Legislators Tour Flood Zone - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Legislators Tour Flood Zone

More than a dozen North Dakota legislators spent the morning touring flooded areas of Minot.

Members of the "Water-Related Topics Overview Committee" were getting a first-hand look at the damage caused by the Mouse River flood.
This morning's tour included stops to learn about the area in northeast Minot that was protected - and in some ways damaged by a secondary levee.
Other stops included flood-ravaged parts of town where homes have been abandoned while waiting for buyouts, and parts of the valley where rebuilding is going on.
The chairman of the legislative committee said the goal of the group is to learn about the issues facing citizens and governments such as the city of Minot, and pass that information along to all of the state legislators in advance of the next session that begins in January.

<<(Rep. Curt Hofstad, Committee Chairman) "We know the funding requests will be extraordinary and that's our challenge as legislators is to determine how we can best help the city of Minot in partnering with that funding issue, that funding responsibility.">>

This afternoon, city leaders got a chance to tell the visiting legislators about the struggle the city and many of its citizens are having trying to recover from the flood.

City Public Works Director Dan Jonasson told the lawmakers the city has identified more than 170-million dollars in infrastructure improvements needed to help the city grow to accommodate the hundreds of homeowners who have lost their homes to flooding or are moving in for oil jobs.

<<(Dan Jonasson, Minot Public Works Director)"Until we can expand our utilities and get somewhere for the developers to build out to meet the demand for oil and demand from the flood, that's the only way we're going to be able to build out for some of these people.">>

City Finance Director Cindy Hemphill told the committee members the city intends to pay its share of the long list of expensive repairs and flood protection.
And she said city officials have been talking about the best way to raise local funds.

<<(Cindy Hemphill, Minot Finance Director)"We have talked internally, we have not taken it to a vote of the citizens yet, that undoubtedly a sales tax will have to come into play to help pay for the local share.  But what the local and state share will be have not been determined yet.">>

The chairman of the legislative committee said he understands the next legislative session will be getting some significant requests for funding to help in flood recovery.
The legislature meets in January.