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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Greenwood making my stomach turn

Posted 3/2/16

Thank you for your reporting on the recent events in Greenwood Township. As a Greenwood summer resident and town clerk for a township outside Duluth, these articles have made my stomach turn.

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Greenwood making my stomach turn

Posted

Thank you for your reporting on the recent events in Greenwood Township. As a Greenwood summer resident and town clerk for a township outside Duluth, these articles have made my stomach turn.

As a clerk, we take oaths to serve “on behalf of the residents, to the best of our judgment and abilities.” Clearly in Greenwood, the oath was “on behalf of myself, in my best interest, in hopes that no one will notice.”

I do not feel comfortable negating the specifics of the Greenwood town clerk’s exact responsibilities; however, I can tell you this about the work I do for my township, which has a population at least twice the size of Greenwood’s: I get all my work done in an average of 35 hours per month, a little more during an election season or if we have a newsletter to publish. With everything said and done, I make less than $10,000 per year (compared to $26,190).However, please factor in that I don’t have the all-consuming task of assigning five 911 numbers per year (sarcasm).

I can also tell you that our Planning & Zoning Director makes $3,000/year (compared to $22,000 in Greenwood) and our wonderful VOLUNTEER firefighters earn a well-earned pension of $1,200 per year of service when they retire, and the chief and assistant chief do their jobs out of the goodness of their hearts and as a service to their friends and neighbors. We also do not feel the need to have a FULL-TIME maintenance person on staff who earns $44,000 per year (what is he fixing all day??). If we did, and I as the town clerk had office hours every single day, I can only imagine how much time the two of us could spend doing crossword puzzles, planning unnecessary pavilions, and laughing at all those stupid summer people who pay exorbitant property taxes to fund this nonsense.

I encourage the residents of Greenwood (those who have the right to vote in the March election), to vote for a change in your township. You deserve a town government that is transparent, honest and, really, never in the news. Enough with these special meetings, personal agendas and outrageous salaries for (I’m making an educated guess here) PRETEND workloads. There should never be a time where a clerk feels the need to be sneaky. Everything we do is mandated by state statutes which should be honorably (and easily) followed. Residents, please stand up for your rights, and vote for Sue Drobac. And thank you to Supervisor Bassing for standing his ground in a contentious, and absolutely ridiculous, situation.

Susan Krasaway

Duluth, Minn.