It’s been busy here at MinnesotaBrown World Headquarters. I wrote a column about Kristi Noem’s ouster at DHS that ran Saturday and forgot to post about it. Oops! (Here it is, if you’re still interested). Today’s topic is decidedly more local.
If you didn’t know, today is Township Day. Local elections will be held in townships across the state, with annual meetings scheduled tonight. The township annual meeting is a vestige of Minnesota’s earliest form of local government: direct democracy.
In today’s column (gift link), I share my own experiences wandering into this tradition when I was elected chair of my local township’s annual meeting a couple years ago. Looking back, I can name so many ways life out here in the woods of Balsam Township benefitted our family. There are some good lessons we can learn about healing democracy and our divided society from these gatherings.
Read “On Township Day, direct democracy rules rural Minnesota,” in the Tuesday, March 10, 2026 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
One response to “Shining a light on townships”
Townships could contribute to democracy even more if they had to follow Minnesota’s Data Practices Act. For some reason, they are exempt from this requirement, meaning that townships do not have to provide any records to the public if they choose not to. In my experience, some choose not to, which means they are a black box of unaccountability.