Cavalier County
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Republican
Single Copy Volume 133
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News Coverage
Copyright © Langdon, North Dakota
Langdon Area High School announces plans for Homecoming Week, read more on Page 5. Great Plains Food Bank to make stops, see Page 7.
Index Opinion youth church community sports ag prof dir PN classified
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The Langdon Area School District is back to the drawing board on how to update the elementary school's aging heating system as well as other improvements in both school buildings. The most recent attempt to gain the funding necessary for the improvement to the school building took place on Tuesday, October 1. The measure to increase the building levy by 12 mills failed to reach the necessary super majority by just seven votes, as the district joins an ever-increasing number of schools trying to find ways to make old school buildings last longer. “I think getting 60 percent of a public group to agree on adding property taxes is a difficult thing to make happen. I think there is some belief that property tax is an unfair way to fund schools and school projects. Property tax is the only avenue currently available to school districts to raise funds at this time,” LASD superintendent Daren Christianson said. “With the state bearing a larger burden of the cost for educating students, I think there is some thought that the state should share in the burden of building, remodeling and refurbishing schools.” For both the school board members and the members of the steering committee that advocated for the measure, the near-miss is extremely disappointing. Despite having a high voter turnout for the measure, with preliminary numbers show-
ing 552 citizens casting a ballot, it was still not enough to reach the state century code requirement of 60 percent. “I feel it is very disappointing that the vote failed, but I wasn’t shocked. There are many schools throughout our state that are older and having similar issues to what we are having. They are also having a hard time to get votes to pass to help their school districts,” steering committee, building committee, and school board member Chris Olson stated. As the steering committee comes to terms with the loss, they are also reviewing their efforts to determine if anything could have been done differently to show just how badly these improvements needed to happen. Questions such as “Who else could we have reached? What did people not understand? Could we have done more to get the word out? Do we need more meetings?” have been expressed, but no clear answer is readily available. “Our children and teachers deserve to have a safe and healthy place to work and go to school. We don’t have room to house them at the high school, so I am not sure what the answer will be. It is hard to keep band-aids on when you really need a tourniquet,” Dawn Roppel, a member of the steering committee, said. For steering committee member and former LASD school administrator Dennis Throndset, the failure is an emotional and stunning setback. While Throndset is unsure how the students of LASD feel, he is sure that “those in the upper grades are quite
Fourth estate protects your freedoms In the United States, the term fourth estate is sometimes used to place the press alongside the three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial. The fourth estate refers to the watchdog role of the press, one that is important to a functioning democracy and the protection of the public. The First Amendment to the Constitution covers five basic freedoms, one of which is the freedom of the press. But that freedom carries with it a responsibility to be the people's watchdog. The traditional newspaper, however, is threatened by shrinking readership, and the watchdog role is not being filled by other forms of media. The decline of local news outlets, even small newspapers, has a profound impact on democratic development and public life at both the individual and community levels. For example, acquisitions of and ownership changes at local TV stations and newspapers led to the nationalization and polarization of political news, having real consequences in citizens’ political knowledge, participation, and voting decisions. The loss of local newspapers due to closing leads to a decrease in local government monitoring. One side effect of this is the potential for increases in municipal borrowing costs. “Generally, newspapers ...perform best when looked at based
on serving critical information needs. This is not surprising given that, unlike TV and radio stations, newspapers and onlineonly outlets are generally more narrowly focused on providing news. Local television stations and radio stations , on the other hand, tend to [be] broader,”
Duke University found in a 2019 study. That study found that local newspapers significantly outperform local TV, radio, and online-only outlets in news production, both in overall story output and in terms of stories that are original, local, or address a critical information need. For instance: Local newspapers accounted for roughly 25 percent of the outlets in the study's sample but made up 50 percent
Farmers & Merchants State Bank 816 3rd Street, Langdon, ND 58249
(701)256-5431 • www.fmbanklangdon.com
Member FDIC
Monday, October 7, 2019
Number 40
School building projects get "No" from voters
By Melissa Anderson Republican Editor
Catch up on the latest Cavalier County Commisson meeting and Leon Hiltner's Veteran's Service Update on Page 3.
Official Newspaper of Cavalier County Published since 1889
of the original news stories. Local newspapers accounted for nearly 60 percent of the local news stories in the sample used by Duke – more than all of the other outlet types combined – despite accounting for only 25 percent of the outlets included. Local newspapers account for nearly 60 percent of the stories that meet all three criteria (original, local, addresses a critical information need), with the other outlet categories each accounting for only 10 to 15 percent of the stories that meet all three criteria. Gallup Poll has been monitoring the trust between Americans and the media since 1972. In this time frame, Gallup found that prior to 2004 it was common for a majority of Americans to profess at least some trust in the mass media. Since then, less than half of Americans feel that way. Today only about a third of the U.S. has any trust in the Fourth Estate, a stunning development for an institution designed to inform the public and protect democracy. With the explosion of the mass media over the past decade, especially the popularity of blogs, vlogs and social media, the American population's rejection of the lower journalism standards comes at a crucial time. Opinion-driven reporting is becoming more and more accont. on page 3
dismayed and feeling somewhat rejected”. For the younger students in elementary school, the outcome of the vote may mean little to them as they do not understand the voting process. However, Throndset knows that it will be those kids who will be affected the most by the measure's failure. Throndset explained that when their learning environment is upset by a non-functioning boiler system, their education and performance will suffer. “I commend and thank voters that did support the proposal,” Throndset said. The efforts to inform the community on what would be done and why came in a few forms. One was a flyer listing all the necessary information regarding the project that was sent to almost all families with children attending school in the school district and was available at both schools and distributed at local businesses along with additional flyers spread out in the community on message boards. The 'Vote Yes for the Kids' had a Facebook page that was updated at least weekly. Local radio and the Republican also had features on it. Another was two informational meetings that were held by the steering committee to answer any questions that people could come to or watch on Facebook. Olson noted that there was a poor turnout at the public informational meetings and tours that were held for the public which provided voters the opportunity to see what is happening 'behind the walls' at the elementary. “I think the steering committee
and school board put out the information. It was in the newspaper; it was on social media. I think people just failed to look into this before they voted,” steering committee member Nick Moser commented. The votes failure to pass is a major setback for the schools, especially in the elementary school which was in most need of updating. Olson and fellow school board member, Dawn Kruk, explained that as a result of the vote, the district will now have to find ways to make large scale projects occur with only 3 mills. The majority of the proposed $5 million project was to address the heating system issues within the elementary school. Those issues will still need to be addressed within a few years or there may not be a heating system to keep the elementary school warm. “I don’t think many people in our school district understand the need right now. The heating system needs have been patched and pushed off for many years knowing it’s going to cost a lot to fix. Well, now it’s at the end of the road and we're trying not to push it off any longer,” Olson said. With the current buildings being over 50 years old and 70 percent of respondents to a previous survey directing the board to improve the current buildings rather than build new, the need to make those improvements and replacements of different systems within them is inevitable. With the help of CTS Group over the past year, the school board and building committee attempted to pack-
cont. on page 2
Dahl Truck & Auto Center offers jobs Dahl Truck & Auto Center is seeking motivated and hard working individuals to help take their business to the next level. The locally owned trucking and repair shop has the means to do so but lacks the employees. Smaller communities like Langdon have difficulty not only attracting new people but keeping those who have grown
that want to learn the business,” Aaron Dahl said. This willingness to help find a new generation of diesel mechanics can only go so far. Dahl noted that the offer to help train and the promise of a position upon graduating are not enough. Dahl Truck & Auto Center is not the only company in the field facing a shortage.
up here as residents. Dahl’s sends representatives to attend the career fair in Wahpeton every year in hopes of finding new mechanics. There is also a home-grown effort to recruit those from the area. Dahl’s offers a contract that helps those young people seeking careers get the education they want for a future career. “We would be willing to put some money towards those
“You talk to other truck shops in Fargo and Grand Forks. Major towns run into the same problems. There is just not enough guys that want to get into this field, and it’s a struggle,” Dahl said. Constantly advertising to attract new talent just to make expansion possible is a lesson in patience. Right now the busy shop is fully staffed, but the decont. on page 3
Have a Safe and Happy
Homecoming Week