Local political candidates

Candidate for governor Becky Lourey (left) visits with Jasmin and Amber Barksdale, Molly Woehrlin and Charles Skinner during a house party hosted Thursday, January 12, by Sharon Gates-Hull in Northfield. Lourey held the first town hall-style meeting of the campaign later in the evening at St. Olaf College. She also visited along Division Street and viewed the farm art exhibit at Northfield Arts Guild.

Pictured (from left to right): Becky Lourey (sitting on table), Jasmine Barksdale, Amber Barksdale, Molly Woehrlin, Charles Skinner.

As perhaps you've heard in the news vote challengers have been deployed to local polling places today. A report had come in about a voter being challenged at City Hall. Apparantly two people were there whom others identified as vote challengers. I was able to ask one of them if he was a vote challenger. He denied it, saying he was just an observer. However, he had on his shirt a clearly labeled sticker, which read "Challenger".

Another challenger from the Voting Rights Legal Team was on hand at the St. Dominic's polling place. Not suprisingly he said he was there to protect voter rights. Despite reports to the contrary the other vote challenger knew of no lists of individuals targeted to have their votes challenged. Also, a Spanish language translator was on hand to assist anyone with a language barrier to voting.

The Primary Election is on Tuesday (tomorrow as of this post). Both this site and Northfield News are good places to find out about the candidates. See the previous post on the League of Women Voters Forum last Tuesday.

To find out where your polling place is, use the Minnesota Polling Place Finder.

http://pollfinder.sos.state.mn.us

Last Tuesday night the League of Woman Voters held their candidate forum, moderated by Amy Gage, at City Hall. The forum consisted of two sessions, the first for County Commissioner, Districts 1 and 2, and the second for the At-large City Council seat and Mayor. In attendence for the County Commissioner, District 2 were Craig Redalen, David Delong and Jessica Peterson. Dan Freeman did not attend. In attendance for County Commissioner District 1 were Heather Robins and Bob Harar. Absent were Jake Gillan and Joseph Adamek.

All candidates agreed that agriculture and commercial development were the biggest issues facing Rice County. Harar and Redalen expressed their support for commercial development, while Peterson, Delong and Robins placed more emphasis on managing the growth of industrial agriculture and finding alternatives for commercial development. Robbins pointed out that she would not support companies who could use existing industrial facilities such as in Faribault simply because those companies want to avoid paying city taxes. Peterson pointed out that "industrial farming is potentially very damaging to the environment." Redalen would maintain balance, but as he stated, it would be unrealistic for the county to operate with "Old MacDonald" farms.

In the At-large City Council forum, in attendance were Victor Summa, Kris Vohs and Jon Denison. Denison is an emphatic supporter of industrial growth, whereas Vohs and Summa feel growth must be controlled. Both Vohs and Summa are supporters of Downtown. Vohs' approach would be to celebrate downtown in the form of the sesequintenial. Summa thinks more leadership from City Council while allowing business owners decide for themselves how best to support downtown.

At the same time, the mayoral candidates also were given time to speak and answer questions. Betsy Buckheit, Lee Lansing and Galen Malecha were in attendance. Bill Anderson did not attend. Malecha is clearly the candidate who favors business growth and private investment in Northfield. Buckheit and Lansing are more concerned about the negatives of growth. Buckheit feels the city should implement existing policies to manage growth.

Ray Cox fielded questions and recounted his experiences in the Minnesota State House of Representatives at the weekly Thursday evening meeting of the People for Peace and Goodwill, Sept 9, at the Center for Sustainable Living.

See today's calendar of events for info on the two candidate forums being held tonight.

Some of the candidates for City Council were in the audience at last night's meeting at City Hall. Victor Summa (at-large), Clarice Grabau (3rd ward), Lee Lansing (mayor), and Greg Colby (2nd ward).

Also attending: council member Kris Vohs (at-large candidate) and council member Galen Malecha (mayoral candidate).

(Click the photo for a large, 1600 pixel-wide version.)

The list of candidates for local public office who have weblogs with RSS feeds continues to grow. (What's RSS?)

We include them in our civic blogosphere project directory.

But like all local weblogs with a civic bent, if the candidates keep their blogs updated with a new posting at least once a week, we subscribe to their RSS feeds and import the two most recent posts into the right side of our N.org homepage.

As of today, these five candidates meet that criteria:

David Bly

Betsey Buckheit

Ray Cox

Kathleen Doran-Norton

Jessica Peterson

If you're a candidate for local public office and would like a free weblog, contact us.

If you're a citizen who'd like to see other candidates with weblogs, contact them. ;-)

Jessica Peterson, candidate for Rice County Commissioner District 2, (Northfield and Dundas), has a new website with weblog.

One of the best things about campaigning so far has been the opportunity I