00:00:11,670	Is 5:15. We are in the Tom Baker meeting room. This is the board of City commissions. Uh, July 22nd meeting, uh, we have Chaplain Her is here. Let’s pray. Emily Father, we thank you for the beauty of the day.

00:00:34,800	We thank you for your protection over us, um, especially in these past days and weeks with the storms and we would We are grateful for the, the rain which you have provided, and we pray for, uh, continued, uh, help and strength as we, uh, continue to move forward.

00:00:54,400	It reveals to us, Father, that you are all powerful and you are in control and so we pause, uh, before this meeting to acknowledge that. We thank you for giving us this community to be a part of, and I would ask and pray that you would guide the time of this, uh, as a city commission.

00:01:13,130	meets as they discuss, as they deliberate, as decisions are made, and, uh, they continue to move forward. Thank you for the great community that you have given to us. Thank you for those who have, who serve us, our commissioners, we think specifically as well of our first responders.

00:01:33,400	We thank you for our, our, uh, Our fire departments, our Our medical, um, Ambulance crews, we, we think Lord of, uh, the police that patrol and help to keep us safe and we’re mindful, uh, even in this day of honoring uh the chief who has served us well and we’re grateful for that.

00:01:54,200	And we pray, Lord, as we look forward to a new person to step into that role, that you would, uh, strengthen and utilize them to continue the great work that has been done throughout this community, uh, we offer this time before you. You are our God. We pray that we would submit ourselves to your leading in the name of Christ, I pray. Amen. United States of America. public stands a nation. and this.

00:02:23,600	strong. All right, we will call a meeting to order, uh, roll. Comm Risch, Comm Zenker. Comm Connelly here, Mayor Schmidt. Yeah. Chair Clery here. All right. First and foremost, we have the recognition of police chief Dave Drevich. So Dave, I’m gonna ask you to come up if you will.

00:03:04,300	And I’m gonna, unless you want to speak first, I’m gonna let your portfolio holder take the, take the wheel. But I believe Jason has a slide show he’s gonna play well, while Comm Risch speaks. Well, congratulations, chief, on making it to retirement.

00:03:23,430	I’m from the railroad industry and we say when somebody’s retires, he’s pulling the pin. There’s a pin between each car. You pull the pin and the car rolls off into the sunset. But I want to thank you for your service. You’ve made a tremendous impact on the department and the safety of our community, and I’m grateful for that.

00:03:36,830	Uh, the chief started his career in 1989, a 14 years is On patrols from 20063 to 2006, he was A patrol supervisor and became a lieutenant in 2006. Deputy chief in 2013 and chief of police in 2018, so we got about seven years out of you anyway.

00:04:02,330	Uh, as police chief, Chief Jarevich led the department in implementing body-worn cameras, upgraded ballistic protection, launched a drone program, and adopted intelligence-led policing. He also led the apartment in 2021 and 2025 for reaccreditation process for the Commission on accreditation of law enforcement agencies called CELA, the gold standard for credentialing public safety agencies.

00:04:30,330	We’re the only police department in the state, correct? No Grand Forks and uh I stole a little thunder. But it’s very difficult to get this, and I was interviewed actually as part of the process and you’ve got to be a top shelf police force playing by all the rules and proper procedures and everything like that, uh, uh, to get that recognition.

00:04:49,870	A pro K9 handler during his patrol years, Chief Dreevich worked closely with Kine partners Boe and Kodiak and was widely regarded as a cornerstone of the patrol division. We spent much of his career. He loves dogs and he’s told me numerous times, I don’t dare go out to the pound because I might bring home another, uh, I might adopt another dog, so appreciate that.

00:05:07,470	The chief is a public servant. You know, on the force, but he’s also a public service in other ways. Um, He serves as a mentor for runners against destructive decisions, promoting healthy activities and providing social support for referrals from drug court and residents of the Missouri River Correction Center.

00:05:28,500	It’s an incredible commitment showing up several hours a week on his off time and never calling attention to himself. But time goes on like it always does, and even good guys like Chief Drevi gets to retire.

00:05:46,500	Uh, but you’re positive impact on the police department and our community will be felt long after you retire. As a citizen, and certainly as a Comm, thank you for your service and I wish you all the best as you enter this next chapter of your life. Thank, thank you. I’m not gonna follow that with much, Chief, but I did want to just say thank you.

00:06:15,430	You’ve made my time on this commission, very pleasant working with you has always been so great, and it, you’ve really shown through your actions that you care about every individual in this community, which is so valuable in your role.

00:06:30,800	Um, you’ve also been with the Bismarck Police Department for as long as I’ve been alive. So I just realized that with the date, so 1989, best year out there. So, uh, it is awesome to see.

00:06:49,530	and I’ve just really been thankful for the time that I’ve gotten to spend with you in different facets with the homeless coalition from the budget committee, uh, you are just truly invaluable and will be missed. Thank you. Thank you. You say so. I’m not sure what to say right now. Other than the fact that, you know, it’s been an honor and a privilege to serve here in Bismarck and. I’m so thankful that I was chosen all those years ago.

00:07:08,170	I could tell you just about I, I’ve had more fun than a person should be allowed to have. It’s just been that kind of a, a career for me. And uh I’m appreciative of the citizens of Bismarck.

00:07:28,030	They support our department immensely, and I, not all the communities have that support and uh we earn or work very hard to earn that support. And I know, I know we’ll continue to do that as a department, so, um, you, you guys are gonna be in good hands and, and uh thank you for everything that’s happened, so. But thank you. OK, more exciting stuff.

00:08:13,330	We, next up we have the 2024 humanitarian award presentations, which I think Sargana is going to do for us. I know. My name is Sergeana Woosky and I am the chairperson of the Bismarck Human Relations Committee, and we are here tonight to give away or to present the three humanitarian awards.

00:08:32,470	Um, the Bismarck Human Relations Committee is an advisory committee to the city, um, appointed by the mayor. Um, we embrace the diversity of our community while working to ensure Bismarck is inclusive and accessible to all. A little bit about the humanitarian award, it is a yearly award given out.

00:08:49,800	This year it is given to an adult individual, an organization and a youth individual, and this is the first year we’ve given an award out to a youth individual. On the humanitarian award honors those who educate, identify, protect and promote personal dignity, aiming to eliminate discriminatory barriers that prevent individuals from reaching their full potential.

00:09:13,530	And on behalf of the committee, this was not an easy decision at all. Um, as far as applications, we see how many amazing people are in our community that could meet any of these. Um, awards.

00:09:34,670	So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna go over a little bit about each individual and the organization that has won the award after we’re done talking about each of them, we then will go into a picture with each of them as well. All right. So I’m Katie Hoo, a member of the Human Relations Committee. I’m really excited to tell you about Lauren Zen. Um, she’s been named the 2024 and the city of Bismarck’s first youth humanitarian of the Year, Rob Pesky submitted the nomination.

00:09:59,500	Lauren has worked extensively with individuals with special needs through both volunteer and paid roles. She has volunteered with United Sound, a program that teaches music to students with disabilities and provides respite care through Pride Inc. In addition to her scheduled duties, Lauren often uses her own.

00:10:17,230	time and resources to support the individuals she works with. She organizes community outings such as trips to North Dakota’s Gateway to Science and maintains relationships with clients outside of work hours. Mr. Pesky, who taught Lauren in orchestra for 8 years, said she has consistently demonstrated leadership and a strong commitment to inclusion.

00:10:37,870	He noted that many individuals she supported attended her graduation party, reflecting the deep connection she has formed in the special needs community. Lauren plans to pursue a degree in special education and continue advocating for individuals with disabilities, and I hopefully returning back to Bismarck, no pressure, Lauren. Um, she regularly seeks opportunities to educate others, promote human rights, and foster a more inclusive community.

00:10:59,270	When Lauren learned that she would receive this award, she shared, quote, I truly enjoy what I do and the people I work with. So I’m honored to receive this award. My hope is that this recognitions like this inspire others to play their part in building a more accepting and inclusive community. Con Congratulations, Lauren.

00:11:30,270	Good evening, I’m Betsy Zarr, a member of the Human Relations Committee this evening, I’m going to uh help present Micah Stokland with the adult 2024 City of Bismarck humanitarian of the Year award. Uh, this award was submitted by Carrie Beck. Mica is a military human resource specialist with the North Dakota Army National Guard.

00:11:59,070	She’s volunteered with designer jeans for the past 4 years. The nonprofit organization based in Bismarck Mandan supports individuals with Down syndrome and their families. Micah organizes private events for families with children ages 2 to 6 who have Down’s syndrome, creating inclusive environment where families can connect, share resources, and access peer support.

00:12:24,670	Her efforts have helped strengthen designer jeans community outreach and programming. Mica also supports the organization’s advocacy work, including the annual walk for Down syndrome. She helps raise awareness about Down syndrome and promotes inclusion through her volunteer work.

00:12:44,530	In addition to her community involvement, Micah serves full time in the North Dakota National Guard and as a mother of three. When Micah learned that she received this award, she shared, and I quote, I accept this award with full heart, not because I feel I deserve it because, but because it shines a light on my beautiful Down syndrome community and my incredible mom tribe, you are the ones who

00:13:04,830	show me what real strength and unconditional love looks like. You fight battles no one sees and love harder than anyone can imagine, to the women who wipe tears, celebrate. Every milestone and hold each other through the hardest days. You fight quietly, fiercely, and you show up every single day without applause.

00:13:27,730	I’m standing here because you stand beside me. The honor is truly yours. Congratulations, Micah. I am Tia Jorgensen, also a member of the Human Relations Committee. I’m up here to tell you a little bit about youth works. They are the recipient of the 2024 humanitarian of the Year award as an agency. Emily Janish and Aaron Oban nominated the organization.

00:14:01,330	Former executive Director Melanie Heitkamp is representing youth works for their work through 2024, and Mark Heinart is the current executive director. Youth Works, a nonprofit organization provides safe spaces where young people feel heard and supported. The organization follows the positive youth development philosophy using a strings-based approach that emphasizes safety, positive adult relationships, and opportunities for youth. contribute to their communities.

00:14:28,070	Youth Works has built a diverse and compassionate team committed to providing inclusion, non-judgmental, non-judgment, my goodness, nonjudgmental support to all youth, staff members serve on community boards, coalitions, and advisory groups where they advocate for youth and raise awareness about their needs and strengths.

00:14:52,070	In addition to its system level work, youth works help, helps young people advocate for themselves, identify goals and overcome barriers. The organization serves as a critical resource for marginalized youth, offering guidance and support that helps them succeed. Mark Heinert shared, were honored to be recognized by the city of Bismarck’s Human Relations Committee for our work with local youth and young adults.

00:15:10,770	This award shows that Bismarck values its young people, and that means a great deal to us. Our mission is to ensure they have a safe place where they feel they belong and are heard. Congratulations, Youth Works. Hi, my name is Joan Klein.

00:15:37,470	I’m also with the human relations Committee, and right now I wanted to congratulate all the humanitarian award winners, um, Lauren Zen, Micah Stokkeland, and Youth Works. Congratulations once more. And would like for them to come up, um, as in order, Lawrence sent first to take photographs. Um, Mika Mica Stoklin, can you please come up? Mhm Uh-huh. Uh OK. Yeah Jeez Yes Yeah Wow And youth works would come up.

00:18:09,070	I Worry about me more than Yeah Good. get up there. take Thank you All right, that brings us to public comment, Public comment is restricted to items on the consent agenda, regular agenda and or prior city commission agenda excluding public hearing items. Anyone who wishes to speak for public comment, please come forward, state your name.

00:19:21,770	fill out the form on the podium. Everybody’s achieved. Again, this is public comment period. Anyone who wishes to speak, please come to the podium. Second call for public comment. OK I wasn’t going to go up first. Go ahead.

00:20:13,630	It doesn’t look like there’s anybody else 2023, uh, Si Academy, um, I guess, yeah, that’s the only one, the other one. You, you were the only one that was there. I, my Mayor Smith was there too. Yeah, the points I made during that. I should have my clock going here. Can you state your name for the record though. Walsh is address, yeah, I got it. I already signed up here. Perfect.

00:20:32,700	Yeah, OK. So, anyway, um, my public comment is that I was, I was hoping that it’d be a little more open when, when it comes to uh Um, choosing the new police chief.

00:20:52,970	He’s such a key job and, um, and I guess, you know, some people could have shed some light, including myself, you know, and I, I’m not out for any kind of personal attack or anything like that. But I just based on, and based on what I experienced during the 22023. Sis Academy, you know, uh, some things that I had brought up. So, so I’m just saying that there’s some where the police department fell short.

00:21:11,070	Whether the Guy from Grand Forks is the better solution, um, it could be new blood, you know, I, I’d be leaning towards him. Um, but, and I’m not overly criticizing whatever, you know, that.

00:21:31,530	Um, but there are some things that like I brought up during the October 8th meeting that were valid and I still say I’m behind him, and I did have, you know, where, uh, my biggest point that I wanted to make, maybe I wasn’t clear enough then, but I want to make sure I’m clear now is there needs to be some kind of oversight, no matter who’s the police chief.

00:21:45,300	um, it needs to be better, I guess the, the county and then there’s state to be, they got that new crime lab up there and, but it still comes.

00:21:58,070	down to the quality of the people, you know, what’s in their heart, and I think most of the chaplains agree with one of the things like when I was down there with the 2023 uh Citizen Academy, uh, in the spring there not that long ago. Um, you know, the sharpshooter, they can’t miss because of the laser, so I got sharp. I mean, I didn’t deserve it.

00:22:17,330	My brother was over Vietnam and he, he got shot, he deserved it, but not me, um, but they can’t miss because that with that laser. But the point I want to make is. Um You know, when I walked, uh, well, I brought up a few things.

00:22:31,730	I’m not, uh, you know, I asked uh when, when they were presenting in that, uh, it was like I had some valid things and I was telling the truth 100% and, and I don’t know what Jason Stugmeier is gonna do, you know, he’s not the same person, and I’m not downgrading.

00:22:50,470	I mean, he’s got a lot of positives, you know, they, in fact, I had a wonderful conversation with him. But when we had uh, I think it was our 7th or 8th out of 10, uh, laundry carts at the King Coin Laundryette uh and dog and carwash, uh, so we had, and they’re almost $300 apiece, and I told him, well, that’s a little thing, you know, and,

00:23:04,830	but we always did get it back because of our connections with the The people who were in there, you know, they’ve, they anonymously let us know a little bit, but it took a long time and it took a lot of time to get it back.

00:23:17,100	There’s a lot of things that go on behind the scenes that the police don’t, you know, there’s community effort. You know, but anyway, what I did have, you know, but he kind of said that, oh, our officers would never do anything, and I gave him real mild examples, you know, at the, as a citizen’s academy, you

00:23:33,800	know, and, and I, I didn’t want to be a smart aleck. I could have said, you know, Oh, yeah, are you traveling down that river in Africa, you know that that, you know, now, you know, but I didn’t do that, you know, because there was other uh participants there.

00:23:50,430	But one thing that bothered me on the way out, and I think the chaplains, the police chaplains agree with me. I, I actually know Dan Sweeney kind of personally if he still is, uh, but anyway, I think they’ll agree with me.

00:24:08,930	When I walked out of there, you know, based on, I mean, I have a lot of experience, you know, 1960, I was 9 years old and we got in on a little, little skirmishes, you know, with, you know, with little things that we had to correct with the police department. There was a, a, a great policewoman at that time and um, so yeah, my mother and my dad, you know, so I, they were my biggest mentors.

00:24:26,030	But anyway, so long story short, um, you know, like in 1972, uh, I became partner with my dad. So he pretty much turned everything over to me in terms of handling it and he made sure, make sure you have a police. Report.

00:24:42,070	Make sure you paper trail type of thing, you know, so they were, um, so to get to the point, um, You know, so even after that and stuff, I, I, so I’ve got, so I know what it’s like to have a, a connection where the police are, you know, it’s a, a, a joint partnership between the police and the and the and the business, small business owner,

00:25:04,970	you know, and even I feel for sometimes uh there’s small uh smaller apartment owners a little bit, you know, I got, I invested a little bit even though I’m a little older. And I’d like to, you know, with my business, you know, we’re talking retirement. stuff quite a bit.

00:25:20,730	Yeah, I’m 73, you’re going to be 74, but I’m in great health, and my brother’s in better health, I think he’s 80, but, uh, but anyway, um.

00:25:39,800	So, and we put in a great garden together, but, um, so anyway, so, um, You know, the business, you know, I’m at that transition stage where I want to get, you know, out of it. So I kind of have a, uh, because of the housing problem.

00:25:59,400	Um, I kind of set up for a little housing thing, you know, close by, you know, my business, and it’s partially because, um, because it’d be more amenal in case uh someone in my help needed, uh, housing or something, you know, and, and, um, so, and then there’s other considerations, you know. So, so the police have to be partners with those people, and they can’t.

00:26:18,130	They’ve got a, they can’t take the business people too lightly and uh the same thing with Jason Tone over there, uh, and also small apartment owners and that, and they don’t get any tax credit on their part. Kate, I don’t know how I’m I doing on time. I just you on topic, you could circle back to the firing point. Thank you.

00:26:38,930	I’ll get right to the point and I’ll end it now too, because I think I’m getting close to the 5. You are at 5. But I will give you some leniency if you. stay on topic, please, cause I don’t want somebody to exaggerate, especially if they’re interrupting, but you didn’t though.

00:26:50,300	OK, so anyway, uh, when I walked out of the police academy, one thing that bothered me and I, uh, like crazy, you know, I, I have made sure that I’m pretty sure that Jason heard me and there was Jason Toman and, and I said, you know, sometimes, you know, over the years I’ve, I’ve experienced where the police need to police each other, you

00:27:08,800	know, and all of a sudden, you know, the, uh, you know, the other. People walking out. I don’t think you were one of them, but they were like. Oh, you know, they’re like scared, you know, it’s like, oh, you know, I don’t think that’s a good dynamic.

00:27:23,500	That’s too much like, uh, you know, progressive stateism and too much like the career just have all the sway, you know, instead of, um, you know, so many of the elected things are too close to being selected, you know, depending on how the media is doing and how the information gets out there, like for judges and OK, Michael. Whatever.

00:27:39,730	OK, so that’s wraps it up. I think most of the captains would agree with me. We don’t want things to be too fear driven. Thank you. May God bless you. Thank you. Thanks, Michael. Second call for public comment. This is the public comment period. 3rd and final call for public comment. Public comment period is now closed.

00:28:05,500	Next is the consent agenda. Any discussion on the consent agenda. Comm Zenker. I have one item that I need to just bring to everybody’s attention. That is item L2. To award the contract bids for the library project. In Steve’s report, it’s correct. OK. Um, it’s Northern Plains.

00:28:28,000	Uh, plumbing and heating, and then on Entex, uh, they have Northern plains heated in air. I work for Northern Plains C there. We did not bid the project. We are no part of this project, so I just wanna bring that to everybody and shed light on that so we don’t get any issues with some clarification sounds good.

00:28:43,900	Other than that, with that, I’ll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. We have a motion in a second. Any further discussion? Go ahead and call roll. Comm Zenker. Comm Connelly, yes. Mayor Smith Yes, Comm Risch. Yes. Chair Clery. Yes. All right. Regular agenda item A receive update on terminal area study, Matthew. Oh, good evening.

00:29:15,600	Uh, me and, and commissioners, uh, I’m here to introduce Jeff Obel, uh, To provide an update on the terminal area study. The last time that we were here was in January, and we provided an update at that, that time, um, and there were about 2 items that needed to be completed. One was the preferred alternative concept, and the other was the financial plan.

00:29:36,070	Uh, the, the concept has been over the last month, reworked and finalized, uh, so we have that to, to show this evening. And then we are in the, the final stages of the financial plan.

00:29:53,770	Uh, we have a rough magnitude of cost, uh, that we’re using, but we’re now in the, in, in the, the details, uh, working with the consultant on that and we’re close to finishing that up. As well. So we felt this was a good time to have, uh, Jeff uh present the, the findings of the study, and with that, I’ll turn it over to Jeff. Good evening, Comm Clery, uh, Commissioners, it’s a pleasure to be here today.

00:30:18,930	I’m going to OK. So as, as Matt mentioned, we were here in January, uh, we promised at the time we would be back to present a final. Uh, update on the terminal area planning study, um, which we’re doing today, as Matt mentioned, the planning studies in the final stages, and I’ll talk here just

00:30:41,500	a couple of minutes about the, the remaining steps. Our agenda is going to be pretty simple. I know you have a full agenda as well, and so I’ll I’ll move through this as efficiently as I possibly can.

00:30:59,430	I know somewhere Greg is watching and keeping a, uh, keeping time for me, and I’m sure I’ll get a text message at any point if I go too long. So Um, we are gonna do just a little bit of a review.

00:31:17,600	Yeah, to set the, to set the context for this so that you, you understand it when we move into talking about the alternatives, the preferred alternatives and uh uh rough order of magnitude costs that we’re looking at, uh, at this planning level. So first on the planning side, I provide this graphic.

00:31:33,730	Um, it gives you a little bit of insight into some of the data that’s collected in terms of the forecasting, um, I, I like it just simply because there’s a couple of things that are worth noting on this, uh, that are really easy to see. Uh, one, as a reference, the the terminal opened in May of 2005, so, so a little over 20 years ago now, um, since that time on this chart, you see that there’s been a regular amount of growth in employment.

00:31:52,970	Employments essentially are passenger boardings at the airport. Um So the airport has seen good growth over the last 20 years. The only real dip being that big dip that happened in 2020, which I think every airport in the entire country had a dip in in 2020.

00:32:12,030	Um, and so I, I think I found it just interesting to see how, how, uh, uh, how far the airports comemed over the last 20 years. Uh, in 2019, you’ll see on here at the airport reached a record level of employment at 309,000 and so that’s really set a new benchmark for the airport.

00:32:32,870	Uh, I think the other thing worth noting is from 2020 to where we are today in 2024, you can see that the airport has recovered or is definitely on the road to a strong recovery from the 2020 COVID year, uh, wrapping up in 2024 with 294,000 employments. And even looking forward to 2025 at the airport’s on track to certainly match, if not exceed its its 2019 numbers.

00:32:58,030	Um, and so I think this graphic does a, a good job of showing that. The other, the reason I like this is because that red line or Not sure what color that line is, but that that line that cuts through the chart represents 240,000 employments when the airport opened in 2005, that was what

00:33:18,270	the number was that was used to design the terminal at that point. And so I point that out simply to say that, uh, from 2014 on the terminal has slowly started to exceed that 2000 or the airport has slowly started to exceed that 240,000 employments. On an annual basis.

00:33:41,200	Now that doesn’t translate directly into meaning that more space is needed, but it gives you an indication that the airport, uh, with the growth that it’s experiencing is going to start to feel a little bit of pain and anecdotally, if anybody traveled in 2019, you could feel the congestion happening in the terminal at that at that point.

00:33:58,370	This next graph is really the telling graph, and there’s a lot going on here, um, but what I can tell you is that, uh, the planners and the forecasters that put this information together along with uh all of the data they collect.

00:34:16,470	It’s a, it’s a very robust process that ultimately leads to this chart that I put up here in front of you, which is a representative of what they call peakho employments. And so the way this chart works is on the left hand side you have a number of passengers from 0 to 600.

00:34:29,800	On the bottom you’ll see 24 hours of the day. And these, these, uh, jagged lines that go across there in uh indicate a certain amount of employments that happened over that 24 hour period.

00:34:51,230	Uh, peak hour employments are is the ultimately the metric that feeds into determining what the terminal program is going to look like. Uh, so this is a big and important piece. Uh, just to go through this very briefly, that the solid lines that you see there represent a baseline peak hour employments. Now what’s important to know about this is this does not represent the busiest day of the year.

00:35:09,800	The, the methodologies that are used for planning ensure that this baseline is based off of not even so much an average, but a particular time of day and month so that you have a good foundation to use as a base.

00:35:28,730	So this isn’t represent the the busiest time of the year and it doesn’t necessarily represent the average, but it establishes a base understanding of of what’s happening at the airport and so you’ll see that the peak that happens roughly between that 9:30. in 11 a.m. we’re looking at about 231 employments at the base level.

00:35:52,000	These other colored lines represent different milestones within the 20 year planning horizon with the darkest line representing 2043, which is the final year of our planning horizon. At which point you see that, that we’re predicting uh right around 402 employments, which is a significant creates a significant impact on the terminal.

00:36:15,100	That starts to tell us, uh, the size of spaces relative to ticketing, to baggage screenings, the TSA security checkpoint, the departure lounges, all those things that are impacted by the passenger experience. Um What may not necessarily be revealed on here is that peak hours fluctuates. There’s a lot of things that influence that.

00:36:39,100	Uh, the two biggest ones which we’ve noted is that additional air service clearly is going to have an impact on your peak hour employments, but a big one and one that I think is most dramatically affecting the Bismarck airport right now is what we call up gauging, and we talked about that at our last meeting. That’s when, when air carriers bring in larger aircraft or more seats.

00:36:58,200	Those people, uh, it creates a, a, a bigger influx of people into the terminal at a given point and Bismarck’s going through. That process right now with the current air carriers and so those are the, those are the pieces that influence the forecast the most and like I said, this is what really influences the, the space program or the terminal program.

00:37:14,800	One question that we get asked a lot about this chart and Specifically, we got asked by the airport advisory committee, and I think Comm Risch may have even asked this question at one point is, is we do have downtimes within the within the peak hour you see, like for instance 8 a.m.

00:37:34,730	where there’s nothing happening at the terminal, why don’t we just shift Arrivals and departures departures particularly around to fill those empty spots in order or in lieu of adding on to the terminal.

00:37:52,070	The reality of that situation is, is that the air carriers make all the decisions in terms of when their departures and arrivals are going to occur. The airport cannot influence that at all. And the air carriers do it just based on whatever their business model might be if you can just imagine flying out of Bismarck, a lot of people have to fly at that fly 6 a.m.

00:38:07,730	in order to make connecting flights, and that’s all about the science that goes into determining when departures. When departures leave Bismarck. And so that’s why you see those little dips on this 24, on this 24 hour chart, but I think it’s important to note that. The Bismarck Airport really can’t influence that. This next chart.

00:38:31,070	So as we start gathering this data and we have an understanding of the peak hour, we start looking at other things that may influence the terminal. Uh, this is a graphic that we’ve shown before. I think it’s a pretty good one.

00:38:47,530	It’s essentially based on establishing an optimum level of service. Which if you look at it or think about it from this perspective, it’s, it’s how can we efficiently move people through the terminal, whether they’re either departing or whether they’re arriving to help uh help improve that experience from a passenger level and so the top portion of this walks you through the process of, of

00:39:08,000	departure. What we’re looking at here is optimizing the amount of time that it takes for somebody to move through those spaces and, and. Understanding the the space per passenger that helps to, to manage that.

00:39:29,570	And so what we don’t want to do is find ourselves in a situation where we make an improvement to the airport, and we have a suboptimum level that then creates bigger issues down the road, particularly as the airport continues to grow.

00:39:47,700	And so this is more or less a benchmark that we use to check the, the, uh, terminal program as we start going through the process and to provide some guidance. Uh, so we saw this last time as well. Uh, this is the terminal facility requirements. Uh, this chart more or less is showing us a couple of different things and again on the left hand side you see the major spaces of the terminal.

00:40:08,730	Across the top you see 3 different years, 2023 being kind of our baseline starting point. Uh, 2020, 2033 is a midpoint of the plan in 2043 is the conclusion of our 20 year planning period. What we’re looking at is, is are there deficiencies within the airport in terms of just on a square footage basis that we that we need to recognize.

00:40:31,230	Um, under the 2033 category, you’ll see that we have an an existing column, that existing column identifies all the spaces that currently exist within the terminal. And as you start working towards the right. Uh, you’ll see that we have, uh, some recommended spaces in.

00:40:50,470	In 2033, so if, if we were to take the terminal and its current condition. Um, and adjust it to reflect the growth, what would be the difference in space that we would need, and you’ll see that we’ve identified on the bottom here a deficit. Today of over of nearly 10,000 square feet, and this is now.

00:41:09,300	That category is now even a year old, so. Um, going forward, You’ll see that debt deficit continues to grow, um, particularly as the airport continues to grow, and again this is all based on a lot of the forecasting numbers that were put together.

00:41:30,070	The two biggest areas that I want to point out where the where the largest deficits are found is one is in the departure lounges with the up gauging of aircraft, the departure lounges are smaller than what they need to to be able to accommodate the number of seats and the second one is the outbound, uh, baggage screening area.

00:41:47,670	This is one area that terminal going way back to 2005, that has always been undersized. When the airport, when the terminal was originally opened, uh, TSA was in its infancy. It barely even existed, and so that’s a part of the airport that has had the, the airport has had to try to manage over the years in order to continue to operate.

00:42:03,100	There are several other areas, but those are the two that I wanted to point out. I think it’s important to note as we went through this planning process, we did conduct listening sessions with all of the stakeholders in the airport.

00:42:23,330	Each of the individual airlines, the car rental folks, the two concessionaires that operate in the airport, ground support people and of course the airport administrative staff. We also had as a part of their listening sessions and airport advisory committee that included a handful of people from throughout the community from various different point. points of interest, but we had folks from, uh, BPS, University of Mary, uh, uh, Comm Risch was on that committee.

00:42:47,400	We had private individuals. These people became our sounding board going forward, but early on in the process, they provided a lot of insight just in terms of their interaction with the airport and some of the issues that they’ve seen.

00:43:08,230	Uh, from the airline’s perspective, there was a host of items um that were challenges or points of interest that they had in the continued growth of the airport. Uh, I would say of thee that we have on here, the two biggest ones that, that continuously came up was upgrades to the inbound and outbound baggage system. Again, like I mentioned, it’s very small.

00:43:25,870	There’s a lot of congestion and a lot of challenges in managing the movement of bags. And then the second one was parking spaces for aircraft that are parked overnight.

00:43:44,570	Or that remain here overnight, having the capacity to be able to park those planes at gates, makes the whole process a lot easier and in some cases, um, uh, the airlines don’t have the capacity locally to be able to move those planes, so parking them at the gates is important. A lot of these other items were small, I would say technical items, but they were certainly issues at the airport or that the airlines identified.

00:44:02,070	Uh, this is just a graphic that represents those areas that we know or that we’ve identified that have had some challenges going forward. Um, uh, certainly the concessions, baggage claim, inbound baggage, as I mentioned, I think the two biggest ones on here are the outbound baggage areas and the departure lounges, but it gives you a sense that these spaces are all scattered throughout

00:44:22,030	the terminal. Um And which creates challenges up and down and across the terminal. Going forward as we continue to look at improvements to the airport. We start taking into consideration other things that that um help improve and help create a better environment for the traveling public and certainly inclusive design aspects, um, fit that category.

00:44:48,570	These are some of the, some of the considerations that we put in place when we look at the airport program, whether it be additional spaces that don’t currently exist there like a sensory room, um, a dedicated mother’s room.

00:45:06,670	Right now they have the, the pod up on the 2nd floor and the service animal release relief area as it sits today, the mother’s room and the service animal relief area our requirements for the airport and, and so the airport has been navigating through those two issues, um, but I suspect expect in the future with an expansion of those, those, those things will be

00:45:23,270	required. Comm Risch, can you explain what a sensory room is, I. Yeah, so a century room, um, is for, uh, folks. Um, that have, uh, we’ll call it, um, a variety of different, uh, Uh Disabilities related to overstimulation, um, anxiousness, nervousness, those types of things that almost becomes a calming space, if you will.

00:45:58,600	Other considerations that we’ve looked at, um, and these are things that you’re starting to see more often in airports, outdoor spaces, uh, improvements to wayfinding, certainly passengers feel much more comfortable if they know where they’re going in the terminal. Uh, modifications to restrooms, uh, additional concessions, opportunities or revenue generating opportunities and design features that have incorporated themselves into terminals.

00:46:25,230	Design has a big influence on people’s uh not only their, their understanding of the community when they arrive. I mean, we hear that frequently when people come into the Bismarck airport, how shocked they are that that’s the terminal that we have here.

00:46:41,270	Um, but also the comfort level that they have within the, within the airport. So we take all of that information and we disseminate that down into a conceptual terminal alternatives.

00:47:01,000	What we’re trying to do here is look at how do we, without getting too, too granular on it, uh, how do we start to lay out what an expansion might look like to accommodate all of these issues that we’ve identified. Um, along with some other things that we want to take into consideration.

00:47:15,470	So in this case we want to look at, uh, how is the terminal going to adapt to larger aircraft, not only the aircraft that’s currently coming in, but the next generation of larger aircraft. What’s the impact that that going to have in terms of gates spacing, parking, those sorts of things. We want to explore options for swing gate operations.

00:47:35,130	So this is an instance where you may have one passenger boarding bridge and have 2 aircraft parking spaces that gives the airport flexibility. In terms of their gate operations, uh, we took a look at construction phasing. Uh, this is important from two perspectives. Uh, one is, is obviously the airport needs to be fully functioning and operational during any type of expansion, but also, uh, phasing helps.

00:47:57,530	offset some of the complexity that often comes along with funding airport projects. In other words, phasing can give us some off-ramps if we need to. Uh, to align with funding. Uh, we looked at future flexibility. So as I mentioned, our planning horizon was 20 years, but we don’t want to just stop there. We wanted to look at.

00:48:14,730	Beyond that 20 year horizon, what’s the direction that the airport’s going to go so that the airport can continue to plan other projects that that they have going on so that we don’t essentially paint ourselves into a corner somewhere down the road.

00:48:36,000	Uh, we looked at, uh, optimizing the, the TSA security checkpoint, even yesterday, we were having conversations about, uh, impending changes that are going to be coming to TSA in the future that may change how we see it today, um, but more importantly, we wanted to make sure that whatever reconfiguration we made to TSA, we solved all of the current problems, and we provided a path forward for additional

00:48:55,670	modifications that may happen to TSA in the future, so we. want to get to a point where we’re all of a sudden coming back now and having to do a major reconstruction to accommodate some change that that TSA may put into place.

00:49:09,530	We also looked at land site development, which I’ll talk a little bit, a little bit about and improved baggage handling. And so from that we looked at 3 different alternatives. Uh, these alternatives were presented to you before. Um, alternative one, we set out to initially start out with looking at can we develop an alternative that minimizes apron expansion.

00:49:32,000	And we knew even at this planning level stage that this was going to be a, a costly project and so if one of the options was is to develop a terminal expansion without having to develop apron to go along with that. That would be a cost savings.

00:49:49,600	the airport and so you’ll see alternative one looks at different configurations relative to not expanding the apron at all. Um, and I also want to point out in here too, you’ll see that we have 8 aircraft parked. This is a part of the process that we were going through and looking at that future proofing of the, of the alternatives.

00:50:07,200	Uh, alternative 2 looks at minimizing the apron expansion and minimizing impacts to the GA access or the general aviation access. It’s a little bit hard to see on these alternatives, but alternative one pushed aircraft further out in towards the taxiway which, which impacted access to the general aviation ramps.

00:50:30,870	And so we wanted to look at an alternative that still minimized uh uh apron expansion, but but also eliminated some of the impacts to the GA to the GA ramp. And so you’ll see an alternative to, we’re not proposing any apron expansion on the north side, but we are proposing Aron expansion on the south side to accommodate that, uh, alternative 3 as we develop

00:50:52,070	this looked at minimizing some of the line of sight impacts, so these are line of sight impacts from the. Tower, uh, out to the taxiway and runway.

00:51:08,070	Um, but we also wanted to approach this from the perspective of can we centralize the terminal building so as passengers interact with the terminal, it feels very similar to the way that it does right now, and you don’t have these long distances that you have to move through the terminal from either the concessions or the security checkpoint.

00:51:29,700	And so after our last uh uh interaction with the commission, um, we had a rap or a follow-up meeting with the airport advisory committee to get their input on the alternatives and where we landed, which is, I think what all of us suspected is that it would be some combination of all three of these, but not one of these in particular. And so we ended up with a hybrid version. Of all three of these.

00:51:44,570	And so the preferred alternative was selected that was selected, uh, accomplishes the goal in alternative one and that it doesn’t impact or or require any apron expansion, um, it accomplishes the goals in alternative 2 which minimizes the impact on the GA access, um, and it also centralizes uh the terminal, so I think everybody found something in those

00:52:11,670	alternatives that was important and we were able to to developed that in the preferred alternative. And so you’ll see a site plan in a minute to see how this interacts with the site. Um, what I wanted to point out is a couple of things.

00:52:24,570	And so this is a departure levels, this is the 2nd level of the terminal. Really, the two biggest things that are worth noting here in this plan is if you see that purple line, you’ll kind of see the, the outline of the existing terminal. It gives you a sense of how, how big this expansion is relative to the existing terminal.

00:52:44,800	Really, the two biggest impacts on the departure levels are the expansion of the departure lounges, so the space required to accommodate 6 gates, which was uh the the determined number in the forecast. And the amount of space that would be required to accommodate those, those gates and the circulation to those gates.

00:53:05,630	So that’s really the bulk of the expansion on this level. Uh, the second thing that is probably the most impactful, or that is the most impactful on this level is the reconfiguration of the TSA checkpoint. Um, you’ll see the space, uh, in the center of the plan that’s labeled TSA Qing and this and the security checkpoint.

00:53:27,600	What we’re proposing in this, uh, alternative is to rotate the checkpoint, 90 degrees from its current location. Um, and move it into the location that’s currently occupied by the airport administration and the cafe. By doing this, it solves a few different problems.

00:53:48,270	One is that now we have adequate space that meets the full extent of the TSA guidelines, so we have the proper amount of queuing. Off of what we call what I call the bridge, um, it moves the queuing away from the escalator and the stairs, which on the busiest times you can see that, that get that congestion happening there.

00:54:07,000	We provide a proper amount of space for recomposure or the area after the checkpoint where you used to have to put your shoes back on, um, or you, or you gather yourself and it takes all of that space out of the circulation, unlike it is today.

00:54:25,870	This also allows for the ability to add a 4th checkpoint lane without doing a major reconstruction of the of the terminal. And so this is a big, big change, but what I would say is a very positive change for the airport now and moving into the future.

00:54:44,270	Uh, by doing this, uh, we do have to relocate the airport administration and so you’ll see that on this plan, we’re actually consolidating the airport administration, uh, in the meeting spaces and to the south end of the terminal. And by doing that we’re relocating the, the current TSA offices closer to the checkpoint, which is where they really want to be.

00:55:04,070	And then we’re creating a lot of different opportunities within the um concourse for additional food and beverage in retail and revenue generating opportunities. If we go to the apron level, um, really what, a couple things I want to point out here is that as a result of this, there’s not a lot of renovation that really needs to happen on this uh arrival or apron level within the terminal.

00:55:21,930	We’re not proposing a lot of changes. There is some expansion and there is some renovation to accommodate some of the needs and so you’ll see on the south end, we’re looking at a, a small addition to expand the airline ticketing offices and the ticketing hall.

00:55:43,170	Um, on the north end, um, down the road we’re looking at expansion to accommodate a third bag claim device and then reconfiguring the car rental and car rental queuing space so that we eliminate some of the conflict that currently exists there.

00:56:00,330	But really on this level, the bulk of the expansion is focused on the checked baggage screening area and the outbound baggage carousel, and as I mentioned, This is an area that has been undersized for for many, many years, and this reconfiguration, there’s a lot of positive things that come from this.

00:56:18,870	One is that we create a space that meets the needs of the TSA in terms of checking bags, um, it allows for redundancy in the, in the checked bag system, which currently doesn’t exist. And probably most importantly, it eliminates a lot of the congestion that currently happens in this part of the building, which I know is hard to understand because a lot of people don’t get to see this piece, but, uh, even just having this carousel down here

00:56:36,070	that allows bags to be picked up by multiple tugs, minimizes a lot of the problems that currently exist down there. Uh, the last little piece and it’s, it seems a little, but it’s not insignificant as we are adding receiving to the airport.

00:56:53,100	Um, currently, the airport does not have a receiving and so when trucks bring supplies, whether it be to the concessions, they usually park in the rideshare or taxi lane and then truck everything into the building, which does create conflicts with, with passengers and, uh, in a challenging situation. So if we look at project phasing, just as a part of, of continuing to walk through this.

00:57:15,470	Um We are looking at six-phase plan. You see 5 phases on here. I’ll show you the 6th phase in a minute, which is the land site development. Uh, the first phase is the uh self departure expansion and and outbound baggage just is really of all the pieces, this is one of the most significant pieces and

00:57:35,830	that it does add. Additional gates and it takes care of that, that outbound baggage piece that’s so important. Uh, so that would be the first phase, 2nd phase would be, um, uh, the space to accommodate the new concessions area and some expansion to the departure lounges, uh, 3rd phase is, is the TSA checkpoint reconfiguration inside the

00:57:58,130	terminal. And then the 4th phase is really the completion of the departure lounge which gets, which gets us to the full 6 gate build out. And then phase 5 is reconfiguration of really the arrival halls, which is the 3rd claim device and the uh uh car rental facilities.

00:58:17,270	And then here’s a graphic. This is really uh a documenting phase 6, which is reconfiguration of the land site development. And so here what’s being proposed is a realignment of terminal boulevard, so that’s the loop road that goes around the surface parking. Uh, we’re looking to push the terminal boulevard further to the south.

00:58:40,300	Uh, which is a couple of things for us. It expands the, uh, the possibility for surface parking, long term and short term parking within the loop which fends off the necessity for a ramp.

00:59:01,600	Um, it also allows us the ability to extend the curb for drop offs, uh, the curb has always been a little bit short, uh, for departing passengers, and so it helps us improve that situation. And then additionally we would make some modifications to Jetway Avenue and to the employee parking.

00:59:24,670	To now allow for truck traffic and deliveries to the terminal to happen off of Terminal Boulevard, um, and start to set the stage for future Aron expansion, which would happen down the road to get additional aircraft parking. So bear with me. I have this very, very short video that I think will help explain this a little bit better.

00:59:50,830	You’ll see the arrival to the terminal, and then some of the road realignment and parking realignment and then just get at least a little bit of a sense of what the terminal expansion could look like. Uh, from a volume perspective. And I think if Greg was here he would hope there would be that much traffic, and Terminal Boulevard. All right.

01:00:45,230	So the, the big question then is, is with all of this, what’s the magnitude of scale in terms of cost. And so we have a third party cost estimator that developed a budget for us. They do a lot of this aviation work, um, and do a really good job at reorganizing cost and in this case we organized it relative to the phases, as I mentioned, the phases provide us, off ramps if necessary, depending

01:01:05,470	upon the budget package. Now the thing I’ll say is if you take all these numbers and you add them together. They won’t equal the 160.8 million. The 160.8 million is the all in cost and so that includes all of the other costs that are construction related but not built into the construction.

01:01:22,200	So for instance, it’s going to include your construction management fees, uh, permitting environmental work, uh, furniture, design fees, owner contingencies, all of those sorts of sorts of things.

01:01:45,670	Uh It’s certainly a big number, but the thing that I want to mention, and I can come back to this if you have questions, is that terminal funding is very unique. Um, well, I’ll say airport funding is very unique, um, to probably a lot of projects that the city does, and I recognize that it’s been 20 years since the city has had to deal with a terminal expansion project, and I think the important thing to note at this point is that, um, at this

01:02:03,230	stage is the city shouldn’t consider this project, a project that they have to go alone on the way these projects work is they, they are always uh collaborative projects that are done in conjunction with, uh, not only the airport.

01:02:20,800	in the city of Bismarck, but also the state of North Dakota and with the Federal Aviation Administration or the federal government. We have projects that are going on all around us right now that are following this sim similar collaborative model, Fargo, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, um, as examples of projects that are going through this, and so it’s a complex project process, um, and, uh, but I think it’s like I

01:02:43,130	mentioned, it’s important to note that this is not something, this is not a, a lift that. The city has to take on on their own. This is a a very customary process.

01:03:04,100	Um, in terms of our next steps, We’ll be looking at finalizing the, the planning study, as Matt mentioned, the phase that we’re in right now is is reviewing the financial implementation plan, which is not only a combination of how are we going to put together a, a, a funding package in order to develop this, but it’s equally looking at the airport’s cash flow and finances to ensure that the airport has the capacity to be

01:03:22,400	able to take on a project like this, so it’s a bit more in depth. Um, we’re, we’re getting close to wrapping that up. When we do, we’ll be issuing the final report and then certainly following that we’ll be starting the collaborative process of starting to work with all of the other partners

01:03:36,600	that are going to eventually contribute to the development of this project. Uh, so with that, If you have questions, I would be happy to answer those. Questions for Jeff. Mr. Cherish.

01:03:58,630	Madam Chair Jeff, um, When I first started hearing about it, it was $80 million and $100 million and $150 then backed off to 135 and now it’s 160, wow. It’s, it’s a big, big number and we’re not sure how much help we’ll get from the state because, you know, the legislature has to meet again before we get any money from them, but about how much of this $160.

01:04:19,970	8 million goes for engineering fees and architectural fees. In consultant stuff generally speaking, I can’t say specifically without pulling out the, the report, but generally speaking, uh, consultant fees are right right around 10% Comm Risch.

01:04:39,530	Um, and that I wanna I wanna be real clear on too is that’s the entire consulting team, and so that includes the architects, all of the engineers, passenger boarding bridge engineers, baggage handling engineers. There’s a much more robust group of, of engineers that are required for a project like this. But it generally is around 10% and it’s not 10% of that. 160 million it’s baked into that 160 million already. So, so that also includes the oversight of construction.

01:05:01,630	Correct. Any other questions for Jeff or Matt? I know Matt’s got a couple things he wants to wrap up. OK. Right Uh, well, I, I do appreciate you guys hearing the, the update.

01:05:28,730	We’re, we’re very excited about the project out at out at the airport, uh, a few things that I, I just wanted to, to touch on, um, and Jeff did too. We are going to be wrapping up that financial plan and putting together a nice packet for uh distribution out to, to the commission and out to the public for for review and and and comment as well. So that, that’s coming down.

01:05:47,900	And one of the other things that we’re going to be doing is tomorrow, uh, July 23rd from 4 to 6 p.m. we’re gonna be having an open house for the, the terminal study, uh, it’s an opportunity for the public to come in and provide their thoughts and comments on on the study and on the preferred concept, so anybody who’s interested in

01:06:05,030	that has the opportunity, we’ll be making this presentation again tomorrow at 4:15 and 5:15. And then uh once uh that is all wrapped up this.

01:06:24,270	Where will that be at the event we’re going to be on the north side, like a uh door E42, uh, we’re gonna be right in the lobby, um, because, um, don’t want to have people to walk too far in, uh, to, to be there. So I appreciate Amanda and her crew setting that up, um, so.

01:06:41,600	Um, and then, so once all that is compiled, the, the, the study will really be the guide that takes us forward through design and development and in the construction of the, the terminal. Um, however, as Jeff alluded to, uh, we have a lot of partners in this and uh to start gaining the the the support on a local, state, and federal level, um, we’re going to need to start working with those partners and uh here at a future meeting, we are going to

01:06:59,000	be bringing forth contract that will elicit those services, uh, with the help of a. consultant who has some experience in, in that realm. He’s, he’s helped other airports with this, with, uh, understanding the FAA rules with the state.

01:07:17,230	Uh, Legislature, state governor’s office, so that’s gonna be something that we we’ve been, uh, referring to as the missionary work, um, so that’s gonna uh be something that that we’ll be bringing to the commission in the future here, so, um, with that, um, I’ll, I’ll end unless there are any, any questions for Commission.

01:07:33,230	I just want to make a comment that our airport is self-sufficient. We haven’t providing tax dollars to our airport with the exception of the expansion in 2000 and 2005, we made a $10 million. Contribution, is that correct? Uh, I, I think it was only a couple million dollars in 2005, but in 2000. Uh, 18, uh, the city to provide $10 million for our $66 million runway project.

01:07:56,800	OK, OK. So you’re, you’re going to be working on the package and you’ll come up with some ideas on what you’d hope the city would contribute. Absolutely. And, and that’s really what that consultant is going to help us with, Comm Risch.

01:08:11,530	I guess to just to add, from what I’ve seen because we’ve talked a little bit about it at B budget committee, there’s multiple lanes and some of those are going to play out depending on state grant funding, federal. funding because you pull federal funding from different FAA areas and stuff and really the city ask potentially doesn’t change too much. It’ll have more to do with how much gets bonded and that sort of stuff.

01:08:33,370	And, and just see if we can get ourselves over the finish line, I think. Madam Chair, you’re absolutely correct. Um, you know, the, the $160 million is, is, you know what the study is recommending um and there were some different discussions at the at the budget table um based on.

01:08:51,200	Depending on how we can, what funding we can get from the, the FAA, um, some of their programs that are out there right now, uh, like right now there’s the airport terminal improvement program, uh, that’s a competitive program across the entire country.

01:09:05,970	We are going to try to apply for some of those funds, uh, the likelihood that we’ll get them is low, but we’re still going to try. OK. Any other questions for Matt? All right, thank you so much. Thank you very much.

01:09:28,930	All right, we’ll move on to item B public hearing on ordinance 6629 to amend Chapter 10-11 franchises for the city of Bismarck Code of Ordinances. This is a public hearing. Anyone who wishes to speak on the ordinance, please come forward. So I can call for public hearing. 3rd and final call for public hearing. Public hearing is now closed. What are the wishes of the commission? Move to approve is presented.

01:09:54,070	Second, with a motion in a second, any further discussion? Go ahead and call roll. Mayor Smith Yes. Comm Risch. Yes. Comm Zenor? Yes. Comm Connelly? Yes, Cry, yes. Item C, Public hearing for ordinance 6631 to create a special assessment district for annexed properties. This is a public hearing.

01:10:20,430	Anyone who wishes to speak on ordinance 6631, please come forward. Second call for public hearing. 3rd and final call for public hearing. public hearing is now closed. What are the wishes of the commission? Moved to approve as presented. Motion in a second. Any further discussion? Go ahead Carol. Comm Risch? Yes. Comm Zenker. Comm Connelly, Mayor Schmittz. Yes. Cle, yes.

01:10:54,930	Item D public hearing on ordinance 6634, a zoning ordinance tax Amendment to revise section of 1404-16 on the city of Code’s ordinance, height and setback regulations or structures on PE public zoning districts. Isaac, you know, present for us? I am indeed.

01:11:18,370	Thank you, Chair Cleary, Mayor Commissioners, this regular agenda item is brought forward by the Community Development department, uh, who are requesting approval of a zoning ordinance text amendments to revise the building setback and height regulations for structures in In the public uh zoning district, specifically Section 140416.

01:11:42,400	So this came about when staff had some conversations with Bismarck State College and their consultants regarding some projects they wanted to do in public zoned land, and it was noted that this specific section of the ordinance had some uh some complexities with the connection between uh building height and building setbacks that were found to be confusing and could potentially render projects infeasible.

01:12:03,200	So staff initially requested direction from the Planning and Zoning Commission on April 23rd of this year, uh, on whether or not to move forward and the commission did direct us to move forward.

01:12:23,100	The uh focal point of this really is the connection between the height and setbacks, um, where above a certain height, there was the requirement to add a little more building setback progressively more and more for each foot or fraction thereof, over 35 ft. So what we’re doing with this one is we are simplifying the building setback regulation in connection to that building height, simplifying the side yard setback, uh, specifically, um, and then there are no changes to any other zoning distric.

01:12:41,200	no changes to use is permitted in this or anything like that. And these slides were included in your packet as well if you would prefer to see them there, but as of right now, the building height limit in P public zoned land is 75 ft or 50 ft if it is within 300 ft of a residentially zoned district.

01:12:58,770	This is not being proposed to change the front yard and rear yard set back minimum is 25 and 20 ft as a baseline, but for every foot or fraction thereof over 35 ft, you are required to add an additional 2 ft to that setback.

01:13:17,070	And then for the side yard, my personal favorite of this section, uh, there has to be two side yards and the sum of the 2 yards shall not be less than 20% of the average width of the lot, and if the average lot width is less than or equal to 60 ft.

01:13:30,930	Each side yard shall not be less than 10% of the lot width, but never less than 5 ft. Or if the average lot width is 60 ft, each side yard shall be at least 6 ft, but at least 15 ft if the height is at At least 35 ft, but also 4 ft must be added

01:13:48,530	for every foot or fraction thereof, over 35 ft. So I was originally going to ask you if you wanted to do some math problems to make sure we were all understanding this, but then I remembered most people don’t enjoy math problems, so we’ll just skip over that, and I will say that if someone

01:14:00,830	wanted to do a 75 ft building as of right now, they would be required to do a front yard setback of 105 ft, rear yard set back 100 ft and 2, side yard setbacks of between 165 and 75 ft, depending on the average width of the lot.

01:14:21,470	Needless to say, uh, staff thought this could be adjusted a little bit, so our proposal, uh, was taking those original baselines of 25 ft for the front, 20 ft for the rear, and 5 ft for the side, the, the smallest possible version of the setback right now to avoid as many non-conformities or creating more non-conformities as possible, and of course

01:14:40,930	these are just minimums, a, you know, a property owner could go above those minimums if they choose. Uh, so this was considered by the planning and zoning Commission on May 28th and they called for the public hearing.

01:14:55,930	The public was notified via publications in the Bismarck Tribune before that hearing on June 13th and 20th, and that hearing was held on June 25th. Staff did not receive any public comments prior to that hearing.

01:15:11,200	No members of the public spoke at that hearing and at the conclusion of that hearing, the planning and Zoning Commission did vote to recommend approval as it is outlined in the staff reports with you today at the city Commission level you considered this item on July 8th. And called to the public hearing today.

01:15:26,670	The public was notified again via publications in the Bismarck Tribune on July 11th and 18th, and to my knowledge, staff have not received any public comments prior to this hearing. So as a cumulative result of all the findings contained in the staff reports before you, City of Bismarck staff find that the proposed zoning or in this text amendment would not adversely impact public health, safety and general welfare and that it is generally consistent with the comprehensive plan Bismarck

01:15:43,770	Code of ordinances and relevant state law, and I promised we were being objective. And we’re not just recommending this because we’re the ones who wrote it. Uh, but staff do recommend approval of the zoning ordinance tax Amendment to revise the building height and setback regulations for structures in the Public zoning district, specifically Section

01:16:00,600	140416. Does the commission have any questions for me at this time? does not appear so. Thank you, Isaac, or, uh, Comm Connelly. I just wanted to say that uh.

01:16:17,370	I didn’t know if you could uh do it better than what you did at planning and zoning, but you added quite a bit to it, animated a topic that’s a pretty boring for most people. Thank you, Comm Connelly. All right, thank you, Isaac. Thank you. Um, this is a public hearing. Anyone who wishes to speak on the agenda item, please come forward. Second call for public hearing.

01:16:36,630	3rd and final call for public hearing. Public hearing is now closed. What are the wishes of the commission approve as presented. Motion in a second. Any further discussion? Go ahead and call roll. Comm Zenker. Yes. Comm Connelly, yes, Mayor Schmitz. Yes. Comm Risch Chair Cle, yes.

01:17:01,130	Item E public hearing on the request for a taxi cab license for affordable taxi. This is a public hearing. Anyone who wishes to speak on the agenda item, please come forward. Second call for public hearing. 3rd and final call for public hearing. Public hearing is now closed. What are the wishes of the commission to approve is presented.

01:17:26,830	Second, motion in a second. Any further discussion? Go ahead and call roll, Comm Connelly. Mayor Schmitz. Yes. Comm Risch? Yes. Comm Zenker? Yes, Clery. Yes. Item F public hearing on international building code text Amendment to allow for specific group U and Group S occupancy buildings to be constructed without a frost protected foundation system.

01:17:51,900	Brady. Clery, uh, mayor Commissioners, the building code text amendment you have for you tonight is an amendment to the International Building Code, uh. This amendment will allow for a certain utility structures, uh, self, self-service storage facilities specifically to the to be constructed on non-frost protected foundation systems if they meet the following conditions.

01:18:15,070	Uh, first, the building must be classified in a risk category one, Ris category one are buildings that are low hazard or low risk structures because they’re normally unoccupied structures.

01:18:33,100	Uh, the second condition would be there can be no habitable space, conditioned space, bathrooms or toilet rooms in the building, basically the, the building should be provided with feet or shouldn’t be provided with features that would allow them to be occupied, and then the third condition is the building must also be no greater than one story in height, and the interior spaces within that building.

01:18:47,530	Must be able to be accessed directly from the exterior of the building, um, this is a fire protection requirement that was also referenced in Chapter 9 of the Building Code specifically for those self-service storage facilities, uh, that we thought we should be added here as well, just. To be redundant in the code and have it specific to this section.

01:19:02,800	Um, staff recommends approval of this amendment and. here if you have any questions. Mr. Yes Doesn’t look like it. This is a public hearing. Anyone who wishes to speak on this topic, please come forward. Second call for public hearing. 3rd and final call for public hearing. Public hearing is now closed.

01:19:27,430	What are the wishes of the commission? Move to approve. Second, I have motion in a second. Any further discussion? Go ahead and call roll. Mayor Smith Yes. Comm Risch? Yes. Comm Zinker? Yes. Comm Connelly? Yes Chair Clery, yes. Item G.

01:19:50,870	Consider the request to discuss the results of the bulk item collection pilot program and decide whether or not to continue the program and to discuss options for fall leave disposal. Steve. Good evening, uh, Madam Chair, Commissioners. Um, back in November of 2024, um, it was decided that we would implement a Uh, bulk, um, item pickup program on a trial basis.

01:20:15,600	And um at that time, we were gonna do it for a 6 month period, and I would report back on the findings of the, the trial program. So basically, I’m here tonight to report on those results. Um, Currently, what we did is we scheduled the, the bulk pickups for, um, the 3rd Wednesday of the month.

01:20:35,300	And we didn’t know how many people were going to utilize the program. And so therefore, we just decided to do it, um, the one time per month, and, uh, see where that takes us if we um If the, the need was more, we could adjust accordingly. Um, so what we did is, if someone had something that they needed to be picked up. They could call in.

01:20:58,070	They could schedule the, um, the pick up time for the given date of that month, which was, like I said, the typically the 3rd Wednesday of the month.

01:21:18,470	We picked Wednesday because Wednesdays were typically the lightest collection day for the landfill staff, and so when they got back from their normal collections, then they’d go, um, a group of them would go out and do the, the bulk item collection, bulk item pickup. And so, um, It was easier for us to shift the staff around on, on that day. So basically, um, the first collection that we did was on in January.

01:21:41,870	And the, the first month we had 13 people calling in, schedule the collection, and we picked up 19 items that month. In February we had 8 people call in and we picked up 13 items that month. In March, we had 9 people utilize the service. And we picked up 19 items on that month.

01:22:02,670	April, we didn’t do the program. We had, um, spring cleanup week and so there, anybody could put everything out to the curb, so we didn’t see a need to have it that month. Um, but then in May, the Month right after cleanup week, we had 6 people reach out and we picked up 9 items on that month.

01:22:23,800	In June, that was actually our, our highest month. We had 17 people reach out and we picked up 23 items and then in July we had 8 people reach out and we picked up 17 items. So on average, we um had 10.16 people per month average for a total of 16.66 items picked up over that, um, on the average.

01:22:49,770	So, The utilization of the program, um. It’s not large, but it is being utilized. Uh, most of the people that are utilizing in the program are those that don’t have the ability to take things out to the landfill on their own.

01:23:17,130	And so, um, based on the results of the program and um The People needing the program, it is my recommendation this evening to continue the bulk item pickup service. Um, into the future. And it would also be my recommendation to adjust the fees. Annually if needed, um, during the normal budgeting process that we go through every year. And so that would be my recommendation this evening.

01:23:42,700	Does anyone have questions for Steve on, on that topic? Um, I think it’s been working well, I guess, doing it monthly. I know it ebbs and flows, but, and it’s never going to be something that makes money. It’s always going to be something that, um, that is purely a service, um, so the fees, I don’t.

01:24:04,470	See them being adjusted too much because there’s not going to be a point of adjusting them to be able to make money because it’s just not gonna be. That type of service for us, so, um, but I think it’s working well and it helps us balance out.

01:24:20,000	The only doing the one full cleanup week a year as well as the limited, um, trash pickup without the extras, so I think it’s, it’s been a good Service for people who need it, so. I I would move that we continue the program if we need a resolution.

01:24:40,330	So, OK, we have a motion and a second on continuing the bulk item collection pilot program. Any further discussion? Johan coral. Comm Risch? Yes. Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly, Mayor Schmitz. Yes. Yes.

01:25:11,270	And then Steve, I think we’re also going to discuss when we changed fall cleanup week to the free week at the landfill and so the main cleanup week is spring. The biggest concern that we heard from citizens last year was leaf collection because without picking up extras, people aren’t able to leave all their bags of leaves at the curb, but they also aren’t able to put them out during cleanup week and so it kind of It’s their

01:25:28,870	options. So we were going to have a little bit more discussion on if we want to provide an additional service for, for specifically for leaf cleanup. Do you want to elaborate a little bit on that for us. Um, yes, so, um, you, you’re exactly right.

01:25:45,000	With the elimination of the collection of extra items. Uh, one of the concerns, um, amongst residents was, what are they gonna do with their, um their leaves in the fall or they’re, they’re, um, their, um, their. grass clippings. And so, um, so far the grass clippings. Don’t appear to be. As much of an issue.

01:26:08,330	They are able to put them in their normal can every week and, um, in the fall, you can put your leaves in the your normal can as well. However, when the leaves fall, there’s a lot more of them, and so it becomes more of a, a volume issue that they have to deal with.

01:26:28,230	So, We’ve had Um, some internal discussions among staff of how can we accommodate our, our citizens or residents, um, for the, the collection of the leaves in the fall. And so we talked about various different um options.

01:26:52,230	And the first one, that we talked about was, well, should we allow the Our residents just to put them in the street Um, on a given week, and we come by with the, the street sweepers and pick them up. Um, one of the problems we saw with that though is there’s an ordinance about putting anything in the street.

01:27:14,670	And so, how would we? Allow it for 1 week or 2 weeks out of the year, but then the other 52, uh 50 weeks out of the year that it would be enforced. Um. And if, if that’s the case, um, are they going to just blow everything out, um, anytime that they wish.

01:27:38,070	And so Um, the, the coordination of that, um, if We don’t have enough street sweepers to do the entire city in any given particular week. So we would have to have multiple sections of the community at different times and so given the um, Logistics of trying to coordinate that, um, along with the ordinance, not allowing that type of an activity, we, we dismissed that option.

01:27:59,570	And so then we talked about, um, well, what if we allow the residents just to Place the leaves on the boulevard. And then we come by with a commercial leaf vacuum, and we suck them up. Well, we, we kind of ran into the same issues there. Um If you’re going to do it, you can’t just do the entire community.

01:28:25,030	In one week, um, it’s gonna be multiple periods, so now we have to, OK, this week is this section of town, this week is a section of town.

01:28:37,400	Um, how do we coordinate that? And so most people would probably just put them out on the, the boulevard and just wait for us to, to come and pick them up. Well, as you know, The wind blows and This community and so most of them would probably end up in the street or In the neighbor’s yard and we probably get a lot of calls on that.

01:28:58,600	Um, so because of the logistics of that piece, plus we don’t have a commercial leaf vacuum to do this, um, so we would have to buy additional equipment and so for those reasons, we, we dismiss this option as well.

01:29:18,400	Um, so then we talked about um residents being able just to put their leaves in a bag like they always did and placing those out to the curb for collection. Um The problem is if Um, when they put leaves in a plastic bag, of course, anytime you have the plastic, then everything ends up down into landfill.

01:29:42,930	And we’ve been trying really hard to keep those types of things, compostable or recyclable materials out of the landfill and try to compost them as, as best we can. And so, um, one day I was having a conversation with Comm Risch, and he brought up the idea of, well, um, you know, there’s a lot of home improvement places that sell the 30 gallon paper.

01:30:00,070	Lawn and leaf bags. Maybe we Um How our residents put them in the paper bags, that way you could collect the, the paper bags along with the, the leaves. It could all be composted at the same, same time. Nothing ends up down in the landfill. It’s kind of a win-win. So we, we really liked, um, that option.

01:30:26,130	And so, um, what we We talked about is OK um so if we, we do this collection. How do we make this work? Um, how often do we do this? Do we do it once per year? Um, at the end of the season. Or do we do it a couple times, um, try to stagger them.

01:30:47,600	um, so you do it earlier in the season then kind of a break and then towards the end of the season. And so what we thought is, you know, if, if we do the collection.

01:31:03,530	Um A lot of times, the bulk of the leaves don’t fall until into the October time frame. And so maybe we do, um, one collection. The middle of October. We take another week off and then we do another collection, the last week in October. Um We thought, OK, that would probably give the, the residents the ability to um put things out.

01:31:25,930	Of course, we’re still going to have our, um, the, the leaf collection or the the the grass sites open during this time, so you can still take things in there and, and dump them in, um, we’re not gonna remove those. This is just for the people that don’t have the ability to take things over to those grass sites.

01:31:45,130	And so we thought 2 weeks would probably be sufficient and so that’s kind of what we talked about. And then um the unfortunate part is staffing. So In order to do this, um, we’re gonna, we would do it during the normal collection day of for garbage collection. And right now we run 5 trucks per. Um, per area of town.

01:32:10,300	I don’t know if we need 5, but we’re probably gonna have to plan for maybe 4 trucks, which would be 8 people, the driver and, and the one collector, and so, um, the unfortunate part is I don’t have landfill staff. To do. I don’t have 8 people around, extra people to, to do this.

01:32:30,800	So what we talked about is Taking our roads and streets employees and allowing, you know, having them shift over for that week and doing the collection for us and, um, we do have um spare trucks and so we can, as far as trucks and trailers, we can make that work.

01:32:51,430	Um, it’s just the staffing that I would have to switch over my, my landfill staff and um to take care of that for us. So. Um, so basically what we’re looking for tonight is a decision of should we Implement the fall leaf collection. A curbside collection. Um, if the answer is no, that’s the only decision I need.

01:33:16,000	If the answer is yes, then I would also be looking for another decision is do we require A residents to utilize paper bags and so therefore, everything can be recycled and composted, or do we allow them to put it in plastic bags and given that everything would end up down into landfill.

01:33:42,670	And then The 3rd decision was Do we do, um, one time collection or a multiple, uh, a two time collection in the fall and should that be the middle of October and the end of October, um, as we, we had talked and discussed. So that’s really where we’re at and if you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them. Uh, Comm Risch.

01:34:04,000	Yeah, Madam Chair, Steve, I like the idea of the paper bags just because the last pit we dug was like $4.4 million. Correct. And to fill that up with leaves is just, it’s just. Not the right thing to do when we can recycle them. And I understand that blowing it on the boulevard or in the street.

01:34:20,830	I mean, it’s going to rain, I’ll be cars on the park next to the curb but that, that’s just almost unworkable, that sort of thing. So I, I think you’re on the right track with paper bags.

01:34:33,930	We can get these paper bags, do it a couple of times, and, uh, shuffle your staff to make it work. I really appreciate your work on it. Thank you. Um, yeah, I guess I would agree, uh, Steve and I have talked through the other options.

01:34:48,970	I know there’s other cities in the state that do the like vacuum up and stuff, but like logistically, the city of Bismarck is just not really set up well for it, and the wind that we get is, is can be interesting. I can only imagine if people are putting their leaves out there a week ahead of time or something.

01:35:07,630	Who knows where they end up, um, but I would agree, Comm Risch, I, I do not want to see them all end up in the landfill, just I feel like we’ve had sites fill up faster, you know, we’re always gauging how many years we’re going to be using the site and our landfill does fill up a little quicker, I think, than

01:35:23,070	we estimate and we would like, and so, uh, I would prefer to be able to compost them, I think. asking the residents to, if they want to have their leaves picked up that they have to be in a paper bag.

01:35:37,070	I think it still gives them kind of like the bulk pickup, it gives them an option if they don’t want to go out to the landfill or go to a grass dumpster, but it’s still, you know, requires a certain, you know, like just like the bulk pickup, it has to be on that day that’s aside

01:35:51,970	from public works and that they have to pay the fee with this. Our ask is that it has to be in the paper bag. And so I feel like it’s a good compromise, um.

01:36:11,670	Obviously with the staffing, it’s not ideal, um, but we pull people from Solid waste and forestry when we have huge snow events, um, I think the public works crews are very used to helping each other out as needed, um, the only thing that I would like to make sure is stated when we make a decision is, I think.

01:36:26,700	That I don’t want Steve to have to come back to us in October if like because of a weather event, the dates don’t work anymore. So I want to be able to know, I want to be able to give him the flexibility to adjust the decision as needed. If we’re going to say yes, do it, do it twice, requirere the paper bags.

01:36:43,670	What’s aim for the 2 October weeks that you are thinking, Steve, but If we get a snowstorm on October 16th, then I would be like I’m OK with Steve making a decision on what we do for a leaf pickup or how that, what that looks like without him having to come back to us. Comm Zenker.

01:37:07,130	I’m cheered, um, Steve, are we gonna provide the bags or we’re gonna make them pick them up from someplace or? We’re going to charge them for picking those up or how we, what’s your, Madam Chair, um, Comm Zenker.

01:37:28,000	Normal, um, garbage is uh the residents furnished their own bags, so I would assume that they would furnish their own bags here as well. There would be no charge for us to pick them up. Um, it would be part of our normal service, but we would ask that they furnish their own bags.

01:37:47,730	Any other questions? Can, can we make it, I mean, is there a place where we could provide a spot for them to pick it up. Um Like we sell them? Well, it could be that too, or whatever. I mean, I just. It’s already kind of an inconvenience for those, um, neighborhoods that have mature trees.

01:38:07,470	I mean, I live in one of them, so when the wind blows, sometimes the neighbor picks up my leaves and sometimes I picked up the neighbor leaves type things, um, and I wouldn’t, personally I wouldn’t use this service because I’d make my 16 year old kid do it just to make his life a little bit miserable.

01:38:22,530	Um, so I just wanna, I mean, I wanna look out for the other, the citizens who don’t have that opportunity to do it, so, um, I do have a concern if we’re not gonna provide the, I like the idea. I think we need to fine tune.

01:38:37,900	The, how they can get bags or what if they don’t buy the right ones or they’re recyclable, those types of things. I mean, I think if we’re not going to provide them, I mean, because if we were saying that they could do them in plastic bags and we were just doing a leaf pickup that we were going to throw into the landfill.

01:38:50,700	We wouldn’t provide the plastic bags, right? But, but this is a little different. Do we need to make sure that if we’re going to require that they go buy them from a store that stores have them on hand, have enough of them on hand, I guess we could do some more exploring in that regard.

01:39:07,130	Or if it is something that we want to provide. Via, you know, way back when we were talking about extras we talked about the option of like the specific bag extras wasn’t an idea we move forward with, but at that point, we were going to sell the citizens those bags, so do the paper bags, do we go that route?

01:39:23,800	I don’t, you know, where they pick them up at public works. In September or something like that. So, obviously we’re gonna use it, you OK? Yeah, OK, Madam Chair, one more question. So here’s a, here’s a thought too.

01:39:43,130	I mean, if there’s an opportunity, um, and we’re using existing trucks, I’m assuming they’re the, the open the back trucks where we don’t right, can’t, can’t citizens just set garbage cans out there with them and we dump those in there instead of throwing that in too.

01:39:58,070	Would that, would that be a viable option? Could, yeah, could we allow that, just say that they can’t be in plastic bags that we could that too, um, as long as you’re picking that up and it’s, um, a garbage can that, uh, one person can dump. I’m 33 gallon, 36 gallon, something like that even though they’re not putting them out for garbage. So that could be an option too.

01:40:19,870	Any other thoughts, Comm Risch, I’ve seen the last several years a lot of the paper bags on the curbs, um, when we were picking up the extras. So they’re out there. OK. I, I, I don’t think it’ll be too burdensome.

01:40:36,430	And if this policy goes forward, I’m sure the local hardware stores and whatnot are gonna say, hey, that’s an opportunity to sell some more bags. True. Um, I mean, I think asking them to either put them in a, a container that’s not in a plastic bag like Comm Zenker said, or utilizing a paper bag is.

01:40:57,730	We’re making that ask, but we’re still providing the service because if we don’t, if we say no, then they’re having to deal with their leaves on their own, so I mean, I think we’re still finding a level of compromise, even though the paper bags aren’t necessarily what everybody is used to. Char Cleary. Go ahead, Mayor.

01:41:20,730	One thought I, I mean, I like the idea, but I think we could also make the bags available potentially through the city or through public works. If we were able to secure a source for them, even, I mean, honestly. I’m not as concerned about the cost of those bags.

01:41:39,400	If we save our landfill as a result of this, we’re probably money ahead as a city even if we had to provide the paper bags for this event, but I mean, I like the idea of garbage cans, as long as we can collect out of those and dump it. That works too. It’s one less item in the landfill paper. It’s Sure, so I think we need to investigate the options.

01:41:53,830	Maybe can we find a way forward. I think that you kind of Can see where we’re at, Steve, and maybe we can do a little bit more research as to like, would it be possible for public works to provide big pickup for people who want to utilize paper bags and like what that would look like as far as

01:42:13,070	sourcing and then come back to us. I’m I’m positive we could source them. if that’s the direction that you want to go and we provide those at no charge to the citizens. We’ll find a way to source them. OK.

01:42:30,830	We are gonna have to kind of move a little quickly here because. I hate to say it, but October is 60 days away in a week, maybe. We’ll be talking about snow before you know it. That’ll be your next presentation. It’s a four-letter word.

01:42:51,000	Oh, I’m thinking that I, it feels like we have a consensus, but if somebody would like to entertain emotion on it for Steve’s sake. As far as the bags go or the collection. Could come back in the first week in August and give us the options and see what they are.

01:43:08,600	Could you do that, Steve, Figure out how we’re going to source them, maybe come up with like a Projected dollar amount is what it would cost public works to do that. I can do that and then come back to us. Perfect. OK, I think we’ll do that then. Thank you, Steve. Thank you. have been a mess. Yes. All right. Item H.

01:43:34,870	Consider the request to receive and approve the city’s 2026 preliminary budget budget requests and budget committee recommendations. I’m just gonna say, uh, I’ve seen Dmitri’s slides. There is uh 40 of them, so if anyone needs a very short break before we start this. That’s a good idea. Anybody? All right, doesn’t look like it. I told him he has to be fast.

01:43:51,400	I also told him he wasn’t allowed to have 40 slides, but here we are. So. Now, I’m gonna make, uh, the, the next item, the person that’s supposed to be on the next agenda item, I’m gonna make him wait as long as possible. I’ll make a motion that we move him ahead.

01:44:19,630	Hey, yes to earn it. Uh, you can’t just get it like that. Um, uh, Madam Chair, Commissioners, uh, Mayor, uh, thank you for having me present this, uh, it’s, it’s my time of the year to present, uh, the 2026 budget, um, I, I would, I would, you know, just

01:44:42,030	encourage you all to ask questions as I go. There’s a couple of new things. I will probably go pretty quick on some of these, um, as you have all been sort of involved in certain conversations in your departments and everything, um, but I do want this to be.

01:44:58,770	discussion personally and I will uh from time to time punt to Madam Chair Cleary and let her, um, let her talk about um certain parts of the budget. Um, so as every year I present this to you, I kind of talk about the requirements.

01:45:19,030	Uh, we are required to establish appropriations for the general fund special revenue funds, and debt service fund, um, and have a 5 year capital improvement project plan, um, in for the budget, uh, according to North Dakota Century Code.

01:45:38,130	We uh, we do follow GA and Gasby, and so there’s a lot of accounting principles that have followed the budget even though the budget is the important document, but there are requirements that we are we have to follow, uh, when we uh put together the budget, um, and then there’s other funds, capital projects fund or enterprise funds, internal service funds, fiduciary funds that are um other related but really not something we particularly focus on, but

01:45:57,830	enterprise funds have what’s called a financial plan and all these other funds have financial plans but not required to be appropriated as the ones, the former ones are, um, the one.

01:46:16,100	the main new thing this year, uh, that I want to point out is the House Bill 1176, which was passed by the legislature, um, earlier this year, um, it will impact property taxes for 2026 and 2027 fiscal years for the, uh, for the city, um, in all cities and counties and uh local local political subdivisions in um in our state, North Dakota.

01:46:39,600	Um, they basically the state has established, it’s kind of a In, in the way I look at it as a twofold kind of bill. It kind of, it has a tax credit portion of it and then it has a property tax cap portion of it, um. Um, it’s, it’s so the state has established a relief fund from the legacy fund.

01:46:57,600	It has a residence primary residence credit up to $1600. I mean, that’s, these are the things that really don’t impact the city directly, um, uh, and the, the key things that they’ve sort of changed is that in previously the the citizens of the city would receive um A preliminary tax statement which

01:47:18,600	would come in August or September, uh, from the, from the uh the county auditor of every jurisdiction in the state of North Dakota, um, they have eliminated the preliminary tax statement and basically said that all the only thing that the city is required to do or any local jurisdiction has to

01:47:37,670	do is, is really just establish a public hearing date for the for the budget ordinance and set that up and basically announce it with the. Um, the county auditor, um, and then the county auditor is allegedly supposed to send out written notice to each citizen when the um.

01:47:56,900	The public hearing will occur. Um, and so we will post our budget um uh for the public to see, um. And so we will, and we’re also required to do that by ordinance.

01:48:15,000	We’re required to post it in the in the in the Tribune or put the notice in the Tribune, uh, several times before the public hearing, so we will be doing those procedures in order to um comply with House Bill 1176, and then you know the public hearing for the budget must be scheduled no later than September 7th, no later than October 7th, that is a, you know, something that’s been

01:48:32,200	there for, for as long as I’ve been here, and so that’s nothing new. Um, but, uh, we will shoot to have a public hearing on September 9th, um, uh. In a few months.

01:48:50,870	Um So, uh, regarding property tax, the base here, the, the way it’s sort of set up and I’m going to try to make this as painless as possible for you all, um, but basically what it means is that they wanted to establish a base year levy for each each political subdivision and then allow a percentage limit up to 3% and these particularly, there’s different laws for

01:49:09,330	school districts. This is particularly to counties and cities and parks districts and and other local subs but essentially we have a percentage.

01:49:25,470	of 3% that relates to how much we can increase our our our property taxes by and it’s based on the dollar amount that we levied, um, the previous year, um, in addition, um, they do allow us to have, uh, to look at any sort of valuations that uh that in any properties that that increased valuations from the previous year, meaning new properties or additions to existing properties that they’re allowing us to add those to the calculation.

01:49:49,130	And count that towards the property tax as well, um, however, uh, that also comes with the opposite, which is the deduction of the of the valuations of properties that went from being taxable to non-taxable. So it kind of goes both ways and so we net those two and then multiply that by the middle of your rate to determine what um.

01:50:07,170	Uh, to determine what our increase will be and then multiply that by 3%, so, um, essentially we come, it comes out to a little bit higher than 3% with the growth, um, basically we’re able to uh have a proper tax up to 4.4% at this time. Um, Mayor don’t that it’s a 3% increase on year over year.

01:50:38,070	Dollars for property that was already uh in improved. The additional dollars are only coming from new improved properties, I think to be clear, it’s really not a 4, it’s a 3% increase on realizable dollars if that property had been taxed in 2020. For or excuse me, yeah, 20244 2025.

01:51:01,770	It would be misleading to say it’s a 4.7% increase. It might be dollars increase by that much, but that’s only because there’s new property. Correct. Gregor, and I apologize if I misrepresented that, but basically our existing tax bill value increased 3.2%, 3.28%, but we are brought down by that 3% cap, so it limits us at 3%. On existing properties.

01:51:32,030	Mm Chair, uh, Demetri saw as the loaded question. How are we going to manage? All the parcels of property that are already, not the new stuff, right? Just the parcels that were in 24. Um, that they will only see a max of 3%. Uh, Comm Zenker, um I get what you, I think I know where you’re going with this.

01:51:58,700	Not every property owner will receive an increase of just 3%. And on their tax bill. So I’ll, uh based on the law. OK, so I think that’s going to be, uh, I think that’s, I know it’s gonna be an issue because The state legislator talked legislation

01:52:20,600	talked about that for months as to hey cap of 3%, cap of 3%, cap of 3%. And then if we get residents that have a larger than 3% increase, that’s going to be an issue.

01:52:47,200	Actually So how, how are we going to manage that? Cause I think that’s, that’s That was the intent of the, of the legislation is that there’s a cap of 3% for everybody. Unfortunately, the Commissioner’s anchor, unfortunately, the way the law is written, it the cap is based on the dollars levied by each political subdivision and it’s not levied at 3% by each property tax bill.

01:53:09,130	And so the valuations on each property are still there and so it. I think, I think Comm Connelly and I spoke about this. The best way I could describe it, and it maybe the mayor, Mayor Schmitz or any of you have a better way to just to and then a better

01:53:22,570	analogy, but I think of it, our pool can only increase 3%. If we’re thinking about like a swimming pool or a bucket of water. Our bucket of water can only increase 3%. But Everybody has a different size cup, and your cup might be bigger and my cup, your cup might get smaller depending on your evaluation.

01:53:40,700	And so how much you take from that pool is gonna be how much you pay and so that’s kind of, but, but everybody has to pay that grab a certain amount of water out of that bucket. I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.

01:53:58,170	I don’t know if it was at this table or if it was just you and I, Dmitri, but the messaging on it is a little, is going to be confusing.

01:54:12,830	I feel like for citizens because they’ve been hearing 3% cap, 3% cap forever, but Evaluation still play a role in the 3% cap is just on the The total. And so if like Because of the way that the market is, certain types of like evaluations, it, it, it just is going to be tricky. I just, it’ll be interesting. I don’t know, but I don’t know how we control it otherwise because So I understand.

01:54:35,070	Go ahead, Mayor. Understand exactly where Comm Zinker is coming from because I had this this this exact conversation with Multiple individuals of the state, including legislators. And I’m still not sure.

01:54:57,000	I mean, I know what we’re doing, trying to accomplish here and, and, and I have a way, but it will be, the problem is I don’t know how we impact, how we And cause it to happen because we’re not the ones who actually get to send out the bill. So if we were able to actually send out the tax bill for the city of Bismarck’s.

01:55:12,530	Share of taxes. I think we’re gonna get there to exactly where Comm Zacher is at, it’d be 3%. Last year’s bill, period. year over year, to be or whatever our percentage increase was. 1%, whatever it was. I don’t know how we control because we have to give the county.

01:55:32,530	Auditor or treasurer. I guess auditor Here’s our taxes that the city of Bismarck collects or And, and then they allocated it. We actually don’t have a lot of control over that. Because they’re gonna get the values.

01:55:51,470	Unless we come up with a map and I’ve run some tests and I try to figure out what it might be. And I understand exactly what Comm Zaker is from. I’ve been I’ve been worried about this since the day this bill was introduced.

01:56:13,930	Comm Risch, yeah, Madam Chair, I’ve I’ve talked to many citizens about this, just because it’s 3% cap of overall doesn’t mean you’re not. going to possibly see it bigger increase than 3% because of your, you know, your property has been assessed and it hasn’t been reassessed in 25 years, you might have a bigger increase in 3%.

01:56:37,400	Um, right, which might lead to other people’s Going down because our Top dollar or bulk is what is capped at the 3%. It is, yeah, more complicated, I think, than any of us want it to be, but, uh, Comm Zenker.

01:56:51,530	Madam Chair, I mean, we did discuss it when we had the equalization meetings, right? We had the same, so I still have the same concern then as they do now, and I don’t have an answer. I just, I can’t justify going to, going to citizens and saying, hey, you know, they’re supposed to be tax reform from the state. And we’re kind of off topic here because Dimitri’s supposed to get his and Stugggemeyer’s waiting like crazy.

01:57:11,630	You know, so there’s, so there’s, um, but we got to have the discussion. Yeah. If that, if there’s tax reform out there and you get a group of citizens who, and I, I completely understand the evaluation. I understand how that all works. If they’re paying more than 3%. It’s going to be an issue.

01:57:29,930	I, I don’t disagree with you. I just, it feels like our hands are tied in a sense don’t have any problem carrying my fair share, but I also don’t expect other citizens to have to carry a 15 or 16 or 18% increase, and somebody else, you know, doesn’t have to do that.

01:57:46,370	Cause that’s not what was sold to us from the legislation. No, I agree. Um, I just As, as a As the city like the mayor said, we’re not even the ones that send out the tax bills.

01:58:05,970	We’re not the ones that are, it feels like our hands are tied, uh, so I guess I, I don’t know if, if anyone else has a concept of what we can do about it as a city. I have an idea. Go ahead. I don’t even know if we can do it, but we could certainly say the In the city of Bismarck, property values. Go up 3%. And then our tax rate never changes and we only add new property.

01:58:33,770	And then you, then you’re there at 3% on the city of Bismarck. Or whatever our rate is. But I guess I don’t understand what that does like. For the purpose of evaluations and assessments.

01:58:53,700	Well, it effectively eliminates the the valuation process, which is I don’t think what the, I, I don’t, like I still am struggling with how this bill was structured. I just got to be honest. I, it’s been a struggle. From the day I read it, To the day I started asking questions of multiple legislators. But I, I’m, I understand exactly what Comm Zenker’s concerns are. I have the very same concerns.

01:59:09,470	I don’t know how to do it other than We set valuation at a rate of increase and that’s how we deal with it. Rush. Um, maybe we could do a fact sheet and get the county auditor to include it on explaining this in a simple way.

01:59:34,130	When they send out the tax statement. In lieu of that, maybe we could do a fact sheet and if they, they, they’re not willing to, uh, put it in our utility bills, um, towards the end of the fall.

01:59:52,930	We can make a one-page simple explanation is 3%, but that doesn’t mean yours is only good, and we, to begin with, there’s no, we don’t have. to raise it to 3%. That’s the cap. That’s the cap. Right, correct, yeah. There’s, I’m, there can certainly be years where you don’t go to 3%, obviously, yeah. Comm Zener, that’s a great question. So let’s ask that. So where’d you get the 3.28. That’s a valuation increase, right? Yes.

02:00:13,130	Of all the properties. Correct. OK. No, no, not all existing properties existing, we got to be specific because it’s a good catch. Um So of that valuation increase and we changed it to 3%. Are you, are you, you’re just, you just have that 3% because of the valuation increase. You really, is it a true 3%, um, increase dollar wise too.

02:00:40,800	Correct. The, the taxable value. Market value, well, market value adjusts, but taxable value, which is what the property tax bills based on increased 3%, so you are correct and that impacts dollars as well. Because you’re, you’re not, you’re we’re no longer allowed to change the proper, the mill levy.

02:01:02,230	The mill levy is basically a nonfactor used to be where be evaluation times the mill levy, basically ends up being your property tax, how much you’re going to collect each each year based with this House Bill 1176 that essentially eliminates the, the mill levy, the rate that you multiply valuations by each

02:01:25,270	entity would multiply the valuations by to determine what The property, uh, tax revenue would be. So back to my, back to what I was stating, and the 3.8 or 3.28, excuse me, that’s the average. Increase. So someone went up, some went down between those numbers.

02:01:49,800	So if we’re trying to, trying to make sure that each of our property owner citizens. residents in the city of Bismarck would only see a Whatever our rate of increase is, school districts well, park districts could be different. than ours Counties could be different than ours as well.

02:02:12,670	And they all play into this, but we could just have an expectation that property values are going to Go up 10% less 3% or less, and then our rate, our mill rate never changes, effectively, and we get to that number. That, I mean, I know where they’re going. I know what they said in the bill.

02:02:35,600	It said cap on total dollars at the municipality can assess. So if it’s 34 million, whatever it was last year times 1.03%. That’s the dollars, and then you spread that based on values. And values are not every property goes up 3%. Not every property goes, you know, they’re all over the board.

02:02:57,070	Yeah this is a real, I mean, I knew this day was coming when we have to have this, like, how do we handle this? How do we manage it? I’ll uh yeah, I mean, I don’t know if obviously we don’t have the answer. We know, we know the total dollar amount because of the state law, I guess.

02:03:21,570	The answer or the question would be. Do we operate in the way that the law is written where it’s based off of They Assessments, taxable value, so some peoples are going to go up at a higher rate based off of assessing some might go down, um. I mean, that has that’s been happening for years, obviously, um.

02:03:47,130	It’s just that now they’ve created this narrative of of a 3% cap. Which I think sets an expectation to citizens when in reality it’s just capping the total, it’s not capping the. Assessing ups and downs, um. Whether we as a entity can cap the individual. I don’t, I don’t know how that would work. Mr. Connelly.

02:04:14,970	Oh, this gets more convoluted during the border equalization meetings or when people bring in their tax statement too. They’re looking at a whole list and they’re seeing the total, and a lot of times they’re talking to us about the total and not necessarily what only the city has.

02:04:31,530	So when Burley County passed there one cent half cent continuation, have cent increase. They’re looking at buying down. Twenty-ish mills of their property tax, and that changes a lot of how people are going to come in with a statement. And it’s going to be all over the map.

02:04:52,870	Mhm And that’s going to be part of the conversation that makes it tough on us because people are gonna Asks how the city’s impacted, but they’re going to be seeing. All of that list. We’ve had it several times when they bring their statements up. So just adding that in because that’s our reality.

02:05:14,730	Right, I mean, I think there’s a huge education piece to the Board of Equalization and people’s property tax bills, um, obviously, we know that as an entity, and I don’t think that 1176 makes that go away. If anything, it’s gonna cause more questions, um. But for The sake of getting through this PowerPoint.

02:05:37,670	Since I don’t think any of us have a solution to this. So I think and commit Madam Chair, I think we could get to what the formula is to arrive at however we want to, once we know what the dollar amounts are here.

02:05:53,200	I, I, I, I can show Dmitri what my concept is, and then he can be in here between he and I, we can maybe share it, but I do believe there’s a way we could accomplishment. It just is going to kind of destroy the purpose, somewhat of the purpose of valuation. Right.

02:06:11,870	And I think that there’s, I mean, I, I understand the point of that because I understand the the narrative that the bill created, but I think that there’s obviously cons. To taking away the concept of evaluations as well, like when you talk about people’s improvements of properties or the market, I think that that we, we might be creating a solution, but causing another issue.

02:06:33,730	I, but I think that there’s obviously more conversation that can be had on that once we know what What you’re A, a broader example of what you’re talking about.

02:06:50,800	and, and just to say Mary Schmittz and and you know, we can talk about it, but I think the border Coalization um is, is at the state level in in August and so I think from our, from the city’s point of view, I think our our opportunity for that has passed in terms of evaluation changing valuations. Um, because it will impact all the political subdivisions inside of the the the.

02:07:12,730	The city of Bismarck, including schools and parks and everybody because the Board of Equalization at the city level holds power basically over the value, old values that impact all all political subs in there. In the area. Any other comments on House Bill 1176. OK, I think we’ll, we’ll move on from that. OK. Um, so I’m gonna.

02:07:39,470	I’m gonna Take over for Demetri for a little bit and just go over our budget process, um, this is my 2nd year on the budget committee, 2nd full year on the budget committee, um. And so in past years, depending on who’s on the committee, the timeline and stuff gets done a little bit differently.

02:08:01,970	Um, so I was very appreciative that, um, Dmitri Doug, Jason, everybody kind of worked around my schedule. So, um, it starts off with, um, meeting with, uh, individual departments going over their requests. Um, you’re going to see a list of one time asks, uh, FTE requests, ongoing asks, and so we kind of go through.

02:08:22,730	All of that the budget committee then reviews the department requests, um, with the directors and the portfolio commissioners, um, were welcome to attend any of those, um, all that happened in June, early June, and then the budget committee, uh, sits down, goes through, um, all of those lists and kind of tries to make the

02:08:42,430	best, best decisions we can with what we’re working with, uh, especially with, um, the cap and the dollar amount that we, we know we need to stick. To, um, The, uh, and then that kind of leads us into July, which is where we’re at here, um, presenting that recommendation to the commission.

02:09:03,600	um, this is the preliminary budget, um, so if, if it gets approved tonight, um, It can still changes can still be made Basically, we cannot make additions, but we can still remove things.

02:09:23,470	So that’s kind of where we will be at after tonight if, if we move forward, um, and then in September is when we’ll hold the public hearing and the city commission approval for the 2026 budget ordinance, um. So if you want to keep going, Dmitri, for me, we had, um, kind of some general objectives, obviously some new stuff with, uh, the House bill, um.

02:09:46,500	I would say Based off of this list that you’re seeing on the screen, um, I kind of described this year’s budget to the budget committee as it felt like a very much like a maintenance year. Um, there wasn’t any like big equipment asks. There wasn’t like. And above average normal of FTE requests.

02:10:07,270	It’s definitely a lot about maintaining the level of services, maintaining what we are doing as a city as far as growth and how we can really like make sure that we’re dealing with the inflation and, um, the gradual increases of fees so that there isn’t any like big surprises or big jumps um down the road, uh, so the, the inflation increases and

02:10:29,670	nothing, uh. You know, IT software and upgrades and we’re just trying to make sure that everything stays on that schedule, so that when we do hit a year that has bigger asks, we are able to like maintain the services that we’re providing and that there’s no big surprises, so that’s kind

02:10:46,870	of the way that this year felt, um, Um, I think we can just keep going, Dmitri. um Do you want me to take this, why don’t you go.

02:11:02,000	Um, so overall, you know, I just want to, you know, when we do this, do these budgets is, is, you know, I wanna make sure you guys are sort of aware of like the market and I obviously some of the stuff is pretty, pretty common knowledge, um, inflation rate in July was reduced to 2.7% from 3 in the in the past year, but it fluctuates, you know, monthly or whatever, um, sounds sounds like it’s hovering around that 3% mark.

02:11:22,530	Federal Reserve uh main uh maintain the federal funds rate pretty consistent, um, uh, recently, in recent times, and you know we we always have, you know, uh, increased costs continue to impact our budgets, you know, either in the past we’ve maybe been a little, a little, uh, Hesitant on

02:11:41,200	increasing operating budgets and so maybe you know this is my in this situation, I think it was kind of the year where we felt like, oh man, we’re really behind or on certain departments that needed a little bit more of a boost and their operating budgets are just costs just exceeded what

02:11:56,670	they’ve had in the past, we generally are pretty conservative in how we increase operating budgets, especially in the general fund we look at every department and we say, OK, let’s roll their operating budget from one year to the next without any increases, and that’s our.

02:12:12,330	goal, but just happens to be that we have cost overruns and as you know now, today is July of 2025. This budget is for the entire year of 2026, which is a year and a half away basically from being completed. We’re planning.

02:12:31,500	You know, way in advance where we, you know, and that’s just the, the nature of budgeting is that we don’t know what we don’t know. And so sometimes when we see the following year, we see the results of an operating budget, you know, of a department we go, we, we look at it and say, oh man, this was way over our projections or way under our projections, and we kind of evaluate and to see if

02:12:48,130	we need to adjust accordingly. And so that’s kind of how we looked at this um the fleet replacement plan is working. Um, we are having, you know, ebbs and flows in in replacement, but they’re not significant, you know, we don’t have any. Significant uh cans that quote unquote proverbial cans that have been kicked down the road.

02:13:08,770	So we’re just following a plan and it’s causing us to actually save money in the long run. So now we’re finally seeing kind of the, the repayment of, of that fleet replacement plan because we’re seeing costs not exceeding and not being significant, um, we’re kind of, uh, paid off our first.

02:13:28,000	Um Financing purchase that we’ve done in the last 5 years, uh, this past year, and it kind of reduced some of the costs that we have and we’re and but the equipment has had a longer life than the, the loan itself and the financing purchase itself and so we are able to capitalize on those kind of

02:13:47,730	situations and so, you know, that’s why we have a plan. That’s why it’s good to maintain a plan so we can sort of progress, progressively replace things and progressively, you know, just in improve our fleet and improve our processes, really, I would encourage the city commission to really consider improving the things like that

02:14:06,400	everywhere in every aspect is to continue maintaining things because that will keep things stable and prevent Any high hikes and increases in figuring out ways to, especially now with House Bill 76 1176 capping everything, um, really prevent from any major um fluctuations and costs in the future.

02:14:28,370	Yeah, we definitely are hitting the point of the fleet plan because now we’ve had a couple of years, obviously with it, that we’re starting to see the benefits of it for sure.

02:14:44,100	There’ll be ebbs and flows to Comm Cle’s point, but the, you know, they’ll be highs and lows, but there won’t be as significant as they were in the past. Um, interest rates are averaging between 3.6% and 5% depending on factors, you know, rating and what our rating is, what when, how long is the debt, all this is to give you kind of the idea of what the economy is doing, um, you know, I’ve gone over this multiple years now, you know,

02:15:03,230	there’s a different fun types that we have, you know, a lot of people don’t seem to understand um uh government accounting, and that’s, that’s different, it’s different, it has its own rules and standards, and one of the key things is it has funds, you know, and that in government we have something

02:15:19,670	called governmental funds and so I usually present this at Citizens Academy, and I kind of describe what the theory is behind all of this, and the idea is to understand that governmental funds are more um what we call non-exchange transactions, which means taxes and and and less fees, but more,

02:15:38,800	more tax-based, um, and then you have Enterprise funds which are Kind of more of exchange what we call exchange transaction, which means you get a service for a fee. So it’s pretty direct.

02:15:55,500	there’s no, there’s no taxes, usually no taxes involved and usually it’s, it’s one for one kind of like buying a service that’s why they’re called enterprise or business type ones. So that being said, you know, one key thing I want to make sure we are clear is that there’s different kinds of expenses. Everybody wants to look at each line item and look at each individual expense, but there’s key to understanding this.

02:16:12,600	The two, the two ongoing costs that we always are very careful with are the personnel and the, and the just general operating costs that we incur every single year. Anytime we add into that, we’re anticipating that that. Cost is probably going to be perpetual and only going to grow with inflation.

02:16:31,170	That’s how accounting, you know, budgeting and accounting works. There’s other costs such as one-time costs, which are what they are, what they sound like one time cost, which means you buy something, you probably don’t have to purchase it for a number of years or you will have to plan for further in the

02:16:46,730	future but not, not currently, and those are the kinds of things and some things don’t even come back ever. And so those are the things that we’re a little bit more or less concerned.

02:17:01,070	concerned with when we’re looking at things and more focused on things that impact future budgets and future revenue sources and same that same kind of concept of capital projects. They’re a little they’re multi-year costs potentially, but there’s still one time in nature, you know, if, if you build a police station, you’re not gonna build another one for, for a very long time.

02:17:17,070	Um And, and so we had to base on House Bill 1176, we did have to change our method. Used to be where we’d say, OK, there’s expenditures, here’s what our non-property tax revenues are.

02:17:34,130	OK, here’s how much we have to assess or and if we don’t want to assess that, then we have to reduce our costs, our expenditures in this situation we kind of had to change things because we said, look, we’re here, we’re capped at this amount. This is what our House Bill 176 calculation is. Here’s our number. Let’s now we gotta go back and say OK well. What’s our other revenues, OK, add those together.

02:17:50,370	OK, well then now does it match our expenditures? Well, if it doesn’t, then we got to cut our expenditures and that’s just we changed how we look at things even though, you know, we try and never try to increase taxes in the past, and enterprise funds work kind of a little bit differently because you’re

02:18:06,170	dealing with long term capital projects like water treatment plant expansion and those kind of things where you have the operating costs, you have the capital project cost, and then you have to focus on future.

02:18:23,200	Project costs that you’re not, you’re not yet anticipating, but they’re 5, 10 years down the line, you got to be able to be ready to have enough, uh, cash flow and financing to to to fund those types of projects and then obviously that that’s where you can borrow debt and those things all have to play into how we determine it and then that’s how you determine how much fees you need.

02:18:41,330	Um I don’t know if you want to touch on this Comm Cleary, but I certainly can, um, Like I said, there was a, it felt more like a maintenance here where we’re trying to like shore up and make sure that we’re not over over.

02:19:08,530	Going over our operations budgets in in certain areas, um, that inflation adjustment, um, for certain budgets, uh, within police, within roads and streets and a couple others where we’re looking at line item by line item, seeing what we budgeted last year, where we were actually at, um, and making sure that we’re more realistic and that we’re providing the numbers that are needed for those services.

02:19:23,030	Um, one of the other, uh, big things that you’re going to see, um, is the police software for Axxon. Um, this was a big conversation. Uh, there’s a couple different police meetings that had happened where we went over it, um, it is uh probably described as software.

02:19:41,670	It’s AI related, but the goal with a lot of the programs within Axxon are, um, to really help the police force, uh, you know, streamline efficiencies and kind of create the most efficient version of of their work, uh, so it should in long term help. help with, you know, with growth, um, if your FTEs are more efficient.

02:20:04,630	Hope you’re adding them at a slower rate. It hopefully should have some um some effect on overtime, that sort of thing, um, but the, the reason that we’re adding it this year is getting in on it at a certain time frame does also give us a cost benefit.

02:20:25,570	So we were able to start the program at the right time where now we are able to kind of reap the benefits. long term of the program by starting it now, um, so that was a big line item and it will be an ongoing cost, but, um, there’s a, a, a huge benefit to it for the police

02:20:39,870	force. Um, we did have two fire trucks added that were part of the fleet plan, um, And as you can see, there’s kind of just an ongoing list to, um, we’ll get to, I think there’s other slides where we’re going to break down the new positions,

02:20:54,300	um, what was asked for and what we were able to to fund, so, um, Demetri, you want to add anything else there, Comm Risch, I’ve got a question. You’ve got Enterprise funds up there, then below it, it’s the police and fire stations. They wouldn’t be.

02:21:12,470	I think Dmitri put those under there because they are not going to be funded with property tax. Am I saying that correctly? Yeah, I apologize Comm apologize Rich apologize apologize Comm Rich, you’re absolutely right.

02:21:32,930	They, they, they’re not enterprise funds, so they probably shouldn’t be listed there, but they, um, the potential or well not potential that the new fire station and the new police station that will eventually come, um, will be funded with sales tax dollars primarily, so that’s, so they don’t fall under the governmental funds necessarily, or maybe they do, but they’re under sales tax. They’re not under property tax, um. But no, they’re not part of enterprise funds.

02:21:53,100	And, and I, I’ll just point out the fire station will be paid for our reserves, but future fire stations will be paid probably by sales tax Comm Rush to your point.

02:22:08,930	Um Um, the, my apologies on that error, but, um, overall, you know, we, we, we had a basically what we call a balanced budget. The reason you see, if you look at the 26, you know, our revenues went up slightly um to 71 million and our operating expenses went up to 68 million, um, and then this is just kind of a quick summary of where we’re at and

02:22:25,170	then you see kind of a a a a bit of a projected loss um of 1.4 million, and that’s mainly because we have, uh, fire trucks that were ordered, I think 2 or 3 years ago and then they’re finally now arriving after 26 months or whatever was

02:22:41,000	the time frame, um, so there’s 2 of them and then they’re they’re basically gonna be used in our reserve along with our equipment reserve that we usually utilize to purchase do replacements of uh laptops and and different IT related items. Um, yeah, so just pretty quick. I’m not, I’m just gonna brush over this.

02:23:04,530	I, I, I really haven’t changed the slide, you know, too significantly in the past, you know, uh, because from the past, really just the House Bill 1176 was implemented, you know, our, our uh uh property taxes is 52% of our general fund revenue.

02:23:21,600	That’s pretty consistent with, with the year, with the previous year in terms of ratios and then we have other state aid and grants that we received, that’s how General Fund operates. It’s not just property. There’s other things, there’s other, you know, 48% of something else that the funds that usually with the $9.

02:23:40,870	8 million from sales tax that was uh vote ballot approved and uh 2018, I believe they modified it slightly to be exactly 9.8 million, so that was that supplements the property tax. Um public as far as expenditures, you know, I always want to point out that public safety makes up 56% of the general fund, so it’s way more than the $36.

02:24:06,030	8 million that we that we uh have in property tax, so um just to give, you know, everybody understanding that property tax is not the only thing that funds the general fund and it’s generally not enough anyway.

02:24:23,170	Um You know, uh, there’s a couple of things in our reserve that I usually want to point out, and we’ve we’ve talked about this last year, things that we have upcoming that we want to anticipate in the general fund. I’m purely talking about general fund here, about different costs and things that potentially could impact the city, um, obviously, you know, we have the police station, we have several other things and I would look at the ordinance

02:24:42,800	when the budget ordinance is up I would look for you for the city commission to approve a commitment towards these projects unless you have any concerns or issues with these. Um, and then, um, I’m gonna jump right into sales tax.

02:25:03,700	So we have our original 1%, which is restricted for those 3 items there which, you know, and then we have the 0.5%, which is for a specific arterial streets and construction and reconstruction, and then we have a measure one that was recently approved um in 2024, which is a 0% 60% of which can be used for public safety, specifically building police and fire and and fire

02:25:25,570	stations acquisition of. Police and fire emergency vehicles and costs associated with the use of the Burley Morton detention center. It’s very pretty specific. And the other 40% of the sales tax is used for public transportation for providing reliable service for disabled, elderly, and socioeconomic challenge residents. Um, you know, I show a little bit of a forecast here.

02:25:45,800	I kind of want to show a little bit of a graph. It’s pretty consistent if you look. This is kind of the sales tax, the 1% sales tax that’s that doesn’t have a sun setting portion on it that’s been here for as long, for a very long time, um, it’s pretty consistent.

02:26:01,830	There’s really no concerns with that, with the sales tax at this time, um, we, we forecasted a at a at a pretty conservative rate of 2%, I think 2% growth, so it’s pretty good, um, and then.

02:26:22,270	you know, when it comes to measure one, this is the transit portion of it, there was a million dollars that I believe the city commission’s already committed towards um covering the losses and operations of the Bisman Transit and so that’s where that blue line comes in the middle, where basically I basically says this million dollars is already committed for a purpose, and then the rest of the money needs to be allocated based on the approval of the city commission and the this, the

02:26:45,070	transit steering committee that the city has a Bismarck Transportation steering commit city established. Um, there’s a, a city of Mandan portion to this, I believe, and they, they have their own process of how they allocate that money, but, um, again that is something that will come up during the

02:27:02,400	year. Um, and as far as sales tax forecasts for the public safety portion, we’re anticipating that there’ll be a build of a police station at some point north of $80 million and so they’ll more than likely will be a revenue bond, uh, associated with this, the city does not have that kind of cash

02:27:22,030	to, to, to finance, uh, to fund this operation, you know, uh, with with cash so it’ll have to be some sort of debt issuance, um, in the future, um, and, and on top of that if we also included a projection for any potential for a fire station,

02:27:39,670	um, and so the bars show kind of what the reserve looks like, what the collections look like, and the line kind of shows what the debt will look like over over time. Any questions before I move on. OK Silence is acceptance, so I’m moving on.

02:28:01,400	Um, a street lights, you know, uh, we, we, this is something we look at annually. There’s really nothing unusual here, uh, you know, we, they, they plan white conductor and feedpoint replacement program they replace traffic signals. They have a plan that’s in place that they that public works tries to manage every single year. There’s really not a whole lot of changes to it.

02:28:17,530	However, the cost of these, of the street lights have increased quite a bit. I was gonna say the same thing, um, when you talk about inflation, um, and, uh, Meeting with Paul, the inflation on, especially like the large street lights are is immense.

02:28:37,670	It’s like so much bigger than regular inflation, um, but the on the upside, the way that they’re making them now, they will last a lot longer, um, and then also with our LED program as well as well as just, you know, making sure that we’re monitoring it annually. We really are able to maintain it with a pretty minimum increase.

02:28:59,070	As long as we just continue to have that discussion annually, so it is kind of wild to look at the inflation, like when you look at what he was saying he was paying for them even 5 years ago to what they are now is just like kind of crazy, but so far we have been able to maintain it with just minimal

02:29:16,670	fee increases, um, and the LED project helps, um, bring that cost down too, so. Um, and now we’re gonna move on to the real enterprise, the enterprise funds, which are basically those fee based and uh funds that provide some sort of service based on and it’s charged based on a fee, um, uh,

02:29:38,170	Water fund, we use the Stanech model, they provided us with the study several years ago and so we looked at that model we projected out based on information we have today on a potential projects, um, I worked with our, our, our new utility operations director who took over the model kudos to

02:29:55,170	him for. kind of grabbing that um that complicated Excel spreadsheet sheets, I should say, and really updating that information, making sure it’s accurate or or as close to accurate as possible even though we’re planning out, you know, 5 to 10 years in advance, but we felt that at 3% increase

02:30:13,330	is due at this time just based on, you know, discussions with, with Comm Zenker, Comm Clery, you know, and, and looking at information, um. That was presented to us, we felt that it was prudent to just stay consistent with inflationary rates that are happening and so, so we, when we get to those, um,

02:30:32,570	years of Of, uh, when the project needs to be completed that we’re not unprepared that we have enough money on hand or we can at least uh bond or or do some sort of debt issuance in order to and then have enough money to cover that debt service, um, moving forward, so that is, you know, um, it’s

02:30:52,900	fairly consistent with what the inflation rates are today. Um, the water treatment plant expansion is continuing, and then there’s other projects that are going on in the water that we’re that you just have to be completed, um, and similar to that sewer fund, you know, we continue to increase.

02:31:12,200	I think last year we increased 2 0.25%, um, to stay with the same inflationary costs and anticipating future projects, um, we are trying to stay ahead of compliance on, on things and so it.

02:31:35,130	It’s it’s very important that we stay on top of these just slight increases and not trying to overwhelm anybody’s budget, just trying to stay maintained and and move forward and like I mentioned before, kind of with the fleet plan, you know, when you have these sort of slight increases over time, you know, they’re, they, they create a much more manageable situation when it comes to, you know, things that

02:31:50,400	happen or or things the projects that especially large dollar, multi-million dollar projects that need to happen to comply with with regulations. Um And there’s several projects Haricke Cliff Station and and uh uh. Flocalization, clarifyer project which is still going on and and continuing, um, solid waste kind of similar, very similar situation.

02:32:17,130	There’s really no significant change from the year before. There’s a couple of new projects that have started that we’ve been anticipating. Their costs may have gone up a little bit more, Comm Cleary, if you, I don’t know if you recall exactly, but I believe in which required us to increase our rates slightly.

02:32:30,400	Yeah, it’s a pretty minimal increase, um, do a little bit to Uh, projects going on, but then also just a little bit with inflation and maintaining the level of service, so. It’s not anything, it’s very similar to last year, I feel like.

02:32:53,400	And then, you know, the event Center has been a big discussion this year, um, just want to, you know, generally, it’s hard for us to really anticipate what would happen with the event center this year with all the changes that are happening and a potential management company that’s might come in, um, in the past we’ve, we’ve approximated the loss between $400,000 a million dollars depending on the

02:33:12,130	situation, depending on what was happening, depending on the economy, and just looking looking back towards COVID, even, you know, but, uh, we’re looking at an estimated loss between 800,000 and 1.

02:33:33,670	3 and we’re just being conservative, extra conservative conservative knowing, um, not knowing what’s going on, having a huge unknown this year and, and potentially into next year to really determine uh what is going on, you know, and, and I later on I kind of give a history of what happened, which is, you know, kind of been consistent with the what I presented in the past. I haven’t really changed that those slides, but really, you know, um.

02:33:52,130	There was an SVOG grant, which is a COVID grant to help all the uh shuttered venues at the time, uh, there was a 3 about $3 million 3.4 million dollars, uh, we use all, all of it was used to shore up the events center and any losses they’ve incurred in the last couple of years.

02:34:09,230	Finally, it’s finally run out, you know, last year, and so, um, you know, we need another source of revenue or, you know, who knows what will happen when there is a management company or whatever you know what whatever the future.

02:34:27,600	So, um, and then, you know, there is a second portion to the event center, uh, which is the liquor lodge and restaurant tax, which is a, which is a 1% uh liquor lodge and restaurant tax on those particular items um that’s collected in the city, and this is basically only can be used only can be used for capital projects, um, at the event center. And so it pays, it pays for the event centers uh $1.

02:34:49,800	7 million dollar debt which was usedably. to build the exhibit hall in 2013, and then, um, it also will be used to um, to, uh, uh, to start projects to improve the event center and it’s a, you know, it’s a pretty old building and um and and needs a lot of improvements that we maybe cans have been

02:35:10,230	kicked down the road, if you will, you know, um, and so we have um uh we have a consultant who, who will be who has projected a plan on how to correct. those.

02:35:25,070	And so if you look at this chart, you see kind of the, the, the yellow bars are kind of the future expenditures that we’ll have to have out of this fund that can be only used for capital to improve the event center and then the blue bars are kind of the reserves along with what was going to be collected by uh

02:35:39,000	by the city and in at some point in 26, 27, 28, there will be a little bit of a dip and we’re gonna go negative in our, in our reserves in that fund, but we will recover.

02:35:55,700	Subsequently because the the revenue is strong enough that it’ll recover us in the next couple of years and, and the city has enough cash flow in order to basically Give, give the liquor lodge and restaurant Tax fund a loan for a small period, you know, a few years in order to um get these improvements made and, and finally get the event center build um up to speed on all their capital items.

02:36:17,400	Um, and I’ll hand this one over to you, Comm. Um, so then we’ll go through kind of like I was saying earlier, the, the requests and recommendations, um, that the budget committee reviewed, uh, for each department, um, and that the directors went over with us, um, For, uh, first being the salary planning, uh, the budget committee this year is

02:36:39,270	recommending an overall 5% salary increase. It addresses the 3% market adjustment to stay up to date with inflation, um. Based on compression study in 2023, the city established a plan to maintain a 2% merit on top of the market adjustment per year, um, It’s Uh, the 5% is very similar, if not the

02:37:01,770	exact same as to what we did last year. It’s, uh, when we talk about the study that was done, uh, it’s Necessary as a way to help us best combat the compression, um, that you can, that, uh, employees can experience, uh, you know, trying to attain that midpoint, um, by 10 to 15 years of

02:37:19,800	employment, but then also just making sure that we remain um competitive, uh, there’s certain areas, certain departments, as you guys know, um, that it is hard to remain competitive with private sector, with the state, etc. So we’re just making sure that we’re doing our best attempt of of remaining competitive as well, um.

02:37:40,670	So that’s where we’re at with that. Um, next, uh, we’ll go through, um, these are all going to break down on different slides, but I just wanted to point out, um, kind of the requested versus the recommended, um, obviously cuts had to be made.

02:37:58,430	FTEs are a big one because like Dimery said, they are an ongoing cost, uh, that we’re going to see into the future. So it started out at 12.5 requested and uh we landed on 6.5, um, in our recommendation, um, but. I think the next slides will break that down for you, um.

02:38:19,600	Showing you the different departments, uh, the one that I thought was definitely worth highlighting is, uh, we had a big conversation with, uh, about the HR department. There’s 2 FTEs um being added to the HR department this year, uh, when we talked statistically on numbers, the, the size of the city as an entity, as an employee number, um, comparative to the HR department and the lift that

02:38:36,300	they make for those employees, when you compare it to other entities that are the size of ours our HR department. is is wildly, um, small, uh, and they’re making a huge lift, um, and so this was really, really needed, uh, for Leanne and her

02:38:53,200	team to be able to, um, kind of fully do their job. Um, so that was kind of a big one this year for us, I think, um, and then moving on to the ongoing costs, um, you requested was a little over 1.

02:39:13,100	5 million, uh recommended is uh just a little over 1.4 million, so we were to, like I said, we talked a lot about, um, kind of making sure that the companies or the, the, the Entities have, whether it’s, uh, it’s mostly within that general fund, but the operating budgets suring them up to make sure that they’re more accurate and that they’re not

02:39:31,730	overspending over those budgets that were in place, uh, in previous years. So you can see those dollar amounts broke down, fire department, police department, and roads and streets kind of being your, your big 3 that we needed to really take a look at and make sure that they’re operating

02:39:47,130	budgets are functional for them, um, Axxon is on there, that’s that, um, draft one. Program, the ERA leaders program, like I said before, it’s a lot of AI programming software that the police officers have, have been trialing and will now get to utilize um as a way to help with their anything from report

02:40:08,000	writing to the, uh, Axon is kind of an ongoing, uh, software that they use, uh, it’s all tied to our uh body cams and. Uh, basically, any of your other like technology that the police force is using, so it all operates together and so this program will kind of sync all of that up and hopefully,

02:40:28,830	like I said, create a system where they’re being as Efficient as they can be, which in theory should help us, um, when we’re looking at, you know, FTEs needed for growth or overtime.

02:40:51,200	Um, you know, the more efficient they can be, the better when it comes to that stuff, so, um, there was one time asks of uh fire truck replacement that was on the Fleet plan and then a new fire truck engine, um, for Fire Station 6. we’re kind of your two big one time asks, um, there is a roof replacement that will be happening at a fire station one and, um, a couple other things.

02:41:14,370	and then those events are events and things that have already been talked about as well, um, solid waste, um, has an HVAC replacement in two buildings, um, and a couple other projects, um, that we went over with Steve and Toby, um, There was a lot on this list, um, for, for public works and for fire and

02:41:36,100	police. Again, they’re kind of the three big ones where they’re operating budgets are, are quite large and so just trying to make sure that we are Taking care of the things that need to be taken care of and not pushing too many things down the road, but then also making sure that we’re not

02:41:52,570	overspending, um. And leaving other things short, so, um. Capital project costs, um, Obviously we’ve talked about the future police station, uh, the uh Fire Station 6, and then there is street repairs, maintenance, and construction listed on there, um, And street right, uh, the street light replacements, uh, Paul kind of has those set up on a schedule,

02:42:20,970	so he does a certain amount every year and has them planned out for It seems like decades, so, um, at a certain point, the pace might have to get quicker, but right now we’re just maintaining on his schedule, um, so that’s what those are and then the utility projects, uh, you see that expansion project

02:42:41,370	for the water treatment, um. plan that we have discussed and a couple other things. That is fast tracking through all of that, so, uh, Dmitri and I are definitely happy to answer any other questions you might have on any of the one-time the FTEs, the ongoing, anything, um, I

02:43:04,770	know this. PowerPoint feels like we threw a lot at you. You should have had the, he had all the reports in the In the Agenda, so um hopefully you were able to comb through them at your own pace and not have to look at them at the rapid

02:43:19,670	fire pace I just went through, but. Any other questions on anything specifically? Madam Chair Go ahead, Mayor, this is a preliminary budget and I think we’ll have opportunity to digest it further before we have the public hearing in September and look at what we need to do.

02:43:39,400	So I would move that. We accept this as the preliminary budget. Yeah, because it’s, it’s the top of the line and we may still see some adjustments. All right, we have a motion. I second. We have a motion in a second. Any other discussion, Comm Zenker. I just want to add that, um, and, uh, I’d like the budget.

02:44:04,500	You’re right, it’s a maintenance budget, but we still got to figure out my, my number one priority. Yes, Yes, we have, we have to figure that out. It’s gotta be. Um, Mr. Risch’s point, it’s gotta be explained better. It’s gotta be, it’s gotta be the citizen’s gotta know what the heck.

02:44:22,700	Is going on cause we, to be honest with you, I don’t think we really do. I mean, Comm, I mean, the way I understand it versus, I mean, Demetria, we could go back and back and forth for a few seconds.

02:44:40,200	We’re gonna be too we, we can, you know, have that discussion and do what we want, but, um, but I think we’re both to the same point. We understand the 3%, but it, I don’t think it’s communicated, um, the way that the intent was from legislation. And I think. That’s my point.

02:44:56,330	Sounds like the mayor has a concept that he wants to run by Dmitri. and maybe we can all have that conversation, I think maybe we need to figure out what that looks like as far as The county because they’re presenting, you know, they, they’re the ones that send out the tax bill, so we probably need to loop them in at some point and, and even

02:45:13,470	if there needs to be another conversation had with the state level as to like how they really are expecting us to deal with this, um, uh, uh with this law versus obviously the state laws that are around assessing and Board of Equalization and how we merge all of that together and make it make sense

02:45:35,730	for our citizens. So I think we can certainly continue those conversations, but I think we need to get other people included in them, um, probably at the county level at some point just to make sure that whatever we’re passing on to them is understood.

02:45:53,930	Um We do have a motion in a second and the Mayor, did you have more to add to that? My only point was, again, this is to pass a preliminary budget. I agree with Comm Zinker.

02:46:11,530	We need to Figure out how we’re gonna actually handle the dollars and how that’s gonna land with everybody’s own uh tax statement as a at least as it relates to the city of Bismarck, but I think we have We have the next month basically to accomplish that and, and, uh. You know, I don’t know. I mean, we have to come up with our plan. Ultimately, when we pass the budget, how we’d like to see our dollars.

02:46:31,430	Collected or how how they’re landing her property. Right. And then we got to communicate that. Correct. OK. We do have a motion in a second. Is there any other discussion? Go ahead and call roll. Comm Zenker. Comm Connelly, Mayor Schmitz. Yes. Comm Risch. Yes. Cry, yes. Thank you, Dimitri. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Commissioners. Next is I.

02:47:01,770	Consider the recommendation for from the city administrator to hire the new police chief, Jason. Good evening, Madam Chair, Mayor Commissioners, um. Currently I’m Here to present the worst kept secret in the city of Bismarck.

02:47:23,170	Um, but before we do that, I, I do need to echo some of the remarks that were shared about Chief Dreevich as he spends his final days with this organization, um, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know him over the last several years, uh, Dave was hired as the chief after I was hired as the assistant administrator, so much of my time has been spent with Dave as chief and um I just echo

02:47:39,730	everything that people have said about his commitment to this organization, this community, uh, Dave is a very humble Guy, but he definitely deserves a lot of credit for the department that he’s leaving behind, um, some of the uh.

02:47:58,870	Accolades that will go along with his time here, some of the things that I will remember, uh, during Dave’s time, we transitioned into a much more uh embracing uh we, we embrace technology within the police department much more than we did when he was here, and we’ve trying to find ways to Augment traditional staff using technology and the resources we spent a good bit of time just now talking about

02:48:15,530	Axon and what a what a critical tool it has become for a force multiplier for our police department, so I think those are some of the things that we can’t lose sight of, uh, but at the same time we also need to talk about the process that we

02:48:27,230	went through to get to this point where we are, where I’m about to make a recommendation on the new chief of police for the city of Bismarck, um. As you know, we had a number of applicants that went through the process.

02:48:42,130	There were a few steps along the way where we were able to evaluate their answers, their performance, um, and just some of the, uh, the data that we have in front of us to help cut down to the point where we had two face to face interviews, the Tribune did a nice job covering the two candidates.

02:48:59,230	We’ve got an in-house candidate with 25 years of experience, and he’s done just about everything in the organization as far as the police department is concerned and a very qualified candidate from an outside organization.

02:49:13,000	With that in mind, uh, some of the things that I learned along the way, um, when considering a new chief, there would be a time, um, to look for more of the same when you’ve got a stable department, you’ve got a department that is doing very well, it’s excelling and it’s uh very well respected and supported by the community.

02:49:26,400	That would be the time where you would be looking for more from a new chief. More of the same if we had a department that was struggling and going through changes and turmoil, that would be a time where we would be looking at a fresh face and somebody from the outside to help create a new culture and a new course.

02:49:40,870	Uh, I’m very pleased to say that we are not in the situation of the latter that I described. We are in a situation where we have a very strong police department, and I, as the city administrator, am looking for more of the same leadership and with that, I am proud to recommend that Jason Stuggelmeyer be the next chief

02:49:54,200	of police for the city of Bismarck. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to try and answer them for you. I believe he may be here along with some of his supporting crew as well. I don’t know if you want to pull him up here and get him to say anything. He didn’t wear his interview suit.

02:50:07,030	He did tell us that he bought a special suit just for the interview, and two other special occasions along the way, but I don’t think he’s got that on tonight, but uh looks like he’s in uniform over there, but uh if, if you have any questions, I’d be happy to try and answer them for you.

02:50:23,570	Uh, Comm Risch and Mayor Schmitz were both part of the process. Comm Risch, you did a fine job leading the face to face interviews with the two candidates.

02:50:39,030	I appreciate your involvement with that, um, Mayor Schmitz, he was also part of the process to Hire Michael Mart, who is the public works utility operations director, and I’m a little little different process than we’ve done in the past for hiring department directors, but I appreciate the support and the trust that you’ve all provided along the way. And with that, I will stop talking.

02:50:52,900	Any questions for Jason or for Jason. Comm Risch, I, I’ll just say I was part of the interview process. We’re really fortunate. We’ve got somebody with 24 years of experience, workedvir virtually every position in the department. I’ve worked with them the last 13 months or 12.5 months, very responsive every time I’ve interacted with him.

02:51:19,670	So I wholeheartedly supported this recommendation and I think we’re making a good move. Right. I’ll make a motion to accept the recommendation of Jason Stuggemeyer is the chief of police. There’s a motion and other discussion? Go ahead and Carl. Comm Connelly, Mayor Schmitz. Yes. Comm Risch? Yes. Comm Zenker. Yes, Chair Clery, yes. Motion approved.

02:51:46,970	come up here You. I don’t know, I was hoping somebody was going to adjust something, but. Yeah, I, I tried. Happen to me before. Yeah No, I, I’d like to say I’m very honored to serve as the next chief of Bismarck. I grew up here, um.

02:52:11,400	I raised 3 kids here, one of which is here today. I don’t know how my wife got her here. She’s a college student. So, She’s probably pretty irritated. I did have a 40 page PowerPoint ready and when, when Demetri got to page 2, I was like, I can’t do it now. I don’t know what to do.

02:52:32,230	Thank God. But no, I, I, I’d like to thank Chief Dreevich, um. For setting the department of the way he did, um, and being very supportive with the staff and We’re all able to fill in, uh, shoes that, that are leaving the department, so, uh. With that, I graciously accept.

02:52:57,800	And I would like to thank my wife specifically, um, because when, when you are a police officer, um, We’re not the only ones that miss. family vacations. Christmas, Thanksgivings, birthdays, um, so she did this with me and. I hope I got Many more years to go here, so, no, I appreciate it. Thank you. Congratulations.

02:53:29,870	OK. Item J. Consider the request to discuss the ETA topics, uh, for the upcoming August 5, 2025 meeting with Burlee County. Jason, you want to give us an update of sorts. Yes, Madam Chair, thank you.

02:53:51,300	So the intent of the discussion tonight is to give all of you the opportunity to express your expectations, desires, preferred outcomes from the combined meeting with Burle County that is, uh, set for August 5th. Um, I do need to report this. topic was on the agenda for Burleigh County Commission yesterday when they met for their regular meeting of the month. They met at 8:30 yesterday morning in this room.

02:54:12,030	Um, although this topic was on their agenda for discussion, it was not discussed. Comm Steve Bakke had placed it on the agenda, but unfortunately, Mr. Bach and Comm Bakken was not able to attend the meeting and the general consensus was to forego the discussion and to bring it back at the next regular county commission

02:54:32,330	meeting. Uh, Auditors Slonskowski informed the county commission that their next regular meeting would occur after August 5th. Unfortunately, they never came back to the topic, and so I cannot share with you what the intentions or the expectations are Bur counting because they did not discuss them, nor did they establish them.

02:54:52,630	So with that in mind, I would certainly entertain any of the ideas and discussion points that you have as commissioners, but you may consider, uh, foregoing that August 5th meeting and allow Burley County a little more time to collect their thoughts and organize their intentions, so everybody has very clear expectations of what the meeting should look like going

02:55:11,870	forward. But with that, I believe Comm Connelly had prepared some remarks. Those were printed at your table. Um, you should all have those uh for review, but I am here more so. to take notes and come back with information.

02:55:34,300	So our community development department staff or engineering staff, or public works staff all have, uh, the appropriate, um, marching orders and information that they should be gathering prior to this meeting whenever it may be held. So with that, I will. St Stand and take notes and. Offer any answers that I can.

02:55:56,070	All right, so I mean, certainly we can have an open discussion as to what we are hoping to have happened on the August 5th meeting if we even want to give Jason some direction on, uh, agenda items, topics that we want to make sure are discussed, um, obviously to his point, uh, If we want to do that, we’re gonna be moving forward with the August 5th meeting with kind of a one-sided agenda

02:56:15,330	because they are not going to have the opportunity to do the same as we’re, we’re currently doing, um, before then, um, So go ahead, Mayor Schmitz. During the I think it was July or June or both actually probably meeting of the joint.

02:56:44,730	Commission’s meeting The, the primary Agenda item for the first meeting was actually to be an educational. process whereby both planning and zoning departments and related entity related departments would They educate everybody to, as to what What the ETA rules are and who has jurisdiction and how they apply, and then further how any of the Ordinances, whether it be building or zoning, uh.

02:57:12,100	are different between the two. Municipalities because there is there are some differences. And that was going to be the primary thing and then Obviously there will be public comment, but we’ll take that and then there probably would be another meeting of both.

02:57:35,030	Groups jointly together where further discussion would happen where maybe we would be looking at some changes to what the ETA. Uh, boundaries might look like or other matters that we can try to address to accommodate some of the concerns that exist from some of the residents in the ETA. I was hopeful that Mr.

02:57:56,400	Bachman would have had the opportunity yesterday to have that discussion. A little bit with the county commission, but that didn’t happen. I don’t know if I want to really push it off because if we can have that initial Meeting where there’s, it’s kind of informational. Sure.

02:58:13,630	That because otherwise we’re going to, I, I’m just afraid we’re going to push this down the road and um well, and we’ve already set the date and we know everybody can be there, so, um, I mean, I guess that would be a concept. Go ahead, sorry.

02:58:28,630	That was my expectation of what would come out of that first meeting. OK. So it would be more of at least the direction to staff would be that we’re looking that August 5th would include a presentation, um, I’m assuming staff has Comm Connelly’s remarks too, because some of that is, is included in there when he talks about um providing examples of maps, um,

02:58:54,370	etc. uh, so that we can really have a, a full understanding of the ETA and the differences, um, and then have a public comment period. that, um, after that presentation and then With the hopes of potentially addressing some of the concerns at that meeting, but also scheduling an additional meeting where we

02:59:16,330	could could dive into any specifics. Or a group of people that are gathering commissioners to distill it. I mean whether it’s all 10 of us or not, I guess we can decide that at the next meeting.

02:59:34,470	Sure, but we can use the meeting for all 10 of us to to have the presentation and to get all of the information, um, that’s needed. That was, that was my expectation. So others may have different expectations. OK, Comm Connelly. Um Madam Chair, Comm, uh, Mayor, I concur with you, uh, I think it’s vitally important that we have this discussion this year because next year being an election year. Um, positions might change, um.

03:00:02,930	And setting a date and just going forward with it’s important, um, and I’d stand for any questions as far as um along the line, um. Listen to a lot of meetings. The reason why you see the, uh, um, lines on there, the darkened lines is it’s three examples of meetings over time that I’ve listened to and they have some different dynamics,

03:00:26,300	so we can have examples like an A, B, or C when the um special assessment abeyance on how they get to that point and it’s several departments that would come up with those conclusions as far as those calculations because it’s in some cases, lifetime look back.

03:00:46,100	And then also explaining like the impacts of the plumbing code in state laws. Sure, so kind of just like overall like a lot of these bullet points I’m seeing a lot of like we’re we’re wanting staff explanation on some very broad topics of the ETA, but a couple of like specific things too.

03:01:07,330	Well, like, um, Demetri’s department has Um Where they look at the calculations and the numbers and crunch, but um stormwater and sewage to the water department has impacts, and then, um. To a lesser degree, road projects and things, but those change over time if there’s a melon overlay on, uh, property is benefiting, but um, it occurred sometime in between that portion, that’s going to

03:01:31,530	change that calculation a bit. So having some solid examples that uh can come into play is important, I believe. OK. Does anyone else have anything to add for Jason as far as staff direction.

03:01:52,800	Think getting as much information to all 10 of us at once would be great, so we can kind of Lead with that August 5th meeting being more of a presentation education on the ETA, how it’s operating now, maybe what some of the primary hiccups are. Um, and go from there. OK.

03:02:18,000	Seeing, seeing consensus of some sort, so is that good enough, Jason? Madam Chair, Commissioners, yes, that works for us with the Mayor’s reference to the Bismarckhurley Combined commission’s meeting that happens once a month.

03:02:33,870	Our office, city administration takes the lead on the agenda preparation and the minutes for that, so we will do that again, but then share the information with the county auditor, so he has the opportunity to do a similar agenda packet for their needs and post that for whatever. Uh, regulatory requirements they would have, but, uh, I think, I think I’ve got what I was hoping to hear this evening and we will get an agenda posted within the next couple of days. Perfect.

03:02:48,730	Uh, Comm Connelly. What would be a date that, like if you talk to the counter or the auditor, what would be a date that you would prefer the information in by so you could have it prepared for August.

03:03:07,170	Thank you for the question, uh, Comm Connelly, and commissioners, typically we strive to have our agenda packets posted to the city website 6 days before the actual meeting date, uh, so if it’s the first Tuesday in August that we’re meeting, that would be Tuesday the 5th. We would be looking for information no later than the end of business. Next week, Tuesday, a week from today.

03:03:22,500	Thank you for that. Yeah. OK, we will move on then. Um, item K is considered the request to receive an update on discussions with Comm Connelly and Zenkker and representatives on the proposed citizen initiative initiated Home Rule charter amendment. Gabe. Hello, chair Cleary, Mayor Commissioners.

03:03:47,230	Here to provide us an update of, of what we’ve done so far as staff in terms of engagement and coordination with these the citizen group as well as Comm Connelly, Comm Zenker regarding a proposed Home Rule charter amendment.

03:04:06,400	Uh, we have met with this group, um, uh, be twice now, uh, once, uh, I guess after the June 10th, uh, meeting with the commission gave the blessing to engage with this group. We met then on June 18th and again on July 11th, uh, our goals in those conversations have been to better understand the intent behind what what some of that draft language was there, so that we could, um, provide some input as to what that means.

03:04:21,270	The, the words might have said something, but the intent might have meant something else. So we had a couple of good discussions, I would say, uh, so we can at least clarify some of those pieces uh most recent meeting on July 11th, we left with, um, maybe a, a diverging path or potentially the

03:04:36,170	Commissioner’s anchor wanted this on the agenda to be able to address maybe some of the things that he would like to see as part of when you have sent sales tax, um. discussion that we put out to the voters and so that’s why we brought it here before the board today to have that discussion.

03:04:58,670	Oh Fisher Connelly, uh, Madam Chair, Commissioners, mayor, um, Gabe, uh, I appreciate you meeting with us, yeah, the last couple of meetings have been very productive, um, the chair of the committee had a surgery and it’s been recovering, um, there have been some wording updates, but still waiting to hear back

03:05:22,530	from all of the uh committee And that so, that’s where it’s at and it’s going to proceed to go forward, um. I think they’re fairly comfortable with, um, just going forward and submitting and getting it approved of so they can get signatures at this point.

03:05:46,070	Um, it’s always been a two-part discussion and that’s where Comm Zanker, I believe we’re going to talk about is is that there’s been a long goal by several different people that have run for the city commission is trying to march forward to where we can, uh, uh. For the most part, eliminate, um.

03:06:07,930	The special assessments and the special assessment task force met for, um, several years, um, it was combined out of the infrastructure task force in 2017 where they combined and that um I was appreciative of that because that was part of the mix and Comm Zenker bringing some of that information and hopefully

03:06:29,870	we can reconvene that task force so we can address both business and residential and further that conversation because special assessments are, in some cases getting really, really high for people to add into their budgets. Comm Zenker. Thank you, Madam Chair.

03:06:53,870	So yeah, I mean, the biggest, the biggest difference between the two is, um, what I think, I think from a city’s perspective, um, we wanna, we wanna include the maintenance fees. So we can get rid of um special assessments on the replacement reconstruction, those types of things.

03:07:11,730	This has nothing to do with green space, um, as, as we talked about our budget today, we know there’s going to be constraints in the future, and I think this is a way for Gabe to, to take his engineering team and, and dive into that budget and figure out what projects we need to do and just go do it just like we do in the In the water side of the public

03:07:26,000	works, we don’t ask for permission to go do things. We just fix it and move on, you know, um, Michael, I’m sure has been drowning in that fire hose ever since he got that position. So he gets it and, and the new things that pop up.

03:07:41,100	So here’s what, here’s what I think we should do, and I’m hoping that we can get a consensus from the, uh, from the commission. Um, I think since it’s my portfolio and, and uh I’ll play the, the portfolio card that, that myself, um, and the Mayor since, um, he was on the previous task force.

03:08:00,600	Um Uh, Brendan Nagle from the chamber and then a person who was very, and I haven’t talked to any of these people, by the way, this is just me, just making stuff happen. Um, and then Kevin Srai, um, he was very instrumental in that.

03:08:14,670	I think the four of us get together and come up with a little bit of a game plan and then come back with the infrastructure task force, and then, and then move forward, um, we need to figure out some stuff, right? We need to figure out.

03:08:29,470	Um, how we can pass the sales tax and not have it, uh, sunset because it’s been it’s a, it’s a critical tool for what we’ve done the last 67 years, um, and then how it how it ties together with our, with our uh utility fee.

03:08:46,070	Um, and then what amount of dollars that we need for that, because we really haven’t had that discussion, um, as to the funds that we need, and then that we make sure that, um, we do other. Other parts of that process to um pay for other specials or however that that works out, right? It’s a hodgepodge of stuff that we got to figure out.

03:09:07,930	And then, um, move forward with that. OK Um, so am I understanding correctly that That there’s kind of like two plans going on still that Comm Connelly and his team, that’s more of like the citizen initiative and so that that’s going to continue, um, but what you’re talking about would be more of like a city led concept.

03:09:30,270	um more based on infrastructure and kind of extending that, uh, half on sales taxes. Yep. Put Gabe and, you know, and Tamonic and a few of us together and, um, a smaller group and then.

03:09:49,470	um, open it up to infrastructure because there’s some good things that came out of that projects, you know, do we want to, do we want to get approval for projects or how do we want that to work? And, and I think we need to write some. Write some critical keys down and then bring it back to the commission. OK.

03:10:05,470	And Comm Zinker, I I know you, I’m more than happy to be a part of that because that was a part of it before and you and I have had this conversation already, so let’s, I’m ready to go.

03:10:22,700	Gabe, do you want us to have a motion to put that group together or is consensus OK and they can just move forward Mayor Comm, Comm Clay, Chair Cleary, I guess I, I don’t need an emotion. This is be directed by, by you all in terms of what you want us to do, uh, maybe some clarity on our engagement with the Citizen group would be good to know, should we continue that? Should we not? I don’t

03:10:37,570	have a strong opinion one way or the other. It sounds like Comm Connelly that at some point you will just be finalizing the language anyway and, and, and moving forward, so I don’t know if you still want that engagement, but maybe I need another piece just to declare. verify here too. Sure.

03:10:50,000	Um, I guess I. It I, I, I guess I’m at the information impasse, I would have to uh talk to the committee at that point. So, but.

03:11:12,030	At this time they were going to go forward with the wording, but this is new information, so it’ll change the discussion a little bit. So I think at this point, it maybe makes more sense to to let them come to you with questions. I don’t know if there needs to be more meetings. It sounds like the meetings were productive, but they’re, they now have a path forward, so we can let them do their thing, obviously.

03:11:30,400	Citizens can ask staff questions as they see fit. Uh, we can leave it at that, I think at this point. That would work for me. OK. And then, um, I think it seems like there’s consensus that we’ll let Comm anchor and yourself and the other people he listed.

03:11:47,930	Try to come up with something on our end. Sound good? Sounds good. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Gabe. OK. Hey, you got to pick that up on someone. Oh, just scares the crap out of me. I’m a pretty big Guy too, and I like it. OK, uh, that brings us to other business.

03:12:12,000	Does anyone have anything for other business before we Adjourn. OK, it doesn’t look like it. So we