Huge Property Sold, a New “Neighborhood” Proposed, Asplund Prepares to Ride into the Sunset, and the Catholic Diocese Courts Controversy

The Latest From Marquette, MI by Brian Cabell

MORE DEVELOPMENT AHEAD? Could be, with the purchase agreement just signed for a house and 31 acres of land two miles south of downtown Marquette on US 41… It’s Park Place, the new event and wedding venue, along with the adjoining forest land. List price was $1.3 million… Uncertain what the buyer will do with the property. “Either you have an event center that’s making money, or you have a beautiful home with a lot of acreage that you could develop,” says RE/MAX broker Fran Sevegney.

The deal was signed a week after the property went up for sale.

Meantime, the same owner has the neighboring Birchmont Motel and another five acres also up for sale. List price: $1.9 million.

THAT NEW RESIDENTIAL development on the Heartwood property off of Division Street in south Marquette is starting to take shape… The Veridea Group presented preliminary plans to the City Commission earlier this week… 60 homes, various types, with the least expensive starting at an estimated $279,000. The development would be called Hemlock.

“What I liked about it,” says Commissioner Sally Davis, “is Veridea wants to create a neighborhood there.” With a playground and a sled hill. Sounds appealing. A neighborhood in the woods eight minutes from downtown.

Would these be the “affordable” homes that Marquette so desperately needs? Probably not, admits Davis. But, she points out, folks who are now living in existing inexpensive homes might be able to move up to the Hemlock homes, freeing up more starter homes in town.

HE’S BEEN AT TV6 since Jimmy Carter was President. That’s a lot of newscasts, and now Steve Asplund is preparing for his departure. It’s scheduled for the end of February.

What a run it’s been. He’s been a newsman’s newsman. Knowledgeable, authoritative, and devoted to his craft, his community and his station… “Whatever needed to be done, I’d do it,” is how he summarizes his 42-year stint as news director, anchor, reporter, editor, producer, photographer, snowplow operator, and trash can emptier… In a rapidly changing media world, the UP will never see another journalist like him… Next chapter in his life: more time for travel and family.

BREAKFAST IN DOLASKIEVILLE (aka Munising). Tom and Ana Dolaskie (and their Dallas-based partner Darrin Hubbard) are opening up yet another business in Munising next week. That makes eight businesses in all… The newcomer is Earl E. Byrds, a breakfast and lunch spot where Johnny Dogs used to be located… Even during a severe labor shortage, the Dolaskies managed to round up 17 employees for the new restaurant. “The big thing is,” Tom says, “you’ve got to treat your staff well. Let them know that you wouldn’t exist without them.”

EPPS APOTHECARY ON Third Street just off of Washington is not your everyday kind of store. It features a fascinating mix of health products, art work, crafts, clothes, teas, and much more… And the owner, Spencer Epps, is equally fascinating. A Marquette Senior High School graduate who went away to college. Yale Medical School. Ten years of practicing medicine, followed by an epiphany: “I found it hard to heal patients,” he tells you, “when I saw hospitals treating patients as customers.”

So now, in this little store, you’ll find a combination of a doctor’s holistic healing products and his varied artistic works. Along with some brilliant and sensitive conversation.

MARQUETTE MADE THE national news in the last week, maybe not for the best of reasons… The Catholic diocese is asking its pastors to deny baptism, communion and other sacraments to transgender and non-binary people unless they “repent”…Yikes.

This observation raised on Facebook by Blaine Betts, a local wise man: “Imagine a person struck by a car and dying. A priest of the Marquette Diocese is called to the ER to administer the Last Sacrament but must refuse to do so because the person is unconscious and unable to repent of being transgender.”….Yep, organized religion is struggling to navigate turbulent and ever-changing waters these days.

AN INTENSE LAST several weeks for Dr. Erin Colwitz, the director of NMU Choral Activities and director of the Marquette Choral Society…A major NMU concert before a packed house at St. Peter Cathedral last month, followed by conducting the orchestra in the pit for several performances of the soldout “Elf” this month, followed by conducting two concerts of the Marquette Choral Society at the Cathedral last weekend.

All this, while teaching six classes at NMU… Exhausting, but satisfying. “This community is really dedicated to the arts,” she says. And Dr. Colwitz, who has toured, lectured, and conducted internationally, is a major reason we remain so dedicated to the arts.

WE MAY HAVE good reason to worry about the state of education in Michigan… The State Senate is now considering a bill that would temporarily allow secretaries, bus drivers, and janitors to fill in as substitute teachers… The reason? An extreme shortage of teachers and qualified substitutes… Crazy suggestion: Pay them more. A lot more.

EXPANSION AT THE Lakeshore Depot is hanging in the balance… The little market just off of Lakeshore Boulevard is trying to raise $50,000 by December 21st—if it does so, it would be awarded a matching $50,000 grant… That would be a total of $100,000 to create a community meeting place at the Depot, build rest rooms, and increase production of foods… At last count, though, only $11,000 had been raised… Not bad, but not enough… Still, if an angel doesn’t come through with the cash in this last week, the Depot will likely use what funds it has raised for more food production, a small seating area, and an espresso machine.

DR. BOB LORINSER has certainly been busy on social media in his bid to unseat incumbent District One Congressman Jack Bergman… Both of them honorable men, both have served their country… One of Lorinser’s observations seems especially pertinent during these polarized times: We in northern Michigan get along with each other, regardless of political party. We work together, play together, attend our children’s sporting events together… We’re not Washington DC, we’re not the posturing partisans on cable TV.

So maybe at a time when one political party seems in thrall of a controversial and severely flawed ex-President, and the other party seems captive to a cluster of noisy, demanding and self-righteous identity groups, we should just remind ourselves that we can just be neighbors. Friends. Citizens building a better…and quieter…community. Maybe we can show the rest of the nation how it’s done.

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