School board closed door meeting.

The Duluth School board held a closed door meeting Tuesday night to sell Duluth Central High School. It sat for three years with a few buyers looking at but nothing the board wanted to deal with.   Now they have sold the building for 10 million dollars to a developer not being named as of yet.

Now two other schools looked in to buying the building Duluth Edison and Lake view Christian.  The school board refused to sell to them because they are "competing" schools.  First lets take edison, it is a private public partnership with 709 the school board allowed them to come here and are in partnership with them how is that competing?  Lake view yes is a private but the way I see it is already a school let it be used as such if you are not going to.

Now on to the closed door meeting I don't care what any one says, I hate closed door meetings now the school district will hide behind that they are protecting the developer and the citizens in realty you are only protecting your own butt.  It was a 7-0 vote.  You only have a closed for two reason, one for expelling kids and I get to protect the student.  Two to protect your self because you really don't want to hear from the citizens.

Council Vice President.

Well folks it's time of year where the Duluth City Council looks to elected new leaders to president and vice president.  There is a cat and mouse game taking place as we speak.   The two front runners right now are councilors Jay Fosle and Jennifer Julsrud.  Now there is potently for a even a third person to jump in the is for vice president.

For those that don't know normally all the "fighting" for these positions are normally done behind hind sence. When the election takes place it is normally a 9-0 for the seats because the council wants to show unity.  That said don't be followed there is a big game being played for these seats.

Joel and I talked about it on the radio show last night, if you have not listened to the show go and do so, we explain it well there.  You can find the show at www.blogtalkradio.com/duluthpolitics2.


Now councilors are already who they want to vote and most seem to have there minds made up one way or the other, there are two swing votes I believe right now on who will get the seat. Those councilors are Howie Hanson and Zack Filpovich.  The others I believe know who they will support. How I see it as of now:

For Councilor Julsrud are Russ, Krug, Larson and her self

For Councilor Fosle Sipress, and Gardner and him self.

Now the two swing votes will be courted for there vote.  This will be very interesting and it should be fun to watch as it develops.

Is there some one you want in the VP role then let the councilors know your thoughts as to why that person would be a good VP.

As far as president it seems like Larson would be the front runner for it and maybe the only to do so at this point.  

The Duluth Governors debate.

This post is not going to be at all about the debate that took place in Duluth this morning.  Fact is I did not go to it so at this point I don't know how it went.  This post will focus on the fact that the debate was missing something/some one.

Now I know that the chamber had been setting this up as a  debate between Governor Dayton and republican challenger Jeff Johnson.  Fact is they totally disregarded another choice for Governor and that was independent candidate Hannah Nicollet. Now it may not have been a big deal to some but for me it is, regardless of your political stand all major voices should be heard.  The independents does major status in Minnesota and there for should have had there candidate in this debate.  After all she was in the other two prior debates in Rochester and Moorehead Minnesota.


Not only was she in them but she did well in them according to many sources for all walks of the political life.  I just strongly believe that all candidates should have the right to take part in a debate.

Now why would the chamber not include her, I don't know for sure.  There sure are many possibility's, they have a political bend they wanted to protect?  The chamber does not believe she is in a major party or viable candidate.  Neither of these should be something the chamber should decide.  They don't like her?  Don't like the party?  ect....

The chamber said that they would not include her because it would be distrustful, to the other candidates.  What a complete joke.   The chamber made a bad decision in not allowing her to debate today, it angered many people again of all political aisles.  Many did not attend debate because of this.  

News and endorsing.

Okay folks here is the deal  I have been involved in media for 20 plus, in many ways from blogging,radio and politics.  Now I have a real issue with news papers and news cast endorsing/ fact checking.  There is a reason you are news.  Do your job and report the news.  

I don't feel that news papers should do endorsements, this is not news.  Fact is an "endorsement" by a paper just an opinion there is no news involved in this. Papers time in and time out tell you vote this way and here is a bit about the candidate, what they don't tell is how they came to decision.  They also do not tell who is making that decision nor do they tell where those people stand politically. I don't see anything news worthy in papers endorsements.

fact checking in a newscast, again this is not something that should be done in a newscast.  This is not news, what they are doing is threw a tv commercial of a candidate or party and saying if they believe it is true or not.  I fail to see how this is news.  I don't have a problem with them doing fact checking, the problem I have is where it is done.  If you want to have a community show that does where you say we   have taken this commercial apart and here is what we believe.  That said in that show if the station leans any way they need to make that information public.  

Blogging is completely different, this is where people share there thoughts and opinions. Quickly also there a talk shows on radio, these are different from news programs.  The show host and callers are sharing there opinions on issues, candidates ect...

This may come from my schooling and being involved in media for 20 plus years.  I just don't see any positives in this type of "news" broadcasting.  When is school you learn that news is just that news, you don't have a political lean.

Howie Hanson announces run for Mayor.

The first of a list of possible many people to announce their run for Duluth has been made.  It of course all depends on what Mayor Don Ness decides to do.  If he runs there will not be many people running, if he does not the list will be many.


Duluth City Councilor Howie Hanson announced last week he would run for in 2015.  Well there where rumours of him running for Mayor his early announcement has seemed to shock many folks.  The debate has been why announce before the 2014 elections is over?  It is a good question his short response has been because he wants the public to get to know him and where he stands on issues.  

Howie will be on the Duluth Politics radio show tomorrow night at 10pm central time.  You can listen to the here, www.blogtalkradio.com/duluthpolitics2.  We will talk about this and many other issues as well in his run for Mayor.

My plan for the show is he and I will talk for about ten minutes or so then I will open the phone lines for about 10 or 15 minutes for questions and he and will wrap up the show with more talk and close it out.

There was a facebook fire storm between Mayor Ness and Hanson as well it seems like Mayor Ness was not happy he would have to run against if he chooses to run again.  My question is should you not always expect a challenger?

Fall Fest turns in to political hot spot.

Fall fest this year turned in to a political hot spot.  Now during this great fall event at chester bowl there is normally a couple of politicians. It however is not a hot spot for many of the higher up seats, you get your local politicians city council, school board, county board from time to time.  You don't normally see state or federal candidates much there.

First let me say that fall fest is a great event held at chester bowl every year in late September, farmers market, food, music, and other vendors.   Fun time held by all who go to it.  This year saw an  political spectrum from the democrats and republicans. Both candidates for state house 7A where their, Jen Shultz and Becky Hall.  The DFL had a both there as well. The thing that does not happen much is the republicans got something right, and brought Stewart Mills (running congress 8th) Jeff Johnson ( running for Governor) at this event.  Now they where in town for the Ronald Reagan dinner.  However for them to realize that this event has hundreds to thousands of people and bring them to is remarkable, they never get anything right up here.

Mills and Johnson did not get to the event till about 2:30 or 3 as they where huge gun show in Cloquet . Still there where a lot people at the event at this time.  They also where there in support of 7A candidate Becky Hall who had a booth at the event.  They used there time wisely meeting with people threw out the park.  Just shocked they did this.  What it will mean for them is yet to be seen.  I can't say  Mills or Johnson have not been up here any more however :( .


Now on to a note for both 7A candidates get out of your booth more and meet and go to the people not wait for them to come to you as events like this.  There was far to much sitting and standing at your booth by both of you.

 

Mayor Ness to run again or not.

Man there are all kinds of rumors out there on what Mayor Don Ness is going to do.  My personal thought is he is not going to run again but I have no real knowledge of his intention. As the rumors grow about who might run for mayor and city council races.


Mayor list as I have heard:  City councilor's Emily Larson, Howie Hanson, Joel Siprss ( I don't think he will this time) but his name has been tossed around.  Chris Dalhberg, Becky Hall, Roger Reinhert, Scott Keenen ,Dan fanning, Dan Hartman, Todd Fedora, Jim Stauber.