I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
Sept. 6, 1996
By Devlyn Brooks
Staff Writer
The Downtown Development Association unfolds today an educational campaign to demonstrate to Bemidji citizens it would be a sounder economic decision to build the planned Human Services Center downtown instead of at the proposed site -- the old fairgrounds, says DDA President Craig Knutson.
The decision to go ahead with the construction of a collaborative center, which will house the Workforce Center, County Human Services, Nursing and Veteran Services, was made Tuesday by the Beltrami County Board. However, the decision as to where the building should be located was tabled until Tuesday, so the board could study which site would be most viable for the Human Services Center.
Reiterating what he said last week, Knutson said the DDA is not opposed to the building of a collaborative center, but is opposed to building it on the old fairgrounds. So the DDA now has about four more days to convince the board -- or convince enough people to convince the board -- to build it downtown, Knutson said.
In advertising which will appear in local newspapers in the next few days, the DDA disputes that building at the old fairgrounds site will cost nothing because the land is county owned. The DDA says the land would have a minimum current market values of $400,000. Commercial development of the property with a value of $4 million would generate $258,000 in taxes in the first year after the property was sold. Over a 20-year period that would generate about $5 million, which could be used to pay for the costs of building the collaborative center downtown, Knutson said.
The DDA also argues that the center should be in close proximity to other county services such as the county administrator's office, auditor's office and personnel office. Also, the building should be built in a convenient place for its clients, which is not at the fairgrounds.
For instance, Knutson said, when the state decided to locate the Jobs and Training Services office by the airport on Highway 2 west of Bemidji, the people the agency served had difficulty getting to the building, forcing the state to move the office back in town.
"We don't think the numbers work," he said. "We don't think it's in the best interests of the ones involved in it either."
The county also needs to be cognizant of areas within the county that need to be redeveloped and target those areas which could be better used for projects such as the collaborative center than for which they are currently being used. The DDA proposed Tuesday to the Bemidji City Council two two-block areas near the county courthouse which they say could be better utilized for the center than for the current low-taxed housing there now.
The first plan proposed by the DDA involves a two-block area between Irvine and Minnesota avenues and Eighth and Seventh streets. The alternate plan involves a two-block area between Mississippi and Park avenues and from Third to Fifth streets.
However, at the City Council meeting, County Administrator Greg Lewis said that although his dream was to see the center downtown, there simply was not the room. He also said from past experience he knew going through a condemnation process to clear the two needed blocks would be painful and drawn out.
Finally, the DDA is concerned the decision process for the collaborative center is moving too fast. It maintains that the process has gone so quickly there has not been time to hold public hearings on the issue.
"We can't be hasty. We're into this for 18 to 20 years. This thing has to work," Knutson said. "We're not like the state of Minnesota where a couple of million dollars can be shifted around without much notice. A couple of million dollars is a lot of money in Beltrami County."
Lewis said the county board has not moved too fast because the building has been in a planning process for two years. The board just recently decided to speed up a decision on the building because to use grant money received by the Bemidji School District which is to be used toward a collaborative building, the project had to be committed by the end of August.
On Tuesday, Knutson said members of the DDA would be "elated" if it were decided the building would be constructed downtown, but for a worst-case scenario they hope the board will at least delay the decision so that more time could be spent studying the issue.
Knutson said he did not see any other action the DDA could take if the county decides to build at the fairgrounds though.
"Once the county decides, what do you do?" he said.
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