Tom Emmer supports English-only in Lino Lakes

English-only, please

We suspected the other day that Lino Lakes City Council Member Dave Roeser was opening another front in the culture wars when he proposed declaring that English be the official language in a suburb where hardly anyone speaks any language other than English.

It's a budget matter, he said. Nothing personal. Not trying to make life uncomfortable for, well, you know, people not like him. Lino Lakes just doesn't want to be forced to print materials and update its website in anything other than good ol' English.

Yesterday, the Strib caught up with Republican candidate for governor Tom Emmer and asked him what he thought about the Lino Lakes proposal, especially since he introduced a similar, state-wide measure two years ago in the Legislature (that went nowhere fast).

While he said he was unaware of the exact details of the Lino Lakes move, Emmer said Thursday the he agrees with its intent.

"I agree with that," Emmer said in an interview with the Star Tribune's Baird Helgeson.

Emmer said he co-sponsored the 2008 measure because his home county said the cost of producing signs in multiple languages "was killing them."