Cliffs Shake-up, Schneider Break-up, and a Surprising Website Breakdown

CLIFFS NATURAL RESOURCES is preparing for a potentially nasty and climactic shareholders meeting and vote on July 29th.

Casablanca Capital, the activist hedge fund which owns about 5% of Cliffs, is essentially attempting a coup of the company. It's putting up its own, hostile slate of candidates for the Cliffs board of directors.

If it wins the board vote, Casablanca would likely fire the CEO, radically change the company strategy and divest some of Cliffs international operations.

Cliffs, for its part, calls the Casablanca candidates inexperienced. It's attempted to appease Casablanca by offering the hedge fund a few slots on the board of directors, but Casablanca has rejected the compromise. It wants control of the company. It blames current Cliffs management for failed strategies, excessive salaries and plummeting stock prices.

How much of a plummet? How about a share price of $99.86 on July 22, 2011...and a share price of, oh, about $15 or so today. Quick math tells you that's an 85% slide in three years.

Worse news: there's nothing to indicate that iron ore prices worldwide are going up anytime soon. If anything, they may continue to decline.

Worse, worse news: a law firm has just filed a class action suit against Cliffs for allegedly misrepresenting itself to investors and misleading them about the company's financial condition.
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IF JASON SCHNEIDER, the former City Commissioner and current County Commission candidate,  had intended to botch his exit from his job at Accelerate UP and to sully his otherwise sterling reputation, he succeeded in admirable fashion.

For the last fifteen months, Schneider, with funding from the Lundin Foundation (yeah, the mining company), has been helping young businesses get on their feet with the aid of other established businesses in the community. By all accounts, he's done a wonderful job, and he, himself, has nothing but praise for Lundin and its role in supporting him.

Problem is, the Accelerate UP board of directors told him back in May it didn't like the idea of him running for county commission because it didn't like to mix politics with business. You can disagree with that logic--and many of us do--but the fact is, he was told back then that if and when he won the commission seat, he'd have to resign from Accelerate UP.

If he'd been so upset about the ultimatum, he should have resigned right then and there. That would have been the principled thing to do.

But Schneider chose not to resign then. Instead, he decided to wait for a couple of months before suddenly announcing his resignation last week. He informed his board of his decision by email...and then one hour later, notified the media. Soon thereafter, he then told all his friends on Facebook about his decision.

At worst, it sounds like a publicity stunt designed to gain sympathy and votes a few weeks before the election. At best, it was an unfortunate, ill-timed move by a novice politician.

Oh well. But what's more baffling is why he didn't continue working his  job helping entrepreneurs until the election came around. If he were to lose the election (he's up against incumbent Bruce Heikkila), Lundin had told him he would keep the job and continue his good work.

You also have to ask yourself: Which is more valuable? A fulltime job helping struggling, young businesses? Or a parttime job as a county commissioner?

Yeah, we'll hear all about "principles" and the big, bad mining company and the backroom conspiracies, etc but the fact is, a good man doing a good job took a messy way out when he didn't have to. And Marquette County is the worse for it.
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NUMBERS CAN LIE, and frequently do.

But here are some numbers that might force the local television industry to sit up and take notice:

TV6 in May reported 2.5 million page views on its website (impressive, a tenfold increase over just ten years ago).

But ABC 10 in June reported...(drum roll, please)...2.7 million page views.

What???

Okay, time for caveats. First, it is two different months but that shouldn't have made that much of a difference. And second, it's two different companies calculating the monthly analytics reports so maybe it's not quite apples to apples.

But still.

TV6 has long been the overwhelmingly dominant station here--its newscast numbers dwarf those of ABC 10 and TV 3 (the newcomer to the game). But online, ABC 10 apparently has been making huge strides. It does have a remarkably active social media presence.

It still seems hard to believe, because the TV6 website remains robust and ever-alert to breaking news and it's got many more reporter-contributors than ABC 10 does.

Let's see what shakes out in the months ahead. Maybe these latest numbers are just an anomaly. And yes, sometimes numbers do lie.


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

North Wind Scoops, Baldini Files, Sisters Invest, and Golfers Don Snowshoes

Unless you're part of the NMU community, you may not have noticed it, but the student newspaper, the North Wind, has broken three major stories in the last couple of weeks.

First, the arrest of the former student body president, Amber Lopota, for embezzlement.

Next, the disciplining of an NMU football coach and adjunct professor, Karl Maslowski, for repeatedly missing classes and soliciting students to buy an energy supplement.

And most recently, the suspension of ten NMU football players for failing a drug test.

Those are big stories, some of which were eventually picked up by the mainstream media in town, others of which were simply ignored.

 The North Wind, with a staff of 14 students and a circulation of 5000, is showing remarkable aggressiveness and enterprise...and independence. If the stories don't reflect well on the university, tough luck. That's what good journalism is all about.

Seems like the mainstream media, utterly devoted to protecting the bottom line, placating their advertisers and maintaining good relations with the institutions in town, could learn a thing or two from the students.
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Tuesday is the deadline for local candidates running this fall.

A few big names have already filed. Tom Baldini, a former aide to Congressman Bart Stupak and a longtime political leader in town, has filed for City Commission, along with retired physician Mike Conley, Craig Miller and Russell Kangas.

The Bureau of Light and Power, which has generated some controversy and dismay over its vision for the future, has drawn former mayor Tom Tourville as a candidate, as well as Chuck Wanberg and John Braamse.

The County Commission so far features a race between attorney Steve Pence and former mayor Johnny DePetro in District One, and NMU professor Dwight Brady and Randall Yelle in District Six.  All are Democrats.

The lone Republican to file so far has been Justin Carlson in District Two. He'll oppose Democrat Joseph Derocha.

Democratic incumbents Bruce Heikkila and Gerry Corkin, and attorney Bill Nordeen are so far running unopposed. Expect more candidates to file by the Tuesday deadline.

What happened to the supposed block of candidates advocating decriminalization of marijuana in the city? Good question. Maybe it was all talk, no follow-through.
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Remember the Grove, the little restaurant on US-41 south of Marquette? Well, it's coming back to life.

It's new name is Root 41 Food and Spirits, a word play on its location and its ties to the community.

The entrepreneurs are sisters Sarah and Barbara Tullila, both of Negaunee. Together they share 25 years in the food service industry and a dream to provide what they call classy comfort food to the community.

They're re-doing the inside and outside. Lots of sweat equity, tons of enthusiasm. Of course, they're bucking the odds. Most restaurants, unless they're well capitalized, don't make it past the first couple of years.

Here's hoping the Tullila sisters make it.

They hope to open in late May.
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More sister news, and this time it concerns the former Backroom on Front Street. You know, the place that was raided and closed down two years ago because of bath salts sales?

Three sisters, former residents of Marquette, returned to town for the sled dog races a couple of months ago, took a look at the shuttered, sad-looking building and decided this was something they had to do: buy it, renovate it, and open it up for both residential and retail use.

The sisters (who would have been known as the White girls back in the Eighties) have since scattered to other parts of the country but have retained their roots here in Marquette. Sara now lives in the DC/Annapolis area, Anne's in Houston, and Katy's in New York.

They hope to begin the renovations this summer and they'd welcome ideas for possible retail tenants.

Welcome back, ladies.
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As for the Bayou in Harvey, its microbrewery (Chocolay River Brewery) should be serving up its first glass of craft beer by mid-June.

Its equipment is mostly installed with minor adjustments being made.

Once everything's set, it'll take three weeks for the first drinkable suds to be produced.

So plan on sampling the fare from Marquette's fourth microbrewery on about June 15th.

That'll be just about the time the last of the snow has melted.
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Speaking of which.

Marc Gilmore, the pro at Marquette Golf Club, said last Friday that they're hoping to open up the driving range this coming Friday.

At that point, you might have wondered what he was smoking. You might also have suggested that the golfers wear snowshoes.

However.

After this weekend's melt, Gilmore looks like he's on to something. We got a heat wave coming this week--40s! Even 50s!!--so the range could very well be clear by Friday.

The opening of the Heritage and Greywalls courses is still up in the air. Along with a reluctant sun which still needs to burn through a couple feet of snow on some shaded parts of both golf courses.


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