Star Tribune
In Stillwater politics, it’s almost always ‘Sir’ vs. ‘Sir’
As St. Paul prepares to swear in a new city council made entirely of women next month, Stillwater will start another year with all men, a feature of the city’s leadership that’s been remarkably enduring since its first meeting in 1854.
The city has had 51 mayors, all men, and no woman has served on the city council for at least a decade. It’s estimated that only four women have been on the city council, starting in the 1970s. That makes Stillwater nearly alone amongst the 33 cities and townships in Washington County; many have women as mayors and at least one woman council member.
So why don’t women serve in Stillwater?
“It’s not that they’re losing elections,” said Sirid Kellermann, chair of the Stillwater Human Rights Commission. “It’s that they’re not running.”
In its review this fall of local issues, the commission looked at women in local politics and tried to understand why so few find their way to elected positions in City Hall. What it found is that there’s no simple answer.
It could be that people don’t want to run against incumbents, said Kellermann. Council Member Mike Polehna, who also sits on the Human Rights Commission, said people sometimes call him to say that they’d like to run for office, but only if he’s stepping down.
“We are Minnesotans after all, and we don’t rock the boat,” said Kellermann.
It could also be, Kellermann added, that some women don’t want to run for office knowing they could be the only woman on the city council; or maybe women in Stillwater find leadership positions elsewhere and don’t find the need to run for local office. “If you look at the chamber of commerce, there is very strong representation by women,” she said.
Across Washington County, women make up about 30% of local government, and women make up about 35% in Minnesota, according to the commission’s research.
In cities around Stillwater, women have long run for office and won.
Mary McComber, who is now Oak Park Heights’ mayor, was the lone woman on the council for many years until the recent election of Carly Johnson. The challenges of being a mom made holding public office difficult, said McComber. “There has been a basketball game that I’ve missed once in a while because I had to go to a council meeting,” she said. “Maybe lives are busier than they once were.”
McComber is about to start her 12th year as mayor, and recently learned that the National League of Cities named her the 2023 recipient of a Woman in Leadership award. As for why her neighbors in Stillwater don’t run, McComber said she doesn’t know.
“There’s so many wonderful women to run for city council and some of them stand back and say, ‘There’s an incumbent, and I don’t want to run against an incumbent,'” said McComber.
Incumbency is a powerful force in local politics that works for women, too, said Sheila-Marie Untiedt, a member of the Stillwater Township Board since 1996.
“I’ve had people run against me but no one was ever close,” she said. “I don’t mean that in a braggart way, but Stillwater Township is like Mayberry RFD. It’s a sweet and lovely place and I love local government because people are just one person away from you.”
Untiedt said she doesn’t know why women don’t run in the city of Stillwater. “I don’t feel as if it’s a toxic environment,” she said, referring to the City Council. “Mike [Polehna] is a lovely person,” she said. “I think he does a very good job.”
Cassie Jo McLemore was the most recent woman to run for City Council in Stillwater, losing out to future Stillwater mayor Ted Kozlowski in 2012.
“I would say that my experience was very positive,” said McLemore. “People were excited that I was running.” She attributed her loss to Kozlowski’s ground game. He knew more people as a Stillwater native and had more people working for him, she said.
The non-controversial nature of most of the things that come before the City Council might be another reason few people choose to challenge the incumbents, said McLemore. “There’s nothing that people have been up in arms about,” she said.
“I’ve certainly thought about running again but I’m a busy mom,” she said. “My husband and I run a business and I’ve got three kids.”
Kellermann, at the Human Rights Commission, said the group might look for ways to broaden the conversation about women running for local office. Perhaps it would help to offer training workshops on public speaking or campaigning, she said, or look at what other barriers might exist, from printing yard signs, to the time of day that the council meets, to the availability of on-site child care.
If women aren’t running for office, said Kellermann, “I think at a minimum we owe it to ourselves to understand, ‘Why not?'”
The lead pastor of Lakes Area Vineyard Church in Detroit Lakes said that a missionary was killed in an act of violence Friday in Angola, Africa.
Beau Shroyer moved there in 2021 with his wife, Jackie, and five children. They were working with the missionary organization SIM USA, founded in 1893 in Charlotte, N.C. SIM USA president Randy Fairman shared in a message to the Lakes Area Vineyard congregation that the Shroyers were one of the first families to move to Angola after pandemic lockdowns eased.
Fairman said many details are still unknown about Shroyer’s death. He said he got a call Friday “informing me that Beau Shroyer was killed while serving Jesus in Angola and is now with his Savior.”
“It is my belief that from his vantage point, he can see how his family will be cared for, and it is not hard for him to trust our good Father,” Fairman wrote. “From our perspective and the perspective of Jackie and the kids, we now must trust Jesus in a season that we never imagined. We must trust Him without requiring Him to give us an understanding of why He allowed this. It is difficult and stretches our faith.”
Troy Easton, lead pastor of Lakes Area Vineyard Church, said in a message to congregants that “Moments like these create so many unanswerable questions for us and it adds to the pain to know that we may never understand why our Father has allowed something like this to happen.”
“As more details became available regarding what’s next for the family, what arrangements are being made to celebrate and honor Beau’s life, and practical ways you can love and serve them, we will be certain to share them with you.
Along with his wife, Shroyer, 44, a former Detroit Lakes police officer and real estate agent, leaves behind children Bella, Avery, Oakley, Iva and Eden.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
This year, its jump-scares and lore landed it on Forbes’ list of “7 of the World’s Scariest Haunted Houses” alongside a 160-room mansion in California filled with “occult oddities,” a house built on an old cemetery near Chicago, and a haunted theme park in New Zealand built on the grounds of an old psychiatric hospital. The Haunted Ship, as the Irvin is known in October, is open just one more night — from 6:30 to 10 p.m. on Halloween.
“But this isn’t just a manufactured scare factory,” according to Forbes’ scare scouts, who reportedly visited the ship and had the VIP experience — which includes controlling the dialogue of a disembodied skull as visitors stream past. “In 1964, a sailor died on the ship during a boiler room accident, prompting the Duluth Paranormal Society to investigate the ship. Employees have reported seeing unexplained shadows, hearing phantom footsteps, and had objects thrown at them while doing maintenance work.”
The pilot house of the William A. Irvin is covered in cobwebs during October, a stop on the VIP tour of the seasonal Haunted Ship. (Jana Hollingsworth / The Minnesota Star Tribune)
The tour twists through the ship’s nooks, crannies and areas specific to its life on the Great Lakes — like a few gruesome dining areas where bloodied limbs are scattered about. There are creepy clowns and Victorian-era beings who stare wordlessly. A sink runs with bloody-colored water and a skeleton sits in a muddied bathtub surrounded by its innards.
The VIP experience offers a chance to roam through the ship’s living quarters alongside an ethereal character in the role of Irvin’s second wife. She sashays through the space with tales from the past, then allows you entry into private spaces where a saw blade rests in a sink and a body meant for the morgue vibrates with electrical waves on a bed. It offers a chance to dip into the pilot house, where wheels and gears are draped in cobwebs, offset in the opposite direction by a fresh perspective on the Aerial Lift Bridge.
The view from the Haunted Ship offers a new perspective on the Aerial Lift Bridge. (Jana Hollingsworth / The Minnesota Star Tribune)
There are countless dark corners for jump scares, strobe lights and tight spaces with hidden exits. There is a place designed to trigger claustrophobia. And there are mind-bending questions: Is that a person in that chair or isn’t it? Who is making that growling-moaning sound? What is that smell?
The final question is answered at the exit of the ship, where there is a running tally of how many people haven’t been able to finish the tour (90 as of Friday night) and how many have wet their pants (35).
How many people have opted out of the Haunted Ship? (Jana Hollingsworth / The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Police said they will be releasing details Monday about the shooting death of a 23-year-old man last week in New Hope.
Carnell Mark Johnson Jr., of Bloomington, was shot in the chest Thursday in the 7300 block of Bass Lake Road and died that same day at North Memorial Health Hospital, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said.
A police official said more information will be released about the shooting later Monday. No arrests have been announced.
