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Soda
Supporter
Username: Soda
Post Number: 2621
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, February 19, 2005 - 10:50 am: | 
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From TwinCities.com
Pioneer Press:
"Posted on Sat, Feb. 19, 2005
Council Member Has Lots Of Drive
200-Mile Commute Lets Her Serve 2 Cities
BY STEVE SCOTT
Pioneer Press
Jackie Monahan-Junek aspired to work in local government, earning a master's degree in night school to get the credentials. For years, she also pined to live in northern Minnesota.
Monahan-Junek, a Maplewood City Council member since 2003, is realizing her dream as fast as her Ford pickup truck will get her there. It's a three-hour drive one way to her full-time day job as city administrator in Eveleth, Minn.
Eveleth hired her in September. She doesn't drive back and forth daily, instead remaining in Eveleth for days at a time. Maplewood's City Council meets on the second and fourth Mondays of every month.
A few Maplewood residents have looked askance at a local elected official working nearly 200 miles away from their city. But Maplewood City Manager Richard Fursman said Monahan-Junek meets the legal requirement for a council member: being a resident.
"If someone on the council worked a sales job and they were traveling five days a week, there wouldn't be a requirement they be in town every day,'' he said. "This isn't common, but it's also not unprecedented.''
Monahan-Junek said the two jobs are seamless: good for Maplewood and good for Eveleth.
"I'm doing things that are complementary, that are beneficial to both entities,'' she said.
Monahan-Junek, 42, has permanent residence in Maplewood, and her son attends elementary school there. Except for a short time in her early 20s when she lived in North St. Paul, the Tartan High School graduate has been a lifelong resident.
Her election to the Maplewood council in 2003 followed service on the city's Planning Commission, as well as volunteer work in School District 622 and at her son's school.
But she and her husband have long imagined living up north. The couple bought property there several years ago and built a place to stay. It's now her temporary home when she's working in Eveleth.
"We've been thinking about this since the day we were married,'' Monahan-Junek said. "We just thought it would happen sometime down the road, maybe 10 years.''
What Monahan-Junek didn't always know is what she wanted to be when she grew up. She worked 21 years at 3M and its spinoff, Imation. After 4½ years at Imation, she believed the product line she managed was ill-fated. She asked for a severance package in 2000.
"I wanted to work somewhere where my values were in correlation with the employer I work for," she said.
She came to realize those values lay in local government. She entered the public administration program at Metropolitan State University, attending school at night and landing a city-staff internship in Oakdale before earning her master's degree in May 2003.
An opening on Maplewood's Planning Commission got her foot in the city's door. Soon after, she contemplated running for City Council, and that November she and Will Rossbach were elected over five other candidates.
A spot on the Maplewood council pays $9,666.
"I don't need to tell you about the job market,'' she said. "I continued to look for work, and continued to volunteer like a maniac.''
She perused job openings posted by the League of Minnesota Cities.
"You can apply for jobs for 10 years and never get them, so I'm of the philosophy to just try,'' Monahan-Junek said. Positions up north rarely open up, she said.
But when Ray Eck retired last summer as Eveleth's city clerk and the city reconfigured the job description to be a city administrator, Monahan-Junek applied.
Eveleth Mayor Calvin Cossalter said that of the half-dozen candidates the city interviewed, "she was one of the few who really had looked into Eveleth and had done her homework. … She was familiar with the area; she knew where things were. We were flabbergasted.''
Eveleth hired her for a one-year probationary period through this September. The job pays $51,288 a year with medical benefits and two weeks of vacation. Her Maplewood council position hasn't been an issue since she was hired, Cossalter said.
"There were some stipulations made at her hiring, that she could do that for a period of time during her probation,'' Cossalter said.
Monahan-Junek said she won't speculate on her future plans.
"When the probation is over and if this becomes permanent, at that point I will consider making a decision, although that doesn't necessarily mean I have to make any choices,'' she said. "Before that, I'd be foolish to. I worked damn hard for my council position.''
She is taken aback that anyone would make an issue of her commute.
"I don't put a city administrator or council member on the same level of public figure as a senator,'' she said. "I never expected anyone would care that much about me.''
Monahan-Junek said she hasn't heard one complaint in Maplewood about her Eveleth job. Maplewood Mayor Bob Cardinal says "it has been brought to his attention,'' she said.
"The mayor and I have a pretty darn good relationship,'' Monahan-Junek said, "but I think he might be peeved.''
Cardinal, who said he gave Eveleth "glowing reports" about her, said it "behooves her to go one way or the other. But if it's a matter of a probationary period, that's understandable. Her career is what's important.''
Working three hours away from Maplewood isn't the greatest difficulty she's endured in council work, Monahan-Junek said.
"This is a cakewalk compared to campaigning.''
---Steve Scott may be reached at 651-228-5526 or sscott@pioneerpress.com."
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dgm
Citizen
Username: Dgm
Post Number: 232
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 9:38 am: |
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What exactly are you getting at? |
Soda
Supporter
Username: Soda
Post Number: 2631
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 9:56 am: |
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I just post 'em. I don't explain 'em.
-s. |
Taylor M
Citizen
Username: Anotherusername
Post Number: 314
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 6:10 pm: |
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Soda
If she's nuts enough to want to drive the the three hours between the two towns, pay for the upkeep of two homes for somewhere around $60,000 a year, all the more power to her. |
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