Duluth's loss is Minneapolis' gain.

Some time in the next few weeks, Larry Oakes — the last Strib reporter stationed in Greater Minnesota — will move to 425 Portland, where he'll manage the paper's six-reporter Minneapolis team.

Although the Strib will still deploy reporters northward, the retrenchment to "core" circulation areas is complete. There were ample signs this move was coming; last year, the Strib dumped its Duluth offices and Oakes worked from home.

"It does represent a pullback, because we need to consolidate," Oakes allows. "But my editors have assured me we are still going to pay attention to the big stories up there."

It won't be as easy to get those stories without eyes on the street, though Oakes' will still be there part-time. His family will stay in the Twin Ports, where he'll join them Friday through Monday. To its credit, management at least eased the financial burden by bumping up his reporter's salary to that of an editor's. (Technically, he's a "team leader.")

The price, however, is losing one of the paper's better bylines.

The 49-year-old Oakes is deeply respected in the Strib's newsroom, not just because he embraced what had been a revolving door assignment years ago. A graceful writer as well as a top-notch investigative reporter, he grabbed you from the start of his excellent and politically incorrect takedown of Minnesota's civil commitment program, but could also humanize the man who killed himself after starting the Ham Lake fire.

"I loved being a reporter and a writer, and I think I'm going to miss that," Oakes says. "But I've been doing it for 27 years, and the stories were coming around again and again, and some of the kick from that is fading. I thought as long as there's got to be a big change, why not accept the new challenge?"

Assuming the Peter Principle isn't at work here, he'll collaborate with reporters Randy Furst, Rochelle Olson, Patrice Relerford, Abby Simons, Steve Brandt and David Chanen as they prowl the Mill City's mean streets.

"I just hope I'm the type of editor where the reporters say he improved my work, asked questions at the right time," Oakes says. "That two heads are better than one."

I couldn't resist asking the Superior dude if he knew squat about Minneapolis.

"I've been oriented toward it all these years; I write for Minneapolis and the Greater metro audience," he notes. "I went to college there, I lived there for six years, I've covered the Minneapolis cops, I've owned a house in Northeast, and my son went to college there. I think I understand the city."