Letter to the editor: Fargo’s wasteful diversion project needs to be stopped

Thus far, neither the federal government, flush with debt, nor leadership in the state of North Dakota, flush with cash, has stood up with common sense and integrity to halt the usurpation of citizen rights being stolen by the Fargo City Commission and the Cass County Diversion Authority. As a 30-plus year Fargo resident who witnessed and participated in the valiant efforts of Fargo to fight the floods of the past dozen or so years, I commend all the efforts which have taken place to now bring Fargo properties to a safe level of flood protection. Should similar flood levels occur again, Fargo would require only nominal effort to protect the entire city.

Yet members of the Fargo City Commission and members of the Diversion Authority will not let common sense, constitutionality or ethics stand in their way of getting all citizens of North Dakota and the U.S. to pay for future economic development. The popular, yet fallible, Cass County-grown executive administrators of North Dakota should never have included this boondoggle project in its biennial budget. They are popular enough to win future re-election without needing to buy Fargo votes.

I urge legislators across North Dakota to shut down this waste of taxpayer money by disallowing any and all funding in this next biennium for the F-M diversion.

Tags: opinion, letters, flood, diversion