Hospital Deadline, Golf Course Rejection, and Another Frigid Winter

 

WELL, HERE IT is, the end of August, the supposed deadline for a decision on the relocation of Marquette General Hospital, so it should happen this week, right?

Don't count on it, if the city's Roundhouse location is one of the two final candidates, which we hear it is.

The thing is, the City Commission's subcommittee on the hospital would have to approve a possible deal and then the City Commission as a whole would have to vote publicly on it before the city could assure Duke LifePoint that the deal is a go.

That's not likely to happen by the end of this week.

Now, if DLP has already decided it's selecting the Township site behind the Westwood Mall, that's a different story. It could happen this week.

But what we hear is that DLP is still having talks with the city over the Roundhouse site--questions answered, details clarified--while communications with the Township have been silent for about a month. That may mean DLP is totally satisfied with the Township offer while it's got doubts about the city's offer.

Or it may mean...

Oh hell, who knows what it means?
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IN CASE YOU'RE wondering why the Marquette Golf Club ended talks with Duke LifePoint a week ago, here's why.

The club, after building the highly acclaimed but financially taxing Greywalls course almost a decade ago, remains about four million dollars in debt. It's a tough nut to crack.

A substantial offer from DLP for half of the Heritage course could have solved the problem but DLP's offer was somewhere in the neighborhood of three million plus. After taxes and various costs, the club would have cleared maybe two million at most, probably less.

And they would have been left without a clubhouse and a pro shop. If they had rebuilt those and taken care of other maintenance issues, their remaining cash from the sale would barely have made a dent in their debt.

And they would have been saddled with a nine hole course and an eighteen hole course divided by a huge hospital complex which, for the next couple of years, would have been nothing more than an ugly, dusty construction zone.

Hardly a wise strategy to attract new golf club members.

What could Duke LifePoint have offered to change a few minds? "Ten million would have been a good number," according to one member, half jokingly. Or maybe not.
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THE TRIALS AND tribulations of ABC 10 continue.

News director and anchor Rick Tarsitano has left the Ishpeming-based station for a more lucrative position on Lake Michigan--Chicago's WGN.

Bigtime. Big station. And both Rick and his wife are from the Chicago area.

He'll be a sports producer there, not on the air for now, but don't rule that out in the future. He's a talent who provided some much needed stability at the chronically underfunded ABC 10.

"Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be TV journalists..."

Rick's had to walk a rocky path ever since he got into TV a few years back. He was hired as an off camera producer (for peanuts) at TV6 and struggled to get on the air, despite having a strong work ethic and obvious talent. He was frustrated. Then he was explicably canned.

Then, he caught on as a reporter at ABC10 (for fewer peanuts)...at one point considered going back to TV6...then with the departure of ABC 10's news director Cynthia Thompson, he found himself appointed the new news director and anchor and who-knows-what-else (for a few more peanuts).

And now, less than a year into his tenure, he's off to Chicago in an entirely different role.

Ya gotta be flexible as a TV journalist. And willing to live on peanuts. Small market TV does not lead to riches.

Meantime, ABC 10, the little engine that could, will continue to chug forward. A new news director and anchor have yet to be named.
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AS IF POWERHOUSE TV 6 needed any more advantages...

The Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns TV6, recently announced that it's also taken ownership of WLUK in Green Bay. Yeah, the same WLUK that used to broadcast Fox programming and Green Bay Packer games in the UP.

None of that will change because Fox UP (also owned by Sinclair) now has rights to that, but the ownership change is significant because now the news departments of TV6 and Fox UP will be able to readily trade stories with WLUK. Together, they'll be offering blanket coverage of the UP-Green Bay region.

The rich get richer.
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BY NOW WE'VE all heard the dismaying news that this upcoming winter may be as bitterly cold as last winter. So says the Farmer's Almanac which claims an 80% accuracy rate.

So what says local weather guru Karl Bohnak? Surely, he'll dispel such nonsense.

Well, as a matter of fact...no.

He says water patterns in the Pacific Ocean point toward a cold winter. Looks like we'll have a weak El Nino which also lends itself to a cold winter.

There is a greater likelihood of an eastern US-based frigid winter, rather than a Midwest-based freeze, but here in the U.P, we're still likely to feel it.

Bohnak reminds us that we had a frigid winter in '95-'96, and that was followed by record-breaking cold in '96-'97, so there's precedent for this.

Swell.

One ray of sunshine here: September should be an average month, maybe even a bit warmer and sunnier than average.

Woohoo. Let's throw a beach party just before we head down to Getz's to buy our mittens and swampers.

You got news? Email me at briancabell@gmail.com

 

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Asplund Takes the Reins, Marquette Mountain Takes a Plunge, and StoryCorps Comes to Town

A relative calm has descended upon the newsroom at WLUC.

Steve Asplund, the hardest working man in the news business, has been named the news director at the station. Rather, re-named. He was news director for a few years back in the mid-90's, as well.

And don't worry, he'll remain as the 6 pm anchor. What most viewers don't realize is that Asplund's most important work has always been done off-camera, as assignment editor, producer, writer, photographer, editor, fill-in engineer, snow plow operator. Hell, if TV6 had a cow out back, Asplund would be milking that in his spare time.

He works 70-80 hours a week. No lie. He loves his work, he loves the station.

That's why it was almost criminal what he had to endure for the last two years during the tenure of the former news director, Regena Robinson. For some reason, Robinson locked Asplund, the assistant news director, out of the entire decision-making process in the news department. The hostility was palpable.

Maybe it was a personality clash. Regardless, it was a waste of Asplund's skills and enthusiasm, and it made for a very uncomfortable newsroom because Asplund was universally liked and respected by both the veterans and the youngsters in the news department.

But he kept his head down, worked his 70-80 hours a week, and now he's got the job he deserves. WLUC is the better for it.

(Full disclosure: I was the WLUC news director from 2004-2011)
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Meantime, a former TV6er, Rick Tarsitano, who was surprisingly terminated by Robinson a year ago, is in negotiations to become the new news director at ABC10.

He's been a reporter at ABC10 for the last year, but in the wake of Cynthia Thompson's resignation as ND, Tarsitano was appointed interim news director and has done a creditable job. Now management wants to make him the permanent news director.

No one could quite figure out why he was forced out at TV6. Another personality clash? The fact was, Tarsitano was one of the most talented reporters in Marquette when he was let go.

Now we're going to see what kind of management skills he has. He'll be facing a stiff challenge: ABC10 doesn't have nearly the money or resources that WLUC has, and it'll be facing a brand new competitor when WJMN starts its UP newscast in the next month or so.

And who is WJMN's news director and anchor? That's right, Cynthia Thompson, formerly of both ABC10 and TV6. TV news in the Upper Peninsula is a never-ending merry-go-round.
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It's been a weird season at Marquette Mountain.

The best snow in years and yet the numbers are down. Way down.
Vern Barber, the GM, figures the mountain has attracted almost 30% fewer skiers and snowboarders this season.

Go ahead, take a guess why.

Yep, it's too freaking cold even for skiers. When you consider that the thermometer has climbed above 30 degrees for only a few days in the last three months, and has generally stayed below 10 degrees, it's easy to understand why we've stayed off the mountain.

The only thing that's kept Marquette Mountain afloat this season has been its ever-expanding race schedule. Teams, young and old, come here from all over the Midwest to race. And unlike the casual skiers, the racers don't have a choice; even if it's minus 10 and the wind is howling, they're going to be racing (and spending money in Marquette) because they've already registered and paid the fees.

Barber says this is the coldest winter he's experienced in his 32 years on Marquette Mountain. Sounds about right.
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You got a great story to tell?

You'll get your opportunity to tell it and preserve it for posterity when National Public Radio's StoryCorps trailer rolls into town this July.

StoryCorps brings people together--parent and child, brother and sister, friends, teacher and student, neighbors-- to sit down and tell their stories.
It might be a childhood memory, it might be a hunting story, it might be something traumatic.

But the stories are usually evocative, poignant and fascinating.

StoryCorps is hoping to find 200 such stories in the U.P. A couple of them will likely end up being broadcast on NPR nationwide. The rest will be taped and stored at the Library of Congress. They'll become a part of this nation's history.That's pretty cool.

Participants will also be given a copy of the interview--something to hand down to your grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Public Radio 90 will be announcing in the next couple of months how you can sign up for StoryCorps.

You got news? Email me at briancabell@gmail.com

Where's the Hospital Going and Where Are the News Directors Going?

 

If there's one issue that provokes anxiety among Marquette city officials, merchants and even residents, it's the future home of Marquette General Hospital.

Duke LifePoint officials, who are working with a site development company, were in town this week checking out potential locations. Reportedly there are about thirty possible sites, about a dozen of them within the city limits, and the remainder outside. A hospital campus would require forty acres or so.

Marquette wants to keep the hospital in town. Badly.

The hospital, with more than 2000 employees, represents a huge tax base for the city. It also provides major support for surrounding businesses. And, of course, an in-town location would likely (though not necessarily) be more convenient for most of the city's citizens.

As for Marquette Township, officials there are excited about the prospect of the hospital relocating there. They met with the LifePoint officials this week and specifically discussed two locations, one of which would be on the property for a proposed 70-90 million dollar, mixed-use development behind Lowes. The hospital would effectively be the anchor of that development if that's the direction LifePoint chose to go.

The decision will be made in Brentwood, Tennessee, the headquarters for LifePoint. When? Likely within three to six months.

City officials and Township officials are holding their breath.
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There's gotta be something in the air. Like resignation fever.

Last week it was TV6 news director Regena Robinson unexpectedly bidding farewell to her staff. On Monday of this week, ABC10's news chief Cynthia Thompson did the same. Her last day is Friday.

She didn't say where she was going or what she would be doing next.

She did tell me she was staying in the U.P.--this is her home--and that on Monday, her first official day off, she'd probably be working out, getting her nails done and maybe taking down the Christmas tree. She seemed to be in uncommonly good spirits.

You could easily speculate that she might be taking the news director/anchor job at WJMN, the CBS affiliate that's aiming to launch a UP newscast in the first quarter of this year. If she is, she's not saying, nor is WJMN.

Who's Thompson's successor at ABC10? Nobody knows but whoever it is will face a daunting challenge.

ABC10 has long been underfunded and undermanned (though improving), while TV6 is a powerhouse in terms of staffing, resources and ratings, and WJMN will likely enter the competition with more-than-adequate funding and a determination to finally loosen TV6's longtime stranglehold on this TV market.
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Remember Eric Dompierre? He's the young man with Down Syndrome who inspired all of us in 2012 as a player on the state champion Ishpeming Hematite football team.

So what's he doing these days? Sitting around, playing video games and eating Cheetos while dreaming of the glory days?

Not really. He's continuing his education in Transitions 2 at MARESA, a program that teaches special needs individuals how to budget their money, how to cook and how to get jobs.

He's also interning at the Blood Center at Marquette General Hospital. He's about to start interning at Anytime Fitness in Harvey.

Oh, and he's also washing dishes at Wawonowin Country Club in Ishpeming, and he may work as a bag boy there again this summer.

He drives everywhere. He lifts weights. He plays in a weekly basketball league.

Yeah, sounds like we have a role model for our young people. Eric's inspiring story continues.
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The timing might seem a bit odd, given that the wind chill is hovering around ten degrees, but a new frozen yogurt shop is going in on the corner of Washington and Third Street.

It'll be called Yoop-Phoria. Self-serve yogurt. You select one of eight flavors, then you add any of more than 30 toppings, then you weigh it, and then you pay, based on the weight.

You can do it with cups or muffins and they'll also offer smoothies.

Sounds like fun. It's all the rage in other parts of the country, and is apparently succeeding even in cold weather towns. You can get your dose of Yoop-Phoria on or about April 1st, just about the time the ice starts breaking up in Lake Superior.

You got news? Email me at briancabell.com