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Monday, April 21, 2008
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DFL's 4B House candidate emphasizes education funding
Associate Editor Meg Bye of rural Pequot Lakes, a 12-year veteran of the Duluth City Council, was unanimously endorsed as the DFL candidate for House District 4B.
She likely will face Rep. Larry Howes, R-Walker, who is expected to seek his sixth term this fall. Bye faced no opposition on Saturday.
In addition to serving on the Duluth City Council in the late 1970s and early 1980s, she was that city's human rights officer for five years. Bye has served on the state's Housing Finance Agency Board, the governor's crime commission and a small group that processed and approved small business loans for the state's Economic Development Agency.
Bye, 65, said Sunday she was the first woman president of the League of Minnesota Cities, was director of a Duluth area food bank, has worked as a mediator in the court system and served on boards for several nonprofit agencies.
She is a former mathematics teacher and received a bachelor's degree from the College of St. Scholastica. Bye is a candidate for a master's degree in management at the College of St. Scholastica.
Bye said District 4B is growing and changing and it can't afford to coast. She said she wants to change what she described as the state's "disinvestment in education" in the past 20 years, maintaining that of the 16 school districts represented in District 4B, all of them are in some sort of crisis.
"Clearly, we need to change the way we fund education," she said. "This is a statewide problem. Putting the property tax as the primary funding source for schools is clearly wrong-headed. We can't afford to have them not educated...Where else are we going to get the work force? The system, right now, is very, very backward."
The importance of preserving the area's natural resources also will be emphasized by Bye in her campaign.
"The economy of this area and the demographics of this area are changing rapidly," she said. "Our economy, in the future, will depend on maintaining the clean air, purity of water and natural resources. Our economic development will flow from that. "
She and her husband, Don Bye, have lived in Loon Lake Township full time since the end of 2007, but her husband grew up there and his grandfather homesteaded the site years ago. The couple has split time between here and Duluth, where they were employed, for the last 20 years. Bye lived here full-time while her son attended Pequot Lakes High School and she has taught Community Education classes in Pequot Lakes.
"I don't think I'm different from a lot of people who live here" she said of her length of residency. "It's actually been our primary home in our heart for the last two decades."
Bye, who is now retired, said she will run a vigorous, full-time campaign.
She and her and her husband are parents of a son, Dan, who introduced her at the convention. The couple also had a daughter, who died earlier.
While Bye's endorsement on Saturday afternoon was expected, party officials reported the DFLers were surprised by an announcement by Rep. Frank Moe, DFL-Bemidji, that he would not seek re-election to the District 4A seat. The convention postponed endorsement for that post to a later date.
Elected as chair to the Senate District was Pam McCrory of Beltrami County. Other officers who were elected include Roger Grussing, Cass County, associate chair; Shirley Frederick, Cass County, secretary; Mike Albrecht, Beltrami County, treasurer.
District 4B includes southern Cass County, half of Hubbard County and the northern part of Crow Wing County. Cities in the district include Akeley, Pillager, Longville, Walker, Pequot Lakes, Lake Shore, Breezy Point and Cuyuna.
MIKE O'ROURKE may be reached at mike.orourke@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5860.
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