00:00:13,000	Good evening. It’s the 23rd of September. It’s 5:15. Um, and we’re in the Tom Baker room of the City County building. This will be the board of City Commissioners. Uh, but before we get started, we would, I’d like to ask Chaplain Wolfgramm to come forward for the um Pledge of Allegiance and invocation, please.

00:00:33,800	I’m back. I keep coming back. Greg Carr was supposed to be here. He is serving our firefighters tonight, so we’re grateful to, to Greg for, uh, for serving in that capacity. Let us pray. What a life we are grateful for the many blessings you give to us.

00:00:49,900	Last week, you showered us with rain to replenish the earth, and today on on these first days of fall, you give us the beautiful sunshine and warmth Uh, we are grateful for the many blessings you give to us in our community.

00:01:06,600	Uh, today we, we are grateful for our media, for them keeping us informed about all the activities around here and uh, we thank you for the devotion and dedication of Monica as she looks to retire. Thank you for her uh, her time spent here and pray your care and blessing for her, uh, in her retirement in the next chapter of her life We pray your care and blessing also for our city, for those who serve in emergency services

00:01:21,870	uh, that you would continue to protect them. Be with these leaders, with Mayor and with the uh commissioners as they deliberate and consider things before them that your good and gracious will might be accomplished to serve our community.

00:01:37,900	Again, we are grateful to you for who you are and for who you have made us. Grant us your peace this night. We pray through Christ our Lord Amen. Amen I pledge allegiance to the flag. of the United States of America. and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God. individuals with liberty and justice for all.

00:02:04,730	Thank you, sir If we can call a roll to call the meeting to order, please. Comm Risch, here, Comm Z ancher here, Comm Connelly, here, Comm Cleary here, Mayor Schmitz, here So, first, um, we have a couple of special events tonight. Um, the first one is we’re, we’re kicking something off new.

00:02:26,630	Um, and it’s my honor to do that, try to have a new tradition for, for the city of Bismarck and city commission meetings moving forward. Um, I, I truly believe community engagement is important and certainly when we have members of our community who have done a lot of things to help with that engagement in multiple ways.

00:02:43,530	So today we’re is the first of this, and we’re going to recognize a couple of individuals tonight. Um, I will be presenting the initial inaugural certificates of achievement to two individuals, Susan Lundberg and Stephanie Delmore of Sleepy Hollow Theater Park, Arts and Park.

00:03:05,000	Sleepy Hollow began of all places on a family road trip they were on as the, the Lundbergs traveled and conversed about what it might be that could be important to Bismarck. A powerful question, what does Bismarck need? The family had deep roots in the arts, and they believe the answer was clear. More opportunities for youth to get involved, to participate, to learn and to create and to feel a sensible longing through the arts.

00:03:24,170	So drawing on their childhood summers near Reagan where Susan and Stephanie built a playhouse and stage productions. The idea for Sleepy Hollow Theater and Arts Park began to take shape. Classes and performances followed. People got involved in the community took notice.

00:03:44,900	It’s now 36 years later and Sleepy Hollow remains to be one of a kind in North Dakota, an outdoor program focused on youth producing Broadway style musicals with professional lights, sounds, costumes, right in the heart of the prairie It welcomes adult volunteers this year alone, nearly 40, 400 parents, teachers, and neighbors helped Usher at performances, run concessions, build sets.

00:04:06,370	and sew costumes. And actually, I think some of, most of the sewing is done by these two ladies. They’re amazing The impact of Sleepy Hollow extends far beyond the stage. There’s countless organizations that have contributed, whether it’s Bismarck College students, the state industrial school, the North Dakota Tourism based on electric and, and Kirkwood

00:04:27,900	Bank or other banks in, in town, the MDU Foundation, VFW, and Eagle Scout and Gold Awards. Susan Stephanie, your investment in our community and the lives you’ve touched can’t be measured. For many in Bismarck’s Sleepy Hollow is a summer rite of passage.

00:04:49,000	As a shoal melts and the snow melts and the days grow long, we find ourselves looking forward to the next season of stories you will bring to life. If you’d like to say a few words about Sleepy Hollow, you are welcome, and then we will present you with your certificate. of achievement Well, thank you very much.

00:05:11,100	We reminisce that I, I think Bismarck is unique because we to come up with an idea and kind of sifted through how is this going to work, get good people involved, and we just did it.

00:05:30,730	I don’t think that can happen just any place and we’ve had wonderful support throughout all the years and it’s doing good things for our community and it’s, it’s just a winner all the way around and of course we’re celebrating. look at this gorgeous day we are celebrating being outdoors at Sleepy Hollow, and it’s, it’s right in town, it’s right here, it’s not far and, uh, and so we’ve got the pheasants crowing, and, and uh all kinds of rabbits and we’ve had skunks

00:05:50,530	too at times, but, um, but it, it’s just what a grounding experience for all of us. Yes, when we traveled, that’s what Dad said when Susie moved back from California and I was here, he said, if we’re gonna be here, we should what? and what of wonderful place to what

00:06:17,730	and so making a difference is what we should all do that that wooding system that then it can reach out as far. and now with help of organizations we planted 300 trees since we’ve been here and so it’s the sanctuary.

00:06:47,100	for our city and our region that as you say you don’t feel you’re in the town but you are, you’re a safe haven and as we grow, that is something we can give our state in our region we keep giving more and more opportunities for our kids and also opportunities to remember there is a time it’s sleepy hollow, and it can encompass us all

00:07:16,970	and thank you Thank you and thank you for what you’ve done for our community. ladies, ladies ladies, stay, please stay here. And I would like to see if we can get a photo opportunity with the commission too. So we step up here and thank you so much for what you do.

00:07:49,500	be in the back. You talk about you. do you see why don’t you come here it. con Thank you so much. Thank you. make you And we’re not quite done celebrating, um, so I have a proclamation to read and because we’re honoring uh a person who’s been a stalwart of the news community in this city and region.

00:08:54,100	whereas Monica Hanna began her distinguished broadcrest, broadcast journalism career in 1981 at KUMTV following an earlier internship and has since dedicated 44 years to television industry, which includes 38 years of informing North Dakota citizens, and whereas Monica has served as a news director at KFYR TV from 2004 to 2014.

00:09:18,100	where she pioneered the launch of the 1st 9 a.m., 4 p.m., and 5 p.m. Newcast newscast in Western North Dakota setting new standards for regional news coverage. Therefore, be it resolved that I, Michael Schmitz, Mayor of the city of Bismarck, on behalf of this city commission, do hereby proclaim September 26, 2025 is Monica Hannan Day.

00:09:39,470	and urged the community of Bismarck to join in celebrating Monica’s enduring impact on in journalism and the impact she has made throughout our community as she makes her final regularly scheduled broadcast appearances signed today, the 23rd of September. Monica What do you want from us This is awesome.

00:10:37,100	Enjoy your retirement. Thank you. Now you can take all those day trips. Yeah. All right. Thank you everyone for, for that and, and certainly to these community leaders.

00:11:06,100	We are now at the point of time of public comment, um, the Poly comment is restricted to items on the consent agenda, the regular agenda that it’s not a public hearing or the prior Commission agenda, um, which would and Tori had not excluding excluding public hearing items. So, at this point in time, anyone who wished to make comments, please come forward, state your name and also sign in and tell us what you’re speaking to. Uh, Mr. Mayor, Commissioners.

00:11:59,330	um, my name is Ben Nygum. I am here representing multiple homeowners in the South Bay development, and this is in regard to item I on the regular agenda Fire Station 6. um, we’re concerned with the proposed location at Burleigh Avenue and Calypso Drive and the negative effects it will have in our neighborhood and properties.

00:12:22,870	We have been in contact with some of you previously and did send an email in with concerns that I hope you all have had a chance to read One of the responses received to that email from Mr.

00:12:44,800	Tomonic was that there are already fire stations near residential housing While this is true Fire Station 3 sits adjacent to housing, but it exits away from it into the intersection of Tyler Parkway and Century Avenue. which is a transitional location between commercial and residential. Fire Station 5 does face towards residential housing but isn’t even more heavy commercial area sitting on the corner of 43rd Avenue and State Street.

00:13:06,100	These areas are not even close to the quiet, almost rural setting of the proposed location for fire station 6. We would ask that you reconsider the location to a less intrusive spot. One such location is the city-owned property at the intersection of Burleigh Avenue and Boston Drive.

00:13:26,900	This would not add to construction costs and would place the station in a more central location on the south side. This lot is currently across from undeveloped commercial properties. This location would only add a few seconds to the response time for the minimal calls received west of Washington Street.

00:13:45,700	In return, it would cut response time to a majority of the calls which are east of Washington Street and for future developed areas to the east and south. Thank you. Any questions Thank you, thank you Uh, good evening, uh, Mr. Mayor. Many members of the city commission. My name is Brian C Klipfel, and I live at, uh, 2251 Trainor Lane.

00:14:15,530	That’s down in Southport. and I am here to support the new fire station where it is, the location is proposed. It’s a great location. It’s a quick response time for Southport and other areas down there and uh the for fire calls and I think the the other main thing is they the fire department also responds

00:14:37,370	for emergency medical situations, so I think the location there is really good and it would serve us all down at Southport very well. Any questions Yeah. Thank you. Yep. And this is public comment. Anyone wish to speak, please come forward. Excuse me. A second call for public comment. A 3rd and final call for public comment.

00:15:20,630	Hearing and seeing no one, the public comment period is now closed. Commissioners with regard to the consent agenda, what are your wishes? Move to approve this presented. Second. Is there any discussion Hearing Unwal Kroll. Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly? Yes, Comm Cleary, Yes, Comm Risch, Mayor Schmidtz.

00:15:46,230	Yes, um, moving to the regular agenda, I would like to move item J up to item A, uh, because they’re the consultants are here and we’ll just respect their time a little bit. It’s to rece uh consider requests from community development. to provide a presentation on update of the Bismarck Land Development Code. Go ahead, Daniel.

00:16:06,730	Good evening, Mayor, Comm. So the Land Development Code is underway. Uh, this is an update to our zoning and subdivision regulations in Title 14. Uh, the consultants are here, Jenny Baker and Mary Madden from Clarion Associates and Madden Planning. I won’t take any of their time up. I’ll let them give you an update of this code. OK. Thank you.

00:16:33,170	Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. Thanks for having us back to give you this update on the land development code. We have a very quick agenda. Um, we will remind you of the project objectives. Talk to you about the work that has been accomplished in module 2, and then go through the next steps.

00:16:55,100	If you will remember one of the primary reasons for initiating this project was to support the recently adopted Together 2045 plan, one of the most effective ways to do that is to have regulations that can help you accomplish the goals in that plan.

00:17:13,530	So that’s one of our focuses in the updates that we are doing. We have also been charged with coming up with a code that is user-friendly. You all are familiar with the current code. There’s not a lot of illustration, tables, graphics, any other ways to make it easier to access for regular users rather than professionals. We’re trying to address that.

00:17:34,100	We are also focusing on making sure there are objective standards and predictable outcomes. Before we get into the details, I want to mention a couple of opportunities recently where staff and, um, staff and others have gone out to public events to hear, to update the public on what’s been happening and to hear their thoughts on it.

00:17:54,500	Recently, at the street fair, there was a booth that people staffed and talked about the LDC update and also at Bizaret. So in those two events, they have talked to over 100 people, heard various concerns. It’s mainly at this point just to get the word out.

00:18:12,630	to bring people’s awareness around to this as we are coming back, probably in the spring for adoption. We want to make sure that the community has been aware of the project and we’ll be doing a lot more outreach before that time so that they can give us their feedback on it. Mary is going to talk to you about the downtown. Um.

00:18:30,700	Thank you, Jenny and Mayor and council, um, thank you for having us. I’m just gonna briefly talk a little bit. I’ve been as part of the team, I’m working specifically on updating the downtown district for the overall ordinance, um I want to highlight it’s being handled a little bit differently and as you’re already aware, Downtown is

00:18:51,530	currently handled a little bit differently. Um, one of the unique things is it is a unique place in Bismarck. It is a defined geographic area, and it will continue to be that way. So the standards we’re working on will not apply anywhere else in the city. They are only for the area that has been designated downtown.

00:19:12,330	Um, it does build on the previous districts that were downtown Core and downtown Fringe. It adds a couple of other subares and now the medical district, the medical area is also going to be considered part of downtown. It will have some overlapping standards and some unique standards to accommodate the unique needs of medical facilities, um.

00:19:35,270	high level, we want to just emphasize one of the reasons this is different is the unique nature of downtown. So these standards are reinforcing the unique character of Downtown that it’s mixed use that it’s buildings oriented to the street, sitting at the back of sidewalks so as new development or infill or redevelopment happens, the new development is

00:19:58,900	very complimentary to what is already in downtown and not people wanting to do suburban drive through fast food restaurants, for example, it’s just trying to make sure that downtown remains unique and downtown, um, that it is pedestrian-friendly mixed use walkable with the grid of streets and blocks.

00:20:23,870	Um, a couple of the high-level objectives that we are focusing again building on what’s in the comprehensive plan we are creating subdistricts recognizing that although downtown is a defined area, it doesn’t mean everything in downtown is the same, um, most of the standards focus on the scale and the context, not on regulating uses so much we want to have practical flexibility, but also to make sure that if

00:20:48,970	you own property or run a business downtown, it can be predictable what somebody might do next to you or across the street, um, we wanna make sure we can enable change over time as you know, most of the buildings in downtown, especially those that are 100 years old, probably

00:21:04,470	don’t have their original users, but if you have good traditional downtown buildings, the uses can and will change over time, um, and we want to really make sure that the new standards encourage infill revitalization in our compatible with that existing context.

00:21:27,470	This week while we’re in town, we’re, we’re working with staff, we’re meeting with the technical committee, the steering committee. We’re also meeting with the Downtown Renaissance Committee and the historic district Review Committee so that all of them are giving us input and giving us feedback on what we’re working towards, um, that’s a high level of where we are on working on the new Downtown district.

00:21:49,170	All right, and now I will tell you a little bit about the rest of the contents of module 2. The last time we came here to talk to you, we talked to you about zoning districts and uses and the way that I think of those are, they are the regulations that tell you what

00:22:04,370	you can do and where you can do it. These are development standards and what this talks about is how does it need to look when you do it? Do you have to provide parking where your buildings, how do the buildings look? So that’s what this covers broadly.

00:22:20,230	These are the sections that are included You can see the new ones. We’ll go through them very quickly, but the point of the new ones is to support goals in your plan. And in a couple of instances we’ve called that out.

00:22:35,170	The ones that are not new, we have made some adjustments with the exception of signs that looks different because we wanted it to be more usable, but we haven’t significantly changed any of those standards. So these are the new sections, um, improvements in open space, improvements are the required things that have to be provided for development.

00:22:56,700	This section actually is, is not so much new as it is taking what is common practice and putting it into the regulation so that it’s clear to everyone. And so those things such as easement, dedication, and when that has to be done, are now in the ordinance. For open space, that has to do with parks, and we have made no changes to the way that parks currently wants to approach obtaining open space with new developments.

00:23:18,370	We’ve added a section on mobility and connectivity. This is in support of the plan’s goals to have a robust and multimodal transportation system. So the things that are covered in here, prohibition of private streets unless there is some exceptional circumstance.

00:23:38,530	So it’s not a private street just because you want it to be a private street, it would be cheaper. It’s a private street if it’s approved because there is some kind of topographical issue that prevents you from meeting street standards.

00:23:59,070	It talks about how to access different sites, and one of the provisions here that’s new is allowing, um, for larger developments, 2 points of access to support emergency services. So if there is a disaster of some sort or if there is a fire, there are two ways into and out of larger developments rather than just one which can be very compromising to the response. We’ve added some basic bicycle and pedestrian standards.

00:24:20,070	A new development if it’s within a proximity of of an existing bike trail will give a connection to it and there will be sidewalks on both sides of the street. with certain exceptions There are some standards related to environment, environmentally sensitive lands. There’s something in the current ordinance about it, but it applies in the ETA and has been very limited in its use.

00:24:42,730	So this deals with not building in the floodplain. That’s nothing new, and some protection for wetlands. It also talks about steep slopes. Outdoor lighting is a basic set of standards that we think will be helpful for issues of enforcement, in particular, where somebody says, you know, my neighbor has this light they

00:24:59,530	put on their building. It’s shining directly into my bedroom. So there are some standards so that you can go out and verify, is this actually happening? Is this an issue? What do we do about it? So those are the new things, other things are existing in the ordinance and changing to a certain extent for parking,

00:25:19,170	there was a recent update which we thought put it in pretty good shape, um, we have made some adjustments to the required parking and are offering some opportunities for reduction.

00:25:34,600	It’s just to give a little bit of flexibility with what is really an art rather than a science in determining how much is needed. There’s still no parking for downtown, loading space is not required. There is carried forward a provision that if you provide bicycle parking, you may be able to reduce the number of on-site spaces. So that’s nothing new With landscaping and buffers, we are doing a couple of things, or proposing a couple of things.

00:25:58,100	One is to have a focus on trees because the benefits of trees are much greater than the benefits of, say, just a lot of shrubs. You get air quality benefits and you get some heat mitigation benefits.

00:26:18,970	So we are in a couple of different areas focusing on having trees provided rather than requiring, you know, shrubs, perennials, and mulch. Um, one other place where there is an emphasis on trees is we are proposing that in single family subdivisions, there will be street trees provided, and that’s a new thing.

00:26:37,630	You all are familiar with your older neighborhoods closer to downtown with those gorgeous old trees that line the boulevard and so over time, these street trees that are installed in new, new developments will hopefully produce that same kind of effect. Exceptions with all of these 4 industrial development.

00:26:59,600	Signs are staying the same and I think that is that is pretty much what we wanted to tell you about the content. I am happy to entertain your questions as an overall update for the project, we are hoping to hear back from the community about this module, and then there’s a 3rd 1, 3rd and final one, which we will be giving to staff in October and hopefully we will get the consolidated draft out

00:27:19,900	to everyone by the end of this year and do a lot more talking to the public to hear what they think about what is proposed. Um, the module 3 involves how the process works, so development review procedures and administration of the LDC Land Development Code, and then the adoption, we hope to come to you in the spring.

00:27:39,000	So that is what we had to say. Can I answer any questions for you? Are there any questions? Comm Risch, Mr. Mayor Jenie, I just want to commend you on the lighting thing. I’ve had 3 different complaints about, you know, these excessively bright LED lights.

00:27:54,530	One of the guys said, Ne put up a pole and shines into his bedroom. I mean, things like that so it, it’s an issue that needs to be addressed and your tree idea is wonderful. So thank you for your work. Anything else Thank you. Thanks for your time. All right, we’ll move back up the item A.

00:28:15,800	It’s the continued public hearing on Ordinance 6635 and an annexation of part of lot 1, block 2, Northern sky, 2nd edition, 1st replat, Daniel. evening, Mayor Commissioners. Uh, I’ll get my presentation loaded up here. OK, so good evening again.

00:28:44,630	This, this is something you may be familiar with by now. Uh, this is on your agenda at the last meeting and the meeting before that. So Wilmann Development LLC is requesting approval of the annexation of the eastern portion of Lot 1, block 2, Northern Sky, 2nd edition, 1st Relats.

00:29:01,800	Uh, this is the location on the west side of North Washington Street north of Ash Coy Drive. So, uh, Ci Bismarck staff did find that this proposed annexation would not adversely impact the public health, safety, and general welfare, and we reckon an approval, uh, that more details are in your staff report.

00:29:17,730	The Planning zoning Commission, uh, considered this in June and then they recommended approval as well. Uh, you considered this in August. Uh, the applicant did request a little additional time, uh, to your previous meeting in September and then you, uh, granted that and then they, they requested more time at that point to this meeting, uh, and here we are today, uh, at the, um.

00:29:34,730	second meeting in September for another continued public hearing. Uh, so once again, we do recommend approval of, of this request, and I can attempt to answer any questions or the applicant is here as well. Any questions OK. I’m going to open the public hearing, anyone who wish to speak, please come forward.

00:29:54,530	Thank you, Mayor Lanon Amillon some Hagen Engineering, uh, yeah, here to, to sing a familiar tune to you. We are requesting yet another continuance for this, uh, some more financing issues are still kind of being worked through. I think a change in financial institutions actually recently happened as well.

00:30:14,870	Uh, so we are requesting a continus to the October 14th City Commission meeting. OK This Comm, what are your wishes with regard to continuing, and then we can, I’ll make a motion to continue to the October 14th meeting, second. Any discussion hearing, hearing none will call roll. Misser Cleary, Yes, Commissionervich. Yes, Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly, yes, Mayor Schmitz, yes.

00:30:42,530	Next item B, public hearing on Ardon 6636 annexation of Boulder Ridge Commercial Edition and Ordnance 6642, a zoning map amendment from CA Commercial and CG Commercial zoning districts to CG commercial zoning districts for lot one, block one, Boulder Ridge, commercial edition and major subdivision final plot titled Buller Ridge Commercial Edition. Daniel, good evening, Mayor Commissioners again.

00:31:09,870	So this is, uh, Wilt Properties LLC and Women Development LLC that are requesting these three items that you’ve mentioned. Uh, the location is actually right across the street from the previous one on the east side of North Washington Street and north side of 43rd Avenue, Northeast, uh, this is, I’ll,

00:31:28,000	I’ll actually I’ll go through these in reverse order. So I’ll start with the subdivision plot of the 3 requests. Uh, this is actually replat of Boulder, a portion of Border Ridge first edition.

00:31:42,530	Uh, it does trigger our major subdivision requirements because it is dedicating a new public right of way of clemente Lane. Uh, you can see here on the, on the map or also on the latte, uh, this new road will create a loop, uh, to North Wash from North Washington Street down to 43rd Avenue Northeast, uh, and there is also a private access that would connect um up to to Slate

00:31:59,600	Drive, uh, from, from the site. Uh, overall, it would create 4 lots, uh, in 2 blocks, uh, for commercial development. The zoning is already commercial at this point. Uh, there is a tweak to the zoning that is being requested, uh, last year.

00:32:16,630	It was actually this year in January of 2015, you did approve a change to the CG district on just south of this or is part of this. Uh, however, because one of the lots was a landscape lot that was not surveyed or divided at that time.

00:32:33,800	That change did not occur, so essentially they’re just changing that portion of the landscaping lot to align with the existing zoning to the south. So that’s what that zoning map. Amendment is 4. And then finally, the, the entire site, uh, the entire relot would be, uh, annexed. uh, that is part of the request as well.

00:32:47,600	So the planning zoning Commission did hold a public hearing on this on August 28th, and they did vote to recommend approval of all three. So I just read, uh, what that recommendation is.

00:33:02,000	So based on the findings that were contained in the staff report, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommends approval of an annexation of lots 1 through 3, block 1 and lot 1, block 2 of Border Ridge Commercial Edition and all the joining rights of way of Clement Lane, a zoning map amendment from the CA Commercial and CG Commercial Zoning Districts to the CG Commercial Zoning district for Lot One Block 1 of Border Ridge Commercial Edition and a major

00:33:19,170	subdivision final plat titled Border Ridge Commercial Edition. Do you have any questions? Any questions OK. We will open the public hearing. Anyone who wish to speak, please come forward. Thank you again, Mayor. Uh, yeah, I just had a little bit to, to what Daniel had had discussed up here.

00:33:42,600	Um, this is a reply of parts of Boulder Ridge first edition. Uh, this particular had had these, these string of these 20 ft wide landscape lots that were surrounding the entirety of the area.

00:33:57,530	So with the 3 platform we’re kind of eliminating those sort of those oddball lots and just bringing them into, to a large lot. The zoning ordinance itself will take care of the landscaping uh buffers that are required between commercial lots and uh residential lots. Uh, the zoning change we’re requesting doesn’t, doesn’t affect those lots that are joining those. We, we, we’ve already covered that before.

00:34:14,600	The, the CEA will be by the, by the residential will keep the heavier commercial uh further to the west and the south. That’ll be adjoining some of the office spaces. Um, additionally, you know, some of the annexation for the areas, some of it was in the city, some of it was not. This will bring the entirety of the of the parcel into the city.

00:34:27,470	So we can cover that at that point. Um, Access points, there’s that existing access point, kind of an oddball little, little finger of land that sticks out into further into the, into the, into the subdivision. It’s always been there.

00:34:40,370	We’re just sort of relating it to allow it for uh these other lots within this area to be able to use at that time. But I can certainly answer any questions if you have them. Anyone have questions of Landon? Thank you. Thank you. Again, this is a public hearing. Any anyone to speak on this zoning ordinance, please come forward. A second call for public comment.

00:35:02,630	A 3rd and final call for public comment. hearing nor seeing anyone, public comment period is now closed. Commissioners, what are your wishes? Motion to approve. Second, is there any discussion He none will call roll. Comm Risch. Yes, Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly, Comm Cleary, yes, Mayor Schmitz.

00:35:27,800	Yes, moving to item C. Public hearing on future land use plan amendment, and ordinance 6639 is only map Amendment from RM 30 residential zoning district to DF Downtown fringe zoning and a future future land use plan amendment from Urban Nehood designation to Downtown designation for lots 1 through 4 blocked in of Northern Pacific Edition.

00:35:52,430	Go ahead, Daniel. Good evening, Mayor Commissioners. So in this case, the Community Development department is requesting approval of the zoning map Amendment and future land use plan Amendment. Uh, the location, uh, is, it’s between Avenue B, East Avenue B and East Avenue C on the west side of North 3rd Street.

00:36:08,870	It’s a half block. Currently RM30 that would be going into the downtown, downtown Fringe Zoning District. Uh, this is being requested by the Community Development Community department, although the way we handle these downtown rezonings, uh, we, when we receive inquiries from anybody within a block, uh, for with interest of changing the zoning, uh, we, we

00:36:27,070	like them to come in blocks at a time rather than lots at a time. I just for the sake of of having a contiguous district. So we, we do reach out to all of the other property owners and we asked the Planning zoning Commission to initiate, uh, the zoning requests on their behalf.

00:36:42,500	And so that’s what happened, uh, the, this would be going into the downtown district, which, which would enable, uh, a greater level of mixed uses, a greater level of development on these properties.

00:37:00,100	It is, of course, contiguous to the existing Downtown Fringe, uh, district, so it’d really be a, a logical extension, uh, to the west from across, across 3rd Street and from the north as well. So the, um the, the planning zoning Commission did hold a public hearing on this item on September 9th, uh, and we, uh, did not hear any opposition from any of the residents or, or owners within, within this

00:37:18,000	area or from the surrounding areas as well. Uh, based on the findings, uh, that were contained in the staff report and at the end at the conclusion of the public hearing, the planning and zoning Commission recommended approval of the zoning map amendment from the RM 30 residential zoning District to the DF Downtown Fringe zoning

00:37:33,800	District, as well as the future land use plan amendments from the urban Nehood designation to the downtown designation for lots 1 through 4, block 10 of Northern Pacific edition. Any questions for Daniel Yeah. Public hearing is open. Anyone wish to speak to this, please come forward.

00:37:58,270	A second call for public comment A 3rd and final call for public comment. Seeing no one and hearing no one, Polycomic period is now closed. Commissions, what are your wishes? I’ll move if we approve. Second, is there any discussion Here none will call roll Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly, Yes, Comm Cleary, Yes, Comm Risch. Yes. Mayor Schmitz. Yes.

00:38:22,900	Next item D’s public hearing on the approval of concrete sidewalk curb and gutter and private driveway assessments as part of this SW 2024 assessments. This is a public hearing. Anyone who wished to speak to this, please come forward. A second call for public comment. A 3rd and final call for public comment.

00:38:48,900	Hearing nor seeing anyone, public comment period is now closed. Commissioners, what are your wishes? Move to approve. Second, Is there any discussion Here none will call roll Mr. Connelly? Yes, Comm Cleary, Yes, Comm Risch? Yes. Comm Zenker. Yes, Mayor Schmidt. Yes. Next item is public hearing on the 2025 Special Assessment Districts and confirm the assessments as amended.

00:39:18,270	Gabriel, you’re gonna you got something for us? Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. I should note, uh, the appeal to this, uh, was one of the projects in our special assessment package that you that you have here today, uh, was included in your agenda memo, uh, but that individual

00:39:37,270	indicated she would not be able to be present here to speak to it. I just want you to know that that’s available. If you’d want to have hold the public hearing if there’s anything else, I would be willing to come back up and address any concerns or questions that you may have at the conclusion of

00:39:51,370	the public hearing and prior to confirming the assessment list. OK. Thank you. This is a public hearing on the special assessment districts. Anyone wish to speak, please come forward. A second call for comment A 3rd and final call for a comment. Public comment period is now closed.

00:40:24,100	Commissioners, Comm Risch I’ve got a question for Gabe about the appeal. OK? Gabe, I, I, it’s from, um, Sheryl and John Patch made this appeal. I thought they did an excellent job. Their house is not directly on Century Avenue, um do they make some pretty good points, or Mayor and Comm, Comm Risch, uh, I’ve had multiple email exchanges and a couple of conversations with, with Miss,

00:40:46,970	Mrs. Patch, uh, during which time she’s been very professional in all of our dealings. So we’ll, we’ll compliment her on that, uh, we in our special assessment policy probably don’t get to the level of definition of defining what benefit is, uh, because that is a subjective component that that is given to the, uh, the Special assessment

00:41:04,800	Commission to help decide what that benefit might be. So historically we have not included access as a prerequisite of benefit of distribution. There’s lots of parcels that are landlocked, and I guess in that scenario that parcel would not receive any benefit from the roadway improvements adjacent to it if access was a determining factor.

00:41:22,730	So historically we’ve not included access as the primary driver of benefit, uh, but then do have pieces in our policy that help limit what that exposure is for that resident or that business or whatever that parcel might be, if they have double frontage, we try to give, uh, attributes.

00:41:40,800	to allow that, uh, to recognize, I should say well that property is in multiple assessment districts, one on their front yard and my fen on their backyard and give a discount as well as, as the policy would allow in those examples. Yeah She did an excellent job If I can add maybe 11 more item.

00:42:00,270	There was one item in particular that, that, that piqued my curiosity and it was the use of our median lot size, uh, in comparing our parcels, so we’ll bring all the residential parcels into this attribute table and compare the, the first define what the median lot size is and then compare each parcel to, to that medium to see if they’re a

00:42:18,330	little bit bigger, a little bit smaller, and then make adjustments accordingly, depending on how that size works out. In this particular example, the median lot size because of the sheer number of condominium parcels in this uh site was, was pretty small.

00:42:34,900	It was around 2000 or so square feet, which was pretty small compared to other projects that we have where the median lot size is usually a a single family home type lot size. We did rerun the attribute table using a 9000 square foot lot or a 10,000 square foot lot just to see how that would affect, uh, the, the parcels.

00:42:52,370	So the single family homes would have a, a less assessment cost in that scenario, but it’s at the, uh, but it comes from all of the condo lots and uh the Park District property in the area would have a higher assessment.

00:43:09,000	So it is just a reallocation of those dollars, uh, and I through that analysis, I wouldn’t advise that we modify the findings of the special assessment Commission, uh, and that we would approve as presented, but it was a good analysis for us to go through to see the sensitivity. OK right questioners move to approve as presented Second. What discussion do we have, if any Herey none will call roll Mr Cleary, Yes, Comm Risch.

00:43:35,630	Yes, Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly, Mayor Schmitz. Yes Next item F. Consider request to receive an update and provide direction on the street utility fee and 50 cents sales tax for arterial roads. Gabe and I think we have in front of us also a handout, everyone, yeah. OK.

00:44:06,630	Mayor Comm is uh here before you to talk about two items. Uh, one is the half cent sales tax for roadway. construction reconstruction, and the others are street utility fee.

00:44:25,330	Uh, we were directed at our July 22, 2025 meeting, uh, to engage with some of the members of the Special Assessment Task Force and Infrastructure Task Force to talk about these items and get some feedback from that group, uh, to be, uh, considered what would it look like in a 2026 ballot question on, on these two topics.

00:44:43,500	So, uh, initially it was thought that maybe these could be one ballot item that would kind of cover the, the, the, the, the scope of both of these programs, uh, but in additional conversations, we’ve come to the conclusion that this might be better to have two separate type questions.

00:44:55,800	One, involving our half cent sales tax and we currently use for arterial road reconstruction, construction, and the other question on the street utility fee, uh, and let each of those items, uh, rest on their own merits and if the public supports them or one or the other, um, so be it, but we don’t want to maybe confuse the public and or have the negativity associated with one of them bring down the other, um, in that scenario.

00:45:09,630	So the first topic we’ll cover is our half cent sales tax. Uh, if you’ve seen the slide a couple of times, I’m sure by now this is passed in 2018, restricted to the construction and reconstruction activities on a set project list.

00:45:25,230	It sunsets in 2029, so it it’s still collecting and it collects about $10 million per year. So far we have invested $67 million in our sales tax and have combined that with 18 or so million dollars in federal and state aid to build the projects that we have highlighted, I should say build and or commit to the projects we have

00:45:40,270	highlighted in yellow and outlined in red on the screen in front of us. We anticipate a $13 million balance at this point in time of what the program has in revenue that is yet to be allocated to a project at this point.

00:45:57,170	So I just want to kind of walk through some of the things that, uh, in my opinion, have been led to the success of the half cent sales tax for Arterial Road construction. Uh, so this is the policy framework that we’ve had many of this was written directly into the Home Ruch Charter Amendment and some of it was just more, uh, because it wasn’t written in

00:46:11,230	there, it’ll allowed for some flexibility. So the first would be voter approved. It’s always nice when we know we have the support that we’re doing the things that the voters want us to do. And they did so with the, the ballot.

00:46:24,100	So they approved that, uh, concept, which gives us the assurance that this is a program that they support. Uh, the next item, a defined scope, uh, that helps us prevent what could be, uh, looked at as scope creep. So having a really defined arterial road construction and reconstruction helps to find that. Um, the next piece, the unprioritized project list, uh,, 22 pieces that I like out of that.

00:46:43,630	First, the project list, uh, once again gives the voters they knew what they were getting because that was a smorgasbord of, of potential projects that, that, uh, these funds could be used on, uh, so that limits where that, you know maybe something else could have, uh, popped up later.

00:47:01,800	But the other piece is the unprioritized part of that is that it is very difficult to to look into that crystal ball and say in 9 years this is what I think the priority would be.

00:47:13,730	So it allowed us the opportunity to program where with the needs were, uh, if we have new development occurring in a certain part of time, that might drive the need to, to fund an arterial road in that part of town, uh, if that development wouldn’t have occurred, we probably wouldn’t need to be in those same areas of investing some of those dollars in that, uh, location. I would also say the unprioritized part allows us to respond to the state of North Dakota.

00:47:28,430	If they come back to us with a proposal to do something on a state highway in our community. It gives us the ability to fund maybe a local share, uh, but if the state doesn’t move forward with that project, we don’t have to invest entirely our local dollars into what would be a state or federal facility.

00:47:42,430	Uh, the sunset of sales tax collection, uh, that is very complimentary to having a project list. Uh, once again, it helps to find that scope, as well as now the duration that that tax will be on the books. So those are all, all good things.

00:47:56,270	And lastly, this one isn’t written into the, um, uh, the, the, the voter approved ballot, but it was the flexibility that we have to use with other funding as I noted on the previous slide, we’ve paired this with state and federal dollars both to do water main extensions funded through our state water Commission and Department of

00:48:09,700	Water Resources. We’ve also used this with funding with the Department of Transportation using um federal funds and even state funds that they’re allocated to expand and really leverage and stretch those dollars out as far as we can.

00:48:22,900	Um, shouldd note too that we could use special assessments to be paired with the 0 cent sales tax. The board has made the decision on every project to not use that, but it was not written to the the the mandated that, so that would have been another way, uh, that if this board and previous boards would have wanted to stretch those dollars out, it could have been

00:48:36,270	a, a supplementary revenue source as well. Now, as we talk about what we would be proposing, uh, through conversations, uh, with Comm Zenker. The policy framework, uh, would, you see a lot of the same things on this, on this list.

00:48:54,070	So still a voter approved concept that would go to the ballot, still a divined scope of construction and reconstruction. But what I want to maybe stress at this point in time is, uh, while we’ve done a really good job of, of getting caught up on arterial road network.

00:49:06,630	It was very apparent when we passed and when the citizens passed us in 2018, uh, the need on, on 43rd Avenues on Ash Cooley Drives, on South Washington Street, some of these corridors that we’ve now since constructed or reconstructed, um, if we look into the future I would say we have more need or more pressing need on some of our collector and local

00:49:21,000	roadway network, then we do have a need to expand another arterial road, another 1 mile out of town or or on the outskirts of town where currently a two-lane rural facility is more than adequate meeting that need.

00:49:33,870	Uh, we might want to utilize those those dollars elsewhere in our community, uh, so we’ll, uh, recommend the expansion is to select collectctor and local roads. We’ll update our unprioritized project lists, so I put new on here because it would be a new list. We’d take all the projects that weren’t constructed previously.

00:49:50,370	roll them over onto the new list as well as identify some new projects and we’ll get into some what those could look like here on the next couple slides. Once again, be a proponent of having some sort of sales tax to the sunset, whether that’s 10 years from the date of passage or 10 years from, uh, when the previous, uh, tax was

00:50:05,900	set to expire. Those could all be determined and, and, and thought through as we get closer to having a commission decision on where to go with this proposal, as well as then maintaining that flexibility to use with other funding.

00:50:24,630	Uh, I bring that one up here in particular, we historically didn’t use arterial road special assessments, um, but there might be some value in considering what is the appropriate level of special assessment if we’re going into a local road or a collector road, uh, I think we holistically as the the board had decided on arterial road, that was more of a community need.

00:50:37,900	Uh, one could say that maybe on some of those local roads there could be some skin in the game for that person who lives on that street, maybe not, obviously the, the full brunt of that project, but some sort of subsidized it in a, a pretty healthy rate with the city picking up a majority of the costs but still having some potentially um locally funded.

00:50:53,370	So as we look at the that list here once again is the list of the 2018 voter approved, uh, projects, those in yellow are either committed and or completed. as we now cycled into um what new roadways we could consider.

00:51:09,530	So I didn’t go through the exercise of, of putting these all on a list just yet. This is all just still concepts, uh, but it does show you where, I guess in the engineering department’s view, we could have needs, um, some driven by development, some driven by, uh, current needs of those all could be determined, some driven from, uh, yeah, I

00:51:26,530	guess development or, or, or emerging needs that as we combine that with then the roadways not completed, that would give us a rough outline of, of the types of facilities we could expect an extension of a 5 cent sales tax, uh, to be requested to fund.

00:51:40,870	Now as we look at the types of roadways, it is still very heavy on the concept of arterial roadways. Uh, that’s still the, the bread and butter of this program. Um, should note the, what you see, oh, go back one slide here. Uh, the interstate is yellow in this map, but it is not yellow, um.

00:51:58,000	for the purpose of, of eligibility. That was just, that’s just an interstate roadway that I guess looks kind of yellow in this particular version. It’s orange on my, my printed version. Um, but just want to note here, the arterials, collectors and locals, uh, we’re not trying to expand this to a huge degree of local roads or collectors.

00:52:14,170	We’re trying to find those roadways that haven’t been constructed due to our normal or through our normal development patterns, usually that adjacent property develops. They want to build something, we have them build the road.

00:52:30,330	The network kind of grows organically in that way, but for whatever reason it might be, the roadways that are listed in green. Currently our roadways that either were never constructed or just were not constructed with the pace that we would like to see, um, and could be, uh, eligible in my mind for, for additional city support to construct said facilities, uh, same could be said to some degree on a local roadway, uh, that functional classification

00:52:49,270	is, is a process that we use to discuss access management and discuss eligibility for federal funding, but we have some local roadways in our community that have more traffic than some arterial roadways in our community, but so I don’t want to use the functional classification as the only or

00:53:03,100	the be all end all for what we determine is eligibility. when there could be other components, whether it’s traffic volumes or roadway condition that could also be eligible.

00:53:18,700	The blue roadways, the locals that we brought in this that I would recommend bringing in here are all facilities that are either a, a rural section, so a ditch section roadway today, or it’s a gravel road or there’s not even a road there today, but the community might be using it or wanting to use that network.

00:53:31,070	Um, so those are, uh, at this point in time, what we have listed, uh this up on the screen now is 20 miles of arterial roads, 3 miles of collectors and 2 miles of local roads is what this would amount to.

00:53:53,500	So to do all of that, uh, would, uh, at a really high level, um, estimated cost would be over $200 million to do that updated project list of the carryover works as well as what would be new on this list. We, as I said before, would be estimating to, to garner about $10 million a year in estimated revenue from a 0 cent sales tax.

00:54:07,070	So if that’s once again on the books for about a 10 year period where you obviously have a shortfall, uh, which is OK because many of these projects I would not consider that we have to do, but it would be good to have on the eligible list in the event that development triggers it or uh another political sub requests assistance or the the state of North Dakota requests

00:54:22,730	assistance and funding. It would be good to have projects like State Street on, uh, on the list, not a high priority for us to spend our own local dollars to 5 lane State Street from Calgary up to Fifty-seventh Avenue, but if the state said we’d like to do this project as long as the

00:54:36,900	city can chip in X amount of millions of dollars, it would be good for us to have that support to be able to build, um, some that sort of facility.

00:54:49,000	So if we look at just the priority number 1 and 2 roadways, uh, and really it’s, it’s kind of the priority number one would be roadways that I believe we would need regardless of any, uh, new activity in our community, uh, priority number 2 or a little more subject to potentially development activities, uh, but the number 1 and #2 roadways will get us to about $90 million is what that would amount to.

00:55:07,530	Mr. Mayor Gabe, but won’t we have some federal or state tax sharing is something that uh go along with it to help us get to the 200 million? No.

00:55:23,600	Mayor Comm, Comm Risch, I would say there’s opportunities on, on the, the State Street facility in particular that there could be, uh, the, the DOT could program the use of their federal dollars to to allocate it towards that roadway similar to what they’re doing on Mannan Memorial Highway, what they’ve done in other, um, uh, facilities in town here even when they built State Street initially up to, to Calgary or reconstructed it.

00:55:39,630	Um, so I think there’s opportunity there for federal aid, really the, the federal aid where where we’ve ran into a, a problem with the federal aid system is that they want to have the entire dollar that is allocated to us used up in one year and so we can’t save that federal aid for 2 or 3 years

00:55:59,470	and then be able to tack on one of these big projects, uh, especially on the arterial road network, um, so similar to what we’ve done on some of our previous projects, we showed that we had about $18 million in state and federal aid, but that was in many of those instances, $2 million at a time

00:56:14,430	or $4 million at a time and, and, and on it’s still the $20 million project. So it helps, it, it programs out or it keeps the, the program at a, at a higher funding level, but the expectation that there’s going to be another 100 millions of

00:56:27,100	dollars that shows up to to fix any of this from the feds, I think is an unrealistic goal. So lastly on this topic, what I would recommend for some next steps, uh, if, if the Commission approves is kind of do a roadshow of some sort, get out to the public, uh, could be

00:56:44,900	a couple different strategies here, but collect input on what we’re talking about here tonight, uh through the end of this year, uh, with the goal to say, what are we missing? Are these the right roads or are there other facilities that we should be talking about? Is this too big of a program? What,

00:56:58,100	what’s the right level here to get some feedback, um, through that conversation, I would hope to come back to you all in the early win ter you know, January, February time frame of 2026 to finalize that project list and ultimately propose that Home Rulech Charter language that would then uh have to be completed by March

00:57:15,900	of 2026, so it can be on the June election. That would give us time then in the April to June of 2026 to take whatever it is that the commission decided and provide additional education.

00:57:30,730	Uh, we wouldn’t be looking for input at that point in time because the commission had made the decision or would have made the decision, uh, and the language would be kind of fixed, but it was still provides an opportunity to at least tell the people what this means.

00:57:42,970	Uh, we wouldn’t necessarily advocate for passing it, but at least be able to present the information to the public in in various forms as well as have information on our website and and presentation materials So I’ll pop, I’ll pause there if there’s questions on anything that I’ve said so far on 0 cent sales tax, um, take some initial feedback on that one and then go to topic number 2 and then wrap the whole thing up at the end.

00:57:59,000	Mr. Connolly Gabe on East Main because that’s been a topic over the last decade and things, um, uh, from say 9th all the way out to um Centennial, maybe even 5 2nd, and that project was never completed and things.

00:58:24,600	Why isn’t that on, say, one of the priority lists continued because if it’s been under discussion a couple of times and not under discussion now. It makes me curious a little bit. Sure.

00:58:40,530	Mayor and Comm, Comm Connelly, the Main Avenue corridor really the, the concept that the half cent sales tax has historically funded what we recommended to be funded for is the uh the creation of new roadways or expansion of those facilities, uh, so whether or not this tax could be used for a main avenue rehabilitation, a concrete pavement repair, definitely could be.

00:58:58,800	I think it comes a slippery slope into then why would we not use that same tax for other purposes because now you could really talk about all the other concrete roles we have in our talent and really for that matter, every road in our community could be supported through through other uh manners besides sales tax, and that’s really why topic number 2 is on the discussion here too, to talk about a street utility

00:59:14,370	fee that could help mitigate some of that. Um, I wanna advise that we identify a particular roadway for maintenance that then allows that landowner to just luckily lives or or owns property on that that street to not have any maintenance responsibilities.

00:59:31,270	Meanwhile, their neighbor across the street or two streets up has a special assessment bill of $100,000. I don’t believe that’s an equitable way of, of using the, the resources that we have available. So I’d want to keep those conversations as well as we can, um, separate from each other. You know the Comms Commissioners. I, I, I like the way we’re headed. Yeah.

00:59:50,970	OK. So, into topic number 2 is a little little wordier. We’ll start with that. Less, less pictures, more words, more, more charts. Uh, so street utility fee, something we’ve talked about, uh, ad nauseam. I’ll have a slide that goes through kind of the history here.

01:00:08,630	But it is the monthly what uh we we proposed would be a monthly fee on the utility bill. So I just want to be real clear about what this thing is, um, that monthly fee on the utility bill would replace the street maintenance special assessments that we currently use for various activities, our chip sealing, or crack seals, milling overlays, full depth pavement rehabilitation, pavement repair.

01:00:26,800	um, I wanna identify that when we say full depth pavement rehab. That’s when we, we’ll, we’ll use the entire road bed and, and, and reconstruct the pavement, but we leave the curbs, we leave the sidewalk, we’re leaving the street lights, we’re leaving the boulevards.

01:00:41,270	So we’re trying to be really sensitive to our language, and we use the word reconstruction, uh, because even when we’ve talked to some of our initial stakeholders, uh, that word when we’re using it in a different context means different things. So we’ll try it as well as we can when we talk about maintaining existing facilities, use words like full depth payment rehabilitation.

01:00:56,630	and not reconstruction and kind of save that word as well as we can for those larger conversions of rural facilities into urban urban gutter facilities and, and the like.

01:01:13,900	Um, so the scope of this would be curb to curb or shoulder to shoulder preventive maintenance, repair and rehabilitation of existing streets that were historically funded through special assessments. Uh, at this point in time, we did not include sidewalks, driveways, lightings, or other items, not historically funded through straight maintenance special assessments.

01:01:30,800	So why would we even consider this? It’s probably the first question that we should ask and feel real comfortable with the answer, or else we’re spending a lot of time looking into things that we don’t need to be looking into. Uh, but we talked about the benefits of what a street utility fee would be, uh, these are the 1st 4 that we have on here. Uh, first would be a reduced interest during construction.

01:01:44,870	We would expect this utility, if enacted to operate similar to other utilities that we have that the revenue generated from that utility is what we use to pay for their expenses, and we’re not bonding, we’re not carrying costs, we’re not, um borrowing from, from the, the future years to pay for that infrastructure.

01:02:02,970	So we treat it similar to our water utility, sewer utilities, uh, street lights, etc. Uh, the next item, you eliminate the bonding costs, so that would be a cost savings element if we had a, a fee coming in, uh, as well as then whatever that prevailing interest rate might be.

01:02:19,370	Uh, we’ve historically been lucky in more recent times with lower interest rates, uh, but we are very subject to whatever the interest rates are at the time, and we could find ourselves with 7 9 % interest if we got back to that sort of interest rate environment.

01:02:30,870	It allows us to program improvements specific to the needs of the roadway. Uh, a lot of times when we look at what we should do on the roadway in the back of our mind, we’re also thinking about what are the special assessments on that project or on that property and how do we build a, a special assessment district that makes sense from an equity of the

01:02:44,700	special assessment and less so from what does the road really need at this point in time. So removing the uh special assessment I guess chains from that discussion would allow us to be more responsive and more efficient. Now we deliver road maintenance projects.

01:03:02,730	Uh, then the last one I have on here is more subjective in nature, but a consistent fee, uh, would be less of a surprise to the property owner than getting the letter from us. I get to write a lot of, you know,, 1000 letters every year, don’t really write them.

01:03:15,070	The computer writes them and then puts my signature on them, but then we do mail them that says, you are the lucky recipient that will get a 2000,, 3000,,, 4000, 5000, etc. um, special assessment, um, so having that letter go away in exchange for a more consistent fee on your utility bills would be one of the, uh, what I would consider a benefit anyway.

01:03:31,000	So history, how did we get here? This, uh, started in 20 17 with the creation of the Special Assessment Task Force. They identified a street utility fee would be a great idea.

01:03:53,870	in 2019, uh, there was a bill that was created that would allow communities like Bismarck to use a special assessment fee, uh, that or a special assessment task, uh, tax, and backup street utility tax that failed then in 2021, we did get House Bill 1419 passed that then allowed what we’re calling a street utility fee, a street maintenance fee.

01:04:12,730	It has different languages uh throughout, uh, was allowed that triggered the special assessment task force to reconvene in 2021, come up with some recommendations that were presented to this board in 2022. Uh, but one of those findings was the, uh, inequity, the, the enabling a fee like a street utility fee would create to our political subs like Parks and schools.

01:04:31,070	So we went back to the 23 legislators and uh requested a change in the legislation that would allow the local political subs to use their same, uh, mill levy authority they’re using to pay for special assessments to be able to pay for a street utility fee if the community um used one, but that failed in 203. That failed again in 205.

01:04:46,270	Uh, and really the 25 version, it went really sideways that we were worried that even touching it would, would make it a, uh, an unusable fee or unusable concept the way that some of the amendments worked through the legislature.

01:05:00,170	Um, so we feel at this point in time we would rather try to have a discussion with our community to see if this is a fee that we’re interested in pursuing with just um a carve out for parks and a carve out for schools so that they wouldn’t be affected by this fee and really that would, would, would have amount to is removing them from being fee

01:05:14,600	payers in this system, uh, which would obviously increase everyone’s rates a little bit, but it’ll get into some analysis later just to show what it really would or wouldn’t change. So these are the policy components or some of the policy components.

01:05:29,730	It wasn’t all of them that were presented by the Special Assessment task force to the city commission. um, I have a slide here that’ll show those, and my next slide will show kind of just my commentary on those things.

01:05:43,430	We really never had the opportunity, uh, at the city commission to say, uh, yes, this board agrees with these things, or no, we don’t agree with these things. It was kind of paused at that moment in time to then talk to the legislature to see if we can make a tweak to it. So I just want to make sure we have time to discuss these concepts, uh, especially before we put something on a ballot somewhere.

01:05:57,330	Uh, so first option, first concept was a street utility fee policy to follow current special assessment policy, um, that was in some ways, making it so that there wasn’t a big change that we heard the street as utility fee charge someone in a similar manner than the special assessment policy fee

01:06:16,000	does, uh, then there really should be no inconsistencies, whereas if we had a street utility fee that was predicated entirely on number of garage stalls or no size of your home, that might have an inconsistency with how their current special assessment is used and, and valued compared to what a street utility fee would be.

01:06:34,170	Um, next piece, this fee should be based on the parcel square footage. I went through a lot of iterations on what the best, um criteria should be for that. We talked about garage stalls, we talked about number of trips generated by the, the property.

01:06:50,170	Talked about the parcel size, talked about impervious area, all those items were talked about, uh, what landed at once again trying to be consistent with the current special assessment policy as being the partial square footage.

01:07:04,170	The third bullet there are all parcels should pay a street utility fee that once again is getting back to that special assessment policy that right now, even if you don’t have a water meter, even if you don’t have a building, we can still assign a special assessment to that property and collect, uh, a revenue from, from that property paying off its special assessment.

01:07:19,870	So the thought at the time from the special assessment task force is we should treat this the same and create the X number of accounts, whether that X is 1000 or, or a couple 1000 for those properties in the city of Bismarck that do not have a water meter currently installed. And so that would be something for to consider still.

01:07:35,470	The revenue split was 40%, residential, 60% commercial, um. that lined up, uh, with the land area or the land mass associated with both of those pools. Um, that is highly subjective to including the airport and the landfill into that calculation because those are very large tracts of land that then skew the that commercial cost up to to a

01:07:59,100	higher percentage. The per dwelling rate for apartments and manufactured homes just kind of talk on that a bit. That was the philosophy was we’re trying to treat apartments and manufactured homes as they are homes and residential units, not like they are commercial properties is what our special assessment policy treats it.

01:08:16,870	So whether or not it’s apartment building with 30 units in it, um, or a condo with 30 owners, the street utility fee goal would be to treat them the same and have that bill pay the same amount, uh, whereas our policy and special assessment land would, could look at those differently because one would be considered a commercial

01:08:33,000	property apartment building, and one would be considered a residential, um, home or 30 residential homes. The fee framework should include paying off the current special assessments.

01:08:50,870	That was one item that had cons uh maybe not consensus, but support from the special assessment task force, um, it was an equitable fairness kind of concept if you’re asked to pay this new fee and you’re still paying off special assessments from previous.

01:09:08,530	Is that appropriate or not? I think it was the recommendation of the special assessment task force to have a, um, have the fee responsible, the new utility be responsible for paying off everyone’s special assessments, so it doesn’t really matter if your project happened last year or 2 years ago or will happen next year, all of those special assessment debts would be wiped clean, and the fee would be responsible to pay that on those landowners’ behalf.

01:09:22,800	And with that not looking back for those people that might have paid off their special assessment early because it became a, uh, and complicated potential issue. So now my commentary to each of those, uh is on the screen here in red, really.

01:09:45,730	contrasting, uh, first item, I do agree in principle that we should use the special assessment policy, um, but really just to get to the concept that a larger parcel should pay more than a smaller parcel. That’s really where my value system would kick in in that, um, a large retail space with, uh, it consumes 10 acres of land, should probably pay something more than a retail space that takes up a third of an acre of land when it comes to the expand or the, the

01:10:04,000	network that is needed to maintain for both of those. So using the parcel square footage, uh, once again, yes, that could work in principle. Uh, I do want to talk about the impervious area that we do have already in the system as, as another option for us to use there.

01:10:17,370	The parcels should all pay a street utility fee. Um, this is one I’d probably say when it, I wouldn’t fully support at least initially, um. in principle, it makes sense, but I, it does add a layer of complexity to then create utility accounts for parcels that don’t actually have an account, uh, then do they get

01:10:36,000	flagged for all the other concepts that are also out there, whether it’s a street light or some other items that they might not have a water meter, uh, but they are res maybe should be paying other fees too.

01:10:49,800	So it adds another level of complexity to it, uh, and at this, at this point in time, I would rather approach this, assuming that we aren’t creating any new ones, and that does give us a little cushion if in a future year the Commission decides to add in undeveloped properties, it would create that opportunity to do so once the fees’s already up and running

01:11:02,500	and you can see how, how well it’s, it’s working. The revenue split was 40, 60. Um, I do want to say though, if we remove political subdivision property that changes that concept.

01:11:18,170	So I would be maybe not looking for a, a residential split in that manner, but maybe building it in a different manner, which I’ll get into in the next slides, um, per dwelling weight for apartments and manufactured homes, that’s perfectly fine. Uh counting something on a per dwelling rate.

01:11:32,100	Uh, actually it’s very consistent with what we already have in the utility billing system software, um, so we know how many units are in that apartment building. So if we decide, um, an apartment building pays $10 per unit. Uh, it’s relatively straightforward to then, um, put that bill onto that particular account. Uh, free frame framework should include paying out specials, uh, once again, I agree with that one. It does create an equitability concern if you don’t.

01:11:52,370	And then same wise with the no look back or allowance for special assessments previously paid. So anytime we, we build a utility, uh, I got to first talk about what you want to do.

01:12:09,500	So we talked, you know, we’re looking to replace what was the street maintenance projects, uh, with, with the street utility fees, so we grab that capital program. This was the average of our 2019 to 2025 project budgets.

01:12:25,870	So that includes some level of contingency, but it is the bid project amount, um, so it’s, it was the contractor’s number, but if we had some change orders might be um a, a little bit higher than the bit amount but lower than what we’re showing here. It rounds up to about $16 million for capital program. We have an $8 million in debt service.

01:12:43,630	That is the current special assessments that are being paid uh currently, if we wiped the slate clean on special assessments and it’s the utility’s responsibility to pay for those, that would be an item that currently runs about 8 million some change to pay that off on the bright side, as we stop using special assessments that debt service will get smaller and smaller every year until the debt service component of this fee would be 0 once all the debt is

01:13:00,100	paid off for historical debt prior to the fee existing. Uh, and then the last one, sales tax and federal aid, uh, the lion’s share by far was, is like $6.5 million of that as sales tax.

01:13:15,730	The federal aid is reflecting that we have had some federal aid projects that we’ve used for maintenance projects, some of our downtown urban grant projects we funded in the maintenance realm of things, putting back what we found Milen Overlay, etc. Um, so I did want to recognize both of those, but the lion’s share of that has been the sales tax.

01:13:36,870	I do want to recognize that the um, uh the, I think about this one These, these sales tax, we’re not recommending an increase or a decrease in that. We’re recommending that just be brought over currently as we’re currently doing that process, whether it’s sales tax or uh or.

01:13:53,700	uh North Dakota Flex funds what will be the next program that we will use, but we also have our prairie dog funds that we’re using for those programs. What we’re not asking the fee to pay for everything, resting the fee just to kind of replace the special assessment component right now and that that sales tax was part of the 2018 measure, I believe, on sales tax where we capped.

01:14:13,900	the the property tax buydown, am I not, am I correct? And then we you and this is the money we were using to offset some specials previously or are currently using offset. some of those specials, right? Yeah, Mayor and Commissioners, Mr.

01:14:30,330	Mayor, the sales tax that we’re talking about here is part of our 1% or the the first penny is where we’re using that, that, that generates the $20 million or so a year and about 9 to 10 million of that is is used to pay down special assessments, excuse me, pay down property tax, mill levy, um, and the rest of it is used for snow gates and buying out specials. Yep Thank you.

01:14:47,530	So as we look at what sort of utility accounts do we have currently, uh, so if we kind of took a step back and I, I didn’t try to put our parcel database into the utility accounts that just started from scratch with just what do we have for the utilities? Uh, the number of accounts in particular how many units are on so on those accounts, those

01:15:01,330	residential units, sometimes it’s one unit or one account that is for one unit that’s the vast majority, but we do have some utility accounts that it’s 1 m that splits into maybe two units.

01:15:16,800	And so we want to recognize both the accounts and the units, uh, as far as apartment buildings, condos, and multi-families and manufactured home parks, tried to get a good uh number of those accounts and the units and then the number of accounts for commercial, and those are the ones that have the most variability because it’s going from a a shop condo um to Kirkwood Mall kind of is the range of what those commercial

01:15:31,170	accounts could look like. And I do want to note the schools, parks, and lawn meters. Um, I identified those 400 because in my mind those will be the 400 accounts that we wouldn’t bring in to the system because they are schools, parks, or a lawn meter generally is one that is a

01:15:44,100	secondary meter on a parcel, and they’re already paying for it through their commercial or in some cases a residential metered account and don’t want to charge them twice.

01:15:59,170	So, I want to put a big old asterisk on there saying this is just a point in time if we use this information, we have to audit a lot of this data just to make sure it’s used for the right reasons. So we then look at what rate design could look like. A couple of different options here. Uh, the first being a $30 per month residential.

01:16:15,530	Uh, once again, the goal is to get to a $17 million revenue requirement if we call it a $30 a month per residential unit. Uh, that would generate around $7.2 million in annual revenue if we special assessment task force had some consensus around 25% is the percentage to use for a residential, uh, percentage of what that manufactured Ho Park unit should pay relative to

01:16:34,800	what a single family home pays, uh, same could be said for the apartment building, whether that’s the right percentage or not to be determined, but we use 25% in both of those situations. So that would be a $7.

01:16:50,730	50 per month per multi-family, uh, and counting the number of units that we have in the annual revenue gets us to just about a million dollars generated from that category of the manufactured home park and multi-family. What that leaves us in this analysis was $8.7 million requirement from the commercial properties. So as I said before, it’s about 7 some change in residential.

01:17:09,500	In this scenario, it would be 8 and some change in commercial, so maybe closer to that 55% um commercial or residential component, um, is what, a $30 per month residential program would look like.

01:17:29,730	The column to the right is increasing the residential to a $35 a month fee schedule and then you can see as that trickles down to the apartment buildings and manufactured home parks. Those numbers go up, uh, but then that decreases the amount of commercial property that would be, uh, utilize or required to, to pay for this uh fee. but once again the goal still is to get to that $17 million number.

01:17:47,800	So as we work our way to what that commercial could look like. Uh, I do want to note that we do have our uh, impervious square footage right now in the utility bill system and is used to assign the stormwater utility fee to those commercial properties.

01:18:10,370	Now it’s a much smaller fee than what we’d be considering with here. So we’d want to make sure we audit that, but we did go through, or should say public works staff went through the process of looking at site plans, looking at aerial photos when they turn that fian a couple of years ago, um, and, and recalculated based on what they saw as improved services.

01:18:24,230	That’s your parking lots, your rooftops, anything that was not. allowing water to penetrate. Uh, that’s how that fee was established. Whether that’s the right thing to use or we’d want to calculate the actual parcel area for each one.

01:18:40,730	That’s like a subject to determination, um, and decision, but one of the benefits of using the existing impervious square foot, it, it still accomplishes the goal of a larger parcel pays more than the smaller parcel. That’s still kind of one of the values we’re trying to achieve anyway.

01:18:55,800	It uses the existing data set that will help both in the implementation, but more importantly, in my opinion, the management of that information over the long term, not having to manage two separate data sets for eternity by by having one based off of impervious square foot and another based off of parcel size on the impervious square foot has already been, um, split.

01:19:15,530	So if there was a parcel of land that was fully imperviously, entire acre was impervious, but there was 2 m. They’ve already gone through the analysis and allocated half of that impervious square foot to one account and the other half to the other account. So we’ve already kind of split up that impervious nature into the multiple accounts that might be on a parcel.

01:19:30,330	So as we look back then to the revenue goals, the 8.7% on one end of the spectrum and a 7.3 on the other end of the spectrum. That equates to about, you know, it’s fractions of, of the penny, but 2 cents and then fractions of pennies. uh per impervious square foot is what we would anticipate.

01:19:48,470	So if there’s something that we would say we have interest in pursuing, it would be relatively easy to get out and let every account owner know what their bill could look like and provide that analysis if the request is to say we want to use parcel area that would first involve us creating and

01:20:06,100	understanding the parcel relationship to each account and then going through another analysis to get to that, um, point of the conversation. So I would offer that if this, this is what I would recommend at least for now in terms of talking to the public for the impervious square foot.

01:20:18,900	I think it gives us a good head start in this whole process and uh gets us to the point of just trying to say a bigger parcel pays more than a smaller parcel, uh, and we’ve already done that analysis for these commercial accounts.

01:20:33,630	So lastly then, I’m sure everyone’s really happy that I just said lastly because that means I’m going to be done talking soon. Uh, Next steps for the street utility fee, you’ll see a lot of same parallels between this and the special assessment, or excuse me, the half cent sales tax component.

01:20:46,900	What I want to do initially here is confirm some of that policy framework before we’d even talk to the public about anything, whether that’s something you can say here at this meeting or if you’d want some more analysis when we come back to a future meeting.

01:21:00,600	Uh, what I’d want to be able to do is at least lay out that this is kind of what we’re thinking for rates. If you say that’s not going to be above $1 I don’t want to be out in the community saying this is going to be $30 and vice versa. I don’t want to say it’s $30 if you think it might be $50.

01:21:09,270	I just want to be somewhere close to what we think could be the realm of possibility with what we’re thinking here. Um, from that, we’d want to then collect some public input on this. We, we’ve done engagement with stakeholders with the special assessment task force, etc. but not to the community at large.

01:21:22,100	So I think there’s a really good opportunity for us here to talk about what do we want this to do, uh, and then collect that through various channels whether it’s uh surveys, meetings, etc.

01:21:36,330	you know service club presentations, whatever that might be, just to be able to get this message out, see what sort of ideas are out there, maybe some things we haven’t thought about, and then be able to come back here in the early parts of January, February of 26 to finalize framework on and potentially even rates.

01:21:52,800	There might be some desire to incorporate rates or language about rate stability into the ballot language. If you want to say it’s no more than $35 for three years. That could be something we put into the ballot, if that’s a desire for this board to, to pursue.

01:22:07,870	Um, so with that, I would, uh, in March time frame proposed that Home rule charter for the primary municipal election and then similar to the half cent sales tax, have some opportunity there between April and June to get out to the community to at least inform them of what is on the ballot now that that decision has been made, if it has been made, I, I should assume, and let them know

01:22:19,530	what that program would do if, if passed. So with that, there was a lot, so I thank you for staying with me and not take any questions in any direction that you have. Good, Comm Risch. Um, Mr. Mr. Mayor Gabe a well done.

01:22:36,630	I mean, this was well thought out thanks to you, your team, and Comm Zinker on this. But the $30 possible fee is for the medium sized lot, right? I mean, if you’ve got a 6000 square foot lot, uh, your neighbor’s got a $12,000. He’ll pay about twice as much in the utility.

01:22:54,330	Mayor Commissioners, Comm Risch, at this point in time, what I presented would just be a flat fee for anyone residential. So the, the small house, the big house, the tiny house, they’d all pay the same.

01:23:07,230	Uh, what I would suggest that if you wanted to have tears or do something, you know, with the larger parcels, medium sized parcels, whatever it would want to be. Um, you could do that, but I’d want to keep that within the containment of what, uh, was being identified for those single twin home and three unit buildings.

01:23:22,070	So it’s just a kind of a reallocation of that and not a change those to different numbers and then that trickles down to everyone else having to pay more or less potentially. So at this point in time, it’ll all be the same fee, but that could be a topic of discussion if the commission desired. It was a major discussion item during the entirety of these.

01:23:40,730	the uh street utility fee, special assessment task force that all got combined, and I think it became, as I recall, it was kind of a con complicated process to get to some kind of tiering on it, and I don’t think anybody ever felt that it achieved anything, uh, appropriate, but I mean I, I would be

01:24:00,500	of kind of a flat fee per residential unit, so to speak. um I, I, I’m not certain how I feel about whether we set a fixed flat fee for the 1st 3 years or so.

01:24:17,100	I think I’m OK with that, but I think a bigger component of whatever we do is we gonna make sure that the fee that then ultimately is collected has I’ll call it the stopgap, so we aren’t accumulating a bunch of funds, and if we get to remember Gabe, we had this level of when the fund got to $10 we weren’t gonna, we may even decrease the fee if we

01:24:37,370	were collecting more than we should be collecting because we weren’t spending it. I don’t want this ramped up pool that that the government is just collecting all these dollars and never using it for what it’s intended purpose was, but, um, I, I’m, I’m very supportive of the process and the concept.

01:24:54,530	I, I think you’ve done you know, I’d like to see what happens with the impervious square foot calculation and how that impacts them some properties because that’s the thing. I don’t know. I think that the residential site is easier for me to view and kind of get my eyes on. This is the commercial stuff.

01:25:12,630	I’m having a harder time with, and that’s just cause I, I mean, I know we ran into some like really weird numbers before and we were really struggling with that, so that’s, that’s just my, I, I like, I would like to move forward and certainly get some community engagement and conversation personally.

01:25:30,170	Comm Connelly um, I like the 30 for residential. Um, I’d like to see the calculation on paper for everybody to see what the $10 for uh the manufactured home burg and apartment one, it’s an easy, just round number.

01:25:52,730	for citizens to calculate to when you start adding senses and things, then it gets more convoluted form, but, um, a lot of the fee for service conversations that long 6 years was, um, the fact that a lot of people in say uh uh manufactured homeho or even an apartment.

01:26:17,730	They have just as many cars as people in single family homes, and that was a lot of the conversation too is how do you, uh, accommodate all the trips and their impacts onto the roadways, and so I still think like that $10 portion is affordable. It’s not um breaking the bank, but it does, um encapsulate some of those trip counts.

01:26:38,700	Mayor and Comm, if I could maybe just add to that, Christian Connelly, uh your comments made me think of two things. The first being, I do want to kind of get to the bottom or get, you know, stress test, the concept of those renters that are paying for their own utilities that right now have a a $50 per month utility bill that might go up

01:26:54,600	to $80 a month potentially, um, compared to their special assessment that in theory the land, the property owner was paying for that and, and running that into the rates that they’re charging to rent that space.

01:27:11,100	So whatever we would do, I would want to make sure if, if something is promoted and something does pass that there’s enough runway time for implementation that some of those concepts can be identified and incorporated into future lease agreements, so that’s something that the resident knows it’s going to be something higher and can take that into account when they, uh, maybe negotiate their rent or whatever that rent increase could be.

01:27:27,730	Um, so I just wanna maybe offer that piece. The, the other piece I’d say too is the trip generation concept that you had. I would view we’re we’re not trying to get to trip generation as a as a concept that we’re we’re we’re, we’re trying to understand or use as a criteria,

01:27:44,730	um, even if that lot is vacant or even if it’s just a single family home, if there’s 300 ft of frontage, our, our winters in North Dakota destroy that road after 20 years, even if we’re trying to maintain them, they’re just even without any traffic on it, I would think a trip generation component would

01:27:59,870	be very appropriate if we’re talking about capacity type improvements and who’s going to pay for that new turn lane or who’s gonna pay for that new traffic signal or that expansion of the roadway, but the concept of maintaining the existing system, um, even if no one

01:28:11,900	drives on the roads and all the cars go away in 5 years, all the roads would fall apart in that scenario. Mr. Coley. I’m glad you brought that up, Gabe, because when we’re talking manufactured home parts and things, um, when there was a lot of corporate buyouts starting in 2017.

01:28:29,630	Um,,, 1 of the first one that uh went down to an out of state investor, um, cited the improvements long 12th Street and Expressway as a major reason for a major jump in rent. Well, even after the special assessments paid off, the rent never goes down. It’s a matriculation of.

01:28:47,700	So that’s that portion, the reason why I said 0. I merely stated the trip count to be encapsulated into that monthly where we want to actually have the trip count language, but, um, a lot of those parcels, uh, um, like the say a trailer house, they might have 3 or 4 cars, um,

01:29:08,630	just like a single-family home would, so it’s, it’s more that it’s it’s a catch-all when you have it in the fee but, uh, not including the trip language, so to speak, in a measure, so I think we’re kind of saying the same thing. It’s just a lot of words.

01:29:31,900	Other comments or direction for Gabe? Mr. Cleary? Um, I, I guess I pretty much agree with everybody. I would like to see him move forward. I think there’s been a lot of thought put into this over the years with the taskforce.

01:29:48,630	Um, I do agree, Gabe, I think that like the flat fee for residential, whether it’s 30 or 35, makes more sense, I think. part of the problem when we get into the weeds of trip count or garage number or frontage footage.

01:30:06,500	It’s like there’s so many anomalies, right? Like I live in a neighborhood where all of our front yards are only 50 ft wide, but some of the lots go so far back, you can still have a huge garage, you can still have tons of people driving on the road. Like I just think that the flat rate, I think makes more sense and it’ll be easier for the public to understand.

01:30:21,270	Um, I guess I’m more curious to see how that commercial rate plays out, but, um, I like what I’m seeing so far. If I could maybe add something to there, Comm Cleary just to to add to that. Anytime we would add a, a component into the fee we’d need to be able to justify why we did it.

01:30:38,700	So the less slices that we have in here and what’s the magic number from small to medium or medium to large, uh, that just creates another, I guess, issue for someone to take exception with, so I, I, most of the time I, I believe that the simple answer is the right one just to pursue that one instead of try to find a, a more perfect but potentially still flawed answer.

01:30:53,630	Yeah, I definitely agree. I think that like keeping it simple is best just because the way that our city is designed there’s so many anomalies where you’d have to make specific exceptions for certain garage sizes or certain front edges or certain amount of cars that our property is using or something,

01:31:11,000	so I think that keeping it simple is cleaner and easier for everyone to understand. Comm Zenker, go ahead I guess I’ll just, it’s not a question for Gabe, but it’s a question for the, the rest of us.

01:31:25,700	I mean, Gabe, put this all together based on his CIPs that he’s had over the years and, and what we’ve worked together. So when, when he gives you the $17 million are you comfortable with that dollar amount? um, because that changes rates as well, right? Yeah.

01:31:43,330	I mean, um, we all know that, and it’s going to take what, 15 years to pay off that current debt that we have. Some of the, some of the Comm Zak as long, I guess. I mean. We, we, our current bonding cycle for our special assessments is uh 7 years for these types of projects.

01:31:57,800	Um, but we’d still have some projects from before we’ve made that change that are still in the books, but there’s probably not 15 years’ worth out there. OK. So it’s 77 years before that, the debt services paid off and, um, you know, I’m sure there’s some department heads salivating over some sales tax that might be available, but we

01:32:12,730	all know that things go up. So in 7 years, that if we use 30 or 35 for residential and whatever we use for commercial, the inflationary thing is is going to be an issue too. So your comment about capping that and those types of things, those are details we can work out. Yeah. Later.

01:32:26,970	The biggest thing is, are you comfortable with the $17 million and then, um, he’s already got the questions for that, so I guess that’s all, it’s I’ll go from there, sir. Yeah. Um go ahead, Comm Connelly. During this special assessment task force didn’t they normally talk about a $20 million so 17 would be less.

01:32:49,470	Mayor and Comm, Comm Connelly, uh, when we looked at the special assessment task force, we were looking at the CIP primarily so forward looking, um, and it’s really hard to project out what oil prices might be 345 years from now, so.

01:33:10,100	in all of our CIPs, we’re pretty um I’d say conservative with what our estimate is because we don’t want to say that this project’s going to cost $17 million and it turns out it’s $20 million.

01:33:23,630	We’d much rather have in the budget that’s $20 million in this scenario or in the CIP for the street maintenance because it’s being special assessed, there wasn’t really a need to budget that at all, because it was just special assessments only. It was a means to get the sales, the appropriate sales tax dollar amount allocated to that amount of work.

01:33:40,070	So we always would know that we’d have enough in sales tax to support that buydown of the special assessments by having what would be a little bit conservative or higher number than what we’d actually expect. What we have in this project or this program now is the actual costs on average for the last 6 or so years.

01:33:54,100	I feel like that’s going to be a more accurate number for what next year’s project will look like, but we do need to keep in mind that there are inflationary pressures and that unknown in the future that we’d have to keep on top of as well. Appreciate that thank you Comm Clery.

01:34:08,100	Um, I guess to answer your question, Comm Zinker, I think that the 17 million makes sense if it’s based off of, you know, what we’ve been looking at for the last couple of years.

01:34:21,900	I think that just like any other utility fee, you’re gonna have to look at it from year to year and say, does this still make sense? We do it with street lights, we do it with solid waste, you know, uh, because I think there’s gonna be inflationary issues, but then there’s also going to be, as that debt service goes down, like that’s gonna adjust too, so I think as long as we are working under the concept that we know that that dollar amount can change in future years.

01:34:39,630	I think that the 17 million makes sense now for sure. Well, only, as long as that $17 million in consider considers some inflationary index to the historical numbers that you’ve been working on because next year that $17 million would be short. if it was $17 million this year.

01:35:00,170	and Mayor Commissionerers also want to add, we’re always a year behind in our construction projects, so we will bond our like you did here today, certified the the special assessments from last year’s projects.

01:35:13,270	So there is always going to be, uh, a year’s worth of debt that we’d have to take into account that probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to special assess it only for us to to wipe that off. Um, what I would recommend if it gets to that point, is just be a little more strategic once again with that implementation strategy and if there happens to be a year that we know this is happening, that might be a good year to

01:35:27,000	tone down potentially some of the roadway maintenance investment for that particular year so that we don’t have just more debt or 2 years’ worth of debt that we have to pay. We’re just paying the previous year.

01:35:37,500	So all these are kind of details we’d have to, to work out and get a little more firm commitment, but I’ve, um, confidence in that $17.17 million dollars number to be good for the first couple of years of the program, then, then I’m comfortable. I mean, you’re, you’re the one that’s got the data.

01:35:53,230	and have run the analytics but it’s a, it’s a fair question to ask because we need to know the starting point, right? Yeah. Yeah. OK. OK. And, and so do we need further direction on the sales tax item as well.

01:36:09,800	for you Mayor Commissioners, if you have some consensus to say what you heard tonight is is appropriate and to go out to the public and talk about it and come back to you with with results of that discussion before any decisions are made. That’s really all I’m asking for tonight.

01:36:24,470	Go ahead, Comm Mary Comm, and just to, just to reemphasize, right, it’s going to be two questions on the ballot, not one question tied together. I, I led to that when we first had that conversation, um, through more conversations, I really like this approach. Yeah.

01:36:43,600	It’s clean, it’s transparent, um, and it, it really sets up future commissions for that half cent to do other priorities, um, just like Gabe said, the crystal ball isn’t always crystal, right? Right. Right. So, Mr. Mayor, uh, one of the most attractive parts for me is the money we save on interest on these projects for the for the street fee. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So, 3%’s a lot more. OK, so do we have consensus for Gabe to proceed forward and engage whoever he needs to engage to.

01:37:05,870	OK. Sounds great. Thank you all. OK, thanks. Item G. Consider request to receive an award bids for the replacement of the terminal doors and walk-off mats. Mister Hog, you’ve been so quiet and patiently waiting back there. I was really interested in that last item I don’t even say something. It’s an important item Mhm.

01:37:45,270	One more Mayor Commissioners, we have, uh, a couple of items for you tonight. Um, I don’t know if we want to put them up on the machine here. We’ve got, uh uh, item number one was the automatic sliding door replacement.

01:38:06,970	So all three of our entrances are 20 years old, we’re starting to have some issues with the, getting parts and stuff. And, of course, pretty important to be able to get people in and out of the building. And there’s, uh, 22 set, you know, there’s a set at each, uh, door opening.

01:38:27,000	We receive one bid, um, but we couldn’t, uh, we can’t consider it because they did not include their bid bond or their contractor’s license, so the attorney opened it up, checked for that, and it wasn’t there. And so we’ve sealed that up and we’ll send it back to them. So, that item is going to have to be rebid. We did actually think that we were going to get 3 bids on that.

01:38:43,530	Uh, there are 3 glass companies that are capable of doing that, but, uh, we’re gonna just have to do some checking and regroup and, uh, and put together, uh, another, um, advertisement for that particular item, so there’s no action on that one.

01:39:02,370	On the FloorMatt replacement, um, we did receive one bid from House of Color, um, actually 21 for the base bid, one for the alternate, um, and, and we kind of anticipated two bids, but we only got one, but, uh, the engineer’s estimate on that was, uh, 35,000, and their bid was 29,950.

01:39:24,170	and we’d like to recommend you to award, uh, alternate one to house of color for the floor mat replacement. Comm Risch, uh, Mister Mayor Greg, the disqualified bid was it relatively close to the estimate. OK. We didn’t, I didn’t. We didn’t. We didn’t. OK.

01:39:46,900	Um, Julie might have seen what the number was, but, uh, my staff that were there didn’t, did not see it, um, I understand the architect has talked to, uh, how, uh, who was it, uh, CNH Glass, and, uh, they said they would resubmit with the proper paperwork and stuff next time, but we got to find out why the other two outfits didn’t, uh, submit a bit. Maybe it’s a bad time of year.

01:40:04,100	you know, trying to close up projects before the snow flies. So Commissioners, what are your wishes with regard to I’ll make a motion to approve as presented. Second, Is there any discussion You know we call ro Comm Zenker? Yes. Comm Connelly? Yes. Comm Cleary, Yes, Comm Norich. Comm Risch. Oh, yes. But you said Mayor. Yes. Yeah.

01:40:35,000	Thank you. Maybe she’s like there. She’s calling me mayor now. Next item, age. Consider a request from the administration department to provide an update on the draft of the 2025 strategic Plan. Go ahead, Doug. Evening Mayor Commissioners, thanks for the opportunity to give you guys an update.

01:40:59,070	Um, as you are all aware, we started this process in the spring of this year. Uh, we reached out to, uh, we put an RFP out for services to lead us through our 2025 strategic plan update. Um, as I said back in the spring, we awarded a contract to Patrick Ibarra of the Majaanda Group.

01:41:17,970	And shortly after that, he began meeting with staff, um, he came to town 3 times over the last several months, the first visit, and I’m just going to recap a few things you’ve already heard and for our audience.

01:41:32,700	He came to town to visit, get to meet you all, get to meet, uh, the steering committee um, and then he also met with about 150 staff from across the organization to kind of get a pulse of where we are with the the culture is and kind of analyze the concerns, what people were happy about, some of the concerns that our staff had as well.

01:41:51,900	Before I go any further, I want to just tell the uh strategic planning committee that I appreciate them. They’ve done a lot of great work. I’m sure Comm Zinker will have a little bit to say about them, but I just wanna recognize them specifically. We had quite a few directors and a few staff.

01:42:08,170	It was Dmitri Chernyak, Gabe Schell, Renee Mack, Ben Ereth, who um, has moved on to uh a different position in a different part of the state. Steve Saway, Luke Tiegel, Toddra Kraft, Caitlin Os, Jason Stugermeyer. Sarah Berner, Leeanne Schmidt, and Katie, Johny.

01:42:29,800	So pretty diverse group of staff and, uh, they’ve just been a, a, a joy to work with during those meetings Um so Patrick came to town uh, the second time. This was in June, and we began working on the, uh, vision, Miss, and values, and we went through a SWAT analysis. The vision Mission values, it’s a, it’s a pretty important part of what we do.

01:42:52,800	It’s kind of sets the direction we, we take a, a little bit of time. There’s quite a bit of debate, uh, about the direction of where our organization is. Uh, I’m just gonna read what we had in 2019 with our previous strap plan and where we are at now because it’s significantly different.

01:43:09,630	And I think it’s really important to point out that it’s different for, uh, very specific reason. This strategic plan is focused internally, where the previous plan in 2019 was focused on the community. so it makes a little bit of sense that those are going to change fairly significantly.

01:43:29,700	So the vision in 2019 was Bismarck is a preferred destination for people who enjoy living, learning, working and playing in a city with an enduring community pride. We embrace our rich heritage, economic opportunity, and lifelong learning to cultivate a healthy and sustainable. environment fostering opportunity for all. So that’s it’s a lot.

01:43:51,530	Um, I don’t know that anybody could necessarily remember what that was, and except it was a lot of really good things and it was a lot of good things about our community, but where we landed, we wanted something a little bit more succinct, something that we could remember.

01:44:07,070	And during that process, we’re kind of thinking about what’s what’s the best quality of our community And uh, where we landed is that we have an extraordinary quality of life in our community. And that’s something I personally value quite a bit. And, uh, I think the committee as well so our new vision for the strategic plan is that Bismarck is a dynamic community committed to an extraordinary quality of life.

01:44:24,600	And I know our Minister, Mr. Tomoni really appreciates the use of the word extraordinary So much so that we had to rehash that over for a couple hours. But sometimes you just don’t get your way in the game of life. Um, you know, the next portion that we worked through was the mission.

01:44:53,470	Our, our mission in 2019 was to provide high-quality public services in partnership with our community to enhance our quality of life. We didn’t deviate too far from that, where we landed this time was together. We will deliver exceptional public service. So just shorten it a little bit, maybe a little bit more succinct.

01:45:13,270	And then our values uh, our values from 2019 were forward-looking, diversity, community pride, integrity, and environmentally sound. All those are very good values, um, but in communications that we had and debate back and forth, we, we decided to change it up quite a bit this time and our values are something that that we want, you know, a, a reflection of our

01:45:35,170	organizational culture should reflect our values. And so when we look at what we had in 2019, it would be really hard to, to base the culture or try to form a culture around what those values are.

01:45:52,170	So we did quite a bit of work, um and again, there was and you’ve heard me say this is a good group because we had I don’t know if I, if heated is the right word, Comm Zinker, but there was a lot of back and forth, um, and some opinions that were very strong. Sometimes I get a little excited, but no, it was never that heated.

01:46:08,800	It was, it was playful, jesting, fun debate, is what I would call it. But it was important that we had good debate, and that’s what makes a good team and, and you’ve got a bunch of good staff that are able to do that and be effective through it.

01:46:23,170	So where we landed on our values were service and I’m gonna give you a little sentence, uh, a little description of what service means. It means we are dedicated to delivering safe, responsive, reliable, and exceptional services. The next value was stewardship. We manage our resources ethically, responsibly, and sustainably.

01:46:47,270	Respect We treat all individuals with dignity, fairness, and civility at all times Care, we care about our work and the people we serve and innovation. We embrace creativity, forward thinking, and meet current and emergent needs. So the goal for another goal for these values is to incorporate it more in our decision making, um you know, and when we’re selecting consultants, when we’re evaluating our staff, uh, when we’re giving promotions, uh, things like that.

01:47:09,730	We should be looking at our values to make sure the actions that we’re taking are reflective of that. And I think this is a pretty good set of values that we can begin incorporating that into our decision-making processes. Uh, the next thing that we worked on were our strategic focus areas.

01:47:27,170	The strategic focus areas are kind of the the categories in which the, the goals and objectives are going to fall under in the 2019 plan, we had strategic focus areas of signature spaces, all ages and all wages, social health, 21st century hub. Complete connectivity and government excellence.

01:47:50,170	So because that strategic plan was community community focused that made a little bit of sense, uh, but because this is more internally focused. We’re doing work on the organization and this one we decided to change it up quite a bit. So our new strategic focus areas, I stole a phrase from you, sorry.

01:48:12,630	Uh, our strategic focus areas, our infrastructure and development economic vitality, safe and healthy community, emerging issues engaged in informed community desirable lifestyle and organizational excellence. When we think about infrastructure and development, what we want to do is address the growth.

01:48:36,270	And so, um, just as, as you see on our draft plan that you have in front of you, there’s a description for each of those strategic focus areas that you see over and over in the blue, and I’m just going to read a little excerpt from each of those so that, um, staff is aware of what these are and then those in the audience or those listening online.

01:48:50,100	When we think about infrastructure and development, an important note is that as our city continues to grow and evolve is essential to develop and maintain facilities, systems, policies and practices that not only meet today’s demands, but also anticipate future needs. So that’s what we’re trying to accomplish under that strategic focus area for economic vitality.

01:49:09,700	we’re recognizing that economic vitality is critical to the overall quality of life and long-term prosperity. This strategic focus area emphasizes collaboration with partners, modernization of business processes and thoughtful community planning. for safe and healthy communities, we want to develop a comprehensive approach to public safety. health and well-being for those within the organization and across our community.

01:49:32,630	An emerging issues we want to make sure that the city of Bismarck continues to adapt and be proactive in its approaches, anticipating challenges before they arise in positioning the organization to respond strategically. engaged informed community, we’ve talked about this a lot tonight already with what Gaye presented, but as Bismarck continues to grow and evolve effective communication must go beyond simply sharing information.

01:49:54,100	So we have to be strategic. What? Oh, I’m sorry. We’re on the same, we’re on the same page, um. we all, we all see it. There’s a lot of communication that goes on right now.

01:50:14,470	It’s evolving, it’s evolving very quickly, and we need to make sure that we are keeping it front of mind, making it a priority to evolve with what our citizens are expecting. And then organizational excellence, I think this speaks for itself, but this focus area reflects a strategic commitment to building high performing or a high performing organization that can effectively meet the evolving needs of the community, adapt to future challenges and deliver high quality public services.

01:50:40,970	So uh, I lost my spot Next steps over the my plan for you all. is that over the next month that you take time to review the strategic focus areas and the goals and objectives, and you look to the second column next to the objectives, and you can see the departments that are, have been assigned to those objectives.

01:51:05,000	Um you know, I would ask that you spend time with your department heads, your department directors, and just, um, talk about, you know, does this make sense? What can we do? What tasks can we formulate to accomplish these things.

01:51:23,170	Um, tentative timelines that you think those tasks can be started, uh, and begun. And then I will be meeting with them as well. to talk about this. Um, the other thing I would ask that, that you do, Commissioners, is to begin thinking about how you want this strategic plan to be made relevant.

01:51:41,370	and that’s something that we’ve struggled with in the past for very legitimate reasons. We had a flood in 2012 and we had a pandemic and shortly after the last one was approved. So there’s pretty legitimate reasons to get off task, but we don’t want that to happen with this one.

01:51:59,100	so I ask that you think about how do you want this reported out to you all on a consistent basis? or was that a quarterly report from department directors, is that a report from administration about the high points of the strategic, uh, plan that’s been touched over the last several months. Um, do you want to just meet with your department directors.

01:52:15,530	There’s lots of things that we can do so that you are receiving the information that you want to get out of this. And then know that on the backside, the the staff is working on, um you know, how do we make it relevant for our organization.

01:52:34,900	So, uh, my part is to coordinate I would like to, to split our, um steering committee into three subgroups to accomplish a few tasks between now and the end of the year. Uh, so I left one part out for you all and I apologize, but the goal would be for us to approve this at the 2nd meeting in October. So you have about a month to review with department directors.

01:52:49,100	with the goal of final adoption at that point. And if, you know, by chance you need more time and we need to push it back. We could do that, but I’d really like to try to get this accomplished by the end of October.

01:53:04,100	Uh, for staff, we’re gonna, I’d like to split the steering committee into a few groups. Um. so that though you guys are gonna meet, you commissioners are going to meet with your department directors. I would like the subcommittee to also meet with some of them as well to help them get in, dig into the tasks a little bit more.

01:53:21,270	We don’t have to have those adopted right away with this, uh, strap plan. We can continue it’s a living document. We continue to work on over the next several months. Um, another group I’d like to have work through a detailed implementation plan, and I’ve got some ideas of who specifically I’d like to, to put on that.

01:53:36,100	And, and part of that implementation plan is how we communicating with staff, what this is exactly and how it’s going to affect them on a regular basis. We need to make sure our directors and supervisors and leaders across the organization are communicating regularly with them, um, emphasizing the importance of the values and what we’re trying to accomplish

01:53:55,330	through the strategic plan. So, um, also as part of that we’re gonna be looking at, uh, a reporting software where our citizens can view the progress on this, but then on the backside, we have a lot of freedom to, to provide regular inputs so that you are up to date as well as along with

01:54:12,970	others in the organization. And then finally, uh, another group will work on the communications of this, you know, the outward communications, and then you can see what this draft looks like, um, right now, it’s in an Excel.

01:54:29,230	And what I would like is to work with somebody to help make this a little bit more professional looking so we can distribute this to people, to stakeholders across the community so we can have, um, you know, more published refined version that we can give to each of the departments so they can have to distribute as well.

01:54:43,900	So those are the three things that I’m gonna work on and with the subcommittee, and I’ve asked you to do two things, work with your department directors, and then began thinking about how you would like this implemented on your end.

01:54:59,970	What you think you are I think because you helped lead this better hurry up because Gabe, or, uh Doug will take some more of my stuff. No, first of all, I think we need to congratulate Doug because he led that charge and did a fantastic job. He doesn’t like the limelight, but he, he really did. He could steer.

01:55:13,370	that committee, uh, we get a little bit stuck once in a while, and he’d bring the, bring in his insight, and I kind of did the same thing, tried to, I didn’t want to make it my plan, right, because we’re working on the business with staff and employees and those types of things. So I’m gonna point out a couple things.

01:55:26,270	One, I still have mine from what we did before because after we gave our presentation, we accepted that. I always thought that it was critically important for me.

01:55:41,230	that if we’re going to go through that and we’re making decisions at this table that it matches that our plan, um, yes, it did it got a little stagnant and it and then it’s outdated. So I’m, I would challenge us to do the same thing once we, once we adopt this, um, and, and Doug was right. It, everything that we talked about in the previous presentation from Gabe. Every one of those items matches.

01:55:57,630	How we’re going to provide better service? How are we gonna make sure we’re showing stewardship for our, for our, uh, residents in our, in our properties, how we respectfully make decisions so it’s not just a snap of a finger type scenario, and that we care because we want to make sure

01:56:12,600	that we hold ourselves to that high standard that we have, um and, and there’s people out in the community who have transitioned from other parts of the country, other states, and come in and, and some of the things that we take for granted, especially I’ll, I’ll pick on myself a little bit

01:56:28,170	here because I’m a lifelong resident, that I’m used to. Hey, plows get done, garbage gets picked up, you know, our, our city looks really nice. We have the, uh, a great urban forest.

01:56:44,900	Um, some of those communities don’t have that, and they really appreciate what we have, um, we don’t have tall buildings or those types of things. We have a, we have a community, right? So I, I think that’s important because in our strategic plan, it, it looks to a vision and into the future.

01:57:04,370	Um it’s critically important for our, our directors, um, department heads, upper management to take this down to the, to the people who wear boots on the ground. because they gotta, they gotta feel, they do all the work, right? When, when chaos hits the streets, fire, police, you know, um, CEO, uh, Public Works, whatever, whoever needs to jump in does it. And we’ve, we’ve seen it over and over within our community, what our staff does.

01:57:24,630	And if they feel that sense of pride, and some of them didn’t when, when Patrick came, that we got, we got to make sure that our our directors and managers, managers enforce that sense of pride that they have because they always don’t get a pat on the back and they do a fantastic

01:57:37,070	job running the city, so, uh, with that, I, I again, I want to thank that group. Um, they did a great job. It’s a little, you know, it takes a little bit for the, the icebreaker so, so to speak in there, but we had a, I thought I had a, I had a

01:57:50,800	great time. Um, we have some very, very, very good staff, um, we have very good directors and we got a, a good group of up and coming, um, people within our comm within our organization. So. it’s all I got.

01:58:12,700	Comm Connelly Uh, I concur, Doug, thanks for all the work and team of people, um similar to the 2045 plan where um it’s mentioned on just about every staff report that comes up to the meeting. Um, that would be kind of daunting here too, but that’s why I’m mentioning it here.

01:58:28,730	Uh, when you take it back to the stakeholder group, whether it be a small excerpt on where it meets the provisions of the strategic plan with every item because uh a lot of citizens and things if they’re looking at our agendas and that it might give them a point of reference that they might not otherwise.

01:58:46,900	identify with, or if it’s just citing where they on the staff report where they could look into the strategic plan. If, uh, as a possibility. I appreciate that and that brings me something I forgot to mention. What the strategic plan is just to elaborate a little bit, is we’re going to do the day to day stuff. We’ve got great managers, we’ve got great supervisors and directors.

01:59:04,470	We’re going to do the jobs that we’re gonna do. We’re gonna plow snow. We’re going to keep designing streets. We’re gonna do all those things. What the strategic plan is or, or where we want to be in the next 3 years that are above and beyond that’re going to push our organization.

01:59:17,430	So there will be things that, you know, the day to day stuff, the bid awards, probably won’t get mentioned as part of the strategic plan, but we’re looking at the bigger picture, things that are pushing the organization forward. And we definitely should be putting that stuff on the memo for you guys when you’re making those decisions.

01:59:34,270	OK, Comm Risch, uh, Mr. Mayor Doug, thanks again for your work on this. Uh, oftentimes organizations will do a strategic plan. They put it on the shelf, checks the box. Oh, there it is. But I like your idea of the follow up maybe a quarterly update on the where we’re at.

01:59:54,100	Have we made any um um achieved any of the goals outlined in the plan and I don’t, I don’t know if its quarterly’s right or every 6 months or whatever the case may be, just to keep track of it so we don’t lose track of it, so we don’t forget about it.

02:00:05,330	So, so I think that’s actually one of his his requests from us is to give him some of that feedback and guidance and when we adopt it or even at the next meeting if we want to have it on the agenda, we can talk about whether we have a conversation then or when we adopt but as I

02:00:23,000	know Comm Zinker was part of these conversations because Doug had a probably the same conversation to a part with me on like how we’re going to report this out so we stay on task and, um, you know, it’s, I think it’s our our job as a commission to give that kind of guidance to

02:00:39,970	not only Doug, it’s, it’s the whole team here, all 650+ employees. Um, I think it’s a, like the, the items that are in here are tremendous. There’s gonna be a lot of tasks that aren’t developed yet, but I think it’s something that’s that will really put our city in in a really good spot 3 years from now.

02:01:00,270	So thank you, Doug. Yep. Thank you Comm, I just ask that you uh, start to meet with some of your departments so we can give some additional feedback and a couple of weeks in a couple, I guess 4 weeks, 5 weeks, something like that.

02:01:17,370	Yeah, if you could just let your directors know and then they can communicate with me and then we’ll go from there and have something ready for you at the end of October. OK, thank you. All right. I Is consider requests from the fire department to provide an update on Fire Station 6, Chief.

02:01:38,170	Mayor and Comm, my purpose tonight is to provide you with a brief update on Fire Station 6. In our last discussion, we shared data on the need for the additional fire station, and then we also brought a proposed location that was on Burleig and Calypso, a city-owned piece of property.

02:01:56,870	This is an area of the city that we’ve been analyzing It’s our intent to build upon the emergency services that we provide, not only for the fire protection but also for emergency medical water, ice rescue, chemical response, etc. whatever type of emergency. So since our last discussion, we’ve been working with city departments on the project. Public Works, Michael Martin.

02:02:19,800	Solway, um, Steve actually led the process for selecting the architect, EAPC was chosen. EAPC Ellen and Brett are here tonight in in case there’s any information that they would need to provide.

02:02:47,600	Community development, Ben and Daniel have been extremely helpful in growth projections GIS, Darrellusage getting us into the data collection mode has been very helpful. Gabe with engineering and his staff, uh, looking at some of the infrastructure, working with the APC and EAPC stepping into that realm of working with our staff to make sure that our operations and that station, they’re functional, and we get to the things that are

02:03:07,370	important to our persons and to work towards a cost estimate as well. So the fire department, we take great pride in the service that we provide to the community, and we also take great pride in being a good neighbor. We’ve had a number of opportunities to interact with the public on this project.

02:03:26,600	to answer their questions about how we operate when we use sirens, when we don’t, um, we appreciate the input and we’ll work hard to fit into the neighborhood. So in summary, I just wanted to say that the fire station project is moving well. and mayor and Commissioners, thank you for your time this evening.

02:03:44,170	Commission if there’s any questions for the Chief? OK thank you All right we are at, uh, item 6 other business. Do we have any other business before we head to executive session. Uh go ahead, Comm Cleary, and then Comm Conley. Uh, mine’s just quick.

02:04:10,370	So last week we had uh the free landfill week that we do in the fall at, uh, at our landfill, but it rained like 5 days in a row, so we had some people reaching out to Public Works wondering if there was any ability to extend the week because it was very hard to get

02:04:27,900	out to the landfill, and there’s a lot of mud and, um, it was a little interesting with all the rain, um, after Steve and I discussed it, um, we decided that we will do another free landfill week, but we didn’t want to extend it straight into this week.

02:04:44,000	We wanted to give it an opportunity to dry up and so there will be another free landfill week starting next week, so Monday, September 29th through Saturday, October 4th, um, it hasn’t been like the press release hasn’t gone out just because we’re trying not to confuse people with whether it’s this week or next week, so it will be like publicly announced later

02:05:03,230	this week, but just for anyone who is wondering because I know that I’ve got inquiries. I think Comm Zener got some too, um, that we are going to extend it because it was a bit of a mess out there. So, uh, and it will be next week, all the way through the Saturday. So.

02:05:20,800	Comm Connelly, uh, I just wanted to mention, uh, last night we had one of the, there’s two Hon flights, um, taking off this week and returning.

02:05:38,700	Last night was one of them at our airport, and there was a tremendous crowd, a lot of not dry eyes there, but there was room, so, um, just encourage anybody if they have free time, um uh and or flexible time after 7 tomorrow night. Uh, see if we can’t, make sure all of those, uh, empty spaces aren’t filled. It’s a tremendous opportunity to thank people that have protected our freedoms and our rights.

02:05:58,170	And I’ve been to several of them. My grandfather was one more than a decade ago. Uh, it’s just a really great community event. Any other business OK? If not, I would entertain a motion to enter into executive session.

02:06:24,430	move into Executive session, um, under, do you want me to send your code or just OK, uh, under North Dakota Century Code Section 44-04-19.2 regarding negotiation strategies. Second. any discussion Harry Nunn will call a role. Comm Cleary? Yes. Comm Risch. Yes. Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm