Some time before the November general election, Fargo voters will have a special election concerning a proposal to city government from an at-large commission, where each member of the commission (except for the mayor) is elected by the whole city, to a ward system, where the city is split into jurisdictions each with a specific representative.

"It would establish six wards and one person elected from each ward," former city commissioner Arlette Preston, an organizer behind this issue, said on this episode of Plain Talk. "The candidate would have to live inside the ward and be elected by people in the ward. So, it would also change from a commission form of government to a council form, which that will remove the commissioners as they are currently assigned certain portfolios and daily interactions with certain departments. It would remove them from that and allow for the city administrator to actually have direct oversight."

Former Mayor Tim Mahoney has opposed this proposal, and one of his complaints is the cost. He's said it could cost the taxpayers as much as $500,000 to make the switch, but Preston dismissed that claim.

"I have no idea where he got his numbers and he never really specified where they came from," she said. "There would be two additional people on the council versus what is currently the commission. So there'd be a total of seven people including the mayor versus now it's five. So those two additional people would add probably around 80,000 total in salary and benefits for two of them. That would be an annual cost."

She also pushed back on Mahoney's claim that the proposal would lead to a weak mayor. She said that state law actually defines a system like this as promoting a strong mayor, because while the mayor would only participate in council votes as a tie breaker, he or she would have veto power. Also, with the mayor's job already having moved to a full-time position, whoever is elected to that position will be more involved in day-to-day administration.

Preston says the change toward wards would make Fargo's leaders more accountable. "What this allows is to make sure that somebody does advocate for you," she explained. "Right now, when communications come into the commission, it goes to all five people." Living in a district that has a specific member of the city council to represent your area means they should be more responsive. "It really, I think, establishes a stronger sense of accountability to the constituents," Preston told us.

Also on this episode, co-host Chad Oban and I discuss the fundraising failure for the proposed military museum at the state capitol in Bismarck, the decline in Canadian tourism, youth sports and extreme heat, the outcome of the Greater North Dakota Chamber of Commerce's recent civics bee, and fatherhood.

If you want to participate in Plain Talk, just give us a call or text at 701-587-3141. It's super easy — leave your message, tell us your name and where you're from, and we might feature it on an upcoming episode. To subscribe to Plain Talk, search for the show wherever you get your podcasts or use one of the links below.

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Is North Dakota still open for business? That's a question we asked during an interview with Brooks Burgum, co-founder and CEO of Longwater, a private equity and alternative asset management firm.

What prompts that question is what seems to be a growing, anti-development attitude among some political factionsin North Dakota. The state once marketed itself as an easy place to do business, but increasingly building things like transmission lines, pipelines, and data centers has become a fraught business.

"Where would we be if no one built a railroad?" Burgum, who is the former governor's cousin, asked.

"We want to grow this country, we want to grow this state," he continued. "We've got to have pipelines. We've got to have railroads. We've got to have interstate highways. This concept of not on my land, not in my backyard, this NIMBY idea, yeah, it's scary to think about."

But Burgum thinks the backlash against data centers may be less about the centers themselves than the economic and cultural change they represent. "If you think about all the fears we all have around AI, and it can be scary, and it's real, and there's so many things happening, the only physical manifestation of that, that people lash out at, is a physical data center, he said. "Like, 'I'm scared of AI. I don't know what's going to happen to my job, to my life, all sorts of different things.' There's one physical thing that has the shape and form of AI and it's a data center."

Burgum also spoke about North Dakota's efforts to steer public dollars toward in-state investments, arguing for an expansive view of those efforts that includes, not just investing in companies in North Dakota, but creating opportunities for North Dakota-based investment managers.

Also on this episode, me and co-host Chad Oban discuss the need for "proof of life" laws for politicians, the timing of Fargo Mayor Josh Boschee's resignation from the Legislature, and we responded to listener feedback.

If you want to participate in Plain Talk, just give us a call or text at 701-587-3141. It's super easy — leave your message, tell us your name and where you're from, and we might feature it on an upcoming episode. To subscribe to Plain Talk, search for the show wherever you get your podcasts or use one of the links below.

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North Dakota got a new crime report from Attorney General Drew Wrigley's office, and the numbers look pretty good.

The rate of incidents per 100,000 citizens for the most serious "Group A" crimes was down 7.4% from 2024 to 2025. Crimes against persons (murder, assault, etc.) were down 3%, crimes against property were down 12.2%, crimes against society (drug and gun violations, etc.) were down 3.2%, and total statewide arrests were down 3.7%.

But to hear Wrigley tell it, that's merely the plateau at the top of a rise in crime that he says necessitates the reform to sentencing laws he's been furiously campaigning for during multiple legislative sessions since taking office.

He'll be pushing hard for it once again in the upcoming legislative session (there's no real doubt that he'll be easily re-elected in November over Democratic-NPL challenger tim Lamb), though he says he's asking for something different this time.

"The proposal going forward, this is not the same we've done in the past," he said on this episode of Plain Talk. He says he's not asking for mandatory minimum sentences this time. Rather, he's asking for "truth in sentencing," or the requirement that some types sentences come with a prohibition on any sort of release before 85% of the sentence is served.

"I lost," he said, referring to the debates over legislation he's backed in previous legislative sessions. "They don't want to have long mandatory sentences. They don't want to extend existing sentences. And so, Drew Wrigley lost that battle."

During the interivew, Wrigley kept up his pattern of verbal assaults on the honesty and integrity of officials in Gov. Kelly Armstrong's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He accused them of "well-doumented prevarication" and even at one point used his fingers to do air quotes when he used the word "professionalism" for DOCR.

When challenged about that, Wrigley walked it back, saying that DOCR's personnel are professionals, but insisted "they have shown no capacity to deal with recidivism" and, furthermore, do not have the "constitutional responsibility" for it.

"They are the executive branch. They are to carry out the sentence the judicial judicial branch gave them. That's to be carried out by the executive branch, not altered as it is day one," he said.

If you want to participate in Plain Talk, just give us a call or text at 701-587-3141. It's super easy — leave your message, tell us your name and where you're from, and we might feature it on an upcoming episode. To subscribe to Plain Talk, search for the show wherever you get your podcasts or use one of the links below.

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