Ron Brochu, former editor of the eviscerated Superior Evening Telegram and one time education reporter for the DNT wrote a nice piece in this week’s Northland Reader. Its not about Ordean.
The destruction of green space once elicited angry cries in Duluth, but a new plan that will uproot a square mile of undisturbed land is barely raising eyebrows: Why? The parcel is hidden in a far comer of West End, where residents lack the political clout and financial resources to fight the massive development. The project, known as Wheeler North, would position a middle school just above the DM&IR corridor on a green field that runs from Chestnut to Wellington Streets. Just a few blocks uphill from the A& Dubbs drive-in restaurant lies a pristine site where backhoes soon could rip up wild strawberry fields and former pastures that helped feed generations of Germans, Poles and Italians who settled the neighborhood a hundred years ago.
Ron has some choice words for the absence of coverage of this overlooked obscenity.
For sure, the lack of media scrutiny is helping to squelch discussion about alternative school sites, such as the existing Central High or Lincoln properties. Assisted by the knowledge vacuum, the School Board can spew nonsense about the high cost of rebuilding Central without anyone questioning the high cost of extending utilities and building roads into the Wheeler North site, where the dominant geological feature is solid rock.
