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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Editor’s note: This column was written for Sunshine Week — an initiative by newspapers across the country to shine a light on the need for open government and access to public information — two years ago. This year, Sunshine Week was scheduled for March 13-19, but we agree with the writer that a person’s right to know should not be limited, and that includes promoting that right through editorials in your local newspaper. Enjoy. The media are most definitely not your enemy. Far from being the enemy of the people, day in and day out we take ou...
If you use the Cloquet clock, it was supposed to be spring this week. Gordy’s is open. Alas, that rite of spring and harbinger of summer rarely means we get matching weather, even as the conventional calendar says we’ve reached “meteorological” spring. But here we are, in that waiting room between real warm and lingering winter. It has been an especially difficult end of winter here at the Pine Knot. Jana has been stuck at home with a bum leg for two months, meaning we can’t count on her ramblings about the community for pictures and all the t...
Our publisher, Pete Radosevich, is running for public office, he announced this week. And your local community newspaper, the Pine Knot News, is announcing that our publisher is being placed on sabbatical leave, effective immediately. He will no longer have any input on how we run this newspaper, and he will no longer contribute to the newspaper, including his column on these pages. There is no legal restriction preventing him from continuing to work for the paper. The First Amendment guarantees that the press is free from government restrictio...
This will be my last “Harry’s Gang” column for a while. I have decided to run for Minnesota House of Representatives in District 11A, which encompasses all of Carlton County and a small part of Pine and St. Louis counties. And I can’t do both. So, I’d like to share some of my random ideas I’ve accumulated since we started this paper a few years ago. My dad used to say that when just as many liberals complain that the local paper is too conservative as conservatives complain the paper leans...
Whoa there, Facebook commenters. While we are gratified that last week’s Pine Knot story on the county board meeting got huge traffic on Facebook, we are disturbed that all but one of the comments (as of Wednesday) seem to indicate that the people writing them didn’t read the story. That’s unfortunate. Our story focused on a warning from Carlton County auditor Kyle Holmes that the estimated market value of properties is going up by at least 30 percent for 2023. That means if your home was worth $150,000 last year, it will be worth close to $1...
With the price of energy rising rapidly, I started getting a little sentimental over the energy crisis many of us remember from the late 1970s. I was in about the eighth grade when my father, struggling to make ends meet in his tavern along the North Shore, had a woodburning stove installed in our basement. Times had been tough: not only was my father inexperienced at running a tavern, the economy was in rough shape in Lake County. The railroad and the taconite plant were laying off workers, and tourism had crawled to a standstill as the...
On a recent visit to the Dollar Tree store, I discovered that it is no longer the Dollar Tree; it is now the $1.25 Tree. Most items, not all, but most, are now $1.25. That’s a 25-percent price hike. And I thought inflation was already high at 6 and 7 percent. I wonder if the name of the store will change. A local food store advertises on TV that they have low prices; not any more. We’ve all seen food prices lately and they are not low. I wonder if this might be classified as “false advertising.” Maybe the statement in the commercial needs a...
As I watched the State of the Union address, I was not shocked but I was dismayed by the behavior of U.S. Rep. Lauren Bobert of Colorado and U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia when they heckled the president of the United States. Being a student of Harry Truman for over 50 years, I asked myself, “What would Harry do?” One can never be certain what a president would do in any given situation, but a student of Truman, who has come to understand the motivations, the values, the demeanor of the man can make a considered approximation of his...
There seems to have been a time, perhaps in a galaxy far, far away, when we in the United States felt rather comfortable. A time when conflict and major events of history seemed to be something you only read about in history books. How quickly things can change. Let alone a political divide that no one alive today has ever seen so strident, the now two-year Covid-19 pandemic will leave an imprint that generations after us will be digesting. The same can be said of the social unrest sparked by the continued extrajudicial killing of Black...
If I were our representative in the Legislature, here’s how I would approach some of the issues they are considering in St. Paul this session. For decades, “gaming” — which is a softer term meaning “gambling” — has been confined to the Native American casinos across the state, the Minnesota lottery, a couple of horse and dog tracks, and nonprofits using pull tabs and the like in local establishments. Now, it’s no secret that all sorts of gambling has been going on privately forever. I’ve b...
If you or a family member or friend have not been adversely affected by Covid, consider yourself very lucky. My worst nightmare as a mom and grandmother was that one of my kids or grandkids would become very sick from Covid. Well, that nightmare came true recently. Our youngest grandchild, at 6 months old, became extremely ill as a result of Covid. Luckily, her mom was aware of her difficulty in breathing and brought her to a pediatrician who wanted our grandchild to go immediately to the emergency room at Children’s Hospital in St. Paul. After...
While it may seem that Cloquet need never worry about adequate snow after the storm earlier this week, we can all recall times when the golf courses still showed green in November and even into December … when cross country ski season kicks off. So, before the city of Cloquet progresses any further with its master plan for the city’s Pine Valley park, we’d like to ask elected officials to consider elevating the need for snowmaking equipment from near the bottom of the list to somewhere after fixing the jumps and before creating a pavil...
At one of my brilliant and well-received lunch presentations for a local service group, I noticed most of the members were “of a certain age.” Fast approaching that age myself, but with children of my own under 14 years old, I thought I’d take advantage of the group’s collective wisdom and asked them this question: Knowing what you know now, and if you could go back in time, what advice would you give to your 20-year-old self? Here are some of their answers. “If you want to keep a secret, tell no one.” Boy, that’s true. Nobody treats your s...
Opinion articles are well-said A jackpot! Three articles that reinforced why your paper won the prestigious award [as the best weekly newspaper in the state]. -Our View: “Choices have consequences”: Clear, concise, truth in every sentence. -Ann Markusen’s article: “Racism: a persistent American crisis”: Researched, informative, well-written. In fact, I am ordering one of her suggested books. -Pete Radosevich’s article, “We need police, yes, but we also need police reform.” Once again, Pete writes as though he is taking words from my mouth!...
Cutting sports and other extracurricular activities is the third rail of consideration for any smart school board, but at the risk of losing students because of lost non-classroom experience — exactly what a struggling district can’t have happen. And so here we are in Carlton. When board members said that anything is on the table when it comes to trimming what was expected to be $1 million in cost overruns, they weren’t blowing smoke. At its January meeting, the board did not approve contracts for two staff members who were ready to lead the s...
Now that the city’s mask mandate has ended, and most schools are removing their requirements that students wear masks at school, we can all hope that the pandemic is waning and may soon be over. Not so fast. This pandemic was caused by a new and tricky virus, and even after two years, we simply don’t know enough about it yet. Some reports say it will be with us forever, much like the flu or measles. Others say it may die out, like SARS did a few years ago. Still others think we may be able to...
My heartfelt thank-you to Steve Korby for sharing his story about Gary Ross. He was a wonderful person and a great friend and is missed. Thank you for sharing this story. Tim Peleski, Esko...
I have to write and say that the editorial, “Choices have consequences” in the Feb. 11 Pine Knot News was just that — your opinion. The word discrimination gets used a lot of ways just like, say, liberal and conservative. Making people get shots which are not true vaccines, wear masks and test often. It’s also a form of bullying, control, fear or trying to use peer pressure. Discrimination has more meanings than your one Google online source: distinguish, differentiate, exposing differences and making distinctions. Not everyone believes in the...
I thought your editorial, “Choices have consequences” was spot on. I wonder in today’s divisive climate if we would have been able to overcome deadly diseases of the past, such as polio, malaria, or smallpox, or to improve public health with a smoking ban in public places. Today, for many, it is all about me rather than us. We enjoy many freedoms but some people ignore that with that comes a responsibility to others. Keep up the great journalism. Ken Jorgenson, Carlton...
When Leona Johnson spoke out at the Esko school board meeting Monday, it wasn’t the first time a local school board member worried aloud about “discrimination” against children who choose to not be vaccinated or masked missing more school because of those choices. Discrimination is absolutely the wrong word choice here. Yes, people are free to choose whether or not to be vaccinated themselves, or have their children vaccinated against Covid. In some districts — not all — they are also free to decide whether or not to wear masks. But if those ch...
I’ve taught my kids that cops are the “good guys.” That cops can be trusted. If my kids find themselves in trouble, I’ve told them that the police will help them. Of course, most cops look a bit intimidating to little kids. They’re in uniform, wear belts full of tools, including guns, handcuffs and stun guns, and sport shiny badges. They have the ability to arrest you and put you in jail. I’ve taught my kids they have to show respect to the police. If an officer asks you to step aside, you...
You may have heard that some school boards and communities in our state are fighting over the oddly named “critical race theory.” Oddly, because if you read what some of the theory’s protagonists are writing and saying, I wouldn’t call it a theory. Rather, it’s a respectable commitment to considering, probing, understanding and debating the origins of racial inequality in our country and its persistence over many decades, even centuries. I’ve been reading widely about racism in our nation’s hi...
With a $7 billion-plus surplus, perhaps it is time to eliminate the Social Security income tax on retired Minnesota seniors. As a Retired Fire Service member I receive minimal Social Security due to the pension offset. Eliminating this tax is the right thing to do. Jim Langenbrunner, Sturgeon Lake...
When we moved to Cloquet about 30 years ago, we felt we were moving to a nice town. We were wrong. It’s a great town. I recently injured my foot and have found it difficult to get around. A lady who was traveling by when I fell jumped out of her car to try and help me up. People have tried to help in so many ways. I cannot count the number of people who have tried to help when they see me struggle with my cane. People have reached for items at the store for me. They have taken my packages and put them in our truck. They have opened doors and t...
There are many clichés, quotes, and rhetoric to last us a lifetime. Of the multitude, some can provide us inspiration and others can leave a sour taste in the mouth; yet I find one that is laced with such potency. This, brought about by the taboo created at our dinner tables, or just in the company of friends, family or acquaintances: “All politics are local.” Deny a conversation on the subject all you want, but eventually you will meet a neighbor who has participated — in some capacity — in a decision that had an effect on how much in prope...
