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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.

00:00:26,839	S2:
Coming up on this edition of City Current will recap the Bismarck City Commission meeting and look at a number of topics, including rec Center feasibility study for the Bismarck Parks and Recreation District, Great Plains Food Bank funding requests, and a street utility fee update, among other stories. I'm Tom Gerhart from Dakota media access. Thanks for joining me this morning. And I'm joined, as always, by Jason Thomas, the city administrator with the city of Bismarck. And see you, Jason, good.

00:00:54,600	S3:
To see you. How are you today?

00:00:55,920	S2:
I'm well. We actually have a lot of action in the building Is in place today. The Bismarck Mandan Chamber EDC is in with their leadership group. So we've got media Day going on, and Dakota media access is one of the stops, along with KFI TV, who's I think I told you, the general manager, Barry Meier. He and I worked together at a TV station almost 40 years ago, so it's fun. Dave Thompson is here from Prairie Public, among others, and having a media panel.

00:01:23,189	S3:
So some local legends in some local house.

00:01:25,790	S2:
Are in the house and.

00:01:27,430	S3:
Standing.

00:01:27,870	S2:
Glad we're a part of it, but well, let's jump right into last night's meeting. And, uh, one of the first things I wanted to talk about was Great Plains Food Bank, who does a tremendous job across the state, uh, came to the city Commission with a request for funding over the next few years.

00:01:46,829	S3:
Yep. So we had a nice presentation from a couple individuals with Great Plains Food Bank and really tailored their presentation to the work they're doing, not just in North Dakota, but primarily in Bismarck and Burleigh County. And I think that was an important note that if you're not familiar with the food bank. Who are they? What do they do? They have a warehouse here in Bismarck, South Bismarck, and they're responsible for collecting and then redistributing literally millions of pounds of food annually with the help of 22 partner organizations, six school pantries, four wellness pantries. One of them, by the way, is located at Bismarck, really Public Health on South 26th Street and then also a mobile pantry. Volunteer hours. They have full time staff, but then they also have a statewide presence where they're distributing food to every county throughout North Dakota. And it was a nice presentation, just kind of talking about how they go about collecting food, rescuing food. In many cases. We're talking about some of the big box retailers that have product that is either damaged or maybe a surplus or something. Great Plains Food Bank will go in and retrieve that food. Or intercept it from going to the landfill and then redistribute it through their partner network, across the region and across the entire state. So the they did come forward with an ask, and it's probably a timely ask, because we're not too far from starting to develop the budget for 2027. And so they ask from the Great Plains Food Bank was to provide five years worth of funding in the to the tune of $50,000 a year. So a $250,000 ask over five years. Um, it sparked a little discussion at the table. We had kind of mixed support. There was questions on whether or not it's the role of government to support, uh, non-profit organizations or in this case, a group that would essentially be donating all of the resources out. But then at the same time, it was noted that it it is a worthy ask, and it should be something that the budget committee evaluates going forward. So it wasn't a yes and it wasn't a no. It was direction to the city's budget committee, which is myself, Assistant City Administrator Doug Wiles, current Finance commissioner Ann Cleary, and then also our finance director, which right now is a vacant position. But we've got Eric Lund in our acting finance director position. So between the four of us and in working with the staff at Great Plains Food Bank, we will evaluate the request as we go forward and develop the budget for 2027. Is it a guarantee? No. Is it an absolute no? No, it's not that either. It's at this point we'll see. And I realize that's sometimes not the best answer for everybody. My kids used to hate it when I would say that, right. Because it often meant no in their situation. But in this situation, I think it's something to to be considered as we go forward in 2017.

00:04:48,720	S2:
A couple of thoughts. Just from my perspective, um, you know, I think it's important to distinguish two. It's not that anyone on the commission is against Great Plains Food Bank or their mission, and the value that they bring to, in this case, Bismarck, Burleigh County in the state. But also you have to, I suppose, consider is this a slippery slope? Who else comes forward? And then again, as you mentioned, what's the role of the city? So it's, I think, a case where people really can't take things personally. But uh, like you said, they came forward with an ask and and to be determined.

00:05:24,110	S3:
Yes. And you're absolutely right. This could be a precedent for future asks by other nonprofit organizations. And I believe that's probably top of mind for a lot of the commissioners, is to recognize that if we say yes to something today, what does that mean for future commissions and future decisions?

00:05:42,990	S2:
Yeah. And we here in the legislature all the time, you can't bind a future legislative body to something. And I'm sure that that's on the mind, uh, at local government levels as well. Well, another big topic last night was a request to partner with the Parks and Recreation District for a community rec center feasibility study, and so you are able to give quite a bit of background that a study was done, uh, six years ago or so. And this idea, this concept was brought to the community. And at that time, the community, I guess, was not in favor of this project. So now we're trying to refresh this. So fill us in on the discussion last night. I know one area of concern was the price tag that came with this feasibility study.

00:06:26,779	S3:
And the fact that, you know, as Commissioner Risch pointed out, he said, what's the city doing talking about a parks and recreation study? And so glad to answer all of those questions. Uh, to your point, earlier, yes, there was a study done by Parks and Rec that led to a public vote in 2020. The question at the time was, do you want to create a half cent sales tax to do this? And it became this sports complex facility. As Commissioner Risch noted, the community voted pretty overwhelmingly to say no to that project. And so why are we talking about this again? Well, we're six years past that, and a lot has changed. We have new facilities on the Mandan side of the river that are certainly available to Bismarck residents, but we also have other things happening in the community here, both on the private sector, the private side of things. But then on the public side, we've seen an additional sheet of ice for the hockey clubs. We had an item on the consent agenda last night for a letter of support for the group that purchased the former SuperValu Unified warehouse. That's a local group of individuals that have banded together, and they're collaborating with local sports clubs to reactivate that entire warehouse into a sports complex. And I haven't seen all the details or the the particulars. They do have a website out there, but their request from the city was to have a letter of support so they could apply for a destination development grant through the North Dakota Tourism Department. That changes the landscape. And then we're aware of some other private things that are happening throughout Bismarck. So the purpose of the study would answer the question of what's left? What are we missing? What more could we bring to this community? And when we think about it through the lens of tourism, we know that there are many sports teams across the entire state of North Dakota that travel. I've heard stories of travel teams from Bismarck and Mandan that will go east and end up playing each other. Okay, well, that's that's great for those other communities because now what we're doing is Bismarck Mandan residents is we're infusing their economy with our tourist motels, restaurants.

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Gas.

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All the retail. And it needs new shoes. All of that stuff becomes money that Bismarck Mandan residents are leaving behind in another community. If we're going to try and continue to invigorate our sales tax. This is a way to attract tourism. This is a way to bring sports teams, their families, their athletes to Bismarck and Mandan and invigorate our opportunities to host some of those club sports and tournaments. And so to the question, what's the city of Bismarck doing getting involved with the Parks and Rec study? It has a little bit to do with a couple different things, not in any particular order other than the way I'll just rattle them off here. We know that parks director Kevin Clifford will be retiring mid-summer, I think, early June, sometime in June this year. So as Parks and Rec works to find Kevin's replacement, we could start this conversation. We could start this effort now. And with the resources as city staff to help carry the project forward. The study itself will take a minimum of nine months. We'll end up hiring consultants. We have to do a process to get to the consultants. All of that could be done in concert with park staff while Kevin is transitioning out in the new person who's coming in. City staff could be the the kind of the continuity to keep that going. Why is the city interested in the results of this study? Because one of the things that I believe is important to ask that wasn't necessarily specifically addressed last time is where is the right location for this facility?

00:10:07,580	S2:
Yeah, that was brought up last night.

Yep. 00:10:09,059	S3:
We know from our land use perspective, we know from our growth corridors where the right areas could be with the help of a consultant and a tremendous amount of local feedback from the sports groups, the partners that are support Bismarck Parks and Recreation District from just the general community. Let's do a very robust survey. Let's do a whole lot of stakeholder input meetings and figure out what are the right pieces, what are the things that we're missing as a community? Where should it go? And then how could we potentially pay for all of this? It may not have to just fall on sales tax. And that was the question in 2020. Should we create a half cent sales tax to pay for the bond on this project? And I'll be honest, we're at 8% sales tax on general goods and services. That's it's getting noticeable for a lot of people. And then if you're adding restaurants or alcohol onto that, yeah, the sales tax is a little bit higher again. So I don't know that sales tax is 100% always the answer. But if we can get to the point of having good information to make a an informed decision, I think there's tremendous value for the city, for the park district, we're talking quality of life. It was mentioned last night at the commission table that it's likely Bismarck Public Schools could be a user group of this facility if it provides some of the things that they're looking for as well. So I don't want to give the impression that we know all the answers. We have more questions. We do have some time. There's nothing urgent about this. But it was noted by Commissioner Zenker for many families in Bismarck Mandan that travel. They go across the region and they see these facilities. They see what Watford City has done. They see what Fargo has done. There's Grand Forks, has a sports complex.

00:11:54,440	S2:
Williston Dickinson.

00:11:56,080	S3:
Right. And you come home to Bismarck and you kind of look around and we have wonderful things. I'm not trying to say that at all. We have tremendous facilities, both privately and through Parks and Rec, but it sounds like we're missing that one big thing that could bring a lot of people to the community and cause tournaments to be here. The ancillary growth that happens when you put an anchor type development in a in an area, then you start to see the hotels, the restaurants, the retail and multi-family housing or whatever it takes to help all of that energy come together. That's the interesting part of it from the city's perspective, because now again, we're talking about growth, new development, new taxes, new residents, new opportunities.

00:12:40,159	S3:
It's going to be fun. So where do we go from here? We're certainly not there yet. The commission was a little hesitant. You did mention there's a bit of a balk at the price, and the price was informed by Executive Director Cliff Fell's conversations with the consultants that did the study previously. The Park district has yet to fully engage in this discussion, and so we're a little bit ahead of them. We understand that, but we wanted to signal that we want to be a partner. We want to be a help and a resource in this situation. What we would expect is for Mr. Cliff Feld to take this to his board at their meeting in March, and hopefully we can get some direction to work collaboratively, tighten up the scope. That was one of the comments I heard from the table, from our commissioners, and make sure that we're lean and focused on what we want to get out of the study, so we're not paying for things we can't use.

00:13:33,269	S2:
Yeah. There was some talk about can you reuse some of the information from last time? But to be determined, we'll follow up on the story. Like you said, it'll before Before the park board next March or in March this year, almost into March. So that won't be too far down the road. And of course, we'll follow up here on City Current. Another big topic last night, the half cent sales tax for roadways. And Gabe came to the podium. He was looking, I think, for some, uh, new language or to tighten up some language to clarify some language on that project.

00:14:07,529	S3:
And also kind of narrowed the.

00:14:08,850	S2:
Scope of the.

00:14:09,330	S3:
Scope for some of the, the streets that were previously identified. And so what are we talking about here? We're talking about an existing half cent sales tax that the voters approved in 2018. It has a ten year sunset. We have been working with the commission and city engineering looking at should we ask the voters if they support the idea of extending this tax another ten years? And to, I guess, trumpet the success of what the half cent has done? If anybody's driven on Ash Coulee or 43rd Avenue in North Bismarck. If you're driven on South Washington Street or the new section of East Century Avenue. Those are all roads that were improved 100% with the use of the half cent sales tax. Those are major roads that carry a lot of traffic. When we looked at what could another ten years of projects look like? We still have some carryover projects. Not everything on the initial list was done, but engineering was very mindful to start looking at some of those important gaps that we have. Connecting streets in South Bismarck. We have Santa Fe, Santa Fe Avenue. There's a little short section in there that just hasn't been built. North Bismarck, we've got Calgary Avenue where there's really three sections of it that could be improved to make that connectivity. Now, why is that important? Because travel corridors that can get people from long distance locations from one side to the other side of town are important because then it removes the traffic from the neighborhood streets. It puts it on those appropriately designed and built classified roadways, whether it be an arterial roadway or a collector roadway. But really, it's all about connectivity. And then if we look up in the north side of Bismarck, Gabe had talked about 19th Street, which would be the road that would essentially parallel State Street. It would connect behind the North Walmart and go up past the Costco and all the way up to 71st Avenue. Now we're really thinking about some long distance northwest corridor, north south corridors in the community. So Gabe provided some language for the commissioners to consider. And this always gets a little tricky when you start to craft ballot language. You want to list the projects, you want to help people understand what it is they would be saying yes or no to, but where we're at from here, next steps finalizing the project list and then finalizing the home rule charter ballot language. And then Gabe will bring that back at a meeting in March, and we have to have all of the ballot language determined by, I believe it's April 6th of 2026. That's the same day that petitions are due for anybody that's out circulating for school board, park board, city commission. I believe Berkeley County's petitions would be due that day as well. We don't handle that. We don't handle the schools. We just do city and parks. But then once the ballot language is determined, that takes us from April through June. That becomes the time when the city can't advocate. We can't lobby for this project, but we can educate so we can get out. We can host meetings, we can share information publicly, and I'm sure we'll have a very robust offering of opportunities there. And then June 9th is the big question whether or not voters support the idea of extending a half cent sales tax for ten years with these specific projects in mind, or no, we want it to expire And then we're done collecting in 2029, right? Unless the question if the answer is no, the question could always come back again before 2029 to I'm not speculating what could happen.

00:17:49,289	S2:
But good point.

00:17:50,049	S3:
Though. Um, it doesn't mean no forever. It means no to that question, so probably worth clarifying there, I guess.

00:17:57,250	S2:
Uh, the second last item on the agenda last night was the request for approval of Street Utility Fee Advisory language, which is kind of a mouthful, but the street utility fee concept was brought forward as an idea to offset some special assessments. Special assessments in a lot of cases, not all cases, but a lot of cases.

00:18:17,490	S3:
For street maintenance.

00:18:18,289	S2:
For street maintenance projects.

00:18:19,490	S3:
Yeah. So nutshell version I know we've talked about this a lot, but I, I hope we have new listeners every time we do this. Exactly. Somebody that's catching this for the first time might say, well what is the street utility fee? It's probably as simple as I can offer. It would be a monthly fee that would be added to your utility bill that you receive from the city, and that monthly fee would be used to eliminate special assessments for street maintenance projects in city limits. So there's been a lot of discussion. What is the fee? What do we do with existing specials? Some people would like a voice in the projects that are going on in the street network. Lots of chatter and where the conversation was with the commissioners. I think everybody kind of agreed that more information needs to be provided. This is a very complex discussion, and to sit down and explain it to somebody one on one. Sometimes there's a light bulb moment. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, now I get it. But to just say it broadly, there's a lot of questions that come after that. And so I think the commissioners drifted a little bit from the idea of doing an advisory vote, but kind of gravitated towards let's do a statistically valid survey, let's have a a know, full and honest to goodness, true sample of our Bismarck residents through a random sample survey. And just take the question from there. But what is the question?

00:19:45,309	S2:
And Commissioner Risch brought up brought that up last night. How do you.

00:19:49,789	S3:
How do.

00:19:50,069	S2:
You get a question that doesn't push one way or the other, or lead one way or the other?

00:19:54,430	S3:
Maybe surveys can be definitely led in one direction over another if you're depending on how you craft those questions. And so it's not just as simple as saying, do you want an extra bill on your utility each month and then not have to worry about specials? Yes. So some work to be done there, but with this one as well. Gabe's going to come back with some potential answers in the not too distant future, I believe. I heard him say he won't be at the first meeting in March. He'll be at a training conference. So this will be the second meeting in March with, I believe it would be the 24th. So a little bit more time to continue to work on this. It's not going away. It's not necessarily moving forward specifically, but we will continue to work at it and go. Day by day.

00:20:41,859	S2:
Go from there. Well, uh, that essentially wrapped up, uh, the city, uh, the regular agenda. Last night. Um, but we had a lot of little nuggets we wanted to make sure people are aware of, including the North Dakota League of Cities sponsoring the if I were mayor essay contest. And those applications are open until March 13th, and the website is should be on your screen now.

00:21:13,339	S2:
And also we showed this on last City Current but the sidewalk suggestions concept, we must have a bit of a frozen screen. We're seeing something different. But right now we're looking at the sidewalk suggestions, which is a survey to get some feedback about some places that could use sidewalks that don't currently have them.

00:21:34,410	S3:
Could use sidewalks or also damaged sidewalks if there's trip hazards and things like that. But yeah, if you're in a neighborhood where you like to walk and there's a gap for one reason or another, we'd like to hear about it. Oftentimes those gaps become, you see, a cattle trail if it's a popular walking location. And that's a good indication that we might need a sidewalk there. But oftentimes sidewalks come in line with development. So if there's a vacant lot between two homes, generally you won't find that sidewalk there very often. Now, there are situations when I just notice one this morning, uh, 20 some homes on the entire block face one in the middle, missing. There's a sidewalk there today because all the other homes have come in and round it. So at that point, it's.

00:22:17,730	S2:
It makes sense.

00:22:18,609	S3:
It makes sense to to keep the neighborhood moving forward.

00:22:21,089	S2:
So you can go to the City of Bismarck website and, uh, find how to contribute your ideas there. I also wanted to talk about. It feels so good to say this. The spring used book sale, which is March 5th, sixth and seventh at the Veterans Memorial Public Library.

00:22:40,519	S3:
I think it's what is it, a dollar a pound for the books. And in the past they've had some special set aside books. They've had some really nice collectible books that have been donated or brought in. And I know the staff and the volunteers that get ready for the book sale. They spend a tremendous amount of time sorting and organizing and piling and getting ready. And it's I like driving by the morning of the first day of the sale because there's always a line. Yeah, always people waiting to get in. I am not that enthusiastic about purchasing used books, but I really appreciate those people that are.

00:23:15,359	S2:
My family and I have been in that line.

00:23:16,960	S3:
It's that's outstanding. I know it's a great fundraiser for the library. I know it helps them do wonderful things, but it also puts books in the hands of people that will really appreciate them. So it's a fun event. It's I'm not sure if they do it 2 or 3 times a year, but would you say March 5th, sixth and seventh?

00:23:33,269	S2:
Yeah. Thursday. Friday? Saturday. And you know, my dad was a big history buff too. And he loved to go and see. Because you never know what you're going to find. You never know what's going to be contributed. So it's kind of a a lot of fun just to see what's what's there. But we always enticed our kids with pastries and coffee to get them up in that line early every year. Last time I'll mention this because February is almost over, but the call for photos for the city of Bismarck. You can submit photos taken during 2025 at Bismarck, N.D. gov. And the deadline is February 28th. So as we mentioned, we're almost March and dependent depending upon when you're listening to this, it it could be March by that time. And also just I thought this was interesting to pass along that if you haven't seen just so you don't get frustrated. River road is closed starting the 23rd. So just a few days from our taping here for about two weeks. So make plans accordingly to take an alternate route.

00:24:35,299	S3:
Yes, and I believe the road closure has to do with the bridge construction for the new rail bridge over the top. And for anybody that's been through that corridor, they're really close to the edge of the driving surface. And so I understand why they had to close it. And likely when it reopens it's going to look significantly different again.

00:24:52,140	S2:
That's probably I guess from a person who likes to bike and jog and exercise. Nicer to do it now than in the middle of June or July.

00:25:00,059	S3:
Hopefully we hope the trail opens up again. But, uh, that's true.

00:25:04,299	S2:
It's closed now. Technically. That's right. So it's not just the road, but for safety. Yeah. So I just wanted to pass that along. And then as always, you can find all of this content live or on demand. We have a Dakota Access app. You can download or radio access 102.5 app, and all of it's available on Dakota media. Access our website as well. So until next time, thanks for joining us. Have a great day.

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

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If you have suggestions, comments or issues you would like addressed in future episodes, contact us at info at TV.com. 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.