THE DECISION IS is getting close.
Duke LifePoint has been dealing directly with the city of Marquette and Marquette Township for the last couple of weeks regarding the three possible sites for the new hospital.
The township says they’ve now supplied Duke LifePoint with everything they need on the site behind the Westwood Mall, and everything’s in order. The township is just waiting.
The city is still negotiating on its two sites–the Roundhouse property and the golf course–but it’s also filed the requested papers.
How much actual back-and-forth bargaining is going on? It’s uncertain. Who knows? Maybe it’s just starting, even though the original deadline for a decision was about a month ago.
What is certain is that Duke LifePoint is holding most of the cards in this high stakes game. Both the township and the city dearly want the hospital and are willing to accommodate the hospital’s demands….up to a point. As one city official put it recently, “How much are we willing to give them to keep them in the city? If we have to spend too much–money we don’t have–is it worth it?”
If they had their druthers, most Marquette officials and merchants would love Duke LifePoint to choose the Roundhouse site because it would amount to immediate urban renewal. The neighborhood would be transformed, money would pour in. But the golf course property would be just fine too.
And the township? They’re just saying, with full-throated enthusiasm, “Come on down!” They’ve got their hands on their shovels and their eyes on the prize.
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A COMPROMISE COULD be near on the truck route controversy that has had the city and township exchanging hostile words and glances.
Here’s what the compromise would look like: Marquette would pass a truck ordinance that would send all westbound, eastbound and southbound trucks along Wright Street to US 41, but the ordinance wouldn’t take effect for a couple of years.
In the meantime, all parties involved–the Road Commission, the city and the township–would work on getting a bypass built that would send truck traffic around the edges of the city and the township.
And once funding and permitting are secured for the bypass, the city would then designate McClellan (over likely vehement protests from residents) as the north-south route through the city.
Bottom line: for now, the big trucks could continue, as they do now, to use all roads in the city for the next couple of years.
With two major exceptions. (This is known in the news business as “burying the lead.”) In this proposed compromise, truckers would no longer be able to drive on Lakeshore and Third Street except for local deliveries. That would be a major change that would take effect immediately (and would be cheered by local residents and merchants.)
The township’s not exactly embracing the proposal because it still feels, with some justification, that the city is trying to dump its big, lumbering, noisy, polluting truck traffic into the township. But the two municipalities seem to be getting closer.
The long term solution to the problem–the bypass–is, at best, three years away from construction.
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ANOTHER HIAWATHA MUSIC festival is in the books.
Great weather, great crowds, great fun, great music.
Well, about the music. For aficionados, it was wonderful and artistic and eclectic. But did you take a look around during the daylight hours at the seats in front of the main stage?
Most were empty. Performers were playing to a sea of empty seats. Some of the performers even mentioned it. It’s got to be dismaying to them. Hiawatha attracts more than 3000 festival-goers, but for some daytime acts, only about 100 people, sometimes fewer, seemed to be actively listening. That’s three percent.
The other 97% were elsewhere, at campsites, workshops, at the beach, on the streets, at the food booths. Anywhere but at the main stage where the supposed attractions of this traditional music festival were performing.
Maybe it’s just time for us to acknowledge that Hiawatha is more about communalism–the joy of being together with friends and family–than it is about traditional music.
Which is fine. You just feel kinda sad for the performers who were up on stage playing their music for a mute and static crowd of empty chairs and blankets.
Maybe “traditional” music is something that we all respect…but we don’t necessarily love.
Maybe we should look into Justin Bieber’s availability next July.
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NEXT TUESDAY’S CLIFFS Natural Resources shareholder meeting and election has directors, officials, employees and shareholders sipping their coffee nervously.
Casablanca Capital is attempting a takeover that could affect jobs, salaries, bonuses and share prices, as well as the future direction of the mining company. The impact could be felt here at both the Tilden and Empire mines.
One positive sign in all this, amid the corporate conflict, the declining steel prices and the seemingly imminent closure of the Empire mine (yeah, we’ve heard that before), is that ArcelorMittal, one of Cliffs’ partners, is spending big money to partially reline a huge blast furnace in Indiana.
That’s where iron ore pellets from Empire and Tilden are melted into pig iron.
Does that mean ArcelorMittal is anticipating extending the Empire contract beyond 2016? Not necessarily, says one Cliffs official.
But hey, we’ll take any good news we can get our hands on.
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ALL’S WELL THAT ends well.
Remember the nasty little spat between the Marquette Farmers Market and Farmer Q’s last year and early this year? It ended with Farmer Q’s and their downstate produce noisily pulling out of the Farmers Market, telling their friends and customers they were moving downstate, then suddenly reversing course and moving into a new shop in south Marquette.
Some of us were concerned the Farmers Market might suffer because Farmer Q’s had offered a wide variety of fruits that simply weren’t grown in the UP.
Good news. The Farmers Market crowds have not diminished since last year. They still average about 700 customers every Saturday, the same as 2013, according to the DDA. No serious growth either, but every year, the UP farmers are growing more local produce, and the crowds will likely increase.
And Farmer Q’s? Business is great, according to owner Susan Brian. Revenue’s up 50% over its old location on Washington Street. More walk-in traffic, more visibility and more parking at its location on US 41.
So everybody wins here–the Farmers Marquette, Farmer Q’s, and the customers.
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YOU MAY NOTICE some vaguely familiar young faces on the streets and beaches and in the bars and restaurants of Marquette the weekend after next.
Nearly a dozen alumni from TV6 and Fox UP are returning to the UP for a reunion.
Among them: Phil DeCastro, Aaron Martin, Nikki Junewicz, Natalie Jovonovich, Mike Bedard, Nikki Davidson, Noel McLaren, Beth Jones, Eric Kane, and Andrew Lacombe.
What’s ironic is that many of them, if not most, probably dreaded coming up to the remote, primitive, frozen tundra of the UP when they first got their broadcasting jobs here…Yet, now, a few years later, having thoroughly enjoyed their stay here and the relationships they built, they’re returning.
Welcome back.
Last call is at 2 am.
You got news? Email me at briancabell@gmail.com