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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Gary Albertson has only himself to blame

Posted

Gary Albertson, owner of the Cook News-Herald and minority partner in the Timberjay, needs to retire. Many, if not most, of his readers have known this for years, but he has apparently, finally, convinced himself.

His problem is that he has nothing worth buying to sell.  His printing plant is too far from potential customers, and his own newspaper has no market value.  The Timberjay is just too strong a competitor. His continued output of virulent and deliberate ignorance has a dying market with no future.

He bought a minority share in the Timberjay, apparently without realizing that he could never take an executive position in the company without an obvious conflict of interest.  It doesn’t take much forethought to realize you can’t own a competing business while under a fiduciary obligation to others.  But he bought it anyway, and now he’s stuck in a real bind.

Unless Mr. Albertson can get rid of his ownership of the Cook News-Herald, there is no way he can take any sort of responsible position with the Timberjay.  He’s too stubborn to give up his personal soapbox, and he has no discernible rights in the Timberjay unless it is sold to another.  So now, like Donald Trump, he’s trying to get someone— a judge, this time— to bail him out at someone else’s expense.

If he were to ask, I’d tell him he’d be doing very well to get whatever he paid for his share in the Timberjay—payable over time, with a non-compete requiring him to close down the News-Herald.  This additional feature would be worth a premium.  Add a dime to the cost of the Timberjay for a year and we could all be free of his nonsense for a fair price.  Truly— it would be worth it just to be rid of his wingnut blather.  And I wonder what a crowd-sourced funding would come up with for this proposition?

Dave Porter

Mpls., Minn.