00:00:04,267	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.

00:00:26,367	S2:
And coming up on city. Current recap. Last night's City Commission meeting we'll talk about Fire Station six update. Really interesting conversation on a half cent sales tax and street utility fee concepts and get a land development code update. Thanks for joining us. I'm Tom Gerhart from Dakota media access, joined as always by Jason Thomas. Bismarck city administrator Jason, good to see you.

00:00:53,067	S3:
Thanks, Tom. I'm glad to be here.

00:00:54,901	S2:
Probably the nicest week of the year. Just to start out on a controversial virtual note, thinking we should have done the show outside today.

00:01:03,367	S3:
But it would have been. That would have been great.

00:01:05,000	S2:
You'd have been okay with that.

00:01:06,968	S3:
Yeah. This is some wonderful September weather. We've been oh gosh, the rain. Everything is green after it.

00:01:12,868	S2:
After the rain went away. Yeah, except I have to mow my lawn every two days. But I'd rather do that than a snow blower and get the steps in. Last night's City Commission meeting started off with some community recognition and talk about a couple of people who have made, well, three in this case, a dynamic impact on the city of Bismarck, really the whole region. And right off the bat, we're talking about Susan Lundberg and Stephanie Delmore and the work that they've done with Sleepy Hollow.

00:01:39,901	S3:
Yeah, a tremendous, uh, a tremendous career for the two of them, but also a tremendous impact on the Bismarck Mandan community. And I think that's what Mayor Schmitz really wanted to point out, is that the Lundberg sisters, as often as they're referred to. But Susan and Stephanie and the Sleepy Hollow Summer Theater and Arts Park have just impacted thousands of lives across Bismarck and Mandan with their dedication to the performing arts and just fostering a wonderful environment for kids and their families and audiences over the years. I know I've got a couple of nieces that are very involved with the Sleepy Hollow Summer theater, and it's a it's a lot of work for their parents as well, to help with all the sets and the costumes and the productions and everything that goes into it. But I know this year they had just really, really high numbers at their performances. Wizard of Oz and Grease were the two this summer. Great, great titles, great opportunities for the kids. But the mayor and the commissioners wanted to recognize them as a Community engagement and achievement award, and they are the first ones to be recognized in that in that manner. So there's some pictures on our social media page. Both Susan and Stephanie said some very nice things. There's such classy women. It's it's great to see them every time.

00:03:03,000	S2:
We get accustomed to this and just kind of expect it. But yeah, we have to remember at some point this was just an idea and how far they've taken it. And like you said, the impact they've made on kids and families through the years just phenomenal, uh, amazing addition to our community. And I think the mayor said last night, everybody always looks forward to what's coming up next summer at Sleepy Hollow. Another familiar face received some recognition last night, and somebody I used to work with and, uh, in the same industry, and that's Monica Hannon, over 40 years at KFI TV. And the mayor acknowledged her last night. And I think her last day on air is Friday of this week. We're taping this.

00:03:48,367	S3:
Friday, September 26th, 2025 is officially proclaimed as Monica Hannon Day. And so the proclamation that the mayor read last night, of course, we'll have that posted on our website. I believe it went out on social media as well. But you're right to to recognize the dedication that Monica has given to this community. Night in, night out for four decades. It's just phenomenal. So kudos to her. I wish her all the best in her retirement and her new endeavors. I'm sure she's going to find lots of things to fill her time. I think somebody kind of quipped last night, maybe now they'll have time to take some of those day trips. I think that was a reference to Cliff Naylor's books.

00:04:28,601	S2:
Off the beaten path.

00:04:29,767	S3:
Yeah, Dakota Day trips and all that. So. But thanks to her and thanks to Kfir for for allowing her to have this career. And she's been a part of so many homes and families over the years and wish her well as she looks on to the next chapter.

00:04:43,968	S2:
Having some experience in that realm. Not nearly the number of years Monica had, though. I've always realized how intimate it is to people that say all the time, like, you're in our home or watching you, and you talk about somebody coming into homes for 42 years and delivering, you know, the news of what's happening in our area. It does impact people.

00:05:02,667	S3:
I can only imagine how many times she's out in the community, and people approach her like they're best friends, and she's probably never met them. But they know so many things about her just being a dedicated consumer of the news and a fan so.

00:05:17,367	S2:
Well, there is life after TV, we can assure Monica of that. Well, let's move on to the regular agenda last night and start with a land development, the code update that's taking place, and I think I read in the notes that it's the first major code update or amendment since the early 80s.

00:05:32,667	S3:
That's right. Yeah. And we've enlisted the help of Clarion and Associates. This is a very significant undertaking and not something that the staff has the really the time to be able to address our staff. The planning staff is primarily focusing on the growth and development of our community. Obviously, we've got other things like the Renaissance Zone Authority, the Historic Preservation Commission, Board of Adjustment. Those are all facets of the planning world. But really, this is kind of the sum of the core tenants of land development. When we talk about the land development code, often referred to as zoning, these become the regulations that help kind of weave the fabric that is Bismarck in the future. And the consultants last night talked about some of the potential changes that we'll be seeing, um, kind of focusing on the downtown area for right now, if you're and I imagine most people aren't, but if you are familiar with a zoning map, you would know that we have a downtown core zoning district. We have a downtown fringe district, which is kind of where it transitions from that urban center to more of a residential area. But then we also have a health and medical district. And in many ways, the health and medical district is part of downtown. It's still very walkable, it's very connected. And some of those uses that are going on in the health and medical district are very office type in nature. And so it makes a little bit of sense to eliminate an extra call out for something that, frankly, is allowed in an office district or in a downtown area anyway. So there are some efficiencies and some some streamlining of the ordinances. That's what they were talking about there. But ultimately the objectives are to foster flexibility but also predictable development outcomes. I mean, that's the purpose of zoning is to know what is this going to look like in the future. It's not just a haphazard approach. There are intentions with what does future land use look like? Obviously, they want to enable change over time and then encourage reinvestment. And often we refer to as infill. How are there opportunities to take some of these underutilized properties in the older parts of the community and put something new on them? Why is that attractive for the city? Because we've already got all the infrastructure in place the streets, the sidewalk, curb and gutter. The utilities are there. If you can find a higher and better use for an underdeveloped or a vacant lot that's outstanding, that's great for everybody.

00:07:56,567	S2:
I took a couple of notes too. If I have this right. Some of the concepts in land development would include like open spaces, connectivity. Even I think we could talk about lighting, things like that last night.

00:08:09,868	S3:
Yeah, lighting is an interesting one. And Commissioner Reisz commented on this, that he's had some some residents approach him about some concerns. And with LED technology, we all know the lights are very vibrant. They're much brighter than the conventional or traditional lighting. How would a zoning code address lighting? What it can refer to lighting in a way that it is downcast or it is illuminating only specific areas. And it's not just this high beacon broadcasting kind of night sky polluter idea. You may not see that so much on a residential feature, but certainly on a commercial property where you've got large parking lots and there's high visibility lighting. The intent isn't just to light everything, but to light the surfaces. And so the zoning code can talk about those types of things. And how does that translate? In the end, it becomes another component of the design review. It becomes another facet that the design team has to approach and address. There's lots of different ways to handle that effectively.

00:09:10,467	S2:
And it kind of all boils down to, I think, at least the way I interpret it as a, as a resident is these are quality of life things ultimately, aren't they?

00:09:18,467	S3:
Definitely. Yeah. And that goes back to that predictability. If you're somebody that lives on the edge of town or somebody that lives in an area that is growing, I understand plans change. We hear that a lot. But to have a general understanding of where the major corridor is going to be, the roadways, the commercial areas, the high density residential areas, those are part of the predictability of being able to sustainably grow and have meaningful, appropriate land uses in the right areas.

00:09:47,100	S2:
Let's move on to the topic of the half cent sales tax that was discussed last night. And of course, you can see it on the screen here if you're listening. Uh, this was initially passed in November of 2018.

00:10:04,367	S2:
Why is it back on the table? Now, what were we hearing last night?

00:10:08,267	S3:
So when the voters approved the half cent sales tax for arterial roadway construction back in 2018, it was approved with a ten year sunset. And so we're not up to that sunset, but we're getting closer to it. And as staff, we're looking for direction from the commission rather than wait until it expires. Commissioners, this has been a very successful program for the city. We have accomplished tremendous work in regards to major roadways on the screen. Again, we're talking about Ash Coulee, Tyler Parkway, 43rd Avenue East Century Avenue is under construction today, South Washington Street at Burley Avenue. Last year, all of those projects were paid for using sales tax that is collected locally in Bismarck. So Gabe was in front of the commissioners last night basically giving a little bit of history. How did we get here and what did we do to to accomplish the goal at that time, but then also to seek direction? Do we want to go out and request this half cent sales tax again in the general consensus from the Commission was, yes. And to direct Gabe and others to basically go out and share this information throughout the community and looking at kind of a timeline of when that would happen. We're looking all the way towards June of 2026. That's the next municipal election. That's when there will be city commissioners, school board members, park board members. But then also oftentimes home rule charter or local ordinance, things would come up at that time. So this would the intent is to have this be a question on the June primary ballot for 2026, and what are we asking? We're ultimately asking the voters, do you like this concept? Do you like the way these roads are being improved and paid for? If so, here's a new list of projects that we would be anticipating to try and accomplish over the next ten years. Voters. Do you like this idea? Yes or no? I mean, that's about as boiled down as we can get it. And so Gabe was talking last night about some of the future projects to be considered.

00:12:13,601	S2:
Which we can see highlighted now on our screen if you're if you're watching.

00:12:18,501	S3:
Currently, we're focusing primarily on arterial roadways. I mentioned South Washington Street, Century Avenue, Ash Coulee, 43rd Avenue. Those are all big corridors that carry a lot of traffic and a lot of different parts of our community. The images, the image on the screen is not just large arterial roadways, but also some more local roads or even roads that are needing to be connected. For anybody that's got kids or has gone over to Legacy High School. I'm sure you've scratched your head and wondered, why isn't East Calgary over? I can see where it should go.

00:12:52,267	S2:
Yep.

00:12:53,000	S3:
Well, there's a long story. That's for a different program. And frankly, it's not land that the city has ownership of. We don't have the right of way to build the road. It's privately owned. We have to wait. Well, in this situation, if there were funds to encourage that project to move along. I think many would agree it would be for the benefit of the area for the transportation network. East Calgary Avenue should connect from near Legacy High School all the way over to Centennial Avenue. That's one of the roads that would be identified here, along with other roads that we've talked about on this program recently. Ottawa Street. For anybody familiar with North Bismarck, the area around Sky zone plan perfect. Some of those businesses there. Ottawa Street is scheduled to be improved in the near future. Currently it's under the special assessment model and we've heard from the owners. The special assessments are pretty high, and we understand that because it's the road needs a lot of attention. So this could help replace some of those situations like that. Part of the information that will be shared throughout this time will be The roads that we're looking at, obviously, that we've just talked about, but then also the prioritization which roads would go first. We're not going to prescribe all of them start to finish because things can change from one year to the next. But to come forward with a determined list of roads that would be improved, a sunset another ten years, and we would analyze it again at that time, and a pledge to be able to do this type of work. I think that's a pretty solid package from the city to the citizens. And I would encourage anybody to go back, either through the Dakota media access website or through their cable channel to watch the replay. Gabe does a really nice job of providing the information. If you're a person like me and you like to see things and kind of look at them a little bit more. Gabe's full presentation is attached to the minutes from Tuesday night and city commission meetings, so you can see all the slides that he went through as well there. That was just the first half of Gabe's.

00:14:54,801	S2:
That was just the first half and I think, uh, maybe just again, to emphasize this half cent sales tax allows us to do currently and in the past, major projects a bit of an evolution into the future if it's past, but also spreads out the cost to people visiting. Right. So it's not just all.

00:15:15,701	S3:
That's a great point for sales tax. It's anybody that's buying taxable goods in the community. So it's not just the residents of Bismarck, it's Mandan. It's the surrounding communities. It's people from out of state that are traveling through the area. It all goes to support the community. And as stewards of those resources, we were frankly pretty pleased with the way this has turned out over the last eight years that we've been working on it so far. Um, we'll do our best to educate anybody that's looking for more information between now and June of 2026. As the city as a as a municipal organization, we cannot lobby. It is not our position to support or oppose. We are here to provide information. And so Gabe did that as a as an example last night. And for service clubs or organizations or any groups that are out there that would like to know more. Please feel free to contact either city administration or city engineering, and either myself or Gabe would be delighted to bring this information to a group as well. And we've also talked about probably some sort of community meetings in the past. We've had really good success meeting at Walker Middle School. They've got a great cafeteria where we can engage and put up information and invite people in, kind of more of an open house style. Right? I think something like that would definitely be another opportunity for us to get out there and answer questions and just share more information.

00:16:42,467	S2:
Well, you mentioned it was just one of two topics that Gabe brought up. The second one, I think is going to garner a lot of interest. And it's what, uh, I guess you're referring it to as a street utility fee, right? And I'm not the expert here, so I'm not going to try and unbundle it. But essentially, uh, residents would be assessed a fee which would take care of a number of street maintenance and special assessments, uh, across the city.

00:17:12,968	S3:
Right. Yeah. The I think the maybe one of the easiest ways to say it is currently we have a utility bill, and we intentionally call it a utility bill because it's not just your water consumption, it's trash collection. It's recycling, it's streetlights, it's curb and gutter. There's a number of fees that are part of your utility bill. What the proposal is here is to add an additional fee every month. And what would that fee cover? It would essentially replace the need for special assessments for street maintenance projects. And when we talk about street maintenance, it's the chip seal. It's the mill and overlay. It's the crack ceiling. It's the typical things that we have historically charged special assessments for and a special assessment for anybody that's not familiar. It's it's about a seven year term. And it's a it's an installment plan really, for the work that the city contracts to have done in and around the district. And typically that's adjacent to property that an individual owns. So if you're a homeowner today and the city comes by and repairs the streets in your neighborhood, you're going to get a bill for a few thousand dollars for $5,000, depending on the size and scale of the project. And then you will have seven years to pay off those special assessments. And many people would incorporate that into their mortgage payment if they have one. You can certainly choose to pay it off in a lump sum right at the beginning and not have to carry any of the interest cost, or you can just make the payments in installments annually. This fee would replace that entire system. It would be a monthly fee that's added to your utility bill that would cover those types of projects. And I guess the one of the thoughts that I've had about this one, Ultimately, it would save the city money because we wouldn't have to bond for the project, so we would have a 3% cost reduction just right off the top because we don't have these the carrying costs that go along with bonding. The intent is not to collect an exorbitant amount of money. The intent is only to collect enough money to pay for the projects the following year. And it just becomes a very, very simple pattern. The mayor pointed it out. He said, this is not intended to be a large fund of money. This is just intended to cover the projects each year. Um, one thought is it's something that households could budget into their monthly cycle. And so a lot of people are probably wondering, well, what would that fee be right now on a residential property? The final determination hasn't been set. That's part of what will be discerned as we go through this information gathering and sharing, and we'll get feedback from the citizens. But right now, the number that gave shared last night for a residential property would be $30 a month, $360 a year. When you compare that on a seven year time span over the life of a special assessment, this would be in many cases, a less a lower amount than a traditional special assessment. And part of that would be because we're not paying that carrying cost of the bond to go with it.

00:20:20,501	S2:
And he shared to that. So this would be, you know, single family homes, but would also be apartment complexes of what was the split between residential and business like 4060. So it would be spread out over uh, a large wouldn't include there were a couple of carve outs, I think parks.

00:20:41,667	S3:
Parks and schools.

00:20:42,767	S2:
Schools.

00:20:43,300	S3:
Because of the way this entry code is worded, the parks and school districts, they have a means to collect revenue for special assessments. But they. And that was some of the things that we worked on with the last few legislative sessions. And we weren't able to get there. So right now, the the way it works today, everything is fine. If we were to move to the street utility fee model, the parks and schools would have to be looked at a little bit differently. One concept might just be to exempt them from the pool altogether, because when I think it's fair to state the revenue that schools and parks generates in many cases is taxpayer revenue. If we were to exempt them from those districts, that money still gets the project, still get done. The money just gets spread a little differently. But it's still the same amount of money for the project. So there are some things that need to be decided as we go forward. I think your question for apartments and manufactured home parks, there would be an individual rate per unit, and.

00:21:44,000	S2:
I think it was seven.

00:21:45,000	S3:
50, 50 a month right now. And yes, mobile home parks do have private streets within their networks. But there's I think it was Commissioner Connolly that pointed out someone that lives in an apartment or a mobile home is just as likely to have as many vehicles as somebody that lives in a stick built home. It doesn't matter. And you know where you live. It's it's the number of people that are living there and the number of adults and cars you choose to have. Ultimately, that's what impacts the life of the roadway. And so even though you're driving on a private street to get to your home in a manufactured home park, you're still part of the bigger street network that the city maintains for the greater good.

00:22:23,167	S2:
And we had a graphic up earlier, but just a couple of things that this wouldn't cover in terms of special assessments were new construction. I think you said streetlights curb and gutter sidewalk so it wouldn't cover everything, but it would cover a number of street projects.

00:22:44,467	S3:
Chip seal, Milan overlay, full depth pavement rehabilitation and then pavement repair. But I think that's an important distinction. So new neighborhoods we call them On greenfield assessments. New neighborhoods would still have special assessments at the discretion of the developer. Some developers choose to blend all of those costs into the price of the home and the lot. Others choose to go to the model of special assessments. So for new construction, new neighborhoods, there would still be specials. This is not meant to address that. We're talking about existing neighborhoods with streets in front of them for street maintenance.

00:23:21,567	S2:
Yeah, just trying to think of questions that could arise so that this is a good resource for people to come and review. Uh, so that all leads to, again, the potential for what we call the Home Rule charter. Uh, to have two things. Two items on the ballot.

00:23:37,501	S3:
Two items on the ballot. These would be two separate questions that I think the commissioners were very clear that one should not cause the other to fail or succeed. Both of these concepts can function independently. We're currently doing the half cent sales tax for street construction. This idea, the second half of what we talked about, the street Utility fee. This new fee on your monthly utility bill for street maintenance. If the voters like that, great. That can that can be approved separately. Both of them can be approved. Both of them could be opposed. That's why we vote. So June of 2026 is when we will. That is our target. We'll have to have all of this determined by March of 2026. Entry code guides our direction here. As far as the number of days before the election, when the ballot language has to be approved and all of that. So still work to be done. No question about it. We've got some some final answers that we will get to between here and in March. But I think we'll be talking about this and.

00:24:35,767	S2:
A lot of public input. Definitely listening to the to the citizens, the residents, you would finalize those rates then before March. So $30 and 750. Those are just.

00:24:48,767	S3:
Kind of placeholders for.

00:24:49,767	S2:
Now.

00:24:50,100	S3:
There's maybe a target. And there was actually some discussion at the table about setting the rate for the first three years and just kind of establishing that. So the citizens, the property owners can work that into their to their routines, to their budgets. And I guess just discern from there what would the rate need to be adjusted to? It's likely, depending on the scale of the projects, the rate it could be perceived that the rate could go down from year to year. But we will always have street maintenance as we continue to grow. We're only adding more to that infrastructure, more assets for us to manage. So we will see.

00:25:28,601	S2:
We'll see what happens. Uh, get an update on the 2025 strategic plan. The Assistant City Administrator, Doug Wiles, took the podium and gave a really nice update on the work that's been going on by a diverse group within the city to come up with a new, I guess, mission, uh, values.

00:25:48,567	S3:
Vision. Absolutely. Doug's done a great job. This was a good opportunity here for for him to really immerse himself in all the various departments and components of the organization. Commissioner Zenker lent his talents and time to this as well, and I think that was good for for a commissioner to be involved with this. For us, the strategic plan was inwardly focused. The last time we updated our plan in 2019, we took it to the community. We were at street fair, we had town halls. We had lots of public feedback this time because we've had a lot of new faces in leadership roles. We've gone through a bit of a generational shift where some of that institutional knowledge has retired. We've got new people making new decisions, a strategic plan for anybody that is familiar with one. It's a guiding document. It's something that we will use to help us make decisions that are impacting the community, the organization, the workforce, the work that we do. And we will tether ourselves to the mission and the vision and the values, because those were they weren't just pulled out of a cookie jar. They were discerned through a lot of discussion and input and feedback and in collaboration.

00:26:55,667	S2:
Sounded like some spirited discussion too. We heard last night.

00:26:58,400	S3:
As there should be. It shouldn't all be people agreeing to the same thing. I think it's great when we can have that respectful dialogue, because in the end it gets us to where we want to be, and so we'll look forward to being able to implement this and continue to shine a light on it as we go through. I think you'll hear at future commission meetings why some of these decisions are being made. And it's from this document as a guidepost to help us get there.

00:27:25,901	S2:
Got an update from Chief Bass Pflug on Fire Station six, which would be that new fire station in far southwest corner of Bismarck. Pretty brief presentation, but things are rolling along and architecture firm has been selected.

00:27:39,968	S3:
Correct. The local firm has been selected to do the design work. We're narrowing in on a site along Burley Avenue. It's a property that the city of Bismarck currently owns. It's part of the campus of the wastewater treatment plant. So that is certainly an attractive feature is that we're not having to parlay a cash out to a private property owner. This is an area of land that really has been sitting quite idle, but it's also part of that buffer around the wastewater treatment plant. But it's we didn't just select this site because it's free land. This site has been selected through a lot of data analysis. It provides one of the best response times in this area when we're talking about, of course, South Bay, which would be south of here, but also whispering Bay, Southport, and then frankly, a good chunk of South Bismarck right now. Any of the calls for service in that area of town are being responded to from Fire Station two, which is the station along expressway. As you can imagine, that's a fair distance to travel even along Expressway University, Washington Street, whatever the route might be. So this really shortens that response time. It gets the first crew in within our target area, which is somewhere between 4 and 6 minutes for the first call. So we'll continue to work through the design process and we'll learn a little bit more. It's likely we'll see construction probably get started late next year and then hopefully with occupancy in 2027 for those firefighters in the crew.

00:29:05,367	S2:
We'll talk about response time too. And I think we always think of fires. But fire trucks respond to all sorts of calls. Somebody could call in with a heart issue.

00:29:15,000	S3:
Absolutely.

00:29:15,667	S2:
And a fire truck shows up.

00:29:16,667	S3:
The firefighters are trained in EMS, EMT calls. They may not be the one to transport somebody, but if they are first on scene, they certainly have the skills to to get into that life saving activity.

00:29:29,167	S2:
Also, we started talking about how nice of a week it is, but that rainy stretch, which seemed like it lasted a month, also impacted the free landfill week that washed out. Yeah. So round.

00:29:43,667	S3:
Two. Round two. Yes. Commissioner Cleary shared officially between she and Steve Solway, service operations director Toby Sheldon, at the landfill. They're looking at September 29th through October 4th is kind of a do over. So if you didn't go out to the landfill, you were concerned that it was a muddy mess. It probably was. I didn't go look for myself. Um, but you will have a second opportunity. September 29th through October 4th, you can dispose your items free at the landfill. If you have your utility bill or driver's license indicating you are a City of Bismarck resident. If you have any questions, you can certainly call Public Works at 355 1700, 355 1700.

00:30:26,467	S2:
All right. Well, that wraps up another edition. And Jason, you alluded to, if somebody wants to go back and and find some old meetings, you can download our app. If you don't want to go to our website. So we have a DMA app that you can get for just about any device and a radio access app. You can find podcasts and radio shows, all sorts of great local, local content that you can find Dakota media access or on our apps. For now though, we're done. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time on City Current.

00:31:00,167	S1:
For more information on what was discussed in this episode of City Current, visit Bismarck, n.d. gov or call (701) 355-1300.

00:31:10,267	S1:
If you have suggestions, comments, or issues you would like addressed in future episodes, contact us at Info at Free TV. This program airs on Government Access channel two and 602 in HD or on Radio Access 102.5 FM. It's also available as a podcast, on radio access and as a video viewing link at free TV. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of City Current.