In the weeds
THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2013
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Exploring the Mo. River by paddle board By CARLY CRANE Bismarck Tribune Scott Mestrezat sits at a table in The Pier at Southport Marina with his laptop propped open in front of him. Wearing clean clothes and typing intently, only a few clues hint at the nearly 1,000-mile expedition he’s completed in a stand-up paddle board: outdoorsready clothes, a well-grown beard and his thoroughly waterproof laptop carrier. Mestrezat set off from Three Forks, Mont., about 45 days ago with the hope of paddle boarding down the entire length of the Missouri River, which is roughly 2,400 miles and will carry him through seven states. He straps all of his belongings, including his laptop, cellphone, camera, tent, camping stove and other essentials to his paddle board and camps his way down the river. But when he comes across a restaurant, he usually doesn’t pass up the opportunity for a wellcooked and satisfying meal. He said if he averages 24 miles a day — right now he’s at 25 — he will complete the journey in about 100 days. Mestrezat said he is planning a weeklong “vacation” from his trip in the Bismarck area with his girlfriend, and he looks forward to perhaps renting a hotel room and getting to sleep in a real bed for the first time in a month and a half. The 27-year-old Michi-
gan native was living in Chicago and working 40-60 hours a week in a grueling career in finance when he started dreaming about an expedition down the Missouri. He described going in to work at 3 or 4 a.m. so he could work in sync with the international financial markets, staring at computers for 15 hours a day. Mestrezat grew up being involved in outdoor activities and he loves to ski. The job did not mesh well with the active lifestyle he wanted to lead. Mestrezat simply “wasn’t loving (his) job,” he said, adding: “I thought it was now or never” to take the plunge down the Missouri. And so, he quit his job, built a paddle board from a kit, and took off. “This is a terrible financial decision, but I have no regrets,” he said. “I just want to see the country, but at a pace I can absorb,” he said. “The river is better than the road in that way.” Mestrezat compared a weekend on the river to “a month’s worth of roadtrip memories.” He maintains a blog and a Facebook page documenting his travels, posting the photos of the landscapes he takes and short video clips of his life, and stays in contact with friends and family when he has the battery life and access to cellphone service. Aside from reaching the end of the Missouri, Mestrezat’s goal Continued on 9A
Efforts to educate North Dakota’s uninsured begin By JAMES MacPHERSON Associated Press Almost $1 million in federal money will be spent over the next several months in North Dakota targeting state residents INSIDE who have no health insurance. The message: Get a policy if you Marketing can afford one or face penalties. health care If you can’t pay for a policy, the reform a big government will help. challenge, 9A It’s part of a marketing blitz that is part of President Barack Obama’s health care law that requires most people to have insurance starting Jan. 1. The federal government is slated to award $600,000 in so-called “navigator” grants for marketing and outreach in North Dakota, where an estimated 74,700 people are uninsured. In addition, $329,467 is going to health care centers in Beulah, Turtle Lake, Fargo and Northwood to help get the word out.
Expanding coverage
TOM STROMME/Tribune
Scott Mestrezat, 27, is approximately 950 miles into a 2,400-mile journey on the Missouri River using a stand-up paddle board as his means of transportation. Mestrezat arrived in Bismarck on Monday and plans to stay until the end of July.
Hoge Island removal bids awarded By LEANN ECKROTH Bismarck Tribune The Burleigh County Water Resource District awarded $57,501 in bids Wednesday to remove structures from three flooded Hoge Island properties it bought, so it can build a levee to protect other homes there. A fourth property from the buyout, the former Brad Magnus home of 9806 Island Road,
was not sold during the auction. It remains in the Missouri River, 27 months after it sank into the water in June 2011. It is too damaged to be repaired and will be bid out as part of the demolition and recovery process handled by the water district. The water district paid a total of $1.27 million to buy out the former properties of Magnus, Rodney Boll of 9828 Island
‘THE TEMPEST’
Road, Jerome Rodgers of 9750 Island Road, and D r. St e p h e n B e r n a rd o f 9700 Island Road. The State Water Commission paid for 75 percent of the buyouts and the water district paid the rest. Because of a shortage of house movers, the water district extended the deadline for removing the structures bought in the auction, from
Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, said Cary Backstrand, a water district member. He presided over the meeting. Chairman Terry Fleck participated by speaker phone. Nine bids were submitted for the properties by the Wednesday morning deadline — three homes, one shop and one garage. David Bliss, an attorney for the water district, read off the Continued on 9A
Changes eyed in door-to-door mail delivery By ANDREW MIGA Associated Press
WILL KINCAID/Tribune
CAPITOL SHAKESPEARE: Lindsay Fisher as Fairy Ariel, left, and Austin Flemmer as Sorcerer Prospero perform in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” on Wednesday. The free performance by Capitol Shakespeare runs nightly, 6:30 p.m., through Sunday on the Capitol grounds.
North Dakota, like many GOP states, is not contributing monetarily to the marketing campaigning. North Dakota’s Republican-led Legislature reluctantly voted this year to expand Medicaid to cover more uninsured residents of the state. North Dakota’s Medicaid program now covers about 65,000 people a month. With the expanded eligibility, an additional 20,000 to 32,000 people — mostly adults without children — will be added to the program. Under the health care law, the federal government would cover the full cost of expanding Medicaid through 2016, with the state’s contribution rising in stages to 10 percent. Maggie Anderson, director of North Dakota’s Department of Human Services, said her agency will help get the word out on the new law but hasn’t come up with a plan. “We will be doing outreach, but we just haven’t defined what it will look like at this point,” she said. Agency spokeswoman Heather Steffl said much of it will rely on unpaid advertising and networking. “We are a small state and word of mouth really does work,” she said. That may not be enough, said Donene Feist, executive director of Family Voices of North Continued on 9A
WASHINGTON — Doorto-door mail delivery is about as American as apple pie. With the Postal Service facing billions of dollars in annual losses, that tradition could be virtually phased out by 2022 under a proposal in Congress. The House Oversight and Government Reform Comm i t t e e o n We d n e s d a y approved a plan to move to cluster box and curbside delivery, which includes mailboxes at the end of driveways. The proposal is part of broader legislation by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the oversight and government reform panel, designed to cut costs at the
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Door-to-door mail delivery is threatened. cash-strapped agency by up to $4.5 billion a year. The Postal Service had a $16 billion loss last year. The bill was approved on a party-line vote, with 22 Republicans supporting it and 17 Democrats opposing it. Postal Service spokesman David Partenheimer said the agency would evaluate Issa’s
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bill based on whether it delivery for people moving would enable the agency to into newly built homes make $20 billion in savings rather than letting the develby 2017. opers decide. “The Postal “A balanced Service looks approach to forward to saving the working with Postal Service Chairman Issa means allowing and the comUSPS to adapt mittee to imt o A m e r i c a’s prove the bill as changing use of it makes its way mail,” Issa said. through the leg“D o n e r i g h t , islative prothese reforms cess,” Partencan improve the heimer said. customer expeThe agency rience through has been mov- Rep. Steve Lynch, a more efficient ing toward D-Mass. Postal Service.” curbside and About 1 in cluster box delivery in new 3 mail customers has doorresidential developments to-door delivery, Issa said. since the 1970s. The Postal The shift would include safe Service in April began decid- and secure cluster box deliving whether to provide such Continued on 9A
“You’d have to knock houses down in my neighborhood to build cluster boxes. This will not work.”
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