-
Hibbing college to host only 5B primary forum Wednesday
By now you’re well aware of my coverage of the House 5B special election. As part of my day job at Hibbing Community College I am faculty co-advisor to Student Senate. The students are holding a forum for the DFL Primary candidates and another one later for the general election candidates. Here is the press…
-
House 5B Primary Candidate Commentary: Ray Pierce Jr.
MinnesotaBrown offered a 600-word guest post to all the candidates in the House District 5B Special Election. The second in the series runs today with Ray Pierce Jr. I am a lifelong resident of Hibbing MN. I graduated from Hibbing High School and attended classes in Business Management at HCC. I have grown up on…
-
AFSCME backs Melin in 5B
Carly Melin won the first big union endorsements in the House 5B Special Election DFL primary. Her campaign released this today: DFL candidate Carly Melin, vying for state representative, district 5B, wins the first major union endorsement in the election. AFSCME Council 5 & AFSCME Council 65 endorsed Carly Melin because of her strong stands…
-
House 5B Primary Candidate Commentary: Jeff Kletscher
MinnesotaBrown offered a 600-word guest post to all the candidates in the House District 5B Special Election. The first in the series runs today with Floodwood Mayor Jeff Kletscher. Thank you for the opportunity to share a few words with you. I have been a resident of Floodwood since August 1989, when I came to…
-
House 5B update: Door to door at ten below
I received some reports from boots on the ground in the House 5B DFL primary campaigns this weekend. And when I say boots on the ground, I mean big, honking clod-hopper boots on the cold, hard ground. On a pair of days in which the temperature barely reached zero here on the Iron Range, candidates…
-
COLUMN: We who sail the seas set the course
This is my weekly column which ran in the Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. The column ran a day early because I was told that the large volume of letters to the editor regarding the House 5B special election pushed me off the Sunday page. That’s great, because the Saturday…
-
Brown on the Air: BRAINERD!
This week on “Between You and Me,” the 91.7 KAXE Saturday morning call-in and music program featuring the voices of northern Minnesota, the topic is “Brainerd.” That’s right, the central Minnesota town whose pronunciation accentuates the regional accent gets its own show. This was a special challenge for me, a writer and teacher from the…
-
Minus Kirby Puckett
Thirty-four below this morning as the sun peeked over the treetops, futilely hurling its hot solar rays at the ice box that is northern Minnesota. Henry’s school bus sounded like it had the consumption. It would get to school but not without protracted effort and considerable noise. Temperatures ran even lower just a few miles…
-
Melin to host Saturday event featuring music from Paul Metsa
Carly Melin will host a candidate meet and greet from 5-7 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 22 at Zimmy’s in Hibbing. The event will feature live music from Iron Range native and well known Minnesota folk rocker Paul Metsa. Melin, a Hibbing attorney in the state judiciary, is one of five DFLers seeking the House 5B…
-
Veda Ponikvar endorses Robinson in 5B special
Shelley Robinson earned a notable endorsement in the House 5B special election Thursday. Former Chisholm newspaper publisher and longtime Iron Range leader Veda Ponikvar offered her support to Robinson. From the campaign release: … Ponikvar reports that “for the past 20 years, Shelley Robinson has been a passionate advocate for the less fortunate among our…
-
Come see "Overburden 2.0" talk today, Sunday in Virgina, Minn.
I almost forgot to mention it, but if you have some free time this afternoon and are near Virginia, Minnesota, I will be speaking at a St. Michael’s Foundation free seminar from 2-3 p.m. I will highlight some of the themes from my book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range” including some new material…
-
Primary drama, cold winds, hot Iron Range politics flood House 5B special
Open legislative seats on northern Minnesota’s Iron Range always attract drama, and not the sort of snappy, well-timed dialogue like you see in “The West Wing.” No, this drama is sometimes brutal, awkward, but extraordinarily rich, unflinchingly real, spanning generations like a great bridge. Today it begins anew. Seven candidates have filed for the special…
-
Five DFLers, one Republican and one IP for Sertich seat special
The field is set. Five DFLers including Shelley Robinson, Carly Melin, Jeff Kletscher, Ray Pierce Jr., and the John Spanish will compete in a Feb. 1 primary election for State House District 5B. Republican Paul Jacobson and Independence Party candidate Cynthia Kafut Hagen will be waiting in the Feb. 15 general election for the DFL…
-
Final day of filing for House 5B; full coverage of campaign at MinnesotaBrown
Today filings close on the Minnesota House of Representatives District 5B special election to replace former Rep. Tony Sertich (DFL-Chisholm) who is now Commissioner of Iron Range Resources. DFLers Jeff Kletscher, Carly Melin and Shelley Robinson are already in, along with Republican Paul Jacobson. I have heard from one candidate, DFLer Cynthia Kafut Hagen, who…
-
Snow poised to win labor dispute
Nothing says, “hello, this is what the apocalypse would look like,” like a snowplow driver strike in St. Louis County in January. It starts Wednesday, unless cooler (get it) heads prevail. Ideally, the union and management sweep aside their differences, piling up grievances out of the way or at least down the middle of the…