VOX POP

Brace yourselves. Brainerd taxpayers have approved via our city council to give our mayor a tax-paid vacation to Leksand, Sweden. He wanted $6,062 for this trip but the frivolous city council only has allowed him $4,000. He shouldn't have been given a single cent. This, as taxpayers, is our money, so we as taxpayers should reap the benefits of this trip. What are the benefits? I figure if he must go, I could cut the air in half by buying him a one-way ticket.

Mayor should be ashamed

What a joke. Four people on the city council can decide how our tax dollars should be used. What if I don't want to pay for him to take a trip to Sweden? Four-thousand dollars and they aren't paying for his wife? Give me a break. Pay for it yourself, Mr. Mayor. You should be ashamed of yourself! Well, maybe he will buy those four council members a gift while he is there with my money.

A sister city?

Twice in the last three years I have gone to the Tourist Office in Leksand, Sweden, and told them that I was from their sister city in Brainerd, Minn. Both times they said they knew nothing about a sister city. I have a friend in Nisswa that had the same experience. Oh well, the scenery is great and Mayor Wallin will enjoy the trip.

Why?

If our founding fathers were, at the most, deists, why would they establish a national day of prayer and thanksgiving? Why would anyone pray to a God who supposedly washed his hands of us after creation?

Juvenile center

Well, it happened. The juvenile center is closing down. This means that all the juveniles in the Brainerd area can go out and commit crimes, scratch up businesses, paint on the side of the businesses, assault staff, insult schools, assault other school kids and the police department has nowhere to bring them. The police department will just cut them loose. Next thing you know, in six months to a year, you'll have nothing but criminals throughout Brainerd. The board failed to meet the expectations of the community.

(The counties that funded the juvenile center are making alternate plans. And those plans don't include letting the serious offenders run wild. - R.F.M.)

Property taxes

The county assessors are telling us that the state ordered them to raise the evaluations on every property in many townships. Could somebody please tell me who the state is so I can complain to them because no one I know knows who "the state" is.

Wisconsin is a real state

Having moved here from a real state - Wisconsin - I notice there's two things Minnesotans can't do, y'all can't drive and you can't raise your kids very well. Good luck on both of them.

(The writer omitted a third thing: And sometimes you can't play football as well as the Packers. - R.F.M.)

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