00:00:04,370	It’s July 23rd, 5:15 were the Tom Baker room of the City County building in Bismarck, North Dakota. This is the city of Bismarck Border commissioners, regular meeting, but before we start, we’ll have an invitation from Chaplain Paul Hare. He could come forward, please.

00:00:33,300	Would you join me in prayer? The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and great and loving kindness. The Lord is good to all. And his mercies or over all his works, all your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and your godly one shall bless you. He shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and talk of your power.

00:00:51,370	To make known to the sons of men your mighty acts and the glory of the majesty of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. And your dominion endures throughout all generations. Father, we thank you that you as an eternal great mighty, all powerful God are here and present among us. Thank you God for caring for us, for loving us.

00:01:16,030	Thank you for blessing us. Thank you for giving us the, the freedoms and the joys that we have in this world. And Lord, I would pray. That tonight is the commission meets. You would Guide Their thoughts You would guard Each of them as they interact with one another as the public interacts with them.

00:01:46,070	Father, thank you for the privilege that we have to live in this country. And I would pray, Lord, that you would give us a spirit of humility. Give us a spirit of peace. Help us this evening to be thinking of one another. Our brothers or sisters. That have been made in your image as well.

00:02:08,300	Who are worthy of dignity and respect and so might that be the. What flows through our communication. This evening. Father, we thank you for this great city that we live in and our commissioners who have the opportunity and the privilege and honor to lead us. And to help us. As we continue day by day. Thank you, Lord.

00:02:34,000	For our first responders. Father, I’m so grateful. For each and every one. For the sheriff’s department, for the police department, for the fire departments. Lord, for the, for metro, for those that work in the call centers. Father, they give of their time. To help. Each of us in our need.

00:02:57,770	Would you bless them? Would you protect them? Lord, this Time is committed Into your care and into your keeping. May all that be said and done bring honor and glory to you in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Savior, whose name I pray. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

00:03:30,030	And to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, sir. We will call our meeting to order if we can call roll. Comm. Risch. Here Zenker. Connelly here Cleary. Here Mayor Schmidt.

00:04:08,100	He We’re at the point in our agenda where we have public comment, public comment is restricted to the items on the consent agenda or regular agenda if there’s anyone who wishes to speak, please come forward, state the topic to which you’re speaking about and give you your name. And sign in, please. A second call for public comment. A 3rd and final call for public comment. Hearing and seeing no, go ahead. Oh, I’m so sorry.

00:04:44,870	I’m online, um, I would like to speak on the home-based business ordinance, but I was wondering, does that happen now or does this happen at During the regular agenda. We have a public hearing on that ordinance, so it would be at that point in time. All right, I just wanted to double check. Thank you so much. Right.

00:05:06,130	Any, is there anyone else wish to speak to a different topic. Hearing and seeing on, we will close the public comment period. Um, Commissioners, what are your wishes with regard to the consent agenda? Moved to approve is presented. Second, Is there any discussion? Mary Nunn will call roll. Comm. Zenker. Comm. Connelly, Comm. Cleary. Yes, Comm. Risch.

00:05:45,470	Mayor Schmidt. Yes. Moving to the regular agenda, we receive a report from Bismarck Mandan Convention Visitors Bureau. Sherry Grossman, I believe, is presenting. Thank you. Um, good evening, Mayor and commissioners. My name is Sherry Grossman, and I am the CEO for the Bismarck Command and Convention and Visitors Bureau.

00:06:09,830	Thank you for allowing me to be here this evening to give you an update on our activities and the opportunity to show you our visitors and the economic impact they have on our economy. So just to give you, let you know our mission, our mission is to promote engaging visitor experiences resulting in community economic growth and quality of place.

00:06:28,970	So one of the things I’d like to talk to you about is our partner grant. It is very successful. We’re in the 2nd year of that in 2023 we provided nearly 70 grants.

00:06:46,670	This year we just completed our second process of that, and we gave out 100 grants to meet in events that are held here in Bismarck Mandan. The goal is to provide financial assistance to qualified groups that promote our community by hosting events that provide an economic benefit to our community, so they must attract out of town visitors and the funds can be used for. marketing operations. As I mentioned, we have two cycles per year.

00:07:04,700	Just briefly to let you know, um, we also have 5 gaming sites. We currently manage stadium, sports, bar and lodge, Quality Inn, and the Comfort Lounge. Radisson Hotel and off-Broadway Lounge, Bismarck Hotel and Nichols Lounge, and in March we started at the Blarney stone pub.

00:07:24,370	At all of these, we offer blackjackepo tabs, paper pull tabs with a goal of providing excellent customer service. So I’m gonna give you a little bit of recap on our marketing, um, for last year. Our digital marketing campaign demonstrated. Great success. We served over 30 million digital impressions to leisure travelers, meeting planners, and sports event planners.

00:07:47,400	We use different tactics to display video, CTV, email and social media and that resulted those directly resulted in 357,000 visits to our website and over 2300 requests for visitors guides. Our paid media contributes to 40% of all our website traffic last year, which is an increase of 18% over the year before.

00:08:09,770	So this next thing I want to talk about, we’re kind of excited about, but, um, last year we started working with a company called Zardeo. So Zardeco was a destination operating system that features a propriety integrated data model comprising the highest frequency and highest resolution geolocation, spending, and event data. And for both residents and visitors of all types.

00:08:32,170	So they use a whole lot of different resources such as data points, merchants categories relevant to the visitor economy, cardholder demographics, including age, household income, geolocation data, um, and of course, we provide them with um event data and our lodging data. And historically it goes back 3 years.

00:08:52,430	So at any time we can pick a set of dates and do a comparison back to 3 years. Um, for example, it’s not just all credit cards how they track you like the weather app. They have access. To the weather app. So you open the weather app when you’re in the event center, and we can now track you throughout the community. The data is very fresh.

00:09:08,430	It usually lags only about 2 weeks behind and we can put in any set of dates and just get a wealth of information and we use this data to help us make better marketing decisions. I know Lindsay and I used it quite a bit when we reviewed the grant.

00:09:23,900	A lot of people don’t maybe know if their event has an impact and if they’d say, well, we have 5000 people here last year and we go on and look at those dates and we’re like.

00:09:37,470	We’re not really seeing much of any activity here, you know, maybe they were locals or maybe they were off on their numbers, so it kind of helps guide our decision a little bit. So we’re going to give you an overview of the visitor profile from January 1st through December of last year. Now, one thing to keep in mind with their data is this is not all visitors. They get all this information and they do a sampling of it.

00:09:55,430	So this is a sampling, not visitors, all visitors. So, um, visitors accounted for 30.4% of the total devices during 2023. The visitors spending was 16.3% of the spending in our community and the average visitor spent $167. Now, that’s card swipe. That’s not how many times that’s not their total expenditures. That was the average card swipe was $167.

00:10:23,800	And then I think it’s kind of, it was an interesting fact for us that over 50% of our visitors were from out of state. So bringing out of state money into our community. So this next one shows you where the visitors are.

00:10:38,630	Coming from now I know that first one looks a little confusing because it says my not Bismarck and Dickinson. That’s how the credit card and all these companies report for us, Bismarck is excluded on there. Our data excludes anyone. They have to be 50 miles out of Bismarck for them to be included, and they exclude people that commute.

00:10:59,070	They know when your phone rests here for long periods every day that you’re commuter and so they’re excluded from that and again the spending on the side is average card swipe, not total. Expenditures So what are they doing when they’re here and what’s a little bit about? So 54% of our visitors last year were between 25 and 54 years old.

00:11:23,030	17% of the cardholders had an annual income of over $100,000 and 46% of them had children, so that helps us know we probably want to target some of our advertising towards families. So where did they go when they were here? So if you, so we have north, south, Bismarck, Downtown, and Man Dam.

00:11:41,370	So North is everything north of Boulevard, South is everything south of front. So the event center, the mall, that’s all in South. Now we are working with them when we’re seeing this data, north is so high, so we’re gonna do another breakdown for north from like Boulevard to Century so we can kind of separate out that area and once they do that historically our data will all

00:11:58,370	be updated to that. So our visitors 45.7 went to North Bismarck, 27.9 South downtown, which is a very small area, um, 15.7 and 10.7 was man down. So where are they spending their money while they’re here? Um, no surprise, probably 45.7% was food, 18.5 is gas and service station, 17.1 retail and 14.8 accommodation.

00:12:31,970	Um, and, and now to keep in mind that accommodation, our numbers were probably much higher than that if they use Expedia or or one of those, um, other third parties, that transaction happens in another city or another. State. So the transaction isn’t here, we get the money here, but the transaction doesn’t occur here.

00:12:54,300	So the average accommodation swipe was 314 um retail 155, food 102 and outdoor recreation 94. So as far as the impact goes on specific um industries, so 30% of the business at our restaurants were visitors. The average card swipe in a restaurant was 103.

00:13:19,670	Um, the visitor impact on retail was 17% with $155 that average card swipe. And then here in the lodging, as I mentioned, that would probably be, um, a little bit higher than that. And the 25% for attractions with being $65 that’s kind of nice to see because some of ours are free, the Heritage Centre is free, the capital’s free.

00:13:36,000	So it’s nice to see that they’re doing, um, Fort Lincoln or the zoo and um get rid of science, some of those that you do have to pay for. So now this next one is, is kind of fun, but so we all know we had a lot of visitors here for the Wilston Basin conference.

00:13:52,500	So we thought you’d like to see how they move through our community and how our visitors aren’t just in one spot. So the conference was May 13th through the 15th. So this time lapse is actually the 12th through the 16th showing a little 18th, sorry, a little before and a little after. So once we start this, the blue. Or in-state visitors.

00:14:11,700	The out of state visitors are orange and the green is local. When it’s white, visitors and residents overlap. So we’ll just start that it starts out a little bit slow because it’s starting out a couple days before, but you can see the time at the bottom and we’re still on the 12th and the conference started on the 13th.

00:14:30,900	So now you’re the 13th and you can see how. They certainly just don’t stay by the event center. They’re all over our community. And you can kind of see in the evening and it kind of picks up the next day. We can’t do this for every group.

00:14:51,200	We get 2 or 3 a year within our contract, but we thought this would kind of, um, be a fun way to show you the importance of visitors and how they. Go through our entire Bismarck and Mandan and north and south. So the next thing I’m going to show you, um, this is not our data. This data is provided by North Dakota Tourism Division.

00:15:12,230	This is not a sampling. This is the actual data. They have a turtle, sorry, tourism satellite account that provides the detailed measure of the tourism’s economic impact in North Dakota. And these dollars are on here or in the millions.

00:15:33,800	So you can see North Dakota as a whole, the tax revenue was 307 million Burleigh County was 47. 74 million now. This is every county, so the average county in North Dakota had an 8.8. 0% growth. We had a growth, but we only had 3.7 and we’re the second largest, um, community, obviously in the state, Fargo had a huge growth, so with it’s nice that we had growth, but.

00:15:59,030	this does probably point as an indicator that we need to increase our product such as places to stay and experiences to be sure we’re getting our fair share of the market.

00:16:14,500	If some are having a a higher I know Fargo had a pretty high percentage on there, and we need to be sure that we’re doing what we can to make sure we’re not losing the visitors or they’re just kind of quickly coming through Bismarck. So I’m gonna quickly move into 2024 and our hotel occupancy.

00:16:33,170	So as you can see, we started the low the year out with decreases our January, February, and March, we were below the year before, but since April, we have been increasing in ahead of last year as you get a little further, you’ll see we started our leisure marketing in the spring and it it is coinciding nicely with this going up. Now of course we would expect me to be higher than last year’s May with the Wilston Basin conference.

00:16:47,730	I think we’d all be in trouble if it didn’t, but, um, May was 73%, an increase of 14%. 4 over the year last year. So even though we started the year down low. We are still, um, now, year to date, we’re up 3.

00:17:05,770	2% over last year and what what one really nice thing is to see is the average daily rate that has a 5.7% increase and we really, that really went down after COVID and, and it’s we we need to keep that back up. People are paying it in other cities in North Dakota, so we should be having our our market the same so it’s nice, um, to see that.

00:17:25,170	Um, so I’m gonna move into some of our 2024 marketing results. Ads are agency of record and they produced our plan and provided us with these statistics. So our leisure traveler we market to outdoor enthusiasts, family travelers, and weekend getaways. We target North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, but we exclude the Bismarmandden area.

00:17:49,030	And we do that March 13th through August 13th. And then for our meetings, conventions, we target, we do it at a certain age demographic and then we also target things that we feel would fit well within our facilities that we do most of the year and we target that to North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Montana,

00:18:09,770	and Denver, Chicago, and Dallas. So the way we do that, um, we do print, very little print, um, just a couple of things. Billboards out of home, digital display, digital video, digital email and social. So I’m just going to show you a couple of our creative things, um, not all of them.

00:18:29,700	Um, these are a couple, um, 11 of these, the first one is targeting outdoor enthusiasts, and the second one is targeting family fun. So I just thought you’d probably like to see a couple of those. This next one we’re really excited about it. This is something New for us.

00:18:46,100	This is a bus rap in the Minneapolis area, in the Minneapolis area. It’s the southwest route in Minneapolis. So if you’re in Minneapolis this summer and you look, uh, maybe you’ll see our bus, so we also have an elevator wrap there uh in the, in the transit area for where people get on and off. So we’re excited about this.

00:19:02,100	This is something we haven’t been able to do before and we’re excited to see what kind of exposure that gives us. And then just quickly to show you these next two, so we provide, we place the appropriate based on the market, for example, in Fargo, we’re probably not gonna necessarily advertise our downtown, um, or shopping because Fargo does have a fair

00:19:22,370	amount of that. So we try and target something different. Pierre, they’re another capital city, we’re trying to target, you know, a capital city to a capital city, so we try and show them a different experience and what they might be already having or something that maybe goes what they like.

00:19:40,670	So just to give you, we have some results already for this campaign. So this is our, our, um, media campaign up through July 18th. I’m not going to go through all these statistics because I have a lot of here, but you can see the amount of impressions, clicks, click through rate, and video completion.

00:19:58,700	The real, one of the important things for us is to click through rates and video completion. So, um, the overall on the top, I click. Through rate is 0.5% and the average is 0.08. And then, um, in the middle part you see the the on the display ones, the click through was 0.13, ours, the average is 0.08.

00:20:22,770	And then on the bottom, our video completions is our videos were 2.6 and the completion rate was 90%. So that’s what we’re really targeting for. They like what they’re seeing and they continue, you know, how we all just click out of it when it starts on there, so our goal is that they continue that so our our media plan is always fluid.

00:20:39,230	We’re we’re watching it constantly and if something isn’t producing, we pull it and move it to another market. So just to give you some specifics, um, we’ve got breakdowns from Meta, YouTube, and LinkedIn. So Meta, our click through rate was 1.66 with the average 0.89% and we show you the good with the bad.

00:20:58,430	Our YouTube was a little bit less, um, our click through rate was 0.06 and the average is 0.35. So we were lower on that, um, but our completion rate was still 4.6, which is still pretty decent on that. LinkedIn, our click through rate was 1.15% with The national average being 0.38.

00:21:19,900	Um, this next page shows you the location of the ads and the results. So you can see, um, the top ones were North Dakota, Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin had the highest.

00:21:40,200	I think what’s kind of interesting is these top markets, the top 10, all had a completion rate of over 80%, so most of the people when they clicked on it, they finished watching it, they finished looking at it. And. So then on the next page you’re gonna see the results from that. That’s what we love about all this stuff is that it’s so trackable. So this isn’t a guess either these.

00:21:59,830	This tracks the devices that were open the ads and these devices physically came to our community. Um, so you can see the graph at the top at May 12th, it starts to go up for the summer and that coincides with when our leisure advertising was implemented. So our ads produced 57,412 arrivals to our community.

00:22:23,470	So down there you can see the, the top, um, arrivals restaurants had 4800 shopping, of course, had the largest amount sports and music you had quite a bit, um, state and local parks and, um, museums and heritage. Same thing, they have to be more than 50 miles out. They have to visit one of our. Points of interest that we have established on there.

00:22:41,530	So if they just come here and don’t do anything, they’re not tracked. So lastly, everyone always asks me what’s coming here, what’s happening that we don’t know about. So we just wanted to mention a few that are new or new because they haven’t been here for a couple of decades.

00:23:01,370	Uh, so the first one is the North Dakota Rough Rider Cup Rodeo that will be here this summer, sorry, September. This is the first time of hosting, and they plan to make that an annual event. Um, the Mountain Plains Museum Association will be at the Bismarck Event Center. They were here before, but it was 24 years ago.

00:23:18,530	And the interesting, I think it’s kind of an interesting story about that is we brought the Guy, the meeting planner rainforest site visit and we took them around and of course, he toured the event center because that’s where they’re going to have it and of course the Heritage Center is beautiful and he’s all about museums and he planned on doing another site visit after he left and when our staff was

00:23:33,930	taken to the airport, he said, you know what? I’m canceling that other site visit. We’re just going to come here. So that’s what we want. They come here, they, they see what we have and they make the decision and. Um, the National walleye Tournament, um, that is going to be here in 2025.

00:23:49,970	They’ll be launching from Marina Bay. And a lot of that will be televised, so we’re going to get a lot of TV coverage over that. Bismarck Gymnastics Academy will be hosting the 2026 State USA Jim championship meet here for the first time. This is not high school activities, this is one, a separate one.

00:24:08,670	They it’s a growing event. They expect we’ll have over 600 athletes and then the spectators, so they’re kids, so their parents and families will come. USA Patriot kids camp, um, that’s a weeklong camp for kids with amputations or limb loss.

00:24:29,970	Um, we have supported uh uh softball team that comes to McQuaid’s every year, the Patriots team, they will be here along with this group as well. Capital Curling Club will host a USA Curling National Championships at Capital Ice Sports Complex, although we’ve had a lot of curling tournaments. We have not had a nationals since 20 years ago.

00:24:48,330	So that, I was kind of fast because I had a lot of information, but can I answer any questions? Yes, Comm., the spending, where you, you start out the average spending is that per day or per 3 day visit or how, how do you do the stuff that I was, um, that was a per click, per click.

00:25:09,970	So the, the average spending would be much higher than that, but that was just like the average that one person, that one family did. And we can, I like to give you an example, I, I didn’t give you like a meeting expenditures last year, um, of the groups we work with, and the reason I say that there’s a lot of meetings that we don’t work with.

00:25:28,700	If they’re a small group and they’re just in a hotel and they don’t need our services, we probably don’t spend time on that, but we work with at least 300 a year. So last year the meetings, conventions that we worked with, um, their total dollar spent for that was 23.5 million. Conservatively, I’d say.

00:25:50,570	Sure, this is Mayor Schmidt’s one question I have, and it’s probably just more for clarification, so I understand and others do, you show the top arrivals by destination category, but that could be one person could actually in theory, hit all of those, is that not correct? Exactly. Yep, that is true, um, Mayor. Uh, Comm. Connelly.

00:26:13,500	Um, on the pages when you were talking about average spend per visitor and things, and the first one where the uh larger number is it says 167 and then on the next page where it has all of the communities together, it says 287.

00:26:32,770	So that is probably, um, we did use a couple of different ways as we brought it in, um. I’m not sure, are you on the stuff that well when you’re talking about an average, that’s a significant difference, the 167 versus 287. Are they back on these. I do that. I’ll find it.

00:27:08,530	Once the visitor profile for January of year 23 and the next one is where do your visitors come from and the very last item is the dollar amount. So this is the average, so the, the second one that it has those cities written out, those are the average that came from that city, the overall average would be the 167.

00:27:30,970	They’re just saying the average of the people from Fargo spent that amount, the average of people from Denver spent that. But if we, and these are just the top ones, that’s not everyone. So if you take up all of them and average together, it’s 167. And then, um, When it says like the digital marketing campaign and things, how much are we spending for that campaign versus getting that average.

00:27:53,370	You know, I don’t. Have that they did show how much we spend per click. I just didn’t put that on there because it was a lot of data, but I can, I can actually get you the data and saying for this particular stuff, what it costs for each of those, we do have that.

00:28:10,200	I just don’t have that with me because it’s, it’s different for each whether you’re doing the the Facebook or LinkedIn or meetings and you know, it’s all different, but for this data I presented, I do have that and I can provide that.

00:28:25,830	And then a third portion if you’re comfortable and stuff a little bit separate from this because you and I. Talked on the phone and that a bit, you mentioned the grants as far as spent in this area and then also in our conversation we talked about um rental assistance as far as how that works. Can you explain that? Sure.

00:28:49,930	So, um, The grants are for groups that were not providing money to otherwise, um, so we work with a lot of groups and we provide financial systems to a lot of them, these grants are. In addition to what we already provide so for groups big and small, the ones that we’ve established and are working with through the years.

00:29:07,600	We didn’t have a grant program until a couple years ago, but so for those that are here every year, whether it be safety council or long-term care or the high school activities we’ve already established amounts and we’re already giving them money.

00:29:26,330	Um, many of them we help with the rent for the event center or um if they’re using other facilities as well, a lot of the sports facilities or the high school gym. So that is in addition to that, we provide other results that we’ve already established. Many of them, it’s At the time of the bid. Um, these groups don’t automatically come here and every other place in the city and surrounding states tries to get that business.

00:29:46,500	So we have to bid for some of these, like 2 or 3 years out. So our commitments are put in at the time of the bid, and they, they’re based on a variety of things, um, what they provide to our community, are we at risk of losing them? Is someone else trying to get them? We, we,

00:30:01,900	we. Nothing’s not equal. We put a lot of thought into um what we do. Thank you. All right, thank you. Thank you Sherry Next item is a public hearing for a new class I2 complimentary alcohol license. This is a public hearing, so anyone who wished to speak on this topic, please come forward, state your name, sign in.

00:30:37,770	Second call for public comment. Third and final call for public comment. Hearing and seeing no one, the public comment. is now closed. Commissioners, what are your wishes? Moved to approve is presented. Second, We have any discussion? Do we have any discussion? Nunn will call roll. Mr. Connelly, Comm. Cleary. Yes, Miss Rich. Yes, Comm.

00:31:18,500	Zinker, yes, Mayor Schmitz. Yes. Next item is a public hearing on ordinance 6584 Northern Sky edition first relot, uh, Ben, are you? Presenting or someone else from your team. Yes, Mayor, this is Ben. I’m here to present.

00:31:43,970	So thank you, Mayor, members of the commission, uh, Uh, the project that the mayor uh just referenced is located in northwest Bismarck. Uh, it’s in the Northwest quadrant to the intersection of North Washington Street and Nash Cooley Drive, uh, project areas comprised of 25.6 acres uh on 4 lots within 4 blocks. Future land use associated with the proposal is a combination of community mixed use.

00:32:06,370	In a small area of neighborhood mixed use with uh existing zoning being a combination of the CA commercial and the RT residential. Uh, the planning and zoning commission did consider this request on June 26th this year.

00:32:29,330	Uh, no members of the public spoke at the hearing and we received no written testimony on the proposal at the conclusion of the hearing, planning and zoning commission did unanimously recommend approval of the zoning map amendment uh on lot one less the North 250 ft of block one Northern sky edition and all uh all of northern sky, 2nd edition first replat as outlined in ordinance. 6584 in your packets, uh, stand for any questions that you may have related to this uh proposal.

00:32:58,100	Seeing and hearing no questions. This is a public hearing, so anyone who wishes to speak to this topic, please come forward, state your name and sign in. Thank you Mayor uh, representing the applicant here. Um, nothing really to add to what Banner presented just here for any questions if you have them. OK. Looks like there’s any questions.

00:33:27,100	Anyone else who wish to speak? A 2nd call for public comment. Third and final call for public comment. Hearing and seeing no further public comment, the public comment period is now closed. Commissioners, what are your wishes? Motion to approve. Second Is there any discussion He noal call roll. Mr. Cleary. Yes. Missioner Risch, Comm. Zenker. Mr.

00:34:15,570	Connelly, Mayor Schmidt. Yes. Next item is. Ordinance 6583 home occupation zone zoning ordinance text amendment. This will be a public hearing, Ben. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. uh, mayor and commissioners, I, I don’t have any formal present or formal PowerPoint presentation for this. I’ll just kind of talk through, uh, the, this, uh, home occupation, uh, zoning ordinance text amendment.

00:34:43,600	Start off by giving a little bit of history on this, uh, just to kind of bring everybody or bring everybody back around up to speed at where the start About a year ago, uh, it was actually at the August 8th, I think, uh, city of Bismarck Commission meeting where uh you all provided staff direction to

00:35:01,570	move forward on an update to our uh home occupation ordinance, um, our existing ordinance, uh, that we have, uh, that’s, that’s currently adopted was adopted in the early 50s and really hasn’t seen much change since that point and as you are all are aware, uh, work from home arrangements have, have certainly changed in, in that

00:35:24,470	time period. Um, so we began, uh, work, uh. Commission also directed us to use a stakeholder group, uh, to move forward in in development of, of changes to this particular ordinance.

00:35:47,430	Um, just some of the background, uh, work that was done on this, uh, there was a fair amount of research, uh, primarily through professional literature that had been developed on the topic of home-based occupations, uh, we reviewed a number of different, uh, communities, uh, home-based occupation ordinances, so we generally always review our peers within the region such as. Argo might not Grand Forks, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Billings, Helena, Saint Cloud, uh, Rochester, uh, in Sioux City, uh, Iowa.

00:36:15,230	Um, in addition, um, uh, we, we had, uh, an organization had reached out to us, uh, called the Institute for Justice. Um, you’ve also received, I think, a letter that was provided to you today from the Institute of Justice. They had done some.

00:36:35,600	Uh, background research, uh, or a fairly extensive research on home-based occupations and provided us with uh some of that literature as well with which we reviewed and, and took some of their comments into consideration. We worked with a couple different stakeholder groups uh for this uh update to this ordinance. Initially we assembled a group, uh, or at least we invited members, the, the mayor and Comm.

00:36:57,300	Marcourt at the time, uh, invited members of Burley County staff and commission, uh, invited members of the chamber EDC, uh, Bismarck Mandan Home Builders Association and City of Bismarck staff as well.

00:37:22,430	Um, Uh, I’ll, I’ll get into why there was a need for a second stakeholder group, uh, but uh we, we did also work with a second stakeholder group, uh, which was comprised of essentially two individuals who uh uh operated or or were had interest in home-based occupations, particularly in extraterritorial area.

00:37:47,570	As well as two individuals representing homeowners who had, at least in the past, expressed concerns related to uh home occupations operating in their neighborhood, uh, and the second stakeholder group was also comprised of the mayor and city staff. Also had a public survey that ran, uh, basically the entire month of October in 2023. Uh, received about 245 responses from, uh, different segments of the, the community in that survey, um, had some media coverage related to this. We issued a press release.

00:38:13,700	We had a standalone public meeting, uh, in mid-May of this year related to, uh, this item. And uh issued a press release, a variety of different social media releases, uh, the Tribune ran an article on this, uh, earlier this year, first week of May, I think it was.

00:38:36,230	Had a number of public hearings and meetings related to this ordinance, uh, initially this item was presented to the planning and zoning Commission at the January 24th. Uh, commission, uh meeting this year, uh, there was a, uh, a fair amount of testimony that that was received, uh, some concerns that perhaps the uses within the extraterritorial area that were proposed at that time were not permissive enough to to

00:39:02,770	some of the uh individuals uh who may have been providing testimony. And so planning and zoning commission directed staff at that point, they continued the public hearing, directed staff to work specifically with the second stakeholder group which I mentioned earlier, which was primarily comprised of extra-territorial members.

00:39:29,500	To try to find a balance between, uh, um, Allowing the appropriate amount of permissiveness in terms of home-based business uses while still providing those protections to neighboring property, uh, residential property owners, um, those meetings resulted a suggestion from those meetings resulted in a standalone public meeting which occurred on May 15th, we received an extensive amount of public testimony at that meeting was about 3 hours long.

00:39:54,730	Uh, took a lot of that testimony, um, and, uh. Into consideration and actually incorporated much of that testimony into the ordinance that you see before you today. Um, uh, ultimately a second public hearing was held at the Planning and Zoning Commission in June of this year.

00:40:19,700	In summary, I’ll, I won’t go into every walk through every piece of of the ordinance, but I’ll, I’ll sort of hit the, the, I guess the more significant, noteworthy items that that have changed in the ordinance and basically it’s not just uh the, the particular section where this is referenced, which is 140306 in our ordinance, but there’s a number of different sections that this touches and

00:40:42,700	that are impacted by this change. For instance, we had to uh amend definitions, uh, the definition section 140203, uh, the, the area where this is housed in 140306, uh, we allowed for some use of signs in the residential, uh, areas where home-based uses are allowed, business uses are allowed, which would be 1,403.

00:41:09,830	107, um, amended basically all of the, the purposes statements associated with the residential zoning districts. And then also amended a section, uh, related to, it’s commonly referred to it as the junk ordinance, but it’s uh it’s official title is the accumulation of certain items prohibited.

00:41:35,130	Um, how this ordinance is structured now, um, uh, is, is essentially structured into three different tiers. And I’ll go into these in a little bit more detail and a little bit here, but it’s, it’s broken up by minor home occupation, major home occupation, and a home occupation which exceeds the major home occupation. So the minor home occupation.

00:41:54,730	would essentially be allowed by right, so you wouldn’t need a permit, you wouldn’t need to talk to anybody at the city to operate your home-based occupation, um, these are types of uses that generally would have little or no impact on the surrounding neighborhoods, you probably wouldn’t even know there’s a home-based occupation going on there if, if you, you know, lived in that neighborhood.

00:42:14,470	Um, these we would allow up to one additional employee in addition to any of The the the the residents of of that home, so any of the residents of that home could work there, plus one additional outside residence, uh, would allow, uh, a small 3 square foot non-illuminated sign.

00:42:39,570	would allow uh this, this, the minor home occupation would allow for uh a combination of two vehicles and or trailers associated with the home-based occupation. Uh, no vehicles requiring a CDL, however, and no external storage of material or equipment.

00:43:05,230	Essentially these would be allowed by right, right now our current home occupation ordinance would require a permit to be obtained of uh from us technically for any home home work from home activity you’re doing, uh, this, this new proposed ordinance recognizes that there are many of these home occupations that have little to no impact and maybe even create a better environment from reducing traffic, commuting patterns, that type of thing. So, so no permits would be required for the minor.

00:43:26,130	The major home occupations, uh, would have a little bit more maybe noticeable impact on the neighborhood, um. In in urban areas, so like within the city of Bismarck, the more urban residential zoning designations. These would require a special use permit.

00:43:47,930	However, in the ETA, uh, where lots are a little bit bigger, um, things are a little bit more spread out. You could conduct these major home occupations by right, so you wouldn’t need a special use permit. You wouldn’t need any sort of permit from the city to operate these in the rural residential zoning districts.

00:44:07,030	These would allow up to 3 external employees or employees that don’t reside in the home in addition to any. Uh, residents or or uh uh occupants of, of the home. Uh, would allow up to one non-illuminated sign and, and in this case, given that lot size is very pretty drastically in the ETA.

00:44:27,700	It’s sort of based on lot size based on the square footage of the sign that that would be allowed. Um, would allow up to this would major home occupation uh would allow up to one vehicle requiring a CDL. And allow up to 5% uh or, or 10,000 square feet, um, whichever is, whichever is less, um, for the, the storage of vehicles, equipment, materials, those could be stored outside.

00:44:57,800	However, if, if equipment and and or rather materials are stored outside. There is a, a screening requirement. Uh, that would be, uh, required to to mitigate the impact of that from from adjacent neighbors.

00:45:23,730	Now, if there’s a use which doesn’t meet any of these categories within the extraterritorial area, um, you would be able to pursue a uh special use permit, um, with your specific use uh identified, uh, so the planning and zoning commission could make a determination if this would be um conducive to to use in the in the residential area or or provide any sort of uh detriment to the area. Um, the, as I mentioned, this was this uh.

00:45:45,900	Uh, item was before the planning and zoning commission on June 26th of this year. At the conclusion of the public hearing, uh, the planning and zoning Commission did recommend approval of Ordinance 6583, and I’ll just read through for the record all of the different pieces of ordinance that, that would be changed, the zoning ordinance text amendment. Uh, would be to sections 140203 1403061403.107 140401 140401.

00:46:20,630	1 140403 140406, 140407, 1404 17 and 140505.1. And with that, are there any questions that that any of you have related to this proposed ordinance? Ben, I think you could, if you could clarify, I believe that there was a, you referenced that. An email or or some document that maybe came in today.

00:46:46,770	That’s actually the letter that should be with the attachment in item D in the handouts at the commission table today, is that? Correct. Uh, that is my understanding, but I’m looking to Whitney to confirm, and she’s shaking her head, Mayor, I think that is correct. Yeah And All right.

00:47:08,670	Does anyone have questions for Bell? Oh, I’m sorry, if I mentioned email, I, I, I should have said a handout. So that was my fault. I didn’t realize I mentioned email, so thanks. I do, I do, a mayor and Comm. Ben, I do have a couple of questions. Go ahead, Comm. Zenker. um.

00:47:31,170	So I’m curious, um, as the, as why, uh, childcare was included in this with all the um, problems getting childcare nowadays and the the what the state has to do with um, um. Making sure they’re all certified and stuff. Why did we include childcare in this in this. Yeah, I, thanks for that question.

00:47:53,030	I, I, I think it’s just to clarify that that would be an allowable home-based occupation so it’s, it’s to ensure that that is a a home-based occupation that would be allowed by right. So there’s nothing in here over and above what the state would require them to do. They still have to follow those for the home-based occupation, uh, correct, correct. Mr.

00:48:10,030	Zinker, we, I think we did that to make sure it was freed up so that we didn’t have any additional oversight burden to him. Great, fantastic. Thank you. And then the last, uh, you talk about the fees and permits and stuff, are those costs the same for in city and ETA? Uh, thank you, Mayor and Comm., Comm. Zenker, that, that is correct.

00:48:28,230	The special use permit, I think, is either 700 or $750 but would be the same for uh and and that’s a if I understood it correctly, that is a one time. Um, fee that is not an annual fee that is a one time fee and it runs with the the property. Got you. OK, thank you. Mhm.

00:48:51,800	Are there other questions for Ben? Comm. Connelly Mayor and commissioners and Ben, there’s a lot of work that’s been done on this. The what we have currently is a lot more strict than what this was.

00:49:12,430	There’s a lot of civil discourse and a lot of things that there was a lot of stuff to go through, so I appreciate the fact that, I mean, I was at the public input meeting and things, um. And um, It’s a really good step because right now, um. Private business.

00:49:36,500	People trying to find ways to thrive this was how America was built and things, and they’re feeling the pinch to where they’re thinking they’re forced into our community by shop space and it’s at an unaffordable rate. So these businesses are we’re feeling that pinch and this gives kind of moves it back in the direction to where a lot of them can survive, so I like that portion of it, um. And that, um.

00:50:00,500	The uh Special use permit and the costs associated with it, uh, those discussions, I think, um. Mhm We’ll still have to talk on that a little bit. There’s some angst there, um, with people, but this is such a big swing. I don’t think it should be held up.

00:50:20,300	Um, and then I know like the ETA conversation came into a lot of those that whether it was appropriate or inappropriate and things. Certainly those conversations. One question I had the sanitation business, and I won’t say it by name or whatnot, that had the denial of their um permit to build a building. Under this ordinance would that go to where they could um build the building that they put out a permit for.

00:50:42,170	Uh yeah, uh, Comm., thank Comm. Connelly, thank you for those comments. I, I, I apologize. I’m not, uh, remembering the, the sanitation business off the top of my head, but as long as it complies with the the the the criteria identified in here, um, they would be allowed to operate a home-based occupation,

00:51:03,570	so. OK. Mhm, but no, I think it’s a lot of good work and it’ll help people stay in business. Thank you. Sorry, Mayor, go ahead. I was just gonna ask if there are any other questions from Comm., so. Right.

00:51:30,430	Ben, did you have anything else you want to add? The only thing I wanted to add is I wanted to sort of take on to Comm. Connelly’s, uh, comments and appreciate the, the, the comments related to staff. Staff led by Daniel led this effort, there was an extensive amount of uh stay time put into this, so appreciate the, the comments there.

00:51:50,270	This probably in the past 6 years, this has probably been one of the more polarizing, um. Ordinance changes that we’ve we’ve worked on, uh, there were businesses that, uh, really felt one way, strongly, one way about home-based occupations and there were representatives from the neighborhood who really felt strongly in another way and uh sort of trying to, to, to, uh, work through those differing uh

00:52:15,570	conflicting opinions often and trying to balance this, I think it, you know, was, was, is as good an effort as we’re, we, we could have gotten to at this point. So appreciate those those comments so thanks. Nothing else, Mayor, for me. Thank you.

00:52:36,500	This is a public hearing, so anyone who wished to speak to this topic, please step forward. I do know I have one person online who I’m anticipating will want to uh make comment. So Miss Hamlet, would you go ahead and give your presentation? Thank you so much, Mayor Schmidtz and members of the convention.

00:53:03,730	Um, thank you for the opportunity to give public comment on this ordinance related to home occupations. My name is Ellen Hamlet, and I’m with the Institute for Justice at the Ben mentioned us earlier, thank you. Um, forgive me for anyone who heard my spiel last time, it’s going to probably sound very similar, um, but we are a nonprofit organization that has been advocating for entrepreneurs for over 30 years.

00:53:23,430	Over the last 6 years at the Instit of. I have been advocating for entrepreneurs, many of whom work out of the home, and I’ve become an expert on how local policies can impact small businesses.

00:53:41,630	So we were alerted to this proposal by some home-based business owners in Bismarck who asked us to review this ordinance and make any suggestions for improvement based on our expertise. We applaud the Planning and Zoning Commission for taking proactive steps to expand and clarify the home-based business law here in Bismarck. This ordinance will create opportunities for home-based businesses to thrive. So based on a review of home-based business ordinances across the country and the real world impact on entrepreneurs.

00:54:02,430	We believe that this ordinance will ensure that home-based entrepreneurs have the flexibility while still ensuring public safety. So in May we had recommended increasing the number of allowed non-resident employees for both major and minor home businesses because there are so many situations in which a home-based business may require extra labor.

00:54:21,600	We thank the zoning team for taking this recommendation seriously and implementing them into the New draft. Uh, so, like I said, this will allow for more flexibility for home-based entrepreneurs to hire people who, who may only want to work part time, such as high school students or mothers or anyone, you know, who just want to be

00:54:37,770	there when their children get back from school. So when cities limit the number of employees a business can have, they limit the amount of job opportunities that may exist.

00:54:54,300	So I would like to take this time to emphasize the importance of home-based businesses, uh, for the community and the economy, according to the most recent census data, the United States was more than 15 million home-based businesses representing about 50% of small businesses in the country. In fact, home-based businesses make up about 25% of small businesses that have employees, making home-based businesses a job generator and and an economic engine.

00:55:13,900	This is especially true for women who make a make up a disproportionately large number of home-based business owners as they have reported, it’s easier to care for children while adding to their household income. So setting entrepreneurs up for success regardless of where they operate is of paramount importance. And we support the efforts that you all have taken to support these very crucial entrepreneurs.

00:55:32,100	Thank you for your consideration. I’m happy to answer any questions and you know, we, like I said, we are very happy to support this proposed ordinance. Any commissioners have questions for Ms. Hamlet? Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who has wishes to speak to this topic? A 2nd call for public comment.

00:56:05,270	Third and final call for public comment. Hearing and seeing no one, public comment period is not closed, Commissioners, what are your wishes? I’ll move we prove as proposed. Second. Do we have any discussion? I, I would just Echo Comm.

00:56:36,700	Connelly’s comments that we Certainly had a lot of effort put in by the staff and we, I felt like we ended up with a a situation where we heard a lot of things we probably couldn’t make everybody’s wish list come to be, but I think we landed in a fairly good spot and there’s a lot of things that are now by right, which we did not have before and it recognizes where we are in the world and in

00:56:54,530	business, and we probably need to make sure we don’t wait another, I don’t know, 50 or 75 years before we. Visit something like this as our economy continues to evolve. If there’s no other comments, we can call Roll. Comm. Risch, Comm. Zenker. Comm. Connelly, Comm. Cleary. Yes, Mayor Schmidt. Yes. All right.

00:57:27,900	Thank you, everyone. Next item is a request from the Renaissance own or it’s a Renaissance zone project request. I believe Isaac is going to present for us, Mr. Mayor. Uh, yeah, I, I’ve done work or, or Mr. Malloy has done some legal work for me.

00:57:47,170	I had nothing to do with this Renaissance his own request, but if anybody feels uncomfortable with me participating because he’s done some legal work for me. I’d be happy to recuse myself. Anyone have any issues? OK. I think we’re good. Continue on, Isaac.

00:58:14,870	Sure, thank you, uh, Mayor Schmidt and commissioners, uh, yes, this Renaissance zone agenda item here is sort of a 2 in 1 project, but we’ll look at them both together here and they come to us from uh First North LLC and Malloy Law PLLC who are requesting approval of a new construction renaissance zone project and a commercial lease renaissance zone project respectively. The new construction would create a two-story law office at.

00:58:39,430	319 North First Street, of which Malloy Law PLLC would be the sole tenant, as you can see on the screens here, the uh project area is located in the DF downtown fringe zone and adjacent land uses include a variety of restaurants, auto service salon, office, really the mixed use environment that the downtown is and this application in particular would involve the planned demolition

00:59:05,300	of the existing. Structure as seen on the screen here to facilitate the new construction. The estimated cost for the new construction is between 8800 and $900,000 which exceeds the minimum level of investment of $150 per square foot for eligibility.

00:59:26,130	Just for a point of reference, this is a rendering of what is proposed here. Uh, there was a downtown design review component that was considered at the previous Renaissance zone meeting, but officially that part of the process is done simply uh uh image to get an idea of what is being proposed here.

00:59:45,270	So city staff have communicated with the applicant that the program is still undergoing some changes to the development plan, of course, the commission here has approved that development plan, uh, And it has not yet been brought to the other uh taxing entities, but that is in the process still and it’s been scheduled.

01:00:07,530	So staff have communicated this with the applicant and how it might change the property tax, uh, exemption for a project like this and staff initially met with the applicant on February 16th where we described the new system to them and then communicated this again around the time of their formal application more recently, and we have done this for all inquiries to the program.

01:00:25,700	And this project in particular though is the first Renaissance zone product which would involve the demolition and immediate new construction of on a site within the Renaissance zone boundary, but as you can see on the screen here, staff are proposing a baseline building value of $0 treating it as if it was a new construction on vacant land, uh, given the fact that Again,

01:00:46,000	there is the, the blighted condition of the existing structure and there was a provision, well, is a provision within the development plan, which again was approved by this board which states that the Renaissance on authority and the city commission have the authority to adjust the baseline value involving demolitions highlighting the item B there underneath which

01:01:08,370	says demolition of buildings presenting a hazard to public safety, clear blighting impact, or evidence of poor conditions should not be discouraged. So, a couple other notes, staff have received certificates of good standing for both applications, the new construction and the lease as they are technically separate applications and the public was notified of this request prior

01:01:29,900	to its hearing at the Renaissance Zone Authority on July 11th via publications in the Bismarck Tribune on June 28th and July 5th and 51 letters were mailed to nearby property owners. No members of the public spoke at the public hearing except for the uh owner of the property who provided.

01:01:50,130	Some uh additional comments to the commission and no written comments were submitted prior to that hearing. And at the conclusion of that hearing, the Renaissance Zone Authority voted unanimously to recommend approval of the new construction Renaissance zone project for First North LLC as a full property tax exemption on the value of the new building for 5 years and an

01:02:09,770	exemption from state income tax for 5 years for Malloy Law PLLC at that same location. And as a cumulative result of the findings. in the staff reports that were provided to the commission, City of Bismarck staff also find that the proposed Renaissance zone product would not adversely impact public health, safety and general welfare and find

01:02:28,500	that it is generally consistent with the Renaissance and development plan, the comprehensive plan, and Bismarck Code of ordinances and relevant state law. Therefore, along with the Renaissance zone Authority, staff recommend approval of the new construction renaissance on at 319 North First Street as a full property tax exemption on the value.

01:02:48,770	of the new building for 5 years, uh, for First North LLC and an exemption from state income tax on income derived from the location for 5 years for Malloy Law PLLC.

01:03:07,230	Does the commission have any questions for me at this time, and I believe the applicant is also here, so if there are questions that I’m unable to answer, uh, the applicant can perhaps answer as well. Commissioners, any questions? Mr. Connelly, Yeah, um. What would the property be worth if um the structure wasn’t there at all. If the property was just the land, the land value right now is around a.

01:03:38,970	Let me The land value itself, I would have to double check the I know the building value off the top of my head because there is a structure there, but the land value, if I’m remembering which. Might not be correct as just off a memory around between 350 and $50,000 is the land value right now.

01:03:56,500	And regardless of what the baseline value for the building is the, uh, projects will always pay uh property tax on the value of the land. OK, so that’s within a cause when you read further down in the document, then it mentions the $0 amount.

01:04:12,030	So if it’s still with the land, I’m comfortable with that if it goes down to 0, that’s where it’s a little bit of a challenge. So I, I appreciate you clarifying because how it’s written is a little different than that. Comm. Cleary are not Commission Connelly, my bad. I read Cleary. I got new glasses. I could really see stuff with them. So turn your name really. Um, that’s state law.

01:04:35,030	So that’s not, that’s has nothing to do with the local Bismarck or what we did or whatever anybody else has Renaissance zone wise, they still have to and have, have, have always had to pay for the land, um, taxable value on that. So it’s just on the building structure itself, Comm.

01:04:53,230	Connelly, the document here, so I wanted to make the clarification, not a problem, but as far as this project and things is it’s kind of prototypical of what Renaissance is designed to do, I mean. What they want to build to versus what we have here, um. That’s significant. Mm Other questions commissioners.

01:05:18,070	If there are no questions, what are the wishes of the commission? Moved to approve is presented. OK. 1st and the 2nd, do we have any further discussion? I Comm. Risch here, I’d just like to say it’s dramatic improvement from what’s there and it’s an impressive thing. It’s be good for Bismarck. Yeah. All right, we’ll call the roll. Comm. Zenker. Yes, Comm. Connelly. Yes, Comm. Cleary. Yes, Comm. Risch. Mayor Schmidt. Yes.

01:05:56,200	Uh, item 3F has been pulled, so we move to item 3 G. Uh, sewer Improvement District SE 582 award of contract is Gabe there to present. I am Mr. Mayor. Mayor and commissioners sewer Improvement District, Project 582, a storm sewer within Paradise Valley Edition.

01:06:29,430	Uh, it’s a relatively large project after it’s the 3rd time we’ve tried to bid this thing in in various ways, shapes and forms, so we’re excited today to have a product that we’d recommend a ward.

01:06:48,100	We did bid the project most recently on July 18th, uh, last week with, uh, multiple bidders, but we’ll because it’s a storm sewer project that includes a electrical or a building and an electrical component. We have multiple units allowing the electrical contractors to bid on that separately. So with that, our recommendation is to award. To Crow River construction for unit one with a bid of $3,944,529.80 and to award unit 2, the electrical component. To Edling Electric with a bid of $162,800 and I take any questions you may have.

01:07:15,830	Any questions, commissioners? You know what are the wishes of the commission. Moved to approve is presented. Second, Is there any discussion? He will call roll. Mr. Connelly, Comm. Cleary. Yes, Comm. Risch. Yes. Comm. Zenker. Yes. Mayor Schmidt. Yes.

01:07:52,770	Next item is a follow up from our July 9th meeting, uh, Jason Tomonic will present, uh, so far the results on the Bismarck Event Center job description. Good evening, Mayor and commissioners attached in your packet was a handful of job descriptions from regional entertainment facilities and the hope was for Just to kind of broaden your exposure to how other communities address the, uh, various job descriptions and job duties and, uh,

01:08:17,230	requirements of the job. Uh, earlier today, uh, the, um, acting director, Amanda Yellow and I went through the job descriptions and kind of compared notes and both of us kind of came away with a handful of similarities, uh, things that are included in other job descriptions that we thought would be fairly valuable, um, if you like, we

01:08:37,400	can certainly Through those one at a time, if you had thoughts on on your own additions or uh removals, I believe the current job description for the event center director was included in there as well.

01:08:58,730	Uh, going forward, if there’s some semblance of consensus here, we would be working with our human resources department to update the job description, uh, work with our consultant Kri and associates to uh make sure that it still is in line with the current job grade that is posted for the position and uh make sure that it doesn’t cause any significant uh changes or modifications going forward. Mr.

01:09:24,930	Tomonic, do you have a document that shows what you guys agreed on what you wanted to put in there? I’d be happy to run through those one at a time, we’re approving. I apologize. We had some tech troubles and I had to give my laptop up to Comm. Risch.

01:09:38,870	I’m gonna go old school here and work off the paper. No, I won’t need it. I’m, I’m very tactile. I like, I like papers, so if I can just start with the monument, uh, job description. This is the venue in the city of Rapid City. This was a pretty succinct job description just to Page page and a half roughly.

01:09:58,500	Uh, there were some components in the essential duties and responsibilities category. I’ll let everybody kind of navigate to that using your uh electronic devices, but there were 3 things that I had pulled out and Amanda had noted as well.

01:10:21,030	Uh, the third bullet identifies, it says formulates, recommends and implements implements long range goals and objectives to the board and again when it’s referring to the board, uh, that would be Uh, the board of supervisors or in the case of the City of Rapid City, their board of commissioners, uh, promotes the facility by personal contact with promoters, entertainment entertainment agencies, industry and professional affiliations such as the International Association of Venue Managers.

01:10:46,030	And the international entertainment Buyers Association and agency for Performing Arts, uh, and Amanda can certainly answer this better, but these are professional affiliations. These are uh support organizations and um. As the name implies, uh, associations for venue managers and things, it’s an opportunity to, um, have some professional training, some credentialing and. For people in this particular uh profession.

01:11:13,830	And then the last item from the City of Rapid City, the monument facility, the, let’s see, it’d be the 3rd bullet from the bottom coordinates the monument activities with the convention and Visitors Bureau, the municipal government, community agencies, and convention and trade show, entertainment and sports industries.

01:11:35,770	Uh, for us, this was very much like the advisory board item that is the next item on this discussion as well. Um Moving to the Fargo Dome. The general manager, the one thing on the Fargo Dome job description, and I realize the format of our job descriptions here at the city is, is different than the format of other cities, but the one kind of key piece that I liked in

01:11:55,970	the Fargo Dome was the general summary of the job, for your, for your reference and for those at home, the summary that we have for our job description here with the event center is very simple. It says the position is responsible for directing the operations of the event center.

01:12:12,500	The summary for the Fargo Dome is a little more elaborative and it kind of addresses some of the uh some of the, the bigger picture things. It says in the summary it says is responsible for the overall management and operation of the Fargo Dome. Including booking and use of the Fargo Dome. Administration and management of the Fargo Dome employees.

01:12:35,000	Promotion, publicity, and public relations activities. Financial management and internal controls. Building safety Security and maintenance and ancillary operations which include food service. Merchandise sales, and parking.

01:13:02,270	Now, to be fair, in our job description, many of these tasks are included in the major duties category listed, but I, again, just appreciated the summary and kind of the high level overview of the position, uh, looking down on the next category under the essential duties and responsibilities.

01:13:24,170	The first bullet where it says advise and educate the Fargo Dome Authority on industry trends, standards, and best practices and Make recommendations to the Fargo Dome Authority on operational policies governing the use and management of the Fargo Dome in accordance with industry trends, standards and best practices again. This is going back to that concept for the item that’s next on our agenda that there would be some type of an advisory board. Uh, if you flip to the next page where it talks about venue management.

01:13:42,230	There were a number of bullets that are in there, maybe not all components of those bullets, but certainly uh pieces of them just starting at the top where it says establish event leases, uh, suite or advertising contracts, maintenance agreements and other contracts as allowed via the management contract, ensure that the terms of all applicable contractual agreements are followed.

01:14:05,230	Uh, the 2nd bullet supervised the operation of food and beverage service, merchandise sales, parking, box office, maintenance services, and ushering services. Again, we have kind of that second level of leadership within the event center. Many of these things are identified to those key individuals, but having it as an overarching big picture item for the director I think would be appropriate.

01:14:27,630	Uh, the 4th bullet in that venue management category lists responsible for maintaining safety standards and procedures of the Fargo dome in accordance with city ordinance and state law regarding crowd control, fire, and natural disasters.

01:14:51,270	Uh, skipping a couple bullets, then we jump into um handling complaints, disturbances, or related problems with the public staff or promoters in an effective and professional manner. And then the last one under the venue management category that we felt would be something to consider would be oversee the purchasing of equipment and capital expenditures for the Fargo Dome and responsible for safeguarding all Fargo dome facilities, equipment and personnel.

01:15:12,430	Again, capital improvements is certainly part of the uh the role of the director uh within our organization. And then if we get into the next category where it talks about booking, promotion, and community relations. The first two items there, uh, direct assist and coordinate for the procurement of activities and events, negotiate contracts and agreements with industry agents and associates under policies established by the Fargo Dome Authority.

01:15:36,500	And then establish and maintain good working relationships with agents, managers, promoters, and all other lessees of the Fargo Dome. And uh just on the last page, there was just a kind of a catch-all statement, but again, if we’re working towards this idea of an advisory board or some sort of an authority of associated with the event

01:15:56,770	center performs other duties as assigned by the Fargo Dome Authority. There’s a little direction for the authority there. And then the last one that I think is a fair comparison to what we have here, uh, is the facility called Metro Park, which is located in Billings.

01:16:16,870	This is actually part of Yellowstone County in Montana. And again, here the job description or the job summary we’ll just kind of start out the, the general manager, different title, but similar position, will be responsible for overall management, promotions, operations, budget development. Financial success and strategic planning of Metro Park, including the Montana Fair.

01:16:41,700	Uh, if we drift down into the essential job duties and responsibilities. There were a couple in there, uh, the 4th and 6th bullets initiate and maintain communication with prospective promoters, agents, managers, event producers, and individuals to initiate booking efforts. Uh, and then establish and maintain cooperative relationships with representatives of the community, consumers, employees, and public interest groups.

01:17:09,370	Um If we move on to the 2nd page under essential job duties and responsibilities. The first two on page 2 where it talks about developing again developing goals, plans and measurements for the identification and evaluation of Metro Park as an operation and its facility needs. And here it talks about confers with Metro Park Advisory Board.

01:17:31,300	The board of county commissioners, of course that would be different in this situation. Uh, the county finance director, the county uh department and division heads and other supervisory personnel to discuss, identify, and assess Metro Park’s needs.

01:17:52,570	And then the last one in that list, uh, it’d be 5th from the bottom, works with Metro Park Advisory Board again, just kind of reiterating some commonalities that we’re seeing throughout these various job descriptions. When we get into the category of required knowledge and abilities. There’s a handful of items in there, uh, knowledge and understanding of vendor contracts, technical writers, event production.

01:18:16,630	Marketing and sales, security and crowd control operations? Uh, and then also motivating and improving the performance of a team of people in a customer service environment. And then the last one in the category of required knowledge and abilities, the skill to manage and motivate staff for desired results. And then the uh.

01:18:39,030	On the last page for Metro Park, it talks about, I’m sorry, the second to the last page, it talks about minimum qualifications. I’ll just read exactly what they’ve got here. It says graduation from a college or university of recognized. Standing with a bachelor’s degree in public administration. Marketing, business administration, or a closely related field with 5 years’ experience working with entertainment.

01:19:08,900	And or arena or fair industry in a management position or a closely related management experience or any equivalent combination of experience and training totaling 9 years. I think it’s good just to identify what are the, uh, you know, kind of the, the standard or base qualifications that we’re looking for, required certifications, this is fairly common throughout all job descriptions, the ability to obtain a driver’s license in the state, but then also here

01:19:28,270	under the preferred certification. The certified venue executive or CVE designation from the International Association of Venue Managers, that’s IAVM, that’s one of the um Membership organizations that is common in this industry, and also a certified fair executive that wouldn’t, that would be the other qualification that could be obtained through the international Association of

01:19:54,400	Venue Managers, uh, Amanda can probably elaborate on this a little better. It’s my understanding the uh training or the education that goes along with the International Association of Venue Managers is a period of 2 years, but it has a kind of a concentrated week’s worth of study once a year for.

01:20:12,470	Both of those years, once you obtain your certification, that is kind of that industry standard saying, I’m credentialed in this area and you see this in many other places uh with other professional affiliations.

01:20:34,930	With those in mind, I guess those were the items that I had highlighted Amanda and I had discussed and felt that it was kind of appropriate to consider these types of things if you would like us to come back with. A handful, all of these, a portion of these included in a uh a revised job description, we would certainly be happy to do that if there are components of any of these job descriptions that any of you felt were appropriate, be happy

01:20:53,170	to consider adding those to the list as well. What we’re, what we don’t want to do is end up with a 14 page job description here because that would be uh a little overkill compared to what we have in other categories, but right now we’ve got 1234. About 7 major duties, uh.

01:21:09,030	That are defined in the current job description and some components of these items that I listed could be used to enhance or amplify any of the number of items that we have today. It would be my recommendation. Um, that Jason worked with.

01:21:39,430	Um, Director Schmidt, HR director Schmidt and myself to develop a job description that could be used to solicit you maybe interim or maybe permanent depending on what we decide maybe with a couple other steps yet to be determined at this at this table for the event center. But I, I Don’t think it’s wise for 5 of us to sit around the table and try to wordsmith a document.

01:21:55,270	That will get us nowhere in a hurry with a lot of time. Mr Risch, I completely feel comfortable with you, Jason, Human Resources working out, picking up some of the things that are reasonable, rational, and not too awful. Descriptive. Anyone else. But I would I would agree, but I think you should also include.

01:22:30,700	Um, Amanda in that as well because. She’s in there on a daily basis. I mean, maybe there might be something that could be inadvertently overlooked. So Uh, Comm. Cleary. Um, yeah, I, I would echo what’s already been said.

01:22:54,770	Um, I think that some of the stuff that Jason read through to us, um, is already in the job description in some ways, so maybe it just needs to be. Um, you know, reexplained. Um, I did really like the point that was in um.

01:23:19,470	I believe it was Yellowstone’s, uh, job summary that talks about um making sure that they are reporting not only to whatever board is created, but to finance, I think that like. You know, breaking down that silo a little bit and making sure that they have um resources at the other city departments and that they’re is a good thing to mention that’s not in there, so. OK Um, Anybody else have come and I have one further follow up, but Comm. Connelly.

01:23:44,530	And um, I concur with what everybody is saying. One thing I did go through the job descriptions when we were Through subcommittee and things and some of the documents that were seen by history and through other commissions and that is like, um, Comm.

01:24:06,300	Cleary just mentioned um talking in whether it’s the board that may or may not be created, but then also bringing presentations in front of the commission is I know some of the job descriptions added that and it’s not in ours, so. To have that portion in there.

01:24:27,700	And then also since this is such a unique department we’ve talked about it several times because they work within a realm that almost none of our other departments do, is some of the financial statements even back in 2012, 2014, they mentioned um uh going out and getting education based on some of the things that a lot of people don’t understand and then being in a position to defend that information, um, because they’re bringing in

01:24:48,770	information that a lot of us might not. Understand. OK, so the all the To address Comm. Zinker’s Comment involving a man and that may well be fine. However, if she’s a potential applicant, um, it’s not good to have an applicant writing in the job description.

01:25:16,770	So that’s, that was just my, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna cut her out of that opportunity. So looking for consensus as to to uh how we move forward or do we feel we have it, Jason? Mayor, if I may just ask one question for clarification of Comm. Connelly. Comm.

01:25:49,900	, when you were suggesting uh bringing presentations to this board for, uh, I guess public consumption. Are you thinking of presentations on the impacts of events and activities and what that means to the community or do you have any, I guess I was looking, I, I remember seeing that section, but I was hoping maybe you had a little. Specifics on what you would be expecting to see.

01:26:08,570	At that particular time when I referenced those years, I mean. There’s a lot of heartburn within the community just because it’s past decision, so I don’t really want to keep bringing that portion up, but um, Mhm Information comes at us pretty quickly and then it also comes to the community pretty quickly.

01:26:32,630	Um, one thing we have now within our network is we have to go to media access that records our meetings. So there’s something that we can reference back to.

01:26:48,570	So I always appreciated all those take Jeff, for example, when he was with Public Works, where he would do the presentation on this is the methodology we have when we have a major snow event, and this is what this brought forward to us and We had a place to reference because then when somebody from the community would ask, well, what about this? or maybe throw it out on social media.

01:27:03,700	I could just say, watch the video from this point to this point, and that would take care of a lot of the questions that people had, but then they would also be educated on it, on some level, but then there’s also some very uh. Um.

01:27:24,430	Contentious items that came up we just talked about home occupation and things and our staff did a really good job to where they kind of, this is where we started, this is where we got to what we have now is loosening what we have or what we’re growing into is loosening what we had before, but it had to be repeated several times, so.

01:27:44,730	Kind of like a head on the swivel where they can defend everything that goes on within that department, um, and back it up with information to put whoever is sitting at this table in the community in a better position to uh. Uh, make informed decisions going forward knowing that you won’t have all of the information.

01:28:07,630	That’s a little wordy, but that’s thinking off the top, and if I may, Mayor and commissioners, I guess referencing the Metro Park description from Yellowstone County in Montana, there’s actually an entire section that talks about reporting. Relationships and there’s a paragraph in here that says monthly and in a public setting, the general manager shall provide an update to the board of county commissioners on the activities of Metro Park for the prior month.

01:28:27,370	Examples of information to be provided may include, but it may not be limited to financial performance of Metro Park. Event activity, new capital projects, and new contracts as well as anticipated or expected items such as potential bookings and a rolling forecast for year end.

01:28:50,300	Now, I guess I can’t speak to the number of event days and the the volume of activities that are at the Metro Park facility, but I can speculate that if we were looking for a monthly report at a in a public setting, this could be a pretty exhaustive report just given the number of event days that we have.

01:29:07,000	At the event center, the number of things that are happening seasonally, so, um. We can probably pull pieces out of here, but I don’t, I don’t know that I would. Suggest, I guess that’s up to you as a board if a monthly update is necessary, but I think the, the examples of the things that they’re including here, is that kind of what you had in mind? Well, I

01:29:23,500	think that’s a good start and thanks for bringing that up here since we’re talking about, say, a possible board at the event center, maybe that’s on a more um consistent basis that’s mentioned there, but in the job description, be in a position where you’re presenting in front of.

01:29:46,030	Uh, commissioning board or other stakeholder groups and then be in a position to defend it so you could keep the words finite. And then we can expand from there cause there’s a lot of work to be done yet. Are there other comments? Jason, I think we’ve got some consensus.

01:30:15,170	It sounds like it, I guess the only question I would have, uh, would be the timing of when would you hope to see this available? Uh, would it be the next meeting? 2 weeks we’d also talked about at the last meeting coming forward with a kind of a draft or some discussion points of what an RFP or an RFQ could look like for a consultant to help us

01:30:32,300	walk through some of this. So we’ll continue to see these this topic of the events that are coming forward on a pretty intentional schedule here. Um, Just, I, I think just to continue to update, you know, even if it’s not completed, we can just have an update in 2 weeks, Jason. Will do. Right.

01:30:54,100	You’re still there. Uh, for the advisory board research that has been received to this point. Certainly, and mayor and Comm. all can certainly defer to Amanda on this one as well because she helped uh by reaching out and talking with the other communities that have an advisory board or an authority or some type of uh

01:31:16,070	oversight entity and I think in the memo itself, we had talked about a potential composition of individuals or organizations that would make sense uh to have a voice in the type of conversations that we’d be looking at here and those organizations would be uh groups that are either directly impacted by events at the event

01:31:35,230	center or would have um a reason to support events that are happening at the event center or feedback on the type of events and what those activities caused for their businesses in and around the area and in the in the cover memo we had talked about a representative from the convention and Visitors Bureau,

01:31:54,370	uh, in my mind, that makes a lot of sense. We just heard Sherry Grossman talk about the value of what tourism and activities in our community. means we’ve also talked about uh the hotel, the hospitality group, the bars and restaurants, certainly Kirkwood Mall is uh uh an entity that comes forward in something like this, uh,

01:32:16,570	Bismarck Public Schools uses our facility for a number of different events whether it be sporting or graduation or performance related things. We’ve also got, uh, Bismarck Parks and Recreation District, they may not be a direct user of our facility, but they are definitely an entity that brings people to the Community through sporting events, tournaments, and activities and

01:32:34,800	things like that and so, uh, just as a a general offering of uh. Potential groups, those were included in your uh in your agenda packet as well, um. Before we go too far down the path of creating an advisory board, if that is the desire of this group, there would need to also be some ordinance work.

01:32:56,000	We don’t just pull things out of the air. We would have to have some. Regulation as to how we go about this, and that would take a little bit of time for our city attorney to research other communities, see what they’re doing, as Ben explained earlier, we’re going to be looking at regional facilities or regional communities uh to

01:33:12,400	see examples of things that could make sense and obviously it would be constructed and crafted in a way that is appropriate for Bismarck. So if the desire is to move in that direction, staff would be looking for uh.

01:33:29,100	Some clarification on exactly what it is we’re we’re hoping to obtain and then we would be happy to come back with any sort of draft material for further consideration and discussion. Questions, comments, commissioners? Comm.

01:33:55,270	Risch Yeah, I think you’ve got a pretty good list here on possible members of the advisory board and I noticed neither the Elea Center or Fargo Dome really specified many people who were going to be on their advisory boards, but the one person I would add would be whoever’s got the portfolio. Duly noted. Comm. Cleary And then Comm. Connelly after that. Um yeah. do you think that there is a note on, yeah, like the centers about there being. Yeah, a city Comm.

01:34:20,830	, so the portfolio holder would make the most sense there, um, the other thing I noticed too. Understandably, um, for a little bit bigger of a university town than we are, but with having Bismarck Public schools as an option if we want to consider also having uh like a higher ed person on there.

01:34:43,700	I think it’s important to consider the advisory role, not just people who use the facility like public schools and uh the visitor bureau, but also entities that Don’t necessarily use the facility, but our experts in events in Bismarck, so whether that’s restaurant retail or University of Mary or like entities that aren’t necessarily utilizing our facility, but our hosting events and are in the event world in Bismarck, so I think

01:35:06,400	that there’s. Some, some open-ended options there. Mr. Connelly. Yeah, um, possibly not. It could be a board member, but the board can get pretty big pretty quickly, but maybe from an advisor standpoint like we have a couple of people sitting to help the uh board along at the uh Renaissance Board Authority as an example,

01:35:33,930	but somebody uh say representing disabilities because of getting around in the civic center, um, is a whole different experience for them. Say somebody in a wheelchair versus um you or I, um, or anybody I know during some of the discussion and our information packet was concern about safety where say a vendor

01:35:55,300	was putting stuff in front of a door. It’s good on the Q&A side even though staff is very hypersensitive to those things, but somebody from a board that might not be in that normal. Maybe they pick up on something that other people um don’t notice, and it’s a way to have a check.

01:36:13,470	And balances just as two examples. Mayor and Comm., uh, Comm. Connelly, I believe in the Renaissance zone capacity we’ve referred to those as a non-voting technical advisor.

01:36:34,030	Is that what you had in mind? I, I having experience with the Renaissance Zone Authority, I see a lot of value in Those individuals just to be able to share perspective and help the board come to a a better understanding before decisions are made. So I think what I heard you say there is a potentially a person representing um someone with disabilities and then maybe a a safety expert.

01:36:51,500	Yeah, OK, yeah, and there may be others that we could explore as well, just a point of, of note, as you, as you all know, the larger the board gets, the bigger the quorum needs to be, and, and a quorum is one more than half, and so if we’re talking about 9 people on an advisory board.

01:37:07,300	The minimum number of people to have a quorum we’d be talking about would be 5, so generally, um, we’ve got boards that range from as small as. 3 on our Civil Service commission all the way up to the planning and zoning commission, which I think at full capacity would either be 11 or potentially 12 if there’s a township item on the agenda.

01:37:25,230	Just be thinking about those, those constraints as we would be looking at trying to establish regular meetings and and making sure people are available to attend as well, and that would lend to probably that. Consideration is a technical It could help with that process, correct, Comm.

01:37:46,530	Connelly, Mayor and commissioners typically the technical advisor as a non-voting member would not count towards or against the quorum, but it would just be that, uh, almost like a staff person, but somebody in the know and those specific topics. Any other comments? I, I think, um.

01:38:12,500	The other thing is, is that we need to begin the process since it appears that we do want some kind of board here of creating ordinance language to allow us to authorize that. Um, bylaws are one thing, but we need more of a the legal structure behind it and what that might look like and what authority they might have.

01:38:41,370	Yeah, you have enough information, Jason? I believe so, I guess if uh if the board is comfortable, we would be happy to come back with some. Uh, draft ordinance language in the near future, uh, that would, uh, give you something to consider.

01:39:01,630	We could either do that as a traditional uh zoning or or uh uh An ordinance amendment where we would just come forward with draft language as as proposed, or if you’d like to take a a little bit of a longer step, we could volley something out much like this again and uh just have general consensus or discussion to try and build consensus, I guess it’s your call. I anticipate we would need.

01:39:24,030	A couple of weeks to do the research before we’re coming back with a whole lot of ordinance amendments and and proposals for the advisory board piece. We just want to make sure that we’re able to. Capture all these things and I guess for what it’s worth, even though our meeting is, our next meeting would be 3 weeks from today. That’s kind of a luxury.

01:39:39,230	Normally we’re 2 weeks out, really what that means for staff. By the end of business next week Tuesday, we have to have all of our work done, so the agenda can be built and pushed out publicly on Wednesday, so when we talk about a two week cycle, it really gives us about a week’s time in between meetings to do the work and research.

01:39:53,870	So I think in this. In this particular category we would be looking for a little more time than just a couple of weeks. Yeah, we’re not going to get this accomplished in 2 week time frame, correct. OK. I think we can move on then. Thank you, Jason. Thanks, Commissioners.

01:40:21,870	Next item J, uh, the 2023 audit and annual financial report presentation Dmitri. Mayor commissioners, uh, good evening, um, so, um, we, we perform, um, an annual, we’re required to perform an annual audit on the city’s financial uh information.

01:40:51,200	Um, we have the city has hired I Bailey, Elsie, to perform the audit, um, but, um, as you may know, this, this, this financial report is something that we built, we prepare for our the city’s finance department and fiscal Services division. Prepares for the entire year, um, we established controls and, and, and make sure that everything and and the city is operating as effectively as possible and so I’m here to present to you the um annual annual comprehensive financial report um performed

01:41:14,530	according with governmental accounting standards, um, and audited by I Bailey, um, and also performed in and prepared and according to GFOA standards, which is the government finance Officers Association. Which reviews our report for compliance in addition to the audit that’s performed by I Bailey.

01:41:41,230	Um, uh, I bailey reviews our controls, they evaluate professional judgment and maintain professional skepticism. They’re independent from us. Uh, they identify and assess risk of material misstatement in our financial statements and our and on financial processes they obtain an understanding of internal control relevant to the audit.

01:42:01,000	And then determine procedures based on the based on that risk and internal control that they evaluate, um, they valid the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of significant accounting estimates that we’ve used in our numbers, um, um, we do have a clean opinion, um, which is under modified opinion from the auditors, um, and we’d, uh, we had, um, no, uh, audit adjustments that I’m.

01:42:27,230	Aware of, um, and, but we did have one finding, um, that is related to the event center, uh, similar to, um, um, Mr. Gordy Smith’s assessment of the event center at the time, uh, in back in February, um, they did identify a weakness and material weakness and internal control, uh, design, um, related to the Bismarck Event Center and that it doesn’t have an adequate internal control designer relating to the beer and

01:42:49,200	alcohol sales. Related revenue recognition. And with that, I’ll stand for any questions. If we have no questions, can I have a motion to accept the audit report as presented. So move So Second OK, we have a 1st and a 2nd. Are there any questions? He will call roll. Comm. Risch, I Comm. Zenker. Comm. Connelly. Mr. Cleary.

01:43:36,630	Yes, Mayor Schmidt. Yes. Next item K is the presentation of the 2025 preliminary budget. And related discussion. Uh, good evening, Mayor commissioners once again. Um, I will be Comm. Cleary is the budget and finance portfolio holder and she and I will be presenting the uh the 2025 preliminary budget for you this evening.

01:44:05,900	Um, this has been a very uh interesting process over the last few months with lots of changes and lots of things happening, um, uh, Comm. Zenker was, uh, part of the budget committee at, at, at a point in time and then Comm.

01:44:21,970	Cleary was, uh, sign The portfolio right afterwards, but you know, I will say that it’s we’re fortunate to have a lot of commissioners be present as part of this budget. This has been a very different budget compared to years in the past, uh, with Comm.

01:44:43,400	Marquardt, but and then we also have a new city administrator, uh uh uh Jason Tamonic, who was kind of in the in his new role as well as Mr. Doug Wis, who’s the Assistant City administrator, so it’s been a very different budget committee. It’s been a Very different process but very, very effective and, and positive, so I just want to say and and thank you to Comm.

01:45:01,370	Risch for for kind of jumping on board at the very last minute to uh understand everything and that gets got thrown at him last within the last couple of weeks. Um, and without further ado, we’ll kind of walk through the budget and uh Comm. Cleary and I will kind of, uh, bounce back and forth and, and, and pass things along to each other as we as we go through this uh PPoint slide.

01:45:22,770	Um, so as far as the budget go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, Comm. Cleary. Sorry I just want to say I’m sorry in advance that I am virtual with this. I was hoping my connection would be a little better.

01:45:40,470	It seems like I’m kind of speaking in a little bit of a delay, so I’m gonna do my best to jump in, um, but Dmitri is gonna walk through most of it, so, um, I just appreciate the help, Dmitri. Absolutely. Um, so I’ll start out with, with kind of what, what I want usually we do these budget.

01:46:02,030	Presentations, um, is that I like to kind of go over what the requirements are, what, uh, the state requires state statutes requirements are what the government accounting standards are that kind of guide this and kind of the process that we go through and then Comm.

01:46:17,300	Cleary will jump in on that as well, so that’s kind of what we’re going to start with and, and, and kind of rush through that as fast as we can so we can get to the meat of the of the budget, um, uh, so budget requirements were required by state statute, um, to.

01:46:36,270	to to create a budget uh we must follow the governmental accounting or generally accepted accounting standards and the governmental Accounting Standards Board, a pronouncements and when we prepare these budgets is all we have to take those into account, uh, and we must establish by state by state statute must establish appropriation for the general fund, the special revenue funds, and debt service funds and capital improvement projects, um. For the city.

01:46:56,300	Uh, we have other types of funds, uh, but they have what was called a financial plan, which means they don’t require an appropriation which has an enterprise funds and internal service funds and fiduciary funds. Um, and I will pass this along to Comm. Cleary to discuss the process that we went through.

01:47:18,800	So as Dmitri said our process was a little different this year just this changes and some new faces at the table, um, so I just, first and foremost want to say that I really appreciate the extra time that uh staff had put into this because um Dimitri, Jason, Doug, and Eric in finance, um, I know sat in a lot of extra meetings, um, for my sake and

01:47:38,970	for Comm. Risch’s sake along with the departments that just kind of doubled up to make sure that Um, myself and our new Comm. we’re both like Fully up to speed on what we’re going through tonight.

01:47:54,970	Um, so there was a lot of work done prior to tonight, which is that middle bullets that you’re seeing on your screen, um, so I just want to just express how thankful I am for that cause I feel like um I’ve learned a lot and we have made a lot of progress, uh, and then just to kind of explain where we go from here, I think. Looking at the budget.

01:48:15,270	From like a high point of view, uh, I think it’s important to remember, I, you know, learning from how Comm. Marquardt did a lot of this in having The philosophy that we are doing our best to prevent any future burden that we’re going to see, you’re gonna see Dmitri talk a lot about a lot of big projects that are coming up, so I think

01:48:35,070	that it’s important when we’re sitting in that budget committee to remember that we’re trying to do our best to remain conservative and fiscally responsible with our dollars and um For the here and now, but then also to make sure that we’re not making decisions they’re gonna prevent uh or put a future burden on tax dollars

01:48:54,200	down the road, so I think that there’s a lot of balance to be had between making sure that we’re, you know, making decisions that are affecting us, you know, and putting us in the scenario where we have a balanced budget and we’re not looking at an increase, um, but that we’re also making the

01:49:12,870	decisions that are going to set us up appropriately for the future. um with some of those big projects that are just inherently necessary with the amount of growth that Bismarck is seeing um that’s kind of where we’re at right now in the process is that we’ve gone through all those steps with directors we’ve really looked

01:49:30,430	at, you know, uh as a budget committee, what is, what are the necessary pieces and where and um how do they project into the future for us, um. So Now we’re here, we’re gonna present Dimitri’s gonna go through a full analysis of where that leaves us, um, and then, um, we’ll move forward from there.

01:49:50,800	So I think to make sure if you want to kind of walk us through the next slide. Absolutely. Thank you, Comm. Cleary. Um, the, uh, so our objectives were, you know, to have a balanced budget, we, we aim to our our our our direction was to aim aim or maintain and or reduce property tax rates for

01:50:10,600	taxpayers, uh, adjust our budgets for inflationary impact, improve public safety operations, address roads and streets and storm removal services, um, maintain the city’s, uh, uh, streets and infrastructure as best as possible and uh continues.

01:50:31,430	The programs that we’ve put in place in the last 3 to 4 years, which is the equipment replacement program and as well as any sort of cybersecurity that we’ve plans that we’ve put into place and really again, in the end we’re like Comm.

01:50:49,700	Cleary said we’re trying to reduce the future uh burden on taxpayers, and that’s what we do with a lot of planning and, and, and not just looking at the current budget, but looking at future numbers and and trying to predict what what could happen, um. Down the line.

01:51:10,870	Um, some of the significant items, you know, we have listed here, we have the inflationary adjustments certainly play an impact every year, especially the last couple of years with the economy, um, there’s some police software and equipment that we’re gonna go through, um, there’s some additional firefighters recommended for the new fire station that could be coming up in 2026 or or maybe in a few years, um, uh, new equipment operator positions to address, uh, road repairs and stone removal services.

01:51:31,170	being lots of miles of road that’s are being added um to our, to our city and so we continuously need, um, equipment operators in order to keep our streets clean and and maintained, um, uh, there’s a new Rosen Street supervisor to manage the, the, the additional, the additional people that are put in, um, as well as the equipment replacement program is continued to replace vehicles and equipment on a timely basis in order to avoid

01:51:52,770	um And, you know, immediate emergency costs uh down the line and having them all happen all at once. There actually needs to be a plan that we’ve implemented the last 3 or 4 years that’s been working really well and I and saved.

01:52:09,730	Saved a lot of money for our taxpayers as well as this in in the city. Um, We continue to have annual street maintenance projects um through the cities um engineer department, um, the enterprise funds and the uh utilities are, you know, are, are still contain doing the water treatment plant expansion project in in uh the 2nd year, um, the cast iron water replacement program is still continuing, um, landfills

01:52:37,670	continue with their equipment replacement, traffic signals, street lights replacement are continuing. A lot of these programs. are, are continuous from year to year to year, um, the airport taxiway construction as well as um or any rehabilitation of, of any runways, uh, Hay Creek lift stations continuing, um, so we, we have a lot of projects that

01:52:58,330	are going on that are continuing from year, from the past, from the previous year that are going into this year. Um, the inflation, inflation rate in May 2024 was reduced to 3% uh from from 2023 by uh from 4% to 3%, so that helped a lot with, with the costs of things that slowed the inflation down

01:53:18,770	for, uh, most definitely, uh, Federal Reserve maintained the federal funds rate, um, from the year before, uh, to combat inflation that helped a lot and continues to help in the current economy, operating costs continue to impact budget, so we still have We’re still we’re still recovering from some of that inflationary impact certain budgets may have

01:53:39,870	not been adjusted last year, uh, just cause they haven’t needed to until, you know, the impacts being felt this year rather than last year and so we’re, we’re, we’re reacting a lot of times to certain costs like insurance and things that happen across the board we haven’t yet been addressed, so you’ll see some of that in our

01:53:59,570	proposed budget, um, there’s still some lag time for vehicles and equipment for delivery. Uh, in many industries, you know, uh, fire trucks is one for that’s off the top of my head, we have a lot of uh things are getting things are getting better.

01:54:18,430	They’re, they’re much their lag time is being reduced, um, we’re catching up on our backlog of things, um, and so, uh, things are getting better and prices continue to increase, but not at the rate as we’ve seen before, which, which is very helpful. Uh, interest rates for, for debt, um. have increased to over 5%.

01:54:38,600	That’s the unfortunate part of combating inflation is that here we’re we’re having to the the cost of of borrowing is, is, is getting is much higher than where we use what we’re used to and as a, as a local government, we usually get pretty, pretty used to get pretty decent interest rates and money was um a lot less expensive to borrow,

01:54:56,330	but now we have to probably rely a little bit more on our uh cash reserves than we’ve had in the past just to save for our taxpayers, um.

01:55:15,370	But um, yeah, you, you’ll see the budget reflect rea is reacting to some of these factors and so a lot of, a lot of things have stabilized, but there’s still a couple items that that need to be addressed, had to be addressed in the budget.

01:55:32,530	And so I’ve, I’ve gone through this, you know, in Citizens Academy and various places, so I’m not going to dwell on this too long, um, to, to kind of speed the presentation up a little bit, but a lot of these uh just basic governmental accounting, uh, kind of concepts that list out different fun types and what they all mean and and how they structure uh a government um where you have governmental funds, enterprise funds, and fiduciary funds were and the two that we’re going to focus on today are governmental funds

01:55:51,800	and enterprise funds. And governmental funds focus on taxes, whereas enterprise funds focus on fees and charges for services and that’s the difference really. Um, and then governmental funds break down into different types that are guided by state statute and how what needs to be approved, including that have different taxes and different uh revenue sources that have specific

01:56:13,730	purposes such as sales tax and and street lights, street light fees and things like that. Um, the budget concept overall very big picture is that you always start with expenditures, you subtract out other revenue sources that you have and then you determine what else do you need, what else the city needs

01:56:32,400	in order to, at least in the general fund and uh in order to sustain services in order to um. Address the services that are uh guided by the, by the city commission or the budget committee.

01:56:53,630	And so diving into the expenditures, they are broken down into 4 really key categories we look at new personnel which are FTEs. We look at ongoing costs, and these two items, the personnel and ongoing costs is what really drive budgets into the future and they are gonna continuously, uh, you know, they’re gonna continuously cost the city money to provide these services.

01:57:15,100	So if we’re the budget committee is very, very careful about looking at reviewing these costs and making. Sure that they that it’s a it’s a need for the city and um we’ll add value to the citizens.

01:57:31,570	One time cost in capital projects are, are far and few between and they happen every year, but they’re, but they’re different every year and that makes things a little bit, um, easier to easier to review because you know that’s something that’s not gonna happen for a period of time. And so, without further ado, um, we’re gonna move into the, the analysis of the general fund, um, essentially, you know, I kind of provide this graph every year.

01:57:52,900	The idea here is that to show that the bar, the blue bars on the bottom really show the reserves that the city maintains over time and so the first uh several first two columns are actual numbers from 2022 and 2023. And they kind of show what what’s really happening.

01:58:14,000	The blue line is the revenue, the red line is, and you’ll see that throughout my presentation is the red line is the expenditures, um, in this situation, the orange line really shows the operating cost where.

01:58:32,370	What we’re trying to get at in a lot of in in the government world is trying to have a balanced budget, which means that revenues equal expenditures at the end of the day. And so that’s why you see the blue line and the red line, um, for the 2025 budget column line up exactly next to each other, and that means we have about that basically signifies a balanced budget.

01:58:49,570	But to show, to look, if you look at the orange will be difference between the orange line and the red line, what they really show is and the blue line is show the difference is the cushion that creates for one time costs and so the yellow line shows the operating cost that the city has on an ongoing basis and that shows that the rest of it has to be is filled in with one time expenditures that

01:59:09,870	happen every year, they’re just different expenditures. Do you have any questions? OK. Um, this is the same information just in in dollar form, uh, it kind of shows what the reserves are, um.

01:59:31,900	You know, and kind of what we do here is we project into the future a little bit, um, we try to be consistent, we try to see what the trends have been in the last several years as we to to show the projections into the future. Um, Uh we foresee that that the budgets will probably increase about between 4 and 5% each year, um, if things are things are consistent, um.

01:59:54,170	And you know, this is kind of shows the summary. We don’t have any mill levy increases. We don’t project we don’t show any the the way we present this the presentation of this budget does not have any property tax rate increases, there’s a potential reduction in the mill levy and you know, um, we, there’s a uh property taxes are only a proportion, uh, a

02:00:14,830	portion of the total revenue of the general fund. Um, And, uh, we obviously have other revenue sources, um, that the other half of the general fund is made up of other revenue sources including grants and other intergovernmental revenue state aid, um, and transfers that we received the $9.

02:00:36,270	8 million from the sales tax, which is a ballot based on the ballot measure, um, and so, uh, there’s various things that including charges for services. So general fund is not just made up of property tax, general fund is, is about 50 property tax and. Half made up of other revenue sources that are really not connected to property tax.

02:00:56,100	So here’s kind of a pie chart of the reb breakdown of general fund revenues, um, these shows that the tax collections are about 52% and then the rest are made up of various different sources, uh, stated is definitely a big one as well as the $9.8 million we get from the sales tax one.

02:01:18,030	Uh, this is the breakdown kind of expenditures. Here I’m just showing the operating expenditures, uh, if you look public safety takes kind of majority of it, um, in this, in the in the pie chart on the right, you can see by function of the city, how much each function of the city uh costs uh of the total general fund

02:01:38,170	budget, uh, public safety is 5 almost 60% of it, um, and then followed up by by other general government uh fun functions that we have, um. And then if you look on the left, personnel make up about I would say uh the 78% of our budget is personnel costs.

02:02:03,370	Um, the general fund has some fund balance. Um, we’re currently sitting about 57% uh of what uh of the threshold, but um we do have some commitments that we need to make for these projects moving forward.

02:02:24,630	These are projects that we’ve already been discussed or um have potential for happening in the near future, and so, um, we will, you know, there’s a recommendation to to commit these fund balance by by to have an official commitment by the city commission of these uh. Projects and and potential uh expenditures that we’re going to have in the near future. Um, Rosen Streets Fund is another, uh, is a special revenue fund that the city has.

02:02:44,370	Uh, it’s mainly subsidized by the highway motor vehicle licensing and fuels tax, um, but that revenue has been very, very flat for the last as long as I’ve been at the city for the last 5 years, so the it has been very consistent, uh, however, it’s not been growing at all, and so, uh, the lack of consistency of forces it, uh,

02:03:05,170	forces it to to be subsidized by the. General fund and sales tax fund in order to sustain it and balance it to 0 each year. Um, We have been getting some money from the legacy, the state’s legacy fund and the and the Prairie dog fund, um, but it, it’s not a, those are only

02:03:24,530	one time distributions as far as we um identify them and so it’s very difficult for us to fund operations with that money, uh, they’re great for, um, various projects and equipment purchases, but it’s something that is not. We don’t consider sustainable at this point.

02:03:43,130	Um, and so if you look, you know, you kind of have that red line which is the highway tax that we get from the state that that in the past has been able to um fully sustain the roads and streets fund, but you know, in the last 5 years, it has the costs have just been going up exponentially, which is the red

02:04:02,300	line and the and the the revenue, the highway tax revenue kind of stays behind and so the difference between two, the gap between the two has had to be filled in by general fund and sales tax. funds for snow removal and uh forestry and. Um, Uh, just roads and streets operations.

02:04:24,230	Um, sales tax fund is approved by ballot measure with the citizens, so we have 1 1.5% sales tax at the city, um, a portion of it has very specific purposes, um, and it’s a portion of it’s $9.

02:04:47,270	8 million as I mentioned before, is used to to reduce the property tax burden, um, used for mainly for street maintenance projects, uh, used for snow removal and um, it contributes to offsets of special assess. uh for um. For street repairs. Um, And to show you kind of the forecast, the sales tax seems to be stable, the the, the, the fun the the reserve or the fund balance if you will, um.

02:05:11,170	Balances up and down depending on the number of projects that are performed by by um by engineering, and so those are just up and down depending on the on the cost for that one year, it, it, all in all, we, we, I don’t feel like I feel like this revenue source is very sustainable at this point, um, but it’s this also includes a half cent sales

02:05:32,530	tax which eventually will sunset, which are used for very specific projects that were approved by the citizens. Um, the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library established by state statute, it’s financed by 5.99 mils of our property taxes, uh, the library board, uh, determines the library’s budget and um it is presented to uh this the portfolio Comm..

02:05:59,900	However, um, the city commission mainly approves the the property tax that that goes to the library, um. Uh, other significant, uh, special revenue funds are listed here. Um, some of them we’ll discuss later in this presentation, um, but these are more just for informational purposes.

02:06:24,870	Um, street lights and signals are funded by a fee that’s charged on the utility bill, um. Uh, we’re focusing on the LED relamping program for efficiency in the last couple of years, um, we, we bumped it up and to get that done, uh, in 2 years instead of 4, we, we’re gonna partially use fund balance, um, uh, in over the next couple of years, that’s

02:06:45,200	why you see kind of a dip in that in those bars, uh, that’s the reserve the reserves or the fund balance if you will, uh, for a little, little period, a small period of time, and then it’ll start recovering and. And the reason we’re doing that is actually to save cost.

02:07:01,870	The longer a project lasts and drags out, the more costs with inflation and so we thought it would be the. The um public works director Salway and on the portfolio Comm., Comm.

02:07:23,100	Cleary, um, have kind of have agreed that it it’s best to get those done sooner than later rather than drag it out over a 4 year period or 5 year period to get this done in order to save cost. Um, And, and that, but the cost for street lights and and traffic signals has been going up significantly over the last several years with inflation, and they continue, that’s one of those areas that continue to go up in cost and so we are recommending

02:07:43,900	a 54 cents monthly fee increase in 2025 to address inflationary increases and LED light replacement and impact on signals and equipment. Um, we also have something called a category of funds called a debt service fund, um, and that’s mainly, it’s a very basic, uh, type of fund it collects special assessments for existing uh special assessments

02:08:06,900	and then uses that those special assessments to directly pay off the debt that that’s been issued on behalf of the citizens. So, uh, it’s pretty straightforward in and out. Um, but we are still required to. Set up and appropriate a budget appropriation for those funds.

02:08:29,270	And then that kind of ends the governmental fund piece of it, which is the tax piece now we’re moving on to enterprise funds which are mainly fee based or or otherwise, um, these are the enterprise for the most of the enterprise funds that we have and the kind of the structure that they are, there’s the airport event center, water, sanitary sewer.

02:08:46,630	Stormwater, solid waste disposal, solid waste collections. Um, and these funds you, we have to look at a little bit differently. Each of some of them are very unique like the event center and the airport.

02:09:07,630	Whereas the utility funds and solid waste funds are a little more alike where they are mainly collecting fees for service, um, that go directly to sales to citizens and come from citizens and the way you look at these is because the utility funds have a lot of projects, solid waste there or the water sewer, stormwater, they have a lot of projects involved.

02:09:26,830	They have to do a lot of planning for the future and a lot of uh for forecasting and so a lot of them have to look at. it a little bit differently than than the general fund, um, whereas the general has less of those projects and more focused on on day to day operations, um, and enterprise funds mainly consist of capital projects and, and, and so therefore, sometimes it’s more beneficial

02:09:46,630	to take out debt in those funds, um, at a obviously at a reasonable interest rate, um, in order to finance some of those um. Very expensive projects and therefore once you figure out everything, then you can determine what the fee should be in order to, um, for those funds.

02:10:06,430	And so as a budget committee we go through this this this process we hear from the directors and we’ll listen to their, uh, requests and the needs for the city and then we address uh any needs and changes in fees.

02:10:25,630	Um, we do have, uh, we did have a, a, a for the water fund, we have, we had a Stanecrate study in 2023, um, or an upgrade to a rate study and and um. And we also received a $500 million grant from the state of North Dakota and so for the water we water treatment expansion, uh, and so those are that caused us to look at the water rates and and notice that they will not be

02:10:48,230	increasing, um, or shouldn’t have to increase in the next several years, um, because the cost will be absorbed through the $500 million grant. Um, Um, they’re all, all the projects are recommended as part of the utility rate plan, um, it, it’s all being accounted for and and included in how the uh water

02:11:09,870	rates are, are, um. Uh, are determined. Um, the water fund also continues to, um, help with the cast iron uh water main replacement, and so that’s been going on for the last several years and continues to to uh continues to do so.

02:11:34,730	Um, the 2025 sewer fund, um, uh, sanitary sewer fund with funds have been analyzed as part of the Stane study as well. Uh, the serial rates will be recommended an increase of 2.25% uh per the model, um, projects listed in the CIP worksheet are all recommended as part of the utility plan and the main one, the most expensive ones on there, you’ll notice there are the Hay Creek

02:11:54,230	lift Station and uh uh Hay Creek interceptor, um. We used the SRF loan at 2% interest rate to finance it, as well as the flow equalization clarify rehab project and those are uh very, very favorable interest rates for those types of projects through the state, North Dakota.

02:12:18,830	Um, 2025 stormwater fund, uh, we at this, at this point we don’t recommend any increases to storm water rates, uh, but, um, there is a potential for a South Bismarck flood protection project at 25 million, uh, something that will maybe be discussed in the future, um. But It, I think this is just our portion, Comm. Zenker. If I’m not mistaken.

02:12:44,470	That was, that was on the list. we are we are, that’s good, that’s good. That’s good. I should have brought coffee drink there. Well, that, that’s not an energy drink, but I did have one earlier, so then.

02:13:12,200	Um, solid waste collection disposal funds, you know, uh, they, they, they provide collections of garbage and as well as the uh disposal, which is the landfill, um, they’re fee-based, uh, they’re all these funds that I’m talking about right now are self-sustaining, um.

02:13:36,900	You know, um, we’re, we’re requesting a 92% per month increase um in their residential collection fees and that’s primarily due to increased operating capital costs, um, you know, a lot of these costs are required or regulated and so we have to maintain make sure that fund stays, uh, um, and has stays up upright and has a good reserves in order to fund some of these closure post closure, new cells, equipment, um. Um, future landfill sites, etc.

02:13:58,630	Um, we also have a $26 million bond BND loan at 2% interest rate with a 2.5 annual debts or $2.5 million annual debt service for 20 years for the public works expansion project that’s also in that fund.

02:14:16,870	And so you can kind of see it, it, there’s a spike in there for additional costs in that in one period and then after that it kind of smooths out, smooths itself out again these these funds are not very straightforward and stable. They, they have to look at him long term rather than short term in order to predict what could potentially happen in the multi-million dollar projects that go into them in order to comply with regulation or uh to come to make sure that we have

02:14:34,270	um. Um Uh, make sure that we’re sustaining operations. And um this is the disposal phone, which is a landfill landfill, um, there’s a lot of really heavy and expensive equipment that needs to be, uh that is purchased in there, um, and then this is the collections which is a little bit more stable just because you buy

02:14:55,230	garbage trucks, you go collect garbage. That’s pretty straightforward. And. Events center fund, um. Um, this one is a little bit odd just because the event center operates at a loss, uh, the loss is approximately 260,000 to $645,000 annually and that’s I’m just looking at the last like 6 years, uh, obviously there was the COVID year that

02:15:23,030	caused a huge dip in operations, um, but you know, uh, with the COVID, with the COVID where there was basically no opera and nothing happening and no events happening. There also came an opportunity to get the SVOG. She grant, which is from a federal grant that we received of 3.

02:15:44,970	4 million which helped kind of shore up that loss in 2020 and allowed us to sustain operations for the next several years, um, that were, uh. All all those up last several years were still had losses in him, but the grant helped, um, prop him up, but now unfortunately the the grant is depleted um in 2024 and so we will need another revenue

02:16:06,770	source in order to uh continue to operate the event center, um, or shore up the losses that it incurs, um, and obviously, you know, the city commissions having discussions about what happens with the event center, what, what’s gonna happen moving forward and so, um, that needs to be.

02:16:22,530	I just want to point out that that needs to be taken into account when you make your decisions, um, moving forward because at some point the some and then this year it’ll it’ll need to be shored up for whatever it loses at the end of the year.

02:16:47,470	One thing that helps sustain the helps the um, the event center is they’ll they’ll uh hotel motel tax, which is split between the CVB and and the event center of 75, 25 split, uh, respectively, um, upon collection, which is a 2% tax, uh, lodging tax that will that split, um, and then there’s also the liquor lodging and restaurants tax fund, um.

02:17:14,030	So the city collects a 1% liquor lodging restaurant tax on a monthly basis. It can only be used for capital promotional activities per state statute, so it cannot be used to uh subsidize the event center and its losses, um, but it can pay for any sort of capital improvements and things of that nature. So of that, um, it paid it paid for 1.

02:17:34,900	7 million and it also pays for 1.7 million events and debt that was used to fund the exhibit hall. In 2013, I believe, and um we also were able to refund the debt in 2022 and take advantage of the lower interest rates, so that saved us about between 200 and $250,000 in annual payments.

02:17:56,270	Um, that was, uh, very helpful for, for this fund, um, we assume a conservative 1% increase in in in this tax per year, however, you know, this fund has, you know, has been, has done really well and uh survived, basically survived through COVID and uh.

02:18:19,170	Uh, um, Uh, mainly because of the liquor and restaurant tack the portion of the tax, um, and, um, but, but overall, I think it’s, it’s very healthy fund, um, and then it will definitely uh be needed to sustain the event center, um, capitals, capital projects.

02:18:42,570	Um, the airport fund, uh, uh, collects fees, uh, contract fees from airlines and other similar fees, uh, they collect lease revenue, um, and various other things, similar things like that at the at the airport, it’s very self sustaining, um, it has a budget of revenue, it has a lot of capital projects. A lot of the capital projects are federally funded.

02:19:00,770	Um, obviously they have their runway rehab rehabilitation this year and purchase some snow equipment, um, they are projected at terminal expansion in the next 5 years depending on the needs of, of, of the airport, um, I had actually a credit to, uh, uh, Malaya at the airport, she put these report these graphs together for me which were super, super helpful and kind of shows the operating costs of the airport and that it’s very

02:19:21,030	sustainable and looks into the future and. Rejects a healthy, a healthy fund, um, as well, and then once you put in all the capital projects it gets a little crazy with the graphs and it goes big, gets very volatile, but they’re very good at um managing their their operations and their cash flows.

02:19:37,570	And with that, I will turn it over to Comm. Cleary to talk about the budget requests that were made by departments and the recommendations that we made as a budget committee. All right. uh, thanks Dimitri. So yeah, I just, um, Want to remind everybody that like this is the preliminary budget.

02:20:01,100	Everything that we’re going over was stuff that was discussed at length uh with the budget committee and all the directors that were involved, um. So What we’re setting up for today, um. We can always. You know, as we go through the calendar that was shown at the beginning.

02:20:26,730	Um, there’s always going to be the option for decreases as needed as we’re like um Working through a few of the last things, but There if we approve the preliminary budget, you cannot, we cannot increase anything at that point.

02:20:44,970	So that’s why I feel like it’s so relative to like have these tougher conversations at the beginning of this so that we’re not trying to add things in and nothing is missed, that sort of thing, um, when it comes to 2025 salary, uh, employee salary planning, the budget committee recommends a 5.6% overall salary increase, um, to address the cost of living adjustment to keep up with the market.

02:21:04,730	This is one of the Those things were Um, as many of you know, we’re having a hard time just like a lot of um non-governmental and governmental agencies alike, um, having a hard time hiring, um and being competitive in the pools, um, and so we’ve had discussions at the Budget Committee, and I know that there’s discussions happening at HR as well with certain jobs within the city that are exponentially difficult to hire

02:21:28,170	for right now and I just Always emphasized to the budget committee that it This salary increase and staying on track with our pay plan that Conri has done for us is so important.

02:21:52,270	That To me it’s just as relevant if not more relevant than the growth of the FTEs as you’re gonna see, um, Uh, in the next couple of slides. We, we were, uh, we had 24 FTE requests, um, thanks Dimitri. um, and we’re recommending approval of 13 of them, um, two of them are firefighters.

02:22:17,330	2 of them are heavy equipment operators with just to elaborate on that, um, if you remember last year we had um some heavy operating equipment, uh, snow plows, etc. in the budget, um, and these two operators, even though we did not approve the additional.

02:22:37,730	Plows that were requested, these two operators will bring the plows that we put into play last year up to like full operating 24/7 capacity, so it kind of evens out the numbers so that we’re like as efficient as possible, um, and then on top of that, the roads and streets supervisor is something we’ve been talking about for multiple years as that department just continues to grow and is, you know, always operating in emergency um situations that that role is already.

02:22:59,000	You know, being played a little bit off uh with a crew leads and so there’s just a huge need for it in that department, um, and then we have the building supervisor worker main um maintenance technician, um, the procurement officer. For finance, um, along with. So I think that that breaks down at the 13, but um.

02:23:25,830	There are going to be, if we keep going to the, uh, yeah, key ongoing uh general fund costs increase, um, a lot of these that we looked at, especially within again my public works portfolios, um, they’re inf inflationary impacts, uh, specifically with roads and streets, street lights, um, some in solid waste as well where we’re just looking at the dollar spent, um, versus where, where inflation

02:23:47,970	is putting those for future um. The other big talking point with the ongoing um general fund costs increase that we talked a lot about was for the police. We didn’t have any FTE requests in the police this year, um, but their big ask was for this.

02:24:13,300	drone program where the drones act as emergency responders, um, Bismar Republic or Bismarck places already using drones in some capacity, but this software and program, um. It really like increase their ability and so the conversation a lot. To play with that. Now that goes along with safety, um, and the effectiveness that the police can have in Bismarck on top of the fact that.

02:24:36,100	With it being more challenging to hire some of these roles that The efficiency that some of this software can give us makes us not have to increase those FTEs quite as quickly, so I think that there’s like two sides to that coin that are beneficial, um.

02:24:56,930	To be, I don’t know if you want to take over with this, the one time, um, capital expenses. Sure, yeah. uh, thank you, Comm. Cleary, um. Uh, you know, a lot of these costs are, are already in your list that are provided and and um well um, so the, the continuing zoning and subdivision ordinance rewrite was part of it, uh, fire had some air compressors and cascade fill systems.

02:25:20,430	Now these one times are all gonna happen, uh that’s what they are one times or capital projects, which means that they’re gonna happen for once and then the next time it’s going to be multiple years down online um before this cost. returns to us, hopefully.

02:25:40,800	Um, so equipment replacement plan, uh, we like to keep on a schedule with the replacement, and again, once we replace a piece of equipment or vehicle, um, it’ll take, you know, 5 to 10 years before we come back and and replace it again, um, based on the schedule that our fleet manager, uh, Curdonnell provides, um, um, we upgrade security systems and and remaining buildings.

02:26:01,500	We’ve done a security system, um, replacement in, in the city county building as well as uh any. New buildings that we’ve constructed or expanded on the public works and public health, and so we’d like to continue doing that, um, using that same system, it seems to be working well and uh the fire stations

02:26:19,700	and the police station, uh, the landfill compactor is a huge cost of 1.65 million, uh, coming out of the solid waste fund and so, um, which is an enterprise fund and fee-based fund, um. So those are, those are just some these are some of the key high level, um, uh.

02:26:41,570	Items that maybe we’ve already went over, but um, uh, basically they’re there for you as a summary for. The actual uh request lists and and uh project lists that were provided to the budget committee.

02:27:04,570	Did Um, yeah, just to elaborate a little bit more on some of these Dmitry, uh, with specifically the security upgrades and kind of creating some of that efficiency within our buildings, a lot of it circles back to um that site logic um process that uh Steve in Public Works went through with all of the different buildings.

02:27:24,830	Um, we didn’t move forward with that as a whole, but it has been a really great resource for us to use when we’re trying to prioritize um what needs to be. to these buildings to not only make them safe but to make them efficient, so, um, that’s been another good step with some of these uh one-time expenses. Comm.

02:27:50,970	Cleary, would you like to me to hit on the event center, or is that something you prefer to do? Um, I can jump in. Um, so we went through a lot of capital projects, uh, as we talked about, I think it was just at the most recent meeting, um, there’s been some projects that were even approved last year like the seating that um we need to kind of move forward with there’s some of these

02:28:09,770	things that are. Really a detriment to the arena, um, and the functionality of it, and so, um, not only will that RFP be going out so that we’re moving forward with some of these things, um, things like the roof replacement, um.

02:28:30,370	And we did really try to be on the conservative end, especially with the parking lots, um, when we’re looking at, I think that the request was to uh replace uh parking lots of DC and E. uh D is the one that is in the most dire need of it and so um that’s the one that is approved in the preliminary budget.

02:28:51,700	Um, but some of the stuff is just very, very necessary to get the building to move forward, um, and like then also you’ll see that point of sale system in there, um, that was a, a, a discussion point, you know, with the committee for the event center, um, but then also with audit, so it’s just another thing that I think.

02:29:11,470	Myself and the budget committee uh felt was important, um, obviously. We have to be aware of that, uh, liquor and lodging and restaurant tax on end of the um amount that is in there and so that we’re not um You know, Moving at a pace that isn’t uh able to keep up with that and so I think that that’s

02:29:32,370	where we landed with these with with that stuff and so um. The streets and highways is that’s gonna be your half cent sales tax for that Century Avenue project primarily, um, and so that pretty much brings us through all of it, I believe, um, I guess I just wanted to Um, Reiterate what Dimitri talked

02:29:56,830	about, um, you know, the, the budget committee and the directors put together, uh, what is a now a balanced budget, um, that’s in front of you and the main goal being that we wanted to maintain property taxes and not have any increase and just for the inflation inflationary impact, uh, as well as, um, improved safety

02:30:19,530	and work on our roads and street services and infrastructure, um. Being that I have the public works portfolio, we have a lot of conversation about the amount of uh Miles of streets that are added um to the city of Bismarck and how that department maintains those, um, but then at the end of the day

02:30:39,700	we want to make sure that we’re making decisions when it comes to the ongoing costs um and the FTEs and the payment the pay plan and the fleet plan and all of that that is included so that we’re planning for the future and we’re reducing the burden of taxpayers ongoing for the future and so that we’re

02:30:58,300	not just thinking about what’s working best now, but what’s Going to work best for the city of Bismarck in 5 years, 10 years, and so on, so, um, that was the goal. I, um, I do think that we are there, um, but I would have to open it up for discussion, so.

02:31:30,370	Commissioners, what are your Comments Commission Risch, I’d just like to say that I’ve enjoyed the budget meetings, but it’s like drinking out of a fire hose, um, but it’s, it’s complicated. Dimitri and the team and the department heads have been very, very, um good to work with and a lot of work goes into this stuff. Comm. Zenker.

02:31:54,970	Mayor Comm. Dimitri, yep, so the short time I was on the budget committee, it was, um, it was quite the learning experience, um, the history that’s in the room and the newness that came in, I think, uh, drove some of those conversations.

02:32:11,370	I hope some of those conversations can be carried out in the future as well. So, um, the only question I got and just because us as a commission when we had a meeting about a year ago, a little over with the county is the uh public health side of things. Um, And if I, correct me if I’m wrong here, Dimitri, or, or Comm.

02:32:32,400	Cleary, I think in their prelim budget they’ve they’ve approved uh 560-ish 100,000 or so, which would be equivalent to us as a mill, and we agreed with them at that time if the more that they funded, we would reduce mills. I would be, um.

02:32:53,630	OK with approving the budget as is with the current mill level that we have, um, today, I don’t see a need for a special meeting or anything. I think it’s the details are there and we’re OK.

02:33:09,700	I would just, I would just, uh, caution that we have if everything falls into place because I think last year we couldn’t reduce the mills because of the timing of the meeting, and correct me if I’m wrong there as well, that we, that we, um, keep it on our radar that once they approve it and if they get more. Funding to public health that we give that credit back to the citizens of Bismarck. That. Yeah, Comm.

02:33:28,630	Zinker, thank you for that because that was also something I was gonna bring up by, you know, once we know for sure where the county lands if they continue with what they were planning, then we I want us to live to that that we return those dollars to the citizens. Mr. Clary.

02:33:49,300	Um, actually, one of the only things that I feel like we made it all the way through without talking, so thank you for bringing it up, um, uh, we, uh, did have conversations about it at the budget committee. Um, I know that when speaking to Comm.

02:34:13,170	Munsen, who’s the portfolio holder for the county for public health, um, that he presented a dollar amount, um, their preliminary budget, they landed at that $560 amount that Comm. Zenker is referencing. It doesn’t. At this point. Um, provide much of an increase, um. As far as the like cause we had been talking about 25% versus 50%, um, it is still at about that 25%, uh, which is where they landed last year, but correct um Comm.

02:34:36,700	Anchor, that they landed at that dollar amount after our budget was already confirmed and so um. When I’m, uh, if we want to move forward with this, I do have a motion prepared that um would kind of include that.

02:34:57,030	That there would be a potential reduce of the mill levy if a circumstance like that happened because I agree, um, we need to kind of see that, how that plays out, um, and make sure that we are uh acting accordingly to how we agreed with the county uh with that split. Is there anyone else has comments? Comm. Connelly. I thought that dollar amount was less than that, wasn’t it? Demitri? It was like 285 or something. Uh, Mayor Comm.

02:35:24,700	, Comm. Connelly, you’re exactly right, that the, the dollar amount was 280, the county is looking at it a little bit differently, looking at it like they gave us money for 24 and then now for 25, so they’re basically combining those two into one, but for us moving forward, the, the benefit is

02:35:42,370	going to be 280 + 1000 plus whatever inflationary factor. So you are correct, Comm. Connelly. It’s technically 28,000,022,000 I believe is for 2. 5 That was the increase, and that was the amount that we said we would be.

02:36:07,200	We want to get back to the citizens assuming the county picked that up, the 285 or 280, whatever the number was. Right, but then they, excuse me, Mayor, um. Uh, but didn’t they at that special meeting, they increased it. Um, it took some money out of their general fund for the.

02:36:25,800	To get to the 560, there’s some, I get it, there’s some stuff that’s gotta shake out, maybe a check’s gotta be written one way or the other to balance everything out. But at the end of the day, um, from what I can remember and what they agreed to last year with taking their mill levy and their money out of their general fund out of reserves. It was at 560 amount. Comm.

02:36:43,230	Zenker, the, the go ahead, go ahead, Comm. Cleary. Um, I do think that Comm. Zenker is correct. I don’t have it in front of me, but um I believe last year it was at the 300,000-ish mark, and we were asking them for like 560 and then at that special meeting they increased the 280 to get them to that amount, but we

02:37:06,700	weren’t able to lower ours at that point, so the, it’s kind of like retroactively we need to figure out how we wanna do that, um, because I think we’re all open. To making sure that that um plays out the way it needs to for the tax base, uh, but then. This year.

02:37:28,630	They are At that 25% again, um, so that’s, uh, where it’s a little confusing cause I think that there was conversations of moving that needle again like we had last year, um, but they, their preliminary budget is at the 25% again, so the dollar offer for this year is not much different, if at all, because

02:37:48,900	the public health budget really did not change at all from where they ended at last year. If that if my explanation is making sense. So what is that amount, um, Mayor Comm. Comm. Cleary. So what does that amount for of that 25%.

02:38:09,100	I thought it was the 560, but I could be the way it all shook out wasn’t, wasn’t a proper channels how things should have been done, right? So we’re kind of going off. Memory here, but Mayor commissioners, uh, if I may jump in, uh, the, the total amount last year that was, that was approved was 300,000 and then the 280 was added to it after the budgets were already

02:38:28,470	approved and the county decided to add in from their reserves in order to give us the money. At that point, we could not have done anything to our property taxes to reduce them, to react to that. Um, so therefore, we’re, I guess if you will, we’re behind if you will, um.

02:38:46,970	By a year or whatever it is, um, to reduce our property taxes accordingly because of the timing issue, but the overall dollar amount that was provided, that’s gonna be giving us the total dollar amount was going to be 580,000 for 2024.

02:39:04,170	And it, and based on if I remember correctly, and I could be wrong, but based on my memory of the of the of what we calculated it was 582 was the total amount for 2025. And that’s 25%. OK. That’s what I wanted. That’s OK. Thank you, sir. So Rene, I believe just got on the call if you want her to talk. So I think the point would be.

02:39:33,630	How we resolve this at at the final budget. Hearing, you know, the county. In my view stays with her, you know, right now if they stay at 25%, we have an opportunity to reduce our tax levy or assessment and we have to decide if it’s appropriate to take um.

02:39:55,530	You know, a number so we can kind of get that, get everybody up to. Even across the board over 1 year, 2 years, 5 years on the, the back. 2024 number that they’ve contributed to.

02:40:14,530	I think we have to figure that out because I don’t know that it’s prudent to have us have a big, you know, we’ll have to figure out how we do that. Point is, if they live to their commitment of 560 or 585 or 582, whatever that number is, then we as a city, I think need to return some of those dollars back to our taxpayers through a reduced mill levy assessment. And I would agree with the mayor on that.

02:40:37,170	I think it’s it’s gonna be the math of how we get to it, how we spread that out. So do we have any other? Mr. Connelly? Yeah, Mayor and commissioners, I have a little bit more here, um.

02:41:03,170	Uh I think it would be a challenge not to mention it, but it there is likely to be a vote in November the changes this conversation, um, and for us not. Uh, to, uh. I mean, the presumption of a lot of people might be that it doesn’t have a chance in things, but if the measure to eliminate property tax happens that changes a lot of conversation, um, on how we adjust to that, all of the additional ongoing expenditures

02:41:27,900	of the 13 requested FTEs. I think we find an answer regardless of how that vote happens, but I think it’s something that should be considered in the back of our minds, as the conversation goes forward. Um, because how we Take care of the business of the city if that passes the conversation going into next year changes significantly.

02:41:51,770	That’s one point, um, the other point is, um, This is a big budget in this portion is a very small portion of it, but the human relations committee wants to double the budget, and I would prefer to leave that flat.

02:42:16,370	And the reason why is coming out of the community conversation in February, the um first conversation when it came to increasing the budget out of the gate was talking about using that to put flags up on our flagpoles on Main Street on Veterans Day, and um, Uh, 4th of July, um, and talking right within that conversation was conversations with uh education on DEI and transitioning youth and there’s

02:42:45,170	a lot of people in the community that do not want taxpayers payer dollars spent that way. Comm. Con I realized the dollar amount is what you’re talking about is that, I mean, we, that’s something we can still address when we have the final budget.

02:43:11,400	I don’t know that it affects, I mean, it’s not a very big number, so I don’t know how to really even affects what we’re doing here, to be honest, it’s at this point in time, I’m not saying final budget. It’s a, it’s because it’s only like a couple $1000 isn’t it? It’s 2500, but I haven’t had a chance to meet with anybody.

02:43:32,870	That’s actually my portfolio, and since I was thinking it, it, uh. It’s a good thing to mention it so we can have those conversations going forward instead of Whenever that opportunity happens to have that discussion, um, or those discussions, um. It’s good to just have lay everything out on the table.

02:43:56,630	I know for you, Mayor, transparency is important, and this is the first opportunity to bring it up. No, no, I have no problem. I just was trying to figure out where we could be out with the, you know, the preliminary budget because I don’t know that it’s, I don’t know if it’s significant enough to affect the preliminary budget. Or not. Hm I get that.

02:44:16,500	That was my only question. Anything else, commissioners? It’s there is no other comments. Um, I would move to approve the 2025 preliminary budget. For all city funds, priority initiatives, capital projects, 5-year capital improvement plans. Fes and charges estimated tax revenue, general fund commitment committed balance amounts, and other information as presented.

02:44:56,730	Also, the city will potentially reduce the mill levy. Well ill levy will at the city commission if Burleigh County provides the contribution to the city in reference to the public health discussion. 2 Do we have further discussion? You will call roll. Commissioner’s anchor? Yes. Comm. Connelly, Comm. Cleary. Yes, Comm. Risch. Mayor Schmitz.

02:45:39,400	Yes, and I want to commend the Budget Committee and all of the efforts in this unique year that we’ve had and, and especially the team in the city finance department. Thank you for your work. Thank you, Mayor commissioners. Thank you all for being part of it. Uh, thank you to the special thanks to the two commissioners that were had to uh.

02:46:00,500	you know, be in every meeting for multiple weeks. So thank you, Comm. Zaner and Comm. Cleary for putting in the time and Comm. Risch, thank you for drinking out of the fire hose as you put it, and uh thank you, Comm.

02:46:17,170	Connelly for, for, you know, uh, being a part of this and and uh mayor as well, uh thank you for uh helping us with this process and, and, um. And helping us get to a balanced budget. Thank you. Right. Next item 11 Contra for banner design services and um. Lauren, I guess you’re presenting. Uh, I am, thank you, uh, good evening, Mayor and Comm.. Thank you for your time this evening.

02:46:47,500	Uh, the historic Preservation Commission is looking to utilize the remaining $2,995.75 of the 2022 historic Preservation Fund grant, um, before the grants deadline by contracting with a professional graphic design firm to create 3 potential designs for the cathedral Area Historic District.

02:47:17,270	And the historic preservation Commission recommends contracting with marketing works for this project, um, I should note that this is a qualification-based selection and selection was based on several factors, um, solicitation for professional design services was conducted and posted on the city website between June 26th and July 10th, 2024..

02:47:39,930	5 letters of interest were received in the historic Preservation Commission selected marketing works as their avail proposed costs and relevant experience was determined to best align with the goals and objectives of the grant project. Um, the work for this project will be conducted primarily between July 22nd and August 21, 2024, in order to utilize the remaining funds before the end of the reimbursement deadline for this grant.

02:48:05,970	One final design of the 3 designs, uh, that the that the A contractor, uh, marketing works, uh, will provide will be chosen at the historic preservation Commission’s August meeting, um. The historic Preservation Commission and staff recommends approval of the design services contract with Marketing Works for the cathedral Area Historic District Banner Designs. Do you have any questions for me at this time? M’s questions Comm.

02:48:32,300	Risch, the 2995, that’s for the design, or will that go somewhat to the banners as well. So, so, uh, thank you for that question, uh, Comm. Risch, uh, Mayor commissioners. So the $2,995 is the remaining amount in the 2022 historic Preservation Fund grant. Um, this is only going for the design services.

02:48:58,930	We actually have Another, uh, the 2023 historic Preservation Fund grant, um, that has earmarked part of its budget to uh uh produce and install the banners for this district. So just the 2022 funds um with this remaining amount will be used for the design services. Any other questions? Ministers, what are your wish? What are your wishes is presented.

02:49:31,930	So I got Do we have any further discussion? none will call roll Comm. Connelly, Comm. Cleary. Yes, Comm. Risch. Yes. Comm. Zenker. Mary Schmidt. Yes. Um, prior to going to executive session potentially, is there any other business? For the Go to the order I would like to. Go ahead, Comm. Connelly.

02:50:12,100	Mayor and commissioners, human relations Committee is having their community conversation tomorrow night at the library from 6 to 8 p.m. and would encourage people to attend if they’re so inclined. Thank you, Comm.. All right, if not, is there anyone who’s willing to make motion for us to enter executive session.

02:50:45,630	I’ll make the motion to go into executive session under Century code 44-04-19-2 regarding contract negotiation strategy under North Dakota Section 44-0-19.1. Second, Any discussion Harry Dunn will call roll. Comm. Cleary. Yes, Comm. Risch. Yes, Comm. Zinker. Yes, Comm.