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 fly on the wall at the office of the Pine Knot News, during a meeting of the minds discussing year-in-review stories, may not have contained itself in screaming: "Covid. Done." But, being a fly with no means to discernibly communicate with humans, no one here at the office heard the plea. Not that we needed to. 2020. Covid. Pandemic. Restricted socializing. Masks. Illness. Death. Loss. Or, as we displayed in our largest headline of the year on March 20: Everything has changed. Yes, fly, 2020...
A suggestion to move the only Cloquet polling location on the Fond du Lac Reservation got shut down quickly during Tuesday night’s Cloquet City Council meeting. Reservation Business Committee (RBC) Chairman Kevin Dupuis, Jr. spoke out against the possible closure during the public comments portion of the meeting, and again when the council began discussing staff proposals for polling places in 2021. On the table was a change of polling place for Ward 2 from the Garfield School gymnasium to the Cloquet Public Library addition — which passed — an...
Native American women and girls are far more likely than other Minnesota residents to be victims of homicide, go missing or experience others forms of violence, according to a task force established last year to address the crisis. American Indian women and girls make up less than 1 percent of the state’s population, yet they accounted for 8 percent of all women and girls slain in Minnesota from 2010 through 2018, according to state data included in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force report. The report released Tuesday n...
The Cloquet Police Department recently requested a significant amount of city funds on $109,000 worth of equipment. Stuff like new squad computers, new squad car video, new stun guns, and new security measures at the police station. It was a bold request. But after careful consideration and review, we feel the request was worthwhile. The Cloquet City Council agreed, approving the new purchases unanimously, using police funds not spent from the 2020 budget. The budget has a surplus of at least $139,000, and those funds won’t carry over to n...
While the Cloquet city council passed the city’s 2021 budget and tax levy Tuesday, the Cloquet police department got a one-time boost from unspent funds in this year’s budget. Police chief Derek Randall presented the council with a list of requests, mostly for equipment and technology upgrades, to be paid for out of the department’s 2020 budget surplus, which Randall estimated at a minimum of $139,200, including planned expenses through the end of the year. Many of the items are urgently neede...
Two city recreational facilities could get some much-needed work in a few years if the city of Cloquet is successful at passing a new sales tax. During Tuesday's virtual meeting, Cloquet city councilors took the first concrete step toward a new sales tax bill that would likely start after the current sales tax sunsets in 2022. But there are a whole lot of steps that need to happen first, including creation of the bill, passage by the legislature and approval by Cloquet voters in a general...
With blessings from Cloquet Planning Commission, the city council approved an addition to the Northwoods Credit Union building at 902 Stanley Avenue and a conditional use permit for development of the former Labor Temple at 1403 Avenue C. GCL Development LLC, owned by Clyde and Louise Sherman, plans to create office space on most of the ground floor, but needed the permit to put 11 apartments in the building. City planning and zoning administrator Al Cottingham said apartment building requests...
As a result of the spike in Covid-19 cases in this area, public access to Cloquet City Hall and other city facilities was suspended starting Wednesday, Nov. 18. The city will still offer all core services, including police, public works, building and zoning permits, inspections and applications and more. City administrator Tim Peterson said the closure will inconvenience some residents, but city officials believe the decision is in the best interest of the community as a whole. The city has also struggled with staff missing work due to either...
As of Monday afternoon, six days after the election, exactly eight late mail ballots had arrived at the Carlton County auditor’s office, not exactly a game changer. Although the Pine Knot News did not receive a final report from the auditor’s office after the deadline Tuesday, a look at the Secretary of State’s website shows both the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates each gained four votes. All late ballots had to be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by the end o...
While many polling places in Carlton County were busy Tuesday, Thomson Township voters took it to a whole new level, with many waiting in line for more than an hour in a line that morphed throughout the day. By 4:30 p.m., the line snaked from the side of the parking lot up to the top of the hill behind the building, then back down the side of the grassy field next to the building and around the parking lot before going inside. The fact that most people were trying to stay 6 feet apart was...
Two local government meetings were canceled this week due to lack of agenda items. The Carlton County committee of the whole meeting set for Tuesday, Nov. 3 was canceled after a couple agenda items were pulled. “It is not unusual for one or two COW meetings to be canceled each year, and calling a public meeting with very little on the agenda did not make good sense in light of the pandemic,” county coordinator Dennis Genereau said. The county board meets for its next regular meeting at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10. The Cloquet city council mee...
The following vote totals are for Carlton County only, with all 38 precincts reporting. These totals are preliminary because the county auditor’s office is accepting mailed ballots that were postmarked by Election Day until Nov. 10. Vote totals are never final until they are canvassed by the governmental body in charge of that jurisdiction. Statewide and districtwide vote totals are noted, depending on the race. U.S. President Joseph R. Biden (DFL) 10,094, 49.58% Donald J. Trump (R) 9,787, 48.07% of Minnesota: Biden 52.4%, Trump 45.2% U.S. S...
Did you miss the Oct. 21 Cloquet candidate forum? Don’t despair. The forum is running at 6 p.m. every night through Monday, Nov. 5, on CAT-7 for Mediacom cable subscribers. Residents with online access can watch the forum anytime by clicking on this link: https://cloquetmn.new.swagit.com/videos/87477 If that doesn't work, go to cloquetmn.gov. Click on “I want to … watch a meeting,” then choose “archived videos/city council” and “Election Forum.” Online users can choose to watch via video or download an audio MP4 file of the forum. Featured...
After almost eight years of refusing to allow residents on normal city lots to raise chickens, the Cloquet City Council voted unanimously Monday to do exactly that. The move came after members of the Cloquet Planning Commission recommended the change, and that hearing followed a movement started by Cloquet resident and chicken owner Emily Tracy, who circulated an online petition that garnered more than 1,000 signatures. "When it comes to the benefits, well, they are endless," Tracy told the Pine...
Candidates for public office participated in a forum this Wednesday night, organized by the Cloquet Area Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by our little newspaper along with WKLK Radio and CAT-7 (which will be soon operated by Pine Knot News, but isn’t yet). We heard from candidates for the Cloquet school board, District 1 county commissioner, Cloquet city council, and our local Minnesota House and Senate districts. The information provided by each candidate should make it easier for voters to decide whom they will select in November’s ele...
The Cloquet Chamber of Commerce will hold a local candidate forum 6-9 p.m. Oct. 21 in the council chambers at Cloquet City Hall. No spectators will be allowed at the forum, which will be livestreamed on the city’s website at cloquetmn.gov and aired repeatedly on CAT-7 leading up to Election Day Nov. 3. Featured races (in order of appearance) include candidates for Cloquet City Council (6 p.m.), District 5 Carlton County Commissioner (6:30 p.m.), Cloquet School Board (7 p.m.), and the state legislative candidates (at 8 p.m.) for house and s...
A public hearing to discuss allowing residents to raise chickens drew no public participation during Tuesday's Cloquet Planning Commission meeting and was passed unanimously by the commission. The change would require amending two different sections of the city code. Planning commission members voted 5-0 to change the lot size from a staff suggestion of 11,000 square feet to 10,890 square feet, which is exactly a quarter-acre, for the language in Chapter 8.4.02 of the City Code, the city's...
Have you ever wondered why our neighbors decide to run for office? What life encounters led them to do so? Here are my endorsements for three local candidates - Michelle Lee, Mike Sundin and Quinn Nystrom - along with some background exploring their paths and priorities. Michelle Lee A Moose Lake resident and former news anchor/reporter for KBJR 6 in Duluth, Lee is running as a Democrat for Minnesota Senate District 11 seat. She grew up in Minnesota in a family of seven children. When she was...
The Santa's Home for the Holidays parade will not be happening this year. Cloquet city councilors said "no" in an informal vote Tuesday after discussing the pros and cons of holding the annual holiday parade during a pandemic. Positives included the fact that the parade and fireworks are both outside in the cold - transmission is less likely outdoors and people would probably be masked up to stay warm anyway - and the desire to have some kind of community celebration. Negatives also centered...
A public hearing regarding the 14th Street improvement project got only one public comment during Tuesday's Cloquet City Council meeting, despite the fact that some residents don't like county plans for a roundabout at the intersection of Washington Avenue and 14th Street. Those folks were in the minority, said SEH project engineer Dan Hinzmann during a presentation Tuesday. Because the project uses state aid funding, he said the state would have required an intersection improvement there over...
One hundred years ago, Cloquet's library was reborn from the ashes of the 1918 fire, thanks to the generosity of two sisters. One hundred years later, the descendants of those sisters - Cordelia (Shaw) Lynds and Hattie (Shaw) DeLescaille - are again coming to the rescue of the building that bears their family name. Now it's water (and snow) that is damaging the building, which is in desperate need of a new roof and more. No longer a library, the Shaw Memorial Library building has been home to...
The Cloquet Chamber of Commerce will hold a local candidate forum 6-9 p.m. Oct. 21 in the council chambers at Cloquet City Hall. No spectators will be allowed at the forum, which will be aired on CAT-7 and online. Featured races include candidates for Cloquet City Council, Cloquet School Board, State Senate and State Representative, and the District 5 Carlton County Commissioner candidates. The Pine Knot News and WKLK are media sponsors and PKN publisher Pete Radosevich is moderating the forum....
Dick Brenner (incumbent) Background I moved to Cloquet in 1972 with my six children. I have a finance degree and over 40 years of corporate accounting experience. My wife, Liz, and I volunteered locally, including teaching junior achievement. I have served on many boards, including the Cloquet School Board and Wells Fargo Community Board. What made you decide to run for county commissioner this year? I enjoy public service, even in the challenging times of coronavirus. My fellow commissioners...
Dennis Painter Background I was born and raised in Cloquet. I am a proud 1995 CHS graduate, earned my AAS from FDLTCC and my bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Marketing from UWS. I am proudly employed at SAPPI, my children attend Cloquet Public Schools and my wife teaches at Washington School. What made you decide to run for city council this year? Cloquet is currently doing many great things, and I feel like we have the potential, the resources and the human capital to do so m...
Scott Boedigheimer Background I have lived in Scanlon 35 years and retired from the Scanlon fire dept after 20 years of volunteer service. I was assistant chief when I retired and secretary of the fire department relief association. I have been a councilor for eight years now. What made you decide to run for city council this year? I am running again so we can keep moving forward with improvements to our city parks, water, sewer and streets which are well used. What do you think are the top two...
