Following negotiations, Governor Pawlenty and legislative leaders announced an agreement to provide continued health care for Minnesota’s low income population. The plan will replace General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC).
The agreement establishes substantial payment reforms to the state’s health care system.

The county got a report card of sorts last week when the Community Health Rankings were released. It is a comparison to the rest of the country and the state.
In Minnesota, 85 of 87 counties reported health statistics, and of those Lake of the Woods was near the bottom.
Of the 85 who reported, Lake of the Woods County’s overall health was ranked 70th.

The annual kick-off for the American Cancer Society Relay For Life in Lake of the Woods was February 15th.
Have you considered starting a team of your friends and family to join in the fight against cancer? It’s easy to do at <http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?pg=entry&fr_id=23019> or by attending the next Relay For Life meeting on March 15 at 5 p.m. at First Lutheran Church.

It’s time that we give our sister newspaper in International Falls some kudos for making a difficult decision and following through on it successfully.
For several years the company has been looking at the newspaper and shopper. They made the first move to include the shopper in a once-weekly edition of the newspaper, which would be mailed to everyone while leaving the rest of the week’s editions to subscribers only.

February 2nd was the beginning of the nine-month march toward the fall election. Precinct caucus meetings were scheduled in more than 8,000 communities in the state and the top discussion was the race for governor.
Current governor Tim Pawlenty is not running for election, at least for governor this year, so the position is open.
That had many people ready to throw their name into the contest. There were 23 names on the list from the following parties: Independence (3), Republican (7), Democratic-Farmer-Labor (11), Green (2) and Constitution (1).

We learned with our January 19 issue that people are reading. How do we know? Because we had comments on just about everything that was in it.
From the city council story, to the editorial page, to our new weekly poll on page one.
We fielded calls all week, got stopped in the bank and heard from some by e-mail.
But for as many as we heard from, no one was willing to say how they felt by either writing a letter to the editor or starting a blog on our website.
We provide these forums for you to share your comments, but no one is willing to put their name print.

We were surprised this week by the mayhem that occurred after the newspaper came out last week. Mostly because it wasn’t the mayhem that we had anticipated.
We ran an article that came from our editor’s coverage of a Baudette City Council meeting on January 11.
The article was regarding the sale of adult magazines at the local Holiday Stationstore. It is the only location in town where literature of that nature is sold, and the local ministerium was at the city council meeting asking the council to ban the sale of such materials within the city limits.

The state is expecting to have some cash flow problems this spring, about $690 million short.
So that they may continue with business, they plan to temporarily delay cash payments to school districts, vendors and higher education systems, as well as hold back certain tax refunds.
School districts with low cash balances wouldn’t have their payments delayed, and all payments should be made by the end of June when tax revenues are expected to pick up.
This report was printed by Session Daily, a bipartisan publication covering the House of Representatives.

There are good options for the City of Williams in preventing possible damage to our waterways. It’s been known for some time now that the aluminum tanks in the wastewater treatment plant are corroded and about to fail.
In recent months, the city has connected with the right people, and help seems to be on the way. Hopefully, the project can get done with help that comes from grants and the state legislature, instead of on the back of such a small town.
The three options are

What a beautiful, white Christmas we had in the northland! Two full days of heavy snowfall, plus days of flurries and drifting snow.
True, it probably changed many people’s travel plans, but you don’t get much closer to a true winter blizzard than the foot of snow we saw. We count ourselves fortunate that we didn’t see the two- and three-foot accumulations that many areas saw.
We also count ourselves fortunate that our city, county and state crews were out and did their jobs so well.