For the second time in recent months, members of the three West End townships of Lutsen, Tofte and Schroeder met to discuss ways to make the community a better place to live. On top of the list was recruiting businesses that would pay good wages and provide benefits and hours that worked well for families. Bill Hansen (left) and Jeanne Larson (far right) moderated the meeting.
Affordable housing and livable wage jobs were cited as the top two priorities coming out of the second West End Conversation held on Wednesday, May 7, 2014 at Birch Grove Community Center.
The first information gathering session was held on February 19 at Birch Grove and facilitated by David Cournoyer. Tofte resident Bill Hansen and newly elected Tofte Supervisor Jeanne Larson served as moderators for this event, which was attended by 20 residents.
People rotated from table to table for 20-minute sessions aimed at gathering ideas and suggestions. A note taker recorded the ideas and Hansen said, “The goal is to end the night with two, or at the most three, action ideas and make a plan from there.”
Also discussed in depth was the Birch Grove Community School and its declining enrollment in spite of its excellent education; a shortage of daycare; a dearth of educational opportunities; an aging population; not enough assisted living facilities; low paying jobs that now require working odd hours and weekends; and a lack of activities for young people.
“Really, this all starts with livable wages. You can answer all of these questions with a livable wage. If the jobs are good, people will stay and send their kids to school here. If they are making enough money they will be able to afford to buy a house and stay here,” said one young man.
“Right now the habitat for young people is poor. They are disappearing like the moose,” said Kathy Lawrence.
After three rotations Hansen asked the note takers to tell the entire group what they had recorded and he recorded those thoughts and ideas on poster paper. Once done the group discussed the various ideas and came up with two action ideas: finding ways to make housing affordable and finding jobs that pay a living wag.
Hansen said Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) came out with a report earlier that day that said someone in Minnesota making $18 an hour today was making the same comparable wage as someone making minimum wage in 1972.
Both Hansen and Larson noted the list wasn’t linear, that housing and jobs and day-care and education all happen together. And Hansen asked, “So where do we go from here?
Solutions considered
Judy Motschenbacher suggested, “Encouraging young people to start up businesses and help them along.” She also said, “The three West End townships are progressive enough to get something done. I would like to see them form an association to work on issues and solutions.”
Cook County Commissioner Bruce Martinson thought that was a good idea, but added, “We don’t want to duplicate the efforts of the groups that are already out there working for us,” mentioning the GO Team and Cook County Chamber of Commerce as two of those groups.
Jessa Frost, program director for North House Folk School, said she thought building or finding a place that could work as an “Arts Incubator”—a place that might offer payroll services or packing and shipping services that would help attract artisans to the community—would help create a higher quality of life while growing the economy.
“I know of at least six artists that want to move here,” said Frost, but they would need help, she added.
Larson said she thought that when Broadband was fully implemented that it would allow the West End to grow cottage industries. “We can sell to the world with Broadband,” Larson said.
Talk then centered on using Birch Grove Community Center as a place to potentially put in a computer learning center, but the next night at the Tofte Town board meeting it was discovered that the broadband cabling hook-up to Birch Grove wasn’t done because no one signed up for it. Steps will be made to see if Arrowhead Electric can come back and hook up the building so it can receive broadband when the senior housing is built behind the school and will potentially also be hooked up to broadband.
Randy Wiitala suggested recruiting service centers or call centers, noting they are environmentally friendly and that Ely and Chisholm are two small Northland towns that have these operations working in their communities.
“These jobs are portable. There is low cost for infrastructure and they need good workers. That’s something we have here. We have a good workforce,” Wiitala said.
Lynne Wiitala said she thought the implementation of broadband would allow telecommunication businesses a chance to expand jobs to the county.
Skip Lamb of Schroeder talked about the efforts Tofte has made to establish housing for seniors. Martinson said he is working to have the Forest Service exchange Cook County land in the BWCAW for land in the West End that could be parceled and sold for housing to be built on. He and Lamb also discussed the Fredenberg lots developed in Schroeder by the township about 10 years ago. The lots were sold at substantially lower than market rates and people were given five years to build homes there. Eight houses have been built on those lots, said Martinson.
Hansen said the West End needs short-term rentals and houses that are affordable for working people to buy. He talked about Forest Service employees who had been hired as supervisors—good paying jobs—but who had a hard time finding housing, or housing they could afford.
Hansen noted that 64 percent of Cook County’s tax base comes from the three west end townships of Lutsen, Tofte and Schroeder. “We are the economic engine for the county,” he said.
But one audience member added, “Let’s not get carried away with that. We’re mainly providing people with places to sleep. These businesses aren’t providing many livable wage paying jobs.”
Hansen asked the group how much they knew about Cook County Higher Education and the opportunities it provided. He said in the last 15 years, Higher Ed has helped 500 people obtain degrees. “This is a relatively unknown commodity for the community to use. It’s a pretty amazing program,” he said.
At meetings end Larson asked the audience to get involved, and people came forward to sign up for committees who will work on solutions to finding affordable housing and bringing in higher paying jobs. Motsechenbacher’s proposal to have one township official and one citizen from each of the three townships form a committee and pursue resolutions to these problems will also be explored. There will be one more meeting, at least, said Hansen, to see where the community stands in its attempts to make the West End a more viable and healthier place to live.
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