Dakota Beacon

You’ve seen this before -- a reporter from an eastern paper pays a quick visit to ND and returns with a sensational article. John Eligon of the NY Times wrote such an article about the plight of women in the oil patch: Women feel unsafe . . . men follow them . . . men attempt to force themselves on women . . . aggressive steps are necessary for women . . . some carry weapons. Amy Dalrymple of the Forum News Service works in Williston. While not directly confronting the NYT article, Dalrymple said her experiences were very different. Men were unfailingly polite and not inappropriate -- she has never been hounded. Her scariest thing . . . being called ma’am. However, she did suggest married women wear their wedding rings.

This is not your mother's Tupperware party. Some women want to wear more than a wedding ring -- Damsel in Defense organizes Personal Protection Parties in northwest ND to sell a variety of stun guns, pepper sprays and other weapons. The Minot Police Dept. warns that using these weapons “is more difficult than many people realize.” The weapons can backfire if not properly used.

How good is the ND job market? Try this. Bismarck State (a community college) reports that 96 percent of its technical program graduates are employed at annual salaries averaging $38,000.

“Working with our businesses we see growth but there is no place for people to live. We have one home for sale and zero apartments available.” -- Don Frye, Carrington mayor. A Regional Workforce Roundtable in Jamestown discussed how a lack of workers and housing is slowing business development in the region. Hundreds of workers will be needed in Jamestown as work commences on the Spiritwood Nitrogen Project and the Dakota Spirit ethanol plant.

“Jamestown is a rural community that depends on the rural people coming to Jamestown to do business and spend their money here. It also strives to be a hub of importance for the people in the smaller communities that surround us and reaches beyond the borders of Stutsman County. Why is the city and the County Commission bent on antagonizing them?” -- Former Jamestown mayor Clarice Liechty rebuking the city and the commission for their disputes with neighbors.

A federal administrator sees little substantial progress in resolving child welfare problems at the Spirit Lake Reservation and claims tribal leaders are making “preposterous fabricated claims.” Tribal Chairman Roger Yankton disagrees, he said, “I’m confident we’re making strides to improve the services,” but claims the problems go back before he became chairman. He said the tribe’s efforts to respond to deficiencies in its social services programs have been hampered “by the negativity” of media reports and allegations of corruption, indifference and criminality.

Allegations of corruption, incompetence, harassment, intimidation, and even murder are being made against Yankton and his family by an off-reservation blogger with ties to Spirit Lake. According to the GF Herald, that individual is Cat West, a Canadian woman of Sioux heritage. Accusations against the Yankton clan have abounded for decades, but are largely unproven.

Mark Little Owl had three assault charges dismissed between 2004 and 2009, and was again charged with assault as the result of a domestic disturbance in August 2012. That’s bad enough, but also in August Little Owl was hired to rescue the failed social services program at the Spirit Lake Reservation. He was ousted by the BIA, but retained by the tribe. Little Owl did learn one technique while at Spirit Lake -- he too blames “false allegations” and negative media reports for making it difficult to address deficiencies.

Two years ago, a 19-year-old mother, her mother and brother, and her mother’s boyfriend were murdered in Minot. All of the victims except the boyfriend were members of SD’s Yankton Sioux Tribe. Progress on the murders has been painfully slow. Months went by before Omar Mohamed Kalmio (28), a Somali immigrant with a Twin Cities background, was arrested for one murder. Nine months later he was charged with the other three. His trial began this week. Why do these proceedings take so long? The Minot Daily News gave a hint; it said that Kalmio pleaded not guilty to all the murders in June 2012 and “Court records from that point forward show many, many documents and changes to scheduling, canceled hearings, witness transport requests, and the full assortment of court processes and procedure needed for a major trial.”

This week the state lost two eminent public figures. Chester Reiten (89) was a successful media executive and Minot’s mayor for 14 years, but is best known as the founder of the Norsk Hostfest Scandinavian festival for which he received the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award in 2002. Ben Clayburgh (88) was a Grand Forks surgeon and a leader of the medical profession and Republican Party in ND. Three of his sons became doctors and a fourth entered politics and became a legislator and state tax commissioner.

“It’s almost entirely reactive.” ND Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem describing the state’s response to an upswing in organized crime, largely in the western part. His comments were echoed by Timothy Purdon, the U.S. attorney for ND. Both said additional law enforcement and prosecutors are needed in the state.

“But I know one thing – I’m not going to serve any time. And that’s where we’re at.” -- Alois Vetter, a 75-year-old W. Fargo landlord who was convicted of running over a tenant with a Hummer. The Forum reports that when asked to clarify, Vetter said, “You read into it whatever you want.” Police had received reports that the recalcitrant Vetter “would commit suicide rather than be incarcerated.”

Traffic fatalities in ND are increasing more rapidly than miles driven. Drivers in fatal crashes in ND use seat belts less and alcohol more than drivers nationally. ND’s annual traffic fatality rate (average deaths per million miles traveled) from 2007 through 2011 was 1.37; the national rate was 1.08. The national rate is dropping while ND’s is rising.

DAKTOIDS: Airline passenger boardings in ND in 2012 reached one million -- an 18 percent increase from 2011 . . . Since the discovery of oil in ND 60 years ago, the Hess Corporation has produced 327 million barrels of oil in ND . . . A Bismarck Tribune editorial pushes for a five-year farm bill -- it notes that the biggest hang-up in approving the bill is that 85 percent of USDA spending is for food stamps and other growing nutritional programs.