Grand Forks City Council to vote on plan to lure Oil Patch businesses
May 7, 2012 at 2:30 am in Grand Forks Herald
An initiative to attract Oil Patch businesses to Grand Forks will go before the City Council when it meets about 5:30 tonight at City Hall. Continue Reading
Likely another boondoggle. Can you imagine the city council putting up, say $100K, to entice a big warehouse liquor store into Grand Forks with the promise of lots of jobs? Probably not.
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Of COURSE it’s a boondoggle.
ALL corporate welfare is a boondoggle.
As long as it’s “someone else’s money” why would the Grand Forks City Council care? It’s not like they have a track record of spending tax dollars wisely.
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This has essentially benn my gripe for a long time. You have three very wealthy businessmen on the council: Gershman, Christiansen, and Kreun. They are wealthy because they would have never invested their own capital into the projects they blithely throw taxpayer money into.
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That is not all Gene… I can’t believe Hal suckered Dana Sandie into that.. Dana at one point was a person who can think for himself.. I’m not sure today..
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My bet is most people could not even tell you who Dana Sande is. The council is run by the troika I mentioned above. Bjerke has become a non-entity. And as someone else mentioned, Brown sees the job of mayor as a hobby.
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EGF gave GF Kurt Kruen after the flood. It was our gift to your city. You can’t return him either. That would be rude.
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Thank you, tj. That’s like giving constipation to someone with hemorrhoids.
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Anytime Gene. I’m always willing to help out a friend.
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In that case, tj, please pass the suppositories.
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75,000 bucks is nothing to sneeze at when the city leaders have their mind on spending that much money.. Don’t forget about the over 2 million bucks they spent on the landfill for a study on the impact of it’s land nearby or pollute the river.. I’ll bet they spent most of the money on legal fees to take the land away from Falcon Township to put the landfill there..
There must be a way to better spend that money than trying to get the oil companies into grand forks (lower case).. I ask you people what 75,000 bucks can do if you wanted to see it spent? What would you do with it?
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The only honorable thing would be to return about $2.00 to every taxpaying Grand Forks citizen.
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Much more than that…
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return money to tax payers; kinda like Measure 2.
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Grand forks would be a great location for oil buisness. Put a buisness office in grand forks and make it a stop for employee orientation and training or a Great place to start buisness meetings since it is near impossible to find a hotel room for clients in the patch.
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Isn’t this an investment in the community that could lead to more tax dollars? Which you could than return to the citizens in greater excess:) alright they may not return but increased rvenue could poddibly lead to lower taxation.
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When the city council “invests” the taxpayers always get an Edsel.
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It’s only an “investment” if it works. Since it likely won’t work, it’s an “expense”.
What, you think people in Williston don’t know that Grand Forks exists, and is at the other end of Highway 2?
They’re spending 125,000 dollars when all they need is to buy a bunch of return address stickers and postage stamps, a magic marker, and obtain about three hundred “free” ND highway maps. Circle Grand Forks with the magic marker, add the address sticker for the Chamber Of Commerce next to the circle. Put a stamp on the outside, and mail ‘em to the Oil Patch. That’s about how effective their efforts are going to be.
How stupid do you think “oil patch businesses” are? They know we’re here. If they wanted to do business here, they know who to call.
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I could not put it any better than you did Schurkey… But I still wonder who’s the one who oiled or greased someone’s palm,, It does not add up..
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I figure the Chamber of Criminals wanted to do a big-time promotion…and they got the City Council to underwrite most of the cost.
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The Alerus was an investment, what a moneymaker that is. Some council members are wealthy due to the service they provided, not by thier “great leadership” attributes.
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“The Alerus was an investment”
The Alerus is the product of two things:
Fargo envy
The GF aristocracy’s belief that all taxpayers should pay for the amenities they want
When the outside consultant said the Alerus would always lose money, he was shown the door. In over a decade we have gotten cooked books, insults and embezzelment from management, and absolute silence from the “people’s paper.” And while it bleeds red ink, Gershman asks how many police and figherfighters we want to get rid of.
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The Alerus would have been in the black if not for the flood causing Ralph to want to help the city get back on its feet with his arena investment. Most cities the size of GF would give their right arm to have the problem that 2 world class facilities cause.
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IOW the sales tax that the Ralph brings in + other economic activity it generates likely makes up to the city the losses the Alerus creates.
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IOW you libertarian hermits are likely part of all those people living in rural GF County mooching off the GF city infrastructure paid for by people who understand “community”.
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No response Gene?
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Yes. You’re a dolt. Stay in Shakopee.
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Spearman–are you nuts?
Ralph was told to wait on his arena until after the Civic Center was approved by voters. If the Englestad Arena was announced BEFORE the vote, no-one would have voted in favor of the White Elephant.
The fact that we have two major arenas in this town is a result of cover-up, lies, and deception on the part of City Hall, UND, and Englestad–not bona-fide “good fortune”.
And not one person has been prosecuted for lying to the voting public regarding either of those two arenas. Another in a long line of travesties of justice.
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I knew Englestad. He wasn’t told to wait. In fact his original plan was to build half the arena he eventually did & that wouldn’t have been competition for a convention center. Where do you get your disinformation? Sounds like coffee shop garble to me.
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Senator, I knew John Kennedy. John Kennedy was my friend…
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I don’t live in Shakopee. You can only resort to name calling cuz that’s about the depth of your mean- spirited, half – baked, anti -government Libertarianism.
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You chronically use “Libertarian[ism] as a pejorative. Do you actually believe that will strike a resonant chord in Grand Forks? Perhaps you should say Socialist instead, but then you’d be criticizing yourself.
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Do I care?
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Hasn’t the ND State Geological Survey always been in GF as has the ND State Petroleum Engineers office? Add to that all of the oil well coresamples ever drilled in ND are in the Geological Survey’s Core Library Lab where the old UND hockey barn was. Seems to me there might be an advantage for oil companies to have offices in GF to be able to confer with ND oil officials & maybe even the EERC.
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Not to get off topic. (I agree it’s a bad investment/waste) , but does anyone else despise the “oil patch” buzz word? It sounds so backwards and hickish. Did Joel Heitkamp come up with it? “Da oil patch in Nort DA Kotah. I love our state btw!
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Nothing says “Yokel” like a smiling water tower.
No room to complain about “oil patch”.
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I wonder where they manage to pull these amounts they’ll need? Like 75K for what? Let’s just put some money out there and watch it grow. The same is true for these “Studies” “We need to spend many thousands of dollars to study if we need something or something done to a current item” These are areas that I do agree that they are too quick and free with funds. If they were making decisions for their own business with private funds….I have the feeling those amounts would be much less than when done with funds from the public coffers….
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