Dakota Beacon

WE’RE A LITTLE SHORT The state “is going to have to do a little belt-tightening going into 2016.” -- Gov. Jack Dalrymple after learning that state revenues July through October were $150 million below forecast. A decrease in sales taxes, mostly in western counties, accounted for the shortfall. Moody's Analytics declared that "North Dakota's oil boom has come to an end, and the state will underperform the nation for the next several years."

UNCERTAINTY “There are now more variables at play, now more than at any time before. There are so many things at play .... Making predictions over the next couple months is impossible.” -- Lynn Helms director of the ND Dept. of Mineral Resources. Helms said he believes North Dakota operators are not in panic mode, and some are expressing confidence that oil prices may begin to rebound somewhat in the latter half of 2016. Some oil companies are maintaining cash flow by selling off Bakken assets to investors and stronger oil companies.

NOW, IT’S THEIR TURN “Minnesota is doing obviously much better from a budget perspective than the rest of the Midwest.” -- A senior economist for Moody’s Analytics. The state’s budgeting process and discipline has left Minnesota “really at the cutting edge of not just Midwestern states but also nationwide.”

NOBODY’S TO BLAME “Hundreds of North Dakota schools failed to make the progress proposed. That resulted in a lot of finger-pointing. The schools didn’t make an effort; teachers weren’t accountable; parents weren’t in the loop; the goals were too ambitious; etc.” -- Columnist Lloyd Omdahl describing the reasons given for the failure of No Child Left Behind in ND. He said, “No politician wanted to support a system that told us we were losers. The whole thing called for too much transparency and too much accountability.”

NOT A SMALL MISTAKE The media, state officials and spokesman for the Three Affiliated Tribes all used the same data to report oil production on the Ft. Berthold Reservation. Everyone believed reservation production was about one-third of state production, although that always seemed a little surprising. Now it’s been discovered that someone in the Dept. of Mineral Resources made a spreadsheet error and 17 percent is the actual Ft. Berthold share. Overall production remains unchanged.

ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD A 40-ounce bottle of beer was the favorite beverage of felon Matthew Gust of East Grand Forks. GF police believe a molotov cocktail in the form of a 40-oz. beer bottle was thrown through the window of the Juba Coffee House, a Somali business badly damaged by fire. Gust was caught on a security camera and has been arrested.

OPERATION NO SANCTUARY was organized after the Spirit Lake Tribal Council passed a resolution in August declaring a state of emergency due to “rampant use, abuse, sale trade and transport of illegal drugs at epidemic proportion on the reservation.” The operation involving federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement resulted in 22 arrests for warrant violations.

BOB THE TRICERATOPS is leaving town. Bob has lived in ND for 65 million years, but now must leave his latest home at the Barnes County Historical Society in Valley City. He is one of the world’s largest and most complete triceratops fossils. ND can’t afford to keep him and will go to a fossil show in Tuscon, after which he will go to a Los Angeles auction house. Speculation is Bob will end up in Dubai.

ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA The city of Fergus Falls, Minnesota (about 25 miles east of Wahpeton), owns an elaborate, but deteriorating old Regional Treatment Center (the Kirkbride Building) for which demolition is estimated to cost a minimum of $5 million. Fergus Falls doesn’t have $5 million. What’s the next best thing? That would seem to be to mothball the Kirkbride for a cost of $4 million using a grant from the state of Minnesota. Efforts to save the century-old asylum and redevelop it as an apartment, hotel and restaurant complex terminated in July.

KEITH ELLISON is an anomaly -- a black Muslim who represents an urban Minnesota district in the U.S. House. The StarTribune published a commentary by Ellison related to the police shooting of Jamar Clark in north Minneapolis. The commentary began by referring to Clark’s death as a homicide (technically correct), but also indicative of the tone that followed. The commentary strongly implied the officers involved were guilty, but the justice system could not be trusted to bring them to account. The commentary included a liberal wish list: skip grand juries, change the criminal justice system by reducing felonies and shortening sentences, expunge certain criminal records, allow ex-felons to vote, etc.

WHICH COMES FIRST? Ellison said Clark’s story was not surprising, that Clark came from an economically depressed neighborhood where unemployment and poverty were high, and pay and test scores low. He said, “We have among the largest racial disparities in the nation.” Ellison’s recommendations are appropriate for policy discussions, although he may not find widespread agreement. It is not so much what Rep. Ellison says, as what he does not say. He blames the police department and the justice system, but never hints that any parallel change is needed among blacks. His commentary drew nearly 200 online responses, most of which said he made political points with his supporters by throwing cops under the bus and ignoring the real problems of the black community.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON “Jeremiah Ellison refused to face the council. Instead, he faced the gallery and said that politicians are people who will shake your hand and kiss your baby, then slit your throat.” -- A StarTribune columnist’s description of Rep. Ellison’s college-age son in an appearance before the Minneapolis City Council. Jeremiah confronted police during an earlier demonstration.

ND’S RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM can go too far -- a 95-year-old woman died when she lost control and rolled her Chevy pickup near Hettinger.