North Dakota’s Most Expensive Taxpayer Subsidized Golf Course

Why has the FMDA spent nearly $125.4 million dollars on Oxbow, ND and around $30 million of that to the Exclusive Oxbow Country Club?

Especially, when initial “professional” cost estimates indicated the entire OHB project should cost just under $65 million?

Diversion Zealots claim its to protect Oxbow, ND from a dire threat of flooding.

Oxbow Mayor Jim Nyhof and his cronies asserted that it was needed to address the state of limbo (read more…) the FMDA project created for Oxbow.

This is the same Oxbow Mayor Jim Nyhof that indicated in his 2011 letter to Terry Birkenstock (USACE) (read more…) that Oxbow had nearly 500 year flood protection – prior to any discussion of an OHB ring dike.

In recently obtained documents from FEMA – Oxbow, ND had only 2 flood insurance policies inforce in 2012 (read more…), following the taxpayer funded construction of Oxbow flood protection in 2010-2011.

Even more curious is that FMDam.org has confirmed that one of the two FEMA flood insurance policies inforce was elective (not mandatory), and the status of the other is unknown.

Going on the assumption that the other was a mandatory FEMA policy, around $125.4 plus has been spent thus far to essentially to address one property with a FEMA policy, which may or may not be required, with an average face value of $316,800 and an average annual premium of $1,115.50 ($92.95 per month).

Homes affected by the 2009 flood had already been removed. Given that 178 properties remained in 2012 – the FMDA could have purchased a flood insurance policy, based on the policy average in 2009, for every home in Oxbow, Hickson, Bakke for 631.5 years ~ which is 4.9 times longer than North Dakota has been a state. Even using Fargo’s vague and absurd $12,000 per year FEMA flood insurance scare tactic, every home in Oxbow could have had a FEMA coverage for over 60 years. How can any buffoon suggest that Oxbow was prudent and fiscally responsible?

The amount of taxpayer funded excesses on Oxbow, ND is staggering. I encourage anyone to take a drive and see what $125.4 million plus actually represents.

When the FargoDome opened in 1992 it cost the taxpayers around $48 million, however, it is a public venue hosting a variety of events, that spurs the metro economy with ancillary sales.

Considerably different from the “members only” private Oxbow Country Club where the “City of Oxbow” requires you to join a Home Owners Association, which requires you to have a Oxbow Country Club membership (read more…), which requires monthly minimum patronage, via restrictive covenants tied to zoning requirements, of any person purchasing a home in Oxbow, ND.

Somebody must have answers as to who needs to be held accountable for the egregious overindulgence that has become the hallmark of Oxbow, ND.

Well…, what started as a fairly simple FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request on January 8, 2018 has become somewhat of a pandoras box.

In all, 8 questions were presented to the CCJWRD and as the answers began rolling in, apparent red flags were going off all over the place.

Let’s take a look at the first 3 questions:

Question 1:	What are the total payments from the CCJWRD to the Oxbow Country Club for the “new replacement golf course holes” in the new portion of Oxbow, adjacent to the new Clubhouse?
Response:	The applications for payment do not break out this level of detail.
	~
Question 2:	What date was final payment made for the “new replacement holes” and construction of the Oxbow Country Club features existing south of Riverbend Road?
Response:	The applications for payment do not break out this level of detail.
	~
Question 3:	What are the total payments from the CCJWRD to the Oxbow Country Club for the additional renovation of fully functional “upper course” holes that existed north of Riverbend Road, beyond what is referred to in the EA Document?
Response:	The applications for payment do not break out this level of detail.

 

How is it possible for person(s) responsible for MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars, to not have an idea of “what” went “where”?

Aside from the “rehearsed” nature of the replies, Carol Harbeke Lewis from the CCJWRD has been generally more open and forthright with the replies she has given to FOIA’s.

A follow-up email to CCJWRD revealed that Ohnstad Twichell and AE2S helped craft the replies which have more in common with what a bull produces after chewing cud all day than any attempt to address the question directly.

Not only did the answers not “feel” right, this was just another misguided attempt by the FMDA and their ilk to obfuscate the abhorrent truths relating to this taxpayer funded project ~ that has very little oversight.

Generally speaking, taxpayers are just dumb beasts corralled and waiting for slaughter with the misplaced trust that the person watching over them has their best interests at heart – as opposed to a contrived means to an end. Fargo’s leadership want to pick the pockets of Fargo Marathon participants and other metro area visitors until the year 2084 to pay for the fiscally irresponsibility of allowing development encroachment into the natural flood plain…, and even that tax scheme falls hundreds of millions of dollar short.

The falsehoods that were bandied about by the likes of Ken Pawluk and Mark Broadshaug before the OHB project took its current form was that it would be an immense savings to the taxpayers as opposed to buying out all the homes. The FMDA fell all over themselves to jump the permitting process and start spending taxpayer dollars. Even more insane is the requirement by the USACE to comply with all state permitting requirements, but to this day, has not obtained the proper permits from Pleasant Township to displace water.

The FMDA abuses the term “federal project” as their goto argument, yet the “federal authorization” does not equate to a valid form a “federal funding appropriation”.

The cold hard truth is that not one shovel of dirt would have turned in Oxbow, ND if the USACE had not required a $587,180 “inducement” to Ducks Unlimited.

The OHB (Oxbow, Hickson, Bakke) project was touted as a financially responsible $65 million mitigation project (view original OHB estimate) to save a three communities that did not support, by majority, the unprecedented concept of being forced to live within ring-dike-levee within a staging and storage reservoir created by Class 1 High Hazard Dam capable of holding 5 times the amount of water behind Bald Hill Dam north of Valley City, ND.    In a subsequent FOIA request containing 1710 pages of emails and Oxbow MOU drafts – Emails between Fargo City attorney and Ohnstad Twichell revealed that Hickson and Bakke were completely disregarded and not allowed to vote on the proposal and their fate. 79 homes did not receive a mail-in ballot, which would have saved Fargo, County and State tax payers over $125.4 million dollars to date.

Gerry-mandering the vote and denying taxpayers is bad enough…, but how is it possible to lack the level of detail to know how $125.4 million dollars was divided by the hogs at the trough?

How is it possible with todays technology and accounting to lack that level of detail…, c’mon…, how hard can it be?

The OHB project is one small component of the overall $4+ billion project but there are two sets of books managing the expenses before the contractors are paid and neither set of books appears to reconcile the other.

Two sets of books is bad enough, but the attempt to conceal payments under misleading headings make things even worse.

10.5 million to Oxbow Country Club listed as “Relocation Assistance”

2.7 million Bartram buyout listed under “Land Purchases” in one area of the FMDA books, then under “Farmland Purchases” within the same June 2015 FMDA agenda packet. Curious that a “Farmland Purchase” that was valued by Cass County at $584.8 thousand, outside the city limits, was annexed into Oxbow, and given preferential treatment over other adjacent properties, then bestowed a $2.7 million buyout and is now “miraculously” listed as and “Home Buyout – Oxbow”.

Home buyouts listed under “levee expense” by the CCJWRD and as “ND Land Purch-Out of Town” by the FMDA.

If the CCJWRD sends a request for payment to the FMDA, then the FMDA books should detail what was paid to ensure the taxpayer isn’t paying twice or that graft doesn’t enter the mix. Another problem with vague booking practices is that payments done 30, 60, 120 days in arrears become harder to track and vet with a reasonable assurance that an invoice has been paid properly.

Just in case you were still wondering how much was spent on the “upper course holes” that did not need to be touched…, around $4.4 million and caused the destruction of 600-1,000 trees.

The entire FMDA project is in dire need of a forensic audit to critically ascertain what has exactly been spent on the OHB project.

As you cast your 2018 ballots remember that candidates, that are up for re-election, failed to be fiscally responsible and allowed Wealthy Welfare to occur at Oxbow, ND;

 

Every one of the above candidates allowed the excesses of the Oxbow Country Club to occur, including the high end buyouts averaging over 364 percent.

“Government is like a baby.
An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end
and no sense of responsibility at the other.” – Ronald Reagan

Negligent leadership is the essence of nonfeasance…, do you really want to darken the oval next these candidates name when they stand for Fargo and Cass County imperialism and cavalierly disregard property owners outside Fargo’s jurisdictional boundaries?

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