South Dakota State running back Amar Johnson (3) runs for a touchdown in the second quarter of the FCS championship game on Sunday in Frisco, Texas. At left is North Dakota State defensive lineman Jaxon Duttenhefer of Mandan.
South Dakota State running back Amar Johnson (3) runs for a touchdown in the second quarter of the FCS championship game on Sunday in Frisco, Texas. At left is North Dakota State defensive lineman Jaxon Duttenhefer of Mandan.
South Central District Judge Douglas Bahr, center, talks to defense attorney Thomas Glass, right, and Burleigh County State's Attorney Julie Lawyer during the Nikki Entzel murder conspiracy trial in September 2022 in Bismarck.
Doug Bahr
Gov. Doug Burgum has appointed South Central District Judge Doug Bahr to the North Dakota Supreme Court.
Bahr’s term begins Feb. 1. He replaces retiring Justice Gerald VandeWalle, 89, who has served over 44 years on the high court. VandeWalle was chief justice from 1993-2019, when he stepped back due to declining energy. He cited nerve, eye and heart issues in announcing his retirement in November, effective Jan. 31.
Finalists from the state's Judicial Nominating Committee to succeed VandeWalle included Bahr, North Central District Judge Stacy Louser and U.S. Assistant Attorney Jake Rodenbiker. Burgum announced his appointee on Monday.
“Judge Bahr will make an excellent addition to the North Dakota Supreme Court with his broad legal background in the public and private sectors and his extensive experience at both the state and federal levels,” Burgum said in a statement. “His analytical skills, compassion, high integrity and character, sense of fundamental fairness and deep understanding of the law will serve our state’s highest court well."
Bruce Romanick, the presiding judge of the South Central District, said the Supreme Court “is getting an excellent judge,” adding that Bahr has presided over a number of big cases and has done “a fine job handling them.”
“He’s deliberate, conscientious, and I don’t just say that. He is the best choice,” Romanick said.
Defense attorney Tom Dickson echoed Romanick’s remarks, saying Bahr is “well-known, well-liked and respected.”
“He will be a very fine justice on the Supreme Court,” Dickson said.
It’s common for attorneys to feel out a judge in an effort to pick up any ideological leanings, Bismarck attorney Josh Weatherspoon said. That wasn’t easy with Bahr.
“I was never able to pin him down on one spectrum or another,” Weatherspoon said. “He would always listen, give people an opportunity to make a case, then make a decision.”
Bahr will be a “very excellent judge at the appellate level,” Weatherspoon said, adding that “Every time he wrote an opinion it felt like it was a Supreme Court opinion."
Bahr, whose chambers are in Bismarck, told the Tribune he's "very excited. I'm looking forward to working with the justices and serving the people of North Dakota. I've had the privilege of doing so for a total of about 30 years and looking forward to doing so more at a different position."
The outgoing district judge said he will discuss his transition with Chief Justice Jon Jensen and Romanick.
"I hope to talk to them as soon as possible so we can make the transition as smooth as possible," Bahr said. Burgum will appoint a successor for Bahr's judgeship.
Bahr, a 62-year-old Air Force brat born in Corvallis, Oregon, said he plans to run for the Supreme Court seat in 2026. He came to North Dakota in 1991, and raised his children in Bismarck.
He said his judicial ideology was created "from the many years I represented the state," addressing "a number of constitutional issues" and statutory challenges, "many things like that, which put me in the position to know and understand how those things are to be reviewed." He also cited appellate work, administrative hearings and trial work, but didn't cite specific cases.
Bahr served in the attorney general’s office from 1991-2016, including nine years as an assistant attorney general and 16 years as state solicitor general and director of the office’s Civil Litigation Division. He was in private practice in Bismarck from 2016-18.
Burgum in 2018 appointed Bahr as a state district court judge for the nine-county South Central Judicial District, which includes Burleigh and Morton counties. Voters elected Bahr, running unopposed, in 2020 and 2022.
Bahr earned a bachelor’s degree in family science in 1987 from Brigham Young University and a law degree in 1990 from the University of South Dakota School of Law. He chairs the North Dakota Courts’ Personnel Policy Board and is a member of the judicial Joint Procedure Committee. He also is a former president of the State Bar Association of North Dakota and its ethics committee, and a former bar association president for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Bahr also taught business law and government courses as an adjunct faculty member at Bismarck State College from 2008-16. He and his wife, Laura, have six children.
Bahr will serve on the Supreme Court through 2026, when he will have to run for an eight-year term to keep the seat. The court has five justices.
It’s Burgum’s second appointment to the high court. He named Jensen to the court in 2017. The state’s judiciary elected Jensen chief justice in 2019, and voters elected him to a 10-year term on the court in 2020.
The annual salary of a justice is $169,162.
A retirement celebration for VandeWalle is set for 2-4 p.m. Jan. 18 in Memorial Hall of the state Capitol.
President Joe Biden has appointed 97 judges to lifetime positions on federal benches in his first two years, outpacing former President Donald Trump.
Bismarck School Board member Emily Eckroth on Monday rejected calls by other board members for her to resign.
Bismarck business owner Jan Wangler addresses the Bismarck School Board on Monday night.
The Bismarck School Board on Monday voted to censure member Emily Eckroth because of her confrontation with police during a traffic stop last fall.
A censure is a formal reprimand. The board -- which does not have the authority under state law to remove Eckroth because she is an elected official -- also voted to strip her of her portfolio and school visit assignments until Dec. 1, when her period of probation ends. The votes came after the other board members expressed disappointment with Eckroth's actions, which Board President Jon Lee said put the entire group out of compliance with its code of conduct. Board members asked her to resign.
Eckroth said she was "very sorry that this happened" when given the chance to speak, but added, "I will not be resigning tonight."
Separately, a citizens group is preparing to mount an effort to force a recall election to try to remove Eckroth from her seat, which she was elected to hold until 2026.
Police video footage released to the Tribune in December shows Eckroth cursing out Burleigh County deputy sheriffs, ignoring their commands, and urinating in the back of a patrol vehicle as they dealt with her husband during a DUI traffic stop on Interstate 94 in Bismarck on Sept. 3. Her husband, Ryan Eckroth -- an unsuccessful Bismarck-area state legislative candidate in last June's Republican primary election -- was not arrested or charged with DUI.
Emily Eckroth in December pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of physical obstruction of a government function related to the traffic stop. She was sentenced to nearly a year of unsupervised probation and $325 in court fees.
Eckroth during Monday's meeting said: "There is a lot more behind it than even the video said. There are things that were bleeped out that are not correct. And that being said, that's for my lawyer, not to be discussed here at this board meeting."
She made no further comments about the matter.
Bismarck School Board members expressed disappointment and asked Emily Eckroth to resign Monday night.
Eckroth issued a statement last month in which she said she "accepted responsibility for my regrettable actions" and asked "for understanding and respect of my privacy in this matter as I move forward." She also criticized the media for reporting about her arrest.
Board member Donnell Preskey during Monday's meeting said she was "really distraught" watching the video.
"I am both disappointed and heartbroken over Emily Eckroth's mistreatment of law enforcement on Sept. 3," said Preskey, the executive director of the North Dakota Sheriffs and Deputies Association.
Preskey said law enforcement resource officers are an important part of school operations, "and their goal is to build relationships and gain trust with our students."
"I think about the importance of being role models, sitting in these chairs," she said. "And I fear what students are taking away if they watch that video interaction with law enforcement. It's my opinion that this behavior is unacceptable."
Board members Josh Hager and Dan Eastgate also expressed disappointment with Eckroth.
"This has taken some of the energy and focus off the areas where we should have it," Hager said, adding later that "We are expected to model good behavior and be leaders for the kids, teachers and administrators."
All five board members, including Eckroth, voted to censure her; Eckroth was alone in voting against the stripping of her portfolio and school visit duties. The school board website lists her portfolio as "learning excellence."
Eckroth, a family physician, was elected in June to the School Board, which oversees the state’s largest school district. School board members serve four-year terms and receive an annual salary of $9,000.
Lee stressed that other board members do not have the authority to remove Eckroth, and said it would be up to the community to recall her or to petition Gov. Doug Burgum to remove her.
"We did find ourselves out of compliance on (code of conduct policy) solely on the actions of one board member," Lee said. "'Out of compliance' does mean that a change needs to take place."
Bismarck parent Karen Dunlap addresses the Bismarck School Board on Monday, detailing an effort to recall board member Emily Eckroth.
A group of local residents has begun the process to have Eckroth recalled. The Facebook group Recall Emily Eckroth from the Bismarck Public School Board plans to submit its petition to the North Dakota Secretary of State office later this week.
Once the petition is approved for circulation, the group will have 90 days to gather 2,709 signatures required by state law to bring the matter to voters via a special election. The number is equal to 25% of the voters in the most recent school board election.
“We don't anticipate it being a challenge to gather the signatures because there's a lot of very disappointed folks in Bismarck,” Karen Dunlap, chair of the recall organizing committee, told the Tribune.
“Based on her behavior I don't believe she is a person that I want my children to say: 'I should look up to this person,'” Dunlap said.
Dunlap, a parent of two BPS students, also addressed the board Monday.
"It is understandable that people make mistakes -- even excusable," she said. "It is the failure to fully own up to these things and exhibit contrition that is the problem."
Bismarck business owner Jan Wangler suggested the board should support Eckroth publicly and "criticize privately."
"I think that we could pull records not only from this board, but every commission and board that the city and the county and the state for that matter (have), and we could find a whole lot of skeletons in the closet," she said.
Reach David Velázquez at 701-250-8264 or david.velazquez@bismarcktribune.com.
The Bismarck School Board held a regular meeting during which President Jon Lee acknowledged an incident involving member Emily Eckroth and sa…
The BisMan Community Food Cooperative is permanently closing after years of trying to stay financially afloat.
Vendors who are owed money will not be paid. Gift cards will not be refunded, though the co-op will hold a liquidation sale at some point and they can be used then, according to co-op Board Secretary Samantha Marino.
The co-op's board in letters to members and vendors on Sunday said the business is insolvent. The store is temporarily closed but will be reopened at some point to sell off the remaining product. The date of the permanent shutdown will be determined by the co-op's primary lender, Shared Capital, which the board said "will be in control of all cooperative assets and finances."
"The board of directors had been working up to this point to exhaust all avenues that may have prevented this ending for the cooperative," the board said. "Our financial models and experience to-date continued to show the cooperative could not get to a sustainable level of sales as quickly as we needed it to be able to pay our lenders."
The co-op's most recent profit-and-loss statement shows a net income loss of nearly $38,000 in September and more than $55,000 in August.
"We have not received the official foreclosure letter, but we understand it is coming soon," Marino told the Tribune.
The co-op opened at 711 E. Sweet Ave. in 2016, to make local organic food available to the community. It was member-owned but also was open to the general public.
It began struggling financially almost immediately, and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic further hampered the co-op. Competitors also opened stores in Bismarck -- Natural Grocers in 2019 and Costo in 2020.
"With the winter storms closing our doors several days in December, on top of sales that were already lagging far below what is sustainable, we saw we could simply not keep our doors open another month," the board said. "Then finally, our staff let us know they felt they were unable to continue working in such difficult circumstances."
The co-op currently has three staff members. "Staff were paid for their hours worked up until this point," Marino said.
The board said it took several measures to try to head off closure. It cut prices to compete with other stores, and tried but failed to renegotiate its building lease. The board in 2021 worked with Columinate, a consultant specializing in food co-ops, to develop a plan for sustainability. Last year the board applied to join National Co+op Grocers, a business services cooperative, but was not accepted.
"If our application had been accepted, we would have had the ability to purchase product at a lower price and been able to better compete with the national chains in our community, along with many other benefits," the board said. "However, there were several parameters for sustainability that we would have needed to meet to be considered, and our cooperative was declined."
The co-op has had nearly 4,000 members during its six-year history, "but sales have never been sustainable," the board said.
Paying vendors is a priority "and we have spent the last two weeks exhausting options to make that happen," the board said. "We learned over the last couple of days we will not be able to close out our debts to our local vendors, and we cannot express enough regret that this is the circumstance."
The co-op website lists 66 vendors. Marino said the co-op is still compiling invoices.
"We can preliminarily say accounts payable is about $60,000, but that may change," she said.
The co-op posted a Q&A on its website that states memberships are not refundable, nor are gift cards. The co-op's most recent balance sheet posted on its site, dated Sept. 30, 2022, showed a gift card liability of $11,679.
The North Dakota Attorney General’s Office, which includes the state’s Consumer Protection Division, as of Monday morning had not received any complaints about the co-op, according to spokeswoman Suzie Weigel. She did not immediately say whether the office was looking into the co-op’s closure, or considering doing so. When asked if the co-op could legally not refund gift cards that had been sold, she responded, “We have no information in this matter.”
The co-op last year received a $200,000 federal grant aimed at expanding Bismarck Public School's Farm to School initiative, which partners with local farmers who provide fresh produce for district schools. The board said the school district is interested in continuing the program.
