Fractured Duluth City Council recommends tourism report
August 29, 2011 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
A divided City Council voted 6-3 on Monday to recommend Duluth city administration consider and follow the recommendations of a somewhat controversial tourism tax task force report.
Continue Reading

In the continued spirit of abstaining when there is a conflict of interest, wouldn’t it have made sense for Stauber to have abstained from the vote, given that his business contracts with Visit Duluth?
Like or Dislike:
13
6
Do the union-owned councilors abstain on matters relating to AFSCME pay or benefits? That is a much, much bigger conflict of interest, yet they have and will continue to vote on those matters.
Like or Dislike:
16
7
which councillors are owned by AFSCME? would really like to know
Like or Dislike:
6
10
Oh please Mike, you can’t honestly be that naive.
Like or Dislike:
9
5
lol…ignorance is bliss!!
Like or Dislike:
9
5
just name them
Like or Dislike:
1
8
kind of like the McCarthy papers “the communists in the senate” lot of inuendo but no names. I would really like to know who you think are owned by ASCME
Like or Dislike:
4
7
Mike, you have admitted you work for the City. Wasn’t it the Water and Gas Dept? So you get the AFCME mailings telling you who to vote for. You can attend union meetings where beer-saturated men will tell you who to vote for. You get the Labor World (the union propaganda paper) that is loaded with union BS stories including who to vote for. You know darn well who the unions have bought. Don’t play dumb.
Like or Dislike:
3
7
“Me thinks thou dost protest too profusley”……..There is a large element of collusion in Duluth at most junctions between the City and business. This is no different. Even small favors are amplified in this arena an in many cases they violate the original agreements, contracts and trusts. Stay tuned on this one. It seems a trifle , but there will be casualties…..just a hunch.
Like or Dislike:
10
3
There won’t be any casualties, however much we may fantasize about it, day after day and when going to sleep at night. The people in these kinds of positions always have some nepotism going on so a known family member will protect them. The only way to do it is to get rid of them all at once, hard and quick.
Like or Dislike:
8
7
Until she retired, Sharla Gardner was in violation of the state conflict of interest laws. The law states that an elected official must recuse themselves if they receive more than $50 from an organization that might benefit from their vote. Clearly, the AFSCME cabal feels free to ignore this law, and Gardner ignores in not just with AFSCME votes, but with every vote involving the sister cities project. It’s time we started filing complaints against these people. The state won’t do anything until a complaint has been filed. Once enough complaints have been lodged they CAN’T ignore them.
Like or Dislike:
10
5
It’s really surprising that every organization that annually receives $100,000 doesn’t get the same amount of attention from the tourism tax task force.
Perhaps they should have named it the Visit Duluth task force instead?
Like or Dislike:
12
5
you keep saying ASCME owned member but you will not name them yes I worked for the w&g I don’t get the labour world, or mailing beacause I am retired. I also know councilors personally why wouldn’t you name who?
Like or Dislike:
5
7
Mike, I think that Ulysses is trying to sensationalize for the readers. He is just throwing handfulls of rocks.
If a person votes for something just because they read an article in a paper or magazine, does not mean that same person will vote again because of another article in the same media source.
The cool thing about freedom and America, everybody can be informed from multiple media sources, judge the data for themselves. The people who do not perform this are like playful puppies, just toss them a bone or toy and they are happy.
Like or Dislike:
3
2
Doug, nice try at the old “smoke and mirrors” ploy. I do not need to sensationalize for anyone, I am just stating very obvious facts. Union phone banks encouraging union members to vote the “right” way, union mailings, the union propaganda paper, union sponsored candidate presentations, even close to strong-arm tactics at work PLUS direct union cash contributions to candidates all combine to create a voting blok that the democrats have come to count on. When bombarded with so much propaganda repeating the same mistruths, the average union member will begin to believe the propaganda. Repeat a lie often enough and some people will begin to believe the lie. Such tactic is the tried and proven democrats stock-and-trade.
Like or Dislike:
2
3
name them
Like or Dislike:
2
4
According to Ulysses, any elected official who doesn’t adhere to his tea party ideology must have a secret Communist agenda.
Like or Dislike:
1
4
mike, I am seriously starting to doubt your intelligence. I should not have to spell out the very obvious to anyone except the most stupid among us. That can’t be you, can it? I hope you are just playing stupid. Please say that’s what you’re doing.
Like or Dislike:
2
4
itm should be hard for you to just name them
Like or Dislike:
2
3
Ulysses, even if what you said had some truth to it, you can’t deny that the same thing isn’t true with the Republican Party. What about a nation full of Catholic priests telling their congregations to vote against gay rights (eg, vote Republican)…. The constant stream of conservative talk radio telling you to vote Republican…. Organizations like ProLife America that put up billboards (propaganda) nationwide to appeal to a huge bloc of single issue voters…. The mainstream media’s persistent coverage of the Tea Party and consistent negligence of any REAL 3rd party…?
If you can just ignore all of this blatantly right-wing propaganda, then perhaps it is you who has begun to believe the lie.
Like or Dislike:
2
4
That’s genius.
“They’re doing it so it makes it ok for us to do it.”
Circling the drain, baby.
Like or Dislike:
2
2
That is not the case at all, Dark Inside. The right-wing is saturated with propaganda from nearly every direction. Meanwhile, what does Ulysses use as an example of left-wing propaganda? Labor World? Oooooooo……. The left is really unstoppable now! (end sarcasm)
A better analogy would be that, “They’re doing it, and so they ASSUME we’re doing it too.” So even if a non-partisan 3rd party, like a college professor or a scientific researcher, addresses a political issue with complete objectivity, Republicans would disregard that information if it didn’t coincide with their ideology and would assume that the academic is really an agent of the left in disguise. And when scientific objectivity is trumped by fervent ideology, then we have a real problem… We have seen other countries go down this path before.
Like or Dislike:
1
0