To the editor:

It’s a mess. It gets worse every year. Noxious weeds are spreading throughout our city. If you search for Brown County Minnesota noxious weeds you will find some excellent information and links about noxious weeds. A contact person for the county is listed. It also states that the city mayor is its weed inspector. Furthermore, it states that the mayor may appoint someone to serve as city weed inspector.

I emailed Chris Dalton, city administrator for New Ulm, a request to get our city weed inspector listed on the city’s website. He responded that our current weed inspector is Jeff Andersen. Mr. Andersen’s phone number is 507-359-8380. There is a tremendous lack of education and control. A good step would be to have something on the city’s website. Right now, if you search the website for noxious weeds absolutely nothing comes up. Why not list the city weed inspector and have a link to Brown County noxious weed webpage.

With this crazy winter and spring, the growth of noxious weeds has been phenomenal. Many of these need control soon. The three worse noxious weeds in New Ulm are Canada Thistle, Wild Parsnip, and Leafy Spurge. I would like to know what the City of New Ulm is going to do to help control these noxious weeds. A response through the Journal would be a start.

If you are concerned about this problem contact Mayor Kathleen Backer.

Joe Gartner

New Ulm