Joe Soucheray: Kathy Cargill had me at ‘McLaren’ …
Kathy Cargill had me at McLaren, which distinguishes her from 99.99 percent of all other Minnesotans who are looking for their stolen Kias. McLarens are British super cars that can cost millions. Cargill collects them. Why, in this humble state, to arrive in a McLaren is like arriving at the local saloon’s Saturday night meat raffle in patent leather slippers and a tuxedo with gold lapels.
Cargill, the wife of a Cargill, as in the privately held food and agricultural giant, has taken it upon herself to engineer a beautification project on a strip of sand called Park Point, in Duluth. She has been buying up neighborhood homes, often paying more than they are worth. Some people sell. Some are holding out.
What is the woman up to? I keep seeing Eunice “Lovey” Howell, wife of Thurston, on “Gilligan’s Island.” That might be unfair to Cargill’s age. My only familiarity with her is a short McLaren video in which Kathy touts the enjoyment of driving her McLarens in Colorado. If you think I’m going insult a Cargill woman by guessing her age, you’ve got another thought coming. She appears youngish, and certainly knows how take a car through a mountain curve.
But other than that, who is she? For all I know, she’s from Hugo. And what in the world is she up to? There hasn’t been this much excitement on Park Point since the Greek freighter Socrates washed up nearly on shore in November 1985. People from miles around drove to see it. I did. And now those homes I remember must be owned by Cargill, for reasons nobody knows.
A climate change retreat? At lake level? Probably not. An Orwellian village? A Cargill family compound? The Cargill company is wildly successful. I’d take a cottage on Park Point, but the Cargills could have a compound anywhere in the world.
What is known is that Cargill doesn’t have much truck with the local gossip and asides. Lots of tut-tutting. She could very well be getting her first exposure to the modern political activist class, virtually all of whom think it’s their business to tell billionaires what to do even though most of them have never done anything except be an activist.
It’s delightful entertainment for the rest of us to watch Cargill put the back of her hand on her forehead, as though afflicted, when the mayor of Duluth, Roger Reinert, asks Cargill about her plans. Cargill told the Wall Street Journal that Reinert “peed in his Cheerios,” by which she apparently meant that it’s none of anybody’s business what she’s up to. She also threatened to withhold a pickleball court to those attempting to pry inside of her North Shore LS LLC.
It’s a humdinger of a mystery. The novelist Brian Freeman, whose entertaining Jonathan Stride series has Stride, a Duluth detective, living on Park Point, could definitely work this into his next adventure.
For now, it is admittedly enjoyable to watch the Duluth City Council and the DFL mayor – Reinert is practically a rock-ribbed Republican by today’s DFL standards – pull their hair out wondering why they don’t have a role to play or a voice to raise regarding Cargill’s plans.
Well, because it’s business, legal and private. Nobody has to sell to Cargill and those who have are certainly not complaining. It’s not like she’s from China, buying up our farmland.
Park Point is 7 miles long. A racetrack, perhaps? McLaren’s new North American proving grounds?
You all can worry up a storm. I just wonder if she has a McLaren Speedtail, average price $2,687,500, and they’re not even street legal.
Unless you owned your own strip of …
Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic’’ podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.
