Dakota Beacon

STILL A WINNER ND has been named the best-run state for the fourth consecutive year by website 24/7 Wall St. Nearby states Wyoming, Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota fill out the top five in that order. Illinois and New Mexico fight to be the worst-run state. ND had the nation’s best economic growth in 2014 and the highest rate of population growth the last five years. ND was warned that low oil prices may test its crown in 2015.

FORMER ND GOV. ED SCHAFER has agreed to be UND’s interim president for six months -- he will receive $33,000 a month plus benefits. Open records laws in ND require the disclosure of the names of all initial candidates for university presidencies. Schafer suggests backing off on that requirement to encourage more applicants. The GF Herald agrees, but the ND Newspapers Association disagrees.

OVERPAID? A GF Herald editorial suggests Schafer is being overpaid. A column by former UND faculty member and former state official Henry Wessman indicates otherwise. He says Schafer has a management style similar to former UND president Tom Clifford. Wessman says “horizontal ‘team’ management with entrepreneurial flair were the hallmarks of the successful Clifford Era.” Schafer’s monthly salary is similar to that of a university president and his appointment requires him to suspend other activities and temporarily relocate.

THE TIDE HAS TURNED “For too long North Dakota had it both ways. We received generous amounts of money from the government and complained about federal spending.” -- A Bismarck Tribune editorial about ND going from being a state that received more money than it pays in taxes to the reverse. The switch took place in 2013 when ND sent more to the federal government than it received. For a decade the state was among the Top Ten beneficiary states -- now it is among the Top Ten states which are net givers.

“IF IT WERE A CITY, it would be the 10th largest in the state, just behind Jamestown.” -- The Bismarck Tribune’s way of describing ND’s statewide inmate population, which is at record levels and growing rapidly. Some officials think this calls for a change in the criminal code. District Judge Gail Hagerty disagrees. She said it's not ND’s criminal code that needs to change, it's the level of services the state provides to substance abusers and the mentally ill to prevent them from going to prison in the first place.

“LET’S NOT GO WITH HO-HUM AND MEDIOCRE. Let’s go bold and beautiful – like our ancestors did.” -- A Forum editorial urging a more dramatic design for a new ND governor’s residence.

LEG UP "If you've never been paid or if you've never had that sense of going into work, you need help getting used to that culture." -- The Executive Director for a nonprofit which assists refugees in the Grand Forks area. Northland Community College in EGF offers a course to help New Americans gain skills to advance from basic service jobs into better paying manufacturing work.

SOMALIS led the news in ND and Minnesota. In the Twin Cities 10 Somali have been cumulatively arrested in connection with terrorism and Syria. A Somali community leader said, “Islamophobia is a real concern within our community,” noting a recent uptick in anti-Muslim talk.” In Grand Forks, a Somali coffee shop was torched -- a crowd gathered later to show support for the owners.

DIPPING Any government subsidy program, whether for farms or food stamps, attracts fraud. Two women, Lamia Ali (48) and Abass Amedi (51), ran a Fargo grocery store which they used to commit $365,000 of food stamp fraud.

MARILYN HAGERTY, a senior citizen and food critic for the GF Herald, gets national attention for her plain talk reviews of chain restaurants. The Minneapolis StarTribune recently took an interest in her review of Subway restaurants in GF. It’s a little hard to determine if the StarTrib was being patronizing. Its readers broke in opposite directions: One said, “Well than, Ya sure will be delighted to find out her next review!” Another said, “Absolutely love this lady and her irony-free reviews of ubiquitous everyday American restaurant chains.”

GROWING APART “The demographic differences that have developed around the state have consequences that are cultural and political as well as economic.” -- The theme of a series of articles in the Minneapolis StarTribune about the rift developing between the Twin Cities metro area and Greater Minnesota (GM). The StarTrib said, “Together, they (the differences) are working as a wedge dividing city and country Minnesotans into unlike-minded and increasingly hostile camps on social and political issues.” The StarTribune said Minnesota’s traditional vision of government is clouded by disappointment and disillusionment.

GM FEELS LEFT BEHIND -- it is older, poorer and less educated than the metro area. Growth has ceased in GM and now 55 percent of the Minnesota population lives in the metro area. Cultural differences are increasing -- one in four metro residents are minorities, while only one in ten GM residents are minorities.

SMALL CHANGE Minneapolis had 18 days of protests by Black Lives Matter followers. Police chief Janee Harteau says her department spent $750,000 on overtime related to the protests.

IT WAS HORRIBLE Mary Tyler Moore was cruelly plucked from Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis and thrown in storage. Thanks to a public clamor, her statue has been spared from dire circumstances and can be viewed in the Minneapolis visitors center.

DAKTOIDS During the last three years ND avoided mass killings, but it hasn’t always been so. In 1983, Gordon Kahl, a Heaton farmer and tax protester, killed two U.S. marshalls and wounded four . . . ND will receive $1.3 billion of federal highway money during the next five years; Minnesota will receive only three times that amount, although its population is over seven times greater than ND . . . In a GF Herald editorial, Tom Dennis advises ND to treat its multi-billion Legacy Fund like an endowment -- preserve the principal and spend only a portion of the earnings . . . The NDSU Bison football team (a perennial national champion) beat Montana 37-6 and advanced to tomorrow’s quarterfinal in Fargo -- NDSU began its season with a loss to Montana.