Dakota Beacon

NO THUMP ON YOUR PORCH  “We are seeing a rapid diminishment of printed daily newspapers in ND and the region.” — A statement made here two weeks ago.  Little did I know how quickly that was occurring.  Last week, the Grand Forks Herald and Jamestown Sun announced their print editions would be delivered only on Wednesday and Saturday.  The Dickinson Press had already been reduced to a weekly mailing and the Fargo Forum is printing only five days a week.  Newspapers across Minnesota are reducing workforces; Star Tribune employees are taking wage cuts and certain Pioneer Press employees are being bought out.  A drop in newspaper advertising revenue is common to all these situations and was accelerated by the pandemic.

ALTRU HEALTH SYSTEMS in Grand Forks was on the financial sick list before the pandemic, which is pushing Altru near the edge.  In addition to interrupting the construction of a new hospital, Altru is cutting executive pay and reducing hours of operation and staffing.

MINOT FIRED ITS CITY MANAGER after the City Council received a negative 24-page report from an investigator.  Tom Barry’s five-year contract was terminated, but he will receive his $182,000 salary for an additional year as required by the contract.  He was fired for creating and concealing a hostile work environment.  The investigation was initiated after reports from Minot blogger Rob Port.  There was every indication that the controversy about Barry was widely known in Minot city government, including the City Council, for some time.  The larger problem seems to be that it took Port’s reports to begin a resolution.

COVID-19 ROUNDUP  The explosion of cases at Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls resulted in SD cases per capita five times Montana, four times Minnesota and double ND.  Oddly, deaths as a percentage of confirmed cases are the reverse: MN is highest at 6% and SD lowest at 0.5%.  Both ND and SD would have a modest number of cases per capita if it were not for their cities on the Minnesota border:  Sioux Falls in SD (Smithfield), Fargo (nursing homes) and Grand Forks (LM Wind Power).  In SD, Minnehaha County (SiouxFalls) has 84% of the state’s cases; in ND, Cass County (Fargo) has over 40% of the state’s cases and Grand Forks another 23%.

LM WIND POWER in Grand Forks, a producer of wind turbine blades, had an outbreak of coronavirus cases which quickly gave Grand Forks County the second largest number of cases (162) in the state, almost all traceable to LMWP.  The governor and mayor scolded the city for being lax. The GF Herald asked “are we finally ready to be serious about the pandemic.”  David Thompson, a GF attorney, said, “The factory on the city’s western prairie is a COVID-19 bomb.”

TIP OF THE ICEBERG  Meat processing facilities, like Smithfield Foods, are shutting down in SD, Minnesota and Iowa because of coronavirus concerns.  They are merely the tip of the affected enterprises and employees.  The shutdowns are a great multiplier and back up into farms and farm communities in the region.  What will be done with animals ready for processing and those nearing that point?  Ultimately, the shutdowns could disrupt the nation’s food supply.  Regulators are being urged to find a way for the processing plants to quickly resume operations.

IDENTITY-BASED CONCERNS  The immigrants and refugees working at Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls have fueled a backlash -- more than 40 languages are spoken by plant employees.  They are accused of fostering diseases and prostitution.  Smithfield’s ownership has also become a target of comments such as the following:  "Chinese-owned company, infected with the Chinese virus, was not doing its job.”  These xenophobic outbursts and antiforeign sentiments were fostered by the coronavirus outbreak at Smithfield.  The mayor of Sioux Falls has called for city residents to not vilify Smithfield or its workers as enemies.

BOBCAT will resume manufacturing in plants in Bismarck, Gwinner and Wahpeton.  ND’s largest manufacturer has 2,200 employees.  The company is best known for “Bobcats”, small, versatile tractors designed to maneuver in tight spaces.  Bobcat was founded in Gwinner, but is now owned by Doosan, a large construction equipment company based in South Korea.

COAL CREEK STATION, the largest coal-fired power plant in ND, is owned by Great River Energy, a Minnesota-based power cooperative.  For years, Coal Creek has been operating at a loss — the victim of cheap natural gas and renewable energy.  Later this year, GRE will announce its plans for Coal Creek and it is widely anticipated the plant and the adjacent Falkirk coal mine will be closed.  These facilities, located about halfway between Minot and Bismarck, are the backbone of employment and the economy in McLean County.  GRE has indicated it would install wind energy in the area to replace the majority of the power produced by Coal Creek and utilize GRE’s transmission lines to Minnesota.

THE MCLEAN COUNTY COMMISSIONERS approved zoning amendments which greatly restrict further wind development in the county and effectively block the wind farms GRE is proposing.  Landowners in McLean County would lose out on lease payments and the county would lose potentially significant property taxes if the wind farms are not developed.  Commissioners seem concerned about more windmills and related power lines, which they think are problematic for agriculture and recreation.  Critics of the amendments say they could stymie any further energy development in the county.

DAKTOIDS:  The economic outlook of bankers in ND and nine other Great Plains states were surveyed — the result, the worst outlook since the survey was initiated in 2006 . . . Who would have guessed?  Small town bars in ND are widely ignoring the governor’s order to close their doors . . . The GF Herald says “it’s just too soon” for people to return to work.