00:00:04,000	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.

00:00:26,067	S2:
Thanks for tuning in to this Mandan edition of city. Current. Recapping last evening's Mandan City Commission meeting. We'll talk about Mandan highlight video. Actually show it to you, recapping a wonderful 2025 and leading into 2026. Give you the update on the Memorial Highway Plan and talk about a lead service line project. I'm Tom Gearhart from Dakota media access. Good to be with you. And joined by Jim Neubauer, city administrator from Mandan. Good to see you, Jim.

00:00:56,367	S3:
Good morning Tom. Awful glad to be here. And the weather's a little bit different than it was last time we here. I think we're what, 50 degrees on Thursday of this week coming up. So looking forward to that.

00:01:06,267	S2:
Nearly almost got to get Mandan Muni ready.

00:01:10,300	S3:
Wishful thinking. But with that comes ice and slush and snow and ice. Stay off still be careful. And yeah.

00:01:16,667	S2:
But yeah, I saw the 50s in the forecast. It looks amazing. I wanted to start off as you did with the city commission meeting last night, taking a look at a video. Really well done. Just kind of showcasing highlighting the city of Mandan. So we've got that cued up and let's just take a look.

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Here it's more than a place to go. It's a place to belong. It's families side by side, kids wide eyed and grandparents smiling because they remember this feeling. It's Main Street alive with sound, music in the air, engines rumbling and neighbors cheering like family. It's tradition in the dirt. Pride in the stands and moments passed down year after year. It's autumn nights where legends come alive and winter lights bring everyone together. It's warm hands by the fire. Cold air. Full hearts and memories made in the middle of it all. And when the sky explodes with light. It's not just fireworks. It's community. It's home. It's legendary.

00:02:28,267	S4:
It's Mandan. Visit Mandan, where the West begins.

00:02:35,601	S2:
That's pretty amazing stuff.

00:02:37,267	S3:
Yeah. Thanks, Tom. I, you know, all the, you know, shout outs to Matt Shenandoah and the whole crew at the Man in Progress organization who helped put that video together, and the folks actually did it. I think it's it just showcases all of the good times and the things that are going on in Mandan through the great work that the MPO does. And it's one of those things where you can go if you can't find something to do in town, You just are not looking hard enough.

00:03:00,667	S2:
Not looking hard enough? Yeah. That made, uh. Shines a great light on Mandan. And, gosh, I mean, it makes you excited about the rodeo coming up again and 4th of July and.

00:03:12,000	S3:
Yeah, rodeo, fireworks, buggies and blues. The parade all.

00:03:15,868	S2:
50th.

00:03:16,467	S3:
Yeah, there's a lot going on. Um, coming on. And then the pre-planning has already started. I know that we had a, a what we call a tabletop exercise in January with a whole bunch of, you know, a room full of 35, 40 folks that are all involved in putting on the parade and the 4th of July activities, and Amanda and all the security and all the health and safety. And how do we get people in and out in a in a reasonable manner? So that planning really started about July 5th of 2025 for the 2026.

00:03:46,400	S2:
It always looks easy, like a great actor or athlete or singer or musician. They make it look easy, but you really get it. Peeked behind the curtain and there's a lot of work going on.

00:03:56,000	S3:
And again, huge shout out to all those, I know that Pat Haug with the Mandan Police Department is leading the charge, that he has a ton of help with that. And it's not easy. And people think, well, you show up in your car and your float and you drive down Main Street and thank you very much and see you later and we're done. But many hours of planning and coordination and things like that go into this. And like I said, there are goodness, I think between 25 and 30 different partnering agencies or departments that are helping put that on. So no, no small feat and goes off every year. And all we want people to do is come and enjoy.

00:04:32,701	S2:
I had a front row seat many years in my during my time at chaos when we broadcast the 4th of July parade live and in many different elements from one with a sunburn or hammered by hail, you never knew what was going to happen.

00:04:45,567	S3:
But it's North Dakota and it's an outdoor weather event, so it is. Plan accordingly.

00:04:51,567	S2:
Can't miss event. Other announcements. Last night it's career and tech editor a month and write Proclamation was read and a bunch of young students showed up. And that was a really neat touch.

00:05:00,767	S3:
Yeah. Really fun when some of our high school kids show up. Brianna, make sure I get her name right. Brianna Santiago Duvalier, I think, is how you pronounce that. But she led the crew and read the proclamation. There was a photo op afterwards and several different groups from Deca to FFA, and I think there was a one called Hosa. Not sure what that stands for. But again, I think there are three groups of young folks that came up and they stayed for the whole thing did.

00:05:28,000	S2:
So I was like.

00:05:29,167	S3:
Okay, you guys can go if you want now. But they were um, I don't know if they were interested or they just said, we're going to stay and watch the meeting tonight, and it's always good to have them involved and get them a little bit of here. Just kind of. You have the old civics class in high school, and now you get to, um, experience that in real time and on live TV, thanks to Dakota media access.

00:05:50,601	S2:
Yeah, I appreciate that. Wanted to have a graphic we can show here. There's a town hall February 5th. were taping the day before, so some people will see or listen to this past this February 5th date. But as of now, this will take place tomorrow, Thursday at 530 in the commission room at City Hall.

00:06:09,000	S3:
Yeah. And this is there have been several mailers sent out. I think if you haven't gotten one yet, you should have received one. On whether we're trying to find if you're if normally in an older home you may have lead pipes and there are ways you can test and see if they are. And we need that response back so that we know how to plan accordingly when it comes time to replace those lead service lines. So again, town hall tomorrow night, 530 man and City hall.

00:06:32,467	S2:
And we do have another graphic that shows over 3600 letters were sent to us. You just indicated and 157 responses at this point. And then so if you go to the the city website, you can find a link. And I know kind of went through the survey on the city website last night.

00:06:51,567	S3:
Right? I think when we say we've sent out 37 home hundred letters, Obviously we have more homes than that, right? But those the newer homes would not have lead service signs. We're trying to identify those normally in your older neighborhoods of town that we can we can identify, and then we can come up with an appropriate plan to help owners with that.

00:07:10,767	S2:
Kind of buried the lead to you honored city workers for their years of service. And you're you've just about run a marathon. 26 well, maybe you have by now. I mean, is 26.2.

00:07:22,300	S3:
Yeah, it was I think February 1st was starting my starting my 26th year with the city of Mandan. So, um, have been very appreciative of the opportunity that was provided to me. And, and like I said, all of the folks that I have worked with over the years, we I think have worked very well collaboratively. And we don't always agree, but we agree to disagree in a respectful manner. But for 99% of those times, we are in full agreement. And here's how we propose things. The city commission to move, move things forward. And I think, folks, if they look at what Manhattan look like in 2000, a lot of big and a lot of significant and very good changes, all for the better.

00:08:02,200	S2:
I bet it's flown by and in a lot of ways.

00:08:06,067	S3:
Had a little more hair on the top of my head, a little just, uh, girth in my belly and things like that. Um, but yeah, I've certainly enjoyed it. And like I said, so appreciative all the folks that we have worked with over the years, all of the different commissioners that I have had the pleasure of working with. And like I said, just to a tee, everyone has been awesome to work with.

00:08:26,601	S2:
Uh, moving along, let's talk about Memorial Highway. I know we did last time as well, but before we know it, I think you said April 1st. I think things should kind of get underway. And and in the meeting last night, we got a real good idea of the next couple of years and what's going to happen.

00:08:42,701	S3:
Right? It's, uh, we've had several meetings with representatives, representatives from the North Dakota Department of Transportation on scheduling and time frames and contractors and things like that. So in a nutshell, there's all kinds of moving parts on this project, as folks saw last year. But construction, whether all of this is weather dependent, weather dependent, the underground work again will start on or before near March 31st. April 1st. Um, there's no connotation with April 1st date in there. We'll leave that one alone. But again, it's weather dependent and load restriction and frost comes out of the ground and things like that. But the plan is to start March 31st and move forward on the eastern half of this project. And that will involve we have two lanes of concrete. Now we need to put three more lanes of concrete. So and the underground work so that phase one we'll call it from 32nd Avenue or more easily identified would be midway the east side of Midway Lanes, right through, um, the east end of the project should have five lanes of concrete and walking path, multi-use path, and 90% of those cleanup items should be done.

00:09:52,100	S2:
So the lighter color on the phase one is right. They got done, uh, this summer.

00:09:58,467	S3:
Kind of the gray. The gray on the south side. Um, the pinkish part.

00:10:02,167	S2:
Be complete by, I think. Well, let's just forward to the next. Yeah. July 9th is the finish line.

00:10:08,400	S3:
July 9th is the finish line. Um, the underground work from the, um. I have two contractors on board for the underground work. Have committed to working. One of the contractors will be doing seven days a week, 12 hour days until this is complete. The other underground contractor has committed to six days a week, 12 hour days. And they are both, um, in in conversations with them. They are committed to finishing this.

00:10:33,000	S2:
And a separate contractor will be working on the west side, the two pink areas on the west side. You see, we learned last night there's some tree removal and already some things.

00:10:42,067	S3:
Yeah, already some tree removal going on to get in preparation of some stormwater, um, infrastructure that needs to be put in on the west side of this project. and so you won't see a whole lot of what we call mainline or what you drive on today on the strip on the west hand side, except for after July 9th, we will see activity. From Main Street to what we call a flood control structure on Memorial Highway or. Most folks will say generally a little bit west of Riverwood RV and that will be the the road construction part. We we've been very clear, I think, in our messaging with Department of Transportation and the contractors that we don't want to see both the East End and the waste West and the West End plugged up and right and all messy and all kinds of things going on at the same time. We understand the East End needs to move forward and get done. So contractor will come in and after July 9th and start working on the on the west end, on the main line or the roadway surface.

00:11:43,868	S2:
And if we could go back to that graphic just for a minute, I think this is a question I think we'll hear quite a bit or you probably will, I know I will. People even ask me is there will not be construction in 2026 on the green shade that will take place in 2027. So and I know that was uh, talked about last night, but just to make it clear for everybody, there may be an expectation if people hadn't been paying attention that that would be done this year. But we need one more year down the road.

00:12:12,000	S3:
We'll talk 15 in my tenure. Right. Um, many years have gone by, and one of the original proposals was this would be a series of three year projects, a company seen about 9 to 10 years to finish this. Um, officials at that time, we kind of went to D.O.T. and said, we can't have the entire roadway torn up for ten years. No. And whether obviously it would have been done in three year increments. Um, so it just didn't find that acceptable. We had hoped to get it down to two years where you go kind of east, half west, half away we go. Um, there's a lot of logistical things with the underground, um, Projects in here from water storm or water line replacement, stormwater and roadway and things like that. We're getting the one of the big things there's the power poles are coming down to kind of clean up the appearance on that strip. And thank you to MD resources that is assisting with paying for that. But again, we had hoped for two years. We're into three years. So we will um, the project from 32nd or just east of Midway Lanes on through Riverwood RV area that will be coming in 2027.

00:13:21,767	S2:
Well, he's you want to get it right. It's a big deal. It's going to be a huge improvement once it's finally done. But I know it has a lot of interest.

00:13:29,968	S3:
A lot of interest in a lot of people. Now, I know North Dakota Department of Transportation is out there on probably a daily basis fixing potholes and things like that.

00:13:37,467	S2:
I heard about that last night.

00:13:38,868	S3:
One of the reasons this project needed to move forward, because they're on the existing roadway, there's just not a lot there. Yeah, you can you can put cold mix and hot mix and whatever kind of patch you want into a lot of those potholes, but it's going to last. If it's less a day, you're doing a pretty good job. But we're doing the best in cooperation with our public works and North Dakota Dot. To minimize potholes, there are going to be some.

00:14:04,701	S2:
And put up with them. I know we've talked a lot about this, but just another plug for the businesses out there that are holding holding their own through this time.

00:14:14,000	S3:
Yeah, we um, the city of Mandan provided through our Mandan Growth Fund. The recommendation was funds to the Mandan Progress Organization for gift cards. So I believe if you buy, it's kind of like a 25% add on. You buy $100 worth of services, you'll add on $25 more to that. There's a processing fee in there. But again, it's to encourage and entice those folks along that are patronizing those businesses to continue to do so. And here's kind of a reward for doing so. So again, we want to encourage folks to do that. We did a little, uh, Advertising in December with some of those funds to say, hey, we're still open and you can still get to the businesses, you know, great drone shots, overhead shots of how you can still get in and out of the businesses. And please continue to patronize those folks.

00:15:03,567	S2:
And so far, the snow hasn't piled up to make it. Yeah. It's probably I know I shouldn't have said it.

00:15:08,367	S3:
Knock on wood. Do you just throw the jinx out there? Um, we've had a pretty fortunate, uh, winter so far. And like I said, I'll knock on wood. And we hope that continues. And with the warm weather, the warmer the weather, the earlier maybe contractors can get going. But again, there's always the possibility of a April snowstorm.

00:15:29,000	S2:
Yeah, I shouldn't have said that either.

00:15:31,000	S3:
We'll just. Can we edit that hole?

00:15:32,901	S2:
Yeah. My plane. I'll take care of it. Yeah. Just eliminate me from.

00:15:37,000	S3:
The big message. There is projects moving forward. Um, different contractor will be doing the the west side and again they have the bid project went out on the east side and the west side was also one bid package. So you will see the same contractor working on the west side in 2026 and in 2027. So like I said, moving forward it's all a good thing. Look for some public engagement meetings towards the latter part of March to give folks a better handle on what they can expect.

00:16:07,601	S2:
And we'll keep you posted here on City Current, as well as, uh, people keeping up with the city of, uh, Mandan City Commission meetings, uh, new business last night, street improvements near Roosevelt elementary, the district 242 uh, just an update on on that project.

00:16:22,501	S3:
Yeah. We went this was a project many, many, many folks will remember from a couple of years ago that was, um, in essence, its water line replacement, street replacement and things like that in general. And, uh, the district was protested out, so we weren't able to move forward with that project. Um, it coincidentally, it was kind of like right after the project was protested out, we had a series of water breaks in this area, and we're continuing to see those breaks in that area. So we're bringing it back. Doing some more public engagement. We've had one public engagement meeting so far. I think we have another one on February 18th, if I remember right. But again, it's an attempt. We know the work needs to be done, and we wish we had a magic wand to waive it, and then everything would be paid for. And no one has to have a special assessment. Reality is there's there's a pretty significant portion of this project that is being paid for through some Department of Water Resources grant fund money, because we are replacing water lines. There's some what we call municipal infrastructure fund money. Many people know it as prairie dog funds being able to use in this project, and also some of our city utility funds to help out to lessen that burden. Um, we're not saying that it is completely wiped away, but a good portion of that cost of that project will be taken care of through those grant monies. And yes, there will be special assessments. Should the project move forward.

00:17:53,200	S2:
And the red area is what we're talking about. Also, we heard last night that that's sort of you're going to pay for it one way or another. It sounded like to me because these breaks, if I heard right, were tens of thousands of dollars potentially.

00:18:06,067	S3:
Absolutely. And we're having trouble where if you imagine you have one, a piece of straw, which in essence is a piece of pipe and one piece, that pipe breaks and it's all the same straw. Well, you try and find then a good place to then attach on to your repair, and you keep going and going and going, and it keeps your you're finding that the pipe is old, and it is hard to find a good point where you can attach and you can have some reasonable assurance that your fix that you've just done now is going to last without. I have a break here. And I think what we found out, we've got another break, not 20ft away in and another break not too many feet away. So it just it's a compounding of things. And like I said, we're chasing that pipe, trying to find the best place to hook on. And it's gotten to a point where it's going to have to be done. Um, and how do we best go about doing it? And like some no one like special assessments will give you? Absolutely. Honestly, we only understand that and we're doing our best to we've we always research grant funds and things like that. So I think we've done everything possible, along with our consulting engineer, to try and find those pockets of money that help lessen that burden to the local residents.

00:19:21,400	S2:
Let's talk about the wastewater treatment plan, the peer review, a nice presentation last night, very, very informative. If you're really into the.

00:19:31,167	S3:
If you're into wastewater treatment plants, this is this.

00:19:33,801	S2:
Is your game.

00:19:35,300	S3:
Um, we we we have a master plan update from an engineering firm. A to us that's done that for us and okay, we're we're needing to do something and something soon. Initial estimates of that project are upwards of the above $100 million range, so we thought it would be advisable to say let's bring another. We call it peer review.

00:19:58,667	S2:
Let's take another set of eyes.

00:20:00,167	S3:
Another set of eyes to take a look at this and make sure we're doing our due diligence and saying, we're not just taking one person's and one firm's word for it. We've had a collaboration on another firm. Come in and take a look at that. We've had folks say, well, why don't you just move the wastewater treatment plant? You now have multi-million dollar homes that are in that neighborhood, and.

00:20:21,167	S2:
It's not that easy.

00:20:22,300	S3:
Not quite that easy. Some say, why don't you just.

00:20:24,367	S2:
I bet it's expensive.

00:20:25,868	S3:
Well, in the engineering world, I think they say everything is possible. How much money? Yeah. Do you have? Um. And we are at in, in, in the world of worlds and the way Mandan has grown and has developed, this is, was and continues to be the best location for a wastewater treatment plant because that's where stuff flows downhill. And we still have a number of lift stations to get it there. But again, people said, well, why don't you just, uh. Why don't we just put a pipe under the Missouri and send it over to the city of Bismarck and let them treat it? That's one of the options that was looked at. We looked at relocating the entire plant. But that relocation, really? Because where the plant is currently, you're kind of like at the the tip or the confluence of the Hart River and the Missouri River, there's really nowhere else to go other than potentially south of Fort Lincoln State Park, a long way away. A lot of logistical hurdles in that. So again, it's a matter of of what do we do? And we've explored those options because we figured that's what folks are going to ask us. What else did you look at here? There's a whole breadth of options that we looked at. And again, the peer review is really to say, okay, as far as treatment process, um, are we doing and are we looking at a process that is going to take care of us today, five years from now, ten years from now, 25 years from now. What kind of regulations do we expect coming up from the EPA? You know, PFAS is one of those big ones. That is a hot topic right now and how we deal with those. So we're not putting stuff in the Missouri River that's contaminating that system, because that's a pretty big no no. We are fortunate to have the Missouri River as a we call it dilution is one of the solutions to pollution, not to be coy or anything, but we are fortunate to have the Missouri River, and that is is what we send. There is certainly very clean and it goes through a number of series of processes. But again, peer review wanted to make sure that our initial look at this is are the things that we need to be looking at and get another kind of opinion on cost and things like that.

00:22:35,067	S2:
So last night also a second final consideration of ordinance. What is it? 2483 the stormwater rewrite again, maybe not a sexy topic, but an important one.

00:22:47,000	S3:
Kind of like a wastewater treatment plant is not one of those sexy talks topics, but it is a it's extremely important, very expensive. And it's what folks expect. You expect when you yeah, you run your sink, that you get clean water. You expect when you flush. That's going away. This is part of that treatment process where this is you don't have a choice. These are things that need to be done with the stormwater rewrite. We know that, um, we had looked at several different options. This has been a long term project that's been in the works and study for many, many years and finally came to a conclusion that said, okay, let's start adopting some of these ordinances in the stormwater plan so that we want to ensure that, you know, my property has run off. If it runs off to Tom's property, is it doing that in a in a safe and a manner that didn't adversely affect the property? We have a lot of people that think, well, I live on a hill. I don't have any stormwater issues as well. Every downspout that you have and every driveway that you have and every rooftop that you have is contributing water to the stormwater system. And it needs to be put somewhere.

00:23:53,300	S2:
So everybody's affected. Yes. I wanted to just get your thoughts on the state of the city's mayor. Freilich joined Mayor Schmitz from Bismarck this week, and judging by the photo we have here, a packed house and a nice chance for people to really find out what's going on in Bismarck and Mandan.

00:24:13,467	S3:
Yeah, a little different format this year. In the past, they've had, you know, the mayors of Mandan and Bismarck would do kind of a PowerPoint or a slideshow presentation. Here's what's been going on. I think the chamber surveys everybody afterward and says, what did you think? How did you do? This year, they came up with kind of a fireside chat format where, all right, there's some questions for each member, Freilich and Mayor Schmitz. And those were, you know, that was more of a conversation style with them. I think the president of the Bismarck Mandan Chamber EDC, Brandon Engelstad there was close to almost 600 people in attendance. So the mayors did their fireside chat, and then a national economist came in and gave kind of an outlook on what his opinion is of the state of the economy and things like that. So, um, you know, kudos go out to Mayor Freilich, Mayor Schmitz and the chamber for, for making this work. It worked well and for all of our city staff, again, that have contributions and, you know, topics to talk about and things like that. So I think it went over fairly well.

00:25:17,901	S2:
Well, that wrapped up the meeting last night and wraps up our this episode of City Current. We want to remind you of like both of us. See you like video on demand. You can download our apps to find these programs and many more of the government meetings or our community access side. You can also visit Dakota media access and find all of our content there. For Jim Neubauer. I'm Tom Gerhart. Thanks for joining us.

00:25:43,767	S1:
For more information on what was discussed in this episode of City Current, visit City of Mandan. Com or call (701) 667-3215.

00:25:53,868	S1:
If you have any suggestions, comments or issues you would like addressed in Future City Current 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.