a we will not fund anymore. my need to position clear that possible is to look for a further Quality toPM McMurt, they want to do further extensions. Thank you. That ends the general questions. We now move to First Minister's Questions. Question 1, Johann Lamont. Thank you very much. To ask the First Minister what engagements has he planned for the rest of the day. Last week, I announced a judge-led inquiry into the Edinburgh tram project. Today I can confirm the inquiry will be chaired by the former advocate and senior judge Lord Hardy. The terms of reference for the inquiry have been agreed with Lord Hardy. It will be to inquire into the delivery of the Edinburgh trams project in order to establish why the project incurred delays, costs considerably more than originally budgeted for and delivered significantly less than was projected for reductions in scope. Lord Hardy, I can assure the chamber will establish the inquiry immediately and we look forward to a swift and thorough inquiry. Joanne Lamont. Clare Lally is a woman I am proud to know.  Clare's seven-year-old daughter, Katie, has multiple disabilities. Clare's experience caring for Katie has inspired her to fight for better rights for all carers and we know in this week of all weeks and carers weeks that we should reflect on how tough that fight is. The First Minister has acknowledged her as a carers champion. He has even been at her house. Why did Clare Lally deserve to have the First Minister's most senior adviser undermine her credibility and unleash a torrent of vile abuse on the internet? First Minister. Firstly, I am Clare Lally. Joanne Lamont is quite right. I know Clare Lally. I have met her twice. I hold her in the highest regard. Her views, not just in terms of her own family and, let me say, I do not regard her as an ordinary mother, I regard her as extraordinary in terms of the challenges that she has met and faced and overcome, but more importantly in terms of her contribution to society. I think that her views on carers and the challenges faced by carers in general have been substantially informative of the Government's approach, both in terms of what has been done and also what was outlined in the consultation earlier this year and which will be carried forward into legislation, which I believe and the carers organisations will improve a lot of carers across Scotland who do valuable and important work. In terms of the description of Camel Gunn, I do not accept that Camel Gunn was responsible for a, quote, torrent of abuse across the internet. I do not think that anybody who believes in those Camel Gunn would give that a moment's credence. I think that Camel Gunn made both a mistake and a misjudgment. The mistake was obvious, saying that somebody was part Lally's daughter-in-law when the clear is not is a mistake. The misjudgment is believing that drawing attention in an email to someone's Labour Party connections, whether it is member of the shadow cabinet or any other connection, was an appropriate thing to do. That was a misjudgment because Clare's views on caring and other matters stand regardless of her Labour Party connections. Because he made a mistake and a misjudgment, I asked Camel Gunn to apologise, which he did immediately and comprehensively. Joanne Lamont. For those who saw Clare Lally's tears last night on the television, I do not think that they will think much of that as an answer. If we are talking about a response being ill-judged, it could not be more ill-judged than what the First Minister has said. Clare Lally's crime, as far as the First Minister's most senior adviser was concerned, was to describe herself as an ordinary mother. That, as the First Minister has reflected, she was being modest. She is an extraordinary mother. Her crime, as far as Camel Gunn was concerned, was as a mother to say that she thought her daughter's future would be better if Scotland stays in the United Kingdom. What she did not deserve was to be undermined by Alex Salmond's most senior adviser, and then to be abused on the internet that she had to shut down her Facebook and Twitter accounts. The First Minister's office contacted Clare while she was in York Hill hospital for her daughter's appointment. They then sent her Camel Gunn's press release. Instead of sending a copy of a press release, she went to the First Minister, enforced the special adviser's code and sacked his adviser for a personal attack on a member of the public. The reason that Camel Gunn did not write personally to Clare is that she asked that that did not happen. That is why the apology, which was comprehensive, was issued in the way it was, because Clare specifically requested that it not be done directly. I said that Camel had committed, in my view, a mistake and a misjudgment. I do not think that he was engaged in vile personal attack on Clare Lally, as Johann Lamont has indicated. The reason I think that is pointing out to a journalist that Clare is a member of Labour's shadow cabinet, which is correct, and mistakenly that she was the daughter-in-law or former Labour Lord Provost Pat Lally. It is not vile personal attack and cannot be construed as such. It was a mistake to do it, for obvious reasons, and it was a misjudgment for the reasons that I have already stated. That is not the area, because I take very seriously the ministerial code and the special adviser's code. I know exactly what is in the code and I know exactly why it is there. It is not a reasonable thing to suggest that Camel Gun, in any way, shape or form, is responsible for internet abuse directed at Clare Lally.  Since we in this chamber, just about everyone, has had the privilege of knowing Camel Gun over many years, no one in this chamber seriously believes that Camel Gun was responsible or orchestrating any such abuse. None of us seriously believe that. Let us accept that Camel made a mistake and a misjudgment for which he has comprehensively apologised. That is the right way to deal with these things as opposed to accuse Camel of something that he would never, ever possibly have done. John Lennon. No, that is not a simple mistake about getting somebody's family connections wrong. That is about a woman with a proud record of campaigning.  It does not get much more serious than that, and the information was taken from a website that said that. We know that Clare Lally has fought for better rights for carers throughout this country. She has spoken to every party that will listen in the hope that something will be done to improve the lives of children like her daughter Katie. That is why she has been involved in politics. For Camel Gun, that passion, that care, that spirit is for nothing, because Clare Lally wants Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom. For Alex Salmond's most senior adviser, her life experience, her struggle did not matter. For him, Clare Lally could be undermined and abused because she supports the union. Personal attacks by special advisers should lead to automatic dismissal according to special advisers code. The First Minister has admitted that this was a personal attack. Camel Gun has admitted that it was a personal attack. The only thing missing is the dismissal. Does the First Minister not realise that if Camel Gun is not sacked, we can only conclude that the First Minister has the same level of contempt for people like Clare Lally, as his most senior adviser? No, I have already made it clear that I hold Clare Lally in the highest regard. I think her contribution, not both in her life story and struggle, but also in terms of the opinion that she has put forward and how we can make the lot of carers in Scotland better is a valuable and important contribution. Camel Gun has not admitted that he made a vile personal attack. He has said that he made a misjudgment and a mistake and got his facts wrong. There is nothing in Camel Gun's email that fits the description of a vile personal attack. It is said that someone is a member of Labour's shadow cabinet and is wrongly saying that their daughter-in-law, former Labour Lord Provost of Glasgow, Pat Lally, does not constitute a vile personal attack. No one seriously believes that Camel Gun is guilty of orchestrating vile abuse on the internet and it really demeans this suggestion and Camel to say that. Can I remind Johann Lamont that last year Camel Gun got a lifetime achievement award in terms of his contribution to journalism in Scotland over 46 years? That is what she said last year. Camel has proven himself to be a tough but fair journalist, thoughtful and wise observer of politics and thoroughly good company. Few reporters can claim to be in good terms of all those he writes about. That is his testament to his professionalism and good nature. Does Johann Lamont really believe that the person she spoke about in such glowing terms only last year is guilty of orchestrating the sort of abuse that the Labour press release suggested he was orchestrating? It is just not true. Nothing in the email constituted that. Johann Lamont would ever cause better if she said that the mistake and the misjudgment that Camel committed has been accepted. He has apologised comprehensively. Surely that is the right way to deal with these matters, as opposed to suggesting that he was guilty of things that palpably he was not guilty of. Johann Lamont, I recognise Camel Gun's reputation as a fine journalist. One just wonders what has happened to him since he has come in to the employ of the First Minister. A personal attack on Clare Lally was that, somehow, the fact that she wanted to engage with politicians on the issue of how she cares for children undermined her ability to describe herself as an ordinary mother. That is the thing that she has found more hurtful than everything else. Of course, from Clare Lally to J.K. Rowling, from Barrick Obama to David Bowie, there is no target too ordinary or too powerful not to be attacked. Clare Lally is the kind of person we should encourage to take part in public life, not someone who should be abused, threatened and chased out of our national conversation. Clare Lally today is not just a carers champion. She is a champion of everyone who believes in free speech. She is a champion for every woman in Scotland who has had the courage to lean in and offer a view despite the sexist abuse. She is a champion for everyone who believes that a bullying Government should be stood up to, everyone who refuses to be shouted down by thugs with an iPad. Does the First Minister not realise that if he does not sack Camel Gun, we can only conclude that all the bullying that goes on wherever it comes is done by order, by design, by him? I hope that at some point John Lamont likes to reflect on these last remarks. If she has evidence for it then to bring it forward, if not then she should desist from making such remarks. Can I just remind John Lamont what the code for special advisers says and why it says what it says? It was drawn up three days after the resignation of Damien McBride. It was drawn up because Damien McBride, the special adviser to Gordon Brown, was caught disseminating material across the internet and making up stories about the private life of opposition politicians. It was described by the Labour Party as conduct that was vile and evil. The code says that disseminating inappropriate material will read to automatic dismissal. The email that Camel Gun sent to the Daily Telegraph in no way could be construed as being vile and evil. It was an email that pointed out that Claire Lally was in the Labour Party shadow cabinet and wrongly the daughter-in-law of former Labour Lord Provost of Glasgow Park Lally. Is anyone seriously saying that that email is equivalent to the activities of Damien McBride? That is nonsense to suggest so. Secondly, to conflate what Camel Gun did and the mistake and misjudgment that he made with abuse in the internet does not serve this argument at all. All of us, every single one of us should condemn abuse in the internet.  However, nothing in Camel Gun's email could be construed in terms of vitriolic mindless abuse. It was a mistake and a misjudgment. John Lamont does herself no credit and no service by trying to conflate the issues. Rather, we should, as a Parliament and as a society, stand up against that handful of people who are attempting to pollute this independence debate. We have the most invigorating and liveening debate almost in political history taking place in Scotland. If all of us condemn such intimate abuse and stand together, then we have a good chance of driving out of the debate. We shall not do that by attempting to suggest that Camel Gun is the equivalent of the activities of Damon McBride. Nobody believes that. John Lamont shouldn't say it, and instead we should stand together and condemn true evil in society. Rwf Davidson, to ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. The code of conduct for special advisers is unequivocal. It is unequivocal on what breaches the rules and what the sanction should be for that breach. It says that the preparation or dissemination of inappropriate material or personal attacks has no part to play in the job of being a special adviser, as it has no part to play in the conduct of public life. Any special adviser ever found to be disseminating inappropriate material will automatically be dismissed by their appointing minister. In this case, the First Minister, the First Minister, who has stood here and repeatedly stated that the special adviser disseminated material that was both a mistake and a misjudgment. The code here doesn't just prescribe what is right and wrong. It actually states what the sanction should be. The code says that, when a special adviser breaks the rules in this way, he should be automatically dismissed. What part of that does the First Minister not understand? I have already said that Campbell's mistake was obvious. He wrongly suggested in an email that Clare Lally was the dothan law, a former Labour Lord Provost, Pat Lally. The misjudgment was in believing that drawing attention to Clare's Labour Party connections in an email was somehow to be construed as undermining her views and across society. That was the mistake and the misjudgment, but to write to point to what leads to sacking under the special adviser's code is disseminating inappropriate material. Can I remind Ruth Davidson what that was drawn up for? It was drawn up for Dame McBride's activities in engaging in the systematic and deliberate smearing of political opponents and their families. In the most disgusting terms, his activities were described by Tessa Gill from his own party as malign, vile and evil. No one who looks at Campbell Gunn's email could possibly put it in the same category as Dame McBride. Therefore, it was not disseminating inappropriate material in terms of the special adviser's code of conduct, what it was, a misjudgment and a mistake for which Campbell Gunn has comprehensively apologised. Ruth Davidson, this is not the first time that questions like this have been raised in this chamber. In 1999, Donald Dure dismissed a special adviser for giving misleading briefings to the media. Leading the prosecution was Alex Salmond. In the chamber, he challenged the then First Minister, stating that the culture started at the top. I will quote his question directly. Mr Salmond asked the late Mr Dure, will the First Minister accept that what is required is not just a change of personnel but a change of political culture? Will he accept responsibility for allowing a culture to develop? We have an unacceptable culture of intimidation and de-legitimisation that reaches all the way to the First Minister's office. Will he now answer his own question? The First Minister said that drawing attention to Clare Lally's Labour Party connections was a misjudgment and a mistake but cannot be construed as a vile personal smear as the Opposition has tried to do. It was a mistake and a misjudgment for which Campbell Gun has apologised. Can I point out, as last year, when Campbell was getting his long service award, Ruth Davidson said that he was a scrupulously fair journalist who gives everyone, irrespective of a party, a fair crack of the whip. He is also one of the most interesting and engaging people at Holyrood. Is it really conceivable that someone whom Ruth Davidson heaps such high praise last year has turned into the sort of assumed dreadful person that Ruth Davidson now describes? If Campbell Gun gave Ruth Davidson and every other politician in this chamber a fair crack of the whip, are we not due to look at what was in the email and not conflate it with the vile abuse of behaviour ire on the internet or indeed the activities of Damian McBride? Campbell Gun made a mistake and a misjudgment for which he has comprehensively apologised. A lot of fair-minded people will say that that is a reasonable thing to do when people make mistakes and misjudgments, and they will not try to conflate it with what we should all unite against, which is vile abuse in the internet, which can pollute our political debate. Why cannot we just say that that is not the prerogative of any one Government or party or side of this argument? It is something that we should unite against as a Parliament and as a society. The First Minister will be aware that because of CO2 emissions in Newbarr's Crescent Gore bridge in my constituency, 64 households will almost certainly have to be evacuated and their homes demolished, causing great distress. Can I ask the First Minister, while dealing with those issues, is primarily for the council if his Government will engage with the council should it request support? Yes. I will ask the Minister to seek a specific meeting with the council to see if, in governmental terms, there is something that can be done to help. She quite rightly identifies this as primarily a council responsibility, but I will ask Derek Mackay to seek a specific meeting with the member attending to see if there is anything that can be done in addition to help her constituents. Question 3. Will it any? To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the cabinet. Issues of importance to the people of Scotland. Willie Rennie. The First Minister just doesn't seem to get it. He was satisfied with an apology but continues to defend the criticism of Clare Lally. What is depressing is that no matter what his softer tone today, he is continuing to do so. When what he just said to Ruth Davidson, I have to say, just doesn't wash, the intention from the special adviser was not to help with the Lally family tree. The intention was a personal attack on Clare Lally, and that is a clear breach of the code. Why does the First Minister not understand that? Well, I have said that it is a mistake and a misjudgment. I have said why it was a mistake and why it was a misjudgment. If it is said to be defending someone to point out the difference between what Campbell Gunn did and Damian McBride did and why it does not constitute the dissemination of the inappropriate material as governed by the code, that is an entirely reasonable thing to do. Most people will not regard drawing attention to somebody's Labour Party connections as anything other than a mistake and a misjudgment. It is certainly not vile personal abuse. One of Willie Rennie's colleagues, Danny Alexander on radio this morning, said that vile outpourings, whether on the internet or from the First Minister's office, should be condemned. How on earth can that be construed as a vile outpouring? How on earth can it be equated with the abuse that takes place on the internet? At some point, when mistakes are made and Willie Rennie makes one or two of them himself, it is not an apology, the appropriate thing to go forward. I have made it clear what I expect from my special advisers. That is what I will do, but is not this apology a reasonable response to something that was not vile personal abuse, but was a mistake and a misjudgment? Willie Rennie does not think that it is reasonable. She did not think that it was a reasonable apology. The First Minister has got to realise that to stand by Campbell Gunn is to defend this kind of behaviour. It is a matter of how we carry ourselves and how others see us. Claire Lally has got something to say about carers. She has got something to say about our country, but in Alex Salmond Scotland you have to be careful about what you say, unless you work for him. Is not it the case that Scotland is a little bit less of a free society today than it was last week? First Minister? Even in Willie Rennie's terms, I think that that is something of an exaggeration. What I object to in the way the opposition are dealing with is twofold. I do not think that it is reasonable, given what all of us know about Campbell Gunn and his conduct over so many years, to suggest that Campbell Gunn has been in any way, shape or form, orchestrating vile personal abuse, which, understandably, whether it is in Claire Lally's case or any other case, upsets the person who is the recipient of it. To conflate what Campbell Gunn did with that vile personal abuse is unreasonable. What Campbell Gunn did was a mistake and a misjudgment for which he has apologised, which is the appropriate thing to do. Clare's contribution that I take enormously seriously, along with other carers, has led to changes already in government policy. It has led to the consultation that achieved a huge number of substantive contributions across Scottish society. It has led to the proposals that are going to be affected into legislation later this year. Amazingly enough, this is the first time that First Minister's questions, after questions on this basis, that I have had this put forward to me by any of the Opposition leaders. Let's salute Claire Lally's contribution whatever our politics to bringing the contribution of carers to the note of Scottish society. Let's go forward with that legislation and make Scotland a better place for the carers of this country. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's position is on the Ernst and Young 2014 UK attractive finis survey. The Ernst and Young survey was one of many substantial and encouraging reports that were released this week in terms of the Scottish economy. It shows that Scotland was once again the top-performing area for the United Kingdom outside London for foreign direct investment in 2013, with the number of projects reaching a 16-year high. That is an immensely encouraging news. It contrasts, of course, with the views of the Chancellor of the Exchequer some three years ago when he warned Scotland that the debate on the constitution was going to put off foreign direct investment. Now we know that foreign direct investment is surging in Scotland. Now we know that this exceptional achievement has been achieved by Scottish Development International. Perhaps that is one of the scare mongering armory of Better Together, which finally will be put to bed. I thank the First Minister for that response, and we welcome the 16-year high. Does the First Minister agree with me that the continued dominance from London, perhaps as was suggested in the Ernst and Young statement, risks overshadowing the rest of the UK and the only way forward for an economic prosperity of Scotland in the future, and to put Scotland first, is to vote yes? It is certainly true that the independent research from Ernst and Young goes that Scotland is a greater share of projects, not just in terms of average, not just second only to London across the UK, but also in terms of key areas. Research and development, manufacturing, a very substantial percentage of our inward investments last year were in these key areas, which helped to shape the Scottish economy for the future. I really do think that the Opposition Party should bear this in mind. It is not that long ago, since they were repeating the claims of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that inward investment would be deterred, that investment in the Scottish economy would be deterred by the constitutional debate. Now we have these figures, not for one year but over the last three years. Will they finally move away from scaremongering and embrace instead the success in the Scottish economy and salute the progress of Scottish Development International and our other agencies? To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to the survey published by Transform Scotland to mark the launch of its Fix It First campaign. The Government is committed to delivering a well-maintained transport network. The targeted programme of major road improvements is addressing, perhaps at McLaughlin, much-quoted claim that there have been decades of under-investment in our motorways and trunk roads. It is exactly these decades of under-investment that we are now addressing, and in doing so, with the M74, the M80, the A96, the Queensford crossing and the A9 dueling, we see substantial projects under way. We are the First Government committed to linking all of our cities by motorway or dual-carriageway, and it will have seen yesterday that the preferred bidder for the Aberdeen-Western peripheral route Balmerie to tip of the NPD contract brings us another step closer to completing a project that will create an estimated 14,000 jobs and contribute over a period over £6 billion of added production to the economy of the north-east of Scotland. I know that Mark is an MSP from central Scotland, but I am sure that, just as he applauded the great projects in central Scotland, he will applaud the western peripheral route starting in the route to Balmerie to tip of the NPD. First Minister, for that answer, 84 per cent of people want pothole fixed as a matter of urgency. That was 79 per cent in the north, where those projects were going ahead. That is no surprise since the report that we had from the AAA told us that 44 per cent of people had their vehicles damaged in the past two years as a result of potholes. When will the Scottish Government step up and commit the resources to address the £2.25 billion worth of road maintenance backlog that local government is struggling to cope with? As Mark Griffin rightly knows, the maintenance priorities are split between local government and central government. Can I address the area under our direct control? In 2014-15, the budget for motorways and trunk roads is over £677 million. 30 per cent of that budget has been allocated for maintenance spending on the roads. That is £214 million, which is 28 per cent higher than the £166.4 million, which we inherited in 2007-08. I am sure that Mark Griffin will accept that, as far as central government spending is concerned, that priority, leading to a 28 per cent increase in maintenance spending on the trunk roads in the face of the extraordinary austerity programme from Labour and Tory central government, is no mean achievement as far as central government is concerned, and therefore will accept that those figures demonstrate our priority, not just to building new roads for the great NPD programme, but for maintaining the existing trunk roads and bringing about some of the improvements that we both jointly want to see. To ask the First Minister when the Scottish Government last met members of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee and whether access to the special reserve was discussed. The Scottish Government meets Glasgow 2014 organising committee frequently to discuss a wide range of issues relevant to the delivery of successful games. In fact, I am told here, and I find this difficult to believe, but Liz will correct me if the information is wrong. Just yesterday, Liz Smith attended a meeting where the director of finance was present, but apparently she did not take advantage of the opportunity and asked no budget questions of the director of finance or indeed the cabinet secretary. Everything that I know, I have to say about, Liz Smith would tell me that Liz would have taken such an opportunity, so I will give her full and fair opportunity to correct that information if it proves to be incorrect. However, it does seem that both the cabinet secretary and the director of finance were available yesterday, and I am sure that if Liz did not ask a question, there must be a very good reason for it. Liz Smith, thank you, First Minister. I would be delighted to take the opportunity with the First Minister now. A Scottish Government official stated that the special reserve fund was only to be used in what I quote, really unexpected left-field events. However, in a parliamentary answer to my colleague John Lamont, Shona Robison confirmed that the recent request to allocate 0.8 million from the special reserve fund has been allocated for potential pressures that are associated with venue fit-out. Could the First Minister, as the person who sanctions the use of special reserve funds, define the criteria by which meet the special circumstances test, as defined by Audit Scotland, and why, given that this is taxpayers' money, it was only through investigative journalism that the public was first alerted to those changes to the Commonwealth Games budgeting? Right. I see it confirmed that Liz did not ask the question yesterday, which I have to say shocks and surprise me, but I can confirm to her that the situation has not changed from when the cabinet secretary answered the identical question from one of her colleagues just last week. That is that the games continue to be delivered on time and on budget. I point out to Liz Smith that the total games budget is £575.6 million, including the £90 million security budget and the two contingency budgets, the operational contingency and the special reserve. I do not want to get into Donald Rumsfeld's mode about predicting known unknowns and unknown unknowns, but the special reserve is exactly there because it is recognised that there can be events in the proximity of the games that require this budgeted for amount to be accessed. The protection for the public and for this Parliament is that it has to be exercised by ministerial approval. However, it is part of the games budget, which has been broadcast to this Parliament elsewhere innumerable times. The games budget is £575.6 million. The games in Glasgow are being delivered on time and on budget. This is one of the few international events in history that can make that claim. I think that ourselves, our partners in Glasgow Council, the organising committee have done an amazing job to achieve what virtually no other games or world events have achieved. Is it possible at some stage, perhaps in the enthusiasm when she attends the games herself, that Liz Smith will give credit where credit is due to the organising committee? The First Minister's questions. We now move to members' business. Members should leave the chamber, should do so quickly and quietly.


Hello from Cannon Beach, this is I think my second time down here, we left Portland and Patty thanks for all the treats and stuff, she's going to get us fat Josh, I'm already getting there. So we're just setting down after a nice little two hour drive and some change. Down to the beach, check out the action and do a little tour around this beautiful little town. You pumped up? Aw dude, I'm so pumped, so beautiful and this is my favorite beach on the east coast, what side are we on? It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. There is the Cannon Beach Rock, I actually come to think of it, it's kind of funny that like the main attraction is a rock but then again this is coming from the person who drove all the way to Point Reyes to see a tree so I guess I'm not really the best judge of that. But anyways there it is straight ahead and Josh said you're not supposed to walk on it but we are going to walk on it. I think so yeah I'm going to try it, we did it last year, there we go, living life on the edge. It looks like we got a notice here, no climbing, disturbing marine birds and mammals is illegal so do the seagulls count because I really don't think of those as a special species. Those things, did I ever tell you about the time the seagulls stole my lunch? Not a fan of seagulls, sorry Stephen, seagull. We're on a lower kind of tide right now, the tide is like I said coming up and it's exposed all these rocks and things like that so on the rocks we got some barnacles, we got some mussels and down here we got some sea anemones and these are actually kind of fun to play with.  Also there's some kelp growing on the rocks here you can make some kelp salad out of that stuff doesn't look so fresh. The other greener stuff looks a little bit better but when you're in the shade the temperature drops quite a bit right now it's a shoot I don't know it feels like 20 degrees cooler than in the sun so we're just going to go to the other side and snap a couple pictures I think. It's going to be a short vlog the rest of the day but I can't tell you tomorrow is going to be one of the most epic epic videos I've ever done if it goes down I have a good feeling it's going to happen so make sure to check out the video tomorrow. We are down one of the main drags in Canaan Beach by the way we're stopping into some salt water taffy and ice cream place you can smell the waffle cones from probably two or three blocks away I kid you not so you know we're on a diet but we'll just peek inside. What's it going to be? I'm not sure yet there's a lot of cool stuff I've never seen before like this. I've never seen the ice. Look what I just scored right here. Barbecue larvae mealworms. I'm going to secretly purchase these and make the guys eat them. I got my treats and I'm willing to share here depending on if these guys are men enough to eat some worms here. Got Mexican spice worms. We got barbecue. Yeah. Which one? Take your pick. Mexican spice? You probably want Mexican spice. Barbecue and I'll also do a barbecue. You guys down? I'll do alley one. You got to just chug the whole thing. Just throw it right in your mouth. They're good. They taste nutty. It's not good for me. I'm allergic to nuts. I don't know about this. Sensing a little. You bought them so I have to do it. That's right. Jack's got us these bugs. We're going to eat it. Because they're tasty. This is the mealworm challenge. What? Is it good? That's how you know he's been living on the road for a while. That's so nice. He's willing to eat two bags of bugs. They're really good. They taste like soft corn nuts. All right, fine. I'll try it. You got this.  They smell nutty. Yeah. But it's deadly to me. Just waste it. You barely ate it. They spit it on. The texture was so weird in my mouth. Fail. Right here. This is a fail. This is a pass. And this is a skip. Yeah, I'm skipping this one. We were just outside of town. Cannon Beach where we were earlier today. Just wanted to show you guys where we're staying. We're staying right on the side of the road. Not the most amazing place to stay the night. But it is a free place to stay the night. And funny enough that RV's been here for a long time. That said it was going to be towed if it wasn't moved like two weeks ago. I think we're good for a few hours overnight. Just wanted to say thanks for watching. If you haven't, please subscribe. Leave me some comments in the videos. I've been a little busy so it's been hard to respond back to you guys. But I will try to get back to people with them. Comments, questions, concerns, etc. So see you guys later.


And we will post the recording there as well. So also just something I wanted to mention too. So I had been in contact with Kathy Strombach from the North Dakota tax department, office of the tax commissioner and the sales tax report should be out today. And so maybe that's something you in your community want to pay attention to. I suspect there'll be a positive increase in local sales tax just based on things I'm hearing and seeing. And so that report should be out today. And I might want to consider some kind of shop at home campaign or what those numbers mean for your community. I suspect it'd be quite positive. So with that, we have three speakers lined up for today to share resources with all of you. The first one, Scott Meyer, and I'll have Scott introduce himself. He'll speak first. And then Lori Sapoos from the rural development. She's a rural development director, the North Dakota Association of Rural Recovery Cooperatives, and then Jessica Hayek from the Rural Farmers Union. So with that, Scott, would you introduce yourself and please share the resources regarding the NICE Center? Yeah. Hey everyone. Scott Meyer here. Great to have you all. Good morning. I hope that you're all doing your best to get through this. I think Danielle, if you want to mute real quick, I think that's a good little echo there. So it is, I am the executive director of entrepreneurship at the NICE Center at North Dakota State University. The NICE Center is the entrepreneurship center where we help both students, faculty, and community members to launch their ideas. And what we found is in this time of COVID, it's become kind of the rapid reaction force. We're really thinking about how can a university be mobilized to help the community when we think about the problems we're facing it's not just health issues, but also social, economic, and of course a lot of businesses. And so we kind of saw an opportunity to help businesses digitize. So we have a team, two full-time employees and then a team of 13 student workers. And we thought we could help businesses get online and promote their products and services digitally, more effectively. So we launched that shortly after my birthday, March 20th. And then we've helped about 50 businesses across the state of North Dakota so far. I either launch websites, digital marketing campaigns, getting their inventory online. And that's been really successful. So I'd love to show you a little bit about how you and your communities could take advantage of that. And then a few other resources and then definitely open for any questions you might have. So I'll go ahead and share my screen if that's all right, Jody. And let's see, so you might have to enable or make me a presenter if you want me to share my screen. I'll put the link in the chat though, why would you do that? So if you go to the nicecenter.org slash COVID and all the businesses have to do to be able to take advantage of this is fill out a quick form and we give them a call back and we'll talk to them for even five, 10 minutes just to get a sense of what they're trying to do and the best approach. We're finding that we can answer the questions really quickly for a lot of them like even within one phone call we're able to help a lot of them get direction. But people who need support, our team does all of that for them free of charge. So our student teams are building the sites, they're creating the marketing campaigns and so we see it as a really positive experience for these students to not only learn how to help launch a business but also to feel proactive in their communities being able to help them out. So that's one opportunity I would definitely recommend you can share among your communities. When you think about people who this would be good for it might be for your local stores who don't have an online store, could be for restaurants who are trying to take, pick up or delivery orders. Anyone who has a larger inventory we can help them get that started or someone who's already online but trying to do more. Some of the more interesting campaigns we helped a bar here in Fargo take their trivia night digital so they're doing digital trivia. We help the game store in town get all their games online so people could buy games and puzzles for their families and get them delivered locally. So those are all kind of different examples of what's possible. So I'll show you what this site looks like just so you can kind of see it and know where you're going. So you can probably see my screen now. You can see we're at the nicecenter.org slash COVID. Again, we're at North Dakota State but we work all across the state and we should have a link right at the top on COVID right there. So you can just click that and we have a couple of different programs we're doing. So the one I just mentioned is this digital support for local business. So you can direct your businesses or if you have a business yourself feel free to take advantage. We're typically responding within 24 to 48 hours on the weekdays. So pretty quick turnaround and all are welcome. We'll tell you if we can't help you but so far we've done pretty well. Another opportunity I would recommend is we are doing all month we're doing a weekly creativity and isolation series. And so this is all about helping people who are working from home to be creative and to stay mentally healthy as well. So there's a four part series. Last week we did our first one. It would really highly recommend you can go back and watch the video. It's on mental health and isolation. So it's with a veteran who went through a lot of his own mental health challenges and now actually takes people to the outdoors as a way to improve mental health. And so he talks about how we can stay sane and how we can also give ourselves a little bit of cut ourselves a little bit of slack in these times. Today is our second session at 1 p.m. central with Matt DeCure. So he is a friend of mine who started a company and he's worked by himself for a year and a half and he's talking all about how to work alone without being lonely. So you can check all of that out as well at the NiceCenter.org under the COVID link. And you probably have all heard from the governor but we're also helping them promote their Care 19 contact tracing apps. I'd recommend if you have an iPhone you can download that right now and the Android's coming out very soon as well. So those are a few quick things that we're doing at the NiceCenter. I think the bottom line is we see ourselves as people who are helping generate ideas but also helping people survive, right? So we need to help entrepreneurs that are already out there working. And anyway, we can do that. We would love to chat and share that with you. We have a lot of other ideas we're trying to do over the course of the coming months and years. So any support or help or ideas you have, please share them with us because we're here to really bring your ideas to life. So Jodi, I can go deeper but maybe we can open up for questions there if we want and happy to answer anything. Thank you, Scott. Appreciate that sharing that information. Does anyone have any questions for Scott or the NiceCenter, how that works? Hey, Scott, this is Rebecca. I'm good. How are you? I'm good. This is Rebecca from Oaks. I've already referred a few of our businesses to you. It's really awesome. This is a really, really awesome resource for especially those that have zero web presence, right? I'm wondering if, I just wanna be sure that I understand the scope though of other things that this group might be willing to do. So you mentioned marketing or just general promotion. So we have a few businesses that do a really great job with their general, maybe it's Facebook but primarily Facebook around here but I think they might be at a point where they could use a little extra capacity getting a creative just on the marketing side of it. So using their asset, is that something that your team would do or is it really just more about getting them onto a web presence whether it's a website or social media? Yeah, the way we're sort of thinking about it is we're not gonna be good at any ongoing work but if it's a one-time thing that's a fit for us whether it's design or strategy or setup. And so yeah, if you want someone to do your Facebook page or to send your emails, like then that's where we'd wanna refer you to a marketing agency that's also trying to make it, right? But I think we're really gonna be there to just point that people in the right direction and say, yes, you're doing this right or you could do this instead. I think the biggest advice we've found is that we're helping people realize what options they have already. So if they have a point of sales system like a restaurant or a retail store, there's a lot of ways that they can actually just launch a store with that POS system very quickly. So what's the easiest way to get them up online and then we can give them ideas on how to improve it but I'll tell you right now, the first thing we always do is we give people like a really easy assignment because we wanna make sure they're willing to do a little bit of work themselves. So we wanna help the businesses, we wanna teach them to fish essentially, so. But yes, I'd say send anyone our way and we can always tell them like, here's some other people who could help but we'll do our best. Well, I appreciate that and I think it's good. When I think about referring somebody to you if there is that pre-assignment, we have some business owners that like literally don't use a web presence like I said, of any kind, right? So if I know that you're gonna have them, we could maybe be that source for them for that first step, even to help them figure that first thing out so then they're really ready to work with you. That helps me a lot because I think, I get that you're not gonna do marketing plans for them ongoing, but I just wasn't sure if, I wasn't sure how much you would support in the way of marketing right now, just on the creative side of things because you kinda have to think of the outside of the box right now. Yeah, no, we're definitely able to help and I think we're learning a lot by seeing a lot of businesses, right? So that helps us to be able to recommend different strategies. So we've helped everything from like a music teacher who's doing virtual music classes to an artist who's trying to sell their paintings online to restaurants, bars. Cody had asked about restaurants in retail, like what kind of hardware would they need for order processing? So we would actually be able to set someone up if they don't have anything on site. So if they're trying to sell nails online, like we could set them up with a store even if they don't have that capability in-house, but most stores, even people who aren't online have some kind of system in-house that they are using for credit card readers. And often it's easiest to build your site off of that because all your inventory is already in that square device or in the toast device if it's a restaurant or in the BNG thing or whatever it might be. So that's a great question from Cody and yeah, that's one way we can help too. And I'll just give, oh, go ahead, Mikayla. Or yeah, did you have a question, Mikayla? Sorry, okay, sorry.  We are working on another program we're really excited about. And I think this audience is perfect to help us help realize that. And we're really interested at the nice center of also thinking about entrepreneurship at the high school and middle school levels and how we can get more students to think about this. So that's one kind of opportunity we're just starting to look at. And so I'm gonna put a link in the chat to a program we're conceptualizing called Nice Idea. And so if you are someone in your community is interested in kind of bringing this idea, essentially what we're looking at is a community idea competition. So students would get a problem that's facing a local business or local government and then they would have a chance to come up with a solution to that problem. And then all the solutions would be in a statewide competition to figure out which ones are best for winning money and resources to actually make them happen. So we're really trying to take this idea of right now we're getting our college students involved in their communities to take action. But then how do we extend that to high school and maybe middle school to say, here's things our communities are facing. You already have the talents and knowledge to help.  So I just put that link in the chat right now we're calling it Nice Idea. So if you go to the nicecenter.org slash Nice Idea there's a little video. And really what we're looking for here is people to join our steering committee. And that could be a teacher, a community leader, someone working in the chamber, like a lot of you are. So I just wanted to share that because that could be a way for us to take this program that we're doing right now and actually extend it a lot further and help those high schoolers learn some of this stuff so they can do it on their own and hopefully then use it for their own business ideas down the road. So we'd love your help with that too. Thank you, Scott. I think it's very timely. I think all the research that's coming out in regards to community development and economic development is that, you know, the old concept of the big get and going up the big business is a thing of the past. We need to be better at growing our own entrepreneurs and starting in grade school and high school is really what we need to be doing as community members. So I think that's all really timely. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, of course. So if there's any other questions for Scott, type them in the chat box and I'll stay on and answer. So yeah, feel free to share them and you can always email us or just go to the nice center.org the contacts probably the easiest there and we'll answer. So if you have questions or ideas, just go there and help them and we'll connect. Perfect, thank you. Great. So our next speaker, Laurie Sapoo, will give a brief presentation. And again, Laurie is here from, she's a Rural Development Director of North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives and Laurie and her shop has been, they've been very instrumental in addressing the local rural grocery store issue. And so I think it's interesting what's happening in many of the rural grocery stores I'm following on Facebook in this interesting time that we're in. So I thought Laurie could give some interesting perspective to what's going on with that. So Laurie, welcome and thank you. Well, thank you, Joey, for thinking of including rural food access and rural brochures in this conversation. We appreciate it. I'm just going to give a little background and then I'm going to share with you some of the resources we've been sharing with the grocers to help you think about ways you may be able to interact within your communities. And I'm also going to talk a little bit about the supply chain and give some understanding of what might be happening there as well. So we've been tracking the health of the rural grocery sector for the past six years and we initially set out to identify opportunities to improve sustainability, but instead we bumped into this deep decline in the number of our grocery stores. And so we have used the data that we've collected through three different surveys to document that decline and some of the factors behind that decline and we've shared it with the state legislature and they approved a study during the last legislative session. And so they're in the process of determining what the state should do, what their role should be in the distribution and the transportation of food to rural places. So anyone wanting to track the study progress, it is SCR 4013. So over the past six years, we've lost about 20% of our rural stores. We only have 98 stores remaining in communities of 2,100 people or less. And so of course in North Dakota, that's the majority of our 300 towns in reality. And of those 98, 15 are nonprofits and 10 to 15 are on the brink of closing at the current time. And although this number fluctuates and given the current increases in volumes due to the pandemic and people shopping locally, those numbers of stores that are in threat of closing should improve just a little bit for a while. And so we're concerned about local food access for several different reasons and having local food access during an emergency was one of those reasons. And we really didn't expect to have a test run of that but here we are and we did. So we are currently conducting a survey of the rural grocers at this time to determine what the impacts of the virus has had on their operations and whether there's any support needed. And so our grocers are cash strapped and they're short of labor. They're dealing with the surge in sales and changing operating practices is a challenge for them right now. They haven't been able to add more labor in most cases. And so we've been pushing out information as it becomes available. One piece that we developed was in partnership with the University of Minnesota. I should say they developed. We just provided some input. And it's a 14 day emergency meal kit. You can access that on the NDARUC website. This meal plan, it's a meal plan and a shopping list for one person for 14 days of shelf stable, healthy, affordable foods. It's intended to help grocers adequately stock their shelves and to serve as a guide for volunteer groups that are interested in getting foods to those who are unable to shop for themselves. We also shared information with grocers on how to implement curbside pickup. I know a few have moved to this offering and some may need help because they are short staffed. And most also do not have online shopping capacity which makes this task all the harder for them to do. Worker protection is a concern as well and having adequate protection supplies and that we're with all to offer that protection. And in Minnesota, they're reaching out to church quilters to make masks to protect the workers. This might be something that we could also initiate locally. There are SBA disaster programs that grocers should be looking into. The COVID-19 disaster loan program provides up to $10,000 of a forgivable loan. If the terms are met, it's not forgivable if they also participate in the payroll protection program but the terms for that then would be forgivable or the terms are still favorable, I should say. And the payroll protection program is another one and it provides funds for payroll and rents, mortgages, employee protection costs and other miscellaneous items. And this loan is forgivable again if all conditions are met. And we have had some feedback from the grocers that it isn't as simple as it might seem to access or complete the paperwork for these programs. So a contact from a local developer, an extension agent or a banker to get them the right assistance might be welcome at this time. There's also a new farm to grocery toolkit that the University of Minnesota just released. It's predicted that we're going to experience produce shortages over the next year. And some of this will be a result of the difficulty of getting workers across the border, making it impossible to harvest some of the handpicked crops that are ripe right now, such as blueberries. Some of it will be because of the difficulties imported from other countries and their own supply shortages that they're experiencing. There's an increased push to beef up the local commercial gardeners in your area to help supply the grocery stores during this upcoming growing season. And so, Joe, I don't know if you've been able to share the, I see that you're sharing the links. I've put together where you can find this information. And so again, it's from Minnesota, this toolkit and some people may find a lot of it useful although some of our regulations might vary just a bit. And you've probably been hearing about some news about supply chain disruptions and initially it's been a switch from commercial to residential, our consumption. And so as we shifted to in-home dining to and working from home, the types of products being produced by manufacturers needed to shift to make sure there's adequate supply for everyone. And so then rather than commercial size packaging of toilet paper or mayonnaise, we're now requiring more of the residential customer size. And so this is gradually working itself out. Manufacturers are also temporarily revising their product lines which is gonna lead to the appearance of sparsely stock shelves temporarily. They're now producing more of their more popular items and discontinuing production of their least popular items. So some items might be difficult to find for a little while. And now we'll begin experiencing other types of supply chain disruptions as the workforce is affected by the virus and may cause temporary shutdown such as the pork plant and soup falls that we're all just now starting to hear about and at least 10 other meat plants in North America that have been shut down. Another issue that's going to affect supply is the tie of producers to specific markets. So for example, farmers who produce for the restaurant market are now tilling their crops under because of the demand being down and there's in the buyer for their produce or they're just so tied to their supply chain it's difficult for them to get their product in short term to another supply chain. So in the meantime, while that supply is down on the restaurant side food banks demand is up by 40%. So the nation's food chain is primarily a just in time economy. We don't stock some of the products or we do stocks in products with long shelf lives but not the perishable foods. So this destruction of the product will most likely lead to shortages because our consumption hasn't changed but to change just where we're securing our food from. Trickle down unexpected consequence of the grocery supply woes is the closure of some small restaurants and while I should say small town restaurants. And so the wholesale food supply is volume based and it's volume based because many small restaurants purchase their supplies from their grocery store. I should say it's volume based and so since they're so small they're not able to secure their products typically from a supplier they need to get it through their grocery store. And when the store is unable to get their product it led to the closure of the restaurants. And these restaurants are depended on for truckers and other essential workers in our communities as well as in some places it's the senior meals. So the Commerce Department has been working on getting them back up and running and getting the food to them. We've also heard that big box store suppliers are more apt to get product over grocery suppliers which may be why you're able to find products more easily at Walmart versus a cash wise. And I'm simply using trade names here I'm not really calling anybody else specifically. And we do have 10% of our surveys back already we got them back in the first day. The grocers are concerned about getting wholesale products in the future. They are concerned about keeping their employees and the public safe. They are still having difficulties in securing paper products. The wholesale prices for dairy and meat have increased quite a bit. Local shopping like Jody had referred to has increased in some locations by over 100% based on the small sample that we've received back. And while grocers are really thankful for this increase in volume, they're really concerned that shopping habits are gonna return back to normal once the pandemic threat is cast. So this emergency has really highlighted the importance of local access to healthy foods and the need to bring some of our production back locally to bolster the sustainability of our rural grocery sector we need to continue to develop ways to concentrate our buying power for rural areas to keep our product affordable and accessible in rural places. And we could also benefit by producing more locally. I'd be happy to take any questions if there are any. Lori, there was one question from Scott in the chat. If you could see that. Has the pandemic led to any conversations about the importance of subsidizing local grocers? Groceries either now or continuing to the future to keep options available for rural residents. Has that come up? You know, so the study bill SCR 4013 in essence is somewhat a conversation about that. This test run of the, it's not even a test run. This emergency has given us the opportunity to collect data to show the need for rural access to our legislators to document that demand. So hope we, it hasn't brought up that conversation yet but I'm hoping that it will continue. I mean, specifically related to the pandemic. All right, thank you, Lori, for that insight. Anybody have any questions for Lori in regards to rural grocers? I did post the North Dakota NDA REC link in the chat as well as a resource page Lori created and that's also located there. I do see the one question who are the legislative members. Jodi, can I just share it with you after the call the link to the study members so you can share it with the group? Sure, we can get that posted when we have to do that. Yes. Great. Thanks, Lori. Just so we don't miss these, we have a couple of questions coming in about the idle program and Cody responded to that. And then thank you, Bob, for your post as well. So I know we have Bob and Mike both on representing, who won't say representing, but are in the banking industry. Could we just talk about that for a minute? What else you're seeing? And maybe we could help Julie with her question. Julie is in Lisbon. Well, I just, this is the first customer that I just got an email from this morning that it applied for the idle loan that it indicated they had a response and that was the response that she had gotten. Now she's self-employed as a beautician. So she has, her employee is herself. So I really don't know a lot about that program other than Al Hout on a webinar earlier or one day last week did indicate that a lot of information that was being disseminated by different groups were insinuating that it was an automatic $10,000 advance to anyone that applied. And, but that was not coming from the SBA. The SBA verbiage is that it's up to $10,000. So I don't have a lot more information or understanding of that particular program other than what I just shared here. Thank you, I appreciate that. I didn't mean to put anybody on the spot but it's just an opportunity to share what we're seeing out there. Thank you for that. I'm gonna go back and ask Gloria a quick question. So I received an email from Mary Stump from your office. Is that in regards, is that, who is that open to and what are you hoping to gather? That's not the grocers, our survey, is it? It is. Yeah. So that went specifically to the No Grocery Initiative Task Force and that would be why you got that Jody and then the grocers themselves. So is it fair to say we would, we should encourage everyone on the call to reach out to your local grocers and ask them to respond to the survey? Well, that would be helpful. It's a quick survey, it will take less than 10 minutes. They don't need to access any of their data it should be off the top of their head. Information. And I've heard that their email is just full right now that it's difficult for them to keep up. Okay. All right. If there are no further questions, I would ask Jessica, if you're ready, could you, I can share my screen and show the website that I asked you just to touch on if you're ready. Yeah, I'm here. All right. Thank you. You can introduce yourself and. Okay. Hi everyone. I'm Jessica Hake. I'm the membership director here at North Dakota Farmers Union. And the site that Jody is going to share with you is one that we put together with partner organizations. So essentially what we were finding is that we were receiving a lot of phone calls from people who had a lot of questions but were coming to North Dakota Farmers Union as a trusted resource and somebody that they know and they know is involved in legislative work and advocacy and they've been to our events and they trusted us. And so when there's so much information out there, it's really hard to navigate it if it's a place that you've never, a space that you've never experienced before. And a lot of the people that were giving us a call were people in the service industry, whether they were hairstylists or bartenders or whatever it might be. This is a space that they haven't really experienced filing these things before. So what we did is in close conversations with people that we do a lot of advocacy work with is we decided to create a landing space for all of the resources that are available should someone find themselves out of a job or underemployed if you will where they can find what they're looking for items that they didn't even know they might qualify for. And then we as a group, so if you go to partner organizations under more, yeah, so these are all of the organizations that came together and sort of lifted up the voices that the feedback that we were hearing from our members and members together. So you have the North Dakota AFL-CIO talking about what's going on with workers, North Dakota United, obviously talking about public employees and teachers, and then us, ACLU, Cascade Food Partners, the Hunger Free Coalition Resource Council, and then housing is a big issue as well, human rights, native vote, and the women's network. So we all got together through the North Dakota Voices Network and we put together what our policy recommendations are to sort of try to make people feel whole and how, so if you could go to the policy recommendations page, please, Joanie, thank you. The discussions that we were having over some of the concerns that people who were laid off were again underemployed and some of the issues that workers that are essential that they're facing right now. So that's kind of all it was in a nutshell is we are the trusted voice and so are our other partner organizations. I mean, if you're active in these organizations, that's who you're gonna fall to if you're not sure how to navigate an application or I've helped people fill out a lot of unemployment applications and some of the loan applications just because they know Farmers Union and they've worked with me in other ways in the past. So that's kind of, we put that all together so that could be a landing space. We are open. I wanted to add that if you scroll all the way to the bottom, if your organization would like to join beyond board and be a part of this and share some of the resources that you guys are creating or using, we're absolutely open to welcoming you there and being able to share. If you wanna click on the resource page, here, I'll share it in the chat. And we have been approached by, you know, Farmers Union has by entities that aren't used to doing advocacy work and so helping them lift up their voices and share their concerns in a constructive way with either their employees or their members, we've been happy to help there. But if you are a group that you are a part of would like to join and just sort of share your resources and the information that's out there and if there's any policy changes that you would like to see that could help communities or how workers and families that find themselves in uncertain situations, as many people do, we'd be happy to add this to our website. Great, thanks for sharing that. And that's really what this call is supposed to be about. Just sharing some resources. I know we are inundated with just news and resources and websites and Zoom calls all day. And so I just wanted this to be an opportunity to share some resources for people. So...  There you go. Sorry, thanks, Marie. Just wanted to thank Jessica for sharing that and just know that we, you know the opportunity for the call is really just to bring people together to talk about all the resources. We're inundated with that throughout the day for several days now. So it's just another opportunity to seek out some of those resources. So Makayla, I'm gonna call on you. You had a comment in the chat. If you wanna expand on that comment a little bit, introduce yourself and then what you wrote here and what your experience has been. Makayla? Makayla, we can't hear you. Oh, oh, okay. So one thing I see that Garrison, so Makayla is from Garrison. And I think she has been the one posting information on their website. And one thing I think that's pretty important is she had posted that Garrison had only returned or the response for the census has only been at 40%. And so they're encouraging citizens to respond to their census, not to forget about how important that is to our rural communities. So has anybody else in your community been trying to get people to respond to that or do you have other numbers in your communities or how are you promoting that? Promoting it in Jamestown here. And how so, Emily? We have a complete count committee. So through the county and the city, we have different representatives. One of our biggest things right now has actually been we ordered a bunch of stickers with a QR code on them that would lead you directly to the census. And we gave them to all the coffee shops and restaurants and all the people doing takeout. And they put them on all of the boxes or cups or whatever. And so we've been seeing these blue stickers all over. And when people post that they're supporting our local restaurants, they are also showing the census sticker on them. So that's kind of cool. Important message. That's really great. Thank you. So Rutland is less than 40%. We promote it through the county complete count committee. It's also regularly in the paper. Okay. Good. It's important to get that information out. It's vital that our rural communities respond to that census. Okay. I see that Maggie Marsdorf from the Bush Foundation is on. I know they have some resources as well. Can we ask Maggie to speak to that? Yes, please. I'm sorry I didn't see Maggie was on here. Yeah. I was just putting that link on to the chat. Yes. We have quite a large connect list of resources for nonprofits. And there's a number of emergency webs or emergency resources. There's some coming out of North Dakota. We funded the Impact Foundation to support nonprofits. So that connection is on there. We've also provided some funding to what's called the NBN Collective for Native Organizations to get some emergency assistance. I know strength in North Dakota, there's various community foundations that have some emergency resources. So I will put that link into the chat room. I was just doing that as you asked me to, Marie. Thank you. You're welcome. And Maggie, I did have that. I was going to put that in there and then I saw you come on. So I did have it at the ready. So I did just put it in the chat box. Okay. Yeah. If you have other- Oh, there it is. It's twice. Okay. Perfect. You know, we do have what we call our community innovation program and we are getting a number of applications for innovative responses to... There are so many problems. We all know that. So we don't have a ton of new resources, but we are trying to be responsive to those that kind of meet our criteria and can then inform the field as well. So let us know if you have questions about that. We have an inquiry line, or you can just call us directly. It's all on our website. And Maggie, when I was on your website, I was also, I saw an area for like the arts. And so that was unique too, for anyone in the arts, musicians, artists, things like that. Yeah. So look at that. I don't know if that's North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, but check out those links as well. Thanks, Marie. Thank you for sharing that, Maggie. Appreciate you being on the call. I'm gonna go back and just make sure we have answered all the questions. Dr. Johnson had a question, Lori. I don't know if you have the answer to that in regards to the legislators involved or going back down the chat. Who are the legislative members of the study on the Grocer study? It's a larger committee. It's the Commerce Committee. So I'll share that with you, Jodi, after this call. And perhaps you can just share that link with the rest of the group. Be happy to. Thank you. Okay, so, okay. Micaela's having audio trouble, but that's all right. I just had a question about, I was just curious if anybody else was, looks like Julie's had some struggles with hearing back from SBA. Has anybody else had any other experience or has tried to assist other businesses in your communities? All right. Well, I don't have anything else. Again, I'll just remind you to be wary that the sales tax report for the last quarter should be out today. That might be interesting to see what's happened in the last month for sure in our communities. I, again, am confident that local spending has increased quite a bit. Again, in the chat, I did post a link to Lori's resource page that she has there. And also we'll get that posted on our extension site. And I see Kelly posted something in regards to an update from the region, the Red Cross. Okay, Kelly, yes. Hi, everybody. So the Red Cross wants to thank everybody in the state that donated blood and kept their plasma donations for the last few weeks, because we are back to a normal capacity on blood donation, so that's great. And they're asking that if you can still continue to keep those appointments from the future, that would be helpful as well, but we're no longer in a shortage. The Red Cross's offices are still closed to the public, but we are still responding to emergencies and we've begun to re-offer first aid and CPR classes so that we can keep medical staff certificates current. So the Red Cross is still responding. They're still working to forecast for floods on the eastern side of the state and still plugging forward. Thank you for that update. Thanks, Marie. So Cody, could you, so Cody Cooper is the economic development director in Wishick. He writes that the Wishick JDA just approved a $75,000 budget for $2,500 loans to businesses as far as what we're doing locally to help. Cody, what's the interest rate? Is that some kind of low interest program you're offering businesses and are there regulations on that or what are provisions of that? If I may, I was actually going to ask that as far as regulations go. I know there's the business incentive thing, but to qualify for a business incentive reporting, you have to have a incentive of $25,000 or more. I don't think that we have to report for the $75,000 thing. Our JDA is authorized to do this sort of thing. We give 0% loans out, apparently. Frequently, the way we are structuring it is that they have to sign something that says they were in business on March 16th and substantially affected. You don't want to means test this, trying to get it out as quick as we can. Repayment period, we phrased as beginning three months after North Dakota governor declares North Dakota reopened for business. And we're trying to just do a 25 month repayment period to make it easy, under bucks a month once it starts getting paid. Nice, great. Thanks for sharing that. I'm just a reminder too, I'm sure many of you have accessed that, but the Department of Commerce has a number of those resources posted on their website as well. So don't forget to utilize that resource. So I don't see any other questions. Anybody else have anything to share that's going on in their community? Jody, this is Mel. Hi, Mel. How are you? Hey, doing well. Thank you for joining us. Sam's just gonna tell you that our programs are still there. If you know of anybody, especially with COVID-19, that we do have people with housing loans that are in financial difficulties, they can apply for more touriums. There's deferrals, there is other things. And same thing with our regular programs, whether it's the business programs or the community facility programs, those programs are also available to have some kind of deferral and that type of thing. So please keep us in mind, USDA Rural Development, just find our website. Give us one of a call. A lot of us have been in contact with a lot of yourself. If there's anything you need, please get ahold of us. Thank you. I thought this was like a co-op program between Jersey State, GAI, and Chamber. Could you hear me now, Makayla? Thanks, Mel. So Melanie is with USDA Rural Development. And so don't forget to utilize those resources for Rural Development. Thanks for sharing that. All right, so I will get this posted with the help of some of, well, I think Sonya is on. Sonya will help us get this posted as well as the resources that Lori will email me. Makayla, I see you're still on and I saw something that you were posting.  Okay, do you want to talk about that just briefly? Just kind of about the resources that I posted on Facebook. So after our last town hall meeting, I kind of created a resource, sort of just went through our community and figured out what local resources we have to try to keep people staying at home, visiting with all of our grocery stores, finding out that they all do delivery. Our local transit bus is actually doing deliveries now too because they're not taking people to appointments. They're actually delivering in whether it's food or groceries and whatnot. So it's a great service for those that live in small communities that don't have a grocery store in our county or outside of the city limits and can get things delivered. So just a ton of different information, I guess, I put together for my weekly column and then I ended up posting it on Facebook in little posts or whatever and it received a lot of traction. I had a lot of shares and that was really helpful for the community because there's a lot of people that just aren't even aware of all the things that our community is doing to help keep people home and healthy or pharmacy, for instance, and I'm sure many other communities, same thing, they're doing free deliveries and free mailings and just a lot of different things like that. Is that kind of what you were thinking, Jodi? Yes, so Kasia is extension agent in Emmons County. She's located in Linton and I just saw that she had posted a number of resources, just I thought that was a great idea, a way to utilize the county transportation bus. Many counties have that, that take seniors to communities or to doctor appointments or to the grocery store or whatnot and so they're just repurposing and so I thought that was a great thing to share. So thank you for that. I think we underestimate that people know about all of the resources in our communities. So make sure that you're sharing those things with people in multiple resources. Andrea had shared with me yesterday on an email about how various generations are receiving and looking, seeking out information for COVID resources and every generation, as you can imagine, utilizes various sources. So don't forget to reach all of those generations, okay? Whether it be social media or in your local newspaper and maybe it's a community newsletter, whatever format you might use, make sure you're reaching your citizens and letting them know what resources are available to them. Our food banks in our county have done a nice job with trying to get those resources out to people and so that's also an audience we can't forget about. So I don't have anything else unless somebody else has something else to share. It's nice to connect with all of you again. We'll continue to put out resources. So Scott, have you- I was just gonna add, Jody, that the city of Fargo worked with Emerging Prairie, NDSU and some other folks in town to basically make news for short attention spans. So if you want the 32nd version of the governor's daily briefings and any other like proclamations, we basically put those out every day at savesummernow.com and then also on Instagram and Facebook with the same name. So that's a really good one for the young people in your lives. The target for that is like 13 to 24 year olds and so it's very short, high quality video and some funny memes and stuff too. Like we have the couch wear on it meme which went pretty viral there for a while. So we have a lot of fun stuff like that. So we're just trying to encourage those young people especially to continue social distancing but it's also a really great way to get the news. I find myself watching it for a real quick catch up. So definitely check that out and share it. Great, thank you for that. So important. All right, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Stay well. Good to see you. We'll stay in touch. Don't hesitate to reach out if you need something. Thank you. Take care.


A Grand Rapids woman has taken her pet grooming business on the road reporter Cheryl Moore tells us about the ooh la la mobile pet spa for this week's in business. My favorite part is probably just being able to make the animals look good and feel good um and being in a nice comfortable low stress environment. Most pet owners are probably used to the regular old brick and mortar groomers but how nice would it be if the groomer came to you? Erin Ford started her business the ooh la la mobile pet spa back in March of 2018. One of my aunts gave me the idea to have a mobile unit um and I just wanted to start because I feel like it's important for animals to be comfortable in a space um and have a low stress environment. Erin travels anywhere within a 10 mile radius of Grand Rapids. She grooms both dogs and cats any size I have a website where they can email me um to make an appointment they can call me um so usually what people do is we'll connect and then they will um I'll ask them where they live and I kind of base my appointments off of that so depending on where I travel to. A notebook that writes it down so you remember and I have an appointment book so they help me remember. Everything Erin needs for her business is right in her truck. Erin used to work in a regular grooming business. She says she likes this version better because the animals don't have to be in cages and as soon as they're done they're free to walk inside the house immediately and see their owners. A lot of people just like the convenience for one um they feel like um the animals are more comfortable also um they always like the haircuts you know and just being in their own driveway is one thing that they've always said that they they love you know they don't have to run to town or run errands. The Oolala mobile pet spa has been a hidden Grand Rapids now heading into her second year of business she's excited to see where her mobile pet spa will take her next. It's great I love it I love the um flexibility of being my own boss um it's it's busy and with three kids it's also very busy but I do love what I do. Reporting in Grand Rapids with this week's in business Shromor Lakeland News. Need idea? It is. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


What's going on? How are you guys today? I'm gonna show you a full day of eating what I've been doing lately to Heal my liver from the carnivore diet, which is an Unfortunately long process and we've done so many videos on it going into specific details explaining things Especially in the past few months. So this is gonna be kind of like a brief Overview of the three meals. I'm eating today what the foods are if I'm taking any supplements probiotics all that stuff so We're sitting here for breakfast and this is what I've been doing for breakfast So we have the corn and soy free pork sausage from Frankie's free-range meat good source of protein, of course Cholesterol main nutrition of this meal. We have the carbohydrates oatmeal organic. This is also fiber Feed the gut bacteria Have something for you know the bile from the liver to soak into and move through the digestive system And then we have the apple which is higher water higher volume more gut motility more fiber sugar to feed the gut With every meal I take, you know about half a teaspoon of mastic gum This keeps things moving keeps H. Pylori out of the stomach, which I got originally from drinking raw milk So if I never drank the raw milk, I would probably have never had to discover the mastic on protocol But that's a whole different story. We do have some water kefir grains and some water kefir that I will be drinking with this Meal about half the bottle and this is our new electrolyte blend, which has a little bit of sodium salt magnesium potassium All natural sources very very very tasty and good and hydrating As well as being an excellent probiotic to help digest the carbohydrates keep the candida at bay and give us a lot of B vitamins Keeper grain just adding some complexity more of those Diverse probiotic strains to the gut you kind of want to use a little bit of both to be an ideal health not just The water kefir not just the water kefir grains when you combine both of them It's excellent excellent excellent each of them on its own is pretty good though and for supplements today We're going to actually do kind of like a mineral Repletion is that a word? Repletion I tend to make up my own words, but We're gonna do selenium because I've been using iodine lately some boron Malibutinum and manganese So that's gonna be the mineral Repletion that I don't normally take every day and then we're also gonna do some Vitamin B1 with the meal now normally I would do Magnesium and vitamin C almost every day Sometimes I'll add vitamin B9 and zinc and Sometimes I'll do a little bit of K2 yesterday. We actually did some B complex So I don't like taking everything at once I think it is more stress on the liver on the body to process so many things so you know today We're like separating the minerals which since these are very natural low amounts of minerals You know we can easily take all of these at once with the meal and feel okay Can't say the same with most supplement companies So we're gonna do that today and that's probably gonna be the supplement routine and then in the future day of eating You guys are gonna see some of the variants, but I'm gonna enjoy this and I'll see you guys for lunch Actually, let me explain these supplements a little bit I know you guys are familiar with the foods. I've been eating because I've had these before in past day of eating Vitamin B1 typically gets depleted when you eat sugar and refined carbohydrates So I usually have B1 in almost every single meal and I do notice a difference when I don't take it This is really really significant as well as certain other B vitamins And I got to do a little more researching and reading on each of them and go into specifics, but That's the reason we're taking B1 Malibdanum boron and manganese are trace minerals that are found in high quality plant foods But you know, you know if you like jerk off a lot or like you exercise a lot or your body's being like depleted of minerals and with like the Soil mineral quality now. It's helpful to have these at least like a few times a month I would say the molybdenums the most efficient usually Boron's the least important and then manganese is kind of somewhere in between So you definitely want to try these especially the molybdenum if you've been on a carnivore diet and The selenium is something I take depending on my iodine intake as well So this one can be pretty hard on the liver, but because we have a low dosage on organ supplements It's actually very very safe and good to take But I probably take this once or twice a week or as the other ones are a little bit less frequent All right, guys, I feel like I've been awake for 20 hours, but it's really only been like six or seven 6 p.m. I'm having my second meal. I guess it's dinner time. Although I would consider this lunch for me So we have my barley stew. I show you guys the recipe. I don't know a few years ago now It's the tenderloin stew meat from Frankie series meat organic barley organic white recipe potatoes organic to talky mushrooms organic white onions and just the collagen broth from Frankie series meat and then I put in a little bit of salt and a little bit of bottled mineral water, so Really really complete stew all the minerals the vitamins I mean it's got everything you need really you can only eat this and be very very healthy and for me It's super convenient because when I make it I have like three days worth of food So a lot less cooking I just have to warm it up and in the next day of eating or who knows I'll show you guys the kind of updated stew recipe and how I do it But for today, I'm gonna have like two bowls of this for lunch The one apple as usual we will have more water kefir and water kefir grains with this meal I'll probably have a banana rice crisp bar I remember to bring some home today and of course the masticum for supplements. I'm just gonna have one vitamin B1 Maybe don't really need it for this meal The barley isn't as like bad as the white noodles or the sugar in the oats When it's like a whole food meal, everything's as natural as possible Like if you were just having steak and potatoes, you don't really need to supplement much Although I will say I felt a lot of mental clarity and very energized after I did that mineral routine this morning Because I hadn't done it for a few weeks. I was probably a little bit deficient in some of them so I'm just gonna eat guys You guys see the volume here. It's gonna be about two bowls of this will have the rest of the water kefir teaspoon of water kefir grains half teaspoon of the masticum I'll try to stick to one of these rice crisp bars Although I can definitely eat 10 of them and hopefully we do dinner as well But I got to get up early and travel a little far tomorrow. So Maybe we will maybe we won't have a third meal Which is supposed to be on the udon noodles with a few little tricks. I'll show you guys Let me break down the meal a little better So we have the protein the vitamins the amino acids the cholesterol and the tenderloin the potatoes that I put in You are a great source of minerals. I think I did a whole video on potatoes and now healthy They are Shiitake mushrooms and other excellent source of minerals barley in general is pretty good in B vitamins very concentrated source of calories Very very very healthy grain white onions. I like for flavor, but you know, there's some gut motility and feeding the gut bacteria benefits there for sure Apples the sugar guys the fiber just high volume keep things moving Keeper grains and so called probiotics a little bit earlier, but for the banana rice crisp bar This is brown rice banana oat flour macadamia nuts hazel nuts. So it's really just more like bulk Carbohydrates a little bit of healthy fast just a nice treat to you know To put on some weight and keep it healthy and like very whole food based alright guys It's late at night, and I'm having one final meal for the day This is the udon noodles with the beef that I've showed you guys a few times with a slight variation So in this we have those organic udon noodles some of the 95 five lean blend from Frankie's syringe meat Some of the collagen broth that I reinforce with more Beef and also a little something special that I'll show you guys some of you might remember We did a white bean puree recipe a few months ago. I've been adding this to the noodles For some extra fiber gut motility. It's really made a difference I was having problems with the noodle meal before and this is just cannellini beans with some garlic and a little bit of coconut oil so Really really great addition to the meal to add some more fiber and guys I'm just gonna have an apple and that's gonna be it before I go to bed Might have some beef one, but we're not gonna do the water keeper before bed just some water And of course mastic on with every meal guys But we're not gonna do any of the supplements or any of the water keeper for dinner So that's it for today. Let me know how you guys like this quicker style day of eating or just kind of go over the meal real quick and You know don't sit down and eat for minutes and minutes and minutes But if you guys do like that where I take some more time, please let me know We could definitely do that next week or the week after that noodle meal guys It's just the same principles of everything we have the Animal protein for the beef items all the nutrition the noodles for the carbohydrates the starch heat the gut microbiome for the energy Bean puree for that that added fiber, especially the soluble fiber keep things moving and then just the apple for some more gut Motility so you guys can go to Frank dash to found a calm if you would like to check out all of my businesses and support me But outside of that guys as always, please drop the like on the video leave a comment down below Subscribe so that YouTube can unsubscribe you next week and be sure to check that notification bill So they don't notify you of my videos. Thanks again guys. I'll see you soon


Hello. Today we are going to talk about supply and demand which you have already heard about or learned about in the introductory microeconomics class or even in macroeconomics class. The required reading for today is to read the pages from 25 to 30. We'll first talk about what supply and demand is. The differences between the quantity demanded, quantity supplied and demand and supply. And also talk about law of demand and law of supply and how the market works using the ideas of supply and demand. How the price functions and how to determine the market equilibrium, market equilibrium price and market equilibrium quantity. So the demand is, the definition of the demand is the relationship between the price of product and the quantity that buyers want to buy. So using price and quantity, there is a law of demand and there is a supply of demand. So law of demand is when price goes up. So to describe demand and supply there are many ways to describe. And first is a table. We're going to see the table and we're going to see the graphs and we're going to see the specific functions. You probably need to, so table example. Here when you look at the demand side, which is on the left hand, when the price goes down, the quantity demanded goes up. Again, the demand is different from the quantity demanded. So when there is a supply and demand, we call there is a market equilibrium is where the... Let's first look at the example from the table. So to find the market equilibrium first thing you need to do is to find the price where quantity supplied is equal to the quantity demanded. So at price, we can also look at this graph. Okay, here is mathematical functions. What are we looking for? Market equilibrium price and market equilibrium quantity. So first thing to do is to find the market quantities are equal to each other. Quantity supplied and quantity demanded. So quantity demanded is here the function is 1000 minus 20 times p. And quantity supplied is 20 times p. So if we make it equal to each other, then here we are. Here we have 1000 minus 20. Okay, here is another example. This is a shortage case. So demand and supply functions are the same as before. And let's assume that the price is 15. And if you go back to the table slide, then you can see the quantity supplied and quantity demanded. You can read the quantity supplied and quantity demanded. So on the graph, we can see, we can show this $15 as a price. There is a quantity supplied, which is a 300, quantity demanded, 700. The difference between the two is a shortage, which is a 400. Okay, let's look at the surplus case. Again, suppose the demand and supply curve functions are as follows. Okay, let's suppose, let's assume that the price for the previous is a 35k. And if the price is a 35k, quantity demanded is a 300, quantity supplied is 700. On the graph, we can show that the price is equal to 35. Then there is quantity demanded, which is 300, quantity supplied, which is 700. There is a surplus, 400. On the graph, we can show that the demand curve is downward sloping, linear curve, linear line, actually. On the supply side, supply curve is upward sloping, linear. And again, on the graph, y-axis is always, the price is on the y-axis, and quantity demanded and quantity supplied are on the x-axis. Okay, here there is mathematics functions. So let's look at the demand. So, specific functions which can be given as follows. Quantity demanded is equal to 1000 minus 20 times p, and price is equal to 50 minus 0.05 times quantity demanded. Well, that's a general, oh, that's a specific function.