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Downtown focus for new city hall is consistent, not perfect

Assuming the City of Minot continues to pursue a new city hall downtown, which remains the focus today, $3.75 million in National Disaster Resilience grant funds will be available. There are certain caveats that come with the grant money, including a downtown location and rehabilitation of an existing building as opposed to new build. Obviously $3.75 million isn’t going to cover the cost of a “new” city hall. It is, however, a start. The grant money isn’t the primary reason the city council and administration should remain focused on downtown. Instead, the reason is ...

Racism exists, and that’s unacceptable

Despite comments by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden recently, racism is not an “institutional” aspect of life in the United States. But it does exist — and that simply is unacceptable. We as a people need to do more to stamp it out. No form of bigotry, including the anti-Semitic comments made by a few members of Congress, should be tolerated by Americans of all races, colors, creeds, faiths and national origins. During an interview with reporters, former Vice President Biden described racism as a “white man’s problem visited on people of color.” He added ...

Youth Outdoor Festival serves many purposes

Don’t tell a kid headed to a Youth Outdoor Festival that they are going to school. He or she might not be as willing to go and would miss out on all the fun – and the education. That’s right, education. Every activity at the Conservation and Skills Park at the State Fairgrounds, besides being fun, teaches kids valuable lessons that will stick with them for life. Like safety first – all of the time. Respect for wildlife, respect for the land, other hunters, the law and landowners. It’s not just about picking up a pole and catching a bluegill in the pond, although there is ...

Missing kids a problem that needs addressing

Minot Police are once again looking for a missing youth. As of this writing, 17-year-old Jericho Crissler remains missing after having last been seen six days ago. According to the FBI, in 2018 there were 424,066 entries for missing children in the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. This number represents reports of missing children, meaning if a child runs away multiple times, each instance would be entered into the database separately and if an entry is withdrawn or amended, it also reflects in the statistics. The key word is “runaway,” because in most cases that is the ...

Storm drain warnings bear repeating

Recently a Minot man was in court after he was caught dumping used motor oil down an city storm sewer. We wondered aloud just who would do such a thing knowing that Minot’s storm sewers empty into the Souris River. Since then, a group of MSU biology students and others decided to label some of the storm sewers near MSU, making it clear that anything dumped there on purpose or by natural drainage will end up in the river. It was a terrific idea, which they borrowed. It’s a program that maybe shouldn’t be necessary, but hey, whatever it takes to keep the river clean – and the ...

American military action over Hong Kong would be disastrous

Let us hope and pray the world is not about to witness something like what happened 30 years ago in Beijing. If it happens again, this time in Hong Kong, there will be absolutely nothing the United States or anyone else can do to stop it. During late spring and early summer in 1989, an enormous pro-democracy protest took place in China. It was centered on Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing. For a time, China’s communist leaders did nothing, hoping the demonstrators would lose interest and melt away. They did not. So in June, the People’s Liberation Army was ordered to put ...