While some in Bismarck have long said that residential development along the river was unwise and should not have been done in the first place, the reality is that those developments exist and generate a lot of property tax revenue to the city.  The man responsible for much of the riverfront development, Kevin Turnbow, says there are some major problems with the way the city is approaching flood-protection projects. The issue, he says, is not whether to do the project – but how to equitably split the costs of the project among local residents.   “The Feds are paying for the flood-protection part of this project, and the city is treating the asphalt portion of the project as an access project, but they don’t seem to understand that everyone will have equal access,” Kevin Turnbow said. “If this project is about access, then everyone who is getting access should be paying the same amount. The way the city is running the number now, some people are going to pay $7,000 and others are going to pay $700 – it just doesn’t make any sense.”   According to the city, the overall cost of the project is just over $5.2 million. The project is divided into ...

  BISMARCK, N.D. (GPN) – The North Dakota Legislature’s 2013 session had not ended in early May, but Gov. Jack Dalrymple had already signed dozens of bills. Most take effect Aug. 1, although spending bills generally become law on July 1. Here is a sampling of the 2013 Legislature’s work:   Energy & Water Issues ABANDONED WELLS: A portion of North Dakota's oil tax revenue will go into a newly created fund for reclaiming sites of pipeline leaks and abandoned oil wells. The fund may hold up to $75 million. Pipeline developers are required to give the state Industrial Commission maps of their pipeline locations. (HB1333) COAL: Leftover ash from burning coal is acceptable for use in construction and making concrete, and it shouldn't be labeled by federal regulators as hazardous waste. (HB1030) DEVILS LAKE: A new 17-member board will provide advice on the operation of water outlets on Devils Lake's east and west ends that drain excess water into the Sheyenne River. The board will include the governor; a state senator and House member; officials from Minnesota, Manitoba and the Spirit Lake Indian tribe; representatives of Barnes, Benson, Ramsey, Towner and Nelson counties; and people representing Fargo, Grand Forks and Valley City. (HB1060) OVERWEIGHT PERMITS: An electronic ...

We all know that North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple is a lead-from-behind sort of leader. He doesn’t like to be out in front on issues. Reticence was a feature of former Governor John Hoeven’s time in office, and Dalrymple has carried on the tradition into his own term of government. Dalrymple, like Hoeven, prefers to live above the fray. Perhaps there are good things we can say about that, but at some point if you want to lead the fray is unavoidable. Recently Dalrymple signed into law some very controversial pro-life legislation that has, without a doubt, plunged this state into what will be years of impassioned, divisive debate and costly legal battles. I happen to think it was the right call – protecting life is worth it – but I had to cringe when Governor Dalrymple said during a television interview with a Fargo station that he had “no personal belief” that guided his decision. That’s not exactly an inspiring sort of leadership. But where Dalrymple might be forgiven in that instance for at least having the courage to make the tough choice on paper, even if he’s reticent to back it up with words, his lack of leadership on the issue of ...

To paraphrase Edmund Burke, all that is necessary for bad ideas to become law is for good men to do nothing.   There are a lot of public employees and teachers in the Bismarck and Mandan area. Thousands of people work for the state of North Dakota, Bismarck Public Schools, Mandan Public Schools and Bismarck State College here. And yet, there are those in the Legislature from Bismarck and Mandan who seem to have no qualms about voting against the interests of our public workers. I’m not talking specifically their votes on salaries, or benefits like retirement or health insurance. I’m talking about the fact that not one legislator from Bismarck seems willing to stand up to Al Carlson (32 percent lifetime voting record on public employee issues) as the majority leader in the state House of Representatives.   Governor Dalrymple proposed a satisfactory pay increase for state workers and higher education employees in the budget he presented to the Legislature prior to the 2013 session. It was not overly generous. It was not going to make up for the years our public employees were grossly underpaid, but it was a step in the right direction.   The state Senate liked his proposal and endorsed it ...

The state legislature has responded to what many feel was a massive give-away by the Mandan City Commission when it granted Walmart a $403,000 property tax exemption over five years. Senate Bill 2314 requires that cities with populations under 40,000 be required to ask voters on the November 2014 ballot whether the city commission of each city should be allowed to grand property tax exemptions to retail sector businesses. During floor debate in February, State Senator Dwight Cook (R-Mandan) acknowledged that SB 2314 was likely a response to both last year’s attempt to abolish property taxes, and the situation with the Mandan Walmart. “We think this bill is something that will keep all sides happy,” stated Cook.  “It is pretty clear that the original intent of the law was not to give property tax exemptions to retail sector business.” Local governments of smaller cities have taken notice.  Mandan City Administrator Jim Neubauer stated at the April 2nd, 2013 Mandan City Commission meeting that he and other testified in opposition on behalf of Mandan against  SB 2314 on the basis that the law should be left as it is. “We urged the committee to allow local officials to make this decision,” Neubauer said. Representative Wes Belter (R-Fargo) ...

As someone who has been involved with Mandan’s local government process for nearly twenty years, I get asked two questions more than others.   The first is: Why don’t you run for office?  My answer is that unless and until I can devote the time and energy that being an elected official requires, I’m going to hold off on asking voters for that responsibility.   The second question is generally related to a specific local government action: why did that happened and how did “they” come to that decision?  I have had enough time to be a student on how the local government process works.  From my education in accounting, I also understand government “fund” accounting which operates as a totally different animal than the average person’s finances.   I receive calls from Mandan residents who first called the schools, city or county to complain or find out why an action was taken.  These callers get frustrated because they feel they are stonewalled by the sort of “group-think” mentality and culture that permeates government in general.  When it comes down to it, the acronym many people would associate with how government functions is “C.Y.A.” – turf wars and paycheck protection dictate behavior of those in the ...

Lewis and Clark Sacagawea Four Bears George Custer Sitting Bull Theodore Roosevelt Whether you’ve lived in North Dakota eight days or 80 years, chances are you’re familiar with these historical legends. One and all, they are icons of the American West. And each is uniquely connected to North Dakota. Lewis and Clark spent more time at Fort Mandan than anywhere else on their epic journey, and it was the young Indian woman Sacagawea (Sakakawea as well, but both pronounced the same) who joined them here. Chief Four Bears has been immortalized with George Catlin and Karl Bodmer’s stunning portraits of him, each painted while sojourning at Fort Clark, one of the American Fur Company’s outposts on the Missouri (Fort Union near Williston was their major post in these parts). Custer, well we know how that story played out. He should have stayed at Fort Abraham Lincoln, south of Mandan, rather than venturing west to meet his fate at Little Big Horn. Sitting Bull, another of our Native heroes, played a role in that defeat and later joined up with Buffalo Bill Cody and his traveling show. Tragically, he was murdered in a botched arrest attempt years later. And of course, we all know the story of Theodore Roosevelt, our ...

I'll start this off by saying that this isn't something I wanted to write about. Back in 2001, I wasn't writing and I didn't have an outlet for what happened then, probably like a lot of you, and looking back I'm not even certain I know what I would have written about it anyway. What is there to say? That the world is filled with terrible people who would gladly erase your existence, take away from you everything you've ever made, you've ever loved, throw it all into the void just to make some sort of a stupid, worthless point? It's a frustrating thought to have, and an even more frustrating thought to express.  A lot of people at the time expressed the belief that 9/11 was the "death of cynicism." Which was stupid then, and is still stupid now. No matter what size a tragedy ever happens in this country, there are still going to be cynics. I know. Because I am one. But understand this. I don't want to be. I don't want to think the worst about the world. I do it here because it entertains me, and hopefully entertains some other people too. I just find negativity to ...

Man is inarguably God’s greatest creation (sidebar note: for those who don’t believe in creationism, can we politely agree to disagree here?). Man’s ability to discover, grow and utilize the principles of science and mathematics to enhance every aspect of life has been in-play at an ever-increasing rate for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.  Even so, we certainly are far from being omniscient; a title only given to He who is our Creator.  To that point, Donald Rumsfeld serving as the United States Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 said it this way in his book titled “Known and Unknown – A Memoir” “Reports that say something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me because as we know, there are known knowns: there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns:  that is to say we know there are some things [we know] we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult one.” Oh yes indeed!  It is a gross understatement to ...

Facebook the most visited site on the Internet. In fact, four of the top fifteen websites in 2012 were social media sites. When you consider that five of the sites on that list were specific to countries outside of the U.S., you realize the scales are tipped towards social media. Social media is not the new kid anymore; it’s the norm.   Think about the success of the telephone. What made it successful? Quite simply, it was communication. It allowed easy, instant communication where it had not been possible before. Social media has been doing something similar. It is, at its core, a communication platform. Having no social media for your business is becoming the same as not having a phone number.   Can you imagine? Who Uses Social Media? Many businesses make the unfortunate mistake of thinking that social media is only for teenagers, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, using Facebook as our example, many people are surprised to learn that:   72% of US Internet users age 30 - 49 are on Facebook. 56% of US Internet users age 50 - 64 are on Facebook. The fastest growing demographic continues to be 55+.   Believe it or not, the demographics for users of Twitter are ...

WHAT IS A “REASONABLE” RETIREMENT SAVINGS RATE? The answer to that question varies per person. ~Presented by Wayne Papke, Financial Advisor~ How much salary should you defer into a retirement plan? Ultimately, the answer is “however much your budget allows you to contribute”. The big-picture question, however, is whether you need to contribute more to your retirement savings in order to maintain your lifestyle after your career is done. An Aon Hewitt analysis (The Real Deal: 2012 Retirement Income Adequacy at Large Companies) finds that the average corporate employee makes a pre-tax contribution equal to 7.2% of his or her pay to an employer-sponsored retirement plan. Aon Hewett has found this level of contribution to be pretty consistent across the past few years. The Employee Benefit Research Institute puts the number at 7.5%.1,2 Hopefully, these employees are basing their contributions on math. Retirement savings calculators are everywhere online, and while often criticized for their simplicity, they can bring you a useful ballpark figure. If you try them out, you may decide to boost your retirement savings rate as a result. As an example, using CNNMoney’s What You Need to Save calculator, a 34-year-old with $20,000 in retirement savings who makes $78,000 annually would need to save ...

Area residents now have a new option for dental services. Parker Dental Clinic officially opened in April, and I sat down with owner and founder Dr. Riley Parker to talk about his new practice:   What made you want to get into dentistry?   I grew up in a small town, Hazen, and my experience with the local dentist there was very positive.  Dr. Garceau was our family dentist and a very good one at that.  When I was in about 7th grade I thought, "that’s what I want to do."  I pretty much stuck to it from there. What were the biggest hurdles in opening up your own practice?   Uncertainty. This was a big jump for me.  Being a dentist, doing dentistry and focusing on that is a large workload alone.  I was uncertain about how I would be able to manage running a business and all that comes with it along with being a dentist.  I didn't want the quality of my work to suffer.  Within a short time I found amazing people to help me do this project.  That made all the difference. From what you know of the industry, is North Dakota an easy, difficult, or average state for starting a business in ...

~“Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.” -Benjamin Franklin~         It is said that ignorance of the law is no excuse, but ignorance of wine is not a criminal offense.  It just means we don’t know.  I like what Lewis Carroll said about Alice.  He said, “Alice was often ignorant but seldom stupid.”  After she knew, she didn’t make many mistakes.  Ignorance about wine can be intimidating if you are around wine snobs that like to look down their noses on those who have not taken the time or had the opportunity to learn some wine basics.  Please pay them no attention!  We’ve got plenty of time to learn and to increase our enjoyment of the fruit of the grape.  I say “we” because every time I open a bottle of a wine that I haven’t tasted before, I learn.         When you approach a wine you haven’t tasted before, you give it a swirl, take a sniff and a taste, not knowing exactly what to expect.  If it matches what your taste memory expects to taste in that varietal and is delicious and goes perfectly with your burger and fries (The burger and fries ...

For the last four months I have featured the profile of a local church congregation in this section.  This month is a departure from this format in order to bring renewed focus to the purpose of this column.  The choice of two metaphors which depict the Church of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, salt and light, highlights the aspect of the Church of interest to me as a regular contributor on faith issues. These figures of speech used to describe the Church do not focus on form, creed or distinctive   practices, but rather they showcase the effect of the Church.  The Church in view in this article is the Church universal, the Church in the local community and region consisting of believers in Christ.  (The context for the declaration of the Church as salt and light comes in the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. To give a cursory overview is to say that those who make up the Church are to move into the world with the intent to offer new life, add flavor and preservative to that life and to dispel darkness and ignorance.  As such, it could be seen as a short-lived mandate which dissipates as ...