1 week Ago By David Withee
Have you noticed the West Fargo City Commission’s commitment to lower-cost specials? They are using funds from the state, Capital Improvement Sales Tax and even Public Works (expensed to the department, not to specials). Kudos. The West Fargo City Administrator must be the most challenging government job in North Dakota; it pays 33% more than the governor’s salary ($210,000 vs.
$158,300). Did the former city attorney ever provide the commission with open meeting rules training as he committed to do? Did the commission make certain this commitment was met? Kudos to Commissioner Zundel. Twice she proactively recused herself from votes due to a conflict of interest.
Speaking of Zundel, it is difficult to believe she and Commissioner Jorgensen are still in their first year. Both are prepared for meetings, asking informed and sometimes difficult questions. Kudos.
It’s been over two years since the water billing fiasco. One issue was the purchase of faulty financial software. The former finance director identified better software but left her position before it was purchased.
It was decided to wait for the new finance director to finish the evaluation and purchase, but he has been on board for over seven months. Did I miss something? Or is the city still using faulty financial software? Speaking of finances, kudos to the staff for providing commissioners with regular financial statements. Why aren’t they discussed though? Perhaps to avoid explaining items like why fiscal year 2024 general fund revenues were under budget by over $4 million? The current city administrator was hired as the city’s first engineer in 2018 after representing his private employer with the city.
Why does the city website inaccurately read as if he were an employee for all 15 years? If it has to be explained, then there’s something wrong. Why is the West Fargo School District wasting millions renovating elementary school bathrooms? Twice, they denied referencing any research studies to justify these changes. WRONG.
At least twice they did in their referendum-related documents. First, “research and case studies have shown several benefits of single-stall restroom designs, particularly in educational environments. Three key benefits are safety, privacy and efficiency,” without providing the research details or study titles.
Second, “single-stall restrooms can reduce bullying, harassment and other safety concerns that sometimes occur in unsupervised, multi-user facilities." A 2016 study by the Association for Psychological Science found that enhanced privacy in restrooms can help mitigate anxiety and conflicts among learners.” Not one of nearly 1,000 articles published in 2016 by that association supports this, based on their summaries.
We have bigger problems than bathroom renovations can solve. Perhaps it would be more cost-effective to just use the many existing security cameras and then ban phones from schools to eliminate inappropriate picture-taking. David Withee is a resident of West Fargo, member of West Fargo TAP (Citizens for Transparency, Accountability, and Professionalism) and former Forum Reader’s Board member.
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