State-appointed Marcil promises to be neutral

By Steve Browne
Staff writer

Meetings between representatives of Valley City, residents of six areas the city is trying to annex, and a mediator appointed by the state began Thursday.
Mediator Jack Marcil, a Fargo attorney, scheduled six meetings from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. for each area to meet with and hear from both sides.
The Valley City City Commission began the annexation process on seven parcels of land surrounding or inside the city in early November.
After the 30-day protest period ended on Dec. 7, one area near the Riverside Gardens neighborhood registered no protest to being annexed.
In the other six areas, owners of between 35 and 95 percent of the land areas in the proposed annexation districts filed protests. By law, only a 25 percent protest level is required to take the annexation process into mediation.
According to the North Dakota Century Code, the mediation committee must be comprised of a mediator appointed by the governor, and representatives of both the protesters and the city.
Marcil began the meetings by stressing three points: neutrality, confidentiality and that the matter would not be resolved in a day.
“I’m a neutral,” Marcil said, “I don’t have a horse in this race. When I’m visiting with you folks privately, what you say is confidential. We won’t get done today. But I want you to know the other city I did this in, we did get resolution.”

For the full story, see the Friday, March 12, 2010, print edition of the Valley City Times-Record.