00:00:05,470 Good evening and welcome to the, uh, April 17th meeting of the Bismarck Board of Park Commissioners. Thank you for those in attendance and for those that are viewing the meeting at home. I will, uh, ask, uh, we’ll call the meeting to order and ask Julie to call the roll. Comm Gilbertson. 00:00:23,630 Herzog here. Redmann, Jeske President Zimmerman here. 2nd item on the agenda is pledge of allegiance. If you would please stand and join us. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. 00:00:48,770 And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Third item on the agenda is approval of the agenda. I’ll take 2nd. Moved by Comm Herzog, seconded by Comm Jeske. Julie, if you’ll call the roll, please. May I just clarify that this includes the addition to the agenda? OK, I. Yes. With that Distinction. OK. Thank you. OK. 00:01:20,930 OK. I will second that Comm Herzog, yes. Redmann Jeske President Zimmerman. Our next item on the agenda is our future partners and programs and um just perfect timing for spring. We have a presentation by the Bismarck Forestry division. 00:01:45,800 Uh, City Forester Christy Ames Davis would, uh, give us an update on forestry, and I hope a little bit of update on Arbor Day. Yes. Good evening, Christy. Good evening, Commissioners and. President Zimmerman, um. I am the new city forester. Uh, officially as of November of last year, um, I’ve been with the Forestry division for about 30 years. 00:02:09,470 I kind of started out at the bottom and worked my way up through the ranks. So I’ve worked under a few different foresters and Um, have been around a while, so, um, as you know, Um, forestry does donate or we don’t donate, we, um, Do about 20% of our time each year, um, doing parks work. 00:02:32,270 Um, typically we’re going to be taking care of the larger trees that, um, park staff doesn’t have the equipment for, um, We do a lot of removal, storm damage, stuff like that, so, um. Kevin asked me to talk a little bit about Emerald Ashbor. 00:02:57,400 Um As you may have heard, um, it was found in North Dakota last year north of Edgeley in the rest stop. Um, and that is the only place it’s been found. It was not found outside of that rest stop. Um, so Fingers crossed, we’ll, we’ll see how long it takes to get here. 00:03:13,570 Typically, it is in a community for about 5 years before it’s found, so it, it very well could be her. Um So How that would affect parks, um, We do have an inventory of park trees. 00:03:35,870 That was done about 12 years ago, um, at that time there were about 7000 park trees in the, in our inventory. I’m sure there are more than that now. Um, but at that time, about 50% of the park trees were ash. Um, so that is not. 00:03:59,370 Um, that is not a good thing as far as emerald dashboard is concerned, um, best practice for insect and disease control is to have no more than 20% of any single genus. So, Um Trees have been removed and more have been planted in that time, um, so even if we were at 35%, that’s still, we still have a ways to go. Um, and then the parks that have high numbers of ash are the older, more established parks along the river, Sibley, Sertoma, Pioneer. 00:04:26,100 Um, Kiwanis, Custer, and 16th Street Park all have a fair amount of ash as well. Um So we’ve just been working to Remove poor condition ash trees, ones that are over 50% dead, um, just kind of Thinning out the weaker trees that would be attacked first. 00:04:52,730 Um When trees are infested or killed by emerald ashbor, they do become pretty brittle and tend to shatter, um. And they can become dangerous to remove, so we have purchased uh. Piece of equipment last year. It’s a knuckle boom that it’s controlled by, uh, Remote control from the ground and it, it’s a safer way to remove trees. 00:05:15,400 Um The other thing that we’re doing, you know, in response to Emerald dashboard and preparation is planting new trees to replace the ones that we’ve lost. Um, and when it gets here, we will look at treating some elm trees, um, Or ash trees, sorry, um. And they would be treated by trunk injection. 00:05:38,830 Um And we would probably aim to keep about 20%. Of the ash trees in the parks, we’d be looking at higher value, um, better condition, historic, um. trees and and such. Um, I did provide you with, uh, Updated, um, copy of, of some Emerald dashboard information put out by NDSU Extension. 00:06:07,570 It’s got a lot of good information, um, and was just updated last month, as a matter of fact. And then also, uh, just a little, uh, sheet with signs and symptoms of emerald ashbor. 00:06:30,630 Um, so you can, you know, kind of watch for, for the Sinning canopy, epicormic shoots, um, woodpecker activity, things like that may indicate, um, that there is some sort of boer activity. Um, and the Department of Ag does have, uh, on their website, a place where you can report suspect trees. 00:06:55,530 Um, and then one other thing on the emerald ash bor, um, Rainbow Ecoscience will be having an EAB workshop at Sertoma Community Center on Wednesday, June 25th in the morning. Um, they’re just gonna be talking some about Emerald Ashor a little education and then they’ll be doing some injections of trees just for demonstration. 00:07:17,570 Um, and then as far as Em go, Um, at the time of our inventory, about 12 years ago, there were only about 3% of park trees that are elm. Um, and Custer Park in Tatley are the ones that have the most. Um, we’ve had trouble with European elm scale in the past. 00:07:42,000 Several years, um, which we have treated by injection as well, and, um, You know, so we’ve kind of got that under control, but we’re still fighting Dutch elm disease. We do plan on injecting, um, All the elm trees in Custer Park this spring for Dutch elm disease, and that’s 30 trees. Um With a total diameter inches of 1,152, um, the amount of chemical you use goes by the diameter of the tree. 00:08:07,130 So Um, the cost of the chemical as of last year would have been $3500 it’ll probably be more this year, but we do plan on doing that here. Probably in the next month or so. Um, and then I just, um, want to mention we do have Arbor Day coming up. And that will be. 00:08:26,270 Held on the first Friday in May here, which is, uh, Arbor Day in North Dakota. And that was Friday, May 2nd. It’ll be at Custer Park at one o’clock and we are planting a memorial tree for Stan Churchill, who was a former forestry advisory board member passed away about a year and a half ago, um, and he also owned 00:08:48,730 a tree service in town here, so. That’s all I have. Thank you, Chris. Questions for, uh, Christy? Comm Redmann. Thank you, President Zimmerman Christy. You talked about a tree inventory being done 12 years ago. 00:09:07,930 Is that something that should be updated or is it something that the district does update on our, I mean, we know how many trees we plant yearly when we have a tree planting, but is it something that we should work together on, but just a question on that when you hear something that’s 12 years old, do you think we should newer numbers, so it definitely could stand to be 00:09:21,370 updated, you know, any of the newer parks probably are not inventoried. I don’t think many of them are, um, a good examples, even the 150 trees that were planted up at New Gen. I don’t think are in the inventory. 00:09:41,470 Um, the big parks along the river, um, we actually got a grant in a, independent company came in and inventoried those. Um, but when we do work on them, it’s sometimes it’s kind of hard to tell if you’re on the right tree, on the map, and, you know, it just hasn’t been updated, so yes, I, it should be. Thank you. 00:09:59,630 Comm Herzog? Uh, President thinks, but Christy, can you talk a little bit? I know we talked in our forestry advisory board meeting about checking firewood and how that’s, you know, a good way to maybe stop or slow or find things, um, you know, getting into people’s yards, people bring firewood into the, the parks if they’re camping. 00:10:15,830 We just talk about how you guys. You know, try and find some problematic firewood within, within the community. So each spring we do. Elm firewood inspections, typically, depending on the weather, we’ll start late March or into April, um, and we are canvassing the entire city looking mainly on private property, um, checking firewood piles for Eelmwood with bark attached. 00:10:43,130 Um, that is a habitat for the elmbark beetle. It can, you know, lay eggs under the bark and then it overwinters and then they. In the spring, they emerge and. In fact, healthy elm trees. So, um, we’ve been doing that. I think probably since the 70s. 00:11:05,930 Um Once Emerald dashboard gets here, I would imagine we’ll be looking for Ashwood as well. um, but it’s pretty effective in keeping our numbers down. Comm Jeske Zimmerman, thank you for being here, Christy. I just have a quick question. 00:11:26,000 I know you said there’s a website where people can go to be proactive, um, what are the advantages, I mean, obviously, we want them to be proactive. So if If they suspect there’s a disease tree in their yard or on their property. Go to this website. 00:11:45,530 What’s, what’s the next course of action that happens after that, so, um, So it would be if, if it was reported on that website, it is reported to the North Dakota Department of Ag, and then they would investigate it from there if it was a, you know, Valid Claim or, you know, and I’d imagine it’s the homeowner’s responsibility to remove that disease tree at that time? It would be, yes. Thank you. Thanks. Christy, I have a question or two. You mentioned. 00:12:06,800 You know, working here on in the, within the city, the Corps of Engineers certainly owns a lot of land along the river. Are you working? I’m assuming you’re working with, Even the city of Mandan or are we? Pretty departmentalized here on, on this effort. 00:12:24,500 As of right now we’re, you know, kind of just working as our, our own entity, you know, kind of in partnership with Parks as well. Um, I would imagine when it gets here, there may be, uh, Some joint effort at that time, um, but really the state Kind of monitors the whole Um Emerald ash bor thing. 00:12:48,530 So they would be the main ones coordinating. Efforts in general, so. Well, I, I guess I, I hope most of our citizens, we appreciate the, the trees, the parks, I know, uh, down at Sibley, I know we lost a lot of trees there with the flood, but your work of your department with uh, with Parks and Rec. I appreciate that work. 00:13:08,270 I go now through Sertoma and I see you’re in there. Yes. Cutting some trees out, so, good work there. Thank you. Yes. Any other questions for? Thank you for your time this evening. Thank you. 00:13:34,870 Our next partner Uh, programs and partners is golf operations manager Tim Doppler is gonna give us an update and uh maybe uh tell us how many rounds of golf he’s already played himself or something that. Good evening, Jim. Good evening, everybody. 00:13:53,630 Um, just wanna update everybody on the changes that we’ve made with golf, um, last year we had, um, just a really bad outbreak of people not showing up for tea time. So we decided we were going to go to 3 days instead of 7 days in advance and uh try to eliminate um the loss of stamina or just remembering that you made a tee time 7 days ago, so, uh, 1700 no shows at Tom O’Leary’s 733 at Riverwood. 00:14:10,130 And Pebble Creek didn’t quite measure them the same way, so pretty significant amount of no shows and and loss of being able to play. So we’re just going to provide more opportunity for players to um schedule events or schedule times to play and open up that. 00:14:30,030 That kind of window for some fresh blood kind of working into the system, so. I’m looking forward to a great season that way. We also have um an art collecting credit card information, um, pretty much everywhere you go, you rent anything from anywhere, United Rentals, rent a lawnmower or anything like that, 00:14:44,830 you got to give them a credit card. They’re gonna keep it on file. So we’re giving away a very expensive golf cart, um, even golf equipment like the rental sets are about $2000 each each one retail, uh, Pocarts are even $350 now, so we just have a credit card on file for the things that you’re 00:15:00,000 using. Um, other than that, um, we can make tee times online and we can also call, so we’re starting to open right now at 10:30 in the morning so you can call and make tee times 3 days in advance that way or book your tee times online starting 00:15:15,370 at 7 a.m. in the morning. Questions of Tim. I start with Jesski. Thank you, President Zimmerman. So Tim, I know we received an email from um. A former park Comm just questioning some of the things that were going on within the um. teatime reservation policy, um. 00:15:41,630 So I know there’s a tiered structure. So, can you kind of explain that to people too so they understand like if you this is the first time this is the 2nd time, this is the 3rd time, so that they, so people who are listening can. Can grasp how we’re changing that. 00:16:00,100 Sure, President or President Zimmerman and Comm, Comm Jeske, the first time that that we have a no show, um, person doesn’t show up for their tee time. Um, we just give him a friendly reminder. 00:16:15,530 We’re sending a little email that says, hey, this is the first offense, basically, um, sorry we missed you, you know, hopefully nothing important you know accident wise that happened or anything like that, um, just please let us know, and the 2nd time that we do that, it’s a little more firm as far as what we’re saying is, uh, you know, the warning that We will be most likely charging you with that, in that third offense. 00:16:31,730 So it’s just a, a, an effort to curb the habitual offenders, and we’ve had so many of those that, you know, that, that number of, of 1711 or 1712 that Tom O’Leary and 733 at Riverwood are are way less than they actually are because staff just kind of cleans up the tea sheet a lot and they don’t even actually 00:16:50,470 record the ones that are missing. So we’re very flexible, you know, we know that that accidents happen. people missing, and we won’t charge it that particular day. 00:17:05,200 We’ll wait a day to charge it after they get their email and uh We’re going to be very flexible on that stuff, so it’s not, not as punitive as you think. And then another question related to that. I know there was an email that was sent out to him to certain people and obviously I must opt out of emails, so how do I go about making sure that I receive those emails so like this information would have come to me because obviously I 00:17:23,470 wasn’t on the list because I’ve opted out. So tell me how I correct that situation. Sorry about that. The President Commission President Zimmerman and Comm, Comm Jeske, the, uh, the best process for that is when you stop in, we’ve got a button on your profile that we can click and then we’ll just 00:17:40,100 unclick that, that opt out um to receive those emails. Um, we also have, you know, for gold card members, people that are former employees and people that were former commissioners, um, if those folks could stop in as well and verify their emails, so sometimes we don’t have the The correct email or 00:17:59,300 or those types of things. So we just want to get that information verified and we can fix that with a little click of a button on our uh. On our website and the last question I have, Tim, is I know sometimes I have called and the phone has. 00:18:12,630 rang for a very long time with no one being able to pick it up, and I understand because I used to work retail and we are always taught, you take care of the customer at the counter. They were there first. 00:18:24,800 Take care of the people that are on the phone 2, so. Is there a way, I, I mean, is there a voicemail message that they’re able to leave at this time? Is that something we can implement? So if you are calling 2 hours and 5 minutes before your tea time to let someone know you’re canceling. Can they leave a voicemail message. 00:18:43,570 President Zimmerman and Commissioners, Comm Jeske, yes, um, I actually just emailed Bek communications to change our messaging. We’ve also got um extra staff and myself will be answering the phone as quick as we can get it, um, so phone calls will be handled way, way more with more urgency as well 00:19:01,170 as, um, we will turn our voicemail back or not back on, but on for the first time. We haven’t had it before, so it’s not a big ad, so we’ll get, we’ll get voicemail going soon. OK, thanks, Tim. 00:19:17,130 I guess there’s always There’s always a chance to do things better, right? So I appreciate you coming in front of us and, and explaining this so that people who have questions hopefully understand what’s going on now. And you put this information on the website too, correct? Yep, it’s going to be up sorry President Zimmerman Commissioners, Comm Jeske, yes, that will be up on. 00:19:35,870 Our booking engine in about 24 to 72 hours, they said today, and then it is on the website, I believe now that’s, uh, Dana put it up there and you can always cancel your reservation via the booking. Active Link, correct? OK. Thanks to Comm Herzog. 00:19:54,000 Uh, President Zimmerman Commissioners, Tim, thanks so much for coming and, and kind of walking us through the changes, um, I assume just when I’m coaching or I’m playing the, the amount of people that are golfing now is, especially since COVID is just increased tremendously, so I mean I think this will give some more people an opportunity to get tea times, 00:20:12,100 more people that will be able to play, um. If there’s damage to carts like you mentioned, I know that we’re all responsible adults, but When people get on the golf cart, I don’t know what it is that like. 00:20:28,670 They ride it like a go-kart kind of, and so I, I can absolutely understand wanting to keep a credit card on file, but can you just talk a little bit about what you’ve seen in in tea time reservations. 00:20:47,800 Have you seen Big spikes? Are, are we real tight on on times and spaces for the, the 3 courses that you’re managing? Um, President Zimmerman and Comm, Comm Herzog, we We are, you know, really at capacity, um. It’s been, um, really nice to be able to have that booking engine working, uh, people. Really do jump online right at 7 in the morning right now, you know, and, and the weather isn’t that great, so they’re still booking online. 00:21:05,100 We we fill up very, very quickly, phone calls and, and booking online are are great, but, um, yeah, it, it we are seeing a lot of capacity that way. And then just talking about damage that had been done last year, 3 carts at Riverwood, 2 carts of Tom O’Leary and two carts at Pebble Creek significantly damaged, um, I was the one 00:21:25,130 group of 4 that damaged the one cart I it in because they’re trying to pull the wheel out from underneath and it’s, yeah, yeah, they just, you know, they don’t pay attention, they, they clip up a tree or something like that and, you know, knock the wheel off and it’s not incredibly expensive. 00:21:39,030 It just is hard to get that out because we have to go out with a tractor and pull it back in and fix it all up, but, um, You know, we do ask for, for folks to pay that damage of those incidents, I think we only got 2 to actually. 00:21:53,470 Own up and, and pay that money that they that they owed us for the damage that was done, so I played corsos where you have to give them your driver’s license and you don’t get it back until you, the cart’s back and they’ve checked it over that it’s not been. 00:22:09,670 Smashed Jamestown is that way, I think generally, so, um, thanks, Tim for everything you do. I know it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be a good season. I’m excited. Comm Redmann, thanks so much. 00:22:25,170 I know customer service is very important to you, and I know on all levels and so thanks for working hard to make sure it’s not perfect always, but I know you care about it, so thanks. And my question is tell us about opening days and how it’s going so far and staffing so let’s hear about that a little bit. Absolutely, President Zimmerman, Comm, Comm Redmann, um, we started a week ago and um everything’s going great. Our staff has been training really, really hard. 00:22:41,530 We’re trying to really focus on phone call answering and getting things done the right way. Um, and we are 100% of our customers. We want to make sure that their experience is absolutely top-notch. 00:22:54,570 We feel we’ve got one of the best products in the state, you know, as far as the three opportunities to play in in Bismarck, and the Junior Links coming online here hopefully July 1st. Um, so it’s been, uh, really, really great start. Things are starting to green up. We could use some rain. 00:23:11,570 We can’t really get water turned on yet because the overnight lows are so uh low still, so get that water on and everything will go fast. Good for you. Good for you. Well, Tim, I again, I would echo the other commissioners and thank you for coming out tonight after, you know, a full day, I’m sure, busy at the courses. I just want to comment. 00:23:29,000 I appreciate your comment when you said the efforts to, you know, work on less cancellations of tee times to give folks, anybody, the opportunity to golf. You know, I think that’s what we’re all about. 00:23:45,570 When I spoke with a visitor with Kevin this morning, you know, we talked about that, that, yeah, there’s some issues if, you, you know, you don’t, you know, if you don’t cancel your reservation or whatever, but, When you say that we’re as busy as can be. 00:23:59,570 This is a way to give, Anybody wants to golf can have that opportunity, so I commend you on that, and I hope that you and your staff can, I know you’ll work hard to please the folks as much as you can, but yeah, I think at some point we have to. Make that clear, this is our policy and we’re we’re here to get folks outside and do the, do golfing. 00:24:15,470 So thank you very much and uh good luck. Are you fully staffed or you’re still looking for folks or President Zimmerman and Commissioners, yes, we do have, uh, our staff’s full in the golf shops. 00:24:31,000 I think we’re still looking for a couple of folks on maintenance, so everything’s looking really good for the season. All right. So we’ll put that word out tonight if you’re looking for a summer job, make sure you contact the park district, yeah. Thank you, Tim. Absolutely, thank you. 00:24:52,870 The next item on the agenda is our, uh, presentation by city engineer Gabe Schell is going to provide updated information, and there’s some in your, uh, packet and, uh, Gabe’s we’re going to turn it over to you for an update. Thank you as well for coming out this evening. All right, thank you, President Zimmerman. Uh, like you said, my name is Gabe Schell, I’m the city engineer for the city of Bismarck. 00:25:13,770 Here to give you an update on our South Bismarck flood control project. Outline for today, uh, kind of a short update, but just a good time uh to visit with you all on our funding, where we’re at with that, the Clem Kelley options that we’ve now enhanced with some cost comparisons that I want to walk 00:25:29,170 through here today, and then our kind of the last iteration of the analysis that we’ve been going through lately is looking at what the no pond options would look like through the same area and then close with, uh, any questions you may have. As well as some next steps. 00:25:43,800 So funding update, uh, two things I’d want to discuss here. First being our funding was through the FEMA’s, uh, flood mitigation assistance program, uh, and that’s not the same as their BRIC program, which is the building resilient infrastructure and Communities. 00:26:01,200 That was the program that, uh, as of earlier this April, uh, kind of a lot of those dollars got pulled back from the communities that even had grants in place or or awards in place, maybe the grant money wasn’t fully, fully in hand. 00:26:15,170 Um, just want to clarify, we as the city did apply for both of those programs, but how this program was funded or how this Project was funded was through their flood mitigation assistance program. Um, so when we’ve had coordination with FEMA, they’ve indicated that they haven’t heard anything that something’s changing, but as you’re all seeing in the newspaper and in, in, in media, things are changing rapidly there. So at this point in time we still have the federal dollars to proceed with this project. 00:26:30,200 Um, I just wanted to provide that update. The other piece of this is the, the state requests that we’ve made. We put a request through uh the state’s water development plan, uh, that then made its way into House Bill 1020, which was the funding bill. for the state Department of Water Resources. 00:26:47,170 So through the House process, the House got the bill to start. They passed a bill that included funding for the South Bismarck flood control project and a legislative intent, uh, to fund it in the next session, uh, when it made its way over to the Senate, a lot of that language, in fact, all of that language was removed. 00:27:00,630 So that bill now will go back to a conference committee between the House and the Senate to hopefully find a compromise and hopefully that compromise is putting this project back into the funding package. 00:27:14,000 So it’s an update that it started good, a little sideways and we hope get back on track here, but we’ll provide an update, uh, once we have a little certainty on, on that aspect of it. So, as a reminder, the project that we’re talking about here, uh, has two components, the one component on the south side on the Bismarck drainage ditch, making improvements along there. 00:27:30,930 The second component, uh, which affects the Park District property is a expansion or or an enhancement of the Bismarck Expressway conduit of the controls water and out following that out to the Missouri River. So as we zoom in then we’ll start at the Outfall and I’m gonna pause here just to talk that we really haven’t evaluated. 00:27:49,100 Anything more since the last time we spoke in January, this, this is the same ditch, the same alignment, uh, there’s still Opportunities to discuss which trees could remain, uh, how much of that trail should meander, where should the fence be? How much clearance should be between the fence and the zoo and all those sort of 00:28:02,370 aspects and we’ll cover those and get more of those, those details as our project progresses, uh, but we wanted to get more of our analysis and and energy towards some of the pieces in within Clem Kelley. 00:28:15,230 So really, nothing has changed here since you’ve seen this, but we have still recognized your comments from before on making sure this is a trail that works for the public and works for everyone else once we’re all set and done. So as we work ourselves back into uh Clem Kelley. 00:28:30,230 This is just an overview map of the park showing some of the features, including the ball fields, tennis, uh, parking, soccer, pickleball outdoor work, uh, space, and then the orchard. So, starting with this option one, and I’m surely showing 1A through 1C all at the same time here, uh, because it, they’re all in the same vein that has that 2 diamond pond where two baseball fields are moving 00:28:49,800 baseball to where tennis is, moving tennis to where soccer is, impacting soccer and mitigating that down at Cottonwood is the other component. 00:29:03,900 What we’ve done recently now is with all these options, we’ve taken a look at the mitigation costs for each one of these elements, and then kept track also of the uh flood. Infrastructure costs. So as we might be able to move a mitigation piece and quantify that, as we compared our options, some would cost more and less as pertains to mitigation, and they would also cost more or less as it pertains to the actual 00:29:19,900 infrastructure or the project costs of putting in the pipes, the, the ponds, etc. So the analysis here is kind of our base analysis showing, uh, really the option 1C in the top right corner. 00:29:34,200 I don’t know if you read that piece or not, but this was the highest of them, but this ranges from about 5 million to 5.8 million in mitigation costs, primary. because this is our base alternative that we compared everything else to. So this is no extra cost for the, the, uh, flood infrastructure is kind of the, the base assumption when we looked at this two pond option. 00:29:49,730 So this is a reminder, you see, you’ve seen this one before. Option 2, as we look at this, uh, now has the ball fields being impacted and tennis not. So if we look in that top right corner, we have additional mitigation costs to, to do this work, to, to rebuild the ball fields. 00:30:06,370 We have the same mitigation costs for the soccer component, but now we’re also starting to see additional flood improvement costs because we have to carry that, uh, box culvert system further along, we can’t start the pond as earlier as we would have under that two-on option. 00:30:20,670 So we’re seeing increased costs for not only the mitigation but also the flood control improvements, and this is something. As far as the option is concerned, you have seen before, but the cost of the additional, uh, when compared to that base option, you probably haven’t seen until now. Pond option 3, this is the first time you would have seen this. 00:30:36,130 This is a variation the last time we spoke that we looked at an option that would just push those impacts to the zoo to see what would that look like. And that was the feedback we got when we had our stakeholder meetings with the tennis and the softball community is what can we, is there an option that could just 00:30:46,870 push that to the zoo and, and we looked at that, uh, there is an option that would push it to the zoo, but there’s just not that same mitigation opportunity on the zoo property. 00:30:59,100 So we talked about it in January and we kind of moved off because we couldn’t mitigate their impacts on property. What pond option 3 here is a compromise between the impacts to Clem Kelley and the zoo to come up with some sort of sharing of, of that impact of what we landed here, knowing that there is some space within the zoo property to move some of the exhibit space to other locations, and 00:31:12,570 we could treat the tennis similarly how we were looking at the other tennis options. So this particular option still has $2 million worth of, uh, Clem Kelley and Dakota Zoo mitigation costs still has the soccer field impacts or the soccer field mitigation down at Cottonwood. 00:31:27,930 But now we’re seeing just about $7 million in flood control project costs by pulling that box culvert. All the way through the community orchard all the way through the two ball fields to put it to this new pond. And when we’re pulling multiple large sale box culverts. 00:31:42,470 Um, additional length than what the base alternative was, those costs add up really quickly. So the whole point of this exercise really is to come up with what’s the Delta, what’s the comparison, the difference between these things. Um, so it’s not that building any, uh, you know, these will be, uh, $10 million to build this. 00:31:56,200 We’re looking at the differences between them, then we can compare those numbers to understand what are we getting for that difference? So, uh, you’ll see those options 1 through 1C in that 5 to about $6 million dollar range and then option 2 and option 3 are about 10, uh, to 11-ish or so million dollars. 00:32:11,370 And I’ll, I’ll pause there just to kind of stop that, that’s what we’ve talked about so far. And then the next analysis that we did looked into, well, what can we do if we’re going to spend $11 million potentially on something. 00:32:24,130 What else could we do? Windows underground storage come into play? When, when does just putting a box culvert system without anything else, uh, for, for storage, uh, become cost comparable. So when we look at resizing this or kind of retooling this. 00:32:41,630 The variables that we have to play with our storage inside the pond, the size of the pump station, how, how much it’s going to operate, uh, a, a bigger storage capacity means you can have a smaller pump station because you can store more of that water in the pond and the pump can just turn on at, at a slower rate without a storage component, that pump has to work faster and, and harder and needs to be bigger. 00:32:55,170 Uh, same could be said for the box culvert sizing. We had some flexibility there. The bigger the box culvert, there’s an inherent amount of storage that is created with a larger box culvert too. 00:33:08,470 So all these are the kind of the variables and levers we can pull that we can then compare back to that original two pond option to say if we keep all of these, the goal the same, the, the is this is going to be the same in all of these, but what can we do in terms of increasing and decreasing these other variables to end up with a 00:33:20,100 comparison that we can provide. So when we look at a no pond option, uh, this is what we’ve sketched out so far that would run the box culvert from Bismarck Expressway, my pointer here again. 00:33:36,630 From Bismarck Expressway at Washington Street and then come into the Bismarck Parks and Rec property, uh, as, as soon as we get past the elks and run along the south side of the property. Until we get to the pump station and the pump station really would be at the same location that we probably identified earlier, so really nothing changes as far as the, the location of these elements, but instead of a pond, uh, 00:33:51,670 we’re pulling that additional box culvert through there and obviously the same can be said here for the ditch, um, no changes from the ditch. Uh, we’ll zoom in. Just to show these aspects in a little closer view. 00:34:07,470 What I want to note is that there would still be uh temporary impacts as we look at what this is, there, there’ll be a a lift station still located there. So that would definitely be a, a, a permanent facility, uh, but the rest of what we would under uh undertake here. We would anticipate it would be more in temporary in nature in terms of that impact. 00:34:20,000 There would be a period of time that those fences that the current, uh, fences for the softball or the baseball fields would need to be removed so that the infrastructure can be built, but there’s also the opportunity to put as part of the project a offense line or whatever that might be to still 00:34:33,270 have the, the field to be serviceable or portions of the field to be serviceable for periods of time that we obviously would not be able to even consider that option if we were building a pond in that location. 00:34:46,870 So this option would show we’ll still have impacts, but we’d hopefully consider those in, uh, temporary in nature. So therefore, the mitigation that we would be proposing as part of the project would be limited to, to none really in in the sense of we’ll mitigate anything that we’re doing it from a temporary impact, but when we’re all said and done, The goal would not be 00:35:00,170 to also then Create a soccer field somewhere or build a baseball diamond somewhere. It’s like kind of the trade-off that we’d see, do we put those dollars towards the infrastructure or do we put those dollars towards mitigation for, for the impacts of the project. That’s what the analysis would go through. 00:35:17,030 So as we went into the technical, uh, the base option, as I said before, included a pump station and two diamond ponds. So all of these are what we’re trying to, to weigh against, like a little technical in nature here, but option A increases the size of the pump, so we have a bigger pump station, so increased costs there and then 00:35:30,900 we increase the box culvert size also in that scenario. So we looked at both of those things up to 120 CFS pump station, um, to try to find what’s the next tier of, of cost level and not necessarily the, the biggest pump station known to man, but what’s the most reasonable size, you know, 00:35:46,900 larger option B of the no pond is an even larger pump station, but then in that scenario, we don’t have to increase our box culvert sizes relative to that base option. 00:36:02,870 We can leave all that infrastructure under expressway the same size as what we had anticipated, and they all both, uh, performed similarly from that hydraulic perspective. And then option C is something that we go back to the original pump station size. 00:36:17,100 And then we just facilitate underground storage underneath the ball diamonds, wherever that might be, uh, to store the water similar to what a pond would have stored, but in this way, an underground solution that would be a temporary impact and then the ball field could return as soon as that project’s done. As we then looked at the costs of those things, the, the option A, about $6. 00:36:31,900 5 million to have a slightly larger pump station and the increased box culvert size. Option B, when we get up to keeping the box culverts the way they were programmed, uh, but having a larger, even larger pump station, we’ll see that jump up to about $10 million. And once again, this is just the cost difference. This isn’t the cost to build the pump station. 00:36:46,130 This is just the cost to build it bigger. It’s really what we’re talking about in all of these. And then option C, uh, with the underground storage was 12.1. million dollars. 00:37:03,270 So when we look at all these together then, this is where we kind of land at, you know, the original pond options you saw up at the top of 18 BC option 2 and 3 with the costs associated with that and then the cost associated with the no pond options, we’re finding that that no pond option A of making that box culvert a little bit bigger, making that pump station a little bit bigger, does cost $6. 00:37:18,730 5 million but that is now cost comparable to some of the mitigation components that we were considering, um, and so with the direction and I guess the, the feedback we’ve received. from the board as well as the public so far in understanding and trying to minimize those impacts to those stakeholders. 00:37:32,270 We’re landing at probably a, if it’s all said and done, is a better solution for us if it’s about the same cost, it really doesn’t cost us a whole heck of a lot more money and it does reduce the impact significantly to the park board, your, your facilities as well as all the stakeholders that will be 00:37:44,000 affected. So this is where we’re thinking option A is where we’d want to land. That’s a still would need easements from the park district, still we need to work through all those issues, um, but we would not be looking to do any off-site mitigation or you know, building new ball fields, we’d 00:37:57,670 put those dollars towards building this infrastructure bigger so we can avoid having to Impact to replace other facilities. So that was a lot. So, thanks for sticking with me. 00:38:14,370 Next steps, we have questions, so I’ll love to answer any questions that you may have, um, like I said, no pond option A is the one that we want to pursue uh from our, our staff’s perspective, that comes with the caveat that it then does not include any off-site or significant off-site improvement city park facilities because then all of a sudden that option becomes now more expensive if we’re also building a ball field or doing something else, uh, along 00:38:31,000 with that. Uh, what I would anticipate is going back to my city commission with then direction from this board on, on what, uh, direction you might be able to provide here this evening. 00:38:43,170 as well as an update on the funding, uh, once we get through session we’ll have a little better understanding of what state dollars are there and look for direction for my board to move forward. So with that I’d take any questions that you have and uh go from there. Thanks, Gabe. I’ve known we all have some questions. We’ll start with Comm Jeske. Thank you, President Zimmerman. 00:38:58,500 Gabe, thank you for this and, uh, thank you for looking at unicorns and spaceships, um, with this box culvert under the um underneath so my question is, So we’re looking at a roughly 6. Million dollars difference. What’s the total cost gonna be on this then? Total. Sure. 00:39:23,100 President Zimmerman, Comm, Comm Jesske, the total cost that we’re looking at is about $172 million for all of the work that would be proposed through here. OK. And that includes that $6,463,000. 00:39:43,870 Comm, Comm Jeske, that included what at the time was a $5 million line item for park mitigation, so we would be moving that park mitigation line item into a larger infrastructure cost and a million dollars difference, but at this point in time, we’re still trying to, it’s still within the estimating range of what we’re considering. OK, and, um, I was listening, but I wasn’t. 00:40:00,530 What’s the downtime, do you think that would be for the Clem Kelley as you, uh, work on this project. Comm, Comm, uh, Jesski. Unknown at this point in time, I, I think we would want to, as we get closer to design and better understand the, the phasing of, of when these projects would go 00:40:20,500 and, and where we’ll need to do lay down areas and and that sort of uh type of, of work, um. We’d want to constrain the contractor, so they don’t have just a six-year period to do whatever they want, but also not make it so constrictive 00:40:35,730 that they have 3 days to build the whole thing. So we try to find that reasonable aspect of time frames that don’t put the public out of commission, um, longer than need to be, uh, but also try to find that sweet spot of contractor efficiency 00:40:47,000 to just get in there and get out of there as soon as they practically can. Uh, my hope would be that in these concepts as we push through and, and pull that uh box culvert through the property. A lot of what you would see in this area, as soon as that infrastructure is in, there’s less work. 00:41:01,800 Needing to occur there after that is they’ll be moving on to the next part of the project, so it’s kind of a limited time frame that they’d be in that area. The pump station, however, will be a pretty long process to, to build, dig, construct, etc. that facility. 00:41:16,800 Um, so I’d anticipate anything in the area of effect of this to, to occur over multiple years, but the area of effect of the box culverts going in would be a year and then it’s a question of during that year of construction, how to best accommodate the activities on Clem Kelley. 00:41:30,930 Can we still keep both fields open? Can we keep one of the two fields open? And what does that look like? Is there a, a temporary fence that could be put up with a short outfield for that year. 00:41:43,000 Is that something you’d want to pursue? Those are the types of things we’d continue to work with your staff if this uh proceeds in this direction to better understand how to operate that and Gabe, how quickly could this project begin? Are we talking the fall of 2025? Are we looking at the fall of 2026 or President Zimmerman President Zimmerman, Comm, Comm Jeske, the earliest that we would talk about would be the construction year for 27. That’s really what we would talk about this happening. 00:42:00,570 Uh, it’s a multi-year project once. starts, so it likely be the 27, 28, and 29 construction seasons if everything goes as well as it can. OK, and my last question is related to the trail, so there’d be some trail rerouting that would be going on too with this, correct? Comm, uh, Comm Jeske, uh, that’s 00:42:19,270 correct. So during construction, I think it will be something we’d have to figure if the trail is closed, how long it should be closed for if the concept is, it doesn’t have to, it can’t be closed, then it just understand where, where does it have to be located during that time of, of, uh, 00:42:36,470 disturbance. Our goal with any construction project is to make it safe for everyone involved, whether it’s the, the public or the contractor, we don’t want to have the public getting too close to something that is, uh, dangerous for them to be in. So this. 00:42:48,570 is the final condition that might look like there’s, there’s lots of room, but as they’re building it, there also needs to be room for uh construction equipment and backhoes and dozers and everything else that’s going to be there. So the more that you accommodate access during construction, the bigger that impact area has to be. 00:43:02,530 So try to find that balancing point between impacting more than you need to while still allowing for some activity occurring. OK, thank you, Gabe. And are you looking for us to make a decision tonight then. Comm, Comm Jeske, I’m not looking for a decision necessarily. I think I would what I would want to have is some confirmation on our assumptions. 00:43:18,170 if we proceed with the project with a no pond option. Would it be the Park Commission’s, uh, position Park board commissioned this position to not require additional offsite mitigation because that would be a pretty large change in our philosophy of why we would pick option. 00:43:38,470 No po option A, if there’s still a mitigation expectation, then that would obviously change the, the math that we’re looking at. Thank you, Gabe. Appreciate it. Comm Herzog. Thanks, um, absorbing it engineer talk and it was really fast. So, um, In terms of the funding, and it did sound like, you know, the, the FEMA funding that we had applied for my, my. 00:44:06,100 still there, I should say, um, how’s the, the 10/20 the water resource bill, was there any reason or was there some Well, just take me through why that that portion was taken out and Were their concerns or or if you could just take me through 10:20, that would be great. 00:44:23,800 Sure, Comm, Comm Herzog, uh, I think there’s a couple things at play. One, at the time that the House was putting together their bill. I think there was more of an appetite for bonding and more of an appetite for, for debt, and it had a different oil projection dollar amount as well as uh amount of oil projected. 00:44:40,270 So by the time the House passed that bill to win the Senate got the bill to act on the new oil projection came out with both the lower. number as well as a lower, uh, production estimate so that decrease the amount of revenue that the state will have to spend on water projects. So pretty much every water project took a hit. 00:44:57,000 If a myots projects coming out of House Bill had $120 million for Sur River, uh, related flooding. They’re down to 65 in the Senate bill. So every project took a significant hit down our project went from a dollar amount to zero primarily because of uh uh position that uh the Senate took that the 00:45:15,400 Components of this project are not flood control related. They were more storm sewer related, so that’s a position that we would obviously disagree with that we need to do these things to get the FEMA map amended so therefore, in our mind that is entirely flood control related if it’s the flood mapping that 00:45:29,870 we’re trying to effect with a positive change, uh, their position was that there’s much of this is storm sewer related because it’s not your typical floodwall levy pump station along the banks of the river. It’s doing that, but then building infrastructure further into the community that they felt might not be the spirit of what they’ve funded previously. 00:45:46,470 So those are the things we’ll like hopefully, hopefully overcome here in the conference committee or be able to address any of those things, uh, with the upcoming or with the next session, uh, if we get another crack at it. Comm Redmann, Gabe, thanks for coming tonight. 00:46:03,730 This is a lot to wrap our heads around because this went from, where do we move soccer, tennis, pickleball, orchard, all to. A minimal, as you said, minimal impact on, on all those um um user groups certainly and Park District property, which is kind of a relief, I have to tell you. 00:46:23,200 So what I’m hearing, and so to please confirm, um, so impact on 2 softball fields, um, certainly on the trail pieces of it and then replace that trees probably eventually the orchard as well. Was that on there? I just want to just confirm all the pieces of Park District property that will be impacted by this no pond option. 00:46:41,470 Sure, Comm, Comm Redmann of the, all the items that you said are correct and for the, the trail, there will be tree impacts, um, hopefully temporary impacts what we’ll call it to the two ball fields that we’re going through. 00:46:57,500 The community orchard, the orchard component, those trees are just further north into the property than the, the southern boundary of the line, uh, if that is, uh, important to the, the community and important to the park district. That’s probably something we can work around and protect that area. If it’s something that the community orchard wants to, you know, it’s the desire to reloc. 00:47:09,230 Keep that to a different spot anyway. Uh, we just want to be able to work through that and understand is that a constraint that we have to work through, or, or that’s something to avoid, um, so more details to come, I’m sure. OK. Um, I think that’s the only thing for now. Thank you. Well, Gabe, uh, thank you again. 00:47:25,830 My thanks for, uh, attending tonight. My one main question is what’s option B if the legislature does not provide funding. Are you, what’s the timeline with FEMA or whomever to claw back that money if you, if the city does not receive funding. Where does that put the project? Sure. 00:47:48,230 President Zimmerman, Commissioners, that is a very interesting question because our, our FEMA dollars were granted to us on July 1st, I believe, of 2024 with a requirement to spend those within 3 years, but also guidance from their. saying you can ask for up to 1, excuse me, 21 year extensions. So we felt like that probably worked for what we’re talking about. 00:48:05,730 If we get funding through this legislative session, uh, I should back up. We have the funds to do the design work and the, you know, acquisition, get a, a, a bid bid ready package together. We have the FEMA dollars in hand. We have even the state dollars in hand to take this all the way to bid. 00:48:22,870 I would have hesitation from the city’s perspective to bid this without knowing who’s going to pay for all of this, which will likely delay the time frame that we can actually bid this. 00:48:38,930 So we might, unless we can get through this session, have to, um, push out the opening to the spring of 207 instead of maybe the fall of 26, which will just limit the amount of work that could probably happen in 207, that’s constructive, uh, within the majority of that having, having to happen then in 208 and into 29, um, so unknown what that path looks like, but we do have a, a, a ticking clock on the FEMA dollars that 00:48:55,630 the more that we wait, the, the better the chance that those dollars will go away or be rescinded, um, if we don’t have the state support. If the state does not support, then it’ll be up to the city. 00:49:10,270 to figure out how do we fund this? Do we still move forward with this as presented? Is there other options? What is the plan B? That’s what we’d have to try to evaluate, and that’s what I’ll be asking our commission as soon as we have some clarity on the state funding. And that’s a follow up, I guess, my concern, Gabe is whatever other funding would be, whether it’s assessments. 00:49:25,470 You know what it does to the park district too. That’s, we own a lot of that property along there for any assessments for the project. Another question you said temporary impact on the ball fields. Can you provide a little more? are we talking? Even if it’s temporary, we’re talking major impact to those diamonds or that area. 00:49:48,100 Sure, President Zimmerman, Commissioners, if you want to bring the screen back up again, um. So our goal here, the, the driving lanes for Bismarck Expressway, uh, we would be just hopefully on the other side of the fence of, uh, just outside of the right of way for the permanent infrastructure when we talk about the 00:50:07,470 Temporary impacts, we would just envision that wherever the fence line is now for the outfield that probably can’t be where the fence line will have to be during construction, uh, but we also don’t need to encompass the entire ball field to build this infrastructure. 00:50:21,400 There’s ways to make the ball field still serviceable, as long as we know that, you know, what, what’s the acceptable, you know, left field fence or right field fence that could still make it a usable field for your users to, to use during that season. 00:50:36,270 So I don’t have that number yet, whether it’s a 50 ft into the field or 10 ft or 150 ft. Uh, but that’s kind of the direction that we’re going is trying to minimize that as well as we can and have a clear understanding from you and your stakeholders of what’s still a serviceable field, um, to use. 00:50:51,030 Well, I would Unless other commissioners have questions, I gave, I think, yes, as Comm Redmond said a lot to digest here. Uh, personally, I like the option of not disturbing the fields. I think all of us have heard from almost all the user groups in the park that they just like to leave it the way it is. 00:51:11,630 And even if we would have some temporary construction or impact of the area. I’ll be a little facetious in saying, gosh, I thought we’d get all kind of mitigation and some really great new facilities. But I understand the cost is a big item, and certainly the impact. So, to you and your staff, I appreciate the efforts. 00:51:30,130 I think we can digest this and, uh, And look forward to it. I don’t again, Comm Jesske to ask, what’s your ask of the Park District. In the next couple of months, let’s say session will end here. A couple of weeks, we’ll know what, what that’s going to give for you. 00:51:47,830 Does that prompt then your work to I mean, what’s our timeline here? Sure, President Zimmerman Commissioners, I would anticipate, uh, out of the direction I would get from my board is to come back to here and, and as we’ve alluded to before, having some sort of MOU or some agreement between park board and city, uh, to lay out 00:52:04,470 what the mitigation strategy is and what the terms are, I think it’s probably a little more straightforward if we’re not talking about ball fields and, um, soccer complexes. 00:52:18,270 It’s talking about how we’re maintaining access and how are we allowing, you know, X, Y, and Z to, to live and, and reside on Park District property. Uh, so I think that The terms and conditions would be a little more straightforward. 00:52:32,770 Uh, I think the, and I would add additional language into that agreement or I recommend added any conditions that you would seem appropriate regarding the funding so that if there was a, you know, I think I would want to get the agreement in place, probably before we have the answer on the funding, but note that it’s, that agreement is in place contingent on the funding is maybe how I would approach the thing so that if there was a uh a drastic component of funding that the park board isn’t left holding the bag, 00:52:47,630 being the proud owner of a $100 million special assessment that the city decided to give to this park property, which is obviously not what we would intend to do. Thank you, Gabe for that upfront, uh, statement. Uh, any other comments, uh, executive Director Klipfel, anything to add there. 00:53:05,270 Again, Gabe, I, you know, this has been a long process. It’s a big project for the city, for the park district and all of our partners. So, I know, I appreciate the openness. 00:53:23,500 You’ve talked to Kevin on numerous times when Kevin visits with me and other commissioners, so, let’s keep that communication open as we move forward and hopefully we’ll get this project underway. OK. Thank you very much. Thank you. Uh, item 6 on the agenda is the, uh, consideration of the Sheila Schafer Junior Links sign and Dakota Junior Golf, uh, advertising agreement. Chris is here to review the proposed sign and revised advertising agreement. Good evening, Chris. 00:53:53,730 Good evening, President Zimmerman. Commissioners, good to see you. It’s been a while. I promise I’ll be far less intense than Gabe. Anyway, um, Couple of things, um, we’re here to talk about the uh advertising agreement that we’ve had in place, um, one thing I want to do though is 00:54:11,000 I’ve passed out since I haven’t seen you in a while, I want to share some numbers and some things we should all be really proud of what we’ve done here in Bismarck and some things that I haven’t had a chance to share with you in the past. 00:54:20,100 And you can read them at your own leisure, but I wanted to just touch on a couple of them. Um, and about our growth in the program that we’ve done here in Bismarck, Mandan. In 2019, we had 1300 people that, that took part in our program across the state. Last year we were over 11,000. 00:54:39,200 So that’s exponential growth there from 312 tournament participants to over 3000 last year. Um, we’ve started a new program here in Bismarck, kind of one of the first of its kind, maybe across the country. The Dave and Pat Gooden knew to golf program. What that does is puts clubs and kids’ hands. 00:54:53,630 We do it up at the dome. It’s a big celebration, puts clubs in kids’ hands that are very, very reasonable price, um, in 3 years, we’ve put over 500 sets of gloves and new kids’ hands that they’ve been unable to do. 00:55:10,130 We did it last week, Friday at the dome, and I’ll be honest, the dome was pure chaos, but it was like Christmas for everybody, um, hundreds of kids participated in our. clinic, they participated in purchasing the clubs, people that hadn’t ordered clubs but heard about it, showed up, so it’s everything we’d hoped it would be. So that’s something I think we can be really proud of here and just something else that we’ve done in Bismarck. 00:55:24,730 Um, youth on course, uh, we’ve grown youth on course which those if you’re not sure what you on course is, what it is is kids participate purchase a membership for $25. And then all of our courses in Bismarck are part of it. 00:55:40,630 They can play at any time for $5 and then youth on course, subsidizes the money back to your park district, um, for 3 consecutive years, North Dakota has been the fastest growing by percentage in the, in the country. And Bismarck has the highest usage rate per capita of any city in the country as far as youthon course goes. 00:55:54,170 So those are something we should really to be proud of what we’ve accomplished as well. Um, As we continue to grow, I think our growth is We worry about it getting too big too fast sometimes, but I think the fact that we have good communication, great relationship with between Dakota Junior Golf and our partnership with Parks, our 00:56:09,470 partnership with your facilities. I think we can continue to contain where we’re at. And, um, the one thing that we’ve noticed here, especially in the last two years, we’ve got cities from around the country that are calling us, asking how things are happening, how, how we’re doing things, um, 00:56:22,900 trying to copy what we’re doing. So I think it’s something that, you know, Kevin and I have many talks. Tim and I obviously have daily talks on it. Um, our board as many talks with. 00:56:32,930 Any of you, I think it’s something we should all be proud of and before we get to the actual contract we want to talk about changing, which hopefully is not a big change, but I think we should just take a minute. I want to recognize everything we’ve accomplished. So thank you for all that. 00:56:48,170 Um, as far as the The change to our contract, our contract obviously is a standard contract. You’ve all seen it, um, through with the whole signage and with signage at the at the uh at the new Shia Schaffer facility. What we’ve, as we’ve talked to people and as we’ve been out and communicated with potential sponsors and which has been very well received. 00:57:03,370 One of the things that we realized we didn’t really have is we didn’t have a definitive entry point. We didn’t have a definitive starting point to where does the junior Les start and where does the actual Pebble Creek Golf course start. 00:57:17,270 Um, to avoid that confusion, and you can see the picture there, and I think Kevin’s already shared the with each commissioners through email. Um, you know, we’ve, we’ve had an opportunity to come to us from a potential sponsor. They’d be interested in doing that sign and what that sign. 00:57:31,170 would bring his, as we talked to sponsors and potential sponsors, not only have we talked, you know, about people with big dollar amounts that have been affected by DJGA, but we also had people that would like to be part of it at a smaller dollar amount and the brick wall that would go with that sign, you could then purchase a brick and have it as a dedication to somebody could have it as a commemorative brick. 00:57:44,630 You can recognize your team or your family member, somebody who something with golf or maybe DJGA or Bismarck Park’s golf courses were a big part of your life, and you’re looking for a way to give back. So what we’d like to do is we’d like to have a consideration. 00:57:59,930 To add the entrance sign there that you see as part of our contract, which currently stated just um signage on the holes. So we’d like to add that. Um, we’ve had conversations with Kevin. We’ve had conversations with the man Sines who would do the work we’ve had conversations with the Mike Schaff, the superintendent, and, um, kind of got everybody on board for that if that is something that 00:58:16,270 you guys would approve us to go forward with. Everybody we’re ready to go. With that, I will, uh, shut it down and take any questions you guys might have. I think, thank you, Chris, uh, Comm Jeske. President Zimmerman, um, thank you, Chris. 00:58:34,630 I’ve been golfing since I’ve been 7 and I have the scars to prove it, but, um, I just want to say I, I think this is great. I do agree we need an entry point sign. 00:58:48,100 My question, and I brought this up to Kevin on Friday, the way the memo was written was a little confusing to me, just because having been in marketing for 14 years is typically a hierarchy, but my understanding from Kevin is that Edward Jones has made a significant contribution. 00:59:00,370 too sign. So that’s why they would be located on here. They’re not just doing the sign. There’s been other dollars that they have contributed towards this Zimmerman and Comm Jeske, yes, um, you know, as we sold each to sign and potentially sell each hall sign as we’ve done at all the golf courses, 00:59:15,130 you know, that was part of our agreement was that we would have the ability to do that. We have sponsors for each of the whole signs that we’re working with finishing. And yes, uh, Edward Jones has stepped forward and they’ve made a significant Um, they wouldn’t just pay for the sign. 00:59:28,100 It would be a large, um, portion of what our overall cost of the facility will be so we’re excited about that and potential of putting that in place. Thank you. I think it’s great. Thank you, Chris. Comm Herzog. 00:59:47,370 Um, thanks, President Zimmerman Commissioners, um, I don’t want to say too much because I, I, I just wanted to mention as everyone knows, I’m on the DJGA board, so, um, I’ll probably abstain from voting, but, um, you know, the work that that DJJ and Chris has done. Chris doesn’t sleep as you can tell, he, he probably hasn’t slept for days. 01:00:04,930 Um, he eats and breathes all of this, and he’s just moved so fast and. On, on fundraising and whole sponsorship so that we can get that thing cruising real fast and along with the, the crew at Bismarck Parks and Rec People are more than excited. 01:00:22,100 They’re driving by daily, I’m sure looking at, you know, when it’s gonna be finished up and and the community is really supported. Um, you know, relocating that, and it’s just been great to see you and Chris, you’ve done a fantastic job as, as always. The Guy doesn’t sleep. I mean, he. you know, like 6:30 and ask a question about something Comm Herzog. 01:00:38,630 One thing I should mention is one of the things that we added to the golf course already if you’ve been up there, we had just poured the concrete slabs on each tee box because we want adults to play from those concrete slabs. 01:00:49,870 So, um, we’ve been able to bring a partner to the table that is also going to put the new turf on top of those concrete slabs, so it worked out really good. We worked that out with Mike and Kevin and made a really good partnership on that one also, so. OK. Well, Chris, I appreciate it. 01:01:06,800 I many times when we, Do something, you know, put on the 3rd sheet of ice and close down the, the golf links, you know, we, your efforts of the, of the Dakota junior golf to get right on it with the district and get a new facility going. 01:01:22,400 I know it was a, was a big plus that folks weren’t saying, oh, yeah, you know, you, you give hockey another rink and junior golf goes away. So, my compliments to. 01:01:39,370 Be active to All I know is Comm Herzog on the board with my compliments to get this, get it going and, you know, have the, have the new course ready to go and uh I look forward to that. I look forward to that dedication and seeing that, I would guess just absolute excitement of all the young kids that don’t want to play that course. Uh thank you, appreciate that. 01:01:55,930 Um, yeah, and one of the things we’ve really noticed about it and this has kind of become last note here, one of our focuses is we’re not just, you know, really focusing on the junior golf. but those new players who, as you know, Tim mentioned, while Tim was speaking about, you can’t just walk on Riverwood anymore. 01:02:09,800 You’ve got to find that place and the fact that we’ve been able to add some length to these holes now that we’ve done as opposed to the old junior links. So, you know, you can hit 150 yard shot. 01:02:21,000 So if you’re a young adult who’s learning the game or your family, you know, that’s probably what we’re gonna, what we’ve missed the most about not having the junior Les is seeing the stroller pushed around with a young mom and dad that have, you know, a new family, and they’re trying to figure out their way into the game and we’ve added many lesson sessions and that’s one thing I wanted to add is last year with our summer lessons, We were 01:02:31,670 overwhelmed with how many people were registering for our summer lessons through your program. This year we’ve added an extra session each day so that nobody should get, they should always be able to, you know, fit it around their basketball or fit it around whatever camp they have going 01:02:42,100 and stuff. So that’s been really easy for our staff to work with yours, so we appreciate that. Uh, can’t say enough about what Tim does with us every day, he’s answering questions and looking at me with, you’re really going to try that, and we keep rolling from there. 01:02:54,670 Kevin rolls his eyes at me sometimes also, but we’re good, so I appreciate your guys’ consideration. Anything else? Yes, Chris, your comment prompted question. I asked this at a previous presentation. 01:03:15,100 It’s certainly more than Bismarck Mandan community just briefly what other communities, what’s the impact here of, yeah, I mean the, the number of Comm, uh, President Zimmerman, the number of people from the surrounding area who grew up with their kids first learning on the junior links. I mean, we talked to local high schools that would, you know, want to bring their teams in in junior highs or middle school teams, they’d use that. 01:03:28,370 We were multiple events that would just get in there. And that’s what we think the new, the new facil he’s really gonna bring is, there’s an unbelievable practice facility that was added that is, I mean, we’ve already had what we think is one of the top facilities around up there, but we really think that once the 01:03:39,570 show is complete, once the junior Les is complete and everything’s open, along with the new practice facility, the stress it’s going to take off of the golf courses every night with the high school teams and I mean, even the out of town high school teams that want to come in and practice, it’s 01:03:52,230 gonna take a lot of stress off them and it’s gonna just open up the doors to many more people being able to use Bismarck Mandan’s facilities and bring more revenue into the community and a lot of things we’re excited about. Again, thank you, Chris. Any other comments? Any? Thank you, sir. 01:04:06,170 We look forward to the big dedication and get it going. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, look forward to it. Appreciate you. Comm, thank you, but I’d like to make a motion that we um accept the proposed signed and revised advertisement agreement with Dakota Junior Golf Association. Second. Motion by Comm Jeske, Second by Comm Redmann. 01:04:30,730 Any other comments? Julie, if you’ll call the roll, Comm Herzog, I’ll abstain. Redmann, I, Jeske, I, President Zimmerman. Hi. Thanks, thanks. Thank you, Chris. Our next item on the agenda is a consideration of a request. To relocate the Lewis and Clark statues, executive Director Klipfel will uh review the proposed relocation. Uh, director of Klipfel. 01:05:00,630 Thank you, President Zimmerman and Commissioners. As part of the uh the relocation of some amenities at the Keelbot Park with the new project going on. 01:05:18,730 We’ve been looking for a spot for as much of the um items that are at Keel Boat Park, and one of the things that we, we were working on with, with Aaron Barth and, and some of the folks at the state tourism department was, where can we find a home for these, the, the Lewis and Clark statues that have been in that park for quite a while. 01:05:33,870 And we did have uh, uh, the Mayor of the center had, had reached out and contacted some folks, and we’ve had some conversations and they’d be interested in repurposing these statues. So we thought it was a good idea to, to take a look at that as we work through the, uh, the construction and when that, uh, is going to take place at the park, we’d like to have the board, ask the board to 01:05:49,200 consider um donating those statues to center for their use and repurposing them up in Oliver County. Questions uh for comments to Director Klipel of Comm Redmann and executive Director Klipfel I’m assuming that they will assume the cost of. Removing those and transporting them to their lovely community of center. 01:06:12,270 President Zimmerman and Commissioners Comm Redmann, yeah, I think we would do something we would put together an agreement that if, if the board so chooses to, for us to move forward on this, uh, to ask them to, to come down and and pick those up at some point in time. 01:06:28,130 I think we’ll work with, with the Fort Abraham Lincoln Foundation is part of the demolition to maybe, you know, take them down, you know, they’re probably gonna have to have a crane to do some of this work, but hopefully we can get to coordinate that with, with center and they can. 01:06:40,000 make it very easy for both the demolition crew and center to pick those up. Commissioners other questions? I, Comm Jeske? No, I’m good. I been visiting with Kevin, I expressed too that’s, let’s work with the community and hopefully they can utilize them. 01:07:02,370 I would have a concern that, If this community-centered community takes it, that part of the agreement would be they do use them. I don’t want to hear that six months down the road, they’re laying on a bone pile in the city center, you know, be, they’re going to take them, you know, make sure that you’re going to use them, but I, I 01:07:15,130 know that our director will work with our staff and as that project moves forward along the river that we can get some use for them. All right. Do we need a motion on that, Kevin, or are we? Uh, I think we should, yes, please. OK. 01:07:28,730 I’ll entertain a motion. I’ll make a motion to develop an agreement with the city of center to move the Lewis and Clark. Um Statues to their community. Is there a second? 2nd. Seconded by Comm Herzog. All of, uh, Julie, any further discussions, excuse me. 01:07:52,530 If not, I’ll askerman, may I make one comment on that? Kevin, is there a way to recognize Bismarck Parks and Rec for the donation of those statues? President Zimmerman and Commissioners Comm Jeske, I think that’s something that we could ask Mayor Lee to recognize Bismarck as a, as a part of that. Yeah, cause I imagine those tattoos were fairly expensive at the time that they were purchased. 01:08:10,630 I know that’s. Eons ago, but I’m just glad that they’re being repurposed. I hated to see them. go. Absolutely. Julie, if you’ll call the roll, please. Comm Herzog, yes. Redmann, Jeske, I, President Zimmerman, I. Next item on the agenda is consideration of the 2026, 2028 strategic plan, uh, there was information included in the packet for board consideration. 01:08:40,570 I’ll ask the executive Director Klipfel to give us an update. Thank you President Zimmerman and Commissioners, as you know, we went through our strategic process again this year. 01:08:56,570 Um, we had a little different process, had a couple of sessions and the document in front of you is there for your consideration, um, uh, the information I sent out today on a couple of thoughts or ideas, uh, when we sent, when we got the, uh, proposed draft from uh Jolene Reek, the consultant that helped us through this process, we asked staff if they had any feedback or any proposed changes to the draft. 01:09:14,730 And uh the two that I sent out today for your consideration where some of the comments that we received on potentially some some wording changes and potentially moving to the objectives switch switching two of the objectives, uh, from their, from the goals that they were previously uh included in. 01:09:34,900 So, um, it’s there for your discussion and consideration and and approval tonight. Comments by commissioners. Comm Redmann No, just, Kevin I or and executive Director Klipfel just appreciate the, the comments from staff and certainly all the discussion from, um, the commissioners in the process. I know it was a longer process, but I think we were due to have longer discussions. 01:09:55,800 So I think it’s just a good springboard. I think strategic planning is a an important board function and I see it even going deeper into the future, but, um, that’s my, my comment, but. I’d be ready to make a motion, but if there’s other questions or comments. Comm Jeske, thank you, President Zimmerman, um. 01:10:14,030 Kevin, I, I, I think this is a great, um, Revision, uh, to our 2026, 2028 strategic plan process especially. One thing I’d like to see is we’ve got some really good goals, some really good objectives. 01:10:36,400 I know we’ve used the scorecard in the past and what I’d like to see is if we can have a scorecard developed that is related to our goals and our objectives that is presented at our quarterly management meetings. I know we’ve had something like that before. I’d really like to see that we have something that we can have. Measurements, um, when we move forward with this, keep us all on track. 01:10:56,130 President Zimmerman and Commissioners Comm Jeske, I think that’s a great idea. Uh, the, the report card that uh Comm Jeske referring to, I think everybody’s probably familiar with it. 01:11:13,100 It was something you developed at the end of each year as we went into the strategic planning for the next year, but as, as, as we’ve talked that maybe it’s something that we need to have in front of our staff and the commissioners on a quarterly basis when we meet in those management meetings just so that we’re reminding ourselves where we’re what we are doing because we’re always doing things, but then just write that, you know, have that. 01:11:25,000 Documented that we’re doing this stuff, and, and where are we trying to reach? what, what are your goals are we trying to reach next? I would add to that, I’m on another board here in the community where they adopted that scoreboard or uh You know, and yeah, every time we meet, you’ve got an update. 01:11:41,730 What, what have we achieved? What’s been on hold, what got pushed back. So, um, good comment, Comm Jeske, and we’ll direct our executive director to Take a look at implementing that with the staff. But again, I would, I too want to. 01:12:01,530 Of course, add my thanks to the staff at our strategic plan meeting, I could tell that a lot of work went into it. But a thought went to get all of that out. I look at all of the staff that was a part of it. 01:12:20,370 So, um, We have some exciting times, some challenging times ahead with a couple projects in the city that are certainly impacting the park district, and I think as we move forward on all of these fronts, the communication, the The efforts in all of this, uh, important to the park district. So I look forward to that. So we have uh again we, I don’t see that we need a motion on that. We do. 01:12:37,100 We should, OK. President Zimmerman and I would move that we accept the 2026, 2028 strategic plan. Second. I’ll, I’ll second, do we need to put that with the revision presented revision presented I will second that with revisions, yes. Any other further comments? Now Julie, if you’ll call the roll, please. Comm Herzog, yes, Redmann. 01:13:03,900 I Jeske, I, President Zimmerman. Hi. Item 9 on the agenda’s consideration of the special roads fund and there was a memo in the, uh, packet. 01:13:17,670 Director Klipfel to give an update. President Zimmerman just on the last one. Can I just clarify that, is it, was it the revisions that were sent out today or with the original one. It was the revisions that were provided today. Thank you. Thank you. All right. 01:13:34,800 Director Klipfel a little update on that road project is. Folks watching may not have that information, please. So, uh, as you remember, the board or the staff asked the board for authorization to provide some for some funding through the special road funds, which is a fund with the state to provide access to recreational areas, 01:13:55,030 um, Bismarck was, uh, applied for a grant for the General Sibley Park and Campground day use area, so that would repave the road in and out of there all the way to the boat ramp, uh, is, is the projected. 01:14:12,670 Project, uh, parameters that we’re looking at, uh, we did receive, uh, from, uh, funding for this program, but I think with some of the actions that are going on, they wanted us to, to accept it by me, uh, and so if, if the board chooses to accept that funding, we would take a look at this project and to be able to fund the Park 01:14:26,730 District share, uh, in the budget, uh, place that in the budget for 2026. Questions, Commissioners. Richard Cliff fell I’d ask if we accept the funding, then we’re obligated. To do that Construction season 26, or are we just obligated to. Keep moving forward. What’s the timeline for that funding. 01:14:52,730 President Zimmerman and Commissioners, yes, I think we would want to get that project rolling and get it completed in 2026. Thank you. I would entertain a motion to Um Move forward with that grant. I moved at the park board accept this grant funding and and authorized staff to communicate that to the North Dakota Department of Transportation. 01:15:13,530 Second. Any further discussion? I would just add, if anybody has, hopefully all of us are down at Sibley Park. a very busy park and campground, so this will be a great improvement to the access to the park. So Julie, if you’d call the roll, please. Comm Herzog, yes. 01:15:37,630 Redmann, Jeske, I, President Zimmerman. Item 10 on our agenda is the consent agenda. Please allow me to read our statement here. A variety of items have been placed in a consent agenda. A consent to gender can be approved with one motion or an item or items can be removed for additional discussion and separate action. 01:15:59,000 Staff recommends approval of the following items consideration of the March 20th and April 3rd, 2025 Park board minutes. The minutes were included in the packets for consideration, consideration of blast fees for the 2025, 2026 school year. And we were referred there to some information provided by facilities and programs Director Mike Wald and recreation manager Renee Jochim. 01:16:26,730 Uh, thirdly, a request to call for bids for the VFW Sports Center doors, facilities and programs director Mike Wald has provided a memo with information. All righty, and we have, uh, to the agenda. OK, OK. I miss this too. OK, I’ve had, we have some additions to the uh consent agenda. 01:16:56,000 I’m requesting to add the following items to the consent agenda. The board approved consultant agreements for the following 5 projects Ubl Design Group, painting interior of the VFW Sports Center. Ubl Design Group replaced the roof at the World War Memorial Building. AGGL Elks Aquatic Center safety surface. 01:17:29,130 Replacement Apex Engineering Group, Tom and Wellness Center Video board. Staff would like to request authorization to call for bids on the projects listed above. uh, Comm, what are your wishes? Move, move to approve the consent agenda as presented with the additional um Request to uh have the authorization to call for bids on those 5. 01:17:50,470 Second. Motion by Comm Herzog, seconded by Comm Redmann Any further discussion? Richard Klipfel, anything to add there on, uh, on those additions that we might not be aware of. We’re good. Julie, if you’ll call the roll, please. Comm Herzog. Yes, Redmann, hi Jeske. I, President Zimmerman. 01:18:15,030 I wanted to mention too in our discussion this evening of the, of the, uh, strategic plan, information that is on our website as well for the park district. 01:18:34,370 So if folks are watching and they say, well, gosh, I, I need to know a little more information that can certainly access the just the department or the park district’s website and get that information. All right, are, um. We are holding a commissioner’s tour of parking facilities. Approval of bills. Item 11. Item 1s. Item 11, approval of bills. So moved. Any further discussion? If not, Julie, if you’ll call the roll. Comm Herzog? Yes, Redmann, Jeske, I, President Zimmerman. I. 01:19:04,670 Now allow me to say a commissioner’s tour of parks and facilities will be held on April 23rd, starting at 4:00 p.m. at the Bismarck Parks and Recreation District office. Our next regular scheduled board meeting is May 15, 2025. At 5:15 p.m. here in the fabulous