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Email: duluthneedshelp@yahoo.com

Saturday, August 30, 2008

New Poll

There is a new poll up. I have not done one for a while but here it is.

Would you give 23 cents a day for a year to the city? You can vote on the right side of this page.

Would you give 23 cents a day to the city?

The Duluth News Tribune has a story in today's paper about yet another plan to try to solve the city's budget problems.

One man thinks that there is 60,000 that can afford to give 23 cents a day for one year in side the city of Duluth. I point out here that there is 85 thousand that live in Duluth. That means of 20 thousand would not have to take part in this project. That is wrong if one does everyone should.

The other point is we already pay we already pay taxes that are suppose to go to services. Yet they go ever were but to what they should. They have for years. Now to ask for extra money on top of taxes is the wrong time.

Part one on budget meeting last Monday.

I wanted to post this much earlyer but have been busy. I will have much more later.

At Mondays Duluth City Council meeting there were a number of resolutions talked about. It is unfortunate that none of the resolutions were in support of the administrations plan.


At last nights council meeting there were a lot of special interest groups and others that had an invested interest in the lay offs and cuts proposed by the Mayor and his administration. Many of those in attendance at the meeting were there representing the AFL-CIO.



City councilor Greg Gilbert’s resolution does nothing to solve the issue’s facing the city. Councilor Gilbert’s plan was for the very short term and this is a longer term problem facing the city. The administrations plan will set us up for 2009 and beyond. Well we will more then likely still be facing a deficit for 09’ under the mayor’s current plan. At least it sets up for a lesser issues facing the city for the upcoming years.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

If I would have known

We are out of town this weekend. We are in the cities for a wedding and just relaxing. If I would have known however I would have been posting yesterday as a lot happened. I will post when we return home later today.

Obama picks running mate.

Obama picked his running mate however many knew the choose days before the announcement. The senator picked another senator. This will be the first time sense Kennedy ran that two senator's will be on the same ticket.

Obama made a safe pick by picking Joe Biden to be his running mate. I don't think it was the right chose.

More to come later.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Some councilors don't like the layoffs.




As most people councilors wish layoffs did not have to happen. I also am sad by the news of layoffs it is never a good thing. It happens in the private sector when needed it should happen in government when needed as well.




Some councilors came out against the cut backs. The interesting part to note is that those councilors that came out against the layoffs were endorsed by AFSCME during the election. The three councilor with issues are 2nd district councilor Greg Gilbert, 3rd district councilor Sharla Gardner and at large councilor Jeff Anderson both above.
I will have more on this later.




Duluth Mayor Don Ness Layoffs have to happen.

As everyone is well aware by now last Friday Duluth Mayor Don Ness said lay offs were going to have to be part of the city's plan to reduce the deficit it faces. Among the hardest hit was the Duluth parks department. 169 employees would be laid off in all from the city. Again most cuts happened to parks and rec and the library.

I am hoping to have a short interview with the Mayor. I don't know if he will agree to do one or not. We will soon find out. He is normally pretty willing to take part however.

Lots of post coming tonight.

There is and has been a lot going on. I will do my best to get things going here tonight.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Blues Fest

As I brought up in an earlier post could this next year be the beging of the end for the festival? Not having any in side information I think it could be. At very least in it could be the nearing the end to be held in Duluth.

It sure sounds like the changes being made are not positive for the festival also if you listened to the press conference or read the paper the tone there was not the best either. The lose of a day and a stage instead of an increase of five or ten dollars a ticket is alarming to me. I could deal with the lose of either a day or a stage but not both at the same time.

They also have said that attendance has been down to the festival in the past number of years. Well this is for one reason and mainly only one reason. I have had hundreds of people tell me this. Their has not been a major act to the festival for years (James Brown) was the last big one. How he is blues is beyond me but you know. Festival goers need more then a beautiful place to go and see good music. It is great that they bring in these acts from the cities but when you can go and see them any weekend you wish down there what is point of paying to see them up here. It is the major reason for a decline.

More to come =.

Chicken can do?


Gosh I am so proud that Sharla Gardner is my council person . She seems to be in favor of having chickens in city limits. She said that because of the rising cost of everything including food it makes sense. What?
Okay I understand the rising cost of food and yes, I am okay with people using the land in the city that they can use. You can grow your own food. You can do a number of things. There are also other ways to save money well shopping.
This idea of raising chickens in side city limits however makes no sense what so ever. The regulation are long and they should be. There is not enough room between houses to do this that should be a major factor but it will not be. There is a nuisance law in tact as well but what is going to qualifie for it.
Fact is the city is no place to be raising chickens if you want to do this move to a farm.
I could say much more on this but I won't, I am going to let it go. I hope it does not take up a lot of time because the city faces larger issues.

The sinking ship that is: Al Franken

Al Franken trails by 15 points in the latest polls. He has lost ground from the start of this election. It is clear that Minnesota does not want him as there senator.

To add to all the problems he is having he held an event on Friday in St. Cloud were just one veteran showed up. http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080809/NEWS01/108080047/1009.

He thinks he is a funny person yet what is even funnier is his campaign. You can bet from now that the Franken team will plant people at there events to make sure there are people there. Next time you hear of a big crowd at his event you need to think how many of them are plants by the Franken campaign.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

The beging of the end?

With the changes coming to next years blues fest could it be the beginning of the end? The changes are as follows so far. No Thursday start time the festival will not start tell Friday. There will also cut out a stage and go from three to just two stages. This will also effect how many acts are able to come to the event.

More on this later.

To funny!

The Duluth News Tribune has became the Duluth Blues Tribune well the big blues fest has been going on here in Duluth.

It started Thursday and ends tonight. What is kinda of funny is that I am sure people are having fun with header.

It made me laugh when I first say it because I thought of all the nay say's of the paper and thinking they are blue when they read it. I have always enjoyed the paper and yes at times have be critical of it but you can't agree with a paper or a person ect... all the time.

I however believe in general the paper does a good job and many times is wrongly criticized.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Jack Shepard interview.

The Jack Shepard interview scheduled for today will go on. He is giving me a call around 10 this morning. I hope to have it up both here and on the interview page around noon if not before.

Update 2: Jack called back and left a message. Giving me a little background of him self. You can find more out about Jack if you wish on his web site. Listed in a previous post.

update: The interview with Jack is not going to happen. He called and was not the friendliest Person so I just thought it was best to not conduct the interview. He was combative right off the bat. This is something I don't believe in. I am always fair and not combative with those that I interview. I expect the same back.

Duluth Maritime Festivale.

Well it seems like it was a great event it also seems like there were some problems. The event drew more then Grandams Marithon and the Bayfront Blues fest. However just days after the festivale has ended complaints seem to be coming in.

Many of those that came had to wait in long lines and many people thought there was little to no orginzation of the event. Accouting to a story in Duluth News Tribune today. You can read the whole article at the papers web site www.duluthnewstribune.com.

I am hoping to get a hold of Gene Shaw for his take on this. I think the event was great and hope that if there were some problems they can be worked out for the next event. I was unable to get down there durning the weekend but did get there on Monday to take a look at the remainng ship. There was still a lot of people this is great for the community.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Republican party to open campaign office in Duluth.

Today the republican party of Minnesota announced they will open an office in Duluth. The office will be located in the plaza shopping center next to Great Harvest Bread company. The office will open on Wednesday and be used right away as there is a call bank session that night.

Interview

I will be interviewing Jack Sheperd tomorrow morning. I am grateful that Mr. Sheperd has agreed to the interview. I have told him that I don't agree with him but that does not mean I can't be fair. I have done a number of interviews with people I don't agree with and we walk away friends most of the time.

If you have a question you would like me to ask him you can leave a comment here or email it to me at duluthneedshelp@yahoo.com . As always I will have finale say on the question.

Mr Sheperd is running against Norm Coleman in the republican primary. Once the interview is complete I will post it here and on the interview page.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

LOL

This lady Priscilla Lord Faris is running against Al Franken for the Democrats. She has been a long time DFLer. See is not happy that Al is so far behind. In the latest polls Coleman is 15 points better the Franken. Coleman would be well better then that is this lady was there candidate.

Progressive action to host 7B forum.

One of the far left groups in Duluth will host a forum for all the 7B candidates. The forum will take place on Aug.13 5:30 to 7 pm and it will take place in city council chambers. They say that no candidate will be given the question early. Yet we all know that is not true. All six candidates have said they will be there.

As the politcal season keeps moving foward be sure we will have the coverage.

I have not been able to post as much as I would like to as of late. However that will change and you will see more posting in the next few days. Not only then but as the political season picks up we will have the coverage here for you.

I will also post on our other pages. I also hope that the others that are involved in the board will post as well.

It seems like the Democrats put in one of your own in the GOP party.

This guy is running against Norm Coleman in the republican party, http://www.jackshepardforsenate.com/. What a joke he will not get more then 2% of the vote.

It seems like the Democrats found one of there own that would pretend to be a republican and run against Norm. Yes I know that Norm was once a Dumocrat but then he say the light and came to the good side. Yes politician's change party's all the time but it is clear this that Jack Shepard is the farthest thing from a republican.

One of the first people he apples to on his web site is Democrats and independents he wants nothing to do with the party.