In The Light of Day

Our Opinion / The public has a legitimate interest in the unexpected and negotiated departure of Chief Ternes

Pretty much out of the blue, a media report Saturday, Nov. 8 let the cat out of the bag about city leaders “negotiating” the departure of Police Chief Keith Ternes. Mayor Walaker was quoted. By the next night, Sunday, Nov. 9, just after 8 o’clock, the city commission had announced a 7 a.m. special meeting for Monday, Nov. 10, “to discuss the Fargo Police Chief position.” A press conference was scheduled to follow at the Fargo Police Department at 8:15 a.m. that same morning.

What unfolded that Monday morning, and the days leading up to it, resulted in both newspapers in Fargo filing formal complaints with the North Dakota Attorney General. The High Plains Reader asked the Attorney General on Monday afternoon, Nov. 10, whether it was legal and proper for the Fargo City Commission to go into a closed executive session earlier that day to negotiate a separation agreement with Chief Ternes. HPR also asked if the intent to go into executive session was properly noticed to the public in advance. The Forum then filed a complaint with the Attorney General later in the week, asking further whether or not city commissioners participated in illegal “serial” meetings leading up to the special meeting.

As of press time, no word has been received from the Attorney General addressing these open meeting and public notice complaints. It is our sense that the AG’s office will look into the facts surrounding the handling of Chief Ternes’ separation agreement. That will likely include a review of the confidential audio tape recording of the executive session, as well, we would suspect.

The law requires public business to be done in the light of day and in view of the public along with proper advance public notice. We believe the public has a legitimate interest in the circumstances and reasoning behind the unexpected and negotiated departure of our police chief. The hows and whys of this dramatic and sudden change in leadership of the city’s police department ought to be more transparent in our opinion. That a highly regarded city administrator left under a cloak of secrecy and innuendo is unfortunate to say the least.

In the end, our hopes are that the process was not tainted in any way, shape or form. We are not pretending we know whether any laws were broken, yet the questions begged to be asked.

Rail Safety

Now that a second train derailment has happened near Casselton, it’s time for leadership at every level to pull out all stops to assure residents living near rail lines that they are safe from catastrophic Bakken explosions, period.

Rail safety is absolutely a pressing priority. And it is a complex issue. Addressing rail safety involves the preparation and handling of the flammable and explosive light sweet crude. It includes the practices for how full rail cars are filled and even the design of rail cars, themselves. It also includes the physical tracks as well as the routes of tracks and whether or not we will run trains around city centers here in North Dakota.

All cities and residents of Cass County need to put rail safety on the top of their priority list. All leaders in Cass County and across North Dakota are obligated to do everything within their power to assure safety of our people first and foremost.

Meantime, little things like reducing speeds of trains going through or near city centers is a fundamental requirement.

Keystone XL

U.S. Senator John Hoeven’s bill in support of the Keystone XL came up 1 vote short of the 60 yeas needed this week to send the pipeline to the president for authorization, which would have instead been met with a veto. Hoeven says he’ll reintroduce it again after the Senate reconvenes in January and when the Republicans will have a majority, or he has indicated that Keystone XL will be attached to another funding bill that Obama would be expected to support. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is in the same camp as Hoeven regarding the pipeline that has been awaiting authorization for six years.

While pipelines are needed and would help reduce strain on road, bridge and rail infrastructure, not everyone agrees that Keystone XL would quantifiably improve anything at all on the North Dakota side of the Bakken. Arguably, Montana would see more Bakken oil piggybacked on the pipeline than North Dakota.

There are drawbacks to pipelines as well as rail or highway transport of our crude leaving the state. In the end, we need a balanced approach involving all most likely.

Will Keystone XL lower energy costs for North Dakotans or Americans? Probably not much if at all. Will the pipeline create thousands upon thousands of jobs? Maybe during the construction season. Will it reduce our dependence on foreign oil? We’re not sure how when this project is intended to transport 1 million barrels a day from the Alberta tar sands in Canada to the Gulf of Mexico where it can be sold on the world market in a tariff free zone. Will it be good for our economy? We suspect it will be more beneficial to the Chinese and the Koch brothers who have significant interest in the Alberta tar sands than to us.

We need to listen to and learn from Native American leaders who adamantly oppose this pipeline because of the potentially deleterious impacts on our environment, air and water resources, and whom some suggest will be at war if this pipeline comes to fruition.

Tar sands oil is not clean energy. It’s about as dirty as energy can be. Is that the legacy we want and that we’ll fight for?

We say let TransCanada run this pipeline east through Canada if they want it so bad, especially now that they have said that’s what they will do. We say put these billions into renewable, environmentally-friendly clean energy instead of such a potentially dangerous and risky expansion of our carbon footprint.