Dakota Beacon

BEST FINANCIAL SHAPE “We wanted to go beyond credit score and look at more people’s whole holistic financial health and try to get a feel for how cities were doing from there” -- Nerdwallet, a personal finance site, describing its basis for selecting American cities “where people are in best financial shape.” Out of 265 cities, three western ND cities finished in the top five: Dickinson (#1), Bismarck (#2) and Minot (#4). A banker in Dickinson said the city’s place in the list could be attributed to western ND residents being “conservative in nature.”

“JAMESTOWN could experience some of the ‘boomtown’ problems seen in western North Dakota communities where oil was discovered 10 years ago.” -- David Klein, Stutsman County Housing Authority. From 2000 to 2010 the number of housing units in Jamestown was flat, hovering around 7,000 units. The city is experiencing growth and housing is tight because rents and incomes are not adequate to justify the cost of new housing. Over half of Jamestown households earn less than $50,000 a year. The planned CHS nitrogen fertilizer plant is projected to create 130 direct positions plus 1,200 supporting jobs.

WALLETHUB is an Internet site which ranks states based on the overall quality of their schools. Both ND and MN ranked in the top ten -- ND was #7, MN #8. One of the conclusions of the WalletHub study is there is weak correlation between spending and quality. ND and MN are a good example -- ND is in the bottom quartile in spending, MN is near the upper quartile.

REGIONAL PATTERNS stand out in the WalletHub study: States in New England dominate top overall rankings, while southwestern states with large Hispanic populations do poorly, as do southeastern states with large black populations. Massachusetts and Colorado were #1 and #2, respectively, while the District of Columbia and Alaska were #50 and #51 (both were also top spenders). ND neighbors Wyoming and Montana had similar overall rankings, #18 and #20, while South Dakota at #30 was in the lower half reflecting SD’s relatively high percentage of American Indians.

RICH BECKER, a state representative from Grand Forks, believes ND’s two major Sioux nations should have been included in the search for a new UND nickname. He said, “It may be hard for some to understand the sorrow and hurt that so many American Indians feel toward the university and state for the dropping of the Sioux name . . . over the years, the members have found a steady and vital source of hope and encouragement in the association of the Sioux name with UND.”

ROB PORT’S SayAnythingBlog reports that UND President Robert Kelley was recently honored “for his efforts to be rid of the nickname” at a small event closed to the public at United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck. Port says, “Kelley’s critics always felt that he was double dealing, doing things in the background to hasten the exit of the nickname.” A picture of the ceremony shows a smiling Kelley and his wife wrapped in Indian blankets. A former UTTC president was a leading nickname opponent.

AMERICORPS is a federally supported community service program (a domestic Peace Corps) delivered by teams of young people. Such a team was sent to Bismarck for landscape maintenance at UTTC, an Indian vocational school. The federal government sent unskilled young people from the Northeast and Florida to UTTC to work, while at the same time the majority of tribal members at Standing Rock Reservation, only an hour away, are unemployed. Many UTTC students are likewise unemployed.

UNUSUAL OBITUARY COMMENTS Maurice Mahli (82) of Fargo died to the songs of singing grandchildren. Ron Rorvig loved Hersheys and Coke, but despite that predilection he too lived to 82. His obituary said he appreciated smart women, so he married two.

A FAVORITE WAY OF DEATH in ND involves a young man, driving after midnight and wearing no seatbelt. Alcohol is usually involved. Two men met that profile last Saturday morning about the same time: Around 4 a.m., a 26-year-old from Killdeer hit an oil tanker head-on; a 21-year-old from Morton County was killed in a rollover.

CULTURE COUNTS Programs to resettle refugees produce mixed results. In many cases refugees lack education, useful experience and English language skills. They may require some public assistance for the remainder of their lives. Some refugee groups are an exception -- they are enterprising, eager to work and acquire education. Pabitra Khadka, a Bhutanese seamstress, is an example. Shortly after arriving in the U.S. she applied to Straus Clothing in Fargo to be a tailor’s assistant and rapidly worked her way up to head tailor. She described her philosophy and work ethic: “Nothing is difficult for me now. I can do any kind of dress, any kind of design. I can tailor. Nothing stops me.”

FARMERS’ DILEMMA A StarTribune article described corn farmers’ expectations for 2015: “The biggest line item in costs is land, at $250 per acre in cash rent. And with fertilizer, seed and the rest of the costs, corn farmers will lose an average of $244 per acre.” So why plant a crop? The answer: “That isn’t possible to do in crop production. Leaving a productive field unplanted just means the fixed costs will eat the farmer alive. Cutting fertilizer use does reduce costs but comes at the expense of lower yields.”

"OVER-REACHING POLICY that won't work for North Dakota." -- U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp referring to new EPA regulations re emissions from coal power plants. ND is 80 percent reliant on coal and eight ND coal plants serve almost 2 million customers in several states.

A FORUM EDITORIAL on Wednesday said the reaction of leading elected officials in ND to the new EPA standards “is so over-the-top as to border on apocalyptic.” In typical fashion, the Forum followed with phrases such as “Chicken Little rhetoric” and “political hot air.” Oddly, the identical editorial appeared Thursday in the GF Herald with the byline of Korrie Wenzel, the Herald’s publisher.