Josh Wolsky

Minot

No. No. No. Just no. A recent letter to the editor got it wrong.

No, the City of Minot does not have six electrical inspectors. No, the City of Minot does not have six plumbing inspectors. This is utter nonsense. The City of Minot’s Building Inspection budget is on page 30 of the City’s adopted budget document. Find it here: https://www.minotnd.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/384. For 2018, we budgeted for 1 Building Official, 1 Senior Building Inspector, 2 Building Inspectors, 2 Electrical Inspectors, 1 Plumbing Inspector, 1 Building Permit Technician, and 1.5 Administrative Clerks. You’re free to have whatever opinion about those numbers you want, but I’ll tell you they came up in last year’s budget discussions. I expect they’ll come up again.

And if you want to take shots at our City employees, I guess, well, “to each their own.” One of the reasons I love North Dakota is for our extraordinary work ethic. From what I’ve observed, we don’t lose that when we take a job with the City.

We have financial challenges ahead, and we’ve been fooling ourselves on the cost of our everyday government. The bills for flood protection and NAWS are here. Do you have $350 million laying around that you’re willing to contribute? Me either.

The question of how we’re going to pay for that is real and right in front of us. I don’t have all the answers, but what I do know – for sure – we won’t find them by perpetuating blatantly wrong information and inciting the mob.

To close, please tune in what’s happening. Work on the City’s budget began months ago, and it will really ramp up in August and September. Those of us doing the job want and need to hear from you. We also need ideas and solutions, not anger; there’s nothing we can do about how we got here.