Dakota Beacon

BRENT MACCARTHY: NEVER FORGET WHO THE DEMOCRATS REALLY ARE

TOP TEN NORTH DAKOTA STORIES OF 2010

1. OIL, OIL, OIL

In the absence of oil, North Dakota would have enjoyed a good year along with other Great Plains states like South Dakota and Nebraska.  But North Dakota has oil and had a great year -- oil production soared almost 40 percent from 2009 to 2010.  A Grand Forks economist called the Bakken “huge,” saying it could affect the state’s future for half a century.  A Bismarck Tribune columnist said “North Dakota is going to be awash in cash” and predicted a shift of wealth from the Red River Valley to the Oil Patch.  The timing couldn’t be better, environmental regulations threaten the state’s lignite coal industry, one of the most profitable segments of the state economy.

2. OIL BOOM CONSEQUENCES

There was a predictable lag, but after a couple years of oil boom the challenges became evident.  Badly damaged roads, shortage of water for “fracking” oil wells, housing either unaffordable or unavailable, soaring costs of county government, and labor shortages are some of the more obvious problems.  Social costs are yet to be recognized, including the effects of industrialization and changes in the landscape and environment.  The state is moving steadily to address the issues, for example, its two-year budget includes nearly $1 billion for improvements to western roads and infrastructure.

3. ELECTION ROUT

Republicans swept all state offices, increased their majority in the Legislature and took two of North Dakota’s three spots in Congress.  The downside -- the state has lost experience and clout in Congress -- earmarks will not flow so readily.

4. KELLEY IS NOT A FIGHTING SIOUX

The UND Fighting Sioux nickname and logo is a valuable brand and a unique and exciting image for the state -- a source of pride to North Dakota whites and Indians alike.  When the Spirit Lake Sioux were given a chance to vote, they approved the nickname with a 67 percent approval.  With all this support, how did the UND administration and the Board of Higher Education manage to screw it up?  How did they fail to find a solution to retain the name and benefit all concerned?  It’s not clear.  UND President Robert Kelley joined UND with very little enthusiasm for the nickname and an apparent desire to appease a loud, bullying faculty minority.  Fairness and the majority lost -- a radical, politically correct minority prevailed.  Nobody emerged a winner, least of all the North Dakota Sioux tribes.

5.

VALLEY CITY HAS AN “OH, OH” MOMENT

This was the year a light went on in communities on the Sheyenne River.  It became apparent Devils Lake could naturally overflow, washing out the Tolna Coulee and sending a cascade toward Valley City.  The mayor of Valley City summarized that possibility as “a world of hurt.”  The governor, congressmen, mayors and even the Corps of Engineers realized that after spending a billion dollars to contain the lake, it was time to start draining it.  The Bismarck Tribune said, that if the lake overflows, Acts and Treaties will be washed down the Sheyenne River.

6. WE CAN’T KEEP MEETING LIKE THIS

After the floods of 2009, the Fargo area was left tired and scared.  They could foresee a year when heroic efforts would not be enough.  The floods came again in 2010, another year of epic sandbagging.  Economists estimated that Fargo’s future growth would be adversely affected by flood risks.  A consensus emerged at local, state and federal levels that the Red River at flood stages should be diverted past Fargo-Moorhead by a channel on the North Dakota side.  Fargo voted a sales tax for the diversion and the state budget also includes a funding commitment.

7. THE STRANGE FATE OF EARL POMELOSI

Rep. Earl Pomeroy won a lopsided victory in 2008; in 2010, he won the the Indian reservations and most northeastern counties, but lost the state to Rick Berg by ten points.  Pomeroy, a Barnes County native, remains a sympathetic, popular figure in the state.  But he was balanced on a rail, pulled one direction by Nancy Pelosi and cohorts, pulled the other by the opposing interests of many voters.  Eventually, he fell off the rail and it was probably the health care bill that did it.  Pomeroy was an equivocator -- he was repeatedly against the health bill, until he voted for it.  That was too much, and Berg slipped easily into the vacuum.

8. “IT’S VERY EMBARRASSING” -- INTERIM PRESIDENT DICK HANSON

NDSU may have felt 2009 was a bad year when it lost President Joseph Chapman in a spending scandal.  Little did they know that 2010 would be a year of complete humiliation.  State auditors stripped the school bare -- it lacked financial controls, outran its resources, and, according to one critic, the school’s recruiting of out-of-state students was lunacy.  New president Dean Bresciani is pumping water out of the hold and righting the ship.  One party still doesn’t get it -- the Fargo Forum sees the whole affair as mere paper cuts, not deep wounds -- they see NDSU as a victim of “political and petty scrutiny.”

9.

OIL IS PAVING THE WAY

North Dakota had a bountiful year.  Never was there a year when the state was Number 1 in so many categories of growth and prosperity.  Yet, there was this nagging self-esteem thing -- the state’s lack of population growth.  Well, even that cleared up at yearend, when the 2010 census indicated the state had grown five percent since 2000 and was nearing its 1930 population high.  This all could have something to do with oil.

10. SOMALIS ARE COMING

Estmates range broadly from 30,000 to 80,000, but there is agreement that Minnesota has the largest concentration of Somali immigrants in the country.  It was probably only a matter of time before they became evident in North Dakota.  Fargo-Moorhead has a substantial Somali population, Grand Forks has about 300, and hundreds of Somali families have applied for housing in Jamestown.  Somalis create enormous social issues in Minnesota; Fargo and Cass County face those issues on a smaller scale.  Expect to see Somalis increasingly mentioned in news about North Dakota.

RUNNER-UP STORIES: Governor Jack Dalrymple, Senator-elect John Hoeven, and the Ft. Berthold Reservation (Life After Oil).

BEST COMMENT OF THE YEAR:  “City people have clock minds -- work is eight-to-five.  Farmers have ‘chore minds’ and focus on a task until they are done.” -- Columnist Lloyd Omdahl writing about the late North Dakota governor and farmer Art Link.  It would be nice to think that “chore minds” is also an aphorism for the state.