Check out the voice blog site.

I have three voice blogs up at the site right now, http://www.snapvine.com/profile/3kOD7n0TEd6ytAAwSFxx0g.

Just a reminder the voice blogs will not be all local talk. I will discuss a number of issues there that I think all people may be interested in. I will however cover a lot of local issues there as well.

The first three shows are about a variety of issues.

The first show deals with the cab driver from Boston almost getting suspended.

The second is the hells angles visit to the area. Also if other people have had issues with them. Also my thoughts on the outlaw bike group.

The third show is all sports the MLB news today that David Ortiz failed a drug test in 2003 and the Duluth Huskies need new mangers.

Use the link to list to those plus I want to get one more show up tonight but not sure I will be able to. The news is out that the cash for clunkers program is coming to an end already.

Business down beacause of law enforcement.

The Pine Journal has a great story up about how the hells angles visit is going thus far. Today nothing big has happened.

The big thing in the story for me is the lose of business because of the increase in law enforcement. The statement's have came from business owners.

The third base bar owner said this.

“The biggest thing I’ve heard from other local business people is that the law enforcement is getting in the way, stopping everyone for the littlest thing,” he said. “It’s good that they are staffed just in case. But, I’m expecting [business] to be slow.”

Another business owner added this.

Linde Higton, said she thought the law enforcement presence was “too overboard.”
“They’re scaring people,” she said.

The police department gave the cop out answer they have a job to do. I normally don't go against any police department but this I do. Shame on you for causing harm to business.

Voice Blogging.

Today marks an exciting day for the Duluth Politics family. I have started voice blogging.  I am doing this from snapevine.com. My address is http://www.snapvine.com/profile/3kOD7n0TEd6ytAAwSFxx0g.

There you can listen to my show’s. They will be short at most 5 minutes long. I will talk about a number of issues. Not just Duluth Politics. The fist show is about the cab driver in Boston. I did a post about it here as well. I will focus on Duluth Politics but we there we will discuss a bunch of issue’s.

I believe you have to register to listen but I am not sure. You can try to click on the link and see if you can listen to the show. I think to comment you need to register.

Just checked you can listen by clicking on the link. No need to register however please do and comment by phone or write a comment on the voice blog site.

Power to the people rally.

I was unable to go to this as some thing came up at work just prior to and I could not get a way. With that said I will try to give my comments best I can, based of reports have seen and read.

You can find some report at the following sites www.wdio.com and www.dannydoesduluth.com well kind of a report more of just making fun of every thing.

Now did this do much. As far as any one resigning no. No one is going to step down as councilor, what it did do however is show that people are upset. Well reports varied on the amount of people at the rally. It seems most people were said there was 40 to 50 people there. With a smaller group of anti protesters.

Well I don’t agree with everything this group stood for I do agree with much of it and I hope what comes of it is more people getting involved with Government one way or another.

The rally was about the actions of a couple of councilors Toney Cuneo and Sharla Gardner. The issue’s with Cuneo was his appointment to DEDA and not paying his property taxes. Well Gardner had an issue with the sitter city commission.

The rally seemed to be more focused on Cuneo after it was all said and done.

Hell’s bell’s there here.

The motor cycle group (gang) hell’s angles are here. Every one panic we are all going to die.

People don’t worry or panic these are just people. You know the first thing that happens will be blown way out off hand by the media.

5 year old girl left in cab. Who takes the blame?

This is not a local however I found it to be interesting. A 5 year girl was left behind by her family in a Boston cab. The family was returning from a trip. They took a cab from the airport to there house. The family and the cab driver un loaded the cab when they got to the house.

A few minutes later the cab driver got a call from the police they said a child was left in his cab. He looked sure enough the child was in a the back seat of the mini van cab. The driver brought the child home right away.

Who do you think took the blame for this one? Nope not the family. That’s right the cab driver was faced with a three day suspension. Well the family would not have any charges brought against them.

“The following day, Cohen was ordered to report to the Hackney unit, where police told him his license was being suspended for three days because he didn't do a thorough check of the van. He appealed the suspension and was allowed to keep his license pending a hearing. On Tuesday, he visited the police station with an attorney and learned he would only get a warning”

It took the union and it’s lawyer's to get rid of the suspension. I agree with the cab union this was not his fault. All the blame lie on the family.

“The cabbies' union expressed outrage at the proposed suspension, saying the fault should lie with the child's family, not the driver.”

Again I agree with the union what are your thoughts?

Source: www.yahoo.com , you can read the whole story there.

Time to lose it’s liquor license.

I don’t normally advocate for the closure of businesses or the lose of something to the businesses.

With that said I think it is time for  Norshor to lose it’s liquor license. As many of you know there have been a lot of troubles with the Norshor owner. Not it seems like this guy may have another case against him in cass country.

It is time the police don’t need to worry about this business or this guy.

Interesting.

Who will you vote for in the at large council race?

Who will you vote for in the at large council race?

  5 (83%)

Jim Stauber

  5 (83%)

Dan Hartman

  0 (0%)

Beth Olsen

  1 (16%)

Again these polls are for fun and mean little. They are far from scientific. I did find it interesting however that Hartman got no votes. If he is the front runner you would think he would have got at least one vote. Yes I get a number of DFLers that come here as well. 

Note Becky Hall did not in the poll as she announced after the poll was up.

Head out to Wade Stadium tonight!!!

Tonight marks a new direction for the Duluth Huskies. A former Major League Baseball coach will take over as the field manager. Terry Collins will start as the new field manger tonight after Adam Stahl was fired on Friday.

Collins has coached two major league teams the Houston Astros and the Anaheim Angels. He also has 11 years of minor league coaching experience but he has never coached collage before. Collins will take over the huskies with just three weeks left in the season.

The North woods League with the huskies are part of is a summer league for collage kids to get use to the wood bats. The North woods league just had there all star game and this is the first night that the teams will be back in action.

The huskies thought this would be a good time to bring on the the manager for the team. Collins is here on a non binding contract. He can leave when he wants to. Collins is in the running for a few other jobs at this point. Collins last coached team China in the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

The Mayor can't keep his top aid.

I am glad that the Mayor is confident that the COA David Montgomery will work out. That makes one person in the city and in city hall that is. The talk around town the last few days has been the firing of Michael Ashcraft and this being the the third person fired or leaving the office. Mayor Ness now going on his fourth COA is only in his second year as mayor.

Those that have came and gone threw the doors of city hall. John Hall who was Mayor Bergson COA, he was not going retained by Mayor Ness. Lisa Potswald was given a different job then Mark Winson was brought back he left after a short time back. Now Achcraft fired for what seems to be little reason.

Ashcraft and the Mayor have given little reason for his firing other then to say it was not a good fit. After talking with some one connected to the Mayor Duluth politics has learned that the mayor is quietly saying that Ashcraft just was not getting things done fast enough. He was not well enough connect to the city.

Lets say many people are not buying that, nor is the person that contacted me with the information. The mayor is placing blame on other all the time sooner or later the blame needs to fall in the mayor lap. Well the Mayor has said he takes the fall for the hire of Ashcraft.

There must be some thing going on.

The Mayor has again released his top aid. Duluth city administrator is out. Michael Ashcraft has only been with the city sense May. There was no reason given other then it did not work out and that Duluth was not the right fit. More later.

Duluth Huskies news.

The Duluth Huskies field manger Adam Stahl after two and half years as head coach. Yesterday before the game is when Stahl found out that he was not longer with the team. It is an unusual move at this level in baseball. 

Stahl in his two and half years was 84-99 last season and this have been miserable for the huskies. The huskies this year have not had won any more then two games in a row and have been not scored a single in run 9 games this season. The huskies are at the bottom of the league in hitting .220 and runs scored 174 this year.

Well I am not sure what lead to his dismissal I am sure this was part of it. There are rumors I will not allow those here. Another thing is Stahl played small ball way to much.most likely because he is a high school coach in the spring.  As far as I know Stahl was the only high school coach in the league.

A replacement Terry Collins will be named field manager on Tuesday. Collins is a former MBL coach and is expected to coach the last three weeks of the season. 

In part why they are running.

The two latest candidates to say they are running for the Duluth City Councils are again Becky Hall and current councilor Jim Stauber.

Stauber said he is running mainly for these three reason’s

1. The city will lack veteran leadership in January 2010. All other councilors, the mayor and the five senior staff employees will have less than two years on the job.

2. Diversity in political views in all forms of government brings a better product. The releases says many consider Stauber a moderate to conservative while many of his colleagues and the mayor are usually considered left of center.

3.  He has unfinished business including working on neighborhood issues and maritime development of Duluth's bay front.

 

Becky Hall said she is running to improve the city’s relationship with business. Well I am sure there are other reason Becky is running I have been up able to find her press release if she sent one. I also have not yet had a chance to talk to her. More to come soon.

Another one enters.

There is now four canidates for the two at large city council seats. The three to date were current city councilor Jim Stauber, Dan Hartman, Beth Olsen. Now the four to announce is Becky Hall.

More on this later. I will also have more on Stauber as well.

Stauber is in.

Just minutes ago councilor Jim Stauber announced that he would for a third term. Stauber was first elected to the city council in 2001.

More on this later.

Interesting

Okay so I know that there was only 7 votes on this poll. Remember these poll at my site are only for fun and information for those that visit and chose to vote on the poll.

With that said I found it funny that Fox 21 did not receive any votes. I remember when they first came on the scene everyone was like yeah fox they are great. Now they seem to just be a fluff piece of “news”. There is little new on the station and it is mostly feel good stories. There is nothing wrong with feel good stories but then don’t call the broadcast  the news because it is not.

Channel 10 has long been the best local news out let in this market and I think that only shows by this poll. Again this is only information and for fun but channel 10 got 71% of the vote. Well the NNC if you combine 3 and 6 got 28% 14 % each.

What T.V. Station do you watch for your local news.

 

3 NNC

  1 (14%)

6 NNC

  1 (14%)

10 WDIO

  5 (71%)

21 FOX

  0 (0%)

14 innings and to split.

The Duluth Huskies and the Mankato Moon dog’s played almost 6 hours of baseball on Tuesday night. The two games totaled 14 innings.

The first game was the continuation of a suspended game three and a half weeks ago. The game picked up in the top of the 11th inning tied at 2. The game went in to the bottom of the 14th when the moon dogs finaly won the game by a 3-2 score. Well the huskies never really got anything going that game. It has to be tough to just get to town and then look at continue a game that started last month.

The came was called last month do to weather. In the game last month there was four stoppages in play. Three for tornado warning that last a total of 30 minutes. Then a final rain delay that lead to the came being postponed to today.

The second game was to go nine innings it did not it went 11. The Huskies jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning but in the thrid the moon dogs took a 5-2 lead and looked well on there way to the double header sweep.  The huskies however fought and tied in at 5 in the top of the 9th inning. Then came the 11 inning where the huskies piled on the hits and the runs scoring 5 times off of 5 hits and three errors by moon dogs. The huskies went on to win in 11 inning 10-6. This splitting the double header.

If you are a baseball fan they are two games that were exciting. You can listen to every Duluth Huskies game on ESPN radio 560 A.M.

The murder.

people have been sending me emails asking what I think about it. At this point I have no commetns on it. I may not either or then it is sad.

Councilor Stauber to run or not.

We will find out most likely if he will run again for City Councilor. Jim Stauber said he will announce his plans on either Tuesday or Wednesday or this week.

If he enters the race and I think he will. He will win the seat. There for being a split in the two at large seats the DFL will get one with Dan Hartman, then Stauber will retain his seat.

Jim Stauber has upset both sides of the with some of his votes and that is one reason I like Jim. Yes he makes no bones about it he is a republican. As a councilor however that side has called for his head there have also been times he stays with his side and of course votes for pro republican issues.

My thoughts on the rally against Governor Pawlenty’s cuts.

So I have reported about the rally. Well I may still have more about it I want to offer my thoughts about the whole conference.

Well I don’t agree with everything at the rally there were a few things I did agree with. Governor Pawlenty has been cutting health care for a number of years and he chose to do it again. Now I am not one that believes everyone should have health care. I am however one that believes everyone should have a chance at health care.

There will now be a burden put on Minnesota Care. They only have so much and can only have so many people on the program at one time.

I agree with the comment that Roger Reinert made about the Governor setting a bad example to just send the legislators home and do things my way. Not only you check out on Minnesota. Lets face it the Governor is now setting up for a run as president or Vice president. Well I am okay with him doing this it is not okay to just ignore the State.

Well I am okay with the Governor balancing the budget on his own done the right way this time he it was not done the right. It did in fact seem the Governor wanted nothing to do with anyone that did not agree with him. 

Some one at the rally talked about the renters rebate. It will be cut by a minimum of 19%. She said many people used this check for a number of things. Renters also pay part of the property tax for the person they are renting from.

As some one that has rented before yes the check was nice. I however am okay with it being cut down a bit. I think most people  that rent are okay with smaller check. Now are there those that will struggle sure there are. There are also those that own homes that struggle. Yet they find ways to make it. People can’t depend on one check that they receive once a year.

This was a very pro DFL rally and to claim different would be wrong. Now to the best of my knowledge no one was claiming it was not a pro DFL rally however Steve O’Neil said he did not want to be so partisan.  That simply was not true he meant to be.

All in all it was put together well. It was run good and they were willing to answer questions if anyone had. The group did a nice job.

Northstar Aerospace recalls some workers.

Well it’s a small number it’s a start in the right direction. Northstar aerospace has recalled about 20 workers. They returned to work yesterday. There may be more call backs but when they come is anyone’s guess.

At one time Northstar had 115 employees. They then went down to there all time low 20 as the recession went on. With they announcements of the call backs they now has a staff of 40.

The company is a precision machine shop. Cirrus is one of there biggest customers.

My report on the Press Conference against Governor Pawlenty’s cuts.

The press conference started with Steve O’Neil. He said it was sad that the cuts could not be vetoed by the elected officials. He said that the DFL did it’s part to try to veto the cuts but the republican party stayed in lock step with the Governor. The cuts will last beyond this year they will carry into 2010 and possible to 2012 O’Neil said.

Cuts are going to have a huge burden on the low income and the seniors O’Neil made the statement that the cuts were laid on the least politically powered people. He said that the Governor views these people as the least beneficial for him political future. 

The cuts will happen to health, senior programs, and drug rehab  and recovery centers. It will lead to less county services he said.

O’Neil said he did not want to be to politically bias today but yet to many chances to bash the Governor and the republican party. He even included going after the Governor for not responding to emails, letters, phone calls. He said the Governor does not want to hear from the people. 

He was the first to make the comment about the Governor checking out on Minnesota as he looks to be a Presidential candidate in the next election. All the speakers make this comment after that point.

The next speaker was Roger Reinert he was there to represent the state DFLers. Well many of his comments echoed those of O’Neil’s there were a few more that I thought were interesting.

He said the there was big differences between the Governors plan and that of the DFL. The Governors plan will lead to a much higher job lose then that of the DFL. Well the DFL plan would have lead to abut 1oo job cuts the Governors leads to five times that. There plan also increased the property tax on the rich in Minnesota but only by about 100 dollars he said.  With the cuts the Governor is making they will pay much more then that.

He also sad that it was sad the Governor is laying out a bad plan. He said that now all a Governor has to do is send the legislators home and deal with the budget his own way if he does not like what one side is saying. He also said that he hated the Governor made an announcement to not run for re-election during this battle. It allowed for him to basically leave Minnesota behind and look to moving his political career ahead.

There were more speakers but I will cover those in the another post soon.

By the numbers.

Yesterday I went to the rally against the Governors cuts. It was held by Twin Ports Action Coalition. The rally started at noon. It was put together well I thought.

There was one thing that shocked me a bit however. Being that this was a rally against the Governor and his cuts I expected a lot of people. There was only about 20-25 people now remember this was on a Monday and a lot of people are working. I was thinking there would have been about 50 people but again there was only about half of that.

The other thing that was a shock was the lack of local Government officials. Here again I thought they would come out of the wood work for this. There was no Mayor Ness who will take shots at Pawlenty any chance he gets. There was no current city councilors I expected that some one would be there representing the city but nope.

Who was there of note? County board member Steve O’Neil who represents the 2nd district on the board. State Representative Roger Reinert who represents 7B. Both Reinert and ONeil made comments at the press conference. Also there was 2nd council candidate Patrick Boyle.

Another thing that was interesting was the lack of news media. T.V. there was only one channel there. That was WDIO channel 10. The other two stations were not there the 3 and 6 Northlands news center was not there nor was fox 21. NNC who has the most people working and should be at events like this never show. They along with Fox 21 don’t really care about the news that happens right here in town. I was a bit surprised that there was no one there from the Duluth News Tribune. The only two other media outlets there was the HIllsider paper and blogger Duluth Politics. ( Hey I think I know who runs that site.) I wish the media would take a more active roll in our community. I know I am going to try to attend more events like this. Again if you have a press conference or news worthy event please remember to send it to me at duluthneedshelp@yahoo.com

Any way I thought this was interesting more on the conference coming soon.

Coming later tonight.

 

UPDATE: Post will be coming tomorrow instead of today. To many things going on tonight.

 

Post on today’s rally against the Governors cuts. An update on the another rally. Possible more.

Superior Mayor David Ross files for LT. Governor.

David Ross was hoping to hold off on his announcement to run for lieutenant governor till after labor day. That did not happen yesterday he made his plans public this after completing papers that allows him to campaign and raise money.

David Ross won a straw poll in the republican convention in May. He will announce a campaign staff starting next month. He will however hold his formal announcement till September 11th and that will take place at Barkers Island.

As I said before I wish he had a Mayor like Ross in Duluth. Ross has taken control after two bad mayors in superior and really improved the city. Well Duluth continues down a line of just okay Mayors. David Ross is heads and shoulders above all Duluth and Superior politicians.

I wish Mr. Ross the best.

Another Rally to take place.

Another rally is set to take place on July 27th at 5 pm. It will be held on the steps of the court house. That is all I am going to say about it right now.

You may hear more about it this weekend. I know more but am not sure how much the person wants out about it at this point.

I don’t talk much about this.

I don’t talk about the red plan much on this site. I leave that mostly for Harry Welty http://www.lincolndemocrat.com and others in the know on that issue. Check out Harry’s site listed above for the latest on the red plan.

I will say this however I am glad that the LDV group raised the money. To keep there law suit going.

Also when you vote in November I ask that you vote for candidates against the red plan.