To the editor:

If the Keweenaw is to thrive and if we’re going to protect its natural areas, we need a healthy tourist industry. The last thing we need is for townships to tell tourists to go home.

That’s exactly what Eagle Harbor is doing with their proposed STR ordinance.  With its tight restrictions, it reflects the attitudes of its wealthy retirees, many of whom summer there for four months of the year and then flee back to warmer locales.  It’s a town frozen in the 1960’s, with almost no economy, other than collecting property taxes.  “We don’t want tourists and we don’t want to end up like Copper Harbor”, they say.  So how that will work out?

STRs are a key to a healthy tourist economy.  We need more well-managed lodging options, not fewer. STR guests contribute to the local economy, and maybe they even contribute to a more open mindset.