Minnesota House of Representatives

Accessibility menu

Menu

Minnesota House of Representatives

State Representative John Persell

369 State Office BuildingState Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-5516

For more information contact: Sandy Connolly 651-296-8877

Posted: 2009-11-16 00:00:00
Share on: 



Column/LTE

Thanks to Leech Lake Tribal Council for local economic stimulus package



Dear Editor,

I read an interesting letter in the Walker Pilot (A Local Economic Stimulus, Wednesday October 28th edition) and I wanted to say how much I agreed with the author and hope that others will think about it as I did. The article was about a strange thing that happened this fall throughout our area and how significant it was but, sadly, how very little was said about it.
What the author was writing about was how the Leech Lake Tribal Council provided us with our own “economic stimulus package" throughout the region.
Our own local “Tribal Government” really stepped up for those of us who still harvest wild rice the old fashion way. In an effort to guarantee natural hand harvesters were paid a fair price for their green rice, the Tribe bought rice for over 4 weeks straight at an average of $2.00 a pound. They spent over $700,000 that all went back into our local areas’ economy. This not only helped the rice pickers but it helped the whole area as the local folks in turn spent the money they earned at their local businesses like restaurants, gas stations, hardware stores, retail shops and many more.
This financial windfall for our local economy has been a blessing to people who are having a tough time making ends meet and I for one hope the Leech lake Tribal Council gets recognized for what they have done. I truly appreciate their help and urge the local papers to do a follow-up on this story. In my opinion this type of local economic stimulus is big news that the public should hear about.


Representative John Persell
House District 4-A

218-556-1812

News Items

Audio & Video

Galleries

No image galleries found

Minnesota House of Representatives  ·   100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Saint Paul, MN   55155   ·   Webmaster@house.mn