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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Carlton County will receive more than $700,000 in state disaster relief following the winter storm Dec. 12-16 which coated the region with heavy snow, breaking tree limbs and crippling power infrastructure for days. Carlton County gathered details from townships and jurisdictions throughout the county and submitted for $979,360 in costs associated with cleanup and repair. The National Weather Service referred to the storm as a “blue” blizzard becasue of the high water content in the snow tha...
Carlton County Sheriff Kelly Lake reported to the county board this week that a corrections officer is retiring. The board approved the hire of one more staff member than budgeted, allowing her to hire two males and two females. The board had given her permission to hire three corrections officers to replace retiring officers or officers forced to retire due to illness. Lake said she has a budget surplus, since she has been short-staffed. Corrections is using overtime from employees to cover shifts, a wage outlay for 3,400 hours of overtime....
Carlton County commissioners gave support for a joint effort between the Fond du Lac Band, Carlton County, and the Minnesota Department of Transportation to ask for $10 million in federal infrastructure money to build a trail between the Black Bear Casino to the Munger Trail in Carlton. The Moorhead Road bridge crossing Interstate 35 would be replaced....
Carlton superintendent John Engstrom surprised school board members Monday when he recommended they not renew his contract in June. Instead he recommended they make South Terrace principal Donita Stepan part-time superintendent and keep her as principal of the elementary school. High school principal Warren Peterson would be asked to increase his hours and days as part of the plan. “From where we were four years ago … this would represent a total savings of around 40 percent,” Engstrom told...
A Saginaw man died after a snowmobile accident last Friday night, Feb. 10. The St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office said first responders were dispatched just before 11 p.m. to a trail in Floodwood Township. Leroy Warner, 67, was reportedly not breathing. “Despite lifesaving efforts by friends, deputies and medical personnel … he was pronounced deceased,” the sheriff’s office reported. Warner’s obituary can be found on Page 18 of today’s Pine Knot News. In it, family said he died “having fun with his wife and close friends, doing what he loved....
A community member shouted questions at the teacher advisor to Wrenshall’s student-based Gender and Sexualities Alliance at Monday’s school board meeting. In doing so, the community member seemed to prove why the advisor wouldn’t let students address the board in person. “I did not feel comfortable inviting students from the GSA to come to this meeting, because I feel it would put them in an unsafe position,” advisor Ted Conover, an English teacher, told the board. Bill Dian repeatedl...
A note of urgency dominated the Cloquet City Council work session Feb. 7, when members of the city’s Economic Development Agency asked, for the third time in five years, that the council remove the requirement for private businesses to sign a project labor agreement. While the private business requirement for a PLA is union-friendly, it’s not business-friendly, they said. According to EDA director Holly Hansen, that’s impacting the EDA’s core mission of attracting, retaining, assisting expansion and enabling redevelopment for business, housing...
The owner of multiple Wrenshall businesses said he'll pack a public hearing with supporters Tuesday, when the city begins consideration of proposals the business owner said target his enterprises. "They don't have enough building to hold the people," said Jeff Bloom, owner of the Wrenshall General Store, Lots4Bid, storage garages and RV park - all located on the same 23-acre property at the south end of town. "I'm drawing a line in the dirt," Bloom said. "People are tired of the regulations....
The Esko school district is one step further along in its plans to build a new fitness center for students and community members, following the school board’s approval of an initial construction plan and budget. The district’s construction planning company, Duluth-based ICS, presented the current floor plans and budget at the board meeting Monday, Feb. 13. ICS proposed a fitness center which will include a large open area for workout equipment, two exam rooms to be used by physical therapy patients and trainers, two bathrooms, lockers, and a fr...
A small one-person aircraft made an emergency landing on the ice-covered Big Lake Saturday afternoon after losing part of its landing gear. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The Carlton County Sheriff's Office described the aircraft as a "home built fixed wing aircraft" in a news release, explaining that the landing was planned after the pilot realized one of the plane's two front wheels had been lost when he departed from Fish Lake in Fredenberg Township (St. Louis County). After originally...
Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Duluth are increasingly confident that a significant winter storm will impact the region from Tuesday night into Thursday night. Snow accumulations of 6-inches or more are likely, especially over northwest Wisconsin and Pine County, as well as from the Twin Ports east across the South Shore where snowfall of 12-inches or more is possible. Significant travel disruptions likely due to heavy snow rates and blowing snow. The snowfall could lead to...
A fire at the site of Bergquist Imports along the Minnesota Highway 33 frontage road in Cloquet drew a large response Wednesday afternoon as smoke poured from the back of the complex of buildings. Steady smoke curled from the back, carrying across the four lanes of Highway 33 and blowing south. Firefighters with axes and steel wrecking bars were entering at the back of the complex, disappearing into thick smoke. "I'm a little shocked," said Barry Bergquist, who owns three buildings on the site,...
The University of Minnesota made public this week plans to give the 3,400-acre Cloquet Forestry Center to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The transfer of land was included in Thursday's University of Minnesota Board of Regents finance committee meeting docket, a meeting held in Minneapolis after this issue of the Pine Knot News went to press. It appears to be an informational notice only - with no action required by board members - but the docket notes the "real estate...
There was a time in America when going to the movies was a favorite pastime for people of all ages. Then, enter television, home theater systems, movie rentals and now streaming services, and the moviegoing experience can seem antiquated. There are survivors, and Premiere Theatres in Cloquet is one of them, even after a pandemic emptied theaters for many months. Major corporations are cutting away. Cineworld is selling all of its 500-plus Regal theaters. Despite all the dire news, Premiere...
A special school board meeting Feb. 1 featured an inquiry into rising technology costs, and revealed in startling detail “glaring security holes,” server updates that were missed, and antivirus packages purchased but not installed. “Nothing was done for four years,” contractor T.J. Smith told the board. “I’ll be point-blank honest and blunt: your previous tech director, I don’t know what that person did.” As if on cue, Wednesday’s committee of the whole meeting featured business manager Angela Lind announcing she couldn’t access budgetary in...
The 21st annual Blue Jean Ball brought lots of fun and lots of dollars for educational opportunities Saturday, as close to 400 people attended the fundraiser for the Cloquet Educational Foundation. An event that involves lots of games, dinner and both a silent auction and a live auction, the Blue Jean Ball is the largest fundraiser for CEF, said director Jody Acers. They raised an estimated $42,000 this year. That's money to fund grants submitted by school district staff for educational...
During the final quarter of 2022, Duluth’s Northland Foundation awarded 18 grants totaling $431,000 to support people and communities for a thriving region. Funding included $30,000 for the Li’l Lumberjacks Learning Center in Cloquet, a child care program expansion with funding provided by the State of Minnesota with support of the Northland Foundation. The REACH Mentoring Program Youth Adult Partnerships based in Cloquet received $25,000 to support mentoring and enrichment programming to youth across Carlton County. Funding of $81,000 wen...
After a load of residential trash containing lithium batteries caught fire in a garbage truck last week, Western Lake Superior Sanitary District is asking residents to follow safe practices when disposing of rechargeable batteries. The Carlton County Transfer station on Highway 210 accepts rechargeable batteries and other hazardous materials, as does WLSSD’s Household Hazardous Waste facility just off 27th Ave. West in Duluth....
The Thomson Township board of supervisors has scheduled a followup public hearing on the proposed private road and private shared driveway ordinances for 5 p.m. March 9. Following a large turnout for the initial public hearing — with many township residents giving feedback critical of the proposed ordinances — the township’s attorney, David Pritchett, strongly recommended scheduling another public hearing as soon as possible to give the public ample time to review the edited ordinance and be aware that there will be another hearing. At issue...
Republicans are outnumbered at Minnesota's Capitol. And so far, they've been unable to stop an early onslaught of DFL-backed legislation on abortion, energy, voting and more. As the Legislature tilts toward an upcoming debate over a new state budget, Republicans are approaching their minority role this session with a focus on branding the DFL majorities as going well beyond what voters expected when they gave Democrats total control of state government. "You want 'One Minnesota'? You want help?... 
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The Carlton Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) native plant kit and seed mix sale is back. Last year, people in the region helped convert more than 40 acres of mowed lawn to pollinator habitat by purchasing seed mixes and kits. The SWCD event has been the largest sale in Minnesota for the third year in a row. That's something to be proud of. We are keeping the pollinator powerhouse momentum going with a fourth sale. The native plant kits come in monarch, pine mulch, rain garden,...
A new endowment fund for Carlton County 4-H will support the launch of new programs in science, agriculture and technology, as well as trips to the Minnesota State Fair. The endowment was introduced this month with $7,000 in seed funding coming from the Minnesota Farmers Union of Carlton County, and a private donation from former county commissioner Mark Thell. The endowment will also aid youth who want to attend state and national 4-H programs. The fund with the University of Minnesota...
It's complicated. That's the phrase that often comes to mind when delving into exactly how acres within the Fond du Lac reservation came under non-Native control, paving the way for today's Cloquet Forestry Center. It is also quite simple. A series of laws passed in the late 1800s kick-started a land rush on reservation lands across the country. They allowed "allotments" for Native residents with promises of eventual ownership of land within reservations. It was an attempt to assimilate Native...
It's a classic long Minnesota goodbye to an absurd degree. Millie, a guest at the Pine Knot News office the past two years, will be staying at least another year. Blame the staff at the newspaper, for they keep serving up quality journalism and advertising that is enticing Millie to stay. Millie, as the staff has affectionately coined the Mills Trophy, is symbolic of the Minnesota Newspaper Association's "most outstanding weekly." The distinction was bestowed upon the Pine Knot for the third...
Bolstering Carlton ambulance service, costs pitched to townships A proposal to create two full-time positions atop the city of Carlton's all-volunteer ambulance service was met with optimism by officials from surrounding townships Jan. 25. "You did a professional job here tonight," Silver Brook Township board chair Duane Laveau said. "You probably sold Silver Brook Township just by the professionalism here tonight." The proposal to beef up ambulance service came in front of more than 40 local...
