Plain Talk With Rob Port

Minot, N.D. — Ves Marinov serves the state of North Dakota as a member of the Highway Patrol. He's also a citizen of Fargo who is running for a city on the city's commission. He's campaigning on a platform of addressing crime, eliminating special assessments, moving the city to a ward system for its elected leaders, and making the city more efficient. But it's that first issue, given his day job, that Marinov, a new American from Bulgaria who immigrated in 2003, is most passionate about. "Crime has been rising," he said on this episode of Plain Talk. "We can't solve that by turning our police departments into another social services department." Recently I wrote a story about Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney, who holds the portfolio for policing issues for the city commission, emailing with Fargo Police Department detectives regarding what authorities describe as a robbery incident in which the mayor's son was the victim. In his emails, Mahoney told detectives not to follow a particular lead and suggested other leads