The Cheerleader Blog

As I entered the lobby of the Holiday Inn on February 18, 2010, en route to the monthly Spirit Mountain board meeting, I had a bit of trouble negotiating the doors, encumbered as I was with a Fujifilm FinePix S5100 digital camera, a Marantz PMD 201 portable cassette recorder with plug-in Radio Shack unidirectional dynamic microphone, a Panasonic AG-DVC7 750X Digital Zoom video camera with telescoping tripod and a brown canvas Duluth pack containing my notebook and pens. After the excitement of the previous Spirit Mountain board meeting, I didn’t see how plenty of recording equipment could hurt.

I hit Record on the Marantz recorder and took the elevator to the fifth floor. I walked to the Duluth Room, which turned out to be a typical corporate meeting room: conference table, TV, side counter bearing soft drinks, various odds and ends of hotel furniture scattered about. A number of board members and Spirit Mountain employees were already there. Nobody physically attacked me or called the police right away, so I put down my gear and began setting up the tripod and video camera.

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As I entered the national headquarters of the Zenith Management Company on January 21, 2010, the portraits of company founders Manley Goldfine, Erwin Goldfine and Fannie Goldfine Benton beamed at me from a nearby wall, liking what they saw: An enterprising young man, moving with purpose. Perhaps I reminded them a little of themselves.

Located on the fourth floor of the Paulucci Building, next to the Aerial Lift Bridge, ZMC headquarters was smaller than I expected—narrow hallways and small offices furnished with typical office décor. ZMC manages more than thirty hotels nationwide, including the Edgewater Best Western and the Inn on Lake Superior in Duluth.

I was there for the monthly Spirit Mountain board meeting. Todd Torvinen, ZMC president and vice chairman of the Spirit Mountain board, had opened the ZMC conference room for that purpose.

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Early in the afternoon of October 26, 2009, fifteen or twenty people milled about in the mud at the top of Spirit Mountain, waiting for the mayor to arrive. Spirit Mountain employees and board members made up two-thirds of the gathering; the rest were from the media. We were there to watch the mayor cut a ribbon.

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On October 8, 2009, the Duluth News Tribune ran a front-page story entitled “Wild ride coming to Duluth.” Written by veteran reporter John Myers, the story was about the Alpine Coaster, a new ride being planned for Spirit Mountain.

“It’s the coolest thing ever,” Renee Mattson, executive director of Spirit Mountain, is quoted as saying. “This is going to be a great thing for us and for all of Duluth.” The project, which “already has the blessing of city officials and the Spirit Mountain board,” is expected to cost “more than $2 million.”

For a front-page story, the article was curiously short, both in length and on facts. For example, it neglected to mention where the $2 million was going to come from, merely quoting Mattson as saying that the ride “is expected to pay for itself quickly.” None of the city officials who supposedly blessed the project were quoted, or even identified. No city councilors were asked to comment on the project. Indeed, other than Mattson, no local person was asked to comment at all.

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