Patrick Springer and April Baumgarten from The Forum and Dave Thompson, Prairie Public's News Director, provide analysis about recent North Dakota news.
Transcript
Main Street
Welcome to Main Street on Prairie Public. I'm Craig Blumenshine. Periodically on Main Street, we gather journalists from around North Dakota for a roundtable discussion about the news you may be thinking about, and today we are pleased to welcome three to our panel.
First Patrick Springer, he joined the forum in 1985 and he covers a wide range of subjects including health care, energy, and population trends. Patrick, welcome to Main Street.
Patrick Springer, Forum News Service
Thank you.
Main Street
Also with us from the forum is April Baumgarten. She's been a journalist here in North Dakota since 2011, and she joined the forum news service in 2019 as an investigative reporter. April, welcome.
April Baumgarten, Forum News Service
It's good to be here.
Main Street
And the legend's with us too, Dave Thompson, Prairie Public's news director. Dave, welcome.
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
Thanks, Craig. Appreciate it. I just don't want her to say when I started journalism in North Dakota. It goes back to 1976.
Main Street
My calculator didn't go back that far, so I just couldn't calculate that, but we're glad you're all here. There's much to talk about, and I think the top subject I would like to talk about today, April, this is one story that you really brought to our state, and I'm talking about the child sex tourism and child pornography charges against former state senator Ray Holmberg. You've written a lot about that.
The trial now has been delayed. Bring us up to date and give us your present day thoughts.
April Baumgarten, Forum News Service
So we've been reporting that Ray Holmberg, back in 2021, 2020, was connected to another person charged in federal court with possessing child porn, and that was Nicholas Morgan DeRozier. He had all sorts of connections to the former senator, from sending text messages when Nick was in jail awaiting trial for the child porn charges. Eventually, Nick Morgan DeRozier did plead guilty, and he's awaiting sentencing.
And now we are at the stage where Ray Holmberg has also been charged, accused of traveling to Prague with intentions to have sex with a minor multiple times and receiving or attempting to receive child porn. There's also been some reporting that we've done that he traveled to Prague using state dollars, whether he did that to have sex with a minor. Those are still allegations.
He's still considered innocent until proven guilty. But there are receipts saying that he traveled to Prague during the time that these allegations came about. There's been a lot of questions also about former Attorney General Wayne Stengen not recusing himself from the investigation.
There's a lot of moving parts with this. So right now, we're just awaiting trial. There's going to be a lot of discovery in this case.
I wouldn't be surprised if it gets delayed even further. Initially, it was planned for, I believe, December. And now it's been delayed to April.
And usually with these cases, when there's this much discovery, and this international charge is something that I've never seen before. So we might be waiting quite a while before we see a resolution to this case.
Main Street
I want to talk more about the deleted emails here in just a little bit. Dave, I want to bring you in. You and I have talked about this on more than one occasion.
Initially, there was some, I think, an aura of disbelief around the halls of the Capitol based on your reporting with visiting with other legislators. What are your current thoughts about this process that Senator Holmberg is going through and these charges now that have been levied against him? And as April said, he is innocent.
He has not been proven guilty of these charges.
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
And that's right. And you have to let the process play itself out. What I find very interesting is there's still not a lot of belief that this happened among his colleagues in the legislature.
And there's a lot of support for him that I'm encountering and talking to people. But the interesting thing about the deleted emails, I think, is a fascinating part of this story because, do you remember why the legislature decided that – well, not necessarily deleted emails, why the legislature decided that communications between lawmakers might be privileged and hidden from public view? Do you remember what happened on that?
I can tell you that that came out of the case regarding redistricting, that there were outside groups looking to see what these people said in their private emails, and then the legislature decided to exempt that. Right or wrong? You decide.
Main Street
I'd be curious now if that changes on some level, whether or not those emails – maybe that process becomes a little more transparent.
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
I think there is because there's a lot of contention about what actually happened with the attorney general's emails. And that's – there's been a lot of talk about having some kind of standard, some kind of saying, okay, you're out of office, how many months or how many years do you save your emails? And that that was not in place, and I know there's some talk about it again.
Main Street
Patrick, do you have comments about this case? It's such a huge case, and I think a lot of people are very interested in it.
Patrick Springer, Forum News Service
Yeah, it's very disturbing and very murky, and it does really highlight some gaps that we have in open records protections. Interestingly, Attorney General Drew Wrigley was in the Forum newsroom just yesterday talking to us about this, and his office did make some policy changes. It's now policy – I don't believe it's law, but policy that the emails of the attorney general and the chief deputy attorney general are to be kept forever.
They're not to be deleted. And your listeners might recall that besides the deletion of Wayne Stengram's email account, his chief deputy, Troy Seibel, his email account was also deleted, and Troy Seibel was the one who, according to an email from Liz Brocker, Stengram's assistant, who requested the deletion, it came as an order from Seibel. So there is at least that.
But yeah, we were even asking the attorney general, how do we prevent this sort of thing from happening again in the future? And if termination – there is a Class C felony for destroying public records that you were never charged in this case, and maybe, as it happens, Liz Brocker was fired, so he said that termination can help. It really – there's a great irony because Liz was the person who was overseeing open records requests, so she knew very well the law.
I think this is going to get a lot of attention in the legislature, and so will the matter of legislative emails. Can we just – redaction, can't they handle these concerns through redaction, which is pretty standard in open records?
Main Street
Dave, is there any pressure from the legislature to be more open and transparent in their communications with constituents?
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
Yes, there is. I've got to say that there's been a lot of concerns when this whole issue came up that lawmakers were getting a lot of pushback from constituents saying, you know, we need to have these standards in place, that these remain open records. And there's been – as Patrick has mentioned, there's been some study on that, and the attorney general has a policy for his office, but there isn't a state law yet.
There isn't a blanket state law.
Main Street
April, I want to ask you about a topic we've talked about here on Main Street within this week and the last couple of days. Let's say the senator is acquitted. What's your role then as a journalist to – or do you have a role other than reporting the facts about it or helping him get his life back, so to speak?
April Baumgarten, Forum News Service
I think our role is simply to report what has happened. And we had a lot of debate about whether to run our initial story with the – or with the text messages being sent back and forth in jail. I would say that we relied heavily on court records, on jail phone records, and we even confronted the senator about it to make sure he had a fair chance to speak to it.
If he is acquitted, we would want to give him that chance to talk about it, and we would report on it. I will say this, though. When it comes to a federal charge, they take that very seriously.
It's – they've been going over this for more than two years and trying to decide whether they should be bringing charges. In fact, I've been told that they had to go all the way to D.C. to get approval for this international charge. So they must feel that they're very confident in this case.
And again, I will reiterate that he is innocent until proven guilty. So we'll see what happens from here.
Main Street
Patrick or Dave, do either of you have thoughts about what your role is? I will say this is a sensational case, at least here in North Dakota, if it turns out that in fact someone accused is acquitted. Any thoughts about your role?
Patrick Springer, Forum News Service
Well, I really have to find myself agreeing with April. We would, of course – this would be a big story if he was acquitted. It would be big news all around the state.
We would, of course, invite comment from Senator Holmberg. It's unfortunate. We are – I think – I'm trying to think of kind of a corollary.
The case of Susan Bala comes to mind. Some of your listeners might remember that she was the head of racing services, a horse booking enterprise, and she was convicted of failing to report some earnings or something, failure to pay some taxes. But later, the conviction was overturned.
And so she was, in the eyes of the law, really kind of exonerated. And that fact got a lot of coverage. And she – so that's really, I think, all we can do is just maintain – give time and space for the person to respond and really try to give a story like that great attention.
Main Street
Enjoying our conversation in our news roundtable with Patrick Springer and April Baumgarten, both from the Forum, and with Dave Thompson, Prairie Public's news director. Patrick, you've done some reporting on historical treaties that I want to bring to the table here and asking how do the current demands of the Sioux tribes for nation-to-nation talks with the White House reflect ongoing challenges in the interpreting of historical treaties, particularly in this case that you've written about as the 1868 Treaty in the context of modern land and sovereignty issues.
Patrick Springer, Forum News Service
Well, I think for many of your listeners, 1868 might seem like a very long time ago. But if you go to places like Standing Rock and Pine Ridge, that is very much present in their lives, the treaties and what they're supposed to provide. And last week, the heads of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Oglala Sioux Tribe at Pine Ridge in South Dakota made a joint announcement asking for nation-to-nation talks with the Biden administration to talk about the U.S. government's obligations under this Fort Laramie Treaty. And a big, big part of that treaty was just an immense land grant. It provided the Sioux tribes that signed the treaty all of western South Dakota, which was for a time the Great Sioux Reservation, and then what were called unceded lands, a big chunk of southwest North Dakota, as well as parts of Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, even a little corner of Colorado. So just an immense land base that they had.
This was back when the Sioux were roving buffalo hunters. And so they needed a lot of land. And then the treaty was really undone, abrogated by the United States, among other things, after the discovery of gold in the Black Hills.
But anyway, I just think it's important for us to remember that once upon a time, by treaty, these tribes had just an immense land grant, land base that has been significantly reduced. And I think part of the aim of these two tribal leaders in making this announcement was just to kind of remind people and to get this back into the public discussion. Because when you go to a place like Pine Ridge or Standing Rock, you see a lot of poverty.
You don't see the kind of opportunities that you see in a lot of areas of the country. And I think that this is something that we have to wrestle with as a society. What are our continuing obligations?
We do provide, the government provides such things as the Indian Health Service. And it does provide some supports. But if you go to an Indian Health Service clinic or hospital in Indian country, you'll find that it's lacking a lot.
And so I think that these treaties are a very big deal for Indian nations and Indian people.
Main Street
Has there been any response from the White House that you're aware of?
Patrick Springer, Forum News Service
Well, sadly, I didn't get a response in time for the article that ran. But shortly afterward, I received – the White House referred me to the Department of Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs and American Indian Policy. And the White House – so the White House had no comment.
And then the press secretary for – the press aide for the Secretary of Interior said – and this is a paraphrase – we've got nothing for you. So they're not at all eager to talk about this.
Main Street
I just want to add that in Goshen County, Wyoming, not far from Wheatland and Guernsey, Wyoming, is the Fort Laramie National Historic Site where these meetings took place with thousands of Native Americans. And it's a wonderful place to visit if folks are interested in the history of exactly the Treaty of Fort Laramie that you've reported on. April or Dave, any other comments about this particular story?
It's wonderful reporting by Patrick, I'll add.
April Baumgarten, Forum News Service
I think I would just say that you mentioned not-so-distant future. This treaty happened right after the Civil War, and there's still grandchildren from Civil War soldiers that are still alive today. We've done a lot of reporting on Native American issues, including the fact that NDSU still receives money from land grants, from land that was taken in treaties from yeah, from Native Americans.
And so there's been a lot of debate about whether schools should have land acknowledgement statements. NDSU and UND do have one. There's also been this issue with the boarding schools where children have been sent away from their families to be assimilated into white culture.
And yeah, so this Fort Laramie Treaty, bringing that up again, it's very important to realize what has happened in history and where we come from.
Main Street
It's available online for people to read, I'll add. Dave, any comments?
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
Yeah, I do. I'd just like to add one thing because something that stuck out to me, I get the water magazine, Oxbow, and they had a story about the Pick-Sloan Plan, which affected the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation. And there was a photo of the signing of the land that was going to be given over for Lake Sakakawea, Garrison Dam at the time.
And there is a picture of the tribal chairman hands or his face in his hands, and he was crying. And I thought that was so powerful because that was a kind of a microcosm of some of the things that were going on.
Main Street
I almost hate to turn the page to the next issue, but I think we need to move along here. And this is relative to presidential polling that's been reported that's happened in North Dakota. And the implications are that recent North Dakota polls show President Trump actually leads Governor Burgum.
And what implications then does that have for the state's political landscape? Who wants to comment? April?
April Baumgarten, Forum News Service
Well, I think it's also really interesting that there's been a lot of discussion about whether Governor Burgum should continue with his campaign or not. And he seems to have confidence that he still could win at least a primary or even make it as the nominee for the Republican Party. I think one that's a little more hard hitting is that Joe Biden had more support in North Dakota than Governor Burgum.
So it doesn't really make you think whether Governor Burgum is still a viable candidate.
Main Street
Dave, what are your thoughts?
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
Well, that kind of turns the old phrase, all politics is local on its head, doesn't it? I had to say that.
But yeah, it's kind of interesting. I don't know if I was surprised by it or just kind of saying, oh, yeah, that's the way it is. There are probably people who think that Doug Burgum does not have much of a chance getting the nomination.
And maybe that was one of the factors in the poll. By the way, I still like what Edwin Newman said, ask not on whom the poll palls, it palls on me.
Main Street
Patrick, any last comments about this?
Patrick Springer, Forum News Service
Well, I was not surprised that Burgum lagged far behind Trump, but I was surprised by how far behind. And I was also surprised that Ron DeSantis actually came in a little ahead of Burgum and that Nikki Haley was not far behind him. And I think what that tells me is that Burgum, as we know, has been very reluctant to enter what some would call the culture wars, these social issues that are getting so much traction right now in the Republican Party.
And I think, though, that that's where a lot of Republican voters are. I think that's reflected here. You know, some people think that Burgum's objective isn't really to win this race.
He knows that he entered as a virtual unknown, but that his sights really are on the election four years from now. And he wanted to introduce himself. And so when he starts the next time around, he's got more of a running start.
I think, you know, looking closer to home here, the interesting question will be, I think March will be a very telling month because Dave can help me here, but I believe the state nominating conventions are in March. And I think now the North Dakota presidential primary will be coming up in March, moved up from the old June time period. And so, you know, Governor Burgum will have a decision to make.
Will he seek a third term as governor? Will he keep on with his longshot presidential campaign? So I think we'll get some clarity on that in March.
And that, in turn, will, you know, clarify, you know, kind of help to clarify the political field, you know, in the, you know, heading into the 24 elections in North Dakota.
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
And you mentioned presidential primary. We shouldn't. It's not a presidential primary because North Dakota has a caucus, Republican caucus.
That's a presidential preference caucus. And we'll see what happens with the results on that. But it is a primary concern about statewide and local offices.
And you might be right. You're very right. Is Governor Burgum going to run for a third term at that point?
April Baumgarten, Forum News Service
You know what they say is the only poll that really matters is the one that's on election day. So I don't want to give any up too much false optimism or pessimism. But that that is the ultimate poll that does matter is voting on election day or during the caucuses and primaries.
Main Street
And of course, on the last presidential election, only Wyoming supported President Trump more than North Dakota in our country. So there's a lot of support for the former president still here, I believe. Dave, you've done some reporting on the Motion Picture Production and Recruitment Grant that's been in the news lately.
Bring us up to date.
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
Well, this is interesting. A group of about 27 filmmakers from North Dakota held a news conference at the Capitol, basically saying they thought the process about handing out these grants called the Motion Picture Production and Recruitment Grants were unfair. The first grant in 2021 was a grant of $100,000.
And what happened is a conference committee of legislature working on the budget for the State Commerce Department took $100,000 out of tourism marketing and created the first grant. Now, what was interesting, a statement of purpose for the amendment there said the one time funding was to go directly to Canticle Productions of Bismarck, the company that made the film End of the Rope. Now, go ahead two years in 2023 legislature, $600,000 allocated the grant and a footnote in the conference committee report on the Commerce budget said, and I'm quoting directly now, adds funding for a Motion Picture Production and Recruitment Grant to be provided directly to Canticle Productions.
Now, the other producers have no problem with Canticle. They just have a problem with the process. In 2023, Commerce did open a six-day window to apply for the grant.
Well, that doesn't give you much time to apply. So they're looking for an investigation from the governor's office, from the attorney general's office, from the state procurement officer as to what happened. But it seems to me it was a legislative intent.
April Baumgarten, Forum News Service
I was going to ask, are they allowed through these grants to say exactly who they're going through? Because my understanding is they have to bid these grants out to the best bidder. And there may be some questions in the Constitution about whether gifting is allowed or directly saying who should be receiving these funds.
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
You are right on, April. And that's why these are footnotes and not in the bill itself. They thought that that might be a dividing line.
Whether or not it is, we don't know. And maybe there will be an investigation.
Main Street
We just have about a minute left in this segment. And I'm going to bounce forward in our notes to the Task Force for Teacher Retention and Recruitment. Are there any new announcements that we're aware of?
There are strategies, apparently, that the newly formed Task Force for Teacher Recruitment and Development employ and want to address here in North Dakota to address the teacher shortage. Is there any new news?
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
Well, there's not too much, but a lot of discussion about two issues are coming up when the task force meets. Number one, pay. But number two, teachers want respect.
And they think in the current political climate, they're probably not as respected as they should be. So there's talk about what can we do to change that dynamic there.
Main Street
That ends our discussion in this first segment on our news roundtable with Patrick Springer and April Baumgarten from the Forum News Service and with Dave Thompson, Prairie Public's news director. We're going to continue this discussion.
Main Street
This is Main Street on Prairie Public. I'm Craig Blumenshine, pleased again to be joined by Patrick Springer and April Baumgarten of the Forum News Service, and also with Dave Thompson, Prairie Public's News Director. We're continuing our journalist round table.
Wild horses in North Dakota national parks. How will the decision on the future of wild horses, is what I'd like to talk about next, in a North Dakota national park, impact the local ecosystem and tourism?
Patrick Springer, Forum News Service
The merchants in Medora and around Western North Dakota feel that they've really been kind of left out of the discussion. We don't have a study that shows how important the wild horse herd is to tourism, but we all know that the park is the leading tourist attraction in the state, and that for a lot of people, the horses are the attraction in the park. So I think there's no question that it would have a big impact, and there's a lot of concern throughout Western North Dakota about that.
The legislators, the merchants, people, are very concerned about that, and they wish that the park would take that more into consideration. Just to bring this up, so about a year ago, the park announced that it was going to revise its plan for managing horses and longhorns. The horses are in the South unit, the longhorns, there's about nine longhorns in the North unit, and they've whittled the possibilities down now to three, and these are to no change, or to quickly remove the horses with helicopter roundups, or to gradually let them go away through just birth control and natural deaths.
We're going to find out either late winter or early spring, the park service will come out with its actual plan, and we've gone through a long public comment period, a lot of anxious waiting there.
Main Street
Anything in the tea leaves that's leading you to believe one way or the other?
Patrick Springer, Forum News Service
Well, in the public discussions that the park has had, they have often referred to the mission of the park as being one to preserve native species and ecosystems, and they do not consider the wild horses to be a native species. So that leads many of the horse supporters to fear that the aim is to remove the horses, and if that happens, I think there will be lawsuits. I think Senator Hoeven would try to intervene.
There's maybe some talk of changing the park's authorization, its mission, to expressly include the heritage of Theodore Roosevelt's time, including the horses. That's an interesting point here. When the park was created in 1947, it was Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park, and it was expressly to make the Badlands available as they were in Roosevelt's time, during the open ranching era.
And then when the park became a national park in 1978, they changed the mission. So that is, I think, gonna be a big focus. Dave, what are you hearing?
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
A lot of the same things. I know some of the people who are really supporters of keeping the horses in the park, and they are ready, as Patrick said, to go to court, to go to Congress, and if need be, to change some of the wording. Whether or not they might be successful at that is anybody's guess, but there is a lot of support to keep the horses in the park, because they bring a certain beauty to the park.
You've got the bison, you've got the horses, you've got the deer, you've got the coyotes, who I encountered a coyote on a recent hike out there. That was fun. I'm saying that in air quotes, by the way.
But there's a lot of wildlife there, and they really wanna preserve that.
Main Street
Let's turn to the Voting Rights Act ruling, April, and I'll begin with you. How will North Dakota's plan to appeal the federal judge's ruling on the 2021 redistricting map impact voting rights in the state, in your view?
April Baumgarten, Forum News Service
What we've been covering lately is that we've had redistricting for the tribes and a ruling from the North Dakota US Federal Courts has said that the state may have not intended to dilute the Native American vote, but that's what ended up happening by splitting one district that contains Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, and also by packing the Spirit Lake Nation into one district. And they're still appealing it to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, so we're still kind of in this holding pattern of whether we're gonna have to go back and have another special session. You'll recall we had one in October because we dealt with too many issues in the Office of Management and Budget bill.
But there was also another ruling for another redistricting case involving the tribes and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the state legislature. So I don't know if we are gonna have an impact on it, but it does raise a lot of questions. There have been other states that have faced similar issues in redistricting.
So does this start to force states to look at how they are planning these maps and making sure that there isn't gerrymandering?
Main Street
Sure, and in Wyoming, the state went through that. In my home county, Fremont County, there were five representatives elected to the legislature. Well, our county included the reservation, and rarely, if not ever, was a Native American elected to represent his area, either the Arapaho or the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, and that was changed then to have a district that solely centered on the reservation.
Dave, what are you hearing about this?
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
Well, it's interesting because there is another Supreme Court or I should say an Eighth Circuit Court ruling that basically says only the federal government can take these cases on the Voting Rights Act Court. It was a two-to-one decision by that federal appeals panel, and that's what the state is kind of hanging its hat on right now, is that, hey, look at this decision that says only the federal government can take this case, and it's not any interest group. So that's what they're arguing.
But it does raise the question because you do have the sub-districts. You've got the sub-districts in both Turtle Mountain and also in northern North Dakota where you've got the two sub-districts, and that was created to allow Natives more representation, but Spirit Lake was left out of the equation as was Standing Rock. So that whole thing is going to be interesting to watch.
Main Street
Let's move on to development of rare earth minerals, and this is in Beulah, and I want to ask the question is how will the proposed industrial part for the development of rare earth minerals in Beulah impact North Dakota's economy and the environment, and then what, of course, are the potential long-term benefits or the challenges to this project? Do any of you have any reporting about this?
Patrick Springer, Forum News Service
Well, there's a lot of excitement around Beulah because of the jobs that this would create. There would be quite a number of jobs and very well-paying jobs. They would, I think, pay even better maybe or at least comparable to the coal jobs that are already out there, which are well-paying jobs.
And so economically, this is a big deal and very welcome news. As far as any environmental impacts, I think those actually are mostly applied to the mining in Minnesota, but the processing, that would be something new in North Dakota. So it's an example of how the state is trying to diversify its economy and capture more of the value of raw materials.
This is an interesting case because they would ship by rail the ore from Minnesota to be processed in North Dakota, and they would be making materials for batteries for electric vehicles. So I think it's a very interesting project. It's a new area for North Dakota.
Main Street
Is there a timeline for Beulah?
Patrick Springer, Forum News Service
I think a lot of this hinges on first getting approvals in Minnesota to do the mining. And I think once that is in place, the main focus would shift to North Dakota permit approvals. But I think it's gonna take a while.
These things often do.
Main Street
Dave, anything to add?
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
Yeah, I do have one thing to add. You talked about the rare earth minerals as well.
These are from the Minnesota mine, but also EERC at the University of North Dakota, the Energy Environmental Research Center, has been doing a lot of work about extracting these rare earth minerals from lignite coal deposits. And if they can get that economically feasible, then they could go with a plant probably there and one thing that it would lead to is that we would be less dependent on foreign shipments because right now, most of those rare earth minerals, which are used in batteries, calculators, computers, and things like that, come from overseas. And China is one of the biggest suppliers of that and China's ratcheting back on shipments to the United States.
So there's a lot of interesting things at play here and EERC is continuing its research.
Main Street
I'm gonna move on to a discussion about the economy. There was a wonderful discussion in the New York Times today about how even though all statistics really say our economy's doing well, people don't think the economy's doing well. And there's been a recent report of a 5.5% growth in taxable sales in North Dakota for the third quarter of 2023. What factors are contributing to this economic trend and do we know whether people in North Dakota feel good about the economy? Any reporting about that?
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
What I'm hearing is a lot of mixed messages. They understand that the numbers look good but when they look at their personal situation, inflation has really hit a lot of people and that's why I think people are looking at their own pocketbooks where they're saying the economy is not doing that well. And that's where it's at, your personal pocketbook.
But it's interesting and in that case, it was 5.5% but North Dakota for several quarters has had double-digit growth in these taxable sales and purchases. Now it's down to about 5.5% and the tax commissioner, Brian Krashus, is saying let's look at what happens during the Christmas season to see if this might be just a moderating trend or what's going on.
Main Street
We'll end our discussion today. We have about a minute and a half left with the construction of a new North Dakota State Laboratory. This is a $70 million state laboratory that will be constructed on the northeast corner of North Dakota's Capital Grounds in Bismarck.
What's the impact of this?
April Baumgarten, Forum News Service
So there's been a lot of discussion about testing different specimens for the Health and Human Services and I believe also the Environmental Quality Department. And they've said that their facilities has been outgrown and it's getting older and it's of no use. This project would hopefully expand the ability to not just test but to test faster and making sure that the public health is in a better situation.
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
Dave, any comments? And the one thing about building it on the Capital Grounds, that's the first building on the Capital Grounds for a number of years. And there's been a lot of push toward what is called the Capital Grounds Planning Commission to maybe expand some construction on the Capital Grounds.
So I wonder what's going to happen when this building goes up and people are gonna drive by and say, oh, that's interesting.
April Baumgarten, Forum News Service
Yeah, and also not to be confused with the State Crime Lab. There are some people that got that confused and personally I got that confused myself. But yes, the State Crime Lab is still gonna stay where it's at for now.
Main Street
Patrick Springer and April Baumgarten, thank you so much for joining us on Main Street today. And I urge people to look at the forum for news coverage of North Dakota along with Prairie Public and our news director, Dave Thompson. Dave, thanks for joining us.
Dave Thompson, Prairie Public
Thank you.
April Baumgarten, Forum News Service
Thank you.
Patrick Springer, Forum News Service
Thanks.
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