Around the state: July 4, 2022

The counties and cities within the state of North Dakota hold many interesting news stories.

Here are just a few of the feature stories that others are reading in communities around the state.

Stolen crude oil

According to paperwork filed with the Northwest Judicial District Court in Watford City, Darrell “Woody” Merrell, Mark McGregor and Joseph Vandewalker are each facing a Class A Felony charge for conspiracy to commit theft-take-exceeds $50,000 and a Class B Felony for dealing in stolen property.

In addition, Michael Garcia has been charged with two Class B charges for leading a criminal association-organize and dealing in stolen property.

In the affidavit, the McKenzie County Sheriff’s office received a report of stolen crude oil on March 14, 2022, by a former employee of Endeavor Crude, LLC. He provided law enforcement with detailed information in regard to concerns and suspicions he had with Merrell and Garcia.

The former employee described in detail that Merrell would steal crude oil through a process, picking up a load from the Little Knife Disposal located at 125th Ave. NW in Watford City and haul it to Creswood Midstream. While off-loading, Merrell would cause a malfunction in the pump forcing the meter to jump 2-16 barrels, then stop the pump manually when the meter showed 240 barrels of oil had been unloaded.

The senior director of security for Crestwood Midstream reported that 14 loads were delivered during the month of March, 2022, 13 of them by Merrell and one by Vandewalker. And during two of Merrell’s deliveries and Vandewalker’s only delivery, the transfer pumps were stopped and them restarted, to finish the off-load.

Upon review of Garcia’s bank records conducted through a search warrant, law enforcement observed 87 wire transfers from CTA Energey Marketing LLC, owned by Charles Allen. The total amount of money wired to Garcia during the time period of July 1, 2021 to April 25, 2022 was $774,370.12.

The bank records also showed money transfers from Garcia to Merrell in the amount of $26,725 and Vandewalker in the amount of approximately $58,325.

(Story taken from the McKenzie County Farmer)

Tioga elects layperson as municipal judge

One of the more complex results of the recent election was the determination of Tioga’s next municipal judge.

Layelee Hamers, a Tioga resident with a science of justice studies degree, has been declared the winner of the contest, but it wasn’t immediately clear if that would be the case.

The election of Tioga’s next municipal judge was slightly unusual in that not a single candidate for the position appeared on the ballot. So Hamers and Taylor Olson, a Williston-based attorney mounted write-in campaigns for the position.

Olson, at first glance, appeared to have won the election when write-in vote totals were announced. There was, however, a wrinkle.

Not all the votes for the two candidates were cast under the correct spellings of their names.

Olson received 44 write-in votes. There were an additional five votes that were clearly intended for her, submitted as “Taylor,” “Taylor Olsen” as well as combining her name with the name of her law firm, on the ballot. These votes would total 49.

Hamers, on the other hand, received 40 write-in votes. But wait - there were also 11 votes cast for Hamers using a different spelling of her first name - Kaylee.

The county auditor’s office, responsible for the counting of write-in votes, did not combine the vote totals in the accounting they released to the public last week and said it would be up to individual cities to decide whether candidates should received votes cast for misspellings of their names.

“The name error was minor. The candidate was totally identifiable, readily indentifiable,” said Pendlay.

Hamers will officially become Tioga’s next municipal judge on June 27 when the county canvassing board meets to review and certify the results.

(Story by Jacob Orledge, the Tioga Tribune)

Televised mistake leads to confusion

Before votes were even counted, there was a bit of a small dustup regarding some results involving Rolette County.

Viewers tuning into the Friday evening news telecast on KVLY noticed some results on the ticker portion of the news. Although not part of any story, the results on the ticker did create some confusion.

According to KVLY web director Dave Spofford a “Handful of state house and state senate races” were displayed on the screen. Some of the results included a hotly-contested race for a house seat representing. District 9, which featured Donna Henderson against incumbent Chuck Damschen.

Spofford said the newsroom had some test numbers that were placed on the live broadcast by accident.

“It was something that is done automatically and sometimes when computers are in charge of things, something like this can happen,” he said.

(Story by John Rosinski, the Turtle Mountain Star)

Fox Farm residents: “We are out of time”

Terry Thompson lives in one of five residences just east of a 50+ year old wooden bridge over the Sheyenne River. That bridge is the only access in and out for residents.

This area is just about two and one half miles south of Lisbon. It is secluded with trees and makes for a nice quiet neighborhood.

A nice place to live. If you can get there.

The condition of the wood structure has been an issue for several years, but this past spring with high water and a still persistent log jam underneath the bridge, has taken further toll.

So much so that the bridge is currently closed to vehicles. Residents must walk across the bridge to get to vehicles on the west side of the bridge to get anywhere.

This is not a good scenario in the spring or summer months. It will be worse come winter.

“We are out of time, Thompson told the Ransom County Commission at their regular meeting June 21.

He went on to say that fire trucks, ambulances, school buses and fuel trucks obviously can’t get back there either as long as the bridge is closed.

State engineers are coming to inspect the bridge.

(Story by Lynn Kaspari, the Ransom County Gazette)