SLEEPY EYE — The Brown County Democratic Farmer Labor (DFL) Party planned future events and reviewed past ones at the Railway Bar & Grill Monday.

Party members talked about future party strategy.

Free voter registration events, more door knocking and getting candidates to big events including open mic nights were discussed.

Last fall, the party participated in the Worthington Turkey Day Party with gubernatorial candidate Tim Walz and Congressional candidate Dan Feehan.

“Some people in Brown County are afraid to put up DFL signs for fear of what their neighbors may do,” said Larry Czer of New Ulm. “I put them up around my house even though some neighbors may say something negative about it.”

Czer said the party is doing a lot of things well in Brown County.

“We need to educate people and try to get Republicans to stop voting against their own self interest,” Czer said.

Lori Sellner is working on a rural caucus within the Minnesota DFL Party. A proposed constitution has been created and needs approval, hopefully in March or May.

Rural activists are needed. Any Democrat can join.

Sleepy Eye farmer Randy Krzmarzick said the federal government is doing “significant long-term damage to agriculture.”

“Some countries we lost trading relationships with are not coming back like China,” Krzmarzick said. “They’ve got new trading partners now.”

Sonya Steinbeisser of New Ulm talked about the need to end the common racial fear and hate themes coming from Washington.

“Diversity makes America great. It seems many people have forgotten that,” Steinbeisser said.

The Brown County DFL Convention begins with registration at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, March 23, at the New Ulm Public Library. Training guidelines need grassroots input. The party will set goals, sponsor events and train. A suggestion made at a recent meeting was to seek a large area events calendar to aid planning.

The State Central Committee met at Mankato West in December. Brown County will receive two more voting representatives.

Fritz Busch can be emailed at fbusch@nujournal.com.