We received bad news last week, a gut punch to our industry, actually, from up the road.
The owner of community newspapers in Shakopee, Savage, Prior Lake, Chanhassen, Chaska and Jordan announced the final editions of these publications would be published later this month. Six well-established, once-profitable newspapers will be gone. In an era where revenue matters, the size of the return-on-investment matters more than ever.

Apparently with everything going right in Minnesota, it seems one of the pressing issues before us is the need to eliminate the line of demarcation between where people can hunt with rifles and where shotguns firing slugs must be utilized.

It has become sport in recent years for people to point out things they don’t like, they believe are flat-out wrong or broken in our world today. The next time you hear someone kvetching about something being wrong, consider asking at least one simple question.
What’s your solution to make the situation better?

New Prague needs improvements for its post office building. The current owners of the building have a lease with the United States Postal Service that runs through February of 2025.
That’s the easy part.

One of social media’s beautiful features is that it quickly reminds you of whatyou were doing a year ago.
My posts from last January feature disgruntled sel-fies of me standing in mydriveway with salt and a pitiful electric snowblower that I thought would be enough. It was not.
By the end of last winter, there was a solid two feet of snow in my yard. The ice walls that formed from shoveling my driveway were so formative, that I began reading George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series to seek a suitable comparison
in literature.

When discussing the upcoming budget cutting the New Prague School Board will begin in the weeks to come, some might feel Matt Goldade ought not have noted the plainly obvious – the more costly the contract with the district’s unionized teachers, the larger the amount the district will have to cut.

It took some time, but we finally have snow and freezing temperatures. So, winter is here. Again, just like last year.
Just like last year, people are not happy with the cold temperatures. Maybe the complaining is a little more understandable this year as December and the first few days of January had temperatures above normal.

She sat through hundreds of meetings over a dozen years, considered thousands of decisions with an untold number of options. For Jeanne Kubes, it all came down to one foundational premise as she saw it – the good of the community’s public schools, the children attending them and the staff working in them.

There’s little doubt 2023 was a good year in New Prague. The community is continuing to grow and, arguably, prosper. Its school children display their talents on many stages on a regular basis. The community has many reasons to look forward with great enthusiasm for its future.

One thing I’ve sometimes found baffling are people who make comments at public meetings and then don’t want it reported on. It’s the one word, “public,” that some people forget is in that aspect of a meeting.

We learned this past week consumer spending in Minnesota has been at a level contributing to yet another projected budget surplus.
Wasting no time, Education Minnesota, the union representing teachers in the state, offered its opinion the state should continue to help fund teachers’ wages at a level able to address the shortage of instructors. E-12 education is already among the largest line items in the state’s biennial budget. Being a teacher is challenging and at times under-appreciated yet vitally important work.

I have a sibling who doesn’t eat anything with pork products in them. Strangely enough, you will find pork products in places sometimes you don’t always think of — one of them being store-bought gelatin.
This sent me on a hunt of how I could make my own gelatin and the results were surprisingly simpler, more flavorful and more nutritious than I realized. In fact, if you can somehow make anything into a liquid, you can make it into gelatin. It also sets firmer.

I took my father to see a show with U.S. Navy Glee Club Men’s and Women’s Chorus with the Minnesota Orchestra at Orchestra Hall earlier this month. Preceding the show, we sat down in the lobby next to a couple, approximately in their seventies.

Saturday, Nov. 11, is Veterans Day, a time we should especially remember to honor the service of our country’s military veterans, men and women who have given so much so we can enjoy our daily lives in relative ease and comfort.

Your New Prague Area School District has offered a case voters should approve an additional $450 per student levy for 10 years – not “forever” as Director Dan Call told the board he had been telling constituents back in August.
Call, who told the school board he opposed the levy request, was corrected on the misinformation. Hopefully, he has since touched base with all those folks and provided them accurate information.

Sen. Bill Lieske, R-Lonsdale, recently authored a column published in our Oct. 12 edition reminding people who took out federal student loans the pause on repayment issued during the pandemic has been lifted. For those concerned about repaying their loans, he offered a couple of short-term options.