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Editorials

Project developments impact region, state

Recent announcements in the region brought important news affecting North Dakota’s agriculture and energy industries, the top industries in the state. The sale of Great River Energy’s (GRE) Coal Creek Station near Underwood to Rainbow Energy Center LLC cleared its final regulatory hurdle earlier this month when the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved the transfer of GRE’s high-voltage, direct-current transmission system to Nexus Line. “This approval is a momentous step toward Rainbow Energy taking ownership of Coal Creek Station and providing a long-term future ...

New funding important to move ahead with flood protection

Sen. John Hoeven, R-ND, was in Minot on Wednesday for a celebration of sorts. The senator was here to meet with city representatives to talk about securing $61.5 million in federal funds designated for Minot flood protection. Sixty-one million dollars is a big deal for a project to protect this city from future floods like the 2011 flood that devastated so many residents’ homes and businesses. Hoeven had a big hand in working with Shalanda Young, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the St. Paul office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to secure the ...

Community support makes zoo project a reality

Less than four years ago Roosevelt Park Zoo in Minot announced the beginning of fundraising for big cat habitats. That was in July 2017 when the Minot Community Facilities Fund awarded the first million for the Centennial Capital Campaign. About five months later the community’s part in the capital campaign was announced to finance the three-phase project for new lion, tiger and leopard habitats. Now in 2022, construction begins soon on the new leopard habitat, the final habitat to be built for the zoo’s big cats. “It takes a village,” as the saying goes, to support and ...

Ransomware scourge hits home for SRT users

The absence of email for more than three days brought home the reality of ransomware threats for SRT members in the Minot region. Ransomware, which entails worming into a computer system to encrypt and hold data hostage, is not an unfamiliar crime. But it typically has happened to people farther away. As local residents became cut off from a popular form of communication and businesses scrambled to keep operations on track, the cybercrime took on new meaning. The Institute for Security and Ransomware Technology issued a task force report last April, claiming about 2,400 victims of ...

Thought-provoking projects require public input

Minot residents and elected officials have some things to think about. Jill Schramm, senior staff writer for The Minot Daily News, recently reported the city council voted 4-3 to keep the rehabilitation plans for the Anne Street Bridge alive and find a place for the project on its five-year Capital Improvements Plan. Last week, Shalom Baer Gee, staff writer for The Minot Daily News, reported on the Minot Park District’s meeting with an architectural firm representative about updates for the Maysa Arena and Minot Municipal Auditorium. All of the projects require more careful ...

Dusting off Dr. King’s great message

We celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day on the third Monday of January — this year, Jan. 17. On Aug. 28, 1963, King delivered one of the great speeches in American history, popularly known as the “I Have a Dream” speech. It is a speech that must be dusted off and studied anew today, because it contains the very message that our nation sorely needs to hear and digest now. A message that has been tragically lost and buried and replaced with great and destructive distortions. Two things jump out when reading through that speech. One is how this Black preacher captured in his ...