Bravo to effort to provide college textbooks online

Talk about it

The Jamestown Sun hands out these bravos this week:

*Bravo to the idea of the North Dakota University System offering online textbooks to students. Two House concurrent solutions in the North Dakota Legislature would study the idea and its potential for North Dakota campuses and urge faculty to use the paper-free concept. The proposal could save students 80 percent of their textbook fees, estimated at more than $700 per semester, according to the North Dakota University System.

*Buffalo chip to a proposal in the North Dakota Legislature to require more signatures from residents for citizen initiated measures on the ballot. House Concurrent Resolution 3011 increases the number from 2 percent of the resident population to at least 3 percent of the resident population and at least 3 percent of the county resident population in at least half of the state’s counties. Got all that? It would also require 4 percent of signatures from half of the counties for constitutional amendments. Supporters say it would ensure that a measure brought to the state’s voters has been brought forth by all areas of the state. It’s no small task to get signatures and file the correct paperwork to get a proposal on the ballot; this process would make it more cumbersome for citizens. It should be defeated.

*Bravo to the Jamestown Area Grief Support Team, celebrating its 10th anniversary this month. The non-profit, all-volunteer organization supports people dealing with the death of a loved one. The group has provided numerous programs to help others since it was founded in 2002.

*Bravo to the opening of Annie’s House, located at Bottineau (N.D.) Winter Park. Annie’s House is the area’s first adaptive sports center for people with physical and cognitive disabilities and Wounded Warriors, soldiers who’ve served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Annie’s House is named for Ann Nelson, of Stanley, N.D., who died on Sept. 11, 2001, in the attacks on the World Trade Center towers. The New York Says Thank You Foundation saw Nelson’s bucket list, published in 2006 in the New York Times, that included “Buy a home in North Dakota” and decided to “pay it forward” in some way in North Dakota. Firefighters who survived the 9/11 attacks, ground zero construction workers and their families came to work in Bottineau on the project with other volunteers.

(Editorials are the opinion of Jamestown Sun management and the newspaper’s editorial board)

Tags: opinion, editorials, bravos