Anonymous posting enabled

You can now post anonymously if you don't want to create an account at Blogspot. For now, company policy dictates that I have to screen anonymous posts. I think this would slow down discussion, too much, so I'm working on getting the policy change. Bear with me.

But no matter what the policy, my personal policy is to delete any material that is libelous or obscene. Libelous means false and malicious things said about any person, unless it is clearly a parody. Obscene means... well, mild cussing is OK, but don't be telling anyone to do an unnatural act with himself.

Also, I request that you add some sort of identifier just to facilitate discussion -- an online handle (e.g., bigfella457) or initials or whatever. Otherwise, we end up with one post by "anonymous" referring to a post by another "anonymous."

Prairie safe from germs

UND's research office has decided that it would no longer try to build a federal germ research center on Oakville Prairie, the native grassland area that university biologists say is full of rare and some endangered species.

Here's what research vice president Peter Alfonso has to say about it.

I spoke on Thursday afternoon with Alfonso and he said that, besides the fact that protests could harm UND's chances of getting the germ lab, he didn't want to hurt his office's relationship with researchers. The research office's goal is to turn UND into a top notch research university. Attracting the federal lab is one way to do so, but making researchers mad is not.

Update 5:08 p.m.: One potential site for the lab is the old Amazon.com land off of 32nd Avenue South. UND Research Foundation, of which Alfonso is the president, is looking to build a tech park there that would include a mini-germ lab. So far, no protests... One problem is the size of the site. The tech park is to take up only 20 acres but there are plans to expand it to the full 77 acres in the future. If the germ lab is built, a minimum of 30 acres is needed, so there wouldn't be much room for expansion.

Germs not very popular

Grand Forks' bid for the germ research center, known formally as the National Bio and Agro-defense Facility, is not the only one to face protests.

In Pulaski County, Ky., people living near the proposed lab site has gathered about 3,000 signatures protesting. The AP quotes farmer David Taylor: ""They made a big splash with all the positives and left all the negatives out. We feel like it would be a target for terrorists."

In Grand Forks, the protests are limited to the proposed site, which would destroy a portion of some pristine native grasslands, not the lab itself. Protesters, many of whom happen to be scientists, say they haven't got anything against the germ lab.

In Anniston, Ala., local government support lacked enthusiasm. The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., reports that Mayor Hoyt "Chip" Howell, Jr., had written a "lukewarm" letter of support that said the city would welcome a germ lab if the feds can guarantee it would be safe.

"We need an education process," he said. "This was thrust on the community with only a couple of days' notice."

UND's research office said it has the support of city officials, the state and the government of Canada, which has its own germ lab in Winnipeg. Some City Council members say they like the germ lab but the city itself has not sent a formal letter of support.

FYI: Here's where UND's proposed site is. UND owns the western half of the dun colored section immediately south of the railroad tracks and west of the green blurry section of the map. See the little dot on the central-western border of the section? That's UND's existing observatory. Go east to the eastern border of UND's property -- roughly in the middle of the section -- and that's where the germ lab would be built.

In the southwest corner of the section you'll see a discolored squiggly thing. That's an old landfill. The entire section to the south is owned by UND. You'll notice a faint line going somewhat northwest through the middle. UND's facility director said there's a high-pressure petroleum pipeline buried beneath the section. This looks like it.

Update 6:25 p.m.: Retired biology professor Robert Seabloom, who is one of the opponents of the proposed lab site, said that, though some of the disturbances mentioned above exist, most of the prairie there is pristine.

Protest all you want, I'm listening

As a government reporter, I've covered more than a few protests and I always find it rather tricky. I'm well aware that public perception of a protest -- whether it is just or just stupid -- depends a lot on how it is covered by reporters like me.

You'll notice the latest protest in a story in today's paper regarding the pristine native grassland where UND's research office is proposing to build a new multi-million dollar germ research center.

I hoped that I've been fair and balanced, but it struck me that there are several factors that can sometimes be distorted by the news media due to institutional limitations that I'll explain in a bit.

Let's take crowd size, for example. I counted nearly 200 people at the germ lab public forum, the majority of them UND faculty members or students. Assuming, as the UND research office does, that public support is necessary for this project to go forward, the question is which public?

Suppose this meeting was held at, say, Grand Forks City Hall, how many students do you think would show up? Since it was held at UND where parking can be infuriating for an outsider, how many members of the general public do you think stayed away? I wouldn't venture to guess, but I bet it would be a factor.

The general public is important here because community acceptance is a critical part of the federal government's decision.

Sometimes, though, it's not how many people protest but how angry they are and how much they have to lose. Had the forum been held elsewhere and fewer people were present, it wouldn't have had the same intensity.

You could argue that if people cared, they'd show up. The counter argument is that sometimes you don't know that you care until someone convinces you. That usually starts with a small number of ultra-passionate people who can convince bystanders to join their cause.

The problem for me as a reporter is it's hard to explain these factors without appearing to take sides. I can report the crowd size and the venue and remain objective but not the relationship between the two. I can't report the intensity of the protest directly, only through the use of powerful quotes, but even then I can't quote everyone.

Post 1, Day 1

Hello dear reader, this is a new blog about news and events in Grand Forks, N.D.

I'm a City Hall reporter at the Grand Forks Herald, the area's main daily newspaper. I write mostly about city politics, taxes and economic development.

Sometimes, when an off-beat story strikes my fancy, I'll take a detour from my usual coverage.

This blog is meant as a kind of supplement to my reporting. I hope to use it to discuss the background of some of the stories I write -- things that don't fit easily in a newspaper story -- and solicit feedback. From time to time, I expect I would go off topic because even news junkies need a break from news.

By the way, full disclosure: I was inspired to put a blog up after reading a couple of blogs by fellow area news junkies, GrandForksGuy and Dakota Huseby. I liked the casual way they and their readers were able to approach topics that I usually cover in a more formal way in my stories.