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City current

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Produced by Dakota Media Access. In depth discussion with Bismarck and Man and city officials. Watch on Government Access Channel 602 HD or tune in to Radio Access 102.5 FM. Always local, always current.

00:00:25,367	spk_1:
Welcome to City Current, the Bismarck Edition. I'm Tom Gerhardt from Dakota Media Access, and Jason Tamanic, Bismarck City Administrator, is here following last night's City commission meeting and Fourth of July festivities. We got a lot to get to, but first off,

00:00:39,367	spk_2:
welcome. Thank you. It's always a pleasure to be here. Yeah,

00:00:42,200	spk_1:
we got a lot of things to talk about today, starting with what was, uh, a really somber moment last night's, uh, commission meeting, but honoring Sergeant Steve Kenner, who we lost in the line of duty. Uh, in 11 years or 14 years ago,

00:00:57,300	spk_2:
sorry, 14

00:00:58,000	spk_1:
years ago now, so, uh, the police chief, uh, had a, a nice moment of silence for Sergeant Kenner. We'll talk about the pavement management report and you can pop that up on the screen. Uh, which sounds really boring when you just say it out loud, but I found it really interesting studying the city and the streets, and so we'll talk about that as well. Opioid settlement funds, uh, with the health Burley, uh, public health. And see what happened there and then an update to the public comment policy which will affect all boards, committees and commissions and spurred by legislative action this past winter

00:01:37,800	spk_2:
2180 so all cities across North Dakota will be implementing some type of public comment policy.

00:01:45,300	spk_1:
Yeah, well, we'll get to all that in just a moment, but Uh, let's start with Sergeant Steve Kenner. We mentioned he was lost in the line of duty 14 years ago, and, and as we were talking ahead of time, I was working in broadcast television at the time, and that was the year of the flood as well, which we all remember. But then in July, Sergeant Kenner lost his life in the line of duty and the, the police chief last night, a very somber moment, as I mentioned, but a very touching moment as well.

00:02:14,567	spk_2:
Yeah, he shared with everybody that he was the. shift commander at the time, which means he had a very critical role within the police station, uh, as far as the operations of the activities that night. I remember the night very well. It was hot. It was July, obviously, but one of the things that the chief mentioned is that over these 14 years, uh, he had not participated in a city commission meeting that actually fell on July 8th, which was the anniversary day. And so when. Dave had reached out a couple of weeks ago and said, hey, you know, we have this opportunity to recognize one of our own, and, and I said, absolutely, the, the time is yours, you do what you need to do. And I think he did a very, very, as you mentioned, somber, uh, memorial, but also it's appropriate to remember these things and recognize the. The sacrifices that uh some will give to ensure the safety of our community. So,

00:03:06,166	spk_1:
we have a photo of Sergeant Kenner, uh, Chief Dreic last night too, you could tell.

00:03:14,500	spk_1:
obviously still very emotional for him, but he also displayed, I think a lot of strength and and class by stepping to the podium to, you know, for that moment. Yeah,

00:03:24,200	spk_2:
Chief Dreic doesn't care for the spotlight. I think he'd probably be the first one to tell you that, but at the same time, he is very much willing to raise up other people for their accomplishments and the, the work that they do as well. And, and being a good leader, it's nice to know that he He has feelings and, and he has empathy and sympathy for the family and, and has his own memories of that entire situation, not just that evening, but then the course of events had transpired for the days and weeks afterwards as well. And so, Uh, just appreciate the, the humanity that he brought forward and again, the professionalism, but also, um, you know, recognizing the sacrifice that the Kenner family gave for our community.

00:04:04,900	spk_1:
Didn't want to let that opportunity pass just to, to remind everyone, and again, Honor Sergeant Kenner. So a very, a very, uh, nice moment last night. Well, moving on to the actual, uh, uh, nuts and bolts of the commission meeting on the consent agenda, a couple of things were pulled pretty uneventful, but you mentioned this is a very busy time for the city with

00:04:29,166	spk_2:
renewal for renewal city administration, the, the office that I work from every day. Uh, we are responsible for processing all the renewal applications for charitable gaming and for alcohol licenses. And so charitable gaming, all their licenses and permits expire at the end of June, and then all the alcohol licenses that we issue expire at the end of July. So these back to back months are very busy for our front office staff. There's somewhere between 125 and 150 alcohol licenses. And then a tremendous number of gaming site locations and and renewals as well. And so, um, we, we sometimes run in seasons and this is one of those seasons for us that is, it's all hands on deck and we realize that we have a critical role in this process because if we're not able to successfully renew their applications that can cost them revenue and operations in the future, so. We work very closely with some of the businesses and uh we appreciate all of their support, but then also hand off part of the process to the state because there's another step for the gaming and then later in the year there's a renewal process for the alcohol licensing at the state level as well.

00:05:36,867	spk_1:
On the regular agenda, the pavement study, the pavement management report, I guess that was given last night as I mentioned, I found very intriguing even though it doesn't sound like a a lot on the, on the top, but. We have a map that we can pop up that shows it's the green is uh adequate throughout the city. The yellow needs some work and the red. Unsatisfactory, but tell us the details of this report. I think everybody was really appreciative to receive it, and it's important because ultimately it can save the city a lot of money staying on top of it.

00:06:12,967	spk_2:
It absolutely does. It helps us have a plan for addressing pavement conditions. And so we're not just throwing a dart at the board. We're not just driving around and looking at which streets need the most attention. We are actually analyzing through technology, the subsurface and the condition of the pavement. As well, and I, some of the little nuggets, I always like tidbits of information, and one of the little pieces that I picked up on referring to the map on the screen, so the city of Bismarck has about 360 center lane miles. So that's if you just drove down the middle of every street, it'd be 360 miles total. 304 of those miles, which are represented by the green on the screen, 304 of those miles, as you mentioned, are adequate. So that's about 84% of our roadways are in adequate condition. That's pretty good. 53 miles are considered degraded. There's about 15% and then we have 4 miles that are in unsatisfactory conditions, so less than 1% of our total street network. So, do we have work to do? Absolutely, without a doubt. What were some of the, uh, the takeaways beyond that? We have 5 year projected costs of $15 million annually. What the report tells us is if we continue to invest in the maintenance of our street through a variety of techniques, whether it be a chip seal, a mill and overlay, which is when we grind off the pavement surface and come back with fresh asphalt in certain locations, or in, in a worst case scenario, we end up doing what we call a full depth reconstruction where we end up going all the way down to the subsurface. In some cases actually pulling out that soil, putting in engineered soil, putting in drain tile, helping with the uh subgrade water, things like that. Between those three different types of asphalt treatment, if we continue to maintain our street network as we have, we'll have a projected payment index of 80 by 2029. Overall, that's a pretty good score. That means that our network is in good shape. We don't have a ton of blowouts. Sure, we've got potholes. We've got things that need addressing. No question about it, but if we continue down this path, we will, we will see uh investments that are recouped because we're maintaining payment rather than waiting for it to just completely deteriorate and then have to go to the most expensive. Uh, next step, which would be that full depth reconstruction,

00:08:28,467	spk_1:
really interesting question asked by Commissioner Risch at the end of the presentation about the technology involved and, and I forget the name of the presenter forgive me, but he talked about the 3D cameras and you mentioned getting being able to use those 3D cameras to get that perspective and get. Under the surface a little bit to see depths of uh degradation to use the term or whatever the appropriate term is, but I found that fascinating and we have on on screen some examples of pavement conditions around town and, you know, they're literally driving, you said all those miles taking a look at the conditions yeah.

00:09:02,667	spk_2:
And it's, it's great information for us. It's a program that we've been using for quite some time now, probably the last 10 years or so, and it has really helped guide the decisions of the areas that need attention. And it's also exposed some areas that we may not have seen with our own eyes because of that ability to essentially scan the subsurface.

00:09:21,767	spk_1:
Yeah, well, who knew pavement could be so interesting? I'm

00:09:24,667	spk_2:
sure the engineers knew.

00:09:26,467	spk_1:
Well, of course, of course I know this,

00:09:28,467	spk_2:
this came from the engineering department and they've done a great job of working with these consulting firms that have this technology. It's not something that we, the city of Bismarck, have. We contract with them to do this service, but then they provide us with the data and the tools to manage that information and make those informed decisions going forward.

00:09:46,567	spk_1:
This passed by quickly, uh, without any conversation with the event center amenity, the MOU with Nelson and Peterson, uh, we're gonna maybe talk about that briefly, but just the, the MOU and what that means moving forward with, uh, potential amenity development,

00:10:02,667	spk_2:
certainly. So it was kind of the end of the discussion that we saw beginning back in April of this year. Uh, we had a One firm come forward with a proposal for an amenities development project at the event center. What does that mean? Essentially what it means is that we're looking for somebody to come in and build a hotel and some of those missing pieces in that entire Bismarck event center complex. What the, uh, request was back in April was to enter into an exclusive agreement with the city of Bismarck to basically work on our behalf. This development firm will be working on our behalf to assemble a team that. Has the means to come forward and support a development project of this type. Uh there, there's no talk of incentives. There's no talk of anything other than the exclusive opportunity to work for the next year towards the fulfillment of that project. There's no expense to the city whatsoever. Now as staff, we would be available for, you know, help and support, resources, those types of things. But ultimately, the team of Adolfson and Peterson Construction, JLG Architects, and Yel Design Group, those are the three private sector entities that are aligned on this project collectively, they will be spending the next 12 months working as much as they can towards bringing this project forward and, and coming back with. More than just a concept, but coming back with an actual brick and mortar project that uh that we're all hoping to see. Yeah,

00:11:28,000	spk_1:
exciting to and we'd seen an example, just an example, a few weeks back, but it'll be exciting to see now moving forward what comes out of, out of this MOU Bismarck Burley Public Health. Brune stepped to the podium looking for some funding to help with uh the triage center down the road just from uh a technical assistance I think was the term she used so not for an actual building, but she was looking for $50,000 for from opioid settlement money. And that actually ended up doubling and passing unanimously, I believe, but filling the details on what happened there.

00:12:05,867	spk_2:
So the request came as a result of some of the changes that we've seen from Washington DC. So if we back up 34 months, Public Health had $100,000 in grant funds that was going to be used for this project. And what is this project? It's essentially a feasibility study for the community triage center. What is the Community triage center? Well, it's, it's a milestone project that public health has been working on since 2017, and it was a concept that was originally started by then Mayor Mike Seminary. The group was called the Mayor's Gold Star Community Task Force. It has evolved into the Burley Morton Behavioral Health Task Force. What that group has identified is that there are uh. People in need in our community with mental health, behavioral health and addiction, no question about that. What they've discovered is that there are a number of services for people once they get past that initial crisis scenario and so the community triage center. Would really work to help address people's needs when they're in crisis at that time. And what does it mean for law enforcement? When law enforcement gets called to a location for a disturbance, if somebody is under the influence, if they need to be removed from that site, if they're arrested for any reason, before they can go to jail, they need to be cleared medically, if there's any sort of condition or ailment that appears to be impeding their abilities. The jail can't take them until the hospital clears, and the hospital doesn't really want to have to deal with some of those situations. And so our law enforcement officers oftentimes end up waiting in the waiting room with people before they can be seen by doctors and then ultimately taken to jail. This community triage center would be that location instead of taking someone to the emergency room, instead of taking someone to jail. You take them to this community triage center where they can be assessed medically, but then also, if they're willing and ready, work their way into these recovery programs, which is that next level, and there's a number of programs at that next level of care. So, public health, and a little bit of background there, public health is now requesting, through opioid settlement funds, the ability to replace that federal grant that was uh dissolved earlier this year. Renee Mock, our public health director, Bismarck Burley, public health director, made the same request at the Burley County Commission on Monday. Uh, the commission did not support the Burley County Commission did not support her request and so when the request came to the Bismarck City Commission on Tuesday. Commissioner Anne Cleary, who holds a portfolio for public health, noted that Renee Mock had made the request and it was not supported. Commissioner Cleary made the motion to use $100,000 of the city's opioid settlement funds, and we have about $280,000 that need to be spent on these types of activities. And so that is the motion that was unanimously supported, is that the city of Bismarck will be funding the study to support the feasibility. On the community triage center, which again is a project that public health has been working on for the last 6 or 7 years,

00:15:14,867	spk_1:
and ultimately a triage center would help our first responders, our police department, take some burden off of the emergency rooms. We've heard about businesses that have people on premises congregating ultimately the idea, I mean, number one is. Provide health options for these people, mental, physical, whatever, but it also, it just really ripples out in so many different directions.

00:15:42,800	spk_2:
Some might say, well, how does it really help law enforcement? Well, it frees up our officers to do the work that they're trained to do, to do professional law enforcement work. They're not necessarily, I mean, of course, they're trained to, to help people when they're at their worst and in distress. But I, as the city administrator, would much rather know that our officers are out on the street protecting this community as opposed to sitting in a waiting room with somebody that Is at their worst at that time. So, um, lot, lots of help that is needed throughout and kudos to Renee and her team and the entire coalition that has been working on this. I think the question came to Renee, you know, how many partners have been a part of this, and over the years it's numbers in the hundreds by far. And it just speaks to the volume of organizations that are here, but it also really shines a light on. What a gap this really is. We've got all these other services that are there, but one of probably the most critical step for some people, that first step, we are missing that opportunity and so. Through this work, through this study, we'll have more information about the location, the feasibility, how does it function, who are the partners, how is it funded, who's operating it, all of these answers need to come forward, so we can make an informed decision and and start making a difference in that particular area.

00:17:01,367	spk_1:
Another regular item on the agenda last night, public comment policy and update there, and that was spurred from legislative action this past session. Talk about some of the details of what not to be confused with public hearings. This is public comment

00:17:17,667	spk_2:
policy. Correct. So a public hearing would be different. A public hearing to us, the distinction there is that it is tied to a specific action generally with a, an alcohol license or an ordinance adoption, a zoning change, something like that that works its way through the planning commission. Public comment is any comment at the onset of now any public meeting that is part of the city of Bismarck and so it will certainly impact the city commission, but then it also impacts every advisory board and committee that meets on a regular basis. And so Senate Bill 2180. was passed with this legislative session, so all cities in North Dakota now have to provide some form of public comment. Being a partner of the North Dakota League of Cities, the league took a template and basically made it available to all the communities to say, if you want to use this, great. The backbone for that, of course, was the legislation that was passed. Now, if cities would choose to augment or enhance the policy, that's theirs to do. What they could not do is do anything less than the state law says, but they could do more. Meaning one of the phrases in the state law references public comment must be available for that meeting and at least one meeting prior, at least one meeting prior. Well, a commission a council, a committee could decide, you know what, we're gonna open it up to any comment. That's their decision. Our commission has chosen to limit it to the one meeting prior, one regular meeting prior, and I can appreciate that. It gives the public an opportunity to come back and ask a question on something that was dealt with at the prior meeting, but at the same time from the staff perspective, we're always ready. We, we, we hope to have the answers. If we don't, we'll try and find them, but to. Try and be responsive to a question that 6 months ago you guys passed this ordinance and tell me what it's all about. Well, it would take some time to get to that answer, but at least this way it puts a few book

00:19:20,166	spk_1:
ends the commission be

00:19:21,767	spk_2:
prepared. It does staff, we're happy to find those answers, but to. Try and find them on the fly, take time out of the meeting. I think that could be disruptive in some cases. So I, I appreciate that the commission limited it to uh the the one meeting prior in the current meeting. The other thing that there was a little bit of discussion at the table was, should there be a time limit on each individual and then also should there be a total amount of time allocated throughout the entire meeting. And I think what I heard consensus was, is that 5 minutes seems to be a comfortable amount of time. However, the chair has discretion. I think that's the key item is that the chair, the mayor in the case of the city commission, who's ever running the meeting, has the ability to say. Adam or sir, you have great information. You're providing new information that we weren't aware of. Please continue. I don't see us putting a shot clock up in a buzzer or anything like that for, for calling out 5 minutes, but I can also see when this will be helpful if we do have a topic that generates a lot of public input or a lot of public interest, I should say. Having some means to facilitate that process is appropriate.

00:20:31,200	spk_1:
It's easy to get off topic sometimes when someone comes up with passion about a particular,

00:20:36,667	spk_2:
yeah, and I, I do need to mention the City of Bismarck, Bismarck City Commission particularly has had public comment for gosh, probably the last 6 or 7 years, and it has been very similar to what the state approved. Uh, the difference is that we required the comments to be. Uh, from that meeting's agenda only, and they had to be things that were not otherwise prescribed as a public hearing. So basically you could speak to any item on the agenda. You didn't need to check in ahead of time. You could come to the meeting, sign it at the roll call sheet or the the sign in sheet just for record keeping. And so we were very close. The practice that the city of Bismarck has been engaged in was very close to what the state law was implementing or what will be implementing on August 1st. The biggest difference, I think for us is that it now requires all boards and committees to do this, and I'm not certain that every board and committee has a public comment opportunity today. But at their August meeting they will, yep.

00:21:36,100	spk_1:
Well, let's talk about something fun.

00:21:41,000	spk_1:
Well, that's true. Let's, let's talk about, uh, a very, uh, great event on July 4th up at the Community Bowl, the Bismarck's Red, White and Boom celebration, first year after it, uh, was rescued from the Capitol grounds and, and why it had to move everybody that we've talked about in the past, but just focusing on this July 4th event. I've heard a lot of great comments about particularly the fireworks, but it sounds like you were really happy with the way

00:22:08,767	spk_2:
thrilled, thrilled, thrilled this event filled my cup, and, and not that this was about me by any means, but I'll be honest, I was a little nervous that the turnout was going to be underwhelming. I was worried we were going to have just a few 100 people there and Thank you, Bismarck, for coming out and showing your support, uh, estimates across the BSC campus, somewhere around 8000 people. That is staggering to know that on the first year, 8000 people trusted a group of us to pull off something that was fun, family friendly. It was free, entertaining. The symphony sounded great. Benucy did a wonderful job. Chuck Soucy did a great job when he joined the symphony. And I need to mention his name, Jim Keller with J and J Fireworks. And so when we when we started this discussion several months ago, uh, I got to know Jim really well, and Jim assured me that for the same amount of money that the city had contributed to previous fireworks shows, if we were to move the location to the Community bowl and he was able to shoot fireworks off from that South Bluff where he was on, on Friday last week. He assured me that the fireworks show would be more than we had experienced at the Capitol in the past, and Jim did not disappoint. There was a period of time where I think people were looking at their watches saying, are you kidding? We're still going. And so it was somewhere between 25 and 30 minutes of fireworks. I've spent most of my life in Bismarck. I would go so far as to say it's probably the best fireworks show that I can remember in my lifetime in Bismarck, and it was a great kickoff to a new tradition. And I think just talking with other people, I heard wonderful remarks. Of course, people had some complaints. sharking was a challenge. I, I know we've got things to work on for next year. We've got a meeting coming up with the planners. We're gonna get together and we're all going to talk about what worked, what can we do better, what can we do differently? And obviously next year with it being the 250th anniversary, people are expecting a little bit more. And so with all of that in mind, I just think it was a wonderful community experience. The the thousands of people that showed up demonstrated to us that they want these types of things to happen in Bismarck, and I just am so thankful for the sponsors, for the partners that went along on this journey with me and said, we can pull this off. We need to make something happen. We can't just roll over and play dead. We're the capital city. And I'm so proud, so pleased, and looking forward to next year. I think it's just gonna be great.

00:24:41,266	spk_1:
And not just Doctor Beverly Everett, you mentioned the symphony photo of them and, and some events leading up to the fireworks show as well, but food trucks like lawn games you mentioned and then. I happened to have plans. I was out of state, so I wasn't able to make it, which bums me out. So next year for sure. But there were pole vaulters, which somebody said, oh, the pole vaulters were amazing. So it's just some unexpected entertainment

00:25:08,367	spk_2:
and different things. There were 7 inflatables, bounce houses, but yes, there were, there were people there demonstrating their ability to vault over a pole, and it was getting the crowd cheering, people were clapping. It was. It was great, all in all, and the weather cooperated. I mean, everything was just a wonderful, wonderful experience. So thanks again for everybody that showed up, everybody that trusted us that this was gonna be a good time. More, more next year improvements, certainly things to, to do better and differently, but, uh, well,

00:25:42,166	spk_1:
let's mention that red, white and boom survey that that's out right now and As the screen says, it's a chance for you to tell the committee what worked, what didn't, what they could do better in the future. That'll be up until July 21st, so you have some time, and it's the bitly link slash biz, the number 4 in July, and that'll lead you directly to the survey. You can also find it on the

00:26:06,800	spk_2:
City of Bismarck Facebook page and then I believe the Most of the survey is actually the fanatics,

00:26:13,100	spk_1:
which is

00:26:13,500	spk_2:
F U N A T I X. That's fanatics helped with activating that space, came in and brought their talent and their, their team of people, organized the volunteers, all that type of stuff. But yes, fanatics have that survey available through social media. If you don't do social media, you can still get to the survey. I, I know it's available, so I took it, so.

00:26:37,100	spk_1:
Uh, summer road construction update. I wanted to talk about that as well, and we do have a street construction map that we can show and this, you can go to the BismarckND.gov/streets and find out what's happening, red, our closures. you can explain the rest, but it gives you an idea up to date,

00:26:59,900	spk_2:
updated daily. We're forever putting out new press releases, closing streets, reopening streets, bringing new water lines to people, but obviously, we've got some pretty significant projects in the community. For those of you that find yourselves on the east side of town, you're impacted by East Century Avenue. That's the City of Bismarck project. You're also impacted by Exit 6161, which is in North Dakota Department of Transportation projects. So I realize I, I drive these corridors too. It, it can be challenging in the mornings, but please continue to be patient and just remember, once this is done, things are gonna be much better than they were when they started. Uh, we're connecting parts of the community with East Century Avenue that we haven't been able to open up in the past. That extension of East Century Avenue is being paid for using the half cent sales tax, so. Uh, no special assessments along with that project, so that's an important distinction on that one. But then also, there's a lot of regular maintenance projects, as we just talked about with the pavement condition in your neighborhoods, in your, your quieter streets, there's still construction going on in those areas as well, and so be mindful of the workers, be mindful of the traffic and the signage, put your phones down, pay attention when you're driving please. Everybody wants to go home at the end of the day. But if you have questions, as you mentioned, Tom BismarckndD.gov/streets.

00:28:21,266	spk_2:
Or you can call our city engineering department. They generally have a good handle on what's going on and where it is. You can reach them directly at 355-1505.

00:28:31,166	spk_1:
All right. I, looking at that map, I couldn't help noticing the golf courses and the zoo and all the parks too, which, uh, not a better time to enjoy those than July and August and. In North Dakota wasn't on the agenda last night, but I just wanted to get an update on the search for a new police chief. What's the update there?

00:28:49,000	spk_2:
So we are in the process. Um, you mentioned, we spoke about Chief Dave Drejevich. Dave's last day with the city of Bismarck will be July 31st of 2025 after nearly 35 years, uh, with the city. Uh, we're going through the process now, and there were a good number of initial candidates, and we've had a few steps along the way to limit those in the end. Uh, there will be a face to face interview with an interview committee that is composed of the mayor, uh, Commissioner John Risch, who holds a portfolio for the police department, our human resources director Leanne Schmidt, excuse me, our fire chief Joel Basflu, and myself. The 5 of us will be doing that final face to face interview and then using all the other steps as part of the assessment to come forward with a recommendation. We hope to have a recommendation for our city commissioners at the next meeting, which would be July 22nd. All right,

00:29:43,000	spk_1:
yeah, that's gonna move along fast. July is gonna be over before we know

00:29:46,600	spk_2:
it. Back to school specials are out there. I even saw some Halloween things at one of the big box stores. I don't even know what season it is anymore. So,

00:29:54,867	spk_1:
as you mentioned, it's never slows down, which is a good thing. Yes, well, and you can take us with you wherever you are by downloading our Dakota media access. A or and or our radio access 102.5 app. So I've said it before, if you're out on a sandbar or at a park or at the zoo and you wanna check on the Bismarck City Commission or any other local meetings, you can do so or check out our community programming or our radio station, which features great DJs and podcasts. So find us wherever you are whenever you can. And thanks for joining us on another edition of City

00:30:29,767	spk_0:
Current. For more information on what was discussed in this episode of City Current, visit Bismarck ND.gov or call 701-355-1300.

00:30:41,166	spk_0:
If you have suggestions, comments, or issues you would like addressed in future episodes, contact us at info@retv.org. This program airs on government Access Channel 2 and 602 in HD or on Radio Access 102.5 FM. It's also available as a podcast on Radio Access.org and as a video viewing link at freeTv.org. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of City Current.