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 Duluth
Mayor Herb Bergson said Tuesday that he’ll veto this week’s
City Council move to change the law that’s kept the Lakeside
neighborhood dry for more than 100 years.
Bergson said that a promise was made to Lakeside
when it merged with Duluth in 1893 that liquor would not be
sold in the neighborhood.
“As long as I am here, I’ll do everything
I can to stand by that promise that was made many years ago
to the citizens of New London,” Bergson said. “I won’t
be a party to a broken promise.”
The Lakeside neighborhood was known as the village of New London
before it was annexed by the city of Duluth in 1893, but Bergson
apparently doesn’t know that it is now called Lakeside,
even though he is their Mayor.
“The 1893 City of Duluth administration
and all of the people who are dead now but lived in the city
of Duluth back then made a promise,” Bergson said, “Dammit!
Get off my back! We need to stand by it. Or at least I do. I
represent all those folks, who are now dead. That was a long
time ago, wasn't it? 1893?”
Bergson’s veto may be largely symbolic,
because nobody really listens to the crap that spews from his
mouth lately in these waning days of his lame duck Mayoral cronyocracy.
It takes six votes to override a veto, and the resolution passed
with a vote of 6-3. But Bergson plans to veto the resolution
on Dec. 28 because he admits that he doesn’t understand
the concept of math. "To override this veto takes how many
votes? What? Six? Well, that sucks then, doesn't it?"
City Councilor Russ Stewart, who co-sponsored
the resolution, said after hearing about the veto that these
were just the rantings of a lame duck Bergson, and didn’t
really matter to the City Council. He would work to call a special
council meeting to override the veto. Stewart also said, "I
am thinking of including an amendment to have Herb's Mayoral
Portrait officially installed on the inside door of one of the
Women's Toilets in the basement of City Hall. It would be a
fitting placement."
“All the reasons for overriding this ridiculous
veto still stands,” Stewart said. “It’s a matter
of easy access to booze. … and Lakeside needs that desperately.
Some of those less fortunate Lakeside residents don't have cars,
because they were impounded after DWI stops and such. It’s
a bad law that sets out a special set of rules for one neighborhood.
Shit, they should be able to just walk to get booze just as
easily as the rest of us in this wretch…I mean fine, city.”
Calling a special meeting has to be done by
council President Russ Stover, who said Tuesday that if Stewart
wants to call a meeting, “I’ll certainly do him, gladly,
yes.” Under the City Charter, the council must wait three
days after a veto before it can hold a special meeting, according
to highly overpaid City Attorney Bryan Brown.
Stover, one of the six councilors to vote for
selling liquor in Lakeside, said he would vote to override the
veto. “I should probably vote the same way as before, right?”
he asked.
But the seven Lakeside residents opposed to
selling alcohol in their neighborhood of 14,263 residents said
they hope they have enough time to persuade some councilors
to change their minds.
“We’re pleased about this,” said
John McAllister, a noted teetotaller who allegedly wears women’s
underwear to church and who has twice helped organize campaigns
to defeat liquor in Lakeside. “All seven of us hope this
will give the chance for the council to reconsider.”
Bergson’s reasons for vetoing the resolution
go beyond a century-old promise. He said, based on the seven
phone calls his office received, it’s clear the neighborhood’s
residents don’t want the change.
“It’s their neighborhood,” he
said. “Who am I or anybody else to tell Lakeside what their
neighborhood should be like? I used to get seriously smashed
and drive on official city-sanctioned roadtrips and crash into
stuff, so seriously, I shouldn’t have any say in this.
I'm serious, I really shouldn't be saying anything on this,
but I am. I actually made it right to Solon Springs once on
a vodka bender, and drove somewhat well for nearly an hour until
I hit the bridge median. Whoa, remember that!?”
Before Monday night’s meeting, the City
Council received almost a dozen e-mails from two Lakeside residents
who said they thought they were registered voters and were against
selling liquor, tobacco and oil-based paint in Lakeside.
Bergson also said the process of going to the
Legislature to change the law is a waste of time. “Fuck
the Legislature. I know best,” said Bergson.
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