00:00:10,770	9th, we’re in the Tom Baker room. Of the city county building. This will be the regular meeting of the board of City commissioners. But first we’ll have an invocation and pledge of allegiance to Chaplain Carr, please. Thank you, Mayor. Comm., let us pray.

00:00:33,300	Heavenly Father, what a privilege it is to serve you in this community as our commissioners have, uh, ran their elections and, and now are getting down to the job of running this city, and we thank you for them and we thank you for the wisdom that you give them, God, and we pray tonight and every night that they will continue to look to you.

00:00:51,400	As they govern this city, Father, that’s the key to life is if we look to you, our problems seem smaller. Our problems seem less. It’s not that you take away the problems or the issues, Father, but you make them smaller and so help us to look to you and be guided by you and all that we say and do, continue to

00:01:09,100	bless and protect our first responders and our city workers, and God watch over us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Please stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

00:01:33,670	Thank you, thank you, Mayor, Commissioners. We can call our meeting in order by calling roll. Comm. Risch. Comm. Zener, Mr. Connelly, Comm. Cleary, Mayor Schmitz here. OK, we’re at the time for public comic. Public comment is for items on the consent agenda or anything on the regular agenda excluding a public hearing.

00:02:00,330	Anyone who wish to speak, please come forward, let us know which item. Sign in Let us know who you are. Good evening, Mayor and commissioners. I would like to speak on the regular agenda item G discuss options moving forward relating to the management and operations of the event center.

00:02:37,870	And there are 5 options given in the memo that was part of the packet and I And I like and agree with steps 124, and 5, a new job description for The event center director would almost be expected. I’ve certainly seen this in other positions when the longtime manager leaves retires or otherwise vacates the job there typically is a move to look at the job description perhaps redefine some things, a duty, subtract

00:03:11,830	duties, redefine roles that that is laudable and expected. And the For me, one of the key result areas for the event center director from what I’ve seen from the discussions we’ve had, is this is a very complicated job.

00:03:39,170	The event center director is balancing managing a very large business which brings in and handles lots of money, and it’s an event center. That is a specialized area of knowledge. It’s not a general course in MBA studies, the men’s center management that comes with Experience and specialization. The other thing complicating it is the director is a city employee.

00:04:10,030	This is a city department and So This person who has an entrepreneurial side, also needs to be observing city policies and procedures and is answerable at some level to the city for various things. Not everybody is going to really understand that. And we’ve seen that, that’s true of other city jobs where there’s somebody who’s a technical expert, and they’re working for the city.

00:04:32,430	It’s it’s an adjustment, but it’s something to consider when. Carving out the job description and when looking at applicants. The other thing is the community outreach aspect of the eventan. And it was pointed out, especially Bel May who’s by the event center gets this too where there are events offered more as goodwill and outreach to the community to allow.

00:05:06,670	Graduating class, holidays, groups, to be spotlighted and to have a very nice space to have their meeting in, but not to have to pay market prices. Well again, this complicates the job. Hiring a consultant to evaluate and make recommendations on event center management. I think it’s a wonderful idea. The time has, has come for that.

00:05:33,300	There’s been work on on management and there’s been progress made, but going forward, yes, what are the important things that need to happen and how can they happen? One of the things too is. I would say probably.

00:06:01,170	There needs to continue to be work to rebuild and support morale of staff at the event center and also to help create a positive work culture because I think that is a new thing going forward. I do not believe, given what we heard about previous management that that always was an aspect of work there and that is something that needs to happen.

00:06:20,270	So anything a management consultant could say about that, I think would be very. Helpful. The other thing is, I think this management consultant needs to be making this study and making recommendations before the decision about a third party management is made and the consultant. Should have a scope of action that allows the consultant to consider a full range of management options.

00:06:50,770	And then if third party management seems like the best right way to go. There are some other things that the management consultant could really help with. And Some of these things. are How the city maintains and establishes its relationship with the third party man because the city is still liable. This is a city department.

00:07:21,670	What goes on there? The city is ultimately responsible for, of course, especially if things go wrong. That’s the way that liability issue plays out. But again, any wisdom, a management consultant could offer on that, I’m sure would be greatly appreciated. And If a third party management is chosen.

00:07:56,500	The decision needs somehow to be justified and explained to Existing staff at the event center are their jobs secure or should they be looking for other jobs? How is new management going to interface with existing staff, what’s going to be done to listen to and support staff that needs to be covered. The other thing is. And I, I have seen this.

00:08:25,230	I’ve worked in state government and seeing this happen with very desirable jobs, but the state always isn’t the net market. What happens if after the RFP. There aren’t any responses. What if nobody? wants to do this or what if they responses, but mostly they’re unqualified.

00:08:59,300	What do you do next or worst case scenario, there are responses or at least a qualified candidate is selected and becomes that third party manager, and then isn’t really able to do the job, isn’t doing it well enough and needs to go.

00:09:21,370	What happens then? City staff are left feeling like, well, you didn’t really have a lot of confidence in us and you had to bring in an outside manager and now we’re back to not having one, you know, what, what, what do you think about us? It, it’s, it’s an odd feeling, believe me. And Plans for how to handle those possibilities.

00:09:48,230	Even though they may not happen, would probably be a really good idea, just to be on solid ground, kind of confident what you’re saying and what you’re offering and all that kind of stuff. To me, I guess when I’ve seen this, it looks like a hand washing exercise like, well, just hire that third party manager and all our problems will go away. Well, of course, no, they won’t. And Everybody needs to be aware of that.

00:10:12,170	The other thing is the complicated nature of the job. I cannot emphasize that enough. This is not a routine job. This is a special job and the person who takes it on needs to balance a bunch of different often somewhat conflicting considerations and handle them with grace. The business about this is an enterprise fund.

00:10:37,630	It’s under the city, but we’re bringing in commercial outside acts, some of which are blockbuster. some of which are more for the good of the community. So we have some profit and some loss differences.

00:10:56,330	Well, how are we going to handle that? Are we going to have some kind of agreement on what level of profit and what level of loss, we’re gonna handle those things probably need to be thought about and discussed. And The idea of bringing somebody in who actually has Arena exhibit center, event center, conference. Experience. To our city. We know we’re great. We really like living here, but let’s face it, we are a regional center. We are not a large population base.

00:11:28,230	People, if we’re, if we are looking to bring in somebody from outside, they’re probably gonna come in from a larger place. How are they going to feel about that? Are they going to be willing to relocate here that always is something that has to be considered.

00:11:50,800	What do we do about that? So I’m just saying, please think very carefully about all of these options, but I am very excited to see these suggestions. I think we’ve got a lot of good possibilities opening up here for us. Thank you very much. Susan. Anyone have questions? OK. Again, this is public comment period. Anyone who wish to speak, please come forward.

00:12:14,370	Second call for public comment. Third and final call for public comment. Hearing and seeing no further public comment. Public comment period is now closed. Um, Commissioners on the consent agenda there is item M3 that we need to pull off for further discussion as there’s additional information that has arrived related to that item.

00:12:42,070	So I request that we can, can I make a motion to have that? Removed or how someone make that motion I’ll make a motion to prove the consent agenda, um, removing item M3. Second Is there any further discussion? Here and none will call roll. Comm. Zenker. Mr. Connelly. Yes, Mr. McCleary. Yes, Comm. Risch.

00:13:08,170	Mayor Schmidt. And Janelle, if you’ll present on M3 for us. Mayor and commissioners, and I apologize for the short notice we were given a very short time to elect to add these additional defendants.

00:13:28,430	And as I noted in my memo, I wasn’t sure if we should be adding the pharmacy benefit managers, those have both been recommended by Coley Council and, um, our council for the opioid cases to also include those. So my request would be that give authority to add invitidor, Mylan, and. Both Pharmacy benefit managers to our opioid case. Does anyone have questions? I’ve got a commercial Rich. Are we part of the national, um, uh, settlement. The Comm.

00:13:57,930	Risch, uh, Mayor Comm., so it is part of the opioid multidistrict litigation that is against several different opioid manufacturers. The, uh, one that you hear about most recently is the Purdue Bank, one because they’re going through bankruptcy and the family was, uh, the Supreme Court reversed that case, actually, for the family to get discharged.

00:14:19,230	We are part of that case. We are very part of that case, but yes, we are involved in several of those. We have options for certain defendants, and we try to base that off of the evidence that our attorneys are able to get because, of course, we had no idea.

00:14:37,900	Who was prescribing the opioids at the height of the, the opioid prescribing situation, so we’ve been continuing to get information and Um, we are represented by Na Nakati and uh I think it’s just Nakati Law Group now. They used to have a whole bunch of names, but. Yes. Any other questions? Commissions, what are your wishes with regard to that item. Moved to approve is presented.

00:15:02,430	Second. Any discussion? Here on call roll. Mr. Connelly, Mr. Cleary, Yes. Comm. Risch. Mr. Zanker. Yes, Mayor Schmidt, yes. First item in our regular agenda is to receive a report from the Bismarck Man and Chamber 80C in the downtown Community Foundation related to the Economic development services provided by both organizations that Brenda, you’re, I guess you’re going

00:15:31,400	first. I guess, I guess I am. I, I think that’s what we did last time, so we just decided to, uh, be consistent. How about that? All right. me all set up, Jason. And Fantastic.

00:15:57,900	Mayor, commissioners, um, this is a report for Q2, uh, the year is going along actually rather quickly, um, and there’s been an awful lot of information, um, and things that have been happening, so I’ll do my best to uh sort of condense it and and make it um as meaningful as, as possible, especially for you, um, Comm. Risch, I know this is new for you.

00:16:14,500	Um, we’ll try to catch you up to speed as as quickly as possible. All right. So one of the things um that I, I first wanted to touch on is our collaborative goals as you’re aware of, um, the Downtown Foundation um group, um, the Chamber EDC Group, um, gets together on a monthly basis with Jason and and others, uh, from the city staff, um, to

00:16:40,730	really kind of talk about how do we collaborate together? What are the things um that we are doing collectively in the name of economic development. And in those kinds of efforts.

00:16:59,000	And so we’ve kind of highlighted three of them here and I, um, these certainly fall in line with what the RFP asked us to take a look at. And so these are more along the line of what we are working on, so I wanted to put that out there, but tax incentives, it’s our favorite thing to discuss all the time.

00:17:15,900	It makes people really nervous, um, and, and so I’m a little excited, um, but it’s the conversation, it’s the elephant in the room, um, and we need to have those conversations. You hired us to do your Economic development and in order to do that, um, we feel that there will need to be some tax incentives along the way.

00:17:32,200	What those look like and what they’re called might be something different than what we’ve seen in the past, um, but we do feel as a collaborative group that we need to put some, um, some definition behind them and provide understanding um for the general public and for this particular group, um, to understand that at some point in time when we come to you and ask about that, that you at

00:17:49,970	least know it is, so you’re not trying to play catch up, um, but educating on what they are and how they can be used. Um, housing is a big issue, uh, obviously right now, um, it’s, it’s been an issue for a while, um, but what is the definition of affordability.

00:18:08,870	What is affordable for me, um, versus another person, um, are two completely different situations. And is affordable housing only defined as um you can rent an affordable space, or you can purchase an affordable space? Are you off the street? Uh, where are you at? Are you in a safe environment? And so defining affordability and how it impacts our workforce because that is, um, really

00:18:29,700	critical and really important. Um, I appreciate the fact that, um, I was invited to um the group that Renee Mock um had pulled together um to do some brainstorming, um, as a city, um, to talk about, um, what does that look like? what’s affordable housing that was more along the lines of the homelessness piece, but we have

00:18:48,870	to move people through homelessness into To affordable housing and there has to be a progression. And so that was a really great um session. I think it was well attended and I just wanted to say kudos to um city staff, um, for pulling that together.

00:19:04,170	I know there’ll be some good things that will come out as a result of that. And then childcare, once we get people um in a in a home that’s affordable for them, um, and we get them employed, um, in a position um that is appropriate for their skills. We need to have childcare. And there again, child care affordability.

00:19:24,000	can be very different for um someone who’s well established versus someone who’s just trying to get started in a position. And so we’re looking at what opportunities can we as the chamber EDC and the and the downtowners.

00:19:42,330	Um, what can we do to provide education for our childcare providers, um, because sometimes I I think they get left out when it comes to education on how to best manage their business, um, and the more we can do to help them feel and understand how to be successful. The better we are at maintaining and retaining the childcare providers that we do have, whether they’re private or they’re they’re bigger groups.

00:20:01,470	And so that’s something that is certainly on the horizon. So Vision Fund is something that is incredibly important and we’ve done an awful lot of work here if you remember the last update that I provided. Um, I really took you through kind of the, the history of where did we start with the vision fund back in the early 1990s.

00:20:22,300	Well, um, we’re here now into, into present day, um, and since the last quarter, um, we’ve reviewed, um, 6 applications, um, 3 applications were brought forward by Nathan Schneider. From the chamber EDC, um, two city commission um for consideration. The total amount uh requested in projects was um close to $668,000 which is a pretty good chunk of change.

00:20:49,970	We know that there’s money in that fund, but we’re carefully managing that particular fund with the folks on the Vision fund and of course with you as our oversight, um, out of that dollar amount, 400 almost 27,000 was actually approved and so.

00:21:10,470	What we know from that process is that the new rubric is working, um, because we’re not just looking at all the applications and approving them all. We’re not bringing every single request, um, to the commission table. um, we’re vetting them through and taking them through that rubric, um, and really trying to make sure that it fits the expectation of what that vision fund was intended, um, to do.

00:21:29,970	Um, I think we have probably more work to do, um, on the particular application. So that it’s, it’s a little clearer, um, but there’s progress, um, is happening and so we have to um continue to move forward on that.

00:21:48,270	And then you’ll notice on the slide that we also did 7 letters of support, and that was for the North Dakota Opportunity Fund. And you might look at that and say, how are there 7 letters of support and only 6 applications reviewed. There’s more, sometimes people don’t even go through the application process.

00:22:08,470	Sometimes they contact us at the Chamber EDC and say, I want to apply for this, would I qualify? And, and quite frankly, we know that whatever they’re outlining to us is probably not going to qualify, but it is something that we could write a letter of support for, um, them to move on to the North Dakota Opportunity Fund through the, um, Bank of North Dakota.

00:22:26,070	And so we want to help people in whatever stage they’re in, and that’s part of our, our role and responsibility to us to assist. Lots of things going on with workforce development. This one, this one we spend an awful lot of time and energy and it’s time and energy well spent.

00:22:45,300	Um, there’s a small picture up there you probably can’t see it uh real close, but I will tell you in attending um this really great event, um, it was an internship, um, event. It was a mixer of of sorts. Um, it was held at the Larks baseball field. It wasn’t at an actual game.

00:23:03,370	They just allowed us to use, um, the, the field, uh, for The evening and they cooked up the um the baseball, um, park food, um, bobcat assisted with um sponsoring the program, but close to 75 young people who are here in the Bismarck Mandan community attended this.

00:23:25,300	And you might think, well, what’s the big deal? It’s just a bunch of kids who are here for their internship. This is a big deal. This is the pipeline for how we grow our workforce for, for Bismarck. This gave us An opportunity. There are some students, there was a student here from um Bogota, Colombia, who is doing an internship at Bobcat.

00:23:47,230	Um, there were students from across the United States who were here doing an internship through their university, their college, um, they’re at NISC. They’re at bobcat, um, they’re at the state, they’re at various, um, locations throughout the community. And what we fear is if we don’t get our arms around this group of people and say welcome to our community.

00:24:09,300	You’re not just here to go through your internship and check the box and learn what you’re supposed to learn, um, at, at your place of business and then leave, get on a plane or get in a car and leave.

00:24:25,770	We want them to fall in love with this community, just like all of us have, um, and make a decision, a conscious effort to say I learned so much about not only my job but also my. Community, um, while I was there that I actually think I want to live here. And so, um, we had great conversations. It was supposed to end at 8:30. We kind of had to say, you guys got to go. It was 9 o’clock.

00:24:42,300	I mean, they would have stayed there all night, I think, but what a great opportunity for those young individuals to make connections with each other, um, and to really kind of figure out what, what, where they might want to be. We gave out gift cards, strategically to lots of.

00:25:01,970	Places in the community to have them go check things out like the river boat, um, go to different restaurants, coffee shops, bowling, um, doing different things, um, in the community of Bismarck and Mandan so that we could make sure that they were experiencing everything here.

00:25:22,770	So we, we counted that one as a big success, um, and plan to, um, to do another event before they all head back to their college or university. The educator experience is also incredibly important. Um, we held this probably it was probably about a month ago. Um, this is where, um, we took um middle school and high school teachers.

00:25:45,770	Who went to numerous different um businesses around town to learn about what they have to offer for jobs. So that is they’re talking to their students and trying to career counsel them into class selection that they know what is available for positions and how can they help as a teacher, um, to help kids understand what’s going on.

00:26:05,970	It always is an eye opener for these educators, you know, they’re focused on their students and their classroom all year long. And so to get them outside of their element to actually see what’s happening in the business environment and and the opportunities for their students is a really great, um, option for, for the students to know and understand what could they do should they choose to

00:26:23,100	stay in, in our community. Um, the regional workforce impact program just to let you know we were a recipient of an RWIPP grant, um, and so we are working with threefold. We did an RFP to various groups that do videos.

00:26:46,630	Um, we are using our RWIP grant funds, um, to create a series of videos and then market them to people outside of um our community outside of the state of North Dakota to help people understand if someone came To Bismarck to go to school at University of Mary, and then they took a position somewhere in Bismarck.

00:27:10,030	Why did they stay? And so testimonials, um, and some really great, um, feedback from actual people who have come from outside of our community who have said, I, I really like this place and here’s why I want to make this my home and so we’ll utilize that that funding to help us in, in that way.

00:27:25,030	Um, and then the, um, other item on workforce development is we hear a lot from a lot of people about how are we acclimating our new Americans um into the community of Bismarck and Mayor Schmitz, we’ve also, um, you know, visited with you about how are we acclimating just people in general who are coming um to the community as a, a new employee to, um, various places.

00:27:44,830	Um, we are in North Dakota nice, but sometimes we’re not always as um open arm open. to allowing somebody to come over to our home for dinner or inviting them out for, um, for something.

00:28:05,100	And so we’re gonna start with the new Americans Leadership program and it’s going to take a page from, um, Leadership Bismarck Mandan and really try to acclimate them to what is it like to live in a community like Bismarck? What, how do I, how do you open up a checking account? How do you go talk to somebody at one of the banks if you only speak Spanish, um, how do, how do you make that connection? Um, how do you

00:28:20,130	get involved? in, in your civic, um, responsibilities. Can you come to a city commission meeting and why would you want to, um, and, um, and so just really engaging them in the city, um, and in the community so that they can understand how they can be, um, a vital part of the community in which

00:28:40,830	they’ve chosen to come here and live and we’re talking about these are the people who Sanford and others are recruiting to come to the community to do, um, really good jobs. And so, um, we’re working with global neighbors, um, to figure out who that population is, um, and the applications actually will open tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock.

00:29:05,370	And then business development, lots of things going on here. I think all of you received the email that we send out on a monthly basis and then just last week you should have received the year-end economy at a glance, so you can see the, the final compilation of what it looked like from 22 to 23

00:29:22,500	and then monthly you receive that information. I pulled out um some, some kind of highlights there, um, because it is really small, um, writing, um, but the taxable sales and purchases up, um, A little over 4%.

00:29:43,300	A restaurant and lodging tax collections of 20%, which that’s a great number, but I am gonna put a little plug in for something that we all know, um, that we need to do, um, and so if we had a larger conference and hotel space, um, in the community of Bismarck we know we could attract even more conferences to come to Bismarck, which would only increase that restaurant and lodging tax.

00:30:03,500	We need it, um, because we need to stop Passing through Bismarck to go to other larger communities, um, for those, those particular activities. So while 20% sounds really great, I would prefer that number to be a little bit higher, um, because we have the amenities, um, here, um, to do that.

00:30:22,930	Single family new building permit valuations that was up almost 13%. Now, that, there’s a good side and a bad side to that because you want to think, talk about, um, affordable housing for people who are just getting started with families and things, um, and with the, um, housing costs, um, that can be a struggle, but nonetheless, it’s an interesting statistic.

00:30:43,630	And then our airport passenger boardings, um, from 22 to 23 we’re up 6%. Even from January to May of this year, um, the airport boardings are up significantly, and I am participating um on, on the airport project, um, where they are looking at what are the opportunities to make improvements um to our airport

00:31:06,230	terminal and and the different things that are going on out there. And so some really good things, um, happening there. In addition, we continue to um to do primary sector recruitment. We’re still looking for somebody to hopefully take About last spot at the Northern Plains Commerce Center.

00:31:27,900	We do have regular conversations people call on a regular basis asking about opportunities to move into that space or other spaces in the community and we’ll continue uh to push and drive for that until we can get somebody in there. We know that would be a huge help, um, adding to our tax base. And then, um, in Q2 we also participated in the Williston Basin Petroleum Council.

00:31:48,170	We literally had, um, a, a life size screen that became sort of a meeting point everybody at the Williston Basin, um, Petroleum Council. We partnered with the CBB with Sherry Grossman and her team, um, because we knew we couldn’t do it on our own, um, but we, we went together on a booth, um,

00:32:07,030	and with some help from, from, um, the Petroleum Council, um, we had a really great booth. We had a lot of people stopping by to ask about what’s going on in our community. So it was a great opportunity to make connections.

00:32:24,100	Um, what are we gonna do in Q3? What, what have we been doing and what are we going to continue to do in Q3, um, I’ll continue to participate in the steering committee for um land development code.

00:32:39,430	I think there’s a lot of, there’s not, I think I know there’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes before that group will come back together, but that’s going to be really, um, critical, um, for us to make improvements for, for Bismarck. Keep it local property tax coalition. I don’t think I need to tell you, um, but I, but I will, um, for the list. listeners, um, the property tax coalition, um, the particular group who would like to abolish property taxes, did receive enough signatures.

00:33:03,000	Those signatures have been um submitted to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State has until August 2nd to confirm the signatures and and the validity of them if those signatures are indeed valid and they still have enough signatures, it will be on the ballot in November, which is very concerning.

00:33:22,270	We have a lot of people who are really upset still about rising property taxes, and I get that and I understand it, um, and, and I know all of you do too, and you work really hard, um, to make sure that the budget is, is well managed, um, but there’s better ways, we all know that there are better ways than

00:33:41,370	having to go to the state to ask for um for um what would normally be collected, uh, via property taxes. So, um, the Chamber EDC is part of a 60 plus, um, group of associations that have joined the keep it local, uh, coalition, um, and we’ll continue to fight that battle, um, on your behalf

00:34:01,700	because we know that’s not something you can do, but we think it’s important that we literally keep it local to allow you to make the decisions on how we’re going to fund our fire departments, our police departments, our schools, um, our parks, um, and all the things that matter to us as citizens of Bismarck, so we’ll.

00:34:21,430	Continue to keep you updated on that particular item. And then something really exciting that’s coming up in September, um, is the Bismarck Mandan Chamber EDC will be hosting um the economic development of North Dakota conference focused on policy policy and legislative process.

00:34:43,970	There’ll be, um, upwards of close to 200 people coming to Bismarck, um, in September, uh, for about a day and a half long conference and so we’ll show off our beautiful city, um, and we will have a lot of like-minded ED people, um. Running around town, um, and having good conversations about, um, how do we grow our communities.

00:35:03,100	It’s always good to learn, um, from other people and to share our best practices as well. And so those are the things that we have, um, going on and we continue, like I said, to meet monthly with our partners at the Downtowner and I’d entertain any questions if you have any. You want to have questions for Brenda? Comm. Cleary, thank you.

00:35:24,530	Uh, not really a question, but just to jump back to Vision Fond, I think it is really showing that that rubric is, like you said, needs work, but is, is doing its job, not only are you vetting them appropriately, but I think just the number of people that are or organizations that are applying versus a few years ago where

00:35:42,100	there was like none, the rubric also sets them up for success because they know what is being asked of them ahead of time so that they Can envision applying for it, so I think that that’s great to see those numbers. Thank you, Comm.

00:36:00,730	Cleary, and you know, kudos to um Nathan Schneider, our vice president for economic development because he takes every single one of those phone calls when they come into the office and he literally walks through, what do you need to do? Um, what have you done so far? Um, what are you trying to accomplish and, and sometimes the answer that he has to give them is, I’m sorry, it’s

00:36:16,800	probably not gonna fit the rubric, but at least there’s a voice The other end of the, the call and we can help them through that process. It’s, it’s, it, it’s working really well. Thank you. Anyone else? We’ll see you next quarter. Thank you. Kate? See if mine come up. Maybe. Thank you. Well, Mayor Comm., welcome, uh, Comm.

00:37:01,870	Risch. I, we probably should take you out for coffee and maybe get you caught up on the RFPs with economic development services, what we’ve done in the first quarter.

00:37:18,170	Um, but I’m gonna put my little turn signal on here and I’m gonna go down some real nerdy stuff that I appreciate and really like, and it’s a cool new tool that the city of Bismarck will be able to use, um, as part of our RFP, one thing we wanted to do was engage a company called Placer.a. I And Essentially what placer does, um, it’s kind of a location-based.

00:37:38,470	Software and so when you um accept the terms and services of specific apps, um, it kind of can identify your phone and where you’re going, and so I tried to pull 3 locations out that you guys can see the type of information that we’ll be able to now pull on specific either properties or areas within, uh, the city of Bismarck.

00:37:56,100	So I, I thought this one was kind of interesting because it was let’s see if I can. Go forward and it might be a little hard to see if I can get a cursor on here.

00:38:10,470	This is the elbow room, so I tried to pick one that Jason Tamonico was familiar with and when we get kind of an idea, um, and what you can see is, uh, how many people visited the elbow room, and this is over 1212 month span of time.

00:38:26,530	And the reason I wanted to show this and just kind of point it out as you can see I wanted to show this gives us pretty close, maybe a two week leg, but you can see right here that this, uh, on the end is the McQuaid’s weekend and a big spike that’s there. So something like that, and this is just a real basic thing that I could pull for. You know, an event or a business to see maybe how something affected uh visitor traffic.

00:38:43,200	It gets way more detailed, but that’s one small thing. So I pulled another one. McDonald’s, everybody loves the McDonald’s, right? And so I could compare all the McDonald’s and Bismarck now I could see how many people are going to each one, how they get there, where they’re going afterwards, where they came from before they went there, um, so here I’m gonna just take you

00:39:00,700	through the McDonald’s report that I pulled, um, earlier today. So these are the visits, visits per square foot, um, I can even look at loyalty. How many times I go back to that same McDonald’s and spend time.

00:39:17,170	So I’m guessing like dog, you know, kids are at the Mickey D’s, he might, he might go higher in in the loyalty factor. Um, I can look at how everybody’s been doing since COVID, um, how their visits are are going year to date so you can see McDonald’s doing, doing OK, um. Up 10% year to date in terms of visitor traffic. You also can look at the visits and you see these.

00:39:39,100	Big huge drops right here. That’s Thanksgiving, that’s Christmas. You can see some bumps, maybe Easter time, you don’t want to cook and you’ve gone to McDonald’s or something, but we can really look at where people are going, when they’re going there, um, and look at some comparisons from previous years.

00:39:56,630	This one doesn’t show up very well on here, but um this is kind of a heat map of where people are coming from and going to a specific McDonald’s. Um, and that McDonald’s that I pulled for you guys was East Main Avenue McDonald’s.

00:40:17,770	Uh, we can look at captured market, potential market, um, and then kind of compare that McDonald’s, those McDonald’s visitors to all people who live in North Dakota, which was kind of cool how much money they make, um, how it compares to nationwide, other McDonald’s chains and what percentile that they would be in in terms of how are our McDonald’s, uh, comparing to other McDonald’s, so.

00:40:36,300	This is where it gets creepy, and I in a good way, but I, I wanted to give you a caveat here that we are in the process of basically inputting multiple points of interest. And so what you see up here is points of interest that have already been mapped by placer AI.

00:40:53,970	So you’re probably going to see big companies here, but if you go to the what’s called the visitor journey, and I can turn home or work off, but um. Where people are at before they go to McDonald’s, where they go after McDonald’s, um. The elbow room visitor journey was kind of fun to look at as well, um.

00:41:13,130	But it shows a picture of how people maybe are spending their time, where they’re going before and after. They might visit a business or a property. We can also look at how they got there and how they, where they went when they left as well. I could switch this around what streets they used.

00:41:31,330	I can look at the hourly visits, so that for this, I think it’s really important, especially for our, our businesses within Bismarck, um, you know, when are your peak times? Maybe you should adjust your hours, your days of operation, um, we’ll be able to pull that information for them. Visits again by day, so this should help with, you know, certain um.

00:41:52,100	Hours, days of operation, I mean maybe you don’t have enough staff and you’re looking at what’s my lowest day in terms of, of sales and visits. Maybe that, you know, can give you some information. A McDonald’s, at least the Main Avenue McDonald’s, the visits primarily were under 5 minutes, which tells me the driver is doing amazing business unless you can eat in 5 minutes inside.

00:42:09,670	Um, I pulled another one that I thought you guys would be kind of interested in and I see Christina’s back there so she can tell me if um this is fairly accurate, and this is actually the whole block that the Bismarck Public Library is on, so it’s not just the building.

00:42:26,170	I, I purposely wanted to grab the parking lot and things like that. Uh, Christina, you’re doing a good job. Your visits are way up, um, way to do it. But you can see again, there’s maybe there was an event or something that happened in.

00:42:41,830	Me? Was that trivia? That trivia event you did at the library? What was the date of that? And you were there too. I bet that’s what that spike is, and you can kind of see, um. What’s going on there, the visitors, the visitor frequency within a year, um, dwell time is quite high. People are spending at least an hour at the library on average.

00:43:02,070	It’s not showing up very well for you guys. We can look at the demographics of the folks that are visiting the public library, they’re um education, their age, their ethnicity, uh, their household size.

00:43:23,830	Income And visit our journey here again, um, and again, I, I put a caveat, you’re gonna see local businesses pop up on this as soon as we’re done putting in the 600 points of interest. That we’ve got to map, but um. For us it’s just a fantastic way to look at collaboration.

00:43:41,100	This could be, I could look at a piece of property that has no business on it and get a lot of information about how many people are driving by when they’re driving by to really inform maybe what could happen on a piece of property. It could be a mixed-use piece of property where they need to fill the commercial space and we’re looking at what kind of activities are happening around. That um that parcel or that that building, and so This, we’re still being trained on it.

00:43:59,470	We’ve invited Daniel Nairn from the Community Development department to sit in on our training with placer AI so we know how to use all of its features and the city would know, hey, do you have that information that we could potentially use for a specific property or or anything like that. So I think there’s gonna be a huge.

00:44:15,330	Huge game changer for us and this was part of the RFP that we really wanted to get some sort of location based software, you know, up and running.

00:44:31,170	And so, I didn’t give you guys maybe 10% of the information that we can pull from it, but this would be kind of a basic report that I could pull for a business to say. Here’s, here’s the broad idea of who’s there, why they’re there, when they’re there, where they went afterwards to really give, I think, good data and analytics for citing businesses or helping existing businesses. Adjust certain things.

00:44:50,400	So that’s really what I wanted to tell you guys today and if you have any questions, um, please let me know it is. It is a big brothery kind of thing, um, everybody is generally using it, the targets of the world use this, the, the Walmarts and stuff, um, to site locations and things like that.

00:45:08,000	So I think it’s gonna be a great tool that Bismarck’s going to be able to use and, and we will certainly use as well. Nobody has any questions. Mr. Rich Yeah, how do you gather the data again is an app or something? So What happens is your cell phone, and I assume you have a cell phone, Comm. Risch. Let’s say you have an app on there, um.

00:45:32,770	The hunting map app or something like that. When you agree to the terms and uses it, it kind of, it doesn’t know who you are. It doesn’t know John Risch, but it knows your phone and gives your phone a number, and it may know like some of your demographic information based upon the app.

00:45:47,500	And that when you see it in here, it will be called a panel. So a panel phone is basically an interchangeable term. And then from there they use an algorithm to essentially Extrapolate out what a kind of a true and accurate number would be.

00:46:07,870	So I can follow you everywhere and I know where you’re going after the elbow room services, right, or location, whatever it is on your phone. It’s not something, it’s not something you could necessarily turn off if the app needs it for functionality, so.

00:46:25,900	You could try and get away from it, I guess, but I, I don’t think you’d be a super successful, um, but I, we’re using it for good and not for evil. Comm. Risch, and so, um, it’s for the good of the city. But that’s essentially how it works, and a lot of large companies use it.

00:46:42,200	A lot of downtown associations, a lot of malls use it, a lot of lifestyle centers use it, um, to really give them a lot of good analytics. Greg Kener looks real nervous over there too. We, we can find you. We’ll find you. She called me. So what’s your vision with this? I mean, where’s, I mean. Right now, to me it just looks like an app that tracks us where we’re going.

00:47:04,570	Unfortunately, there’s a couple of restaurants in there that I might frequent a little too much, but it is what it is. But I mean, what’s the, what’s the plan? What’s the end game? What’s the, what’s, what’s the economic impact that we can see, um, next year at this time with this app.

00:47:21,430	So what we can do with it and what we’re doing right now and what Daniel’s a part of is our orientation for it. So we’re putting in, we’ve sent them shape files for the city of Bismarck so we can kind of isolate. Um, all of our parcels essentially because right now they sort of use Google Maps and it’s not super specific in Bismarck.

00:47:36,430	So what you could do is the real estate community, your development community could use this to help either find a tenant, figure out who would be uh a good business to be in that location, maybe based off of where they’re going before, where they’re going afterwards. What I didn’t show on here is, um, it can sort of behaviorally track you, so let’s say.

00:47:56,170	Um, Your phone goes to a lot of restaurants. It can tell that you’re kind of a foodie, and it’ll put you in their foodie category, and we can now. No.

00:48:13,230	You’re going to all the gyms and you’re lifting weights, um, we know that you’re, you know, yeah, um, and so we can actually target the behavior of people and figure out if In a building with commercial space, what might be a good use, what might not, on the same level in terms of businesses that already exist, we can give a lot of information about someone, 2000 people walked in front of your store and you weren’t open.

00:48:32,530	How you adjust your hours to capture those sales and those uh sales tax and there is a sales tax to capture situation in here too that we can look at. So for us it’s going to be working with the developers and a lot of the commercial businesses to say, if you want specific information about a tenant, a location or a future tenant a

00:48:48,430	location that might work here. This is the information and data that we can provide you that might help you narrow down, not necessarily anecdotally what will work, but what will work from a uh a data standpoint. That makes sense. Kind of. but We’ll figure it out.

00:49:08,170	You just don’t want me to track you. That’s OK. I got it. I thought I think it was a good question though because that’s really, you know, so we can understand as more what. What the value is of this to the community and. One of the But downtown Fargo, uh, group in downtown Grand Forks group also subscribed to this.

00:49:28,430	One thing they’ve used it for in downtown Grand Forks’ grant applications. So they applied for a Lowe’s, like the lows. Maynard’s Lowe’s hometown community grant, they got a $100,000 grant because they’re able to give really specific information about who is going to Town Square, you know, how many people were there? How many eyes were on it.

00:49:47,170	And so for them it’s been a real, uh, good grant application software which we could use for the city of Bismarck as well. Mr. Clark, I think so I, I already got the spiel at a Downtown board meeting, so I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it a little bit too, cause it’s very easy

00:50:04,370	to think of it like individually for my business, you know, when you first learn about it, but I think that the more I thought about it too, I think as Kate kind of touches on it, it would be really interesting for some of those like bigger commercial areas that have, you know, like your

00:50:21,930	Hay Creek shops and it’s like, you know, our people. Percentage wise are they leaving Hay Creek shops and always going somewhere else, and what does that say that maybe hate creep shops is missing. I think kind of utilizing it in that way or vice versa.

00:50:38,030	Are they all coming from one area to Hay Creek shops, and so what does Hay Creek shops have that that area that they left doesn’t have, I think could be an interesting growth tool, like big picture, not necessarily for the city as an entity, but for the commercial spaces, um, I think could be a really cool utilization.

00:50:56,630	I think there’s probably other aspects that we could use even just like Streets and routes and stuff like that is probably really interesting for roads and streets and engineering to utilize, but um it’s a lot of nerdy stuff, but it’s, it’s interesting, so it’s a, it’s a lot of data to get your arms around.

00:51:13,370	So what do you want to get out of it and that’s kind of what we’re talking with Daniel and and placer. What are like the top 5 things we want to use this for because you could use it for a a gazillion things.

00:51:31,430	I guess I think my other point would be, obviously, it’s not our first time investing in software at the city for with the hopes of using it for something specific, so I think it’s Got a lot of different uses, but I think we just need to figure out like what’s the best way for us to use it and then make sure that we’re using it and getting its value, so.

00:51:44,330	And I think Daniel will be able to help with this, you know, what does community development want to see what does engineering maybe want to see out of it? There’s some really cool things we could pull out of it for, you know, projects, grant applications, things like that. OK, thank you. Thank you. All right, next item.

00:52:03,600	Be is consider a request to provide direction to staff on how to address the pure noncompliance with city code or of ordinances related to an F1 restaurant alcohol beverage license, and I believe that the Businesses here as well, correct? I hope so, yes, uh, mayor and Comm.

00:52:29,900	, uh, we got kind of a, a new topic for commission decision or discussion tonight, uh, new being not something that I’ve encountered in the past 8+ years that I’ve been in the administration department, um, as you’re all aware, city administration manages and maintains the alcohol licenses as well as the annual renewal for specific licenses, those licenses that we are interested

00:52:51,370	in are those of the F1 and F2 category, those are the the licenses that are typically uh established and utilized by restaurants. Uh, one of the clauses within the uh licenses for the F1 and F2 category is that the the businesses must provide a sales report for their annual food and alcohol sales for the year prior.

00:53:15,300	Uh, that is a requirement with the annual uh application renewal, which we are going through those steps right now. All the city of Bismarck alcohol licenses expire at the end of this month. So between this meeting and the next meeting in July, uh, we’re hoping to have all of the businesses wrapped up and reviewed.

00:53:33,130	As we review the applications, one of the items that we’re looking for is that sales report to ensure that the businesses that are identified as restaurants are selling at least 55% of their total sales in food and no more than 45% of their sales can be alcohol based.

00:53:53,530	In this situation, uh, with the pier, they’re upside down, uh, their sales report for both last year and this year indicated that they are selling more alcohol than food and in our situation that would consider them less of a restaurant and more like a bar and the bar licenses are much different. They do not have a food requirement, and they are a completely different category, uh, altogether.

00:54:13,130	The Jason Comm. Zaker’s got a question. Sure. Uh, Jason, thanks, Mayor, uh, so you said they’re upside down, but according if I read this correctly in your memo. Um, they’re at 48%. For the alcohol sales. So really not not tremendously upside down slightly above the 45% correct, but it’s not 55 alcohol, 45.

00:54:43,070	Food, correct, the, the, the maximum I would consider that upside down. I mean just so. I just wanna I just wanna make sure I’m understanding correctly it maybe I shouldn’t have said upside down, maybe what I should have said is their alcohol sales exceed the maximum percentage allowed by order. OK, OK, long as the parameters are straight.

00:55:01,570	Sure, thanks, sir. I guess when I said upside down I meant their alcohol sales are exceeding the minimums and their food sales are under or they’re exceeding the, the maximums, yes. Uh, nonetheless, we have a situation here that we have not encountered in the past, uh, staff.

00:55:22,970	Does not have any jurisdiction or authority to impose any consequences or um uh potential changes. Based on the ordinance that is where the commission comes in. Uh, because staff does not have any authority in regards to uh Any sort of penalties or changes to the ordinance whatsoever. We wanted to bring this matter to the commission to discuss um.

00:55:45,430	And without a whole lot of experience in this situation, uh, we generally approach these scenarios as an education first. We are not looking to penalize or to um not renew the license for the pier by any means, but we do want to make sure that the commission understands, the community understands that part of our job is to ensure that

00:56:05,270	the alcohol sales and the food sales meet the ordinance requirements. In this situation, they do not, um. This is a similar situation that occurred last year.

00:56:24,300	Uh, the current ownership of the pier about a year ago, uh, purchased the business and at that time, uh, disclosed to us that they were in the same situation where they were again selling more alcohol than food. Uh, I spoke with one of the business representatives at that time last year. Indicated they would need to come up with a plan to remedy the situation.

00:56:44,170	Uh, generally that plan involves some type of food sales or catering or other promotions to help amplify your food offerings over your alcohol uh in the 12 months that have transpired, obviously the group is still working through some issues. There was a letter included in your packet, uh, indicating some of the uh steps that they’ve tried to take to encourage uh additional food sales, both with catering, uh, engaging.

00:57:05,070	with some local sports teams and creating some other events to really amplify their food sales. Uh, so again, without any authority as staff, we wanted to bring this to the commission and uh. Leave it up to you guys to decide how best to move forward, um, if you have any questions from staff, we’d be happy to try and answer them.

00:57:22,600	I believe there is a representative here from the pier. Do you have any questions, I’d try and answer them for you now, Comm.. Mr. Mayor, I was just looking at the chart here and they they’ve got a class F1 license at $3500 if they had a class D license at 4100 they’d be in compliance. Mayor and commissioners, uh, Comm.

00:57:44,530	Risch, the answer is yes, they would be because the Class D license is a baron license. There are no food sales required with the Class D license. However, The Class D license is limited in quantity. It’s based on population and currently I believe there are 27 Class D licenses.

00:58:07,170	In use, uh, the last time the city of Bismarck issued a Class D license was in January of 2023. Those are through a sealed bid, the highest bid we received for that last license was $313,000. So the entry level for that license is a bit restrictive.

00:58:27,230	The Class F1 license is by far our most common license, and you see that uh throughout basically any of the restaurants that are serving alcohol, I will say this, uh, when we look at all the annual sales. We do have some businesses that their food and alcohol sales split might be 10 or 15% of the total sales would be alcohol. In this situation where over 45% alcohol, so there’s a pretty significant.

00:58:50,630	Difference between some of the uh food forward restaurants versus one that’s having a hard time meeting their minimum food standards, food require food sales standards. It. Any other questions for? Comm. Cleary. Was any action or what happened cause it sounds like it’s not their first year, not quite reaching that percentage. Was there any discussion or action, the, the previous year.

00:59:22,570	Mayor and Comm., Comm. Cleary, the action stayed at the staff level. It was a conversation between myself and Cory Schick, one of the owners of the business last year.

00:59:41,570	At that time, it was about the same time in the process where we were going through all the renewals, they were The current ownership group was new to the business. They had just purchased it, so they purchased it with the sales already compromised and brought that to their attention. They were well aware of it.

01:00:01,100	It was at that time that the conversation was you need to figure out a way to encourage more food sales and so that’s likely what it prompted the letter that was included with your packet to say they’re doing some catering, they’re doing some sports teams events, but unfortunately, the uh Uh, the situation is what it is right now and that they are just slightly under the um. Maximum threshold or slightly over the maximum threshold for alcohol sales. Comm. Zinker. Mayor Comm.

01:00:23,600	Jason, other than last year when the ownership transition took place, were there any previous years that had. The same issue Mayor and Comm.. The answer would be no if I can say all the way back to 2016. I don’t in 2016 is when I started in administration, uh, prior to that there were no issues and that’s enough history for me.

01:00:44,500	OK, thanks, sir. Any other questions? Um, I mean, I’d have be happy to hear from the applicant if they want to speak or I mean, I think, I think I see them.

01:01:05,200	And so I, I, I asked that they make sure they would be represented because I think it’s only fair we need to just know what their plans are. I don’t from, you know, we have to have a discussion here at the table what action might be, but I would like to hear from them because. I don’t want to be shutting business off for the sake of shutting business off.

01:01:26,600	Right Mayor and commissioners, uh, uh, my name is Ryan Dykert, one of the owners of the pier. Appreciate you letting me come in and and visit. So we did buy the pier, uh, our ownership group about a year ago last July, and that’s when we realized that we were underwater on the food sales, uh, so to say, so we did implement a number of things

01:01:46,830	last year we tried uh uh some specials we tried to buy one, get one free, uh, during the week for lunch and. Some of those things did work and I did bring some numbers.

01:02:07,170	I don’t think Corey had included these in uh in the packet that he had sent, but they, they are a uh annualized for what we have from last July all the way till this this July or the end of June versus last year’s, uh, July to June. So it’s not a full annual year, but, but it’s the uh kind of compares our ownership versus the ownership before.

01:02:30,100	And the ownership before they were uh on the year before or annualized June to July or July to July was, was at 46% food sales to uh to alcohol sales. So, uh, you know, this is what we’re talking about is last year they were underwater on on their sales, so we took over and, and we’ve increased it uh for the year that we had it, we’ve increased

01:02:50,370	our food sales to 49%. Now I understand that’s still 6%. Uh, uh, underwater, um, but we’re off the alcohol sales were $511,584 versus our food sales of $494,041. Um, again, that’s July to, to the end of June here.

01:03:18,770	So, um, what that doesn’t include is, is we have started some substantial catering, um, and that will, will go out through it this year, uh, we have right now commitments of that I’m gonna say 40,000, it’s just shy of 40,000 38, 39,000 in catering committed so far for the through the rest of this year.

01:03:37,430	And that goes I, I, uh, I don’t know if you got a chance to read through the letter I was going to print the agenda packet and I see you guys are busy. It’s almost 1000 pages. Uh, I, I had my hand on the, on the print button.

01:03:52,830	So I don’t know if you guys had a chance to look through that, but we are doing a number of things and catering is one of those things, um, and then we also have event space, uh, that the prior owners, um, I don’t want to say they didn’t utilize it, but I feel they may have underutilized it, so we’ve been utilizing it quite a bit more for, uh, you know, different, uh, uh, events, birthdays, uh, anniversaries, um, some, some, uh, wedding reception type

01:04:14,800	things, so, um. Anyway, I do feel uh it’s gonna be awful close this year if we go this calendar year from January till December and we look at this again, I think we will be very close if not within compliance, um, with, with what we’re doing that that brings a question because one of the things I

01:04:34,500	knowing that this is on the report is done on a calendar year basis and so you’re, you picked up 6 months of Prior to your ownership in this report. So what is January to July or January, excuse me, January to June or January to May of 2023 looked like and compare, excuse me, 2, 2023 to 2024.

01:04:55,870	Yeah, exactly. So, so just to to look the, OK, so I think I, I, I let’s take that short 5 month period where with so we can extract out of.

01:05:17,230	You know, the big the change there might be the, the winter season I’ll call, which is for that for that facility is not the greatest season I get it. Yeah, I understand that the winter season is what kills our food uh sales and we’ve been doing specials that have been increasing it, uh, year over year, so for, for instance, if I just pick uh January of this year, uh, our food sales percentage was 45%, which is

01:05:38,100	10% under uh last year, their December. was 36%. OK, so those, those winter months, uh, they, they do, they are tough on our food sales. We’ve been increasing it, I think with as everyone in business knows, it takes a little while to to change the tide and, and so I think come this winter with the

01:05:59,530	things we’re putting in, it’ll be even higher and then, uh, for instance, here in in June, we were in compliance, it was 58% in June was our food sales. So the summer Time gets quite a bit better for the food sales.

01:06:17,500	But that, that helps me understand knowing that some of the changes you’re making are are taking effect if I look at January to January. And we got increases in 2024 that if that’s 10, almost a 10% swing that’s. That’s gonna help offset, I would hope, I, I would hope to.

01:06:42,070	Do you have questions? No, I think I just was thinking in my head as Ryan was speaking, um, to his point, you know, catering is a huge increase, a huge change to for a business like that, and I think that all of that stuff takes time. You don’t implement something and then overnight it’s gonna change your numbers.

01:06:59,730	Like this, it’s gonna take a year to start to see those changes, so I think hearing that they are working to make them, and they’re not like taking it lying down. I Me, I If anything, maybe we just ask for.

01:07:19,530	You know, a little bit more frequency in their reports we can see that, you know, the compliance we’re working towards compliance, I think would be kind of where like if we’re gonna do something so that we’re, you know, trying to maintain compliance and set an expectation for other businesses that have licenses like this.

01:07:38,170	I think that that would be, you know, good enough, I think with the ownership change and he’s trying to create a new version of of the business so that it can, you know, be compliant. I think that. It’s easy enough to see that that’s gonna take some time and that the progress is being made, so. Other commissioners questions or Comm. Conley. Um We’re also in an environment and stuff, and I’m comfortable, um.

01:08:06,400	With new ownership change and stuff empowering business is a good thing, but our economy has been um significantly challenging and things, um. Whenever something’s purchased, prices go up. You got rid of the Philly burger which is up. bother to me. I really like that. um, but.

01:08:28,300	Uh, in those type of things, but people are finding it hard to go out to businesses appears a little bit out of the way, so you have some things to overcome, um, but one of the things that I noticed that some businesses when I go around back home and stuff, they’ve added like a Sunday brunch area where no alcohol is served, but they’re looking for breakfast locations, something different as they go to their church services and things, just the thought

01:08:48,170	process, but. With being new and trying to go out there and stuff, uh. I would say if we could get quarterly reports, um, to see how that’s tracking. I would make a motion to extend one year. Second, Do we have further discussion, Comm.

01:09:13,700	Zener, so does that motion include renewal and then they have to give a quarter of the reports to administration. Is that what you’re looking at? That’s essentially what I meant in the motion. Appreciate the question, Comm.. Other questions I have a question, is that going to be difficult for you to comply with or for no, no, I think that would be just fine.

01:09:32,370	I, I appreciate it. I think that doesn’t impose any undue stress or anything on us, just a little bit on Corey and, and I think that’ll be all right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah if there’s no other discussion, we’ll call the roll for that. Mr. Cleary? Yes, Comm. Risch, Comm. Zener, Comm. Connelly, Mayor Schmidt, yes.

01:10:03,830	Next item C is a public hearing on Ordinance 6582 on related to the Renaissance zone. Authority and revisions to the Renaissance own plan and support for a 5 year extension of the Renaissance zone, Daniel. Good evening, Mayor commissioners.

01:10:24,630	So, uh, this is really 3 items kind of wrapped into one, it’s a request for an ordinance change, development plan amendments, and then a request for an extension of Bismarck’s Renaissance Zone program. So Bismarck is currently within a one year window for uh the ransom zone program. I’ll give you a little bit of background, uh, about that and then what what’s in these items that are on your table right now.

01:10:40,830	So by state law, uh, the rans zone program needs to be supported by not only the Bismarck City Commission but all taxing entities so that can includes Burley County, Park District School District. So last year, uh, you may remember, we were here at your table requesting a five-year extension. Um, you did give that, um, and the others did as well.

01:10:56,170	Now Burley County had a few conditions. They wanted to make and. So I’ll, I’ll outline what those were, and you did agree to those conditions back in November with a letter of intent, uh, and so what, what those conditions were is that the Burley County, uh, Bismarck school board, uh, Bismarck Parks would also be able to

01:11:14,900	appoint a member to the Renaissance Authority, so they would have some, some buy in and some representation on that board. Uh, the second one is that any modifications to the Renaissanceone development plan would go to all the political subdivisions, um, and the third one is that the product benefits would be changed in the way they’re calculated.

01:11:33,600	Currently, uh, all of the building value is exempted for 5 years and for the tax incentive, uh, this would change it so that only the incremental improvement to the building value would be exempted for that five-year period. So if you have a building being rehabilitated, uh, that existing value that’s in the assess.

01:11:53,970	value, um, records would remain on the tax rolls throughout that five-year period. And then finally, uh, the request was to appoint a member of the Burleigh County Commission to sit on the board in the interim while those changes are being made. That that request has already been met, uh, Comm.

01:12:08,530	Munsen is, is on the Renaissance Zone Authority for this year. So the um So after that point, uh Burley County did give a one year extension for that program, but that is set to end on January 5th of 2025.

01:12:26,400	So we’ve had a little bit of time to work with the Renaissance and authority on the language, uh, to make sure these changes are made, and that’s what we have here. So the the ordinance is very simple, uh, that is basically the authorization authorizing legislation for that zone authority. Um, the only change here is basically stating that the city Comm. is not the only one appointing board members.

01:12:47,300	You’re designating the Renaissance on authority, but, um, basically the way the authority is structured and the way the program functions is referenced in the development plan. So that’s all the ordinance is really doing. It’s just referencing the development plan.

01:13:01,130	Now the development plan um has all the rules and I, and there’s a lot in here and, um, we can certainly talk about whatever you would like, uh, I will just state that we, we did meet all of the requests of Burley County and everything in the letter of intent that’s been met in this development plan.

01:13:16,570	Uh, the Renaissance Authority did hold a public hearing on this on June 13th, and so they do recommend approval of of this development plan. Uh, they also do request a five-year extension of the Renaissance on a program. So if, if you do approve this ordinance and development plan. Amendment, uh, that’s our, our first step.

01:13:33,770	So we would also at that stage, uh, go to the park schools County, and then we would need to go back to the state Department of Commerce and, and then make that formal request to them. Uh, so our timeline is, as I mentioned by June January 5th to have that done.

01:13:48,230	So we’re we have a little bit of time to do that, uh, but the program is up and running at the moment, um, and the request would be to continue that for 5 more years. So if you have any questions I can attempt to answer. Comm. Zenker. I just, Danny, I’m gonna expand just a little bit as to what the Renaissance zone has done in the last, so, um, mayor and Comm.

01:14:05,170	, so on the Renaissance zone, um, authority, we’ve kind of played, we’re already playing by these standards that have already been set and agreed to under the memorandum of understanding. Um, and all those items or projects that come to us, uh, Daniel and his team and, and Ben have done a great job explaining.

01:14:23,230	Um, what has to happen and what’s gonna, what the exemption is moving forward. In fact, At the last meeting we denied a request because it didn’t have an incremental increase. There was by the terms of the board, um, and you could kind of go it was a time thing, but it really wasn’t, it came down to, hey, there was no the valuation is set.

01:14:42,700	There’s no increase in valuation and by those terms we denied that request. So, um, we’ve as. Daniel said we’ve met everything we’ve done, everything we said we’re going to do and um. quote unquote beaten by that drum, so to speak. That’s the path we’re going down.

01:15:03,900	And I just want to give a compliment to Ben and Daniel because they really had to work extremely hard to get this program back to where it is today. It’s not what it was, um, prior to the uh the um denial from the county, but it is a valuable asset for the city of Bismarck. So Comm., wasn’t there? A building that came through for our approval.

01:15:27,330	Within the last, I, I can’t remember which meeting it was, it was last meeting, the meeting before within the last 30 days where we actually have that all those things were applied to that so I’m glad for the community hears this.

01:15:46,070	Yeah, it was, and, and, um, Isaac did a good job of showing what that uh. Tax taxable amount that wasn’t going to be charged right away, it was for, um, and some of that conversation that we had even at the, at the Renaissance zone meeting and you had at the uh uh commission meeting.

01:16:04,300	I had to recuse myself that, but um it was brought up about, hey, why don’t you? You know what is it, the exterior of the building get done? Why doesn’t, why doesn’t a couple of other things happen. If you shrink the the size of the program, you can’t expect to get the entire um. Facility or building updated.

01:16:25,030	Right? Because if you’re only gonna get um a tax break or or a deducting taxes on 35% of the building, let’s say you can’t expect 100% facelift. It just doesn’t, the economics doesn’t work. So I’m glad you brought that up because I wanted to bring up the perspective that we had at the RZ meeting was, hey, yep, we get it, we understand it’d be really nice.

01:16:41,600	I think that that was one of the extra walls that came up on that project. It’d be nice if that was done, but we, you gotta understand the financial side Of it too. So thank you for bringing that up. There’s two reasons for me to bring that.

01:16:55,630	One, to make sure we prove out that we are living within in what are memor memorandum was. Already and to, you know, to understand why sometimes maybe the exterior can’t, can’t be done because there’s so much else inside the building, and all that’s gonna be on whatever, whatever the vision is of the developer, right, right? What, what do they want to do? Maybe there’s something inside that’s really

01:17:16,870	workable and they wanna, they wanna put bling bling on the outside. I don’t, you know, I don’t know. It’s up to them, you know, to be honest with you. So thank you, Comm., for further explaining that. I think Comm.

01:17:32,370	Zenker’s point, it makes a lot of sense where you really have to look at like how you’re increasing your value because that’s now the situation that we’re in. So in certain buildings, even if the outside isn’t as glamorous, it might not actually do much to the value to resurface something or whatever versus the inside might be what’s adding that that tax difference, and then there’s going to be buildings that are vice versa,

01:17:48,970	so I think that like you’re gonna see choices like that made, which I think you saw in that last one, but um I, I agree with Comm. and It’s probably a lot of work and so it’s awesome to see it, it coming back and being used so are there other questions for Daniel before we go to public.

01:18:05,970	On it Thank you. So this is a public hearing, so anyone who wished to speak to this ordinance, um, change, please come forward, state your name. Sign in A 2nd call for public comment. Third and final call for public comment. He didn’t see no further public comment, public comment period is now closed.

01:18:39,000	Commissioners, what are your wishes with regard to these. I guess 3 requests move to approve all three requests as presented. 2. Is there any discussion? Comm. Connelly. I do think that the work that’s been done by the Renaissance Authority and things, this is a step in the right direction because.

01:19:06,870	You’re not taking away from, say, budgetary tax base with it being at the original assessed value. I think that’s a good checks and balance for the citizen and that one thing when I was on the Renaissance authority is is that um like.

01:19:28,170	If a um an appraisal comes in and the value of the buildings this, and then I always ask the question, how do you come up with if you invest this amount of money, it’s going to equivocate to this, and it came across that well. The owner of the building just kind of picks that number arbitrarily because nobody will.

01:19:50,500	Assess the value there, they don’t do it on a house where if I say I’m gonna remodel my basement that they won’t give me a set amount to what that value is, and there’s a little bit of a blind spot there as far as the checks and balances is, I mean, quality title on how that comes out is one example.

01:20:08,300	So, um, Mhm Going forward and things, I think that should be part of the discussion whether um it’s uh Say a county’s assessing department, um, assesses one in the assessment comes from our division as a way to curb costs.

01:20:33,830	I might not be articulating that, right? Um, but, uh, or the appraisal on the front side and the appraisal on the backside, making sure they meet those numbers as derived by the um program. I think that’s needs to be part of the discussion going forward. I don’t. I sense a little bit of um confusion. I’ll give you an example, um. I did a remodel on my home.

01:21:09,100	That’s my experience in that, and bathrooms and kitchens are supposed to be something that about like taxable sales and benefit to the community and things and it does, it’s a lot of money being spent, but it didn’t come out in the valuation side of things, and to avoid that, um, And that want to make sure that the ROI is coming back the way that it’s designed to. Essentially.

01:21:30,670	So just something to add to future discussions. I think I’m understanding I think we probably, I think we have valuation processes or assessing processes in place. Comm., so I mean, right, right, at the end of the day, though, if they don’t meet the state guidelines and the state doesn’t approve it, they don’t get the exemption.

01:21:52,300	You know, so there’s, so obviously everybody knows how the assessment works, we do it, goes to the county, they approve it. I mean, if you want, if if you want the county to give an approval so they would have a little bit more quote unquote skin in the game early on.

01:22:11,970	That’d be a conversation to have with their, their board and and their, uh, um, assessors, you know, um, but Ben and Daniel can can answer this too. I mean, if the, if the receipts. Don’t add up and they’re not what they’re supposed to be and you don’t meet the the threshold, you don’t get the exemption. So Mr Cleary, and I mean, I think.

01:22:34,500	I understand your point, but I, it’s not like they’re pulling those numbers out of. thin air, right? They’re they’re basing them off of, you know, other buildings, other projects like that so they, you know, there’s a method to it, so, and, and to Comm. Zener’s point, like if it doesn’t line up, if it ends up not.

01:22:53,800	Following through then there are gonna be points where those projects don’t qualify then, so that’s the other thing I would, I guess my thought is where I’m struggling with the where the how that works is we have a baseline value that’s based upon. Assessed value before projects start.

01:23:16,300	If after the project is completed, The baseline value goes up 100,000 or 10,000, that probably doesn’t really matter at that point because we’re still collecting at the at this at this level and they they’re not just not gonna get as big a benefit as they may have once got or thought they were gonna get and they still got to qualify for on the state side,

01:23:32,630	that’s a whole different thing from state income tax standpoint. That they got to qualify for, yeah, but that income tax thing is separate from the Renaissance. No, I don’t, yeah, it’s. Two separate things. No. So any No, OK. We call the vote. Comm. Rich, Comm. Zenker. Comm. Connelly. Yes, Comm.

01:24:02,700	Cleary, yes, Mayor Schmidt, yes. Next item D, uh. Requests consider request to receive bids and award contract for street lighting. Suit light and traffic signal Project SV 77 Gabe. Mayor Comm.

01:24:41,270	, uh, street light and traffic signal project 77 is a fiber interconnection project on Century Avenue from Tyler Parkway out to Ithaca and will tie in all those traffic signals together so they can talk to each other and we can talk to them. We opened bids yesterday on this project and we had 2 bidders on the project, one low bidder is Edling Electric with a low bid of $1,288,850 we would recommend approval, uh, to Edling Electric. Take any questions you may have.

01:25:02,100	Commissions any questions. Moved to approve is presented. 2nd. Any discussion He no call roll. Comm. Zenker. Mr. Connelly, Comm. Cleary, yes, Comm. Risch, yes, Mayor Schmidt, yes. I has been withdrawn. IMF has been withdrawn, but I do want to just ask. Um, It’s not ready because after I started to look at it there’s a lot of.

01:25:32,830	Clerical things and things that need to, I think need to be addressed, um, and also I want to compare to the other 7 or 8 cities in the state of North Dakota that have something similar dating back to 1986, but if there are some Comments Um, if, if you could get those thoughts to the administration

01:25:52,570	department so they can maybe incorporate anything related to leadership code and conduct. Um, I would appreciate that. Um Plus we have a topic next that. I think deserves our more a full attention when it comes to the event center, so that this is my request related to item F.

01:26:19,230	Um, next item is event center and next steps and Jason. Mayor and commissioners, um, we’ve got a topic in front of us that uh. I guess we’ll of course going forward and as you’re all aware, we have a department of the city, uh, the Bismarck Event Center that is currently operating with an acting department director, uh, Amanda Yellow has um done a wonderful

01:26:49,870	job stepping forward and continuing to provide her uh leadership in the sales and marketing. role that she holds, but also as the acting uh event center director.

01:27:11,570	Uh, for the past probably 3 months now, um, so going forward, this commission has an opportunity to direct staff and make some decisions on where do we go from here and what do we do to uh ensure that the future of the uh the Bismarck Event Center will be a positive future, one that has a positive impact on our community, and uh as an organization. And so I laid out kind of 5.

01:27:36,170	Suggestions, talking points for you to discuss, uh, not necessarily a specific recommendation from staff, but I think for for the sake of discussion and for those that are watching and listening, I will run through the five points that are here in the memo and then uh be happy to stand for questions. Of course, Amanda is here as well.

01:27:51,330	If you have questions of her uh regarding next steps. Uh, so in no particular order, uh, number one, determine an appropriate job description and qualifications for a full-time event center director. I believe the last time this position would have been evaluated would have been in 2014, 2015 when we did the conre study, uh, Kre looked at.

01:28:15,170	Um, all the job descriptions and made a number of changes and recommendations. Uh, at that time. Option two would be to hire a consultant to evaluate the management and operations of the event center and to provide recommendations on appropriate actions. I’m not sure what the timeline would look like on something like that.

01:28:39,570	Obviously we don’t wanna keep Amanda wearing two hats forever. Um, so out of respect for the work that she needs to do, uh, a consultant could help in that regard, but at the same time it could take 3 to 6 months to have an effective evaluation of what the event center.

01:28:57,770	Uh, is doing, uh, obviously throughout the different seasons, the, the different types of events that happened throughout the year, uh, for a consultant to have a full look at that for 12 months would be great, but also, uh, it’s a long time to continue forward in the manner in which we’re acting right now. Option 3.

01:29:16,430	would be to develop a request for proposals for a third party entity to manage and operate the Bismarck Event Center. Uh, there are other facilities in the region that operate in this manner. Uh, some have been city departments. And then, uh, moved over to a third party management company, and then um the Elaris, for example, I believe, started out with a.

01:29:36,700	Third party management company, then went to a city department and is now back to a third party management company. Uh, Fargo Dome is run through the city of Fargo as a, as a department just like the event center is here.

01:29:57,570	Option 4 would be to develop a request for proposals for capital improvements to the west parking lot directly adjacent to the arena and the exhibit hall and the intent would be to enhance the current amenities offered by the Bismarck Event Center. This one might sound a little strange, uh, might sound a little out of left field, and what I’m referring to here is the parking lot that is directly.

01:30:14,270	East of 5th Street and directly north of Bowen Avenue. This is the surface lot that currently today is uh the only parking area that there is a fee. For parking, it’s a $5 parking lot. Uh Since the, well, since this year, um, probably after.

01:30:38,700	February, I was contacted by a third party group that is actually interested in uh potentially developing that space into something more than just a parking lot today. Uh, what could that be? It could be a complimentary feature that enhances what’s already going on at the event center, not to duplicate, uh, but to provide different offerings.

01:30:59,730	Uh, as you heard, Brendan Agle say earlier, hotel and convention space is obviously something that’s very important to our community, and that could be one of the amenities that is considered at that location. Uh, if you’ll all remember back to a vote that was asked of this community, I believe it was 20.

01:31:18,170	Uh, when was it, 2012, somewhere in there, uh, whether or not the citizens wanted to support a full-blown expansion of the event center or the smaller version, the full blowing option was rejected by voters. There was a smaller expansion that took place.

01:31:37,930	The parking lot that sits there today was part of that bigger expansion vision at that time, um, so that, that site still exists that could be a potential moving forward that would be a fairly bold move for our community. And then, uh, option 5 for your consideration and discussion, and this was something that Amanda had recommended something that she’s seen in other places.

01:32:00,530	I’m familiar with uh other communities that operate similarly would be to establish an event center advisory board, and what would the purpose of that board be? It would basically be community stakeholders that uh tend to benefit from activities at the event center. Uh, representation from the convention and Visitors Bureau, representation from the hotel and hospitality fields, uh, those types of businesses that would generally see an increase in sales when there are events at the event center.

01:32:21,370	That voice is important because it can help guide the choices for future events. They could say, you know, that convention that was here for 4 days really had a positive impact on our sales, on our Visitors, our guests, versus a one night concert that might bring people in from out of town, whether or not those people stay in the hotels, go to the restaurants, go to the

01:32:38,900	stores, I guess that, you know, that would be one consideration for an advisory board. It’s also intended to be a group of people in the know that can help, uh. Encourage some of the, the right decisions being made moving forward to make sure that the event center is.

01:32:57,700	You know, fully functioning and supporting the community as best as possible. Um, so with that in mind, if you have other suggestions, I’d be happy to hear those, be happy to try and answer any questions you have. I’m sure Amanda would be more than happy as well to offer her thoughts and Feedback as well.

01:33:21,000	Commissioners, do you have questions of Jason? Or Amanda, she’s here, so Comm. Zinker. Mayor commissioners, so along with the 5 items that are here, I think one item that we need to discuss is we need to understand what the economic impact is for the event center and the bell and the exhibit halls, so I would add that to the list of of items that we

01:33:38,370	may consider. Um, just because. We, we’ve had some discussion and it’s about is this, is this uh event too small, or this one not big enough, you know, is there some bigger things that we could do. I think we need to understand.

01:33:59,370	What that those facilities do for our city from a, from an economic impact side of things and and I don’t disagree. I think if we were to go down a consultant route, I would expect that to be part of.

01:34:15,370	What we would, we would want to ask of them, but it wasn’t explicitly said in there, yep, and I would um I would, the other thing we’re gonna have to think about. Is, um, that convention space, um, and what it, by not having it. What is, what is that negatively impact our. Our city.

01:34:38,970	If we would have it, what’s the, what’s the outcome of having that space, right? Right now we don’t have things and just as, um, Brenda said they drive by Bismarck to to go east probably to have certain kinds of um of events or conventions, so, um, and I have heard that we need a convention space even prior to being elected in 18, you know, so, um, there are some hotels that that had some of those spaces, some of those.

01:35:00,800	or maybe the events have outgrown those type of things. I don’t, I don’t get into the nuts and bolts of some of that, but um, I think we need to understand what that piece of the puzzle is that we don’t have and and the importance it is or maybe not important to the city, so. Thank you, Comm.. Well, Comm.

01:35:17,370	Connelly. This might be just a little talking outside the box and things, um, but for Um,,,,, 23 and 4 including what Comm. Zenker was mentioning. Instead of choosing a lane to where we’re singling ourselves out. Just down a course of action knowing that we’re all trying to get to the same outcome.

01:35:43,670	Could we do something similar to what we did during the call for projects and ask people to submit proposals on all three levels, and it might give us a little bit more insight to what is actually out there to uh guide our next decisions, and then in the interim, we work on 1 and 5, because we can’t stop operating. During that time.

01:36:08,630	And maybe we get some, like you said, somebody came to you and uh talk to you about the space of the parking lot. Well, I’ve heard during our subcommittee that there are entities out there that had offered other ideas on all three of those areas, and I didn’t know any specifics, but have them come

01:36:29,000	and present to us. Is that possible or is that just? I, I, I think that’s why there are 5 topics here listed and and I I I actually think number 5 is something that probably needs to happen. Almost regardless of whatever the other choices are, I think there’s significant value to have in this advisory.

01:36:53,500	Group of individuals that are impacted by things that happen in town and at the event center anyway, um, but that’s, you know. We’re at a point where I, you know, bold steps may need to be taken and that might be how we get bold steps. Mr. Rush.

01:37:13,230	You know, I’m comfortable with 124, and 5, but I think number 3 is a little premature to put out an RFP. My thoughts on it. Comm. Cleary, I To to elaborate on Comm. Risch, um, I think that it would, it would be hard to jump to 3 without doing some version of 2, but I think to Comm.

01:37:40,500	Connelly’s point, if we can internally have staff be working on 1 and 5. And if there’s some version of like a call for projects. That kind of the projects could look anything like 23, and 4. And see what comes of it.

01:38:03,900	Could be like an external step while we do the internal steps of like working on the job description and creating an advisory board. I mean, I think you could kind of like split those in two directions. I don’t know if that call for projects would be too vague, Jason, but I mean, it’s, I guess a thought that could work. Mr. Connelly.

01:38:25,500	Uh, commissioner’s mayor, um, even with the 3, maybe knowing that there’s options out there and maybe they haven’t come forward yet, but if somebody came and chose to offer up a plan to say, Will hire what the current staff are, and this is what it could look like if it remains part of the city, or this is what it would look like if it

01:38:43,470	all absorbs under a private entity. We don’t know if they presented a really good idea and it gave us that option to turn into that asset for the community that we want. That might turn into a A special thing Marriages commissioners um I’m not, I’ve said from. A while long to back.

01:39:07,500	I’m, I’m not a. I’m not in favor of any type of item 3. I don’t think we need a third party. I think our staff down there has done a fantastic job since this whole thing started and I would, I would really, really be very, very disappointed if a third party came in here and treated

01:39:25,700	them like numbers. I’d have a really, really hard time with that. So I. I think we need to give some direction as to how we want to go, um. And I I like the idea of a consultant if we can find or a call for project just globally that would incorporate.

01:39:54,600	You know, how do we operate. is there some things we can do from around the uh parking lot that’s adjacent to it on the west side. To develop additional amenities that will help the event center. Have more attractions, um. Whether there’s a third party or another individual comes in who is hired as the event center director.

01:40:21,730	I think there’s a significant amount of work that needs to be done to that expectations for that position, call it a job description, call it an expectations, um.

01:40:41,970	They might all be all things that need to be looked at from the consultant side because we know that what has been going, what has been operating hasn’t been exactly the most successful at this point in time, and we do know that there are other facilities in our region that have been successful. Now some of them operate similar to ours, so some of it might be their capacity or what they have around them.

01:40:55,300	Some of them might just be that they have a hotel that accommodates people. I, I think that’s a big holdback for us, to be honest. That’s outside of the purview of the event center.

01:41:11,270	Sure, and some of it may be some supplemental funding that they get to from sales tax dollars and those types of things and that might be what we find from the consultants, right, that says hey we gotta do something. Do you think it’d be prudent to bring Amanda up and and have her maybe. I mean if I thought somebody said that didn’t you say Jason, that item 5 that Amanda was working on that already.

01:41:28,370	Amanda had suggested the advisory board she and I had met last week prior to composition of the memo and and just talk through the ideas and and that was something that came forward that other communities are doing successfully like like like like I talked to her about it on Wednesday too, so I think it was Wednesday, Wednesday or Thursday last week, I lost track of days.

01:41:45,970	I guess it wasn’t Thursday. That was the 4th. Thank you, Mayor Commissioners. Um, yeah, I guess first off, I just want to thank you guys for bringing us to the table as a discussion. Obviously, we’ve been, um, moving forward and we’ve never been broken throughout this whole process, and we’ve been moving forward.

01:42:05,830	However, I do think changes should be considered, um, with the community focused in, in mind, obviously, that’s what our event center is, is for, and that’s what we do the best of is serving our community and region and, and nation and nation. Um, I honestly am open to.

01:42:28,730	Looking at ideas um within all of these on behalf of the staff, we’ve had some concerns, um, and open discussion about third-party entities, that is one that has, has raised some flags just out of protection of their jobs, protection of what does that look like for them as a, a current city employee with their, their benefits, um, pensions, things that they get right now, and what could that look like, um, with a different

01:42:46,370	company managing them. I think they’re open to hearing about it. It’s just. Having that comfort of what’s this going to mean for the future. Um, one other thing I definitely want to bring up to is our building is Definitely gone through the cycles of now being at the point where we need maintenance.

01:43:06,330	We’ve had deferred maintenance for many, many years, um, in our, and it’s just kind of been overlooked or been passed on from, um, budget cuts or, or different things that have, have caused it to not happen. And I think that’s something that we really need to look at is we have a great facility, we have a great location.

01:43:23,270	Uh, we get compliments all the time from conferences, conventions as to where we’re located and we just need to put some, some energy and time and, and Money into that space because we can, we can make it a little bit bigger and better for everybody and um attract those national, um, conferences and some of

01:43:39,300	those that just drive by us right now because. We have a place and we have staff, we just need to make it shine a little bit more. Questions for Amanda.

01:43:55,170	I, I kind of asked you this last week, but I, I know you would be willing to help if we start with the advisory board and and. Put something if we did a call for projects type of thing together, would you be a willing participant with Jason and, and that administrative staff to. Work on that whoever you needed from your team.

01:44:14,100	Absolutely, and I actually have already reached out to the Elas Center and the Fargo Dome, and I have copies of both of their bylaws and I’ve talked to directors of both buildings and have had conversations about what is kind of the main role of that board, is it more advisory, you know, how often do they meet? Who are the members that make up that board, um, what is their direction that they’re

01:44:30,500	able to provide to the event center and then what is the direction that they have to then provide to the Um, and what do they get to be a part of, so yes, I’ve already got some research done on that, but more can be done. Mr. Connelly.

01:44:52,830	Um, I appreciate that you’re doing that backdrop and things and um when you’re saying concern for pensions and those type of things, um, and I do too have concerns with the third party or 3 being in there. It’s just been a decade of concern over time.

01:45:14,700	So how do we get that next best answer for Bismarck? How do we get that next best answer for our community. And so I’m a little bit remiss in the sense that if we Take one element out.

01:45:31,930	Um, versus putting it out there for an all hands on deck answer to get to that next step, so we can close that gaps and overcome some of those things that we just went through a very hard process to get, um. That’s why maybe put some guard rails on it where the third party option, their bar is going to be at a higher standard because there’s enough people within this decision-making process.

01:45:54,830	Their answer might come as a no if they don’t come out with that extraordinary plan that gets us closer to that community goal, like, say, If the staff and employees were um part of their answer. How do they answer this question, this question, this question, so we can turn that page.

01:46:18,900	And so instead of taking it out now at this point is let’s keep it all on the table and let’s see what comes out and so we can get to that next step, if that makes sense. Other questions for Amanda? Not specifically no. Thank you, Amanda. I know you came in just for us tonight, so I did, yes, that’s all right. Happy to be here. So can we, we have an ability to give some direction to to Jason and team.

01:46:48,300	He commissioners, I think what I heard is 124 and 5. Leave the 3 off the table, 3 would be the uh developer request for proposals for a third party entity to manage and operate the Bismarck Event Center.

01:47:09,030	1 and number 5 would be uh to evaluate the job description for the event center, and then also to uh work on establishing an advisory board, those two things immediately and then items 2 and 4, maybe a hybrid of hiring a consultant to evaluate the management operations of the event center and provide recommendations on a Appropriate actions and the number 4 would be uh develop a request for proposals for capital improvements to the

01:47:28,770	west parking lot directly adjacent to the arena and the exhibit hall to enhance the current amenities offered by the Bismarck Event Center. I think that’s correct because I think that. If we take 3 off the table right now.

01:47:48,670	2 is gonna, if we end up with a consultant, it could bring us to some version of 3. You know, after we go through that process of learning more of what is needed from a consultant. I think that’s the only time that I. want to maybe move that way is if if it’s looking like it’s the best option according to more research done, I guess, and then I think to Comm.

01:48:09,930	Connelly’s point, there’s probably a lot of versions of what a third party looks like, but I think, but I think the consultant is probably the first step of taking a look at like what is needed.

01:48:26,700	And If one of the options of things that’s needed is a third party, we think we can go that direction then, I don’t think we should do it right now. I think it feels like we’re like jumping a step. Yeah Commission. Connelly, do you have? Anybody else have any thoughts? So there are a few things that still need to be addressed at the event center. I mean, Amanda brought it up already.

01:48:43,730	The building needs. I need some work. Um, I’ll, I’ll just put this out there. I mean, last year at the budget time we approved um $4.5 million to replace.

01:49:04,630	The bleachers that hasn’t been done yet because we’ve been kind of in this holding pattern, um, to see what’s the next steps are, uh, quite honestly that in my opinion, if we’re not gonna do a much bigger, um, scenario, we, we still need to do something with those, with those bleachers. I mean, the, the team down there has to, I mean, it’s a, it’s a lot of work to get them to be functionable.

01:49:21,430	You know, so, um, but we, I think we need to take a deeper look into. What they have to do today to. And what they can get what we can approve for them to do so that they can keep moving forward, Comm.

01:49:38,770	, maybe that’s something you and Amanda got to sit down with the team and we get caught up to some of those thoughts, but I mean I I’ve looked through that capital CIP and I think there are some projects that we need to take a look at, no question about that. And that will be part of our budgeting process, I think that’s that we have to get through.

01:49:55,900	And some of it may still have to happen yet in this. Calendar year. I don’t know if we can get done this calendar year or not, there’s some, there are some of those CAPs that were approved last year though, so I just, I just don’t know if we, you know, we’re gonna get moving on those, but, um, we’ll be having more discussions around that

01:50:11,030	definitely. Because we did talk about that also last week. So does that, do you have comfort in the direction, Jason Mayor and commissioner’s comfort in the direction I guess my only question would be what would you like to see and when? You, you don’t want the answer..

01:50:36,100	22 weeks is probably the answer that I’m not looking for, but I go ahead I think items 1 and 5, you can come back in 2 weeks and you know we’re not looking for a grand slam here. Get us a couple of singles and let’s get moving forward. And then, you know, if we can start developing.

01:50:52,300	So like maybe by mid-August we have. I would love to have the consultant maybe before that good going because I think that’s a key component, but it’s gonna be hard to turn it that much faster than that. Yeah, it’s just gonna be, I mean, it’s just gonna be harder to turn them, but yeah.

01:51:08,700	So, but we can maybe get the RFP out. Are you, are you good good with that. So we will come back in a couple of weeks with some recommendations for a job description and a little more information on an advisory board and we will get started working on.

01:51:29,500	Uh, what it could take to bring a consultant in and well before we push that out we’ll bring it back to this group again so probably. 2 weeks for the uh job description and the advisory board, and then another two weeks beyond that, so 4 weeks from now for the rest of the information. That sounds fair? Yes, you do that. Thank you.

01:51:47,700	All right, um, we have an executive session, but I’m going to ask if there’s any other business before we go to that. So if there’s members here that. Does anyone else have anything for other business today? If not, um, we have an executive session.

01:52:10,700	Is there someone who’s willing to make the motion? I would move to request to enter an executive session under North Dakota Century Code Section 44-04-19.2 regarding easement negotiation strategy under North Dakota Centric code. 44-04-19.1. Second, discussion. Hearing we call roll. Mr. Connelly. Yes, Mr Cleary, Yes, Comm. Risch. Comm. Zenker. Yes,