The terror of downsizing

The other day the City Beat talked about Grand Forks' struggle to get bigger. Yesterday, I saw a story about Detroit's struggle to get smaller. Pretty interesting read about what they're doing to deal with the problem of de-population.

Operating on a scale never before attempted in this country, the city would demolish houses in some of the most desolate sections of Detroit and move residents into stronger neighborhoods. Roughly a quarter of the 139-square-mile city could go from urban to semi-rural.

Near downtown, fruit trees and vegetable farms would replace neighborhoods that are an eerie landscape of empty buildings and vacant lots. Suburban commuters heading into the city center might pass through what looks like the countryside to get there. Surviving neighborhoods in the birthplace of the auto industry would become pockets in expanses of green....

The meaning of what is afoot is now settling in across the city.

"People are afraid," said Deborah L. Younger, past executive director of a group called Detroit Local Initiatives Support Corporation that is working to revitalize five areas of the city. "When you read that neighborhoods may no longer exist, that sends fear...."

Faced with a $300 million budget deficit and a dwindling tax base, [Mayor Dave] Bing argues that the city can't continue to pay for police patrols, fire protection and other services for all areas.

The current plan would demolish about 10,000 houses and empty buildings in three years and pump new investment into stronger neighborhoods. In the neighborhoods that would be cleared, the city would offer to relocate residents or buy them out. The city could use tax foreclosure to claim abandoned property and invoke eminent domain for those who refuse to leave, much as cities now do for freeway projects.

The part about taking wrecking balls to whole neighborhoods reminded me of what happened with the Lincoln Drive neighborhood after the flood.

One of the things that continues to surprise me is the remarkable bond many people have with their neighborhood. I remember reading up on what happened when Lincoln Drive residents had to leave. There was a woman, I think, who talked about how sad she was that she'll never be able to show her young granddaughter where she lived as a child.

Later, when the Riverside Pool issue came up for a vote, there were former Riverside neighborhood residents who had moved farther south, but still chose to vote for the old neighborhood's pool.

Anyway, imagine what kind of an explosive debate we'd have around here if the city were to decide to do away with, say, Riverside, the Sunbeam Park area, the Ulland Complex area and everything west of the Interstate. Good luck, Detroit!

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 3/09/2010 at 3:11 PM | Comments (1) | Permalink

Tags: frivolous links

Changing how the council makes decisions

Update 8:10 p.m. March 8, 2010: The council had some pretty substantive discussion on this matter tonight. It looks like Council President Hal Gershman and most other council members are in favor of ending the Committee of the Whole and reinstituting the old standing committee structure. He mentioned the strain on staff time that I mentioned below.

Council member Terry Bjerke said he's all for it, but he suggested that every agenda item that goes to the CoW now will go to each of the two standing committees, without anything going directly to the council for a vote without prior discussion. That would seem logical since the point of the committee structure is to have deliberations first and give the public a chance to offer input before taking a vote.

Most everyone agreed with Terry that all committee meetings should be televised. Only the formal council meeting and the CoW are televised now when they meet in Council Chambers while the standby committees meet in the basement where the cameras aren't.

---

The Grand Forks City Council will start the discussion tonight on its committee structure, which sounds like the most boring conversation in the world, but, I'm telling you it's kind of important because it's the way things get done at council.

Remember that School House Rock short "I'm Just a Bill"? Yeah, you remember.

The city equivalent is an agenda item and it too starts as an idea in some one's head, usually a staff member who brings it to council. Today, the way it works is the item has two routes it could take, well, two-and-a-half routes.

1. It could go straight to the Committee of the Whole, which is the entire seven-member council meeting in a semi-formal setting. That is, it's not meeting formally as a council, which means it can vote and make decisions -- A committee only makes recommendations. -- but the meeting is formal enough that Robert's Rules of Order, i.e., parliamentary procedures, are in full effect.

After clearing the CoW -- Yes, it's pronounced like the bovine. -- the item goes to the formal council for a vote. CoWs meet on the second and fourth Mondays of each month and councils the first and third Mondays.

2. The item can go to one of two so-called "standby" committees. These are committees with three voting members and the council president sitting in as a non-voting member. One committee is charged with public services and public safety -- Council member Curt Kreun heads that one -- the other is charged with finance and economic development -- Council member Doug Christensen heads that one.

The standby committees, while they observe Robert's Rules aren't real sticklers -- There are only three or four people, after all. -- and are less formal. It's worth noting that the CoW and the council are televised, but the standby committees aren't.

I put "standby" in quotes because, originally, the committees were supposed to meet only when needed. More on that in a bit. But the committees have gotten into the habit of meeting every other week, usually Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

From a standby committee the item goes to the CoW for further discussion and then to the council for a vote.

2.5. The item goes to the CoW and discussion gets a little longer winded than normal. Council members then send the item to one of the standby committees for some more discussion. The item would then go back to the CoW for more discussion and then to the council for a vote. This was the original reason the standby committees were formed, hence the name.

3. There is a little used "committee" that's been used in the past, but hasn't seen much use recently and that's the "work session." This is basically the lovechild of the CoW and a standby committee. It's informal like a standby committee, but is made up of the entire council like the CoW. It's also not televised.

Items that go before the work session would go to the CoW for discussion then the council for a vote.

Imagine making a song out of that!

The reason we have this structure is very simple. It was a reform that didn't quite pan out like everybody thought.

Before the 2000 elections, there was a system of standing committees, not unlike the ones in Congress and there were 14 council members, plenty of politicians to pack those committees. Standing committees are the opposite of standby committees in that they're meant to meet regularly and formally.

Agenda items go into one of several committees and, as with Congressional committees, they don't go to a vote until the committees are done with them. Committee chairmen had a lot of power because they can set the agenda and decide if the agenda items get heard or not.

There were no CoWs.

In 2000, a new bunch of council members and the present mayor, Mike Brown, came in on a platform of reform. They killed the standing committees, started the CoW and downsized the council to seven. They did this because they felt the committees were too powerful. The CoW would level the playing field because everyone would get all the information at once instead of waiting on the standing committees.

Two years after, the council decided that there was actually too much information and, in fact, those standing committees made some sense after all. But because they still didn't trust the standing committees, they decided to have standby committees that met only at the request of the CoW.

You can see from the stuff above how that worked out.

Why should you care?

• The present system is potentially cumbersome with that game of ping pong played between the CoW and the standby committees. However, in practice, this has not really been the case. It does create an extra step for some agenda items; three instead of two.
• That extra step means some city staff must attend three meetings not two. Depending on the agenda items, you may see nearly all department heads at these standby committees, even the ones you don't think would be affected. Either they enjoy these meetings -- I find this difficult to believe. -- or they're afraid their department might end up as collateral damage if they're not there to play defense. Now these are department heads so we're not paying overtime for them to be there, but that's extra time they could be using to do their job.
• The present system does provide multiple access points for agenda items, which prevents the concentration of power that was the hallmark of the standing committee system. I think any elected official or department head could put an agenda item on the CoW.
• The present system is a deviation from the original intent of the standby committees. That is, the committees have accumulated more control and power than the council meant for them to have. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. A lot of the discussion that goes on are just long-term items that the council probably wouldn't be ready to act on for months or years. Also, I find that these discussion are more technical and detailed than the ones at council. I think the more technical they are at council, the more yakking there will be afterwards, which I sometimes suspect is preening for the TV cameras.
• The original CoW-only structure really wasn't adequate. The technical discussions I mention above are important and they don't work real well with the CoW, both because of the preening and because CoWs usually have a dozen or more agenda items. Pack two or three technical discussions in there and we'll be back to the three-hour meetings of the past.
• Finally, you should care because the committee structure affects the council's deliberative decisionmaking -- how thoughtful it makes those decisions -- and its efficiency -- how quickly it makes those decisions.

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 3/08/2010 at 1:15 PM | Comments (10) | Permalink

Tags: gf and egf, gf city council

Correction: "How much do we drink?"

I've had very little time to check the comments and just noticed today a reader saying I sorted my table on alcohol consumption on the wrong column. Here's that table again, but sorted properly by total alcohol consumption per capita. I also moved the U.S. average to the bottom:

Alcohol consumption by states (gallons of ethanol content consumed a year)

State/area	Year	Beer per capita (gallons)	Wine per capita (gallons)	Spirits per capita (gallons)	All beverages per capita (gallons)
New Hampshire	2007	1.74	0.74	1.75	4.22
District of Columbia	2007	1.35	0.99	1.61	3.95
Nevada	2007	1.71	0.64	1.27	3.61
Delaware	2007	1.39	0.59	1.25	3.23
Wisconsin	2007	1.54	0.33	1.11	2.98
North Dakota	2007	1.57	0.23	1.08	2.88
Alaska	2007	1.32	0.45	1.07	2.84
Wyoming	2007	1.49	0.23	1.10	2.82
Montana	2007	1.59	0.35	0.86	2.80
Colorado	2007	1.29	0.47	1.00	2.75
Florida	2007	1.30	0.49	0.93	2.72
Vermont	2007	1.37	0.61	0.70	2.68
Louisiana	2007	1.57	0.28	0.81	2.65
Hawaii	2007	1.34	0.49	0.80	2.62
South Dakota	2007	1.51	0.22	0.86	2.59
Idaho	2007	1.18	0.74	0.67	2.59
Oregon	2007	1.29	0.49	0.81	2.59
Rhode Island	2007	1.13	0.54	0.90	2.56
Maine	2007	1.27	0.43	0.80	2.49
Massachusetts	2007	1.01	0.61	0.86	2.48
Minnesota	2007	1.16	0.32	0.97	2.45
Arizona	2007	1.36	0.33	0.76	2.45
South Carolina	2007	1.43	0.24	0.77	2.44
New Mexico	2007	1.41	0.31	0.71	2.43
Missouri	2007	1.33	0.30	0.78	2.41
Illinois	2007	1.22	0.41	0.73	2.36
Connecticut	2007	0.93	0.58	0.85	2.35
Washington	2007	1.11	0.50	0.74	2.35
New Jersey	2007	0.93	0.55	0.86	2.34
California	2007	1.07	0.55	0.72	2.34
Nebraska	2007	1.45	0.21	0.67	2.33
Mississippi	2007	1.46	0.12	0.68	2.26
Texas	2007	1.41	0.27	0.56	2.25
South region	2007	1.26	0.30	0.68	2.25
Iowa	2007	1.40	0.17	0.67	2.24
Maryland	2007	1.01	0.36	0.84	2.21
Michigan	2007	1.11	0.30	0.78	2.19
Pennsylvania	2007	1.34	0.24	0.59	2.16
Virginia	2007	1.13	0.41	0.58	2.13
Indiana	2007	1.14	0.24	0.72	2.10
New York	2007	0.92	0.46	0.68	2.06
Georgia	2007	1.16	0.26	0.64	2.06
Ohio	2007	1.33	0.25	0.45	2.03
Alabama	2007	1.24	0.22	0.56	2.02
North Carolina	2007	1.16	0.28	0.56	2.00
Kansas	2007	1.17	0.15	0.64	1.96
Oklahoma	2007	1.18	0.17	0.58	1.93
Tennessee	2007	1.13	0.20	0.56	1.89
Kentucky	2007	1.05	0.17	0.63	1.85
Arkansas	2007	1.07	0.17	0.60	1.84
West Virginia	2007	1.24	0.10	0.42	1.76
Utah	2007	0.75	0.16	0.43	1.34
US	2007	1.21	0.38	0.73	2.31

 

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 3/03/2010 at 1:47 PM | Comments (3) | Permalink

Tags: north dakota, public health

The mayor's long "to do" list

Grand Forks Mayor Mike Brown likes to joke about how boring his state of the city addresses are so I imagine he was pretty surprised that the City Beat decided to go back and comb through almost every single one of those speeches since the first one in 2003.

After listening to his last speech a few weeks ago -- It was pretty good to me. -- I started thinking about all the things he said he'd do in the previous speeches. Did he ever get them done?

I never know how to write these things because it's just one guy talking and, partisanship being weaker here than inside the Beltway, nobody's gonna say anything too contrarian like they do after the State of the Union addresses.

So I made up for that by delving into the records. I read every speech except the one in 2004. The city couldn't find a copy of it so I used my story from 2004 instead.

Here's a list of things the mayor said he'd like to do -- Understand that some of these goals are more or less out of his control. -- with "X" marks indicating they did get done and "O" marks indicating they didn't get done. Also, just for fun, I listed the theme for each speech.

2003: "Our house is in order. We're working together. We have momentum."

• O - Pass a new 1 1/4 percent sales tax for a new water park/fitness center, affordable housing, a fund to market the city, economic development, paving roads and eliminating special assessments, property tax cuts in schools and county and cuts in flood assessments. (Voters said "no way.")
• X - Convince a developer to build a hotel attached to the Alerus Center. (Canad Inns is there now.)
• O - Share services with East Grand Forks. (East Side said "no way," but now some are saying "maybe.")
• X - Lobby to keep Grand Forks Air Force Base open. (The Congressional delegation helped a lot.)
• X - Lobby for more funding to get dikes done early. (Again, credit goes to the Congressional delegation.)
• X - Get more affordable housing. (I think the city's still working to get more, but it's already gotten some.)

2004

• O - See the population grow to 58,000 by 2010. (Not even close, but, hey, blame the economy.)
• X - Create a group to identify what downtown needs to grow more. (The group was formed and it said more housing is needed. This is why there's the Elite Brownstone condos and the Current apartments.)
• X - Have a closer partnership with UND and the Grand Forks Region Economic Development Corp. (Pretty hard to measure, but there's no doubt they're all pretty tight.)
• X - Use infrastructure development to propel economic development. (I don't know. Maybe? The city's always talked about this.)
• O- Preserve the character of neighborhoods by encouraging parks, keeping pools open (Riverside Pool, of course) and enhancing public safety. (The public did vote to keep the pool open, though maybe it's too early to tell if the "character" has been preserved.)
• X - Lobby for more funding to get dikes done early. (See above.)

2005: "The State of the City is strong and the State of the City is growing."

• X - "Hold the line" on taxes. (Not sure what this really means. I'm going to assume it means cutting the citywide property tax rate below 2 percent, as mentioned below.)
• X - Encourage other local governments to rein in taxes through quarterly summits. (Encouraging ain't the same as success, but, eventually, the parks and schools did cut their tax rates, too.)
• X - Continue economic growth.
• X - Beautify the community. (The council did spend, what was it, $200 Gs one year to buy the Christmas lights. It also agreed to that welcome sign on Gateway Drive.)
• X - Create a political climate that's more welcoming to businesses. (City Administrator Rick Duquette did get elected to be Chamber of Commerce chairman last year. I was going to do some story about that -- It's weird; the Chamber is a lobby group -- but never got around to it.)
• X - Create a citizens' group to address shortage of affordable housing. (Group created, met, but with no real conclusion.)
• X - Reach out to other cities, from neighboring East Grand Forks, to towns around the region, to Winnipeg, to sister cities. (Reached out. Not sure what the results are, though.)
• O - Retain more young professionals with affordable housing, good schools, safe streets, more entertainment options. (I think we're still trying to figure out these picky yuppie bastards. Oh wait, that's my people.)
• X - Support the arts more with, say an artists' co-op or artist-in-residence program. (I understand some nonprofits created the latter, but I don't have much info on this.)
• O - Get more research to market. (I think we're doing a little, but not quite the level where we can declare success.)

2006: "A City of Choice."

• X - Cut property tax rate citywide to 2 percent in three years. (Done, but only because the state provided more K-12 funding.)
• X - Continue to work closely with the EDC and UND to create more jobs. (There are more jobs, or were until this lame economic downturn.)
• O - Increase pay for the City Council to attract more diverse candidates, as in people who don't own their own business or are otherwise business executives who have better control of their schedules. (The council said "no way." That would make them look bad.)
• X - Study ways to improve parking downtown. (That diagonal parking has turned out to be a pretty dynamite idea, or as dynamite as parking can get.)
• O - Get a UND presence downtown. (Still working on this one.)
• X - Lobby for more funding to get dikes done early. (See above.)
• X - Set up neighborhood familiarization tours to encourage residents to talk about neighborhood concerns. (I know there were tours, but what happened in them I have no idea.)
• X - Create a signature winter event for Greenway. (That was a few weeks ago.)
• X - Use Cabinet of Young People to talk to youth about better injecting their voice into community dicussion. There could be projects such as a BMX track or a year-round skate park. (Well, there is a cabinet and they are telling the mayor stuff. There is also a BMX track and a skate park.)
• X - Raise awareness of meth as a problem for the community. (We know it's a problem.)
• X - Raise awareness of underage drinking. (Remember the "It's Not OK" thing?)
• O - Raise awareness of violence in community and help break the cycle. (I don't feel that I've heard a whole lot about this, certainly not at City Hall. The city does give money to the Community Violence Intervention Center yearly, but that's nothing new.)
• X - Focus more on Grand Forks International Airport. (I think by focus he means retain local passengers. The airport has seen an increase in boardings because of Allegiant Air so I guess we're doing better.)

2007: "Rebuilt, renewed, reborn." (This is the same as the flood anniversary theme.)

• X - Cut property tax rate citywide to 2 percent. (See above)
• X - Get more affordable housing. (See above.)
• O - Convert the city fleet to biofuels to show support for the green energy sector. (The city will start using some hybrid buses this summer, but that's not the same.)
• O - Encourage the building of a senior village near King's Walk. (Developers and landowners on board, but I understand the area's not quite built up enough to start the project.)
• X - Do more long-term planning starting with a six-year plan. (There is a plan somewhere.)
• X - Raise awareness of underage drinking. (See above.)

2008: "The state of the city is strong, vibrant and primed." (I love these themes. Mine would be: "Grand Forks! WOOO!!")

• X - Cut property tax rate city wide by getting the state to increase K-12 funding. (See above.)
• X - Support more growth south of the 32nd Aveune South retail corridor. (Sort of. Furniture Row is pretty lonely back there.)
• O - Work with Congressional delegation on a National Wind Energy Research Center and Composite Development Center of North America. (Still working on it.)
• X - Increase energy efficiency to save taxpayers money, both in taxes and their utility bill. (Traffic signals are getting realigned to reduce stop-and-go traffic. Also there are these new federal funds to help homeowners pay for energy audits.)
• O - Rally the community to volunteer more by issuing the "million-hour challenge." (The Web site kind of sucked. I couldn't find local volunteer opportunities easily because all these opportunities from Fargo and elsewhere were all over the place. So I said screw it. Most of Grand Forks said screw it, too. It was a good idea, but execution was not so good.)

2009: "Grand Forks, the future is here."

• X - Cut property tax rate citywide to 2 percent. (See above.)
• O - Build a light rail system from UND and Ralph Engelstad Arena to the Alerus Center. (No funding, no project.)
• O - Encourage a developer to build an aquarium or air and space museum at the Canad Inn complex. (No developer so far.)
• X - Create a retail task force to fill gaps in market, such as outlet stores, discount stores and better women's clothing selections. (Task force created, but problem still being worked on.)
• O - Create a Destination Corridor along 42nd Street: Beautify the corridor from Gateway Drive to DeMers Avenue, expand the retail mix nearthe Alerus Center, get more retail on 32nd Avenue South, connect to the new wellness center farther south and encourage more residential development down there. (Still working on it. The city planner is working with landowners around the Alerus Center.)
• O - Ban smoking in bars. (Getting real close on this one. The council appears willing. Hearings are coming up next Monday, I think.)
• O - Mandate helmets for bicyclists. (Nothing so far.)
• O - Share services with East Grand Forks. (See above.)

2010: "Team Grand Forks is going D-I."

• O - 1/4 percent sales tax for a new library and infrastructure development. (No major discussion on this yet.)
• O - Integrate the city's bus system with UND's for more efficiency.
• O - Convince voters to amend city law to allow expanded use of the 3/4 percent sales tax now restricted to Alerus Center debt and building improvement. (A city task force made up of the entire council and six private citizens are recommending this, but it's not formally gone to council yet.)
• O - Expand the Industrial Park. (Still working on it.)
• O - Encourage development of the green energy sector and unmanned aircraft system industries. ("Encourage" in this context appears to me to mean get more jobs, so we're still working this one.)
• O - Get more residents downtown. (The new apartments at the Civic Auditorium should do this.)
• O - Reexamine City Council's committee structure to see if reforms are warranted. (Council President Hal Gershman's encouraging this. He said the "standby" committees are meeting so regularly and doing so much that they might as well be "standing" committees.)
• O - Lobby the state to allow a change in the city election date from June to November for UND students' sake. (Too soon for this.)
• O - Ban smoking in bars. (See above.)
• O - Mandate helmets for young cyclists. (I see this has changed to youngsters and not all cyclists.) 

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 3/02/2010 at 9:32 PM | Comments (9) | Permalink

Tags: budgets and taxes, economic development, gf and egf, gf city hall, mike brown, population retention, streets and sewers

Quickies: A new mascot to rally around

• How one school might change its divisive mascot to something that all geeks can unite behind. (Info about the current mascot is here. A drawing of what the new mascot might look like is here.) [via NPR.]
• PowerPoint on how Air Force is going to renew its search for a replacement for the KC-135 fleet. This has some local relevance, of course, because we're hoping to get some of those new tankers for the Air Force base.
• I'm fascinated by the various ways UND's Energy and Environmental Research Center are finding to turn things like crop oil or algae into fuel. Here's another interesting way to turn some renewable substance into fuel.
• We're always fretting about population around here, or some of us anyway. Check out the worst case de-population scenarios. [via Yahoo!]

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 3/02/2010 at 3:21 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Grand Forks' gadfly

A funny thing happened at Grand Forks City Council last night. Not funny ha-ha, but funny as in peculiar.

Private citizen Ray Dohman went before the council to ask a bunch of questions about various economic development projects, which, by the tone of questioning, the City Beat understands he doesn't like much. He got a little personal and council members dismissed him, saying he was "out of order."

We call him "Citizen Ray" here at the Herald because he's so verbose and opinionated about city government. Recently, he's been at council a lot and asking a lot of questions and, sometimes, being a bit abusive. I've noticed that, early on, the city put two cops instead of one on duty just in case. Last night there was just one.

To be fair, the man is a bit erratic. Back in 2008, Citizen Ray was one of a handful of people protesting the appearance of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the state Democratic convention back in 2008:

"In my opinion, the only reason abortions are allowed is they knew the majority of children aborted would be white. They wanted 40 to 50 million babies dead. They wouldn't have gotten their New World Order or one-world government if they (the aborted) were still alive," said Ray Dohman, of Climax, Minn.

Asked who "they" might be, he replied, "I don't know who they are. I have no idea. But they're the ones telling Bush to jump." The new president better jump, too, Dohman said, or he'll end up like John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert.

Heck, Dohman said, he bets the reporter that gets his words printed will be out of a job lickety-split.

How could I resist?

Fast forward to last night. Citizen Ray wanted the council to tell him what it was doing with the Civic Auditorium site, who the developers are and, if I remember right, why hadn't it been announced?

All good questions, I thought, except the last one, which anyone who's followed the news in the last several months would've been well aware of.

But it seemed like everyone just fumbled around trying to answer the questions without getting all the information out. They'd been caught by surprise by the specificity of the questions, I suspect, and didn't know how to respond without looking ignorant.

To see the action yourself, see this video from last night's meeting. This is the Jobs Development Authority meeting that preceded the council meeting. They're all the same players -- the council and mayor -- except the JDA is an arm of the city that can engage in business dealings, such as giving land to developers.

Ray's first question: The city's giving $331,500 in land to private developers so they can build two apartment complexes worth $10.1 million. Besides land, they get $1.2 million in fed funds to demolish the Civic -- nobody is willing to renovate that thing and an offer to pay $100,000 for it to use as a glorified storage center was pretty lame -- $375,000 in no- or low-interest loans and up to five years of tax abatement.

I had to look all that up myself, so I'm not surprised everyone fumbled trying to piece together the answer. But it gave the impression that they had no idea what the hell they were voting on.

They did. The money decisions had already been made months ago and last night's decision was only to give the land over to the developers. It would've been nice to have the information about the money, but it wasn't really relevant to the decision at hand. Everyone had already pretty much agreed to the land transfer when the financial incentives were approved.

Citizen Ray said if he couldn't understand it, he doesn't think the average citizen would either. I think this is a tad unfair since, if he'd sat down with a city staffer instead of asking questions out of the blue, the city might have been able to explain it in a way he could understand, though he might still think it's a waste of money.

Second question: The developers are Dakota Commercial and Development and MetroPlains, both veterans of the local development community.

Third question: It's been under discussion since, I don't know, last fall?

There were some other questions about some other proposals and the answers from city officials were also a jumble. (I don't have time to look through every video, so check this list of videos out and decode whatever the hell "Items 4.7 & 4.9" means with this agenda. This is where I think the city Web site could be a little more helpful. I think 4.7 and 4.9 is where the rest of the Citizen Ray action is.)

After a while, Citizen Ray made the mistake of accusing the council of not understanding what it's like to work for a living. "You're out of order," they said and told him to sit down and that was that.

A few weeks ago, he got similar treatment when he attacked the city for encouraging immigrants to come here, bringing, if I remember right, crime and diseases. Council member Mike McNamara almost yelled at him to "get out of here" because he was getting pretty ugly.

At that point, there were a bunch of Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts waiting to lead the council in a pledge of allegiance. I was rather uncomfortable wondering what kind of lessons these kids were taking home. If the people in power don't like what you say they can shut you down?

What's peculiar to me is how irked the council was by this lone gadfly. He basically egged them into an emotional response instead of a measured response that I think they would've desired. None of the things he questioned were done without some decent public debates and his questions had been answered. Why everyone got so flustered is beyond me.

The lesson I've learned from people like this is not to get too excited and let them hang themselves with their own rope, a la the conversation at the anti-Barack and Hillary protest above. Some readers I heard from thought it was priceless. (By the way, I led the story with people who had something more substantive to say about the Democratic candidates, but couldn't resist putting Citizen Ray in.)

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 3/02/2010 at 1:22 PM | Comments (11) | Permalink

Tags: economic development, gf and egf, gf city council

Some analysis of the smoking ban thing

Update 9:42 a.m. Feb. 26, 2010: Reader Eric passed along this story from our friends at the Winnipeg Free Press:

Initially, the hotel, restaurant and bar industries and Manitoba Lotteries Corp. said the [province-wide smoking] ban would trigger economic apocalypse. MLC suggested there would be tens of millions of dollars less flowing into provincial coffers. Hotels, restaurants and bars foresaw mass layoffs and closures.

However, five years after the ban was enacted, much of the predicted doom and gloom did not come to pass. There were winners and losers, but the hospitality and gambling industries have, on the whole, fared much better than expected.

The hardest hit by far were bar and lounge owners. In 2005 and 2006, the first two years after the provincewide ban was enacted, receipts in these establishments dropped by half.

---

Well, blow me down if I forgot how to add last night. Yes, I know I said the vote was 5-3 at the Grand Forks City Council work session to have the council ban smoking in bars without going to a referendum. That's one council member too many! I was thinking something like three out of five members, but was in a rush to fill in other details and just screwed it up. Luckily, I also reported who voted how so it's pretty clear the 5-3 was really 3-2.

I'm short on time, as always, it seems. So here's a few issues popping up regarding the smoking ban:

Will it pass muster at council?

There's a good chance, I think, of the council going along with the recommendations of the work session and not  hold a referendum on the issue. We already know Council members Doug Christensen, Eliot Glassheim and Curt Kreun are for it. That's how they voted last night.

 Because this issue could hurt bars, or at least bars think it will hurt them, I would think Council President Hal Gershman would asked to be recused. He's a liquor store owner and has traditionally avoided any votes concerning bars, mostly because of the potential perception that hurting bars would cause more people to drink at home.

Council member Art Bakken seemed cool with it last time this came up. Doug said he thought Art would side with him, Eliot and Curt. So that's a 4-2 vote. (Checked my math. That works!)

Even if Art voted with Council members Terry Bjerke and Mike McNamara, who oppose the council passing a smoking ban, there's still Mayor Mike Brown, who wants a ban and has the power to break a tie.

Survey accuracy

Council member Mike McNamara brought up something that I'd heard about a while back, but hadn't done anyt hing about. That is, one of the people who conducted that smoking ban survey called to say that when he, the pollster, dialed up a smoker, often the smoker would refuse to take the survey upon hearing it was for an anti-smoking group.

 A different person had e-mailed me about this. I checked into it and it turned out not to be such a huge deal, so I didn't write a story.

Cordell Fontaine, who heads the polling group, UND's Social Science Research Institute, said the refusal rate on this survey was about 8 percent. I don't know how big that is in the world of polling -- I did ask Cordell, but we ended up laboring over some other point -- but let's assume all of them wanted to leave smoking in bars, that would still be 67 percent of adults favoring banning it in bars. Take away the 3.7 percent margin of error and that's still 63.3 percent. I've probably violated any number of rules of statistics, but you get the drift.

Cordell also said that when someone refuses, he or she is referred to a supervisor, who calls and tries to persuade him or her to take the survey. Is this a bad time? Why don't we call back in an hour? So the refusal rate is after that.

The reason pollsters do this is because they want the results to be truly random, not just the first random person who will answer the survey.

Bar owners' opinions differ

A couple of bar owners testified last night at the work session and I was surprised to hear Josh Gilleland's take. Unlike many bar owners, who think it will just crush their business, he thought that, in the long run, things will settle down and smokers will get used to not smoking in bars.

In the short run, there's going to be some pissed off smokers who will decide they're going to stay home. That impact would probably be immediate. On the other hand, the nonsmokers who claim they'll go to bars more won't do so right away because they're not in the habit of it.

Another bar owner I know said he's philosophically against a smoking ban -- It's his business and if you don't like it, stay out. -- but doubts there will be much of an impact. The only concern he had was that East Grand Forks bars would enjoy a competitive advantage, which, of course, they don't any more because Minnesota banned smoking in bars a long time ago.

It's worth pointing out that the market has demonstrated that whatever demand there is for a nonsmoking bar is adequately met by supply. There were at least two bars that didn't allow smoking that I know of that went out of business, one was the former Dagwood's -- I never got used to the new name, so I can't remember it right now. -- and Suite 49. Canad Inns has two bars that are smoke free, though I've never seen them packed like the downtown bars.

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 2/25/2010 at 1:44 PM | Comments (11) | Permalink

Tags: gf and egf, gf city council, rules and regulations, smoking ban

More fertile than Cass County

Man, this blog is starting to suck. The City Beat can't seem to find the time to update it without neglecting my real job, which is writing stories for the paper. I'm just saying that so you don't have to, but feel free.

So, let's recap on some of the stuff I should've blogged about, starting with that story about the babies with the frighteningly large face of a baby on the cover.

My only assignment was to check out the number of babies born at Altru Health System, but that didn't make for a very entertaining story, so I went all nerd and decided to bring in more data to flesh out the story. My inspiration was something Grand Forks Mayor Mike Brown had said back in 2004 when he set a goal of increasing the city population to 58,000 by about this time.

(Here's a special treat: The spreadsheet I worked off of to get most of the numbers below.)

The question is how many babies had to be born for us to meet that goal?

The population change formula is very simple: (Births + In-migration) - (Deaths + Out-migration) = Population change. If births and in-migration outpace deaths and out-migration, then the population will grow. If not, it shrinks.

Karen Olson, the helpful staff member from the State Data Center at NDSU, clued me in to this formula, which reminded me of the mayor's goal. Just to cut to the chase, I don't think we'll meet the goal, though the city population estimate isn't out yet. As of last year, we had about 55,700 residents, according to the Metropolitan Planning Organization. Getting 2,300 new residents in a year would be unusual given population trends of the past and given that we had fewer babies born -- about 702 last year compared to 776 the year before -- and the Air Force base population is downsizing.

But I chose not to focus too much on the city because I don't have all the data at that level. Births and deaths are available through the state, but only the Census releases migration data, using IRS records, and only at the county level.

Compiling the data for the years 2000 to 2008 and averaging them out, I found that, without births, Grand Forks County lost 777 residents a year. So to stay even with the year before, there'd have to be about 777 new babies each year. Countywide, we had 914 babies, so were ahead a little more than 100.

The migration data for 2009 isn't in yet and the average might have changed a bit.

Compared to other big counties in the state, Grand Forks is better off than Ward County, but not so good as Cass and Burleigh counties.

Even though Ward County was extraordinarily productive -- about 1,027 births last year -- the number of deaths and outmigration -- averaging 1,236 -- meant that probably wasn't enough to stem the population decline.

Burleigh and Cass counties had such high inmigration that even without births, they would've grown. Burleigh gained an average of 237 residents and Cass 256 a year. They were productive, too, with about 1,073 births in 2009 for Burleigh and 2,179 for Cass.

An interesting, though probably meaningless statistic as far as Grand Forks is concerned, is the fertility rate, which the Census defines as the number of births per 1,000 women of child-bearing age, which is 15 to 44.

For Grand Forks County, the average is 56.4. Ward is a whopping 78.5. Burleigh is 60. And Cass is 59.9.

Because of UND's presence, Grand Forks County's population of younger women is exaggerated and, as state demographer Richard Rathge pointed out, college women tend to hold off on starting families while in school. It's true that other counties have universities, too, but I believe ours is a bigger proportion of the county population.

Last Fall, UND had on-campus enrollment of 11,207 and, if we assume that half of that number are women, that's 5,604 women of child-bearing age who won't be bearing. Removing that population from the child-bearing population, we get an average fertility rate of 86.8.

If I do the same by taking NDSU out of the equation for Cass County, I get 76.6. (Yeah! We're more fertile!)

Taking Minot State University out of Ward County gives me  87.5.

Taking Bismarck State College out of Burleigh County gives me 65.5.

Well, that's kind of the quick and dirty estimate anyway. No doubt there are those living in Grand Forks County who attend Northland Community and Technical College in East Grand Forks or even the University of Minnesota-Crookston. Cass County women might attend Concordia College or Minnesota State University Moorhead.

As Mayor Brown noted, having more people means more federal funding, though it's more accurate to say it means more chances of getting more federal funding since the population also has to meet other criteria to qualify a city for more aid. For example, head start funding for schools depend on the number of kids in head start, not just the total number of kids.

More importantly, it decreases the impact of the aging population. Most people would agree that an economy is most vibrant when the population is diverse. Too many retired folks and it means you don't have as many young workers available for industry. Too many kids and it means you have more kids in school and not enough workers earning money to pay for those schools. I don't know if there's an economic impact to having too many young workers, but that's not a problem we're likely to face!

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 2/22/2010 at 7:16 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink

Tags: burleigh county, cass county, demographics, gf and egf, gf county, ndsu, und, ward county

How much do we drink?

Sometimes the City Beat, for no reason at all, just enjoys a refreshing dive into a sea of data. In this case, I was curious who really drank the most booze in this country. North Dakota is up there, but that's in binge drinking. But we are certainly not the biggest drinkers. Would you believe they're in New Hampshire and our nation's capital?

Top 5 boozing states (2007):

1. New Hampshire.
2. District of Columbia.
3. Nevada.
4. Delaware.
5. Wisconsin.

Top 5 beer-swilling states (2007):

1. New Hampshire.
2. Nevada.
3. Montana.
4. North Dakota.
5. Louisiana.

Top 5 wine-loving states (2007):

1. District of Columbia.
2. New Hampshire.
3. Idaho.
4. Nevada.
5. Vermont.

Top 5 rot-gut states (2007):

1. New Hampshire.
2. District of Columbia.
3. Nevada.
4. Delaware.
5. Wisconsin.

Below, you'll find data from the National Institutes of Health, which I trimmed for your enjoyment. The data shows how much ethanol is consumed a year by the average person in each state, so we're talking about only the alcohol portions of beer, wine and liquor.

For your information, here's some information about alcohol content. If I haven't screwed up my calculations or if my assumptions aren't wrong, 2.88 gallons of ethanol, which the average North Dakotan consumed in a year, is equivalent to 72 gallons of beer at 4 percent alcohol content (ABV). This is 1.58 pints a day.

The average New Hampshirite, by comparison, consumes 4.22 gallons of ethanol a year, or 105.5 gallons of beer, or 2.31 pints a day.

Farther down, you'll see how we compare globally. The average Luxembourger -- they're tops among the world's nations -- consumes 4.12 gallons of ethanol a year, or 103 gallons of beer, or 2.26 pints a day.

Here comes the numbers:

Alcohol consumption by states (gallons of ethanol content consumed a year)

State/area	Year	Beer per capita (gallons)	Wine per capita (gallons)	Spirits per capita (gallons)	All beverages per capita (gallons)
New Hampshire	2007	1.74	0.74	1.75	4.22
District of Columbia	2007	1.35	0.99	1.61	3.95
Nevada	2007	1.71	0.64	1.27	3.61
Delaware	2007	1.39	0.59	1.25	3.23
Wisconsin	2007	1.54	0.33	1.11	2.98
Wyoming	2007	1.49	0.23	1.10	2.82
North Dakota	2007	1.57	0.23	1.08	2.88
Alaska	2007	1.32	0.45	1.07	2.84
Colorado	2007	1.29	0.47	1.00	2.75
Minnesota	2007	1.16	0.32	0.97	2.45
Florida	2007	1.30	0.49	0.93	2.72
Rhode Island	2007	1.13	0.54	0.90	2.56
Montana	2007	1.59	0.35	0.86	2.80
South Dakota	2007	1.51	0.22	0.86	2.59
Massachusetts	2007	1.01	0.61	0.86	2.48
New Jersey	2007	0.93	0.55	0.86	2.34
Connecticut	2007	0.93	0.58	0.85	2.35
Maryland	2007	1.01	0.36	0.84	2.21
Louisiana	2007	1.57	0.28	0.81	2.65
Oregon	2007	1.29	0.49	0.81	2.59
Hawaii	2007	1.34	0.49	0.80	2.62
Maine	2007	1.27	0.43	0.80	2.49
Missouri	2007	1.33	0.30	0.78	2.41
Michigan	2007	1.11	0.30	0.78	2.19
South Carolina	2007	1.43	0.24	0.77	2.44
West region	2007	1.17	0.50	0.77	2.43
Arizona	2007	1.36	0.33	0.76	2.45
NE region	2007	1.06	0.46	0.75	2.28
Midwest region	2007	1.27	0.29	0.74	2.30
Washington	2007	1.11	0.50	0.74	2.35
Illinois	2007	1.22	0.41	0.73	2.36
US	2007	1.21	0.38	0.73	2.31
Indiana	2007	1.14	0.24	0.72	2.10
California	2007	1.07	0.55	0.72	2.34
New Mexico	2007	1.41	0.31	0.71	2.43
Vermont	2007	1.37	0.61	0.70	2.68
Mississippi	2007	1.46	0.12	0.68	2.26
South region	2007	1.26	0.30	0.68	2.25
New York	2007	0.92	0.46	0.68	2.06
Nebraska	2007	1.45	0.21	0.67	2.33
Iowa	2007	1.40	0.17	0.67	2.24
Idaho	2007	1.18	0.74	0.67	2.59
Kansas	2007	1.17	0.15	0.64	1.96
Georgia	2007	1.16	0.26	0.64	2.06
Kentucky	2007	1.05	0.17	0.63	1.85
Arkansas	2007	1.07	0.17	0.60	1.84
Pennsylvania	2007	1.34	0.24	0.59	2.16
Oklahoma	2007	1.18	0.17	0.58	1.93
Virginia	2007	1.13	0.41	0.58	2.13
Texas	2007	1.41	0.27	0.56	2.25
Alabama	2007	1.24	0.22	0.56	2.02
North Carolina	2007	1.16	0.28	0.56	2.00
Tennessee	2007	1.13	0.20	0.56	1.89
Ohio	2007	1.33	0.25	0.45	2.03
Utah	2007	0.75	0.16	0.43	1.34
West Virginia	2007	1.24	0.10	0.42	1.76

I don't really believe West Virginia is bottoms in drinking. The feds must not be able to count moonshine consumption.

Here's how we stack up against other countries. I'm trusting Wikipedia has this right because there is a reference to the World Health Organization Web site. Also, I've converted liters to gallons.

Top 10 boozers around the world (2003):

 1. Luxembourg: 4.12 gallons.
2. Ireland: 3.62 gallons.
3. Hungary: 3.59 gallons.
4. Moldova: 3.49 gallons.
5. Czech Republic: 3.43 gallons.
6. Croatia: 3.25 gallons.
7. Germany: 3.17 gallons.
8. United Kingdom: 3.12 gallons.
9. Denmark: 3.09 gallons.
9. Spain: 3.09 gallons.
10. Cyprus: 3.09 gallons.
10. Portugal: 3.04 gallons.
10. Saint Lucia: 3.04 gallons.
24. United States: 2.27 gallons. (Remember, North Dakota's at 2.88 gallons.)

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 2/16/2010 at 4:05 PM | Comments (7) | Permalink

Tags: north dakota, public health

Is it OK for the Alerus Center to lose money?

The City Beat has been negligent in my blogging duties and, unfortunately, my schedule is forcing it on me. So the lengthy, in-depth posts I usually write just won't be possible unless it's a slow day. And I'm still not sure how I can write short without sounding nonsensical; I just like to back up what I say with lots of details because I never know when someone will challenge my facts or logic.

Today, it happens that I've finished early so I'll catch up with a post about the Alerus Center task force, which wrapped up its work last week. I'm going to ignore the stuff about governance -- no more unannounced meetings -- and the stuff about more financial reports -- just administrative stuff. Let's talk about the business of the Alerus Center.

When the task force was formed, it wasn't too many months after the events center released Britney Spears fiscal figures, including the $97,000 loss. The central question to me was whether taking these kinds of losses are justifiable in light of the potential net economic impact? More broadly, are any losses at the Alerus Center justifiable?

The task force had a very nuanced answer.

First, the task force said the goal must still be to break even and upped the ante by saying that there should be some kind of profit.

This isn't such a change from what the Alerus Center aims to do now; it just hasn't managed to reach that goal.

Second, the task force said big-risk events such as concerts must go to the City Council for final approval. The point is the council has control of the pursestrings and the Alerus Center can't guarantee performers that they'll make money and then turn to the council for a bail out. To my knowledge, that's not happened because of that $250,000 concert fund the council gave the events center each year, though, of course, a seriously disastrous concert could exceed that fund.

The message seems to be that the Alerus Center must break even, but if it wants to take the risk of not breaking even, it should come to the council. This was never explicit in any of the discussions that I sat through, so this is more my interpretation.

The task force never said it's OK to lose money even though it acknowledged that there is a positive economic impact and, at least in discussion, the group agreed that the impact can be higher than losses.

Now, I've heard it said that breaking even is, essentially "impossible." Council Vice President Eliot Glassheim was paraphrasing Alerus Center Executive Director Steve Hyman when he used that word. Steve said that to break even would require cutting the events center "to the bone," the implication being that this would reduce the number events and, therefore, the economic impact.

Some might argue that this is just an excuse, though, of course, no one who says this is actually in the business.

One person that's in the business that I've talked to, if I remember our conversation from about six months ago correctly, agreed that breaking even for such a facility in this market is a real challenge. Not impossible, but challenging. I even asked if VenuWorks, the management firm, were to blame and was told probably not.

I'm saying this because many Alerus Center critics are quick to point fingers and, though I respect their opinions, I tend to rely on more knowledgeable sources. Which is why I've not hammered VenuWorks as those critics might like.

So excuses or not, here's what I've heard from various sources about the challenges the Alerus Center faces:

• If Ralph Engelstad Arena didn't exist and the Alerus Center had been able to host Fighting Sioux hockey and didn't have to compete for concerts, it probably would have an easier time breaking even.

It's obvious that if hockey had gone to the Alerus Center, it would enjoy much bigger attendance and concession sales. But a search of our archives indicate that that was never something anyone seriously expected. There was mention of hockey back in 1996 when events center supporters were campaigning for a "yes" vote, but I think it has more to do with NHL exhibition games.

• The size of our regional population compared to the populations of the Fargo and Winnipeg regions, both of which have competing arenas, makes it hard to bring concerts here.

This is certainly plausible because of the kinds of shifts we've seen in the concert industry, which I've written about before.

• Even if we don't like the fiscal performance of concerts, we still need them for two reasons.

First, when the events center was just a convention center, voters wouldn't approve it. They only agreed when an arena was added so they could get concerts and other events. So, we need concerts to keep faith with voters. On the other hand, it seems like voters have voted with their feet. Concert attendance has not been that hot, even before the economy turned south. The Black Eyed Peas concert  a few years ago had disastrous attendance I'm told (I actually went to that one!).

Second, a lot of revenue rides on concerts, from concession profits, to advertising fees to suite leases. Not having concerts could exacerbate the losses. The reason is that arena is a huge volume of air to heat and cool and there's a lot of equipment in there, meaning expenses can only be trimmed so much.

• The Alerus Center is a first-class facility and it has a first-class price for conventions. In fact, the Convention and Visitors Bureau has had to spend some of its money, which it gets from restaurants and bars, to sweeten the deal. I'm not entirely clear why it costs more here than elsewhere, but the way the CVB's Julie Rygg put it, basically convention organizers want a deal on either the convention space or the hotel rooms and, because the Alerus Center has to try to make money and so does Canad Inns, the attached hotel, nobody's budging on prices.

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 2/15/2010 at 6:31 PM | Comments (16) | Permalink

Tags: alerus center, concert industry, economic impact, gf and egf

Quickies: A bunch of links I've been saving up

• Here's some interesting new sewage technologies. I'm not sure if any of these are useful to Grand Forks, though many of our pipes are old and our sewage plant still has those bird-attracting lagoons near the airport.
• When I was a poor college student, I envied people with real jobs. Now that I have a real job, I envy the college students for their long winter breaks. Why is it so long? The answer is here.
• I didn't realize there's something called an "ad recession" going on -- Newspapers have suffered for so long, it seems like one enormous recession. -- but now some think TV networks are next. (Sorry, this link is a tad older. I save these things up for slow days.)
• "How America Can Rise Again." What a nice, reassuring title for an article by James Fallows, one of my favorite writers from the Atlantic. The point of the story is all this anxiety, while understandable, is not new. We've been an anxious country since before we were a country. America has always thought it was headed downhill, which is how we manage to keep heading uphill.
• Ever since I thought about the idea of branding for newspapers, I've found myself noticing branding everywhere. A while ago, I read about the city of Melbourne, Australia, and its MTV-like branding effort and wondered why our city has such a lame brand. Our city is great and it deserves better than this or this:

Who has some ideas for a more fitting brand? This is another one of those times where I feel like getting a serious answer. Snarky or obnoxious comments that has nothing to do with the question will be deleted.

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 2/11/2010 at 1:07 PM | Comments (4) | Permalink

Tags: frivolous links

The difference between safe and risk-free

Update 9:07 p.m. Feb. 10, 2010: Just a quick update. My colleague Tom Dennis called my attention to a similar critique from the American Council on Science and Health regarding argument that there is no safe exposure to secondhand smoke. While I merely point out the difference between what the Surgeon General reported and what anti-smoking folks are saying, the ACSH took aim at the good doctor himself:

The SG goes even further, with this totally outrageous statement: "the scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke." This leaves us with the clear impression that if we merely walk through a smoke-filled room, we have put our health in irreversible jeopardy.

These statements violate the basic tenet of toxicology: "only the dose makes the poison." What is most alarming here is that the top doctor in the land is communicating a message that anything that is harmful at high dose can be lethal at low dose -- when that is simply not true.

A careful read of the Surgeon General's report will reveal that, as I note below, secondhand smoke is potentially lethal with long exposure. Basically, all it really seems to say is the risks of secondhand smoke is about the same as the risks of actually smoking. So, I don't think the report exaggerates things as much as ACSH argues.

I'll admit that the "no risk-free" exposure statement is a bit misleading. There is always some risk in everything. There's no risk-free exposure, for example, to the pesticide the city uses to spray for mosquitoes -- For goodness sake, the city even tells us to stay indoors for 20 to 30 minutes -- the risk is just very, very small.

---

The City Beat's been getting an unusual number of phone calls about the smoking ban survey with a lot of questions about how it could be that 75 percent of the adults in Grand Forks think it's OK to ban smoking in bars. (Add the 57 percent that favors banning it in the bar and the 18 percent that favors banning it around the bar.)

Did pollsters just talk to smokers? No, though I'm told many smokers didn't want to participate in the survey.

How many people did they survey? They called people randomly and 779 chose to participate.

Who did the survey? UND's Social Science Research Institute.

Isn't UND opposed to smoking? Yes, it banned smoking on campus, but the SSRI is a professional group of pollsters. You have to trust that people have more integrity than that otherwise there's no point in believing anything that anyone says because anyone can be bought off. My caller said anyone can be made to say anything if there's enough money in it. Perhaps my caller was paid off by the tobacco lobby?

Anyway, we know there is a very large number of people that think banning smoking in bars, even over the objection of bar owners, is OK.

The question that no one's asked is just how accurate is public perception about the hazards of second hand smoke. That's what's driving this discussion. In the survey, 68 percent thought that secondhand smoke is a "serious hazard" and 43 percent think that occasional exposure to it is also a "serious hazard." This is like saying secondhand smoke is equal to asbestos or plutonium or something.

I can see how people might think working in a smoke-filled room might be a serious hazard, given the enormous exposure to the stuff, but I find it difficult to believe that occasional exposure could be such a dangerous thing. Walking through a smoke-filled room would hardly seem to be a serious hazard.

We're talking about smoke. Everyone's sat by a campfire or been stuck in a traffic jam on a hot day.

So I asked Haley Thorson, the Public Health Department official who heads up the Grand Forks Tobacco Free Coalition, why she and her boss public health chief Don Shields kept talking about there being "no safe exposure to secondhand smoke."

My impression is that what they really mean is there is "no safe _long-term exposure_ to secondhand smoke."

First a bit of background. I took the liberty of tracking down the origin of the "no safe exposure" line and found a reference to the U.S. Surgeon General's 2006 report on secondhand smoke.

The report actually says: "The scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke."

"Risk-free" is a lot different than "safe" because safe implies that, while there could be some risk, it is negligible. A car that's "safe" is safe in most circumstances, but certainly not if it's caught in a head-on collision between two semis. Meat that's "safe" is safe most of the time, but sometimes safety breaks down at the meat processing plant or in the restaurant and people get e. coli poisoning.

Haley said that secondhand smoke isn't "safe" because even brief exposure will produce a response in the body. Blood gets thicker because the platelets are "stickier," which then exerts more pressure on the blood vessel, decreasing blood flow and slowing down the heart. The blood doesn't get to the body as quickly.

But doesn't the body recover from that sort of thing pretty quickly?

The more times that happens, she said, the greater the probability that there will be permanent damage. So it might be a slight, almost unnoticeable damage at first, but if it happens enough, then the damage becomes cumulative, she said.

People with heart diseases will have it worse, she said.

In other words, we are talking about long-term exposure. If someone were to sit in a bar, say, twice a week, each time spending three hours there, over a year, that's 312 hours and over five years 1,560 hours, which is about 65 days. So that's the true hazard.

I wished the public health people would talk about it in those terms rather than use the "no safe exposure" line, which sounds suspiciously like propaganda. Secondhand smoke is bad enough. It doesn't need exaggeration.

What does the Surgeon General say about this? His report is ridiculously detailed, so I'm not going to pretend I read the whole thing. I skimmed a lot.

First, we know that secondhand smoke -- "sidestream smoke" in the Surgeon General report -- can cause tumors. They made a lot of rats breathe a lot of secondhand smoke for long periods of time -- five months in one case -- or condensed the smoke and put on the rats' skins.

Second, we know there are carcinogens in secondhand smoke, such as formaldehyde, and that stuff gets into the human body.

Third, secondhand smoke screws with your respiratory system. The immune system is injured, increasing the chances of getting some sort of infection. The cells can get inflamed, causing obstruction to the airway, and this is a progressive condition that's irreversible.

Fourth, secondhand smoke activates the platelets in blood making it, as Haley said, stickier. What that means is there's a higher chance you'll get a thrombus or a blood clot. Big enough clots and there's a risk of a stroke or heart attack. Weirdly enough, nonsmokers are way more susceptible to this than smokers, maybe because the smokers' bodies are used to smoke and doesn't get too excited about it.

Secondhand smoke also reduces the amount of oxygen that blood can carry to the heart and damage heart cells' ability to use oxygen.

Basically, you're not going to get a heart attack from sitting in a smoky room, but you could if you did it a lot.

There's more, but I don't have time to slog through what's basically a 700-page medical journal. But, you get the picture.

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 2/10/2010 at 11:50 AM | Comments (7) | Permalink

Tags: gf and egf, gf city council, gf city hall, public health, rules and regulations, smoking ban

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