SO FAR, SO good.
That’s the preliminary verdict on Marquette’s Wednesday Farmers Market.
The Downtown Development Authority needed at least a dozen vendors to move forward with it, and they’re now at twenty.
“Some of the vendors were cautious at first because they didn’t know if it would succeed,” says market manager Myra Zyburt, “but now they see it’s working, and they’re calling us.”
The majority of the vendors are selling food. The target audience for the Wednesday market is downtown workers who are looking to buy fresh local food but might not want to travel downtown on Saturday morning.
Total attendance on Wednesdays from 5 pm to 7 pm? Two hundred–just a fraction of the Saturday crowd–but it’s growing. The weather’s improving and the word is spreading. It continues through September until….you know…the snow flies.
NO SUSHI THIS summer.
Benri Sushi, the small but highly praised little sushi takeout on the bottom floor of the Masonic Square Mall, has left for the summer.
Mall manager Ryan Engle says they’ve taken a gig in Alaska for the next few months even though they continue to pay for their lease in Marquette and plan to return in October.
An appetite for sushi in Alaska. Who knew?
NEIGHBORS NEAR THE McClure Basin and the Dead River in Negaunee Township are concerned.
They’re living near a gravel pit operated by Lindberg & Sons, and their days are occasionally interrupted by the sound of a rock crusher.
“Nobody’s happy about it,” says Nick Leach, the Township manager, “but Lindberg is operating in compliance with the regulations of the Township.”
The extraction and crushing take place only 2-3 weeks a year, Leach says, in six different sections of the gravel pit. All told, about thirty acres.
But now, a possible change. Lindberg is applying to do some blasting–much louder than crushing–in three additional sections. Neighbors aren’t thrilled.
“I support mining, I support gravel pits,” says Carolyn Crowley, one of the neighbors, “but they should be in industrial areas, not in neighborhoods.”
The problem, of course, is what do you do when an industrial area sits side-by-side with a neighborhood?
Both sides are awaiting the review of a study by UPPCO which will determine whether the blasting might have an impact on the McClure and Hoist Dams. The Township’s planning commission should have the results of the study at its next meeting in July.
Then, we’ll likely hear whether the Township will give Lindberg the go-ahead to start blasting.
A phone call and message left with Lindberg to get their reaction to the controversy was not returned.