Follow the Money: Politics and Puppets, Part 3

From a Network tip comes another example of taxpayer-funded, left-wing puppetry.  [See Part 1 and Part 2]  Grand Marais, Minnesota, lies on the scenic North Shore of Lake Superior, between Duluth and Thunder Bay, Ontario.  This summer tourist-haven hosts, among other cultural attractions, the Good Harbor Hill Players, a community theater and puppet group.

Using money from the state's Legacy fund, the Duluth-based Arrowhead Regional Arts Council provided the Players with a $4,000 grant in 2011 "to produce the Summer Solstice outdoor puppet pageant on June 29, 2011."

It turns out that not everyone was happy with the Players' mid-summer festival last year.  Bill Hanna, the Executive Editor of the Mesabi Daily News (located in the heart of the state's iron mining region), wrote an editorial in his paper on September 4, 2011, objecting to the anti-mining content of the Players' production, writing,

"The program for the play leaves no question of its viewpoint.  Ducks are shown walking around wetlands with signs that read “Quack,” while mining officials are depicted as foxes extracting minerals for profit from the ducks’ water home."

In case the audience didn't get the message from the papier-mâché, Hanna notes that the written program notes spelled it out,

“The proposed sulfide mining in both the Boundary Waters and St. Louis River watersheds is a serious threat to our northern Minnesota ecosystem and culture."

Hanna's specific objection to the production is that it was staged at a facility, the North House Folk School, which is subsidized by iron-mining royalties through the state agency Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB).  Hanna documents $59,500 in IRRRB grants to the School, including money for improvements to the outdoor space where the Players performed their 2011 show.  Indeed, it was reported that IRRRB board members were not amused by the turn of events.

A follow-up September 10, 2011 opinion piece in the Daily News makes a good point,

"If the Good Harbor Hill Players who put on the Solstice Puppet Pageant and the North House Folk School folks who knew of the play’s content in advance of its presentation are so repulsed by mining, then they should have the Sierra Club or some other anti-jobs-from-mining preservationist group write a check for the school’s capital improvements."

No doubt, the Players have a right to say whatever they want about mining or any other subject.  But do we have an obligation as taxpayers to pay for such overtly political content and the site on which it is performed?