Clearing up septic ordinance concerns
With an eye toward easing the burden on septic installers while maintaining high standards, the Cook County Planning and Zoning Department put forth a handful of amendments to the county’s septic ordinances that will ease some of the installers’ concerns and should lesson the cost to home and cabin owners. Cook County Planning and Zoning Director Tim Nelson brought those […]
Rough road to reappointment for county highway engineer
By a 3-2 vote the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted to reappoint embattled Cook County Highway Engineer Dave Betts at its May 12 meeting. Betts was reappointed to his position on Friday, May 1 and then upon reconsideration the board moved to not appoint him on May 5. The board reversed itself once again on Tuesday, May 12. Voting […]
More tough budget discussion for School District 166
Superintendent Beth Schwarz once again asked the School District 166 school board for direction as she puts together the budget for fiscal year 2016. Schwarz said the budget must be adopted at the June 20, 2015 board meeting. At the Thursday, May 7 meeting, Schwarz provided a spreadsheet with potential budget cuts that would result in a potential deficit of […]
Who is housing being created for?
Wow! Am I stupid? I thought all this energy by the Cook County/Grand Marais Economic Development Authority (EDA) and the housing committee to help create housing was for the local minimum/low wage scale employed by people of Cook County. You’ve confused us again. Please define affordable, workforce and housing. Who are you creating it for? I think we have been […]
Hopeful for future of the county
Last year, I was standing on the street in downtown Grand Marais with an acquaintance when he commented, “Look, this is a dying town.” I was surprised to hear that opinion and asked him why he held it. He answered that there were only a few nationally franchised businesses in town and if the big corporate retailers weren’t interested, then […]
Lions Club has a proud tradition of service
You are probably familiar with the Grand Marais Lions Club—the members wear those “goofy” gold colored vests, and they have something to do with Fisherman’s Picnic and “fishburgers,” and don’t they collect old eyeglasses? The Grand Marais Lions Club is part of the largest service club in the world, Lions International, which has over 14,000 clubs in 200 countries. Lions […]
Lioness Club formed by feisty women
Now from the Lioness side. Years ago, the Lions made the enlightened decision to allow women to join them. But Grand Marais has a history of feisty women and they made their own decision, to keep themselves as a separate group. Some women have indeed joined Lions, and it is nice to have a choice. Some belong to both, as […]
Duluth tourism discussion hopeful
With the fishing opener and the summer vacation season getting into full swing, we talked “tourism” at our roundtable in Duluth last week with hospitality leaders who reminded us that right along with taconite and timber, tourism is the critical third leg of the economic stool here in northern Minnesota. In the 8th District alone, tourism is a $1.8 billion […]