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12 Disaster Democracy Pat Owens’ modest split-level house on Thirteenth Avenue was the object of some controversy in the weeks following the flood, when it was clear that she had not suffered as much damage as she had claimed in an emotionally charged press conference held during evacuations. Three years later, all the black shutters of this home were tightly closed, as if the house itself were trying to shut out the fusillade of criticism. Inside that house in the early spring of 2000, Pat Owens was planning her re-election campaign. Immediately after the flood, when the “little giant ” was performing miracles in Washington, she could not have received bad press had she asked for it. Even Eliot Glassheim gave Owens credit for her performance: “The federal money we got was the result of two things: the spectacular fire that made the national news, and Pat Owens.” With this kind of success, reelection would have seemed a foregone conclusion, and if the Grand Forks mayoral election had been held within a few months after the floodwaters receded, Pat Owens would certainly have won handily. But the mood of the city had fundamentally shifted. Owens had been warned by a number of ex-mayors from cities around the country that that she would soon be made a target. While she was trying to untangle herself from the Amazon.com controversy , two men were setting their sights on unseating her: Eliot Glassheim and Mike Brown. Eliot Glassheim was a familiar face in Grand Forks, having served on the city council for eighteen years. He was a policy analyst with the Northern Great Plains Initiative for ≤ural Development in Crookston, Minnesota . Everyone knew his bookstore had been damaged in the flood and 223 wouldn’t reopen until August of that year. Glassheim had a slight stoop, a shock of dark hair, and thick glasses. Despite a tendency to be acerbic and gloomy, he was known as a fair, intelligent, forthright man who, in his many years in North Dakota politics, possessed some savvy about how things worked up here. He was also known as a staunch supporter of the city council’s actions, and as a man rather resistant to change. “People don’t bring me their complaints because they know I’m a defender of the city,” Glassheim said. “This sense of just wanting change, no matter what the change is, that discouraged me; I don’t like change much.” He had narrowly survived what he termed the “French ≤evolution” council elections of 1998, in which many members lost their seats to newcomers . He felt marginalized by the strident, self-interested voices now at the council table with him. He had been voted off a committee he had chaired for nearly eighteen years; many of the neophytes had treated him with what he considered disrespect and, sometimes, contempt. Glassheim was seen as part of the old guard. “My past was all dried up,” Glassheim said. “I had no future.” He was looking for an opening, and saw one in the 2000 Grand Forks mayoral election. It would not be completely accurate to say that no one knew who Michael Brown was prior to his surprise entry into the field of candidates. He was a popular obstetrician/gynecologist at Altru Health System in town and had served as an Air Force missile launch control officer when a young man. At forty-nine, Brown had a warm, open face and seemed steady and understated. Yet he had never held political office, nor had he expressed any interest in politics, so his entry into the mayoral race was inevitably seen as an opportunity for discontented Grand Forks citizens to lodge their complaints by voting for the protest candidate. Brown was Everyman. His campaign would use the old “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” hook; he didn’t really want to get involved in this mess, but he was so deeply and personally offended by the slop-job the city was doing that he couldn’t stand idly by. But perhaps the jewel in Mike Brown’s campaigning crown was the fact that he had lost his home in the dike alignment, though his home was undamaged by the flood. It was the ultimate sacrifice. Pat Owens chose not to advertise on television, focusing instead on billboards and direct mailing. She and her campaign staff put together a brochure that included an open letter to the city of Grand Forks and an...

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