CoteauRinkRat

I seen Mike Peluso will be the assistant.

I'm not sure I have heard a lot of celebratory spin. I will say that the base isn't being closed and that is a good thing. It will be interesting to see what kinds of new missions the base receives. Earl Pomeroy was just on the radio saying that the Grand Forks base was cited in the Pentagon's report as being an ideal location for the unmaned drones .

I heard that this morning

Talk about an economic boom to the community that would bring.

I hate the media mentality of "having to get the story first", instead of getting it right. A couple media outlets in this region, said yesterday that their "sources" had informed them that the Grand Forks base would be closed.

WDAZ had an interesting story last night regarding cities that had their bases closed in the 90s and the impact it had on their communities. They did a nice piece on Rome, New York and it was interesting to listen to their city leaders talk about how people just assume that when the base closes, you are able to easily attract major businesses to use the base. One of the guys said the first thing everyone says is a major international cargo port will go in and he laughed, saying that might look to be a fitting thing, but hard thing to accomplish. Also touched on how the government doesn't turn the land and facilities back over to the cities all the time. They still own them and there are a lot of cases across the country where they shut down facilities and never let anything go into them. If that doesn't sound like a typical federal government operation.

I just heard a quote from Sen. Conrad on the radio and he said that even though Fargo wasn't on the list, he has seen "strong indications that it will be realigned".

davehakstol@mail.UND.nodak.edu why don't you ask him yourself if you are so worried about it

They are accurate, here is alink to the closure and realignment list. pdf document http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections...se_CLosings.pdf

I don't know what to think about this. It is a good thing that right now, it isn't going to be completely shut down, but will take a severe cut in personnel. I remember when Grand Forks wasn't on the list in 1995 when it came out, people celebrated, then at the last minute, it was added back on. So you really can't relax, no matter where you are, until the President signs off on the whole thing.

I agree with you, but the blame needs to be passed around on this one. For fifteen years now, the defense department has been eliminating bases. We had no problem cutting defense spending, year after year, but when we need our military to defend us or to fight to protect other people in the world, the first people we look to is the military. My argument has nothing to do with Minot, Grand Forks, Fargo, I would like to see all those bases stay, but putting that aside, I do not like to see us constantly cutting back.

I would like to say that there couldn't be many more rounds, but I'm sure they have some sort of master plan to really concentrate our military bases down into a smaller conglomerate.

Exactly, I will leave the recruiting to Hak and the boys. I will trust their analyzing and evaluating of potential players. I'm not even sure where the comparison to Scott Foyt plays into this either.

Good luck to the baseball team tomorrow.

Parise is showing a lot of people that he can play against top quality competition. Not that he had to convince any of us that he could.

Those numbers definitely back up the argument that the base's impact is quite huge. The amount of things affected by the closing are not and would not show up for a while. Look at the town of Larimore. The news reported that over 100 kids, around 18% of their school enrollment, K-12, are kids associated with the base. Look at how many base people attend UND. This would not only impact Grand Forks, but the whole region and the whole state would be greatly impacted.

I agree, I'm just not sure there are people living in this town that know and realize what kind of impact the base has on this town. I talked to the owner of a business and he said he doesn't think the closing of the base would have that big of an impact on this city. I just kind of stood there, perplexed.

I guess some other people think Marto is pretty good also.

I hope our leaders have looked at plans at what to do with the base if it is closed. If they haven't, they will pay for it in the long run. In fairness to John Marshall, it is not his job or should it be his concern right now, talking about future plans involving the base. . His position of basically the middle man between the base and the city, and his main job is saving the base. Our political leaders have to step up and turn the negative into a positive if the base is closed, or the doomsday results, like Marshall has said will happen, will become a reality.

And what is the point behind this thread, other than to talk smack?

How do you know how good his vision is?

Exactly

Yes, Canadians do call it a "box" of beer.