Quickies: Cowan signs off; Herald totally owned

* My old enemy, I mean friend Lori Cowan from WDAZ is signing off tomorrow night. Anchorman Terry Dullum mentioned it in his blog today. Me and Lori used to kinda compete when she covered City Council. She'd say it was no competition but she's cocky like that.

Now I'm "stuck" with Lacey Crisp and that KVLY gal I've never introduced myself to.

* I shoulda mentioned this sooner but the Herald was officially sold to our enemy, I mean friend Forum Communications earlier this week. The paperwork was signed and we bid farewell to Knight-Ridder. The Forum people bought us a cake to welcome us to the company. Awwwwwww.

* Anybody been frolfing? For me, Frisbee golf is one of the more enjoyable part of the summer around here. Here at the City Beat, I try to keep a close eye on city taxes, but the frolf course at Lincoln Park is worth every penny. Way to go city.

Lakeville Township reacts to landfill proposal

So the good people of Lakeville Township, N.D., west of that well-known township of Turtle River, got a chance to see the proposed landfill in their backyard on Thursday.

Paul Sproule and John and Jack Scott are asking township residents for permission to build the landfill in exchange for, among other things, up to $150,000 to pay off all property taxes in the township and improving County Highway 33.

I had a hard time reading the mood of the residents, they seemed pretty combative at first because they thought Sproule et al. was going to dump on them. But after Sproule said he'll follow their wishes and keep them informed, the residents looked much more relaxed.

My guess is Sproule is going to have to offer a little more. Nobody seemed that impressed with the money. Many of the residents have either followed the fight between the city and Turtle River or have been talking to landfill opponents. I say this because they were asking very similar questions. Is the design a subtitle D dry tomb landfill (that's a legal description)? Didn't you know that site sometimes sit under 7 feet of water? How can we be sure you won't import more garbage to make more money?

In fact, Kyle Braaten and Daryl Bragg from Grand Forks County Citizens Coalition, the landfill opposition group, were there to ask more tough questions. Like have you drilled to see what kind of soil sits under that site? Sproule said he hasn't started yet because he wanted to talk to residents first.

Just for fun, I checked to see how many times GFC3 members has gotten a letter to the editor into the Herald. Eleven times since 2004.

Quickies: Buying time for landfill; one moment of forgetfulness, a lifetime of regret

* The City Beat was surprised that so many regional customers of Grand Forks' landfill hadn't even decided on a drop-dead deadline for deciding whether they'll stay with Grand Forks or defect to another landfill. Many council members had thought the regional customers were pretty anxious with news that the replacement landfill in Turtle River Township, N.D., may be stuck in court for a few years.

It helps that the city is trying to extend the closing of the landfill to the end of 2008. By then, the lawsuit might be settled.

* Horrible news: Grand Forks mom thought she took her baby to daycare but went straight to work, leaving baby in the car. It was a hot day. After work, she heads for daycare only to learn she hadn't taken baby out of the car. Runs back to car. Baby is dead.

Our intern Lisa Gibson took the lead. The City Beat helped out with a sidebar as did intern Kyle Johnson. Remarkable how easy it is for people to forget a baby in the car. Don't cast any blame, people. Be glad it's not you.

Maybe if there was a way to switch off those front seat airbags so baby seats can go in the front seat again? Check out the stats on this page.

* What the?? North Dakota Department of Health got some details about a cyanide bomb design?

What if Grand Forks ran this country?

It's a slow news day for the City Beat. Let's play Fantasy Federal Government, people, except we'll stick to local government officials in Grand Forks and Polk Counties.

Here's my picks from the officials I happen to know. (A quick note: I'm not playing favorites, here. People that don't make it just don't fit the categories I'm looking at or I don't know them real well. Each position is important so I'm not allegorically saying somebody should be somebody's boss instead of the other way around.):

President: Grand Forks City Council President Hal Gershman. The presidency is a hot seat and who ever's there is going to take the heat from all sides. I see Hal as being versatile enough to crack knuckles when he has to and smooth talk when he doesn't.

Vice President: People used to call Grand Forks Council member Curt Kreun a "junior mayor" so I'm making a junior president. I'm sure Hal will give him something to do, otherwise he'll be stuck making speeches and being laughed at.

Secretary of State: Grand Forks city administrator Rick Duquette. Being city administrator these days require some diplomatic skills. You got council members knockin' on your doors demanding one thing. You got your boss the mayor wanting another thing. What you need to do is get the council people to give your boss what he wants. But you also need to be smart enough to know when to back down and give them what they want, too.

Secretary of the Treasury: Alerus Center commission chairman Randy Newman. Well, the man's a banker, so why not?

Federal Reserve Chairman: Grand Forks finance director John Schmisek. This isn't a political position and needs somebody who's really wonkish about finance. That's our guy, John.

Secretary of Defense: Grand Forks Mayor Mike Brown. I like the way the mayor trusts his staff and uses their advice. I don't like the way the current secretary of defense has ignored the advice of his generals. Plus Brown used to sit around in a missile silo so I'm sure he's had a chance to think hard about the implications of warfare. (No, that's not a backhanded criticism of the war in Iraq.)

Director of National Intelligence: The DNI's position is a tough one. There's 16 different intelligence agencies and most of them belong to one department or another, meaning they don't work for the DNI. All the responsibilities and none of the power? Man, this one is hard. I'd say Alerus Center commissioner David Evenson. Personality-wise, I see him being able to cajole different agencies into cooperating or, if need be, twist arms. Since he ran Mayor Brown's campaign and defense controls a ton of intel assets, it'll be nice to have some cooperation there.

Secretary of Homeland Security: Grand Forks Council member Mike McNamara. Mac, a Marine serving in Iraq, told me once that his job right now is to "babysit the city of Fallujah" meaning one day he's delivering water and the next day he's delivering artillery shells. Sounds like he can run FEMA and take care of security.

Attorney General: This one's about as hard as the director of national intelligence. Who would I want to run the FBI -- meaning his job is to ferret out terrorists -- and be responsible for an array of other legal matters -- everything from prosecuting crimes on Indian reservations to prosecuting white-collar criminals? I'm stumped. I don't know that many attorneys and I don't know any that has experience catching terrorists. Ah, what the heck. Let's make it Grand Forks Council member Doug Christensen. He's got that prosecutorial style of his, I'm sure criminals will be terrified.

Secretary of the Interior: Former Grand Forks Council member Dorette Kerian. Dorette's colleagues on the council praise her for her well-reasoned policy positions. I always feel that the use of federal land favors corporate interests too much. So I'm looking for balance here.

Secretary of Commerce: Economic Development Corp. president Klaus Thiessen. His job is to make jobs. He's doing a fine job to me so he gets the job.

U.S. Trade Representative: East Grand Forks Mayor Lynn Stauss. I've heard he's pretty tenacious in negotiations. When you're in a small town in a big state, it's sometimes hard to get the attention of state officials or federal officials. These experiences will serve him well when he butts heads with the Chinese and the Europeans.

What's the blogosphere think? Make suggestions please but don't attack people. That's puerile.

Dear Anonymous, would you please pick a nickname?

I think I understand now why so many people post as "Anonymous" when they can just as easily put in a clever nickname.

In case you didn't know, here's how you do that: After you type in your comment, look below where it says "Choose an identity," select "Other." Type in whatever name you want. Click "Publish your comment." That's it.

Now you sound suave and sophisticated instead of dorky like that "Anonymous" boob. No, the other one. Not him either. The one that misspells "the." No, the first one.... (You see the problem with having 10,000 people called "Anonymous," right?)

Cold hard facts about cold hard cash

The City Beat has two stories today about the property tax cuts being debated at the Grand Forks City Council. One is about the council debating with itself over a 6.5 mill cut. The other is about the council urging all the other taxing entities to make a 5 percent cut to their mill levies. You can read them if you want.

I want to take a different approach on the blog, which is how much would you really save? Assuming you own a $100,000 home, here's a few facts:

* Currently, the total mills levied by all local government entities is 491.83. That's a $2,213.24 tax bill.

* If the city cuts 6.5 mills, as the council wants, you save $29.25.

* If the school district cuts 11.7 mills, as the council wants, you save $52.61. The school district has decided, after finishing its budget, that it can only cut 6 mills. You'll save $27.

* If the county cuts 5 mills, as the council wants, you save $22.50.

* If the park district cuts 2.2 mills, as the council wants, you save $11.

* If they all made the cuts that the council wants, you save $114.26 (there's a lot of rounding involved so don't expect everything to add up properly). But that's probably not going to happen because the school, the park and the county people say that they're very dependent on property taxes for funding. The city, at least, gets the sales tax revenues, 28 percent of which it uses for property tax relief.

For each mill levied, given the current assessed values of Grand Forks properties, the government entities collect $120,973. That means:

* The city would collect $14,242,151 without the tax cut. With the 6.5 mill cut, it would collect $13,455,827. Note that this isn't the city budget, just what it gets from property taxes. The budget is way bigger.

* The school district would collect $27,837,097 without the tax cut. With the 6 mill cut district officials agreed to, it would collect $27,111,259.

* The county would collect $11,903,743. No tax cut has been determined, so I won't guess.

* The park district would collect $5,273,213. No tax cut has been determined here either.

Quickies: Good-bye to Hamerlik and Kerian, update on historic debate

* Last night was the last council meeting for Grand Forks City Council members Gerald Hamerlik of Ward 2 and Dorette Kerian of Ward 6.

Good luck to both. I thought they both did a fine job and I enjoyed working with them.

Gerry used to call me up when I got the details wrong, which was cool because he was always nice about it. He'll also be missed on the Alerus Center commission. He was known for making the motion to file the financial data with "the appropriate city authorities" or something like that -- I'm sure he'll correct me if he reads this. It was called the "Gerry motion" in his honor.

Dorette was great with policy matters and, even though she didn't talk much, I always had the feeling she was almost as much a wonk as Council member Curt Kreun. She had a gentle way of correcting other council members' misconceptions that was completely unquotable. I really hated that. Dorette sat on the Planning and Zoning Commission, the home of the greatest collection of planning policy wonks in this town. Attend one of their meetings and find out why.

Gerry's and Dorette's replacements, Mike McNamara of Ward 2 and Art Bakken of Ward 6, will take over next week.

Well, that was going to be a "Quickie" but look how long it got!

The council always annoys the living wits out of me with those long debates over, like, $2, but I guess I like 'em anyway.

* In case you missed it, there were some explanations about the apparent red tape at the Historical Preservation Commission. So go ahead and destroy that priceless historical home you own. No one can stop you!

* I got a follow-up on that big fight between the City Council and the Water and Light Commission.

* Some updated numbers on that earlier post about the 2.5 mill-cut from the dike levies. Just read it. Don't make me explain it again.

Savings now or savings later

Well, since Dave Miller says he's reading my tax stories, here's another one for ya.

A budget resolution is the first item on the agenda Monday night for the Grand Forks City Council. The council is using the resolution to tell the mayor publicly that it wants a 6.5 mill cut to the property tax levy.

The administration looks like it'll go along, but it's advising the council to only cut the levy by 3.63 mills. Most of the difference is in the dike levy, which the council wants to cut by 2.5 mills and the administration doesn't.

The philosophical debate comes down to this: If there's no cut, homeowners could expect to save $51.75 per $100,000 value of their home starting in 2015. If there is a cut, homeowners will save $11.25 a year immediately.

It's like your credit card. You pay off the principal, in this case the city's share of the dike project, early, you save on interest. If you don't, you do pay interest but the debt payments are gradual so you have more money to spend right now.

The first thing that struck me was that the savings are pretty modest either way. For every $100,000 value of your home, you're paying about $2,200 now to the city (the rest goes to the school and park districts and the county). It might mean a lot to a senior citizen on a fixed income, though. I don't know.

What's your opinion, blogosphere? Is this just a political move or do you still appreciate the savings?

You can read more in my story here. (This is a query to the Herald search engine so don't expect anything until the story's gotten on the Web.)

Tune in to Channel 2 at 7 p.m. if you want to watch the council debate.

Update 1:31 a.m., 6/27/06: So I finally figured out what Conservative Yahoo wanted. What will you save total, assuming your house never increase in value and assuming it's worth $100,000?

If the council cuts the 2.5 mills now, you'll save $168.75 over 15 years starting in 2007. If it pays off them dikes early, you'd save $362.25 over seven years starting in 2015.

Quickies: Peder Rice's blog, EGF Civic Center funding

* Yet another new city issues blog, this one from former Grand Forks City Council candidate Peder Rice. His first post on "The Progressive Palette" is about plans for the Merrifield Road bypass. What's it about? he asks. It's gonna be a road for trucks so they don't have to go through town. This will be pretty handy during the beet harvest season.

Funny note: Peder says he likes playing virtual mayor with SimCity. I like SimCity, too, but I wish I didn't have to micromanage so much.

* The East Grand Forks City Council will be discussing whether it accepts the Water and Light Commission's deal to fund Civic Center repairs. Council members wanted $750,000 from the commission but the commission would only give them $150,000. The rest will have to be repaid, though without interest. The city will pay another $25,000 using money from reserves.

Downtown parking problem is perplexing

Downtown parking was the focus of a recent sparsely attended open house put on by the Grand Forks-East Grand Forks Metropolitan Planning Organization. Those are the folks responsible for the recent battle over Grand Forks' population.

At the open house, they had a couple of eye-opening graphics that showed how people were using available parking. It's clear that everybody hates those parking ramps. Check out the ramp across the street from Central High School. Cars packed the on-street parking right outside the ramp but, inside, the ramp was less than half full.

MPO executive director Earl Haugen said many people don't think the ramps are conveniently located -- too far from businesses -- and there are safety concerns.

I'll say there are. The day the MPO held that open house, one of my colleagues at the Herald had his satellite radio stolen from his car. The security guard was even making his rounds that day.

The weird thing is I asked one of the consultants that's working on the MPO parking study. He thought the real issue is people don't know those ramps are public parking and the crime thing is overrated. Maybe if you're from a big city like Winnipeg, which is where the consultants are based.

If you want to tell the MPO your parking woes, click here.

ND AG says he can't stop video bingo but gov. can

Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa officials got some sorta-good news from Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem Thursday. "There's not much I could do in my official capacity to prevent a Class 2 casino of the kind they're talking about," he told the City Beat. But, he said, the governor could still put the kibosh on the Grand Forks casino the tribe wants to build.

The tribe wants a Class 3 casino, meaning one with slot machines, but there's fat chance of that. The tribe would have to get the state gaming compact amended and Gov. John Hoeven said he wouldn't do it without the Legislature's blessings. In other words: Fat chance.

As an alternative, the tribe is looking at a Class 2 casino, which may have bingo, except it wants electronic bingo machines that look a lot like slot machines. The good news for the tribe is the AG can't stop this. The bad news is the governor can. The tribe will need to convert land to trust status, meaning tribal jurisdiction, to build a casino and the governor has veto power over that.

What's a tribe to do? The better news for the tribe is, without the AG in the way, it can develop video casinos at existing trust land sites near Williston, N.D., and between Minot and Bismarck. But then again, if those were such great locations, it would've built casinos there by now.

Reader request: What's up with that Altru sign?

Kbgfnd had a question:

What's the deal with the huge new sign on the Park Board's Center Court building?

Altru's logo is now prominently displayed on that sign. It was being installed by Cook Signs Thursday.

I put a call into Altru. We'll see what's up.

Update 2:47 p.m., 6/23/06: Julie Jeske in Altru's PR department said Altru has been providing outreach services at Center Court for a while and is now doing a bit of promo. By outreach services she means having a physical therapist at Center Court.

Julie, by the way, is one of the new members of the Park Board and says she's already gotten e-mails from concerned citizens.

Landfill options get closer to home

The City Beat attended yet another dull meeting on your behalf Thursday. Grand Forks City Council member Curt Kreun said, "He's here so often it's like he's one of us."

I tell ya what, you know how anthropologists hang out with their subjects a long long time until they blend into the background? That's me, your anthropologist at City Hall. I was gonna say Jane Goodall, but that'd be calling city officials chimps and that ain't nice.

Anyway, back to the point: Looks like that landfill lawsuit the city is embroiled in with the Turtle River Township zoning board is getting more and more uncertain. So the city is preparing some options in case it loses.

I feel for those guys at the city. Nobody wants a landfill in their backyard so the only way the city's gonna get a landfill without a fight is to put it, say, in the middle of nuclear weapon test site. I say this because I'm expecting the options being laid out to be challenged.

1) The city could put a landfill somewhere within its four-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction, which is the area where it controls zoning codes. That'll get people riled up because, earlier this year, when the city was extending the ET, many landowners were paranoid that this was to make it easier to build a landfill near them. City leaders said they just wanted to control growth in the region. Well, now they've decided the landowners' fears sound like a viable idea.

2) The city is working with some landowners in Lakeville Township, southwest of Turtle River Township. The landowners there apparently want to sell their land to the city to build a landfill. The question is do they have neighbors and are those neighbors gonna be mad?

3) The city could work with Fargo to build a new landfill together. But, again, where is it going to be and who lives nearby?

The only option that's not going to make anybody mad is to say the hell with it and contract with Waste Management, which owns a couple of landfills in North Dakota. Of course, none of them are nearby so the region will have to pay more for garbage. Maybe that'll make somebody mad, too.

Reader Request: Historic red tape?

Cottonwoodbeach has something to get off his/her chest:

Any thoughts on the City Historical Preservation Commission? I would be interested to see a blog entry or newspaper article about what exactly their contribution has been to the progress or lack of progress by the city. It seems that the commission is holding back a number of business and residential property owners from making changes to their properties, which has the effect of increasing the cost of making changes or preventing the changes from being made. An example showed up in their most recent meeting. During discussion about a proposed teardown of the Transport, Inc. building, one of the commission members became concerned that the teardown of the building might make way for something "new and hideous". As opposed to the crap pile that is already Gateway?

Aw, don't be so hard on these guys. Their charter is to protect the city's historic heritage. What you were reading is the commission deliberating about whether certain buildings deserve to be protected. That's important because there's always the possibility that the "pile of crap" could be restored and converted into something worthwhile.

Consider some of the coolest buildings in town and you'll notice a lot of them were restored. I don't know what kind of wreck they were but they're pretty nice now. There's the Warehouse Apartments, the Metropolitan Opera House (now apartments), the Freighthouse Apartments, etc. The Herald building was butt-ugly right after the flood, but it looks pretty cool now.

The question you're asking, Cottonwoodbeach, is where the balance lies between heritage and cost. I'm not sure how much more it costs to build around here because of the commission -- you readers can tell me -- but I haven't heard any complaints yet.

Full disclosure: One of my colleagues, Marsha Gunderson, chairs the commission. But I'd feel the same otherwise.

Update 8:14 p.m., 6/26/06: I had a brief chat with Marsha today. She says you could blow up your historically significant home and she wouldn't have the power to stop you. The Historical Preservation Commission only has control if you use federal funds (which sometimes goes through the state or the city) to blow up the house. Unless you know something I don't, that sounds pretty fair. You use government money, the government gets to tell you what to do.

Update 8:22 p.m., 6/26/06: Looks like the commission's Peg O'Leary beat me to the punch. Check out her comments. I hope this teaches us all a lesson about getting too far ahead of the facts.

Request to readers

I've noticed some readers making off-topic comments because, well, there's no on-topic place for them to post. Here's my request: E-mail your off-topic comment to me -- the link to my e-mail is below my picture and profile -- and I'll turn it into a post. If you want anonymity, give me a nickname and I'll use that for attribution. Just trying to keep the place neat. Thank you. That is all.

Alerus Center and UND

The City Beat covered UND way too much today.

Besides the story about the reaction to the university going to Division I, I ended up at an Alerus Center meeting where UND came up a couple times in the discussion.

The biggest issue for the center is trying to get UND to commit to a long-term lease. Right now, it's just three years at a time. That's too short a timeframe for the center to commit to major improvements, such as that graphics package we talked about last month.

UND is also urging the center to change the turf. That "magic carpet" system was way cool six years ago but now its considered outdated. Alerus Center executive director Charlie Jeske says new turf simulates grass better and reduces injuries.

Athletic director Tom Buning recently gave Alerus Center officials a wish list. Besides the graphics and the turf, he'd like to have a coach's office out there for football staff and renaming of the field to Red Jarrett Field.

The other discussion about UND has to do with the parking situation. Canad Inns is supposed to replace some of the parking taken up by construction of its hotel complex but there's been some miscommunication. Alerus Center staff and UND is getting real worried that there will be even less parking for football fans than before. The fewer parking spaces available the more fans will have to take the shuttle bus.

I can't see how people can tailgate if that happens. You could always ask the bus drivers to hitch your BBQ trailer in the back, but I'm guessing they'll say "no."

Is there a problem?

The City Beat is puzzled by the apparent lack of reaction to what would seem kind of a provocative post about the funding for the overhaul of East Grand Forks' Civic Center. Even if you thought I was way out of line, you woulda said something right?

This is the problem I have with writing stories about tax dollars. I'm never sure if anybody knows what I'm rambling about. What's up people? Surveys told us that you, our readers, want us to do a better job as "watch dogs" for the public interest. You say taxes are too high but it's like I'm talking to walls here!

Quickies: Politics, women in politics and talk show politics

* I complete forgot to mention that I had this story in yesterday's paper on the Riverside Pool. "Politics"? What politics? I see a pattern here. My prediction is that when they hire the consultants, whoever these unlucky souls are, they will be hounded in the hopes that they produce the expected results. Hope I'm wrong.

* Christine Paige-Diers' group aimed at promoting women in politics is meeting 5 p.m. Thursday at the Ina Mae Rude Entrepreneur Center at UND.

* Dakota reports that some people want to keep newly elected Council member Mike McNamara from talking about city issues on his radio talk show.

Utility fees in place of property tax?

The City Beat has a fun little story for you today about the struggle the East Grand Forks City Council is having with its water and light commission.

Basically, the council needs $1 million to repair the Civic Center. It doesn't have that kind of money sitting around and -- I'm just taking a wild guess here -- raising property taxes isn't that popular.

So it's asking water and light to foot 75 percent of the bill. Water and light gets its money from utility fees and, considering the pressure it faces to cut fees, naturally resisted the council's suggestion.

I'll admit that I'm pretty skeptical when funds get mixed like this. When most people pay their utility bills, I think they believe that their money is paying for the amount of water or electricity they consume -- not for the repair of a city own events center.

Following this train of thought, it's reasonable, then, to ask if the council isn't looking for a source of funding that isn't going to make taxpayers angry. Don't forget that, in 2004, voters voted against the proposed repair and upgrade of the Civic Center that carried a price tag of $3 million. It's only $1 million this time.

There's two ways to look at this.

First is the purist view. I know that in Grand Forks, many council members like the fact that they don't transfer utility funds to other city operations. This is in contrast to other North Dakota cities, whose utility departments are essentially profit making operations. Some council members like Eliot Glassheim have even said that they see fees as a kind of regressive tax.

The other view is more mixed. East Grand Forks council members argue that their utility department has the additional responsibility of maintaining city buildings. Council member Henry Tweten is a strong advocate of this position and he used to be on the water and light commission himself.

The fountain of Stauss

Check out the story the City Beat had on Mayor Lynn Stauss' efforts to build a fountain to memorialize the 1997 flood in the middle of the Red River.

Now that's what I call chutzpah. You just can't keep the guy down.

He'd tried to get funding in 2002 before by suggesting that Grand Forks share a $1 million federal highway that both cities applied for but only Grand Forks got. I think it only ended because the feds stepped in and said highway money can't be used for a fountain.

So he's been waiting four years to bring it up again.

This time, he's asking his City Council to spend $100,000 that it had set aside for his River City market -- which implies he's coming back for more when that project gets going.

A source told me he'll ask for $100,000 from the water and light department, right after the city said it will ask -- actually tell -- the department to cough up $681,000 to help pay for the overhaul of the Civic Center. And that's with council members already wondering how utility fees can be kept from rising too high.

Add to this the expected request for $300,000 from the Grand Forks City Counci at a time when the council is trying to keep property taxes down. Council President Hal Gershman said he's not necessarily opposed to the request because the money could come from dike betterment funds, which have been used in the past for cosmetic improvements.

Anyway, this isn't a criticism of Stauss -- just sheer admiration. How the heck does he think he's gonna do this? But, then, I've heard of how hard he lobbied for dike money both from Congress and from the Legislature. Chutzpah got the job done, then, didn't it?

Then again, he did piss the hell out of the Grand Forks council when he went on talk radio in 2002 to gripe about how unfair it was for Grand Forks to keep that $1 million to itself.

Update 12:18 a.m., 6/21/06: The council voted last night to give Stauss his $100,000. The total cost is expected to be $800,000. The break down goes like this: $100,000 from the city, $100,000 from East Grand Forks water and light, $300,000 from Grand Forks and $300,000 from donations. The mayor suggested that people who got flood aid give back a little of what they got.

Holy moly, long meeting!

Did anyone out there follow that insanely long discussion on new billboards at the Grand Forks City Council on Monday? You'd think they were deciding something earth-shattering.

Actually, the council just had to decide whether Newman Outdoor Advertising could put up four new billboards on South Washington Street. Business owners there are up in arms because they say the billboards would detract from their own advertising and, besides that, they say billboards are ugly.

The city planning department agrees. Too much clutter.

But council members favored Newman, giving the company three billboards.

I liked Council member Curt Kreun's explanation. He said Newman is building three new ones to replace three other dilapidated ones that it hadn't dare take down. Under the old billboard law, old billboards could be taken down but not replaced so advertising companies just left them there.

Could Newman have just replaced its old signs in the same location? asked businessman Greg Norman.

Sure, Kreun said, but those signs blocked the view of street entrances. "You want somebody to be killed?"

Maybe it is earth-shattering!

To be fair, the council was struggling to be fair to Newman, to the objecting businesses and, Kreun said, to the businesses that have to put up with the dilapidated signs. Fairness takes a long time.

No kiddin'. It took three years to amend that billboard law. Kreun was on the committee. You shoulda seen his face when Council member Bob Brooks, worried about the fairness of the law, asked that another committee take another look! Man, I'm glad I just report.

Update 11:49 p.m., 6/19/06: I noticed that Dakota was watching the meeting, too. She mentioned something that Council member Gerald Hamerlik pointed out. Hmmm, I could've sworn there was an explanation for this at the Planning and Zoning Commission but I can't recall for the life of me what it was.

Quickies: Election analysis, Mac

* The City Beat decided to indulge my love of numbers. So I did a story today analyzing the City Council election.

It was too weird. Dems voted en masse but rejected one of their own, Tom Potter. Mike McNamara looked like he had pretty good competition -- I mean four other guys who wanted the same seat -- but turned in a stunning victory. And the weirdest thing is how big a deal the property tax issue was in the council race even though the city gets a quarter of the tax revenues. The school board gets half but C.T. Marhula who wanted steep mill cuts lost his race for school board.

As usual, you can see my work by downloading this Excel spreadsheet.

Check out the voter turnout. The biggest turnout was in Ward 5, which didn't even have a council seat open. I always thought people were obsessed with city politics more than other political entities. Hmmm.

* One last fawning story about Mac, I promise. It's in the Sunday edition. Complain all you want. I don't care. It's a national story.

* I don't know if any of you care, but the U.S. tied Italy 1-1 at the FIFA World Cup today. Nice backdrop for the Grand Cities Soccer Tournament. People around here are always mocking the "beautiful game" because there's hardly any points scored. Uh, like that game hockey? I called the Park District once to see if they had any soccer leagues. Only for kids, they said. Ayayay.

I see Rick Abbott saw the game, too.

* Don't forget to be nice to dad on Father's Day. I got mine a book on dog obedience. He's nuts about Leo, his new dog.

Quickies: Voter turnout, Mac all over the news

* Herald colleague Prairie Pundit is interpreting low voter turnout on Tuesday as satisfaction with the status quo. It's item No. 3.

The City Beat is working on an election analysis, too. More on that later.

* In a "duh" moment, I decided I'd better post those letters that the governor and Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa exchanged. Check the bottom of this post.

* The story about Mike McNamara is getting a lot of national attention as we here at Herald thought it would. Web master Tom Dutcher reports that we got 210,000 hits on that story alone, which he said is three times what we get daily for the entire Web site. In fact, the story was the most requested on the entire Knight-Ridder Digital network.

The AP version has been making the rounds. Here it is on CNN. This one's the early version from Grand Forks. Here it is on the "San Jose Mercury News." This one was written from Iraq.

Rick Abbott reports that he was on CNN's American Morning with Soledad O'Brien, but I haven't found a link yet. There's a link in the story to a video.

* There's a new blog from Jeni M.. The blog's name is it's topic: "Grand Forks, UND, and the unvoiced." Are we talking about students here, Jeni?

* A colleague sent along this interview with a journalist-blogger. It's always nice to know how others practice their craft.

* Don't forget, Farmer's Market starts this weekend in Grand Forks' Town Square downtown. It's 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Saturday until Sept. 30. This has always bugged me: If it's "Farmer's Market" singular -- rather than "Farmers' Market" -- which farmer owns it? Writers are such nit-pickers.

Correction: Wilkerson Hall is in Ward 1

Ayayay. Will somebody kick me in the pants, please?

"Poor Peder Rice. The polling place at UND's Wilkerson Hall had a grand total of five votes. Ouch." I mentioned this in passing in a comment. I was wrong. Wilkerson Hall is in Ward 1. Peder ran in Ward 2.

Five votes ain't a lot and probably doesn't diminish Dakota's criticism. But it changes the story a little. Sorry. Sorry. I got confused by the fact that city precinct numbers are different from county precinct numbers.

Take your resolution and shove it

Haha. It'd be pretty funny if the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa ended up saying that the to Grand Forks City Council. Not that I'm expecting anything of that nature, but a) some tribal officials are apparently confused/infuriated with the way they've been treated while trying to get a resolution of support from the council and b) they're looking for other options.

The City Beat offers you two stories today.

One talks about the political maneuvering going on at the state and local level. Bill Johnson, the tribal consultant leading the casino effort, gets the feeling there's some conspiracy against the tribe by some members of the council. I'll let you figure out who. It's in the story.

The other story is about the other, other option for the tribe. Tribal chairman Ken Davis told me the other day that if the tribe can't get trust land in Grand Forks for a casino it could build casinos on existing trust lands near Williston, N.D., or between Bismarck and Minot. That's the other option. The other, other option is to leave all the restrictions behind and build a casino where the people really want casinos. That would be in Mississippi, the nation's third largest casino market by revenue.

I got some links for you to fiddle with:

* Edmonton, Alta., based Myriad Golf, doing business as Myriad World Resorts, is the company that's developing the whole casino and entertainment complex that Turtle Mountain would be a part of. Check out the slideshow in the intro page. That indoor golf course -- yes, you heard right, air-conditioned golf -- is HUGE.


Architect's rendering courtesy of Myriad World Resorts. If you really want to see how that golf course would look, check the image at the top of this page. Myriad rep Fred Haynes says the layout is different now, but this gives you a good idea of the size.

* Here's the press release mentioning Turtle Mountain buying a $40 million parcel at the Myriad development.

* Other media have been all over this story and I picked up the scent from this story and this story.

* Curious about this Tunica, Miss., place? Look here and here.

Update 9:43 p.m., 6/15/06: I just remembered that people might want to see the content of the letters that Bill Johnson and Gov. John Hoeven's legal counsel Duane Houdek exchanged. Here's Johnson's. Here's Hoeven's, page 1 and page 2.

The "Mac" fiasco

Alright, now that the election is over, let me reveal this to you: I didn't really want Mike McNamara to win.

Nothing against him personally, I just don't really want a potential media competitor to be in a position to know things I don't. Cripes, people, I don't even like talk radio (sorry Dakota, et al.).

But none of you knew that because I did my job and tried to be fair and balanced (not the ironic Fox version, the authentic version).

Yes, we screwed up on the banner photo. That's the fault of the photographer and designers, none of whom know anything about city politics and therefore couldn't be supporting any candidate. The weekend photographer and layout staff that did the page isn't very politically astute. The part-time photographer who took the now infamous photo is a UND student from Las Vegas.

I also focused early on on Mac because -- guess what? -- he's got a really interesting story. A marine running for office from the war zone? Are you kidding me? Matt Drudge thought it was cool and we've been getting media inquiries all day. I wouldn't be surprised if the guy got on national TV.

When I wrote about Mac initially, I didn't let him talk too much about the politics, just his situation in Iraq. Since that initial coverage, I haven't given him any more ink than other candidates.

Hope this clears up any conspiracies.

Update 1:14 p.m., 6/15/06: A major "whoops" by me. I didn't mean the entire desk staff didn't know anything about city politics. I meant the staff that laid out the Monday page with the offending photo.

We had a friendly debate over beers. To them, it was just a random and attractive photo that shows a glimpse of the community. They didn't really think about whose name it was that's on the sign. It's not their fault, one of them said, if readers perceive their intentions to be less than honorable.

I tore my hair out and said it's all about perception when you're in the public eye. That's why smart politicians will avoid not only a conflict of interest but the appearance of a conflict of interest. Oh well, they'll be repentant someday.

Also, the other thing I should have noted is that Mac did say he wouldn't let his political career mingle with his radio career. I won't discount a Marine's honor, but it still makes my professional instincts itch like mad.

"Synergy" has happened!!!

AAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Beloved Herald columnist Ryan Bakken is going to be on the Dullum File with WDAZ's Terry Dullum. I thought Bak was just kidding when he suggested "synergy" with our arch-enemies. But for the price of a McDonald's salad, he's gone and provided material for Dullum.

By the way, Bak says Dullum had a Big Mac. Have you seen Bak and have you seen Dullum? Man, the world is so unfair.

Election results!

In case you didn't know, Grand Forks County does a great job reporting election results on its Web site. Click here after 8 p.m. That's when ballot counting starts. Results include races in outlying communities in the county.

Update 9:57 p.m., 6/13/06: Magic eight-ball was right! Mike McNamara won in Ward 2 with 49.1 percent of the vote. The nearest competitor was Jon Dorner with 19.3 percent of the vote. In Ward 6, Art Bakken won with 53.7 percent of the vote.

The City Beat also predicted a Mac victory, but failed to predict Dorner's strong showing. I thought Mac would get the most votes, then Tom Kenville, then Dorner, then Peder Rice, then Cameron Stewart. But it was Mac, Dorner, Kenville, Stewart then Rice.

Update 2:31 p.m., 6/14/06: Sorry gang, I was really wiped out last night. Here's the vote tally, in case you haven't checked the county Web site:

Ward 2 City Council
Camerson Stewart Sr. 82 votes/11.8%
Mike McNamara 341 votes/49.06%
Jon Dorner 134 votes/19.28%
Tom Kenville 108 votes/15.54%
Peder Rice 29 votes/4.17%
Write-in 1/0.14%

Ward 4 City Council
Hal Gershman 528 votes/97.96%
Write-in 11/2.04%

Ward 6 City Council
Art Bakken 237 votes/53.74%
Tom Potter 203 votes/46.03%
Write-in 1/0.23%

Election Day

Don't forget to vote today.

If you don't know where to vote or what ward you live in, the City of Grand Forks can help.

Confused? Can't decide? Here's some opinions:

* The Herald's Tom Dennis weighs in on races for City Council Ward 2 and Ward 6, school board and Park District. He also weighs in on those Constitutional measures.

* Dakota weighs in on everything.

* GrandForksGuy weighs in on the council races.

Quickies: EGF Civic Center, Riverside Pool

* East Grand Forks City Council members approved a $908,000 overhaul of the Civic Center tonight.

They learned their lesson from 2004 when voters rejected a $3 million overhaul because it was too expensive and would result in a property tax hike. This time, all the money will come out of the reserves, which are the city's savings account. A quarter of the money would come out of general reserves, bringing reserve levels to the lowest level recommended by the state. Three-quarters would come out of the water and light department's reserves.

* Grand Forks Council members said the city needs to get the Park District on board with any plans to re-open Riverside Pool. Sounds like a rebuke to Council member Doug Christensen for his enthusiastic (over enthusiastic?) support for the pool. What, is this guy running for mayor? Ward 5 is in the south end. Hawhaw.

* That plan to put bike racks downtown was questioned by some Grand Forks council members. Bob Brooks: $2,700 to park 24 bikes? Christensen: Isn't this gonna prevent easy cleaning of the sidewalks? The big question, though, is: Will this encourage biking to work? City staff suggested renting out the bike parking. Dorette Kerian: "I hope we get customers first before we put them in." Nice idea but car parking is free.

* WDAZ follow-up on proposed dog park on 24th Avenue South. Link courtesy of GrandForksGuy. Also, this is the first time I've referenced a WDAZ story. Lord, this Forum buy-out is getting to me.

* If you want to bitch about downtown parking, there's an open house about it 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday, in the Herald Community Room.

* "Please, for the love of God, GET more airline choices," JGS pleads, in reaction to this story. They're trying man, they're trying. The way our boardings are going that ain't gonna happen anytime soon. Who wants to enter an ailing market?

* Fear and loathing in Grand Forks.

* Fear and loathing amuses Good Ol' Boy.

* No fear but plenty of loathing from Rick Abbott in reaction to loathing from Good Ol' Boy (And I thought everybody hated the Herald!).

Honestly people, can't we all get along?

* All those commercials about how dangerous smoking is even in bars is pissing off bar owners. Is there a bartender out there that is opposed to smoking in bars? Because this is supposed to protect workers but the only people I've heard get excited about smoking bans are consumers.

Damn damn damn damn damn it all

Real quickly. The City Beat just got in to work and managed to grab a copy of today's paper -- you know the one with the photo of "Vote MacNamara Ward 2" signs at the top? Yeah. Sorry. That wasn't me. We screwed up big time. We just screwed up. Sorry to everyone else in Ward 2.

Update 4:50 p.m., 6/12/06: Peder Rice, a Ward 2 candidate, is pretty upset with the photo. He even mentioned legal options.

I empathize but I doubt there's anything he can do. We're not campaigning for Mac and the Constitution says we can print whatever we want even if it makes us look stupid.

If any of you are still wondering about motives, allow me to quote Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

"Unknown unknowns"

The City Beat had an epiphany Sunday morning while trying vainly to fall asleep.

I've been going about reporting on City Hall the wrong way, letting the politicians drive the agenda rather than the other way around. Just because it's being talked about at City Council doesn't mean it's important. The stuff that's not being talked about, the problems not yet discovered -- that's what reporters are supposed to figure out.

The current paradigm is mostly meeting-centric, meaning many story ideas emerge out of meetings. That's so ass-backwards I can't even begin to describe how stupid I feel for not seeing it sooner. Readers, why haven't you called the City Beat to task??

The new paradigm will be totally issue-centric. That means looking at the city as a whole, not just its governance. I'll continue to attend council meetings, of course, but that's not the full story. The council is obsessed with property taxes because voters are obsessed with property taxes. But the question I rarely ask is, what are we getting for our taxes? Are we getting the best bang for the buck?

I fault myself for not paying attention to things like potholes, which some or many residents care about. And the frightening reason why I don't might be because there's no pothole meetings every week.

Sigh...

Anyway, don't expect coverage to change right away. The things I write about -- taxes, dikes, elections, tribal casino -- are still important, but there's way more to city government than that. The question is what am I missing?

As defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said: "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

Damn, I wish I knew what I didn't know. Blogosphere, I'm counting on you.

Quickies: Casino options, Riverside pool

* The City Beat asked Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa chairman Ken Davis what he meant when he said the tribe could pursue other "opportunities" besides Grand Forks. One thing we know, if we don't get one nobody else nearby's gonna get it either.

* Canad Inns president Leo Ledohowski was in town for the ArtFest. I ran into him and a couple of his people on Saturday. He said he wasn't in town on formal business but to see ArtFest. I don't know how many Winnipeggers know about this event but you'd think it'd be in Leo's best interests to inform them, wouldn't you?

* As previously reported, a proposal to study Riverside Pool goes before the Grand Forks City Council Monday night.

* Rick Abbott's GF Teenview blog moves to Blogger. Rick's also posting his photos on Flickr.com.

* People like Rick keep giving me credit for pioneering the "quickies" concept. Thanks but I stole it from one of my favorite blogs, DefenseTech.org. They call it "Rapid Fire" over there.

At the races

The City Beat can't figure out why the Grand Forks City Council race is so hot in Ward 2 and so cool in Ward 6.

Look at how many signs those Ward 2 guys have out there. One guy from Ward 6 isn't even bothering with signs.

(Kudos to my colleague Bobbi Berberich for the nifty graphic. Too bad it ran in black and white in the paper. She also did the graphic for my story on Grand Forks' electorate.)

True there's more people running in Ward 2 than in Ward 6, but the number of people running is already indicative of how much the wards' residents give a rip about city politics.

Is it that rezoning thing in Ward 2? That's the only really hot issue that sets the ward from other wards. All the candidates have one opinion or another with most thinking it wasn't such a hot idea. The opposition would include Jon Dorner, Peder Rice and Cameron Stewart. Tom Kenville hasn't said much about it. And Mike McNamara is for it.

Quickies: Readers respond to Herald sale, Eastside road work

* Dakota was giving the thumbs-down to local political candidates who didn't attend the meetings of the bodies they're hoping to be elected to. One of her readers had the same thought I did: Maybe the council candidates are at home watching the meetings on TV (except Mike MacNamara, who's in Iraq).

That's what I'd do if I could.

I even have this whole drinking game worked out where you drink whenever one of the council members say something predictable. Like Doug Christensen making any reference to politics as "making sausage" or Bob Brooks talking about "getting off my soap box."

* I see Prairie Pundit had a post yesterday about the Herald getting bought by the Forum. I've got to read my own newspaper's products more.

On the same topic, 265 of our readers responded to a Web survey about the buyout. Most think it's either too early to tell or that it's great news.

* Better late than never: I forgot to mention a story I did a couple of days ago on the humongo road project in East Grand.

* Speaking of Eastside, City Hall's posting the info packets given out to council members on the Web. Good for them. This will make city governance more transparent like in Grand Forks. Now if city staff would make the information on those packets less cryptic to the rest of us like they do in Grand Forks, that'd be dandy.

* I knew Good Ol' Boy was blogging but didn't figure he'd have a site separate from Dakota's, but I found him at Boyd Drive Follies.

That's a lot of blogs reporting and commenting on local news. There's Dakota, Grand Forks Guy, JGS, Rick Abbott and my colleague Prairie Pundit (a.k.a. Tom Dennis). Schlossy reports on the Fighting Sioux, so I guess that's local news, too.

* Oh yeah, Good Ol' Boy says he hates those numbskulls who speed through yellow lights. I admit it: I've been guilty a few times.

* There's this Web site where I've been posting some photos that I take around the region. It's pretty neat. Looks like there's a few Forkers on there. Grand Forks photos are here. Photos from around the valley are here. Most of them are mine plus this person that has a bunch of photos of his or her grandma mowing the lawn in Grafton, N.D. North Dakota photos are here and Minnesota photos are here.

We're not joining the frickin' Home Team

The City Beat apologizes for skipping posting yesterday. I was out celebrating the Fargo Forum's purchase of the Herald with some current co-workers and future co-workers from the Home Team.

Those goobers at WDAZ actually think we're joining their team. In reality, they are joining our team because we outnumber them, which means the Herald will be the dominant partner in any partnership. (One of the DAZers said that a lot of them read my blog, so that last line was for them.)

Speaking of blog, Rick Abbott, a WDAZ production assistant, has a blog, too. It's called GF Teenview.

He's all excited about the purchase:

Will there be collaboration with DAZ, like a shared newsroom and internet departments? Shared advertising? Would Herald reporters do TV spots and DAZ reporters write for the paper on occasion?

Anything is possible, and that's what makes it so exciting. The opportunites for both news outlets are endless. This can only be good for everyone.

Holy Jehosaphat, Rick! That's the thing us newspaper reporters fear most! We don't want to become TV reporters! You know how we feel about TV news!

But seriously, there's no way collaboration can ever be that close, like a shared newsroom. First, because it will turn off readers and hurt us both. Who wants to hear the same crap from two news sources? And second, competition keeps us strong and honest. The best part of my job is when I get a hot scoop and I know it'll make WDAZ news director Cassie Walder burn with envy. There's no incentive to do my best if I didn't think we're gonna kick their keisters.

There's been a lot of reaction to the Forum purchase on the local blogosphere, in case you haven't noticed.

Dakota is taking the wait-and-see attitude.

Rob from Say Anything thinks media consolidation sucks.

Grand Forks Guy thinks it's great the Forum owns the Herald because the Forum is local and understands the region.

Here at the Herald, most of my colleagues are pretty pleased. I like what I hear, too, but I'll be really happy when we hire more reporters for the newsroom. We also could use a raise around here.

Corrections for Cameron

Cameron Stewart, who's running for Grand Forks City Council in Ward 2, has gotta be one of the hardest working candidate this election season. He's sure been handing out a lot of flyers.

So I hope I'm not discouraging the fella but I've noticed an error, which I've informed him about, that might panic or confuse those not in the know. And the error is this: "The City of Grand Forks has an annual operating budget of 123 Million. At the same time it has an income of Nine (9) million, so this leaves a deficit."

The implication is that the city is short $114 million. Crickey!

The 2006 budget totals $120.7 million, so that part is about right. Revenues, however, are expected to be about the same amount resulting in a balanced budget.

The $9 million is actually the $9.5 million in property taxes that the city expected to collect. As you can see property taxes are a small part of the entire budget. That amount is supplemented by $3.8 million in sales taxes.

Where's the rest of the money coming from? I can't even begin to dissect the budget at this hour -- it's midnight -- but there are plenty of examples. Utilities are funded mostly with utility fees, which amount to about $24 million. State and federal government transfers are another significant revenue source, but they're spread out all over the budget. If you're truly curious, download the city budget and see for yourself.

I also noticed another error where he says "Once a heavy budget is established that drives the property mill rates up. When that goes up, it means higher taxes." Actually, government leaders have been cutting mill rates or tax rates. But because property values are going up taxpayers are still paying more. That's what everyone's are up in arms about.

A third error, which Cameron has acknowledged, is that his opponent Tom Kenville doesn't have family ties to someone "Clifton." That would be Thomas Clifford, the old UND president. And as far as I know, Kenville is doing his own campaigning.

Here's some of Cameron's flyers, here, here and here.

Quickie: Survey says..., more dog park news

* The survey has closed and the part of the blogosphere that voted predicted Tom Kenville will win the Grand Forks City Council Ward 2 seat and Art Bakken will win in Ward 6.

The City Beat is surprised Mike McNamara isn't doing better given the name recognition. Why doesn't the blogosphere rank him higher? For that matter, why'd the blogosphere predict as it did? Anybody?

* The Herald editorial board has analyzed the Ward 2 race. Pros and cons for everyone except Cameron Stewart, who didn't participate. He told me he couldn't find the time. Note that the board was interviewing candidates for an entire month in May.

* Dog park update: The Herald's Ryan Bakken reports on the proposed site south of Lions Park here.

Dakota says pay for that $80,000 dog park with dog license fees.

GrandForksGuy says the same thing, but he wants the dog park out at Ulland Park.

* The City Beat wasted time on Google, which has that creepy feature that tells you how often people around the world has searched for a certain term.

"Dog park" was a natural. Top 5: Jacksonville, Fla.; Pleasanton, Calif.; Denver; Orlando; and Richardson, Texas. What's the matter with you Forkers?? All this discussion and we didn't even make the list! I bet we'd kick -ss per capita.

How about "binge drinking"? Top 5: Leeds, U.K.; Brisbane, Australia; Edinburgh, U.K.; Perth, Australia; and Sheffield, U.K.

"Property tax." Top 5: Honolulu; Tampa, Fla.; Minneapolis; Raleigh, N.C.; and Charlotte, N.C.

But we rocked with "Fighting Sioux." Top 5: Grand Forks, Bismarck, Fargo, Sioux Falls and Winnipeg.

Read all about it! Herald sold!

That's just great. We've joined the %*#%@^! "home team." Why? WHY??

You've probably all heard by now that the Fargo Forum, which owns our rivals at WDAZ, has agreed to buy the Herald.

Read more about the impending sale here. The McClatchy Co., which is buying the Herald's parent company Knight-Ridder, announced the sale in a press release here.

The Forum is also buying the Duluth News Tribune as well.

As a union man, I would've been happier if Yucaipa, the union-affilicated equity firm, had bought us but considering the alternatives, this is pretty good. The Forum has told us there are no layoffs planned and it will recognize the union. Since I like the Forum's Web site more than the crazy contraption Knight-Ridder forced on us, that's also a plus.

Update 9:10 a.m., 6/8/06: For a more complete story click here. Read about local reaction here. Media watchers react here. The Herald opinion page has an opinion here.

I'm definitely getting five minutes of fame here. Here's the online photo with me and night editor Jaime DeLage eating Dilly bars in the background while our boss Mike Jacobs attempts to explain the sale.

I was also quoted in the local react story -- which just happened to have my byline above it. Be assured that I wasn't sitting at my desk interviewing myself. The other author of that article, Paulette Tobin, did the interview. By phone. From across the room.

By the way, nice quote, eh? I sounded like a regular pompous ass. So proud.

Update 3:05 p.m., 6/8/06: Bill Marcil, the Forum owner, came to talk to us Herald employees today and said all the things we wanted to hear. Like "more resources" to bring us back to where we were before. Or that the Forum is a pretty "decentralized" company, which means we won't be an appendage of the parent newspaper. I'm way too cynical so I still can't believe it until I see it.

Of course, what Marcil said sounds way better than what Dean Singleton told the crew at our old sister paper the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which was something that sounded suspiciously like "doing more with the same resources."

Quickies: East side report, candidate forum

* The low bid for that massive road repair project in East Grand Forks is in and it's gonna be $1.7 million. Special assessments will depend on the size of your property and where it is in relation to repairs.

Properties located on streets that need repaving would pay $33.36 per front footage. Properties on streets that need only recoating would pay $10.22. Indirect beneficiaries would pay a third.

* Council member Greg Leigh got the council to hold off on hiring a new parks and recreation director. He thinks the city ought to look into consolidating departments and downsize. If not that, he said, city leaders ought to take a new look at the director's functions. The thought is maybe park and rec can hand off lawn mowing to streets and reduce the director's pay.

* JGS has a traffic report on his blog. Hahaha. I'm from Seattle. You guys call this congestion?

* Don't forget to check out the League of Women Voters' candidate forum. It'll be at 7 p.m., Thursday, in Council Chambers at City Hall.

* Speaking of meetings, what is up with the meeting schedule on the city's Web site? I asked the Public Information Office today about a flood protection meeting and they said it had been cancelled, though no one told them. A Growth Fund meeting a week or two ago wasn't on the schedule and I only heard of it afterwards. There are no agendas listed for most of the meetings even though policy decisions are sometimes hammered out.

* The City Council race survey closes at noon today. The latest update still shows Tom Kenville ahead in Ward 2 and Art Bakken ahead in Ward 6.

Quickies: Casino ad nauseum, dog park ad nauseum

A bunch of news came out of Monday's Grand Forks City Council meeting but I didn't have room in the paper for everything, so you'll read some of it here first.

* On the casino front, Council members Bob Brooks, Doug Christensent and Gerald Hamerlik said they were "disappointed" that the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa chose to have a press conference rather than meet with the council, as requested. "Disappointed" is diplomatic-speak for "pissed off."

Want to know what I think? Somebody at the tribe was "disappointed" that Doug went off on them for not updating the council more frequently even though they say they've been sending him, Curt Kreun and Hal Gershman info all this time.

* It's taken the council two years to get to this point with the proposed dog park so what happens? An amendment to the leash law that would let dogs go off leash in areas designated as dog parks is going to a committee for don't-ask-me-what.

Anyway, it looks like the amendment is not necessary because, legally, the council could just pass a resolution. City attorney Howard Swanson said he'd prefer an amendment, but his explanation went right past me.

Doug says the law wouldn't be necessary if the dog park were located on that slice of Park District land south of Lions Park. And that site looks more and more like the site since a) the council passed a resolution requiring all dog parks to be fenced and b) the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are said to be not too keen on the idea of a fenced dog park at the other proposed site, which is on the wet side of the dikes.

So what's the point of changing the law again? My head hurts.

* The council also approved a law requiring bartenders to get a license, but won't charge them a fee for doing so.

* Dakota is getting fed up with all these out-of-town trips government officials are taking at taxpayer expense. The latest is Mayor Mike Brown's and Councilman Kreun's convention in Las Vegas. Previously, she questioned School District officials' trip to Norway.

* Herald opinion editor Tom Dennis says the editorial board won't be making any endorsements any more. Must be all those "disappointed" readers writing in. From now on, the board will just analyze the pros and cons of each candidate. I like it.

A Council like you

The Everyman appeal is a long tradition in politics with candidates telling you to vote for them because "I'm a family man" or "I'm a God fearing man" or, around Grand Forks, "I'm a working man who's feeling the pain of property taxes."

In other words, "vote for me because I'm like you."

The people you see above are what happens when you take this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion. They're what you might get if the demographic make up of the council were just like the make up of the city's population of eligible voters.

This "fantasy council" is part of a story in today's Herald about the diversity (or lack thereof) on the real council. It was inspired by my conversations with Ward 2 council candidates Jon Dorner and Mike McNamara, both of whom made their common man background a part of their appeal to voters.

To come up with the fantasy council, I did some research on the Census Web site, broke the data into different population segments and figured out how much of the council they could get. The bigger the segment, the more council members. What I came up was the composite council you see above. To see my work, click here. Mac has done something similar, though he breaks it down differently.

I'm usually skeptical of the idea that somebody's race or sex has anything to do with their qualification for a job. But Mac's and Dorner's ideas made me take a fresh look at the council.

Frankly, like Pygmalion, I like the look of my creation a lot more than the real thing, especially that councilwoman on the far left. But seriously...

The fact is, aside from political philosophy and personality, the council is remarkably homogenous: Mostly male, all older and all white-collar.

For the most part, that's fine by me because nobody forced voters to pick these guys and they're doing a decent enough job that none of the candidates are complaining about them.

There have been a few times, though, that made me wonder if the rhetoric on the council might not be a little different if some of them were more like, say, people like me. For example, the laser-like focus on keeping homeowners happy drive me up the wall at times. I happen to be a renter. I don't pay property taxes myself, but my landlord does and he does it, in part, with my rent money. I also pay sales taxes on every purchase and sales taxes keep property taxes down. So renters like me are making just as much a contribution to this city as homeowners. But when the city upgraded its recycling service so there's no more sorting, it's the homeowners that got the upgraded service. Three years on and us renters are still waiting. I have to wonder, if there were a renter on the council, wouldn't he or she have noticed?

(I guess I could complain to my council member, but he's one of my sources, so I don't. This isn't a complaint either. I just take my recyclables down to Hugo's rather than trying to sort them out.)

The next question that needs some answering is, why don't more "people like me" run for council? I'm sure many women would like to see more women elected officials, but not many women are running so they'll never get that choice. Same with renters. The Census says 49 percent of households in Grand Forks rent but the only renter running is maybe Peder Rice (I didn't ask him but he's a student, so I'm making an assumption). Another question is, would more types of people be able to run if the council increased its pay, something it has considered in the past? The cause-and-effect on that one is debatable, but it hasn't been debated yet.

Quickies: Dog park, rumors, a correction and the SURVEY

*GrandForksGuy is getting pro-active. He's crunching some numbers and says the city ought to build a new dog park and pay for it with either a) dog license fees (which he says aren't well enforced now) or b) a fee for using the park itself.

I can't figure out a direct link to his posting so just go to the main blog page to see it. Notice how he stayed up until 3 a.m. working on this. There's some serious passion at work here.

Update 9 p.m., 6/4/06: Here's a direct link to GrandForksGuy's posting. Thanks for the tip, man. This will save a lot of time.

*Dakota's got rumors about City Council candidates.

All I know is Ward 2 candidate Cameron Stewart wouldn't have been napping if there was a little more excitement on the council. Like say a Tom Kenville v. Doug Christensen celebrity death match.

I sometimes wondered if there wouldn't be a death match between Doug and Curt Kreun or Hal Gershman after Doug's interrupted them one too many times.

* Speaking of Kenville, the survey (which remains open) says he's still ahead in Ward 2.

Here's the breakdown:

Ward 2
Tom Kenville - 10 votes
Mike McNamara - 6 votes
Peder Rice - 4 votes
Jon Dorner - 2 votes

Ward 6
Art Bakken - 15 votes
Tom Potter - 6 votes
(1 person skipped this question)

* JGS has a new poll asking people if they think Grand Forks will reach Mayor Mike Brown's goal of 60,000 residents by 2010.

* Dakota also has a correction for me, by way of park commissioner Greg LaDoucer. Greg says that proposed dog park at the corner of 24th Avenue South and South 34th Street is on unnamed park land. The map in the phone book messed me up. It shows the real Lions Park connected to the unnamed park by way of the English Coulee bike trail.

The park people are probably getting phone calls from people on 17th Avenue South about Lions Park not realizing the dog park site is a couple of blocks south.

A flood of numbers from casino developers

The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewas issued a study on the economic impact of its proposed casino yesterday and the City Beat had a story today about it.

There were too many angles to cram into this complicated, multi-faceted story so I didn't go into a lot of details about the data as I usually like to do. But fear not, I'm working on a follow-up.

In the meantime, here's some excerpts from the study, conducted by KlasRobinson Q.E.D. of Minneapolis. They consult for the hospitality industry, looking into everything from casinos to water parks.

This chart shows how big of an employer the casino would be compared to others in the area. KlasRobinson says it would be the ninth biggest. I didn't include this statistic in my story because employment figures are sometimes out of date and I didn't have time to check.

This chart shows how much moola the casino would pay its employees.

While some say the jobs the casino generate aren't the kind we want -- which are higher-paying jobs -- this chart shows that it wouldn't be the worst employer in the world.

This table shows you where the estimated 1.1 million tourists drawn by the casino would come from.

This table shows the indirect economic impact the casino could have on the state and county.

Note: Sorry blog-friends, but I was dead last night and didn't have the energy to get all this to you sooner.

Quickies: Riverside revived, downtown housing

* A decision on whether to open Grand Forks' Riverside Pool or not could be made in three to four months. At the urging of City Council member Eliot Glassheim the city will be hiring consultants to figure out what's needed to make the pool more resistant to flooding. Glassheim said how the council will vote may hinge on the cost of cleaning the pool up after floods. The pool is protected only by a 45-foot dike and not the main dike system. In the last 10 years, its been flooded four times. For the full story, go to the Herald Web site.

* Council members got an update on some downtown residential developments Wednesday. Schoen Associates hasn't decided yet when to start Phase 2 of its Elite Brownstones to be built in the area behind Kelly's Bar downtown. The city's still waiting to hear from Dakota Commercial and Development and Crary Homes whether they're still interested in the University Flats condo complex across the street from Augustana Lutheran Church.

I was going to hang on to this for another day but that rascal GrandForksGuy posted it so I'm sure the rascals at WDAZ will know all about it. So screw you all: There's no news. Hahahahahaha!

* Noticed WDAZ has been following that landfill story pretty closely. The city is setting up a meeting with landfill customers at 2 p.m., June 28, at the Alerus Center. Public works director Todd Feland told me he wants to know what those customers plan to do when the landfill closes. One of them, Pennington County, is bolting to the Marshall-Kittson landfill.

* Update on the City Council candidate survey: I've got only 13 votes so far. I'm blaming it on the wrong Web address I've been putting under my stories.

Anyway, in Ward 2, Tom Kenville's ahead, followed by Mike McNamara, with Jon Dorner and Peder Rice tied for third, followed by Cameron Stewart.

In Ward 6, Art Bakken is far ahead of Tom Potter.

Survey is still open here.