Post Election

God Morning,

   Well I have awoke to some changes at the local level, a new sheriff is in town. It looks like Robin Cole had a big night outside of Pine City. The big shocker is definitely Oberstars loss to Cravaak, Wow that is a statement. Across the country people have voted and it would they voted for some changes. What the next two years will hold is going to be interesting, Will the newly elected really provide the changes people are calling for? Now that the republicans have gained control of the house I hope they listen to what the people ask them and not just go about
the politics as usual. They have a chance at trying to fix some things and I fear they may spend a lot of time trying to get into the White House. I hope I'm wrong, I hope they really do want to hit the ground running.
    I also wanted to just throw this other bit of recent news about the MN Vikings out there to see
if anyone might have some thoughts to share. I am a unapologetic Randy Moss fan and I'm not happy with the recent decisions by the Vikings. I think we all know that he can act up but that's Randy. Well that's all for now I hope to hear from people on their thoughts on the elections or Randy Moss.

Stan

Mayor Jane Robbins Wins (unofficial results)

HI


     Election night is always fun, drinking mad amounts of coffee, flipping channels, and a desktop full of news feeds. I was just on the MN secratary of state site and it appears Mayor Jane Robbins has won the mayoral race. It also would appear that Pine City has voted yes to the new fire hall. The real nail biter is the race for the 8th district, Oberstar has never had to worry about loosing and now he is trailing by just under 2000 votes. I wish I could say that I was so hardcore that I'm gonna stay up all night watching the numbers but I am beat and would like to be able to get out and finnish some last minute yard work today. I am including a link to the secratary of state web site for anyone looking for the unofficial results.http://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/20101102/SelectPrecinct.asp?M=P&rq=58Pine

Links to Tuesday Nights Debates

    I thought I would put up some video links to the mayoral and city council debates that took place at Pine Technical College on Tuesday night.

http://www.pinecitymn.com/detail/64463.html

http://www.pinecitymn.com/detail/64505.html

Pine City Candidates Forum

       Tonight my two oldest children and I went to the Pine City mayoral candidates forum at Pine Technical College. I thought it would be a good civics lesson for them to be a part of. They thought it was pretty fun for the first hour but the city council portion of the evening got to be a little boring for a twelve and eight year old. My son asked me why there were no young people at the forum, I didn't know how to answer him. I suspect that it has always been that younger people pay less attention to politics due to not feeling like they have anything to gain or loose in the whole process. I know that when I was younger I put very little thought as to who my mayor was or city council was.
       The forum was nicely done, and most important to note was that there was coffee available
wich anyone who knows me knows that I rarely go places without coffee. With that I have loaded a audio file of the mayoral candidates that you can listen to with the widget on the left side of the page.


Thanks Stan

Campaign contributions

                I set about searching twitter for any post regarding Pine City, what I found was a story about Senator James Oberstar’s only contribution from an individual in his district between July 22 and Sept. 30. That contribution came from Pine City mayor Jane Robbins . Intriguing I thought, some more searching around lead me to many sites with the story. One  of the sites was Politico.com, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43557.html . Another was Scribd.com

http://www.scribd.com/doc/19657397/Democrats-and-Out-of-State-Campaign-Contributions which was the one I found to be most interesting, 92% of  Senator Oberstar's contributions have been from out of state. I also found these spreadsheets with detailed contribution info on the district 8candidates. http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/campaigns/james_l_oberstar.asp?cycle=10 , http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/campaigns/chip-cravaack.asp?cycle=10 . I will not be voting for either candidate in this race but I do have some concerns about so much money coming from out of state. The practice is not uncommon I know, but that doesn't mean I like it. 

        I  contacted  Mayor Robbins by email to ask a few questions, she said she was not familiar with  recent stories about her being the only contributor from the senator's district and has not since responded back to answer any questions. I will put one question here to you all, what do you the residents of Pine City think about Senator Oberstar collecting 92% of his campaign contributions coming from out of state? For myself all this info speaks far more than peoples attacks on character letters and tv adds I see, it makes me think more about the candidate and how they might govern. What are your thoughts?

thanks, Stan

Fall

Hello,

     I just wanted to add my thoughts on Fall in Pine City. I love the Autumn in Pine City, there is so much to do here. The Chengwatana state forest is the best place to start, with miles and miles of trails anybody can go for a short walk with the dogs to a weekend backpacking trip. Let's not forget the grouse hunting, I have always done alright with my trusty lab Elsa. One thing I would like to address is there is lots of hunting activity this time of year and I see lots of people out and not wearing any blaze orange. This is a major safety issue for people out in the woods and it just makes sense to wear the orange so that the hunters are able to spot people out there, everyone should at the very least have a blaze orange cap on.
    Another thing we like to do is to collect fall leaves with our kids and put them in leaf presses that we make, here is a link to instructions on making one...http://tinyurl.com/37bohzh
    I wouldn't think of ending without mentioning bonfires with friends and family, which leads me to my request. I would love to post photos of your fall time fun. The only rule is that it has to take place in Pine City. You can email your photos to me and I will post them up here. I look forward seeing your photos.

Thanks,

Stan

Twitter

Hello,

I am letting everyone know that PineCityInsights is now on Twitter so everyone can get short snippets of insight there. I will be posting local news links and photos from around town. I hope this will add to the my adventure in blogging about Pine City and the people who live here. I have noticed that there is not much twitter activity in Pine City, tell people you know about it. The more people that take part, especially with the Twitter site the better glimpse we will get and everyone will be able to contribute. If anyone is not familiar or has any questions about Twitter feel free to email me and I will be glad to help out.

Thank you

Stan