Lt. Governor Flanagan makes stop in Red Wing, meets with business owners

On Thursday, Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan visited Red Wing. Lt. Governor Flanagan was in town to check in with small business owners and others involved in the Red Wing business world to see both how the Borealis train has helped local businesses and how the state government can continue to help small-town entrepreneurs in the future.

The visit began at Red Wing’s train depot where she was greeted by Mayor Gary Iocco and representatives from Amtrak, the Red Wing Chamber of Commerce, Red Wing Downtown Main Street, Visit RedWing, and Red Wing Arts. 

Lt. Governor Flanagan shared that 100,000 passengers took the Borealis before it even reached five months of operation. And that number reached 150,000 before the eight-month mark.

Marc Magliari, a senior public relations manager with Amtrak, said he was happy that the numbers showed they were “over-delivering” on their promise to bring a convenient train route to towns like Red Wing but explained that it was the towns that made it that way. “This town has all the ingredients, and we’re,” he said of Amtrak, “just the cherry on the sundae.”

After visiting the Red Wing Arts Gallery in the Depot, Flanagan spent time at a handful of other downtown businesses. Among other things, she bought a necklace at The Uffda Shop, heard ghost stories at the Sheldon Theatre, and bonded over the 1991 Halloween Blizzard at 210 Plum Crazy (Lt. Governor Flanagan trick-or-treated as a clown that year.)

The owners of these businesses all shared positive experiences about the Borealis train and how they’d seen not just more visitors from the Twin Cities in their stores but also visitors who had taken the train from Wisconsin and Illinois.

After all of these stops, Lt. Governor Flanagan went to IgniteMN (formerly Red Wing Ignite) for a discussion with community partners and business owners to see how she and the Minnesota government could be more helpful to small-town entrepreneurs.

One business owner, Beth Fynbo, is based in Rochester and is the founder of Busy Baby, a company that makes activity mats for young children. She shared how programs, including IgniteMN, guided her from a person with an idea to a successful businesswoman with an expanding operation.

With President Donald Trump’s recent federal funding freeze, many of the grants that helped Fynbo, and so many of the other hundreds of entrepreneurs that IgniteMN works with, were paused, and the future viability of small-town businesses was thrown into question. Some federal funds have now been allocated, but those at the meeting admitted feeling uncertain that money would remain available. 

Lt. Governor Flanagan urged meeting attendees to share their stories with policymakers so they see how decisions can have large ripple effects, and explained her belief that “Growing local wealth should not be a partisan issue.”  It was not the most optimistic note to end the day on, but the members of the Red Wing business community left feeling heard and supported. 

Local business owner Andrea Hanson, who attended as a representative of Downtown Main Street, remarked, “It's important to have visits like this from state leaders so they see the needs of small businesses in rural Minnesota for themselves. It was great to have her ear and that she got to see how amazing downtown Red Wing is with her own eyes.” 

This story originally appeared in the Red Wing Republican Eagle.