On May 24th I attended a candidate forum for the candidates running for Minot City Council. It was sponsored by the Minot Daily News which I credit for its dedication to community awareness. Although the attendance was pretty good, I suspect the questions were not as detailed or as expansive as those asked by the
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Here in North Dakota, we occasionally dismiss outside ideas — particularly those from more liberal-leaning parts of the country — because those places don’t identify as closely with our values. Sometimes that’s good; sometimes that’s bad. The story below comes from the Washington state, and it’s absolutely an outside idea that we should be appropriating. Technology
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The discussion on how to fund the local share of flood protection — about $336 million — is finally happening. Personally, I’m frustrated by the fact that we’re six years removed from the high water and just now talking about how to pay for the plan. But frustration alone doesn’t typically deliver better outcomes. So,
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In the latest discussion on The Good Talk Minot, myself, Jonah Lantto of The Good Talk Network, and Alderman Shannon Straight dig in on the challenges that come with speaking out in a small town. Perhaps it’s part of our North Dakota culture and personality, perhaps it’s just human nature, but we don’t do ourselves
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We’ve all seen the graphic about various nonprofit organizations that tells us what percentage of donated dollars go towards the ’cause’ and how much goes toward ‘administration’. If you haven’t seen the chart, it’s likely you’ve had the conversation with someone. And if you’re like me — you were probably captured by that quick hit statistic.
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Economic growth, economic diversity, these are buzzwords in North Dakota and in Minot right now. The City’s NDR application talks about it; our consultant on the project, CDM Smith, even has a $300,000 budget to create an ‘Economic Development Strategic Plan for Minot & Ward County’. We also have the MAGIC fund, a sales-tax-funded pot
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A collaboration between creators of two of Minot’s newer media companies, The Minot Voice and The Good Talk Network, debuted recently. Good Talk Minot is a regularly recorded podcast focused on the local issues of the day. The first show was recorded last month, and touched on a couple local events (now in the past)
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This June’s City Council election is the culmination of a nearly two-year discussion on how we do things at the City level and ultimately, what we want our community to look like in the future. But here’s the thing about elections — the results we get are only as good as the information about the
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In the doldrums of the oil downturn, economic resiliency, development, and diversity have never been more important. And it’s become apparent — especially here in Minot where we see evidence of businesses closing almost weekly, that we haven’t been very good at creating any of those things. Perhaps it’s because we’re using the wrong methods.
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First and foremost, I applaud Stephanie Hoffart and her team at MADC for developing a prospect as exciting as Skyscopes. Between the Air Force, the oil and energy industries, and the ag business, the Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) industry is a great fit for Minot. It would be awesome if our little town can carve
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The discussion around “Andrew’s Law” this legislative session has been emotional charged. When a law is named after a person who’s no longer with us and born from a tragic situation, it’s easy to get caught in the idea that we must act and accept the first pitch. Ladd Erickson argues that Senate’s decision to
Read & Share sourced from: Say Anything Blog.comSubscribe to Today in Minot!
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The impacts of statewide budget cuts are filtering through nearly every department operating under the State’s umbrella, but nowhere are they more visible than in the University system. The latest casualty is the Woman’s Hockey program at UND. Rob Port with Say Anything Blog provides an economic perspective on why that difficult choice may have
Read & Share sourced from: Say Anything Blog.com
The 18th Avenue storm sewer project in SW Minot has been under consideration by City Council going back to January. The City moved forward slowly, holding multiple public comment forums to answer questions and explain the project. Of greatest concern to residents were the special assessment and demonstrated need. Basically, some potentially-assessed citizens questioned whether
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Good Morning Senator Hogue and Senator Larsen, I’m writing to provide a last minute appeal for House Bill 1163 regarding the removal of North Dakota’s Sunday closing laws. And because this debate is just the latest in a series at both the state and local level that has me concerned, I’m publishing this letter publicly
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It is difficult to predict the future. While the USA is restricting immigration, Canada is encouraging it. As a skeptic, allow me to speculate that if there were an influx of attractive young women from eastern Europe and/or Scandinavia seeking our borders, they may become more open. If we look into the past, this is
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It’s relevant commentary as the citizens of Minot take up the conversation of choosing the team that will lead the City this June. It turns out there is a roadmap to choosing a management make-up that consistently delivers results, and though the correlation with civic government isn’t perfect, but there are some concepts to worth
Read & Share sourced from: Quartz