(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - Hello and welcome to "Prairie Pulse."

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll meet Crookston, Minnesota photographer Andy Hall.

But first, joining us now is longtime Fargo mayor, Dr. Tim Mahoney.

Dr. Mahoney, thanks for joining us today.

- Thanks, John, for saying that's a long time, but yeah.

Started in 2014 and it's been going ever since.

- Well, there you go.

You know, as you get started, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and your background.

- So my background is, I'm actually a general surgeon.

I've been doing general surgery for 50 years now, basically, and got into politics in 205, 205, I became a commissioner.

And when Denny Walaker died in 214, I became mayor.

- Yeah.

Well, 10, 11 years, that's a good term.

A good long time.

You're here to talk about all different things about what's going in Fargo.

But let's talk about Fargo in itself, just kind of the growth, you know, what's going on in Fargo right now?

- Well, people have to remember, is our community is a growing city, and it has grown quite a bit.

In 1999, we had, or excuse me, 1990, we had 74,000 residents.

Now we're up to 133,000 people.

That's an 80% increase of people.

In the last 10 years, we've grown 20%.

So we continue to have a good growth, good balance as a community, social, economically, we have manufacturing, medicine, education, agriculture, it all mixes to make a nice social economic mix.

So the community continues to thrive.

- Yeah, so how do you, how would you say Fargo differs from the other cities in North Dakota town?

- So, we kind of like to have that small town feel, but yet we're a metro area.

So a lot of people come near and say, "Gee, different restaurants I've never seen before.

Different opportunities for entertainment, different educational opportunities."

Research is really hot.

We have a lot of entrepreneurs as well going in the community.

So we're a very dynamic community.

Many people, when I interviewed them, why did you move to Fargo?

It's the energy they feel in the community.

So we feel that we, for the state of North Dakota, are an answer to many questions of bringing people in and have a job.

5,000 jobs are available at any one time in our community.

We have an opportunity for people to come and find a place to work - Well, well, we got today here to talk about some new initiatives maybe and proposals to talk about the growing housing issue that tends to be visible downtown, I guess in part of it, can you talk, tell us about the proposed Red River Community Service Center, what is that?

- So in our community, we've had, ever since COVID went and came, we used to have rent support in which we supported people in rental.

That's gone away.

More people are entered into the homeless area where never did before.

So we have a thousand people that are homeless any one time in our metro area.

We try to find housing for those people throughout the area.

And that's a difficult task at times.

So we have some unhoused people that are coming down the downtown area.

And one of the things that started in '19, or excuse me in 2018, is when we had COVID money, we had to have a center to take care of people who had COVID because we needed a place to shelter them.

It started out in regards to that, and then it evolved into, we have a place in which people can engage, get medical care, psych care, get housing, get different things that they need to get, and that was what's called The Deck or the Engagement Center.

As we've gone through this now, we had some consultants from Bloomberg come out and look at our problem and kind of look at what we need.

And we're saying, "Qhat do other cities do?

How do other people manage this issue of the homeless around the country?"

And basically are trying to set up what we would call the service center.

So in a service center, the difference from the engagement center is you have your providers in the service center, your nonprofits, your different people.

You would have the FM Coalition for Homelessness in the center, helping get people housing.

You have a medical clinic, you would have psych services available.

You could have a place where you could detox people and take them where they need to go.

When that has been talked about, we also talked about maybe a deflection center.

Now a deflection center would basically be 40% of our homeless have mental health issues.

The difficulty, oftentimes if you drop 'em into an ER, or drop 'em someplace, they're discharged out back homeless again, because they're not qualified for in-house hospitalization.

What you have to have someplace for those people to go.

And sometimes those people are the bothersome people downtown that are bothering you as you're walking along.

So, state of North Dakota in Fargo, at least, we don't have a real good place to try to manage somebody who's having a crisis.

Oftentimes they're having the crisis in the middle of the street or somewhere else.

People feel uncomfortable with that.

A deflection center in the centers we've seen is an opportunity, instead of my policemen being tied up three or four hours with somebody who was having a crisis, we could bring them over to the deflection center and psych workers could begin to work with that person.

Police officer could leave and go out to the business they have to do.

- Okay, so I get some of that.

You mentioned Bloomberg Associates.

What kind of input did you get from them?

I guess they've been on the ground floor working with you on this.

- So, Linda Gibbs was a deputy mayor in New York City, and she tackled the homelessness under Mike Bloomberg.

Now, there's a foundation that we work with mayors to help you do stuff.

What we've looked at is 20 different cities and how they've tackled this and what they've done in regards to this.

Trying to find the right mix for Fargo.

People have spent a lot of money in this area.

People have done a lot of different programs in this area.

What we're discovering is homelessness won't go away.

So you have to take care of it if you're dealing with it, but how do you best deal with it?

And if we can get people into housing first, that's what people have tried to do.

Now, what we talked about as a master lease, that's one of the things we've been talking about.

Now, what's a master lease?

Well, that's different than a regular lease.

So if you went out and got an apartment, right now, it's your name on the apartment, you're taking care of that.

On a master lease, we have our nonprofit step in and be the landlord basically of the lease.

So if the person is having difficulties mentally or a support system is not there, then we step in there and help that out.

So we would, the basically nonprofit would be helping with support services.

So if Charlie was in the center and he was having a psychotic reaction or something, you wouldn't call the landlord, you would actually call this master lease landlord, which would be a nonprofit that's in this area.

They would go out to the apartment and try to deal with what the problem is.

If they needed to go see psych services, if they needed to go see a psychiatrist and you to go to the hospital, it's managed that way.

And that way you can keep those people in their apartments.

So, you know, if you're having a crisis and a mental health crisis, oftentimes it's loud, it's noisy, it's those types of things, that offers an opportunity for us to help get that person the help they need.

- Okay, now, okay, this center, I guess when, and if it's built, I guess, right now we're still talking about that, you talked to more about it, you know, how about now long term shelter and housing needs, you know, so what's the solution there?

What are you working on for that?

- So the FM Coalition for Homelessness is gonna be working with United Way and they've come up with a program to bring all the partners together that do housing and housing the homeless.

And they will work up as a combined team to help us find places for people to be, the master lease program would be part of the thing they would manage.

They're gonna raise 2.5 million to help United Way get into this arena.

But basically it would be, city of Fargo would step back.

They would do the major work to try to get people into housing and get them in those places.

We have like 40 vouchers out there right now.

People who have vouchers to rent places but cannot find a place to rent.

So it would be an aggressive way of looking at that, getting master lease, see if we get people in apartments, that's half of what's holding us up is the inability to place them in apartments.

Another thing that's happening in the community right now is our vacancy rate in apartments is 7 to 8%.

So typically when that happens, you are more inclined to be able to find housing for people.

So that's our hope is that we'll have more housing opportunities open up.

- Mm-hmm.

So will the city do oversight of it?

Or will the master lease charity really take charge of it?

- FM Coalition for Homelessness would manage that.

So the city would back out of that location.

And then Presentation Sisters also help this as well.

So we have different partners that get in that arena.

United, the Church of United helps in their areas.

They have 120 people they take care of, frequently they're taking care of mothers and children and different mission statement for them.

But we would work together with all the partners in the Fargo market area and have us work together to get people into housing.

- Okay, what about the cost of the center?

How is it gonna be paid for?

- Well, right now I propose when we went forward to the governor, we just talked to Kelly Armstrong about this proposal and he's excited about it.

If we can offload some of the work that the policemen have to do to get them into some type of center or overall place.

The idea of the service center is to bring your nonprofits and different people together to service people.

And since then the city doesn't carry all that cost.

We believe for the city, we would have to put $2.5 million into purchase or into getting improvements.

We're gonna ask the private sector for 2.5 million, and then we're gonna ask the state for 2.5 million.

So that should give us a cost estimate of 7.5 million to take a building and bring it to the site we want to do.

We also then could have partners rent parcels of the building.

So not all be all Fargo, maybe we have the county get involved, maybe West Fargo gets involved.

So then you have more partnerships in this effort because it's an effort for the whole community.

And it's important to have people come to the table that help us out in dealing with this issue.

- Mm-hmm, so, I assume one of the crucial steps is getting consensus among the commissioners.

I mean, all the commissioners don't see eye to eye on this issue.

Can you talk about that, and the difficulty of gaining that consensus?

- Basically the consensus we have from the commissioners right now is they would like the present site where the engagement center is moved.

It's a sense amongst many people that if we could move it from that present location, it would be better.

Downtown business partners seem to want that as well as by commission.

So that's part one is I do think I have a consensus on there.

Where it moves to is the contentious part, is we don't quite know where it needs to move, but it has to be in a bus route, it has to be walkable, it has to be where people will seek the services.

So if I move it two miles from downtown, what will happen is people will not walk two miles downtown.

They oftentimes then we'll just congregate downtown.

And that's really what people don't want, is to have people in all the retail shops along Broadway.

So what we'd rather do is if we can have it, you know, a little bit more in an industrial site and a little bit offsite, but able to be accessible, that's a site we're looking for.

We have looked at 10 different sites.

We've got maybe two or three that we're very interested in.

- Mm-hmm.

Now you mentioned downtown businesses and patrons.

I think, you know, how has the homeless issue affected downtown businesses?

- Well, what's happened is if you look at what's going on economy or across the country, is there was a slowdown just before the election.

I think everybody felt that.

And you can do it on a variety of different reasons.

I'm downtown, I find it very busy things going on.

But what's happening is, is that there's a concern.

Crime is down, crime rates are down downtown when we looked at the statistics, the Chief Zibolski brought out, crime rate is actually down.

What we're really looking at is there's people that panhandle or people that are in the streets sometime that are uncomfortable for patrons that are downtown.

And what we have to do is to try to address that and see what we could do to improve that experience when you're downtown.

So that's the goal of the police chief.

He's working with Engagement Center.

Now, what you don't know, John, is that we have what we call a mobile one unit and a mobile two unit.

And what that is, people from the Harm reduction program will go out into the street and go to businesses, go along the street, do things, and if somebody's being bothersome, say, "Hey, let's go somewhere else," or "Let's pick you up and do something else."

Oftentimes removing them from that area.

Last year they had almost 250 runs a month that they would do when they were doing this to help improve the experience downtown.

And what we're doing is we're gonna work with the police chief, work with the harm reduction people, work with the county, work with everybody, kind of as a group and say, "How can we make the downtown experience better?"

And that's what we're gonna be doing now.

That's the goal this year is to make it so people feel more comfortable downtown.

- Sure.

Is a Fargo Civic Center a possibility for a long-term solution?

I know it's been at least rumored that, that might be a possibility.

- You know, we looked at the Fargo Civic Center actually three or four years ago as a possibility if we could do that.

And logistically it just doesn't set up right for it.

It's just, it's clumsy as far as what you need to have.

So you have to have a safe place for people.

You have to have bathrooms, you have to have showers, laundry, different types of things.

And the Civic Center is just so expansive.

When we have team looked at it, it would be very difficult for us to man and take care of.

Other issue is that oftentimes you'd have to have security in there, you'd have to pay for security all the time as well.

So we feel that that just, that doesn't set up well for that.

We do though, do our RFP on the Civic Center and say, "What else can we imagine for the Civic Center?"

Emerging Prairie had an event there the other night, very nicely attended, very nicely handled.

And we have TEDx there.

We have different events there that work very well.

I'm asking for the community to come to me and say, "Here, here's what we'd like to do there."

Some people wanna put pickleball in there, you know, different people wanna put different things in.

So we're gonna take a hard look as how can we make that a more usable center and more for community events.

- Sure.

You know, what's been the causes of the expanding Fargo homeless issue?

I mean, increased population brings issues, of course, progress.

What's y'all's read, what is causing it?

- So the state of North Dakota now is the number one state for people that are coming into the state in migrating to find jobs and to find things to do.

So when that happens, you have an influx of people come try to find a job, does or does not work out, and oftentimes they'll end up on the streets.

We used to have a safety net with on evictions that the state had a program which would help people if they were low on money or couldn't pay their rent.

That's gone away.

So what's happening is just combination of a lot of different things coming together at this time.

Every city in the United States is having trouble with homelessness right now.

It's a matter of trying to manage it in a manageable fashion.

We may not make it all go away, but we could get the numbers down to a comfortable level and work together with the people.

We feel there's a window for us to do that and to continue to work to make it a better experience for everybody.

- You know, does the Red River Community Service Center replace the Engagement Center or they- - It would replace it.

But here's what we're trying to do at this time, is we're bringing all the providers together, nonprofits and ourselves and different government entities and saying, "If you were going to build something or have something, what would be the best, best parts to have that?"

Right now there's 30 nonprofits that work in the engagement center.

Okay, do we need, excuse me, do we need Sanford to be part of it with their psych services?

Do we need essentially to be there, Prairie Psych?

Do we need different partners that will help us get through that?

So right now we're saying to people, "If you have some ideas, and think you can help us solve this issue, let's get together and do that."

What the city commission is asking for is other partners to share the load.

We can spend about $600,000 on this on a yearly basis.

And the idea is, are there other partners that can bring money, operation costs, and those types of things to the table to help us work on this issue.

- Mm-hmm, what about possibilities of the center locations?

Have you already identified some different locations as potentials?

- So we've looked at 10 different locations as potential.

The difficulty is that if I have to build from ground up, that would be fairly expensive and I'd rather not do that.

If I can find a used building somewhere where I could place it, I think that would be better.

We're looking at a couple warehouse sites that look not so bad for doing that, and we'll just continue to vet what works best for the community and that I hope to have an answer in the next couple months.

- So, well, with that said, you know, when can citizens expect a commission vote on this, for this?

- So we'd like to have, we're working with all our partners to have a conceptual concept of what we need to have, that'll take 30 to 60 days.

Just 'cause you have to take input and take time for people to figure that out.

Some people had said, "Let's move it to Moorhead."

Well that doesn't work for a variety of different reasons and it's more, Fargo has an issue, and it seems kind of, "Well, we could just put across the river."

You really can't do that.

Each entity has its mission and you have to just combine all those mission statements and what they do and then try to come up with what would be the best plan.

We know New York have had a good chance of getting some of this done.

We're looking at Houston, we're looking at some different cities and what would be close the best model.

And I think, you know, what we try to do in the city of Fargo is learn from others.

You know, learn from their mistakes, learn from their successes, and try to find a model that works, 'cause we know all eyes are on us.

So what we're trying to do is find a model that's proven that works, and with consultants, with Bloomberg, we're hoping that they help guide us a little bit on that of here's has worked in this community, let's try this here.

- Well, Mayor, we're about out of time, but are there any other big issues you're focusing on for 2025?

- Well, what I'd like to do, Red River, (indistinct) water supply is on that docket right now.

We have some good news from the legislative body is that they said, "Can we build it quicker?"

I always like it when somebody says, "Can you build something quicker?"

The diversion is on time, on schedule.

'27, it's gonna be fully operational and I'm crossing my fingers again that we get through flood times without a flood for another couple years.

And that's really, we've been very fortunate that we're getting through that.

And then I'm really excited.

Airport is now, the parking structure is coming up fairly nicely.

It should be done this summer.

And the addition is also progressing nicely.

So we have a lot of stuff going on in our community.

- Mayor, what's the best part of your job?

- Best part of my job is talking to the voters and the people.

We have great people in our community and I love it.

They don't always tell me what I'm doing right, but when they come up and say, "Mayor, keep up the good work."

(laughs) - Well, there's a lot more we should talk about, but we are out of time.

If people want more information, where can they go, who can they contact?

- So go to the City of Fargo website and there's information on the website and all the different initiatives that we are doing.

We got a lot of stuff going on.

I'd like you to look at the state of the city video we have as well.

And that kind of shows what the community is doing.

Our wastewater plant just got done.

So there's some cool stuff that the city does.

- Well, Mayor, good luck to you and thanks for joining us today.

- [Tim] You're very welcome.

- Yeah, stay tuned for more.

(gentle music) Andy Hall has been a full-time photographer for more than 20 years, working out of his studio, Sweetlight Gallery in Crookston, Minnesota, he displays his stunning photos that represent his keen eye in finding the imagery that surrounds us.

(upbeat music) (camera clicks) - Photography for me has been not only my profession for the last 20 plus years, but it is my way of communicating with the world.

It's my way of sharing about things that I get to see, but it's also a way of creating images that are hopefully evocative for the viewer.

But more importantly, it reflects what I'm trying to say.

I opened Sweetlight Gallery downtown Crookston about coming up on seven years ago now.

This was my first foray into a gallery space.

I lived in the Twin Cities for 20 some years and I had a shop there for 17 years, but it was strictly a working space.

I've been doing art fairs that whole time.

So when I moved up here about 10 years ago, this opportunity presented itself.

I thought, "Wow, you have a storefront spot on downtown Crookston.

Sure, I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring and see what happens."

So, it's been fantastic so far.

I still end up doing far more art fairs than anything else.

It's not quite a big enough community to live entirely on just what happens here at the gallery.

(upbeat music) So right now in Sweetlight Gallery, I have kind of four major categories of work up right now.

I have landscape, kind of what would be termed traditional landscape location images.

I have a whole series of images kind of called found object images or exploratory architecture images.

Typically old buildings, cool, old, rusty, grubby things.

I have a whole body of work that's abstract images, so long exposures of water, ice formations, that are tiny, tiny, but when you make a big print out of it, it almost becomes unrecognizable as what it is.

And then, then my most recent body of work is the botanical images.

I kind of stumbled on this by mistake up here in the Red River Valley.

I'm not originally from up here.

So it took some time to kind of see and appreciate the beauty that is the prairie.

So when I would be out hiking in the wintertime, either snowshoeing or cross country skiing, I was just noticing all of the plants and the unbelievable amount of detail and structure and the way it was just whimsical, the way they moved, the leaves.

And I collected a few of 'em, brought 'em back to my gallery and I put 'em in front of my camera.

And I was just noticing how unbelievably captivating all of the movement was in these tiny, tiny little things that are, you know, the size of a dime or smaller in a lot of cases.

That has just kinda lit a fire inside of me.

It has me, it's grabbed me and it has me.

(camera clicks) So the technique that I have adopted for the prairie plants, and this'll be a little bit techie, but I'm using focus stacking.

So I start at the closest thing to me.

I take a shot and now I have this little eight inch focusing rail that allows me to turn the dial and it moves the camera one millimeter per revolution.

And so if I'm shooting a plant that's, you know, this much depth to it, I start here, and I eventually take enough pictures where I have the entire thing in focus and then I use software to stitch those together or layer 'em together.

And that's called focus stacking.

The ultimate cool thing about that is I have a hundred percent control about the depth of the field.

See these two areas of sharpness here, I like that.

And I like that part of the scene goes away.

It's really, really a gratifying process too.

And it is kind of software driven and hardware driven with the focusing rail.

But that focus stacking has allowed me to get image quality that I've just never been able to get before.

I love finding just the amazing in the everyday scene.

That's really what I concentrate on.

So when I go out to shoot landscape photos, I do not want to shoot what everybody else is shooting.

There needs to be something to say with the image.

I don't necessarily just want pretty pictures.

I want emotion, something that evokes a reaction in people.

I kind of naturally just push away from shooting the iconic.

I am kind of the anti-iconic shooter.

I want to see the super cool in what's right at my feet.

I want to see the super cool things that are in northwestern Minnesota.

(upbeat music) - Well, that's all we have for "Prairie Pulse" this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.