Dakota Beacon

Today an interesting article in Google News caught my eye.  Apparently the Grand Forks City Fathers are increasingly concerned that in the wake of cancellation of the now-famous Fufeng Project that Grand Forks will be sued by Fufeng for failure to follow through on the project.  While this is inconvenient, to say the least, for the City Council and the innocent residents of Grand Forks, it would still be a bargain and a victory for the newly re-named Empowered Citizens group.

These citizens organized over a year ago to oppose the city’s arrangements with Fufeng, expressing many concerns over issues from pollution of air, water and noise, to taxation and zoning to national security.  These people felt that a project as large as this with the capacity to make massive changes to the community at least merited a vote by the people, as they would have for even a project as small as a sidewalk project.  When they gathered nearly 5,000 signatures on a petition and presented it to the City Council in April, 2022, the Council was forced to acknowledge them, but promptly dumped the petitions in File 13 and went on about the pursuit of the project.  It was at this point that the members of the City Council who decided against giving the people a say in the matter really lost any presumption of innocence in this debacle.  Had they allowed the vote to take place and, rather than stifle these concerned citizens, had taken a position of making an effort to convince them and win them over so as to get a positive vote, then the people could have been held partially responsible now.

As it is now, the Council acted against the wishes of the people (or so they must have thought when they said “no” to a vote) and should, in all fairness, be held responsible for the entire mess in their personal capacities.  Their abysmal judgment might end up costing the city a fortune now.  When, a month ago, the Air Force finally stirred itself, belatedly, to examine the potential for national security breaches, they implied that such an installation in Grand Forks might well compromise the future of the Grand Forks Air Force Base.  

Today we hear that the City of Grand Forks may be on the receiving end of a lawsuit, with the Fufeng Group, backed by the People’s Republic of China, hauling them into court.  Let’s hope that the city’s legal advice in this situation is better than what they got when they turned down the opportunity to get the views of the people.  Right now the whole cast of characters is a pretty sorry lot.

Unrepentent Council President, the ever-arrogant Dana Sande, who thought he knew better than the people who pay the taxes, is being faced with a possible recall election.  The same people who a year ago offered the 5,000 signatures in a sincere effort to ascertain how the people really felt about this huge project and change to their community, are now calling for some accountability.  Let us hope that they at least get that and have a vote on the recall of Sande.  He is fortunate they want only his recall.  His bad faith bargaining with another party without the consent of the citizens of Grand Forks should get him sued personally as well.  

Right now the Empowered Citizens are seeking support for the recall.  Information can be found on their Facebook page.  Let’s hope that such action will discourage the kind of hubris that got the city into this mess in the first place and will encourage the city, when there is opposition enough to generate a petition to at least vote on a major issue, to serve the people and afford them a voice at least.  

It is proper and prudent for business to grow organically and be originated or brought into a community by the people themselves and their businesses, not imposed by some top-down business/government consortium.  The latter is commonly known as "fascism" and is not to be mistaken for free enterprise or true capitalism.  It is, rather, "crony capitalism" and the antithesis of real capitalism.  It is capitalist, free enterprise, which has made America an economic powerhouse in the past.  We need to return to that business model.

For now, though, the city government, led by Sande, is nervously exploring some sort of stay in the hopes of delaying, at least, legal action against it.  And where, by the way, is Boy Mayor Bochenski?  Does he still have a job at City Hall or is he some kind of apparition that appears during election season?  And is this what the Chinese meant when they created the well-known curse, “May you live in interesting times”?