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 1374 - 1398 of 4091
Jumpers from as far away as Chicago and Ishpeming, Michigan traveled to northern Minnesota last week for Central Division meets in Cloquet and Coleraine. The Cloquet Ski Club hosted its invitational on Friday, Dec. 30, at Pine Valley. The Cloquet ski jumps - built in the 1960s from steel donated by the railroads - join Coleraine as the only jumps left in Greater Minnesota. More than 50 jumpers competed in this year's meet. "We handed out 70 bibs, but some kids did more than one jump," explained...
When Wrenshall voters made wholesale changes to the makeup of the district’s school board during the November election, their mandate was clear: end the infighting and put the struggling district back on track. The three first-time electees, Eric Ankrum, Mary Carlson and Ben Johnson, were scheduled to be sworn in during the first meeting of the year late Wednesday. But before then, the Pine Knot asked the newcomers about a series of issues, including the district’s struggling enrollment and finances, the search for a new superintendent, and...
The dining hall and kitchen at Cloquet's Zion Lutheran Church were filled with the Christmas spirit Sunday, as volunteers and community members came together to celebrate. Joanne Lehrke was dressed for the occasion, wearing an elf hat to top off her red and green Christmas sweater as she enjoyed some antipasti with Mae Line and Lillian Abrahamson, in advance of the ham dinner. Abrahamson couldn't believe how much food was on offer. "This is the Italian way," said Rosa Johnson, whose husband,...
As 2022 came to a close, Rep. Mike Sundin left the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul one last time on Wednesday. But not before the Esko Democrat cleared out his office after 10 years as a representative for District 11A. "I'm going back to help Mary Murphy pack up, and that's going to be tough," Sundin said of his fellow DFL lawmaker and longtime friend. "I'll be helping her vacate an office she's held for 46 years. But it's a changing of the guard." It's been that kind of year throughout...
The wet snowstorm that fell on the region two weeks ago - causing many headaches with power outages - was followed by subzero temperatures and howling winds just before Christmas, making for slick roads. There were a handful of crashes around the region leading into the holiday weekend. Because of the conditions, most drivers were going slowly enough to avoid any serious injuries. Expected power outages caused by blizzard-strength winds did not materialize as winds kicked up on Dec. 22 and into...
What a difference a year makes. Last December, nearly two dozen upset Thomson Township residents attended the Cloquet Area Fire District truth-in-taxation hearing, many of them to address the board about a more than 300-percent increase in their proposed ambulance taxes. This month’s fire district truth-in-taxation hearing saw only four audience members, with only one — former CAFD board member Eric Rish — from Thomson Township. While Rish used the Dec. 8 meeting to ask several questions about how other communities supplement coverage of ambul...
This month’s snowstorm that dropped heavy, wet snow across much of the state has significantly affected ice conditions, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Slush adds weight to the ice and its effects can be unpredictable. In some areas, slushy conditions are impacting travel on the ice, while in others — especially where ice was in the early stages of forming — the conditions are not adequate to support ice shelters and vehicles, resulting in breakthroughs. When on the ice, people should check the thickness for thems...
Budget discussions for the 2023 Carlton County fiscal year finally culminated at the board of commissioners on Tuesday, Dec. 27 with a 4-0 vote for a 6.55-percent increase in the county’s property tax levy. Commissioner Tom Proulx was absent. A preliminary 6.9-percent levy increase was set in September. As has been the case the last few years, the preliminary tax levy has been reduced when the final decision is made in late December. Chairman Gary Peterson noted that he had asked that the levy proposal reflect cuts in funding for new staff h...
Cloquet High School head football coach Jeff Ojanen faces a pair of impaired driving charges filed Tuesday in Sixth District Court in Carlton. Ojanen had been arrested and finger-printed by Cloquet police early in the morning on Dec. 23 and was later charged with driving while intoxicated. Cloquet Public Schools superintendent Michael Cary confirmed the incident, and said district administration planned to review details and “address the situation when we return from (holiday) break.” Ojanen, a math teacher, declined to comment when rea...
The following are select new laws passed during the 2022 session — and one from 2021 — of the Minnesota Legislature that take effect Jan. 1. Commerce • Annuity sales law updates best interest standards in annuity sales to help protect consumers, especially older adults. Insurers may not put their financial interests ahead of the consumer. When recommending an annuity, insurance agents should follow revised National Association of Insurance Commissioners standards, satisfying four conduct obligations: care, disclosure, conflict of inter...
County commissioners set the salary rates, per-diems, meal reimbursements and mileage for the next year at its final regular meeting of the year Tuesday. Department heads, confidential, and other non-union employees received a 2.75-percent increase in their wages for 2023. Sheriff Kelly Lake’s salary was set at $131,352 for 2023 based on a 40-hour work week at $63.15/hour. The county attorney, Lauri Ketola, the only other county elected official, was set at $144,227 at $69.34/hour based on a 40-hour work week. Peterson originally made a m...
Minnesota's environmental review process will now require developers of new highways, industrial plants, livestock feedlots and large housing developments to calculate their project's carbon footprint and consider how to reduce their impact on the climate. Climate activists say the changes, which have been in the works since 2019, are long overdue. "This is a really big deal for Minnesota," said Amelia Vohs, regulatory attorney for the nonprofit Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, which... 
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Cloquet Community Education and Recreation director Erin Bates told city councilors Tuesday that the city’s Beach at Pinehurst hit its largest deficit this summer, with revenues at $50,619 and expenses at $84,957, a difference of more than $34,000. Her presentation was informational only, intended to let the councilors know what’s happening. Graphs and charts going back more than 10 years showed the city swimming pond making money or close to breaking even from 2009 through 2018. In recent years, the gap between revenue and spending has grown....
Again, a delegation of nearly 20 landowners from Blackhoof Township attended the Dec. 12 county board meeting, watching to see what action, if any, the Carlton County Board of Commissioners will take on a proposed “green” cemetery in their neighborhood. The board had instructed zoning administrator Heather Cunningham to draft a letter of concern on the issue. She presented the proposed letter and it was approved unanimously. The letter is to be sent to the Green Burial Council in California with a copy sent to the Steelmantown Church and Cem...
It's too soon to know just how many cumulative hours of extra work went into cleaning up and restoring power after last week's epic snowstorm, but those costs figure to be exorbitant. To that end, a unanimous emergency declaration Monday by Carlton County commissioners will attempt to recoup state money for overtime and other associated costs for county-related work, along with the efforts of electrical cooperatives. "Most of it is for the utility companies," said Marlyn Halvorson, Carlton...
The Esko school board approved the 2023 tax levy with a 5-percent increase at their meeting Monday, Dec 12. The board previously approved the 5-percent increase, which is the maximum amount allowed, for the preliminary levy in September. The total levy will increase to $2,238,714, which is $106,614 up from the 2022 tax levy. The increase includes the lease-levy the board approved for the construction of a new fitness center for the district. A vote on the proposed fitness center was originally on the agenda for Monday, but the district’s b...
Fond du Lac Band registrar Annette Himango knew the stakes. "This is going to be big," Himango said. "The impact is going to be huge." On Tuesday, the fruits of her labor and that of many others from the Fond du Lac and Bois Forte bands of Chippewa were revealed in the form of specialized license plates aimed at raising awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous women and relatives. The ceremony to unveil the plates at Black Bear Casino in Carlton featured a host of speakers, and folks in the...
Requiring Herculean effort to regain a sense of normalcy, the first major snowstorm of the winter buried Cloquet and surrounding areas last week. The storm transformed Carlton County into a winter wonderland, but the heavy snow also wreaked havoc on roads, electrical grids and trail systems. It left young trees bowing like monks while older trees fell or dropped limbs overwhelmed by the weight of the wet snow. Evergreens turned white, with giant globs of snow pasted to every branch. The snow...
The final school board meeting of the year in Wrenshall on Monday featured a host of financial housekeeping updates for a district in cut-mode as it tries to account for a drop in enrollment and subsequent decline in state funding. The board’s final levy certification included a 1.58-percent increase to $1.52 million — the amount of money district property owners’ taxes will account for on the district’s estimated $6.2 million budget in 2023. That budget is in flux, needing to come down from the figure previously approved in June. The school...
Following Monday’s Truth in Taxation hearing, Carlton school board members voted unanimously to set the school district’s payable 2023 levy at just over $1.5 million, down from $1.6 million in 2022. The board adopted the 2022-23 total budget at just over $7 million, with expected revenues at $6.66 million, a projected deficit of $348,101. While it might come as a relief to taxpayers, a decline of nearly $100,000 (6.14 percent) in the school levy isn’t a good thing for the school district, which seeing increased expenses. But most reven...
A woman charged with hitting a car and then coming back and hitting one of its occupants was sentenced in Carlton County Sixth District Court last week. Rebecca Lee Glader, 39, pleaded guilty in October to felony criminal vehicular operation with substantial bodily harm, with the driver who caused the collision leaving the scene. Under the terms of the plea agreement, six other charges were dismissed, including two other felony criminal vehicular operation charges, along with gross misdemeanor and misdemeanor traffic violations, including...
The Minnesota Department of Transportation sent out a reminder to the public this week to say it is illegal to deposit snow on or next to a public highway or street. Snow on or near public roads can create hazards such as drainage, drifting and sight obstruction, MnDOT said in a news release. Minnesota law and many local ordinances prohibit the plowing, blowing, shoveling or otherwise placing of snow onto public roads or sidewalks. This includes the ditch and right of way area along the roads. Violations are considered misdemeanors, but civil...
The University of Minnesota Extension is offering day-long training for those that work with or know farm families experiencing stress, loss or tough decisions for their family or business. Ambiguous loss and farming facilitator training will be offered at five locations across the state of Minnesota during January. Locations include the Cloquet Forestry Center on Jan. 11 at the Library Room (175 University Road, Cloquet). Ambiguous loss is related to grief. In farming, it can be the loss of a farmer or farm, or something psychological like...
Community Memorial Hospital employees are “spreading the warmth” to patients in need. Laurie Korby, hospital foundation executive director, and Jeff Hakala, Thrivent financial advisor, decided that they wanted to bring their organizations together for a community service project, one that would give the hospital and clinic employees the opportunity to help their patients outside of their eight-hour shifts. Korby found a willing group among the hospital’s quality improvement team. The foundation, Thrivent, and the quality improvement team spear...
Minnesota Power crews are prepared and are responding as safely and as quickly as possible to restore power outages caused by high winds downing trees and limbs, the company said in a news release Friday afternoon After last week’s heavy, wet snow of two feet or more coated trees in the region, Friday’s high winds are taking down many trees and limbs, causing scattered outages. The largest outages today were in the Duluth, Lakewood Township and Carlton areas and affected up to 1,200 customers at times. By 3:30 p.m., crews were working to res...
