An open letter to city council members

Dear Councilors Awal, Durrwachter, Kennedy, Mayou, Vice President Tomanek, and President Randorf, 
As the local DFL party that endorsed you in your run for City Council, we are writing today to express our concerns about the public safety ordinance package proposed by Mayor Reinert.
These ordinances attach punitive fines and jail time to minor infractions, as well as to citizens practicing their First Amendment right to protest, and to our unhoused neighbors fulfilling their basic human need for shelter. Furthermore, to no fault of your own, it is clear that affected constituency groups were not meaningfully consulted before the first reading of these ordinances, and the ordinance package has received significant pushback from Duluth citizens. 

Below are a few of our concerns:
Ordinance 24-030-O: Ordinances that criminalize camping do not make communities safer, nor do they present any solution to the housing crisis. They only further harm community members who are already struggling and increase the burden on our first responders and public servants. 
Ordinance 23-033-O: We are profoundly concerned about the vague language in this ordinance, which could easily be weaponized against our labor siblings, and infringe on our right to protest and strike.
Ordinance 24-029-O: The vague language in this ordinance could easily be abused to make possession of spray paint, thick markers or “etching tools” a misdemeanor, even in the absence of evidence of their use to deface public property. We are deeply concerned that this ordinance will be disproportionately weaponized against BIPOC youth in our community.  

As our DFL-endorsed city councilors we urge you to vote to send the majority of these ordinances back to administration so that real community input from our most marginalized community members can be gathered. 
In Solidarity,
Duluth DFL Board
duluthdfl.com

If you think this is an exaggeration, check out Project 2025

Sure, Republicans, Blacks are going to vote to repeal the entire Civil Rights Movement; LGBTQIA+ people will vote to end their own marriages and break up their families, women everywhere love being beaten up by their husbands and they know in their lovely little hearts that life was better before birth control, and before they could get an abortion if they were raped.

Yes, we want public housing to be emptied of tenants and sold to developers because homeless people on the streets make America great; we want the FBI to stop investigating anything that might cause trouble for our new president or his cronies; we want the Department of Education to be eliminated; we hate it when teachers teach actual American history instead of a version approved by the GOP, the Heritage Foundation and the Klan; and we just hate TikTok, that evil Chinese company, and anything else from China, even though it’s almost everything we use and wear.

The elderly really hate Social Security and Medicare; they’d rather starve, never see another doctor, and do without those silly meds that keep them alive; everyone wants to send their kids to be indoctrinated in private Christian schools and then have to live with the preachy little bastards; we can’t stand being able to drink our water and breathe our air without getting sick, and millions of children born of immigrant parents really, really want to be deported.

Citizens want to be fired at by our own military if they dare protest the shredding of the Constitution; members of the military are just dying to be able to gun down citizens of their own country, and we all are just yearning to live in a country with a federal government run not by career professionals protected from party politics by the Pendleton Act, but by the semi-literate henchmen of an obese, 78-year-old gasbag perv Hitler wannabe who can’t stay awake for his own nomination, and his psycho hillbilly wannabe sidekick who will instantly be our new Fearless Leader should the old lardbag kick the bucket.

We would just die if the President turned out not to be another old white guy. Yeah, bring it on, Republicans. We’re ready.
Laura Marland
Duluth, Minnesota

Recalling JFK

Sixty-one years after President Kennedy’s Ashland Airport speech on the importance of resource conservation, the U.S. Department of Energy brings a study to Washburn and Chequamegon Bay 
“Lake Superior, the Apostle Islands, the Bad River area, are all unique…in an age of congestion and pollution, manmade noise and dirt, Lake Superior has a beauty that millions can enjoy - President John F. Kennedy
Speaking at the Ashland Airport on September 24, 1963, President Kennedy described Lake Superior’s south shore and the surrounding Great Lakes region as an area that “has seen the results of waste and indifference.” Continuing, he said: “And it’s also seen what can be done through dedication and determination…to correct…conditions in a section of Wisconsin…which in the past depended on a few natural resources and known what economic distress can do when those resources are exhausted, or when indifference lays them waste.”

Some Sixty one years later, Kennedy’s speech is proving ever more prescient. Echoes of it reverberate around Chequamegon Bay. On September 13th, 2024, the theme of resource conservation will again be picked up a few miles from the Ashland (now John F. Kennedy Memorial) Airport.
At a moment when the specter of melting polar ice caps increasingly looms over and darkens the horizon of our world community, some one hundred people will gather between Washburn and Ashland at the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center. The group will include representatives of The Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) as well as folks from the Bad River and Red Cliff Chippewa Tribes, the County of Bayfield, and the municipalities of Washburn, Ashland, and Bayfield.

On the meeting’s agenda are presentations relating to renewable energy, conservative resource use, sustainable business models, and regenerative development.
Seeking to increase public awareness and knowledge in rural places, the D.O.E./ NREL program is showcasing the Chequamegon Bay community in its resource conservation efforts and business model innovations around energy efficient retrofits of old houses. Beginning with the September 13th “Washburn B-Biz” showcase, the program highlights what can be done when local leaders and a community as a whole cohesively work together with shared purpose and a common interest. Now more than ever, Great Lakes communities need such visionary programs so that, as Kennedy said, “this area can rise and provide a life for its people and an attraction” – and example – “for people all over the Middle West.”
Roth Edwards
Washburn, Wisconsin

 Stauber’s hypocrisy

In the current political climate, I find it hard to be surprised, no matter how outrageous the statements we hear from our representatives. But Pete Stauber talking about “fueling hatred and division” takes the cake - OUR Pete Stauber, who has supported and enabled the most hateful, divisive political figure in our history. OUR Pete Stauber, who joined 125 other Republicans in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, even after 90 other lawsuits filed on Trump’s behalf were basically laughed out of court. OUR Pete Stauber, who had the shameless audacity to parrot Trump’s lunacy about “rigged” trials. And the Democrats are fueling hatred?? Stauber’s hypocrisy is staggering - he must not have any mirrors in his home. Once upon a time, I actually voted for him because I thought he was a stand-up guy. Well, that ship has sailed - I wouldn’t vote for him again if he was the last candidate on earth.
William L Scott
Soudan. Minnesota