In Minnesota Legislature: Deep in budget bills, hidden nuggets found, Rachel Stassen-Berger and Christopher Mangen report:
A little provision tucked into much larger legislation instructs the state to "contract with a telecommunication provider to place a cell phone transmitter on the ranger tower on Side Lake in St. Louis County."
That would be the last item under Section 3, Natural Resources, Subdivision 4 of the Agriculture and Environmental Omnibus Budget Bill.
Among those whose cell phone service may improve with the passage of this provision? Senator David Tomassoni, who owns a lakefront property along with his siblings (and a cousin, Tom Bobich) on nearby Little Sturgeon Lake. Little Sturgeon Lake is the body of water at the bottom center of the aerial view of the Side Lake area at the top of this post.
UPDATE: Speaking for Senator Tomassoni via twitter, DFL Senator communications director Alyssa Siems Roberson has replied to this post about the cell phone transmitter dish on the ranger tower. We embed the twitter exchange at the bottom of the post, with our thanks for the update. [end update]
Here's the property tax record from the St. Louis County online property records:
The nugget
Stassen-Berger and Mangen report:
A little provision tucked into much larger legislation instructs the state to "contract with a telecommunication provider to place a cell phone transmitter on the ranger tower on Side Lake in St. Louis County."
"It's the perfect spot to put a dish," said Sen. David Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm. He said the ranger tower is on school trust land so it needs to generate revenue, which it would get from the telecommunications provider. Thus the state legislation was needed.
He said that he did not know of opposition to it and that it would improve the shoddy service people who live around Side Lake, 20 miles north of Hibbing, now receive.
The fundraiser at the lake
What's not in the Pioneer Press article? That Tomassoni owns a cabin in the area. We'd been hearing about this property for a while, though sources such as a comment left on the late Karl Bremer's article, Campaign cash and army of lobbyists keep 'clean coal' boondoggle afloat for a decade at Ripple in Stillwater:
An interesting footnote - I understand that last Friday Tom Micheletti and Julie Jorgensen, along with Sen. Tom Bakk, attended Sen. Dave Tomassoni's annual fundraiser at his cabin on Side Lake, where Micheletti also has a cabin - all very cozy.
Other mentions of the party are less critical. Take, for instance, this praise of the menu by Hometown News editor Jean Cole in a recipe article posted earlier this month, Piggin' out on Fraboni's TNT burgers:
The best grilled hamburger I’ve ever had in my life (and we’ve all eaten hundreds, right?) was served at Senator David Tomassoni’s annual summer fundraiser at his cabin. I’ve been to this party two times, and both times I ate TWO burgers - and they were big.
I recently investigated the source of these delicious burgers. I was told by Charlotte Tomassoni that they are made by Fraboni’s in Hibbing. . . .
David said that his cousin, Tom “Chibe” Bobich, cooks the burgers for the party and won’t let David near the barbeque grill. . . .
According to campaign finance records, the Tomassoni campaign committee spent $309.55 for food at Faboni's (page 9, online pagination, 2014 year-end report), so it's the same cabin party. However, the Ripple in Stillwater commenter named the wrong lake.
Update: Via Facebook, a journalist friend let us know that Cole is the wife of former state representative and current St. Louis County Commissioner Tom Rukavina. Cole has been transparent about their relationship (see example here), so her presence at a partisan fundraiser is not as peculiar as it might seem at first glance. Journalists are generally discouraged from attending fundraisers as paying guests, although covering them as events is not perceived as a problem. [end update]
The Itasca County DFL Facebook page provided the address in this 2012 invitation:
The town is Side Lake; the body of water is Little Sturgeon. Perhaps when the cell phone transmitter is up on the DNR tower, those folks attending the fundraiser can tweet photos for the rest of us to enjoy.
Tomassoni and the Ag & Environmental Omnibus Budget Bill
The Chisholm lawmaker is the senate author of the controversial ag & environmental bill, in which this little nugget appeared. Moreover, the revisor's side-by-side comparison of the earlier versions of the regular session versions of the bill reveals that the language did not appear in the House version of the bill (page R25-A1).
Echoes of the Chaudhary controversy?
Chatting on Facebook this morning with a politically active friend with a very long memory, Bluestem's editor mentioned that we were working on this post. We were reminded of an earlier controversy over a legislative provision related to a former senator's lake property. In 2010, then Senator Satveer Chaudhary, a DFLer, got into a bit of a pickle over a provision that didn't even make it into statute. From the write-up of the controversy in the Wikipedia biography of the former lawmaker:
During the 2010 Session of the Minnesota Legislature, Saint Louis County Commissioner, Dennis Fink, asked Senator Chaudhary to insert a provision into a fish and game bill that would place special fishing regulations Fish Lake in northern Minnesota. The Chaudhary family owns a cabin on leased land on part of the lake. The Senator then approached Representative David Dill on the House floor, and requested that he insert the language into the bill.[34] After the close of session Republicans in the Senate raised a question as to the appropriateness of Chaudhary's change to the legislation.[34] In response Senator Chaudhary requested that the Senate Ethics Panel provide an independent review of the situation, even though no complaint had been filed against him. On June 2, 2010, after finding that Chaudhary had no conflict of interest in introducing the legislation,[35] the Minnesota Senate Subcommittee on Ethical Conduct admonished Senator Chaudhary for the manner in which he introduced the legislation and for violating procedure.[36] In an editorial comment the Star Tribune noted that while the Senate subcommittee commended Senator Chaudhary for coming forward of his own volition, he was clearly rebuked by the bipartisian Committee.[37] Other newspaper commentators, including Joe Soucheray on June 30, 2010 in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, questioned whether the issue had been blown out of proportion.[38]
Will Republicans raise questions about the "nugget" buried in the bill? Or will Minority Leader David Hann remain silent, dreaming of those tax cuts Majority Leader Tom Bakk promised him in exchange for getting this bill passed? (MinnPost's Cyndy Brucato has the skinny in So about that tax cut deal that helped end the special session…).
Whatever the case, we doubt Tomassoni will suffer the same fate as Senator Chaudhary, who was primarying out of the DFL endorsement over the Fish Lake issue. After all, Tomassoni's fat burger of improved cell phone service, like his lake cabin, lies within his home district. Chaudhary made the mistake of owning a lake cabin somewhere else.
It should prove a lesson for all Minnesota lawmakers and the deep pockets who love them.
UPDATE: Speaking for Senator Tomassoni, DFL Senate Majority Communications Director Alyssa Siems Roberson tweeted a response to one of our tweets about the post: in her tweet, Roberson linked to a map about broadband coverage in St. Louis County:
@sallyjos Tomassoni is on LSL(orange, has service)constituents who asked 4 dish on BSL & north r blue(poor service) http://t.co/NoBVlXexFP
— Alyssa (@alyssa_joy) June 23, 2015
We replied:
.@alyssa_joy I'm confused: key to map IDs orange as "underserved non-mobile broadband" and blue as "underserved mobile broadband."
— Sally Jo Sorensen (@sallyjos) June 24, 2015
@sallyjos layered map, blue = may have some voice service but not strong enough for data.
— Alyssa (@alyssa_joy) June 24, 2015
.@alyssa_joy Can you supply a map of cell phone service since that what Senator talked to PiPress about.
— Sally Jo Sorensen (@sallyjos) June 24, 2015
Roberson also replied with another broadband map:
@sallyjos here's one http://t.co/8KXAzm1UEj (also [email protected] takes info to improve maps if you're not getting proper coverage)
— Alyssa (@alyssa_joy) June 24, 2015
We mentioned that there are areas where there might be broadband but not cell phone service (we were thinking about an experience in Ortonville several years ago). Roberson replied that when Tomassoni gets to his cabin, he has five bars on his ATT cell phone service:
@sallyjos Tomassoni also on AT&T, told me today he has five bars, full service already, when he is able to get to cabin.
— Alyssa (@alyssa_joy) June 24, 2015
We appreciate the response. However, in the Pioneer Press story, Tomassoni discussed cell phone service around Side Lake, not broadband and Big Sturgeon Lake. Moreover, we have to wonder why--if the solution to broadband in some areas isn't just a matter of finding a telecommunications provider to pay state agencies for the right to put cell phone transmitter dishes on appropriate state-owned towers--why hasn't this been done in more places in addition to Senator Tomassoni's district?
Photo: An aerial view of the Big Sturgeon-Little Sturgeon-Side Lake area.
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I've known Sally Jo for over ten years, and I've never known her to be anything but honest and straightforward. She does not see value in playing fast and loose with the facts. If Sally Jo was wrong here or anywhere else, she'd simply admit it and correct the error. That she is standing by both her research and reporting should tells me--and should tell other readers--that we should take this issue seriously.
Posted by: Sam | Jun 25, 2015 at 04:41 PM
Alyssa comments about Tomassoni having "...on AT&T, he has five bars, full service already, when he is able to get to his cabin...". I assume this is a discussion about telephone service signal strength and not beverages.Right?
Looking at my phone as I sit on the open plains near Mankato, the Verizon Service has "two bars". Wow! FIVE BARS IN THE NORTH WOODS! Those darn Republicans are sure letting us down here in southern Minnesota.
Posted by: John | Jun 25, 2015 at 05:43 PM