Helga Twp panel to hear request to build package liquor store

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Dec. 2, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

The Land Use Committee of Helga Township in Hubbard County will host a public meeting next week to hear testimony about a proposed package liquor store to be built in the township.

Township Clerk Ken Stevens said the committee will hear a presentation from Rick and Annette Schulke who would like a conditional land use permit to build a package liquor store at the corner of U.S. Highway 71 and North Lake Plantagenet Drive, also known as Beltrami County Road 2. the site is legally described as being in the northwest quarter of Section 3 of Helga Township.

Residents of the township also will have the chance to voice their opinion at the committee meeting, Stevens said.

The committee will then form a recommendation to give to the full Helga Town Board , which is scheduled to meet after the land use committee meeting adjourns, Stevens said.

The hearing is necessary because all of the land in Helga Township is zoned either residential or agricultural, Stevens said. So anyone wanting to start a business needs to get a conditional land use permit.

Stevens said land owners within 500 feet of the property will receive notices about the public meeting. Other township residents, however, won't be individually notified.

Because the Schulkes plan to build a liquor store, Stevens said he did not know if township residents will object and if the Town Board would accept the recommendation of the Land Use Committee, which usually happens.

"It's too tough to tell if they will," he said. "If it were an antique shop it might not be so difficult."

The public meeting will be held 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Helga Community Center, formally known as the old Nary School, on Hubbard County Road 9.