The Crosslake City Council decided Monday night, May 13, that Michael Lyonais will join Crosslake city administrative staff as finance director/treasurer, beginning at a rate of $70,000 a year.

Administrative consultant Dan Vogt told the council that Lyonais has experience as a municipal auditor at Larson Allen (now Clifton Larson Allen), and most recently worked at Landis+Gyr in Pequot Lakes.

While the city had advertised the position at $50,000-$55,000 a year, Vogt said Lyonais was almost overqualified for the job and required a higher rate.

Blue bags full of food donations sat alongside mailboxes Saturday, May 11, and were collected by mail carriers across the country, including the Nisswa and Pequot Lakes rural mail carriers.

Only urban mail carriers were required to participate in the nation-wide effort, but Nisswa and Pequot Lakes carriers voluntarily took up the effort, with the communities donating 2,232 pounds of food for the Lakes Area Food Shelf.

Nisswa carriers collected 1,767 pounds of food, and Pequot carriers collected 465 pounds of food, as well as $40 in cash donations.

Last month the Crosslake City Council approved a plan for the city to pay for sidewalks leading from the edge of the Pine Peaks property on Swann Drive to Crosslake Town Square. An email to the council, however, challenged who should pay the bill.

Paul McCulloch of Pine Peaks Lodge addressed the council by email, stating that when he purchased his property, part of his expense was the sidewalks around it. He questioned why, then, the taxpayers would pay the bill for this new sidewalk.

Working in his open-air studio on County Road 16 near Jenkins, Steven Weagel gets frequent friendly honks from friends who drive by.

Steven blows glass in the back of a converted truck, complete with propane-fired heaters and all the tools necessary, most made by Steven himself. The truck opens up both in the back, where stairs ascend to the furnaces, and on the side, for demonstrations.

In one furnace are long blowpipes, sitting hot over roaring flames, and another oven holds both a pit of molten glass and a piping hot hole for keeping the liquid glass hot and workable.