A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 269
As the days grow shorter, the Santa's Home for the Holidays celebration spread light and cheer last weekend. There were multiple Santa appearances, magic, meals, shopping, a parade, hot drinks, fireworks, s'mores and more fun spanning three days and multiple venues across the city of Cloquet. The new "Pet photos with Santa" saw a good turnout, with only one overexcited doggie accident, no cat fights and one well-behaved hedgehog. The annual Churchill Holiday Expo raised more than $10,000 for...
Cloquet city councilors and mayor Roger Maki approved a smaller budget Tuesday than they expected three months ago. That means the levy increase for property taxes will also be smaller than reflected in recent estimates, with a 2.85-percent levy increase versus 4.53 percent. One local business owner spoke during the Truth in Taxation hearing that preceded the vote. Jim Kuklis, who owns Trails Edge subdivision - consisting of two-family townhomes available for rent by residents over the age of 55...
Firefighters in the area were busy the past week with a spate of fires surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday. The most serious incident was a garage fire on Wednesday, Nov. 22, at a home in Brevator Township north of Cloquet in St. Louis County. A 64-year-old man suffered serious burns when trying to retrieve items from the burning garage. He was in stable condition by early this week. Deputies and the Cloquet Area Fire District were called to the 3500 block of Nelson Road, just west of...
Residents within the Cloquet Area Fire District boundaries will see increased ambulance rates and potentially a new community risk reduction officer since the CAFD board unanimously approved both at its Nov. 15 meeting. The CAFD board voted to increase ambulance rates by about 3 percent to align with inflation and Medicare reimbursement increases. Effective Jan. 1, 2024, the rate hike will add between $50 and $100 to an ambulance bill, depending on the level of care needed. CAFD chief Jesse Buhs said the increase will place CAFD in the median...
A 64-year-old Brevator man was injured in a fire in a detached garage last week. The Cloquet Area Fire Department and St. Louis County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a report of a structure fire in the 3500 block of Nelson Road in Brevator Township at 3:29 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 22. The homeowner had attempted to save items from the garage while it was borning, and was transported by ambulance to St. Mary's hospital. He is reported to be in serious but stable condition. Upon arrival of the Cloquet Area Fire District, the flames were quickly...
The Cloquet Area Fire District is looking for a volunteer board member to represent the City of Cloquet. Candidates must live in the city of Cloquet and commit to a 3-year term. The board meets at 6 p.m. the third Wednesday of each month, plus occasional committee meetings throughout the year. Potential candidates are asked to email or call city administrator Tim Peterson at [email protected] or 218-879-3347 to express interest. Questions? Contact CAFD Chief Jesse Buhs at 218-499-4258 to discuss roles and responsibilit...
Former Cloquet mayor Bruce Ahlgren died Friday, Oct. 27, in the hometown he loved and affected in so many ways. Ahlgren's wife, Marla, said he had been waiting to have heart surgery for five weeks, but collapsed and died at home. Their daughter, Angie, honored her "sweet, loving, gregarious father" on Facebook later that day. Whether it was leading the city as its longest serving mayor, running the court system or the myriad other ways he got involved in public service, Ahlgren was charming, and...
After discussing its strategies to bring state money into the district, the Cloquet Area Fire District board approved new legislative priorities, which include lobbying for regular funding and bonds. The strategies discussed at the CAFD board’s Oct. 18 meeting include highlighting the impact of inflation and the effects of climate change on the district. The efforts are aimed at minimizing the burden on taxpayers in the CAFD service area. “A win for me would be that there’s an impact to the local [property tax] levy in such that we were able...
The Cloquet Area Fire District asked the city of Cloquet for a share of its public safety windfall from the state, and got a caring but firm “no” in response. Councilors and Mayor Roger Maki voted 6-1 Tuesday to deny the request for $165,000 of the $556,397 in one-time public safety aid dollars allocated by the state legislature in its most recent session. The vote wasn’t as bad as it seemed, Fire Chief Jesse Buhs said. He said the denial wasn’t bad for the fire district, at least long-te...
A Wright man died Saturday morning after his car was hit broadside by a train near Sawyer. According to a news release from the Carlton County Sheriff’s Office, Brock Hascall, 22, was driving south on Lammi Road when his vehicle was struck broadside by a Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) train traveling westbound, parallel with Hwy 210, just after 4:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 9. Hascall was pronounced dead at the scene. There were no other occupants in the car and no BNSF personnel on the train were injured. This remains an ongoing i...
Deputies from the St Louis County Sheriff’s Office responded at 2:45 a.m. Saturday to an automated 911 call from an iPhone stating that the owner had been in a severe crash. Upon arrival, Deputies found two occupants of the vehicle deceased: Joseph David Trowbridge of Woodbury, Minnesota, and Madison Joy Warren of Oakdale, Minnesota. Driver Darren Andrew Tenney was in critical condition, still trapped inside. Tenney was airlifted to a nearby hospital and is currently in stable condition. Alcohol and speed appear to be contributing factors of t...
A Wright man died Saturday morning after his car was hit broadside by a train near Sawyer. According to a news release from the Carlton County Sheriff's Office, Brock Hascall, 22, was driving south on Lammi Road when his vehicle was struck broadside by a Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) train traveling westbound, parallel with Hwy 210 just after 4:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 9. Hascall was pronounced dead at the scene. There were no other occupants in the car and no BNSF personnel on the train were injured. This remains an ongoing...
Roughly six years after it overcame neighborhood protest to gain approval to shred old tires, a company operating on land north of Cloquet is under state investigation for its possible failure to meet permitted standards. Tire Aggregate, Inc., located along Minnesota Highway 33 just across the Carlton County line, was permitted by both St. Louis County and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in 2017 to shred used tires to make a construction product called tire-derived aggregate. New complaints...
For $50, young people aged 14-20 can sign up for a new seven-month “fire explorer” program that offers exposure and training for both firefighting and emergency medical service careers. The Cloquet Area Fire District is offering the new program, which will be one of only a few in northern Minnesota. Assistant CAFD fire chief Corey Larson said the group will meet once or twice a month during the school year. The curriculum is very similar to firefighter and medic training courses CAFD alr...
Those who have used the services of the Cloquet Area Fire District may have had personal information about them compromised, according to a report from vendor EMS Management and Consultants, Inc. On May 31 and again in June, Progress Software Corp. publicly disclosed that its MOVEit Transfer tool had been compromised. The CAFD’s billing services provider, EMS Management and Consultants, is a user of that tool. EMS/MC reports that it is unaware of any misuse of information in relation to the breaches but it is providing potentially affected p...
The pastor at Good Hope Church returned from sabbatical last weekend to find it pouring ... inside the Cloquet church at 55 Armory Road. Someone had broken into the church, plugged drains and turned on the faucets in the kitchen and bathrooms, then brought a garden hose inside, turned it on "full blast" and left it running for what amounted to 10 hours. That's what lead pastor Mike Stevens walked into Saturday morning. Stevens initially thought the sprinklers were going off because there was so...
Across Carlton County and the nation, Tuesday night saw residents, law enforcement, firefighters and others getting to know one another just a little bit better. While the idea that meeting your neighbors and public safety officials will help build a safer community remains at the core of National Night Out celebrations everywhere, each gathering is unique. In Scanlon Tuesday, local elected officials were out in force, along with a number of police officers and firefighters. Several - including...
A fire was reported Tuesday morning at 11 16th St. in Cloquet by neighbors who saw smoke coming from the home. They let the resident know, and he exited the home safely. There was significant smoke damage inside the residence and fire damage in the ceiling and attic space. The initial report from firefighters at around 11 a.m., according to the Cloquet Area Fire District, was that smoke was coming from the eaves with fire in the attic. A hole was made in the roof to access the fire and it was...
National Night Out began nearly 40 years ago with the idea that the best way to build a safer community is to know your neighbors and your surroundings. A network of neighborhood watch groups and other crime prevention efforts along with law enforcement agencies threw block parties, cookouts, festivals and other events to bring people together with public safety officials, in their own neighborhoods or the larger community. It just keeps growing, reaching “millions of neighbors across t...
One driver's failure to yield caused a four-car crash Monday morning, at the busy intersection of Minnesota Highway 33 and Cloquet Avenue in Cloquet. Two people were transported to a hospital with minor injuries, said Cloquet Area Fire District battalion chief Michael Garberg. According to the call for service report from the Cloquet Police Department, Gerald Koslowski, 62, failed to yield while making a left turn onto Cloquet Avenue from southbound Highway 33, causing the four-vehicle crash,...
EMS Appreciation Week is this week (May 21-27), so whom are we celebrating? Paramedics, emergency medical technicians (EMT) or emergency medical responders (EMR) are present in every community across our nation. There are several types of systems to manage emergency medical incidents in the U.S., ready to respond 24/7. Each has a system of sending responders to the scene of a medical emergency, and each system is determined by factors such as how many incidents, population density and service...
The Cloquet Area Fire District brought its ladder truck to the Bergquist Imports complex again Monday, but there was no fire. This time investigators were taking aerial photos of the roof of the large warehouse that burned in February, said CAFD lead investigator Jason Maki. By the next day, much of the roof was gone, as a number of investigators from CAFD, the state fire marshal's office and more than one insurance company worked their way through the burned-out remains of the warehouse. The...
Who is the person that shows up when you call an ambulance? Five of the most important qualities of a paramedic, emergency medical technician (EMT) or emergency medical responder (EMR) are: • The ability to remain calm in a stressful situation. • Flexibility. • Great interpersonal skills. • A team player. • Positivity. An ambulance is summoned when something has gone wrong. It could be a person with chest pain, stroke symptoms, an accident that left someone severely injured, a drug overdose,...
The snow may have finally melted, exposing the effects of December’s devastating storms. The heavy snow left some young trees bowing like monks while older trees fell or dropped limbs that were overwhelmed by the weight of the wet snow. The freeze that followed froze many in the same position much of the winter. Strong winds this spring are finishing the damage in some cases; people armed with saws and clippers are doing the rest. In an effort to help citizens who are now cleaning up the m...
A 31-year-old Grand Rapids, Minnesota man was killed Saturday, April 29, when his tractor-trailer overturned, catching fire and causing an explosion north of Cloquet, at the convergence of northbound Minnesota Highway 33 and U.S. Highway 53. Xavier Ryan Henson was hauling a tanker northbound on Highway 33 and was unable to negotiate the curve at the junction with Highway 53, a Minnesota State Patrol news release said. The semi left the roadway, overturning and catching fire. Smoke in the aftermath of the explosion and subsequent fire could be s...
