View Point - Editorial

We joked about it at first. We griped about it later. Eventually we learned to live with it — but that doesn’t mean we’re happy about it.
Hillsboro city-wide street improvement project is a $2.44 million overhaul of our fair city’s thoroughfares. A wise investment we are convinced — once the work is done. These past few months, though, have tested our patience, our sense of humor and our reflexes.
We understand that road construction zones create certain inconveniences for motorists. We expected detours and heavy equipment stationed on our avenues. We didn’t anticipate the get-the-heck-out-of-the-way attitude of the construction crews. We weren’t prepared for the contractor’s haphazard approach to public safety. A little common courtesy and common sense could go a long way on a project like this. Ever heard of public relations? (more…)

Just when we’re ready to bury them, send the whole bunch of ‘em packing — the manager, GM and the players — the Minnesota Twins pick up a win and are back in the hunt.
Unfortunately, not unexpectedly, the wins are few and far between.
Hardly professing to be prognosticators, far be it for us to predict the future, whilst our tendency is to twist history to our liking, but we did see this day coming: the Minnesota Twins were not going to be a factor in this year’s American League Central Division Race. (more…)

Sympathetic to the task at hand, we poked fun last week, with tongue in cheek, at the street project currently underway in our town.
We told of the project’s many twists and turns, and how the Hillsboro populace was handling the inconvenience of taking different routes to reach Point B from Point A.
We feared for small cars, kids and pets, expecting they might be lost in the deeper holes in the middle of our streets.
We attempted to put a kind face on the Hillsboro drivers. (more…)

Traill County commissioners are trying to find a road into the Poor Farm Cemetery.
Opening a dialogue with the principal parties involved is a good place to start.
Friendly persuasion works wonders, we’re told.
By talking with the family living and owning the land surrounding the forgotten cemetery might, in fact, open roads so to speak, to old burial grounds along the Red River. A walking trail, perhaps?
The Traill County Poor Farm Cemetery shouldn’t be forgotten; again, it’s a part of our history. Granted it’s buried, pardon the pun, but that doesn’t mean all grave site markers have to buried, as well, and farmed over. (more…)

Draw a crowd.
Hillsboro generally knows how to draw a crowd — pick a good cause, cook up something good to eat and serve up a little fun.
Over the course of the summer, we’ve seen proof of this phenomenon. HMC Foundation grilled up their traditional bratwursts in May and invited everybody to witness the groundbreaking for its $12.5 million addition. Delicious and bravo.
Traill County Historical Society kept things cool on the 4th of July with ice cream sundaes, old-time fiddlers and friendly conversation in the shade. Tasty and well received. (more…)

It would be hard, we suspect, to find another time in history when Hillsboro has realized the growth spurt similar to what the city is currently experiencing.
Not in recent memory, anyway.
From downtown to our residential neighborhoods to just outside our town but still on the horizon, where the Alton Grain Terminal is expanding its holding capacity to 4 million bushels, a parcel of bushels already available at the other end of the tracks in Taft, the building boom heralded by this newspaper last week makes for more than just good headlines. It’s good news, all around.
Coincidentally but (trust us) momentarily, we actually found ourselves this week irritated at the traffic downtown. We quickly told ourselves that traffic is good. Feeling guilty, we almost waved at the lineup of vehicles that —again, momentarily —was blocking the accustomed noontime exit from our parallel parking space on Caledonia Ave. (more…)