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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A Carlton man died from injuries sustained in a construction accident in Lindstrom, Minnesota last week. Developer Dave Chmielewski, 48, was standing near an excavation trench at an apartment building construction site on Sept. 28 when the trench partially collapsed. According to Lakes Area police chief Bill Schlumbohm, Chmielewski asked another person at the trench to go grab something. When the person returned, approximately two minutes later, he found Chmielewski partially buried inside the...
Since taking over as interim, and then appointed, police chief two years ago, Cloquet police chief Derek Randall has been slowly building the police department back up to full strength, after a flood of retirements and disability claims reduced the department by close to 30 percent in 2019. On Tuesday, the department held a public celebration of sorts, swearing in every officer hired since the pandemic began. There were seven of them, which brings the department just shy of its budgeted total...
They're closing down the streets in Cloquet's West End business district Saturday, and everyone is invited for a trip into an idealistic version of the future. It will be a place where children play, people enjoy yoga and dance, musicians jam, artists do their thing, businesses thrive and vendors sell their wares: think block party mixed with art fair, farmers market and business district. Welcome to West End Flourish, a free community gathering. Avenues C and B and Vine Street will be closed...
At a short regular meeting Monday, the Cloquet city council officially adopted a 2022 budget and a proposed levy increase of $109,400, or 3.49 percent. The levy can’t go up from that percentage when the levy is set in December. A public hearing on the budget and levy will be held at the Dec. 7 regular meeting. Running the numbers in the future will be new finance director Katie Bloom. She was approved by the board this week after the city’s first choice, Joshua Bailey, decided to keep his auditing job with the city of Duluth. Longtime finance...
With 78 percent of the state experiencing severe drought and some experiencing extreme or exceptional drought, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is requiring water suppliers to implement water-use restrictions as that state enters the warning phase of a statewide drought plan. The Cloquet City Council approved a number of water restriction measures Tuesday in reaction to the ongoing drought. As part of those measures, residents are asked to either stop watering their lawns or restrict watering to odd or even dates. Odd numbered...
Cloquet city councilors approved a master plan for Pine Valley Park Tuesday and continued their ongoing debate over the current Cloquet Project Labor Agreement. Additionally, councilors got a quick overview of the proposed 2022 budget, which included a proposed preliminary levy increase of 3.49-percent, or $109,400. City administrator Tim Peterson said department heads did a good job of holding the line on expenses, but there are increases the city doesn’t have control over, including a 3...
Yard parties are a pretty good way to get to know your neighbors - sort of a National Night Out, but on our own terms and conditions. So, we held a big yard party last week. It was all Kathy Lund's idea. She realized that several new families had moved into our Cloquet neighborhood the past couple of years and we had never all come together to get acquainted. Picking a date that worked for everyone was the hardest part. We finally decided on last Wednesday and, if someone couldn't make it, we'd...
The Cloquet City Council and Cloquet School Board are in the midst of a virtual faceoff over a new lease for use of the city-owned hockey arenas. Earlier this month, the school board voted unanimously to only ratify one year of a three-year lease; on Tuesday night, the council voted against approving the lease at all. Although school board chair Ted Lammi rallies annually against what he considers the gouging of the school district, this is the first time the school board has pushed back. Of...
Those loud train whistles that blare all night long are not really necessary and should be stopped. There's simply no reason why the trains have to wake up half the town in the middle of the night to tell us they are coming through. I'm sleeping. I don't need to know. Hardly anyone is on the road. They have better ways to know they should stop when a train is coming. Train whistles are a relic of the old days when cars routinely crashed into moving trains. It's no secret that trains, once...
I frequently see at the Kwik Trip entrance and exit closest to the stop sign on Washington Avenue in Cloquet drivers who are making left turns in and left turns out. This entrance and exit as indicated by signs, is designed for right turns only in and out. I believe it was designed and constructed this way for safety purposes and maybe to avoid congestion. Perhaps the city council or administration and law enforcement should provide an official reminder and reason for the traffic rules. Dan Unulock, Cloquet...
Cloquet City Councilors took action Tuesday to correct a large deficit in the fund that is used to pay for street projects, among other things. Councilors approved the transfer of $435,000 from the city’s General Fund into the Permanent Improvement fund, wiping out a deficit from city street overlay projects in 2017. The permanent improvement fund pays the city’s share of projects. That includes street projects, but also larger projects such as the Washington Avenue project, which also inc...
Watch the County Seat children’s theater production of “When Silents Was Golden” on CAT-7. For the month of August, the cable access channel is showing videos of weeks 3 and 4 of the children’s theater production at 3 and 6 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Saturdays. Each show is roughly 30 minutes long. Also on CAT-7, enjoy video of this year’s July Fourth parade and Harry’s Gang episodes, along with recordings of Cloquet City Council and Cloquet Economic Authority meetings. Other new shows on CAT-7 in...
It's not only big-city police departments that are using embedded social workers. Thanks to a state grant, a social worker from the Human Development Center is working with four law enforcement agencies here: the Cloquet, Fond du Lac and Moose Lake police departments, along with the Carlton County Sheriff's Office. Troy Homstad has been working out of an office at the Cloquet Police Department since April. Cloquet Sgt. Nate Cook said he loves having Homstad along when he is called to situations...
As one sales tax nears its halfway point, the city of Cloquet is banking on residents approving a new one in November 2022 that would pay for improvements to the hockey arenas and Pine Valley park. It’s been almost nine years since the city’s first sales tax was passed, with 63 percent of voters approving the half-cent tax. Collection of monies for that sales tax will sunset after raising either $16.5 million or 30 years, whichever comes first. Finance director Nancy Klassen said Tuesday the city collected $1.1 million from sales tax funds in...
A property in Scanlon with political flags on a pole disparaging President Joe Biden and voters with expletives, and supporting former President Donald Trump, is being sold, and the flags are gone. According to real estate listings, the home at 22nd Street and Doddridge Avenue on the border with Cloquet was listed in earaly June for $250,000. The home hadn't sold as of early this week and the price had been reduced to $224,000. In March, the Pine Knot News had a story about the flags and...
Highlights of programming on the cable access channel, CAT-7: Children’s theater Watch the County Seat children’s theater production of “When Silents Was Golden” on CAT-7. For the next two weeks, the cable access channel is showing videos of weeks 1 and 2 of the children’s theater production at 3 and 6 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Saturdays. Each show is roughly 30 minutes long. Local programs Enjoy video of this year’s Fourth of July parade in Cloquet and Harry’s Gang episodes, along with recordings o...
It’s official. Nancy Klassen, longtime finance director for the city of Cloquet, is retiring. And she will be missed by city administrators. “I already tried to tell her no. That didn’t work,” city administrator Tim Peterson joked with council members during Tuesday’s unusually short meeting, which lasted all of 23 minutes. Klassen, who wins accounting awards like clockwork for her work for the city of Cloquet and the Cloquet Area Fire District, said her last day will be Sept. 30. The personnel committee will conduct interviews and the city hop...
Although it squeaked through at the very last minute, Carlton County had a lot to celebrate in the final budget bill passed by state legislators and the governor last week. The agreement (see Page 1) that the state would cover Enbridge tax repayments for counties, schools and townships was a tremendous relief for local officials. Additionally, legislators also approved two different local sales tax requests and the fire district’s ongoing plea for appropriate taxing authority for emergency m...
A soon-to-be senior at Cloquet High School, Connor Hecht knows a lot more about the inner workings of a playground than your average 17-year-old. Hecht is a Life Scout working to advance to Eagle Scout. There are many requirements for becoming an Eagle Scout, one of which is a project to help the community. When a community member reached out to him last summer about building a new playground in Scanlon, Hecht knew this would be his project to help him reach his goal of becoming an Eagle Scout....
Cloquet city councilors gave the go-ahead to city staff Tuesday to look into charging franchise fees to utility companies as a way to raise money to pay for street and infrastructure improvements. City administrator Tim Peterson reminded the council that they decided to hold off on the fees during the pandemic because a lot of people were struggling financially. “We have zero dollars going towards street and utility infrastructure projects moving past this year,” Peterson told the council. “Fran...
We found the debate and discussion over Project Labor Agreements within the City of Cloquet inadequate. First enacted in 2017, PLAs have been touted as a way to ensure quality union construction and also as an anti-competitive impediment to economic development. Both may be true. But it will be difficult to craft a PLA that satisfies both sides. The city council is right to revisit the issue. In 2017, it enacted the ordinance requiring the use of PLAs on projects within Cloquet that receive more than $175,000 in city funding of any kind. It...
Boy, we went from freezing temperatures one week to temps in the 90s now. I guess that’s why we live in this area, you never know what the weather will bring. Let’s hope we get some rain soon, as the gardens need moisture. There will be a blood donation drive noon to 6 p.m. June 24 inside the Cromwell Park Pavilion. Call Ray Lally at 218-644-3739 to sign up for a time to donate. Because the drive is taking place inside the pavilion, there will not be a YOT Senior Dance until July 22. God...
Thanks to Ward 2 councilor Sheila Lamb, the Cloquet city council's 4-3 vote to repeal the city's project labor agreement May 4 became a 4-3 vote to preserve it Tuesday evening. Lamb said she spent the last month studying the PLA issue, having conversations with people from the city of Duluth, local union members and examining lawsuits targeting the labor agreements around the country. "I think that PLAs protect the city on multiple levels and our citizens," Lamb said. "It was why I made my reque...
When the City of Cloquet passed a proposed Project Labor Agreement into city code in May of 2017, the council chambers were standing room only, and packed with union members who spoke in favor of the PLA. Three years later, when councilors voted to overturn the PLA at their May 4 meeting, this time virtual, it was packed again. The city council will reopen its vote eliminating the PLA at its 6 p.m. meeting Tuesday, June 1, after Ward 2 Councilor Sheila Lamb motioned at the May 18 meeting to...
Part of our responsibility as Cloquet’s only locally based newspaper is to attend local government meetings and report back to you. It’s a primary function of local journalists, and we take that responsibility very seriously. That’s why we send reporters to attend every Cloquet City Council meeting, every Carlton County Board meeting and many school board meetings in Esko, Carlton, Wrenshall and Cloquet, as well as other government meetings. Citizens need and rely on the Fourth Estate as watchdogs to ensure our government is working openly and...
