Some pretty exciting proposals are suddenly bubbling up in and around Duluth, proposals that could change our community -- and permanently change it for the better.
We're talking especially about a proposed wind-energy expansion with as many as 1,500 good-paying and long-needed jobs and a Google initiative that could attract some of the nation's brightest minds and most cutting-edge business ideas.
(We also could be talking about an Armory redevelopment poised to give Duluth a long-sought hub for college life, expansion projects at the University of Wisconsin-Superior and Duluth International Airport, the becoming-reality Northern Lights Express train, and the private investments happening at Ikonics; Loll Designs, the technology start-up GeaCom, and Clyde Park, an old industrial site being turned into a center for nightlife and hockey.)
With so much excitement, it's hard not to ask: How can we help? What can any of us do to turn the possibilities into community-benefiting realities? How can we make sure, this time, opportunity doesn't slip through our fingers?
We can start by attending a strategy meeting at 4 p.m. today at the Tech Village where we can help strengthen a nomination to make Duluth a test market for new Internet access that's reported to be 100 times faster than broadband. Google wants to prove that the power of the Internet can transform a community.
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"Duluth is very well positioned to be the chosen community," Mayor Don Ness told the News Tribune Opinion page this week. "Our effort will be a major undertaking [with] very little time to pull together a very extensive nomination. We need ... help and support."
Folks with energy, ideas and technical expertise are especially and immediately needed. A Web site will be created to detail how others from the Duluth area can help.
And that is "Duluth area," as in Duluth and Superior and the entire region. The effort is even being called "Google Twin Ports."
It's too early to know what any of us can do individually to help a foreign wind-energy company decide whether to locate in Duluth and on the Iron Range or in another Midwestern region. But that doesn't mean we can't be poised with support when the time does come. A final decision is expected by June or July with construction perhaps even starting yet this year.
"There is a growing sense of optimism about Duluth's prospects to compete on an international basis," Ness said. "That's an important and significant change of culture for Duluth."
And a good one. Opportunities are here now not only because of leaders like Ness but also because of private-sector leadership, including the Area Partnership for Economic Expansion, or APEX, the Armory Arts and Music Group, and others. It's also because of every one of us who are willing to leave no question about our devotion to community, our eagerness to pitch in however we're needed and our readiness to assure success -- to guarantee that this time possibility becomes reality.
