00:00:04,467	S1:
City. Current. Produced by Dakota media access. In-depth discussion with Bismarck and Mandan city officials. Watch on government access channel 602 HD or tune in to radio Access 102.5 FM. Always local. Always current.

00:00:26,467	S2:
Thanks for joining us on City Current. I'm Tom Gerhart from Dakota media access, along with Bismarck city Administrator Jason Tomanek. Good to see you, Jason.

00:00:34,901	S3:
Thanks, Tom. Glad to be here.

00:00:36,167	S2:
Fresh off a city commission meeting. Let's go over a few of the bullet point topics we'll be talking about in today's episode. We'll be touching base on the alcohol license, events, permits, and talk about what was decided and determined. Last night at the city commission meeting, former Mayor Marlin Hokanson has a petition that he brought before. The commission will give you the details on what he would like to see happen. And probably the thing that affects all of us, or does affect all of us is House Bill 1176 and OMB Office of Management and Budget Director Joel Morissette came down and addressed the city commission last night and gave a lot of information on particularly, I think, the education piece that the city Commission and the mayor have been talking about what it means for our property taxes. If you have a primary residence and just trying to clear up some, perhaps some misconceptions. But I wanted to start things off with one item from the consent agenda that will be, uh, front and center on September 9th. And that's the 2026 city budget.

00:01:44,267	S3:
Yes. So this the action last night was the call for the public hearing for the for the budget itself, and no discussion from any of the commissioners. We have had several weeks, months that has gone into the preparation of this. And one of the intentional steps that we take is to incorporate the commissioners as we work through the the budget, piece by piece. And ultimately, one of their roles as a portfolio holder is to participate and engage in those discussions when it's their portfolios turn. So the commissioners have seen many fragments and pieces of this throughout. This was the first full presentation that was put together by the finance staff. And rather than kind of pick through all the different components of it, I think what I would encourage people to do is to navigate themselves to the City of Bismarck website. Bismarck, N.D. gov. If you go to the agenda center, which is where we host and post all of our agendas and minutes, the agenda packet from the August 26th, 2025 City Commission meeting will have the full budget. It will have the capital improvements projects. It will have the one time request. It will have the general collections for general fund. All the enterprise funds, fees and charges are in there. There's a lot of information, I understand, and we are here to help answer those questions that come forward. So by all means, if if citizens have questions, they can reach out to staff. What I would also encourage people is that in two weeks we will have the public hearing, and that will be the time for our city commissioners to either approve as presented or to make some changes to the budget as they see necessary. And one of the things that I think is important, and you'll hear this across all the political subdivisions at the primary budget introduction back in July, that was really the the first go of things. And really what that did is it set the maximum amount for the city's budget. No additional expenses can be added to the budget for next year. Obviously, things can be reduced, things can be eliminated, things, other things could be included. But the the full dollar amount cannot go up from this point. So for anybody that would like to speak in two weeks. Encourage you to do a little research. Grab and grab some of this data. Again, if you have questions, you can reach out to staff either in city administration or in our finance department. I'm sure everyone would be more than happy to help answer any questions that you may have in the past. You know, we definitely get a few people involved and come to the public hearings and share their thoughts, and we always appreciate that. But going forward, I think we've got a it's a balanced budget. It's a very modest approach to taxation. And it dovetails into our next discussion here or one of our future discussions with House Bill 1176. And so this is our first goal at a budget with a 3% cap on our total expenses, total budget cap.

00:04:44,267	S2:
And you mentioned the full packet with the budget is available in the agenda from that August meeting. Also, Dmitri gave a presentation that evening that you could go back and watch that Summarizes the 2026 budget when it received its preliminary approval. So a lot of information, as you said, is out there. But I think the most important thing I've learned since coming back into this position is that we all have a voice. And and so September 9th, you can show up and and be heard.

00:05:15,868	S3:
Yep. Absolutely.

00:05:16,901	S2:
So on to the regular agenda and what you had just talked about. House Bill 1176 was passed by the legislature this last spring, and it did set a 3% cap on growth for municipalities. And, um, but I think we've learned listening to the city commission meetings, that really if you have a primary residence, there will be some significant property tax relief coming our way, but maybe some confusion on that 3%. Maybe homeowners with the primary residence are thinking their property tax is capped at 3%. And on board director Marquette came in last night. Really tried to clear up some of that.

00:05:57,601	S3:
Right. It will come down to valuations. It'll come down to if you made improvements to your home, it'll just come down to the general levy that is set by the city. And so I. We all appreciate Mr. Morris at the time and willingness to come and help translate and make some sense of House Bill 1176 because I think everyone's takeaway might be a little bit different all the way around. So, um, what he did say is that it really provides for things. It increases the resident credit from 500 to $1600. It provides a dedicated funding source for the relief from the legacy fund earnings. It imposes a 3% cap on political subdivision budget growth from property tax, and then it allows a carryover of unused levy authority if the actual amount is less than 3%. So say a community raises their budget 2.5% one year. The following year, they could consider carrying that additional half percent over. In the following year, It could be 3.5%, and I believe there's a five year maximum for the carryover amounts, so it wouldn't be in perpetuity. So and I think one of the things that's important to note is what is the revenue source for this property tax relief. And it is the legacy fund earnings. And Mr. Morris said shared how those percentages through the Legacy Fund are distributed. And roughly this next biennium, $409 million of the legacy earnings will go towards legacy property tax relief.

00:07:27,367	S2:
And the key word there, just to reiterate it is earnings not actually taking from the legacy fund, but the earnings on the funds, on the deposits that are going in through.

00:07:37,868	S3:
The deposits, the investments and all the money that it is generating.

00:07:41,400	S2:
Well, we do have a clip from Joel from last night, really focusing in on the primary residence and what one homeowner could expect with House Bill 1176 and how it will it'll impact them.

00:07:57,767	S4:
It's not. The 3% cap does not apply to the individual taxpayer. The 3% cap applies on the city budget, and the impact on the individual taxpayer is going to depend on their their own situation and their own change in assessed value. The very bottom line that the taxpayer is going to see, though, is going to be a significant reduction for everybody who is subject to the primary residence credit, because that was $500 last year is going to be $1,600 this year. So in all of my examples, taxpayers that are that are getting that credit are going to see an overall reduction of 38 to 45%.

00:08:39,100	S2:
So there we heard from Mr. Morissette. We didn't actually get to see him. He did have a nice suit and tie on last night. So I just want to say that. But he did provide a lot of excellent information I think cleared up a lot with his presentation last night. Moving on. Former Mayor Marlin Hokanson was on the agenda last night, and he has a petition that would, in essence, if I understood him correctly, would roll back water rates and property taxes to the year 2018 for Bismarck residents only. That's kind of a starting point.

00:09:19,767	S3:
That's my understanding as well. Yes. And so, Hawk, as many of us know him as has been working to collect signatures for quite some time, and we're actually going back a couple of years when we start to start this conversation. North Dakota state law allows for citizens to collect signatures for initiated measures or ordinance changes. And in this case and in any case, the state law says that a petitioner has up to 12 months to gather the minimum number of signatures required in the case of Mr. Hawkinson, he was not able to successfully collect the minimum number of signatures in under 12 months. And it actually went from our from our attorney's office to the Attorney General's office for an opinion as an interpretation, to affirm that, yes, it is 12 months. And so I think what the ask of Mr. Hawkinson was last night was to accept those signatures that he had collected over that period of time, despite the fact that they have passed the 12 month window and there was no action taken by the commissioners either. However, there was quite a bit of discussion on what would happen if that were to take place if we rolled back water rates to $2,018, and if we also capped our city budget at 2018 amounts. I think one of the things that some of the commissioners noted Mayor Schmitz and primarily noted right away, there would be a significant reduction in force and meaning 2018 budgets compared to where we are today. We just simply don't have the resources to pay for staff. And if we're capping the general fund budget, then we're really talking about public safety, police, fire, emergency dispatch, public works, roads and streets. Those are all funded through the general fund. And so yes, we have added staff since 2018. We are a growing community. We have more responsibilities. We have a larger area to provide service to. And frankly, I think asking city staff to be able to do the job today and in the future that they were able to do in 2018 with the same amount of money, then it would be a pretty significant challenge for us to be able to successfully deliver the same level of service that we are today. And the Commission again took no action, but did use the opportunity to kind of share some concerns. Um, Mr. Hawkinson did indicate that it would be his intention to potentially. Take an ad out in the Bismarck Tribune where he could essentially collect signatures that way. He also kind of tipped his hat towards some sort of a lawsuit against the state of North Dakota involving the ACLU, potentially against the citizens of or the city of Bismarck as well. Um, I'm certainly not going to speculate on what his next move is, but for the commissioners there, again, no action taken other than to receive his request.

00:12:20,400	S2:
And maybe a bit of interesting detail. Certainly I'm not an attorney, but North Dakota Century Code, which governs our, you know, our laws here in North Dakota, says you have that year to collect those signatures. Right. The Bismarck home rule charter, I believe Hauk indicated last night that there's no time limit. So you kind of forfeit towards state law. And so that's, I think, something he also tried to interpret himself. But I guess we'll see what happens next if the ad is taken out, if a lawsuit is filed or something else happens in the future. But like you said, no action taken last night. And it was, uh, being, you know, a resident to hear about how much a fire department would have to be. You know, the riffs in a fire department, a police department, uh, nobody thinks their roads get cleared fast enough during a blizzard as it is. So going back 7 or 8 years certainly would be challenging at best. Moving on to the public hearing on liquor licenses, uh, kind of getting into the weeds a little bit. You want to amend or title, not you, but amend title five of an ordinance that would change some language, revise some language. And I guess there are some concerns about how what used to be called special event permits were used. And now we're calling them event permits. Correct.

00:13:43,767	S3:
Yeah.

00:13:44,267	S2:
It's unbundle this a little bit.

00:13:46,000	S3:
This is this is where government kind of trips itself sometimes. And Bismarck has a law in many cities, have a long history of trying to regulate alcohol licenses, bars, liquor stores, you name it. And we in Bismarck for years have had a special event permit that can be applied for by many of the existing alcohol license holders in the community. And what does that special event permit do? It allows them to provide a service outside of their normal location. And so you can provide catering. It can be for wedding events, private parties, whatever the case might be. And so our office process is, quite frankly, almost 200 of these things each year. And there's a lot of activity in our community. There's a lot of requests for catered events with alcohol. What we where we find ourselves today is that we have a business owner who did provide comment at the at the podium last night, and she indicated that she is an owner in 6 or 7 different businesses in the community. And not to. Not to put her on the spot, but to to use her words, she said, I might be the. The reason for this change. And I think one thing that I need to state is that. According to our interpretation of the ordinance, according to the city attorney's interpretation of the ordinance, no laws were being broken. But what was happening is that there were special events being held, sometimes private events, but sometimes also public events where anybody could just stop in and have a cocktail. And that caught the attention of some of the other establishments downtown, particularly a couple of the bars that have made a significant investment in the class D alcohol license. It's the probably the most coveted license we have as far as alcohol licensing goes. Commissioner Zenker had noted the city has really turned this into a commodity because we restrict the number of them. We say where you can and can't be with them. You can't be too close to something else sometimes. And there's a lot of regulation that goes along with alcohol licensing. I think where we where we have landed is that there again, there wasn't anything going on that was inappropriate. But yet it came down to an interpretation. So the purpose of the ordinance change last night was to clarify, no longer called a special event. It's called an event permit. There's a restriction on the number of days in a row that you can host an event at a site, but there is no cap on the number of special events you can do annually, because we do have companies that rely very much on catering. And we want to maybe we want to make them able to perform to the best of their abilities. There is a demand for that in the community. We're not here to stifle any of that, but I think what some of the commissioners noted is that this current situation we have with the D licenses, it's been a problem in the past. For some, it's a barrier to entry for others going forward. And it was Commissioner Zenker that remarked that he would like to see the class D owners come together and come back with a proposal that would satisfy their needs, but then also open the door for more opportunities for other businesses in the future. Are we going to get to that? I don't know, but our office would love to be a part of that. If there are some ideas out there. We've met with these these individuals several times over the many years, and I understand that their businesses are challenging to run. Many businesses are very challenging to run, but at the same time, I can appreciate where the commissioners are that in some ways, in this situation, government's got its thumb on the scale just a little bit because we are restricting certain opportunities that others might like to try and be a part of. So with that, I should also note we are in the process of accepting sealed bids for new class D licenses, and this is part of that barrier to entry, those licenses. The bidding starts at $200,000. And the last time we sold one, there's three class D's that are up for up for auction, up for bid. The last time we sold a D, it was just over $300,000. And so I understand it was a business owner. That is a tremendous investment to to frankly buy a piece of paper. Then you've still got to build your storefront and have your employees all of the inventory. It's a lot. So is there a better way to go about this? Perhaps. I think the mayor has some ideas. Commissioner Zenker may have some ideas, but we also need to hear from the existing businesses as well to make sure that we're not jeopardizing anything going forward. But in the end, the residents just want to be able to have a good time. And that's where I say we as government, we kind of trip ourselves a little bit because if you ask the citizens, I think most people would just say, what's the big deal? Let's, let's just have some fun. But these are the rules that we have inherited. These are long standing ordinances going all the way back to the 50s in Bismarck.

00:18:52,667	S2:
So we'll see.

00:18:54,801	S3:
We'll keep going.

00:18:55,467	S2:
We'll see what happens. Turn the page and see what happens next. Wanted to talk about Elk Ridges fourth edition. And you know, you mentioned off and on through our conversations just about the amount of growth that happens in Bismarck. This is just another example. This is, I guess, Northwest Bismarck and that Elkridge Elementary School area. And I did you say an additional 46.

00:19:19,100	S3:
Lots, 46 lots in 23 acres? So they're fairly generous size lots, 1112, 14,000ft² on the kind of on the small end. But again, it's just that intentional continuation of measured growth that we're not sprawling into a remote area. This is contiguous to city limits. So we can annex, provide services, have street connectivity, bus service. All of that comes along with this as well. This is brought forward by the section 18 Land Company, Elkridge. Much of that area is under the leadership of the Knudsen family, and so Kamm and his partners, we wish them well with this one as as they go forward. But just wanted to mention that we're we're still adding neighborhoods to town, no question about it.

00:20:06,601	S2:
Also, uh, one final topic, some discussion on topics that could be discussed at next, the next Bismarck City Commission Burleigh County Commission combined meeting regarding the ETA. And so that was brought up last night.

00:20:22,868	S3:
Right. That group. So the Bismarck Burleigh Combined Commissions Committee, uh, is Mayor Schmitz and myself representing Bismarck. And on the Burleigh county side, it is Commissioner Steve Bakken and Auditor Mark Splonskowski. So the four of us meet on the first Tuesday of every month, typically at 4:00 in the Tom Baker Room in September, September 2nd, first Tuesday we will meet at 5:00, and the request to move it to 5:00 is to open the door a little wider for people that would like to speak during public comment, we understand 8 to 5 is a traditional workday. I don't know how typical it is for many folks anymore, but the request was to move it to five. Not a problem if it makes it easier for some people to be able to share their thoughts. That's ultimately the goal. We had it on the agenda again last night, had a couple of comments from people that we've heard from in the past relating to the ETA, but what the what the purpose will also be on the September 2nd meeting is to start talking about some of those areas that our planning staff is looking at in the rural areas where the ETA may no longer be necessary. And we're looking at rural subdivisions that are in many cases, built out or would be extremely challenging to convert to an urban type neighborhood. So I think we'll see a few examples of that from the planning staff. But then also during last night's discussion. I think we should note, you know, Commissioner Risch did kind of push back a little bit on some of the remarks that were offered by the Burleigh County commissioners, and I'm not going to get into the political fray of things, but I think Commissioner Risch noted that Burley residents have some of the same opportunities as Bismarck residents do, in particular the parks, the public parks. Burley residents do not pay property tax to the Bismarck Park district, but yet certain park, hillside park, all these areas that are out there are, of course, open and available for everyone to enjoy, not just Burley residents, but also Mandan residents, tourists, visitors, all those sorts of things. Um, but I can I can appreciate Commissioner Risch comments, and he's speaking from a resident of the city of Bismarck. And so I think there's two sides to every story. And going forward, obviously, we're trying to figure this out and work together so everybody can just get along and move forward. I don't think we're there just yet, but we are still coming to the table.

00:22:50,000	S2:
Yeah. Movements being made. It'll be interesting to see what happens at that next combined meeting. Wanted to touch on a really neat event that's taking place Sunday, September 7th, I believe, and it's a community table is the name and local food. Civil conversations. Tell us a little bit about this event.

00:23:12,200	S3:
So our department, one of the departments of the city is of course the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library. And Christine Cuiaba, the library director, does a wonderful job welcoming everyone to the library. And she has partnered with Fort Abraham Lincoln Foundation, the downtown owners, our public health department, and a number of other sponsors here to bring this event to the citizens. And I believe registration is necessary if there's limited seating, but the the intent is to just exactly that. It's is, to have a community conversation over a meal. Um, it'll be catered by a local restaurant as well as a local, um, familiar face from some of the farmers markets. And there will be a facilitated conversation that will be led by some professionals in the intent is to really break away from screens and keyboards and get to know your neighbor face to face, and ultimately realize that you may not agree on everything, but it's a lot better to have a civil discussion face to face than it is to just pound out your thoughts on the keyboard, hit the exclamation mark, and walk away. So come on out. Hopefully the weather cooperates. Sunday evening should be a great time. It's at the library. I believe it's intended to be outside, weather permitting. And, uh, if you have any questions, you can go to the library website or the City of Bismarck website. There's a QR code there where you can scan it and register and be a part of something really, really fun.

00:24:40,100	S2:
Big event. Pretty soon we'll have to change the topic from street at least summer street construction to fall street construction, and then winter, but just not. I always like to remind people, if you want to see the latest go to Bismarck streets, you can see what's happening, perhaps in your neighborhood and and how far along street construction is. As you mentioned, September is just around the corner. And finally, again, just want to remind people I use it a lot. I told you last night, I was decided I was going to go for a bike ride and listen to the city commission meeting, so I did. So from our Radio access 102.5 app. So I just had that in my pocket. And and it was very careful. Uh, it was not on, uh, dangerous roads. But you said it wasn't. Yeah. It was kind of mellowing, right? Yeah. Uh, I didn't have the Rocky theme song going for motivation, but I did listen to the city commission meeting while I was getting a little bit of exercise. So our two apps are great ways to access the information that we've been talking about. So Jason, thanks for joining us again and we'll see you next time on City Current.

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For more information on what was discussed in this episode of City Current. Visit Bismarck or call (701) 355-1300.

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