Why a home builder is running a pet election

We say we build community

We build houses around Fargo. And we say, on our website and in our office and to everyone who’ll listen, that we don’t just build homes — we build community.

That’s an easy thing to say. Every builder says something like it. So this fall we decided to stop saying it and do something instead.

There’s plenty of serious stuff happening in the world. We thought our community could use something delightfully unserious.

We put $100 toward the adoption fee at our partner shelters. These are the partners today — the current list always lives on the adopt page, because we may add more during the campaign:

• Homeward Animal ShelterFargo
• 4 Luv of Dog RescueFargo
• Turtle Mountain Animal RescueFargo fosters
• Cats Cradle ShelterFargo

There are a dozen more good shelters and rescues in the valley, and we list every one of them on the adopt page. Adopting from any of them is a fine thing to do. The $100 only applies at our partners.

So: a pet election

Fargo, West Fargo, Moorhead and Horace each elect a nominee. Then the four nominees run against each other for Mayor of the Red River Valley. There’s a gavel. There’s a sash. There’s an inauguration at noon on October 17 at Rover Days at the Red River Market, and a real mayor from each city has agreed to hand over the title with a straight face.

Nobody is selling you anything in there. You won’t find a form asking about your housing plans. We’re covering the whole thing because we want to, and because it turns out four cities arguing over whose dog should be in charge is exactly the kind of thing a community is made of.

What we actually believe

People before floorplans.

That’s the whole philosophy, and it’s why the mudroom hook in our homes is lower than you’d expect — because that’s where a kid’s backpack goes. It’s why the island seats five instead of four. It’s why we think a neighborhood is something you have to actually build, on purpose, and not something that just happens after the drywall goes up.

A pet election is a small, silly, deliberate way of doing that. We hope you’ll take it entirely too seriously.