MGH Is Counting Down, Eagle Mine Road Is Ever Widening, and a College Preacher Is Spewing Hate

TWO WEEKS, MAYBE less. That's when we'll have a deal for the new Marquette General Hospital. That's when all the courting and numbers-crunching and speculating will finally end.

Two apparent candidates remain in the running for the nearly $300 million project--the Marquette Township site just behind the Westwood Mall, and the city of Marquette's Roundhouse site, on the western fringe of downtown.

The Township submitted its deal several weeks ago. Duke LifePoint, the owner of the hospital, seemed satisfied with it, and the two sides have not had substantial talks since then.

The city, on the other hand, has been having on-and-off chats with DLP in the last several weeks, but no one is characterizing those talks as negotiations. Just questions and answers.

Two weeks, maybe less. Then one of these municipalities will finally be able to  start a friendly and prosperous collaboration with Duke LifePoint.
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IT'S ABOUT TO happen. After a decade-long struggle, the Eagle Mine outside of Big Bay will begin harvesting billions of dollars of nickel and copper in the next couple of months.

Have you been out there lately? The road to the mine--510 and AAA--is a startling, ten mile long, 50-100 yard swath of denuded land. The Road Commission, which is constructing the roadway with $45 million from Lundin, concedes it's wider than necessary but says that was the wish of the property owners. They wanted the timber.

Okay. We get it. This whole project is about money.

Further, one official suggested that this gash across the landscape might actually help the wildlife in the spring because the cleared area will melt before the forest does and maybe provide some early vegetation for the hungry animals. Of course, the critters, while snacking, will have to dodge the huge ore trucks roaring past at 50 miles per hour.

Let's not kid ourselves, part one. The road and the mine will have an environmental impact on what was a pristine area. How serious will it be? We don't know. Let's hope it's something less than what the environmental groups have predicted.

They're the ones who publicized the leakage of groundwater into the Salmon Trout River a couple of weeks ago. That's their job from now on: they may have lost the war to stop the mine but they'll be maintaining a close watch on every move that Lundin and the Road Commission make. They'll be ringing the alarm bells if something goes awry.

We should be thankful for them. The mine and road are realities but maybe...just maybe, the environmental damage can be mitigated by an alert and enlightened citizenry, and by an extra-conscientious mining industry that may want to extend its welcome it in the U.P.

Let's not kid ourselves, part two. The mining companies know there's a lot more ore...and money...down there. At the end of the Eagle Mine's supposed eight year life (and likely before then), the companies will be flashing more cash and asking for an extended stay in the U.P.
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NO ONE SAID it would be easy.

The July TV ratings have come in, and WJMN, the new entrant in the local TV news wars, can't be all that thrilled.

In the coveted 25-54 age demographic, which matters most to advertisers, WBUP (ABC 10) had slightly higher ratings than WJMN. Fox UP, likewise had higher ratings for its 10 pm newscast.

What that means is that TV news viewers don't readily change their news habits, even when the new competitor--WJMN--has a known and capable anchor and news director in Cynthia Thompson, a solid anchor at 11 pm in Gabe Caggiano, and an established parent station out of Green Bay--WFRV.

It'll take time.

In case you're wondering, the runaway leader in the July ratings, of course, was again TV6. That's been the case for the last half century. Tradition is hard to overcome.

On the other hand, WBUP (ABC 10) continues to compile an impressive website showing with more than two million page views last month. Needless to say, a lot more people are reading their website than are watching their newscasts.
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THE OPENING DATE for The Marq, the new farm-to-table restaurant in Marquette, was supposed to be August...but here we are in September and they're not quite ready to serve. Not even close.

Three or four months out, businesspeople are always optimistic, but then personal, financial and governmental realities set in.

The new opening date for the Marq is November.

Drop by the site of the old Rubaiyat restaurant and you'll see plenty of construction underway inside and out. The restaurant's eight investors promise that they will not overspend on the re-do of the building, which was one apparent reason for the demise of the Rubaiyat.

The restaurant's space is being opened up, however, allowing more sunlight to flow in, and recycled woods and other materials uniquely treated are being used throughout the restaurant.The Marq is also setting up a full bar for drinkers and eating customers. The design is being handled by University Michigan architecture professors Adam Fure and Ellie Abrons.

Seventy-two seats total in the restaurant which will feature as much local produce and meat as Austin Fure, Adam's brother, a classically trained chef, can find. He says the menu will change regularly to reflect the fact that available produce in the U.P. necessarily changes.

Sounds like the right restaurant in the right place at the right time.

Expect hiring to start within a month.
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INCOMING NMU FRESHMEN last week quickly learned that college life is just a wee bit different from high school.

A traveling preacher out of Texas showed up on campus to noisily denounce fornication, pornography and blasphemy. He called some of the female students whores, told just about everybody they were going to hell unless they changed their ways, and saved some of his harshest words for a transgender student.

All in all, a swell couple of days of evangelism that was chronicled by NMU's North Wind newspaper.

The preacher, whose name is Chris LePelley, has apparently left town to spread the good word on other campuses. Nevertheless, some NMU students are now trying to start a group known as NMU Love. It'd be a way of saying we disagree with hate speech, biblical or otherwise.

That's fine. Or you can just ignore the hate-spewing, spotlight-loving clowns and let them shout their nonsense at the sky.

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

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Mining Journal Legal Threat, TV Ratings, Co-op's New Tenants, and Yooper Wine

 

David versus Goliath. New media versus old media. Marquette Social Scene versus the Mining Journal.

A classic battle is brewing here in Marquette. Or maybe it's more of a skirmish.

In any case, it's got the Mining Journal threatening to take some guerrilla journalists to court.

What started it all was the Mining Journal's recent decision to erect a paywall on its website. If you want to get news online from the Mining Journal, you now have to pay for it.

Not all that unusual. Newspapers across the country are doing it. At a time when hard copy circulation is declining (and the Mining Journal concedes this), it's a way to make money.

Well, Marquette Social Scene, a young, digital upstart that covers news, sports and entertainment, wasn't thrilled with the new paywall. Brice Burge, the owner and editor of Marquette Social Scene, considers it a violation of public trust. He's an idealist. He believes newspapers should be available to everybody so that we can be enlightened about the world around us.

So...(and this is where the skirmish started)...Burge re-published in Marquette Social Scene a posting from a reader on the Mining Journal's Facebook page that told other readers how to work around the paywall.

Talk about irony. The newspaper's own Facebook page was telling readers how to get the news product for free.

When Burge re-published the posting, the Mining Journal wasn't pleased. Publisher Jim Reevs sent Burge a cease-and-desist order, claiming that he was promoting an illegal activity, and threatening legal action if the posting wasn't taken down.

So far Burge isn't budging.

One thing seems eminently clear. The Mining Journal needs to start monitoring its own Facebook page more carefully. Its failure to do so is what created the problem.

Second and more important is this. The new, hyperlocal, digital media--Marquette Social Scene, UP Second Wave, Marquette Magazine, Marquette Music Scene and Word on the Street--are here to stay. Some will die, some will grow, many will evolve, but as a means of gathering and distributing the news, they will play an increasingly vital role in our lives.

And the dinosaurs--the Mining Journal and the TV stations--will have to adapt (with more robust websites and social media involvement) or die. Cease-and-desist orders can only delay the inevitable.
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Speaking of TV stations, the latest Nielsen ratings are out, and they spell  good news for TV6. The longtime news leader here reasserted its overwhelming dominance at 6 pm after a serious drop in ratings last May.

The 11 pm ratings, which depend more heavily on the prime time offerings of the networks, were a little more competitive, with the new WJMN newscast posting decent numbers, but TV6 is still the unquestioned leader.

WJMN debuted its UP newscasts just a couple of months ago. It'll take some time for the station to become truly relevant. You don't overcome 50 years of dominance in just a ratings book or two.

As for ABC10, it keeps plugging along. Underfunded and underresourced, it produces solid newscasts at 5:30 and 10 pm and a substantive website with continual social media interaction. One of the station's most obvious flaws, a news set that looks like it was hastily assembled in someone's back office, will soon thankfully be history. The station is getting a new "virtual" set within a couple of months.

What does "virtual" mean? It means it'll look like things are there on the set when they really aren't. Electronic tricks. Slick. Sportscenter on ESPN employs a virtual set.

Also in from ABC 10: Al Jazeera America has requested that the station send them a long form story on the Bobby Glenn Brown story. Brown, of course, is the local man who recently took part in  a commitment ceremony with his longtime partner, and was subsequently told by St. Michaels Catholic Church he could no longer take part in the ministry of the church.

The story's gotten some national play. Now Al Jazeera America wants to do something with it.
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If you've been wondering what's going to happen at the site of the old Food Co-op, here's a partial answer.

GEI Consultants, a nationwide engineering firm that's currently located on Washington Street, is taking over half of the downstairs space and all of the upstairs space.

Upstairs will house the GEI offices while the downstairs is set aside for a soils and materials lab. A wall has already been erected downstairs, splitting the space. No word yet on who may move into the other half.

GEI works with the mines, government agencies and businesses. They employ 15 people here. The employees should be moving in to their new digs on about July 10th.
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The Marquette Farmers Market has been kind to the St. Charles Winery.

Marquette's only winery moved into the Farmers Market for the first time this season, and sales are already up 30%.

In fact, owner Randy St. Charles says he and his wife Lisa are struggling to keep up with the sudden surge in demand. Production has more than doubled since they took over the winery nine months ago.

They offer between 20 and 30 wines--like watermelon and mandarin orange as well as the more traditional chardonnay and pinot noir--at prices ranging from $13 to $25 a bottle.

Of course, the grapes don't come from the UP. They arrive in concentrate form from Central California and then they're processed, with Lake Superior water and flavoring, by St. Charles at his shop on Washington Street.

It's in a second floor office, next to an insurance agency, across the street from McDonalds. Not exactly the lush, rolling hills of Napa Valley.

But they have a wine-tasting room on site where they welcome individual wine enthusiasts and host small events and parties.

It's a start. And it's classic UP, devoid of pretension and driven by energy and enthusiasm.


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