One of the most important things to living a long and fruitful life is to live in a close-knit community where the bonds are strong. So it is with some admiration that we applaud those who participated in the second annual Day of Caring in Little Falls. Not only 732 students from Little Falls Community Read more »
While making out your schedule for the remainder of May, readers may want to pencil in Friday, May 18, at 5 p.m. as the time you decide to adopt a healthier lifestyle. That’s the moment when the Healthy Community Collaborative’s fourth annual Rock ‘n Run event will combine with the St. Gabriel’s Hospital’s 16th annual Read more »
Hope for a Vikings stadium deal waxed and waned this week, the result of irresolute or ornery legislators who seem to reflect the conflicted views of their constituents. But the rush to assemble a stadium funding package did expose a problem that deserves fixing, with or without a stadium package. Minnesota’s charitable gambling outlets have Read more »
If you think it has been easy rewriting the Little Falls city sign ordinance, think again. The City Planning Commission is now working on its ninth draft. The 18-page document begins with no fewer than 97 separate definitions. The truth is that advertising is almost everywhere, and regulating it consistently will be time-consuming and difficult. Read more »
Morrison County made some improvement in the county-by-county health rankings released last week. That’s the good news. The bad news is we still rank only 78th out of the 85 Minnesota counties ranked. (The state has 87 counties.) The rankings by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Minnesota Population Health Institute are Read more »
After six years, Little Falls Superintendent of Schools Curt Tryggestad is moving on, having been chosen to be the new superintendent in Eden Prairie. It’s difficult to see him go because he brought much needed calm, trust and eventually confidence to a school district that had experienced turmoil at the top for the previous 10 Read more »
This newspaper’s parent company, ECM Publishers Inc., is dedicated not only to publishing news about your community, but to giving thousands of dollars to make your community better. The company’s Community Affairs Council (CAC) and its nine local area councils comprised of ECM associates, have during the past 20 years given to community organizations and Read more »
An important thing to understand about the Great Recession is that it doesn’t magically disappear just because the government says it’s over or because jobless claims go down. The reality is that a number of families are still in need. One place that need becomes overwhelmingly obvious is at the Morrison County Food Shelf. In Read more »
A week ago, the Little Falls hockey team won the state Class A consolation championship, one of only six hockey teams in the entire state to end their season with a win. This was a truly stellar achievement, but some fans reacted oddly. Because the Flyers, under the guiding hand of head coach Tony Couture, Read more »
Minnesotans say they treasure the Minnesota Vikings football team, but they don’t want to help pay for a new stadium to keep them. That’s the dilemma for the Minnesota Legislature that keeps stalling, hoping it can put this decision off until after the November elections. Meanwhile, the Vikings insist they want a new $975 million Read more »
It certainly isn’t is as big as Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, but the federal government seized control of Home Savings of America bank just as it did the two mortgage giants more than three years ago. As cars with license plates from states from across the nation converged at the bank in Little Falls Read more »
It was a high school hockey game in a town where there has been high school hockey for over 30 years. A hometown player scored a classic breakaway goal to tie the game for his team. He got a loud round of applause from the crowd. Then the local goalie made a diving stop as Read more »
The Norwegian Home Guard has been visiting Camp Ripley the last couple of weeks, training in what turned out to be our not-so-cold weather environment. This exchange program has been in place for 39 years, and remains one of the highlights of the year for the Camp and, indeed, all of Morrison County. This year, Read more »
The city of Little Falls needs to enforce its sign ordinance uniformly. It should have done so all along, and, even though it has not done so and has public sentiment on its side, it should not wait until it gets around to amending its ordinance. Last October, a letter to the editor appeared in Read more »
A constitutional amendment requiring all tax increases to have a so-called “supermajority” 60 percent approval by the Legislature is being considered in St. Paul. We fully recognize that the state needs to rein in the size of government in difficult times and that, when taxation is excessive, it makes it more difficult for the private Read more »
