Newspaper Blues, Mesothelioma Risks, Unfair Airfares, Boathouse Battle, and an Embattled Newsroom

HARD-CORE NEWSPAPER lovers in Marquette County are grieving.

After December 28th, out-of-town newspapers will no longer be trucked up here, except on Sundays.

Mader News Agency, the Green Bay newspaper distributor, says it doesn't make economic sense for them to make the trip anymore. The trucks will bring the papers as far as Iron Mountain but no farther.

Maybe we can find the Pony Express or a team of sled dogs to finish up the last 50 miles or so.

If we needed further evidence that the paper version of newspapers is dying, this is it. Mader says publishing and printing costs are too high, circulation is declining, and free Internet access to news is cutting into newspaper readership.

On the surface and in the short run, this is good news for the Mining Journal. It'll be the only game in town.

But for those of us who've been desperately clinging to our pulp-based New York Times or Detroit Free Press or USA Today, well....we'll now have to join the rest of the under-50 crowd, and click on to our computers or iPads for news.
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IT'S NOT LIKE we didn't know that mining could be hazardous to your health, but the latest study provides a few more facts.

It's a $5 million dollar, six year study conducted by the University of Minnesota and funded by the Minnesota state legislature.

The findings? Miners on the Iron Range of Minnesota working around taconite dust are more than twice as likely as the average person to get mesothelioma, a rare cancer.

The good news? The afflicted miners' families were not affected by the taconite exposure, nor were the surrounding communities. Just the miners themselves who were exposed to high levels of airborne mineral fibers.

The researchers strongly recommend that potentially exposed miners use respirators and other protective gear.

Cliffs Natural Resources says that's precisely what they do here in Marquette County: use respirators and conduct regular screenings with chest x-rays and breathing tests. Cliffs, which cooperated with this latest study, also says it supports continued studies on taconite exposure.

One other, unexpected finding in the Minnesota study: miners exposed to the ultra-fine dust particles had a 30% higher death rate from heart disease than the average worker.

Again, sadly, no huge surprise. Working at a mine is an inherently risky job.
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A QUICK COMPARISON of Delta airfares, roundtrip, to Detroit:

Leave Escanaba Dec 19, return Dec 21
     $447
Leave Marquette Dec 19, return Dec 21
    $584
That's a difference of $137.

Leave Escanaba Jan 1, return Jan 8
    $213
Leave Marquette Jan 1, return Jan 8
    $385
Difference? $172.

Leave Escanaba Dec 29, return Dec 31
    $517
Leave Marquette Dec 29, return Dec 31
    $1083
A difference of a mere $566. Pocket change.

It's crazy. The reason for the disparity, of course, is that Escanaba's airport (as well as Iron Mountain's and Houghton's) is federally subsidized. It gets almost three million dollars a year to keep the airlines at their facility, and keep their airfares artificially low.

It's all part of the Essential Air Service program, designed to guarantee air service to rural communities. Which is great, except that it punishes BIG, MASSIVE, HUGE airports like Sawyer International, which isn't considered small enough to qualify for EAS money.

Yeah, we're really big, like three flights a day.

Sawyer management also points out that our airfares are driven up because of supply and demand. Flights out of Marquette are usually full. Escanaba's aren't.

So that begs the question, why don't they bring more planes up here? That's a possibility.

Not only that, but with fuel prices now plummeting, maybe Delta and American will finally cut us a break on fares.

Yeah, and pigs will finally learn how to fly.
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IT AIN'T OVER til it's over.

That's the lesson the Upper Peninsula Community Rowing Club has learned yet again.

The rowers thought they were all set to start raising private funds to build a boat storage house (to be owned by the city) on the beach next to the Hampton Inn.

The City Commission, after a long, tedious process, finally approved the plan allowing the club to build the boathouse and then lease it back from the city. High-fives all around.

Well, the opposition never quite went away, and they're now circulating petitions to revoke the lease, or put it up for a vote of the people. The opponents have a daunting challenge--they need more than 1300 signatures of registered Marquette voters within a month or so. That's 10% of the voters.

Meantime, the two sides are hurling charges of misrepresentation, lies, and intimidation at each other.

Although it's debatable, the boathouse, as planned, does not seem obtrusive or unsightly. It'll cost taxpayers nothing. It'll provide boat storage space for the public (for a fee) and for the NMU rowing team, and also access for the handicapped. And it'll keep the rowers--a genuine asset to the community--in town.

Sure seems like a great idea, but if you believe that Marquette's coastline should be pristine and inviolable--and the rowers should just take a hike--then maybe another building on our shores is a problem.

Something else that's hurt the rowers' cause: the building of the Founders Landing condos a couple of years ago to a height that wasn't expected. A lot of residents were irate about it at the time but city officials, in response, just seemed to shrug their shoulders.

Distrust of our government? Nah, it doesn't seem possible.
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THE ORIGINAL REPORT out of ABC 10's newsroom was "hard times and mutiny."

Turns out that was a bit over-stated, but there is dissension within, and it concerns the new news director Greg Peterson, who's been known to step on a few toes from time to time.

Peterson has taken an aggressive approach to the news, which is not a bad thing. But at times, it's been a highly personalized and journalistically unsound approach, according to the critics.

They emphasize that Peterson knows news and has aggressively found news for ABC 10 but the presentation of the news has sometimes been sloppy, even unethical.

It should be noted that newsrooms are rarely mistaken for prayer circles or Kumbaya sing-alongs, but the rift at ABC 10 seems a little more serious than normal.

Strange: repeated attempts to contact Peterson on Tuesday failed. Staff members didn't know where he was or when he'd return, and he wasn't answering his cell phone.
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FOODIES REJOICE.

Spice Merchants, a brand new store featuring spices, teas, rubs, soups, chocolates and gifts, has opened downtown on Washington Street.

Looks pretty, smells great.

The owners are Mike and Carolyn Carl. She's a kitchen designer and he's been a commercial fisherman and schoolteacher. They both went to NMU, then migrated south to Florida before hearing the call to return north.

Now they're store owners, and Spice Merchants, which operates about 20 other stores, seems like a genuine enhancement to downtown, something that will attract both locals and tourists.

You looking for a Cranberry Maple Rub? Now you know where to go.

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

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CVB Faces Dilemma, Boathouse Faces Possible Deadline, and ABC 10 Has a New Face

WANTED: DIRECTOR OF a tourism bureau in the upper Midwest in one of the most livable communities in the nation, on the shores of one of its most scenic lakes. Summer and winter tourism are growing here. Huge opportunity for the right person. Salary won't make you rich but you will be comfortable.

Well, the search has been on for several months now and the Marquette County Visitors and Convention Bureau Board has reviewed a few dozen candidates for its executive director position. At last word the board has now come up with a couple of final candidates.

Problem is, neither one of them reportedly has serious tourism experience, neither one of them is local, and one of them, if given the job, would commute to and from Marquette.

Say what?

The actual ad that the CVB has published calls for three years of tourism experience, significant knowledge of Marquette County, and an absolute willingness to travel 60 days a year and work on weekends.

So what's the story here? Why are there no qualified candidates? Is there a problem with the search effort? The salary? The benefits? The board members?

Who knows?

The current director, Pat Black, is leaving before the end of the year. She's got enormous institutional knowledge that she needs to pass along. The learning curve will be huge. Her successor should have been chosen by now, and that person should be a hospitality professional, preferably from Marquette County.

It sure seems like an exciting and challenging job in a wonderful community where good jobs are sometimes rare. Who's interested?
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TIME'S RUNNING OUT if supporters of the proposed boathouse on Lake Superior want to get the plan approved before the November election.

The current commission almost certainly would approve the boathouse--with only commissioner Sara Cambensy likely dissenting--but it has only three more regular meetings before the election, and the Planning Commission still has to give its approval before the City Commission can vote on it.

Three commissioners, all supporters of the boathouse, are stepping down in November. Will their replacements be as sympathetic? Will the boathouse become a campaign issue?

The Upper Peninsula Community Rowing Club never thought it would come down to this. They thought the boathouse would be an obvious enhancement to the city, at no cost to the taxpayers...with no serious opposition.

Wrong.

Opponents spoke up. Loudly. They started a petition drive. They wanted no further development of any kind on the shoreline.

 

So the Rowing Club changed its plans. It scaled back the size of the boathouse, it moved it adjacent to the Hampton Inn where it would be less conspicuous. It offered to raise the money for it, build it, maintain it, open up most of it to the public, donate the facility to the city and then lease it back...and they offered their first born child to the city.

Okay, the last part isn't true.

But the point is, the club is offering a helluva deal to the city with a minimal environmental impact. It's hard to believe that this commission, or the next commission, would turn it down.
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A BIG SURPRISE at ABC 10.

The newly appointed news director is Greg Peterson, a news veteran who, at one time or other, has worked at all three stations in the market, as well as the Mining Journal.

He's also worked as a freelancer and he recently started a news blog, Upper Peninsula Breaking News.

He's a newshound, with forty years in the business.

What's surprising about the hire is that Peterson is an activist, with plans to make ABC 10 an advocate for open public records and aggressive investigative journalism.

Generally, broadcast TV stations shy away from controversy. They have sponsors to answer to.

It'll be interesting to see what Peterson is able to do, especially given the limited resources he'll be dealing with at ABC 10. The station is notoriously underfunded, and is actually run by its parent station downstate in Alpena.

Peterson will also be anchoring ABC 10's newscast within a few weeks.
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AS IF CLIFFS Natural Resources needed more bad news.

Its stock price earlier this week dropped to a 52 week low of $12.73 a share, and yet TheStreet Quant Ratings still lists the stock as a "sell." Why? Because it has poor profit margins, weak cash flow, high debt management risk, and most notably, a continued slackening of demand in China.  

Other than that, things look rosy.

Locally, there's been no comment from Cliffs after a tumultuous several weeks that saw a hostile takeover of the mining company by the hedge fund, Casablanca Capital.

Casablanca has said it wants to shrink the company and sell off some assets. Does that mean there'll be changes at the Empire or Tilden Mines? Are any jobs on the cutting block? No one's talking.
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IT MAY HAVE taken Ken and Sue Schauland almost three years to finally break ground on the Nestledown Bed and Breakfast on Lakeshore Boulevard, but they certainly aren't wasting any time.

Ken and his crew have been out there almost every day in the last few weeks, and the B & B is rapidly taking shape. They're planning on getting it covered before the snow falls and then finish it up this winter and spring, and be open for guests by early summer.

It'll feature six guest rooms in the main inn, another one over the garage, and a sauna in the basement. A distinct Scandinavian theme.

Believe it or not, it'll be the only B & B located in the city limits of Marquette.

Across the street from the beach? Along a walking and biking trail? A half mile from a cute downtown flush with good restaurants and bars? Not a bad location. It sure seems like they won't have much trouble attracting guests.
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NO CONSTRUCTION UNDERWAY yet at the much anticipated dinner theater planned for the closed-down Delft Theater on Washington Street.

Owner Tom Vear has the design and financing in place. What he doesn't have yet are final agreements from all the governmental and quasi-governmental agencies involved in getting the theater built.

Soon, Vear says. Soon.

Maybe within a week or two, but don't ask about an opening date. Earlier this year, it was supposed to be this fall and...uh...checking the calendar, we see that it's now...fall.

That's what you get when you mix heavy doses of business and government, with a touch of optimism.


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

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Cliffs Coup, Duke's Dollars, Brown's Search, and Lorinsers' "Vacation"

 

NO COMMENT.

 

That's the official word coming out of Cliffs Natural Resources following the apparent...and shocking...takeover of the Cliffs board by Casablanca Capital, the activist hedge fund, on Tuesday.

 

Final results of the voting won't be tabulated for a couple more days but Casablanca is declaring victory, and the current Cliffs leadership is remaining silent.

 

What does it all mean for Cliffs? Probably the ousting of the CEO and president Gary Halverson, along with the seating of six new board members, a new direction for the ailing company, a divesting of some of its operations, and maybe a rise in its stock price. It jumped more than two dollars a share after the voting results were first made public on Tuesday.

 

How about the Tilden and Empire mines? Hard to say if there'll be an impact here. What we do know is that Casablanca likes the Minnesota and Michigan mines and thinks they're profitable, unlike some of Cliffs' other operations. That's good news for Marquette County and Cliffs' 1500 or so employees here.

 

Any loss of jobs? Can't tell yet. You can be certain, though, that Casablanca is out to make money for its shareholders. Period.

 

If that means hard-working people lose their jobs, so be it. That's the way the system works, especially when a company's stock price has plummeted 85% in three years.

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UPDATE ON THE relocation of Marquette General Hospital (aka "The $300 Million Guessing Game!"): The Marquette Golf Club has informed Duke LifePoint that the hospital needs to make a serious offer for the golf course.

 

To date, that has not happened.

 

The club is burdened with a stubborn four million dollar debt but it's not about to give away half of its treasured Heritage course for a song and a dance and a shiny set of golf clubs.

 

Next meeting for the club to discuss the issues is August 7th.

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BOBBY GLENN BROWN, who was recently booted from his leadership role at St. Michaels Catholic Church after marrying his longtime partner, is searching for a new religious home.

In the past few weeks, he's attended services at Lutheran and Episcopalian churches as well as another local Catholic church.

He says he still considers himself a "member" of St. Michaels but he's had no correspondence with the priest or bishop.

He's pinning his hopes on a change.org petition with more than 1000 signatures that's asking the Pope to review his case. Seems like a longshot.

At some point, you gotta believe Brown will settle in at a church that truly embraces gay marriage. He'll have a new, welcoming spiritual home, and the Catholic church will continue its struggles to adapt to the changing realities of the 21st century.
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SOME OF US may not understand it but you've got to admire the courage of Bob and Peggy Lorinser.

They're headed to Afghanistan. It's supposed to be lovely in the fall.

Actually these foreign service employees had volunteered to go to Iraq--another delightful vacation spot--but that was overruled as being too dangerous given the recent military gains by ISIS, the Islamic group that's considered slightly more radical than Al Qaeda.

So the Lorinsers, after serving tours of duty in Pakistan and South Korea, are off to Washington DC where they'll get three weeks of training on the Afghan culture...and then it's straight to Kabul.

Bob, a doctor, will serve as regional medical director and travel throughout Afghanistan; Peggy will perform her work at the American embassy in Kabul.

And to think, just a few short years ago, this couple, after having raised their children, was enjoying a normal, comfortable life in Marquette. And then this. A midlife crisis? A second chapter? A thirst for adventure? A hunger for meaning?

Whatever it was, it was imbued with a strong sense of patriotism for which we should all be thankful.
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YA GOTTA LOVE Dan Perkins.

He's the westside businessman who's dreaming about transforming Ishpeming, and is actually pursuing his dreams.

His pet project for the last year or so has been establishing the Partridge Creek Farm, a 20 acre tract at the intersection of Malton Road and Heritage Trail in Ishpeming.

Right now the land is suitable for growing weeds and not much else but Perkins, in conjunction with the Ishpeming City Council and some far-seeing volunteers, continues to push for permitting and financing of the tract as a non-profit community farm with a ten month growing season (in greenhouses) and an aquaponics operation.

Aquaponics? That's raising and harvesting fish who, at the same time, provide natural fertilizer for your crops. Brilliant. Synergistic. Symbiotic. It's working at farms in Milwaukee. Perkins is convinced it can happen here.

Call him Don Quixote tilting at windmills. He doesn't care. Scoff at all the delays and obstacles. So what. He sees Ishpeming in need of jobs and fresh produce (He calls the UP a "food desert") and he's convinced he may have a solution. He continues to push forward.

He's hoping, with a substantial grant, Cliffs and Lundin might give Partridge Creek Farm the boost it needs to start tilling the soil and building the greenhouses. Composting the soil should take place next year, crop production should start in 2016.

Let's wish them luck.
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MORE NEWS FROM the westside.

The long delayed microbrewery, Cognition Brewing Company, is finally making substantial progress toward completion.

Anticipated opening? November.

It'll be located in the tap room of the historic Mather Inn so much of the structure and furnishing is already in place. It will have the feel of an old English pub, with eight to ten brews on tap. What's not to like?

And the name Cognition? Seems a bit strange for a brewing company. Well, the owner, Jay Clancey, and the brew master, Brian Richards, want you to "think" about what you're drinking, and truly appreciate the flavors, rather than simply drinking to get a buzz.

Whatever. Craft beer at a renovated historic pub sounds like a great idea, regardless of the name.
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THE MARQUETTE COUNTRY Convention and Visitors Bureau isn't having much luck so far in finding a successor for director Pat Black who's leaving her post at the end of the year.

More than 20 people have applied for the post...but none of them has had tourism experience. That would seem to be a major deficiency in a region whose economic fortunes are increasingly tied to tourism.

Case in point: after a frigid winter that really didn't seem to end until May, Marquette is now poised for what may be the biggest summer season in its history. Yeah, a lot of out-of-towners actually enjoy blustery, 68 degree days where the sun plays peek-a-boo with the clouds.

And Ms. Black? She's heading down to Arizona for a long, sunny vacation early next year. Her successor--whoever he or she turns out to be--will have some big flip-flops to fill.

You got news? Email me at briancabell.com

If you'd like to receive Word on the Street whenever it's posted, just go to Facebook...to Word on the Street by Brian Cabell...and "like" it. This was just set up in the last few days.

Hospital Anticipation, Truck Route Compromise and Hiawatha's Empty Seats

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

Website on a Roll, Cliffs on a Roller Coaster, and Snowboarders on a Rail

The folks at WLUC have certainly shown their muscles in the last month.

Total page views on their website in January: 7.7 million. That's about 250,000 a day. Back in 2004, the same website was getting 250,000 a month.

A 30-fold increase in ten years. Yeah, that's pretty good growth.

A couple of caveats here: Last month's total exceeded the previous record by about three million, and it was inflated by the cold weather and the school cancellations.

But still.

How's that compare to the other major online news source in this region, the Mining Journal? Hard to tell, hard to find an apples-to-apples comparison, and the editor didn't return a call to discuss the issue.

But anybody who's observed the two websites recently can't help but conclude that WLUC's site is more robust and more current than the Mining Journal's. The Mining Journal's website sometimes goes unchanged for hours or even longer; you get the impression that someone's gone home and turned the lights out.

What the newspaper does have, on the other hand, is longer, more comprehensive, and frequently more insightful stories than the TV station's site. John Pepin, in particular, will give you stories with information you won't find anywhere else.

And when was the last time you read a genuine investigative piece on wluctv6.com? Go ahead, keep thinking. It'll take a while.

The bottom line, though, is this. WLUC is taking its web platform seriously; the Mining Journal, it seems, is not. The newspaper seems to regard its website as an inconvenient appendage to its core product, the actual "paper."

If you've studied the recent history of newspaper circulation and broadcast news ratings--in contrast to the explosive growth of online news consumption--you can't help but conclude that TV stations and newspapers need to massively redirect their resources to their online product soon, like yesterday.

If not, they're going to slowly slide into irrelevance and obsolescence. Ask yourself, how many of today's 20-year-olds are suddenly going to wake up when they're 30 or 40 and say, "Yeah, I think I'll order a subscription to the Mining Journal and have it delivered to my home at 2 in the afternoon! Great idea!"

None of them will. They'll be getting their news on their iPads, their cellphones and their laptops, or whatever new gadget the tech wizards have designed by then.

(Full disclosure: I was the news director at WLUC from 2004-2011.)
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It's been a roller coaster week for our hometown mining company.

Maybe you haven't heard but there's been a hostile takeover attempt underway at Cliff's Natural Resources. Casablanca Capital, an activist hedge fund that owns about five percent of Cliffs, isn't happy with the company's performance, its dividends or its plans for the future.

In fact, Casablanca wants Cliffs to spin off its international businesses. It also nominated its own candidate for CEO who eventually lost to the company's candidate, Gary Halverson.

But the takeover attempt remains alive.

Meantime, Cliffs laid off 500 employees in Canada and cut its capital spending by $425 million. Sounds bad.

But then the company just reported that profits and revenues are up. That's good.

Then again, the stock price is still languishing around $23 a share. That's bad (especially for us stock wizards who jumped in at $78, $57 and $35 a share).

However, the price has been rising in recent days. That's good.

Halverson, the new CEO, will be in Marquette next month, to explain it all.
Suggested bullet points for his speech:
     "We've gone through some tough times."
     "We're turning it around."
     "The long term future looks good."
     "Oh, sorry about having to close the Empire mine."
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If you're looking to sell your million dollar home in Marquette or the surrounding townships, good luck.

Appraiser Bruce Closser, who spends his time compiling such statistics, tells us no home here sold for over a million dollars last year. In fact, none sold for over $700,000.

Only about a dozen, he reports, sold for over $400,000.

Seems a little surprising. We get the impression sometimes that big money is discovering Marquette. Apparently, not yet.

That's not to say there aren't million dollar homes out there. They just haven't been listed by a realtor and sold for that amount in the last year.

Average price for a home here is $165,000 which is actually more than the average in Green Bay, Lansing and Detroit (where you can buy a home for a shiny nickel and a cup of coffee).

What lies ahead for the real estate market in Marquette? Slow but steady growth, between zero and six percent a year, according to Closser. You won't get rich in residential real estate here but you won't go broke, either.

Update: Huey Real Estate, which specializes in high dollar properties and is not listed on the Multiple Listing Service, sold a home on Lake Superior and the Little Garlic River for $1.1 million in December.
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If you missed it, last weekend was classic Marquette.

The 19th century met the 21st century, all within 24 hours. Sled dog racing with the UP 200 and the Midnight Run on Friday night, and then a snowboarding and skiing competition in the Downtown Showdown Saturday evening. All  in the heart of downtown.

A great show, a wonderful showcase for Marquette in the middle of winter. And yeah, it was cold, like 5 degrees, which kept the crowds down, but if you love winter and you love spectacles, you couldn't have found a better place on earth (except maybe for Sochi).

On Saturday, in an outside VIP bar at Range Bank, they were serving ice cold beer to scores of satisfied customers. Only in the U.P.

All the events were a tribute to the volunteers and merchants who spent countless hours and thousands of dollars making the weekend happen.

By the way, there's a good chance the Downtown Showdown will be extended an extra block next year, allowing the skiers and snowboarders to start their run at the Landmark Inn, and then turning left and finishing at the bottom of Washington Street.

More speed, more fun, and hopefully a few more degrees in temperature.


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

Empire Shutdown, Founders Build-Up, and Shani's Shout-Out

What we have long feared is now just about upon us.

The Empire mine is closing. There are really no ifs, ands or buts about it. Barring a miracle, it's shutting down.

Cliffs' partnership with ArcelorMittal will end on December 31st which means there will be no more customers for Empire's pellets. The mining costs at Empire were just getting too expensive.

Of course, there will always be the doubters, deniers and skeptics--"Cliffs is just making idle threats!"--but the evidence is overwhelming.

Executives have been meeting with Empire workers for the last few weeks and the message has been simple and direct: prepare for the shutdown by the end of the year, and for many of you, prepare to lose your job. You'll get advance warning sometime during the year, but then you'll be out.

Seniority and job classification will determine who stays and who goes. Some of the Empire workers will shift over to the Tilden mine.

Executives have also been meeting weekly to plan for a smooth and painless shutdown. It won't be painless, but they're doing their best.

How many employees will lose their jobs? Management won't say and they're hoping for some early retirements, but 500 is probably a reasonable guess. Five hundred well-paid wage-earners is a lot for Marquette County. The west end will probably be particularly hard hit.

Cliffs is working with the Lake Superior Community Partnership and other agencies to aid in the transition. Not any easy task.

NMU economics guru Tawni Ferrarini says the county will be hard-hit in the short run but will recover because it's diversified its economy over the last decade.

Good for us. Not so good, unfortunately, for the hundreds of workers who may be forced to leave the area because they'll need to put food on the table for their families.
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You might have noticed there was no new construction at the Founders Landing site this last year. A sign of problems?

No, according to the developers. They're just playing it conservatively. They want to make sure they have reservations on at least half of the units in a building before they start construction.

In fact, they have now sold all of the condos in the existing buildings (though at least one of the units is up for re-sale), and they have a couple of reservations for the next building, Gaines. The hope is, they'll start building Gaines this spring. After that, it'll be the final building in the development, Adams.

Prices on the condos--$300,000 to $800,000. A nice little tax infusion for the city of Marquette.

As for the office-retail-restaurant complex next to the Hampton Inn, construction won't start until an issue with the 240 space parking garage there has been resolved. The city and the developers are trying to deal with that.
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Marquette has a serious rooting interest in the upcoming Winter Olympics, and one woman, in particular, is a huge fan.

Shani Davis, the 31 year old speedskater who's already won two gold medals and two silvers, went to Marquette High School and NMU while he was training for the Olympics.

In a recent interview with MotorTrend.com, he gave a shout-out to Aoy, the owner of the Rice Paddy. She's a great friend who makes him great food, he said.

In fact, Shani and Aoy have known each other for more than a decade. She fed him well during his early years before he became an Olympic champion. He still comes up to visit once a year and stays with her and her husband, Greg Trick. He phones her throughout the year.

He considers her a second mother; she calls him "Brown Sugar."

Aoy says Shani is everything a mother would want her son to be--helpful bringing the groceries in, helpful in cleaning the house. And his Olympic fame? She says it hasn't changed him in the least. He's the same, sweet guy he's always been.

What's his favorite dish at the Rice Paddy? Anything she cooks.

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