Martin County Star Newsmakers
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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.
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Martin County Star Newsmakers
Breaking News in Martin County: Tiny Homes, School Decisions, and Spring's Arrival
All right. Well, here we go. Lights, camera, action, right, I guess that's what they say, Not on radio or not in a podcast. But here we are. I'm Mike Ennis. This is the Martin County Stars Newsmakers Podcast, season two, episode. You ready for this? Hard to believe. It's number six, episode number six.
Speaker 1:Well, some things are going on, and let's talk about it. First of all, we had a big blizzard yesterday, which now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad, but it fizzled. I mean, it fizzled big time. Lots of wind, you know, a little bit of snow. Anyway, the other parts though, however, other parts of Minnesota, they had whiteouts. Ceylon had a whiteout you couldn't see. We were in Fairmont early taking the papers around and it was pretty bad there. But got out here to Tremont and it was clear, I mean, there was no snow, it was nice. So anyway, hey, by the way, it's the first day of spring. We've looked forward to this since what? Since what? September, you know, october, something like that.
Speaker 1:You're probably saying wait a minute, I thought, don't we have to go through winter first? Well, in my opinion, I want to go straight from summer to spring. I don't mind fall points of it, you know parts of it, but fall can get pretty cold here. I am not a fan of cold, and then I know what you're going to say. So why are you in Minnesota? It's a long story. Anyway, that's the way it is. Well, excuse me, man, I tell you, I get sat down and I have this tickle. It doesn't happen. I can sit all day long, not a thing. Open the microphone up, turn it on and boom, just like that, a tickle. So, taking a look here, newspaper today, first day of spring, this is March 20th, if you're keeping track of those kind of things, march 20th.
Speaker 1:Tiny homes are coming to Sherbourne and you're saying wait a minute, where are they going to be at? First of all, let's define a tiny home. I believe by definition it's something under 600 square feet. 600 square feet, which is a small apartment One bedroom, one bath, small kitchen, utility room, maybe if you're lucky. You know they're small, they're tiny homes. They're perfect for one person or a couple, maybe, if you don't mind, really living close together. But otherwise you know, that's what it is. It's a tiny home. They're coming to Sherbourne. So let me see, it's Matthew Berry. Is his name B-U-R-Y as in bury somebody? Matthew Berry?
Speaker 1:He is a partner or the owner of Modern and Neighborly Properties LLC so they call themselves MN, like Minnesota MN Properties, and they went before the city council in Sherbourne. The city council told them they can move forward. What they're going to do is they're going to buy the old mobile home lot out there which you know. Actually, this is a good idea. That mobile home lot is a real eyesore and this is a good idea. In the paper we have a picture of the drawing of the plan. They want to put in 19 planned livable lots and they're going to live on one of them themselves. They're going to buy four, put them on to get it started and they're going to live in one and rent out the other three. Or they can sell them, you can buy them from them, or you can buy your own and bring it in. But now is it going to be small mobile homes? I don't know.
Speaker 1:The article doesn't say we're going to get him on the podcast, hopefully. I reached out to Lizette, wrote the article. I reached out to Lizette to reach out to him to see if we could get him on the podcast and we could talk in more detail about his plans, what he wants to do with this property, but I like it. I think it's a great idea. We have pictures there of now, then and the plan. So you know, hey, if you're looking for a small place, you want to buy a place, that may be something for you. Keep that in mind. That'll be in Sherbourne, that'll be in Sherbourne, all right, then.
Speaker 1:The other lead story on the front page is Trimont to remain. The middle school is going to stay in Trimont for at least another year. School board took up the idea of closing either Sherbourne or Trimont and combining those two schools into one, but they discovered that there just wasn't enough savings Now. We were at breakfast this morning at the Legion in Sherbourne, and we overheard a school bus driver say you want to save money? I can tell you where, and boy, she was on a roll, and it made sense though.
Speaker 1:But there is a lot of that. There's a lot of waste. There's a lot of waste everywhere. I have to admire I'm sorry you may not like him, I do it's Elon Musk, and what's going on with the government and this doge? Right, they are cutting. I saw a statistic yesterday on Facebook Not Facebook, on the internet, in fact and it was talking about how much money has been saved already per taxpayer and by them cutting out waste.
Speaker 1:And it's ridiculous, there's so much waste in our government. You know, the problem is the government doesn't run like a business, it runs like, well, the government. You know, hey, we got all the money we want, and if we don't have enough money we just print some more. Oh, I could do that, you know, live however I want and print some more. That's ridiculous. And so, anyway, the school board could take a lesson from that. Sometimes you have to cut back on things and anyway. So they're not going to close the Trimont School, they're going to leave it open for another year, and also the one in Sherbourne, and Trimont will remain the middle school. I've been to that Trimont school. I think it's a nice little school. I don't have a big problem with it. But apparently the voters thought it was a great idea to tear it down and build a whole new school at only a cost of several million dollars.
Speaker 1:Speaking of schools, let's turn the page. Look at page two, the opinion page. There's a letter to the editor of schools. Let's turn the page. Look at page two, the opinion page. There's a letter to the editor. It's an open letter to the MCW Montcany West School Board members An open letter written by Vicki Weber of welcome and well written, well written story.
Speaker 1:It's big. You may want to read it, but or it's worth the read is what I should say. It's worth the read. It's on page two. Okay, grab your paper or if you don't have a paper you want to subscribe, do so. Somehow get a hold of this article. It's worth the buck 50 to read it. She did an excellent job, laid out the facts. I'm not going to go through them all with you, but she laid out the facts and said what's going on here. And there's all kinds of stuff in that article, but it's definitely worth taking a look at. You know it starts out.
Speaker 1:I write this letter to address the growing concerns I have in regards to the development plans for the Martin County West School that was voted on last spring. As with any construction project, there have been many hurdles and roadblocks that have needed to be addressed. The board members and committees have spent countless hours of decision making and their efforts have not gone unnoticed. I thank them for devoting their time and energy to trying to resolve this major task to secure the future education of our children and our grandchildren. I would like to request that the Martin County West School Board members hold an informational meeting to address the questions myself and other taxpayers have After listening to recent school board meetings, and it's very concerning to hear that what is being discussed. If changes to the original plans are being considered, the school board owes it to the public to address them before making any final decisions.
Speaker 1:She is absolutely correct, absolutely correct. You can't pass a referendum and this is big money, you know and then make changes. But just, you know, kind of say, hey, we can, because we're going to do it. That's not how it works. So, okay, anyway, enough, you read page two. Okay, see what you think. See, if you're like me and you tend to agree with her, I'm not necessarily against a new school, I'm just against waste. I'm just against waste.
Speaker 1:We run a business here, a very small business, with Martin County Star, and you know I have to make a decision every day on, even when we sit down to take a look at how many pages we're going to put in the paper. You know a page costs me X amount of dollars. If I add one page, I have to add two pages. That's just the way it works. You know you can't add just one page, it's always two pages, and so, and then then if I want color, there's there's a big fee on top of that. And this week, for example, we have 20 pages in the paper, 20 good size paper. I love it. I love it when I have a big paper, but I have to justify it with enough advertising. I don't have advertising, I don't. I don't have advertising, I don't have 20 pages. You know, that's just the way it is. And this week, though, we had enough advertising.
Speaker 1:Candy and her staff, they went out and they did a lot of selling, and we have a section in there on planning for the planters, for the farmers it's ag planning time, right and so they went out and they got all the ads sold, and I went and looked it all up and I said, okay, we can go this many pages. So we did a section of seven pages. Five of those pages are in color and they are nice. They are real nice, and you're going to want to read the stories. They're pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:I tried to get a different story for each page, that kind of fit. You know, we talked about weather, we talked about AI in farming. You know what. That is right. The artificial intelligence, now AI, in farming is a great picture there. Shoot what is it? Page 18 or page 19.
Speaker 1:There's a great picture of AI in farming and what it means for farmers. There's good, there's bad. There's, you know, two sides to the coin and if you're a farmer, you probably have a real, you probably have an opinion on this and maybe I should have a farmer come in and talk about it and maybe we will, but anyway, so that's a really good story. There's one about the home farmer. You know the gardener really I call it home farmers, but it's really gardeners and that's a real good story on just you know how to go about that and such, and it's in there also. So it's a good one.
Speaker 1:But anyway, getting back to my point, was I have to make a decision each week on how many pages that we can afford to put in the paper. What's justified, what's justified? You know I can make 20 pages each week, but if I don't have enough advertising to justify it, I'll go out of business pretty rapidly. So I have to be really careful and I have to make sure that I've got the right amount of advertising with the right amount of news articles and such, and so sometimes it's a tough decision, and this week, though, we got lucky and we were able to do 20 pages, and we're very proud of that and we're very happy with that.
Speaker 1:Somebody called me two or three, four weeks ago, and they were talking about renewing their subscription, and they said I'm going to brag this for a second they said I love it, your paper is full, you guys have so much in there. We got so much for our $1.50. And, in fact, if you're a subscriber, it's really about a dollar a week. That's a little less than a dollar a week for the paper, and they go, you know, I mean for a dollar. This is great. And so if you're not a subscriber and you just happen to stumble across the podcast, you may want to give it a look-see. Go to MartinCostarcom M-A-R-T-I-N-C-O-S-T-A-R dot com. That's our website, and you can go there and you can sign up for a free trial and you can take a look at the paper online for a month. A month for free, and it's hey, for free, it's the right price. It's also online. All the pages are in color, so even when the comics in the newspaper are in black and white online, they're still in color and they look great in color, I have to tell you, anyway. So keep that in mind.
Speaker 1:But if the government operated like a business and this is why I think it's so important to have a couple of businessmen who are at the top Donald Trump, and then Elon Musk and such, who are at the top, they understand business we have these career politicians who have never worked. I mean, they work but they don't produce anything. And here they are. They write bills for you and I, and they write rules for you and I, and they write rules for you and I, but they don't live by them. We have to, I have to pay my taxes, and there's days when I'm going holy smokes, I have to pay a payroll and I have to look and go. Can I afford this? Do I need to cut back here? I mean, you know, can I afford it? I'm not sure. Kenny and I have to make a living from this, and so everybody's got to get paid. And if the government operated the same way, which they're trying to do now, anyway, trump and Musk are, they're trying to do that. By the way, neither one of them take a salary. You know that. Neither one take a salary.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I'm always amazed at people whining and complaining about how they're cutting everything out. No, they're not, they're cutting out waste. They're cutting out waste. And I tell you what there's some folks out there who don't want them to cut out waste because they're the waste. They're the ones who are the waste. It's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Anyway, so that's all. I'll get off my high horse and you may not agree with me, and that's okay, that's all right. You know why? Because we live in America and we can agree to disagree and we don't have to agree with each other. And if you can show me a better way, cool. You know, I'm always open, but I think we can all agree that you can only live within your means unless you're in the government. But by and large, you have to live within your means, right, and so there's that. So, anyway, getting back from there, take a look at page six, if you have a paper in front of you. If not, then just, I guess, take my word for it.
Speaker 1:We went to the Mason spaghetti feed last week. We go every week, every year. I mean, we have a really good friend, john Schell, and John Schell is one of the Masons and he always gets us tickets. He gets us tickets and we always go and support and anyway, I have two pictures, again in black and white. They don't do it justice. But go online, take a look at the spaghetti. Oh, the sauce is way good, way good. Oh, my goodness, I want to bottle it and take it home. Oh, my goodness, I want to bottle it and take it home. But anyway, the title is Just Like Mama Used to Make. Just Like Mama Used to Make, you know, and it's really good, really good sauce. And you support them. They use the money for their different causes and their scholarships and such it's a fundraiser for them.
Speaker 1:Numbers have been down the last couple of years and I don't know what to say. I don't know if it was nice weather that night. I don't know what's going on. Maybe people just don't want good food anymore. I can't imagine. But anyway, next year what I'm going to do is I'm going to pull this paper out. Hopefully I won't forget. I'll pull this paper, this page out, those pictures back out, and I'll put them on next year again and advertise, just like a mama used to make, their spaghetti dinner. It's really good, they always have it. What? The second, third week in March, I believe it is, and so you know, there it is.
Speaker 1:Page Pet and Kids page. I changed that a little bit from the Pet page to the Pets and Kids page. What I do is I've added all the different kids' puzzles and different things that they like to work. I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to train our kids, our local kids the Sherbourne Tribal Welcome Area, fairmont Donnell, ceylon all the kids who hopefully their parents subscribe and they look through the paper and there's something for them. I want them to become readers in the newspaper and so to do that, I've added lots of kids' friendly items.
Speaker 1:This week the pet page is looking at alpacas or llamas, and I got two really, really good pictures. Again, go to the website and look at it. In color it's a lot better, but even in black and white they're pretty cute. This one llama has got the one with the long hair and the down on his face. Remind me of when the beetles first came out. Remember them. I want to hold your hand Right. Remember when they first came out. Remember them, I want to hold your hand Right. Remember when they first came out. Oh, my dad used to call them the Beetle Bugs and he would make fun of them. And they had long hair. Their hair was not long, it was dry, is what it was. They weren't greased back, anyway, this is what they kind of looked like, though their hair down their eyes and stuff. And Anyway, this is what they kind of look like, though their hair down their eyes and stuff. And then there's a young llama there also. Anyway, it's good. Two really cute pictures and if you get a chance, go in there and take a look at that Also, I always put Just Like Cats and Dogs on the pet page. I love the Cats and Dogs comic strip. It's by Dave Philippe. Anyway, it's a pretty good one. This week You'll want to see that also.
Speaker 1:Some other things going on. Hey, I was looking at Ceylon Community Days. It's coming up Consignment auction. It's their 90th annual. Wow, they started this back in 1935. 1935 when they started. Anyway, their 90th annual is set for Saturday, april 12th in Ceylon at 8.30 am. 8.30 am. There'll be two to three rings going all day and you know it's man, there's a lot. Oh, your consignments, let me see they're accepting consignments April 3rd to April 10th or until fall. So if they fill up early, they fill up early. So anyway, if you've got something you want to consign with them, keep that in mind. Not today, not tomorrow, but April 3rd through the April 10th, 8 am to 5 pm. That's put on by Howell Real Estate and Auctions. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. We've been out there a couple of times to Ceylon Community Days. It is one busy place. I mean, ceylon is one busy place that weekend. That's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Also, donnell is selling a 2001 Chevy Silverado 2500. It's an old work truck and it's up for bids. It's a sealed bid. It's got 149,429 miles on it and if you want to take a look at that, it's by appointment. You'll have to give a call to City Hall in Zanell. I'll give you the phone number if you want it. It's 507-632-0276. Call them, tell them you want to take a look at it. You can't drive it though, because it says there are some brake issues. So if you want to buy it, you're going to have to haul it home and you know, put it on a flatbed or hook it to the back of your truck and haul it home. But if you know how to fix that kind of a thing, it may be a buy for you. It may be a good deal, we don't know. 2001. Chevy Silverado.
Speaker 1:Hey, congratulations goes out to three Mavericks chosen to the Tomahawk Valley All-Conference Team Avery Sanders, emily Anderson and Maddie Carlson. Let me see what happened here. The All-Conference Team was recently announced, with two Mavericks on the roster of the All-Conference Team and another named Honorable Mention. Good job, excellent job. And then five Red Bulls earned season honors. Five Red Bulls earned season honors, so it was a good, good week for Martin County West, wasn't it, though?
Speaker 1:And here's one that you don't see Now. You guys may or may not know I come from the city. I grew up in Wichita, Kansas, until I was in ninth grade. Then we moved away to Sacramento, then back to Kansas City, missouri, where I graduated from high school, so I'm a city boy. You know, I never really done much on the farm, and I love out here in the country. I love this, but that's not my roots and that's not my fault. But anyway, here's a picture that I want to show you, and this is in color. It's on the back page, on page 20, on the sports page. It was Drive your Tractor to Work Day at the school, and Lori got a picture of all the tractors parked out there in the school parking lot. It's pretty cool, it really is, man. I just sat there and I drooled because I'm going.
Speaker 1:I drove a tractor, I don't know, two, three years ago now. You may or may not know Doug and Donna Peters, and anyway, if you do, then you know. Doug called me one day, wanted to know if I. I told him I always wanted to be to ride with them in their when they were doing harvesting in their, were doing harvesting in their tractors and stuff. And so they called me and said, hey, we're harvesting, you want to come out? And I said, sure. So I went out there and I rode with them all day and then he let me drive a tractor, he let me turn the soil. It was so much fun.
Speaker 1:I know why I don't do it now, because, holy smokes, you bounce all over that cab, man oh man. And I drove that thing straight as an arrow, you know, I mean I thought I did, until we got to the end of the line. We looked back and I was going. Doug said, mike, your line is kind of all crooked. And I said, well, I drove it straight as I could. And he's like, well, it doesn't look very straight and I was like, hmm, you know, it was so much fun though I enjoyed that a lot, but no, thank you, don't want to do it again. I'm way older than that even now, and that was, that was a painful day. You bounce all over that thing. I know why that's mainly younger people or farmers, right over that thing. I know why that's mainly younger people or farmers, right, anyway. So there's that, okay.
Speaker 1:So what's coming up this next couple of weeks? Liz has got a story. She went to the Welcome City Council meeting Tuesday night. So it doesn't make the paper because we go to press on Tuesday night. It doesn't make the paper. But she went to the meeting and we're going to find out about chickens, yes, or chickens no in the city of Welcome next week. We will find out. Hopefully we'll find out more about this small, tiny, tiny village, tiny community. They're looking for 19 lots. I mean that's going to be a lot and that'll add up people you know to the town of Sherbourne. Good for them.
Speaker 1:Also, what else is going on? You know, around the area spring has sprung. That's always a good sign. I love to drive around. Ken and I both do Love to drive around. We like to see people out working in their yards. You know, it's just a fun to see people out sprucing up their homes and working in their yards. And we'll be doing that here real shortly, at the apartment building and at the star itself. We're going to paint the whole outside. Maybe I'll get you to come and help me. What do you think? Are you into that? If you'd like to paint, you know, give me a call, I'll put you to work. We're going to be painting the whole outside, making it look a lot nicer, adding a lot of flowers this year.
Speaker 1:Last year we just got a late start. It was tough on us. We had just bought the paper and the paper was man, oh man, oh man. Was that ever a disaster at first for us? Because we knew nothing about how to put it together and it was just really difficult. We didn't have a phone for two months and it was everything that could go wrong was going wrong there at first. But I think we worked out most of those problems.
Speaker 1:Now We've kind of got it figured out and Candy and I kind of have our ideas and we know what we're doing a little bit and we've changed the paper up some, and for good, maybe for bad, I don't know how you look at it Most of the people we talk to always say we like it, we enjoy it, you're doing a good job. So I know there's others who say you know, you guys stink, but that's the way it is. I guess You're never going to please everybody, are we? You know? Just not going to happen. We'll do our best job though. We try each week, we try hard to put out a good paper and hopefully we do that more often than not.
Speaker 1:So coming forth we have the summer events paper. It's coming up late May I was going to say mid-May, but probably really closer to around the 25th of May right before Memorial Day weekend it should be hitting the newsstands and we'll have that out in all the convenience stores and all the doctor's offices. We put them everywhere, man. We put them everywhere. We print up I can't remember it's either 8,000, I think it's 8,000 copies. We print up about 8,000 copies and we go into I think it's seven counties and even down into Iowa. And so when you grab and they're free, so when you grab a summer events paper, you're getting a real guide.
Speaker 1:I should say it's a summer events guide, not a paper, and this is the 19th annual. 19th annual this is our second time, but this is the 19th annual and it's going to be well probably. I can't tell you exactly how many pages right now, but my guess is between 60 and 80 pages, all free, and so you're going to want to get a hold of that. It'll have activities in there from all year long. What's going on at all the fairs? Who's playing, who's singing? Of course there'll be a lot of advertising in there. That's how we, you know, that's how we can afford to do this whole thing. So pick up the paper, look through it, save it all summer, hold on to it, because it's going to have something for you every single weekend, probably every month, from May until, well, I think, the middle of September to even maybe the first of October. So there's a lot in that paper and you're going to want to have a hold of it. We've added a new town this year, for us anyway is Lakefield, lakefield, minnesota. We already have some advertisers coming in from Lakefield, and so we're getting all of their events.
Speaker 1:By the way, if you are somebody who has a special event going on in your neck of the woods and you want to be on the summer events paper? Hey, give us a call. The number here is 507-764-6681. Give us a call, let us know what you've got and get a hold of Candy. Ask for Candy. She's the one who's in charge of that, not me. My job is putting it together, but her job is to get all the information. Okay, so together we work that out. Anyway, it's been good. I've enjoyed today's show. Hopefully you have also. I was going to say stay warm, but it's getting easier to stay warm, isn't it? Yeah, yeah it is. Electric bill was down a little bit, gas bill was down a little bit this last couple of weeks, as we're not using quite as much heat. But anyway, spring has sprung, it's here, yay, all right, I will see you all next week, and so until then, adios, au revoir, auf wiedersehen, until we meet again, right, ciao.
