Opinions/Editorials

Newspapers in the United States have traveled rough seas to the First Amendment freedoms we enjoy today. From the colonial Stamp Act through wartime censorship to today, when thousands of newspapers were slammed with the public health emergency known as COVID-19, people who work for newspapers have never had completely smooth sailing.
Now most of the businesses that advertise with us are shut down. The pipeline to make our payroll shut down with them. People are restlessly waiting in their locked-down homes for us to bring the news nonetheless.
Across the country, journalists and the thousands of people it takes to let them do their work — from publishers to ad sales people to printers — are figuring out ways to keep the news coming.
A disheartening chord is sounding here and there across America’s mournful song about this tragic era: why should Americans still support newspapers?

A decision by the Ely Chamber of Commerce board of directors to cancel this year’s Blueberry/Art Festival seemed rushed and could have been delayed.
The announcement came over 100 days from the July 24 start of the three day event, Ely’s largest tourist attraction each year. Thousands of people flood the community and businesses cite that weekend as being the one that pays the bills and helps keep them afloat through the rough winters we have here.
The coronavirus pandemic has had a worldwide impact, no doubt, and has been devastating in Ely economically but not medically. Through a stroke of luck, social distancing or the grace of God, our hospital has not been overrun or our clinic taxed to provide services.

A revised broadband project that would provide much-needed service to rural Ely residents in the Town of Morse has hit a funding snag.
The project now seeks to use cutting edge wireless technology to provide up to 200Mbps service to customers within line-of-sight of towers and repeater sites. Customers without line-of-sight may be eligible for service up to 25Mbps.
Currently these residences and businesses have to choose between nearly non-existent speeds from Frontier or gamble on satellite connections.
Isaac Olson of Treehouse Broadband, LLC gave an update to the Morse board Tuesday, describing how the point-to-point and point-to-multipoint wireless broadband system would serve over 300 locations in the Burntside Lake, Little Long Lake and Wolf Lake areas.
The $600,000 project would include two 100 foot towers along with repeater sites and at customer homes and businesses Treehouse would install 18-inch receiver dishes and indoor WiFi coverage.

Editor:
In these most trying times for all of us, I have seen many people step-up and show a can-do attitude.
City of Ely staff have kept our community going despite the new challenges of each of their duties.
I am very proud of all of them, but today, I want to publicly acknowledge the way Casey Velchef has ensured the smoothest possible operation of the City’s virtual meetings.
A month ago, I am not sure anyone would have even considered what we are doing today.
Seeing the way things had to change, Harold Langowski, Casey Velchef, Jim Robbins and Mauro Caruso got together and came up with a system to allow this.
All over our world, people adapt in ways we never fathomed they would need to. I salute all of you. Hang in there.
I look forward to the day we can say: “Wow, those were crazy times – I’m so proud of the way we worked together to get through it. What a great community we have!”
May God bless you all.

All of us are learning to do things differently under new rules due to the coronavirus pandemic. One area that is requiring new skills is for elected officials to hold telephone meetings.
As media we’ve participated in many phone meetings over the years and along the way we’ve picked up some helpful tips that can make a meeting run more smoothly.
When everyone is sitting in the same room there are plenty of visual cues. Body language, eye contact or even a raised hand. That person wants to speak to the issue at hand.
But meeting over the phone the visual portion is lost and the person running the meeting has to have new skills and deploy them.
Here’s some tips we’d like to offer:
1. Make sure everyone who joins the call announces themselves. Have one person ask, “Who just joined?”

Dear Editor,
As a long-time Ely resident, born and raised in the bustling metropolis of Winton and participating in the economy of Ely, I strenuously object to the use of racist terminology directed at the mayor by race baiters Betty Firth and Peta Barrett and racist comments directed by Steve Piragis toward another former Elyite.
I also object to the gang of five (Peta Barrett, Betty Firth, Carol Orban, Steve Piragis, and Becky Rom) use of the term boycott and boycott claims which no one said but them.
The gang of five and the organizations they represent have not addressed their own harmful behavior and salacious use of racist comments.
They could have resolved this controversy with a sincere apology and a simple common-sense resolution stating they would never again use racist or derogatory terms directed at any Ely citizens, past or present.

My Ely area neighbors..
These trying time we find ourselves in are just beginning. We up here are rightfully thought of as a friendly caring community. This time of crisis, which will last for quite a while it appears, is going to give us a chance to prove those thoughts.
It’s been brought to my attention of hoarding of products, and people coming from outside the area to shop at our stores for necessities. The Star Tribune published an article on Saturday March 21st mentioning this phenomenon. I don’t know whether to be proud or worried if people are coming up north to “avoid” the coming catastrophe.
I think my main concern is the thought whether from up here, visiting or in between, hoarding food, toilet paper, and any other product is blatantly wrong.
All the reputable news outlets on both sides of the political aisle have stated food isn’t going to run out. I actually saw a website to calculate how long a roll of toilet paper will last.

Dear Editor:
I attended the showing of the documentary by Save the Boundary Waters at Vermilion Community College. It was full of testimonies from people about how much they love the B.W.C.A. and their fear of it being destroyed. I have paddled and fished in the B.W.C.A. for over 60 years and enjoy it as much as anyone. I’m genuinely grateful to be able to live in such a wonderful area. However, I’m not fearful of it being destroyed by the proposed Twin Metals underground mine.
From my experiences in the B.W.C.A. and knowledge of the direction of water flow, I’m confident that less than 10% of the watershed could possibly be affected by presumed acid mine drainage. None of the area from Basswood Falls all the way to the Gunflint could not possibly be affected. Neither could any of the area south of Crooked Lake be affected.

A study championed by copper-nickel mining opponents and detailed a couple of weeks ago before Ely’s Tuesday Group makes the case that despite the addition of several hundred new jobs, the Twin Metals Minnesota project would ultimately hurt - and not help - our local economy.
In the long run, we were told, the region would be better served by maintaining its current economic model.
There were charts and data to support this conclusion, although even the study - conducted by a Harvard professor - shows that the Twin Metals would provide an initial boost to the economy.
That boost would last anywhere from two-to-11 years, we were told, but from that point on any gains as a result of the Twin Metals project would be offset by “negative impacts on recreation industries and in-migration” to the study area - which went far beyond Ely to include all of St. Louis, Lake and Cook counties.

Dear Editor,