Don has been a political advocate against government waste.  Most recently starting a referendum drive and establishing a website exposing the behind the scenes activities of groups seeking to impose high speed rail transportation against the will of the general consensus.

Early in 2009, the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Northern Lights Express (a high speed rail lobbying group) announced a series of meetings to discuss the benefits of rail transportation linking Duluth and Superior to the Twin Cities.  When I read the article, my first concern was one of common sense, that this absurdly expensive program has almost no real benefit to the community. I made the commitment to attend all of the meetings and was not quite as shocked as I had already expected that these meeting were geared to telling us what we are going to be getting rather than asking us.

Several published editorials in the local Superior newspaper did not ruffle any feathers.  Millions were still being spent on engineering, design, land surveys, and planning;  projects that you would think would be started after local governments gave their preliminary go ahead. Government representatives were giving their blessings in various committees that didn’t garner local media attention and most importantly never has the cost of this monstrous billion dollar project been brought to the local tax paying public attention.

After attending the Superior meeting in which none of my financial burdening questions were answered I decided to cure my frustrations and make the public aware of the information that I had accumulated over the year.  The website www.railupdate.com was created to do just that.  Since there are no rail systems in the United States that are without high government subsidies, this rail project, supported by such a minimal population, was bound to fail too and the tax payer would end up pick up the majority of its operational loses.

The people needed a choice.  More than the pretty picture the media paints, more than what a city council with agendas have, and certainly more than what the federal government provides grants for now, but may mandate in the future. A request for direct legislation was draw up by Don to provide Superior with a choice. Based on the signatures that were collected, the people had no idea of the potential costs to them or that officials had even been contemplating this budget breaking endeavor. The signature drive did ultimately fail due to statutory time limits, but I would have to believe that at the very least my Congressional campaign will revive this controversial agenda. Not only because it affects Superior, but based on the WI DOT models the Chippewa Falls/Eau Claire area and the greater Wausau areas are also going to be included.

There is only so much you can do as a civilian and Don is willing to take the next step to get elected to public office and serve the American people. That decision wasn’t an easy one as Don personally acquired nearly 800, of the required 1000 nomination signatures, to qualify himself to be placed on this fall’s primary election. 

“Sometimes you need to take extreme measures to accomplish what your heart and soul desire.  Where as, the two money leaders in this race personally acquired 10 and 0 [zero] nomination signatures out of 4000 total, I had to really sweat it out to reach my goal. I’m not saying either of them are unworthy, it’s a tribute to the strength of their organizations, but it appears to be business as usual as to what money can buy.”