On behalf of the Prior Lake Rotary Club, my Lakefront Music Fest tri-chairs Frank Boyles, Michelle Jirik and I want to thank the citizens of Prior Lake for helping to make Lakefront Music Fest 2021 our most successful festival to date. The combination of perfect weather and a strong line-up …
The wide diversity of birds on earth should be a reminder to us all that the natural world is a place where life takes all shapes, colors and forms.
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”
Today’s paper includes an insert about the city’s proposed use of franchise fees to fund street maintenance and replacement. As your city, we are responsible for clean water, sanitary sewer and safe streets. The initial cost for this infrastructure was born largely by development. Developers…
Here’s something to think about: You could spend two, or even three, decades in retirement. To meet your income needs for all those years, you’ll generally need a sizable amount of retirement assets. How will Social Security fit into the picture?
When it comes to home, local leaders have been stepping up. But there isn’t enough investment from the state back into our communities — and that’s a problem in the long run.
In the June 19 letter to editor “Minnesota Needs Safe and Honest Elections,” writer Owen Riess, attempting to legitimize questioning the integrity of voting equipment, states “the 2020 election was a fiasco sowing distrust in half the voting population.”
The complexity of nature is sometimes hard to understand and even harder to justify or feel good about, especially when seen through the human lens. I was reminded of this the other day while filming a family of American redstarts (Setophaga ruticilla) that is nesting on my property.
Promise yourself to think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud word, but in great deeds.
The COVID-19 Pandemic has taken more of an upbeat turn over the past several months due to the successful vaccination rates and some areas even here in Minnesota are approaching 70% with shot and 60% are fully vaccinated. As a result, most restrictions have been lifted including statewide ma…
The Prior Lake Savage Area School Board is preparing for a tax levy vote later this year for the establishment of a new $3.5 million, 10-year technology fund ($35 million total). This tax increase is estimated to cost a residential property owner $204 per year (using the district’s average r…
The summer of 1990 found my wife and I staying in Rockland, Maine at a hotel overlooking Penobscot Bay. We’d been at a conference in Boston and decided to take a few extra days to explore the Maine coast and Acadia and Mount Desert Island National Parks.
Voter ID, voter fraud, voting manipulation. These things are front and center in the news. And for good reason. The 2020 election was a fiasco sowing distrust in half of the voting population.
During COVID-19, sentences like “Everything is OK!” “Look on the bright side!” and the infamous “Everything happens for a reason,” have been more prominent. Especially since we have been unable to see people in person, these messages have swarmed social media and have increased how much we h…
We hear a lot these days about racial injustice, white supremacy and systemic racism. There are many misconceptions and sometimes intentional misinterpretations that perhaps I can help clear up.
Greetings Prior Lake! For the past five years I’ve been reporting from the Land of Enchantment — New Mexico — but I’m originally from El Paso, Texas — a culturally rich border city that stands on the Rio Grande across from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
I really enjoyed John Diers' community column from June 5 on “small town feel,” and his memories of coming to Prior Lake in the 1950s. It got me thinking, what happened to Prior Lake’s history?
Regarding an article that ran in the Prior Lake American on June 5 about the recent peace pole dedication, we want to clarify what the actual event was and the intended purpose of the peace pole.
Words have meaning, but they’re imprecise. It’s why there are poets. Google the phrase, “small town feel” and you’ll find over one billion entries. Prior Lake is said to have a “small town feel.” But does a collection of buildings and humans in a political subdivision have feeling — except m…
The writer of the May 15 letter "The national debt is both parties' problem," did a commendable job researching the facts and repercussions of adding hundreds of billions of dollars in interest yearly onto the growing $28 trillion national debt.
Spring is a wonderful time of year. Especially right after the thick ice of winter melts off the ponds and small lakes.
If you have children or grandchildren, you may already be somewhat familiar with the 529 plan, a popular education savings vehicle. But you may not have kept up with some recent changes in the plan’s capabilities and in the educational environment in which the plan might be used.
For well over one year the taxpayers of Scott County have been subject to the unconstitutional and wrongheaded actions of our governor and his one man rule-by-decree. The business crushing, job killing, education robbing, life-sucking policies of the governor have only been allowed to contin…
Legislators in the 2021 session had one major task before us: How do we recognize the sacrifices our families and businesses made over the past year in crafting a budget that helps all Minnesotans recover from the pandemic? I am sorry to say that the budget reached by the governor, speaker o…
Each spring in nature there is a lot of tragedy and triumph. Heartbreak and happiness. Success and failure.
Call it “The Big Lie,” or “Alternate Facts.” Tell a nation and a people who gave the world Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Martin Luther and Goethe that “You didn’t lose the War. You were stabbed in the back.” Make them yearn for a “savior” to avenge all the “wrongs.” Then sit by and watch …
The May 1 letter to the editor "Opinions should be based on facts" reminds me of the saying "dishonest people make biased arguments while pretending it's objective truth."
There is a lot of issues to address regarding the current state of affairs, but I am only choosing one topic that has a long-term effect on our country.
At Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools, feedback from staff, parents, students and our community is a critical part of our continuous improvement efforts. Our annual stakeholder survey responses help to identify strengths and set goals for areas in need of improvement at both the district and ind…
I am always interested in the unsung hero or the rulebreakers of nature. The kind of critter that is common, yet no one seems to pay any attention to them. Or the bird who is so common throughout the U.S., yet no one seems to notice them.
The April 10 letter to the editor, "Anyone can cherry-pick statistics," misleads readers of the Prior Lake American with inaccurate statements and innuendos.
Credit River has an important election coming up on May 11. I watched the candidate forum last night to learn more about those who are seeking to lead Minnesota’s newest city.
A brand new school is so exciting — everything is shiny, clean and bright! Yet, many people don’t realize that a new school still needs items like playground equipment and outdoor learning items, as usually these are items that are built or purchased after students and staff have settled in …
They were special places for special occasions: Harry’s Café, Charlies, the Criterion, Blue Horse, Gannon’s, Birch’s Café and more. It was the late 1940s and early 1950s, and I remember all of them because, at one time or another, I was there.
It's instructive that as I sat down to write about the problem of gun violence in the United States, three more reports of shootings with multiple casualties came across my computer screen. You literally cannot keep up with the number of mass shootings we have in this country every year. Eve…
We all live in Credit River because we like it here. Our town board has done such an excellent job of protecting our lifestyle. We had to become a city, and it has been in the planning stage for 10 years, to prevent adjoining cities from annexing our land and eliminating Credit River.
The rites of spring are particularly interesting, especially in the bird world.
I am incensed with what is happening at our southern border. If we have to be locked down, wear masks, social distance and keep business closed, why are we allowing illegal immigrants to be introduced to our general public with no COVID testing?
At Prior Lake-Savage Area schools we transitioned our secondary students back to in-person learning on April 15 so now all students, E-12, have the opportunity to be back learning in our schools. We also continue to provide distance learning for families who choose that model.
The for-profit national home builders want a one-size fits all approach in Minnesota’s 850 cities and 1,700 townships. That is why they are advancing legislation in St. Paul that is a serious threat to the local control entrusted to cities in how they grow.
Credit River Residents, we have a big decision ahead of us on May 11 as we have our first municipal election. This is very important as it will set the direction for our newly formed city.
April is national Volunteer Appreciation Month and I want to thank all the volunteers out there that make our communities stronger, safer and healthier for everyone. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, volunteers are needed more than ever at nonprofits and we applaud all of you that are…
Every Scott County business with unreimbursed COVID related losses since March 1, 2020 should be livid.
I’m bewildered and a bit offended by the April 3 letter to the editor ("Don't fall for the Republican sales pitch) by one Glen Weber of Prior Lake as he plays fast and loose with the facts and accusations and the Prior Lake American seems to have printed it without so much as a five minute c…
I am writing to ask all of you to contact your legislators in support of HF 358, the Comprehensive Sex Education bill. Comprehensive sex education programs encourage positive, affirming communication between parents and young people around sexuality to help young people establish individual …
As residents in the Pike Lake area, we recently received a heads-up mailer from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community.
2020 was arduous in many ways for everyone. People were in lockdown with limited interactions and getting daily necessities was laborious. For those children and families who were already facing financial and food insecurities, this scenario was even more difficult.
The COVID-19 pandemic may end up changing our lives in some significant ways. To cite one example, it’s likely we’ll see a lot more people continue to work remotely, now that they’ve seen the effectiveness of tools such as video conferencing. Education, too, may be forever changed in some wa…
