SCHMID: LOOKING BACK FROM THE LEFT COAST - MARCH 22, 2015
A WILD SWING In December, the governor forecast ND oil tax revenues of $8.3 billion for the 2015-2017 biennium. This week, that estimate was down to $3.4 billion, a drop of nearly 60 percent because of the plunge in oil prices. Forecasts of general fund revenue for the same period dropped to $5.1 billion, a drop of 7.5 percent. Wisely, ND limits its general fund reliance on oil revenue, which buffers the drop in oil prices. Nevertheless, the state will need to trim some capital spending plans.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL asks “Oil Boom Swells North Dakota Town; What Now?” Their spotlight is on Watford City where hundreds of apartments are in various stages of planning and construction. With oil prices down apartment rents are dropping and many of the projects will stall.
A LITTLE NOTE TO EASTERN LEGISLATORS “Watching the Legislature from only a 100 miles away, there have been times when we marvel at how a state with less than 1 million residents has a government with such a lack of understanding of what is happening on its western edge.” -- You may detect a slight note of irritation in this quote from an editorial in the Dickinson Press. The Press urged its readers to write Sunshine Week letters to be included in special editions for the Legislature.
GIVE US OIL MONEY! It’s hard to know if Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton has a good case that railroads should chip in to mitigate dangers of oil trains, or if he is using the railroads to get a piece of the ND oil business, or both. Dayton wants to assess the state’s four major railroads $330 million ($33 million a year for ten years) to make crossings safer from passing oil trains. This is in addition to another proposed bill which would assess the railroads $45 million a year on their properties. The railroads believe both proposals are discriminatory and violate federal law. Expect a fight.
GO SLOW, OR ELSE UND President Robert Kelley never liked the “Fighting Sioux” nickname -- one suspects he may hate it. He has given the latest nickname committee two months to come up with a short list of new nicknames -- he clearly wants the matter behind him. Tom Dennis at the GF Herald said “what’s the rush.” Dennis notes that “a great many fans remain deeply embittered over UND being forced to give up Fighting Sioux” and suggests that its far better to build unity than force a consensus.
BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW that the Barnes County Museum in Valley City has a 26-foot long triceratops nicknamed Bob. But maybe not for long, the owner is itching to sell Bob for $1.4 million -- the little Valley City museum doesn’t have that kind of change. Investors in Dubai are said to be interested. Bob lived 65 million years ago in Bowman County and someone will have to act fast if he is to stay in ND.
MAYBE IT’S TIME TO . . . There was a clamor about the unfortunate decision to deny a Muslim prayer in the ND House of Representatives on Ash Wednesday. Columnist Lloyd Omdahl says this is a variation on a theme we have seen before and will see again as there is an effort to accommodate the growing diversity of religions. Omdahl believes the “all-inclusive prayers . . . are becoming more vague and meaningless” and it’s time to drop the charade.
STICK ‘EM UP Over the past few years, particularly in eastern ND, there is a new pattern of armed robbery and other violent crime. Crime reports like the following GF Herald report this week about the robbery of a Cenex Service Station have become more common: “According to a police report, three African American males, all approximately 6 feet tall with thinner builds, entered the store shortly after 10 p.m. and demanded money . . . The three suspects then fled the store southbound with an undisclosed amount of cash.” When this type of crime is solved, the suspects are often from the Minnesota Twin Cities area. The phenomenon is generally not discussed in the media, but it seems reasonable to conclude that ND is seen as a rich target where both victims and law enforcement are less prepared.
NORWAY TO ND The state was mentioned in the March 15 issue of the NY Times Magazine, “My Saga, Part 2.” A Norwegian novelist, Karl Ove Krausgaard, journeyed to the Midwest to see the fabled Viking runestone in Alexandria, Minnesota. On the way he visits his cousin, Mark Hatloy, a farmer and business owner in Grafton (“the cold seemed to grab hold of my cheeks”). Krausgaard was amazed at his cousin’s wealth, although he said, “There was nothing about him . . . to indicate that he was particularly wealthy. When he talked about his Norwegian heritage, what he emphasized was the work ethic. He worked constantly.”
DAKTOIDS: Oil production in ND is softening and employment is shifting from exploration to production . . . Mary Wakefield, a Devils Lake native and former associate dean at the UND Med School, has been named to the number two position in the huge U.S. Health and Human Services agency . . . Williston’s service area population of 53,000 grew 20 percent from 2012 to 2014 . . . ND had a spike in meth around 2004, by 2011 meth use was almost stamped out. But now it’s back in a big way, a product of the oil boom and organized crime . . . UND hockey leads the nation in attendance this year.
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