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Candidate for Minnesota governor Tom Rukavina’s stomping mad about the public being silenced at the latest Polytech hearing on the future of copper mining in Minnesota. Now, neighbors won’t be able to hear from neighbors.
According to the Duluth News Tribune:
Mesabi East High School was packed Wednesday night with people who wanted to talk … but they couldn’t hear each other’s comments…nearly 1,000 people, most of them wearing “Support PolyMet Jobs” stickers, braved sub-zero wind chills to attend the meeting.
The subject of the hearing was Polytech’s site north of Aurora, where people are desperate for jobs. They can’t even keep a barber up there, and they want to keep their young people around. In contrast, environmentalists are concerned about water usage and the release of sulfuric acid into nearby water supplies:
… (the) rock is brought to the surface and exposed to air and water…the sulfur in the rock links with hydrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere to form sulfuric acid…At the PolyMet site, LaTisha Gietzen said the mine is designed to keep a lot of the sulfur out of the environment. She said PolyMet will actually use some of the sulfur as fuel.
What? Use some of the sulfur as fuel?
Rukavina saw a need for public input and open exchange:
“…the Governor and the DNR are now trying to revamp the public hearing procedure in this state by not allowing an open exchange of ideas by our citizens. That’s wrong. The public deserves to be heard on this and all important issues facing the State of Minnesota”.
I call that transparency, and a desire to listen to the people. Kudos to Rukavina.
Jobs. We need them.
Can the state encourage PolyMet Mining to research and develop better methodology? Maybe Rukavina could lead the way.
Tom Rukavina needs a Big Shout Out for his stance on Pawlenty’s spending of our critical Capital Budget (aka the bonding bill) to create Lake Vermillion Park.
In the Rukavina interview , he correctly calls it as a plan to “snooker” the taxpayers … nice tax break for US Steel … county losing property tax payments … infrastructure development will cost more … and Pawlenty reached the deal a month ago but has kept it quiet.
Worse yet, Pawlenty is valuing a Vacation Lake over City Water in how he wants to invest our Capital Budget … more later on my blog.
More bad Pawlenty news. Rukavina often “calls it like it is” and works tirelessly on our behalf. Gotta like that.
I’m looking forward to your post. And, have you heard anything out of Quist lately? The DFL could talk about strong family values now and again, just to set the frame right.
@admin –
And, have you heard anything out of Quist lately? The DFL could talk about strong family values now and again, just to set the frame right.
The Trio (Quist/ Hagedorn/Demmer) have been making the rounds … visiting Chambers of Commerce … but the most interesting activity in the First District is the SD-26 Special Election … it could be the canary in the coalmine for the Governor’s race. Engbrecht should have great appeal to the independent voters however the MN-GOP has been running radio commercials saying that he wants to raise sales taxes … normally, that would be a dealbreaker for many voters, but this election has an Independence Party candidate that will pull voters away from the MN-GOP. SmartPolitics has had some nice reviews of the strength of the IP and MN-GOP in the district.
One way to look at the candidates is how much money they got from individuals … and it’s surprisingly close. Based on first reporting, IP Srp got $4,332.86 from individual contributors while Parry got $5,655 and Engrecht got $5,835 … {Political Parties and special interest groups not considered in these donations.} If someone is going to write a check, they are probably assured that they will show up on a cold January election day … if so the vote tally would be Independence Party 27.4%, MN-GOP 35.7% and DFL wins at 36.9%.
IMO if Tom Horner gets the IP governor nomination, considering the anger that voters have for both parties it would not be a surprise that for the IP to be at 27% in the Gov’s race.
Regarding getting the “strong family values” out there … Marty Seifert is already on the Linder Farm Radio Network with commercials …. planting the seeds that the rural communities are hearing. Any idea if any of the DFL candidates are doing any public advertising yet … one suggestion would be for a joint commercial encouraging people to attend the caucuses (get John Marty to say one portion … then MAK says a few lines … then Bakk … etc.) … doesn’t matter who the nominee is, it just gets the voters thinking about the DFL.
BTW, my post is up chastising Pawlenty for spending $50 million for a new State Park when cities have major water infrastructure problems.
This guv race has hit the road, running so early… I suppose good Dem advertising could be in order. You’re right, it doesn’t have to be one candidate, it can be Dems in general (purpose). But good idea. Hmm, Seifert is on the radio already? I haven’t heard any ads.
Does anyone know why Molenar doesn’t back Seifert? What’s her reasoning?
To tell you the truth, I sent wording ideas down to Engbrecht for his website and suggested a blog, but he didn’t have time to respond. That was the day after he was endorsed. It seems like the folks down there are working hard to doorknock, etc. I hope they heard the Engbrecht message… there was a lot of talk about Mike Parry.
I don’t consider the region a canary in a coalmine, unless Engbrecht wins.
[...] old Democrat Tom Rukavina has been listening in his district (my earlier post) and people are hurting for jobs. Here’s news from his office of an [...]