00:00:03,367	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.

00:00:25,267	S2:
Welcome to city current. I'm Tom Gerhart from Dakota media access, along with Mandan city administrator Jim Neubauer. Welcome. And Jim.

00:00:33,467	S3:
Thanks, Tom. A little chill in the air this morning, even right now. So yeah, I.

00:00:38,000	S2:
Put on a light jacket this morning for the first time after this warm summer. Uh, hey, if you didn't have time to watch the city commission meeting last night in Mandan, we've got you covered. Uh, a few of the topics we'll be highlighting today. Talk about Free Landfill Week coming up in September. Look over that 2024 audit, give you results from that. And an update on the cigar lounge that was talked about last night and a little nugget that you passed along to me, Jim, that is of interest. Mandan will be.

00:01:08,400	S3:
I believe we are the only cigar lounge now. Cigar pipe, able to smoke a pipe in the cigar lounge in the state of North Dakota, as far as I know, as of today. Yeah, we'll just leave it at that.

00:01:19,701	S2:
As of September 3rd. Yes. All right, well, let's start things off with, uh, announcements and, uh, free landfill week. That's coming up September 15th through the 20th.

00:01:29,467	S3:
Right. We do the fall or the spring cleanup, where we will pick up items off of the curb that folks will set out. And in the fall, it's really a heavy lift for our public works folks. And we bring in other crews to help us out. So in the fall, we open the landfill up. And I think the times are from 8:00 till 8:45 p.m., so we're open a little bit in the evening to help those folks that, you know, bring your items and an ID so that we can make sure you're Amanda and resident out to the landfill. We also want to mention that tires and appliances that normally we charge for. We will still charge you for them, but for a lot of your other miscellaneous items, if you have paint cans, we want you to make sure those paint cans are empty. Put a little sand or little dirt in them and away we go. But again, April, I'm thinking. I'm thinking the next spring already September 15th through the 20th. And like I said, we've got information on our website and check social media. And we encourage folks to, you know, do their full cleanup at this time.

00:02:29,767	S2:
Yeah. And of course, we can't go over everything here, but you mentioned that website. It's on the graphic city of Mandan, right?

00:02:38,901	S2:
So if you want to get all the details and get into the weeds on what's happening, you can.

00:02:43,868	S3:
No pun intended.

00:02:44,601	S2:
Check in there. No pun intended.

00:02:46,868	S3:
Um, and like I said, our our dumpsters will remain out until the snow flies and things like that. When people are cleaning up their gardens and cleaning up their yards, those will still remain. But again, for your household items that you want to take to the landfill, please feel free to do so during that week.

00:03:01,300	S2:
Such an abrupt change, isn't it just going from thinking about summer and Labor Day and suddenly we're thinking about preparing for.

00:03:08,100	S3:
85, 90 degrees and to oh, it's only 54 today.

00:03:12,300	S2:
Crazy. Uh, which also leads us to talk about what do they call it in North Dakota, the fifth season, construction season. So we have an update on a number of projects taking place in Mandan, starting with Memorial Highway.

00:03:25,100	S3:
Yeah. Jerrick, our city engineer, gives us an update every commission meeting on major projects. Memorial highway being one of the largest in the community right now, and a lot of work is going on to get the underground work done before we can start seeing the above ground concrete go on. We know that there are. I think the contractor may plan on bringing in a couple other underground contractors to make sure that they can get this done. We had a meeting with North Dakota D.O.T. representatives, and also the president of Reedy was in town last week where we expressed, okay, we've We don't have that much time left. And you know what we can expect and when we can expect those kind of things, we know that there will be a hard driving surface no matter what come snow, fly and things like that. So we don't want to think all the concrete will not be down, because we've been assured that it will be down and we'll have five lanes of driving. If it's not concrete, it'll be asked for temporary asphalt surface down for the wintertime. So it won't be the sloppy, gravelly mud mess. Now we've got a little bit of a roller coaster, or as it's been dubbed, as the Wavy Bacon.

00:04:35,968	S2:
Wavy Bacon, the.

00:04:36,701	S3:
Wavy Bacon Road. Right now, people are. I'm surprised people are. Hey, that's kind of fun to drive on. Might be fun. Now. Wintertime, I don't think it's going to be so enjoyable. But um, again, construction work continues on Memorial Highway and we're looking forward to having that one completed.

00:04:51,467	S2:
All right. Well, we'll keep our eyes on that the next couple of months as we prepare for winter. Uh, some other projects. The water treatment plant, the phase three Jared touched on as well.

00:05:01,167	S3:
Phase three optimization, which has a lot to do with the CO2, um, processing. Our water treatment goes through pouring slabs of concrete out there. And actually we, I think we need a new room for the CO2 because it's a little bit of dangerous stuff that we may need to make sure that that is in a safe environment and some other updates that are going on out of the plant.

00:05:23,100	S2:
And then, uh, tell us about the Collins Avenue Reservoir. We can see a footprint there.

00:05:28,000	S3:
Yeah. Interesting. This is a drone shot taken by the contractor. We it's one of those projects that you don't see until you see it. And right now, there's been a whole lot of work been going on. Um, on the Collins Avenue site. The existing river reservoir will remain operable until our new reservoir goes online. People are starting to see some of the concrete walls go up on the sides. And also there will be some changes to that intersection of Division and Collins to improve sight line distances as you're coming from the east to the entering. Collins from the from the east side so we can look forward to that. Maybe into the spring. But again, work on the reservoir is is actually going pretty well. And then we think we found some old remnants of a previous reservoir. So this might be the third or fourth reservoir on this site that needed to be removed. Okay.

00:06:19,868	S2:
So on that drone shot, super interesting too. And it's but the perspective I just wonder. That's a big piece of concrete.

00:06:28,567	S3:
It's substantial. Let's go. Um, that's, I believe, a 2 million gallon reservoir. We have another reservoir that our last one we built was on the south side of town, up on the 14th Street. That was a 4 million gallon reservoir. Compartmentalized so that we could do 2 million gallons at a time. We built that with in the, in the, um, looking forward. So we knew we'd need 4 million eventually. So let's build that 4 million right away. But we're we were only using 2 million to start out with. This will be a 2 million gallon reservoir just because its site footprint will allow for that. And like I said, we're looking for the completion of that. But it's fun to watch how these actually go up.

00:07:10,367	S2:
It's huge. And ultimately, this helps the citizens of Mandan.

00:07:13,767	S3:
Yes. It's a you know, this reservoir will act in conjunction with the South Side Reservoir, where they're both pretty much at the same elevation. So we all of your pressure ranges in there stay the same. Um, again, the old reservoir, I think was 75 years old. And they do deteriorate over time, just a matter of no matter how much maintenance you do to it, there becomes a point in time where we just there's nothing left of that reservoir. And we certainly want to make sure that we don't have a catastrophic failure. Right. Anything like that.

00:07:42,501	S2:
So last night, no public comment, no public hearings, no old business. So moving on down on the agenda under new business, you had Brady Martz come and give results of the annual 2024 audit in this case.

00:07:56,567	S3:
Right. So Mindy Piazza from Brady Martz, um, gave a gave the commission an update on here's where the city's financial position in the audit. We received a I'll call it a clean opinion or unqualified opinion, which means that there were no changes that needed to be made. And we are. That is the best opinion that we can get. So we're very pleased. Our finance department with Greg and Justin leading the leading the charge there. They always have some suggestions for us that we can do to implement. But again, we have an unmodified audit opinion which is the best that you can get.

00:08:29,100	S2:
And yeah, highest level of assurance CPA firms can provide. As you can see right there on your screen. So uh, things are looking good financially.

00:08:39,400	S3:
Yeah. Financially. And it goes through and says the process and controls that we have in that place, they test, you know, federal grants that we receive. And we need to make sure that we're following all of those guidelines. And we are. And therefore, like I said, that's part of the big that's a big part of that audit, is them coming in and providing independent review on what we're doing. And what this says is that, you know, we're doing things right.

00:09:01,901	S2:
Heard about an infant at work policy last night that the board, the commissioners, ultimately passed unanimously.

00:09:10,167	S3:
Yeah. Very interesting. We we passed a few years ago. Um, we have a a mother's room at work now, and we're able to apply for some grant funds to make that happen. Infinite work is a is a way to encourage folks, you know, if you're having a baby and you need to bring that child to work at times, this is a test phase that we're going through right now to make sure that this actually works. We've modeled it after the state of North Dakota's and some input from all of our directors and all of our employees to make sure that, hey, we want to do something that encourages folks to stay, make sure we are a family friendly environment. We always say that family comes first, and we want to make sure that we're putting that into practice. So again, very, um, there's very good checks and balances in this. So it's not a hey, if things aren't working out then maybe there's too much of a disruption, or that this just isn't working for either the employee or the employer. We can say, okay, it's not working, let's try something else. Yeah.

00:10:11,701	S2:
And I was going to mention that it's not like just some clear across the board, uh, policy. Those checks and balances are important. And then, uh, was it Commissioner Heineken? Somebody brought up a good point for you guys to consider, you know, are there changing tables. So that's something you look in and accommodate if they're not there.

00:10:27,167	S3:
Yeah. We had that conversation this morning and said, okay, where do we by changing tables because we're going that's something that we hadn't thought of. So very good input from the commission. And you were looking and, you know, putting some of those in the in both male and female restrooms and things like that at City Hall. So again, it's a it's a we fully understand this will not work for all jobs. You know, uh, very difficult for a police officer, very difficult for a firefighter, very difficult for a public works operator. You're not going to be driving a snowplow with your infant right in the plow with you in some of these are compatible and some of the jobs that we do are just not compatible. And we all fully understand that.

00:11:09,801	S2:
Yeah. Uh, we touched on this at the beginning of the program, but discussion about cigar lounge. Yes. Again, the commission unanimously passed that last night. But give us an update on that. And again, as far as you know, this is will be or it took effect immediately. Is that right.

00:11:26,567	S3:
After the second consideration last night. The board voted to approve the ordinance. So the ordinance is in the books. If you have pipe tobacco, that can be, um, smoke in a cigar lounge, not, um, like I said, it's something that, you know, man is the first in the state, I think, on the cigar lounge and will be the first in the state to adopt, um, the pipe smoking in that cigar lounge. So, again, you have to make sure you have adequate ventilation. And all those requirements are there for a cigar lounge. And we were approached by a business owner that said, hey, let's do pipe tobacco also. So in essence, the board approved that last night with, we received very little, if any, feedback from it. We did make sure we reached out to our public health partners and let them know here, here's what is going on in the agenda and in the public health world. Of course they're going to say smoking's bad, right? Fully get that. But at the end of the day, I think the commission said, all right, if that's your choice, you can do it in a in a cigar lounge and away we go. So and like I said, I think the, the, the owners of the cigar lounge are very pleased. And I think they have seen this as a thing. You know, it may not be my thing, may not be your thing, but people want to go enjoy a cigar. They can go enjoy some pipe tobacco also in there too.

00:12:43,000	S2:
And you mentioned this, but I think you mentioned it last night too, didn't receive any public input. Obviously the public has the opportunity and nobody.

00:12:53,367	S3:
Really no comments. And so it's like, okay, this will be a very quiet issue. And this is a result of some state law that was changed in the last legislative session. And so we'll implement that and away we go.

00:13:04,667	S2:
And speaking of state laws that were updated in the last legislative session, you had to do the same as far as some traffic and vehicle laws in the city. Amanda.

00:13:16,100	S3:
Yeah. It's one of those things that, um, the Legislative Assembly made some changes as far as what we can and can't do. Um, one of the things that we were allowed to do several years ago was, you know, cities were given the option of, you can double the fine. Right. So if it's a $20 ticket for speeding, whatever, that would be city. Um, you could, if you adopt your ordinances to double that, fine. So you go to $40. In this case, one of those changes was you can't do that anymore. Um, so they didn't like that. But, you know, the thing going from 75 to 80 miles an hour doesn't really affect us because we don't have any 75 or 80 mile an hour speed limits within our corporate boundaries. Um, and but one of those important changes was in a construction zone like we talked about earlier, we've got Monte Drive, we've got Memorial Highway, we've got a lot of areas that are under construction right now, and that will be every summer. And moving those fines from $80 to $150. So if it is 25 on Memorial Highway in the construction area, and it is so, we encourage you to slow down and please be safe for yourself. Be safe for all the workers that are out there. It's 25. If you're speeding through there, you're fine rather than $80 would be $150.

00:14:33,167	S2:
And I said this to you off camera, and City of Bismarck had to adjust as well. But one item that caught my attention was we don't have to signal is our signals anymore in the roundabouts. So real world issues.

00:14:46,467	S3:
I.

00:14:46,767	S2:
Said that.

00:14:47,467	S3:
So, you know, you don't have to signal when you're going through a roundabout. I don't know that we've ever I can honestly say I doubt that we've given anyone a ticket for not signaling when they're exiting the roundabout. But in this case, as roundabouts become more popular, you know, we look at the one that we have on Collins Avenue and and old Red trail, and that has worked extremely well. A lot of naysayers at the beginning where, oh, you can't do that. Change is hard to figure out. Change is difficult. But in fact, the the compliments that we get. Thank you for putting that in. It works really well. You know, I've been up there in the mornings. I've been up there in the evenings, and it moves sometimes a little slower than other times. Everybody just be smart when they're going through. But you know now that you don't have to single signal, you might not get honked at by someone behind you or to the side of you.

00:15:36,200	S2:
Right. Um, we already talked about Memorial Highway, but I thought we could put this website in QR code up again. If anybody wants to scan it or find out the latest, keep tabs on what's happening out there. I thought I'd just pop this up and pass it along. I know that's again, such a significant project. It's going to be such a great thing. Uh, please drive the speed limit. But we also, of course, want to encourage people to go down and.

00:16:01,868	S3:
Continue to patronize those businesses. We know that the intersection of 46th Avenue and Memorial Highway is closed down right now. Our minimal traffic through there, and it'll be like that for a month. I'm on my way over here this morning. Um, it's a couple of large backhoes, um, in that area, working very diligently. We want to get that put back as soon as we can. We know that it affects those neighboring businesses, so please do your best to continue to patronize them. Still go to their stores, still go boat shopping. Still go vehicle shopping. Still go have a have a meal at a couple of the restaurants that are along that route. We know it is inconvenient, but at the end of the day, I think it'll turn out to be a really great project and we're looking forward to its completion.

00:16:44,868	S2:
We have another QR code to run by you, and that is to download our DMA app or, and or our radio access 102.5 app. And of course, you can even find us on your smart TV whether you use Apple TV, Roku, uh, Fire Stick, which I have at home, and you can find a code of media access. Watch all the meetings or we have all this on video on demand, including city current. And we found that over half of our web traffic goes to find and watch old government meetings. So there is significant interest in in both Bismarck and Mandan and what's happening in Burley and Morton County as well.

00:17:23,667	S3:
And I think it's a great thing I know that me personally have. Um, even last night we had two meetings going on at the same time. Right. We had the Bismarck and Burley counties kind of.

00:17:34,868	S2:
Combining.

00:17:35,767	S3:
Together to meet and our regular meeting, and both of those were being aired live, I believe, on Dakota media access, and I was trying to get one up on my phone. I said, okay, start paying attention to the meeting and leave that one alone. So great. Um, you know, I would say multitask. Not when you're in the car, not when you're in a commission meeting. But if you want to get a highlight of what or what's going on in the community, this is a great place to be.

00:17:59,067	S2:
Yeah, well, I appreciate it. Jim. Thanks to all of you for joining in. The next Mandan City Commission meeting is September 16th, and we'll see you next time on City Kern.

00:18:08,868	S1:
For more information on what was discussed in this episode of City Current, visit City of mandan.com or call (701) 667-3215.

00:18:19,000	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.