00:00:03,919	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.

00:00:26,320	S2:
Coming up on this March 11th edition of City Current, we'll go off agenda and talk about update to Fire Station six, what's happening there, and also talk about the new police station design. Well, I guess one of the big things last night in the city commission meeting was a couple of denial of variance appeals. Talk about that and get an update on the land development code. Good morning. I'm Tom Vieira from Dakota media access, joined by Jason Thomas, Bismarck city administrator. Good to see you, Jason.

00:00:54,280	S3:
Good to see you, Tom.

00:00:55,200	S2:
And it seemed like a light agenda last night, but Nevertheless, I've found some interesting topics to get into, and the one that took up the bulk of the meeting was an appeal to try to get the wording right of a denial of a variance, for in this case ended up being a it's a water well, I guess, in a yard. And we have a graphic that will show. But a gentleman named Henry Irving was appealing the denial because he hadn't. If you see in this project area, I guess it's a little bit hidden, but on the top you can see a, a building that I guess it's 1200 square feet. And then way up in that left hand corner you see a little concrete slab if you're watching, not listening. But, uh, I guess code says over 1200 feet. You got to deny just trying to get really black and white on it. And he wants to cover that pad, right? So explain what unfolded as the Commission considered this appeal.

00:01:58,189	S3:
So for anybody that is a steadfast consumer of all things Dakota media access and government access. Mr. Gervin was at the Board of Adjustment meeting in January, and at that time it was his request to ask for a variance and really what a variance is. I think Daniel Naran mentioned it last night. It's really it's special dispensation from the law. It's what gives you the ability to not follow the code that everyone else has to adhere to. And so that's the purpose of the Board of Adjustment. They grant variances, they hear requests and have the ability to grant a variance. And really what a variance is, it's leniency from the written rules. And in this case the applicant was asking for a ten by 12 shed. Essentially that would go over the top of a an irrigation well that he dug in his backyard. And where we're talking about it's southeast part of Bismarck, just east of 52nd Street. So we're kind of right on the edge of the community. This is a newer neighborhood, clear sky addition, single family, predominantly, um, the owner. The applicant in this situation purchased two properties, two lots side by side, constructed a home on one, constructed a freestanding shop or a garage on the other. The maximum allowable square footage for an accessory building is 1200 square feet. Well, that's already in place today. That's the two stall garage that he has built. In addition to the garage attached to the home. The request was for another ten by 12 building that would cover the will that he dug to irrigate his lawn, and for his as much effort as the commissioners put forth to try and accommodate the request, there was really no legal means to make it happen. And why I say it that way is because the Board of Adjustment struggled to identify the hardship. What's the problem here? Well, financial matters are not considered a hardship. If you can't afford your project, that's unfortunately not the city's concern. Um, the lot is flat. The lot is square. It's in city limits. Typically, a variance is identified. If you have a very steep slope, and maybe you can't accommodate the setbacks that are necessary. So you need to be a little closer to one lot line than the other because of an extreme topography issue with the property. That can happen. And in fact, the code actually does identify topographic constraints as a need for relief from an ordinance. When you've got a flat, blank canvas. It's kind of hard for anyone to identify a hardship. And it should be noted. This was self-imposed. The owner chose to dig the lot, to dig the well, to irrigate his lawn. And I understand a desire to, uh, maybe have different means for irrigation. So my question why am I using tap water to water my lawn? And there's a fee for all of that. And so it's completely within his rights to to dig a well. What the request was, was to cover it, to protect it from the elements, to preserve it so it doesn't need to be replaced on a frequent basis, as he described in the end, the the commissioners with the kind of the guidance of our legal counsel, Julie Meese, really were not able to define a true hardship here.

00:05:16,649	S2:
And was I hearing right? Did there have to be three there?

00:05:19,970	S3:
Right. There are three elements to the to the variance that need to be identified. And that was part of the staff report that Jenny Smith had prepared. And in order to overturn a decision, the commission has to be able to identify those things. They have to create findings of fact that support their decision. It can't just be well, because we wanted to. Right. And so again, this is not everybody gets to go outside the boundaries. And so it needs to be a pretty serious matter when it does. And in the end, I think what the commissioners the general consensus that they seem to align upon is through the Land development code. There's maybe a better way to address this. So for structures like this that would be uninhabited. Limited size, limited height. Maybe those things don't fall into the equation of accessory buildings, because once this structure is built, that's its primary purpose. It's not like he's going to be storing a vehicle in there or anything else. It's just to protect the investment that he made to irrigate his lawn. And I can appreciate that. But I can also appreciate where the commissioners got stuck and the Board of Adjustment got stuck. The commission got stuck. And so we have an opportunity, as we'll talk about later on the program. We are in the throes of rewriting the land development code. And so I think where everybody where the commissioners kind of coalesced and felt fairly comfortable was to direct staff to find a way to allow these types of incidental uses on occasion. And I think the gentleman shared that he had been told there was something around 170 type wells in the Bismarck community. That's not something we keep track of. That's not something we permit. That's all going through. Through the state, through the water resources district and things like that. So I trust that number is accurate. I think he got that number from the gentleman that drilled his well. So by his account, he was kind of surmising that there wouldn't be a ton of these types of requests.

00:07:20,670	S2:
Certainly some I think he said. Right.

Right. 00:07:22,829	S3:
And I think it's all speculation right at this point. I have not seen this type of a request before, but that may be because people haven't already exceeded their maximum allowable square footage. There may be other structures that were completely legitimate, permitted, and all of the right things that just never went through Board of Adjustment, because there were there weren't any constraints on the lot like this one. So I think in good faith, the commissioners tried to solve the problem, but legally didn't have the the route to get there. And so it'll take a little bit more time to work some of the amendments through the Land Development Code. But I believe we'll see that finally coming forward in May. Um, so now's a great time to consider this. Um, so for now, the the project sits kind of as is. Of course, it's not really construction season yet anyway, but, uh, we'll we'll kind of touch this one a little bit again in the future.

00:08:16,110	S2:
Well, and I guess as I was listening and watching, I could see, you know, you appreciate, uh, where Henry is coming from. And at the same time, where the commission what they're up against with North Dakota Century code, right. You know, local regulations. And again, I was just thinking, well, if you if you were to grant this or find a way, then, you know, it seems like that could be a slippery slope too.

00:08:37,909	S3:
Right. And that's a good point with Board of Adjustment, there are many precedents that end up being determined by the Board of Adjustment, because up until this point, the rules have been in place. And for all that, we know. Everything. All the rules have been followed. Until now. Until whatever that request is for the variance. And so, in many ways, the Board of Adjustment can also signal. It kind of functions almost like a canary in the coal mine. If you see a number of similar variance requests coming forward, it's probably an indication that your code is not adequate. If you continue to see people saying, I need relief, I need relief, I need relief. Okay, maybe the code is too stringent. And I know in the past, we have seen a high number of variance requests that went through Board of Adjustment that influenced the conversation that we're having today about how do we soften some of these regulations, because we shouldn't be sending everybody to the Board of Adjustment when there's a hardship. Maybe we're imposing a hardship that doesn't need to be there.

00:09:38,539	S2:
Right.

00:09:39,100	S3:
And so that's a good way to kind of look at these scenarios, this being a lot coverage issue. That's a common one. But we have to look at each situation individually to say, well, what are you? How are you using your property? It was your choice to purchase the land. It was your choice to have a home this size and so on. If some of this is self-imposed, that's kind of hard to find a hardship in that.

00:10:01,009	S2:
Well, if nothing else, I thought, uh, it was a really interesting lesson. And again, a lot of insight into how city government works and how it can tie in with state government. And just it's not as easy as yes or no, right? It's a lot of a lot of gray. And the commission certainly did do its part to try and find a solution last night and now potentially a solution down the road. Well, the second thing on the agenda was another appeal of a planning and zoning issue that was to deny a zoning change from, I think, agricultural land to.

00:10:33,210	S3:
Rural residential.

00:10:34,250	S2:
Potential.

00:10:34,730	S3:
Yep. And so this one went through planning and zoning commission, and there was some concerns from adjacent property owners. And the concerns weren't necessarily with the proposed development. And what we're talking about here is taking a attractive land and turning it into five rural residential lots. We got a.

00:10:51,649	S2:
We got a we can show that to here. We got a couple of graphics we can show, but there's the plots of land you just mentioned.

00:10:58,330	S3:
Yep. So it's a ten acre site. They're looking to create a roadway to bisect the property and then have three lots on the south and two lots on the north. And this is in northeast rural Bismarck. And Daniel Neher and our planning director noted for up until very recently, this was part of the city's extraterritorial area. As of March 1st, that is completely changed. So this property is no longer in the city's jurisdiction. However, the request began with city staff working through planning and zoning commission, so this was the appropriate appeal process. My understanding is when the public hearing was held with the Planning and Zoning Commission, some of the adjacent property owners to the east had concerns with the roadway configuration. And when we're in these rural areas, when we're when we're in the areas that we're growing into, we have what's called a fringe area road master plan. For 20 plus years, we've had a network of future roadways identified. And primarily what they are is the arterial streets that are on the section lines and then the collector roads that are on the half mile. And so you see these things throughout the community. State Street is an example of an arterial or a collector roadway. Calgary Avenue would be a collector, I'm sorry. An arterial would be State Street. Calgary would be the collector. In this situation, what they're trying to do is create an east west corridor to allow traffic to move from 26th Street over to the east and so on. We're the neighbors on the east side of 41st Avenue were concerned is that the roadway alignment would potentially have a negative consequence on their ability to use their land. Best I can tell, their land is predominantly undeveloped agricultural land. So the alignment of the roadway on the west side of the street, although I understand their concerns, until they're really ready to develop on the east side of the street. We won't know where the roads are going to go.

00:12:48,110	S2:
And we have a, I think, a that showed this last night to where you can see a couple of different pathways, potentially one being the existing future plans and one being proposed future plans.

00:12:58,590	S3:
The one on the left is the existing version in the book, and you can see it kind of subdivides the raw land on the west side of 41st Street, maybe rendering it a little unusable. And I should have noted when the Orange Area Road Master plan was developed, it was not with pinpoint precision. It were broad strokes over full sections of land a mile, a square mile of land. So yes, did they take kind of a blunt marker and just draw a line? It was a little more than that. But we're certainly when the time happens that an owner is ready to develop, that's when we get into that pinpoint accuracy and start to really identify, okay, we know there needs to be an east west road here. Where's the best location? So the image on the left was a broad stroke. The image on the right is probably more of the preferred alignment, because then what it allows for is the development of three full size residential lots on the south, two full size residential lots on the north, and is the neighbor to the east of 41st Street. In the future, if and when they're ready to develop, they'll grab that stub and then figure out where the road goes from there to. Yeah, so the planning Commission balked at a little bit due to the comments from the neighbors. City Commission understood that, but then also remedied that a little bit by essentially overturning the decision of the Planning Commission, and they chose to call for a public hearing. So to move this forward at the city commission level and really to finalize the process, the public hearing will give the neighbors to the East another opportunity to come forward and share their concerns with the commissioners. But ultimately, this one will land with the decision of the five commissioners that were elected to make the tough choices.

00:14:38,309	S2:
Moving down the agenda, we did get a little update on the land development Code and look at four phases. And then a couple of, I guess, open houses that we'll talk about.

00:14:51,419	S3:
Yeah, they're getting very close to finishing off the land development code and they being Clarion and Associates, those are the consultants that the planning department hired to walk us through this 18 month plus project, um, completely overhauling the current zoning code. Chapter 14 of the city Code of Ordinances. What is all of this? It's setbacks. It's land use. It's it's all the things that regulate how land gets used. So it's kind of a big deal for us. This is 20 plus years in the making. We've been trying to get after this project. So we needed the help with some extra support with non city staff that specialize in these types of projects. So that's where Clarion and Associates came in. We've had a really good showing of stakeholder input and community support. We've had a number of opportunities for people to share their voices. We've got two more coming up. We've got one today. Today we're recording this programme. It's March 11th. 4:00 to 7:00 at the Public Works Building, 601 South 26th Street. If you have questions or thoughts or ideas, we would encourage you to show up. It's an open house. It's not a structured program. Just come in and find a staff person. Find somebody you want to share your thoughts with. If today doesn't work for you March 11th, you'll have another opportunity in a month. Wednesday, April 15th. When you're done filing your taxes, you can go to the open house. That one is also from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., but it will be held in a meeting room A at the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library meeting room A for those of you that are familiar, that is the larger, largest meeting room in the basement of the library. So 4 to 7 today, 4 to 7, Wednesday, April 15th. And then looking forward, I believe we will anticipate a public hearing and final adoption in May with our city commission assuming all goes well from here and there.

00:16:41,210	S2:
So not too far down the road. And it feels good to say me out loud, even though it's been a very pleasant.

00:16:47,570	S3:
Yeah, it hasn't been too bad.

00:16:48,929	S2:
So that wrapped up the agenda. Uh, but we had, uh, another 10 or 12 minutes of conversation at the end. Commissioner Zenker noted that the Oak View, the management group, a contract. Well, you can get into the details, hasn't been signed, but they've, um. They're here. They're here. And he ran into him as he was attending some basketball games over the weekend and had some concerns about what they were doing here and and why he didn't know.

Sure. 00:17:17,490	S3:
Yeah. So Oakview Group, for those that may have heard it or have heard the acronym of that is the third Party Management and Operations company that the City of Bismarck has hired to accept the responsibilities of managing and operating the event center, which is really the arena, the exhibit hall and the Bellamy House auditorium. So all three of those facilities will be under the the watchful eye of a third party company. So Commissioner Zenker noted he was at the WDA basketball tournament and ran into some of the staff and staff had shared with him that um OBJ was coming, and I understand the staff's concerns there. It's a trepidation. I mean, honestly, we've been in a state of flux for about 28 months where we've been trying to work through all of these different scenarios. And how do we how do we really energize the building to capitalize on what it is and what is it? It's an economic development generator for the community. It brings people to Bismarck who stay in hotels, who eat in restaurants, who leave their money here. That infuses the local economy because it's money from outside Bismarck. Mandan. So what is Oakview Group doing here? Well, they brought in a small team, five people, a couple of them from Human Resources, and then they've got the senior vice president, the regional manager and the general manager that will be operating the Bismarck Event Center. And they were here Monday. Tuesday. Some of them are still here today. Wednesday. Meeting with the staff, walking through the building, understanding the situations. Meeting with the architect, Jeff Hubbell. We've been working with Jeff for a variety of capital improvement projects within the event center itself. Jeff had a one on one conversation with him to share what he knows about this building and what the plans look like for going forward with construction in an in-house, full service kitchen to help with catering. And I mean, there's some really, really big opportunities coming forward. Oberg is here on their own goodwill. As the mayor noted, we have not signed the contract yet. Now, we are very much in the negotiation stage. We have been going back and forth, back and forth and anticipate being able to deliver the final contract before the next City Commission meeting on March 24th. That is our hope. That is our desire. That's what we have instructed our consultant to help us get there with. And it's an important thing because May 1st we want them in the building energizing training the staff, hiring new staff, that's another thing that they've done, is assessed the organizational chart that we as a city had, but then looking at it through their own lens, there's positions that they feel are very necessary to support the operations that we just didn't have on the books. So they're going to have to hire staff. They've met with all the staff and all the full time staff at the event center and said, you'll all have jobs on day one. Nobody's getting terminated. And part of our effort, part of the city's effort in this, was to create what we are calling an employee protection plan, handing that over to oversee and saying, in order to fulfill the needs of this contract, you must be able to offer employment to these people, provide them compensation that is equivalent or better. But then we also have health care and pension. And those are things that as city employees, we truly appreciate as a benefit. But in the private sector, you may not find those things as as accommodating. And so those are some of the details that we're working through, but that was a pledge that we made to the staff that they would be whole or even better in some cases. And when I say better. Here's just one example. As city employees, we are not allowed to accept a tip. We're doing our jobs. So if you're a concession stand worker at the event center, you're working for the city. You cannot accept a tip if you're working for a third party private enterprise. Those tips are welcome all day long and encouraged. And that's just one slight little difference. But at the end of the day, if you're selling merchandise to a sold out concert with 8000 people there, and you think about all the generosity that goes along with people having a really good time, there could be several hundred dollars in the tip jar at the end of the night in the merchandise area. None of that currently is available for city staff to benefit from. So I realize that's not going to you're not going to get rich on tips, but it is one differentiator between private and public, where the private sector has that opportunity and the public sector simply does not. So certainly understand Commissioners Anker's concerns. I know he doesn't like surprises, but hopefully the information that we shared with him and everybody last night signals that we are working extremely hard, getting towards a common goal of signing this contract that's mutually beneficial for Oakview Group and the city of Bismarck, and the greater community as a whole. And the enthusiasm that the the Avg staff brought with them is just tremendous. Every time we walked into a new part of the building, I mean, just the ideas of, oh, we could do this, or we could be doing that. And I think it's going to be good to have new ideas.

00:22:20,569	S2:
Fresh.

00:22:20,849	S3:
Just fresh energy and the staff that is there. I need to say this as well, for the staff that have remained throughout this entire situation, nothing but tremendous gratitude for them, for their willingness to stick through this. I know it. It has not been the most pleasant experience for anybody, and just glad that we have some tremendously dedicated people that like the work they do. They like the environment they work in. There's something about the energy that comes along with setting up for a concert and then tearing it down and getting ready for basketball, and then you've got a rodeo coming in. I mean, the days are different all the time in that facility. But to Amanda Yellow, who stepped forward and became the interim director over these last two plus years and all the team that she led. Just nothing but sincere thanks to them as well.

00:23:09,529	S2:
Well, that wrapped up the meeting, but a couple of topics we wanted to visit about and mentioned at the top of the show. Uh, what's the update on Fire Station six? What do things stand?

00:23:19,730	S3:
Fire station six so we know a fair amount, but not all of it yet. What we do know is that we need another fire station, and we know it's going to be in South Bismarck, and we've got two different locations identified along Burley Avenue. Which one yet? Not so sure. We're we're working with some, uh, some landowners that own one piece, the, the other site that we have identified, we the city own. It's part of the wastewater treatment plant. Uh, why are we in South Bismarck? It comes down to response times when we are looking at where does the next fire station go? It comes down to how long does it take the first truck to get on site? Once the 911 call has been made and the truck leaves the fire station South Bismarck, particularly Southport, South Bay, whispering Bay. These are areas south of Burley Avenue. West of Washington Street. They're being serviced by the fire station on expressway. It's a little bit of a haul to get down there. It's a generally our response time is 4 to 6 minutes. That's kind of the sweet spot. If we're beyond that six minutes, it gets to be okay. We probably need to be looking at this. And if it's into that 10 or 12 minute range, then it's okay. We really need to be doing something here. And so within the next, hopefully a couple of months, we'll land on one side or the other. And I would anticipate that. We'll see bids go out yet this summer, with likely construction starting up in the fall and, you know, probably a 12 month construction season to get through all of that. Uh, the fire station, when it's all said and done, it will be designed in such a way that's complementary to the neighborhood. If it's in the more of the residential side of things west of Washington Street, we're going to make sure that it's got a pitched roof, and it looks like some of the homes in the area, if it's in the other location that we're looking at further east, a little closer to the airport, maybe it doesn't have some of those characteristics, but it'll have a lot of the same functions. It'll have overhead doors, it'll have a place for the firefighters to to exercise, to train, to store their equipment. Of course, those are all basic things in a fire station. We're not anticipating this station to have any additional unique training opportunities. For example, Fire Station four, which is on Merriam Avenue near the National Guard Armory. Behind there is a building. It's the burn building, and it's a regional training center. We wouldn't be putting that in this location. We've already got something like that established. So this will be predominantly a firehouse for firefighters to report to duty every day.

00:25:48,990	S2:
Uh, while we're at it, uh, what's the latest on the police station?

00:25:53,029	S3:
Police station? So for those that may have heard, we purchased ten acres of land late last year in 2025, ten acres of land at the intersection of East Century Avenue and Valley Forge Drive. And so we're going to be very close to Northwest Contracting. They would be right across the street to the west. We're just a little bit west of the intersection of Century and Centennial. So growing part of our community, busy neighborhood, uh, we have just initiated the design process with the architects we hired locally, JLG architects, and then they have partnered with a group from the Denver area that specializes in law enforcement centers and design. And so we've got local subject matter experts. We've got an out of town, tremendous subject matter expert, and they're going through the programming right now. And so the design professionals are meeting with the chief and the command staff, and a good number of the officers and detectives, and just having conversations. What do you like about the building? What you know, where are the shortcomings? Where are the pinch points? You know, obviously we've outgrown the existing station, so the new headquarters will be bigger. What else is part of that training vehicle storage, fleet storage. Right now we've got some of our Swat equipment and things stored in other areas. The goal here is to bring it all under one roof. Sure, all in one location. You've got all your training, all your resources on site. Uh, given the fact that we've got ten acres, we're we're adequately sized to make all of this happen. Um, just kind of reflecting on the project. Last time we opened a police station was like 1978. So this is a more than a generational thing. I mean, we only do this once every 50 years. Right.

So. 00:27:41,049	S3:
That said, now we're not looking to have, you know, all the bells and whistles, but we aren't looking to cheap out here either and just squeak by with the minimal amounts of things we need to design this facility to accommodate growth in our community, growth in our department, growth in the staff, but also these. This facility needs to be durable. It needs to be standing after any sort of natural disaster. It needs to be the launch point for all the emergency response from law enforcement. So hence why we brought in specialty professionals to really walk us through this. And I actually just had the opportunity to meet with that group earlier today. And it is tremendous. The, the, the layer of detail that they bring to these conversations and some of the terminology and the phrases or words I've never even considered. But when you start to take it in the context of what it all means and how it all fits together. A day in the life of the officer. I've heard that several times in this process. What is what's the experience of the officer when you're coming to work and you're leaving work? All of that is a very unique experience going through all of that. But what it does is it informs good design and it informs how the building should function and flow and you know where parts and pieces are going to be. So I'm so glad to kind of have a side seat to this. I'm certainly not driving. This is for the chief and the department to really get involved, but to to be a part of this, to be a part of something that will really be another landmark community building. It's it's pretty exciting.

00:29:14,849	S2:
And once every 50.

00:29:16,170	S3:
Years, once every 50 years, we.

00:29:17,569	S2:
Hope.

00:29:18,210	S3:
We hope. And I should say this, the building that is being designed is not being looked at as a secondary precinct. Right? This is headquarters, and part of what we need to also do is figure out what are we doing with the existing station at 700 South ninth Street. We've been there since the late 1970s. We have no intentions of selling the building, but how do we repurpose it? Can it be an ancillary law enforcement use? Is it a training facility, or is it something completely different that the city can use in another way? That's one of the questions that we've also asked the architects to help us work through as well. And we know that there would be an expense to renovating anything in that location. But predominantly right now the focus is on the programming size, shape of the building. Then we'll get into the fun part of design and, you know, components and finishes and exterior look and all of that. We're not there yet. We're just really getting started on this journey. But the hope is to do design all of 2026, with plans being finished in the late year of 26 and the first part of 27, with bids going out in early spring of 27. And then by this time next year, we're hoping to see some large equipment on site and get ready to build.

00:30:27,230	S2:
About a year from now. Well, let's zip through. Quite a few community happenings, and we've shared this a couple of times for North Dakota third and seventh graders. But it's March 11th as we're recording again by March 13th. If interested, you need to submit your essays to the North Dakota League of Cities. If I were mayor essay contest. So that's NDI Elkhorn. So a couple more days from March 11th, March 13th, the deadline to submit your essays. And speaking of the mayor, mayors, we wanted to point folks toward the City of Bismarck's YouTube page. That's Bismarck, ND gov. And, uh, took an excerpt from the chamber event earlier this year with the two mayors in conversation about priorities for the city's what's happening. And so I thought that was a nice way to maybe send some people to to relisten to that portion of the meeting. If you didn't make it that morning and hear what the mayors of both Bismarck and Mandan have to say.

00:31:30,509	S3:
Yeah, that was a great event. State of the Cities Chamber hosted every year, and it's really nice to see the two mayors collaborating. I know Mayor Schmitz and Mayor Freilich from Mandan have been very intentional about the use of the word community. It's not just Bismarck, it's not just Mandan. We are one community together. Many people that live in Mandan work in Bismarck. For those of us that live in Bismarck, there's lots of things to do in Mandan too. So it's there's just a little river in between us. But really, we're we're one big city together.

00:31:58,710	S2:
And that conversational format, I think, is a really nice way to absorb the information instead of speaking to a group.

00:32:05,269	S3:
Right. No slide decks.

00:32:06,430	S2:
Worth the time. No slide decks. I wanted to mention March 18th. Bulk item residential pickup, but you need to schedule by Monday, March 16th. Prepay and schedule by Monday, March 16th. So if you have any big items, this is a program that you decided to continue into 20.

00:32:25,940	S3:
Correct? Yeah. If you have large, bulky items and don't have the means of the resources to get it to the landfill on your own. Call Public Works at 355 1700. And schedule a pickup time, and there will be a fee that will show up on your utility bill and will come and dispose of it for you.

00:32:42,539	S2:
Nice feature. This just got wind of today. It's a National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week March 16th through the 20th. So Bismarck Public Health has put out this graphic for education and awareness. And there's a QR code that you can scan if you want to learn more at the parents lead site. And I just wanted to pass that along. Also, if you're heading down River road, at least for a few more days, I guess, check before you drive, right? Yep.

00:33:16,019	S3:
It's it's still closed. It was kind of a soft closing. We weren't sure if it was two weeks or three weeks, but the closure is a result of Burlington Northern Santa Fe continuing to construct the new rail bridge. And for anybody that's been through that corridor where the construction point is, it's it's narrow. And so hopefully once the road opens up again, uh, they'll have the work that they need to do out of the way. And it's my understanding if they're able to accomplish this successfully, this would eliminate the need for future full lane closures. I think in the past we've seen one lane closed and then they have kind of a temporary traffic signal. I would anticipate that coming forward again. But it's it's our hope that this would be the last time that it needs to be permanently closed for a long period of time.

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Well, just save you a little, uh, it's a little bit of a way around if you have to turn around and head back. Either way, uh, that wraps up the show. If you want to listen or watch on demand, make sure you download our DMA app. Also, we have a variety of local music and local podcast producers available on our radio access 102.5 app, and you can check everything out at Dakota Access for Jason Thomas. I'm Tom Burke. Have a great day.

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

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