4 Year ann. of iraq war.

There are a couple of events going on today for the event localy and I will cover them here tonight as I will be out and about at the local events.

There is an event at 2p.m. anti-war colition march

There is also a small gathering of pro millitary suppoters at 2:30 gathering downtown as well.

I don't believe it.

Some councilors say that losing the Bayfront Blues Fest is completly the Mayors fault. I don't believe it.

I do believe for the most part that this was the mayor's doing. The mayor wanted to get more money for the city because he believes the festivail was becoming to big so he wanted more money. I am not against this, however I am against the way he and the adminstrain went about it.

Here is the %'s that I believe is to belame at, Mayor 95% and the council 5%. Why, I don't beleive that the council could just sit by and watch like they did. They choose to do nothing. IF you remember a week maybe two weeks ago in the paper the council eurged the mayor and bayfront blue fest to work out the issue's.

I don't know how many meeting I have gone to were the councilors feel they need to be part of the process, why this is diffrent I don't know. They should have took time to get involved. They did not, and at this point it does not look like they will. The council should have and still can look at doing something but it is crunch time.

Feeling Blue.

Yesterday was a sad day for Duluth. Today it was the topic of discussion all over the place. It will be no diffrent here.

As you know we have lost the Bayfront Blues Fest for at least one year. Maybe even for good. The festivals promoter said he was pulling the the blues fest out of Duluth because he could not come to agreements on many issues with the city and it's mayor.

I am well aware we don't know all of the deatails and we may never. However with that said I can't belame the promoter of the event, it looks like the mayor was unwilling to move on many issues that were never issues. The mayor also said he has a diffrent plan and event for the blues frest weekend. Yeah that better be good mayor. Unless the event on the first year draws hundres of thousands of people it is a failed fest much like your administraion.

There will be much more to come on this tonight and as we get devlopments.

Oh my guess is the the blues fest will move to the Bufflo House.

Mayor stops debate.

As I am sure most know, city councilor Jim Stauber was going to have a resolution on the agenda last night. The resolution was to ask the council to investgate the mayor's actions on the taking free tickets then giving them away to not for profit groups. One group I know of is the life house, there are others but that is one that has been brought up. This act maybe illegal.

The tickets were free and you can not give the mayor or any city councilor free items in spite that you may be looking for a vote, then the mayor goes and gives them to groups that he wants support from may also be illegal.

The resolution was to call for an investigation, low and behold it was not on the agenda last night. Why? A mistake, yes. Not by adicident however it was very calculted by the adminstration and they should be ashamed of them selfs. I hope this will be up for debate in two weeks.

Fraken- can he raise enought money?

Al Franken Faces Deep-Pocketed Opponent( this was on news max www.newsmax.com)

Liberal comedian Al Franken is in for a tough battle as he seeks the Democratic nomination for a Senate seat from Minnesota now that high-powered lawyer Mike Ciresi has thrown his hat into the ring.

Ciresi is best known for a multibillion-dollar settlement he engineered with the tobacco industry. He also served as counsel to the government of India against Union Carbide over the Bhopal catastrophe, and represented women rendered infertile by the Copper 7 IUD.
The trial attorney ran for the Senate in 2000 as a self-described progressive moderate, but lost the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party primary to Mark Dayton in a four-way race.
Ciresi spent nearly $5 million of his own money and raised another $1 million for the primary race. He has said he’s not planning on self-funding his new campaign, but he’s not ruling it out, according to the Washington, D.C.-based publication The Hill.

For his part, Franken — who recently left the Air America radio network — raised more than $1 million for his Midwest Values political action committee in the last cycle, “showing the fund-raising prowess needed to run in one of the marquee races in the nation,” the Hill reports.
David Schultz, a political expert at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., told The Hill: “What you have is probably the two best-financed candidates who have entered early and probably will scare off just about everybody else at this point.”

Ciresi and Franken are targeting the Senate seat now held by Republican Norm Coleman, who narrowly won in 2002 after Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash.

What are your thoughts do you think Franken will be the democrats choose to run against Coleman? Can Franken raise enought money to compete with others that will enter the race? Or is this articale just a bunch of smoke? Lets have some converstation about it.

Bergson in trouble again?

Well it sure seems as if our mayor has yet again got him self in some hot water. This time taking complemantry tickets and giving them to non-profits.

At a commity meeting councilors asked the director of the Bayfront Blues Fest if he has ever given tickets to the mayor and he said yes, in email responce from Lou Campbell he gave Mayor Bergson many free tickets.

This is illegal, the mayor can not except these gifts. Even if he gives them away.

The council will take up this issue at possible the next meeting, Monday night.

Regardless of the Mayors intend this action is illegal. I believe he knows by not making any comment on it to this point. Now was the Mayor wrong to do this the easy answeare is yes. Can you belame him for wanting to help groups that can't affort to do, no. However if he wanted to help then he should have bought the tickets and then given them away.

He is wrong on both of these acounts, excepting them. Then giving them to non-profits.

High School Hockey.

Well the tournament has started today. Our schools are doing well Marshall and Hermntown won.

Want to help out?

B-105 is having a radio-thon on Thursday and Friday, to benifit St. Judes.

If you want to help listen to the station those two days and donate.

Wal_mart

Wal-Mart issues a statment saying that they will still look at making the Hermntown store a super center.

It will take some work and corpartion from the city of Hermntown.

I hope the two parties work together to get this done.

March Madness

Well it looks like March is going to come in like a lion. Snow upwards of 12-15 inches maybe more. The good news is it will be done by Friday night.

All area collages are still open except for LSC, all public schools systems in the are closed. If you have something to do, the best thing to do is call ahead and see if it is still on.

being civil.

I am a very resonalbe person and enjoy politics. I like to have conversations even if we don't agree.

I am a very civil person, however some times my emotion gets the best of me and I use words well blogging that I should not. I will make every effort not to do that.

I want this blog to be a place of civil discussion on both sides. I am sure here and I may slip up but if I do please let me know. I will make any corrections needed.

The Iraq resolutions passes.

Last night the council passed councilors Stewarts resolution 6-1 with one abstaining. The Iraq resolution took up about 75 minutes or so of the council time.

There were a number of speakers, some for and some against the resolution. There was not as many speaksers as I thought there would be.

The vote did not surprise me, one councilors vote that did surprise me a bit was council Stauber for the resolution. I do however understand his, I don't agree with it but understand his thinking.

There were parts of the resolution that I did agree and parts that I could not agree with. Which is why I asked the council to either withdraw the resolution. That would have had to have been done by councilors Stewart and Johnson, or to vote the resolution down.

The point I was making is that the council on a highly diviaded issue natinaly should not speak for 85 thousand plus people. We all can call congressmen and senators to voice our thoughts.

I also stated that with this issue there is any number of groups, and or websites that will help you voice your thoguths either way. I just did not feel it right this time for the council to represent 85 thousand plus on this issue.

I also will not support and like resolutions ever. Natinal issues are to be dealt with by our elected officals on that level. State the same and city the same as well.

This was really a hard one for me take a position on, but I had to take the one I did for even more reason then this post say's. I will will have more on that later.

Duluth Fire Marshall gives warning.

Today the Duluth Fire Marshall gave a warning to stay off the lake Superior. He said ice fishing, or skating is dangours. A person could be sent out to the middle of the lake in a blink of an eye.

Some may not be smart enought to listen to this warning.

I don't know why anyone would go ice fishing or skating on the big lake. The lake almost never freezers over completely. The wind and shift in the ice can happen like that you are heading to the middle of the lake.

Stewart reinduces anti-war resolution.

Source: Duluth News Tribune, http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=36414&section=homepage.

Third District Duluth City Councilor Russ Stewart has resubmitted into the local political fray his controversial resolution calling for the complete withdrawal of American troops from the war in Iraq.
First District Councilor Laurie Johnson has joined Stewart in the symbolic measure, which will be voted on at Monday’s City Council meeting.
At Thursday’s council agenda session, Stewart said he changed the language so it no longer singles out the Minnesota National Guard. He said he borrowed language from a resolution recently passed by the Minneapolis City Council.

I was affraid he would do this, what is even worse I am affraid it may pass. I don't think this is something are councilors should be voting on this, this issue is for our State and Country to debate. If you don't like it as a citizen that is great you have amble place to show that, ralleys web sites ect...

The City Council Chambers is not the place because not every Duluthian agree's with councilor Stewart. I hope this does not pass and they don't speak for the whole city.

Hermtown Walmart not going to be a supper center.

Wal-mart gave into the hippies and enviormentorlist on this one.

They claim cost as an issue.

Snow!!!

Well I don't believe we are going to get much this weekend. I will only believe it when I see it.

If we do get the storm be careful driving.

State smoking ban.

I am against smoking bans. I feel that business should have say if they want to allow smoking or not. After all business will do what it's customers want, if they feel it is best because that is what the public wants then good for that business. I don't believe goverment should play any roll in this issue.


Duluth, Minnesta City Council passed an ordinance to limit were you could smoke much like the one the state in talking about now. The smoking ban in Duluth was lightened a bit because of presure from business and people that went to these businesses.

The ban the State is talking about would not allow you to smoke at almost any public place. The ban would ban smoking in the following, Restrants, Bars, bowling Alleys, public and private clubs, VFW's and more.

If the State lost one business to a smoking ban it would be to many.


Cross posted on MN Politics, http://mnpolitics.tripod.com/blog/.

A Duluth man dies in the St.Louis County Jail.

There are not many details, I found this story interesting however.

A man arrested I believe Saturday night was found dead Sunday afternoon in his cell after a check of the cells. This far the man has dies of natural causes, we will have to wait and see if anything else comes of this story.

The story was reported yesterday on channel 6 news, I did not see anything in today's paper about it.

here is a link to channel 6's web page, http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/.

New to Duluth Politics.

We will start a new feature here at DP. We will post some columns from high profile writers and politicians. This will be on our interview page, there you can also find old interviews we have done and new ones we hope to do as well.

Here is the link, http://dpinterviewpage.blogspot.com/. There is one column up now from last week if you want to head over and check it out.

Kozy bar fined

I know this is a little old, last monday night the Duluth City Council passed along fines to the Kozy Bar. The troubled bar has a new owner however things are not improving.

Eric the new owner choose to speak about situration going on with one of the bar tenaders that to me was not the major issue. The issue still is it has not improved they are still getting just as many police calls and prositoin is still going on there. They needs to be action taken this was just the first step if things don't improve.