00:00:00,000	this will be our agenda for tonight. Um, I have some topics to review with you, uh, relating to our community health needs assessment. Some identified priorities, a housing and homeless forum and then provide some homelessness updates, um, statistics, and then I have um someone here uh Deputy Chief Stelmeier here from the police department as

00:00:20,200	well to talk about impacts, um, to the Bismarck Police Department and looking at a potential solution. So I’ll get started with our community health needs assessment. Um, we have done this every 3 years for those of you that may be new to the table, um, it’s a partnership between Bismarck, Burley Public Health, uh, Western Plains Public Health,

00:00:41,570	and the local hospitals. Um, we do a stakeholder survey, and that is sent out um to the community stakeholders and the general public. We have secondary data from, um, the county health rankings and other community, uh, Statistics and feedback, and then a stakeholder meeting, um, identifying the health needs and then finally the implementation plan to develop

00:01:06,270	and address those needs and that’s currently where we are at in the process is, um, we’ve been through all of, all of the prior squares and we’re looking at um what we need, um, to put in our implementation plan to address the needs that were identified.

00:01:28,000	Um, we had the survey open from October through December of 2023. It was available online, um, stakeholders from the community are partners, um, and the general public completed it. And then we also did extra efforts to reach underserved populations and homeless populations to be able to get their feedback as well. Um, Bismarck Burley Public Health did some additional surveys with those individuals.

00:01:50,470	We had a total of 1,118 responses submitted, and that was up from the last time we did our assessment, um, which was 9:33 last time in 2021. And then you can see our top needs that were identified in 2024. Um, number one this year was affordable housing, um, that was our most prevalent need.

00:02:12,270	Um, it was in our survey, um, needs last time, but certainly came out as the top need this time around, followed by mental health, public transportation, quality childcare, long-term senior care, access to healthcare providers, and then access to affordable health care. Our stakeholders meeting was held on June 10th, and that was at the Dream Center in Bismarck.

00:02:38,000	We had approximately 70 stakeholders gathered, um, to review the survey results and then participate in facilitated discussion on the needs that were identified. The stakeholders then prioritize those needs, um, ranking an order of importance to be addressed.

00:03:01,970	And the number one priority, um, that our stakeholders, uh, put forward was mental and behavioral health, um, followed by affordable, safe, accessible housing, access to affordable and quality health care, quality child care, access to public transportation, a 24/7 low barrier shelter, long-term senior care, social and medical detox services, healthy aging and healthy living. Access to specialty health care and then residential support services.

00:03:28,070	I’m pointing out in the red arrows there, um, mental and behavioral health and access to affordable and quality health care were core needs that our team, um, we met after the stakeholders meeting took place. Representatives from CHI Sanford, Bismarck Burley Public Health and Western Plains, um, to talk about what areas can we collaborate on and work together in the community and the two areas that we agreed we could have the biggest impact

00:03:49,070	on would be mental behavioral health and then access to affordable. And quality health care. Uh, affordable and safe, accessible housing is obviously a concern, um, not necessarily one that healthcare providers like us could um have a major impact on, but we are certainly willing to be a passenger in the ride, um, whoever decides

00:04:09,100	to take the lead on, on the housing, uh, piece of it, um, but we, uh, will focus on, on those other two issues, um, as a core group. Also mentioning our housing and homeless forum, we co-hosted this meeting with the community development department that was held on June 19th at the Dream Center in Bismarck.

00:04:30,100	We had approximately 60 stakeholders that participated in this meeting and really focused in on affordable housing and homelessness. And the ideas collected, um, from that forum will be used to form a Needs assessment and be included in the 2025 to 2029 consolidated plan that the community development department puts together.

00:04:53,600	We also had them do some rankings as far as what they felt was most important around housing and homelessness number one came out as a low barrier, 24/7 emergency access to shelter. Followed by overall lack of affordable housing stock, lack of emergency support for individuals with addiction and mental health issues, lack of housing for individuals with criminal history, unsafe and

00:05:17,130	uninhabitable living conditions of rental properties, uh, lack of affordable transportation options, and equitable housing rental policies, lack of public awareness regarding affordable housing needs, lack of staffing for serving service providers.

00:05:41,600	Um, lack of affordable, accessible housing for individuals with disabilities and lack of flexible rental application procedures and then followed lastly by the lack of education for landlords. So some common priorities between the community health needs assessment and the housing and homeless stakeholders group.

00:06:05,600	Um, were these four issues that really came, um, out, and that was the lack of affordable housing, lack of transportation, no 24/7 low barrier emergency shelter, and then lack of emergency support services for individuals with addiction and mental health issues. So those came through in both um stakeholder groups. As priorities. I’m gonna go now into homelessness next, um, but I want to maybe pause here and offer any opportunity if you have questions on our needs assessment or the housing forum before I do that. Any questions, anyone? OK.

00:06:34,100	Then I will go into the homelessness update. Um, I wanted to talk briefly about the unsheltered point in time count. Um, every year the HUD requires an annual count of individuals experiencing homelessness, and that’s on a single night in January.

00:06:53,730	In 2023, North Dakota started a an additional summer point in time count, so we can see what the numbers and the statistics look like, um, during the summer versus during winter since we have such harsh winters here. Uh, the counts are coordinated by region. You can see on the map. There that we are part of Region 7.

00:07:09,800	of course, most of the resources are in Bismarck and Burley County and Morton County, um, secondly, um, so we try to, to coordinate counts between those two main counties, and those were um the areas that we were able to address um Bismarck Burley Public Health did serve as the lead for the Region 7 Pit count for both in one in January and the one in July.

00:07:33,400	So just some statistics from, um, those point in time counts, the volunteers gathered at Ministry on the Margins. We split out into groups and we went to cover areas in both Bismarck and Mandan.

00:07:52,470	Um, we did the summer count on the night of July 10th, and, uh, just looking at that, um, 77 total surveys were completed in the summer point in time count, 65 of those in Bismarck and 12 in Mandan. Um, if you look at the, uh, unsheltered numbers in January.

00:08:14,730	Um, we had in 2024, 63 total surveys that were completed, um, and then in July, it was up some, um, up to 77, but not a drastic, um, as drastic of an increase as we had last year, um, versus 28 and then 52 during the summertime. So still an increase though.

00:08:40,970	I also captured um some information from HMIS, which is the Homeless Management Information System and the um service providers in the area that serve homeless individuals are, um, putting data into the HMIS system, and that’s where we’re able to get reports and statistics and information. So just an overall um comparison, the orange line there is North Dakota chronic homeless number of individuals and then the blue line is Region 7, which be the region that we are in.

00:09:01,270	You can see we’ve had a steady increase from 2018 of 54 all the way up now to 2023. That’s the most recently, um, completed data they had available at 220. Uh, the state of North Dakota obviously is seeing similar increases. I was able to get numbers back from 2020 for um the state numbers, um, but we are certainly following trend as the state is as well.

00:09:28,470	Also wanted to show some information about the number of individuals in emergency shelter, um, for Region 7, the emergency shelters that we would have here would be the abused Adult Resource Centers, domestic violence shelter, Youth Works has an emergency youth shelter, the Missouri slope Area United Way has their emergency shelter and then there’s also some beds in Mercer County, and that’s

00:09:51,470	the Women’s action and Resource Center. Um, so these would be numbers and um, In those facilities from 2018 to 2023. There was a dip in 22, I wasn’t sure exactly, or they couldn’t give me a reason as to why that was, um, but still, you can kind of see that what the range

00:10:11,830	is as far as the number of people needing emergency shelter. I also wanted to talk briefly about the access points in the community. So if you’re homeless, you must start at one of these access points and get, um, basically registered or assessed, um, to see what services you need and what we can connect you with.

00:10:35,270	Um, the top portion is for someone that is in need of emergency shelter in the bottom section is for the individuals in need of food, rent, utilities, or other basic needs. So when you’re looking for for shelter or a place to stay.

00:10:55,530	Um, the options then for you would be abusedult Resource Center, if you’re a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or human trafficking, and unaccompanied minor, you’d go to youth works, um, men and women, individuals without children, um, are taken in at United Way.

00:11:17,470	Um, they are what’s considered a high barrier shelter, so they’re doing drug testing at night, um, and so they’re screening out individuals that, um, may be under the influence, um, And then that leaves us the option, um, of ministry on the margins, who’s had a pilot project in place at the coffee house. It’s not a shelter.

00:11:38,930	They’re not entering, um, information necessarily into HMIS because they are not considered a shelter with beds, um, but they are a safe place for individuals to be out of the elements, um, and they are kind of filling our gap, um, in that aspect of things. But certainly, um, that gap is there. They’re not open. 24/7, um, and there’s no access, um, 24/7 365, basically for those that have a crisis or behavioral health condition.

00:12:02,800	When you look at the levels of individuals that um we’re talking about when it comes to behavioral health and addiction. There are levels of um support that individuals need based on what they are experiencing in their lifetime, at their, uh, point in time if they’re stable, they could still need resources, they could be functioning at home school and work, um, but maybe

00:12:24,670	don’t have enough money to get food for themselves or for their families. Um, so they would be accessing resources like the food pantries, for example, um, then you can go down to the next level, um, that they would have a history of behavioral health and addiction issues, um, and they maybe are interested in making

00:12:47,070	some changes. So would be potentially open to being enrolled in in some sort of treatment program or um trying to follow rules to um adhere to when it comes to the level of support services.

00:13:05,830	Um, do they need to go to uh addiction treatment, um, what kind of support services do they need and are able and willing to, to try something. at that point. So that would be that middle level. And you can see on the, on the right all of the community partners that, um, are providing services in our community right now, uh, for those individuals, especially that are um going through a hard time and ready to do

00:13:26,600	something to get help, um, and to make a change. Uh, the last level is the level of crisis, and this is the level that really We’re seeing a lot of issues with um these individuals have active chronic severe mental and behavioral health and addiction issues. They’re really just trying to survive day to day.

00:13:47,470	Um, they are not able to meet their basic needs. They’re not stable, they’re not ready for change. They may be actively, um, experiencing mental illness or um addiction and really not able to take care of themselves. They’re just trying to get through each day and survive each day. Um, the individuals.

00:14:08,270	At this level, um, are impacted, um, a lot, a lot of our entities such as law enforcement, our emergency rooms, hospitals, emergency responders and local businesses. I know the police department will be speaking a little bit briefly um about the experiences that they’ve had with businesses reaching out for them, to them for help um with individuals that would be considered individuals in

00:14:29,530	crisis at this tier. So you can see the support and the resources off to the right. We have West Central, um, a crisis unit that’s not a shelter, but they are actually contracting, um, and I’ll go a little bit more in detail about what that actually entails in a, um, another slide, but Dakota Foundation has a crisis

00:14:51,170	response unit for behavioral health, uh, Ministry on the margins is doing, um, the coffee house, not a shelter, but open 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. Summer hours, and then the mosaic triage Center, um, Tricia Brown is a nurse practitioner, um, and she is looking at um doing medical detox, that’s in the planning

00:15:12,300	stages right now, but it’s not, um, operational at this point. So limited resources, but high needs. So alternative care services, it’s ACS and that’s what I was talking to you about West Central contracts with Dakota Foundation.

00:15:37,930	Um, it’s a crisis residential model, and they were originally established, um, as an alternative to hospitalizations for persons with mental illness, and then they expanded into, um, helping dual diagnosed individuals, so they might have substance abuse and mental health issues, um, and then they opened up beds, um, for their detox facility, and that was open.

00:15:59,400	Um, prior just to West Central clients, but in 2020 they opened that up, um, so if someone came in, presented from the community or if law enforcement had someone that was in need of, uh, detox services, they were able to have a bed at that facility as well. So you can see the number of clients that they have served has drastically increased, um, from 2019 and 2020, that’s when, uh, the detox would have been opened up.

00:16:20,530	Um, to others outside of West Central clients, um, to where they are now with 2023 to 24 at 469. This slide will show you the types of individuals that they are seeing and the number of days that they are spending in the facility. Um, the blue line at the top is substance use disorder.

00:16:44,730	So if someone is coming in with, uh, substance use disorder. This is the number of days that they would have spent at their facility and you can see the increase over the years as far as um the number of days that people have had to spend there.

00:17:01,970	Um, we’ve got the orange line, which is mental illness, and then we have the green line at the bottom and that is someone um that would be there for mental illness and substance use disorder.

00:17:24,730	I wanted to show you this slide because in 2020, this is what I had mentioned, um, when they opened up their social detox beds to clients, um, outside of the West Central clients. They had a drastic increase. Obviously you’ll see that orange line spike up, um, but our police department, uh, and the number of calls that they had taking people to jail did decrease, um, following that, and so you can see just that simple, um, that change really had an impact on law enforcement.

00:17:45,130	It’s a minor change, um. And had some impact, but we’re still seeing the needs. Um, this is just related to, to detox itself and not other welfare checks. Um, I do have a slide here about the local hospitals and what they are seeing, so their impacts, they were able to provide me with some statistics.

00:18:12,270	Um, these numbers reflect emergencies by primary diagnosis at the local emergency rooms, and this is a combined number between Sanford, um, and CHI. The blue line at the bottom is um primary diagnosis of drugs. The drugs include meth, opioids, cannabis, and cocaine.

00:18:35,170	Highest number of, um, Overdoses was meth and it kind of goes in that order, so meth, opioids, cannabis, cocaine. Um, but I included them all in the same line there and then the second, um, orange line is alcohol, and you can see we’ve had steady increase to, um, as far as the needs go for emergency rooms and the impacts on emergency rooms for alcohol intoxication.

00:19:00,330	Um, this slide is the Bismarck Police Department and the welfare checks that they have been doing and the number of calls that they’re going out on. So, I will um have, um, Deputy Chief Stelmayer speak to this, uh, slide and provide information. Hi, I’m Deputy Chief Jason Stelmeyer.

00:19:21,530	Uh, field services commander for the uh field services division, um, uh, Chief Drevi is gone today. Uh, he’s on a well needed vacation. Uh, so here I am. Renee asked me to uh make a few comments about the challenges we’re having, uh. As far as the police department goes, and I was gonna break this up into two challenge, two different challenges, and one is detox.

00:19:42,030	Um, and you’ve seen on the previous, if I could, can I scroll this up here, um. OK, this one you can see that we did get some relief and this is. Release some uh really good relief to us because detox is very.

00:20:06,470	Manpower intensive, and I’ll explain that in a minute, but uh I just wanted to overall what is detox so detox it’s not illegal to be out and drunk public, so it’s not a criminal offense. There’s a state law that prohibits that from being a criminal offense.

00:20:29,570	However, we have the ability per state law to take somebody to their home, local hospital detox center or whenever that individual cons constitutes a danger to individuals or The saw or individuals or themselves, we can take them to jail. Well, we’ve had no. Other facility to take them, so historically we take them to to jail and that’s for their safety. Obviously we’re obligated to try to contact a family member.

00:20:54,530	Um, so typically the folks we deal with in this, they have no family members, no friends that that are willing to take care of them. We end up clearing them at the hospital and then taking him to jail and they’re there for approximately 8 hours or until they sober up and then they’re released from custody. So we’re the. The manpower issues come in is.

00:21:13,200	We have to get them cleared by jail. I’m sorry, by the hospitals. Which is a departure from it was before, but the state legislature put that on the the jails that we need some medical clearance because we had folks dying in the jails of. Because they weren’t cleared. So it kind of made sense, however.

00:21:35,730	That adds about anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour and a half, uh. At the hospital, and that means at least one officer, but usually 2 officers that are dealing with that situation and that’s just at the hospital. So we’re looking at minimum 2 hours, 2 officers tied up. Dealing with one detox. Uh, and as you can see, we had.

00:21:59,770	Um, you know, back in 2015 we had 450 of them. Uh, which was quite a bit. So we did get some relief, part of that, I would say is the services that are being provided. Uh, by some of the folks in this room.

00:22:18,530	Some of it was the jail shut down during COVID, and I think the tolerance. From the officers we had to make a shift what we could, we just couldn’t. Care for others like we wanted to in the past, um, typically detox is full by noon on Friday. So, uh, we, we deal a lot with that, we.

00:22:45,170	The hospitals, I look at it as a, a medical condition, uh unfortunately, you know, the ERs are full, um, full of other medical conditions and they do what they can do to to get them treated and get out, uh, officers like to deal with the problems once they don’t like to deal with problems multiple times, and that’s what happens when we take him to the hospital sometimes before the

00:23:06,470	officer gets in their car and get ready to take off their their walk. Back out of the ER and usually, uh, the population I’m talking about we deal with again that night, so. So that was kind of where you’ve seen the numbers. So that is some relief, um.

00:23:28,800	As far as uh the homeless challenge, I think everybody’s seen that we’ve had an explosion in that, and that certainly has affected our operations. Um, Going back to to this screen, uh, in 2019, and these ain’t all related to the homeless population, but it, it kind of correlates with the other data. We had a 42% increase from 2019 to 2023 in welfare checks.

00:23:55,000	It seemed to have leveled off there a little bit, um. And then 2024, I guess we can ignore that. We don’t know what that’s gonna be yet, but it’s a significant impact. You know, what we are sitting here in 5 more years and we have a 40, another 42% increase.

00:24:17,530	Um, that’s gonna be tough to deal with without an increasing our staff and as you know, it’s hard for us to do right now to keep uh manpower. Uh, stabilized and. Um, so we’re trying to be most efficient. As we can with the resources we have. And that’s why we like to, to solve the problem, so.

00:24:36,730	You know, Renee asked me before I came up here am I supportive of a triage center, I am. Um, I think it’s needed. I think it needs to be well thought out. Um, And well planned and have a bunch of groups together talking about it, um. Thank God for Sister Kathleen. She has the coffee shop.

00:25:02,870	Um, there are challenges there, uh, just we uh checked the data of our response to there and just the building. We had 119 calls there since June 1st. That is a lot of calls to one address and that’s not including the surrounding area. Um, What she’s doing is providing a good service. But there’s no surrounding support for that service.

00:25:27,870	So when you bring a bunch of, uh, folks that have addiction issues and mental health issues, and there’s no other service, that’s what you’re gonna have, you’re gonna have a bunch of uh. Please responses to that incident. Um, I’ve seen some of the videos of what our officer officers have to deal with and it’s not very good, it’s um.

00:25:52,130	It’s not something that. That should be acceptable in this in in the city of Bismarck, so, um, we’ve, you know, you’ll probably hear about this maybe in the future, but we proposed an ordinance from the police department, worked with the city attorney.

00:26:15,930	On, uh, maybe some short term things that we can do, uh, to help resolve some of the situation, um, so hopefully, um, that’s gonna get discussed in the future and then of course what Renee is doing is uh some long term planning that I think is needed if it if it’s done correctly. So Any questions for me or? Comm. Connelly. Um, The police chief was nice enough a couple of years ago.

00:26:41,070	He actually allowed me for a ride alongs on all of your shifts. It was 44 hours and things, and especially at night, it’s not only the detox, but there’s several times to where somebody’s like you said, it’s perfectly legal to be um inebriated in public, so it’s usually two officers there and they wake them up, they get

00:26:59,300	them to where they can walk again and send them on their way, and then they were getting a revisit to calls and everything in the queue might have been.

00:27:17,130	Um, 8 deep at the original time, but later in the night, now you’re looking at 30 and they’re going back to another stop, so, um, there’s that dynamic as well, but it’s taking the same amount of police officers off just general helping of the community. Just that little Conly, absolutely that’s exactly what I’m trying to explain that we need.

00:27:41,330	The the jail thing is OK because they’re safe and we know they’re safe and we’re probably not going to get any more calls on them, at least for 8 hours, so that was a good, uh, you know, stop gap. However, that’s manpower intensive too and very labor intensive. And that’s the problem we need to have some sort of service that prevents us from going back and back because our our community.

00:28:04,900	Um, I don’t think is really acceptance of seeing somebody passed out on a boulevard and just kind of wave and go by. They call cause they care and. That’s good and, and, and we will respond. We just like to take care and solve the problem right away, so we don’t have to repeat, repeat ourselves, so, and our Comm.

00:28:25,100	is going on a ride along tonight, I hear. So you might see. Yeah. Any other questions? Comm. Cleary, and it’s not as much a question, Jason, but just I know you and I have had a lot of conversations with Renee about this.

00:28:47,000	We’ve sat in a lot of groups, and I think that there is a lot of positive stuff coming from those discussions, um, I think you’re right when you talk about um. Some of this really, it really takes a group effort because uh.

00:29:06,730	A short term solution, uh, that’s why I think we really need to take a good look at some of these ordinances before we try to stick something in place that just makes it more challenging to be homeless, but doesn’t give us a solution, um.

00:29:25,400	I, I, so I think that some of these bigger groups, the dynamics between the hospitals and the police and the services that are already there and having those group discussions is going to be really important because I think we need to find a way to mesh or like short term plans that really you guys need because you need support, but how do we get to those long term plans where we’re helping people out of homelessness and not just like shifting them around, so I appreciate the conversations. I think you guys are doing a lot.

00:29:42,070	You’re really playing your. Art in them, because I think we need your guys’s voice as well as the hospitals and just so that that collaboration is so necessary and it is happening and we just need more of it, I think steps are taken every time it happens, so I just appreciate the work. Absolutely, thanks.

00:30:00,370	Anyone else? Thank you, Deputy. All right, thank you. Thank you. So, um, I do want to present now that you’ve heard all of all of our problems, I would like to present a potential solution and something that we could potentially look at and be involved at in, um, in the community.

00:30:24,670	As I had stated in um Jason had stated individuals in chronic in crisis with the addicted addiction, active, uh, mental health conditions really do have the fewest resources, but certainly do have the largest impact, um, on everyone in the community and we’re looking at potential solution of a community triage center. And that offers care at one location.

00:30:49,330	Um, it’s an intermediate level of care, um, where individuals could be triaged, um, if they are in crisis, whether it be a behavioral health crisis and someone’s having a mental mental illness, um, if it’s addiction and someone is suffering from alcohol intoxication or um a drug overdose and that type of thing, they could be assessed and

00:31:11,200	determined what, um, level of care they would need rather than bogging down the. Sources of the ERs and um our law enforcement officers. So we’ve, I’ve done some some research about a community triage center and this started back in 20, I think 2018, um.

00:31:33,330	Originally, um, when we were working through our Gold Star Be behavioral task force, and now it’s the Burley Morin Behavioral Health Coalition, um, these issues have not gone away. They’ve actually probably increased as far as the needs go in the community, um, but the answer that we don’t want to have is to send individuals to jail and have them go multiple times and have our officers respond

00:31:54,530	multiple times. Um, so that can be ineffective. It’s the same height individuals that are high utilizer. Um, of, of the systems and that can contain a huge cost to the community.

00:32:14,670	Triage centers can be set up to meet needs of each community and um what they do in each community, um, but they really do exist to serve as a single location where first responders could bring an individual in crisis, and they could be assessed and triaged and, and helped um at that one facility. They’re better equipped to respond.

00:32:35,700	They have individuals that might be trained um in mental health, uh, response crisis intervention training, um, dealing with people with addiction, um, versus just going to jail and um being incarcerated. And then the conditions there as, um, you know, in jails can often exacerbate someone if someone has PTSD or trauma that they’ve experienced and now they are in jail and a In a setting that might be threatening to them that can further exacerbate

00:32:57,100	some of the issues they’re experiencing. So my request, um, tonight for you as city commission, I know this is Board of Health and a Board of Health update, um, but would be to ask you permission to take the lead, um, as a city of Bismarck to move forward with a sustainable solution addressing

00:33:18,470	the gaps and the needs that we’ve identified tonight. Um, we’ve researched, uh, community triage centers. Um, there are several that have models in place, um, that we could potentially follow Sioux Falls.

00:33:38,830	Rapid City, those are close, um, close enough to us and have been a public-private partnership where you have the local hospitals, the government, um. Local governments involved and, uh, law enforcement, they all benefit. They bring skin to the game and it benefits all of us involved.

00:33:59,800	And so there are models out there that um we could look at, um, if it were approved that you give that, um, blessing and permission, the next steps then for me would be to form a community stakeholder group, um, of these partners and look at conversations and possibilities as far as what this could look like um for the city of Bismarck.

00:34:20,170	And just I listed some of the individuals that first come to mind, um, would be the police department, obviously public health, the Burley Morin Detention Center, the local hospitals, I think that would be a great core group to start with, to have high level conversations.

00:34:38,800	I know that there’s other partners in the community that um are serving um homeless individuals and I think there would be a point to bring those individuals in, but to have conversations at a higher level at this point and just talk about Um, some of the concerns and, um, get conversations going is, is what my next steps would be. Commissioners. So one question I have. I I think we have the issue on both sides of the river, so my thoughts would be that we should at least engage or offer to engage.

00:35:04,430	Individuals from Mann and Morton County, uh, law enforcement at a minimum. Um, Because they’re also dealing with the same issues I have to believe. And Those individuals are probably ended up in our two facilities here, or 3 facilities here. And so it might be good if they were part of that group.

00:35:24,430	As we look for solutions to. Other thoughts commissioners. I guess I Comm., so this triage center would be a building staff with professionals with beds and whatever resources you need to take care of these people that are struggling, correct.

00:35:58,000	Um, and it could be like the just some dream plans that we’ve kind of looked at as far as addressing the needs that we would have, they could take into consideration medical detox, um, so mosaic, Trisha Brown, she could bring that to the table. Um, we have the, um, ACS, the Crisis Response Unit, Dakota Foundation is doing that.

00:36:17,730	Could we bring them to the table and then a low barrier shelter would be the final piece, um, and they could go either up or down as far as levels of care. But they would be a centrally located facility where, um, law enforcement could bring them there and move on with the next call that they get because they have trained individuals at this facility that could assist and take the individual from there.

00:36:36,400	So that’s the concept. Renee, do you have it in your current staffing? Capacity to coordinate and facilitate this. Current staffing for conversations. Yes Yes, take the and coordinate the stakeholder group to work towards. Development of not not funding the solution, but.

00:37:06,030	Yes, Mayor, I would be willing to take the lead on it just because it’s such an important thing. It’s an important thing to me. Um, I’ve seen the impacts on the clients that we serve and the individuals that we’ve gone out and we’ve done our point in time counts, um, we’ve worked with Ministry on the margins and the shelters in town to see the needs, um, by the services, the health

00:37:23,800	services that we’re bringing to them, high needs, no place to go, no resources, like we need to do something and I’m passionate enough about this. I will make To lead the effort, um, I just feel like we need to do something to give these people a chance.

00:37:46,770	At success, um, and with our shelter situation, um, individuals that have nowhere else to go, and we have winter coming up. It’s, it just makes me think that we have to start talking about it sooner than later, so. Commissioners What are your wishes? Mr. Risch, I move that we give, uh, Renee the ball and let her run with it, see where it goes.

00:38:13,370	2 Discussion, Comm. Connelly. I know we always have this conversation about quorum and things, but my education and background is in this area too. And granted it’s a little dated because I haven’t worked, um.

00:38:35,870	Close to it, it’s more elder care now, but if there’s a way that we can manage the open meeting rules and stuff and be part of those conversations because might be able to bring something to the table with it. Go ahead, Comm. Cleary. Um, and I mean, I think it’s one of those things where if, if I’m needed at a meeting and Comm. Connelly also wants to be there. Comm.

00:38:55,630	Risch wants to be there with the police like I don’t think that there would be a problem with them being some version of an open public meeting to it as needed, but I, I do think it would be to the mayor’s point, valuable to keep the group small, um, some of the meetings.

00:39:19,000	That I’ve been at with you in the past where we’re trying to engage with law enforcement but also the business community or the schools or the hospitals, and we’re kind of bringing them all together at once. It or like the the services that are, you know, already actively, um, helping the unhoused, um.

00:39:41,000	I think it can become too many cooks really quick, so I think keeping that group small where it is just law enforcement and public health from both sides of the river, um, as well as the detention center and the hospitals.

00:40:01,730	And then kind of cap it at that and then if you, for individual meetings need to bring in, you know, service workers or Uh, business, you know, buy in that kind of stuff, I think that that can come and go and you keep the core group smaller cause I think that that’s probably how we are the most effective. would be my take on it. The other option too could be our combined. I know that’s only Burley and Bismarck, but our combined commissions group.

00:40:21,000	Um, would be a public meeting for discussion to have that as a As an information and and certainly make the public more aware of it. That might be an opportunity for some educational. Times for it, but. And I’m not, I’m not opposed to that at all.

00:40:39,900	But And by no means do I need to be at every meeting. So if it’s better scenario for all five of us to hear how those meetings are developing and you would rather report to us after them versus me just attending, uh, we can talk about that too.

00:40:57,870	I mean, I think it’s more important that we get it started and we can figure out how, how we want that to work as far as portfolio or and when I bring it I mean I can start the conversation and when there’s something that I need you guys’ input or feel like I have enough information to share, I could certainly bring it back. I think that’s a good plan. OK. Any other discussion? Yes.

00:41:15,470	Just to, if I may, just to clarify, Comm. Risch’s motion um to give Renee the ball and let her run with it. We appreciate that. Uh, but for the minutes, can it be, is there a consensus that if we can reflect on the bullets that are on the screen, um, next steps would be to form a

00:41:37,930	community stakeholder group involving representation from City Bismarck Public Health law enforcement. Just the, the stakeholder group, is that the triage center concept. Is that amenable to the group at the table? Is that what you were referring to when you said give Renee the ball and let her run with it.

00:41:57,170	That’s exactly what I mean and that’s what we thought. That’s what my notes reflected. We just want to make sure the minutes captured accurately. Thank you. I could do a lot of things with the ball probably, right? All right, there being no further discussion, we’ll call roll. Comm. Zer. Comm. Connelly. Yes, Comm. Cleary, Comm. Risch, Mayor Schmidt, yes.

00:42:20,770	Renee, do you have anything else for us with your report? I do not, so thank you. Thank you very much for your time. All right, thank you. Then, uh, our board of health is adjourned and we will now call the commission meeting to order if we can call roll. I think I got the structure right. Comm.

00:42:44,130	Risch, Commissioner’s anchor Comm. Connelly, Comm. Cleary, Mayor Schmitz here. At this point in time we have public comment, public comment is restricted to the items on the consent agenda or a regular agenda item that is not a public hearing. Anyone who wished to speak to a topic.

00:43:04,400	Please come forward, state your name, sign in and tell us what you’re speaking to us about. Good evening, Mayor Schmitz and commissioners. My name is Dan Nagle, and I’m here today on behalf of the Bismarck manufactured home park, which is a mobile home community here located in or in uh Bismarck, North Dakota.

00:43:41,870	It’s the community behind the municipal baseball field next to Kiwanis Park. We have put together packets for each of you, if I may approach. Sure. Just for the commission’s information, the park has 88 lots. Uh here today also is the operations officer John Scortino, uh, as well as one of my partners, Todd Kranda.

00:44:18,070	He was instrumental in the implementation of the tenants’ rights legislation that was passed in the last couple, uh, legislative sessions. In short, we’re asking that the commission approve an agreement between the city and the park that allows the tenants to be charged for their individual water usage.

00:44:39,470	Pursuant to the Bismarck Municipal ordinance, it does need to be adopted by the commission to allow that to happen and it would be just strictly passing along the cost of the water that each of the tenants of the community use. As part of that word.

00:44:58,670	Indicating that the park will not increase the rents for a period of 24 months from when the last increase was and that was in February of 2024 that we would be providing a 90 day notice to all of the tenants that this will be forthcoming as far as them being charged monthly for the water that they actually use. This would allow the tenants ample time to be able to see what their water usage is and limit if they choose to their consumption.

00:45:16,270	The park would also be willing to waive the $3 surcharge that the state legislature has authorized communities to charge, so we would agree to waive that.

00:45:33,930	At the macro level, the city I know has spent a great deal of time over the last several years to come up with a fair and equitable way to pass along the water bills to our citizens, and I’ll note that I don’t believe in any of the discussions for that. Was it ever brought up that we just prorate it in every single family, a single family home pays the same dollar. Across the board, no matter how much water that you actually use.

00:45:50,970	And we’re just asking that the commission allow the exact same thing to happen in the park as all of the single family homes in the in the city also followed that they be charged for what they actually use.

00:46:13,000	The majority of the parks tenants, as you’ll see in the packet that I provided to you, their water bills would be in the range of $18 to the low 20s. Uh, the vast majority are in that typical range, but there are some folks in the park that are using an excessive amount, I would say, uh, where their bills are over $100 per month.

00:46:32,330	And we don’t believe that it’s equitable that what essentially is going to happen or is happening is that the people that are using less water are Subsidizing the folks that are using an excessive amount of water in the packet we have included copies of the leases that the residents currently have and I’ll note that in the lease that the tenants are already obligated to pay for

00:46:54,530	their individual water rates that has not happened because it has not been ratified at this point by the city commission. Uh, but we are asking that that that do take place. This for the park will not, it’s not a source of profit.

00:47:15,430	Uh, this is simply passing through to the tenants, the water that they are actually using the park, the the current owners acquired the park approximately 4 years ago. They spent approximately $30,000 to install state of the art meters, uh, Metron is the name of the company, M E T R O N, if any of you would like to To check, check out what their products are, but these are

00:47:34,530	state of the art meters that allow tenants real-time data to see what water they’re using, the number of gallons, and it can indicate what the dollar amount would be so they can look online. There is an app so they can track these these dollar amounts.

00:47:53,930	Essentially there’s, there’s two options that are going to be taking place here. The first is that if the commission ratifies this agreement, there’s the 90-day time period, let folks adjust their water usage if they want to, as you can see in the Uh, 3rd exhibit.

00:48:16,830	The majority of the tenants are using a reasonable amount of water, but there are those that are using a I mean, frankly looks like an incredible amount of of water. Uh, so we would allow them if there are leaky toilets, faucets, and so forth that they can have plenty of time to adjust their consumption, so they’re not paying $140 a month for for their water usage.

00:48:37,100	So that’s one option, the city ratifies an agreement and that allows us to pass along those costs. The other Option was what would happen is the rents will be increased and then it’s going to be pro rata, and so the Folks that are, are conscientious about their water usages, those people are going to be subsidizing these other folks and we don’t believe that

00:48:57,800	the board denying this request would be protecting your constituents, it actually would be passing along, uh, and doing contrary to what every other single home owner in the city happens if you want a nice green yard and use a lot of water, fantastic.

00:49:15,470	You pay for it if you want to be more conservative, then your bill is a lot less. It doesn’t seem equitable in this situation to Allow bad actors, so to speak, that use a ton of water to be subsidized by other folks in the community.

00:49:39,400	So what we’re requesting mayor and commissioners, is that the city adopt an agreement and we have included in the packet the last document was a sample water service agreement that was put together back in 2023 when this whole process started, uh, and, and in that we would be willing to include 24 months with no rental increases from the last increase which was in February of 2024. And I will note that a rental increase.

00:49:59,830	That would be forthcoming would be more than the increase in the And their water bill would be for the vast majority of the of the tenants. We would agree to waive the $3 surcharge which is authorized by the state of North Dakota and the tenants’ rights legislation that’s recently been passed, uh, and we would agree to give 90 days’ notice and during that time

00:50:20,630	period provide all of the tenants with the information to show what their bills are, so it gives them ample time if they wish to make any, uh, adjustments in their consumption to lower, lower. That bill just like all uh single home or single uh residences in the city of Bismarck would be doing.

00:50:41,470	If the Comm. has any questions for me or I know John uh sitting over there in the black shirt would be more than happy to answer any questions or concerns that you may have about our proposal. Mr Risch Mr. Mayor, Comm., um, Dan. So initially, um, they’re gonna be paying more,, $20.24 dollars more a month. I see.

00:51:03,270	Which is currently included in the lot rent, correct? Correct. In the lot rent agreement there is a specific provision. Uh, that does indicate it’s on page 2 of the lease under utilities. Each tenant will be responsible for paying for water, yada yada yada.

00:51:26,470	So yes, they for once that kicks in, they’ll be paying a small dollar amount more. Than what they’re currently paying, but there will be a No increases for a period of 24 months and that wouldn’t start for 3 months, the 90 days to allow them plenty of time to know that this, that the water bills will be forthcoming.

00:51:46,100	I guess the only thing is that’s an increase right out of the chute, right off the bat, they’ll be paying more per month. They’ll pay their rent plus the $24 correct? Correct, Comm., which after the after that 90 day time period, correct.

00:52:06,800	Well, I, I shouldn’t say their rent would be the same, but then they would be paying the utility that they’re already contractually obligated to under the contract, but that just hasn’t been being, being charged due to the, due to our ordinance. Comm. Connelly.

00:52:32,700	I don’t have a question, but um I’m going to wait to comment on this when the item comes up, um, And that I know, um, the history in the last time that we were approached and things, and I’ll address it during that time. I’m not going to respond to it during public comment. Anyone else have questions right now? OK. Thank you. Thank you. And this is public comment period. Anyone wish to speak, please come forward. A 2nd call for public comment. A 3rd and final call for public comment. Hearing and seeing no further public comment.

00:53:07,670	Public comment period is now closed. Comm., what are your wishes with regard to the consent agenda? Move to approve Second Do we have any discussion? Harry no call roll. Comm. Zenker. Comm. Connelly. Yes, Mr. Cleary, yes, Comm. Risch, Mayor Schmidt, yes. OK, moving to the regular agenda, first item is a I’ve got my spot right.

00:53:41,870	Is a public hearing on ordinance 6588, a zoning map amendment from agricultural and residential zoning district agriculture zoning. District on a lot in auditors. Or auditors lot 3. S3 in section 25. Go ahead, Ben. Sure, thanks, Mayor. Just waiting for the PowerPoint to engage here.

00:54:14,700	Well, we may just get to look at the blue screen of. Not quite death, but the blue screen here, um. The applicants Lanie and Dianne Barth are requesting a zoning map amendment from auditors lot S3 Section 25 138 North, uh excuse me, Township 138 North range 81 West Hay Creek Township from the Agricultural and RR residential zoning districts to the agricultural zoning district as outlined in

00:54:42,730	your packets and ordinance 6586. Uh, the, the project is located, uh, west of Bismarck, north of Interstate 94. And would be south of, uh, well, looks like we almost got it south of Wilderness Cove, uh, and west of River Road, and thanks, Jason, and east of the Missouri River. Uh, project areas comprised of 71.

00:55:06,870	2 acres on one parcel of land. Uh, future land use associated with the proposal uh is uh parks and open space in the existing zoning is a combination of a agricultural. And uh our are residential or rural residential, the planning and zoning commission did consider this request.

00:55:28,800	Uh, at the July 24th meeting, uh, no members of the public spoke at the hearing and no written testimony has been provided. Uh, at the conclusion of the hearing, the Planning and Zoning Commission did unanimously recommend approval of the zoning map amendment on auditors lot S3 Section 25. Uh, Township 138 North uh range 81 West, Hay Creek Township from agricultural to the RR residential zoning district.

00:55:54,270	Uh To All be the agricultural zoning district as outlined in Oron 6586 in your packets. Uh, any questions that you may have of me? Any questions? Doesn’t appear as though there are any men. This is a public hearing. Anyone who wished to speak to this, please come forward. A second call for public comment.

00:56:30,470	A 3rd and final call for public comment. Hearing and seeing no public comment. Public comment period is now closed. Commissioners, what are your wishes? Move to approve. 2. Do we have any discussion? He will call roll. Mr. Connelly, Comm. Cleary, Yes, Comm. Risch. Yes, Comm. Zenker. Yes, Mayor Schmitz, yes.

00:56:58,870	Next item is Request commission approval for resale of water of Bismarck MH PLLC Water Sources contract. Michelle, OK Mayor and commissioners, um, this items, um. For your attention tonight is basically if you’re wanting to allow the resale of water under a water service contract.

00:57:36,170	The ordinance does prohibit sale resale of water except by arrangement of the board of City commissioners, um, you did hear some information today. I, I guess I hadn’t seen that package that had been presented to you.

00:57:58,670	Um, but you had asked us to check into a few other areas and um from previously and we had the century code the basically had some prohibitations on the current rates and what could be increased, um, this group has addressed that by putting in place new water service contracts and basically had no longer existing contract or the previous contracts that they had with their tenants.

00:58:16,330	Um, we had also been asked to take a look at the meter read and the usage and how that tracks with our system and the dates and the reads are different, um, and it’s gonna be very difficult for us to correlate between the two to try and match things and so we’re just. Or there’s likely to be differences in read dates and times and the timing of the water usage between the two systems, um, so it would be very difficult to match them exactly.

00:58:34,930	Yeah Is that because we have a cut off mid-month and there’s is cutting off end of month or. So we are their system and our system is able to pick dates to take the reads from, but we are taking the date from the main meter that feeds into all their services.

00:58:55,200	So as they’re taking water off of the lines that or the water that’s within their lines, there’s always going to be some variations for how they’re using the water at the edge of the system and then. Within the system if that makes sense. It, it, it does, um. Comm. Connelly, go ahead. I have a thought, but I gotta formulate it.

00:59:14,370	Um, our average unit that we go by cause it’s units, um, and it’s 748 if I remember. How many gallons is that approximately? That is the 748 gallons is one unit, yes.

00:59:35,970	And then with that manufactured home parks are, um, we look at them a little bit differently because the stakeholders meeting, um, kind of viewed them differently than single family homes, correct? So when they’re individually metered, Any property that’s individually metered for residential use is single family. Any. Um, residents that have multiple families that have 1 m, those are considered in the multifamily rate and so they are a different rate. They’re on the multi-family rate, yes.

01:00:06,070	Um, Can you explain the difference between the two and the reason why I bring it up is that we changed it from a five-tier to a 4 tier, and we gave um to where there’s a lower rate for 8 units or less, and the um measurement, the average measurement at the stakeholder meetings was based on a, uh, 110,000 square foot yard as the average in things,

01:00:26,500	uh, manufactured home parks, their yards are significantly smaller. And so when we’re talking like a $24 increase and it would be hard to match the calculation. Um, that 24 is above what that 8 unit would be. Yeah Comm., uh, Zenker. Yeah, Comm. Connelly, I’ll answer that question for you.

01:00:50,530	Um, right, as Michelle said, E individual homes that are, that are metered, um, are considered single family, multifamily doesn’t have a tiered system. They’re flat rate. So they’re they’re flat. It doesn’t matter if they use 100 gallon or 100 units or 2 units, there’s charged the same amount per unit. And on this, um.

01:01:11,900	It’s 2:15 if I remember right, something like that, but I mean, it’s, it’s important to note too that um I did look at some of this data, and there are some of those tenants that do use more water than I use in my single family home, which I would consider a lot.

01:01:31,000	Um, so we’ve gone back and forth as to when this would come to the commission, um, I, I mean, as a portfolio holder, I’ve sat in on on a few of these um. And it’s finally here to to reassess as we did turn it down in 2023, so I just a little bit of history for a couple of you, so.

01:01:53,670	And I appreciate that I’m asking the question here so it’s on tape for the because there’s a lot of people paying attention to this, so, so I appreciate the comments, Commissionerer. So I think I can formulate my question if I, if it doesn’t is confusing, tell me, please. So my mine is around specifically item, I think it’s paragraph 9 in the.

01:02:15,870	Proposed Agreement between them. The city and the park. And it has to do with the audit. Requirement In Seoul on a on a 12 month calendar period, this difference that you’ve said would be difficult to reconcile. Do you view that as being material? Like, is it gonna be within.

01:02:48,000	1 or 2% or is it gonna be more like 10%. Difference or I’m that’s why I’m so I’m trying to figure out how do we get to this. Thank you, Comm. Zinker. Yeah, so, uh, Mayor, that’s a, that’s a good question, right? What’s the delta? What comes into our meter and then what goes into their meters, 88, 90, whatever

01:03:10,400	it is, right? So if we show them using X for gallons and what goes through their system is why, what’s what’s the delta between the two or the difference between the two? Um, that’s the part where I’m struggling with because I unfortunately, those residents, um, in lieu of calling.

01:03:35,530	Their tenant or their, their landlord, basically, those tenants would call a land yard. They may call the city and we’re not gonna have any answers for them because we don’t have information to their. Um, to their system.

01:03:53,170	We don’t know, um, when they’re gonna read it, what date it is, um, I’ve done a little research on those, uh, meters, and they can give you continuous. Um, like to the second, I think it’s still like within 15 seconds of water going through.

01:04:11,270	I don’t think ours are that detailed, but we can at least tell you, hey, if you got a constant flow of water, we can, we can red flag that someone’s flapper gets stuck on a toilet, um, all of a sudden you’re using 107 gallons of water every hour. That’s a red flag and and our staff does a fantastic job of contacting those our our citizens for that. We can’t do that with for them. They We can do that, and they’ve done that.

01:04:28,870	I mean, I’ve, I’ve talked to, um, a couple of their staff members, they’ve done that, but if their tenants don’t do anything with it, there’s really nothing we can do about it. Um, the, the, and that’s, I don’t know. I understand what they want to do from a business perspective.

01:04:48,270	I just don’t know what the um unrelated costs are going to be to us as a city into Michelle’s staff answering those questions. It’s kind of like open up Pandora’s box. I really, I don’t know what’s going to happen when we crack the lid, so to speak, so Comm.

01:05:05,870	, I view that as a legitimate concern and then further up and I’m going down to how we prove that. The the rate they’re charging their residents isn’t different than what we’re charging them and well, that would, I would think that would all come through this audit, but part of it’s gonna be, can we Trail that back to our readings versus their readings on top of

01:05:25,970	that, and then how much time is that? I realize they have to pay for their service on that part, but it’s gonna take time on our part to dig through that and then it may not be necessarily Michelle, it might be Dimitri’s staff.

01:05:42,000	Yeah, yeah, so Mayor, just to respond to that too, I do know after looking at the data that there is a difference between. Um, what, what we have going in and what goes to there, there, and they’ve acknowledged that someplace within their system, they have, they have pipelines losing a little bit of water.

01:06:01,730	Now it’s not gushing water, right? It’s not that type of thing, but there is going to be a different, yeah, so they’re in theory, they’re not even really charging for all the charging to their tenants, all of the water that we’re charging them for, and I’d be comfortable with that. I mean that’s the easy answer. If it’s the other direction, it’s a. That’s a problem. Yes, sir, yep.

01:06:23,870	OK I don’t know if you raise your hand, Comm.. Do you, do you have a question? I disclose it And within their um. Presentation during public comment. They kind of opened up the discussion themselves too with the two year agreement not to raise rents and everything. There’s a bit of a history that goes in with this.

01:06:47,730	We saw our first manufactured home park fall to corporate owners in 2017. The Affordable rate at that particular park was between $230 a month and $240 a month for a lot rent. We just got done with a public health. Conversation and when we’re talking unexpected costs to the city.

01:07:08,530	The state just came out with a stat last week that our homeless rate has been up 26% in the last four years. And right now a lot of the manufactured home parks we’ve had them see uh come across to where they’re crossing the barrier of 700, um,, 1 of them, September 1st, is going to go to 750. And these are investment companies coming in.

01:07:29,900	They ship their profits out of state and we’re picking up the pieces as a community with our homeless rates, with our addiction rates, with a lot of other things because people are literally having to choose between Having 4 walls around them for protection, food, water, and medications and such.

01:07:52,200	Um, and since this new um portion has come to our city and things is, um, I haven’t found anything that has come across as a fair and equitable thing on behalf of the citizens that live here, and those are the people that we have to answer to. And um even after the topic came to us the last time.

01:08:13,600	They increased their rent, um,, $40 a month right after they pulled the subject from the table. Now a lot of these parks, I knocked on every one of those trailers in that park. There’s probably 5 that we would consider, um, pretty decent, and the rest of them are have a standard level that we would question.

01:08:33,100	And they’re not efficient and they’re going to use so if we have a margin on meters and we can only make the decision, but they’re offering the rate. Is there a base rate to where, cause they’ve had meters now for 3 years to where they can actually back out of the base rate.

01:08:51,000	In the rental agreement for 24 months. Now that’s on them. We can’t ask them to do that. Can they do that that base rate, and then only charge the overage to the ones that may be going over.

01:09:09,130	That would make a little more sense to where we could measure it and stuff, but um, There’s just so many things with the homeless rates going up and all of those social things cost cities a lot of money, um. I just have not run across to where it’s fair and equitable. They’re paying more than market rate for these parks, so any of the HUD programs and things which will only be um offer um uh. Grants at true market value.

01:09:33,730	Basically, the grants aren’t any good because they can’t pay for the difference to take advantage of them. Um. I’m a no on this, but that’s kind of some of the background I could, there’s more information, but I’ll stop there. Commissioner’s other questions. You have anybody have questions of the requester.

01:10:03,700	I mean, we already heard from the legal counsel, but. Um, the, the. Sure. Thank you, Mayor Mayor Schmitz and commissioners, just to address some of the points that were brought up first of all, the contractual relationship here between be between the park and the city that there’s a main line that the water comes into, so the park would continue to pay the

01:10:35,800	bill. There wouldn’t be any contractual relationship in this situation between the tenants in the city, there would be the contractual relationship between the park and the city and the tenant and the city. So when he calls to the city, I mean I agree that that would not be appropriate.

01:10:51,230	It wouldn’t be something that the city. would be able to, to answer those questions to them outside of there being a, I believe, an annual review that would be provided to the city to show what the what the numbers are, but as far as there wouldn’t be any contractual relationship between the city, so if a tenant is calling and saying, I

01:11:08,670	don’t think that this dollar amount is correct, that would be brought up with the landlord, not with the city directly. It was brought up that there is some, some leakage and that there are common areas that there is water being used.

01:11:24,730	There may be some Some seepage, so that is absolutely correct that the total water in is not this is a, is a larger amount than the water that is being metered to the individual residents and I mean, that’s just the way that it’s going to be because there are common areas and so forth that water, water would be used as far as the timeline, I’m, I’m sure

01:11:40,900	that that could be sorted out to make sure that that syncs up, uh, appropriately to be able to provide the city with any information that they would wish to wish to have to make sure that things are are. Um, monitored appropriately. Uh, as far as uh. Uh Comm.

01:12:03,830	Connelly, some of the the comments made about these parks, uh, I, I don’t disagree that there have been issues in our city with some of the parks, and that’s part of the reason that the tenants’ rights, uh, was enacted in the with the legislature as far as this park, we’ve done the legal work for this park for many years.

01:12:20,800	It’s been a stable park. There’s been very few evictions. The evictions that have been taking place, they have not been for nonpayment. They have been for other related issues that the people have needed to be removed. For the benefit of the community. So this has been a stable park.

01:12:38,230	There hasn’t been habitual problems with nonpayment and in this situation, if there was non-payment is far it would be part of the part of the same invoice with the rent that would be on my client, uh, than to to eat those those costs if they weren’t paid.

01:12:57,500	Uh, finally, as far as being fair and equitable, if the commission doesn’t agree to this, unfortunately, more than likely there would be a letter sent out to indicate that the commission. Does not feel it appropriate that you pay by your water usage, so you’re going to be footing the bill pro rata for all of the individuals in the, in the, in the community.

01:13:16,870	I don’t see how that is more equitable than having personal responsibility for the water used to be able to pay the bill that for the services that you have consumed. Uh, again, there’s no other portion of the city as far as residents go, where we say fantastic, your neighbors using 100. $80 worth of water, you’re using 40.

01:13:35,070	Great, you can kick in another 20 bucks every month to help subsidize their nice green yard and pool. We don’t believe that that’s appropriate and, uh, I, I, the, the, the rents that is uh uh Comm. Connelly indicated. To rinses here are substantially lower than than was brought up there. Unfortunately they would likely have to be raised at some point. We’re not wanting to raise.

01:13:54,000	We want to have that moratorium, give everybody proper notice so they know what their water bill and a plan accordingly, but I, I. From doing work for this uh landlord. It’s been a stable park, uh, the, the payment hasn’t been a habitual issue.

01:14:17,830	Uh, rents aren’t $750 a month, uh, so I would continue to urge the commission to grant this request. We believe that it would be in the best interest of the residents to be able to pay for their own water opposed to be subsidizing folks that are paying a significantly larger dollar amount. Comm. Conley.

01:14:34,000	With all due respect and stuff, I do know what the rents are in your park and things, and I’m choosing not to make it an issue about you specifically and stuff, I could bring out some of the dirty laundry of what I’ve learned about that park and things we’re talking about the water issue and so I stated some of the history there, but I’ll give you an example.

01:14:53,670	The only remaining privately owned park in the city. Has double wide trailers with double car garages and bigger lots, and they charge less for rent than this particular park. So when the other gentleman that was here came up to us last time around. He says we want to be continue to be the most affordable choice in Bismarck.

01:15:13,270	So why is it that our privately owned park that has more to offer with newer trailers and nicer places charges less on an in our community. He lives here, he interacts with there.

01:15:33,130	His profits stay in our community, for the corporate companies that are here, those profits go out of our state, and we are picking up a lot of the pieces we are seeing it in our numbers through our public health. And those are some of the things.

01:15:52,470	I think it’s OK that a manufactured home park or anybody else makes money, but we need better answers for our citizens, and unless we get that to where it’s more fair and equitable to where we can address some of those issues. This is more risk on us as a city to say yes, you know, and I do when I went to dinner and knocked on all the doors, it was fifty-fifty. That surprised me. I thought I was gonna get all those.

01:16:09,830	It was on the tenants, and yes, it’s Sounds good. No, it doesn’t. Um, so that’s a plug for um what you’re asking at the same time, we are paying a heavy price as a community because uh since the corporate um ownership has entered into our city, um. There’s been some significant consequences to it. And granted.

01:16:35,630	Other parks, um, take ownership for what they do, it’s there, but the privately owned one here is offering a better option than anybody else in the community, except for 2 and that particular park is up for sale. Comm. Risch. Um, mayor Comm.

01:16:58,000	, what is the rent? How much is the lot rent in your park? Uh, it was increased $39 in February. The current rent is $590 per month. I, I have a couple of questions and one might be just clarification, so you mentioned common areas are the common areas metered? I don’t believe that they’re individually metered, but I saw. So again.

01:17:27,730	You’re dealing with the accountant here from an audit perspective and because this is a particular type of audit which would require A certification on it. Um, I think that would be a component that would need to be addressed.

01:17:46,530	As to how much usage is going there because I can tell you that I would poke holes and anybody else would too if I have unmetered water that is not accounted for and I don’t, so you’re telling me, here’s what’s going to the residents. That number might be lower than what’s going through our meter, but how do I know it’s really lower if I don’t know what’s going through to the common areas.

01:18:04,070	Second item is in paragraph 9, it says the user shall have 90 days following the end of the calendar period, calendar year to submit the findings to the city finance director. But then the last sentence in that paragraph says findings must be received no later than April 30th. That seems like a contradiction in dates because 90 days would be March.

01:18:23,300	I would, I would agree, uh, Mayor, and, and that might just be a Comm., maybe I’m missing something, you’re correct, but, um, we never ratified or took a look at that contract back in 23, so we probably didn’t clarify some of the stuff, so I just don’t want to put all of that.

01:18:42,130	On them, you know, and I’m just As I was reading, soul, I Go put it out there and thank you, Comm.. I believe that this was just a draft put together by the city, uh, so that hasn’t been flushed out. OK, that’s fine.

01:18:59,230	So if there are other conditions that the commission would like to see whether it’s a meter on common areas, my client, I’m sure would be more than happy to do so. Well, I just My mind is working through that, so Comm. Connelly. The difference between the privately owned park versus what you’re charging. Is there $85 a month less? That’s significant. Motion to deny. I have a second, OK. We have a 1st and a 2nd.

01:19:37,000	We have discussion. What is the discussion. Go ahead, Comm.. If we deny this, they’re probably gonna raise the rent anyway. The one attractive feature is a a lock and the renter pledge to lock in the rent for 2 years.

01:19:57,330	And clearly, um, sometimes people are irresponsible with water, and I looked through all these things and some are a lot higher. I’ve got a shop with, I used a minimum amount of water every month, every once in a while, it jumps $15. You know what it is? A leaky toilet will cost $15 a month, one toilet. So I’m somewhat sympathetic. To say, hey.

01:20:16,470	Uh Do what you can to conserve water, um, but I’m afraid we vote this down and it’ll just You’re just gonna raise the rent. What’s going to prohibit them from raising the rent tomorrow. Comm. Connelly. Nothing prohibits him from raising the rent either way.

01:20:36,270	That’s one thing and then if they’re already charging more than the only privately owned one that offers 3 times the amount of amenities. We’re not gaining anything here. I just. As much as I’ve followed this since 2017 and seeing the different leases and um our sister city, there’s some of them there that are illegally charging for water, um, because I’ve never had approval of the city commission, and there’s

01:20:58,670	just a lot of like opening Pandora’s box. We don’t know where that’s gonna get us, I think, I mean, I’m willing to say we could negotiate and try to see what that better outcome is, but There hasn’t been a lot of promising things in the outcomes and interactions with the corporate ownership, and

01:21:18,930	that’s all over the nation, not only our community. So um I don’t, I’m not sure if there’s one or more than one private ownership. Park in town because I think there is, but I understand your concerns, um. I’m struggling with some of the dynamics around the contract, but that doesn’t mean I’m, I, I.

01:21:41,500	It’s a private business if they want to raise the rents, they’re going to raise the rents and. That might be difficult. We can’t control that. We, we don’t have rent control.

01:22:03,270	So Mayor and commissioners from the perspective of the portfolio holder for this and we’ve never done this for anything or anybody take the conversation out of the manufactured homes once we allow this. That’s gonna open it up for. Other Entities do the same thing.

01:22:25,830	And I don’t know how we would regulate that or or how we would, how we would navigate that, but I mean, we can’t just, I’ll use if I mess this up, City Attorney Combs, we can’t just deny it, whether we like people or not, right? If we approve this, there are going to be other requests that come and I’m, I just, I put that out there to have conversation, um, and I’ve, I mean, I’ve, I’ve already told them no multiple times, but they finally I finally let him come to the

01:22:43,930	commission and ask. So here it is. If 3 votes go one way, so be it, but I’m just, I, it doesn’t matter whatever the three are, but, or if it’s 41 or 50, whatever we decide, we just got to understand what what’s coming down the road, so to speak. Yeah, Comm., thank you.

01:23:01,630	You brought up a point that I, I think I tried to think of earlier, but you’re right, we have multi-family. Places all over the city, apartment houses, and they’re not individually charged water. Typically speaking They’re charged one rate or one bill to the building and now we’re gonna be facing. That too.

01:23:27,000	I don’t know commissioners, if I, if I own 436 plexes and I had an opportunity to do that, I absolutely would. Other discussion So a motion is second to deny the Request I have that correct, right? There’s no other discussion will call roll. Comm. Cleary? Yes. Comm. Rich. Yes. Comm. Zener, Comm. Connelly. Mayor Schmidt. Yes. The request is denied. Yeah Comm., oh.

01:24:10,930	We’ll, we’ll pause. All right. Moving on to. Uh, the next item on the regular agenda, see street Improvement District. SI 581. Or or receive bids. Gabe, go ahead. Great 46 Mayor and Comm. street Improvement District 581 is for paving and storm sewer in Paradise, excuse me, paving in Paradise Valley, 2nd and 1st edition, we open bids yesterday.

01:26:44,070	Uh, we had 2 bidders on this project with a low bidder of Strata Corporation with a little bit of $1,648,175.46. Our recommendation is to award to Strata Corporation. Take any questions you may have, Comm. Zenker. Mayor Gabe, um, This doesn’t have to be done this year, right? Mayor, Comm., Comm.

01:27:06,730	Zenker, we have a component of this project that has a interim completion date of having a base lift of pavement on some of the roads within this area within the final completion, uh, sometime in the middle of next summer, 1025. Perfect. Move to approve is presented. I Any discussion Here in another call roll. Comm. Risch. Yes, Comm. Zenker.

01:27:31,230	Yes, Mr. Connelly. Yes, Comm. Cleary, Mayor Schmidt. Yes. Next item is consider acceptance of flood mitigation assistance grant from the FEMA. Through the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services, OK. Mayor and commissioners, uh, thank you.

01:27:56,130	This is, uh, the action item that we have today is to accept the funding from DES, which is the FEMA grant for phase one engineering and design and bid prep for our South Bismarck flood control.

01:28:11,000	I figured this would be a good time to update the group, um, the board and the public on where we’re at with the project and just kind of give an overview of of some things, uh, the only update that I’ve given to the the full board was in I think 23. In January of 23 when we applied for these funds, we’ve had other, um, smaller updates since then, but this would just be a good opportunity to kind of lay lay the whole thing out there. So if we can get the screen up, that’d be wonderful.

01:28:30,270	Thank you. Uh, so you talk about 5 things here today, uh, the risk map update, really what we’re doing and why we’re what we’re doing it for, uh, what we’ve, how we’ve responded so far, what those project concepts are that we’re looking at the partners that we are engaged with at this point in

01:28:45,970	time and then a timeline and some of the next steps that we’ll foresee. So this process goes back to really discovery of in in in November of 2017 when FEMA through through the state water commission, uh, updated or began the process of updating our flood risk map so I’m not gonna go through all of

01:29:03,570	these steps, but just noting that this has been something that we’ve been seeing coming from a long time, uh, really with the most recent items here at the bottom of that screen showing in June of 2024 when this board adopted the new map, uh, which now has a new effective map through for lots

01:29:19,330	of areas in in the. Park and within Burleigh County, but in particular we’re going to be talking about an area of South Bismarck. So this was the 2013 effective floodplain. You’ll see in the big uh red area in in the bottom there, next to that 1804 signage is what we’re going to zoom in and look at.

01:29:37,630	So this is South Bismarck. Uh, get your, your bearings of Bismarck Expressway on the north part or the upper part of this map, University Drive, South Washington Street, put a couple of. Other points of interest, Kirkwood Mall Bismarck Airport, etc.

01:29:54,870	uh, but what we’re going to talk about or what was really driving all of this is the South Bismarck drainage ditch. This is the conveyance structure that we use to drain much of our South Bismarck watershed, makes its way into the ditch, uh, and then through the ditch makes its way eventually to the river, which works perfectly fine, in most situations, as you can see

01:30:09,100	we can stress it during a large rain event like we saw a couple of Tuesdays ago, um, we can also stress it during a river event when the river is at an elevated stage that would. Allow water to back up into, uh, the ditch as well.

01:30:25,070	So we have one point of control that was is our South Washington gate structure at the intersection of South Washington Street and the South Bismarck drainage ditch.

01:30:40,170	Um, so you drive over it every single day if you’re, um, going on this roadway, uh, you just gotta look quickly because it’s just a pretty small structure, but this is a view of it here, uh, if you look in west, if you looking east, there is a gate structure on this. Particular closure structure originally this whole facility was constructed in 1969, uh, but this closure structure does not have any pumping capabilities.

01:30:58,270	So if there is a flood for the river, as we saw in 2011, uh, temporary pumps had to be mobilized to the site so to close the gate to keep the river from coming in, but then put pumps on the city side of the dry side, if you will, of the geat to evacuate any water that may, uh, fall into the run into the drainage ditch. during a coincident rain event.

01:31:17,430	Uh, we’ve since between the city of Bismarck as well as Burley County have put flood control. Measures in place within the South Bismarck area and with with everything, uh, in that general vicinity, but none of those are designed to FEMA standards, and that’s what we’ll kind of lead into this next piece of discussion.

01:31:35,600	So because that Washington gate structure is not accredited previous mapping products, uh, really showing. My laser pointer here. Um, previous mapping projects, products that FEMA produced just kind of stopped the map at that location, uh, but the 2024 update projected what the river levels would do in an event where uh.

01:32:01,830	The gate wasn’t closed, none of the other flood control measures were taken into account and then really what is shown is is kind of in that purple view, uh, showing a lot of the areas that are adjacent to the South Bismarck drainage ditch that are hydraulically connected with their pipes that that drain from the street would also allow that water to drain back

01:32:17,300	into the roadways and even into private property. So this Map on the right showing the highlighted areas in in red as the floodplain in 2024. The buildings in yellow are structures that would be uh impacted by that flood risk map change, so these are some schools we have underserved disadvantaged communities, manufactured home parks, we

01:32:38,600	have some medical facilities, businesses, and then infrastructure, whether it’s the city of Bismarck’s infrastructure or uh there’s an electrical substation located in this area too that if a river were to allow to be flooded and those impacts shown here uh would. Sever some of the.

01:32:56,400	I guess uh functionality of, of South Bismarck in particular. So our response to this, uh, we, our goal here is any project that we would design, uh, would have to mitigate the flood risk that say number one, you achieve the FEMA FEMA accredited flood protection and then remove buildings from the 100 year floodplain.

01:33:13,330	Those are kind of the main things that we’re trying to do, doing that in a manner that that as we looked at what alternatives and how we screen those alternatives. The first item is doing something at that South Washington structure, uh, certifying that so that that can be a point of control and then other areas that we have to do work is that

01:33:28,270	work in a manner that minimizes impacts to uh private and even public property, so we looked at options that would start as the most simple as just doing an improvement at the the flood control structure that did not take care of the coincident rain event that could occur while the Missouri River is flooding.

01:33:47,470	Uh, one thing unique in in Bismarck’s flood control story is that the Missouri River and its flood stage is usually elevated for a very long period of time. So therefore the risk of it raining at the same time frame is higher here than in other communities that might have to do. With with flood risk.

01:34:01,330	So our coincident rain event is a pretty significant event that we have a strong likelihood of occurring because the Missouri River might be in a flood stage for a couple of months during the summertime.

01:34:17,530	Uh, the last item I’d point out for our alternative screening is any option that we had, we had to, need to have negligible downstream stage increases, so we don’t want to solve our problem by pushing the water downstream and then raising the flood elevations for those properties that would be west of South Washington Street and the gate structure there, uh, then that would also have ramifications as well.

01:34:34,000	So try to find spots to do that in a manner with the least amount of impact. So we have two alternatives to consider. The first alternative is South Washington lift Station I should back up both of these build alternatives would have an improvement in South Washington, uh, for, for correcting and and reconstructing that closure structure uh with the South Washington Street pump station, uh, that’s going to be the

01:34:53,070	primary component for for any any of these, uh, this would be utilized when the rivers at an elevated stage, close the gate, and then this pump would do the the work of draining out the, the canal and the drainage ditch during those times that we we have a coincident rain event.

01:35:11,900	But upstream from that station, so if this is the South Washington lift Station. Uh, this first alternative is our South 12th Street alternative that would include the South Washington lift station would replace the bridges or excuse me, the box culverts currently on 3rd Street and Wachter with bridges to. Increase the capacity and conveyance of the ditch.

01:35:33,200	The main point would be a large. Buried concrete box covered along South 12th Street, dumping into a pond on airport property and then all of this interconnected so that it can respond to a flood event, but then also drain out this airport pond property within 48 hours of that event as to not create a nuisance or attractive

01:35:55,070	wildlife nuisance for animals or or birds that would be uh negative as far as how the airport operates. So one of these items as we, we look at this pond, uh, we’ve had coordination activities with the airport and with FAA, the state levels or the state administrators of FAA to talk about this particular property,

01:36:15,900	um, this property was purchased with federal funds, so it’s not up to the airport to decide. It’s not up to the city to decide what is this land is used for, it would be a request if something was changed from its current usage is part of it is a detention pond serving the

01:36:30,870	airport but turning it into a large. Regional detention facility and stormwater improvement, uh, that would be a change from what the master plan for the airport notes that for the intended uses here and that would require FAA coordination and blessing of that change in use, um, would note here that also there are the proposed improvements on

01:36:49,530	the pond would lower the pond elevation or the land by about 15 ft and talking with Greg and his team they addressed some of the challenges that they had even constructing the, the current pond that they have and our proposed bond would be You know, 10 ft lower than what they’ve even have for infrastructure out there today.

01:37:05,570	Um, so there’s groundwater, there’s geotechnical concerns, and there’s risks associated with the FAA approval or not approval of this particular alternative, um, that are challenges specific to this alternative. We also have the expressway alternative that does the same sort of thing, uh, we’ll have a South Washington Street pump station.

01:37:26,800	But then instead of allowing all the water to get to that location, we would construct a facility within Bismarck Expressway that diverts that water and runs it, uh, westerly toward the new outfall into the Missouri River. So instead of allowing all that water to get to this location it um intercepts that and diverts it to the river.

01:37:47,530	Uh, obviously there’s challenges with this one as well. There would still need to be the South Washington pump station dramatically or potentially smaller in size and stature.

01:38:04,130	Because of the less water that has to deal with, uh, but then there are impacts to Bismarck Expressway as well as then having a attention pond located somewhere in this vicinity, preferably as close as we can to the pond, uh, or the the pond outlet.

01:38:20,670	Um, I will want to note that the other concepts that we looked at could have put that pond facility somewhere closer to the the pump station and all those alternatives that would require the impact or the relocation of private property and, and people that live in houses. So we prioritize at this point in time looking at options that could avoid. Do that, but that does put the burden then on public agencies whether it’s the city of Bismarck Airport or Parks and Rec, uh, for the property that they have in Clem Kelly.

01:38:36,270	So this is the surge pond that uh would function similarly to the surge pond that was noted on the airport alternative, but a 15 ft deep pond. Uh, this is. Still within some uh FAA jurisdictional areas compare specifically, the distance from the airport operations to about this location is still subject to FAA hazardous hazardous wildlife attractant rules and

01:38:58,200	regulations, um, so there are options that we are looking at that could modify how that pond looks and maybe more of that comes in as a box culvert and there’s potentially more impacts to the, the Clem Kelly baseball fields, uh, we’ve also had, and I’ll I’ll talk later in this presentation.

01:39:15,070	Coordination with the both Parks and Rec as well as the zoo on what are other ways that we can envision these facilities working in harmony with what the parks has, so it could be a scenario that the pond is moved over to a different location and, and maybe more of the Clem Kelly fields are, are utilized as as

01:39:29,670	baseball fields, but maybe some of the tennis court location is moved and they made the tennis court infrastructure is placed somewhere else on this property, um, so we would anticipate in the very near future, uh, having some sort of uh workshop with Parks and Rec.

01:39:49,400	H and elected officials to understand where can we fit some of this infrastructure on this property so that it’s seen as a community benefit for all parties and we aren’t impacting parks and rec or the Dakota Zoo, um, without mitigating for that impact.

01:40:03,330	So the goal really for all of this is if we can get to the other side of this project with flood protection improvements as well as no one really feeling that they got to bear the brunt of this when one agency or anyone, um, political subdivision, um, that’s definitely one of our goals here. So we’ll note that they’ll also need to be an outfall to the Missouri River. This is shown as a series of pipes in our initials, uh.

01:40:22,470	Scopes of this project, uh, but even this concept could be done with an open, uh, channel could be adjacent to the trail. This could go through the zoo property instead and and leave the the trail as is.

01:40:37,400	Those are all the things that we’re still trying to figure out the best way to to program that particular piece of infrastructure. Now onto our project partners first on the list here is FEMA, so this is the FEMA agency that has changed the map or led the the the risk map change, but they’re also the agency who is granted the city of Bismarck a $50 million grant to construct a solution that helps mitigate

01:40:59,270	that flood risk, uh, so this is we’re very appreciative of that 1st,, $50 million towards this project. We had an award, uh, announced in August of 2023. We applied in about January of 2023 for some funding. The announced in August of 2023, they had a photo op even in August of 2023.

01:41:19,600	We did not, we had a FEMA Region 8 sites visit in June of 2024, but until right now in our our August meeting here, um, was really the first time that we have an official document from FEMA really it’s passed through DES now, uh, that funds what is the phase one work of this particular project, so it’s not

01:41:37,270	just hearsay, it’s more real than the press release in a in a photo op. It’s a, it’s a real deal. It’s coming through. There is a Limit and I put the 3 to 5 years there on the timeline, the, the grant that you’ll have is for your consideration today and I’ll talk a little bit more about

01:41:52,730	that later today too, um, does have that all expenditures need to be, uh, I guess I, I think committed or even spent by July of 2027. So we have a three year time period to construct this improvement, so there’s a sense of urgency, um, now that this is real and all those dollars have been passed

01:42:09,200	through to get something accomplished, makes, make some decisions and get something, um, accomplished. So that $50 million grant. Uh, on the left is showing what the project of that floodplain looks pre-project and on the right would show what we’d anticipate this to look like post project so there’s still may be some areas of of structures that are

01:42:27,030	just too low in their elevation to to remove them from the floodplain entirely, but we’re going to do our darn just to get as many as as reasonably possible out of the the floodplain. Our next project partner I want to highlight is the State Water Commission.

01:42:41,430	So we approached the state water Comm. in April of 2024, uh, for a request to participate in the preconstruction or this phase one cost sharing. Uh, the FEMA money, it was, is, this is what was estimated at the time of 2024 of what we put in our application for FEMA.

01:43:00,530	So therefore our local cost share, uh, we requested to be split 60-40 with the state with uh City Bismarck paying 40% and the state paying 60% similar to other flood control and Department of Water Resource. Uh, cost sharing projects, um, you’ll note that on these numbers they do change when we get to the next slide, so I’m not paying too much attention to this one.

01:43:16,800	This is what we requested at the time, but this shows why um some of these funding sources, oh I guess two sides away. Um, just wanted to hit on some of the other project partners that we’ve, we’ve coordinated with recently, uh, if you’ll notice that there’s a lot of things happening in June, July and August of 2024, it’s because

01:43:32,600	they, they have so in June, we had our FEMA site visit, we’ve presented to the North Dakota legislature Water Topics Committee in June of 2024. We’ve committed, uh, presented our, our project and included our project in the statewide water development plan, uh, also in June of 2024, uh, in July of 24, we’ve met with FAA

01:43:52,570	and got some guidance from the. I presented to the board of Park board Comm. sitting at this table but in a different uh date here in a different board in July 2024. Uh, and then from that, their, their direction and request, uh, was to look at ways to, to not put the impact on their property.

01:44:07,330	They really didn’t want to have this on theirs either, but they do want to be a community partner, uh, and really requested authors and emboldened or authorized I should say their executive director to be engaged in this process and to report back to them as needed throughout it. So from that direction, uh, both.

01:44:24,100	Staff from Bismarck Parks in Iraq as well as the executive director of Dakota Zoos, met in August to figure out if there’s ways that we can fit this stuff in and, and really the brainchild of that analysis and discussion was to come up with some sort of um reimagining or re-scoping of what Clem Kelly could look like

01:44:40,070	after this project in a manner that facilitates these uh park improvements and, uh, flood control. As we move into other items in August, the last two there, Department of Emergencies, Department of Emergency Services grant. Obviously some coordination with that granting agency working through the grant that’s for your consideration this evening.

01:44:58,100	Uh, and then late last week, we had a meeting with US Senator John Holden, as well as bringing in the staff from FEMA Region 8 headquartered in Denver, uh, Holden’s request was to bring all the parties that are invested into this solution together, so we had state legislators in the room.

01:45:13,400	We had staff from the state water Comm., the Department of Water Resources, uh, we had staff from the Department of Emergency Services and local elected officials here to, to talk about this project, what it means to this community as move forward. So what I have for you today is the FEMA phase one grant. Uh, so this is the total cost of $11.

01:45:31,730	5 million includes the design work, gets us ready, this project ready for bid. So if there’s any right of way acquisition or easements permitting all those things that are ready to bid but not award quite this project that’s what this $11.5 million represents. We don’t have any of that under, I shouldn’t say any of that.

01:45:47,230	We don’t have most of that under contract at this point. We have a small amount of that that we’ve authorized our consulting team to move forward with, but with this grant.

01:46:04,230	Anticipate a scope and fee coming to this board here shortly that would then authorize the next steps and the next evaluations that we need to consider, so federal funding for this grant is $3.4 million. The non-federal share is 4.1%. Uh, do you the DWR would cost share on that $4.1 million but only up to the uh $2.369 million that they had authorized in April, so you’ll notice that this $11.5 million is a little bit less than what we had anticipated.

01:46:24,930	FEMA awarding. First go around, uh. So, so and the federal funding was also a little bit less because this project is capped out at the $50 million of federal funds, so they did not participate fully in that 70% as we requested, they have it prorated down to the 63.8%.

01:46:43,270	So they’ve kind of prorated their design and construction to be the same funding percentages as opposed to funding the design at a higher percentage but then funding construction at a lower percentage was the decision that FEMA made, um, which was fine with us.

01:46:58,470	It’ll ended up in the same spot regardless, but I was just not something that we had anticipated with our request to DW. Uh, so the slide of your, the part of the right shows kind of what the cost would be for this FEMA grant with a 3.7.4 million, 7.3 million from FEMA, DWR not to exceed the 2.4 million and then the city of Bismarck responsible for one.

01:47:15,670	8 million dollars for this FEMA Phase one grant. Eventually we’ll find ourselves with a project that will have the entire construction. So this is the, the information that we’ve Tabuated so far of what the the more expensive of the two options would be so we’re covered from the at least the cost sharing perspective, but we’d anticipate the expressway option is more expensive and

01:47:35,700	that project would be $122 million anticipated with FEMA paying the 1st 50 million, leaving $72 million to be split as a 60-40 split between the city of Bismarck and DWR if that’s follows their typical funding, um. Uh, participation ratios. So, last slide I have for you is just kind of our next steps in our timeline.

01:48:00,000	So as I noted earlier, female grant requires these funds to be used by July of 2027. So that is our intention is to put together a project and really nothing will take place in 2025 as far as construction is concerned, but we need to be ready to go in 2026 with as much of this as possible and

01:48:14,930	then really start talking to FEMA about what sort of extensions can we get, we are. Unique in the sense that in North Dakota we we don’t get 3 years of construction to, to build things, unlike somewhere in Louisiana or California or or somewhere on the coast, um, so we’ll hopefully be successful in talking to FEMA

01:48:32,070	and and working through that. But at this point in time, um, the marching orders are to have something ready by 2027. I will anticipate coming back to this board in the very near future to have a decision on the alternative whether that’s to, uh, move forward with the Bismarck Expressway alternative or to Move forward with the

01:48:51,200	airport pond alternative or to consider both of those were just to a point in this project development that we kind of need to make a decision and develop that one and we can’t keep developing two separate alternatives that are so distinctly dissimilar from each other that we’re kind of wasting resources on whichever

01:49:05,670	one we then don’t proceed with. So we’re just trying to be mindful of that and using our time wisely, uh, so we can make that decision.

01:49:19,570	I, I added a sub bullet of the funding source of the local, um, it is a question that I get asked anytime I present this to to a board is where. It’s going to be funded from locally we haven’t made that decision. I’ve, I have not asked for that decision to be made by this board, in previous memos we’ve talked about any combination of sales tax, property tax, prairie dog funds, um, special assessments, utility rates, I mean, all, all of those things could be and

01:49:37,170	are on the table at this point in time. There may be some desire to lock in that concept or what that local funding package will be. We’ve not had to. We just have to say that we’ll fund our share, uh, with any of our documents first.

01:49:51,130	FEMA, uh, but at some point in time, maybe on the local side, especially and to the public will want to discuss where does the local share come from, um, last two items just continued coordination with the project partners.

01:50:07,130	And then lastly, we would anticipate a lift here at the legislative session to talk about this this project, uh, so that our legislators are informed of this project as well as then our state water commissioners are informed of it as well. So that to take any questions you may have and. Mr. Connelly. Well, the funding source we probably won’t have a good determination on that until the how on November unfolds, but um.

01:50:31,130	Does the detention pond have to, I mean both locations were 15 ft. Does it have to be 15 ft? Could have a smaller parcel, could it be deeper? Mayor Comm., Comm. Connelly, the, the pump.

01:50:53,600	Size and and the infrastructure needed to pump the water out, uh, is directly related to uh that storage pond that we will have in the system so that we can make accommodations to have uh no. Pond, but then that system needs to be designed so that it can handle every single drop of rain as it’s occurring, and that’s a really monumental ask of any system to do.

01:51:10,070	So having a pond in place allows the water to enter the system for that pond to be efficient as it as it pumps that water out, um, but it comes to a point that you don’t really need a bigger pond than a certain size, but then it really doesn’t save you any more costs on the pond.

01:51:24,070	So we try to find that happy medium of where’s the the best footprint for the pond as well as the best footprint for the pump and its infrastructure that makes them Most sense from both the operations and maintenance as well as then even the initial capital outlay for that particular improvement, um, most of it is just tied to the elevations of the river and so we’re kind of stuck with a known elevation and and known

01:51:40,000	elevations of our pipes, so there’s not a lot of wiggle room for the system to, to raise or lower the elevations of the pipes. We’re just doing our darndest job to get water from 12th Street somewhere whether we take it south to the airport or we take it west to the river, it’s flat to start

01:51:54,900	with. So just to get it there is enough of a challenge. And so there’s not a lot of play in that particular variable, but there is a lot in this pond size and that’s what we’re trying to just maximize that efficiency. Well, you successfully excellent explanation you, uh, reduced my question about an area by one.

01:52:15,730	Um, 3, I guess 2. Um, areas and that went to impact residential homes and things that I would have questioning then is long Airport Road, um, south of what used to be S&S landscaping, just north of the Amoco. Um, that’s also a large area.

01:52:41,400	I think it’s privately owned, um, is that, does that fall under the same contingency as the other one? OK. Mayor and commissioners and Comm. Zenker alluded to it, but it’s probably even more of a risk there that is at the right Under the extension of the runway and of all places to not have a a bird find their way and make a nest that is

01:52:55,230	definitely the spot you would not want that to occur. This is how we learn is ask questions and the other one is the uh sandbox for BSC, which is south of um where uh memory fireworks is, um, We kind of, we made the agreement with them as far as building the polytechnic center

01:53:12,930	and they took over the land there under this circumstance, could we ask about a similar because um. That basically is a big pit too that doesn’t have any properties on top of it. Mayor Comm., Comm.

01:53:33,130	Connelly, at the onset of this project as we were just looking at our consultant team was just looking at uh concepts, what what could work for even a modeling exercise, like I said before, it started with the most simple, like can we just grab. An increased pump.

01:53:47,530	Can we put a pump at this gate and will that do the trick? No, no, OK, could we do this? Could we do that? It ran into, I’m, I’m, it was something into the the teens of alternatives just to see if something would work. Uh, we looked at new ditches, new outfalls to the south, just everything under the sun, um, unfortunately where the flooding is occurring or or would occur with with this risk map update, uh, is that elevations that are higher than

01:54:05,200	a lot of the areas that you’re talking about south of of Burley Avenue and in that general vicinity. The water that might be a Missouri River flood at that location is from a, you know, back channel that might is 3 ft lower in in these the the river models that we have, than what we would see on

01:54:21,270	the drainage ditch itself, so we could do an improvement down there. It’s just not going to. Effectively change anything uh for those properties that are flooding, and so that was the main goal is what can we do to find alternatives that address those properties that are in the floodplain and bring them out and unfortunately we’re

01:54:39,000	kind of just left with these two at this point in time. I appreciate that. I watched the park board meeting in the body language. They weren’t really thrilled about the possibility of losing some baseball and, um, the Elks wasn’t really enthused about losing their parking lot. Sure. Mayor Mayor and Comm., Comm.

01:54:57,000	Connelly, I should add to, you know, I think a a a pivot that we’ve made recently in our concepting of this project is. We were looking initially at if if we had impact two Clem Kelly ballfields somewhere, uh, how can we mitigate for that impact if that’s put those two ball fields, you know, somewhere else in the community or or

01:55:13,470	make 4 ball fields somewhere else in the community that was seen as a community benefit in and Parks and Rec was on board, that would be probably the direction we’d be going, um, based on the feedback we’ve had from Parks and Rec, they really enjoy the facility of Clem Kelly as it exists today and

01:55:26,930	having the ball field and the capacity there, and they really don’t want to add new facilities and have new parking costs and new new Things to maintain necessarily outside of that that park area, so we have now we’re trying to find ways that we can integrate the storm sewer system, this, this pond system within their property

01:55:44,130	might be moving some of the pieces around so it might be re-envisioned to look a little bit differently, but if it still has the same number of courts, the same number of fields, the same number of of soccer fields, uh, we would see that as as just kind of neutral towards them and definitely a

01:55:56,370	benefit for the project and the benefit for the citizens that would be out of the floodplain. Thank you. Comm. Risch Mr. Mayor, Commissioners, um, I was looking at some of these maps and they have red and yellow, and it’s yellow the most flood prone rather than the red areas. I’m looking at slide number 10.

01:56:14,970	Sure, I’ll, I’ll bring that one back up here. So, so slide 10, uh, once it gets back on the screen, what’s the red area is the flood plain, um, what the yellow areas are are structures or buildings, building foundations within that flood plain, so we just highlighted those as yellow to bring attention to the number of

01:56:39,000	structures that are impacted by the change in the floodplain in this area, so everything that’s. Yellow is is just a building footprint is what we’re highlighting here. It just looks to me like some of the areas where it’s red, there are buildings there as well, but maybe I’m, it’s a pretty small on my sheet here. Mayor Comm.

01:56:58,230	, Comm. Risch, I think we did a pretty good job at this point. If any of the red touched. Uh, a building foundation as noted in a in a GIS linesty we didn’t do a survey of every single structure out there. Uh, it was flagged as being of a changed structure. Mr.

01:57:20,430	Zinker, Mayor, commissioners, um, I just want to make a couple of comments about the meeting that happened last Friday with Senator Hon. First of all, thanks to Senator Hoen for putting that on. That was fantastic.

01:57:43,530	Um, also representative was a representative from uh represent Armstrong’s office and a representative from Senator Kramer’s office, so our, our state, um, senators or federal senators and representative are fully engaged in this, and it’s, it’s been fantastic, um, or Uh, thank our local legislators who were there too, because they’re engaged, especially the ones in District 32 and District 30 because they’re affected by it, um, and there’s support from them on this topic.

01:58:03,200	And then finally, uh, my final compliment is to Gabe and Michelle because they really knocked it out of the park at that meeting. They were able to answer all the technical questions. And keep it steered in a in a timely fashion to get done, else we’d have been, could have been there for another 45 minutes or so.

01:58:20,930	So to them, um, great job, um, and uh we, we have to figure out a way to get this done. Um, this has, this affects, as Gabe said, 950. Um, homes and structures down there and it affects a large portion of manufactured homes and we just, we gotta, we gotta fix this, so, um, thanks again to the team for doing that. With that, I’ll move approval.

01:58:41,200	As presented Second, OK, um, I just, is there any discussion I have first off, Comm. Zin, I didn’t know you were able to attend. Thank you, because I was not able to, um, and what I heard was exactly what Comm. Zinker expressed is Gabe and Michelle. Where to go, good job.

01:59:03,170	Um, And I think we do have support from the delegation because those that I’ve talked to, I know, have expressed support as well, so I just wanted to make sure I got the opportunity to share your comments. Any other discussion? Harry no let’s call roll. Comm. Zenker. Yes, Mr. Connelly. Yes, Miss Cleary. Yes, Comm. Risch. Mayor Schmitz, yes.

01:59:28,830	Thanks, Gabe All right, next item is. To Consider and review and Adopt hopefully the leadership code in the agenda, the last. Attachment which. Came out on that, um, was actually after Comm. Connelly had shared some comments and then. Doug tried to meld those into the document. I, yeah, and I think he went over those with you, Comm.

02:00:03,000	Connelly, if I’m not mistaken, so hopefully we’ve addressed those. Um, so we can have this, this, uh. Code of conduct adopt adopted commissioners, I would stand for questions or. What are your wishes? Um, mayors, commissioners, I read through the updated final draft that had the changes that Comm. Connelly had mentioned.

02:00:58,470	I don’t have any issues with the changes, um, I guess I would just, uh, move to adopt if we don’t have any other discussion. While not perfect, I’ll second. All right, is there any discussion? Comm. Zinker. Uh, no, I’ve said my piece on this thing. I’m OK.

02:01:29,830	I didn’t know if you’re raising your hand, so I’m just ready to vote yes or no. All right, no discussion, we’ll call, Comm. Conley. Out of respect for what you had to say, Comm. Z Zenker, that’s where one of the changes as far as like delegating and things is is that we all still at the table, whether it’s us or somebody else in the future, we still all have a choice in that

02:01:51,930	and then a high regard for representation of the citizen. And that, so that’s why some of the changes are in there. Thank you. Any further discussion? Hearing none will call roll. Comm. Connelly? Yes. Comm. Cleary, Comm. Risch. Comm. Zenker. Yes. Mayor Schmidt, yes. Thank you.

02:02:23,930	Um, we have an added item that came to the agenda after after the original publishing, it’s item F work authorization for for PK contracting. Michelle. Good evening, Mayor and commissioners. We Had some work that um.

02:02:47,570	Basically had to be moved around and that’s why this one was brought kind of last minute to your attention to try and allow the potholing work to continue while we had equipment on site. So this is a work authorization for PKG to do some exploratory excavation of the water treatment plant, do some potholing on the location. There are contingencies built into this dollar amount and so if you want to flip to the last page, um, that spells out a little bit more of the cost.

02:03:08,670	The main contract is for 66,000 contingency or CMR fees are at 6%. Then there’s a CAR contingency allowance of 335,000, 25,000. that is for if there’s changes of Known risks that would be happening where we’d have to add to the contract.

02:03:32,270	It allows us to do that, but it’s very prescribed um with our engineer as far as why where are those dollars would pull to and then there’s also an owner contingency of $10,000 within that, so it’s a little bit overall it’s a little bit higher cost, but I wanted to point out what those additional costs were, um, but just looking for approval to be able to award this contract.

02:03:54,670	issues, any questions? Moved to approve is presented. Any discussion He will call a roll. Comm. Cleary? Yes, Comm. Risch, Comm. Zenker. Yes, Mr. Connelly, yes, Mayor Schmitt, yes. Do we have any other business? Comm.

02:04:20,800	Cleary to remind anyone who wasn’t watching last time but is watching this time that the garbage collection survey is still available to take online and it will be available for 2 more weeks. We’ve had over 2000 people fill it out, which is awesome, but it would be great to get more, so. If you want to give feedback on how our garbage collection will be changing. Um, you can go and fill that out before September 16th. Thank you, Comm.. Comm.

02:04:40,170	Zinker. Yeah, I just want to obviously last last or or last meeting two weeks ago when we all walked out of the meeting. It was kind of a scramble session for staff. So I just wanted to say kudos, good job.

02:04:57,100	I mean, it hit the fan, it hit the fan quick and we responded, um, so that’s a team effort that we all expected. This table and it and it uh it needs to be accolated that uh last week that week was a very, very tough week for them.

02:05:11,970	I checked in with engineering and, and, uh, Michelle a couple of times just to see how things were going and, um, I just want to tip my cap to the entire city staff for that police fire the whole nine yards. We got her done that week, so thank you.

02:05:25,930	And, and to follow that up, um, The event center staff actually they had events going on that day following and they were able to, they were able to hold those, so everybody, everybody did and uh and citizens, thank you for all you did too to help mitigate their issues. Comm. Connelly. Um, had a discussion with Jason and things and just wanna see what the opinion of the commissioners mayor and commissioners, um, but, uh.

02:05:49,970	I mean, it’s well known that for 8 years I’ve been really, really engaged in um how we do our processes locally and things. And uh I think the city has bent over backwards in a lot of cases trying to get the communication from where we’re at.

02:06:15,530	To the city And yet we’ve had different things come up to where um that message is not being received. And we all pay a price on it, both community and us. And I’m wondering if um It wouldn’t be prudent instead of us reaching out or creating a subcommittee from here going that way.

02:06:41,930	But Maybe having a group of private um entities that were part of the ones that the message didn’t get relayed on. Three different specific topics. If I couldn’t work with them and within that internal workings, they can share their experience, come up with an idea and where we might improve our processes and one of them choose a spokesperson, and they can come present it to the commission.

02:07:04,270	Maybe there’s just a small gap that we’re missing. And I don’t know if I’m articulating it right, it’s just. Um, This is the discussion we had and just figured to bring it to the table so we can talk about it.

02:07:21,200	I guess I’m not, I’m not quite following, so maybe I need to, maybe I need to understand more, maybe we can talk about that. We can talk out of it outside of the meeting and bring it back maybe as a line because I’m not. I’m not disagreeing with you. I just don’t know what we’re asking for, I guess. So Anything else? All right,