15-02-2025
In case you missed it in The Sun the week of Feb. 10, 2025
Feb. 15—The following stories from this week appeared on
and in The Jamestown Sun.
About 70 family members and friends surprised a 15-year-old girl on Friday, Feb. 7, when Make-A-Wish North Dakota
granted her wish
at Buffalo Grill in Jamestown.
Bria Truax was granted a customized wheelchair with tracks that she will use to spend time with her family.
Bria enjoys being outdoors, said her father, Ron Truax. The Truaxes live at rural Jamestown. He said there's a half-mile walking trail nearby.
Lisa Truax, Bria's mother, said the family is active outdoors and enjoys camping.
"Bria with her lack of being able to walk it's just going to enable her to join in on the family fun and live in the country," she said.
When Bria was born, she was missing part of her fourth chromosome, Lisa said.
"It's affected her development, she's had a lot of seizures, pretty big seizures which further affected her development," she said.
Lisa said Bria doesn't walk or talk and struggles a little to sit. Despite all that, she said Bria is really happy and loves interacting with people.
"The personality is still exploding and happy," she said.
The North Dakota House Government and Veterans Affairs Committee
gave a do not pass recommendation
on Thursday, Feb. 6, on a bill that would repeal a section in the North Dakota Century code related to an incentive compensation plan for the state Retirement and Investment Office.
Rep. Bernie Satrom, R-Jamestown, vice chairman of the House and Government and Veterans Affairs Committee, was the lone dissenting vote.
Satrom and Reps. Mitch Ostlie, both R-Jamestown, and Mike Beltz, R-Hillsboro, introduced House Bill 1348, which would also amend North Dakota Century Code 54-44.3-20 by removing investment and fiscal operations positions of the Retirement and Investment Office from being exempt from the state employee classification system.
The passage of HB 1348 would repeal an incentive compensation program that could allow the top officials in the North Dakota Retirement and Investment Office (RIO) to earn up to 100% of their salaries as incentive compensation although RIO officials said that might not happen every year.
The annual salaries for the RIO executive director and chief investment officer are $237,400 and $312,000, respectively.
The North Dakota Senate Transportation Committee unanimously voted to attach a
do not pass recommendation to Senate Bill 2391
Thursday, Feb. 6.
The bill, introduced by Sen. Terry Wanzek, R-Jamestown, would have transferred ownership and responsibility of Stutsman County Road 62 from the county to the state of North Dakota.
County Road 62 stretches about 18 miles from Interstate 94 at Spiritwood south to North Dakota Highway 46, according to Leroy Siebert, site manager for the Stutsman County Road Department.
"It is about half paved, which was chip sealed about two years ago," Siebert said. "The rest is gravel. We try to maintain that twice a week in the summer."
The road is a major route for corn and soybeans hauled from the south to the Spiritwood Energy Park Association's industrial park at Spiritwood where Dakota Spirit AgEnergy, a corn-based ethanol plant, and Green Bison Soy Processing, a soybean-crushing plant, are located.
"In the fall when there is harvest, it gets a lot of traffic," Siebert said.
The Jamestown/Stutsman Development Corp. Board of Directors unanimously approved on Monday, Feb. 10,
an increase to the CEO's salary
.
Jeremy Rham, president of the JSDC board, said an annual review was completed for CEO Corry Shevlin. He said the board gave him a high score on the review.
"Above average and outstanding is where pretty much everything fell, which would be the top two criteria," he said.
Shevlin's annual salary was increased by 6%, which is in line with the approved budget. His annual salary is now $126,000.
His salary increase was backdated to Jan. 1.
The
process of matching the staff
of Washington Elementary School to possible openings in other schools within the Jamestown Public School District has begun, according to Superintendent Rob Lech.
The Jamestown Public School Board approved closing Washington Elementary at the end of the current school year during its Jan. 20 meeting. Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, the Jamestown Public School District will operate four elementary schools with seven elementary classrooms of each grade level for K-5.
The Jamestown Public School administration is currently questioning the staff of Washington about their preferences for placement in other positions within the district.
"So when we do place staff," Lech said, "we do it purposefully."
Lech said it is unlikely the school district can place every Washington staff member in the same position in another elementary school, but administration hoped to work with them to find positions they would be comfortable with.
Lech said the 32 staff members at Washington represent about 8 percent of the 400 staff people employed by the Jamestown Public School District.
Two events on Saturday, March 15, are
expected to draw many people
to Jamestown.
The 46th annual Runnin O' the Green — a pub crawl — and Legends of Rock Concert — a benefit concert — are expected to bring thousands of people to Jamestown.
Michael Ebertz, chairman of the Legends of Rock Concert, said the March 15 date was the day that was available for all the artists participating in the concert.
"It's going to be fantastic because I know we'll be kind of dovetailing on the folks that will be participating in that (Runnin O' the Green)," he said. "We will have that to do during the daytime, and then obviously the best rock-and-roll event you could imagine at the Civic Center that night.
Larry Knoblich, founder of the Run, said people could participate in the Run earlier in the day and make a donation to the event and go to the concert. If everything goes well, he said he expects hotels to be booked out and restaurants and bars to be very busy on March 15.
Ebertz said the Legends of Rock Concert is a benefit concert for St. John's Academy but Jamestown is the real beneficiary.
"We're going to have, I think well over 2,200 people or maybe in the 3,000s so we're hoping this year bringing that many people into the city for this event," he said. "Just think of all the restaurants, the hotels, the gas stations, the retail stores, you name it who are going to be benefiting from this. It's just a huge economic multiplier effect for the whole city and meant for all of Stutsman County."
The James River Valley Library System Board of Directors will meet at 2:30 p.m. March 12 before its regularly scheduled meeting to
discuss proposals on the dissolution
process for the joint library services between the city of Jamestown and Stutsman County.
City Administrator Sarah Hellekson, a county appointed member to the library board, said on Wednesday, Feb. 12, that she and Stutsman County Auditor/Chief Operating Officer Jessica Alonge, a city appointed member to the library board, came up with a couple of ideas on how to handle library services for the county, She said they want to present proposals on how to handle the dissolution of joint library services.
"When it talks about dissolution, it's this board's authority to decide how the dissolution is done and then it's laid out how the priorities are," Alonge said, referring to the memorandum of agreement between the city of Jamestown and Stutsman County to provide joint library services. "If it can't be agreed upon by this board, then we go to the city and county for approval of it."
