SCHMID: LOOKING BACK FROM THE LEFT COAST - JULY 25, 2016
FIRST SHOE DROPS Low energy prices and increased regulation are expected to take a toll on ND’s coal-fired plants. Great River Energy announced the closing of its Stanton Station plant about 50 miles northwest of Bismarck. The 50-year-old plant has 65 employees. Great River continues to operate another coal plant near Stanton and also a new plant near Jamestown.
BLOWING AWAY COAL Randy Christmann, a member of the ND Public Service Commission, blamed the closing of the Stanton plant on wind farms. He said, "I think this is a result of the large movement to wind energy." ND has about 1,200 wind turbines in operation and permits to roughly double that number. The PSC received a request this week for a permit to build 87 turbines near Valley City, thus far the largest single application. Regulators warn that too much reliance on wind could threaten power grid reliability.
WELL DONE! Dean Margaret Williams of the UND College of Business and Public Administration voiced a widely held view of interim president Ed Schafer who completed his term at the university: “The CoBPA and UND are truly indebted to the Schafers for their servant leadership, enthusiasm, open communication, positive outlook, and deep love for this university. As many people have noted, it is hard to imagine anyone who could have been more effective as UND’s interim president and first lady. We will miss them!”
GRAB THE WRECKING BAR “But for this university to move forward, we need to invest in excellent classroom experiences. And that's likely to require less of a footprint than we have today.” -- new UND President Mark Kennedy. Translation: “We need to tear down some old campus buildings.” Kennedy added: “There's also a lot of stuff that we just can't afford to keep up to date. And it's really not adding to the campus environment to have older, vacant buildings.”
ARE YOU SURE? When, for the sake of argument, someone takes either extreme -- they may be on weak ground. A GF Herald editorial said, “UND can, in fact, advance in a great many ways, including on fundamentals such as graduation rates, grad school admission rates, licensing-exam scores and other key indicators.” So far, so good, then came the clinker, “only if the university leaves the nickname issue behind.”
“THAT’S A SHAME . . . we seem to be erasing these icons like the highway signs, or the Fighting Sioux logo and nickname at UND, because they're supposedly offensive to American Indians.” -- Columnist Rob Port’s reaction to the quiet removal of the image of Marcellus Red Tomahawk from ND highway signs. Port asked DOT spokesperson Jamie Olson “if the change was at all about political correctness.” The answer? Kind of.
TOO MUCH DIVERSITY FOR THEM! Jaqueline Hoffarth howled with indignation when learning the Women’s Center at UND will be moved to an umbrella diversity center in the Memorial Union. Dora Braio “was infuriated” to hear the International Center will get the same treatment. LGBTQ advocates and multicultural students share the outrage. They all want their own facilities.
CAN THEY GET OUT OF A RUT? “If we keep doing what we have been doing, nothing will change.” -- Columnist Lloyd Omdahl advocates a Marshall Plan to improve conditions on ND Indian reservations. His column urged Indians “to quit clinging to their paradigm of victimhood” and develop activities “that can be streamed into the national and world economy.” Omdahl thinks such a plan would be a good investment for ND taxpayers, just as “Europe was a good investment for American taxpayers.” Do the reservations have the will and capacity to benefit from this type of economic aid?
CRESTWOOD EQUITY is a pipeline operator on the Ft. Berthold Reservation. The company donated $1 million for a Head Start center for the Three Affiliated Tribes -- the current facility is a one-room building which accommodates fewer than 20 students and needs repairs. The TAT has earned over $100 million in oil revenues in a single year.
IRONY Andrew Sadek was a college student whose body was found in the Red River near Wahpeton in 2014. The cause of his death is undetermined. He was a drug informant for the sheriff’s department in Richland County in exchange for leniency for his own drug use. Recently, his parents retained Florida attorney Lance Block to sue Richland County for wrongful death. An unfortunate choice of attorneys, Block was arrested in June for trying to buy cocaine from an undercover police officer. The lawsuit will continue with Fargo counsel.
PICK ON SOMEBODY YOUR SIZE If you are going to ignore a stop sign, don’t do it riding a sprayer. Taylor Rose of Wimbledon glided through an intersection on his sprayer and T-boned a Peterbilt truck pulling a load of sand. Rose is under observation in a Fargo hospital, his sprayer had $80,000 of damage and the Peterbiit $45,000.
RACIAL DISPARITY “With every passing year, white and black Minnesotans live in more divergent worlds.” -- From a Star Tribune commentary by U. of Minnesota law professor Myron Orfield. He continued, “The region now produces the nation’s largest disparities between blacks and whites, with immense gaps in employment, education, wealth and health.”
THE RACIAL HISTORY described above is fairly new. Minnesota’s black community swelled in recent decades because of two unrelated developments: Somali refugees, whose numbers are hard to pin down, are usually estimated to be over 50,000. Black migration from cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee is also relatively recent. A Star Tribune reader claimed that such migration introduced intergenerational welfare to Minnesota and a black subculture attracted by generous benefits. Others reject that characterization, saying the migrants mainly sought jobs and better living conditions.
DAKTOIDS: ND oil production in May was flat -- a little over 1 million barrels a day and about the same as April . . . UAL wanted to pull out of Dickinson, but the U.S. Dept. of Transportation said no. This year’s air traffic at Dickinson is one-third of last year . . . In a week with little news, the Forum gave Prairie Roses to volunteers at the area’s many summer festivals and Leafy Spurge to drivers who speed in construction zones . . . Minnesota utility Excel Energy has opened a 75-turbine wind farm on the Canadian border north of Rolla -- the wind farm will produce energy for 78,000 homes.
BLOWING AWAY COAL Randy Christmann, a member of the ND Public Service Commission, blamed the closing of the Stanton plant on wind farms. He said, "I think this is a result of the large movement to wind energy." ND has about 1,200 wind turbines in operation and permits to roughly double that number. The PSC received a request this week for a permit to build 87 turbines near Valley City, thus far the largest single application. Regulators warn that too much reliance on wind could threaten power grid reliability.
WELL DONE! Dean Margaret Williams of the UND College of Business and Public Administration voiced a widely held view of interim president Ed Schafer who completed his term at the university: “The CoBPA and UND are truly indebted to the Schafers for their servant leadership, enthusiasm, open communication, positive outlook, and deep love for this university. As many people have noted, it is hard to imagine anyone who could have been more effective as UND’s interim president and first lady. We will miss them!”
GRAB THE WRECKING BAR “But for this university to move forward, we need to invest in excellent classroom experiences. And that's likely to require less of a footprint than we have today.” -- new UND President Mark Kennedy. Translation: “We need to tear down some old campus buildings.” Kennedy added: “There's also a lot of stuff that we just can't afford to keep up to date. And it's really not adding to the campus environment to have older, vacant buildings.”
ARE YOU SURE? When, for the sake of argument, someone takes either extreme -- they may be on weak ground. A GF Herald editorial said, “UND can, in fact, advance in a great many ways, including on fundamentals such as graduation rates, grad school admission rates, licensing-exam scores and other key indicators.” So far, so good, then came the clinker, “only if the university leaves the nickname issue behind.”
“THAT’S A SHAME . . . we seem to be erasing these icons like the highway signs, or the Fighting Sioux logo and nickname at UND, because they're supposedly offensive to American Indians.” -- Columnist Rob Port’s reaction to the quiet removal of the image of Marcellus Red Tomahawk from ND highway signs. Port asked DOT spokesperson Jamie Olson “if the change was at all about political correctness.” The answer? Kind of.
TOO MUCH DIVERSITY FOR THEM! Jaqueline Hoffarth howled with indignation when learning the Women’s Center at UND will be moved to an umbrella diversity center in the Memorial Union. Dora Braio “was infuriated” to hear the International Center will get the same treatment. LGBTQ advocates and multicultural students share the outrage. They all want their own facilities.
CAN THEY GET OUT OF A RUT? “If we keep doing what we have been doing, nothing will change.” -- Columnist Lloyd Omdahl advocates a Marshall Plan to improve conditions on ND Indian reservations. His column urged Indians “to quit clinging to their paradigm of victimhood” and develop activities “that can be streamed into the national and world economy.” Omdahl thinks such a plan would be a good investment for ND taxpayers, just as “Europe was a good investment for American taxpayers.” Do the reservations have the will and capacity to benefit from this type of economic aid?
CRESTWOOD EQUITY is a pipeline operator on the Ft. Berthold Reservation. The company donated $1 million for a Head Start center for the Three Affiliated Tribes -- the current facility is a one-room building which accommodates fewer than 20 students and needs repairs. The TAT has earned over $100 million in oil revenues in a single year.
IRONY Andrew Sadek was a college student whose body was found in the Red River near Wahpeton in 2014. The cause of his death is undetermined. He was a drug informant for the sheriff’s department in Richland County in exchange for leniency for his own drug use. Recently, his parents retained Florida attorney Lance Block to sue Richland County for wrongful death. An unfortunate choice of attorneys, Block was arrested in June for trying to buy cocaine from an undercover police officer. The lawsuit will continue with Fargo counsel.
PICK ON SOMEBODY YOUR SIZE If you are going to ignore a stop sign, don’t do it riding a sprayer. Taylor Rose of Wimbledon glided through an intersection on his sprayer and T-boned a Peterbilt truck pulling a load of sand. Rose is under observation in a Fargo hospital, his sprayer had $80,000 of damage and the Peterbiit $45,000.
RACIAL DISPARITY “With every passing year, white and black Minnesotans live in more divergent worlds.” -- From a Star Tribune commentary by U. of Minnesota law professor Myron Orfield. He continued, “The region now produces the nation’s largest disparities between blacks and whites, with immense gaps in employment, education, wealth and health.”
THE RACIAL HISTORY described above is fairly new. Minnesota’s black community swelled in recent decades because of two unrelated developments: Somali refugees, whose numbers are hard to pin down, are usually estimated to be over 50,000. Black migration from cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee is also relatively recent. A Star Tribune reader claimed that such migration introduced intergenerational welfare to Minnesota and a black subculture attracted by generous benefits. Others reject that characterization, saying the migrants mainly sought jobs and better living conditions.
DAKTOIDS: ND oil production in May was flat -- a little over 1 million barrels a day and about the same as April . . . UAL wanted to pull out of Dickinson, but the U.S. Dept. of Transportation said no. This year’s air traffic at Dickinson is one-third of last year . . . In a week with little news, the Forum gave Prairie Roses to volunteers at the area’s many summer festivals and Leafy Spurge to drivers who speed in construction zones . . . Minnesota utility Excel Energy has opened a 75-turbine wind farm on the Canadian border north of Rolla -- the wind farm will produce energy for 78,000 homes.
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