Bakken Oilfield poll

[eyexer]

Where did the money go? Lot's of places and in actuality a lot of the money was used for the good. Roads, bridges, infrastructure, education, and on and on. Was any wasted? I'm sure it was. Kind of like the saying "I spent some of my money on wine and women, the rest I just wasted."

Mention was made of the perceived high property tax. One thing that didn't happen was the sharing of much property tax. Property tax is used by the local governments (counties, cities, and schools) that have no other means of income. None, or very little of the oil tax was given out to those local governments for General Fund expenditures. General Fund is what pays for every day operations. Not infrastructure of other special projects. For this local entities expenses went up just like everybody else. The state property tax buy down was generally used for special projects that in some cases the state mandated. Go to the local entity that you think is wasting your tax money and go through their budget and decide what you want to do without. I'm betting the list will be pretty short. You are not allowed to just say "we need to spend less" you must actually decide on "what you would spend less on." Police? Education? Snow Removal? No more Diesel Fuel when your roads are Blocked? It's not as easy as you think.

Someone is correct in the observation that the state is not broke. There is a huge balance in special funds that is only allowed to be used for certain issues. Perhaps that is a good thing that prevents the state from entering a very big hole. Time will tell.

In the long run someone mentioned 40-50 rigs all the time. I agree that the Bakken exploded and we would probably have been better off with a slower growth but it is what it is. No different than any other business. Make money when it's available. When wheat was $15-$20/bushel (short time), there weren't any farmers saying "I don't need the money, I won't plant any wheat this year." The Bakken created a large amount of jobs for our young people. Made it possible for some to move back into the state. The state is not the same but I think we're better off than we were prior to the Bakken.

Did the oil boom bring in problems, absolutely. How we handle those problems defines us as a state.

let's examine some of that. First off Williston ND doesn't need three fire stations. And they don't need an arsenal of fire trucks, equipment that would rival major cities in this country. My son is a fireman here and it's absolutely painful to see the amount of stuff and the money they have spent on stations, trucks, etc. Our counties and cities don't need to build fifteen to thirty million dollar offices. there are plenty of things we can cut back on at a local level. Our property taxes in this state are some of the highest in the country per $100,000 of valuation. We got buy on much less here in this state for many years. At least the western part of the state did. Now the local governments and schools have gotten to the point where they want what the red river valley has. The problem with that is the money doesn't make it back to this area.

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I'm wondering how many are confusing the terms "Bakken oilfield" with "Bakken boom" A "boom" is when you bring in 200+ rigs and drill up in a few short years what would have normally taken 40-50 rigs about 20 years to drill and complete. I should have worded the poll differently.

something like, would steady drilling for the next 20 years be better than a 5 year all speed and no control shit show.

It doesn't work that way because of how the lease system works.

 

[Petras]

Eye, just curious, do you know if the cities fire department takes in donations from some of the local oil companies? I'm asking this question seriously and not trying to be a jackass I swear. I know that some of the smaller communities here in the patch receive money from some of the oil companies in the area to help them buy better gear and pay for upgrades to stuff.

 

[eyexer]

Eye, just curious, do you know if the cities fire department takes in donations from some of the local oil companies? I'm asking this question seriously and not trying to be a jackass I swear. I know that some of the smaller communities here in the patch receive money from some of the oil companies in the area to help them buy better gear and pay for upgrades to stuff.

I think some of the smaller town, strictly volunteer companies received money from several companies. Williston, to my knowledge never has.

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Here are some things I've learned living here, working in the patch and analyzing what has went on and what is going to go on. Some are just opinion some are factual.

During the peak of the boom none of us could understand why things were going full throttle or beyond. Well as I've learned more about this I've drawn several conclusions. First off the leases are generally three year leases. They lease as much land as the accountants will allow them to do. The problem with leases is as the drilling increased, the production rates were realized, the lease amounts were going through the roof every time a new lease period came up. So when you have 500,000 acres leased up at $300 an acre you damn well want to drill on those leases as fast as you can because three years later when the leases need to be renewed you will be paying $600,$700, $800 etc. because that's what the competition is willing to pay. And when oil is $200 a barrel you want it out of the ground because you know it can be $80 in a matter of a couple months. You have to remember that 80% of a wellls production comes in the first six months to a year of it's life. At $200 oil these wells were being paid for in 30 days or less.

Another factor is that the cost of the drilling is based on the day for a rig. So the more feet you can drill in a day the less the well costs are. Speed of drilling is also essential because winter slows things down, spring thaw complicates things because in many instances you pay 35K in just overweight costs to move rigs on the roads when restrictions are on. And most people don't realize that 90% of the equipment on the rig (such as wheel loaders) aren't owned by the drilling company or the oil company. They are leased on a monthly basis. So the more wells you drill in a month you cut the cost of that on each well.

I always felt the state could control the speed of the train but I've come to realize they really can't. They approve or disapprove permits. They don't have anything in place, nor could they, to control the speed the applications come in for drilling permits. On one hand they would like to slow it down but on the other hand they would have to answer to the people that owned the minerals. They would be standing in the way of them collecting maximum profit on the royalties. And one of those is the state itself collecting royalties, etc. They want that money as quick as they can for infrastructure, etc.

In regards to Williston and how things are being done here, all you really need to know is that Williston's city limits, due to expansive annexation, now encompasses more square miles than Fargo. That's also been the catalyst to the rapid expansion of emergency services here. They can get grants from both state and federal if they are at a certain level of response times. you can't serve that big of an area and meet those times without multiple stations. Now they are going to build a new airport five or six miles out at an enormous cost. And you can be sure Williston's portion will be twice as much as they estimate it will be. That is always the case. And they will have a full time fire dept. at the airport also. So that will mean four full time locations for fire depts. in Williston alone. Does Fargo even have that many?

So when I'm asked if I could live with the price of property tax cuts my answer is hell yea. Even with all that emergency response when they get to my place for a fire it'll be all over anyway. And by the time the cops come to my house if I call due to a burglar they might as well just send the coroner because all the shooting will be over. We now have 25% or more excessive police force I think. Arrests are way down here now. Five years ago Williston alone was averaging close to ten vehicle accidents per day. Now it's probably less than one. Used to need two officers just to handle the accidents. Back at the start of the boom they were adding on to the jail. They built it to be big enough to handle expected capacities for 80 years. Well the boom hit and overwhelmed them so now they are building on again. However, when the jail was at capacity they were still taking in prisoners from other counties and even eastern MT. Why the hell do that when you don't have the capacity. If they didn't accept those individuals they would be just fine. So now they are building on and if things continue this direction they will have excess space that they will have to heat and maintain. Same thing happened with the Area Recreation Center. Tried to get the taxpayers to approve 28 million dollar rec center. Extremely vague plan so it was defeated. So they streamlined it, explained it better and put it to a vote at 15 million dollars. The vote allowed for a 1 cent sales tax for the parks and rec to pay for the rec center. At that time taxable sales were so damn high that parks and rec were going to receive something like 85 million a year from that alone. So five days after the vote passed the rec morphed from 15 million to 78 million. Now they have a monster sized rec center that was extremely busy during the peak of the boom but now sees far less use and when that tax expires they may not be able to prove the money for it's costs to heat, maintain. The damn parks and rec budget was nearly as high as the whole cities budget. Talk about screwed up priorities.

Now you have Dist. 8 schools (rural williston schools not in Dist. 1 which is city of Williston) begging for a new school. They have brought it to a vote for tax increases to build a new school. The price has been all over the place. Keeps getting defeated. In reality the district is a disaster in many ways. All we hear from both Dist. 1 and 8 is how they have no money. After the last vote to not allow a school, the next day the district announced they were building a school anyway because they have 16 million in a school maintenance fund they will use to do it. How in the hell does a school district this size develop a 16 million dollar maintenance fund. You have to be shitting me. That right there tells me we are paying far too much in property taxes if they can pull that shit. Schools lost all credibility with me when I heard that.

 

[gst]

Don;t you guys hold elections for things like city council or school boards in Williston?

 

[eyexer]

Don;t you guys hold elections for things like city council or school boards in Williston?

they do but the only people that run are the long time residents and the only people that vote are the long time residents. you have to understand 99% of these new bodies here never become residents. 75% of the license plates are out of staters. So it's the same old people running and voting so nothing is going to change. We finally had a county commissioner decide not to run again and he has served 35 years. that's assinine. need term limits here. Here is how screwed up and corrupt the whole system is here. You have an owner of a realty firm that is on both the city council and county commission. And to top it all off he is the head of planning and zoning on both. Now how the hell do you get anymore of a conflict of interest than that. And if you look at the things that have happened in P&Z over the past six to eight years it's easy to see who benefited from the things that happened. GST you always think it's as easy as voting in new people. Well you don't have a damn clue how things actually work. That is painfully obvious at the national level if you haven't noticed. A very small percentage of the people control things in many states and is very true in ND. There are too many people that just roll with the status quo because they absolutely don't want change. Hell just look at the pharmaceutical bills that have been introduced. Sunday closings, etc.

 

[tikkalover]

Eye, don't feel like you are alone. Look at Minot, we have done the same, new airport terminal, 3 new schools, a new county office complex, building a new county jail addition, 1 new fire station on the east side where no one is building like they had planed for, I don't know how many motels they built but most have just a couple cars parked there now, a shit ton of apartment complexes built, millions of $ spent on water and sewer infrastructure on the south and north side of town that probably will never have anything flowing thru it. On and on and on. Same shit different town.

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I forgot the 2 parking ramps downtown, that are probably the biggest joke of this whole shit show. I am surprised no one lost a job over that asinine project.

 

[eyexer]

Eye, don't feel like you are alone. Look at Minot, we have done the same, new airport terminal, 3 new schools, a new county office complex, building a new county jail addition, 1 new fire station on the east side where no one is building like they had planed for, I don't know how many motels they built but most have just a couple cars parked there now, a shit ton of apartment complexes built, millions of $ spent on water and sewer infrastructure on the south and north side of town that probably will never have anything flowing thru it. On and on and on. Same shit different town.

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I forgot the 2 parking ramps downtown, that are probably the biggest joke of this whole shit show. I am surprised no one lost a job over that asinine project.

I hear ya. I lived over in that area for quite some time too. Very similar situation. Sometime google Robert Hales article he wrote about the Minot Mafia lol. Hits the nail right on the head. D.C. has nothing on many cities in this country.

 

[Davy Crockett]

You guys act as if the oil is all gone and prices will never rise again.

Acting like the oil is all gone ? Ohh hell no , "We" have more oil than we know what to do with.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...ounces-its-largest-oil-and-gas-discovery-ever

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/04/investing/alaska-oil-discovery-caelus/


I think It's going to take a war or an oil embargo to bring prices back North of $ 100 again in my lifetime.

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I remember during the pre-boom when things were still in the gossip stages the Williston planning committee was Leary and Minot was head over heels. Once it started growing everyone jumped in head first.

 

[eyexer]

Acting like the oil is all gone ? Ohh hell no , "We" have more oil than we know what to do with.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...ounces-its-largest-oil-and-gas-discovery-ever

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/04/investing/alaska-oil-discovery-caelus/


I think It's going to take a war or an oil embargo to bring prices back North of $ 100 again in my lifetime.

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I remember during the pre-boom when things were still in the gossip stages the Williston planning committee was Leary and Minot was head over heels. Once it started growing everyone jumped in head first.

I think $75 oil by late next year is very probable. I've heard some wall street types predicting $85. If trump turns the economy around rapidly, which he may, demand will increase thus price will increase. As far as amount of oil goes, we have enormous reserves. And I would guess enormous reserves we haven't even discovered yet. Hell ANWR is very likely now with this president. Keystone is going in as well as DAPL so who knows what can happen. Things are starting to move forward nicely out here. Perfect pace. Lots of wells to frac right now. Roughly 1000 of em. We are drilling 22 new wells on a 2 miles stretch in my area alone.

 

[Davy Crockett]

Eye, Do you know how the leases are written for bakken wells ? Once a well is drilled on a parcel does that automatically extend the lease past the original expiration date on that parcel ? and do they still continue to pay mineral owners for the lease or just the royalties ? Or do the leases still expire on the given date even if wells have been drilled and hit the open market again ? My main question I guess is are lease hands still active and what are lease prices doing ? I'm guessing most of leases in my neck of the woods will be dropped like a hot potato except for those in production areas.

 

[Marbleyes]

Eye, Do you know how the leases are written for bakken wells ? Once a well is drilled on a parcel does that automatically extend the lease past the original expiration date on that parcel ? and do they still continue to pay mineral owners for the lease or just the royalties ? Or do the leases still expire on the given date even if wells have been drilled and hit the open market again ? My main question I guess is are lease hands still active and what are lease prices doing ? I'm guessing most of leases in my neck of the woods will be dropped like a hot potato except for those in production areas.

Leases aren't written for wells. They may have stratigraphic clauses in them which only hold certain formations after the expiration of the primary term of a lease if one or more wells are drilled, which isn't the most common. Yes, once a well is drilled it holds all lands on the lease unless there is what is called a "Pugh" clause written into the lease. In that case all lands outside the drilled well in a spacing unit (normally 1280 acres/2 sections) will be released after usually 180-365 days after the primary term, unless another well is drilled then it's normally another 180-365 days beyond the primary term, depending on the provisions in the lease.

There is an initial bonus payed upon signing the original lease. That amount varies greatly. Depends on the area and depends on how bad the company wants that lease. If no well is drilled before the lease expires then you can sign another lease and get another bonus. If a well is drilled in that primary term then yes you will receive royalties for as long as that well is producing.

 

[Davy Crockett]

Thanks Marble, Pretty much the same over this way. Bonus was the important word I left out, I didn't explain my question very well. I was wondering if the up front bonus money offered on new leases that have expired is anywhere close to what it was on the previous lease period . I realize every lease is different but holey cow there were some high $$$ bonuses paid in the past.

 

[raider]

as eye said above, the 2 reasons there were 200+ rigs here a few years ago was to "cover the leases"... to those who don't know, here is an explanation of that --- because of horizontal drilling, the state moved to "1280 spacing"... b4 horizontal drilling, an oil company would drill straight down and try to find a pocket of oil to extract... they would lease the minerals straight below the hole, generally from the 1 mineral owner who owned it (may be several because of inheritances over time, but just for the small area drilled on)... there were roads built out to every one of these remote locations going through whatever habitat they had to... because a drilling rig can now drill 2 miles down and 2 across, the state started to join these potential areas into spacing units... the normal spacing unit in the state is now 1 section (640 acres) wide (e & w) and 2 sections high (n&s), for a total of 1280 acres... the 1280 acres are pooled and the individual mineral owners are each paid on their "cut", or percentage of the mineral acres owned in the spacing unit... when individual mineral acres are leased by an oil company, the typical lease term is 3 years... if the lease expires without a well, the lease, or contract is over, and the oil companies will have to re-lease to have rights to drill there... when horizontal technology, along with fracing came along, an area with a vertical well average of 25 barrels per day now had the potential of up to 5000 bpd, at least to start... the leasing went crazy as oil companies wanted to lease up as many acres as they could... once leased, they had to drill 1 well per spacing unit to tie it up... that unit is tied up and the oil company has rights to it until there is no longer a producing well on it... trouble was, during the boom, when that lease was tied up, the drilling rig was taken apart and hauled to the next location to start the whole process all over again... tons of extra trucking, time, road damage, accidents, yadda... that has all changed now with "walking rigs" drilling as many as 40 wells on a pad without having to be taken apart and moved... huge difference now "filling in" the bakken field...

the other reason for all the rigs was the price being at historic levels... gotta make hay when the sun shines...

the leases are mostly tied up now, and companies are drilling many wells on a single location to cover the spacing unit by angling out from 1 central location... instead of having well sites sprinkled throughout 2 sections with roads to each pad, they (pads) are now within a couple hundred feet of main roads, drilling to a north spacing unit and a south spacing unit from the same pad... the result of that is way less disturbance of ag land and habitat... in areas with no old wells, the north south gap between well sites is now 4 miles... that in itself is a huge improvement, thanks to horizontal drilling... the only habitat lost is about a 500' strip on one side of east/west roads every 4 miles... nothing else is disturbed, other than pipeline runs, which is another subject on other threads...

now, because the leases are generally covered, the oil companies are going back to the spacing units they drilled 1 well on to cover the leases and expanding pads to drill many more wells on them... basically "filling in"... but these will not extend beyond the ~ 500' off the road... in my eyes, this was brilliant foresight by the state and oil companies for many obvious reasons, and makes this a far more environmentally friendly boom than any time b4 now... in the new bakken, if all spacing units were to be completely drilled out as narrowly spaced as they wanted, realize that the footprint of that would be 2.34% of the acreage that the oil is being drawn from... there would be a 500' strip of pads every 4 miles, along the road... not exactly a huge habitat loss, with 60 of every 2560 acres being covered... this is certainly not rape and pillage thinking...





the reality of the boom is you cannot control legal behavior in this country... if there is money to be made or spent, it is basically up to the people to control themselves... when there is any kind of boom, the public moves at the speed of light while govt and building moves at the speed of smell... not gonna change that... many of the residents of sturgis would love to have 1000 tourists in town every week instead of 500,000 there the first week of august every year...

if the govt is here to serve the people, they are expected to listen to them... b4 all these new things were built up during the boom, people were constantly complaining about the lack of services, so the govt at every level made decisions to build and approve what was needed at the time... now, much of this seems frivolous, and the public has seemed to have forgotten what they were clamoring for a few years ago when these long term projects were approved... you can't just drop in new infrastructure and services like you drop 20 bucks at the beer store and leave with your beer...

we live in a world of immediate satisfaction now days where we can access all of the known types of llama dander in milliseconds or fly to mexico for a quick vacation in a few hours... building does not yet work that way... there are threads on sites like this every year with people complaining about how the g&f should post the deer lottery results quicker, cuz people only have, what, 6 months to prepare for the hunt???

we have to be realistic about what happens, and what kind of time frame is needed...


here's my big picture opinion of this boom... in the mid 2000's when this horizontal and fracing technology was being tweaked (here and for the bakken), oil was up to $125 per barrel, there were billions flowing into the hands of the people who support our enemies, the arab spring was going strong with much turmoil in the middle east, manufacturing was staring at a major down turn, technology was available to our enemies and they were getting caught up to us on r&d... if this boom, and ultimately the results of it, were quelled from the start, i believe opec would have cut production instead of increased it, and we may have seen $200 per barrel oil and $10 per gallon gas... what would the arabs have done with a few extra trillion in the bank??? i thank God every day that we don't know...

 

[Marbleyes]

Thanks Marble, Pretty much the same over this way. Bonus was the important word I left out, I didn't explain my question very well. I was wondering if the up front bonus money offered on new leases that have expired is anywhere close to what it was on the previous lease period . I realize every lease is different but holey cow there were some high $$$ bonuses paid in the past.

No the bonus payments aren't even close to what they were 2-3 years ago in any area.

 

[Marbleyes]

as eye said above, the 2 reasons there were 200+ rigs here a few years ago was to "cover the leases"... to those who don't know, here is an explanation of that --- because of horizontal drilling, the state moved to "1280 spacing"... b4 horizontal drilling, an oil company would drill straight down and try to find a pocket of oil to extract... they would lease the minerals straight below the hole, generally from the 1 mineral owner who owned it (may be several because of inheritances over time, but just for the small area drilled on)... there were roads built out to every one of these remote locations going through whatever habitat they had to... because a drilling rig can now drill 2 miles down and 2 across, the state started to join these potential areas into spacing units... the normal spacing unit in the state is now 1 section (640 acres) wide (e & w) and 2 sections high (n&s), for a total of 1280 acres... the 1280 acres are pooled and the individual mineral owners are each paid on their "cut", or percentage of the mineral acres owned in the spacing unit... when individual mineral acres are leased by an oil company, the typical lease term is 3 years... if the lease expires without a well, the lease, or contract is over, and the oil companies will have to re-lease to have rights to drill there... when horizontal technology, along with fracing came along, an area with a vertical well average of 25 barrels per day now had the potential of up to 5000 bpd, at least to start... the leasing went crazy as oil companies wanted to lease up as many acres as they could... once leased, they had to drill 1 well per spacing unit to tie it up... that unit is tied up and the oil company has rights to it until there is no longer a producing well on it... trouble was, during the boom, when that lease was tied up, the drilling rig was taken apart and hauled to the next location to start the whole process all over again... tons of extra trucking, time, road damage, accidents, yadda... that has all changed now with "walking rigs" drilling as many as 40 wells on a pad without having to be taken apart and moved... huge difference now "filling in" the bakken field...

the other reason for all the rigs was the price being at historic levels... gotta make hay when the sun shines...

the leases are mostly tied up now, and companies are drilling many wells on a single location to cover the spacing unit by angling out from 1 central location... instead of having well sites sprinkled throughout 2 sections with roads to each pad, they (pads) are now within a couple hundred feet of main roads, drilling to a north spacing unit and a south spacing unit from the same pad... the result of that is way less disturbance of ag land and habitat... in areas with no old wells, the north south gap between well sites is now 4 miles... that in itself is a huge improvement, thanks to horizontal drilling... the only habitat lost is about a 500' strip on one side of east/west roads every 4 miles... nothing else is disturbed, other than pipeline runs, which is another subject on other threads...

now, because the leases are generally covered, the oil companies are going back to the spacing units they drilled 1 well on to cover the leases and expanding pads to drill many more wells on them... basically "filling in"... but these will not extend beyond the ~ 500' off the road... in my eyes, this was brilliant foresight by the state and oil companies for many obvious reasons, and makes this a far more environmentally friendly boom than any time b4 now... in the new bakken, if all spacing units were to be completely drilled out as narrowly spaced as they wanted, realize that the footprint of that would be 2.34% of the acreage that the oil is being drawn from... there would be a 500' strip of pads every 4 miles, along the road... not exactly a huge habitat loss, with 60 of every 2560 acres being covered... this is certainly not rape and pillage thinking...





the reality of the boom is you cannot control legal behavior in this country... if there is money to be made or spent, it is basically up to the people to control themselves... when there is any kind of boom, the public moves at the speed of light while govt and building moves at the speed of smell... not gonna change that... many of the residents of sturgis would love to have 1000 tourists in town every week instead of 500,000 there the first week of august every year...

if the govt is here to serve the people, they are expected to listen to them... b4 all these new things were built up during the boom, people were constantly complaining about the lack of services, so the govt at every level made decisions to build and approve what was needed at the time... now, much of this seems frivolous, and the public has seemed to have forgotten what they were clamoring for a few years ago when these long term projects were approved... you can't just drop in new infrastructure and services like you drop 20 bucks at the beer store and leave with your beer...

we live in a world of immediate satisfaction now days where we can access all of the known types of llama dander in milliseconds or fly to mexico for a quick vacation in a few hours... building does not yet work that way... there are threads on sites like this every year with people complaining about how the g&f should post the deer lottery results quicker, cuz people only have, what, 6 months to prepare for the hunt???

we have to be realistic about what happens, and what kind of time frame is needed...


here's my big picture opinion of this boom... in the mid 2000's when this horizontal and fracing technology was being tweaked (here and for the bakken), oil was up to $125 per barrel, there were billions flowing into the hands of the people who support our enemies, the arab spring was going strong with much turmoil in the middle east, manufacturing was staring at a major down turn, technology was available to our enemies and they were getting caught up to us on r&d... if this boom, and ultimately the results of it, were quelled from the start, i believe opec would have cut production instead of increased it, and we may have seen $200 per barrel oil and $10 per gallon gas... what would the arabs have done with a few extra trillion in the bank??? i thank God every day that we don't know...

A lot of accurate information here. Thumbs Up

 

[gst]

GST you always think it's as easy as voting in new people. Well you don't have a damn clue how things actually work. That is painfully obvious at the national level if you haven't noticed.

PLEASE show me where I have ever said it is "easy" to vote new people in or even fix anything involved in govt. We can;t even get 50% of the people to bother to vote. So it is far from "easy" when half the country does not even give a shit enough to uphold the responsibility that came with our independence and freedom.

But it is STILL the best means we have to implement change. You can of course go to court and sue and maybe accomplish fixing one issue, but you still have the people in place that were the cause of the problem you sued over in govt.

As far as what I noticed at the national level is that people were SO fed up with the status quo they overlooked a fair amount of flaws to elect someone from the outside. We will see if it makes a difference. I am hoping so.

I suppose we could all just say the hell with it and give up.................or we can keep pressing and keep showing up and keep trying to make a difference beyond bitching on an internet site.

 

[eyexer]

PLEASE show me where I have ever said it is "easy" to vote new people in or even fix anything involved in govt. We can;t even get 50% of the people to bother to vote. So it is far from "easy" when half the country does not even give a shit enough to uphold the responsibility that came with our independence and freedom.

But it is STILL the best means we have to implement change. You can of course go to court and sue and maybe accomplish fixing one issue, but you still have the people in place that were the cause of the problem you sued over in govt.

As far as what I noticed at the national level is that people were SO fed up with the status quo they overlooked a fair amount of flaws to elect someone from the outside. We will see if it makes a difference. I am hoping so.

I suppose we could all just say the hell with it and give up.................or we can keep pressing and keep showing up and keep trying to make a difference beyond bitching on an internet site.

hopefully enough bitching on social media will eventually take ahold. trump got elected via social media for the most part. It's the best avenue we have available to voice your concerns. The problem with local elections is removing/replacing one person does nothing. You have to completely drain the swamp. We actually had a great candidate run for mayor of Williston and was defeated by the status quo. He had far better credentials but was not a Williston native so no way in hell was he going to get elected. Williston is now something like 300 million in debt. I suspect they will be the first city in ND to file for bankruptcy.

 

[Davy Crockett]

Williston is now something like 300 million in debt. I suspect they will be the first city in ND to file for bankruptcy.[/QUOTE]

Ouch, Seems to me I read that the city had some mineral acres that they leased, Are there any wells on city land ? Did they fix up the roads before the money ran out ?

 

[raider]

;:;banghead

nope... the boom's over... will be bust forever... nuthin but us broke, unemployed, homeless, uneducated, derelict, snus drippin, overall wearin, wife beatin, meth cookin, gramma rapin rednecks left out here...

certain strife as far as the eye can see... pun intended...

 

[Davy Crockett]

Not the fist rodeo willitown has been through, Just gotta eat bunch of chokecherrys and venison and jump in the saddle and do it again.