I have 5:15 on my clock here, uh, so we'll get started. This is uh May it's May 13th. We're in the Tom Baker room in the City County building. It will be the board of City commissioners meeting. However, before we start, we would like to ask Chaplain Wolfgram forward for invocation and pledge of allegiance, please. Thank you Mayor and thank you for again hosting the Mayor's prayer breakfast next Tuesday at the Radisson next Tuesday morning that's coming up so grateful to you for for uh offering that and in service and uh in support of Crisis Care Chaplaincy. Let us pray. Gracious heavenly Father, we are grateful to you for this beautiful spring day. We thank you for the precious gift of life, family, liberty, and for the freedoms we enjoy in this land. We pray that you would uphold all in authority, especially the president and Congress of the United States, the governor and legislature of this state and all judges, graciously enable them to lead according to your good and gracious will. Continue to bless our city and our community. We thank you for all of our emergency workers, police, fire and EMS along with medical workers and all of our public servants. Give them diligence and courage as they carry out their vocation to serve the common good. Bless these leaders, Mayor Schmitz, the commission members, and those who serve in support of Rus. We pray that matters brought before the commission may be presented and discussed in kindness and respect toward one another in order that decisions would seek the best interest of our community and be in accord with your good and gracious will. We pray through Christ our Lord. Amen. Mhm I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Um, if we can call the meeting to order by calling a roll, please. Comm Risch, Comm Zenker. Comm Connelly here. Comm Cleary here Commissionments here. First item are a couple of proclamations. First one is for our public works professionals. So whereas public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities and services that are vital and of vital importance to sustainability and resilient communities and the public health, high quality of life, and well-being of the people of Bismarck. Therefore, be it resolved that I, Michael Schmidtz, mayor of the city of Bismarck, on behalf of this city commission, do hereby proclaim May 18 through 24, 2025 is National Public Works Week in the city of Bismarck. I urge all citizens to join with representatives of the American Public Works Association and government agencies in activities, events, ceremonies designed to pay tribute to our public works professionals, engineers, managers, and employees, and to recognize the substantial contributions they make to protecting our national health, safety and advancing the quality of life for all signed this day, May 13th of May 2025. And the next one is for bike Month. Whereas the bicycle is an economical, healthy, convenient, and environmentally sound form of transportation and an excellent tool for recreation and enjoyment of the city of Bismarck's scenic beauty. Therefore, be it resolved that I, Mike Schmitz, mayor of the city of Bismarck, on behalf of this commission, do hereby proclaim the month of May 2025 as bike Month in the city of Bismarck, and I urge all residents to join me in this special observance signed the 13th day of May 2025. Now at this time it is time for public comment. Uh public comment is for those items on the consent agenda or a regular agenda item that is not a public hearing. So at this point in time I will welcome public comment. Anyone who wishes to speak, please come forward, identify yourself, sign in, and let us know which item you're speaking to. All right. Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. I'm speaking to item D in the regular agenda, the Ottawa Street Reconstruction Project. I am Een, Mayor president of the Laguna Hills Condominium Association. I'm representing 36 owners in our association that will be affected by this project. Our property is located on the corner of East La Salle Drive in Ottawa Street. The project collective cost to our owners or the projected collective cost to our owners for this project would be $445,000. I'm here to say that we fully support this reconstruction project. This project is important for the further development of this area, for the safety of those operating vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians walking. We need a wider street, better lighting, and sidewalks. These 3 items would help to alleviate a lot of our safety concerns. As I'm sure you know, this road is designated as Highway 83 under the Federal Highway Act in 1926. The road is 20 3 ft wide with ditches then and still is today. The only difference is that in 1926 and mostly it was used by Model Ts, little trucks. And horse-drawn farm equipment. Today it is Used extensively in our city. There's traffic. I live. 50 ft off that road. There's traffic from 4 o'clock in the morning on. One other concern that I want to address with the commission is specifically to our association. We need to have access to Um, a storm sewer system when, when this is put in. We pumped thousands of gallons of water a year into the ditch to the west. Just because we, we're getting water out of the hillside. At about 10 ft down. And we have been pumping water for years just into the ditch, thousands of gallons. So we would like to have access to, to, um, the storm sewer system, so it doesn't just flow out into the ditches and the roads and all. Currently, there is no storm sewer system, so that's not possible. If additional resources can be found to alleviate some of the high cost of this project to all owners, that would be much appreciated. All said and done, our association supports this project and would like to see the plan implemented. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. My name is Chris Seifert, um. I too am speaking on item D. For the Ottawa Street Project, I'm not opposed to it. Um. But I'm actually a um. One of the owners with 7 of my siblings. Since my parents passed, but um. We've had some stakeholder meetings on this and the uh the assessments. I think need to be. Adjusted or try to find more funding for it because just. For us it'd be between 300 and 400,000 depending on the street just for our lot at 434733 Ottawa Street. Um, Right now we're trying to sell it, but that's impossible with the the assessments that are projected for this project and I know at the stakeholder meeting there was a lot of uh. Other business owners there, and I'm surprised there some of them aren't here, but um I mean, I know the street needs to be done, but I would like to see um Funding found from other Grants or more Um I know the 0.5 cent sales tax is probably for that also, no? But I know when they did 43rd Avenue, they came in partway like for the two businesses up there cash wise and Ace. And I don't think they were Assessed anything for that if I know if I'm thinking right. And I know they use that street. I mean, the people. Bremer or whatever that street is, they use that street, I mean, that street is a. A Pa through from State Street to La Salle, um. I think the district needs to be bigger or Find some more funding, but I know the street needs to be done. So I'm not against that, but I'd like to see it. The assessment be reduced somehow for us. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Mayor and Comm. Thanks. Good evening. Um, I'm Casey McCollum. I'm the owner at, uh, 4615 Ottawa Street. Some of you might know it as, uh, PlantPerfect. I'm also speaking on behalf of the Ottawa Street Reconstruction project. Um, just first off by saying, yes, I'm very in favor of this project, um. We're excited about it, my employees are excited about it. Um, cause it's obviously some safety concerns at the street and sight lines and um potholes and the street needs to be, uh, certainly repaired. Um, a few things that are Pretty important to me, um, coming up later in the meeting today, they're gonna be talking a little bit on the presentation and be, um, talking about a couple different options as far as how they're gonna be looking at doing the project. One of them is street parking on one side of the road and one has, uh, street parking on neither sides of the road, no street parking. Um, as a business who does about 50% of its revenue in 30 days, um. We don't necessarily need that street parking for. Nine months out of the year, but it's crucial, um, for my business and being able to service my customers, um, you know, businesses today obviously need to have a certain amount of street, um, certain amount of parking to, you know, and that's relative to the business they're doing. Plant Perfect was built there in the 80s. Um, the business has certainly grown and uh right now in the peak season, we parking utilizes both sides of the street. So we're already going to have a little bit of a burden by going down to one side of the street, and I'm really concerned if that, if that number goes to zero sides of the street, um, where my customers are gonna go, um, will they put burden on other properties around me? Um, you know, I'm certainly not a parking police, but, you know, it's not fair to my neighbors to have my customers in their parking lot. Um, and I know that there's certainly some other properties along there that can benefit from the use of that that street parking. Stockman's Association holds many events throughout the year. Street doesn't even on both sides of the street doesn't accommodate that. Um, they flow over into my parking lot, other parking lots, and, um. I know if there's no street parking, my customers are gonna end up in their lots and other lots. I'm sure story would be similar for Sky Zone. They got a lot of birthdays one weekend where are these people gonna park. Um, you've got the coffee shop across the street, um, An art studio there. I've seen times where the coffee shop doesn't have enough parking, parking flows over into the streets. I think, um, when they show you the numbers, the project's a little over a $4 million project and it's a mere $100,000 increase to get parking on one side of the street. Um, and I think that it's kind of a no-brainer to make sure that that that street parking is there, especially in, you know, modern design, if we're putting a road in, we're gonna have parking on two sides of the street. Um, so I think at the very minimum we should be looking at parking on one side of that street. Um, the other portion of it, uh, which is also a very large concern, is so far projected my property alone is expected as it sits now with the 25% participation from the city of, uh, looking at about a $700,000 special assessment. It's gonna cost me with interest over $60,000 a year for the next 15 years. Um, that is a huge, huge burgeon. Um, for me as a small business owner, um, Wondering how I'm gonna be able to make those payments, um, and, you know, got an old, not that it's your problem, but you know, I got an old business, aging business. We got updates to make to a parking lot to the side of the building, you know, we're, you know, now all of a sudden, where am I gonna come up with $60,000 to be able to, you know, continue to operate my business and move forward for the next 15 years, um. And I know that there is a lot of other people that couldn't be here tonight, they were out of town for other business that have some very deep concerns about their businesses being able to cash flow with special assessments, um, at the level that they're projected to be. thank you thank you. Again, this is public comment. Anyone who wish to speak to indict him, please come forward. Second call for public comment. Third and final call for public comment. Public comment period is now closed. Commissioners, what are your wishes with regard to the consent agenda? Comm Cleary, sorry, um, I just need to pull J1, um, for the public works service operations. Uh, the architect just asked for more time to finalize some things on that, so I'm gonna pull J1. Um, it'll, it'll end up back eventually, but. If nobody else has any other, anything else, um, I would. Move to approve the consent agenda with J1 pulled for removal. Is there any discussion? Here no will call roll. Comm Zener, yes, Comm Connelly, yes, Comm Cleary, yes, Comm Risch, Mayor Schmidt. Yes, with permission of the commission, I would like to move item regular item M1 to the first to be respectful to those people that got put away at the end, and it's probably something they were if they could have handled early in the meeting before we have some longer items, it would be lovely. It's a vision fund request. Our mission OK, so, uh, we'll do that. We would bring forward, uh, Nathan Schneider to introduce that item first. Again, it's M I M, so as you're looking in your agenda packs, that's where it's at. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was not expecting that, so I appreciate um you bumping us up. As a matter of fact, I, the project isn't here because we, we expected to be at the bottom, but I can run through this and if you have any questions, um, we can wait for them to be here, but, um, you have in front of you a request, uh, from the Vision Fund for Simply Golden Properties LLC. This would be for the local match of the. Uh, Bank of North Dakota's Flex Pace program for $100,000 for up to $100,287.20. This would be to help to assist in the financing of a new construction of a building out in the board and development. Um, the, the Simply Go Properties is the real estate holding company. The operating company is Simply Wellness. It is a, um, a women's healthcare center. Uh, they do fertility treatments, mental health treatments. I, I was gonna give this to the project to, to go over, but I'll, I'll kind of touch on some of the stuff that they talked about in the vision fund, uh, meeting, um, some of the things that you might find of interest in, in 2024, uh, 61% of their patients were from outside of the Bismarck Manan area. Um, a lot of their treatments that they're doing on a regular basis are multi-day treatments and so there's a lot of overnight stays, obviously that comes with, you know, restaurant and shopping and all of those things, uh, that go along with overnight stays. Um, the, the building. Would allow them to uh increase and you can see in the application the increase in employment. Currently they're employing approximately 9 full-time employees, 3 part-time employees that uh number is projected to go to 25 um in 5 years, 25 full time, 7 part time, um, it would, it would, um, give them about uh uh 2/3 increase in capacity of the space that they're in currently. They're currently leasing a space in the Security first building in North Bismarck. Um, this, uh, if you recall all these, um, or majority of these requests are in the form of a loan, um, and so this is no different, this would be in the form of a loan and you can see the proposed, um, loan term, um, uh, loan terms that we had proposed to the vision fund committee, uh, that were agreed upon by them, uh, 2% interest rate to be paid back, um, um, beginning after the buy down period is over and lasting 60 months after that. Uh, Vision Fund did approve, um, the request unanimously. If there's any questions, I'd be happy to answer. Otherwise, we can, we could wait for the project if you have specific. Um, well, we don't need, we can approve without, I mean, I was also at the committee meeting, so I can, you know, Nathan has done a very good job of explaining it, but I mean these are significantly high paying jobs and they're the big thing is is they're attracting a bunch of people to come into our community we're gonna stay overnight. So on, but go ahead, Comm Risch. The only question I have, Mr. Mayor Nathan, is are they providing some unique services that are not otherwise provided by the health care providers in our community? Yeah, Mr. Mayor Commissioners, that's a really great question, and I'm glad you brought that up. Um, so they, they do offer some fertility treatment type options. They would essentially be the only fertility treatment center between Fargo and Billings. Yeah. So uh yeah, other questions? Commissioners, I'll leave it to you if you wanna wait for the applicant to come or not. I'll make a motion to approve as presented. Is there any discussion? Hearing on will call roll. Comm Connelly, yes, Comm Cleary, yes, Comm Risch, yes, Comm Zenker. Yes, Mayor Schmitz. Yes, I appreciate that, Mr. Mayor. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I called this out, but I just was trying to be respectful to them because I think we, we have some longer. I appreciate that very much. Thank you. All right, moving back to item A in the regular agenda. A public hearing on Ordinance 6622 zoning map amendment for Misty Waters, Misty Waters' first replat, and Misty Waters' second replat. Go ahead, Ben. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, the Community Development department, uh, is requesting a zoning map amendment associated with Project ZC 2024-008, and I'm just, uh, curious if the, the monitor, uh, could, could reflect the, the PowerPoint. Hm There we go. That was my fault. Sorry. Thank you. Uh, the property is located in northwest, uh, northwest of Bismarck, West of River Road, and adjacent to the west side of, uh, the north-south running portion of Burnt Creek Loop. Uh, project areas comprised of 151.4 acres, uh, within 120 parcels in 4 blocks. Future land use associated with the proposal is rural residential and the existing zoning. Uh, the existing zoning is, uh, P PUD planned unit development. The proposed zoning map amendment requests to implement a new PUD with the following changes, um. Rear yard setback for block 1, lots 5 through 1214 through 1618 through 25, 27 through 29, 31 through 38, 40 through 55, 57 through 62, uh, 64 through 83 of Misty Waters subdivision and block 1 lots 1 through 3 of Misty Waters first replat, uh, represented in the surveyor's affidavit, which is reflected on the screen here. Uh, and it's also within your, in your packets. Essentially, um, you, you'll hear some other items tonight about release of, uh, a stormwater and drainage easement, uh, but, uh, effectively many of these lots in this area, let me pull up a pointer. Uh, adjacent to the bay have a, a storm water and drainage easement that runs, uh, adjacent to, to the bay. The thick black line on the screen represents uh what's commonly referred to as the inland edge of that drainage easement, uh, essentially what this document is is a surveyor's affidavit, so this is. Uh, a recorded legally described document or will be recorded if this item is approved legally described document, uh, that that reflects what the proposed rear yard setback would be for those lots I just referenced, um, and would, would be in effect even if the, uh, storm water and drainage easement for each lot was vacated. Uh, Add additional changes are relatively minor. This was probably the, the most substantive change that that occurred. Other changes, uh, I'll just kind of briefly go over these, uh, would be, uh, conformance to residential building types which staff does not have access to, so there was reference to certain types of building types that Um, if we ever had it, we don't have access to that, that document anymore. Uh, reference to the specific number of single and two family building types, uh, the area has been replatted. Now, uh, at least 6 different times and, and the the reference in the original PD language, uh, doesn't reflect the current character of, of the, the, the sites, uh, site in question anymore. And then reference to it specifically references the lot modification process and in Bismarck zoning ordinance. It's duplicative of what's already in Title 14, so unnecessary to have in the, uh, the PUD language itself. Uh, the planning and zoning Commission did consider this request at their March 26, 2025 meeting. At that meeting, five members of the public spoke on the item with three, who were supportive of the proposed change and two in opposition. I'll just, as I typically do, I'll just sort of summarize the uh comments uh in opposition. I went into a great deal of detail back in April 8th on staff's response to these. I won't go into that level of detail here unless you want me to later in the discussion, but I'll just sort of hit the highlights of what the concerns and questions were. Um, one of those, why is the setback being changed, uh, another concern referenced, uh, concern over the ability for staff to regulate the setback, whether it's the 2005 Lomar or the new setback line. Ah, question as to how many non-compliant structures exist without this change. Uh, question is, has FEMA been notified of the proposed rear yard setback change? Uh, question as to what the lot coverage for residential lots and misty waters adjacent to the bay is. Um, question is, does the city of Bismarck have the authority to initiate a zoning change? Question, can known violations be grandfathered in? And uh the the final concern that I I think I took from. From the meeting, uh, at the planning and zoning Commission was a concern over, uh, what is perceived to be a taking of property that would be impacted for certain properties. Uh, by the proposed rear yard setback change, given the 2005 Lomar is closer to the bay. Then the inland edge of the storm drainage easement, uh, for some of the, uh, some of the lots within the subdivision. At the conclusion of the planning and zoning Commission, uh, a motion failed on a vote of 4 to 3, uh, to not approve or not recommend approval of the requested zoning map amendment associated with zoning change 2024-008. Um, as you recall, on April 8th, I appeared before you, uh, from, uh, to appeal that decision of the planning and zoning Commission. And you all voted at that time to recommend uh overturning the recommendation of the planning and zoning commission and to hold the public hearing on the item tonight for your consideration tonight on the, on the item. Are there any questions that any of you have, uh, for me at this time? Commissioners You may a call back. You bet. Right, this is a public hearing for Ordinance 6622. Anyone who wish to speak on it, please come forward, identify yourself, and sign in, please. Uh, good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. My name is Michael Gunsch. I'm a volunteer on the stakeholders committee, uh, that the city created when they said go back and look at the PUD and make modifications or revisions that, uh, can be consistent. What I wanna do this evening, I got 11 quick points. Um, this has been debated a number of times, but I think it's critical to understand a little bit of the chronology as well as the background and the authorities. Um, the back line, the 2005 Lomar was created by the city. And was under their authority. In other words, it's your line. Therefore, any interpretation of that line. Is under the city's authority which was done unfortunately the court looked at that interpretation looked at the language and said your language doesn't comport with what you're actually doing so therefore they said you were in error so until that time until the court actually took action city was doing what it has authority to do. Um, so remember again the setback is a city established line. Not one created by the courts. The court just said what language you had was not appropriate or didn't work for what you were doing. So the simplest correction is for the city to reestablish a new PUD line, new setback that complies with your interpretation of what your language was or new language if you so choose to do that, do so, um, so, uh, the action was taken on Dream Circle was in essence that. That mimics exactly what you're trying to do here, uh, that action was approved by the commission after some lengthy discussion. Um So at that point in time, the city said our city commission said let's take a look at this and see how does this apply to the rest of the subdivision because there are other violations that exist based on the court's interpretation, not the city's interpretation, but the court's interpretation of that line. uh, so I was asked to be on the steering committee or the stakeholder committee, and I volunteered, uh, we had a number of discussions, um. One of the ones is that legal counsel basically said you can't approach this as a waiver request. You can't go to these 5 or 16 other violations and say we're just gonna change this or grandfather them. They said that approach was not applicable and there's some economic scenarios that are there for that purpose. So that being said, the the the stakeholder committee, which I was a member, worked with staff, we discussed multiple options and different locations and how does this work and how do you, can you address one or two of these or, uh, but the focus became. Address them all as one consistent subdivision because it's easier to enforce, it's easier to monitor, and it's easier to take things forward. There are those at the planning commission, um, public hearing who complained and pointed out various things and I wanna make it very clear the stakeholder committee discussed all of them. I listened to the planning commission. I was here during that and a lot of those issues that were brought up had been discussed at the stakeholder meetings, so there were decisions and thought processes that were through by that to recommendation to staff to see what you have for you today, and I think that's important to understand when they talk about winners and losers on areas, um, understand that from the very beginning. Nobody could build into the drainage easement. The drainage easement is a restriction on the plant. Now granted, you can get permissions. You can try and waive that. You can do other things, but that's always been there. The HOA, the homeowners association took action and passed a covenant that effectively makes that the restriction for the development. They had over 70% of their members, which is enough to change the covenants to restrict it to that line. So regardless as to what you do here this evening, that line is restricted. That's where the restriction is based on the HOA and the covenants. Now obviously there's an enforcement provision that that changes that. So your action today with the PUD recommendation is to effectively look at those violations that occurred from. The courts different interpretation than the cities and then correct that so that those properties are no longer in violation, and this has been a roundabout process that's going on for some time. So I think the bottom line to understand this, uh, the PUD action creates uniformity and consistency with the covenants. It provides the simple corrective action that I've discussed earlier, uh, based on the court's action, um. And it fits out the early or the existing conditions that are out there and it corrects the violations that currently exist. So by approving this as a member of the stakeholder committee, I appreciate what staff has done and the conversations that we had. I thought it was very thorough, um, and it's been documented. um, there are those who would disagree with that, but, uh, as a member of the stakeholder committee, I concur and would recommend that you approve the PUD as presented, and I would stand for questions. Any questions? Thank you, sir. Thank you. This is public comment. Anyone who wishes to speak, please come forward. Is there some some way I can put these up on the screen. I think that's too large if you wanna hold it in front of you like this would probably be the best I can do that. I can do that. Thank you. Uh, good evening, gentlemen. Uh, my name is Pat Spelman. I and my wife live at 6315 Serene Circle in Misty Waters. Um, the first thing I'd like to do. Let's play a short video as soon as I can. Find it And put it up on the screen. To so that everybody remembers. Thank you. I understand that they're in the back OK just because of lace. So Still In locations from the front and. And and get And come up with what you're setback. Well How did this In approval Not doing exactly where the where the setback. Or Uh, Mayor, Mayor, and, uh, commissioners, this is Bill and and Brady, correct me if I'm wrong, it, it, it, it, the error was discovered. The permit issued, Pat, I, I can't hear anything's going on, so I don't know what's going on here. Oh. Right here, we don't see things. Hm. Well I, I really don't appreciate the word assuming. Where is the mic. What this is. is a minute and 30 seconds of a city commission meeting held on November 27th of 2020. I don't understand. But you can, you can still pull. Same locations from the front and and and get a um a mathematical. And come up with what your setback is. This how did this information. Get get approval. Not knowing exactly where the where the setback was or is. Uh, Mayor, Mayor, and, uh, Commissioners, this is Ben and, and Brady, correct me if I'm wrong, it, it, it, it, the error was discovered, um, so the, the permit was issued, uh, and the error was discovered, um, and so staff worked with, worked with the, the applicant to, to address that issue. Yeah, I really don't appreciate the word assuming. We're dealing with multiple thousands and thousands of dollars of money here. We don't assume things. So I could, I would understand that there, there could be an instance where you can't get to the rear pins in the backyard and, and, and pull the tape just because of ice and and winter conditions and those types of things. You can, you can still pull. Single locations from the front and and and get a um a mathematical. In the And come up with what your setback is. Yeah How did this, how did this foundation. Get, get approval. Not knowing exactly where the where the setback was or if. Uh, Mayor, Mayor, and, uh, commissioners, this is Ben and, and Brady, correct me if I'm wrong, it, it, it, it, uh, the error was discovered, um, so the, the permit was issued, uh, and the error was discovered, um, and so staff worked with, worked with the, the applicant to, to address that issue. I really don't appreciate the word assuming. We're dealing with multiple thousands and thousands of dollars of money here. We don't assume things. Enough of that, but that's the city had an error and that's what caused this whole thing to come about. Anyway, Amy and I bought our property in November 4th of 2005. When we were there, it was a building corridor was gonna be the setback. The city wasn't really keen about that and Mr. McCormick volunteered to use the Lomar line as a setback. And I got a drawing of the Lomar drawing. Thank you. Thank you. And this is the Walmar that exists. It's a meats and bones survey. Everything within the traverse or the area within the traverse is at elevations. 1639 or above, that's how alomar is done. It doesn't say everything's at the same elevation. All it says is the minimum elevation in that traverse, a traverse you have to have in order to calculate area. is at some elevation. And that's what the setback was used up until It always has been and it still is as the ordinance stands, the 2005 Lomar line. Easy to survey all the survey, the meats and bounds survey for the line is. On the drawing, any capable surveyor should be able to replicate it on any lot, and I know on my building exhibit it is there. Like true Before I go any further, I needed to find some terms and definitions so that we're all on the same page. Seems to be some confusion about firms and all kinds of other things. First, what a map is, looked it up in Merriam-Webster. A map is a representation usually on a flat surface of a hole or a part of an area. Also a diagram or visual representation that shows the relative position of the parts of something. It's a map, roads, uh. Elevations, whatever a firm is a flood insurance rate map. It's the official map of a community in which FEMA has delineated the special flood hazard area, the base flood elevations, and the risk premium zones. FEMA comes along and delineates those as chances of flooding can be 0.5%, 1%, 2%. I'm sure Mr. Brady keeps track of all those for you guys. And alomar is a letter of map revision. It's FEMA's modification to an effective flood insurance rate. Map firm or a flood boundary and a floodway map, or both. As we go on here, I gotta, I gotta challenge some of the meeting minutes. I'm going off the meeting minutes, not direct quotes from people. So I just wanna make sure that I am clear on what we talk about here. And one is spot zoning. The Bismarck uh planning and zoning meeting minutes June 26th. Comm Schmitz asked Mrs. Combs for confirmation on. Spot zoning And and Mrs. Combs replied that according to the case law, it indicates a lot is singled out for discriminatory or different treatment compared to the surrounding area. Well, that's one version of it, but if you go to Cornell Law Library, it can be as simple as an area, an area can be num can be can be one, can be a whole number. It can be as simple as putting a uh. Shopping center in the middle of a residential area when it wasn't planned pop, you got some you got something different than nobody else has or you give somebody or a property owner some kind of benefit that isn't there. Spot zoning doesn't apply in this case. Because multiple in her definition, because multiple lots are potentially changing. And so you can have spot zoning in the process. In the Bismarck planning and zoning meeting minutes June 26, 2024, Randy Bakke stated that a Lomar line can be moved because it is based on an elevation, page 4 of 10. This statement acknowledges that a line is used to describe the lomar and an elevation. First, in reality, there are two parts to a Lomar. First is A described enclosed area based on meats and bones survey and second is the elevation. You can't have one without the other. You've got to quantify where that elevation is at on the face of the earth because if I say elevation 50, there's lots of places in the United States and on the Earth that have an elevation of 50 ft above mean sea level. So you have to have the elevation and a meats and bones survey to locate that area. Lomars cannot be moved. From the uh from the FEMA site. Facts about Lomars and they're really easy to understand. A letter of map revision will be incorporated into a new flood insurance rate map and flood plain boundary will be revised to show an area outside. If you apply, FEMA goes to work with maps and other things for the cities so that you know exactly what's happening. Alomar is likely to be superseded. By a firm On the firm and will no longer be valid. Note the word superseded. They get new information, they use that and use the new information. A low mark can be revaluated when a new map panel is Published, meaning that if you, yeah, like in at Misty Waters, you have the original Lomar. It's stood for a number of times with the change in the flood elevation. But now that with the new one I'm not so sure the Lomar will just be uh. Superseded by the new firm map, it'll go over the top. Nothing will happen to it. It'll just go away. You can't move Lomars, you can't move Lomars. They are, they are either new superseded or revaluated or revalidated. I'm sorry. Lomars are unique. They're one of a kind. In Janelle Combs's April 13th, 2020 letter to Dave Cheer, it is my understanding that a building permit is issued on the condition that a Lomar will be amended. To make the building location compliant with the Pud. This has been done for other parcels in the division. Can somebody tell me what the other parcels in the division are? Mr. Zinker was right at the last meeting where he said there. If one Lomar that moved. Uh, that is, that has uh affected the setback. Let me, let me put it that way. The other three haven't. I have a drawing of those 3. Just so you know, the setback is never, or excuse me, the setback. Has never changed. In a long time. I thought I had it. I Here are the 3 Lomars on the Misty watersplat. They were done. After the 2005. Lomar, what they were were regrading of the existing lots. So that it was uh correct. They came back in, had some extra fill, did some grading, and so they reapplied for the three Lomar. Lomar areas are in red. But no, it didn't. There were no buildings there were no building permits at the time. They just came back and made things accurate and correct. what those Lomars report. There's only one Lomar that changed the setback, and that was the one. For sellers. Uh Mr. Ehra's statement in a memo to the commission dated 8-04-20 quoting from the memo, staff's interpretation has been that the approved Lomar reference is not a static point in time but based on an approvedOMA by FEMA. Since 2006, there have been eight lots adjacent to the bay. That have gone through the Lomar process within Misty Waters subdivision. I believe that's the 8 lots where they came back and applied for another Lomar with no change in the setback or anything else. Correct. The Walmart did change, the location did change. No What what changed on the? Mark, do you want me to go back and forth, or do you want him just to testify and then I'll respond at the end. Let's, let's let Mr. Spillman finish and I'll finish this, this map was done by the same person that did the Lomars so It doesn't show any Change Again It sounds like 8 separate lowmars, but that's not the case. My dilemma here once again is. You know, the. These other low mars, some of the low mars were rejected by FEMA because they were to the nearest foot. FEMA requires to the nearest 10th of the foot, so that's why one of them came back and there were 3. My question is, where is the enforcement on the ordinance? Enforcement is a prime responsibility of the community development, more so the planning and zoning group. The setback that we have on lot 36 is a Class B misdemeanor. The Supreme Court reaffirmed and ruled the rear setback line is unambiguous and gave no deference to the city's of Bismarck's opinion. Why are we here? This has been 5 years in the making. Randy Bakke also made in a statement that the decision by the North Dakota Supreme Court affects his clients along with 8 other applicants and owners. That's on the peninsula that most recently. He states that the ruling reduces the building, the buildable square footage, therefore diminishing the fair market value and taxable value of the properties. If I, if you're going to approve this uh this new PUD. I would like To have an additional 50 ft of setback on my property to build. The commission wanted everything or the new setback to be fair and equitable. I want the 50 ft that the sellers get on theirs, and I have a drawing of that. Uh, in the stakeholders meeting, some of my dilemmas are the fact that while uh Jason Sellers, president of the HOA, was on the stakeholders committee, there was no formal. Uh, Information. To the homeowner association members, there's no formal comm communication sent to the membership during these discussions that I'm aware of, and I was on the board of directors and have since have left. Uh, couple other things, uh. Came up Uh, in the discussions with another property owner builder, Mr. Sellers was made aware of the rear setback while laying out a home on lot 54, I believe, sometime in 2019. Mr. Sellers was doing a layout with another gentleman who it is, he didn't know. The house exceeded the rear yard set back. And it would appear the sellers found another lot 36. I have an email from Brady to Big Rider from Big River Builders for your uh. Consideration, and I'll read it to you. It's short. Mhm. Mm Oh, I'll find it. It's in mine. Anyway, there's two other emails I have. Uh, there's been discussion on, you know, uh, at what percentage have the people signed the petition for changing the covenants. I have two emails here from Dale, one from Dale Gossett. Looking to have his and his wife's signatures removed from the petition for changes. I also have one from Troy Nelson. I'd like to withdraw my signature to amend the Lomar line. People, I don't know what people were told I wasn't there, but my understanding is for some of these people they were they. They were enticed to sign because of a threat of Uh, seller suing. The HOA for 2 to $3 million and that was what happened or that is one could be one reason why there were so many. I was not asked to sign and either were some other people in my cul de sac. They knew who would sign and who wouldn't and. They ask those that would. I also have another. Email from Jordan Anderson to Brady and it states we have. Uh, Jordan Anderson is the builder for sellers, and it states we have found a different lot up there that works better with the home plan. It is well past the Lomar base flood is naturally natural grade out there, so we'll build the home to 1642.8 and should be golden. The pool is a different story. We'll get an engineering site plan to appease the drainage easement for when the time comes, just looking for your go ahead. You already know that the house is being prepped and looked at to, to be built across the Lomar line from this. That's what I take away from it, and they're looking to Brady for ideas on how he might proceed. What day is that email date? That email is dated April 11th of 2019. Before anything started to happen. In terms of construction. And I, you can have copies of it. I just didn't make them. It's not a problem. So with that, I'm gonna close what I have to say. I do have for Mr. Ereth Part of the stormwater plan that tells you. Erosion and sediment control during and after construction if you don't have it. The what, yep, no, it's, it's the engineer saying that once landscaping has been done, there's no need for the drainage swale. That's what he's saying. With that, I'll close and move on. Thank you for your time, Comm Risch. Did you have a question you want to? Any other questions? OK. Thank you for your time, thank you. that would make no sense. Ben, did you want to address the one question that was brought forward on those? Sure, yep, thank you, Mayor. Um, oh, I'm gonna give you your phone right away. Yeah, I think the point that was uh brought up was um. There was only one Lomar done or the the statement that was made, there was only one Lomar done since 2005, um, that's, I would dispute that there was actually a Lomar conducted in 2006 that was, um, actually pursued by the developer. Um, if you look at some of those homes, uh, they are compliant with the 2006 Lomar line. But not the 2005 Lomar line, which is what the Supreme Court said has to. be complied with. And so a Lomar is not just, I guess in our minds, it's, it's not just one thing. There's, there's, there's different geographical components to each of these, each of these Lomar lines. OK, thank you. Right, this is a public hearing. The people Do you want it to face this way or whatever you think is best, OK. Commissioners, uh, Mayor, my name is Matt Geiger, and I live out in Misty Waters. Uh, this has been a long road, no doubt, um. Many of us in our neighborhood recognized that we had a rare setback problem. And so we went out and we talked to our neighbors and we got a petition and we had enough signatures on there to change our covenants and to reset the setback. Unfortunately, our little subdivision doesn't have local control. It ends up in the city's hands and. And that's where we're at today. So at the last city commission meeting, the commission asked that a stakeholders committee be formed. But in the meantime of that, If you see this cul de sac. And Jason Sellar's house is in that cul-de-sac. The city commission agreed to change the setbacks of the whole cul-de-sac that Originally created this. Problem So I guess the question is, what does this mean? To our neighborhood If this isn't approved tonight. And it's just, it's bigger than just words and charts and things. These are people's lives. And, and one of the families has asked me to talk tonight. And I'm gonna put her house up. So Dave and Bre Walth were at the last meeting here and unfortunately, Dave has passed. And Bree lives at this home with her 3 children. If you can see Her home is just barely over the line. What does that mean? That means Bree does not have a marketable house if this doesn't pass tonight. She does not have clear title. She either has to remedy this by taking walls down and redoing her house, whether it's. Going to work or not? Or she sells it as is for, well, you know what that means. And she's just one of several families out here that are just. Just a little over the line. So I guess at the end, I hope you support our local neighborhood wishes. I hope you support the stakeholder committee. And what they've recommended and your Staff Um, I think the good of passing this far, far outweighs the bad that could be, so. Any questions? Again, this is public hearing on Ordinance 6622. Anyone wish to speak, please come forward. Can you jump up to Matt's for me to yeah, to his prior picture there was the other one. No. Good visual. Where OK, I think this is here. That's me, yep. Hi, everybody. Thanks for listening once again to me. I'm Teresa Reese. I also live on Dream Circle. I am directly across. I am lot number 33. The sellers are lot number 36. So as you can see on lot 33, there is a very, very, very big portion of my house that was going to have to be removed um prior to the last agreement of Changing The back corridor on all of our homes, so I am. Not affected today because Dream Circle has been approved, but I just wanna bring it to your attention of um. My home was built in 2009, was when we built our home. Um, our development was still under. The developers and the city's agreement of what was allowable and not allowable for um covenants as well as building areas on those homes um my home was approved by. The developers as well as by the city. We were told based upon the diagrams that we that we had that it was based upon the setback, not based upon this invisible Lomar line. But it did. It went through the entire process. We received all of our approvals for everything. And this was back in 2009. We've had many homes that have come through the development. Um, not just the, the HOA, the, the development that came through the developers and through the city that continued to be approved based upon the setback of the homes, so we have many other homes in the development that are still looking at having to make these major changes to their homes. I mean, I was terrified that I was gonna have to. Knocked my home down. I was terrified that that this was gonna happen to me. We have other people in the development that are looking at the same thing because everyone's. What what was allowable and not allowable, it was so mixed. The, the everyone, nobody truly understood what it really was for that development. Um, I, I just wanna plead with you guys to please approve this, let this go through for all these other homes that are out there that have been approved. Let them go through, let this line change for the entire development. These are many, many other people, many, many other families that are just. Completely distraught as we were when we found out about this. I mean, I'm not pointing fingers at anybody. It, it's just a complete misunderstanding of what was allowable and what wasn't allowable back then. So, uh, thank you for listening to me. Yeah, this is a public hearing anyone who wish to speak please come forward. All right, well, my house is, uh, over the line. Can you just state your name for the record, please? Oh, I'm Brian Bosky. I live at 6030 Tranquil Circle. And I, I got a corner of my house, it's over the line. Well, you can't tear 6 ft off the sunroom when you got floor heat. I mean, it just don't work. You can't put down a new foundation. So you're basically deciding if I eliminate my house or not. And uh when I did the, when I did the home, I went through Toman Engineering and they're the one that engineered the whole bay. And uh everything went off the drainage easement. There wasn't even a lowmar line on my. On my sheet So I took that to the city and they said nothing about Lomar Li. So this was in 2015. The Lomar Lion was completely ignored like it didn't even exist, so. I'm all for getting this changed. I decided to come up and state that. Thanks. Again, this is a public hearing. Anyone who wish to speak, please come forward. Not speaking for myself. I'm speaking for Steve McCormick. I called him today. He is still out of state. He is against changing the rear setback regardless of an amendment to an existing PU or a new pud. Mr. McCormick has 6 vacant lots. Thank you. Thank you. I brought a few handouts. My name is Jerry Ketterling. passing down. If there's an extra one, I'll take it back and maybe for the overhead. And I OK. First of all, good evening, Commissioners, Mayor and fellow citizens. I am going to surprise all of you. I'm gonna turn my attention to my neighbors and specifically Matt Geiger. I'm the pleasant owner of Matt's home that he constructed. Thank you, Matt. You followed the rules. My home is not over the line. You did the right thing. I think you were home #1 or #2 out there, so somehow the system worked. Now There are some issues with compliance. I totally do not like the idea of people losing their home. That seems wrong. Cause how did they get into this position? Seems to me the city is in charge of compliance. Why do we pay the taxes? And OK, I know I've already been schooled that you don't get any of our tax money, but that's not true. The majority of our tax money goes to B Bismarck Public schools, so yeah, you do benefit from our taxes. In return, is it unreasonable for a landowner to expect that the compliance of the land that they've entered into a contract is honored. And understood For a compliance owner in charge of compliance to not be able to perform compliance is negligence. Every one of these Misty Water homeowners has a class action lawsuit. Opportunity Oh, I've heard that the cities can't be sued. We know how that goes. You just have to find a lawyer from out of state. That's how that works. Now That's where I'm at, guys. I really don't like the idea of these being torn down. I don't like the idea that you're taking land away from my property which Matt positioned properly on the lot. And now, as it turns out to save the, let me think. 14 to 17 homes. Well, let's see, it started off as 1 and then it was 44 to 10. To date, can somebody tell me how many are actually known to be over? Why hasn't that been disclosed to the citizens of Misty Waters that we now know exactly which ones are over, not. Oh, it's kind of like 17, something like that. This is a shame. And the shame rests on the city of Bismarck. I don't care about politics. I care about my family and my family's property. I care about my neighborhood. My neighbors may not know that. I do I'm pissed. I am pissed that my neighbors are going through this kind of struggle to save their properties because they were, I don't know, lulled into building a bigger home than belonged there, positioned it wrong. We have checks and balances. They weren't followed. So, no, I'm not, I am not a troublemaker, I'm not a dissenter. I'm a homeowner and I am their neighbors. I have done something on my lot, everything right. Thank you again, Matt. You did it right for me. I stand before you opposed to the setback change as it is written. Why? Because you're giving away land to other people and taking away land from me. You see, that's cool if you're on the receiving side and the majority of the land owners around the bay are receiving land. That's great. It saves their homes if they're in that position. I'm happy. I'm good, I'm good with it. But how dare you take land away from me? That is a, that is a direct violation of my Fifth Amendment. I have had no due process. This is my due process. OK. I have before you, I think it was at the last zoning commission meeting, maybe it was the city meeting. Somebody used the words that the land that I'm being asked to give up is inconsequential. What is inconsequential? Who determines the consequences? Who determines the value of something? Let me tell you there's only 2 people that determine the value is not the city, it is not the appraisers. It is number one, the owner and their dream of what they wanna do with it and the right that they bought in contract with the city to have ownership and access rights to it. Number 2, what determines the value of the property? Again. You give land away. That makes my lot More valuable cause I can put a bigger house on it now. Good for the builders, good for the tax base, good for Bismarck Public schools. Problem with it is. The buyer determines the value of property. And if you have the choice of buying a lot that has been reduced in size of what you can put on it and where you can build and what you can do, it has, has covenants and variants, all kinds of problems on top of it. Would you buy that one? Or would you walk over to the lot next to it? It has absolutely no impingements on it. Most buyers would probably go for the one that has more space to build with less restrictions. So that's what increases the value of property at Misty Waters by your action. Your action will create arbitrarily inflation. Not at the assessment level, no, no, no, no, no, the buyer level, which, hey, for any of us who are looking to sell, that's good. That's really good actually. Got no problem with that. It's capitalism. What I have a problem with is my city creating it. And driving it and picking the winners and the losers. That to me just doesn't sound right, because I'm on the losing stick. And you see, we've had meeting after meeting after meeting about what to do. We want to have something that is fair and consistent, and what you have in the monitor up there is what is proposed for my land. You can see very clearly the yellow line is the current setback. Oh, I thought finding the Lomar was difficult. I thought finding the setback was hard, apparently not because the city sent out a link that I clicked on and right there it was a nice pretty picture which I copied. And then being an engineer, I didn't stop there. Oh no, I was hell bent on finding out how inconsequential my land loss was going to be. In my eyes 1 ft is consequential if I don't have payment for it. 2 ft is even a bigger issue, but no, you've got 1,0058.4 square feet removed from my, my legal entitled access. It doesn't matter what my plans are. It doesn't matter what somebody else thinks the value of that is. What matters is what I think about it and what my future buyer thinks about it. OK. So, there we are. You're gonna take away 1,0058 square feet of mine, which, by the way, just works out to 4.1% of my entire lot. Hm. How many of us would take a 4.1% haircut on your salary? The starting point. OK, that's what you're doing with my property, and that's wrong. At the same time, you have a problem with people that are, are struggling to save their house. That's also wrong. And you know what's funny about both of those statements? By the way, if you haven't figured it out, I'm not using any notes. This is here and it's here. The bottom line is this is coming from one source. The city The builders got confused. Apparently, our, our, our, our folks who do civil engineering got confused and couldn't find all the right things in the city was like, yeah, looks pretty good to me, we're, we'll go with it, right? And so now we got all these problems. Holy cow, where's the apologies? Beit, yeah. Where's the checks? This is ridiculous. So your solution you've come up with, congratulations. Patels all on the back. It saved some homes. I'm happy about that. At my expense, my family's expense. Nobody ever had the foresight to say, huh. I wonder if we could save these homes without affecting Ketterling's property. Hey, I brought it up a month ago. Still nobody has said anything and furthermore, I've yet to get a receipt from anybody that says, hey, we realized we're gonna do a taking here we're gonna buy it, we're gonna buy the rights of the taking, make you happy. Nope, that hasn't happened either. So what do you think the value of that is? It's not this per square foot divided, you know, it's not the, the cost of the lot divided by the square foot. Where is all of this mess gonna end and what's it worth to everybody here? What's it going to cost my fellow neighbors when they lose their house? That's ***. Can't lose their house. You guys let this happen. And I want this corrected, and it *** well better not affect my house, my family, my property. Get thinking out of the box. You cannot put people in a box like this, and that's exactly what has happened apparently it's been going on for 20 years. Matt, you did a wonderful job navigating this mess to build a beautiful home that is completely legal and set back properly thank you. Does anybody have any questions for me? Thank you, sir. Hello, I'm Jeff Carlson, um, I live at 6416 Dream Drive. I've, we've been through this nightmare long enough in the neighborhood. Um, I feel for the neighbors, as Jerry echoes a lot of what I think is It's sad that some builders went, my builders built 30, 40 houses in that development, never went over. And I'm lucky. I'm thank God he did that. I'm happy and the house next to me is behind the setback too but if that house went 50 ft past the setback that would destroy my house or if the neighbor builds 50 ft extension on the house, it would destroy their house. Now, you look at that first drawing up that was left up there. The overhang, it looks like the overhang is over. The city chooses not to enforce the overhang of the houses because you can build a house right online the foundations right there the overhang, they're not enforcing. They chose not to enforce that. They're choosing not to enforce these other houses. Well, why are we going for 50 freaking feet to ruin somebody else's, and it's gonna come down. There's 3 lots together on the other side of the bay. Somebody's gonna build all the way out to the end and ruin everybody else's lot. That's not fair, but maybe 10 ft would be fair. Maybe going out there and looking at where we have to be. This is like using a nuclear weapon. It's just boom. It's like, OK, we're in a basketball game, and we're gonna change the rules last two minutes of the championship game. We bought these houses how many years ago? Now we're changing the rules. No, I'm not opposed to helping these guys out, but there's got to be a better reason to come out there than saying, oh, we're just gonna go 50 ft. Oh, that's easy. That destroys other people's views in other people's houses. It's insane. Why not come up with a reasonable way of doing this without ruining everybody's value or have the threat of a house building 50 ft past your house. You will live on a beautiful, Misty Waters is a beautiful place to live. And I'm for, I'm not for any house coming down right now, but come on, we gotta use some common sense and the city's got to work on their enforcement. These people should have known where they're at. Like, uh, in our bylaws you can't bring in fill dirt. Well, how can you build 50 ft if you can't bring in fill dirt to get out, get your house high enough? And have we forgot about the floods already? Why are we moving houses closer, 50 ft closer to the water? The flood's gonna kick our butts and then they're gonna ask the city to pay for them. That's all I got to say. Thank you. Thank you. Again, this is a public hearing. Who anyone who wish to speak please come forward. Uh, this is Jerry Ketterling again. I'd like to bring to your attention slide number 2 in your deck. Uh, put it up here so everybody else can see it. Um, let's see. I Well, I'm not a surveyor, but I am an engineer and I'm not stupid. Somebody surveyed this lot apparently, and drove some stakes in the ground and marked one, the Lomar Li. Guess that Lomar line keeps popping up somehow. Then they put a blue line out there in the middle that says 100 year flood. And you see that bucket sitting down there? That's your proposed setback for this lot. And I'm looking at this, I'm going, well, that's crazy. Why would we adjust our setbacks so that everybody can legally build a house in the 100 year flood plain? That doesn't make sense to me. Some kind of stupid math is what it is. I can't quite follow how this works. Yeah, sure, you can pack some dirt in the back of there and raise it up so that your elevation is, you're protected from the water, but think of what you just did to your neighbors on the left and the right of you. That's kind of what the issue is here, guys. We had a system that worked. We had some problems, but instead of adjusting with what we had, We went nuclear. And yet now here we are again, about ready to create yet another bigger problem, which is nuclear. Is this really gonna be easier for you to manage? See, right now, let me, let me discuss the Lomar line and your setback today, the way it is in our PUD. The city Asked Mr. McCormick specifically, hey, we've had some issues with waterfront property, you know, what's the setback? Where do we start? Do we measure from the water? do we measure from the high level? What, what, what's the boundary we measure from? Fair question the city asked Mr. McCormick. Excellent question actually. City said, gee, we would really like if you could come up with a plan of a fixed. Line in space that can be surveyed. By a leaps and bounds survey, a permanent line that can never go away. And we'll call that our setback, and Mr. McCormick and his civil engineering team decided, huh. City is also the the flood plan coordinator for this area. So that means they have to know where the flood plain is all the time. Right? So, therefore you must always know where the Lomar line is. So Mr. McCormick sat down with his engineering staff and said, huh. What if we made our setback, the low barn line? Now the city's got one line to keep track of. Wherever that Lomar line lies and is surveyed in a leaps and bounds survey once, it lives in fortuity on this property. And now the city knows exactly where the setback is. So how come that was so hard to find one line? Cause your flood plain coordinator has to find that line. So we know that it can be found and we know that it's permanent because it's there and it's been surveyed. OK, I'm with you, but we got problems because of we didn't have compliance we didn't enforce the rules we were nice people. Well, do you really think this picture will fix this? or do you think this picture is gonna create more problems with the city because now you gotta track the Lomar line, you got to track the 100 year floodplain, and you gotta track the setback. And you're going to be asking builders. And homeowners or or future homeowners to know the law to understand what they need to do to make this work, but you couldn't make the other one work? I must be some kind of dumb. I don't think so. This is much more complicated, but OK, it does solve the problem of some homes that are over the line. So once again, I will reiterate, I support my fellow citizens to keep their homes. I am against the city 100% and your ideas of how you're treating this community. Create a line. I don't care if you have to hire a civil firm to come out there and trample over all of our yards, but create a permanent line that you can agree with and we can agree with that you can find and we can live with. That is not it, not for me in a way because I lose property on MySpace. Other people gain. So until you fix that problem, you've got a bigger problem. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Anyone who wish to speak, please come forward. Mr. Mayor, Commissioners, um. I've said so many things up here over the past year. Jason Sellers, apologize, um, and, um. A couple of things you have to look at, um, are one. The majority Of the entire development, the Lomar line. And the new proposed line are one and the same. We're talking about a few properties that help all these property owners out here that are in this situation. You know, there's, I mean, literally within an inch of the Lomar line and the new setback line that has been proposed um by the city. Um, some of these lomar lines. Um, went within the drainage easement, which you could never build within anyways. So you know, it would never have been approved to build within the drainage easement regardless and that's not an issue out here. There's not a home that's in the drainage easement. There's homes that are beyond the Lomar that are in between the drainage easement and the Lomar, and this solution solves that problem. And the other thing is the majority of the homeowners out here voted to have the setback changed to the inland edge of the drainage easement which this new line proposed is one and the same as that. Those are the facts. It's simple, it's very basic, um, and I just asked tonight to for you to support these other homeowners like you supported our cul de sac in the approval, you know, to help us. Um, and to support our development in this, so I just ask for your support tonight. Thank you. Go ahead, Comm Zenker. Mayor, Comm, I got a few questions. Thank you, Mr. Sellers, for coming to the podium. First of all, I'd like to ask you the question on the email that you sent to 4-19-2019 to Brady about acknowledging the rare setback. I didn't, I didn't send an email. You didn't send that from me, no. Mr. Spielman, do you have that email and who's it from? Uh, it's from his builder. Mr. from Bigger River Builders? OK, all right, I stand correctly then I apologize sir for that. um, so obviously, as Mr. Keeling said he contracted with Mr. Geiger to build this house, and your, your builder must have known about a rear setback issue. So, um, I bet your builder's probably not here tonight. Uh, my brother is not here, but we, um, Mr. Sellers, the other question I have for you is you reference the Um, voting from the HOA, do you have documented minutes from those? It's, it was, it, it wasn't a HOA board driven thing. It was a community, it doesn't need to be board driven. It was driven by 67% of the residential lot owners if they sign off on, um, changing of the covenants, if it 67% of them vote on that, then you can change the covenants, the board, it doesn't have to be a board driven item. So it wasn't. It was property owners that got you pets. I, I did not do it as a president of the HOA. I did it as a property owner and along with everybody else that's out there as an individual property owner. Look, then, um, So would that didn't need to go to your board for approval? That is surprising. OK. So this is, and Mr. Sellers, I mean, respectfully, sir, this is what it looks like to me, OK? You hired a builder to do a job. Somehow some way through the checks and balances. Um, This was missed, and Mr. um Spielman played the video from good gosh, 2020, um, that this was an issue. Um, I agree with Mr. Kling that. This was a city problem from day one and it wasn't enforced. And, and your builder Must have known about it because of an email that Mr. Spielman brought up. And then ironically you become The president of the HOA and then try to, try to solve a problem, quite frankly, frankly, sir, that your house created. To be honest with you, if your, if your home would have been built within the setback and on the Lomar line. And not 52 ft over, we wouldn't be here today. And neither would half the people in the, in the, in this room be here. And this wouldn't have covered 5 years of pain and suffering for everybody on both sides of the topic. And I'll, I mean, respectfully, I'm, I'm the only Comm still here from that, and I've had many, many, many conversations about that. So Have you talked to your builder about how he got this approved? How he got your home approved to be 52 ft over the setback? We as individual homeowners. Have a responsibility to our the property that we buy. To make sure that we meet all the parameters that are set just like when developers develop land they have a set of parameters that they that they have to meet for whether it's in the county, whether it's in the city and it doesn't even matter if it's here locally it's it's it's jurisdictions all over the state. So I'm still trying to figure out. From this email that was sent on 4/19 knowing that it was set over the, the house was gonna go over the rear the rear setback at that time and I don't care, pick a line whatever line that is how we as a city approve that setback and let that home be built. Unfortunately, You're kind of, you're, you're the, you're the Guy caught in the middle. You signed a contract with the builder to do it. His job was to make sure it goes through the city, and you're the, and you're the Guy left holding the sword trying to fight the battle to save your house. I completely get that and I respect that. But But we can't We have to have answers as to how this happened, um, before we can approve this PUD. And respectfully, sir, um, from my, from my end, I received every approval from the city, from FEMA, from the HOA that was required to build my home and I, and I, and I trusted that to move forward in, in, in building this and along with my builder as well, um, so I, you know, I. Um It was all done through those approvals. I mean, that's, I mean, that's, I don't know what else to follow as, as a, as a home builder. I mean, you're right you're correct, um, but there's also many, many, I mean, I bet if we actually printed all the pages of stuff within here, um, somebody mentioned that the You had to, you had to get approval from the HOA to bring backfilling or the dirt or fill it up. Um, you got that and then I remember, I don't, and I would have to go back through all of the agendas where that was actually rescinded by the HOA at that time. If you can get approval to bring through a filter form, right through the age which we did, but I remember getting an email saying, hey, they rescinded that that was part of the dirt was into the drainage easement that we had to have removed. It was just. It there was some water flow things that some of the dirt had just gone over that we that we had moved back afterwards so that that is uh that was related to that, not related to removing fill dirt to build their home. And again I'm just pulling it off I just wanted to clarify I apologize, no problem. Any other questions? OK, thank you, thank you. Again, this is a public hearing. Anyone who wish to speak, please come forward. A second call for public comment. I call your attention to slide number 3 in your deck. Um, I'm all for this being fair. I want it to be fair for everybody, and I want it to be fair for me, OK? Doing a takeaway for me, not acceptable, guys. Figure it out. OK? Not that hard. You're the government. Now for my citizens. My apologies to all of you if you think I'm an ***. I'm not. I'm speaking on your behalf in your best interest, and I want one of these homes saved. Now, Can we get creative? I wanna ask a question about this one. Last I checked, and I don't know, I haven't checked again, but you guys can fill me in. What happened to that lot that is next to Lot 36? I think it must be lot 37 on Dream Circle. I don't think their setback got changed. I don't seem fair and balanced, uh, does it? So let's make sure it is Mr. King, I'm gonna hang on, I'm gonna stop you right there because we tried to include that in the in the PUD, but because of red tape and logistics and legalities, you can't just add in public hearings and notifications and those types of things. You can't just add it and that's how this came about. In fact, that's how the request that was put to city development. I'm fine with PUD to to so we can address that as well. Unfortunately that's why I wanna make sure it is addressed because I haven't seen the plan, OK? I just know that what it impacts on me is my property. So I wanna make sure that we are fair to everybody out there, including that property owner and including my property, and I really don't care how you do it if you want to use the back, um, drainage ditch for 99.9% of the property out there, go for it. Skip mine. Because you're taking land away from me by doing that or. Declared a takeaway and deal with it on the financial side. I prefer you just give me the land that's really what I want. I want access to my land. I want to have what I bought. That's it. And that is the last slide I promise you, as my last testimony I have for you. I want my citizens healed. I think it's time Misty Waters gets to the point of forgiveness and healing. Jason tried to pull together a community get together, bless his heart, he tried. We can't even get our community to get together for a party. It's getting that bad out there, so Jason, thank you for doing that. That's that's all I have to say. Thank you. Um I don't remember where I was that, sorry. 2nd call for public comment. Third call for public comment. Seeing or hearing no further public comment. Public comment period is now closed. Comm Zeer, uh, Mayor, Comm Ben, can you come to the podium, please? Thank you, sir. So first question to you, Ben is on the new, the new plot of the or the map of the PUD have we had any surveyors out to take actual pin placement locations for the entire um area? To my knowledge, uh, Mayor and Commissioners there, we have not as a city sent, uh, any surveyors to place pins, and I think you're referring to the, the inland edge. Uh, are you referring to the inland edge that's proposed? If we're going to, if we're going to. Tell Misty Waters community that hey this is going to be the new setback, whatever it is, I don't care what verbiage you want to use, but I would think that we would have a certified land surveyor say, hey, this is every pin on every lot and every corner, uh, adjacent to the bay. And that, I mean, I suppose the front to the of the front side back to answer your question, we have not done that. Um, I, I won't speak we don't actually have the resources to have a a surveyor in house and I, I won't speak for. Uh, the director that that does, but we have not done that and, uh, partially been waiting, uh, you know, we don't, we don't know how this is gonna turn out, so that has not been done to date. Comm Risch, uh, Mr. Mayor, as I recall in the August 6th meeting there were discussions about surveys and some of the property owners did not want to have their property surveyed. Is that that the way you remember? Yeah, I actually, I'm gonna get my notes here, Comm Risch, one second. I think this is a question that was brought up to you about how many structures uh are are potentially noncompliant and Comm Risch, I think that's what you're referring to we did as a city, um, once the, the, uh, Supreme Court, North Dakota Supreme Court ruling came down, we as a city did visual analysis to figure out where that 2005 Lomar line was in comparison to the aerial photography of. Existing built structures out there, um, we, uh, I think we determined there were we sent letters to 17 different properties that may, may have been over that Lomar line. GIS data isn't survey quality data so it could be off a few inches, a few feet in some cases, and so we sent letters out to some of those property owners are actually those property owners that appeared to visually be over that line. Um, As a result, we do not know, so we, we know there's aside from the dream circle properties, the two that are over there are 5 additional properties that are over that Lomar line. There could be up to 10. We didn't hear we offered as a city just go out and survey their property in relation to that Lomar line. Some of those, uh, 5 of those 10 did not take us up on it and we did not further pursue it when we got direction from the city commission to find, uh, a different setback line that was perhaps more consistent for, for all property owners out there, so. Comm Clery, I just want to clarify that for my own thought process. So 2 of them were the 2 in Dream circle. There's 5 that have been proven that they are out of compliance, and there's an additional 5 on top of that that have not been other than like GIS measured. They haven't been surveyed. That's correct but according like viewpoint of GIS would say that they potentially are. They're close. So then when you get to 17th, there's 5 more that I'm assuming we were out of compliance in GIS but aren't that because we said 17 of them were confirmed to be OK, OK. Just wanted to clarify that. So Ben, the question I have is with regard to the Inside edge of the terrainage easement cause that was the line that Was established, I think if I'm saying that right, where is that in relationship to the lot pins themselves? Is there a consistency from the lot pin back of the lot? Because normally when I think of setbacks, setbacks are based off the edges of the lot, not. Some other uh defined line. That is a great question, Mayor. Um, I, I can't answer that honestly. The first, the first PUD that was approved. Identified a 30 ft setback from basically the rear property line. In 2006, that changed to the Lomar Li. Uh, the Supreme Court has identified that as being the 2005 Lomar line, so I don't actually know if property pins have been placed in the 2005 Lomar line or not for properties, uh, in question. So Comm Z anchor, Mayor Comm Ben, Ben, that's exactly my point about the survey. We, we don't know, even, even the homeowners out here don't probably don't know. Well, maybe some of them do now because they went and found those things to make sure where the heck those things are, right? And, and that's, and that's part of the problem with, with approving this tonight is that we don't know we're just going off of a GIS system which we all know is not exact so for us to be able to do this and to make sure that as Mr. Ketterly put it, we're not picking winners or loses losers we should know exactly. Exactly what we're trying to govern from this day moving forward. So, so my further follow up on that, Comm Zenker would be, let's for the matter of point here in time if, if we say generally speaking the inside edge of the drainage engagement is the general line, but we know there could be. 126. Lots that are out there where that moves or setback. Up up from the water, can we, if we were to go out and say, OK, here's this, but on these people so we don't remove some reusable space we set pins and redefine the setback line because it appears to me we're far enough off the water in all those cases where the back edge of their lot that, you know, which I would typically think is a setback line from is where the pins at in my lot. You can't build into the setback area anyway. I don't know. I'm just, I'm spitballing. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know if that was a question for me. Well, it is kind of a question. I don't know if we can even do that to answer your question, that is possible to do. We, we didn't identify that as the course of action because it has always been understood that at least up until this point you can't build within. That drainage easement. Now, individuals are starting to release that drainage easement, so it's becoming a question. And so I think there's roughly 12 lots that where the, the, uh, inland or the, the. The 2005 Lomar is closer to the water than the inland edge of the drainage easement, but to answer your question, we can identify any line you want. We just have to survey it and legally describe it so people know where it's at in the future. So I would like to get to a point where it's, it's, I mean, I, I get it the Lomar line because it's elevation related is gonna potentially set differently on every lot. Which means setbacks are variable by lot, potentially. Unless everything was graded out to the same elevation which they are. But it would seem to me that we, maybe we're moving in a direction if we could, we may have to redefine this line, but get it so it's kind of meets and bounds. We are reducing anybody's buildable space if they can meet whatever flood requirements there might be. I don't know, I'm just throwing on Comm Connelly. When we have a, when we have a uh street project and um or or things, the conversation always comes up. These are the options and this is the safest. So if we take an empty property right now and we look at it. Say it's the 100 year flood. Is it safer to build based on the setback from the 2005 line, or is it safer if we change it to what's being proposed? Uh, Mayor and commissioners, Comm Connelly, do you mean safer in terms of flood risk. Uh, regardless, and Brady can speak more to this, if you were to build out into the 100 year floodplain. Phil would likely need to be added regardless to bring your property out of that 100 year floodplain, so you would need to build at an elevation that would be out of that 100 year floodplain regardless. So the, the, the risk level would be the same. It would just be more expensive for the property owner, in my opinion, to, to develop to that point. But then there's potential, like it's been mentioned before, ramifications. I lived in the eastern part of the state in '97, and some of the reasons why Grand Forks ended up with the challenges they had was because of some of the diking that occurred further south. So um It's things that you can't keep up with, but. Um With that being said, Um, I've been told that even with supplement, the max payout on, say, a FEMA claim to an individual homeowners, roughly 270, 280, and all of these homes. If a flood was to happen, they're not even going to come close to replacing their losses. So I'm still in the same frame of mind as last time uh to where we could have answered this question before. Don't tear any houses down. Sometimes. Once something becomes ugly, you can't. Fix it to a less uglier stance. It's been a long time. Just don't tear any houses down. Let's move forward. I don't know if even if we surveyed the pins that we get to a better option. Because somebody wins, somebody loses. Comm Risch, uh, Mr. Mayor Bin, uh, even if we wanted to survey all these lots and some of the landowners or lot owners, property owners said no, could we go on there and survey them against her wishes. Uh, thank you, Comm Risch, for that question. We, we would need their permission to enter their property and obviously that's one of the reasons we haven't surveyed. Some of these 5 plots in question is, is we haven't gotten their permission. Uh, Julie might be able to speak to this a little bit more if we had. Um, legal standing, I suppose we could get, uh, uh, a search warrant, an administrative search warrant to, to serve at their property, but, uh, I don't think we would be at that for the, the instance that you're talking about. I don't think we'd be pursuing that unless we had their permission. So I, I wanna come back to Conie made, Comm Connelly. So the problem is right now we have a line that is. Adjudicated by the North Dakota Supreme Court that shows homes that are out of compliance and they can't sell those homes unless there's something done, and a variance through the The board of adjustment is By statute, not able to be done because it can't be awarded based upon financial. Impact. Am I correct on that? And so that's part of the struggle here. Comm Connelly. The courts become the checks and balances just like it has been in the past. That's how we got to this point too is that. If a person searching to sell their home. We, we shouldn't be chasing ordinance, kind of like what Comm Zenker was saying, is chasing ordinance to make everything fit into a certain box after decisions have been made. Well, I have a view that the zoning changes all the time. Zoning ordinance changes all the time. And so when there's a request put forth by a group of landowners, I think that's why we're, that's why it's still bantering around. Could this have all been done better 20 years ago? Sure, we're, we're facing with the ramifications here and we're wrestling with the difficulties of that. Comm Zenker. Mayor, Comm, Mayor, quite honestly, it could have been done better in 2020 when the permit was taken out and the and the checks and balances didn't happen as they should have happened. I, I that's and and that's the other reason why we're here is because that didn't happen. Well, it didn't happen, but there was also interpretations that were I think relied upon so I'm not like we're not gonna start pointing fingers here. We're here to try to solve it. We're here to try to solve the problem and if we can't, if we can't, then we can't I'm, you know, but that's. We, we, we are sitting here today because of a lot of different actions throughout the years. Comm Clery. Mayor, Comm, I guess, Ben, I'm not sure if this will end up being a question or if I'm just gonna think out loud for a little bit, but I, to the Mayor's point. There was misunderstandings. It sounds like when a house was built in 2009, 2015, there's multiple Lomar like referrals, different years. We obviously had this air. In 2020, um, I guess I would like to get to a point whether it happens tonight or not where we are able to move forward. I was hoping that this new proposed line would get us there because I think that it brings those homes that are incompliant and even the people who are opposed to that line here tonight do not want to see homes torn down but of their neighbors, uh. And rightfully so, they blamed the city for all of that. Errors were made, misunderstandings happened. I just want to be able to move forward from it. Um. And so, I guess, I think that the mayor was alluding to it, but. Can we get, is it possible to get to a point where we're using this new line, but not exactly how it's drawn right now, where we're adjusting it as needed to the the few properties where we are. Rescinding their line versus pushing it out where we are just creating that new setback, so it makes sense for the existing homes. We're not removing properties from other, from the ones that we would be with this new line and it makes sense for the future, like the vacant lots that are still out there. Uh, I know they reference like. Bringing in fill dirt and someone's gonna put their house way out there. And like, I just, I understand that concern, but also at the same time, I think we need to get to a point where It makes sense and we can move forward and we don't have people out of compliance, but we're not taking away from others too. And so I'm just wondering if there's like a, a middle ground if we can To one of their credits think outside of the box a little bit instead of just taking a line that potentially is already there and using it instead of the Lomar, can we adjust that accordingly? Yeah, thank you, Mayor Commissioners and Comm Cleary, um, yes, to answer your question, whatever line you want us to, to identify as long as we can get on, you know, a property or or get a legal survey to or a uh a survey done. A surveyor to to develop a legally defined line we, we can do that. So I think what you're you're asking is. Rather than go to the inland edge of the the uh. Ah, stormwater and drainage easement. Maybe just keep the setback where it is and deviate around those homes that that may be uh potentially over that line, is that what you're asking? I think that like depending on what starting point makes more sense if we start with the line that is law right now and we deviate for the homes that are out of compliance, which we I feel like kind of already did for Dream Circle, or do we take the proposed line and before we make that. The new line we adjust that accordingly to the few homes like Mr. Ketterling's that would be unfairly shrunken where we're just adjusting that line because then it maybe is more uniform. I think that my desire when a few months ago when we were talking about this new line was I when we adjusted Dream circle. I wanted there to be uniformity throughout the entire development and we weren't gonna have like this home's a PUD this home is a PUD like we we're just a just adjusting the ones that are out of compliance if that makes sense. That makes total sense and I think that's maybe the the conversation that we took from last August was like, let's find a consistent line rather than weaving in and out of of properties and And uh so I I think that's one of the reasons we ended up where we are with that proposal in front of you today, but if there's a more surgical way to do this, I, I think we're open to that. I think we heard tonight, I think there is a little bit more surgical way to go about it. I think if there's 12 lots or whatever we can someone can identify those specifically and. Make sure that we put their setback line. Back to where it was or or so it's more appropriate and We solve the outlier lot on Dream Circle this way to give that person that the additional space that They may or may not want to build and add on to, and it's not going to make everybody happy. I'm well aware of that. But it's, you know, we're, we're, I feel like we're left with trying to put the piece back, put the pie or the piece of the puzzles back together and create something that is workable. I don't know if you need a motion now to do that or if it'd be better for you to redraw the lines and let us continue this hearing. Once those lines are drawn and we list whoever we need to in the city to help survey it. If you all are comfortable from at least a consensus standpoint, I think we can, we can maybe identify a couple options. One that I think I understood Comm Cleary talking about maybe deviating from the. My, yeah, my preference would be that because to Mr. Seller's point, a majority of these homeowners agreed to this new line, but there obviously are a few that it negatively affects so can we like our starting point be that new line and then we just. Try to address the ones that need that line tweaked for their property. And we're just creating this new line that. The hopes would be works for everyone to make your point. So I think I'm understanding you want us to start with the inland of the the stormwater and drainage easement and deviate around those 12 homes whose lomar is closer to the water than the inland edge of that drainage easement. I believe so, yes, that'd be my desire, OK. Comm Brush, well, Mr. Mayor, Ben, maybe it's better to take what you proposed tonight, identify the ones that are adversely affected, and just deal with those. Yeah, I think I didn't understand it that way. I did a bad job describing that. So sorry, I think, yeah. What Comm Risch is saying where we're starting with the line that it was agreed upon by the majority of the homeowners that the line that was presented tonight and we're adjusting because I think that that number of houses that are negatively affected by this new line is even less than the houses that are out of compliant with the existing line. So I think it's would be even it's it's not reducing it it would not reduce the billable space and we would not cause any homes that are currently in. In already built states that have an out of compliance um. Structure. Comm, so with that option sort of on the table and we're just gonna move lines randomly so it all works out, what are we gonna label it and how is it going to be fixed? Right, because you can't, because in 2040 someone's gonna come up with and say, hey, this line was moved, but we just arbitrarily moved a couple lots. Well, and that just doesn't seem to be any logic. Can we or practicality, I mean this would be a question to us, I guess we could authorize this. Can we go out and cause the surveys to occur and have pins stuck in on that line? On the on those spots on the lot. In my opinion, that's the only way to solve. I mean, because, because, because it becomes then something that can be located, right? It's a fixed point which I think we're, we would all agree with that needs to be done here instead of arbitrary line, not arbitrary but a uh uh delineated line. So, and I don't know if that was a question, Comm Zenker, but uh right now in the PUD the name of this quote unquote line is left blank. basically it becomes uh uh a doc a document record or whatever the recorder's office labels this when it gets recorded, that's what it gets referenced as so. But, but we could then be great if there were markers and I think pins that. On either side of the lot, those pins are for the line. I don't, I know that's a cost, but Lord knows we've spent enough money on this already. I might I suggest maybe the next step is to just come back with you with a map, a revised map of what this could look like, and I mean we can come back, you know, next, next, uh, meeting with, with that it it wouldn't be necessarily legally described, but we could come back with a map of what the future line would look like if you wanna continue the hearing. Was that That already, I think we will then Comm Connelly. Can you make sure to talk with all of the people that you know of that are against the change and vet the possible changes with them um before bringing it back? Um, if you'd like to do that, it's gonna take longer than next meeting. So I'm, I mean, I'd rather get it right. It's already been a long time, and I've been listening to the meetings ever since. OK, I would suggest that would be the first meeting in June, then the first city commission meeting in June. Continue it till then. And then yes, we can re-notice Mr. Ketterling can probably help you identify those lots. OK, I think we're moving towards a solution, maybe. Thanks, Ben. All right, um, I'm gonna ask a question. Do we want to take a 5 minute break to use restrooms or anything, or do you want to keep going forward. OK we can move, keep moving forward just ask a question. Item B Public hearing to release drainagesmen on lot 71, Block 1 of Misty Water. Uh, good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. Um, please excuse my pronunciation of this name. uh, Richard Sconsby is requesting release of the 20 ft drainage easement on Lot 71 Block 1 Misty Waters. Property is located northwest of Bismarck, West of Burnt Creek Loop, southeast of Cyrene Circle on the east side of Misty Waters Drive. The original easement was granted with the plot of Misty Waters, which was recorded on September 27, 2005. By city policy release of any easements other than franchise utility easements requires a public hearing with the city commission. Owners of adjacent properties have been notified of this public hearing. Staff have not received any formal public comments regarding this request. However, staff did receive one call, uh, from a property owner asking for some clarification on what the project actually consisted of. As a result of all findings contained within the staff report, uh, staff find that the release of the drainage easement as described in the attached resolution for this project would not adversely impact the public health, safety and general welfare and is consistent with the comprehensive plan, Bismarck code of ordinances, and relevant state law. Therefore, staff recommends approval of the release of the drainage easement on lot 71 Block 1 Misty Waters. Do you have any questions for me? Commissioners. This is a public hearing on the release of the drainage easement on Lot 71, Block 1, Misty Waters. Anyone who wishes to speak to that, please come forward. Second call for public comment. Third and final call for public comment. Hearing and seeing no part for public comment. Public comment period is now closed. Commissioners move to approve is presented. Second, is there any discussion? Hearing un will call roll. Comm Risch, yes, Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly. Yes, Comm Cleary. Yes, Mayor Schmidt. Yes, I C Public hearing to release the drainage easement on Lot 62, Block 1 of Misty Waters. Good evening again. Mayor and Comm Gerry and Elvira Ketterling are requesting release of the 20 ft drainage easement, uh, less than 10 ft along the southeasterly lot line that straddles Lot 62 and 64. Uh, Block one Misty Waters. The property is located northwest of Bismarck, west of Burnt Creek Loop, east of Misty Waters Drive on the southeastern side of Cyrene Circle. The original easement again was, uh, granted with the plot of Misty Waters, which was recorded September 27, 2005. This request will not release the 20 ft drainage, access and irrigation easement that straddles the lot line between Lot 62 and 64. Um, it's just a small strip there. It's uh about 10 ft along that line, um, as there is existing stormwater infrastructure within that small portion of that easement. Um, by city policy again, release of any easements other than franchise utility easements requires public hearing with the city commission. Um, again, staff did receive, uh, one phone call from a property owner asking just for additional clarification on what the project consisted of. As a result of all findings contained within the staff report, City Bismarck staff find that the release of the drainage easement as described in your attached resolution for this project would not adversely impact the public health, safety, and general welfare and is consistent with the comprehensive plan, Bismarck code of ordinances, and relevant state law. Therefore, staff recommends approval for the release of the drainage easement, uh, less than 10 ft along the southeasterly lot line on Lot 62, Block 1 Misty Waters. Any questions for me at this time? Any questions? Thank you. Again, this is a public hearing. Anyone who wish to speak to this, please come forward. A second call for public comment. The 3rd and final call for public comment. Public comment period is now closed. Comm, what are your wishes? I move we approve as presented. Is there any discussion Hearing none will call roll. Comm Zener, Yes, Comm Connelly. Yes, Comm Cleary. Yes, Comm Risch, yes, Mayor Schmitz. Yes, I consider the request to receive presentation recommendations on the Ottawa Street Reconstruction project and provide direction to staff. Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. Uh, today we're gonna talk about Ottawa Street project. It's, uh, HC 174 in our nomenclature. Uh, together we'll have, uh, Jim Jackson here with more Engineering give the lion's share of this presentation. I'll come back up at the end for questions and some, uh, I guess discussion on funding and what we're kind of laying out in that regard. So without further ado, here is Jim. That you gave. Mayor Commissioners, as Gabe mentioned, I'm Jim Jackson with Moore Engineering. I'm the project manager for the Ottawa Street Reconstruction project. I'm gonna jump straight into the project location map here. Ottawa Street in North Bismarck, uh, as you can see on your screen, runs from 43rd Avenue up to Canada Avenue, um, to the right of your screen is north. Our south limits for the project for the proposed reconstruction are approximately 1000 ft north of 43rd Avenue. Uh, those of you familiar with the area, that's where the, um, present day curve and gutter section ends. Uh, to the north we're looking at, uh, the, the north end of the project being Canada Avenue. So what are the existing features, uh, today? What does Oto Street look like? Ottawa Street's a rural section of roadways, so no curve and gutter, uh, very poor pavement condition, especially in select locations along the corridor, minimal pedestrian facilities, uh, really we're just looking at sidewalk, um, in today's existing world, uh, that was built on adjacent streets that connect up to Ottawa, uh, minimal lighting and then storm water is conveyed through ditches. And um fairly straightforward the proposed improvements uh since we touched on some of the deficiencies we're gonna be looking at a new pavement section with curve and gutter, a wider pavement section. I'm gonna touch on that shortly here, uh, sidewalk on both sides of the roadway lighting, storm sewer conveyance through uh pipe network, and then, uh, some landscaping in the form of street trees. Uh, so for the past 6 months we've been, uh, working to develop some alternatives and estimates, and I think it's important at this point to point out that this is a commercial roadway, uh, it's designated as such, and typically we'd be looking at a 48 ft wide section for a commercial roadway in Bismarck on this one we took a different approach in visiting with city staff. Um, there was some thought to look at some other alternatives, maybe a 40 48 ft section was a little larger than what was needed. And so we wanted to develop some alternatives to look at and and vet through a a stakeholder committee and and with city staff. So alternative A, the first one we're gonna look at here is a 32 ft wide roadway section. Um, and visiting, uh, with city staff and taking a look at the corridor and the uses, we want to develop what we thought would be a minimum section for this improvement and, and 32 ft is where that was derived from this 32 ft wide option would be two through lanes. There'd be no parking, no center turn lane, nothing of the such. It it's strictly be the two through lanes. Um, one of the benefits of the 32 ft. With is that there would be less impacts to properties, uh, specifically with grades of of driveways approaches if you've been up through that area there's a significant amount of elevation change in certain locations from the West to the east and so narrowing the roadway would would allow more room for tying in with those properties. The estimated preliminary construction cost on this one, the 32 ft option is 4.1 million. Um, this does exclude the engineering and and bonding that is typical of a of an assessment district. Alternative B is a 40 ft wide section. I do want to point out here that when we looked at the 40 ft wide section we're talking from the south limits, so just north of 43rd up to La Salle. So this 40 ft option covers that stretch from La Salle to Canada. We think both options would be a 32 ft wide roadway. So just to be clear, um, one of the advantages in this 40 ft width is the parking and, and due to the use and the future development options up north of La Salle between La Salle and Canada, we just didn't see it necessary and the impacts to wetlands and things of that nature, um, we're gonna be a challenge. So, so with this alternative B north of La Salle would maintain that or or would be done with 32 ft wide roadway. Um, with this alternative, what we simply did, and I'm gonna touch on some of the public feedback is we added an 8 ft parking lane to that minimum width we talked about before, um, again, as you widen the roadway, you're looking at more extreme grades coming in and out of properties, a little more impacts to properties, and so, um, that is, that is, uh, um, disadvantage of this compared to the 32 ft wide section. The estimated preliminary construction cost on this 1 $4.3 million a couple $100,000 more really what I want to point out here is that's almost exclusively that additional 8 ft pavement for that stretch, um, and visiting with the public and looking at preliminary design, the impacts will be greater, and that is a concern I'm gonna touch on here, but, um, from a cost perspective, that's the bulk of the cost is that additional roadway. Somewhat difficult to see here, but we were able to provide uh the stakeholders with some preliminary uh impacts to their properties. This is showing the full corridor again there's a green shade right adjacent to the corridor that shows the potential impacts again this is preliminary, but we wanted to get something in front of folks, um. The goal here and the intent is that there will be no permanent right way acquisition. Um, we don't anticipate any permanent right away acquisition. There could be the need for some temporary easements. uh, the landowners in the area that we visited with are aware of that and, and there's a desire there to, to provide that so that we can tie in driveways, approaches, things of that nature better. Stormwater was a very significant topic and we knew going in that this was gonna be um a challenge on this project. A few things I want to point out here we're we're looking at 3 different management plans. Uh, there are some site specific stormwater features that we intend to take into account and we have taken into account with our modeling and design, and those, uh, we anticipate to remain in place and and function as is. Um, One of the biggest questions I would say going into this as far as stormwater was concerned was would the existing ponds in the area be able to handle uh additional impervious additional pavement for these sections and uh we were happy to find out that um in our preliminary model here we think that there will be minimal to potentially no uh changes to the ponds and they will be able to handle both of these options adequately. Um, we have been working with city staff to look at, um, stormwater features and, and treatment options for the facility. We'll continue to do that and we'll look at some transition areas, specifically La Salle, um, on this, on this project as well. Um, so our, our public participation approach on this project and working with the city, uh, right up front we knew it was a little unique, so this project was petitioned into the city, uh, as development occurred by, by landowners in the corridor and so, uh, once the city achieved the, the minimum percentage, uh, this project was decided to move forward with this project and so it will be special assessed but. We really wanna take the approach to engage with those local entities those local landowners, and provide a lot of opportunities for communication, be very transparent with everything, um, and then even give them the opportunity to visit with us and city staff on, on what they saw as the critical needs for the corridor. So what we did is we sent out mailings to 55 landowners. Um, there are a few more parcels, 58 I believe on the corridor, but, um, a couple people on multiple parcels, so we, we contacted 55 landowners, um, through direct mailings, encouraged them to reach out to other landowners they were aware of in the area, and 17 people ended up registering for what we call the stakeholder stakeholder advisory committee. So we, we worked for about 5 months basically since last December last late November with the stakeholder advisory committee, and we collected their input through a lot of different means and methods we had online tools we had websites they could go to to comment on the corridor uh we did multiple surveys and then of course through emails and meetings and phone calls I had meetings in my office I had meetings out on site at individual properties and. Just wanted to give them plenty of opportunity to visit with us about the project and then what we ended up doing that I think was very valuable is we we held 3 stakeholder advisory committee meetings through the course of about 3.5 months. Um, these were in addition to the public input meeting which I'll touch on shortly here so we gave them ample opportunity to get in front of us, express their concerns, and, and hear what our approach is going to be. Meeting number one, we really just introduced them what the project was, um, and what we're asking them to participate in. Meeting #2, we wanted to walk through some potential alternatives for the roadway section. It was very clear up front that we wanted to look at multiple options. The city had a desire to look at multiple options, so we really wanted to, uh, make sure that the stakeholder advisory committee could, um, basically present their wishes to us and, and talk to us about what was important for them on the corridor. Uh, after meeting #2, I would say that is when we developed and narrowed down these two alternatives that are in front of you tonight. And then meeting number 3 we updated the impacts to the alternatives I showed some of the maps that we had pertaining to those we refined our costs and then the city worked at putting together a list of estimated assessment costs that were presented at that time as well. So on a high level we worked very closely with the stakeholder, um, with the stakeholder advisory committee with these landowners, um, these are kind of the, the topics that kept coming to the forefront through the course of those 4 months that we were engaging with the committee. So a center turn lane which we proposed as an option up front and wanted to get some feedback, it was never really viewed as a necessity by the stakeholder committee. Um, the business owners, the, the folks that work for them, they didn't see a strong need for a center turn lane. Um, stormwater was a huge priority. You heard about some of that earlier tonight. Everyone recognizes the need for some improvements along there. Uh, there's significant maintenance issues along there and so that's something that was, uh, viewed as a very high priority. Uh, pedestrian facilities were also a high priority. Go ahead, Comm Zenker. Mayor, Comm, Mr. Jackson, so. With your note here about the center turn lane was not a priority for property owners, does that allow us in the 40 ft section to get parking on both sides of the street, or is that still too tight, sir? That's a, uh, Commissioner's anchor Mayor, uh, very good question. So the 40 ft option does allow for, um, different future uses. We could potentially squeeze in parking on both sides the way we looked at it today with the amount of truck deliveries and stuff we're looking at the option of one side and maintaining wider through lanes, um, in addition to that parking if there's ever a need in the future for a center turn lane on that 40 ft option that would, that would be something we could give or take whatever correct thank you sir yeah thank you. Um, let's see, on street parking, it's a good segue, so I would say of all the topics that we discussed, this was, uh, the one that was split the most, uh, we, we had a tough time building consensus. It truly was about a 50/50, um, feedback from business owners on whether or not this would be. Uh, desirable along the corridor you heard from one of the business owners tonight. There are a few businesses that really see that as a value on the corridor. Other businesses didn't think it was worth the cost. They were concerned about some of the impacts to the grades of their approaches and and boulevards and things of that nature. So, um, that one was truly split. Lastly, I do want to point out because it was a topic a lot, uh, was access to the businesses during construction. Uh, this is something that we recognize that access will be maintained and need to be maintained throughout the course of construction. That's the livelihood of these businesses we'll be doing that. We don't have detailed phasing or anything of that nature yet that'll come in the design phase, um, but we, we plan to even visit with some of the land owners and and business owners as we develop that in the design phase. Uh, public input meeting was held last month, and, um, I'm just gonna kind of highlight the the four big takeaways. Generally speaking, everyone who attended was in favor of the project and, and this public input meeting was advertised citywide. It was held at the public works department, but it was overwhelmingly attended by the stakeholder advisory committee members. Um, there were a few other attendees as well. Uh, there was, I would say a slight preference for the 32 ft alternative, uh, albeit slight, and, and that was again based on a little concern with cost and then the impacts as well. Um, the meeting actually ran about 1 hour longer than intended, and the bulk of the time was spent on the last two bullets that you can see up on the screen here, and that was just the concern with the project costs and the potential financial burden, um, that these landowners are anticipating and, and that we provided them along with the city as part of the estimated assessment so um. They followed up with quite a few comments at the public input meeting and then again after, um, that are in your packet and, and that was a, a big topic. I'm gonna close here with the proposed schedule. Um, Gabe's gonna touch on some funding stuff, but, uh, if we move forward with the decision tonight, we're looking at creating the assessment district in the late summer early fall of this year with the preliminary engineers report in the fall. Uh, we anticipate designed to be completed in early 2026 followed by a bid letting, and then we do anticipate this project being constructed, uh, next construction season in 2026. Are there any questions? Thank you. Uh, so I'm gonna just kind of walk through the, the funding package or the funding, I'm gonna say issues or pieces out there. Go, go ahead, Comm Gabe, just to, um, extend on the proposed schedule, construction 27, probably, uh, chip seal in or excuse me, construction 26, probably chip seal in 28 then or 27 that's special assessed in 28, would that be? Correct, uh, Mayor's is that Comm Zenker. It would be, it's, it'd be an asphalt roadway. So yes, we have a chip seal. It would kind of depend on what we put into the contract. If we're able to have that work done, all of it done and complete in the 26 season, that would be a goal. Um, it is very likely that we'd have some carryover work, uh, that we need to be performed in 27, which would then push that special assessment, uh, finalization to be 27 with the first, um, installment in the 28 time frame. Thank you, sir. So as Jim alluded to or mentioned here, the funding source for this project is special assessment. That's the primary one. We did include in our um. 2025 budget a cost share. This is kind of a unique project for us also our special assessment policy both describes how we convey and and and determine benefit to properties but also describes this the percentage of city participation for various projects, um, so this is a project that doesn't really fit into that policy. So we proposed in the 2025 budget a 25% city cost share. Uh, mainly because we haven't had any precedent before and we don't want to have a number that says the city is gonna pay 100% of this thing because we know that this project, uh, will lead to other projects after this and we'll have other, you know, similar type concerns, and we don't wanna commit, uh, I guess I would not recommend that commit the city commits, uh, an overabundance of funding. We're trying to make sure that we're still balancing that. Um, I guess balancing out between what is appropriate for that property to pay themselves because they are benefiting from this improvement, um, to what extent is their benefit compared to what is maybe a general benefit the entire community experiences, um, but we do have, uh, as Jim mentioned, we have 22 commercial properties and 36 residential condo parcels, uh, that's all within just 4 buildings. So all of the residential parcels as we, as we look at them here today, um, are the residents of those 4 buildings. Um, so as we just took our typical special assessment policy as, as, as it turns into divvying up the share of this project, we did find, uh, commercial properties having a range of $50,000 to, as you heard earlier today, and we can confirm here again $700,000 depending on on some of those properties based on their parcel square footage. So those commercial properties are assessed on the square footage. Uh, and so a larger parcel obviously you would have a larger assessment. We looked at the residential parcels on a per each basis and so each unit under the 25% city cost share and the preliminary estimate of this was the, um, $4.3 million dollar version, uh, the 40 ft road had a $15,000 assessment, um, so we have flexibility. From the city's perspective in a couple of items, one being what is the city's contribution, that's probably the easiest, biggest one that the landowners will realize if the city increases that proposed contribution from 25% to something higher that will lower obviously than that contribution or the the assessment that would be uh placed on those properties. We also have some abilities to. Talk about the terms of how long this assessment should be. Typically we use new construction in a 15 year, um, uh, term. There could be discussions or merits to having a different longer term, uh, that might still put that same dollar amount on that property but gives them a longer period of time to pay that uh assessment off. So those are some of the the. The levers that we have at our disposal, what we've, my, my thought process through this project so far has been to not commit the city to a certain percentage prematurely because I view this project to be, especially now with our timing, how we're coming up with, uh, into our budget season to be almost intertwined with all the other needs that we'd have at the city, and I wouldn't want to commit that the city will pay something above 25%, um, 50%, 75%, 100%, whatever that number might be without taking to, uh. And and to concern the other projects and other priorities that this board has to weigh at that time. So my, my recommendation is that we'll have something in the 2026 budget. This will be a line item project, uh, the HC 174, you know, Ottawa Street Reconstruction project with a number that will not be the 25% cost share but will be something likely higher, but then the justification of why we would pick that number so that we aren't setting ourselves into a. A precedent setting, uh, experience where we are now paying X amount for every single project because we did that on the Ottawa Street project so trying to find what's unique, what's different, what's special about the, the lot makeup, about the parcels, about the improvement itself, and try to make sure that we can identify those areas as the reasons that we would be contributing higher and if those circumstances exist on a future project, I think it's. Entirely appropriate for us to consider treating the the next citizen the same way, but if that next project doesn't have some of those same extenuating circumstances, that would give the city, uh, some ability to say that one's different and that's why we're gonna have a different number for whatever that future project might be. So we're making decisions both for this project but not trying to set ourselves up for, uh, potential problems in the future as well. So any questions with the, the funding approach probably before we move on to the, the recommendations, Comm Connelly from 43rd until where this project begins. That was specially assessed. Uh, Mayor, Comm, Comm Connelly from 43rd where this project begins was likely special assessed when we redid 43rd Avenue. Um, as part of the half set sales tax, it was a combination of federal funds and city sales tax that paid for that. We didn't build the road in front of A, uh, Ace Hardware or Cashwise as part of that project. We just tied into whatever was there, and I guess I can't speak to if before it was special assessments or developer paid, but it was not a city contribution towards that in, uh, existing street section. OK. If I could get clarification in that in the future, how that all played out, that'd be great. OK. So one question and I. Probably should know this because I'm up there every day, but. What's the, what's the, where's the traffic coming from and going to as it goes through Ottawa now? Is it coming mostly off 43rd more talking about like the commercial traffic that's going to these businesses that are along there, or, or is there traffic coming off of Lasalle heading south? And is that is that potentially feeding other people because I'm looking at, you know, who are the benefiting properties other than those directly. Touching touching it sure Mayor Comm Mayor Schmittz, uh, we did not do a detailed traffic analysis on, on this one. Usually we would look into those issues if we're trying to make determinations on how many lanes we need or what the configuration of the roadway should be since we knew of the, the traffic volumes are and they're, they're serviceable with a two lane roadway. We didn't spend the resources to better understand the traffic dynamics. Um, I can say that because my, my. My inclination or my gut is that uh they're gonna come from any direction that's most convenient for them, but also the condition of this roadway might be affecting that route, so they might not want to drive down Ottawa Street and kind of go the long way just to limit the amount of exposure they have on the roadway, uh, because of its condition currently. I expectation, but I'm just, you know, I'm. I'm just trying to get my head around where's the right assessment, you know, it's adjacent property. I obviously know that they've got a significant value to this, but And, and if I could add to that, I know there was some discussion, I believe one of the residents, uh, requested that potentially the city contributes additional dollars or the assessment boundary be enlarged. Uh, I guess at this point in time I would recommend that we would consider the additional dollars before we, you know, consider the enlarging of the district. Right now the district is, um, petitioned enough to move forward if the commission elects to move forward with it. Add additional properties to that we would find ourselves needing a resolution of necessity and then bringing in all these properties if you went, you know, a mile east and west or whatever that might be, uh, would bring all of those additional folks into the discussion and they would have the right to protest that improvement. So at this point in time I wouldn't recommend that, but it's just thinking globally from a city perspective and knowing the businesses that are up there. I mean there are probably that that gives logic to why the city would maybe contribute more. Because I think there's community benefit. Go ahead, Comm Zenker. Mayor Comm Gabe, thanks for the explanation. I, I would agree that the, that, and I've had a lot of calls, um, not quite 58, but I bet I've had at least 15 calls from the landowners up there, um, and I think, I think we are justified in, in adding some funds to this project, um, and I, I do agree with Gabe that we just gotta find it in our, when we make our 26 budget to do that. Unfortunately, we're not gonna have that answer tonight, um. I appreciate the comments from the landowners. You're that, yeah, you're, you, you accept that it needs to be done, but yeah, the city's got to put more money to it, um, and I, I agree with that is that, uh, that those comments as well. So, um, I think we can find it and we just gotta be a little bit more frugal on some other things and, and move forward. So Comm, I, I am in total concurrence with you on that. I think there's just value to the city, so but we just don't know what that number is yet. Mayor and commissioners, if I could add one more piece on the funding piece, uh, there's no additional federal dollars that we're aware of that we could identify for this project. Uh, there are some state dollars that were passed in, in the legislature for their uh flexible transportation fund. Uh, we were previously a recipient of a $2 million grant from the state to help build our Century Avenue improvement. We also applied for that same amount of money on two other projects and didn't receive any dollars for for those other projects, uh, but we would envision as long as that program is still available to apply for that, uh, if it's a grant-based program that's, it seems like this would be a really good candidate, um, and would look for other resources that we have to help prioritize this project as well. OK. Are there any questions before we get to, I think, Gabe's direction question? OK, go ahead. OK, uh, my last slide that I have for you are the alternatives that Jim mentioned, uh, so the build alternatives and all of these would include the roadway, the sidewalks, the storm sewer, the lighting, street trees, um, just maybe pause just to reflect on that piece of it itself is kind of unique when we then look to compare what's an appropriate special assessment for another commercial type property when we might have multiple assessments that would get the sidewalk completed, we get a, uh. Roadway completed, you know, later on in that that parcel's life, the the lighting system might come online. Uh, street trees would typically be paid by that developer or that owner when they developed their site. So we're kind of lumping all of these things in together. And so that's another thing that we're trying to be mindful of is how many of these things would have been their responsibility and we, and we really just let them, um, delay the installation of a street tree, for example, uh, with every single site plan because there wasn't a boulevard for us to put them in. So that's just one element I wanted to bring to your attention. Uh, but we have three alternatives. The first one being a no build if you elect us to, uh, not move forward or you want some other alternative, uh, let me know. But the two build alternatives are the 32 ft roadway reconstruction and the 40 ft roadway reconstruction with 32 ft north of La Salle as Jim mentioned earlier. Uh, when we look at this and, and where my, where my recommendation will lie is in the kind of a value proposition that the difference between these two is pretty marginal in the terms of dollars and the impacts between the two. I believe we have ways to mitigate that with the placement of the sidewalk with the placement of of what we can do. There might be a spot here to say, well, that's a retaining wall or let's go talk to that landowner and bring that road in a couple of feet to avoid some of these impacts. So. I would rather start with this 40-foot roadway reconstruction as our template to start from and look for ways during that design to, to minimize the impacts, uh, or, or at least mitigate them if, if we can't avoid them. Uh, due to the flexibility that that 40 ft road will give us, if that means parking on both sides with, you know, some select no parking in your driveways, that could be a proposal, um, if we want to have a more wide open roadway that's really easy for trucks to maneuver, great, that 40 ft will help with that too. Uh, but I think giving us 40 ft to work with will just make our, our lives and future versions of us easier to use that roadway template for whatever the, the pressing need might be at that time. So my recommendation would be to pursue alternative C for this project. And I guess with that I take any other questions you may have. I, I could say I kind of prefer the alternative see with, you know, looking at the probably some options as we can go along in life of the road that there could be parking and then ultimately maybe it has to be removed for a term lane or something, but Comm, I'd agree with C. I mean it's minimal additional cost. Yeah, I think it sets us, sets us up better for the future, or having it set at 40 if we have to have that turn lane. And I also think like being an active user of the businesses up there, the parking, people are parked on that road a lot. So I think taking all of it away to the gentleman that was up here earlier would be a detriment. So I think that's something to consider too. Comm Connelly. I would move for option C on the contingent that we have a viable financing option. K approving something before we know what that looks like, um, I don't think it's fair, so that would be my motion is that we bring it back with that final financial contingency. Bring it back when When they have answers. It'd be at budget time, which we're we're right in the middle of we're starting, we're starting. Yeah, I'll second that. OK, we have a motion. Um, discussion So with that financial contingency in there. It basically Gabe would have to come back to us if we don't end up with something in the 2026 budget for it, is that what we're saying? Well, that's the question I have, but go ahead, since it's my portfolio, I will tell you that we will take funds and we will find funds for this project. I mean, we will, we will make it. I don't know what that dollar amount is going to be. But before I walk out of that budget committee meeting, there will be funds for this project. Yeah, I think we're all in agree and so we're gonna figure it out, but that it just like logistically that's what the motion is, is meaning that if for some reason that were to not happen, which I don't think anybody thinks it will, but that then Gabe has to come back to us and say, now what do you want us to do because of the way the motion is. My concern is on the contingency because I don't think it's a contingency like. The property owners realize that we want to get this done. It's how much the city is going to contribute, and we will figure out what that is. So I, I don't understand why we need a contingency. That's my opinion. So Mayor and Commissioners, so for example, of all the people that called me on this project, they were one again they were um saying that we need it, but the one of the thing that was common too is they were very complimentary. Of more engineering and how they handled it so I think we got a very good communication line with them and, and once we figure out what we're doing from a budget perspective even prior to the budget being approved, I am 100% confident that we can, we can communicate that with those landowners through more and then uh move forward from there. go ahead, Comm. Part of the reasoning is, is that different businesses over time, like say Main Street corridor that protested out on theirs and things is that, um, they, they all know their own budgets and if it's a good year, it's a good year. If it's a hard year and with everything in the economy being so up and down, um. I don't like the thought to where, because of a city decision, we place a hardship on a business that literally could be them making it or not making it. And that's why the contingency. The only thing is we're going to make a decision one way or the other at some point in time. And this is probably gonna be, you know, the finance package from the city to the landowners is gonna be whatever we determine is reasonable. It could be 20 years. I can't tell you what's gonna happen over the next 20 years for that business like that would be, that's my concern like what what what what is our contingency here? Why is there a contingency? We're gonna find what we can contribute and. You know, at some point in time, the, the property owner said, no, that's not enough. Well then I guess we, we deal with it that time. That's, that's where I'm coming from, but I mean the motions out there is there is there other discussion because we can call, we can call the vote. If not OK, coral. Comm Connelly, yes, Comm Cleary, yes, Comm Risch, yes, Comm Zenker. Yes, Mayor Schmittz, and I'm voting no because I don't like the contingency. I, I get it, but that's, I'm making my point. All right. Thank you, everyone. Uh, item E, consider request, receive bids and award contract for street lighting traffic signal project SVA3. Or uh we can. We can take a break. Well, let, let's just take, let's just take 5 minutes. Oh Maybe we'll back faster than 5 minutes, but. That we're gonna give you someone the fast food places.

OK, we're, we're back, we're back on the record. OK, go ahead Gab Mayor and Commissioners, uh, before you is the award for street light and traffic signal project number 83, which is our 2025 fiber optic interconnect. Uh, we had two bidders on the project, and our low bidder was Edling Electric with a bid of $178,000 even. Our recommendation is to award to Edling Electric for $178,000. Take any questions we have. Move to approve is presented. Is there any discussion? Harry Nunn will call roll. Comm Cleary, yes, Comm Risch, Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly, yes, Mayor Smith, yes. Next item is Discuss and receive direction on the recommendation from the transportation steering committee, and I'll let Doug go ahead and lead it out and then I think Comm Connelly and I will both have some comments. I'll introduce this for you guys. Back in November, the citizens voted to pass measure one, which was a 0.5 cent sales tax dedicated to. Uh, public safety and, um, public transportation, specifically 2/10 of that would be for transportation for reliable service for the disabled, elderly, and socioeconomically challenged residents. Following that, at the beginning of the year, this commission, uh, requested that we develop the Transportation steering committee, a group of stakeholders to determine and give recommendations to this commission about what we're gonna do with those new sales tax dollars. Since then, uh, the committee has met 5 times, and on the April 11th meeting, uh, they made a, a motion to allocate or a recommendation to this commission to set aside $1 million out of the sales tax tore up the operations for B Bisman Transit for 2025, and that is what you guys are here to discuss tonight on this item. Good, Comm. Comm is Doug. Um, 2 questions for you, or maybe more than 2. 1st of all, That 2/10 I was sent, how much is that total? So I've got some information I can share on that. Oh, fantastic. Dimitri has a spreadsheet as well and pull it up too because he had this ready for us today at our, uh, committee meeting, but it's projected that in 2026, that's the first full year, it'd be about 4.4 million. For 2025 since we only have 9 months, it'd be about 3.2 million. OK. All right, perfect. Thank you, sir. One more question on that is, uh, sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Risch, but, um, so in the 24 budget and the 25 budget. We approved as a commission to give them extra funding over and above the 3 millions that they get. So does this million dollars take into account that those funds, and I wanna say it's like $263,000 or something like that that we gave them or approved. So does that take into account that that we already gave them? That amount if someone can correct me is what that amount is Demetri might be able to get the exact number. Or here comes Deidre probably knows it as well, but thank you, Mayor Commissioners. Um, the amounts were for 23 and 24, so this would not affect that budget, and it was 230,000 was the 24 numbers. OK, sorry about that. Good. Did you have another question, Comm? Comm Rush and then, um, Doug should add it it's not just a flat million dollars it's an up to, so that might help, it says it says up to up to yeah that's correct. Thank you for that, Comm. Comm Risch, Mr. Mayor, whoever, uh what is the current deficit for 2025? We'll let Deidre respond to that? Mayor Commissioners, we're projecting a $955,000 deficit for 2025. Um, obviously there's things in our budget that may change and lessen that amount or increase that amount. So that number is kind of a moving target, but right now with our approved budget it's $955,000. Other questions So what, what the steering committee recommended was that Up to a million dollars be made available out of the 2025 collections starting once the collection starts, so however we allocate that out. Um, and there was much discussion because City of Manan also has revenue coming in as well and the, the deficit that Deidre just mentioned, that's the for the whole, OK, and so what we, what the community want to make sure is that we first took care of the operating needs so we weren't continued to drive into reserves, um, and then. I think that correct me if I'm wrong, but they kind of wanted us to make sure we had a conversation with Mandann more succinctly as to what Madman's contribution towards that would be, so we might not be spending a full million dollars maybe worth $75,750,000. Go ahead, Comm, let me also. Provide some history. I shared it at the steering committee as well. When Transit had their consultant go through and they were projecting $1.5 million burning their reserves year in and year out. That's where a lot of our budgetary discussion came from. Then it dropped to 1.2% and then because of some of the federal dollars changing, and those are always subject to change, it could be more or less in the future. Um, and the price of gas, even changing changed that number a bit as well as a couple of other things, but, uh, that's where the figure for 955 is, it's been playing in our favor. That might not always continue, um, but initially I was told during the process of collecting signatures for the initiated measure, um, that. It would have to go full cycle and those monies wouldn't be available until 2026. At that time it was. Transit was out of time. That's when their reserves would be gone, essentially. And by this motion occurring is it puts them in a position to where they don't have to bleed down all of their reserves. So the, the request would be to us um to give direction to staff and probably through a um a motion or resolution of this commission how you would like that to proceed, including, I would recommend a direction to have a sit down with the city of Manan. To because they've got a different process that they're going through. They're trying to they're actually asking like for applications for grants and I think I would like to have a further discussion with them that they're a little bit more bought into it, but only at the direction of, of this commission, so. Comm Zener, so Mayor, Comm, and this is probably where Demetri's got an answer. So logistically, right? We've approved our 2025 budget X amount of expenses, um, we haven't even really recognized this income yet, right? So first of all, there's there, we must have to adjust our budget somehow, um, right, public hearing, those types of things. I'm not opposed to giving them that up to a million to cover their losses because they're gonna come and ask anyways. And that this is exactly what this is for. So for us to say no would be, um, first of all selfish and not doing what and the second thing would not fulfill what the citizens voted for. So, um, just help us walk through those steps so make sure we got the I's dotted T's crossed and we can get this done. Mayor Commissioners, Comm anchor, um, uh, you're exactly right, right on point, um, we will probably need a budget amendment at some point from with permission with a public hearing like we usually do with a call for clearing and a public hearing and consecutive meetings, uh, in order to appropriate whatever additional funding that the Bisman Transit needs or based on what you, you all decide to do with this with the sales tax funding. And this also will potentially apply to the public safety portion of the sales tax as well so at some point I will bring that to you, um, for approval later in the year possibly once we kind of know what that amount is. Or closer to what that is, I would hate to appropriate the full amount to be well, and so we were very clear with the steering committee that that would not be fiduciary wise. So as you can see there's an anticipation of accumulating dollars, but we also realized there'll be some infrastructure needs probably that need to happen related to providing public transportation, whether it be some shelters or a hub or something. Um, bump outs or turn, you know, safety lanes, whatever, um, and, and I do know that there will be another recommendation forthcoming after our meeting today for our next commission meeting so we could potentially incorporate them all at once, but, um, this was we said we'd have it come before the commission as soon as possible so at least we had direction and and so. So you're looking for a motion or a consensus? Um We probably don't have to do a motion necessarily because we'll do a budget one later that's going to incorporate others if we have consensus and just direction and. How you want us to approach man and, I guess. As a city, does that be me or I mean, whoever. Those people You gotta fight the battle every day really tell us what's needed. Thank you. Um, I think the conversations between Mandan and Bismarck, it would be really valuable to determine how we wanna do the breakout or the finances, um, so we can look at it by population, we can look at it by ridership, we can look at it by the total amount of funding available and what they anticipate their funding. Available but all of that is going to affect the money I can ask from them and the money realistically that I can come before you and say I need for XYZ. So that's where I'm kind of hung up at is it's between 14.5% all the way up to like a 24% breakout, um, so. Once we get into those conversations, that would be my biggest ask is come to an agreement between the two communities of how we'd like to break out the costs associated with the services for primarily paratransit. And and I and I personally think it to try to take Deidre off the hook on that, it would be probably best if we as the community, the city had the conversation. Rather than putting her in that spot because I think we might carry more weight. That's my opinion anyway, and I, and I think we have. A higher degree of cooperation now than we did probably 12 months ago. Comm Connelly, and if I can add to that, um, being an elected person and like we all are as well as they are by their people, there's flexibility, they know their community, but respecting their position just as much since we all hold that same position, I think that helps because they're trying to make the best decision. They didn't have the funding resource before. This is new for them. And they've told me several times they don't have the type of staffing to vet this out like Bismarck does being the bigger community, and maybe those discussions can help them through that process, so we can get to that. Um, conclusion because if Mandan wins, Bismarck wins and vice versa, um, they spend a lot of citizens Mandan spend a lot of money over here, and this helps the system in the long run. Go ahead, Comm Clery. Um, I guess I would agree with what you said. I think that deciding that percentage should be a conversation that we have with the city and kind of take Deidre out of it where this us and Mann can come to terms with is it based off a population or is it based off a ridership or is it based off of number of routes and then we can decide what works best and then that way Deidre just has a percentage to work with. But with that being said, I also am perfectly fine with the like up to $1 million. as far as that goes, if that's what we need to like decide moving forward, um, create consensus there like I'm, I'm comfortable with that. And I wanna make sure this is the the public transportation is provided and we have the resources now to make sure it happens and like I said, there will be another recommendation coming. At the next commission meeting didn't have time to get a memo out to you today, um, that is around enhanced services. I do think like to Comm Zener's point, that when people were voting for this, I think that it was under the impression of the voters that we would be shoring up things like Bizan Transit that is a necessary piece in the community. So I think that it to not spend the dollars there would be weird, so. So do you want to just Then we'll just Well Doug or Jason, we'll just have to get a meeting scheduled. With uh Uh, with Jim And then Mayor Freli, can I, um, I know Comm Connelly wants to be a part of those meetings. Comm Rohr Comm Rohr is the portfolio holder for transit, um. So And then we can start the process and hopefully once we start having dollars coming through the door, we get to actually start transferring some funds. OK, what I need. All right, thank you. All right, item G, consider request to. Enter into a contract with Tera Renewables LLC for biogas utilization project, Steve. Good evening, Mayor Commissioners. Um, back in late 2024, we had a company approach the city. Ah, bringing forth a proposal to capture methane gas, which is generated by the landfill. Um, we had looked at the feasibility of doing this in the past. Um, however, um, but our initial calculations indicated that in today's market price for natural gas, uh, it wasn't feasible to capture, um, the gas and recoup our investment. However, the, the company that approached us indicated that the market is such. Um, is much higher for renewable or reclaimed natural gas because, um, several states, uh, mandate that a certain percentage of the natural gas that the companies within their state use, um, is from a renewable resource. Uh, so therefore that really changes the economic model and the feasibility, um, for capturing the natural gas. So, given the new information, back in November, we advertised a request for proposal uh for a landfill gas beneficial use and capture project. Um, in the request for proposal, we indicated that we were looking for an experienced company to develop, invest, install, maintain, and operate the necessary equipment to capture, clean, and refine the natural gas. And then sell that gas onto the open market as a renewable energy source. Um, this would all be done at no cost to the city. Um, in addition, we asked the company to share a percentage of the gross revenues to the city as well. So when we put the proposal on the street, we had 6 companies that reached out and inquired about the project. Um, we eventually did get 2, good proposals, and so we received a, um, one proposal was new carbon feedstocks LLC um out of Chicago, Illinois. And the other um company was uh Teriva Renewables LLC out of Atlanta, Georgia. Um, we had both companies come into Bismarck, um, in early April, and we did interviews with both of the companies. And based on the interviews and the rankings from the individuals that were on the selection committee, uh, we are recommending that we enter into a contract with uh Teriva Renewables LLC for the landfill gas capture project. We anticipate that this would be done in probably a two-phased contract. The first phase would be a discoverable phase. Um, where they come out to the landfill, they analyze the amount of gas that they can actually capture. And determine if it's economically feasible to put the infrastructure in, capture the gas. And, um, make for them to make a profit and share some of the revenues with the city. Um, if it is determined at that time that it's not economically feasible, the contract would end, and we wouldn't move on to phase two. However, if during the phase one that it is determined that the project is economically feasible, then we would enter enter into the second phase of the contract with them. Um, which would be, which we anticipate would be a long-term contract, um, probably a 25 year contract, because they're putting in all the infrastructure into the system and so they have to have a contract in order to recoup their investment. Um, so they would install all the gla, uh, the gas collection system. Um, and they would pay the city a 10 to 20% royalty on the gross revenues that they receive off of the sale of the, uh, the natural gas. Now the actual percentage will be determined based on the amount of natural gas or the amount of gas that they can actually capture, um, but preliminary estimates that they threw out at us is we could possibly see revenues in the area of possibly 200,000. Maybe even up to 500,000 per year, um, depending upon the amount of recoverable gas. And so at the end of the contract at the end of the phase two, the uh va it's tough to pronounce, um, they would plug all the wells, they would remove all of the equipment, and they would reclaim the land all at their own expense. And so, um. We looked at this as kind of a win-win, uh, for the city. We really don't have any financial, um, commitment into the project, um, but yet we would reap the rewards for any of the gas that they're actually able to capture. So, Tonight, we're actually, we're looking for your permission to um enter into an agreement um with Triva Renewables, um, for a biogas capture project. Any questions? One question I have, this comes to the end when they would. Have ended their contract at 25 years. How are we assured that all of the equipment comes out of the ground and and our land is restored? Is there a bond? Is there some surety bond on it, um, Mayor, um, commissioners, we did talk about that, um, talk about trying to put a some sort of a bonding into requirement into the contract to give us that assurance that. Um, they won't even if they something happens and they go, they go broke, um, that we have the assurance that, um, it will be taken care of, it will be reclaimed and everything will be done at no cost to the city, OK, that, that's my biggest concern, and I don't know how big a concern it really is, but. It's to be considered anyway, Comm Clery, um, no question, Steve, obviously I participated in some of this. It was a really interesting process, so I just want to credit you to. You know, responding to them and kind of jumping through the hoops because I think it's like a, it's a really interesting thing. I learned a lot about biogas capture when we were going through all of it. So, um, unless anyone else has questions, I would just move to approve. It's like Is there any discussion? Carry on will call roll. Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly. Yes, Comm Cleary, Comm Risch, Mayor Schmitz, yes. Item H. Discus fire station location analysis and request mission approval to initiate architect selection process, Chief. I don't know, you tested this earlier, so. No guarantees. Mayor and Commissioners, good evening. Uh, tonight I'm in front of you to, uh, walk through a fire station location analysis. I'll show you some data. I'll be talking about. How we maintain fire protection for the citizens as the community grows we've been looking at this for a number of years as we got growth in multiple areas, so I'll be sharing with you our methodology, be talking about uh criteria that would say yes, the station is warranted or no, not at this point in time. At the end of the presentation I'd be asking for your support to initiate the architect selection process because we have reached a point where a station is warranted in one of the areas so I'll move through. I should give credit to GIS. Darryl Nussic is one of the employees in GIS, and we came to him with a ton of data and said, Darryl, how do you, how do we make this understandable? And he, he did a great job, so kudos to Darryl. So today we have 5 fire stations. Uh, and they're located on Lockport, Tyler Parkway, Miriam Avenue, Central Avenue down on Expressway. Those 5 are strategically located throughout the community so that we can meet the standards that I'm going to And these are also the components that we use to show you. analyze is it an additional station necessary. And the first thing we do is take a look at what's in that area. We have planning zones throughout the community that we study in planning areas. So what is it that's in there? Is it a structure? Is it a a a chemical facility? Is it a sprinkler facility? How many structures are in there? What's the population? How many persons are residing in this specific area? We also have response time objectives. We have a goal or an objective of trying to keep that fire to the room of origin. At least 80% of the time. If we achieve that, The percentage of risk is reduced by 80% to those citizens for whether it's an injury or fatality as well as to our firefighters. If we also can contain that fire to the room of origin, that homeowner is probably residing in there in a very short time and don't have to rebuild if it's a business that business continues and their their employees continue to have a job. So having quick. Efficient response and having enough resources and personnel to deal with that fire immediately and controlling it is one of our objectives that we measure. So travel times, of course, so what's the distance between the stations, uh, the national standards that we utilize are giving us guidance on when that first truck should be on scene, how many persons the second truck in the effective firefighting effective force. Tools that we're using to maintain this, you know, we'll get into some of the GIS, but I should mention the ISO standard. Uh, today. The community is rated as a class one. That's the best rating we can achieve, and our goal is to maintain that. It has an impact to the community. That impact is approximately $11 million each year in premium savings, so it is uh it's an important goal that we, we strive for and as the community stretches. That's something that we have to continue to work on. It, it measures things like how many hydrants are within a certain uh locality of that fire station. So as growth occurs, we have to try to measure that as well as our times and what our performance is. So, tools we're using, of course, are the GIS uh distribution geographically of where our incidents are occurring, what we have for resources today, and we're plugging in road networks, which is important. Um, land use and persons that have a lot of knowledge, and I have to say that. I think in Bismarck we've we're pretty blessed to have departments that are able to share communicate, help each other out throughout our process. I can't say enough for all of the people that have a lot more intel on where the community is going and what we might expect so much appreciated. So one of the tools that you had adopted, uh, Community Development drove, I believe was the Community Growth, the 2045 plan. That was a tool that was important to us because when we looked at where the growth will be, we saw the three areas northwest, northeast, and south and that seems to be correlating to the past 3 years where these developments are really occurring. So we use that. Crystal ball through this logical growth map made sure that we're monitoring it. And throughout that, we see 3. Future fire stations, we know that Bismarck will at some point in time. Be operating under 8 fire stations. The areas again what they're correlating to the logical growth, the Northeast, the northwest and the South. What we're doing in each of those areas is back to the criteria I showed you a slide earlier is what is in those areas, what, how many structures, what are the hazards, what's the population? What's our performance in each of those areas? There's a point when you plug in that criteria where a station would be warranted. There's a time where maybe it's a piece of land that is annexed, but the risk level or what's there wouldn't justify a fire station at this point. So that's a process that we move through. So as we move through these three areas. We approached city administration. Boy, 6 years ago, possibly. And talked about we've got, we've got some challenges coming up, very unique, and those challenges are. 2 staff 3 fire stations would be 45 persons to build 3 fire stations, uh, the stations themselves would be, you know, approximately $6 million each. Uh, we've got fire trucks that today are, you know, exceeding $1.2 million and we did not want to come to you at some point in time and say we've got this spike in the budget. So city administration, uh, Jason Demetri with finance were wonderful to work with and the plan was let's get started just like you would at home to start saving and we did that. So in the land purchase wherever we could buy land and we identified it, we tried to procure that because it will be valuable in the future and it's valuable now. So we also looked at fire station funding. We have uh money in play for one station at this point in time. We have a fire truck on order. This is all for station 6, the next station, and we begin that process of hiring firefighters. At this point in time we have 6 that were added into the FTEs, so it was a really good start and I'm glad we did it. So this is to show how the road network ties into fire protection. The colors on your map, green would be um better than yellow, better than brown or red, and this is related to time from our fire stations. So the project that you recently approved in the Tyler Parkway area, this is a visual of what that means to us. If you'll notice that Tyler Parkway Station. is looking at response times of 5 to 6 minutes today into these areas. The project The Tyler Parkway corridor greatly reduces those times a very acceptable uh cut in time so that road network was measured, implemented, and um it'll it'll provide us excellent resources and time. The same road network study into the Uh where Century ties into 52nd up to gold Dr drive on the south side of the Silver Ranch. That project also has an impact. So that provides us a much better secondary access into that area and provides us uh better times. When we go to South Bismarck, we don't have an opportunity for road network. It's just simply a distance from the expressway fire station today these color grids are showing us the response times on those streets and when we get into the far reaches. Those are times that are beyond our standards, so those are things in order to maintain our our ratings and more importantly to provide the life safety services and control the fire to the citizens. These are areas that we need to work on. So we're saying that we're going to need a station down in this area to maintain the level of protection for the city of Bismarck. One of the criteria to look at is, as I said earlier, how many persons are in this risk area. I'll refer to it as This area in the last census had over 5000 people. Now that was 5 years ago, so I, I don't know the number today, but obviously higher. This map is a representation of our actual response times. Uh, red would be, you know, beyond our standards, and the distance is, is pushing that we're, we're not able to, to reach those desired response times. So the hazard, our performance, and we also look at what's happening in there. Since 2020 we had 134 new structures. Constructed in this general area, but as we look to tomorrow. We're seeing another impact, and these are. I say parcels that are ready to go. There are about 600 more, so that density just continues to populate. So that's the criteria that I say puts us over the edge where a station would be warranted. We worked with administration. And identified 55 locations and we analyzed each of those through the street network and GIS. The 5 are, there's an area up where there's a A newer gas station and you can see down here on Burleigh and Washington. So the, the 5 that we looked at, looked at each one of them. And I'll show you the before. That's, that's where we are today, the before. On our response times and service if we were to construct a station on the best location that was analyzed on Calypso and Burle. Take a note that the All of that area turns green. We're able to get into Salport, Whispering Bay, and all of that risk area, uh, well within that 3 minutes in our in our response standards. So it's an excellent location. One thing I should mention, we've been working with, uh, Michael and his staff and Comm Zinker that is city land, so that that's another plus for us. It, it, uh, would get us in there without trying to locate and purchase another piece of land. So with that, I'm, I'm here before you tonight with two requests basically. One is to get your permission that we may move forward with the process to select an architect and that architect would help us with that. Uh design and cost estimate. The other one is to work with the neighbors so that we can fit in so that we can be uh compatible with the area. So, Mr. Mayor and Commissioners, that would be my request tonight. Commissioner's questions go ahead. Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Chief. I was at the station 3 yesterday and the chief showed me the station and gave me a ride in our new $1.3 million dollar truck, something to that effect. The Guy knows what he's doing driving that truck and operating a truck and he had a young firefighter in the backseat showing me all the equipment and he's like one year of service and he was very highly skilled, so I, I just want to commend you for your training and retraining of the firefighters. They, they seem to be just excellent. Um, that being said, Station 3 is probably our most modest station of the 5. Mayor Comm Risch. That was probably one of the smaller stations and we, we needed to bump it out a little bit. We went through a remodel not too far back. So yeah, I, I would say that that'd be, uh, OK, if I may follow up, well, we have 5 stations and certainly we have plans and designs on file for all of them. I get concerned about. I'm spending a lot of money on architectural engineering and all of these things, so I'm wondering if we couldn't take station 3 as a model and um have an architect amend that sum to for our next station down in station would be station 6 I guess I'd be happy to work with you and um look those plans over and work with the architect. uh I just, I just. I just want to be frugal about this. um, I want, I wanna treat our firefighters right, pay them right, treat them, train them right, and all those things, but, um, you know, let's not get excessive as far as construction, engineering, architectural fees. So Mayor and Comm Risch, I think we're on the same page because when we do that we found in our the processes working with our firefighters, they're very reasonable on, on what, what it is they need to be functional. And how we can have a building that is going to be in service for 50 years. All of those things that you mentioned, taking the ideas, the successes or the failures of the plans from all of those stations, that's our process that we use today. We bring them together, we, we share them with the architect to say. Here's where we were, you know, we're not looking, it's not our intent to spend $200,000 on a design, and we're talking about just getting us in the gates, you know, maybe a 250 to $35,000 design so that we can get that cost estimate. I think we can actually save money working through that design process, trying to find some efficiencies and cost savings. I just don't think we need to reinvent the wheel. We we've got some good stations now and we can build off that. Comm Clery, Mayor, Comm is chief, I, I don't know if you have more to add to that, but because my question is different, but, um, I just want just for a little clarification because I feel like in past years there's been discussion of Station 6 being probable up in Silver Ranch and so just based off of this data, it's. Looking like it would make more sense for it to be in South Bismarck and that Silver Ranch would potentially be St station 7 down the line. Is that like just based off of all of this data? Because I feel like in past budget cycles we've talked about Silver Ranch. We already have that location kind of. Picked out, secured. Mayor Comm Cleary, uh, you are accurate. Um, we did buy land and we're also trying to buy land in the northwest for the state that station when that's warranted. And just as you said, as we analyze each of these areas, we measure that criteria of when is it time, you know, how many emergencies are we responding to down there what's that population, what's the type of structures and we're seeing that in that south that that is taking a more aggressive approach than this that these other areas. The street network helps us a little bit, so there will be at some point in the future, um. That being a station 7, as you say, but at this point, I would say the The risk is at that sales part. It's warranted and that's why we're here today. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify Silver Ranch is still a future OK, perfect. need, but it's a more immediate need down on Southport. OK, thank you. Well, there's, as the chief mentioned, there's 600 some. Lots under development. To the south of Burleigh Avenue, that's, that's driving, I think some of the analytics in addition to We know that just getting to where this station would even be located is outside the reach for normal just because of the pro mostly because of the street network and Mayor and commissioners, if I may add one more point just to talk about due to the fact that this station is down south we've got, we've got a number of the the resources that we're looking at that we're gonna need to make things work would be what you've provided to us already. You've given us money for a station. You've given us money for a fire truck, and you've given us money for those 6 personnel. We can make this happen now. If it would have been up north, we would have needed to add, we needed to obtain 12, but due to the fact that we can. Maneuver resources with what you have given us. We we're ready to go. Go ahead, Comm Risch, so you're looking for a motion. We need direction, so probably best to have this in a formal motion, I think. I'll make a motion that we approve. The chief selecting an architect and developed design and cost estimate. The second part about collaborating, I think you can do that without our authority or out our blessing. So I'll make the motion to hire the architect to develop and design a cost estimate. Second. Is there any further discussion? Harry Nunn will call roll. Comm Connelly, yes, Comm Cleary, yes, Comm Risch, Comm Zenker. Yes, Mayor Schmit, yes, thank you. All right, thank you, Chief. Uh, next item I discuss retirement. Announcement, I guess. Go ahead, Jason. Good evening, Mayor and commissioners. I don't know that you're gonna get the chief up here too easily unless you actually call him up here. He's kind of humble in this particular topic, but we do need to talk about, uh, Chief Drejevich's announcement recently. Uh, May 1st, he announced his intentions to retire from the city of Bismarck after 36+ years with this department. I think that's an outstanding accomplishment, and, uh, he has done a great job as chief since 2018. Uh, all that said, we do need to start the process to find his replacement. And so, uh, Commissioners, um, myself, uh, HR Director Leeanne Schmidt, uh, Comm Risch and Mayor Schmitz met last week Friday to talk about the process. And what I'd like to share with you is that the intent of the process would be very similar to the same steps that we went through to. Uh, recently hire Michael Mart as the new public works utility operations director, and I guess specifically, uh, what does that process look like? Well, as with all job applications we'd be looking for resume credentials, you know, those sorts of things, but then, uh, akin to many of our processes that we've done for senior leadership positions, we also intend to have the applicants complete the general management in basket test, which is a, a computer summary of their. Ability to delegate lead, manage, solve problems uh in a very controlled environment. It provides a nice report along with some statistics and information to help uh evaluate, uh, someone's ability to, to lead in those critical situations. Uh, part of our process also includes an accomplishment survey. Uh, typically an accomplishment survey is about 6 or 7 categories where each applicant needs to respond in a an essay format talking about how they were part of a project, whether it involve budgeting, problem solving, leadership, uh, big picture thinking, strategic planning, those sorts of things. It's typically done as a a drafted essay response. What we would like to do in this situation is also add another layer to that accomplishment survey and compose a panel of subject matter experts from law enforcement personnel, and these would be individuals like potentially the Burle County sheriff, uh, maybe, uh, staff from highway patrol or BCI, uh, maybe Mandan police chief, other professional law enforcement individuals that can help. Um, verify the information that is provided through the accomplishment survey and in many ways, uh, support or help those of us that are non-law enforcement officers to really understand the true accomplishments of the law enforcement professionals that are interviewing and, um, competing to become the next chief of the city of Bismarck. And so having that extra layer, having that uh extra interview would help uh vet some of those answers that are provided by the applicant pool. And then finally, of course, we would do a face to face interview uh with the selection panel, uh, composed of the Mayor as the as the mayor of the city of Bismarck, also the portfolio holder Comm Risch, myself, uh, Lee Anne Schmidt, and one other individual, um, to be determined, it would be again, again, another subject matter expert or somebody that would be working directly with this chief in some capacity, uh, some professional capacity. Ultimately, uh, the Uh, timeline for this, uh, as I mentioned, Chief Drevi's last day in the office will be July 31st. Our intentions would be to post the announcement, uh, yet this week with applications due the week of June 8th and do, um, the accomplishment survey and the interviews the week of June 23rd through the 27th. Have everybody that makes it through that round of screening, uh, take the general management in basket test the week of June 30th through July 3rd. Obviously, July 4th is a holiday and looking at potential interview date that following week, uh, July 8th through the 11th. Looking at the calendar, we've got city commission scheduled for July 8th and July 22nd. Our hope would be to come back with a recommendation to this group. On the individual that, uh, successfully completed all of those steps and would be the likely candidate for the next chief of police for the city of Bismarck, Comm Zinker, I think isn't the July 4th on a Saturday, so the holiday would be on the 3rd. Or do I got that messed up. It's a Friday, right? So. If we Make a deadline of the 3rd. Is that going to be a problem because logistically we won't be open for business that day. You are correct, Comm Zenker. So the, the week of June 30th through July 3rd was the intent to have the GMIB, the General Management in basket test that week, and then follow the application or following the applications later. Uh, our finance directors noted that Friday is the 4th, and so that would be the holiday. So yeah, we're in the office Monday through Thursday that week. You. I'd be happy to answer any other questions or suggestions or recommendations for the process. Uh, I'm pleased to say that the process has done very well for us in the past and with the recent process for the public works utility operations director, it was the first time that, uh, to my knowledge anyway that a department director was hired outside of exclusively this board. And I believe that we would like to try that again. I think we've got a good, a good number of steps and checks and balances along the way and having uh elected leadership involvement and Subject matter experts from law enforcement is a critical piece of all of this. With the goal, hopefully we have the interviews scheduled the 7th or 8th so that we have the first meeting in July to be able to bring someone forward as a recommendation so that there's a little more time for the successful candidate if they happen to come from outside to get here sooner than, you know, waiting until she retires. It's all good. OK, is there any appetite for, I mean, the chief of police, uh, Chief of the fire department has interactions with most some a lot of us sometimes is there, is there like a. And I, I mean, I like the way we did with, with Mr. Mart, but is there, um, like, is that like a sub-interview and then have a final interview with the full commission cause we have interaction with those groups or I just throw it out there for discussion, I guess, so. I mean, I Maybe, maybe we have the interview on the day of the commission meeting and whoever the recommended candidate is, we have them come. Actually like that idea if, well, they'll be in person. I just, I mean, I just throw it out there because that's, I mean, I think there, there is some merit to that Comm, especially if we get coordinated with the commission meeting all on the same day, I think. Gives an opportunity to have a little interaction before we make the final. I I like that idea. Mayor Commissioners, we can sure add that to the program, to the plan, and if I understood correctly, the intent would be to have the interviews the morning of July 8th, that Tuesday, and then the successful potential recommendation would have an opportunity to interact with all of you, um, at that regular meeting the evening of July 8th. In some fashion where you could put them through the ringer, ask him all sorts of questions, or he or she, he or she, however you would like to prefer. I just, uh, wanted to add you were talking about, you know, the experts, whether it's sheriff, etc. whether it's that list or the interview panel, I think another person to include would potentially be the fire chief just because of how much they work together. Uh, with public safety, I think that that would be another or someone from the fire department and how that, how they would interact with with that group. Mayor Comm, Comm Cleary, your, your comments are on point. Uh, just before the meeting this evening, uh, HR Director Schmidt and I had that very same topic. Without Joel's awareness, we were suggesting that because of the first responders and the need for police and fire to coordinate so intentionally. Having our fire chief as part of this group would be very important. Joel does not seem bothered to be volunt told, so got a thumbs up. He's smiling. Right, well, I think you've got direction, direction, Jason. Thank you. You might as well just stay there, yep. Consider request for approval of the indefinite deliverable delivery indefinite quantity. RFP for architectural services for the event center. So Mayor and Commissioners, this is a follow up on the last discussion we had with the event center and how to move forward on the 2025 capital improvements plan that was presented by Jeff Hubel and his team and ultimately approved by this group. The RFP it was included in your packet. Um, I can touch on any of the particulars if you've got questions, but ultimately, uh, this is kind of a unique. Um, RFP for us, however, not totally strange for the organization. The Bismarck Airport runs with an indefinite delivery indefinite quantity architectural services program currently, and really what this is, it gives the city a chance to work with a specific, uh, professional architect for a period of time to help accomplish a variety of task orders and that's essentially what we received uh from Mr. Yel at the last meeting. Was a number of projects that need to be accomplished to renovate and update the Bismarck Event Center. The intent of the IDIQ request for proposals would be to select that architectural team to work with the event center and city staff over the next 3 to 5 years to identify the projects from the capital improvement plan and then, uh, effectively. Uh, manage those from, um, contract management, um, inspections, uh, design, and a variety of other tasks. So if you have any questions about the draft RFP, I'm happy to push that, um, we're happy to answer those questions. If not, this one has a really tight timeline, uh, just a couple of weeks posted on the website. If everyone's OK with the way we have things tonight, we would post the RFP tomorrow with proposals due on June 2nd. Interviews on June 6th and a recommendation back in front of this group on June 10th with hopes of having that contract executed within a week's time. So by mid June we would have an architectural team uh shepherding these projects and really hitting the gas pedals so we can start making the improvements that have been identified for the event center facility. Questioners, what's your move to approve is presented any discussion. He no will call roll. Comm Risch, Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly. Yes, Comm Cleary, yes, Mayor Schmidt, yes. Uh, item K consider request to receive legislation to update, and I'm not sure what the direction to staff would be, but I'm not even sure. I think, you know, some form of update if there's or if there's any questions. Mayor and Commissioners, I just wanted to bring your attention. The spreadsheet that we used throughout the legislative session, uh, the far right column in every case is the disposition of the bills as they sit today. Uh, when I updated this uh particular. Uh, there are some bills that have yet to be signed by the governor. One in particular is the one that we spent a lot of time talking about House Bill 1176. That is the property tax bill. Uh, what I can share with you on that particular subject, uh, both the North Dakota League of Cities and the North Dakota Association of Counties will be working to. Uh, essentially provide a uniform, uh, interpretation of 1176 and how it should be implemented statewide. I'm a little hesitant to get ahead of any of those organizations for fear that we may, uh, incorrectly or misinterpret some of the intended language, uh, provided by the legislature. So, uh, as that information becomes available, we will certainly bring it forward to this commission. I know we've got, uh, citizens, staff, and all of you are very interested in. All the details and how it becomes implemented, I guess big picture analysis, as many have heard, uh, 3% cap on budgets year over year and uh the primary residence property tax credit I believe was identified at $1600 per property per individual per residence per primary residence yep. So if you have any questions about specific bills or how they ended, I'd be happy to try and address those. If not, I know we've got one other item on the agenda following this one as well. No, we're good. OK. OK, thanks, Jason. Thanks, Commissioners. OK, um, receive presentation and have discussion with strategic planning consultant Patrick. Ibar, did I say that Ibarra Ibarra Ibarra. OK, sorry, Mayor and commissioners, um, as you're aware, strategic planning has begun, and I believe every one of you have had a conversation with our consultant Patrick Ibarra. He's been very busy over the last month speaking with you all, all the directors, and got in town, uh, on Monday and has had. Already had meetings with the steering committee and 6 employee input meetings and then we'll have another steering committee meeting tomorrow so the goal of this conversation tonight is to um identify. Challenges in our community and within our organization to get a general consensus on the direction that we're going with the strategic plan. So with that, I'll let Patrick come up and I'll set up an easel for him. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Patrick Ibarra with the Mayor Harondo Group. I had a chance to speak with all of you, as, uh, Doug said, I've been here since Sunday night. Had a meeting with the steering committee on Monday. Had 6 employee focus groups. I think we met with about, I met with about 120 employees cross section front line people. The reason we're meeting with frontline peoples, uh, people is they give me a version of, uh, what's going on actually outside the building, if you will, out in the field, but let's step back here for a moment about strategic planning. You all are familiar with it. I think the history, but just a quick overview for those who may be watching at home. The city adopted the strategic their initial strategic plan in 2012. It was implemented. It was updated in 2019. Change happened. The pandemic happened. There was turnover among the commission, turnover among the administration, turnover among many directors. Momentum was sort of paused like a lot, like a lot of things happen sometimes, um, things were kind of shelled for a little bit. Loss of momentum. All that change happened. City went out earlier this year for an RFP. I was fortunate to be selected. You're now doing an update. Now this update is different than traditional updates as we talked on the phone. This is not going out to the community. What sort of new goals do you want? What are new objectives, what are new items that they'd like to include in the update? This is really looking inside the organization. How do you increase organizational capacity to execute the strategic plan? There's no shortage of competing priorities, and we all know if everything's a priority, nothing is. So the opportunity for the steering committee who will reconvene tomorrow, then I'll be back in June to meet with them and then in August, late July, early August, the plan is to have the intent is to have the revised plan to you for your consideration in September for the adoption and then implementation will ensue from there. There'll be goals and objectives and all that. The focus though is is slightly different. So it's a little bit harder than a conventional one, and that's the desire by the city. I think it's kind of cool to do that is to look inside the organization. You have many strengths. This is an opportunity to capitalize on those strengths. How do you execute services more effectively, more efficiently? I know those get used a lot, but sometimes those are just words on a page and they sound good. I think the opportunity here is to really drive what does that really mean? How do you improve services? How do you make it more effective in light of the budget constraints that are coming down from the strain this is probably an opportune time for the organization to really take a hard look at its inventory of its service portfolio. And say how can it improve that? What I wanted to do tonight was just give you, I know it's been a long meeting. Um, so I, I don't wanna, uh, go on and on about that, but I wanted to get a sense from you. I've talked to you individually, but we've not had a session collectively where we can, you all can hear from each other. So you have the materials I think in front of you, so like if you can refer to those. You have the project schedule. I believe that was included in there. We, and I just scanned it here just quickly. But I want to go on to the vision, vision, mission, and values. It's a separate page two, if you will. This was adopted. It was revised in 2019. The vision, and think of a vision as the destination you never achieve. A vision is poetry, the mission is plumbing, in short. The vision for those that may be watching at home, so I'll read it aloud, Bismarck is a preferred destination for people who enjoy living, learning, working, and playing in a city with an enduring community pride. We embrace our rich heritage, economic opportunity, and lifelong learning to cultivate a healthy and sustainable environment, fostering opportunity for all. Well said, a lot of good stuff in there. The challenge is people don't remember it, and if the vision is not memorable, then it's likely not being utilized. So the steering committee likely will edit it, make it concise, clear, and compelling. It should be both inspirational and aspirational. It should drive decisions. Fundamentally, a strategic plan is to help you filter through some decisions to say, does this match up? Is this really where we want to move the community because a vision shared is not the same thing as a shared vision. So chances and the vision really is a conversation starter, which is counter to what some people think they think it should be check the box, answer all the questions I would offer to you it should create conversations among your colleagues, among community members among staff so people go what does that really mean? Let's talk about what that really means. So it creates conversations. It's kind of counter to what most people think about a vision, but my sense is there's gonna be some editing that because it should be memorable because again if it's not memorable people aren't using it. And if they're not using it, it has no value. Onto the next one mission. A mission is how you get there, and this is really for the city workforce referencing the mission statement to provide high quality public services. Let me pause there. High quality, as I say, no one aspires to be average, so high quality denotes to all of you and to the community what you're doing. You're doing the ordinary in an extraordinary way. That's high minded. It also sets the bar pretty high for the organization that it's not just doing it enough, but it's doing it exceptionally well. To provide high quality public services in partnership with our community, so you're collaborating with them, you're listening as well as responding to enhance our quality of life, and I would offer to you local government is a facilitator for a better quality of life. I would also offer to all of you as elected officials and staff, you're all community builders and strategic plan is trying to help you be more intentional about what you're doing. I would again offer you the best days for Bismarck are in front of you. They're just not a guarantee. The last thing that this community is is static. So what got you here may not get you there. It is changing demographically. It is changing obviously geographically. So you're trying to be mindful and we know in government it tends to be reactive, so think of strategic planning, you're trying to be both proactive and responsive simultaneously trying to anticipate some of the trends and get out in front of some of those as well as how do you stay relevant today when the world is shifting underneath you. And the challenge most communities are having I have clients coast to coast is social media has become the bulletin board of democracy. And that's not helping communities because it's pulling them and pushing them in directions that they're trying to satisfy this evolving constituency which is really challenging and it's not gonna get less challenging it's probably gonna get more challenging so how do you contend? How do you counter that that remains to be seen. So the mission and vision and I would ask you to think about when you think about the role of the community, the role of the city are you in the cost business are you in the value business? Because you can lose weight, but you're not always healthier, so it's not hard to shrink the role of government. But your role is trying to anticipate as well as respond to trends that are happening. And provide an improved quality of life. You're a value-based organization. You're a service centric organization. And we live in an experience-based economy and remember the role of local government is to both be an advocate and a regulator. Some of your employees have to tell people no. Some of your employees see people on their worst day. It's hard to find any industry in this country that has such a vast range of service delivery where they're both encouraging as well as sometimes having to say no to people that can create stress. It just does. That's the nature of local government. So the vision is a destination continually moving. I'm not sure the edits, but I think it's probably going to be modified. The mission, I think it's, I think it's it's influential, it's inspiring. The steering committee will scrub it a little bit, bring it back to you for your consideration this fall. We are going to be doing updates after each meeting, so you're gonna get a summary in your future packet about what the steering committee adopted, what they, where they are, progress they've made, what's been what's happened, what's on the horizon. There's also gonna be an employee communication strategy that comes out of the steering committee. You've got over 700 employees. How do, how do you keep employees informed, not from all of you, but from the staff, from the directors? How do they keep them engaged? That's an ongoing challenge. The challenge, one of the issues with the current strategic plan is it wasn't updated. So one of the areas that the steering committee is going to get a chance to do is update the current strategic plan. We need a current document to work from. And I'm obviously my role is I'm a flashlight and a mirror. I'm not the author. I'm helping facilitate that process. So you got the vision, mission, and then your values. I'm not gonna read all those to you. Values are in place there and my sense is there's gonna be some polishing the values. And values are what people share. Both about your history and your heritage and the organization and the community, they're kind of the. Things that bind us together as a community, as an organization. I'm speaking on your behalf, so values are important because they drive decisions. So they'll probably be some scribing to that and then you have the strategic focus areas at the bottom. There's 6 of those. Most cities have 5 or 6, so you're in good company. These tend not to change from your, uh, from. They don't change very often, I should say. I think the steering committee as well as I do, I think they want to scrub these because I'm not sure on the surface we understand what they mean. And in some respects you're not the audience for the strategic plan, neither is the staff. The community is in some respects. They should be able to read that and understand it immediately what those strategic focus areas are. So I think there's gonna be some modification of that, but notice in the bottom right I boxed it in is government excellence goes back to the original point, which is my sense is the primary focus in this update is gonna be on the organization itself. How does it improve its operations? How does it generate stronger outcomes? How's it evaluating what it's doing? And how does it improve on that? So that's probably going to be a primary focus, right? I'm just sharing that with you. We're not sure exactly the new content yet. This is a discovery process, so I wanted to reacquaint you with those dimensions. The strategic plan is easily accessible. You can read that. It's a little lengthy. I'm gonna try to push the steering committee to make less is more. And also encourage Jason and Doug and I've already talked about this once it's adopted this fall to do regular updates, to do updates to all of you, to have a place on the website, to have a dashboard, so it's continually being used and referenced as a decision making device. I would even go so far as to say and what I've seen with other cities that I've worked with. is to include it in a staff report like they presented to you tonight. If the item is in the strategic plan, it should be referenced that way it gives you a chance to see that what you adopted is reinforcing is being reinforced by decisions that staff is bringing to you. In other words, they didn't just make it up, but it came through as a result of your endorsement. So on the next page, as I just went over a little bit is the strategic focus area. Just for your ratification there and my sense is again that's probably where the uh heavy emphasis is gonna be by the steering committee is flushing that out even more. What does that really mean? So some of this is not just going to be the what, it's the how. Which is again Some tougher sledding. Challenging the status quo, pushing the organization. I have a saying growth and comfort don't coexist, so this is going to be a little bit more challenging than just a typical update. I think the organization is poised for it. Um I definitely sense there was excitement among the steering committee and the employees I met with. People are on the verge of saying, yeah, let's let's keep building on what we're doing and we see more change in the air. So how do we tackle this? I think that's an exciting opportunity. Next, what I'd like to do is just real quickly, I know it's getting late and you have some other items to to uh to discuss is I'm on page 4. I just wanted to walk you through quickly and ask for your feedback. You know, the community is changing. Um this is called what I affectionately call headwinds going for examining the present and looking into the future. I forgot my crystal ball, so I'm not sure what we're gonna look through, but part of what we're trying to do is look beyond the next fiscal year. Strategic planning has a longer time horizon. At least 2 to 3 years. Most cities do not do 5 and 10 year strategic plans anymore for a number of reasons, because the further out in the future you go, the more uncertain it is. Most of them do 2 to 3 years other than capital improvement plans or facilities which you can sort of manage differently through different lenses, but strategic plans tend to be 2 or 3 years. So I just want to walk you through this real quick. In the middle is an acronym. It's VUCA. It stands for volatility uncertainty, Complexity and ambiguity or another day that ends in Y. So it's disruptive, right? It's change is happening and going clockwise here, uh, starting at the top, politics and citizen activism. We're definitely seeing an uptick in that both online and There was evidenced tonight by the number of people that were in person. here for that first public hearing. We had everybody in this room still understands governments and the people business. You obviously saw people here by choice to express their point of view. Some spoke, some didn't, but we definitely see an uptick in politics and activism. The challenge still is how do you make it compelling? How do you make government compelling to people when it's not directly impacting their quality of life? That's an age old conundrum that cities across the country, I would contend all levels of government challenged by, but we definitely see that increasing. Uh, COVID-19, we're still dealing with the impacts of that. Who knows? it was transformative in some ways. 5 years, well, maybe it was about 5 years ago, we didn't even know what the tur curbside pickup was. So think about how it's changed our habits. I'm just sharing that with you, right? Think about how it's changed our habits, um, and some of that was. It's embedded now in our lifestyle. It didn't just sort of go back to the way it was. The economy or consumption habits kind of building on COVID, what we're buying, where we're buying it. How we buy it and in some respects the city is a cashiering service, so how you're providing service accessibility to residents to purchase things online or in person. So I think the steering committee is going to take a hard look at your e-commerce strategy, how you're transacting business online. Uh, shifting demographics. I just got an email. Ben, you sent me an email yesterday, right? What did we see about the demographics in Bismarck? The average age is, I think 39. So you're, you're trending. I'd be we're gonna also take a look at what's the median age of your workforce because 60% of the US workforce that was under the age of 40. Ponder that for a minute. So you're an employer and you have over 700 employees, so looking at the organization, the demographics, and to young people it's life work balance, not work-life balance, and your community as communities trend and younger residents have different appetites than older residents, not better or worse, it's just different, as I say affectionately, cities don't build tennis courts anymore. They build pickle ball courts. I assume there's some pickle ball people in the room. I'm married to a pickle ball player, so. And I'm just sharing that with you. Change is happening and I would ask you to think about your residents, and I'm gonna push the steering committee in this direction, not to, I don't have to very hard because I think they're already there is to look at the community not simply as residents but demographics. And their appetite, so that's changing uh the service delivery, what you do and how you do it. My sense is maybe an outcome of this update is the city is going to explore more what it's AI strategy is gonna be. And that's becoming more common. More governments are trying to get a handle on what's AI, how does it impact departments, and it's not simply going to come out of IT. It's going to come out from all departments how they're leveraging AI. So that may be an outcome of this. We're just not sure, right, but I think that's going to happen. Legislation and legal, it was just evidenced by Jason's update. The state legislature, their role. And what you do sometimes is heavily regulated, especially in the utility industry. Some of that is passed through cost to your ratepayers through federal and state regulations, so you're trying to contend with that. Where's the world going or what do you how do you how do you navigate that? And then the final one is social media. So this is all being disruptive. I'm curious to find out maybe from your vantage point what you're hearing from businesses, what you're hearing from residents. What's concerning them about the future of this community? What keeps you up at night? Because we want to try to understand that. As as we go into this, the steering committee is going to do the same thing, but. This is there's changes happening underfoot. In many different ways and we're trying to make sure the strategic plan, especially internally, is looking beyond the obvious and how does it position itself as a credible community builder. So I'm curious to know from what you whatever you'd like to share tonight what you see are some some things that you hear from residents or business owners. Anybody wanna share? I mean, I shared with you my version. I'm just curious to know maybe what you see. So I think by us focusing internally we're going to create some of these, but it's the ability to Deliver service to our constituents. In a, if I, I use the word efficient, but almost maybe better as quick manner with All barriers Without barriers or reduced barriers. I mean That that's, I mean, if you talk about business. That's what we're all looking for those of us who are in business. We realize there's gotta be regulations around that, but how do we develop that in a. But that's also, that's also good, I believe internally created too because it's how do we reduce the barriers internally if we reduce them internally, we're gonna reduce them externally. And that I would offer you that's uh that's kind of challenging the organization's own assumptions. Kind of getting past that, um, we've always done it that way, questioning that, putting that on the table, and I always advise my clients, the first question you should ask before you improve a process is should you be doing it? That that invites scrutiny and I think those are healthy, right? It's not a it's not a criticism, it's a critique to evaluate that. What else do you hear from businesses, residents, neighbors, and your walks around the community? What are people concerned about? They want amenities. OK. And the question is how do we deliver those in a cost effective manner, right, because they worry about costs. I think that's a piece you can like when you talk about the shifting demographics like the. the importance of aging in place and being able to age in place and having those amenities and then being cost effective, but then also saving a space for the future generations and wanting them to be here. So like finding that balance. Within our organization so that it can reflect externally. Excellent point, I mean, you're, you're trying to contend with a lot of. Forces beyond your beyond your um. Core services, I think it's important in your role as community builders and we're gonna definitely and not this in the strategic plan update is to make sure that there's an awareness between the problems you can fix and the issues you can only manage. Because sometimes government gets in the business and it overpromises and underdelivers, so I think it's trying to say what's the role of the city. I would contend you're always in the car addressing it. It's just not always a city employee that's the face of that solution. Sometimes you're partnering with another jurisdiction, sometimes it's a nonprofit, sometimes it's the private sector, but you all know people will show up and talk to you because you're more accessible. But how, how do you respond to that? I think it's always a challenge. There's always more. More demand than there is ability to execute those services to meet that demand that that's not unique to Bismarck, but you're trying to figure out what is your role and that's a little gets a little knotty. So how do we do more with less? I mean it's kind of uh. I, I, I, I get comments about the homeless problem we have in affordable housing, that sort of thing, and they go hand in hand. I have clients coast to coast, and those two have been most prominent in the last several years. I will share with you the third item that's starting to percolate in communities is affordable and accessible childcare. That's becoming an economic issue for a lot of people who run the numbers. I'm sure you saw the numbers of people that left that business during the height of COVID, most who did not go back. So that's becoming a, you know, you hear from employers, I can find people, but then they can't, they can't find childcare to come and work for me, so. Um, how do you address that? It's just, it's can be vexing. Other comments? Yes. Somebody challenged me a while ago and they just said that, uh, in the last 30 years, they didn't see significant change to their quality of life in this community. And I've been asking that of people. They see costs going up exponentially, but they don't see the benefit on the other side. So at some point in time, they're just saying. Stop spending, yeah. I would say this with admiration and respect. Most local governments across the country have not done a very good job of marketing success to its own residents, so people assume things are just automatic. Bismarck's a lot of things, static it's not. You're a 24/7 365 multi-million dollar enterprise. We tend to think people get it, but it's not about hubris or cockiness. I would offer it's about humility. And confidence to market the impact on their quality of life. Tell them, tell them what you told them. I'm not saying that that alleviates that, but to assume people are going to notice things just by virtue of the quality of the work, people don't notice some of those things until it's compelling or until it's not there. Then they notice it, then they contact you. So I think some of that's not all remedied by this, but I think what we've talked about with the steering committee is about community engagement is now a verb, not a noun. And how do you market the organization to your own residents about the services and the impact they're having on the quality of life? That can't be an afterthought. It's becoming mission critical. Because of the other competing forces trying to tell people actually what you are or not getting. I think that's exciting, but it's a little bit. It's a little bit out of people's comfort zone. But I think if you don't do that, you run the risk of that just becoming more prominent and then entrenched, and that's not a good place to be. Any other thoughts? I mean, I think to your point, with the communication, uh, our, our team works really diligently on that, but I think that it's something that you see local government not having to do as much and now all of a sudden with the social media presence and the accessibility that people are looking for from from their local government I think that that just will continue to play a bigger role for us and how we engage with the public. I think we'll just continue to be more important. Yeah, and you do an excellent job and it's trying to keep up and we also know there's a digital divide so it's not just putting more online it's also kind of what's old is new again in print other platforms. So what is the social marketing strategy and how do you use social media and how do you communicate? I think that's gonna be flushed out and that may be very, very well uh it may turn into a high priority that the organization embraces, commits resources to doing on a regular basis, not just, oh yeah, it's an afterthought, so. Let me move on to the last one cause I know you have, and if you have more to share, please let me know. We'll be coming back to you at some point in the future. The next page I spent a lot of time on. That was sarcasm for those that can't see it. The page is blank. But it's desired outcomes. Right? Part of my role is to manage expectations. We want to make sure that we're back here in September for you to adopt it, that what what we want to avoid hearing is say from some of you is I thought you were gonna do this. I thought you were gonna do that so I'm trying to get a better sense now that you're all in the same room. What do you have? What do you want as an outcome of this update? Not so much dis you know with item by item, but. What do you want to see it help you do better as an organization, as a community builder? Broadly or specifically, but help us and all the steering committee members, I think just about everybody's here tonight. I think it's good to hear from all of you in real time. Go ahead, Comm, um. I think we need to do better communications. I'm not on social media. I think there's, I know of at least one more person in this room that's not on social media. Um, our neighboring, and I don't want to be critical or anything, but our neighboring community does a really good job as far as emails. I get it from Morton County. I get it from man and emails, and they do, uh, in their, um, utility bill. They have a newsletter every month, so things like that. I. I think I'm more in tune with a lot of stuff. If I weren't on the city commission, I would know more what was going on in Amanda than I would in Bismar, OK. And I think that reinforces what you're saying is what's the social marketing strategy? Social media is a segment of that, but it's also print, other platforms that you can use to keep the public engaged because not everybody is on there absolutely. So it's probably goes without saying, but it's got to be executable. And I would offer you execution is the strategy, right? It's getting stuff done, yeah. That's pretty much what I was gonna add as well. I liked your statement. Like it's not necessarily the what but the how, um, and other plans that we've developed and stuff like within community development, we talk a lot about like making sure that there are action items, making sure that, that we are updating that there is, you know, a process and that we're not just talking about what we want, we're talking about how we're gonna do it. Good point. People often have an appetite for change till they see the menu. Because it obligates people to do things differently and do different things. That's kind of a humanistic challenge. We all have that from time to time. So I think trying to really zero in somewhat prescriptively in the strategic plan, not just what you do, but how to do it, um, I think that makes it more compelling. And I think it checks that box and it's action oriented, creates attention. Um, a lot of good stuff happens as a result of that. It's not just left to, oh yeah. So then You mentioned it earlier already in your comments when you let up, but reporting back like how are we progressing? And that that's not just to the city commission, it's to the organization departments, but if it gets to the city commission, then hopefully it's also getting out to the public, but then we'll have to press that out, yes. A lot increasingly more organizations are doing more, uh, they have a, a whole dashboard uh set up on their own website to give regular updates for people that wanna monitor it. So it's, it's become more of a priority, not buried in some sort of document that people have to go look for. Because we know that's not always easy, easily done, so keep it in front of people. You, staff, the community, make it a steady diet of that. That's not, that's not, it's just different, just a different way to do it. The other outcomes you want to see happen as a result of this. I'm glad you've had engagement with 100 employees already or more, yeah, some really talented people, um, even though they're Viking fans, but they're really talented people. I'm originally from Kansas City Go Chiefs, so, um, I have to always plug them yeah I've had some really good input. I think people are excited, um, and they see this as an opportunity to contribute. And I think that's always good, you know, I, I know many of us in this room and one of the questions I've asked of the employee groups it's kind of corny, but um it's one of the, as a Midwestern we can appreciate this, right? Um, we try to leave the place better than we found it. And I think that's a that's a driving intrinsic ambition many people have, and your employees have that definitely, so I think they see this as an opportunity to have an impact even more than what they're doing. So I wanna say thanks for the opportunity. Stay tuned. You'll get the updates. I'm delighted to be your partner. Mayer Rondo means in Spanish means getting better all the time. That's really what I wanna try to do for this community. So thank you all so much. Absolutely, yeah. Right, is there Any other business before we go into executive session? Oh, I just wanted to give out a shout out on I should have done the last meeting on fix up C cleanup week. um, the city employees have got some good reports back that city employees did a great job of picking up stuff off the curb, um. And I want to thank the citizens of Bismarck for picking up a bunch of stuff before the city employees got there. We literally saved hundreds of truckloads of usable products that are now being repurposed that didn't go into our 3 or $4.3 million big hole out there. Yeah, I myself got a couple of pick up loads myself and I mentioned it to the chief back there and he said, you know, John, that's against the law. So, so I wanna have some discussions going forward that maybe we could possibly modify that ordinance a little bit anyway. I think it's friendly. Comm Connelly. I just want to publicly thank everybody that showed up for the May 8th community conversation for public transportation. It was a very lively and um a lot of ideas shared and um we got steps going forward. The reason why, uh, the Mayor mentioned, and rightfully so, we couldn't get a memo out on the conclusion of our subcommittee is that, uh, um, we do have steps going forward and we'll share those more in the next meeting. But a lot of information was shared, a lot of people showed up, um, and there have been, we're making progress in a positive way. Any other business. If not, I would entertain a motion to go into executive session. So I moved, uh, I think we have to really do we have to read it to go into executive session? Move to go to into executive session underneath North Dakota Century Code Section 4404-19.2 regarding contract negotiation strategy under NDCC Section 440419.1. Call roll, please. Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly. Yes, Comm Cleary, Yes, Comm Risch. Mary Schmidt.