Dakota Beacon

BUDGET LOOKING UP  This week, ND begins its two-year (2019-21) budget cycle.  The outlook is more cheerful than two years ago when the state became very conservative following a severe budget shellacking that forced the state to invade its Budget Stabilization Fund.  That fund is being restored and a new forecast assumes first-year (2019-2020) oil production of 1.4 million barrels a day and a price of $48.50 a barrel.  Oil production and prices have become the pivotal factor in ND budgeting.  There is also cautious optimism about ND’s soft ag economy.

GLOOMY PREDICTION  Minnesota Congressman Collin Peterson, chairman of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, often speaks bluntly.  This week, he predicted a lasting crisis in the U.S. farm economy where falling land prices and relatively weak crop prices will cause farm bankruptcies which could spill on to Main Street.  He blames overproduction, tariffs and massive hog deaths in China.  While not immune, ND farmers seem in better shape to weather tough years than farmers in nearby states..

DON’T BLAME THE OIL PATCH  The overall crime rate in ND for 2018 remained at the same level as it has for several years, but aggravated assaults and drug arrests rose.  Before you jump to any conclusions, hear what Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem had to say.  He said don’t blame the Oil Patch, their crime figures were roughly in line with their population.  There was one ominous note, Stenehjem said 2019 is starting to look like a year for murders — 17 ND slayings so far match the 2018 total.  The unsolved mass murder of four Mandan people in April boosted the numbers.  The highest number of murders since 1978 is 22.

GROWING UP  Fargo is no longer that little city on Hwy 10 — it’s the center of a growing metro area of a quarter million people.  We saw one indication this week when Fargo Park District executive director Joel Vettel resigned.  He managed a department with 700 full-time employees and a $27 million budget.

JUST ASKING  The Dickinson Press runs one or more articles each day from South Dakota — a policy they’ve had for sometime.  If the Forum companies are going to provide SD news from one of their ND newspapers, the Press seems like an odd choice -- it's in the southwestern part of the state.  The Jamestown Sun is centrally located and closer to population centers in both states.  The Forum companies have a daily newspaper in southeastern SD in Mitchell.

THE PORT OF DULUTH appears to be the country’s “farthest-inland freshwater seaport” and perhaps the busiest.  The Star Tribune may have been overly enthusiastic about the port when it wrote, “The port’s location just a few miles away from the geographic center of North America — which experts say is somewhere in North Dakota — make it a key link between the heartland and the coast.”  Those “few miles” from Duluth to Rugby are over 350 miles.  Nevertheless, Duluth is a vital export point for ND commodities.

“AMY IS A GOOD WORKHORSE.  Unfortunately too many Americans vote for show horses no matter how much s__ they leave behind.” — From a letter to the editor at the Star Tribune.  Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobachar is a seemingly moderate, sensible person — the type of Democratic presidential candidate that should have appeal to ND voters.  A Trib news article held hope that she might rise in the polls as a result of the debates.  Readers were more unflinching: “The senator of small things has no shot” and she is  “nothing more than an also-ran.”  Other readers speculated she may be positioning herself for an appointment to, say, Secretary of Agriculture.

RACISM NEAR I-94?  “What’s clear is these people are organizing.  They’re here in Minnesota and they are violent and they’re willing to stab and hurt people while hiding behind the First Amendment.” — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison reacting in part to reports of backlash against Somalis in I-94 communities such as St. Cloud and Pelican Rapids.  He held a gathering of leaders in Fergus Falls, an I-94 community about 60 miles from F-M, to improve police responses in rural Minnesota to crimes that appear motivated by racism.

THE WESTERN COLLEGIATE HOCKEY ASSOCIATION may soon be no more.  The ten-team conference is scattered from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Huntsville, Alabama.  Seven teams are withdrawing to form a new conference saying, "You want to associate with what you feel are like-minded institutions in terms of commitment to facilities, to funding, to coaching salaries.”  The seven withdrawing teams are from Minnesota, Michigan and Ohio — the teams voted off the island are in Alaska (2) and Alabama.  In addition to their remote locations, the latter three teams have funding problems.  UND’s Division I hockey team is a member of a different conference, the NCHC (National Collegiate Hockey Conference).

ST. LOUIS PARK is a left-leaning Minneapolis suburb — Democrat Ilhan Omar is its U.S. representative.  The city council decided to stop reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at their meetings.  That in itself was not so unusual, they could have had mundane reasons for doing so.  It was the reason they gave that sparked controversy — they were afraid the pledge was unfriendly to minorities and new immigrants.  You can easily guess what followed — St. Louis Park residents, as well as many other Minnesotans, were the ones offended.  The council has agreed to revisit its decision.

DAKTOIDS:  Maybe next time — ND is one of 29 states that never produced a U.S. President . . . Sanford Health is becoming a monster — it’s exploring merger with UnityPoint Health in Iowa — the combination would be one of the 15 largest nonprofit health groups in the nation . . . Climate change appears to have a net favorable effect on ND crops — the changes hurt wheat, but benefit corn and soybeans.