Minnesota’s governor is putting the call out for the next iteration of the Minnesota broadband task force: Governor Dayton Charges Taskforce with Expanding Broadband Access Statewide August 25, 2011 Today, Governor Mark Dayton issued Executive Order 11-27, establishing the Governor’s Task Force on Broadband and continuing his commitment to strengthening our state’s infrastructure and fostering […]
Noticing Nice
[v=Av28P04vGH4] Every so often I stumble across something that really makes me glad I live in a small town. Random things that one wouldn’t think too much about, unless of course you’re somebody like me who stays up at night thinking about these things. I know, I know, “Get a life” you say. Well, I […]
Dairy Goodness at the Murray County Fair
Today is the opening of the 2011 Murray County Fair. The booths are going up. The 4-H kids are showing their kids (and bunnies and horses and hogs). The Milk Producers have the Dairy stand turning out chocolate (and raspberry and strawberry) shakes malts and the Pork Producers have the Pork stand turning out pulled pork sandwiches and […]
Two Faces of Rural America
They publish some good maps over at the Daily Yonder. This week editor Bill Bishop updated the national map of unemployment for non-metropolitan counties. “Fascinating,” I’m sure you’re thinking. Yes, i know we’ve all heard enough about the potential double-dip recession (The Ghost of the Great Reset?) to make us all nauseous, even before Wall Street […]
Firming the Wind
[v=NE_BalA6AT8] This bit of renewable energy news was buried in a subhead in Sunday’s STrib: JUHL WIND TO BUY STORAGE UNIT Juhl Wind, the little public company near Pipestone that is a 30-plus year pioneer in community-owned wind power, has agreed to buy a 1-megawatt advanced energy storage system developed by Zinc Air. Juhl plans to […]
Rural Broadband Project Breaks Ground
Last Friday, I had the opportunity to attend the Southwest Minnesota Broadband Services Group (SMBG) Groundbreaking in Lakefield. SMBS will be building fiber-to-the-premise infrastructure to eight rural communities throughout Southwestern Minnesota. The network will consist of a 125 mile fiber ring which will connect the eight communities and an FTTP infrastructure within the communities that […]
Spoiled Children and Budget Negotiation
[v=ctnRxp4daJk] For six days now I’ve been trying to figure out something (useful, relevant, tactless) to say about the State of Minnesota Shutdown. For those outside the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the Minnesota Legislature and Governor failed to reach a budget agreement by the beginning of the new fiscal year, 1 July. Due to a […]
A New Project: Pipestone Economic Development Authority
At work, we try to customize our services to the needs of our clients. Applying cookie-cutter solutions with standard government templates might be easier for us, but it doesn’t necessarily get the job done. One example would be some recent conversations we’ve had with one of our counties on providing local economic development services. It […]
Leading the Aging Wave
I got to visit my friends at Kiwanis today and talk about Census 2010 results. Locally, our county seat town grew slightly from 2000, while our county contracted slightly as did the regional overall. The Micropolitan centers of Worthington and Marshall led growth in our area, both overall and in minority (particularly Hispanic) population growth. […]
Not Too Many, But Too Few
Joel Kotkin got it right. The Economist last week reported on increasing concern with the impending demographic disaster of China’s One-Child policy. While their 2010 census counted 1.34 billion people, the survey also reveals a “steep decline” in average annual growth rates. China’s fertility rate may be as low as 1.4 now, far below the […]