The St. Louis County Board of Commissioners race is underway, with a Wednesday night debate pitting an eight-year incumbent against a military veteran.
While discussions over equity and the transportation sales tax may have been present at the debate, it was mining that Commissioner Frank Jewell and his opponent Jim Booth differed the greatest on.
"I've been very clear, I am waiting to see if there is a copper-nickel operation that can meet all the standards and pass every last line of the expectation that the state has," said Jewell. "And so far, they haven't done it."
Jewell also said he was vehemently against any copper-nickel mining adjacent to or beneath the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Responding to Jewell, Booth said he was a proponent of both ferrous and non-ferrous mining and the he supported the proposed PolyMet project near Hoyt Lakes.
"They should be allowed to do mining," said Booth. "In 2014, we had Senator Amy Klobuchar, Representative Rick Nolan and Senator Al Franken all be in favor of non-ferrous mining in the state of Minnesota. I will take a stand, and my stand is in favor of it."
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Jewell responded there was "almost universal agreement that copper-nickel mining is not safe," saying people have been able to show it will cause pollution. As a final rebuttal, Booth said the permitting process would do its job.
"PolyMet has come up with a process that is different than other people's processes. If that process is allowed to go forward, that's only because they have met the requirements that the state of Minnesota and the federal government says they have to."
A far less combative topic was the old argument about whether St. Louis County should be split up into a north and south section, with Jewell calling it a "crazy idea that would hurt everybody," and Booth agreeing with him.
That agreement carried into other discussions about the importance to maintain the transportation sales tax and the need to further push back against the opioid crisis. St. Louis registered one of the highest rate of opioid-related deaths in Minnesota last year.
"If you think of other counties like ... (Ramsey) or Hennepin that are much larger, that's just not acceptable," said Booth. "St. Louis County has a great team working together right now."
Citing collaborative efforts between the police department, the Minnesota Department of Health, the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy in Duluth and the county itself, Booth said the county was doing "an excellent job with recovery."
Jewell reflected on his own experience of painkillers, saying that there are two parts of the problem: the illegal drugs, and then there are the drugs people can find in medicine cabinets.
"I had a hernia operation last year, and I told them I wanted two pills to dull the pain, and they gave me 30," said Jewell. "I said 'why is that?' and they said 'well, it's what we do.' and I said 'well that's a problem.'"
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Both also agreed on the need to address out-of-home placements among children. Jewell said because Minnesota is one of two states that does not fund out-of-home placements, that burden is on the county, which comes with a $19 million price tag.
"It's very expensive," said Jewell. "And we don't have the resources. There are not enough people who are foster parents. So we need more of those resources."
Booth said he was a respite foster care parent for a number of years.
"I know the need for it. It's multifaceted and it can happen at lots of areas. There's not a single answer," he said. "As county commissioner, I can do a lot in asking people to become foster parents and jump through those hoops to become a foster parent because there is a big need for it. It tugs at your heartstrings after a while."
