By Dennis Stillings
Rural Valley City

On a stopover at LAX while flying back to Hawaii from Minneapolis, I picked up a copy of William Hallberg’s book “The Soul of Golf”  for something to read during the remaining five-hour flight.
The book details a golf odyssey from the East Coast to the West Coast and back, the author recounting his impressions of the people and places along the way. Naturally, the book focuses on famous golf courses - Harbor Town, Pebble Beach and Cypress Point, among others.
As I was reading along half-consciously, the words “North Dakota” caught my attention. A page or two later, I was startled by a mention of Valley City: “ a simple town only one hour or so from the Minnesota border.” (I frowned a bit at the insult — not in his calling Valley City a “simple town” — whatever that is — but defining its location in relation to Minnesota, as if getting out of North Dakota had been the main thing on the author’s mind!) He also appeared to have written this chapter, titled “Golfing on the Moon,” from somewhat distant memory, since there are several factual errors about Valley City that are obvious to a local.
Apparently, Hallberg had taken the Main Street exit off Interstate 94 and, upon inquiring of some Lutheran churchgoers about golf courses in the area, was directed to Bjornson’s. A couple of holes into his round, he joined up with Lynn Shape — then the service manager at Stoudt-Ford (this was written in the mid-1990s) — and his son, Joe.
Toward the end of the round, Hallberg remarked to his golfing companions: “This is a beautiful little course. There’s so much to work with ... the river, the ponds, the hills and trees. The architect did a nice job with the layout. Any course designer worth his turf would kill for terrain like this.”
William Hallberg is a nationally known and respected golf writer. His experience of hundreds of golf courses of every level of difficulty gives weight to his remarks. His opinion impressed me, and triggered fantasies in my own golf-obsessed soul.
***
What if we constructed a “Sheyenne River Valley Scenic Byway National Championship Golf Course”? Assuming such a project would be undertaken in Valley City might be a fairly wild assumption, since the town has already fumbled at least one opportunity to have an 18-hole layout. A nine-hole extension of Bjornson’s along the Sheyenne, though, laid out by a name architect, does seem like the way to go. The course already has a world-class greenskeeper. If we were to add a decent clubhouse (the Peanut Bar?) and a suitable motel, Valley City would finally have a destination feature of significance.
But let’s not stop there. We could borrow some ideas from golf courses in Hawaii. A number of the island courses skirt lava fields engraved with hundreds of petroglyphs — signs and pictures created by ancient Hawaiians. There are caves and lava walls and cairns that turn the fairways into individual outdoor museum galleries that tell stories of others who once carried clubs of a different sort. Fragile archaeological sites are identified and protected from golfer trespass for any reason, including trying to retrieve a ball.
In our own setting, signs could point out the character of the Sheyenne valley as well as other recreational resources. Each hole could be given a name referring to local attractions: Chautauqua, Ashtabula, Sugarloaf, Hi-Line, Sheyenne, Dakota, Chokecherry, Flickertail, etc. Plaques relating to the history and archaeology of the area could be added where appropriate, and signs pointing out native plants and animal habitat would also be suitable. Anyway, I think you get the drift. There is room for the imagination to work here.
It is worth noting that the terrain that “any course designer worth his turf would kill for” extends for a considerable distance south of I-94 along the Sheyenne and north of the Hi-Line Bridge up to Lake Ashtabula and beyond. Of course, the I-94 access to the Bjornson area is a great advantage, but an 18-hole course closer to Lake Ashtabula might be better, perhaps nestled in a lakeside or riverside housing development. To avoid disturbing our Valley City movers and shakers with a profitable destination project so close to town, commercial bypasses to the Lake Ashtabula area could be developed at the Peak and Berea exits. (Interestingly enough, some in Valley City are already exploring this option.)  Personally, I would love to see a sports bar in Peak called the Peak Experience. I might even consider turning my farmstead, just off Peak Road and picturesquely situated among the wind turbines, into a combination National Museum of Wind Energy and Bait Shop.
“Listen; there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go.”

By Keith Colville
Valley City

Could North Dakota abolish property taxes? Should North Dakota abolish property taxes?
The answer to both questions is a resounding yes!
Before you dismiss this idea outright as impossible, please consider: After studying property taxes for quite a few years and trying to figure ways to fix the problems with property taxes such as the unfairness, unjustness and the government penalizing the citizen for improving her or his property and/or not letting the government into your house for internal inspection, to name a few, we have come to the conclusion that the system is so broken it can’t be fixed!
The first question we get is how will schools and other local expenses get funded without a property tax?
One answer: As of the last session of the Legislature, the state already covers 70 percent of local school costs, so a mechanism is already in place to fund schools without property taxes, so just the percentages would change. As far as other local expenses go, a similar mechanism would be put in place.
But some say we would lose local control. If you think we have local control now, you haven’t been to Barnes County Commission meetings lately. Their pat answer to everything is the state forces us to do this and the state forces us to do that. Also, local schools are under control of the Department of Public Instruction through imposition of the State Accreditation Manual.
Another question that is raised: Where would the money come from to replace the lost revenue? Some use the image of a three-legged stool: property tax, income tax and sales tax. If you cut off one of the legs, the system would become unbalanced.
Our answer: If you want to use legs on a stool to make your point, fine. In North Dakota, we have more than a 20-legged stool. In addition to sales tax and income tax, we have oil revenues, license fees and the state lottery, to name just a few of the state’s revenue sources.
If you picked only sales tax to replace property tax, if done right, the rate would only have to go up in the neighborhood of 2.5 percent and everyone would be contributing, not just the 53 percent of the population as is the case here in Valley City, where 47 percent do not pay property taxes.
And, of course, the lost revenue could be replaced by spreading out the difference evenly over the other 20-plus legs. Additionally, about $50 million would be saved each year by eliminating the costs of administering the property tax.
What other benefits would result?
Most cities have property tax incentives to encourage development. Abolishing property taxes would automatically give everyone everywhere in North Dakota (indeed, everyone in the United States) those incentives.
Locally, people would improve their properties without getting punished with higher property taxes. That would create jobs!
Statewide businesses from around the country would look very closely at relocating to North Dakota. Their bottom line, when excluding property taxes, would dramatically increase, creating more jobs.
You would not have to worry about having to sell your home because you can’t pay your property taxes. No one knows this better than our elderly and those on fixed incomes, who finally, after years of scraping to pay off their homes, are forced to move because they cannot afford their property taxes.
Because of property taxes, one’s home becomes a liability during difficult economic times. This should never happen. Your home should be a place of security and refuge, not a liability.
We have joined with other grassroots organizations from around the state to put on informational meetings across the state.
The next meeting will be in Valley City at 7 p.m. Feb. 19 at Pizza Corner. Come and have a piece of pizza on us and find out why the time has come to abolish property taxes in North Dakota.
For more information, visit our Web site at valleycitycci.com.

Lee Morris
News editor

Education isn’t cheap. Quality books, board, tuition and fees, and university staff members are expensive. So action by a North Dakota Board of Higher Education subcommittee this week to lower tuition increases in all four-year state colleges is relief for the many students who spend hours each week at more than one job, in addition to school, to pay for their dreams and goals.
The panel recommended capping tuition at 3.5 percent at the state’s 11 schools. That’s good, but perhaps not good enough. Over the past few years, North Dakota’s universities have caught up to the rest of the country’s as far as tuition and fees are concerned. Tuition is rising faster than students can keep up with.
In 2003-04, the state’s schools were about on pace with regional schools, and behind national, as far as costs. That year, North Dakota resident undergraduate tuition and fees as a measure of median household income was 8.7 percent, according to the North Dakota University System’s 2008 Accountability Measures Report. That’s compared to 8.8 percent regionally and 9.9 percent nationally.
But by 2007-08, the report shows, tuition and fees for North Dakota schools was at 11.4 percent as a measure of median household income. That’s compared to 11.5 percent nationally and 10.3 percent regionally. That’s a big change, though the state’s tuition and fees are not rising vastly differently compared to the other two.
At Valley City State University, a North Dakota resident pays $2,534 in tuition and fees for 12 credits, the figure that generally confers upon students full-time status. For students looking to become teachers at the education university, that’s relatively affordable.
For example, compare VCSU’s number with North Dakota State University’s in Fargo. A resident pays $3,206 in tuition and fees for 12 credits at NDSU. Or if you were to compare VCSU’s figure to a private school, say, Jamestown College, you would find a larger difference. Not counting tuition and fees, Jamestown charges roughly about $8,000 a semester, though its Web site says the cost is about the same as a public institution after financial aid and scholarships are applied. A fine school Jamestown College may be, but we’re not sure if we buy that one.
(We should note that VCSU does have a hefty technology fee: $499 compared to about $83 at NDSU for 12 credits. VCSU students get their own laptops and use enhanced technology classrooms, among other perks, for the price.)
Also, a lot of the money students take out in loans must be paid later. At NDSU, the average debt load for seniors who graduated in 2009 was $20,401 counting only federal loans, and $26,916 counting inclusive alternative loans. That means even if you have a job, pay some tuition and loans while attending college, and get only federal loans, you are still on the hook for more than $20,000. Ouch.
So is 3.5 percent a low enough figure to cap tuition at? The Board of Higher Education’s three-member subcommittee thinks the cap is enough for now. Let’s hope they’re right. And let’s hope the trend of the state’s rising tuition slows until it’s back in line with tuition at schools within the region.

By Steve Browne
Columnist

OK, everybody else in the world has commented on it, so I suppose it’s my turn.
James Cameron’s “Avatar” broke box-office records to become the highest-grossing film of all time, beating out his previous film, “Titanic,” which held the record for 12 years.
Surprisingly, the extraterrestrial fantasy provoked a fair amount of political commentary. One commentator called it “the Atlas Shrugged of the Left.” Some conservatives criticized its portrait of a ruthless military officer serving his evil corporate masters, whatever the collateral damage.
Left-wing commentary was generally favorable, though there were a few who criticized it as an updating of the “white god among the natives” genre.
Briefly, for those vacationing in Antarctica who missed it, the story takes place on a world called Pandora, the moon of a gas giant planet circling the star Alpha Centauri. Pandora is home to an intelligent species human enough to be attractive, if your taste runs to 10-foot blue-skinned beings with tails.
Humans can’t breathe inside Pandora’s atmosphere, so they interact with the natives through avatars, bodies grown from a mix of human and native DNA, controlled through a mind-link.
The planet is the source of the valuable element “unobtanium,” which the evil corporation will stop at nothing to get. (The word unobtanium originated with aircraft engineers who wished they could have a metal with a long list of helpful characteristics: light, strong, malleable, etc.)
A crippled ex-Marine is recruited to replace his identical twin as an avatar controller, and enlisted by a psycho security chief to get the natives to move to a reservation or something, so the corporation can rape their land. But the good-hearted warrior goes native and dances with big flying animals waaaay cooler than wolves.
The film is stunningly, achingly beautiful. There are anecdotal reports of young viewers suffering mild depression because they can’t climb into a tanning bed and wake up on Pandora.
Nonetheless, there’s a lot about it that is, well ... kind of dumb.
Contrary to Hollywood gospel, there actually aren’t a lot of high-ranking psychos in the U.S. military. You don’t get promoted very far if you’re out-of-control nuts. And wouldn’t you think a super-expensive space program would psychologically screen at least as thoroughly as NASA does?
Corporations are the stock villains in Hollywood, where $300 million films are made by humble craftsmen working in a cottage industry. And it’s interesting to note how many people who fear and distrust multi-billion dollar corporations are perfectly fine with multi-trillion dollar governments.  
Pandora’s natives, whose culture is an eclectic mix of African and American Indian tribal societies, live in harmony with nature on their world. On Pandora, nature doesn’t seem to include lice, fleas or intestinal parasites.
Pandoran women have high ranks in their society, and at least some are hunters. That would be wonderful news to women in Earth hunter-gatherer bands. The division of labor in hunter-gatherer societies is this: Men hunt, women gather. No exceptions.
But hey, Pandorans aren’t human, so you can imagine any society you like for them.
In the film’s rousing climax, the Pandorans, led by the Marine, defeat a hi-tech armada with bows and arrows.
Something like this actually happened in 1879, at a place called Isandlwana. A  Zulu impi, 20,000 strong, got lucky (and the Brits got stupid) and wiped out a British column of 1,300 men. Unfortunately,  Zulu losses were so heavy their nation never recovered.  
And, by the way, constructing effective longbows requires at least a medieval level of technology, not early primitive.
But pfaugh on quibbles! I loved it as much as I loved Cameron’s “Terminator,” and I’m looking forward to the sequel.
Obviously, in spite of the science-fiction trappings, this is James Cameron’s fantasy of utopia, or heaven. Being a fantasy we are not required to take it seriously. It is only mildly disturbing that Cameron himself appears to take it seriously as a political statement.
So Cameron wouldn’t be the first creative genius who was nuts. Think of Van Gogh and enjoy it anyway.