A Two-way Street
The Fargo School Board is expected to vote Friday morning on yet another Metro Sports Foundation request for a lease agreement to help solidify funding for the $25 million Urban Plains Hockey facility.
In eleventh hour, so to speak, or the UP Center could face construction delays if the School Board does not deliver.
Public sentiment, however hockey friendly, is not supportive of the school district committing taxpayer money to a hockey arena proposal that seems to be everything but on solid ground.
Today’s Forum (Thursday) carried yet another report on the last-ditch efforts to assure Urban Plains its needed funding so that construction could move forward. Regarding the Fargo School District’s $25 million fund balance, The Forum reported that “…the district no longer funds building projects from its general fund but from a building construction fund levy, authorized at $6.2 million for 2007-08,” attributing that information to Board Vice President Dan Fremling.
Truth is, the Fargo School Board was carrying $44,200,000 in Building Authority Revenue Bonds Payable through the General Fund as of the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2007. Capital Projects Funds General Obligation bonds totaled $34,250,000.
So, anyone saying or reporting that monies are not coming out of the General Fund anymore for new buildings is clearly wrong.
If the Board of Education approves an unbudgeted sum of money exceeding half a million dollars for ice rentals in a facility still grasping for stability, they are making a decision that will conceivably haunt them for a long time, and rightfully so.
The individual property owner is taxed beyond comprehension already.
Up And Running…
We could not be happier with the initial launch of the new hpr1.com website. Without any fanfare, we began dropping content into the site last week. Each day we learned more about the process. Each day the site came more to life.
Phil Leitch and J. Earl Miller did a great job with our website. It was designed to be user friendly, and it was designed to serve as a foundation for future evolution and change.
We not only have content online, but advertisers. The web is truly revolutionizing our world, and how we present our newspaper online reflects that.
With the web, it’s a two-way street. It’s a dynamic process. Our readers participate and respond. It’s very community-oriented.
Thanks to Unwound Design for their significant effort put into hpr1.com. We encourage you to check our online version out and to let us know how you like it.
What Is This?
A trivia question for HPR readers? Please email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and tell us what the following is, where it is from, and who said it, etc.:
O Birther (Father-Mother) of the Cosmos,
Focus your light within us - make it useful:
Create your reign of unity now -
Your one desire then acts with ours,
As in all light, so in all forms.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight.
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
As we release the strands we hold
Of others’ guilt.
Don’t let surface things delude us,
But free us from what holds us back.
From you is born all ruling will,
The power and the life to do,
The harmony that beautifies all,
From age to age it renews.
Truly-power to these statements-
May they be the ground from which all
My actions grow: Amen.
Posted 4 years, 4 months ago by John Strand | Email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | View John Strand's profile.
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