(KNOX) – The city of Grand Forks has been threatened with litigation from Fufeng USA, three years after terminating its agreement with the Chinese based company looking to build a corn milling plant in Grand Forks.
The City Council took no official action Monday after receiving a letter that threatened the litigation. City Council President Dana Sande says the city will not take any next steps and that it won’t do anything
Fufeng USA is requesting a response from the city by October 14th. The council has decided to not respond to the request in any fashion.
It hasn’t been revealed as to what Fufeng USA exactly requested, but City Administrator Todd Feland says Fufeng presented a significant demand.
The City Council decided to terminate a development agreement with Fufeng in 2023. The decision came after more than a year of concerns that were brought up by the general public and the Department of the Air Force. The concerns involved whether there could be national security threats with a Chinese company owning a corn milling plant near the Grand Forks Air Force Base.
The Department of the Air Force wrote a letter saying that the plant would be a “significant threat” to national security.
The City Council had met in executive session during its regular Monday meeting. The North Dakota Century Code says a city council can go into executive session when needing to discuss consulting an attorney and civil litigation that is pending.
The North Dakota Insurance Reserve Fund has appointed attorney Brian Schmidt with the Smith Porsborg law firm in Bismarck to represent the city in the threatened litigation.
Feland also says that the city needs counsel from outside Grand Forks because City Attorney Dan Gaustad worked on the original development agreement with Fufeng and he is involved in the pending litigation.
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