McQuade issue needs redirection Iver Bogen DPPA member Point Of View - Duluth News Tribune - mid Oct.2000 The editorial board of the Duluth News Tribune seems to have assumed the political work of the McQuade Public Access Committee (MPAC) for promoting the McQuade boat launch. Since the Duluth City Council meeting of July 24, when the Council voted not to lease the Congdon Trust land to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for the boat launch, the newspaper's editorial staff has written and published four editorials supporting McQuade (Oct. 15, Oct. 4, Aug. 8, July 26). There was also a column by News Tribune Publisher Mary Jacobus, who demeaned the council by saying, ``The message from the council is clear: Make the most noise right before the council votes and you get your way.'' Her statement doesn't jibe with the facts. This council had already voted twice, at two separate council meetings, against pushing McQuade forward. The July 24 vote was merely consistent with these previous votes. In supporting McQuade, the newspaper's editorial board is recommending that the city negate the contractual agreement made with Chester Congdon in 1915 in Ordinance 606. Playing at being legal scholars, they suggest, ``Nothing in the concept of a public parkway would preclude the proposed McQuade project for the North Shore.'' This reasoning distorts and alters the intent of Ordinance 606. Contrary to the oft-stated News Tribune position, McQuade was deemed ethically and fiscally unacceptable to six courageous city councilors. To allow this crack in Ordinance 606 would let the ``camel's head into the tent.'' Developers would be eyeing the rest of the 13-mile gift as a location for further development. Choice and environmentally sensitive sites are always vulnerable to developers with a pot of money. After the City Council's historic vote, the newspaper's editorial board tried to place responsibility for improving this portion of the shore on the council by saying that ``each one of those six -- Ken Hogg, Lynn Fena, Greg Gilbert, Russ Stewart, Russ Stover and Gary Eckenberg -- has to answer the question, what's Plan B for the McQuade Road area?'' In addition, the editorial said, ``Those who wrapped themselves in the mantle of Chester Congdon's public parkway language to reject the proposed plan now owe it to residents of Duluth to propose an alternative improvement plan for the McQuade Road gateway to Duluth.'' It's fallacious to suggest that those who were opposed to allowing the use of dedicated land should now be responsible for a plan to make this area more presentable. It would appear that the editorial board is suggesting some form of atonement or punishment (cleaning up this area) for those persons and council members who in their well-supported reasoning rejected McQuade. Even so, when a Friends of the North Shore press release suggested that a convenience store would dress up the area and provide a replacement for the aging buildings there, the newspaper attacked this idea in an Oct. 4 editorial. These attacks on those opposed to McQuade are unseemly. This is also what MPAC did at its public meetings. A rational way of dealing with the McQuade area, now that the buildings there have been burned, would be for the newspaper to appeal to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to clean up this area and erect a welcoming station with tourist facilities. After all, the DNR owns this land and should be responsible for its improvement. In all of its apparent political posturing, the editorial board has never criticized MPAC for its lack of candor. MPAC said that from its inception, there was a member of their group who spoke for the Congdon family and who assured MPAC that a boat launch was consistent with their wishes; that was not true. MPAC said in their application for funding to the Legislative Council on Minnesota Resources and the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board that they already had the city land that was needed for the boat launch; that was not true. MPAC said that they had dropped support of the Knife River Marina because the Lake County Board did not want trailerable boats using this facility; that was not true. In addition, MPAC said that the Congdon Trust land that was needed for the boat launch was valued at $500,000 by the Duluth City Assessors office. The Assessors office said it never did any assessment there. With the News Tribune's editorial board now carrying MPAC's water, MPAC has become silent on McQuade as seemingly have the pro-McQuade readers. It's time to level the playing field. It's time for the newspaper to give the political football back to MPAC and let them create their own stories. Bogen is a professor emeritus, University of Minnesota-Duluth, and a member of Duluth Urban Wilderness. Grass-roots group is loosely organized, but not `sneaky' Jan Karon DPPA member Point Of View - Duluth News Tribune - Oct. 1 2000 Concerning your Wednesday editorial, headlined ``Change council meetings'': Here's some background of events proceeding last Monday's Duluth City Council meeting and the motion to reconsider variances for the proposed motel on Park Point. Following the City Council decision of Sept. 11 approving two variances for the proposed motel, concerned citizens on Park Point were told that if they did not raise the issue by the next council meeting, it could not be reconsidered. So an informal group of neighbors and friends wrote a detailed fact sheet and a petition regarding its concerns, working many, many hours to inform others about those concerns. After the Sept. 21 Park Point Community Club meeting, one of the developers was given copies of the fact sheet and the petition. Our neighbors, the developers, knew that evening that concerned citizens, who felt very strongly that they had not been heard at the previous meeting, were going back to the City Council. Councilors were e-mailed Saturday, Sept. 23, regarding citizens' concerns. Last Sunday (Sept. 24), a concerned citizen called one of the developers to apologize for not having given the developers special notice about an earlier community meeting regarding the proposed motel. Furthermore, I spent several hours walking and talking with another of the developers last Sunday. We discussed the issues involved and looked at the site together. It's kind of strange, but here I thought that I was involved in a sincere grass-roots gathering of friends and neighbors who shared concerns about a proposed project in our neighborhood. Our efforts have been labeled as an ``unfair, sneaky campaign.'' One reason for that label is that there seem to be several ways to bring issues before the City Council. One is to get an item on the agenda. Then it is public information. Another is to come to a meeting and sign up to speak about an issue -- in that case the public is not forewarned that an issue will arise. Our group chose the latter process. Does that mean, given all the above communications, that our actions were ``sneaky''? Yes, we worked together. If you don't like our opinion, labeling it negatively as ``orchestrated'' certainly is one way to take the focus away from the issues. Unfortunately, we were hardly organized, much less orchestrated. Had we been either of those, the petition we wanted to bring to the City Council would have been much more widely circulated, and we might have been able to deliver it to the council. We didn't. As citizens we tried to use the council process to get a reconsideration of the issue. To state that we tried to ``twist arms'' is more than just a choice of language; it is clearly degrading. Finally, since when is grass-roots organizing a crime? To some there seems to be no difference between ``orchestration of action outside the usual legal process'' and a concerted effort by a group of people who chose to use the City Council process to be heard. (Whether the council process needs to be changed is another question.) The editorial said that council members, city staff, project proposers and the public were not given the proper public notice... As is obvious from our activities of the previous week described above, what is true is that because of the legitimate City Council process that we used, the public did not know that this item was on the agenda. That's not good, but, again, that is current council procedure. To call the appearance of these citizens at a City Council ``hand-wringing'' is just another way to put down the efforts of concerned citizens. To blame concerned citizens for putting a project through this ``rigmarole'' is further insult. Why all these personal accusations, half-truths and insults -- not just from a city councilor, but then repeated in an editorial? I suggest that sticking to the issues is much more productive than denigrating those who disagree with you. But minimally, before denigrating in public your constituents and readers, perhaps some attempt to hear the other side of the story is in order. But then, now you've heard it. In the end, although the council did vote to reaffirm its previous decision, it also heard the repeated and reasonable concerns of a group of citizens, and, significantly, chose to act on them. I appreciate that Councilor Ken Hogg offered to bring to the next City Council meeting a resolution proposing a traffic study relevant to the location of this motel. We appreciate the efforts of all who helped to accomplish this. Karon is a resident of Park Point and part of a group who opposed the South Pier Inn motel development. Progress and Preservation Sheldon Aubut DPPA member Point of View - DNT? I have been very disturbed lately by the Duluth News-Tribunes seemingly one-sided articles and editorials supporting new development and the developers in Duluth. These articles appear to attack anyone who has a differing opinion, or might be so presumptuous as to want to preserve our history, shoreline, architecture or anything that impedes new development. I too believe in progress. I too believe that new development can be good for our city. I too believe that our future lies in bringing business to Duluth. Where we differ is that I believe that this development must be done with a plan, that the "tear it down and build new" ideals of the last century are no longer valid in the 21st. As in all things there has to be some middle ground that elicits the best of all worlds. We here in Duluth have one of the most beautiful, "old world" cities in the nation. We have the resources in architecture, the environment, parks, port, and especially in our people, to be a premier city in these United States of America, or even all of North America. In 1869 the vision of the founders of this city saw it as "The Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas" and said it "shall be the abode of commerce and manufacturers, and refinement and civilization, here nearly midway between the two main oceans of the world". They had a vision that balanced development and the finer things in life. Our park system at the turn of that century into the 20th was next to none in the nation. We had more parkland and greenspace than any other city, and acres per capita was measured as the highest in the nation. The people of Duluth were very proud of that distinction, yet in the intervening 100 years we have let our parks deteriorate to shadows of themselves. Witness Seven Bridges Road and the Skyline Parkway. Or Cascade Park, which was decimated to make way for Mesabe Avenue's redevelopment. We have reduced incredible architecture to rubble, and in their place built edifices that are not constructed to stand for another 100 years, are aesthetically without style, and do not meld into the neighborhoods where constructed. At one time I gave tours of Old Downtown, and one thing that often struck me was that the tourists seem to know more about Duluth than the residents. The most common phrase used by residents was, "I didn't know that." I wanted to shout, "where have you been living all your life", but instead I just continued, week after week, year after year, to try to educate people about their wonderful city. I was born and raised here, left for 18 years, and moved back to, what I consider to be, the most incredible city in the nation. With your help in preserving our past, balanced with new development done with a plan that puts it in the right places at the right times, we can once again have a city that fits the vision of its founders. Groups such as the Duluth Public Policy Alliance, the Preservation Alliance, and others should be looked on as allies in choosing a direction for Duluth. Together we can come up with a plan that meets all of our needs as witnessed by the Bayfront Visions Plan, which even though certainly not perfect, resulted from various groups working together, but only after individual attitudes and egos were set aside. Haphazard destruction for the sake of ill-conceived new development is counter productive. We would be much better off to restore our city, our parks, and our neighborhoods than to build buildings which destroy what we already have, and then either stand empty or take businesses from other buildings. It has been proven over and over, in other locations, that restoration pays for itself so many times over and is so very much more productive than new development, on the same site, in cities like Duluth. Simply put; new development should be located in places that do not harm what is already there. A simple concept but one which the Duluth News Tribune and the present city administration seem not to grasp. I would hope that you, and they, could be convinced to take a closer look at the direction we are going, and adjust to bring your vision in tune with the founders of Duluth. These articles are retained on the web for historical interest and do not necessarily reflect the views or goals of DPPA today.