2 Hot Topics in Duluth
One issue facing Duluth was brought up at monday’s City Council meeting: the withdrawl of troops from Iraq. Obviously, this is an important, world-wide issue…so why should Duluth’s City Council be discussing topics of a national status? That’s why this is controversial. Councilor Russ Stewart proposed his plan to slowly remove the numbers of troops from Iraq, including those of Duluth’s 148th fighter wing. His plan passed at the meeting with a 6-2 vote. The 2 ‘no’ votes were from councilors opposed to second-guess the national government. Stewart expected a few to be opposed, but knew he needed to present the topic in hopes of smaller types of gov’t sticking together to be heard. He believes that all levels of gov’t should send messages of a national level.
A second issue discussed at the Duluth City Council meeting was whether or not Mayor Herb Bergson should be allowed to collect more of a profit from Duluth events, mostly, the Bayfront Blues Festival. Bergson originally proposed that Duluth should see at least 25% of the earnings of such events, but that means taking away income from the founder/president of the Blues Fest, Chris Mackey. Mackey’s income is shared with his vice president and is only around $75,000 a year. Bergson is considering only charging a set rental fee for the park instead of getting a percentage of each of the event tickets sold, but nothing has been decided. This is important because if the income’s of the founders are cut into the event will no longer be able to have as many entertainment groups, suffer from a limited alcohol supply/other merchandise, and ticket operation would go to TicketMaster’s control. Festival goers wouldn’t be thrilled with the changes and thus overall profits would decrease.