Courtyards Closes, Weather Service Blackout at Night?, an Activist Commissioner, a Healthcare Bankruptcy, a Cannabis Decline, an Ancient Rock, and a Market to Make America Great Again

The Latest from Marquette, MI by Brian Cabell

DOEN’T SEEM RIGHT. After nearly six years in business, The Courtyards, the New Orleans-themed bar and restaurant in south Marquette, closed down permanently over the weekend after operating on reduced hours for the last several months…It’s been up for sale, but so far, no buyers…Great drinks, a cute atmosphere, and tasty food, much of which you couldn’t get anywhere else in town.

It seemed popular, but apparently not enough.

The original asking price for The Courtyards was $2.5 million, but the RE/MAX website now lists it at a bargain-basement $1.25 million—a 50% reduction. It’s appraised for $1.6 million, according to RE/MAX…Sure seems like some food and beverage entrepreneur could come in and make a go of it here—a beautiful venue inside, ample free parking, and a high profile location just off the highway.

CONFLICTING STORIES ABOUT whether the National Weather Service station in Negaunee, gutted by recent staffing cuts, will be able to continue overnight coverage…Which is kind of important in a weather-dependent region like the U.P…A recent Washington Post article reported that overnights would no longer be covered in Negaunee and at several other NWS stations in other states because of staff shortages…NWS denied the report…The truth seems to be this, according to an inside source: Yes, the Negaunee staffing is no longer sufficient to cover weather here 24/7 but the National Weather Service will fly or drive in meteorologists from other weather stations around the country to temporarily cover the overnight shifts…

How long this will continue is anybody’s guess, but for now, we can be assured that someone—a certified professional—is watching the tricky U.P. weather for us 24 hours a day.

YOU GOTTA GIVE County Commission Chairman Joe Derocha credit. He didn’t mess around. Frustrated by the repeated failures of Marquette County’s contracted medical examiner in Saginaw to finish its work on autopsies in a reasonable time, Derocha and Undersheriff Lowell Larsen drove downstate to demand the death certificates and toxicology reports of Marquette County residents from the medical examiner…They drove back with 18 of them; 11 others, they were assured, would soon be on the way….Some of the cases were eight months old. Normal autopsies take about 60 days…

The medical examiner unsurprisingly was fired recently by Marquette County. Turns out the doctor in charge had been dealing with a series of legal and financial problems…You gotta wonder why he was hired by the county two years ago. “The staff recommended hiring him,” Derocha explains. “We did some research on him and we knew there were some problems, but we gave him the benefit of the doubt.” Clearly, a mistake…

Marquette County is now using the services of Dickinson County’s medical examiner on a temporary basis. Derocha says he’d like to see all 15 U.P. counties work together to come up with an efficient and reliable U.P. solution to the problem.

THE HEALTH CARE industry is sick. It’s dealing with rising costs, staff shortages, the pandemic hangover, technology changes, and now maybe a cutback in Medicaid…No surprise that Wellpath Holdings, the former health care provider for Michigan’s Department of Corrections, declared bankruptcy late last year…It was facing $644 million in debt, according to the website, The Center Square…

And $6 million of that was owed to EMS providers in the eastern U.P., which are already operating on thin margins…If they don’t get reimbursed, some of the EMS companies say they’ll go out of business. Patients in the U.P. needing EMS services will suffer…The hope is that the state of Michigan will step in with emergency funding to provide the reimbursements.

TOO MUCH CANNABIS, and it’s too cheap. Supply has outstripped demand. That seems to be the problem with Michigan’s marijuana industry, as evidenced by the recent closure of Dunegrass on US-41 in south Marquette…Shutdowns are happening elsewhere in the state. Lowell, Michigan once had nine dispensaries; now it has five…Employment in the industry is declining, and an ounce of marijuana has dropped, on average, about 50% in the last two years…That’s not a promising trend. Expect more closures in the years ahead.

As the for Dunegrass location in south Marquette, can we please, please bring back Farmer Q’s? We loved that store.

WE DID NOT know this…America’s oldest rock is in Watersmeet—it’s the “Watersmeet Gneiss” (gneiss is a metamorphic rock formed by intense heat and pressure)…It’s said to be at least 3.6 billion years old…Minnesota claimed it had America’s oldest rock, but experts says no, the Watersmeet rock is older…The oldest rock in the world, according to geologists, is north of us—it’s the Canadian Acasta Gneiss in the Northwest Territories. It’s said to be 4 billion years old, just a bit younger than the earth itself.

If you’re a rockhound searching for the Watersmeet Gneiss, we’re told you can visit it somewhere off of Gogebic County Road 206 near the Wisconsin border. Good luck. Bring a snack. And a compass. And a cell phone.

FORTY-NINE DEGREES and cloudy skies were hardly ideal, but they were enough to bring out a large, bustling crowd to Marquette’s newly reopened Farmers Market on Saturday. It seemed more robust than in the past, with larger and more varied offerings this early in the season—not just Spring vegetables and starter plants, but also meat, honey, jams and jellies, clothing, candles, essential oils, artwork, kombucha, coffee, more coffee, bakery items, more bakery items, burgers, breakfast sandwiches, and much more…

The Saturday Market might be Marquette—and America—at its best—harkening back to a time before we had huge supermarkets, chain stores, the Internet, one hour commutes, and insular suburban neighborhoods…Just regular people, full of smiles and good cheer, coming together in the center of town, strolling about, buying a little bit of this and that from local farmers, producers, craftsmen, and entrepreneurs…You wanna make America great again? Open up more farmers markets.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“The need for connection and community is primal, as fundamental as the need for air, water, and food.

—Dean Ornish