gfherald city beat

Off to Area Voices

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 03:19:00 +0000

Hey gang, the City Beat has (reluctantly) moved to Area Voices. This site will continue but will not be updated. See you on the other side.

UND Research Foundation says "no" to Amazon.com land

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 06:33:00 +0000

It looks like the UND Research Foundation has decided on a new location for its research park.

President Peter Alfonso said the foundation will build 19.5 acres on the west end of campus with a virtually free lease from UND. That means the foundation is turning down the city's offer of five acres of land for free and another 15 at the old Amazon.com land for $1.3 million.

As I wrote in my story today, it's not so much the money, which is substantial, as much as the control.

Alfonso said the foundation wants control of all 20 acres so it can do some detailed planning on the layout of the research park. The first phase only takes five acres but it has to be integrated with future phases, meaning the buildings and the parking lot have to be in just the right place. And the foundation can't do that if the city has veto power over what goes into the remaining 15 acres.

Well, that's the point for the city.

City Council member Eliot Glassheim, who's on the Growth Fund committee charged with these sort of deals, said the city wants to control what goes into the 20 acres because it still owns adjacent 57 acres adjacent that it needs to develop. If the foundation puts in some incompatible businesses, it could really chase away businesses that the city wants to attract.

My understanding is that the city would sell more land to the foundation as the research park grows. That gives the city a chance to vet what kinds of businesses the foundation puts in the park.

The weird thing, to me, is this: Alfonso mentioned something about there being advantages and disadvantages to both the west campus and the Amazon.com locations. He also mentioned that, originally, the foundation was just going to build on west campus until it got word that the city is interested in developing Amazon.com land.

I asked what the advantages and disadvantages were and he mentioned that the west campus location is easier for researchers to get to and therefore more attractive to businesses that are seeking new technology. Then he decided that he really didn't want to go into details about the advantages and disadvantages.

I explained that the reason I asked that question is I wanted to know why UND bothered with the Amazon.com location if west campus was so hot. To this, Alfonso said the foundation saw an opportunity to partner with the city.

Then I called Eliot and, as I was talking to him, it occurred to me that maybe the foundation needed the city for something. We kind of worked out that the city did bring one major advantage: a local match.

At the time the foundation began talking with the city, it was also seeking a grant from the state's Centers of Excellence program. But that program required local entities to put up a certain amount of funding to match.

Eliot said that he remembered the foundation wanting to price the five acres the city was willing to give up at something like $6 a square foot, for the purposes of the match. It was persuaded down to $3 a square foot, he said. But the thing is, even that is a tad higher than what the city was offering, which is $1.3 million, or $2 a square foot.

In other words, getting some kind of land commitment from the city might have made it easier to get the state grant. It didn't hurt either that the city also offered a $500,000 grant. Ultimately, the foundation got $3.5 million.

Now I didn't have time last night to run this theory through Alfonso, so I don't know if he has an explanation. I'm just going to assume it was all in good faith. Maybe the Amazon.com location is attractive because there's more room for expansion beyond the 20 acres. Maybe there's some internal UND dynamics that made the west campus land less attractive at an earlier time and Alfonso didn't want to talk about it.

But having the city's commitment no doubt helped the foundation get those grants.

Alerus Center budget, some other dull matters and one thing that will shock you at first

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:38:00 +0000

Note: This is another long one. I'm kinda burnt out so it's hard to write short.

What a let down. The City Beat made it to the Alerus Center today at 7:20 a.m. to hear the events center commission discuss its deficit budget with the City Council.

Two council members showed up. That was Curt Kreun, who's a member of the commission, and Council President Hal Gershman, who advocated for the Alerus Center back when he was a private citizen.

(The meeting was announced Monday afternoon so I suspect council members might not have had enough time to change their schedule. Eliot Glassheim, for example, had to be in Bismarck and Doug Christensen was scheduled to be in Fargo all week.)

Man, 7:20 a.m. is like the middle of the night when you have to report on the council meeting the night before and attend another council meeting on the side. So I was hoping for some excitement.

No cigar.

It was deadly dull except for that news about UND football looking for a new stadium. (Hahaha. Wipe the coffee from the computer screen. It's more like a wish list item. I'll talk about it below.)

Anyway, commission chairman Randy Newman reported that, yes, the budget calls for $141,000 loss and that's the fault of higher electric rates. And the center simply can't earn more revenue to offset that in a year, he said.

Curt and Hal didn't say much about that other than making some light suggestions. There wasn't a single decent quote to be found. No coherent overarching narrative. No central idea around which to build a lead paragraph.

It was so dull, I'm just going to do a bullet list:

* Remember when the Alerus Center Commission adopted the deficit budget in July? It was a fest of self-flagellation. They wanted to break even, but they couldn't and they wrung their hands over it. One of them, Brian Conneran, voted "no" because he thought labor costs were too high.

This time around, talking to council members, they were defensive. Hey, we might lose $140,000, one said, but the Civic Auditorium, which the Alerus Center replaced, used to lose $240,000 to $250,000 a year. Another reminded the council members of the humongo economic impact the center makes each year and the deficit pales in comparison. A UND study in April found the center brought $12.6 million in new economic activities to town.

* Most of the talk was about strategic issues, such as the ongoing contract negotiation with the Alerus Center's biggest tenant. UND wants something like $400,000 in improvements as it prepares to go to Division I. The center wants a really long contract not those itty-bitty three-year ones.

Then the discussion started to sound weird.

Randy was talking about how the "the center is a short-term solution to their (UND) long-term needs."

Commissioner Phil Harmeson, whose day job is as associate to the university president, said "we don't have a problem with the Alerus" but are doing really long-term planning.

Randy added that "15 to 20 years from now, football may not be part of the Alerus Center."

What??

Phil explained that to get to UND's goal of being a major football powerhouse, it has to go to Division IA, the top of Division I. To do that, it has to average 15,000 attendees a game and to average that much, Harmeson said UND would need 30,000 to 40,000 at major games to make up for lower attendance at minor games. Right now, the center maxes out at 13,500, so there's no way that's gonna happen.

Hal thought maybe the city could modify the Alerus Center to add more seats. Maybe, "blow up the top of the building." Boy does that sound expensive.

* The other strategic issue is catering. Canad Inns had expressed interest in taking over and that's got the Alerus Center people freaking out. Catering is 20 percent of their revenue and the only part of the revenue that's really, really healthy.

I called a local Canad Inns official who, by company policy, can't be named. The poor guy went on the record and then heard from the bosses that that's a no-no, so I let him stay anonymous. Usually if they talk in public I ignore the policy and I'd do that here but the info I wanted didn't warrant it.

Anyway, my mole inside Canad said, yes, Canad intends to put in a proposal for it since the company will have food service at the hotel and the restaurants. Then he called back and clarified that Canad wants to be a good neighbor and wouldn't submit a proposal unless it was asked to. I told him that's just as well because Randy said he doesn't want to even negotiate that.

On a side note 1

The mole said Leo Ledohowski wants the hotel opened as early as late March 2007. The water park should open sometime after that but there's no clear timeframe yet.

On a side note 2

The city public information department either has to get its act together or city departments have got to tell them about meetings earlier.

The Alerus Center Commission meeting still wasn't on the weekly meeting list as of 9:52 a.m. Tuesday. That's about an hour after it was over.

I knew about the meeting because the Herald got a fax from the Alerus Center at 2:08 p.m. yesterday. But that doesn't help members of the public, who deserve to know even if none of them show up for these meetings.

Quickies: Moving date, Point Bridge

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:43:00 +0000

* I've decided to push back the move to Area Voices to, I don't know, Oct. 1. I'm waiting for news on the RSS feed plus I'm busy with important stuff.

* East Grand Forks' Point Bridge may open Sept. 13.

* The Alerus Center Commission will present its budget to the City Council at 7 a.m. tomorrow in the center's Eagle Room.

* If you're ever tempted to hoard gas when the price is low, like it is now...

* Coffee Guy parodies Marilyn Hagerty. He says Paulo's in East Grand Forks is closed and suggests a reason why.

* What the war has cost Grand Forks. Don't know if I should believe them but it's interesting research.

Update 12:02 p.m., 8/29/06: Guess I was wrong. The last day to move to Forum Communications' system isn't Oct. 1 any more. It's Sept. 5. So the last day at Blogger.com will probably be Sept. 1. The good news is there's word that RSS feed is close to ready.

* North Dakota quarter's being launched 10 a.m. tomorrow at the Bismarck Civic Center. I can't wait to get the Nodak coin in my hands. I've got just about one of each state quarter so far released in my vault.

Nevermind Pt. 2

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:39:00 +0000

The renewable energy ballot measure looks like it is out of trouble.

Grand Forks City Council members told city attorney Howard Swanson to fix the legal language and bring it back to them Sept. 5. They'll put the thing on the November ballot themselves.

Just in case there is some unforeseen bureaucratic cockup, the Citizens for Affordable Renewable Energy people said they'll still gather signatures for their least flawed petition, the one that said "City Council" instead of "City Commission." The council one only got 223 signatures and needed 446. The commission one got the rest.

Nevermind

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:17:00 +0000

Looks like the $200,000 for Grand Forks nonprofits has been saved by the nonprofit hero of the hour: Council member Eliot Glassheim. They all applauded him after the meeting.

Eliot seemed like he was destined by the lone dissenting vote on this one at the last few meetings when he was the only council member on the nonprofits' side. Council President Hal Gershman's idea of spending the $200,000 on streets and sewers in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods was pretty popular.

This would help poorer homeowners with special assessments, though, obviously, it would not help the even poorer people who depend on the nonprofits for aid.

Anyway, Eliot said he found a way to make everybody's dreams come true. The nonprofits would get to keep their money and Hal would get his special assessment subsidy.

Actually, Eliot said it was finance director John Schmisek whose monetary mojo saved the day. John mentioned some rainy day money in the infrastructure fund that nobody remembered. It looks like there's enough for a $200,000 special assessment subsidy fund, which means the nonprofit money isn't needed.

I bet the nonprofits wished they didn't have to kick and scream for this to come about.

By the way, the infrastructure fund is that 30 percent of the 1-cent city sales tax used for major road projects. Eliot said there's some extra after scheduled projects are paid for.

Update 9 a.m., 8/29/06: Council member Curt Kreun set me straight today about who it was that really pushed for that $200,000 cut. It wasn't Hal, he said, but him. Hal's contribution was the suggestion that nonprofits consolidate to save money. But I gave him credit for both pieces because he was the one who introduced both before the council.

Curt said his rationale for seeking street and sewer funding for lower income homeowners was that the infrastructure in these neighborhoods needed repair but people couldn't afford it so they kept protesting it out.

That's a slightly different dynamic because the poor homeowners aren't being compelled to pay crippling special assessments that would force them out of their homes.

Social services cuts contemplated

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 07:42:00 +0000

That plan by the Grand Forks City Council to divert $200,000 from social services to property tax relief is back for discussion tonight.

Looks like the City Beat led you all astray by a few hundred grands. I thought grants to nonprofits were a lot higher than they would really be, about $1.2 million. But that's not true. (Why didn't anybody correct me? Dang it!)

The total allocation of federal Community Development Block Grants is $1.2 million but nonprofits were only going to get $487,000. That was the plan recommended by the Citizens Advisory Committee, which advises the council on CDBG allocations. The council's proposed $200,000 cut represents 41 percent of that funding.

Here's how the $1.5 million CDBG will really be allocated (note that it's only $1.2 million after administration costs are taken out):

Suggested allocation	Citizens Advisory Committee	City Council
Administration	$306,000	$306,000
Social services (nonprofits)	$200,000	$150,000
Rent assistance	$250,000	$250,000
Housing rehab	$500,000	$500,000
Infrastructure (nonprofits)	$287,000	$137,000
Streets and sewers	$0	$200,000

Since I'm such a fiend when it comes to data, I decided to do a quick comparison of needs in Grand Forks compared to other cities in North Dakota.

Percent of families below poverty line

City	All families	Families with female head of household, no husband
1) Grand Forks	9.3	33.8
2) Minot	8.8	33.5
3) Fargo	6.6	23.1
4) Bismarck	5.7	27.0

Hey, we're No. 1! But we knew that, didn't we?

Ooh, I got an idea! Wouldn't it be cool to compare social service funding per impoverished resident? Yeah, way cool.

Alternative energy ballot measure in trouble

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 22:12:00 +0000

Remember that ballot measure that called for Grand Forks to get a fifth of its electricity from renewable resources?

Citizens for Affordable Renewable Energy turned in 4,108 signatures the other day and city finance director John Schmisek certified the sigs. Then he did a double-take. Most of the sigs were on petitions that called for action by the "City Commission." That's something that exists in Fargo but not here in Grand Forks. Ours is called "City Council."

Small technical glitch but there's a possibility the signatures would be thrown out. Assistant city attorney John Warcup is doing research and will make a ruling Monday.

If he says "City Commission" is close but not close enough, it would leave CARE with only 223 sigs, which is exactly half of what they need to get on the November ballot. County auditor Debbie Nelson said she needs those signatures certified and turned into her office by 4 p.m. Sept. 8. That means Schmisek will need a few days before that to vet the signatures. I'd say CARE has about two weeks or so. That just might be enough time.

If not, the City Council could just heed the will 4,108 residents and put the measure on the ballot itself.

I see Dakota got to this story a few hours before I did and had an interview with Council member Eliot Glassheim to boot. Eliot says the council shouldn't be so small-minded as to reject the ballot for technical reasons.

Quickies: EGF city admin update, Airlines suck

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 08:10:00 +0000

* The search for a new city administrator in East Grand Forks continues. Consultants were supposed to come back a few weeks ago with a list of finalists but Michelle Hall, the person in admin that's overseeing the process, says they haven't. Apparently those bots at WDAZ have been calling her everyday to get their hands on the list of finalists. Bahahaha.

Anyway, the news is the consultants are supposed to come and update the council at its 5 p.m. work session on Monday. Michelle says they won't have a finalist list then either.

Looks like I have to be a bot, too.

* Gee, we're not alone. "Airlines trying to save money and return to profitability have cut flights and replaced big planes with ones that have fewer seats on routes serving small and midsize cities. That's led to higher fares, fewer flight options or longer drives to hub airports for travelers and a reversal of fortunes for regional airports that until this year were seeing a surge in passengers."

I'm taking revenge on Northwest by flying to Europe on another airline, but they all suck so what's the use? I blame Osama and I'm gonna keep flying or the terrorists will win.

* Frenchies unite. I went one year and had the best pork pie ever.

Council pay hike update: There is none

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 22:37:00 +0000

A reader wrote in today asking whatever happened to that proposal Grand Forks Mayor Mike Brown made earlier this year to raise the pay for the City Council as a way to encourage all socio-economic groups to participate in the political process.

Since I was already calling Council President Hal Gershman about the 2,700-square-foot addition to his southend Happy Harry's Bottle Shop, I decided to ask him for an update.

Hal said that there has been no discussion of the issue since, not even during the budget process. "It doesn't seem to be an issue with council members," he said. "Not one council member has brought it up to me. Nobody's in it for the money."

The current monthly pay is $400 for council members and $2,000 for the mayor. City law says the pay rate is set by council resolution, which doesn't require a public reading like ordinances.

The mayor's goal was to increase diversity on the council. The time requirement for council members makes elected office difficult for those that have more than one job or not enough time to balance home life and work life with political life.

The danger, as Hal has pointed out, is if the pay hike is too high, Grand Forks will end up with a professional political class.

Still, even if one doubles the $400 pay, as was suggested at one point, it'd still be a yearly pay of $9,600. That's not professional pay. It's $4.62 an hour. I think I made more at McDonald's the summer of my freshman year in college.

GF cops, firefighters, mosquito killers could get $5.8 million building

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 03:11:00 +0000

Grand Forks City Council members have disparaged it as too costly for cost-cutting times such as these, but it looks like the city's public safety gang could be getting its $5.8 million training center after all.

The Service/Safety Standby Committee recommended the council fund it.

It's one of those decisions that's gotta be full of conflict for a fiscal hawk, which I think many council members have become, if not by nature then by public pressure. On the one hand, you want to cut taxes as much as you can. On the other, public safety is a core government function and you definitely want more of it. I'm counting mosquito control as public safety here because besides letting us enjoy our summers, they're keeping the West Nile Virus vector at bay.

Note that existing funds would likely pay for the training center. If the center were not built, the city could cut more taxes. So the argument here isn't whether taxpayers will pay more but whether they could pay less.

Anyway, I see that Council member Art Bakken, who said he's a fiscal hawk, took a pretty firm stance for public safety even though his colleagues were sort of wringing their hands. "I don't think any citizen in Grand Forks will complain about police, fire or mosquito control," he said. "If we're going to spend money on anything, if this doesn't qualify, I don't know what will."

I'm starting to like this guy more and more. He doesn't pontificate much, which means shorter council meetings, but when he says something, it's a pretty good, meaningful quote.

Still, even with public safety, you've gotta do some cost benefit analysis, which Council member Curt Kreun tried to do with the department heads.

There's a nice Powerpoint presentation by architect Lonnie Laffen that you can download here. (I'm running out of room on the Geocities storage site so I'm deleting that letter the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa got from Gov. John Hoeven from way back when. Anyone know a place to park all this material? Can't seem to do it on Blogger.com.)

To summarize what the department heads said, here's what the city would get for $5.8 million:

* A modern facility to store mosquito control chemicals. The current facility is rented and rent is going way up. It doesn't have fire sprinklers or good security. And worse of all, it doesn't have a containment system to keep spills from getting out of hand.

* Police and firefighters wouldn't have to go out of town to train as they do now. Chief John Packett said 10 to 15 percent of the cop force is away on training at any one time. We're talking about things like SWAT training.

Firefighters have a fire tower to rappel off of but Chief Pete O'Neill said the thing is 30 years old and not safe.

* Police and firefighters from around the region would get better training with a nearby facility. This would help pay for the center since users would pay a user fee.

* A new cop shop and fire station in the Industrial Park, which isn't all that close to existing stations.

* An empty Civic Center, where a lot of the public safety equipment is stored. The city is trying to attract a tenant for the center.

Landfill lawsuit will go on

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 02:40:00 +0000

It looks like the City Beat can look forward to many fun hours at Grand Forks District Court this December.

Judge Joel Medd recently denied Turtle River Township's motion to dismiss the city of Grand Forks' appeal. The city wants the judge to overturn the township board of supervisor's decision not to allow the city to build a landfill in township land.

Township attorney Al Boucher said back in mid-July that the city didn't correctly file its appeal because it didn't use the word "appeal" anywhere in its filing. Since the court only has appellate jurisdiction, it has no jurisdiction over the city's non-appeal.

I didn't roll my eyes or anything but Al read my thoughts. He told me later that it may sound like a technicality but these things have to be done correctly. If the statute of limitation on a crime is, say, six years, he said, and charges are filed on the first day of the seventh year, they wouldn't stick. Same situation here.

The city's attorney Ron Fischer said state law doesn't define what an appeal is. By taking the township to an appellate court and asking the court to overturn the city's decision, he argued, he's essentially filing an appeal.

He noted that state law doesn't say what an appeal has to look like.

Medd agreed with Fischer. The city's appeal doesn't say "appeal" so the substance of it makes it an appeal.

The township is free to appeal Medd's decision but Boucher doesn't know if that will happen yet. The question is, will he put the word "appeal" at the top or not?

Moving to Area Voices

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:39:00 +0000

As much as I hate to do it, the City Beat is gonna have to go over to Area Voices, owned by our overlords at Forum Communications.

I'm tentatively making the moving date Sept. 1.

I know how you guys feel about Area Voices so here's the deal: Tell me why you think it sucks and I'll look into ways to change it. We're not real sure how much control we'll have but I'm hoping that as a part of the Forum, we'll get to muck around with the codes more than others would. Who knows...

Update 2:39 p.m., 8/24/06: Word is Fargo's working on the RSS feeds for us. Your complaints are being noted.

Ooh! Secret meeting!

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 04:09:00 +0000

Some Grand Forks City Council members toured Gateway Drive early this morning. Dakota noted this and said the city failed to give public notice.

I called Council member Bob Brooks and he said that he doesn't disagree with her criticism, though it does appear everything was legal. That's because only three council members attended: Bob, Hal Gershman and Curt Kreun. Three isn't enough for a quorum — four is — though Mayor Mike Brown did invite the entire council to attend. Had they done so, the tour would have been on legally shaky ground.

The situation is kind of a "gray area," as Bob said. The group putting on the tour is called the Gateway Drive Committee. Bob heads it and is the only council member. The rest of the members are city staff and Gateway business people. Usually, the committee's meetings are not widely publicized in the same way that meetings with private businesses seeking city services aren't. Let's say a developer wants to talk about getting annexed into the city with city planner Brad Gengler, there wouldn't be a public notice requirement.

But, at the same time, the Gateway Drive Committee deals with an entire business district so it would appear to be of general interest to the public. I think I'm taking Dakota's side on this one even though everything is legal.

I'll also note that there have been meetings that I weren't posted on the city Web site. There have also been instances of four council members chit-chatting in front of City Hall after council meetings. Obviously they're not hiding anything — I could've stood there and covered the chit-chat — but that's an illegal meeting if you want to be strict about it. Since they talk shop a lot of the time there's the possibility that they're agreeing to policies outside of official channels, which would be a sneaky, not nice thing to do.

Since we're on the topic, I asked Bob why it's taking so darn long to clean up Gateway Drive. He lamented that he'll grow old before it's all over and launched into a detailed explanation about all the things that need to be done to screen the unsightly junkyards west of town. It pretty much boils down to money and the lack of it. Bob reminded me of an idea mentioned some time ago to pool the city's beautification fund each year and spend it on only one project.

Dealing with the junkyards is important, Bob said, because the city can't get other unsightly businesses on Gateway to clean up if the most unsightly businesses are allowed to stay that way.

Quickies: Canad goes smoke-free, EGF ready for Chamber HQ

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 03:26:00 +0000

* The East Grand Forks City Council is ready to vote on the land transfer to the Chamber of Commerce. The city wants the chamber to build its HQ at the corner of DeMers Avenue and Fourth Street Northwest and is giving the group the land for $10. The only condition is the group has to finish construction within three years.

* Canad Inns says its Grand Forks hotel will be totally smoke-free when it opens this spring. The city's smoking ban allows smoking in meeting rooms and hotel rooms, but Canad says there will be no smoking anywhere inside. Smoking will be allowed in designated areas outside.

The Winnipeg company is converting all of its existing hotels to smoke-free by Nov. 30.

Speaking of burden of government...

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 03:02:00 +0000

East Grand Forks residents will be facing a bunch of cost increases soon. Real soon in some cases.

* Property taxes are expected to go up about 3.2 percent. That's to adjust for the Midwest inflation rate, according to the city. The city is, however, increasing its property tax revenues by 5.9 percent with the 2.7 percent difference coming from new growth.

* The $2.75 street lighting fee is going up to $3.75 to account for higher electricity costs.

* Storm sewer fees, now at $3, will go up as the city takes over parts of the dike project that are completed. The higher fee would pay for maintenance. The dikes are expected to be substantially done by the end of the year, though there will probably be a few small things left to do before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers transfers all of it to the city.

* Garbage fees will eventually go up because of that landfill situation in Grand Forks.

Quickies: Stuff from City Council meeting, NWA outsourcing

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 03:07:00 +0000

* MetroPlains Development, the people behind the new downtown apartment complex, got their five-year tax abatement worth $169,000.

* Fees and licenses in Grand Forks will from now on automatically adjust based on inflation, says the City Council.

* Northwest Airlines is outsourcing ground handling and customer service at Grand Forks International Airport. Only trouble is the guys that were going to do it, Northwest partner Mesaba Airlines, says they can't because they're not getting anywhere with their unions. Northwest says it wants to make start the outsourcing by Dec. 12 at all airports with fewer than 50 weekly Northwest flights.

I checked nwa.com to see how far below that threshold we stood. There's only four flights down to the Cities this week! Maybe there's a fifth flight that's full.

Dog park update

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 03:31:00 +0000

Roaming Paws Advocates, the guys pushing for a Grand Forks dog park, says volunteers have gathered 1,146 signatures, maybe more. Nancy Joyner, who's the de facto group spokeswoman, says the group is about ready to bring their petition to the City Council.

She did mention, though, that some of the signatures came from East Grand Forks and in other neighboring cities. I sure hope the Roaming Paws people realize that the signatures of Grand Forks residents are the ones that really count when you lobby the council.

The BIG tax story (Warning: Long post ahead)

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 09:03:00 +0000

Readers, remember that time when I said I was doing some major research on property taxes?

Yeah, it was ages ago!

Anyway, City Beat finally got it done so here's the story and the accompanying side bar.

To cut to the chase, I concluded that our taxes are not the highest in the state, but they seem that way because we aren't paid enough. (Check out all the crazy calculations here. Read on if you want to hear about the methodology.)

Rankings for the tax bill are as follows: 1) Bismarck, 2) Fargo, 3) Grand Forks and 4) Minot.

Rankings for income are as follows: 1) Fargo, 2) Bismarck, 3) Grand Forks and 4) Minot.

Compare the tax bill and the income and you get these rankings: 1) Grand Forks, 2) Bismarck, 3) Fargo and 4) Minot.

(Um, boss, I need a raise?)

First, some background.

From the start, I already knew that our tax rates are the highest among the major cities. City leaders have been trying to make excuses for that for years. We're not as high as, say, Devils Lake, they'd say. We have those 11.5 mills dedicated to the dikes, which other cities don't have to pay, they'd say. Our mill levies are way lower compared to a decade ago, they'd say.

I was never quite satisfied with those explanations. So we're lower than DL but why not our peers, like say, Minot?

At first I tried to compare the Grand Forks city budget with those of the other three major cities. I stopped when I realized that people weren't singling the city out, they were complaining about taxes as a whole. That meant analyzing the budgets for the schools, the counties and the park districts of four cities. *Groan*. It's not just tedious to research, it'd be tedious to read.

So I came up with a way to compare the cities that people could relate to: Compare the average tax bill. You know what you're paying and you want to know if you're paying more than the guy in Minot.

What I had to do was find out what the average family paid in taxes in each city.

Methodology-wise, that was a task and a half.

First of all, you have to understand that there are a lot of taxes out there. The main local taxes include property taxes, sales taxes and utility fees. Fees count as taxes because sometimes cities make a profit on utilities and transfer the money to non-utility ~~fees~~ funds to keep property taxes down. Then there are the state taxes, about half of which go back to the cities. There's sales tax, income tax, auto excise tax, tobacco tax, alcohol tax and on and on.

It wasn't too hard to pin down the average property tax bill. Call the city assessor, ask him or her the median value of a residential property and apply the property tax rate. Bam, you've got the median property tax bill. Same thing with utilities. Ask the public works people what the average water usage rate was and apply the utility fees. Bam, you've got average utility bill.

Then comes the sales taxes and all the other consumption taxes. There really isn't any comprehensive study on spending patterns in each of the four cities. How much did the average person in Grand Forks spend on cigarettes? I have no idea. All I found was the average spending pattern of a Midwestern household, to which I applied the relevant taxes: sales, alcohol, tobacco, insurance, cars, etc.

I'm not sure I've got every single one of them, but I think I got most of the big ones.

Add them all up and you've got a close approximation of your average tax bill.

I know there's a few holes. You don't have to tell me. No doubt, the spending pattern of the average household is surely a little different from the spending pattern of the average household that owns a home. But what are ya gonna do when the data's incomplete?

I was surprised when I found that the average Grand Forks tax bill isn't that high when compared with those in Bismarck and Fargo, which are the highest.

What really clinched it was the median assessed value of residential properties. The median simply was higher in the latter cities than in Grand Forks. I'm still wrapping my head around that because everybody says the houses here are more expensive than in Fargo and elsewhere. In fact, one research firm's cost of living index puts Grand Forks slightly ahead of Fargo. I've written about this index and it compares homes that are similar. I suspect that the average household in Fargo, with its higher income, has a fancier home than the average Grand Forks household. That means the Fargo household will pay more property taxes.

The other thing that really jacked up the Grand Forks tax bill were utility rates. Not only are ours higher, they're high enough that, even though the average Grand Forks household uses way less water than its counterpart in Bismarck, the Grand Forks household is paying about the same. Public works director Todd Feland says that's because our wastewater rates are higher, due to cost overruns when the wastewater treatment plant was built.

Even with the higher utility bill, our lower property values and lower income tax kept the tax bill here lower than Bismarck or Fargo.

So far so good until I started thinking about the average household's ability to pay.

I got the state tax department to send me the average household income for the four cities. I then divided the tax bill by the income to see what percentage of income went to taxes. Turns out we're so poor here that even our third-rank tax bill is a tad too high compared to those of our counterparts in other cities.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised. People have been complaining about low wages here for a long time and city leaders have tried to attract companies that pay higher wages. But I never really connected wages to taxes. Perhaps the reason is I have two somewhat separate beats: economic development and politics/government policy. Wages fall into the econ side and don't cross over into the poli side.

At this point, you could still ask why the tax bill has to be so high.

I did a quick and dirty calculation by taking the 2006 budget of each city and dividing it by the latest population estimate from 2005, which would give you the per capita cost of government.

Rankings are as follows: 1) Grand Forks ($2,400 per resident), 2) Bismarck ($2,211), 3) Fargo ($1,664) and 4) Minot ($1,380).

But that's really rough. Circumstances vary so much that a fair comparison would need a little more in-depth investigation. For example, spending might be higher one year because of needed capital improvements, say a new fire hall is needed. The population estimate might be wrong. And budgeted spending tend to be higher than actual spending, just to be conservative. Grand Forks' budget, for example, assumes it will spend all of its economic development funds, which has never happened.

In the end, I'm afraid that I still haven't been able to reach a definitive conclusion on where Grand Forks really stands compared to the other cities. There's still more work to be done. It's pretty definite, though, that I could use a raise. (That's rhetoric speaking. Don't e-mail the boss. That wouldn't be good for me.)

Update 10:17 p.m., 8/20/06: I just thought of something. It would be a mistake to try and connect the average tax bill with the per capita cost of government. The average tax bill is just what residents pay. But the cost of government is not only borne by residents but also by visitors who pay sales taxes and hotel/motel taxes, among other things. In other words, just because the cost of government is higher doesn't really mean you're getting a bad deal. Your neighbors in surrounding communities are subsidizing your city services.

Some student-friendly proposals

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 04:13:00 +0000

OK, one last post. If got paid by the inch I'd have owned the Herald by now.

The other result of that meeting between city and student leaders is a couple of proposals to let students know they're always welcomed in Grand Forks:

* Free soda pop and hamburgers. The city wants to sponsor block parties in the UND neighborhood to bring students and homeowners together. The premise seems to be that if they get to know one another, the homeowners will go easier on student partying. Student government already has an outreach initiative with the same idea. They used to call it "Don't Call the Cops, Call the Neighbors" (or something), but now they just call it the "Good Neighbor" program. I think the old one is more honest.

* A late-night UND to downtown city bus service. Students like hanging out downtown and a bus means nobody drives home drunk. Funding would come from both student government and the city with students paying a nominal fee ($1, maybe).

* Springfest 2007. Springfest 2006 went off without a hitch and city leaders are applauding the students and sponsor Suite 49 for pulling it off. Police Chief John Packett said he was skeptical at first but everything turned out much better than he thought. He said Suite 49 has applied for a license for Springfest 2007, so there is a next year.

* Council President Hal Gershman reiterated his desire to see UND open a classroom downtown, citing the example of the University of Manitoba. I had to get up to go to the boy's room so I missed most of what he said (It was kind of a long meeting and I'd been drinking coffee. Sorry.). But I looked this up on Google and found this report. It says UM opened an inner-city social work office a quarter century ago. This helps the neighborhood and gives the social work students experience. UND had looked at the old Metropolitan Opera House in the past but passed.

The roots of the 24-hour noise ordinance

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 03:38:00 +0000

Back in January, when the Grand Forks City Council passed a law that banned loud partying 24 hours a day, Police Capt. Kerwin Kjelstrom supported the move saying that it would give his officers more flexibility.

The City Beat, trying to be a good government watchdog, instinctively recoils when somebody suggests passing a loose law to make it easier for the authorities. Being a bad watchdog, I never did follow-up and ask Kjelstrom what the heck he meant.

Well, Police Chief John Packett explained pretty well what he meant at a meeting between city and student leaders today.

As I quoted him in my story, Packett said: "Three-hundred-sixty-four days of the year, it's not an issue. It becomes an issue during Springfest."

In other words, there is almost never a need to break up an afternoon party, except on that one day.

UND student body VP Nathaniel Hilliard said that revelation won't sit well with students. "People will call it a once-a-year law."

I don't think Packett tried to refute that. He only said that his officers have not been overzealous so city leaders should give the law a chance.

Packett had brought a report to the meeting comparing noise complaint calls for the first six months of this year and 2005. The 2005 data is the control data because the 24-hour noise ordinance passed in January 2006.

Two ways to look at the data:

First, the pattern of complaint calls placed, based on hours, is virtually the same in the two periods. The same goes for the calls that led to arrests. Almost all the calls were between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., which is the time period that the old noise ordinance banned loud partying. This supports the argument that the 24-hour noise ordinance isn't necessary.

The patterns for the entire city compared to the UND neighborhood was almost the same, leading Council President Hal Gershman to say that students were no worse behaved than everyone else. (The data doesn't specify students, just areas.)

What's pretty funny to me is that the complaints for the UND neighborhood ended after 4 a.m., but continued until 6 a.m. for the rest of the city. What's also funny is that, unique to the UND neighborhood, a number of complaints came in the middle of the day after the noise ordinance passed. Five in the 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. period and one in the 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. period. None of those led to arrests. That says the cops haven't been overzealous, as the chief said. But what does it say about the neighbors?

On the other hand, the number of complaints that led to arrests have shrunk citywide but grown in the UND neighborhood. Citywide, they dropped from 60 to 48. In the UND neighborhood, they rose from nine to 14. Most of the arrests came late at night.

Amendment promises more moola for rural roads. Probably. Maybe

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 02:27:00 +0000

Some people from the Minnesotans for Better Roads and Transit dropped by today to meet with the Herald editorial board and the City Beat sat in — for fun.

I think they won the board over with promises that rural Minnesota would benefit from the amendment, which would dedicate 100 percent of the motor vehicle sales tax to transportation. Currently, only 54 percent goes to transportation.

Margaret Donahue, an MBRT member, dropped some exciting numbers.

Eleven Northwestern Minnesota counties that comprise District 2 currently get $36.8 million a year. If the amendment passes, they'll get $961,000 more in 2008 and, by the end of the five-year phase-in period in 2012, they'll be getting $4.2 million more. That's for county highways.

Northwest cities would get funding, too, for their streets.

City	2006	2008	2012
Bemidji	$399,918	+$11,289	+$54,104
Crookston	$451,355	+$12,854	+$61,608
East Grand Forks	$368,003	+$10,710	+$51,329
Thief River Falls	$450,552	+$13,076	+$62,670

It all looks pretty good except I'm told the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities, which represents rural cities, is asking you to vote "no."

(I can't access the coalition's Web site — Some genius put in password protection for the whole site. Way to go with the PR effort. — so I'm relying on this news report.)

Anyway, the problem is with the wording. The amendment said at least 40 percent of the extra transportation funding would go to transit and no more than 60 percent would go to roads and bridges. Transit is a shorthand way of saying buses and trains. If you live in rural Minnesota, you know how important those are. Not. So the Greater Minnesota people are afraid the powerful Twin Cities electorate will get all the money and leave rural areas hanging. That's a huge fear among rural leaders because the metro population is growing but the rural population isn't.

MBRT people say there's gotta be a little give and take. Donahue said the Legislature would stick to the 60-40 split.

I don't live in Minnesota so this doesn't affect me. But, I've heard a lot of complaints from East Grand Forks leaders about how hard it was to get state funding to finish the dikes. Meaning, promises made this year aren't always fulfilled the next. As Donahue said, the amendment is necessary because the Legislature has failed to make enough funding available for transportation. Can't trust those guys, right?

Still, if there's gonna be a fight over funding, at least there's more of it to fight over.

What do you guys think?

Quickies: EGF 2 a.m. closing, GF fee increases, N.D. hotties

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 01:57:00 +0000

* East Grand Forks City Council members renewed 2 a.m. liquor licenses for Whitey's, Cuckoo's Nest and the Blue Moose without discussion. Mayor Lynn Stauss, who had championed the 2 a.m. bar closing law, said that proves there hasn't been any problems, despite what opponents had said a year ago.

I'd have to say I haven't seen any of the drunken fights that were predicted and didn't see any more people getting pulled over by police.

* Grand Forks City Council is considering basing increases in fees and licenses on the consumer price index instead of having massive hikes once every few years.

* Miss Teen North Dakota made second runner up in the Miss Teen USA pageant. Don't forget it was another Nodak gal, Grand Forks' own Nicole Linkletter, who won America's Next Top Model. This is where the hotties are at.

Update 11:24 a.m., 8/16/06: Hey, check it, Smiley water tower's got cousins. Apparently smiley towers were all the rage in the 70s. RoadsideAmerica.com reports:

In one case, Smileage radiation engulfed an entire town. Adair, Iowa made "Smiley, The Friendly Greeter on I-80" its civic hero. A Happy Chef Restaurant and a Smiley Face Budget Inn stood at the Interstate off ramp, ready to "make you smile!"

Local merchants printed the Smiley cartoon on their business cards, and displayed "Evening in Adair, Made with Extract of Ol' Smiley" shampoo in shop windows. Travelers could purchase a yellow plastic piggy bank replica of the water tower.

Sweet.

Eastsiders: Expect some noise

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 01:53:00 +0000

Looks like street repairs in East Grand Forks' north end will start at 5 a.m. tomorrow instead of the usual 7 a.m.

That would normally be against the law, but the City Council allowed it because construction crews are falling a little behind schedule.

Assistant city engineer Brad Bail said the city found out more curbs and gutters need repairing than it had thought and asked the contractor to take on the additional work. He said they're scheduled to be done at the end of the week.

Construction crews will mostly be building forms for pouring concrete so it will not be especially loud, Bail said, but it won't be real quiet either.

The project was bid at $1.7 million. The additional work will not mean higher special assessments, however.

Nonprofits cuts not a sure thing

noreply@blogger.com (Tu-Uyen) — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 03:14:00 +0000

After the big reaction from nonprofit agencies recently, some Grand Forks City Council members clarified that they had not, in fact, made up their mind on the $200,000 funding cut for social services.

Council President Hal Gershman said he would keep an open mind. Though he urged nonprofits themselves to keep an open about consolidation as a way to save money.

Council member Doug Christensen said he hasn't decided to support the cuts yet. A week ago he thought the city ought to give it a try, just for a year, to see what happens.

The council will decide Sept. 5.

In the meantime, Council member Eliot Glassheim, who opposes the cuts, said he's looking into having the city buy the old County Social Services Building and give it to the nonprofits. He said it doesn't make much sense to ask the nonprofits to consolidate and not give them a way to do so.