A Tale of Two Women in Williston

By Charlie Barber
Staff Writer

“We hope our city and state leaders will address the problem at 11th Street West and West Dakota Parkway, and ensure the proper authorities install a new traffic signal at the intersection. And we hope they do it before some one is killed.” -Editorial, Williston Herald, May 9, 2010

“I would like a full audit of accounts. I would like to know the full scope of CDs held by Williston versus its debt, so that we may better direct placement of the city oil money. We could all be better educated as to the allocation of these funds.” -Sue Evans, candidate for Mayor of Williston

It happened last month at an intersection of the West Dakota Parkway in Williston, that, unlike 11th St. West, actually has a traffic signal. I don’t know her name.

She had 20 seconds to make it across the four-lane highway before the light changed and the cars and trucks on this so-called “bypass” came charging in her direction.

She and her toddler…and the infant she was pushing in the baby carriage.

Twenty seconds isn’t that much for a highway that wide. With an island in the middle, a geezer like me could wait, but a mom with two infants in tow?

I had timed it a few minutes before on a visit to friends who were concerned about this threat to life and limb in Williston, N.D., their lifelong home now under siege by the biggest of three oil booms going back to the 1950s.

The harried mom was on her way to pick up a third child at the Wilkinson Elementary School. Unlike many other parents who were lined up at the school entrance, this mom did not have the option of an automobile. Presumably she would make the same harrowing trip back, soon after my friend and I left the scene.

Before the latest oil boom, most children grew up on the southeast side of West Dakota Parkway, but now much of the housing is on the other side, to the northwest, and there is not much changing that, except pressures to increase it.
It was a nice day, so a sprint with a baby carriage was a reasonable enough proposition, if one were thinking in sporting rather than maternal terms. But I thought, “What about bad weather? What if she were to fall and the light turned green for traffic that is routed at 40 mph through there?”
My friend had asked a trucker that question, and he told her that there was no way he could stop his truck in time with the oil and water loads that they carry, given the legal speed limit and that they were driving on what was supposed to be a bypass.

When we asked, the mom told us that there was no crossing guard in the morning or the afternoon at this dangerous intersection. Such school guards are very effective in my neighborhood in Mandan at slowing down drivers barreling down the local hill with other things on their mind than yellow pedestrian signs a block away.

Perhaps such guards could slow down the high volume of cars and trucks on what is billed by as a “truck route.” Perhaps not.

The other woman in this story is Sue Evans, Candidate for Mayor in the upcoming elections on June 8 (http://WWW.SUEEVANS.NET). As her ad in the April 15 edition of The Shopper explains, she has served with the District 1 GOP as finance chair and works with “our local TEA Party Movement and Citizens for Responsible Government.”

As my friend and her friends see it, Ms. Evans isn’t running against Democrats of any kind. There aren’t many of those in Williston. They see her as running against a “Good Ole Boy” system which doesn’t see the need to spend money on anything that might protect women and children dodging traffic on the West Dakota Parkway, or things like that.

These men are also quite reticent, it seems, to disclose their grand plans for Williston.

As Ms. Evans puts it, “I believe all individuals should have the ability to see where our money is spent, as well as what funds are available. I also feel that all bond debt should be easily located. Each of us should have an understanding of the levies placed upon our property.”

Hmmmm. A candidate for Mayor, with background as finance chair in a political party, who is demanding fiscal accountability within the confines, essentially, of that same party.

In that case I have only a few questions for Ms. Evans.

I would very much like to brew and share with you a nice cup of tea. Do you prefer green, orange pekoe, or some other? Do you prefer sugar, milk, or plain? Maybe we should have tea with Governor Hoeven and the Congressional Delegation. We need a U.S. 2 that actually bypasses Williston. NOW!

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