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
Sorted by date Results 101 - 125 of 166
Neighbors on the Bromfield Road in Atkinson Township voiced concerns about a proposed Enbridge staging yard at the Carlton County board of commissioners regular meeting Tuesday. The Atkinson town board’s approval of Enbridge’s use of the road for access and the Carlton County planning commission’s clearance for the yard site had seen little public input until now. Alex Omar has property on road which has been leased by Enbridge for the staging yard and has a proposed access road about 500 feet from County Road 61 off Bromfield. The propo...
Federal funds sent to counties to address the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic have started to be allocated through Carlton County officials. Board of commissioners members approved funding in four general categories at their meeting Tuesday, Sept. 8, drawing from the $4.4 million received in July. The county will keep $1.2 million in reserve for unexpected costs. After that, $800,000 was set aside to help small business and nonprofits. Grants will be given through the Carlton County Economic Development Authority for up to $7,500. The...
The county took the next step Monday in disbursing more than $4 million in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act money. The Carlton County board of commissioners gave preliminary approval for a plan to disburse $4.356 million in CARES Act money to fund emergency needs of Carlton County government, communities, residents, businesses, and nonprofits adversely impacted by and responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. Upon the recommendation of its CARES Act committee, the county board designated four different pots of money: • $...
The Carlton County board of commissioners is deep in the throes of budget talks again, as they prepare to adopt a preliminary 2021 budget sometime in September and a final budget in December. Two budget sessions on July 27 and Aug. 4 spanned six hours and included presentations from county departments and budget support for publicly used groups such as the Bookmobile and the Carlton County fair. Many focused on the COVID-19 impact and the annual issue of needed revenues and increased costs. Following is a taste of the ongoing budget...
A crowd of more than 300 people turned out for a rally at the Moose Lake Hockey Arena grounds Friday, Aug. 14 to support keeping the Willow River Challenge Incarceration Program in operation. The event came 11 days after the announcement of the closure of the Willow River and the Togo camps, which were prompted by a Department of Corrections budget deficit of $14 to $17 million and growing due to Covid-19-related expenses. Since the announcement on Aug. 3, the DOC planned to relocate the two...
In a few short years, Carlton County will have to find a new place to take its solid waste as Superior’s Moccasin Mike landfill is expected to reach capacity sometime between 2026 and 2028. On Aug. 11 the Carlton County board of commissioners took the first step toward figuring out the future of Carlton County waste by supporting the creation of a regional plan for solid waste management. The Northeast Minnesota Waste Advisory Committee — made up of solid waste officers from Aitkin, Carlton, Cook, Lake, Itasca, Koochiching and St. Louis cou...
Trail rider groups and local homeowners concerned about noise from disrespectful ATV and dirt bike enthusiasts who literally roar onto the access road of the Moose Lake Old Soo Line pit mostly approved of the ordinance passed unanimously by the Carlton County board on Monday. About 15 people came to give their input on the issue. Eric Senarighi of the Carlton County Riders ATV club addressed the board, offering to pay for a portable decibel reader to check machines that have loud mufflers....
Lengthy discussion, followed by two attempts to vote for a Carlton County mask policy, ended with no clear choice for a majority of the Carlton County Board of Commissioners at their regular meeting Tuesday, July 14. “I believe the board should set an example supporting the wearing of masks in public,” explained commissioner Dick Brenner. “The safety of our employees is our responsibility and all visitors to a county facility should wear a mask if social distancing is not possible.” To this point, each department head has set mask and social...
The cost of hiring a consultant to help with ongoing jail issues and future plans was on the minds of Carlton County Board of Commissioners members Monday. The cost of hiring retired Tony Mancuso as a general consultant for maximizing space use in current Carlton County facilities and to assist with hiring a construction manager and architect/engineer for a new jail complex came in at $75 an hour. County coordinator Dennis Genereau thought the hire would be worth the money. “I am pleased that Mancuso — who has helped build or remodel three jail...
Planning for an upgraded 14th Street corridor includes a new roundabout along with a wide multi-use pathway along the east side of the road from Washington Avenue to Cloquet Avenue. About 20 people tuned in to the virtual public input meeting on tablets, computers and phones to learn more about the upgrade last week. The June 17 meeting included a presentation by the engineering firm SEH led by Matt Bolf and Dan Hinzmann. About 30 percent of the work on an engineering plan has been completed,...
After much study and citizen input, the Carlton county transportation department has decided to keep the Kettle River county garage open as a base of operations for the area’s grader. Commissioner Gary Peterson recently attended a Split Rock Township board meeting with more than 15 people in the audience. “Not one person there thought the closure of the Kettle River garage was a good idea,” Peterson said. “I am glad that it has worked out to keep the garage open. My constituents support that action.” The county’s Barnum garage is being upgra...
After more than a year's wait, two Carlton County departments are being moved from the Courthouse to the former city hall building in Cloquet. At the regular meeting Tuesday, May 26, the Carlton County board of commissioners unanimously approved moving the Economic Development office and the county coordinator/human resources/property management office led by Dennis Genereau to the old City Hall office space at the corner of Cloquet Avenue and 14th Street. "This is a first step," Genereau said....
In response to the COVID-19 impact on the local economy and health, the Carlton County board of commissioners approved a limited freeze on hiring, with the board pledging to make a step-by-step study of each position before a new person is hired. There was lengthy discussion on budget and personnel matters during the regular board meeting Tuesday, May 12. Acting auditor/treasurer Kathy Korteum reported that spring property tax payments are about 5 percent below other years and the final figure will not be known until after May 15 when payments...
Two-term Carlton County board commissioner Gary Peterson announced this week that he will seek re-election this fall. He made the announcement at the board’s committee of the whole meeting on Monday. Filing opens on May 19 with the Carlton County Auditor. Peterson is the commissioner for District 5, which includes Moose Lake, Kettle River, Cromwell and Wright. Peterson admitted it is a hard time to campaign for political office. Parades, festivals, prominent holidays, and door-to-door talks with the public are almost impossible with social d...
Saturday night sauna visits with Great-Uncle Krigsholm and the Reed and Koivisto grandparents included tales of past epidemics that killed family members or neighbors. Average life expectancy in 1918 wasn’t much past age 50. People who died in their 70s or 80s were few and far between — 50 was old age and 80 was ancient. I wrote for the Barnum Herald while I was in high school in Barnum and at the University of Minnesota Duluth. I scoured back issues and wrote a weekly column entitled “The Good Old Days.” It noted events and interes...
For the first time in recent county board action, commissioner Mark Thell voted “no” to approve a road construction project funded through the half-percent sales tax after a presentation by county highway engineer JinYeene Neumann at the Carlton county commissioners meeting Monday, April 27. The project under discussion was the upgrade of the St. Louis River Road between Highway 33 and CSAH 1, awarded to Ulland Bros for $1,054,622, which came in 17.2 percent under the engineering estimate. It is one of two roads left from the original list fro...
The Carlton County board of commissioners met Tuesday, April 14 with all commissioners participating: Dick Brenner and Gary Peterson attended via telephone conferencing while Marv Bodie, Tom Proulx and Mark Thell were physically present, but socially distanced. County attorney Lauri Ketola read a portion of Governor Tim Walz’s declaration in response to the deepening COVID-19 pandemic, stating that the county board meetings could utilize telephone or computer videoconferencing to conduct county business. For personal safety, commissioners, c...
The workings of government have changed as the pandemic spreads at an unknown rate throughout the nation. Physical participation in Carlton County meetings and whether any County building should be open to the public were two of many public safety issues discussed at the Carlton County Board of Commissioners meeting Monday, March 23, when commissioners passed a resolution declaring Carlton County in a peacetime emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During Monday’s meeting, Commissioners voted on a number of measures to protect county staff a...
Changes unfolding in the Carlton County Extension Office were laid out in a report presented by acting supervisor Donna Lekander at the Carlton County Committee of the Whole meeting March 3. The Extension program has been under intense scrutiny since Troy Salzer, longtime Carlton County/University of Minnesota Extension Service agriculture educator, left for another job. An initial evaluation of the Carlton County program showed a lack of supervision for staff working there and a need to set staff guidelines for their particular job. County...
After deleting several portions of the tobacco ordinance that passed in December, the Carlton County Board of Commissioners unanimously passed a reduced version of the ordinance with a May 1 enforcement date. The ban on the sale of all tobacco products, flavored and unflavored, and on vaping products to anyone below the age of 21 remains. Language included in past drafts to restrict sales of all flavored tobacco products was omitted completely. Chairman Marv Bodie said there had been enough discussion on the ordinance and there was no need to...
The state of Minnesota has set a closure date for the Carlton County jail of July 31, 2023. The deadline came in a letter from the Minnesota Department of Corrections, dated Jan. 28, 2020, delivered to Carlton County sheriff Kelly Lake and county coordinator Dennis Genereau. Tim Thompson, inspection and enforcement director of Minnesota Corrections, detailed numerous deficiencies in the current Carlton County jail “impacting the safety and security of the facility, the staff, and the citizens of Carlton County” during Tuesday’s regular meeting...
After the yearly review by the state corrections inspector earlier this month, the Carlton County jail is looking at a forced retirement. The final report following the Jan. 9 inspection of the jail and its daily operations included plans to recommend to the commissioner of corrections that a future "sunset authorization" be made for the facility. Senior detention facility inspector Sarah Johnson noted in her findings that "it is the intent of the Department of Corrections to continue to work...
Final passage and authorization of a county tobacco ordinance is still in the air despite being passed by the Carlton County Board of Commissioners Dec. 23. On Tuesday, Cromwell gas station owner Lance Line stated his concern at the board’s first meeting of the year. He said the new ordinance bans sales of menthol products but city ordinances could supercede the county law, meaning customers could seek out cities without a ban on menthol and get their products there. Line said the ordinance would affect adults that had smoked or chewed menthol...
Several Carlton County health staff and about 25 other people attended the year-end meeting of the Carlton County Board of Commissioners Dec. 23 to support and finally clap when a new tobacco ordinance was passed unanimously. It is believed that this ordinance will decrease tobacco and vaping use by young adults by controlling access to those products to the age of 21. Nine letters of support came to the commissioners from sources such as the state Department of Health, the American Lung Association and medical provider Essentia. Only one...
At its final meeting of 2019, the Carlton County Board of Commissioners set the property tax levy increase at 2.9 percent, shaving 1 percent from the preliminary levy set in September. This is the smallest increase in the levy for many budget cycles. “I am pleased that we came in at that figure,” board chairman Dick Brenner said. “A 2.2 precent wage increase for county employees this coming year, rising insurance costs and added staff in the sheriff’s office for state-mandated jail coverage all put pressure on the new 2020 budget.” The vote...
