Martin County Star Newsmakers
Everything you want and need to know about what is going on in Martin County Minnesota.
We look at the paper and talk to the Newsmakers.
Mayor's, City Council members, Coachs, Police, Concerned Citizens, and everyday folk with a story to tell.
Tune in each Friday for a new episode.
Check it out at martincostar.com
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Martin County Star Newsmakers
Building a Stronger Martin County
What if a single candidate could transform the charm and economic vitality of a small town? Join us as Justin Lubbin, a dedicated military veteran and passionate city council candidate, outlines his ambitious vision for Trimont. From revitalizing Main Street to introducing a new clinic for the elderly, Justin shares his commitment to sustainable development and community support, reflecting the challenges and hopes of small-town America.
Explore the exciting developments shaping Martin County, including Madelia Healthcare's potential expansion into Trimont, which promises to enhance local healthcare services. Celebrate the achievements of Martin County West and their impressive four-star rating in parent awareness, a testament to the strength of parental involvement in education. Plus, discover how Sterling Drug is evolving with a shift to a pharmacy-only model, boasting a cutting-edge dispensing facility that marks a new era for local businesses.
We continue our journey through community engagement in small towns with a focus on Trimont's potential growth. Our discussions spotlight the importance of maintaining a local police force amidst increasing trends to outsource these services, as well as the appeal to voters from a city council candidate with a background in environmental health and safety. As we look forward to future conversations with figures like Dan Sch, the mayor of Welcome, our commitment to creating an inviting and engaging atmosphere for all election candidates remains a top priority. Join us for this fifth installment as we celebrate local contributions and positive feedback from our community.
All right, welcome to the show. This is Martin County Star's Newsmakers Podcast. I'm Mike Innes, I am your host and I'm excited to be here today. Beautiful day out, or where I'm at, anyway, it's a little chilly, but you know it's fall, so it's supposed to be, and this is Minnesota, so you know. So what's new, right? Well, look, the show today is brought to you by the Martin County Star. That's right. We are sponsoring our own show today.
Speaker 1:By the way, if you ever want to go and check out the website, it's at martincostarcom and there you can check out the online newspaper, also the podcast. You can click on that. We have pictures on there. It's really great, it's a great resource, and so we would love to have you go and check out the website. Also, subscribers we need you. If you're not a subscriber already, we need you to become a subscriber. That's how we function. We have subscribers and it's just $50 a year. Oh man, I get to coughing, I can't really stop. Okay, it's just $50 a year. Online is $36, and so, uh, that's it's a really good deal. If you are a paper subscriber, you're already automatically an online subscriber also. So there it is is. The whole newspaper is online. You can take a look at it. It's really kind of beautiful and also, oh, the peach is there too. So you get it all. You get it all for just $36 a year, all right. Hey, I drove Highway 4 yesterday from Sherbourne to Trimont and back and man, that's nice. It really is. That's going to be nice this winter. So that was kind of fun. It's sure a lot quicker than going clear around. Heavens, heavens, it's a lot quicker than going clear around.
Speaker 1:Well, taking a look at this week's newspaper, I've got a guest in here in a little while. Today it's Justin Lubin. He's running for city council here in Tremont and we'll have him on in just a little while. But first of all a couple of news items that came to our attention. The front page Medelia Healthcare may be coming to Tremont. It's more than just a maybe. I guess it's not a done deal, but the CEO of Medelia Healthcare came to the city council meeting on Tuesday or Monday night in Tremont and laid out his plan. They would like to.
Speaker 1:There's an old clinic building in Tremont on Main Street, and a lot of you know what I'm talking about. It was a clinic, so it's set up already. The x-ray room already has the lead walls and there's a lab in place. Now, the equipment's not there, of course, but everything is there, it's ready to go. There's three examining rooms, an office, a waiting area, receptions area, restrooms, it's all there, even a kitchen, for the employees have a break room, and so they're looking at that, and I don't know. Now, according to Kelly Harder, who is the let me see, kelly is a city clerk here in Trimont. According to her, they've been in talk already for about six months, and so you know they were waiting for to open up their St James office before they really did anything. Well, that's open and that's ready to go. So now they're kind of focusing on Tremont, which is really going to be nice. We would love to have them.
Speaker 1:Martin County West has received a four-star rating in parent awareness. Oh, that's nice Way to go. Martin County West, parents, you're being aware You're focusing on what's going on with your kids. Also, on the front page, sterling Drug to add, state-of-the-art dispensing facility. Huh, you know, signs of the times, right? It's going to be a kind of a. It operates all by robotics and they'll dispense your drugs and stuff, and they're going away, though, from the gift shop and all the other nice items that they have in there, and so I did talk to the manager, and she told me that they're going to lose about 20 employees, which I'm not excited about that, but there's nothing I can do about it. It's their business. They can do what they want. So Sterling Drug, though, is going to become a pharmacy, dispensing only. They'll have the pharmacy still, but no more gift shop. Starting, however, october 31st, big sale taking place. It's going to start up. They're going to want to be out of business by December 31st. So a couple of months, just in time, right, just in time for the Christmas season.
Speaker 1:Finally, last thing on the front page is this was funny. I had to read it. Sheila put together, you know, 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago Today, what happened, or whatever it is what happened on this day, and there's one in here that's really funny. Let me see if I can't find it. Yeah, two men. This is 1949. Two men were out several hundred dollars due to carelessness and misfortune. It says here Leo Clark first to lose his billfold on his farm containing several bills and numerous checks, and Ike Colburn, one of the helpers looking for Leo's billfold, lost his own with around seven hundred dollars in it. Leo's billfold lost his own, with around $700 in it. I don't know, but if that were me I would have kept that to myself. I wouldn't have told the police and put it in the newspaper.
Speaker 1:Sherbourne Fire Department. They are having a Friday, november 1st that's next week, not this week At the Sherbourne Fire Hall. It's going to be a meat raffle 33 turkeys, two whole hams all that's a giveaway. Wow, a meat raffle. 33 turkeys, two whole hams all that's a giveaway. Wow, a meat raffle. And all the proceeds go to the fire truck equipment. All right, and then Fairmont Humane Society. On the pet page, the pet of the week from the Humane Society is Bam Bam and Weeman. They're a pair. They're a three-year-old male and a four-year-old female. Really beautiful birds, beautiful birds. The adoption fee is only $25, and they come with the cage. You know, if I, you know, I don't know Maybe I should buy those.
Speaker 1:Put it out here in our oh that'd be nice, that'd be kind of fun, wouldn't it? Maybe I will, okay, forget what I just said. Everybody, I think I'm going to do that Now. The pet page I couldn't resist this. I came across a story how to Care for your Pet Rock and I thought, okay, remember the pet rock thing back in the what was it? The 70s? Yeah, you know, I was reading up on that and I thought, okay, that's interesting. Well, the guy who wrote the story now it's a huge story, but he's very serious about it. I mean, here's some of the titles Choosing your Forever Friend Go out and pick a rock.
Speaker 1:It's crucial. Every rock is different, so make sure you get one that reflects your personality I don't know what that means and then name your rock. Get one that reflects your personality I don't know what that means and then name your rock. You have to give your. Now, if I had a rock, I'd call him Rocky. I just that's just a name I would go with. Or Glassbreaker, I suppose, windowbreaker, or something like that. Rocky, that'd be my pet rock.
Speaker 1:Feeding your rock you ready for this? You know, I don't know how to respond. Feeding your rock, anyway. Bathing your rock, oh, my goodness, ay yi yi. Building a house for your rock, throwing pet rock, parties, traveling, traveling with your rock. When I was a kid we did this all the time. You put a rock in your pocket. That's how you travel. You just keep them, you know. You bathe them by. They go through your pockets in the wash machine. Your mom gets mad at you. Those are the things that I remember doing. Creating a home cinema for your rock.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I told you he was serious about this and he actually wrote a great article. You got to read it. It's on page. What is you? He was serious about this and he actually wrote a great article. You've got to read it. It's on page. What is that? Page seven, yeah, page seven, the pet page. It's a long read but you're going to like it. It's pretty cool, let me see. And then finally, on the back page, the Mavericks. They over the Saints in the season finale. That's good. And they went on to the section playoffs against Sleepy Eye. That was actually last night. We'll have to get some results on that one, okay.
Speaker 1:And then we went to the pork producers. We have a whole section, section B, 10 pages of pork producers. It's our salute to pork producers and it's pretty interesting. Martin County is ranked sixth in the US in pork production. Sixth in the US, wow. And Minnesota is number two, only to Iowa. Iowa is number one pork producer and Minnesota number two, and Martin County is number six.
Speaker 1:Wow, here are some terms that you may or may not know. Living high on the hog. Where did that saying come from? The saying originated among army enlisted men who received shoulder and leg cuts, while officers received the top loin cuts. Oh, that's kind of you know.
Speaker 1:How did Uncle Sam come to represent the US government? I did not know this, never knew this. During the War of 1812, a New York packer named Uncle Sam Wilson. He shipped a boatload of several hundred barrels of pork to US troops because each barrel was stamped US on the docks. It quickly became bantered about that the US stood for Uncle Sam, whose large pork shipment looked to be enough to feed the entire army. Thus did Uncle Sam come to represent the US government itself.
Speaker 1:Wow, I'm going to read one more to you and then you've got to buy a paper. Okay, this is on page. Oh, shoot, I cut that off. I can't tell you Page four. It looks like Page four. A, b, a, section B, section B, page four. Where did Uncle excuse me? Where did Wall Street get its name? Okay, wall Street.
Speaker 1:In New York City, free-roaming hogs were notorious for rampaging through the precious grain fields of colonial New York City farmers. The Manhattan Island residents chose to limit the forays of these riotous hogs by erecting a long permanent wall on the northern edge of what is now lower Manhattan. A street came to border this wall, aptly enough, named Wall Street. Who would have thought that? Right, wouldn't have been me. Anyway, we're going to be back in just a few minutes. We've got Justin coming in and don't say anything, don't let the cat out of the bag, but I've got some pig facts that everybody should know and I'm going to go through some of these with Justin when he gets here. All right, we'll be right back, folks, right after this. All right, we're back and I've got Justin Lubin. We were just talking about how to pronounce names and then it scared me and I thought oh gee, now I forgot how to do it. Hey, morning, morning, how are you? I'm good. So you're running for city council.
Speaker 2:Yes, I am.
Speaker 1:Is this a good plan? I?
Speaker 1:think it is Okay, all right, we'll get into that in a minute. Okay, all right. First, though, in today's edition, I've got the Pork Reducers section right. I came up with some cool pig facts everyone should know, so we'll go through a few of these. Okay, this will just be kind of fun. Okay, did you know this? Mother pigs sing to their babies? No, I did not. I didn't either, with grunts while they're nursing. No, I didn't. I didn't know that was a song. Piglets usually double their weight in the first week. I've heard of that and I've done that. I think we all have. I think so too. Piglets are born ready to run and walk. That's interesting. That is interesting. I thought wow, here's one. Piglets can be trained to learn their own name in just two weeks. They're two weeks old.
Speaker 2:I've heard that they're a very smart animal.
Speaker 1:They are very smart yeah yeah, they love to snuggle and stay warm or burrow down into the hay. That's my wife. She's not a pig, but she loves to snuggle.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you corrected that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did, I did. She's across the hall. She would have heard. Domestic pigs in the United States eat diets mainly of corn, but in Europe their diet is barley-based. Interesting, I know, right. And then here's the last one. Pigs are very smart animals. According to scientists, a pig's IQ is comparable to that of a three-year-old, and they're smarter than dogs. Anyway, there was a TV show way back, probably before your time, but anyway it had Arnold the Pig on it. Okay, it was, I think it was Green Acres. Anyway, arnold the Pig was on there and you know they trained him. That pig could do a lot of stuff. So now I know why because they're smart. Anyway, all right, justin, you're running for city council here in Tremont. Yes, how long have you lived here?
Speaker 2:I lived here. I moved here when I was in seventh grade, I graduated here and then I went in the military for just under 12 years and then I came back to this nice little small town.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, and you're doing some work on your building on Main Street.
Speaker 2:Yes, I am trying to make it look a lot nicer and clean Tramon up a little bit.
Speaker 1:I drove by yesterday Candy goes right by, drive by so we did and I said, oh, I'm glad that's him not me yeah I actually uh, fell off the roof, the other day.
Speaker 2:Oh did you yeah, I'm not hurt, luckily, but trying to do too much too fast before the snow flies, oh gosh, no one ever around here has done that before.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, yeah anyway, well, good luck. I appreciate that. Yeah, keep going. It's looking better, but it always looks worse before it looks better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we should have it cleaned up quite a bit this weekend, get rid of all the old block.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, that's the goal. That was the thing I said to Candy.
Speaker 2:I said, oh God, I'm glad that's him, not me, that's a lot of work said, oh my god, all that block off is gonna be work.
Speaker 1:Luckily I got a skid loader coming. Oh, okay, okay, all right, all right.
Speaker 2:That makes total sense now, because I thought, whoo, one brick at a time, that's gonna be tiring it definitely was one brick it was yeah, yeah, sure you're making progress, though oh yes, yeah, it's tough when, uh, the block is clay so that they don't come out as one piece. Yeah, they shatter. What are you doing when it's done? It's done, it's just cold storage. Oh, okay, probably put in a little man cave play cards.
Speaker 1:Okay, Okay, gotcha. Okay, I didn't know if it was some kind of a business going in or you're just using it for your own business, just personally. Okay, gotcha, all right. Why do do you want on earth to run for city council?
Speaker 2:Well, I see a lot of things that need change and you know, moving back here, I came back because it was a nice small little town and it just seems like it's been going the wrong direction. Properties need to be cleaned up, but you need to be able to work with people and I just like to see the small town come back.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, everybody used to help everybody and now it just seems like everybody don't want to say anything. I guess if people would volunteer more and help out, we could clean this town up again.
Speaker 1:What would you like to see changed in Tremont?
Speaker 2:I think if we clean it up and get people to come through and think, oh, this is a nice little town, maybe we can bring some businesses or industry here to town. And we've got a school to pay for now. Yeah, we do indeed. We can't grow. Well, that's not going to help things.
Speaker 1:No, it's not. Well, you know, you just mentioned people coming through. Cannon James is a good example of that. He came through, stopped in to get a Coke or whatever it was at a town center, Ends up he comes back and does a free concert for us.
Speaker 2:I think he realized that there's some really good people here and our community is a very good community.
Speaker 1:Well, when we first came here the first time I forget now how many years ago, it's been, like six or so we bought a little duplex and we came into town, and that was the first thing we noticed was it's a cute, clean little town. It's got its problems, but by and large, though, it's a great little town to live in, and we came back and we enjoy it here, and so what you're saying makes sense to me. What about? Oh, the big news out of the city council meeting was we may get a clinic here in town.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I heard that and that would definitely be beneficial. You know we have a lot of elderly people in town. They don't like to drive in the wintertime or can't drive. Don't bother, and it's only going to benefit them. It worked great with the last one we had but COVID kind of eliminated that because the front waiting area wasn't big enough for the restrictions. Oh is that what happened. You had to stay six feet away from people, right.
Speaker 2:I don't know if people were supposed to wait out in their car because of it or what was supposed to happen.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, and I don't have his name, I think it was. Anyway, it doesn't matter the.
Speaker 2:CEO, though, of Medelia Health. He made the comment that it'll be staffed five days a week, yeah, and he made it sound like, if it really takes off, there's a chance. If one of their providers wanted to move into the small community, it could be a very good thing.
Speaker 1:It could be. It could be indeed. Yeah, that was exciting to hear. Well, that also normally attracts other things. Oh, definitely, you know, you get a clinic. Now it's like, okay, well, what do we have? We have a grocery store, we have a hardware store, we have a clinic. You know, people start going. Well, maybe I should come in there and bring some sort of a retail outlet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would be very beneficial to have one in town again. Yeah, it would.
Speaker 1:What do you think that you can bring to the city council? Your experiences and such you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I was in the military I ran the drinking water program so I had to write the consumer confidence reports. I had to do lead and copper sampling and then I did wastewater for a while. I did lead and asbestos sampling, abatement, confined space, respiratory protection. Very good at reading regulations, whether they're OSHA, epa, finding out what you can do, what you can't do. I was hazmat first responder. I did all the approval for chemicals on base to make sure we weren't bringing anything that shouldn't be used. I was an industrial hygienist, so I was preventive medicine, so I had to look at everything that could affect a person while they did their job, come up with engineering controls, personal protective equipment, and then, yeah, I pretty much.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of things I had to do as a very diverse job I had.
Speaker 1:Well, it sounds like you bring a lot of diversity as far as know-how.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know some of the things I did before. I'm obviously not current on it because I don't go to refresher training anymore, but a little bit of knowledge I can remember and some research I could probably figure out. You know what's current, what's not current anymore, and you know. Help out any way I can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, sounds like you'd be a good fit.
Speaker 2:I would hope so. I mean, I got good intentions. I'm open-minded. I think we need to find the best things to do for this city and work together. I mean prior councils. It seemed like there was always a battle, and it shouldn't be that way.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right. What do you think we need most in town as far as a business or whatever?
Speaker 2:I think any business that would be positive is just going to bring, you know, employees could live in this town. Potentially it could bring an industrial park. I know they've talked about that If we get enough interest, which there's a lot of infrastructure that have to be done, but, you know, maybe one, two businesses could spark it. Maybe they could give them a, you know, a tax, tax rebate, something that's going to help people want to come here yeah, yeah you know, I mean more families.
Speaker 1:A restaurant would be nice. Restaurant would be really nice that would be nice. You know, candy and I were a couple days ago. We're going. I want to go to eat, but I don't want to drive to sherburne. I didn't want to drive to st james, and so it was like never mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah and you, and you know, losing the bar, we had peanut butter toast. You know there's no place to eat, there's no place to really gather anymore, just to sit. And you know, see old friends.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep. I don't know what you can do to see that happen, but being on the city council, it seems like I don't know. Maybe there's some button you could pull or something you could push to help that along.
Speaker 2:I think it's just a lot of research. Get some networking out there. You know you talk to enough people and you find out things that you didn't know and could lead to another person, and pretty soon you guys got more people coming and inquiring about what could happen if they did get here, right?
Speaker 1:Okay, what's your appeal, what's your plea? I should say to the voters of Trimont let's hear it.
Speaker 2:Well, you know I try to do everything I can. I'm pretty much medically retired from the military. I have a lot of time on my hands. I'm not here to micromanage anybody. I feel if you just give your city workers, city employees, the tasks you'd like done, that's what you're paying them for, trusting them, and then, you know, help out when you can. I've volunteered, I've cut trees down, cleaned up the streets, redid some stuff at the park. You know, if we can get that going and spark some interest and get people that want to help out, we can get a lot done in this town.
Speaker 1:Great Sounds, terrific. Let me ask you something that sparked. There's been a trend lately, and Truman is the latest to turn to the sheriff's department for their policing, and I don't have a problem with it, but I'd like to keep our police force intact. What's your stance on that?
Speaker 2:I think having our own police force is very important. I mean, we've got situations with domestic violence where you know, if it takes 15, 20 minutes for a deputy sheriff to show up, sometimes that's too late. It could be, you know. I mean our police officer lives in welcome, but I know his response time would be very quick. It is quick. So I mean I would rather have the ability to prevent a bad situation by having a response time than hope that there's something else not going on. I mean it could be a big event, there could be a bomb threat, nobody knows. Well, those people could already be busy, right.
Speaker 1:Right, Okay. Well, that's why I was wondering, because I've noticed Truman. Now they've gone to the Sheriff's department and that's happened in Jackson. Jackson's a little better for them. They're the county seat Right.
Speaker 2:I've also heard that you know, if there's 30 jobs available for police officers, there might only be five people that are looking Wow. So I think we need to take care of you. Know who we got. That's only going to be beneficial when somebody's happy. They're going to do a lot more for this.
Speaker 1:I know this is kind of off the subject a little bit, but you, being a candidate, you'd be part of this. John, our police chief. He wants to go to DARE school in January and that's great because he wants to focus on the fifth graders.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know the impressionable ones. Yeah, you know anything. You can teach them facts. You get their attention. You know it's only going to be beneficial, especially you know now with you know marijuana legal, I mean the accessibility is going to be huge here. And you know they always say that's a gateway drug. I don't know if it is or isn't, but you know, anything we can do could only be beneficial right, exactly, yeah, so okay, sounds good, anything else? Oh, you know, I just tuesday yeah, tuesday.
Speaker 2:I guess the biggest thing for me is just to try making this. I would say let's bring the small town back, you know, back when I was here before my dad worked for the city 30 years. Okay, I got to see a lot of what happens in the city. I probably know a lot that you know. A lot of people don't know anymore. I mean, and it's nice to see the city employees we got now, I always said that we probably would never get people that would work 30 years and retire, and I think we got two exceptional people right now that if they're taken care of and left alone to do their job, I think they would we do?
Speaker 2:We do indeed. Yeah, I think they, they care, they want to be a big part of this community and, you know, I just I think, if they're left alone, they're going to, they're going to do exceptional work. They're not afraid to ask questions. They've asked my dad, they've asked Sterling. The tools are there for them to really exceed. I think with the right counsel, we could definitely make big changes All right folks.
Speaker 1:You've heard it from Justin Lubin yes, Asking for your votes on Tuesday. Actually, early voting is going on right now.
Speaker 2:I hope everybody listens to this. I hope they do too. I hope the rumors. Let's just find out what the facts are and make a logical choice and do what's best for Trimont. There you go.
Speaker 1:That does it for us today. This will be on and you have a chance. What's nice about the podcast is they can listen whenever they want. It's not just the show comes on at nine o'clock and over at nine 30, and then it goes away. It stays on. I have people who click in and listen to the podcast. They listen to the early one and then they're going right down the line. This is episode number five, okay, and so you know they can listen to all of them. We had John on episode I think it was episode three and John Arninger, you know, and he was on episode three. He's running for city council in Welcome, and now you Dan, the mayor of Welcome. He may come in on Monday and we'll do a special podcast if he does. To get him, let me see Monday, no, no, no, we put it on Friday. Still, any other anybody out there running for an election somewhere? Hey, it's always an open invite to anybody and everybody. So come on in and we're more than happy. We're nice, aren't we?
Speaker 2:Yes, very nice, very nice.
Speaker 1:Nice little studio too, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's actually. You've done wonders down here. Yeah, it's nice to see you guys bring something into town too. Oh thanks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we like it. We love Trimod. It's a great little town.
