Would hiring new developers get Harborview moving…41 years ago?

In late 1976, the city council voted to end a development contract with Harborview Plaza Associates, complaining that the company had been given several years to find something to put on the empty Harborview lot near Riverside Park.  Hotels, condominiums, and retail stores had all been suggested.  The council was told that only the city redevelopment authority could end the contract…and two nights later, aldermen reversed their firing decision.  
 
When Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale were elected president and vice president that fall, Mondale had to give up his job as U.S. Senator from Minnesota.  Governor Wendell Anderson wanted Mondale’s job, and publicly announced that he would resign, so the new governor, Rudy Perpich, would appoint him.  Minnesota law only allowed appointment by the governor as a way to fill a Senate vacancy.  People around the state were angry about that deal, and two years later, they voted out both Senator Anderson and Governor Perpich.  In the La Crosse area, Paul Offner moved up from the Assembly to win an open seat in the State Senate.  Winning Offner’s former seat was future La Crosse mayor John Medinger.
 
The Sirloin Stockade, along Mormon Coulee Road, was featuring a club steak special for $1.69.  And Con’s Grill, on 7th Street near Lutheran Hospital, had a $4.25 steak dinner…with coffee included.  Dinner deals in 1976, yesterday in La Crosse.