Campaign Finance Rulemaking Comments due Sept 22!
July 26th, 2023
Hot off the press from Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, a notice of rulemaking. Here’s the pdf of the Notice – it’s very intense and detailed, a lot crammed into four pages:
Comments are due by September 22, 2023. Send to:
Andrew Olson (andrew.d.olson@state.mn.us)
Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board
190 Centennial Office Building
658 Cedar Street
St. Paul, MN 55155
And the email from Campaign Finance:
To: Interested members of the public
The Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board is considering adopting, amending, and repealing administrative rules concerning campaign finance regulation and reporting, lobbyist regulation and reporting, and audits and investigations. The Board may consider other rule topics that arise during the rulemaking process. A copy of the Board’s Request for Comments, published today in the State Register, is available at cfb.mn.gov/pdf/legal/rulemaking/2023/Request_for_comments.pdf.
Three Board members will serve on a subcommittee that will work with staff to develop the proposed rule language. The subcommittee meetings will be open to the public and interested parties will have the opportunity to comment on the proposed rule topics and language. Information related to the rulemaking, including how to comment, how to sign up for the rulemaking notice list, the dates of upcoming subcommittee meetings, copies of official documents, and draft rules when they are ready, will be posted on the Board’s rulemaking docket webpage at cfb.mn.gov/citizen-resources/the-board/statutes-and-rules/rulemaking-docket/.
You are currently subscribed to the Board’s rulemaking notice list. If you no longer wish to receive notices regarding the Board’s rulemaking efforts, please reply to this email or unsubscribe using the form on the Board’s rulemaking docket webpage linked above. Please contact me with any questions or concerns related to rulemaking.
Respectfully,
![](https://legalectric.org/f/2023/07/image-38.png)
Andrew Olson
Legal/Management Analyst
651-539-1190
andrew.d.olson@state.mn.us
And AQI gets better in Red Wing
July 16th, 2023
And after I saw the PurpleAir report, and looked again today, the horrible air has moved south, and we’re likely in yellow or even green today. Whew. And some ideas occurred to me, as I was asked yesterday what the City could do:
I’m not sure what we can do about the smoke from Canada to improve the air quality. What would you propose we do?
and:
Air monitoring won’t help with the smoke it will tell us what we already know. What is your solution to the bad air we can see?
So after some thought, with #1 and 2 below immediately, and then 3 and 4 later, I sent a follow up missive to the Council:
All –
FYI, yesterday someone did post a PurpleAir monitor reading for our area:
That was yesterday. Today, the local PurpleAir monitor is not online, but https://fire.airnow.gov/ shows improvement for our area:
When asked, “What is your solution to the bad air we can see?,” obviously we can’t do anything about the Canadian and US fires (they’re all over the country, see map: ). However, there are precautionary steps the City could and should take. The City does have a responsibility to protect the public health and safety of our community. A very good start would be:
1) Start acting on air quality, i.e., to not add any air emissions from any of our big polluters, like Xcel, USG, ADM, etc.;
2) Advocate and agitate MPCA repeatedly to get all the expired permits reviewed;
3) It also occurred to me later that when it’s this bad, the City should issue warnings, urge people to mask up if outside (oh, that’ll go over well, but it’s their health or lack thereof) and to stay inside and use air filters. Yesterday at Menards, there were MANY people coming out with air filters, probably to build those cheap and easy box fan filters).
4) The City should set a threshold for AQI index where outside events would be cancelled, as was done in the last round of extremely high AQIs made attending outside events hazardous for those of us who breathe.
I’m debating getting a PurpleAir monitor (the Zen model: https://www2.purpleair.com/products/list) and connecting to NOAA, though given the medical expense cash crunch now, yes, it is a matter of debate here.
If the City isn’t willing to get on MPCA to install air monitors, the City should spend the $299 x ? to put up a few here and there around town and link them to NOAA. We residents do deserve to know the AQI. Also, there should be one installed near every one of our big emitters in town, location based on the wind rose, for consideration when MPCA, if ever, gets around to permit renewal review, and for when any of these want to contract for more burning.
Again, the City has a responsibility for the health and safety of its residents, and you’re the policy setters.
Carol, a breather whose health is affected by unhealthy air.
Bad Air Quality Index in Red Wing
July 15th, 2023
Really bad air here in Red Wing today, so I sent another Air Quality (and lack thereof) missive to the City Council:
All –
Once again, it is likely a very bad air day, red dots, orange dots, and we have no monitors, much less a baseline for air “quality,” or lack thereof, in Red Wing. https://fire.airnow.gov/
What are you, each of you, doing to protect the health and safety of our community? That’s the primary job of the City and the City’s electeds.
Carol A. Overland, loading some things in the car and feeling the PM2.5
Checking later in the day, after some exertion outside that had quite an impact, I found this on that site, our blue dot on the map accompanied by a red square, a “Purple Air” monitor:
Yeah, that’s pretty grim.
Rep. Altendorf at RW Council Monday?
July 9th, 2023
Yup, that’s “our” state Representative Pam Altendorf. I had to send them a missive, as she sure doesn’t represent a very large bunch of constituents! So this went to the Council:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
All –
Unfortunately, I cannot attend on Monday, have to work way out southwest, a meeting I can’t miss. That said, this is the first of two missives about Monday’s agenda.
RE:
I hope that you all will review bills “authored” and “co-authored” by Rep. Altendorf. Consider what she’s doing FOR us, all of us, and what’s she’s doing AGAINST us. Also consider what she’s doing that misses the mark of the charge of a state Representative. Check the links, and I’ll raise a few examples below:
Remember that Rep. Pam Altendorf ran as an “America First” candidate. What’s America First? Don’t know? “America First” is white supremacy and nationalism at its core. A visit to the Charles Lindbergh House and Museum in Little Falls would be a good start. I’m shocked that anyone would advertise being an “America First” candidate, but too many have no idea what “America First” means. Sarah Campbell’s “Behold America” is also an excellent source:
![](https://legalectric.org/f/2022/11/image-36.png)
From Rep. Altendorf’s campaign website, “Endorsed by Mike Lindell” as an “America First” candidate. SNORT! For some reason this video has been scrubbed off her “Endorsements” page on her campaign website — but I found the video, HERE –>
Speaking of My Pillow, the market has spoken:
MyPillow is auctioning off equipment after retailers pull its products
Altendorf was also endorsed by Steve Drazkowski:
“Extensive work recalling RW City Council.” Hmmmm, what did she do?
A state House Representative is charged with, has taken an oath, to represent their constituents, ALL their constituents, not some, and to observe and support the Constitutions of the U.S. and the State of Minnesota.
U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment anyone??? Here’s an example of a bill where she was “Chief Author,” the point of which was to make voting more difficult, eliminate voting rights, and suppress voting:
And her HC0003, a bizarre bill “denouncing the horrors of socialism” — you’ve got to read this — click on the HC0003 link! I’d guess she objects to things like Social Security and Medicare; MNSure; fire and police departments; public schools; the state vo-tech, college, and university system; ag programs and nutrition support; snow plowing; roads and bridges; our state, county, and city park systems; utility regulation; etc. This bill is a clear example of lack of understanding of “socialism,” conflating “socialism” and “communism,” and failure to understand the basics of “democracy,” and I’d presume lack of understanding of the distinction between democracy and capitalism:
And in the “Co-Authored” bills she signed on to:
State Rep., now state Senator Drazkowski would remember my sign from the state candidates’ rally at Bay Point Park a few years ago. If I wasn’t 100 miles away, I’d bring it to Monday’s meeting:
![](https://legalectric.org/f/2022/11/image-37.png)
![](https://legalectric.org/f/2022/11/image-19-1024x416.png)
Carol A. Overland, Attorney at Law, sworn on oath to support the U.S. and state Constitutions.
Delaware cancer rates — note 19731
July 4th, 2023
Yes, every picture tells a story, worth a thousand words… Alan Muller, Green Delaware, spent decades fighting the polluters of Delaware, concentrated in New Castle County, and the Indian River coal plant way south (and surrounded by cancer), and many other polluters in Delaware and beyond.
A few maps of Delaware cancer rates… from this article about articles in the Snooze Urinal (as Alan calls the News Journal):
Cancer Clusters in Delaware? How One Newspaper Turned Official Statistics into News
Alan’s Port Penn, DE is in this area on the bay, just south of the C&D Canal, dark red in the map above, dark blue in the maps below:
Cancer Cluster Investigations in Delaware
And from the state’s Division of Public Health:
CENSUS TRACT-LEVEL CANCER INCIDENCE IN DELAWARE, 2015-2019
Port Penn, DE is in the dark blue census tract on eastern edge, south of Delaware City, that bumps out into the Delaware Bay (166 incidence rate on map):