Thanks to Duluth's Responsible City Councilors Yvonne Stewart DPPA member Letters to the Editor - Duluth News Tribune - July 27 2000 I jumped for joy when I went to my front door the morning after the Duluth City Council's vote on McQuade and saw that six councilors had the integrity to vote down the request to lease city land to the project. I want to thank those councilors for doing something that's always tough: putting a stop to an idea that has gained momentum and dollars but is nonetheless not a good idea. We have so many pressing needs in our city; spending $8 million or more on this boat launch would have been a shame. And it would have been a shame, as well, to toss aside the agreement our city made with the Congdon family back in 1915 to retain this land ``in perpetuity.'' I also want to thank the councilors for putting up with the ``sour-grapes'' press coverage that's occurred since their vote. Theirs was a democratic process in the best sense and as such should have been respected. Instead, on the pages of the local papers, the six councilors who voted against the lease (Gilbert, Stewart, Stover, Hogg, Fena, and Eckenberg) were treated with disrespect by Senator Sam Solon and Mayor Doty and branded with the old, tired label of ``anti-progress.'' If the supporters of the McQuade harbor and Mayor Doty didn't have the sense to pursue the lease of the land first, which would have been the logical thing to do before spending time and money, that is not the fault of the council or the citizens. Someone has got to hold the line, and those six councilors stepped up to the job. I thank you, councilors, for representing me so well--and what I believe is a majority of Duluthians. I'll remember you at the ballot box in November of 2001. These articles are retained on the web for historical interest and do not necessarily reflect the views or goals of DPPA today.

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