Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
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GUARDS NEEDED! We are at crunch time!! We are in need of SEVERAL more guards!!! Accepting full- and part-time applicants, hours are flexible! Teenagers, the Carrington Community Pool needs your help! This is my third summer as publisher of the Independent, and I’ve seen a similar scene play out every year. There are also some open coaching positions in New Rockford, and seemingly every local business needs one, a few or many workers to fill their roster. The popular job site, Indeed.com, c...
Be sure to vote in the North Dakota Primary on June 11. On June 11, I will be voting for Senator Jerry Klein and Representatives Jon Nelson and Robin Weisz. I was privileged to be part of the Heart of America Medical Center board of directors with Jon Nelson and was also appointed to a statewide emergency medical services (EMS) committee with Robin Weisz. I have also worked alongside Jerry Klein for many years. These three current legislators have had an enormous impact on rural EMS and rural healthcare. They all have been recognized by the Nor...
I’m writing as president of PRC Wind, a pioneering wind energy company that specializes in partnering with communities that want to host wind energy projects. I’m writing to congratulate Wells and Eddy County residents on their amazing progress exploring wind energy over the past 15-plus years. This community had a hunch, and attacked the simple question: “Can a wind energy project benefit their community?” They did the hard work to engage residents and leaders across the area to find answers. Ultimately, the community formed W-E Wind in 2009,...
I recently left the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services where I proudly served as the Chief Financial Officer for four years. I had the honor and privilege to serve with some phenomenal state employees and state legislators. One of the best of the best is Jon Nelson, a representative from the remarkable city of Rugby. Hailing from Surrey, North Dakota, I recall fondly driving through town as a child and always stopping at the café at the heart of North Dakota. Their chili, apple pie and ice cream were a delight. Having served...
As a resident of Eddy County, I have some concerns on the new wind farm being planned. I was told by a PRC Wind (project managers of the wind farm) representative that it has gotten larger. Are you sure you will not be surrounded with these towers? What about phase 2 or 3? This wind farm will not only change the view of the landscape, what will happen to our property values and taxes? Will our property resale values go down? Granted, area schools and towns might benefit from some extra tax revenue; will county residents be taxed off of their...
I’m writing this column as a citizen and member of the board of governors for W-E Wind, LLC, the local organization that has led the wind energy effort in Eddy County. I was the economic development director for New Rockford when the idea of a wind farm first floated into our orbit nearly 18 years ago. During my first few weeks on the job, I met with every NRABC (then known as NRACBC) board member about their ideas. Tracy Henningsgard, one of the board members at the time, brought up wind e...
The lockdowns instituted during the COVID pandemic were only supposed to last a few days. Remember, “14 days to flatten the curve” was all that was needed to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed by patients infected with the rapidly spreading novel coronavirus. Two weeks turned into three, then months. The impact was felt across the nation. Schools were closed, disrupting the education of millions of children. Businesses were shut down, leading to job losses and economic hardship. States lik...
Are you willing to risk your health just to have straight hair? In 2022 a study was released that links the use of specific hair straightening chemicals to an increased risk of uterine cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has since evaluated the study’s claims, along with others, and taken steps to ban the sale of these chemicals in the U.S. I agree that a ban should be put in place for the use of these chemicals, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people have no knowledge of the fact that these chemicals are so h...
Abe Fortas had always wanted to be a Supreme Court justice and, for as long as he had known him, his friend and benefactor had wanted to appoint him to the nation’s High Bench. It came as no surprise to anyone when, in July 1965, President Lyndon Johnson nominated his old friend, counselor and attorney to the Supreme Court. There were no questions about Abe Fortas’ qualifications and credentials. Fortas was a lawyer’s lawyer, possessed a wealth of government experience and enjoyed the admiration of the Supreme Court, which had appointed him to...
“My name is Derek Petteway. I have been out of MRCC custody since November 28th, 2023. While at MRCC I was able to obtain my CDL, and since have found a very fulfilling career path because of it. I started a job as a crane rigger about two months ago. This job has treated me very well and it will provide me with outstanding benefits and a great retirement plan. The end goal for me is to eventually become a certified crane operator one day. “None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for t...
District 14 residents, Let’s set the record straight. A recent letter to the editor is trying to paint a misleading picture that we are not conservatives. The letter’s “evidence,” is linked to a cherry-picked, bogus scorecard. This scorecard is blatant deception and does not deserve more attention or time. However, the voters of District 14 don’t deserve to be misled and are owed the truth. This scorecard excludes many bills and votes that provided a direct benefit to District 14 residents and businesses. Diving further into the data, thi...
The U.S. Supreme Court writes opinions to explain and justify to the American people the decisions it reaches in cases it hears and resolves in conference. The explanation of the Court’s interpretations of statutes, constitutional provisions, precedents and, ultimately, its results, is critical to the partnership between the judiciary and the citizenry, one that hinges on the public’s trust in the Court’s rationales and exercise of awesome power over the life of the nation. In a constitutional democracy grounded in reason and persuasion, the H...
Spring sports are a crap shoot. One week, we don’t have anywhere to go. The next, we have all the places and not enough people to go. We get it all in every chance we get. On Tuesday, your local newspaper had four people at five different events. New Rockford hosted a doubleheader of high school baseball, first Carrington vs. LaMoure, followed by SNR vs. LaMoure. In the NR-S gym, the elementary club volleyball team took on the Benson County Wildcats. Carrington hosted softball, where Carrington...
Boy, is technology making us ruder. It all started with email. You see, long before the era of nasty Facebook posts and mean tweets – long before people had such an easy means to be rude to each other – there was a much tamer version of email rudeness. Let me share an email incident I experienced firsthand in 1999. Having just moved to Washington, D.C., I joined a large writer's organization, hoping to meet other writers – or, to be more precise, WOMEN writers. I got permission from the writer's...
While oral argument provides the citizenry with a fascinating glimpse of the Supreme Court Justices at work, the heavy lifting is undertaken behind the scenes, far removed from public view, beginning with the High Tribunal’s private, indeed, highly secretive weekly conferences in which decisions are made that will affect American lives and the life of the nation. The justices meet twice each week to conduct the Court’s business. This includes consideration of petitions seeking review of lower court decisions and deliberations on cases bef...
The news came to me in a text message on Sunday. Lloyd Omdahl, former lieutenant governor of North Dakota and writer of opinion columns published across the state each week, passed away at the age of 93. Although he has been writing his weekly column since before I was born, I did not know much about Mr. Omdahl until I began working for the Transcript in 2015. Truth be told, although I read newspapers, I didn’t really engage with his writing much. If I read the opinion page, I was often f...
The measure to eliminate property tax is being circulated, and signatures collected to place it on the November ballot. There is also a strong, concerted effort to once again scare voters to go against their own best interest. The measure is simple and does two things: it provides huge RELIEF by using excessive state revenue to replace what we are currently paying in property taxes. We get to keep that amount every year! And it creates true REFORM by stopping taxation based on valuation increases, ending confusing mill levies and no longer bein...
I just finished "Democracy in America," which is a book by a Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville on ... well, it's in the title. To write this book, Tocqueville and his friend Gustave de Beaumont, who was the Dr. Watson of the duo, only without a mustache, sailed to the United States to check out its capital attractions. Not McDonald's. Prisons. These two splendid gents got the French government to sponsor their jaunt across the Atlantic by promising they'd bring back loads of stuff on...
Oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court is the most important, fascinating and visible part of the justices’ public work on the High Bench. It represents a forum for lawyers to persuade the Court to embrace their perspective on a case and a canvass for a legal artist to produce a memorable masterpiece. In his argument to the Court in 1818 in the landmark case of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, which involved the state’s power to fundamentally change Dartmouth’s charter, Daniel Webster closed with words that have become immortal in the annal...
It must be spring, because cleaning and renewal are on the brain. I'm looking at all the work that needs to be done in and around our home before we host a graduation party in six weeks. I also need to take down the snowflake decor in the New Rockford store window and replace it with something more "seasonally-appropriate." I wish I had gotten that knack from my mother. She changes her décor every month, and the tables, archways and other areas of her home are always in season. We renewed our...
I confess to spending too little time understanding the policies and personalities affecting North Dakota at the state level. Contributing to my neglect was the confidence that came from knowing that the North Dakota legislature was solidly in the hands of Republicans. Unfortunately that confidence was unfounded. Our state government has been expanding its expenditures at an unsustainable pace. The spending is so excessive that North Dakota now spends more per capita than any other state in the country. If you want to know how and why this is...
Historically, U.S. Supreme Court justices have avoided drama. A bookish group, given to tranquility and docility, the justices mark their time in the quiet of elegant court chambers, deciding cases and writing opinions. There is, however, an exception to this institutional serenity – the Terry Affair – one that captured the attention of the country and the citizenry’s lurid interest in sex, scandal and murder. In the summer of 1889, Justice Stephen Field, an iconic 19th century conservative jurist who sat on the Supreme Court for 34 years...
“Help, I need advice! Tell me what to do with this weird corner below the stairs in my house!” “Show my husband that our brick home’s exterior would look better painted.” “I can’t stand these ‘orange’ wood cabinets that were custom built by the previous owner. Would they look better stained black or painted white?” Such are common questions a typical homeowner might ask his friends and neighbors. Every home has its quirks; some more than others. I remember watching “This Old House” and “Home Imp...
This month all over the state of North Dakota we commemorate Fair Housing Month with trainings, panel discussions, movies, library displays and city and state proclamations celebrating this important legislation. The Fair Housing Act, passed days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., both 1) aimed to eradicate discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity and sexual orientation), national origin, disability and familial status and 2) intended to promote residential integration. It was...
John Rutledge of South Carolina, a founding era titan who held virtually every important political office and judicial post from the pre-Revolutionary years through the Constitutional Convention, was one of George Washington’s favorites and easily fulfilled the first President’s seven criteria for an appointment to the first U.S. Supreme Court. Had it not been for President Washington’s interest in naming John Jay as the Court’s first Chief Justice, as a means of honoring the key state of New York, whose ratification of the Constitution had pro...
