill we haven’t seen an offer this good,” Arntson said. Pay incre...
The Carlton County board appears on the verge of joining the chorus against wolves. During its committee of the whole meeting Tuesday, the board advanced a resolution that would position the county as favoring wolves being federally delisted and hunted in the state. The board packet included a sample resolution letter from Hunters for Hunters, the group that has riled anti-wolf sentiment during a series of public meetings throughout northeastern Minnesota. The group blames wolf predation for a...
Aiming at consolidation as soon as the 2025-26 school year, the Carlton and Wrenshall school districts have formed a joint committee to lead the process. The consolidation committee will meet regularly along with additional monthly joint sessions of the full boards. Wrenshall board chair Mary Carlson shared details Wednesday of an informal meeting between the districts held this week. “I had the opportunity to sit down with their chairperson and the superintendent of Carlton and we had a fantastic first meeting,” Carlson said during a Wre...
Already into the second month of 2024, the ramifications of a poor November deer hunt continue to linger. Fewer deer sightings and harvests in northeastern Minnesota have riled up hunters, and the new Minnesota-based group Hunters for Hunters has capitalized. The group's ongoing public meetings in small towns throughout northeastern Minnesota draw hundreds of participants, and have turned the focus onto wolf predation of the deer population. Noticeably quiet throughout the surge in anti-wolf...
The Wrenshall school board approved a search firm to hire its next superintendent during a special meeting on Monday, landing on a familiar name, one run by current superintendent Jeff Pesta. Pesta’s Rising Tide School Board Services, based in his hometown of Deer River, will conduct the search, one targeting a full-time intern. “This is Jeff’s really innovative idea,” board chair Mary Carlson said during an interview Wednesday. “I’m ready for Wrenshall to be pioneering things, and this seems like a great solution when there is a shortage of...
City of Moose Lake staffers set out 100 chairs in city council chambers Wednesday for a public hearing on policing, and each one was needed to hold the crowd. On tap: deciding whether to keep the city's police department intact, or disband it and contract with the Carlton County Sheriff's Office to provide the city's law enforcement. "When you start taking anything away from the city, you're not going to get it back again," said Doug Probst, whose sentiment was shared throughout the hearing....
The soonest consolidation between Carlton and Wrenshall schools would become official is the 2025-26 school year. That was the timeline shared during a Jan. 18 meeting of the Wrenshall school board. Specifically, consolidation could take place July 1, 2025 — the start of the calendar year for schools across Minnesota. “Barring any emergency circumstances, that’s the earliest you could legally consolidate,” said Wrenshall superintendent Jeff Pesta. “You’re at the point now where … the next step is a commitment from the boards, which would b...
The Carlton County board on Tuesday unanimously adopted a housing trust fund, following a public hearing and presentation by Mary Finnegan, executive director of Carlton County Economic Development. The trust fund will be used to offer loans and grants for low-income homebuyers. No residents or other speakers addressed the board during the hearing. “So, basically what the housing trust fund is being established for is workforce housing,” Finnegan said. “Workforce housing can best be described as housing for all those people who are provi...
For Cloquet's Julie Samuelson, even climbing a volcano in Guatemala can feel like home. "It got pretty serious, dealing with elevation and when the weather turned to crud," she said. "It was kind of like getting socked in by Lake Superior with the icky winds and fog." Samuelson, 56, was in South America last month, alongside 17 other kidney donors. They were there to summit three volcanoes across seven days as part of the second One Kidney Climb. The first, in 2022, saw a team of 20 living donor...
The Carlton County land department took to social media last week to celebrate expansion of its trail network and partnerships with local “hook and bullet” clubs that proved invaluable to making it happen. “This partnership led to 11 miles of non-motorized recreation trails being established and reopened after suffering from winter storm damage,” the land department wrote on Facebook, showcasing pristine-looking hunter-walking and hiking trails outside Wrenshall and Moose Lake. The newest...
Essentia Health isn't the only health care provider currently in the process of constructing a warehouse in Carlton County. While not nearly as sprawling as the 163,000-square-foot hospital warehouse in Esko, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is building a warehouse at the corner of Airport and Jolicouer roads. The 100-by-60-foot warehouse will serve the Band's nearby Min No Aya Win Human Services Center, and its assorted clinics, which provide medical, dental, behavioral health,...
The Carlton County board ushered in the new year with its annual meeting and changing of leadership in the chair position. Last year's chair, Dick Brenner, nominated Susan Zmyslony to succeed him and she earned a unanimous vote Tuesday at the Transportation Building in Carlton. "Thank you; I appreciate it," said a humbled Zmyslony before immediately turning to the agenda. Zmyslony had mentioned Brenner during the final meeting of last year, Dec. 26. "I'd like to take this opportunity, Dick, to...
For a minute, the demolition field outside of a home on Third Street in Cloquet made it appear as if an explosion had taken the porch clean off. Come to find, it was the work of Lagom Restoration, of Duluth. "We're going to restore it and sell it," said Josh MacInnes, one of the Lagom owners and three workers onsite at the small home located at 217 Third St. "We want to see good stuff happen in our communities. It needs some TLC, but it'll have a second life." Upon meeting earlier this month,...
