00:00:31,800 S1: Good evening everybody. 00:00:35,720 S2: Good evening. There we go. Good evening. 00:00:39,880 S2: Shall we bow our heads? Heavenly father, we pose at the start of this meeting to acknowledge that leadership carries weight and responsibility. We ask for wisdom for these commissioners and county officials as they deliberate and make decisions that affect the people of Burley County grant them clarity of thought, integrity and judgment, and a genuine desire to serve the common good. We pray for all who serve our community through county departments and public offices, strengthening them in their work and help them to carry out their duties with fairness and compassion. Today, we also lift up our first responders, our law enforcement officers, firefighters, EMS personnel, dispatchers and all who respond when others are in crisis. Protect them as they serve. Give them courage in danger, calm and chaos and sound judgment in critical moments. Be especially near to their families who quietly share the burden of long hours, uncertainty and sacrifice. Surround their homes with peace and strength. Guide. This meeting may be conducted with respect, thoughtful discussion, and commitment to the well-being of the entire community. Amen. 00:02:12,360 S2: I pledge allegiance to the flag. 00:02:17,440 S1: And to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 00:02:26,720 S3: Thank you, I appreciate that. 00:02:37,320 S3: Okay. Before I call the February 17th meeting of the Berkeley County Park Board to order, I should probably talk a little bit about why some of you are here. Um, I think there may be some misunderstanding if you're here to discuss an OHV ordinance, that's not going to. That's not what's going on tonight. Um, we will have a public comment period within the county park board, and then we'll also have a public comment period in the Burley County Commission. But those are typically reserved for items that are not on the agenda. And so the OHV thing and some other things. Um, Missus Gerrans asked to speak and um, and she wanted to be under public comment. However, her issue is going to be covered under item eight F. So, Susan, um, public comment would not be the time to speak on that. The the item would be eight f in the agenda. 00:03:56,480 Um, S3: there is a public comment policy for Burleigh County. It may be available during each agenda item at the discretion of the chair. And that's what I was just referring to with Mrs. Grant's time limit and appropriateness at the discretion of the chair, is restricted to Burley County residents and landowners. Presenter must sign in with a name and address on the forum provided. It must be pertinent to Burley County. May not interfere with the orderly conduct of the regular meeting. May not be defamatory, abusive, harassing or unlawful. Should not repeat items already presented during public comment period. Um, that whole thing there is about saving time for everybody in the room, but um, public may sign the form and signify if they disagree or agree rather than speaking if their comments do not add to the conversation, and it may be prohibited if an alternative procedure exists to bring that particular type of comment public comment before the entity. The public comment includes confidential or exempt information, or the public comment is otherwise prohibited by law. So there are some reasons that you may not be able to speak. Um, and keep in mind, the public comment policy is a limited public forum. Misinformation presented may be corrected by the chair or another board member. Speakers straying from the subject matter may be guided back to the original topic for the sake of time. So again, before I convene the Burleigh County Park Board, I'll ask Burley County State's Attorney lawyer to give us just a little briefing on what's going to happen with the OHV conversation. 00:05:48,620 S4: Thank you. Chair. Bittner. Commissioners. Um, the procedure for the commission to adopt an ordinance or a resolution as an ordinance under the Home Rule Charter is on the Burleigh County website under the Home Rule Charter page. And so that's kind of what I'll go through. This is an ordinance that is being proposed through the Board of County commissioners. So that's the procedure that needs to be followed. Um, the first thing that happens is a proposed ordinance or resolution is provided to the Burley County Commissioners. Then there's a first reading at a public meeting consisting of an announcement at the title. Full copies of that proposed ordinance and resolution are made available to the public through the Burley County Auditor's Office and likely through the website. So today, we don't actually have a proposed ordinance before the commission. Um, what's happening is there's a draft that's been provided for the commissioners to take a look at and see if that's the proposed ordinance that they want to go forward with. If that is the one, then we're going on to step two, which is the first reading at a public meeting. So a public meeting will happen after the proposed ordinance is basically reviewed and the draft is approved by the commission. Then a public hearing is held for the first time, and then a second public hearing as outlined in that procedure on the website. 00:07:05,170 S1: Okay. 00:07:06,450 S3: Thank you. 00:07:06,850 S4: Do you have any questions? 00:07:08,450 S3: Commissioners. Any questions for state's attorney? I don't see any. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So any of you folks that are in the room, specifically if you wanted to come here and talk about this OHV ordinance, we're not going to do that. Okay. So with that, I'm going to call the February 17th, 2026 meeting of the Burleigh County Park Board to order. First item is roll call members. 00:07:31,130 S5: Commissioner Herman here. Commissioner Boehm here. Commissioner Woodcock here. Commissioner Munson here. Commissioner bacon. Here. Commissioner Schwab here. Chairman. Bitner here. 00:07:40,690 S3: Next item is the approval of the agenda for the county park board. 00:07:43,810 S1: Commissioners move. 00:07:45,110 S3: To approve. 00:07:45,870 S5: Second. 00:07:46,430 S3: Motion and second to approve the agenda. Any further discussion? Seeing none called roll. 00:07:50,790 S5: Commissioner Boehm. Yes. Commissioner. Woodcock. Yes. Commissioner. Munson. Yes. Commissioner. Baskin. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Schwab. Yes. Commissioner. Herman. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 00:07:59,510 S3: Yes. Motion carries. Next item is public comment. And of course, everybody heard that discussion regarding public comment. So if you wish to make public comment on some other item that's not on the agenda. Um, feel free to come up to the podium. Uh, sign in and give your name for the record. 00:08:21,150 S3: Second call, public comment. Period. Anybody wish to speak? Come on up to the podium. Third call. Seeing none, I'll close the public comment, period. Move on to Commissioner Munson. Um, consideration of knife landing, fish cleaning, station operation and maintenance agreement. And park maintenance tech job description. Commissioner Munson. 00:08:41,830 S5: Mr. chair, can. 00:08:42,430 S3: We back up. 00:08:42,870 S5: One for approval of the minutes? 00:08:47,170 S3: Yeah, we sure can. I'll move to approve the minutes of the January 5th meeting. 00:08:50,930 S5: Second. 00:08:51,730 S3: Okay. Motion and second to approve. The minutes rolled. Right on. Pass. Any further discussion? Call the. 00:08:57,090 S5: Roll. Commissioner Wilcox. Yes. Commissioner Munson. Yes. Commissioner Botkin. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Commissioner. Herman. Yes. Commissioner. Bane. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. 00:09:05,690 S3: Yes. Motion carries. Put a check mark on the wrong item. 00:09:09,610 S5: All right, Mr. Chair. 00:09:11,410 S3: With your encouragement to reach out to the Game and Fish department in reference to the fish cleaning station at night landing. Um, I did reach out to them and talk to them about maintenance and or repairs of that fish cleaning station. Uh, the conversation turned to an annual agreement that has been had with the the game and fish that they do reimburse the county, uh, for certain items cleaning, sanitizing, and repairing the fish cleaning station. They do not, however, offer assistance in fixing the station. So in front of you, you have the agreement that the game and fish is offering up to $3,500 a year for those items cleaning, repairing and maintaining that station. With that, I will move to approve the agreement. 00:10:09,150 S5: Second. Okay. 00:10:11,430 S3: I did have a chance to review that. So we have a motion and a second to approve any further discussion. Commissioner Baskin. 00:10:18,390 S5: Um, good agreement going forward. 00:10:21,230 S6: So on a year to year basis, um, what's the county cost for that? Because it's up to $3,500 over that. What is the annual expenditure for the county side? Because still an asset that we need to have in the county. And glad we have the game and fish portion of this to offset those costs. 00:10:43,490 What are the costs? S3: Well, and that's what we're going to when we get into the job description of the the employee, we will have to track their time. The amount of time that they're spending, sanitizing and cleaning repairs depends on. And I apologize for the comment, but last year we cleaned geese out of the fish cleaning station. Um, and. 00:11:03,850 S6: They don't go through the grinder the same. 00:11:05,170 S3: Way. Don't go to the grinder the same way as a walleye does. I don't understand that. But, um, so it depends on how many residents try to put geese down. The fish cleaning station would be depending on the cost that we would incur. Luckily, in that incident, we didn't break anything. Uh, it was a matter of an employee going out, dislodging, cleaning out all of those things. The other thing that they do cover in this is also the pumping of the the waste that is in the bottom of the fishing station, and that happens weekly. 00:11:47,630 Um, Auditor Koski, do you recall the cost of that weekly pumping, or was that just the annual fee that we reached out to? S5: Offhand, I don't have a number of something we could probably find for you. 00:11:50,670 S3: Yeah, yeah. So we would have to put together an estimated. I would see us easily using that $3,500 annually to, uh, just to keep take care of that one, especially when you consider the pumping weekly so. 00:12:04,150 S6: That just something you'd work into the regular budget. 00:12:06,190 S3: Yep yep yep. 00:12:10,270 S7: Okay. I, um, it came to my attention is just totally irrelevant to this. But there is somebody around here that actually takes fish waste and turns it into fertilizer. 00:12:26,150 S5: Yeah. 00:12:27,310 S7: For real. And I mean, in the actual business that's taking the fish waste. This guy has somebody that drops off. Um, there's a bow hunting group that loves to bow hunt carp down on the river, and apparently that's his source of supply for fish. And then they come out and they, I mean, they they dump off. I guess the word would be boatloads of carp. 00:12:53,210 S7: Um, but for real. And so that might be something that, um, you know, could, could reduce those costs of pumping and some, some guys actually turning it into fertilizer. It's just a thought. 00:13:05,570 S3: Ottawa has reached out to the company that in the past has done the waste, uh, cleanup for us, but I, he and I will reach out again to try to find out who that is. 00:13:15,610 S7: I can help. 00:13:16,410 S3: You. Okay. Perfect. We'll we'll ask the questions. I'd rather let them pay us for the waste than us paying someone to take the waste away. 00:13:24,010 S7: Well, even if. Even if they were taking taking the waste for free, it's still better than paying. When. Especially when it's turning into fertilizer. 00:13:31,330 S3: Yeah. 00:13:31,970 S6: Dump it at the Missouri Valley complex and the community gardens. 00:13:34,590 S8: There you go. There you go. 00:13:36,270 S7: Well, it's actually a from what I have gathered from the conversation, it's an amazing fertilizer. 00:13:43,070 S8: Versus. 00:13:43,790 S7: I had no idea. But anyway, maybe a sign for. 00:13:47,910 S5: How the pilgrims grew. 00:13:48,710 S7: Corn. But yeah, let's don't be grinding, folks. Let's don't be grinding geese, beer bottles or anything else in the fish cleaning station. So, any other discussion on the motion? Call the roll. 00:14:01,270 S5: Commissioner Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Baskin. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Herman. Yes. Commissioner. Boehm. Yes. Commissioner. Woodcock. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 00:14:09,710 S7: Yes. Motion carries. 00:14:11,910 S3: What is the job description for the park maintenance tech? Um, Pam, I know I didn't prep you, but, uh, this is, uh, your job description. Um, that was created. Uh, so I don't know if Pam needs to come up right away, but as Pam and I went through this process, We felt we would have better luck finding a part time 20 hour a week for the summer, May through September. Um, that isn't required to have a CDL. Could be a college student, could be an early retired person. Uh, and so we developed this job description. Pam. 00:14:52,530 S9: You pretty much said it in a nutshell. Commissioner Munson, Jerry Bittner. 00:14:57,530 S6: Jerry, you want the job? 00:14:59,090 S8: Yeah. 00:14:59,850 S3: You're you're just recently retired. 00:15:01,810 S8: It'd be perfect. I remember. 00:15:04,290 S3: You saying something. 00:15:05,290 S8: About. 00:15:05,690 S10: Is it paid? 00:15:07,810 S9: Well, it's negotiable. It's a temporary seasonal. 00:15:11,090 S8: $8.75 a month. 00:15:13,650 S3: Um, as, uh, Commissioner Bittner had mentioned a few meetings ago, one of the items that we're going to have to still work through is requisitioning the supplies, cleanings and toilet paper and those kinds of things. Um, later on, we have, uh, listed items for sale from the county highway department may be one of the pickups in. There would be something we would want to keep and try to utilize for this position because we are going to need to provide transportation, but job description itself. Um, I think this is a good place for us to start year one. We, uh, the last time we had a park ranger doing those same functions and whatnot, we did provide the truck through the highway department, an old one that was no longer in the fleet. Right. So so with that, I would move to approve this job description. 00:16:05,460 S6: Second. 00:16:06,500 S3: Motion or second. And if I may add, ask HR to advertise for the position. 00:16:13,260 S9: Yes, we can do that. 00:16:14,460 S8: Okay. 00:16:15,460 S3: Not additions. Okay. 00:16:16,780 S8: Yeah okay. 00:16:17,940 S3: So motion and second to approve with that addition any further discussion. 00:16:21,780 S8: Call the. 00:16:22,100 S3: Roll. 00:16:22,460 S5: Commissioner Baskin. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Herman. Yes, Commissioner ban? Yes. Commissioner Woodcock. Yes. Commissioner Munson. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. 00:16:31,840 S3: Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Panel. Thanks. Any. 00:16:39,840 Any other business for the Birley County Park Board? S6: Um. 00:16:40,400 S3: Commissioner bacon. 00:16:41,400 S5: Okay. 00:16:42,080 S6: Commissioner Munson, not to put you on the spot, but I know we've had some discussions about, uh. What the. Down the road the park district needs to look like. Um, given what, uh, we're working and trying to accomplish at the Missouri Valley complex. 00:17:04,280 Have you got any headway on on that yet? As far as what that's going to have to envision? S3: Um, preliminarily, uh, in talking with HR. Uh, the vision is to, for now that this position is in play and working for 27 budget, finding it to be a full time employee, that would be shared. Uh, between the complex and the park district, uh, to allow or to help in the planning. You know, not just the physical cleaning and maintenance. Now we need to start talking about planning. We need to have someone available to trace down the application for. 00:17:36,020 S6: Because it has to stand up as a department. 00:17:37,580 S3: It has to stand up. 00:17:38,340 S6: It has to stand. 00:17:38,940 S3: Up to the. 00:17:39,220 S6: Department. 00:17:40,060 S3: But we're in the 26th budget. We're not prepared for that. So 27 that will have to be part of the process. 00:17:45,860 S6: Thank you. 00:17:46,500 S3: Yep. 00:17:49,100 S5: Okay. 00:17:49,740 S3: Any other business for the good of Bergen County Park board. Okay. I'll adjoin. Adjourn a joint. Adjourn the Berkeley County Park board. Thank you. Gentlemen. 00:18:01,340 S1: Thank you. 00:18:02,500 S3: Um, I'll give them a chance to leave the room, and I will call the February 17th, 2026 meeting of the Berkeley County Commission to order. Uh, first item on the agenda. Let's see. What time is it? I guess, Thomas, you know, at the time. 518. Got it. Okay. Um, for those of you who are wondering, the time is significant to the keeping of the minutes. So, um, we're called to order. Roll call members, please. 00:18:33,760 S5: Commissioner Schwab. Yes, Commissioner Woodcock. Yes, Commissioner Munson here. Commissioner bacon here. Chairman Bitner here. 00:18:41,360 S3: Okay, so the next thing is approval of the agenda. Commissioners. Any additions? Subtractions? Mr. chair, do you want to add, uh, in eight f uh, a presentation by Susan, or is that. Um, no, I think we'll just hold that open for her because she approached us beforehand and we did mention it, and I mentioned it'll be an item F, so then I would move to approve as presented. Second motion or second to approve the agenda. Any further discussion? Call the roll. 00:19:13,040 S5: Commissioner Woodcock. Yes. Commissioner Munson. Yes. Commissioner Botkin. Yes. Commissioner Schwab. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 00:19:18,960 S3: Yes. Motion carries. Next item is consideration of January 29th Special Meeting Minutes and February 2nd, 2026 meeting minutes and bills. Before we get started on that. Um, there was a line in one of those meeting minutes that, um, I would like to have removed or changed and preferably just removed. Um, I was having a or we were having a conversation. 00:19:52,860 S11: Was that a special meeting? 00:19:54,740 S3: Um, I don't know. Which state's attorney lawyer. 00:20:01,300 Do you remember where that which page that was then? S12: Uh, was the regular meeting minutes. I believe it was. 00:20:03,860 S1: Okay. 00:20:06,740 S1: Okay. 00:20:08,540 S3: Let me find it. Bear with us, folks. 00:20:12,900 S3: Okay. 00:20:16,020 S3: On the bottom of page 15, the last sentence, where it says Chairman Bittner instructed State's Attorney lawyer to move forward with drafting an ordinance. That is not what I said. Neither one of us understood that to be the thing I didn't instruct we were. The goal was to look at the city ordinance and see how that would would play into that. So I want to remove that sentence. Full sentence. Yes. 00:20:48,360 S5: Okay. 00:20:50,360 S1: Okay. 00:20:51,480 S3: Uh, with that, Mr. Chair, I did review the minutes and approve the Or. Excuse me, approve the bills this afternoon, and I would move to approve the January 29th meeting. Minus that sentence that says Chairman Bittner instructed lawyer to move forward with drafting an ordinance to reflect the city of Bismarcks ordinance regarding off highway vehicles and also the February 2nd meeting or the special meeting. 00:21:17,540 S1: Sorry. 00:21:19,420 S5: Second. 00:21:21,180 S3: Okay. We have a motion, a second, to approve the meeting minutes. Did that include the bills? Yes. Okay, that was bills. And two meeting minutes. Any further discussion? Call the roll. 00:21:34,100 S5: Commissioner Munson. Yes. Commissioner Botkin. Yes. Commissioner Schwab. Yes. Commissioner Woodcock. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. 00:21:39,900 S3: Yes. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is public comment. Um, you heard the the policy and whatnot earlier. Um, Susan, your move to item eight F. Um, put your name down your address and state your name for the record. 00:22:07,340 S3: While he's doing that. Um, Susan, you mentioned that you had sent an email this morning. Um, I did not receive an email and I. 00:22:17,280 S5: Did. 00:22:17,440 S3: Not either. And Mr. Munson, did anybody else receive an email from. Okay. We did not get your email. Just so you know. 00:22:29,440 S3: Go ahead. 00:22:29,920 S13: Okay. So I am here tonight, and I'm actually glad you guys read the policy on public comment, as many people maybe don't know. Um, our state legislators actually passed a lot of this last session that mandate our local municipalities to have public comment. So I feel that our state legislators saw value in the public's, uh, I want to say, right to participate in these meetings to address our elected officials. Um, I'm not here to talk about specifically public comment, but I would like to talk about public hearings. Um, because you guys are obligated to hear from the public during public hearings. Um, that's what they're there for. Um, I've sat through a lot of these meetings. I've sat through a lot of school board meetings, city meetings. So I've seen how this process works amongst the municipalities. And guys, I'm here tonight to talk about how we how we correspond from the podium to you guys. Um, it's been a rough year. I don't think any of us are going to deny that. There's been some really contentious issues, um, that have been discussed. And people on both sides are passionate and have opinion. Um, you guys allow people five minutes to speak. You know, a lot of people are not comfortable coming up here. That's just not everybody's comfortable. But they do have a right to be up here. So what I'm proposing tonight is that you, amongst your guys's policy, um, between the commission and your auxiliary boards, that you guys adopt a policy and do more active listening. Um, I feel and I do, chairman, I understand you have the right to, um, interject, you know, in public comment, but I'm asking that you guys take more of an active listening role, which I feel that sometimes we get caught up in listening to respond, and we sometimes miss what people are trying to say or even don't perceive what they're trying to say. So I'm here tonight to ask that for public hearings and for public comment, that you guys support the people that come up to this podium, support your constituents. Give them the time to speak on interrupted. Hold the comments till the end and then engage with the speaker. I feel that if we're going to have respect between elected officials and constituents, we have to give a little bit on both sides. So if you want people up here to be respectful, I feel that we have to have the same coming from the commission. I've sat and I'm just going to bring it up. The last planning and zoning meeting. Chairman, you interrupted almost every speaker at a public hearing. Right. And that's your right. 00:24:56,880 S3: I completely agree with you there because, um, like in your case and, well, in every case, the information being presented was not accurate. 00:25:08,440 S13: Well, you didn't, and I'm not. I'm not going to debate it up here. I'm just simply asking that you guys have have some discussion with what I'm asking, what I'm proposing, because you guys are going to push people away from this podium. What? You're going to push your constituents away. You're not going to get community involvement, which I guess I'm kind of unclear on how you're going to gain a consensus on how you run the county and what your constituents want. So I'm just asking that we do allow five minutes, give people there five minutes, and then at the end, um, have your questions and discussion and engage. And if you feel the need to correct that individual, do that. At the end of the five minutes, I feel like I said, that's going to build a mutual respect between the commission and constituents. So. Okay. Well, thanks. I appreciate the time. Appreciate it. Chair. 00:25:53,730 S3: Commissioner Travis. And just so you know, and so everybody out there knows, I understand how tough it is sitting or standing at that podium and talking to us. It's not any easier being back here. Uh, and so I appreciate your comments, because one of the things that we need to do as a, as a public is be able to have the conversation and allow people or give people the opportunities that don't feel like they're being addressed or they're being belittled or they're being challenged. And so it was hard to sit here and be quiet. And I appreciate that because you are 100% right. 00:26:32,510 S13: Well, and I would maybe suggest that as, as a growth tool for you guys, we've had other commissions and school board do it, you know, look into active listening. Um, Bismarck public school board, we talked about that two years ago. We had a speaker on that. And they've taken more of a role in active listening. And I do think that that helps. Um, hear what the person at the podium is saying. So I appreciate the time, guys. 00:26:54,470 S3: Thank you. 00:26:59,790 S3: Anybody else wish to speak? 00:27:07,170 S14: So I just had a question on the ETA. 00:27:12,650 S1: Uh, name for the record, please. 00:27:14,090 S14: Oh, yeah. Jim Cook. And, uh, so a lot of confusion outright live, you know, as far as covet, huh? Oh, I thought you said covenants of housing developments and then Bertha County regulations. So a quick instant, we end up getting a double wide trailer pulled into a housing development where there's million dollar houses, and it's sitting out in the middle of all these beautiful homes. And I went through it with Mitch and everything. And so I don't know how that slipped through the crack. Other than they said, they asked him if there was covenants. He said no, but common sense would say, you don't put a trailer house in an area where there's $700 million homes, right? So how I'm wondering how that slipped through the cracks. I'm not blaming anybody. But yet when I want to put a in a strange, I call and I want to enclose my 40 foot deck that has all overhang, all the sides. And I can't put an aluminum glass enclosure not heated. Just to keep out in the summer winter. Unless I tear it all up and put in four foot footings. That doesn't seem, you know, I. And it's what we went back to before. Crazy regulations that can't weigh more than a few hundred pounds glass and and not big glass. So I'm trying to understand if it's going to get worse with DTA bringing in more rules. And we went through all that. The last meeting, a lot of people came up. But how does that happen? Where did it fall through the crack? I'm trying to understand. We should start putting a little stricter enforcements because. 00:29:08,210 S14: And now it's too late. 00:29:13,370 S14: Is there some kind of answer? 00:29:15,010 S1: I can take that one. Or unless you want it. 00:29:17,610 S3: Well, Mr. Chair, if I could go ahead. Commissioner Munson, the first part of that, my reply is, is, uh, Mitch is not here, so I don't have the ability to ask him. Um, I certainly would follow up with. I am going to follow up with Mitch to find out where how what it was. Is it a is it a modular home, not a trailer house. 00:29:41,050 S1: Type of. 00:29:41,370 S6: Thing? Details on. 00:29:42,210 S1: That modulation. Yeah. 00:29:44,250 S3: Um, but yeah, I appreciate the comment. And it is for us to to ask some questions. 00:29:51,010 S1: Okay. Commissioner Perkins so. 00:29:55,170 S6: First of all, it's not in municipality's purview to enforce covenants. It also and I brought this up in the past is what's the recourse if somebody lies on an application and Mitch isn't here. So that that is a question we'll reserve for Mitch. But if somebody lies on an application, say, oh yeah, there's nothing there. What's the recourse for that? Now the development their recourse is civil action. But that's not the place that we can get involved in. Because when I was mayor, we ran through this with a couple other developments, and that's not where we get involved. I don't know what the answer is as far as recourse for somebody who lies on an application, but there should be some sort of penalty involved there. You know, Julie, when it comes to the state side of things, I mean, granted, we stay out of covenants, but if somebody lies on a on a application. 00:30:58,690 S6: What's the the mechanism behind that? 00:31:01,650 S4: Depending on the circumstances, there could be a criminal charge for false statements, which is a misdemeanor. It just depends on what they're putting it on and what it's being used for. And. Yeah. 00:31:14,530 S1: Okay. Okay. 00:31:15,490 S3: Before anybody goes down that route, um, I think it's there's a little bit more information available on that because I was actually had a lot of conversations with Mitch about it. In your case and your subdivision. What apparently happened is that people believed that there were covenants that would protect their interest. But it doesn't appear we don't have any record of covenants actually being filed and being on. 00:31:42,450 S14: Record, person or with everybody. 00:31:44,730 S1: I. 00:31:45,530 S3: I have I am. 00:31:46,450 S14: Not and still it covers dogs the whole mess which could bring me to another whole. 00:31:52,730 S1: Thing. 00:31:52,970 S3: Yeah. I'm not sure about the exact location, but at any rate. That was the information I had, is that there wasn't a covenant question at the time. Um, when Mitch gets back, I'm sure we'll, uh, we'll find out a little bit more about it. But but even if even if there's covenants in place, that is not something that Burleigh County has any involvement with. 00:32:19,790 S14: Yeah, but we should I would think to. 00:32:22,110 S3: I understand let me explain why I go ahead. 00:32:24,430 S14: To protect the, uh what word would I use? The, you know, property value? 00:32:31,270 S3: Um, yeah. All that. 00:32:32,910 S14: Just one in the whole area. Something I'm not blaming, but. But somebody should realize, right in that area. 00:32:42,150 S5: Common sense. 00:32:43,030 S11: Tells you that that should. 00:32:44,310 S1: There should. 00:32:45,310 S14: He should have. 00:32:45,910 S1: He should have. 00:32:46,870 S14: Someone should have said, wait a minute. I better check because it doesn't make sense. Everybody knows where that is up there. 00:32:54,250 S3: You know, I'm not defending the thing that happened. Certainly, because I appreciate the thing. I personally would have a real problem with that too. However, Burleigh County does not look at covenants, period. And the reason for that is that we we do this public hearing process where the public is all here, and we talk about here's an ordinance. We do we all agree with this or not? Is this something we can all live with? And we have a vote on it. And it's and it's adopted as the. 00:33:25,850 S1: The. 00:33:26,810 S3: County ordinance like in this case zoning ordinance would apply to that when you have land like on my land. Um, if I was going to break it up and build houses and put lots and whatnot and, and I sat down and I said, okay, no pink houses, no whatever, whatever. And if you buy land from me under those covenants, then it applies. But the enforcement mechanism really is a civil action in court. Not not the county. We've had a lot of conversations about this, but that's the difference, because when I sit down and say, no pink houses on my land moving forward, anybody that buys into it agrees that there's no pink houses. And so then it's me and the owners that bought it that that need to enforce that because the Berkeley County Commission or the City Commission or whatever never said no pink houses. You know, that doesn't doesn't make it right. It's just the. 00:34:28,870 S1: It's. 00:34:28,990 S14: The only one I know that's happened anywhere. 00:34:33,350 S14: Somebody. 00:34:34,230 S1: Yeah. Anyway. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. 00:34:36,070 S3: We're we're going to look into it more for you. 00:34:38,870 S1: John Mellencamp will not be moving into your name. 00:34:41,270 S3: Yeah. John Miller. I just picked that out of the air, and. 00:34:47,350 S1: I wouldn't write it in my. 00:34:49,160 S3: I know some people like pink houses, man. It's just not. 00:34:53,160 S1: Me. So a. 00:34:55,760 S5: Couple. 00:34:56,080 S3: Of my name is Curtis Gent. I live, uh, northeast in the same subdivision as this gentleman right here. So there were two things that came up I didn't I wasn't prepared to speak about. So I'm going to talk a little bit fast. But 20 years ago, when we bought our house in Country Creek, second edition, when I went and looked at that house, the first thing that was handed to me by the builder was the covenants. Look at these covenants. 00:35:20,360 S1: Wow. 00:35:21,880 S3: Shops have to match the home base, which they pretty much do up there. Thank goodness. Um, x number of square feet, main level. Yada yada yada. There never was a covenant board set up, and that's where the problem begins. I know that I either emailed or talked to 1 or 2. 00:35:41,040 S1: Of. 00:35:41,600 S3: Burley County commissioners about this in the last number of years, but I would like the Burley County Commission. Mich. To consider that when they approve a subdivision in Berkeley County that the developer in this case it was mariners, that they set up a covenant board, that they are on the covenant board and home builder one, two, three, that they set up a covenant board that gets handed off to homeowners seamlessly so that there is a covenant board. That is the only way to regulate in Country Creek that you can have no more than four dogs. I have a neighbor that's had as many as six, and you can ride them there that big. They're really good. I have no you know, they no real complaints there. But there have been so many other violations of these covenants that's as good as toilet paper. I still have mine. That's where the remedy lay in this problem. So. Yes, sir. So who would the members of the Covenant Board be? I think initially it should be the developer would be one. And then they sell the lots to HomeBuilder, X, Y, Z until they get there. Whatever. Five members though, those are the first five members of the Covenant Board who have vested interest in building homes and selling them to ensure that they adhere to the covenants. So if you look on the street that I live on, there is a significant difference between the homes on the north side of the street and the homes on the south side. So, and the ones on the south side, I can pretty much assure you several of them do not apply, do not adhere to the covenants and the shops, you know, pretty much thank goodness they match the homes when you go walk around out there. So I mean, it's uh, that I think is something I really would like to see. I've been on this for almost the entire 20 years I've lived up there. So I've had conversations more than once over the 20 years on that matter. Um, second topic that came up was these Burley County Commission public hearings now. So I've been pretty much attending a lot of them here for the last several years, and I've had a chance to speak on a number of occasions. I'm not up here ever to validate myself because I'm never running for any public office. I'm here because of what I believe and what I would like to see the you all as commissioners accomplish. One of the things I've appreciated is that I'm able to have a conversation just like now. So I don't know the difference between public comments and a public hearing, but I've never once seen any of you intimidate anyone. Disrespect anyone. So, I don't know, maybe this guy has attended different Berkeley County Commission meetings and public hearings and comments. I've attended a number of public hearings also. So I, I agree to disagree on on that. There's there's a problem here when someone's going off the rails and we're sitting here listening, we want to stand up and say, you know, call BS. So I'm glad that you guys are bringing people back, you know, instead of letting them go off the rails. These things are recorded. And so we have this public comment where someone's going off the rails and that that gets shared and viewed all over. So, uh, but my main purpose is coming up here. Um, garrison diversion Conservancy district. So I've been following that. I want the county citizens to know that Burleigh County pays about 800,000. I have a couple questions. This is where I get to have a conversation. 00:39:22,360 Uh, how many acres are in Burley County's? Anyone? Can someone tell me roughly, S3: is it a million sum or. 00:39:23,760 S1: It's on the map? I looked it up and I. 00:39:26,400 S3: Okay, so it's probably over a million. 00:39:28,040 S1: Acres, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's it's inaccessible. 00:39:32,120 S3: How many? So 800,000 a year. How many years have we been paying to Burley Garrison diversion Conservancy district? How many? Since 78. Since 78. 00:39:42,620 S1: Right? Yes. Roughly. Oh, wow. Well. Or 82nd? 89. 89. 00:39:50,100 S6: Somewhere in. 00:39:50,500 S1: Between. 00:39:51,060 S3: Sometime we'll get to an accurate number. Someday. 00:39:53,060 S1: Okay. Well. But anyway. 89. 00:39:55,220 S3: Keep in mind that. Well, today is is closer to 800,000. It's probably more like 760,000 today, but it probably started. 00:40:02,300 S1: At like a. 00:40:03,140 S3: 50,000. But you know property valuations have done this thing an increase and increase. So. Okay. So you know it adds I looked it adds maybe $14 a year to my taxes. That's not the point. That point is the principle of this that everyone in Burley County should know. When we can save $800,000, look at all the other things we have to do to save $800,000. So we have how many acres does someone know on this commission about how many acres actually benefit out of this million sum or whatever the number is? Huh? Okay. On their website and according to them, I it was a little bit over 70 acres. 00:40:37,640 S1: 78 acres. 75. 00:40:40,280 S3: Maybe. 00:40:40,920 S1: But we don't have any idea. 00:40:42,160 S3: How they benefit. Do they? Do we. 00:40:43,960 S1: Know? 00:40:44,240 S3: I think it's up in the north part of the county where they're close. I think that that canal, like. 00:40:48,920 S1: Kind. 00:40:49,160 S3: Of touches Burley County. 00:40:51,200 S1: By that pump, like, you. 00:40:52,840 S3: Know, bumps into Burley County. Okay, so from my engineering background, I'm really struggling with the idea that someone's sucking water off of an open channel flow that has pretty crappy water quality, especially during the heat of the summer. So most of these irrigators are sucking from a groundwater because of water quality. So I wonder if we can verify that. So maybe it touches 78 acres. Is there really any benefit? Number one um, I listened a month and a half ago to the on my own volition, I listened to their last recreation meeting at the garrison diversion in Castleton. I'm telling you guys, the mill levy that this statute of North Dakota has allowed them to receive. They've taken in so much money that they've become drunk on it and literally stupid because they're funding pickleball courts, um, swimming pools in towns. Okay, that has something to do with water, but the mission creep has gotten so ridiculous when from the Missouri River to the east, so much of this benefit is going east. And it's primarily, I would have to say, many, many miles east of Bismarck. And now a big focus for Garrison Diversion Conservancy is the Red River Valley water supply. So I for one and one resident who sees no benefit. And I know that you've all started the process. They talked about Burleigh County and you know what their solution was folks. The the ask now by county. So we're paying almost 800,000. But it used to be you could ask for 50,000, like for a cleaning station or boat landing repair or whatever. We're going to up it to 100,000, so hopefully that'll appease Burleigh County 800,000. I don't get it, but I don't know that we'll have any success. But I hope you all don't give up on it. And I think the citizens should be repulsed by it. The last thing that I really wanted to speak about was we have about five candidates now that have announced or I think, announced, aside from any incumbents, which I don't know about any of you. Okay. And I know Commissioner Woodcock, you're not. 00:43:03,440 S1: But I still. 00:43:04,960 S3: Don't see you doing. 00:43:05,880 S1: The fish. 00:43:06,880 S3: Cleaning job. 00:43:07,560 S11: But you have to back up because I couldn't understand what you said. The first. 00:43:12,280 S1: Candidates. Those. There's, I think. 00:43:13,880 S3: 4 or 5 candidates, new candidates, non incumbents that are running. Right. And then I guess Commissioner Munson will be an incumbent. You've announced that you're not running. 00:43:23,920 S11: I haven't announced it, but okay. Your intentions, your intentions are correct. 00:43:28,320 S3: Okay, well. Well, then I must have. I don't know, I must have dreamt that one night when I didn't like something you said, I don't know. 00:43:38,220 S11: That happens very often. So you get confused, I know. 00:43:42,500 S3: Um. Well, anyway, I still don't see you taken. Even if you don't run again, I still don't see you doing the fish cleaning job or whatever that is. But anyway, um, here's what my ask is. Is there a forum? Is there anything on the county website where we can put questions forth? How can we learn about these candidates and where they stand on important issues like, are you okay with and have no problem with that CO2 pipeline wrapped around Bismarck in Burleigh County? Would you have been on board with how the county commission handled that? How do you feel about giving tax breaks in the county to AI data centers? Um, how do you feel about conditional use permits for whatever AI data centers? The stuff coming at us is endless. We're going to have fake meat. South Dakota is dealing with this. They've got a massive dairy pig thing going on, and they're fighting down their massive and conditional use permits. And the landowners around. I mean, are. Are these candidates okay with the commission trumping township zoning ordinances? Um. 00:44:54,110 S3: Okay. Let me I'll just another couple of things here. I'm not giving all of not giving away all my questions so they can prepare ahead of time. There's some really good ones on here. I decided to skip, but, um. And then, you know, what's your position on off highway vehicles? Things like that. Um, what's your position on cost sharing and public health between the city of Bismarck and and the county? I mean, there's I got a bunch more, and this was just a start. But I want to know. And how can I find out? Um, I don't have time to go and meet with every one of these, and I've only had conversations with one and I asked some questions. I couldn't get a written response, you know. Well, I'll meet with you kind of a thing. I want to know if there's anything that the county has where we can submit questions, like in a form that these candidates, even yourself. Commissioner Munson, even though I've watched you for four years, I kind of know your answers. But is there anything anyway? Someone give me some help here so we can learn about candidates before we cast our vote. 00:46:00,410 S3: Oh, I guess not. Well, we don't have anything at this time. I'm not sure we could. Oh. However, I guess that'd be a question for the state's attorney. Um, but if it was something we could put on the website or something, I don't know. That's a really intriguing question. Well, where every candidate can post an answer so we know. 00:46:21,130 S10: Mr. chairman. 00:46:22,650 S11: Mr. chairman. 00:46:24,250 S3: Commissioner Woodcock. 00:46:25,350 S11: The. The last time I ran, there was only two things that I was involved with that people could actually find out what you thought. And that was we had a rally out at McKinsey, not McKinsey, manakin, Manakin Grove, and there were a lot of people there. And they had we had interactions with, which was good. And we had also the League of Women Voters does something right before the election, and I don't know if they do it in the primary, but they do it in the fall. And we were involved in that. And they actually they actually asked the questions. It wasn't an audience member, but those are the only two things that I've ever been involved with were we actually got the state, whether we were in favor of a project or against the project. Yeah. 00:47:04,950 S3: The other thing that I know does happen, the chamber will put out a questionnaire to the candidates so that they can publish everybody's answers to those. But those are the only three that I know of. But like you said, there's no reason we couldn't because, excuse me, as a candidate, I don't think there's enough opportunity for us to tell the public what we think. So we'll look into it. How's that? That's actually a good. It's a good question, Commissioner. 00:47:34,650 S5: Okay. 00:47:35,010 S6: And the other one, too, is, um. Community access doesn't include county commission candidates either. Maybe that's something. Um, since other broadcasting this meeting, maybe that's something that they could look into as well. I know they do. The City of Bismarck forms and debates, but maybe that's something they could add to their palette for greater Burleigh County Commissioner Schwab. 00:48:00,210 S14: Well, I'm kind of thinking. 00:48:02,050 S3: That, uh. 00:48:06,130 S14: We would be turning the county website into a political forum. 00:48:19,210 And, Julie, what do you think? S4: Well, we probably wouldn't want to have candidate debates on the county website. That's not what it's for. No, I. There are other places that can do that. 00:48:29,830 S14: What I guess what through my statement is, you know, you get these. 00:48:35,430 S3: Comments. 00:48:36,070 S14: And you get gets argumentative and it starts getting out of control. So a person has to look at that too. 00:48:45,270 S3: Yeah. Well, I wouldn't be interested in like a Facebook back and forth commenting because that can turn into a crap show fast. But I would just be like, here's questions. And you know, that maybe can be worded. You know, you could take 10 or 15, 20 questions of the same type and just word it more simply. He mentioned he mentioned Bismarck Mandan chamber. Chamber. Brenda. Yep. 00:49:11,030 S10: They do. I would talk to Brenda. I would I would. 00:49:13,150 S3: Talk to Brenda Nagel. Okay. Um, and I think that would be right up their alley, um, because they're already doing it. Yeah. So to have some of Kurt's questions in there would probably would be a good thing. I'd like to see them actually expand it, because the ones I've seen, you know, they got, what, 3 or 4 questions for each, for each person. And it really doesn't give you the, the understanding because like he mentioned, okay, what are you talking. All those little all those different things. So that's a good point. Yeah. Thanks for bringing it up. Okay. You bet. Thank you. Chair Bittner and commissioners. 00:49:50,130 S11: How about some of the pipeline? Are they here tonight? Are they here or not? 00:50:07,890 S3: Oh. Another thing. Kurt, I think that covenant board, the other word for that is homeowners association. After the builders and the. 00:50:17,410 S15: That seems to achieve the same goal. Absolutely. 00:50:20,750 S3: But it kind of it could morph into that, right? 00:50:23,870 S15: Seamlessly hand it off to the homeowners. 00:50:26,750 S3: Okay. 00:50:34,830 S3: Okay. Farrand Castner. 00:50:36,870 S5: I. 00:50:36,990 S14: Live out at 7117. 00:50:38,670 S3: Moonstone. 00:50:39,230 S14: Lane, west of the. 00:50:40,950 S3: Curve. 00:50:41,750 S11: North. 00:50:42,110 S14: Of the substation. 00:50:44,150 S3: Is there any plans of. 00:50:47,350 S11: Creating. 00:50:48,230 S14: Turn lanes. 00:50:50,150 S11: From. 00:50:50,750 S3: Basically north of 43rd. 00:50:53,350 S14: Coming. 00:50:53,910 S5: Around. 00:50:55,070 S14: And. 00:50:55,910 S3: Going west to 83 in the future? Long term, set back up a little bit. Which road? 71st Avenue. Okay. And what's the interconnecting. 00:51:09,430 S11: And. 00:51:09,630 S3: The. 00:51:10,230 S11: From roundabout. 00:51:11,110 S5: Road. 00:51:11,750 S11: 43rd. 00:51:13,470 S3: Northbound. Southbound all the way over to 83. Okay. With the amount of development, the amount of traffic, there's no turn lanes. There's been a lot of accidents. And also the other situation. Why can we not get flashing lights warning the drivers. Um, south of 43rd. Coming northbound. Going southbound on 71st. 00:51:45,130 S3: That warning that the traffic or traffic signal is going to change, just like on 83. You got the you got the flashing light warning that the signal is about to change at 83 and 71st. 00:52:09,850 So why can we not get that on 71st westbound and 1804 S3: eastbound at the junction of 83. Even though the speed has been reduced, but because of the grade and the amount of heavy traffic. And also if you look at all these great big fifth wheels and bolts in the summertime, it's a lot of downhill grade. Now it does get reduced to 45, but if you look at the condition of 71st Avenue, with the amount of skid marks that the semis are jamming the brakes and the amount of ripples in that road, it's getting pretty hammered out. And I drive that road a minimum of two times a day. Six, five, 30, 6:00 in the morning and 330 in the afternoon. And the amount of school traffic that goes through there, it's huge. And I don't know if there's a warning light on the east and westbound of 43rd Avenue. Now I don't know. Is there a portion of 43rd Avenue? That's county. And then goes to city. Or is 43rd Avenue all county to the roundabout at the 26th Street? I don't I don't know what that territory boundary is because I know it's you know, Bismarck is not squared, right? Well, I can answer that a little bit if you want. Yeah. 43rd. My understanding. I think either Dan or Casey could probably give you a better information, but I think it's city from. Well, in town, I think all the way out to Silver Ranch. That'd be right there. 40s right behind you. Right. Dan, you want to answer that? Okay. 00:54:05,090 S16: Mr. chairman. Commissioners. So 43rd Avenue is county from, um, hey Creek Drive, which is to the west of Centennial or Centennial Road, about half a mile, and it goes to Roosevelt. Then it turns at Roosevelt City until you get to the end of Sylvan Ranch subdivision. Then it's back to County. So there is a section in there that is county. Uh, and then it turns back into city and then back into county. 00:54:30,300 S3: So that answers that. Thanks. And then to answer the question about turn lanes, because I just reviewed the, um, the 2026 construction program, and I don't see anything in there for turn lanes. 00:54:42,620 S16: So that's correct, that we we had not anticipated any turn lanes for that location. Uh, and I might have to you can contact me at the office and we can look into that and look at and see the program for it or something like that. And we can talk about that. Um, and then the, the signal at 83, I just wanted to address that, if that's okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Um, so that's state, but we can certainly reach out to the state and the city. Uh, Burleigh County doesn't actually own any signals. So all of those are run by the state and or city. 00:55:13,520 So but can they? S3: Can the. 00:55:13,960 S16: County. 00:55:14,600 S3: Do the signals on 71st? I know 1804, 1806, that state. But even coming down westbound on 71st to 83, that's county. 00:55:29,080 S11: No. 00:55:29,680 S3: And there's no warning light above that. No signal going to change. 00:55:34,040 S16: Right. We don't actually own the signal there. Right. So but we could reach out to the state and or city and find out if that's feasible. You know, they have they have them on highway 83. You want on us 83. I'm not sure if that's something that can be added to, um, the westbound lanes of 71st. So that's something we'll have to look into. 00:55:50,800 S3: 71st is County though. 00:55:52,520 S16: Correct. But the signal is not. 00:55:54,440 S15: But. 00:55:55,200 S3: The warning light to do a flashing warning light back about a mile, somewhere in the vicinity of west of memory fireworks before they creep over the top of the hill, do a flashing signal light there that the signal is due to change. 00:56:15,780 S16: Yes, sir. I understand what you're saying, and what I'm saying is, since that's not our light. Those have to be all incorporated together. And those have to talk in order for it to flash at the correct time. So those are things we'd have to reach out to the city of Bismarck and or state of North Dakota. 00:56:31,700 S6: Dan, would that be best addressed through MPO? 00:56:34,820 S16: Uh, possibly. Okay. You have a policy board meeting tomorrow. 00:56:39,220 S6: Uh, we had one today. 00:56:40,540 S16: It was today. Okay. 00:56:41,380 S6: So, uh, but if you want to look into that and get back to me, I can put that on the agenda for the next one. 00:56:46,860 S16: Yeah, I'll look into it. I'll contact Gabe from the city and find out if that's there light or if the state actually owns the light sometimes. Um, it could be a city light on a state highway or US highway in the circumstance. So I'll reach out and find out who actually controls that. 00:57:00,820 S3: Thank you. Okay. So what what about, you know, on 43rd at that intersection, 43rd and 71st Avenue. 00:57:10,160 S16: You're talking Centennial Road? 00:57:11,880 S3: Well, Centennial basically. Yeah. Centennial goes all the way north to the curve, and then it turns into 71st Avenue. 00:57:18,640 S16: So. 00:57:19,120 S3: But Centennial and 43rd. 00:57:26,000 Can we get anything there? S16: Um. Same scenario. We own the roadways, but we don't own the signal. And the signal is actually timed by the city of Bismarck. So that's another one that I will have to reach out and find out if that's something we can incorporate. So. And what the cost associated with that would be okay. Does that make sense to you. 00:57:41,800 S3: Well it's good. It's a real good points. Um. Thanks, Dan. Um, obviously we'll be looking into it. That's a good point. We appreciate. 00:57:49,400 S14: I have. 00:57:50,000 S3: You know, with with the amount of traffic. 00:57:52,000 S14: That's out. 00:57:52,480 S3: There, you know, and the amount of truck traffic is huge. And, um, you know, what would it take? I mean, I know it's money and it's revenue and it's, you know, whatever you want to call it to. You know, we finally got the curves somewhat fixed. What? The turn lanes. And now they alleviated, you know, some accidents, but obviously not all of them. And but trying to get some turn lanes or, you know, center turn lane or at the due side turn lanes, expand the width and do right turn lanes. We're just we got to come up with something out there. I know you know traffic. You know, they're going to run stop signs. They're going to do this and you know whatever. But um, we've been out there 25 years. And obviously the the growth of traffic is huge because it's become a major bypass for campers, boats, semis, whatever. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you bringing it up because like I said, I just reviewed the 2026 project list and that's only 12,202,000. 00:59:07,720 S13: Something. 00:59:08,240 S3: For 26. So we'll see what we can do. Maybe next year. All right. Thanks for your time. Thank you for. Appreciate it. It's good. Comments. So. 00:59:18,240 S3: Anybody else. Okay. 00:59:34,360 S17: First off I'd like to commend my commissioners here how you handle the city situation. Um, I was in that situation. 00:59:41,640 S6: Name? 00:59:41,840 S17: For the record. Uh, David Fisher. Um, I was in the city. That seemed really unethical how they were moving that line across. Um, we had no benefit with septic and and rural water and kind of being more of an a community. Um, my question, though, is why are we not taking any comments on OVS tonight? When we had two hearings previously where public was speaking on OVS. Um, because you are changing some rules and regulations around our area, and I think ethically it would be fair if we continue the topic before we had a lawyer draft up documentation, maybe hear both sides of the argument, you know, just out of curiosity, but I'd like an answer on that. 01:00:35,460 Or do you guys have your decision kind of made, or do you know what direction you're going with that? S3: No, we don't know. 01:00:37,660 S17: Just kind of vetting it out. Um, yeah. It's just more secure. 01:00:41,100 S3: I'll just tell you where we're at. Yeah. Um, you know, the public came to us, uh, making a request. And so the staff that has that in their wheelhouse to do. Um, the issue was at the time, the city ordinance about OVS and how that could apply to the county, and the direction was that that he get Ahold of the city ordinance and see how that would fit with the county ordinance, and then just essentially just put it together and bring it back to this board for consideration. And so there is no two sides to it. There is no debate to it yet, because there's nothing that we're even moving forward with. So for there to end up being a public hearing, there needs to be something to have a hearing about. Right. And so just having the conversation today is a moot point, because I'm sure there will be changes and and whatnot before we ever get to the point of kind of a final draft. Then answer your question. 01:01:47,520 S17: Right. I just it'd be nice to see that both sides of that argument before we draft like. Like I said, you guys have done a fine job of keeping city regulations out of the county. We're not like the city. And and that being said, we run under different sets of problems. And I understand, you know, so looking at a city ordinance in an area that we we've had established trails in Burleigh County, some of them have been in the ditch over 30 years. Just, you know, some of these housing developments have actually built around these trails that have existed over 30 years. If you guys think back, if you look on 71st, there's been a two track trail in that ditch, 12 or 25 years south of 66. Same situation. So I just more of a curious question. You know, what's not sure out of anger or anything, but sure. Um, you know. 01:02:38,180 S3: I think, I think I explained that we're not here to discuss that tonight, but. Yeah. Go ahead, Commissioner Wilcox. 01:02:44,180 S11: The I assume it's a proposed ordinance is in our packet tonight. 01:02:51,180 Have those been distributed to the public at all? S3: No, it's just a uh. No, it's it's. 01:02:53,720 S11: Why can't we. Why can't? So they can. We will. 01:02:56,360 S17: It seems like it's been really quiet and it's been pushed through really fast, guys. And it's it's not. 01:03:01,480 S3: No. There's a long process to get there. 01:03:03,920 S17: And that's kind of how the public seem to do. So I just I want you guys to maybe address that. We need to be really transparent when we start doing these hearings. And I would appreciate that, Brian. 01:03:12,880 S3: That was the point with bringing it up ahead of time so that people understand that this is a drawn out process. There's a minimum of two public hearings, and I think there will be a I don't know if the first one where we read the title is consider a public hearing, but there's going to be two separate meetings that only deal with that, or at least. 01:03:36,320 S11: Right. 01:03:36,960 S3: You know, that's that's when we will be talking about it, because otherwise it's just. 01:03:41,480 S11: You didn't let me finish. Why don't we have this available for the public? 01:03:45,600 S3: Well, it is available. 01:03:46,640 S11: Got it. We've got it here for us to it is. Consider It is public record. 01:03:51,420 S3: If it's part of the agenda packet. I don't know if we put that on the website or not, but this is a public document now. 01:04:00,620 S11: So it's so why can't the public have it. 01:04:03,500 S3: They can. 01:04:04,780 S11: You just said no. You just said no no no no. 01:04:07,540 S3: No no no I think you misunderstood me. I said, we're not here to debate it with the public. We're here just to present. This was just for the commission to take a look. Well. 01:04:22,020 S14: If I can. 01:04:22,540 S3: Chair and go ahead. 01:04:23,180 S15: And there's a good chance that the Commission will have amendments. 01:04:27,820 S14: To. 01:04:28,140 S15: The draft that is in here tonight. So. So it is public record and Koski can confirm that it's on the website as the document with our packet. However, after we discussed this this evening and read it, there is a good chance that there's going to be some questions for State's Attorney lawyer. There's going to be some questions for the sheriff's department as to is is this doable? Is it workable? Is it something that we need to modify. And so before we give a real draft to have a public hearing with the residents, we need to make sure the five of us are at least in agreement with how this reads, so that we can have that conversation. 01:05:10,670 S11: I don't know that I how can we get all five of us to agree before the public gets it? That doesn't make sense to me. We're doing it backwards. 01:05:18,390 S17: And I agree with you, Jerry. 01:05:19,990 S11: They don't they don't have any information other than the city ordinance, which we're considering doing the same thing in the county as a city ordinance, which I don't agree with. But anyway, I just cannot see why they if they want to look up on the website printed out, find great, but most people don't have that available or they don't do it. 01:05:39,350 S17: And usually before we go to a draft, we should hear both sides of the argument. We've had two hearings now where we've heard the other side of the argument, and we're not willing to have a conversation tonight about maybe some opposition in it. And there was previous comments made. You know, most of us are using these for work, which is really speculative. There's actually five dealerships that employ Berkeley County residents that you will be affecting directly and then indirectly, you know, there could be more causes, cause and effect to this than you realize. So it would be nice to have that freedom to speak out against the opposition before we even get a draft, before we even have to waste our time with the draft would be really nice. I would say, Jerry, I it hasn't been real transparent. It actually has been pushed to really fast to this point and it's been really quiet. And now as of the last 48 hours, if you've been online, you will see this has been blasted on most social sites. Hey, we're having an OHV topic about banning in Berkeley County. But that conversation. I didn't see anything in January. I didn't see anything beginning of February. So I'm just I'm curious why we're not continuing that topic. So that's that's all I'm asking, but. 01:06:58,030 S14: Commissioner Lucas. 01:06:59,830 S11: Item number 11 or 12, it says continued commission items off highway vehicle ordinance discussion. Are we going to have a discussion tonight on that? The five of us. 01:07:11,150 S17: That's what it claimed online. 01:07:13,910 S11: Well that's what this says. So we will have. 01:07:17,150 S3: We'll have a discussion. 01:07:18,150 S5: Yeah. 01:07:18,590 S11: So we'll get a feeling of where everybody stands tonight. I would think. 01:07:22,630 S5: So. 01:07:22,990 S11: It doesn't mean it's a final vote in. 01:07:25,190 S3: Well there there's nothing there's nothing written in stone. This is early early. 01:07:30,670 S17: And I'll let some other business continue here and maybe come back up so we don't clog up the the time here. But when you want to open it up, let us know. 01:07:42,250 S3: Okay. Anybody else? Public comment period. 01:07:51,290 Anybody else? S3: State your name for the record. 01:08:07,050 S11: Ken. 01:08:10,250 S11: Might have a little bit to do with what's going on with this whole situation, but, um, what I'd like to know is, do we have a actual form written policy on set backs? State, county. 01:08:30,370 S11: Townships and stuff like that that's available. And then who has the authority over the when, um, goes from a county road, farm to market road. Paved road. To state road. To Interstate. Stuff like that. Because, um, where I grew up at, my parent, my dad was in your guys situation and we had to consider all that because we had farm to market, we had prairie roads, we had state highway right through our own farmland. We had setbacks for, uh, consideration of all that stuff and maintaining ditches, which was half was tonight's conversation. 01:09:27,270 So I wondered, is there a list of that stuff so people can see it that is available to get? S14: Dan, I was just. 01:09:28,870 S5: Going. 01:09:29,030 S15: To say, Dan. 01:09:30,990 S3: Um, I think the answer is yes, but I don't think we consider it as a setback. There's a right of way varies. 01:09:39,890 S11: That might be the right word. I'm sorry. Oh, that's. Well. Utilities. Tree. Roads. Fences. 01:09:45,370 S3: Stands right behind you. He's going to explain that. 01:09:47,930 S11: Well, that was my question. So maybe I'll just step away and. And that's a fair question. 01:09:53,290 S3: Sure. 01:09:57,610 S16: Mr. Chairman and commissioners, um, the easiest place to go find a good idea of where our what our right of ways are and easements are, is our GIS parcel viewer on the Burley County website. Um, that's going to give you a rough idea of what's been recorded to a particular piece of land. Um, if the if it's not a statute, if it's above the statutory, it's probably going to be on there if it's been recorded. And Greg, our GIS coordinator, has has access to it, that's probably the easiest. The other, like when we do a project, we generally have to go down to the recorder's office and do a deep dive and make sure that there's nothing else that, you know, Greg hasn't seen or if it's too old that he hasn't had access to. So we'll get access to that by going and doing a deep dive and property search. But other than doing that, this is probably the best mechanism to find those right of ways. 01:10:48,990 S3: Okay, so say a guy doesn't have access to the web. You know, the we don't have an actual map or it's not laid out on any of our documents. 01:10:58,470 S16: The easiest way would probably just be call our office, and we can probably look a lot of that information up for him. Okay. 01:11:04,590 S3: Thank you. So appreciate it. 01:11:08,590 S3: Okay. Ken, was that good enough? 01:11:12,470 S11: Oh, yeah. 01:11:13,190 S5: Thank you. 01:11:13,790 S3: You're welcome. 01:11:20,110 Anybody else? S3: Going once. Anybody else going twice. Third and final call. Okay, I'll close the public comment. Period. Thank you. A lot of good. A lot of good comments. Um, next thing on the agenda is the consent agenda. We got abatements, special event permits and second approach permits. 01:11:42,250 Commissioners S3: move to approve. 01:11:43,610 S5: Second. 01:11:44,210 S3: Motion to second to approve the consent agenda. Any further discussion. Call the roll. 01:11:48,890 S5: Commissioner. Bacon. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Commissioner. Woodcock. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 01:11:54,570 S3: Yes. Motion carries. 01:11:59,850 S3: John Bolinger 250th Anniversary celebration. I appreciate your patience, John. Welcome. 01:12:11,810 S18: Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. My name is John Hollinger. I run a locally owned small business called Fanatics Events. We'll put on community and private events here. Locally, our mission is how do we create innovative, immersive experiences that connect, celebrate and give back to community. So with that said, today I'm here to talk about something we can all get excited about America's 250th birthday this year. I'm asking on behalf of a local for the July America 250 committee from this group for a $40,000, one time, $40,000 support to put on a a patriotic, memorable free event here at our community, with our residents and to celebrate again a pretty monumental occasion. So a little background in this history of this event. As you know, the Capitol hosted our communities for the July event for over 30 years on the grounds. That event was run by the local nonprofit, the Bismarck Mandan Orchestra Symphony. Uh, really, I mean, talking a lot of people who have grown up here. A staple event that you go to every single year. Um, again, historically, what we found the last couple of years, and it was very difficult for the symphony and a lot of non-profits to maintain all the things that go into that. Right. Putting the event on, gaining sponsors, all these different pieces. And so in 2024, the event almost did not happen. We would have lost an event. Fortunately, some people stepped up, made it work. But after that, the symphony told some city leaders and some some local leaders in our community that, hey, they just couldn't put it on. So a committee was formed and and in essence, a group came and approached our group and helped put these event on and said, we don't have any money. We don't have a venue because the capital had a construction projects going on, and we actually can't shoot the fireworks there anymore. They said, but we can't lose this event. And so with no guarantee of any return, we said we can't let that happen. So last year we were able to go out privately, raise some dollars and figure it out. We moved the event to the MDU Resources Community Ball, and we thought 3000 people would show up. And according to the data system that we can track who came, 9200 people came and it was just amazing. There was also some problems. The traffic parking stunk and we had no like traffic flow out because we just weren't planning for that many people to come. So with that, obviously learned a lot. Learn that our community is really, I think, starving for free community, things to do with their loved ones and to, you know, get off the phones and they come together and celebrate something. And so obviously this year, with it being the America's two 50th, we want to do it bigger. We want to do it better, we want to do it safer. And so again, we're coming to you to ask for for your potential support on this event. So maybe some highlights for the event. Again, it's going to be on the 4th of July. We'll have family programming, patriotic themed hands on activities for kids inflatables. It's going to move into the entertainment of the night. We, uh, we're working with a pretty exciting, uh, band that will start off the night. And then the symphony would play that evening, and then. And then we are ending with a fireworks show and again, not yet announced, but soon to be. We've actually coordinated to get a drone show first ever in our community, a coordinated firework drone show and symphony for performance, which again, something that honestly, a lot of people in this community, including myself, have never seen again, want to keep that event free, which is why we have a lot. There's obviously expenses. We're being very mindful of that. Our our fiscal agent is a 501 nonprofit. So again, our group has been, you know, hired to to to to put it on. But we have to go out and raise almost 125,000 of the dollars privately, which we feel confident in doing. And again, we're we've approached the city of Bismarck, which they they they've supported the event and helped step it up with some other local partners, the chamber, the CVB. And so today we thought we would like to ask you guys to see how can we as a community come together and help put on a really good event. So I had a bunch of notes. You know, you said it, Wayne. It's pretty nervous up here. Commissioner Munson. Sorry, I should have said that. Um, so again, I guess I'd open up the floor, answer any questions. I do have some packets I can hand out afterwards, but I appreciate the time to be here. 01:16:04,360 S3: Uh, Commissioner. 01:16:05,640 S6: John, is the state involved with this as well? 01:16:08,160 S18: The state is not, uh, and actually, um, you know, while I was at the Capitol, um, um, for, for 30 years, again, while the state obviously, you know, great folks at the state and work on the grounds and everything, there was never a financial support from the state. And I think that's. 01:16:21,040 S6: Just the location. 01:16:21,800 S18: Just the location. Yep. So so the state is not involved. And this is really kind of our, you know, because. 01:16:25,900 S6: I think there was a lot of misconception for a lot of people because it was at the state capitol grounds, it was like, oh, the state's putting this on. It really wasn't the case. 01:16:32,260 S18: That's that's correct. This is all it was all through and support. And actually the Burleigh County, I believe I used to be a supporter of this event as well as the city of Bismarck. But again, the majority of the funds are privately, privately raised. 01:16:44,500 S3: I think in the past we would put $5,000 towards the fireworks. 01:16:52,180 Um, where did you say the venue is? S18: Uh, the NDU Resources Community Mall? And what's exciting about that is it's a large venue again, obviously, you got you got a big field there. You have the bold seats. Our hope is we put our stage in the field kind of facing the river. Um, and so there's about 4000 people that can sit there. And we that's where the inflatables, food trucks, you know, things like that. And then we plan to do this year is, uh, is broadcast the performance on the video screen. So that again, I mean, it was wild last year. People were they found a gate that they didn't even they forgot about, like it was covered in ivy. People were coming through this thing. I mean, it was it was rocking. So now we'll have more of a formal plan for all that. But people can sit in the bowl and actually see the performance, and then the fireworks shoot off right in an open lot right by the river. And what's exciting about this, this location is in the future, obviously, you know, there's potential riverfront developments. I mean, there's just, you know, there's a lot of things around this area, the height. People can see it in North Bismarck. So, you know, the location is kind of exciting, um, for the future of the event as well. 01:17:49,600 S6: So Mandan and Morton County can see it really well from over there, right? 01:17:52,280 S18: Yeah. And I don't know if you guys heard Mandan, if you want to get in the rivalry. And I love Mandan. Yeah, a big Mandan fan, too, but, um, live in Bismarck. I'm very proud of that. And, you know, they are planning a epic July 3rd show, if you've seen that. And so, yeah, I think it's good to have a little friendly rivalry sometimes and maybe do something a little different and put our stake in the ground to watch what we're trying to do. 01:18:17,920 S5: Mr. chairman. 01:18:18,920 S3: Commissioner Woodcock. 01:18:19,840 S5: Um. I was I was. 01:18:23,060 S11: Trying to get the mural. 01:18:24,260 S5: Built. 01:18:24,620 S11: On the Provident Life building that got financially out of hand. So we did commit to that project, $5,000 from last year's Community Involvement Fund and $5,000 from this year. So that was $10,000 there. 01:18:45,180 And we had applied for a grant from the Fort Lincoln Heritage Fund Foundation of the what? S3: I'm now the Northern Plains Heritage Fund. 01:18:47,860 S11: Okay. And we got $35,000 grant from them. And then with the county matched that it had to be a matching fund. So we had 70,000 there. Now, I don't know whether that I don't know what stage we we we of course, getting the money back from the 5000 that we've already committed. But I don't know that 35,000. We never did get any money for it. But we applied for the grant and it was accepted whether that could be applied to this project, I'm not sure. I have to find out from their their bylaws or whatever the restrictions they put on it when they got it. So that's a possible source. And that was our matching fund was going to come from the general fund. And so that's what we committed already to that project. But that went by the wayside financially. So okay we do have a little bit of sources available. 01:19:32,520 S18: And obviously this is one one time request. You know of this. You know we want to it's a big birthday of the of the country. And this you know there is not for what I know. And there's some smaller things planned. But I mean this this would be our, our, our city, our counties, you know, kind of celebration. And so obviously if it goes well and there's continued feedback, you know, we can always come back and talk about what that looks like in the future. But this is a pretty, pretty one time, a special special occasion. And you can see how it goes. 01:19:59,320 S3: I think that, uh, go ahead. 01:20:02,040 S15: John, you kind of hit on that now, what's next year in the year after year after? I would love to hear what's coming after this. I mean, we as a council need to consider this. This. Ask, but I want to. I'd like to hear more about the following years. You know, once you guys have set this up and established this. 01:20:28,940 What are we looking at for the future? S18: Yeah. 01:20:30,020 S6: It's a fracture, garrison. 01:20:34,020 S3: Interesting. 01:20:35,860 S18: You know, it's great. 01:20:36,620 S3: You know, there's a lot of burly county citizens in the audience. What do you guys think about how much? How much money do you want to put into that? 01:20:42,420 S18: Yeah. Oh, wow. 01:20:43,340 S19: Pull the sheriffs back. They're taking. 01:20:45,340 S16: Money. Yeah. 01:20:46,820 S18: I agree. Uh. 01:20:48,220 S19: Motion carried. Yeah. Okay. 01:20:52,860 S3: Commissioner Schwab. 01:20:53,740 S14: Have you tried the garrison version? 01:20:55,340 S19: You're trying to. Yeah, I was, I was. Commissioner Schwab, I was taking a lot of notes in the back and taking a lot of ground up there, but it's close to. 01:21:02,860 S15: The. 01:21:02,980 S19: Water, so it should be a water event. 01:21:05,420 S14: Well, it might rain. 01:21:06,620 S3: Who knew? 01:21:07,540 S19: Yeah. 01:21:08,260 S3: I would, I would say, um, I would say find an application for that. 01:21:15,360 S14: But they're giving big grants. They they actually said, you know where the grants are. We got to get rid of this money because the legislature is going to find out what they did. So help them. 01:21:27,760 S18: Out. Okay. I took a lot of notes. I am not really asking anybody. 01:21:32,360 S3: Well, I think. 01:21:32,840 S18: They're put on good quality community of life events for our residents. 01:21:36,000 S3: So I think there's some questions that we need to have answered before we commit to it though, like the, you know, what's what's the deal on the funding with this other grant thing and, and whatnot. So I would suggest put you on the agenda for the next commission meeting, and we have some additional information and we'll discuss it again. Okay. 01:21:53,760 S18: Yeah. Please let me know of anything we can provide or help with. Yeah. Appreciate it. Appreciate the opportunity of the time. 01:21:58,840 S3: Okay. Thank you. Thanks, John. Appreciate it. 01:22:04,600 S3: County engineer. 01:22:09,400 S3: Get page 26 to 44. Let me read it. purchase. Agreement and payment. Sale of equipment. Authorization to advertise for tractor bids. Purchase agreement and payment for skid steer. Proposed 2026 construction program. Ponderosa. Riverside Village resolution and authorization to advertise for road project bids. Welcome, Dan. 01:22:28,140 S16: Mr. chairman, bring lunch. We have quite the list tonight, so this will just start at the top. The first item I have on the agenda is to authorize the proper county officials to accept the vehicle quotes with Nelson Auto Center for new two new pickups and make proper payment arrangements. Uh, just a little bit of background. During the development of the 2026 Highway Department budget, the Highway Department set aside 118,000 to purchase two new pickups. After shopping around, it was determined that the current pricing of the market would allow us to purchase both pickups for less than the 2026 budgeted amount by $26,207. 01:23:03,420 04, S16: for a total purchase price of 91 seven 9296. There is a proposed resolution. I'd be happy to answer any questions. 01:23:12,120 S3: Are these new vehicles? 01:23:13,400 S16: These would be brand new pickups. 01:23:16,040 S3: This seems odd. We'd go from two different brands. 01:23:20,400 S16: Uh, the request came in for one Ford and one one Dodge. So. 01:23:30,320 S3: The request came in. 01:23:31,520 S16: Well. Um. And so, yes, though the engineering fleet, I asked if we could look at a Ford and, uh, the road superintendent when he priced all of this out, that Nelson takes care of all of that through their fleet purchasing. So, um, the Dodge Ram, uh, was was his what? He priced out for the the maintenance fleet. So one of these vehicles will end up in the engineering fleet, and one of them will end up in the, um, the maintenance fleet. 01:24:02,320 S5: Mm. 01:24:09,850 S3: Surprises me. 01:24:12,850 S3: I didn't know that we based the purchasing decisions on the personal preference of individual departments. 01:24:22,970 But, commissioners, what are your wishes? S14: Do the pickets run? 01:24:24,610 S16: I would assume they will, because they're going to be new specs. Um, the spec was one half ton and one three quarter ton. 01:24:32,250 S14: Move to approve. 01:24:34,450 S6: Second for discussion. 01:24:36,090 S3: Motion and second. Further discussion. Go ahead. 01:24:38,810 S6: Uh, the one question I had on the vehicles. It's not a long box. Is that going to be an issue as far as, uh, um, flexibility for what we may be needing those vehicles for? 01:24:52,570 S16: So you're talking the three quarter ton? 01:24:56,370 S6: Well, on the one, it's a 5.5ft box on the on the Super Crew. 01:25:02,930 S16: Yeah. So most of our, most of our vehicles on the half ton side are five and a half boxes. 01:25:08,430 S6: So all right, I'm just curious about, you know, flexibility with being able to haul things with a long box versus a 5.5. So that was my only question. 01:25:19,350 S16: And um, to further address, uh, Mr. Chairman, further address your concern. If you would rather us get two of the same brand. I have no problem with that. 01:25:28,830 S6: Is there a cost difference in that? 01:25:30,310 S16: Uh, probably very minimal. 01:25:33,110 S3: You know, I just caught me by complete surprise. 01:25:36,190 S16: Sure. No, no, because I truly understand. 01:25:37,870 S3: I think that we go out and we buy trucks and we get, okay, we got three Peter builds that happen to be the low bid. And in this case, you have a truck that is a three quarter ton. That's for, you know, 44 520. And you got a half ton Ford for 47 to 72 that just come out. And I don't I I'm not sure that that's how we should be. I mean, we. 01:26:06,210 S16: So we we did have quotes from um, from A.T. Ford public and I believe he received quotes from one other one. Obviously, those would have been the same brand. And when we priced this out, the comparable Dodge was right there as well. So like I said, if that's the direction, I can certainly make that happen. 01:26:29,370 S5: So, Mr. Chair, Commissioner Munson. 01:26:31,930 S15: Dan so why one half ton? Why wouldn't we just buy three quarter tons. 01:26:37,450 S16: For the engineering fleet? 01:26:40,570 S3: Okay. 01:26:41,210 S15: What differences do they need? That half ton as far as that. 01:26:45,330 S16: So an inspection vehicle okay. This one would. We're not really pulling anything for that. And and things like that. So okay. This would go into the inspection. 01:26:54,090 S15: Less overhead less overhead less fuel okay. 01:26:58,090 S16: Yep. So I and I and I can understand where your concern is because the obviously the three quarter ton is cheaper. 01:27:07,310 S16: So if if the desire would be to have it recoded and and go to a different vehicles and we can certainly have that done. 01:27:21,070 S3: Well I don't. 01:27:22,630 S6: I'm. 01:27:22,870 S14: Good with it. 01:27:23,390 S15: I'm good. 01:27:23,990 S3: Yeah. 01:27:24,750 S15: Call the question. 01:27:28,230 S3: Okay. Um, do we have a motion a second? 01:27:31,630 S5: Yeah. 01:27:33,830 S3: Call the roll. 01:27:34,870 S5: Commissioner Schwab. Yes. Commissioner Woodcock. Yes. Commissioner Munson. Yes. Commissioner bacon. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. No. 01:27:43,070 S3: Motion carries. Thank you. Go ahead. 01:27:45,990 S16: All right. Second item is the sale of equipment. Um. Action requested. Authorize the proper county officials, officials to sell the used equipment listed in the next page. Um, background. The highway department would like to sell attached list of surplus equipment. These units have been replaced with other units that are no longer needed by the Highway Department. 01:28:07,010 S16: There is a proposal resolution I would stand for. Any questions. 01:28:11,130 S6: Um, and this is more to Commissioner Munson, I guess. Which one of these vehicles would be suitable to pull out of the sale? Um, repertoire for, uh, our part time parks employee. The only one I'm thinking of is is probably the the Chevy 1500. Uh, would there be a need for a three quarter ton for. 01:28:40,170 S15: There was. 01:28:40,970 S3: There was in the past, and it could likely happen again. I don't know if it still exists, because you ask, there's a, um, there's a hydraulic, uh, dump trailer that at least we went half and half with the park board and the highway department at one time. And if if they were to be pulling that, then that would probably fall into that three quarter ton category. But it really depends on the condition of the unit. 01:29:05,550 S6: Right. So that was my next question. Dan, what's the condition of the three quarter ton unit ten? 01:29:12,470 S16: That's a very good question. I'd have to talk to my mechanic. I haven't. I actually don't know. 01:29:17,150 S6: So. 01:29:20,750 S6: I would, uh, make the motion to approve this list minus whichever vehicle is in better condition and meets the needs of what that part time position would be. 01:29:37,350 S11: Second. 01:29:38,990 S3: Okay, we have a motion a second. I think we understand the motion. 01:29:41,910 S15: So, Mr. Chair, I think the conversation is correct. And we'll we'll lean on on Dan's mechanic to give us that guidance. Um, half ton is really what we need today, but not tomorrow. And. Right. Commissioner Bitner, this conversation we had last week about the dump trailer. That three quarter ton. If it's in good shape, that makes the best choice, I think. 01:30:04,370 S16: Yeah, and. 01:30:05,250 S3: I think that, you know, he'll he'll make that call based on the conditions. Yep. Okay. Any further discussion? Call the roll. 01:30:11,890 S5: Commissioner Woodcock. Yes. Commissioner Munson. Yes. Commissioner bacon. Yes. Commissioner Schwab. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. 01:30:18,810 S3: Yes. Motion carries. Next. 01:30:21,130 S5: Um. 01:30:22,130 S16: Next item on the agenda is to authorize the proper county officials to advertise for new two new motor mower tractors as part of the approved 2026 county highway department budget. We have requested the purchase of two new mower tractors to replace two of our higher, older, higher power units. The new units will replace a 2005 challenger unit and a 2005 challenger unit. The existing units will be sold under public auction at a later date. 01:30:49,610 S14: Move to approve second. 01:30:51,450 S3: Motion and second to approve the bids for the Or to approve. Yeah. 01:30:58,270 S14: We're replacing these tractors that have 16,000 hours on them. Wow. If you go back to that conversation we had, they're very IRS. 01:31:09,630 S3: Which is good maintenance. But it's a we had that conversation before. And I agree that, um, these things are used during the winter for snow removal and whatnot also. And they're getting to be enough high hours that it's kind of risky for staff to be in that sort of thing. 01:31:27,510 Any further discussion? S5: Commissioner Munson? Yes. Commissioner Baskin. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Commissioner. Woodcock. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 01:31:33,110 S3: Yes. Motion carries. Go ahead. Dan. 01:31:35,110 S16: All right. Next item is the purchase agreement for a payment for a skid steer. Uh, action request and authorize the proper county officials to accept the quote with Acme equipment for one new Kubota skid steer and make proper payment arrangements. Uh, during the development of the 2026 Highway Department budget, the Highway Department set aside $100,000 to purchase a new skid steer. After receiving quotes from four dealers, we recommended we recommend approving the purchase of a 2026 Kubota model. There's a model number for a total price of 81,002, 59, 22 $18,000 and 18,007 4078 less than the budgeted amount. We did get quotes from all the major players. This was the cheapest one that met all of our requirements. 01:32:21,210 S14: To. 01:32:21,370 S16: Approve a proposed resolution. 01:32:23,530 S3: Okay, we have a motion a second to approve the purchase of the skid steer. Any further discussion? Commissioner Schwab. 01:32:31,250 S14: Uh, if in going through this, I think realize the amount of money we're saving, and that's probably going to go to crushing Rock, right? 01:32:41,010 S16: Uh, we have various other things that we'd like to put the money towards. Yes. 01:32:44,930 S14: So the bids come in. Good. 01:32:50,510 S5: Okay. 01:32:52,750 S3: Anything else? 01:32:54,310 S5: Commissioner Barkan? Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Commissioner. Woodcock. Yes. Commissioner Munson. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 01:33:00,310 S3: Yes. Motion carries. Good. 01:33:02,790 S16: All right. The one we've all been waiting for. The Highway department will present to the county board a proposed list of construction projects for the 2026 construction season. We can handle this a couple different ways. You could ask me questions directly about each individual project, or I can go through the list. 01:33:20,030 S3: I don't know that we need to go through the list. Commissioners, do you want to talk about any particular projects? I guess my only question is there a possibility of room to do any kind of things, like what you heard earlier, any kind of things? 01:33:35,910 S16: So not having any sort of design done for an intersection improvement or anything like that. Obviously when we did that one on 80th and highway ten last year, it ran roughly $1 million. So we'd have to figure out what we're where we'd want to cut. Some of these projects are tied to things like flex funds, which we were very fortunate on this year, so I just wanted to call that out to your attention. We ended up getting a for 2027, about a $5 million bridge project that will only have to pay for the design on preliminary engineering on. We also received a flex fund project for 71st and Centennial Road for a micro surface project, including a little small piece of 71st Avenue from Aleutian Drive to to Centennial Road. And that also includes lighting around the curve, which people have been clamoring for for quite some time. And then I want to call out Morton Township submitted a project, and they ended up getting a $750,000 grant from the state of North Dakota through that flex fund as well, to do some gravel and some culvert repairs. So, um, I mean, we did very well with the flex funds this year, so. 01:34:40,760 S3: Okay. All right. Thanks. 01:34:42,320 S15: So I would move to approve. 01:34:45,200 S14: Second. 01:34:45,960 S3: Motion to a second to approve the 2026 construction program. Any further discussion? Call the roll. 01:34:52,140 S5: Commissioner Schwab. Yes. Commissioner Woodcock. Yes. Commissioner Munson. Yes. Commissioner bacon. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 01:34:57,940 S3: Yes. Motion carries. Item number F. I just want to, I want to I'm going to have you go through it, and then I'm going to invite. Well, anybody that want to speak about it. But Susan Arends for sure. 01:35:11,300 S5: Sure. 01:35:11,660 S16: Sure. Um, Mister chairman and commissioners, uh, action requested is to authorize the proper county officials to create this Ponderosa Riverside Village special assessment district. Um, just a background. The residents of Ponderosa Riverside Village subdivision have requested that the Burley County Board create a special assessment district under North Dakota Century Code 1111 55.1 for the paving of roadways and for the application of chip seal to the existing roadways within their subdivision. We have received a petition with which what appears to be at least 60% of the local residents. The highway Department is requesting that the County Special Assessment Screening Committee meet to review the petition and consider the feasibility of the project, and then the predictability and solvency of the district. Recommendation for approval or rejection will be brought back to the county board of the next county board meeting. There is a proposed resolution to to, um, to that effect. Um, I just wanted to add that we're on like step six of the 23 steps. The next step would be for the screening committee to meet. After the screening committee meets, we come next to the next board. We set a resolution for necessity and set the public hearing date at that time, which would likely be the first meeting in April. So I just wanted to preface that whole thing with that. 01:36:31,160 S3: So so there will also be ample time to, um, have public input and whatnot. 01:36:38,720 S15: Yes, sir. 01:36:39,240 S3: But since Susan asked me ahead of time if she could present, I'd like to hear from her. Okay. 01:36:54,100 S20: Thank you. 01:37:15,660 S21: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. And members of the committee. I'm Susan Collins. I reside at 7439 Lariat Lane. Out in the Ponderosa. I have home and property that I've owned there for 30 years. And my family has owned pop property in the Ponderosa for 60 years. I'm here to voice serious concerns about the Ponderosa paving petition. This is an elective special assessment. And while 60% of the residents signed this petition, 40% do not support it. I am a senior on a fixed income. This elective assessment will cause extreme financial hardship for me and others who are already having difficulties staying in their homes. Safety hazards for children, pedestrians, pets will increase due to the increased rate of speed that is associated with pavement. I personally will be assessed for three lots with a projected total of $40,401 or likely higher depending on the bid. In addition, a 3% bond rate would be added over a period of 10 to 15 years. This results in a minimum monthly increase of 400 or more dollars per month, or 4800 or more annually. This does create extreme financial hardship for me and others who have voiced similar concerns over possibly losing their homes. The three lots I hold are on Lariat Lane, and the gravel road along them has held up very well for 30 years. It is easy to maintain an adequate aggregate base course is in place. The area of gravel road that is problematic to other neighbors has never received an adequate aggregate base course before or after the 2011 flood. One solution I proposed to have this referred to Hate Creek Township to complete the aggregate base work first. This is part of the construction plan anyway and then assess efficacy as this remedy is the issue. No additional extreme costs will be necessary for homeowners. It will also result in significant cost savings for Burley County, as this is only a fraction of the total cost. Thank you for your consideration of my testimony and alternate solution. I would appreciate additional discussion by the Commission before taking further action, and I am available to answer any questions at this time. 01:39:57,400 S3: Okay, commissioners, any questions for Susan? 01:40:05,000 S3: Any questions for Susan? I guess we don't have any questions for you. 01:40:08,200 S21: Thank you, I appreciate it. 01:40:16,400 S3: Um, hang on a second. Um, with respect to your your your, um, ask about additional discussion by the commission before taking further action. Um, this how do I put it? This is before us because of the request of the residents. No, we didn't. We didn't bring this up. Just like we didn't bring up the OHV thing or whatever. This is a request from the citizens. So there will be ample time for more discussion and public hearing as we move forward with that process. And I would encourage you to certainly stay involved with it. But I don't know that any conversation we have about it at this point is going to change anything. As far as the process, I think you said it's step five of 26. 01:41:10,060 S16: Six of 23, so. 01:41:11,380 S3: Six of 23. There's a lot of long way to go to get there yet. Okay. Go ahead. Dan, what you want to add. 01:41:20,820 S14: No. 01:41:22,460 S16: So there is a proposed resolution to basically direct the screening committee to meet and come back with a, a finding at the next county commission meeting. Okay. 01:41:43,360 S3: Commissioners, you have a resolution in front of you. 01:41:46,560 What are your wishes? S6: I'd move to approve, to move the process forward so we can have that discussion. 01:41:50,880 S15: Second. 01:41:51,960 S3: Okay. We have a motion and a second to approve the resolution in order to move the process forward. The question any further discussion? Question I have. 01:42:08,640 Dan, um, are you a member of the Special Assessment Screening Committee? So the who is? S18: Yep. 01:42:09,240 S16: Uh, Mr. Chairman, commissioners, the screening committee is made up of three people. Happens to be our portfolio holder. So Commissioner Schwab happens to be myself and then the auditor. So we we meet, take minutes. We make a recommendation to this board, and then we bring it back to you with our recommendation to move the process forward or not. Okay. 01:42:28,920 S3: So thank you I appreciate them. Any further discussion? Call the roll. 01:42:36,660 S5: Commissioner Woodcock. Yes. Commissioner Munson. Yes. Commissioner Botkin. Yes. Commissioner Schwab. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 01:42:44,060 S3: Yes. Motion carries. And again, this is moving the process forward. You're certainly encouraged to continue to be part of the discussion moving forward. Okay, Dan. Um, road project bids. 01:43:00,380 S16: Yep. So, Mr. Chairman, commissioners, the last item I have on the agenda is the authorization to request for our request authorization to advertise for bids for the following projects. Uh, project SFP 0001 26, which is Apple Creek Road phase two. This would take place from the end of phase one to our our bridge project east of 80th Street. So that's where our tie end would be. This would be a very similar project in scope of what we did on the first phase, which was a cement treated base and new asphalt surfacing for that particular area, and then some culvert works and some lighting to go along with that project as well. Um, second project is project 0188 mil, an overlay, uh, of 71st Avenue from 71st Avenue from Aleutian to Centennial Road, and the micro surfacing of 71st Avenue Northeast and Centennial Road and project 0189 the Morton Township Gravel Subgrade Repair and Culverts Project. Project 0191S 8077 North Ridge Estates Micro Surfacing and Patching and then project 0192 Micro Surface of North Washington and 84th Avenue Northeast. There is a proposed resolution to allow us to advertise for bids. I'd be happy to answer any questions about those projects. 01:44:27,050 S3: Commissioners. 01:44:33,050 Any questions? S3: I just had one thought. You know, we we did a bunch of work on 71st Avenue Northeast in the past. 01:44:42,530 Is this beyond the work that we did before? S16: So this is a yes. So we we had stopped that project in anticipation of a roundabout going in that intersection at some point. So this would be just, um, I wouldn't say an extension of what we did prior because we're not doing any widening. This would just be retreating the surfacing and re cement treating base and then paving new asphalt in that particular location. So this is part of those flex funds that we applied for. 01:45:09,690 S3: So okay. 01:45:13,290 S3: Commissioners there's a resolution in your packet. 01:45:18,050 S15: Move to. 01:45:18,490 S14: Approve. 01:45:19,090 S6: Second. 01:45:19,970 S3: Motion and second to approve the resolution. Any further discussion. Call the. 01:45:25,310 S5: Commissioner Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bacon. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Commissioner Woodcock. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 01:45:31,630 S3: Yes. Motion carries. 01:45:33,390 S18: Thank you. 01:45:33,870 S3: Thank you. 01:45:39,510 S3: HR Director binder. Um. 01:45:43,630 S5: Chair. 01:45:45,150 S15: Gentleman. 01:45:45,710 S22: Can I just ask a quick question? 01:45:47,750 S3: Sure. Come on. State your name, please. 01:45:50,590 S11: Dan Stevenson. 01:45:51,390 S23: I live in Ponderosa village. Oh, sure. The question is about the steering committee for the Ponderosa. Yeah. And there's three people. 01:46:00,510 S11: Okay, pull the mic down, please. Oh, there you go. There you. 01:46:04,070 S23: Go. There you go. Thank you. There's three people that's on the steering committee. 01:46:08,590 S3: Yes. 01:46:09,270 S23: And they're going to make a decision about whether or not the proposal comes back for you. They'll come back with either a yes or no. 01:46:17,990 S17: Right. 01:46:19,070 S23: So without any input from The people who, you know, want this to go through. So it's just up to those three people. 01:46:30,250 S3: Well, I guess I should clarify what those three people are supposed to do. Their job essentially, is to do nothing more than to, um, basically. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, but as to determine the sufficiency of, um, support or protest. So they'll go through the records and they'll, um, count up the votes and the, you know, the signatures and that whole thing. And they'll look at the amount of acreage and the lots and all and all the factors that go into approving it or denying it, and then they'll make a recommendation based on that. So it's kind of a it's a fact based determination of sufficiency of protest. 01:47:13,650 S23: Wow. It was a big work. 01:47:17,370 S5: I mean. 01:47:18,010 S3: All this stuff that goes on behind the scenes, right? Um. Pam. 01:47:28,430 S9: Okay. Chairman. Bittner. Commissioners. Um, my two items are actually follow up from the special commission meeting on January 29th, where we discussed the Finance and Treasury Department structure and also the RFP. And we also discussed the highway. And going forward, how that was going to work out. Um, so I put together kind of what we are looking at for the finance director position. Um, we don't have a CPA candidate, but we do have the deputy finance director. Unfortunately, a lot of our vendors that we work with, banks and other vendors are looking for a finance director, interim finance director that they can do business with. Um, just because of the past history, we've had some turnover, um, on some authorized signers. So they want to make sure that they're dealing with the right person. Um, so I'm requesting that we, in interim, make our deputy finance director the interim finance director. This is not a permanent appointment. This is just an interim appointment. 01:48:35,250 S6: Move to approve. 01:48:36,770 S15: Second. 01:48:37,850 S3: We have a motion and a second to approve any further discussion. 01:48:43,450 S5: Commissioner bacon. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcock. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 01:48:49,090 S3: Yes. Motion carries. Next. 01:48:51,330 S9: And the second part of that is the treasurer position. We left that as unfilled because the candidate that we had offered the position to declined. And we did go back, and we do actually have an internal candidate. And there was some confusion and confusion why this internal candidate didn't apply. Um, they were thinking that we needed a CPA for that position as well, and we do not. Um, I would suggest that we open it. The treasurer position up internally for a week to see if we can get the candidate, the candidate, the current employee that we have on file has more experience than the second person that we are going to offer the position to. We decided not to the first. She has more government experience than the first candidate that we did offer it to. So we do have someone that would have been qualified had they applied. And because we didn't get anyone to take the job because it got declined and we chose not to go with the second applicant, that we should be able to open it up internally. And if you want internal external, we can open it up. Um, but we're still going to get a lot of what we got the last time. 01:50:07,230 S3: Commissioners, we talked about this ahead of time. I'm okay with doing this. 01:50:10,390 S15: Move to. 01:50:10,750 S14: Approve. 01:50:11,630 S15: Second. 01:50:14,630 S15: Pick one It's like an echo. 01:50:16,610 S3: No motion and a second to approve the request. Any further discussion? Call the roll. 01:50:23,010 S5: Commissioner Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcock. Yes. Commissioner Munson. Yes. Commissioner. Bakken. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 01:50:29,130 S3: Yes. Motion carries. 01:50:31,170 S9: And the third thing is we're getting a little slim on the actual heavy lifting in the finance and treasurer department. So we're looking to open up an accountant position, an accountant 1 or 2 to go outside and recruit for that position. Um, we have a lot of, uh, different things that when we had the accountant to on the finance director side, they were doing, like our assets, logs and other liabilities and helping with insurance. So with the skeleton crew that we have, some of that stuff isn't able to be done in a timely manner. And we need to start getting caught up on things. 01:51:11,170 S6: Move to approve. 01:51:12,210 S3: Second motion and a second to approve the position, and I hope. What's the difference between 1 and 2? One is a higher level. 01:51:20,710 S9: One is a nine, two is a ten. So just a great difference. Sure. And it's also the amount of experience they bring. 01:51:27,230 S3: Well obviously we want to go for the more experiences I was hoping. Okay. Any further discussion. Call the roll. 01:51:33,630 S5: Commissioner Woodcock. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 01:51:40,990 S3: Yes. Motion carries. 01:51:44,030 S9: And the third thing is the request for proposal. And and I would like to say before I start with a request for proposal, um, we were lucky enough to have former finance director Thompson sign on with us to do some consulting. Not on a full time basis, but to help us with some of our adjusting entries. And we are working with him. He has signed a contract, and so he will do what he can to help us with our adjusting entries. And Commissioner Woodcock was instrumental in helping with that. So I'd like to thank Commissioner Woodcock, and we'd also like to thank former finance director Clyde Thompson as well. Um, so we did get our RFP back. We were hoping to get two responses. We ended up with just one. Um, it was a good one. It's Eid Bailey and they are one of the best, um, finance, financial services companies and auditing companies around. We do have local locations as well as they have, um, locations across the United States as well. They do have a government finance division. Um, that is heavy in the CFO and is the Government Finance Officers Association. Uh, which we hope to someday get either our treasurer or our finance director to be certified with this association. It is a good certification to have. So I'd Bailey is has come in and they have given a response and project one and project two. They were split up. Project one is the things that we need a CPA finance director to do, and we reserve some of that finance director salary for those projects. So they have submitted a response on that which includes your enclose some of the the Gatsby maintenance, um, our aquifer, which is our annual uh, compensation financial reporting, um, budget process analysis and then helping us with the budget process in general to revise that. That's project one. Project two is the policies and procedures coming up with those. Project one is the most important. We need to do project one. Project two, we would like to have that done as well. Um, but if we have to push that off until next year, we can and budget for it better. Project one came in at an estimate of right around 130,000, which is well within our finance director range. Um, project two, which is the policies, came in at 108,000. 01:54:23,280 S9: And I think the only one of the commissioners that has received a copy of the Bailey response is our chairman, Chairman Bittner. So we just received this on late Friday. Uh, Deputy Finance Director Schmidt and I have just gone through it today and over the weekend. So we will get it to the rest of the commission as well. But we are just looking at this is what we have. And we did have a very good response. 01:54:53,720 S3: And I did have a chance to sit down and review the whole thing. Um, they obviously are a well known and well respected firm and whatnot. And, um, if you guys want to take the time to review the proposal. Um, more than more than welcome to do that. Um, the only concern I had is all of the, the higher level people that they were showing. And the thing was all from out of the area. 01:55:24,380 S9: We do have one that's a CPA that is in our area in North Dakota. 01:55:28,100 S3: Okay. Because that's the critical part. You know, they they're they're certainly real top heavy on qualifications, but it's the guy that comes in the door on a regular basis because I don't want us paying. Part of the agreement is paying the travel. And, you know, the the rate, the travel and the per diem and the whole everything. So but because it's a, an actual dollar amount on the thing, I'm not too alarmed by that. So the question is, do you want to review the proposals yourselves? That's a question. 01:56:06,520 S11: Is it, Mr. Chairman? Is there an end in on this agreement? Is it for six months or a year, or is it an open ended time? 01:56:14,240 S9: They've discussed a timeline of this year for both projects. So the only way that it would be open ended would be if we chose to take project two and move it into 2027. That would push that timeline back. Okay. Um, there are no plans right now to have them as ongoing, but if we wanted to have them help perform our audit instead of our current vendor, we we could contract with them as well. It would be right around the same as what we pay currently. 01:56:42,600 S3: And by the current auditor, I think what you're referring to is the state auditor, you know, and so. 01:56:50,200 S6: So I think the bigger question is do we want to do both projects this year? 01:56:59,160 S6: Or are we going to drag it out over another year? 01:57:01,620 S11: Mr. chairman. 01:57:02,620 S3: Commissioner would give. 01:57:03,460 S11: Us another follow up. Are they going to help us with budgeting? 01:57:07,340 S5: Yes. 01:57:07,900 S9: The budget is part of project one. 01:57:09,540 S11: Okay. Do we have a budget committee set yet? No. Are we still doing that or are we going to have a budget committee and they'll work with it? Is that correct? 01:57:18,020 S9: I was strongly encouraged keeping the Budget committee and having I work with that committee as well. 01:57:22,980 S11: Any timing on that? Because we're rolling right up on the start of a discussion. So you are ready to jump in right away. 01:57:31,500 S9: Yeah, they would do kickoff in March and then it would be like April May. They know our budget timeline. They work. They've worked with several of the counties in the area. They've worked with McKenzie, Williams and McLean. 01:57:43,740 S3: Okay I would say do them both and get on it now. 01:57:49,380 S6: Yeah, I would concur. 01:57:52,460 S3: My only chair, Mr. Chair. My only concern would be obviously phase one. Project one for sure. Um, we're still trying to find a finance director. We're still advertising for that. Um, do we have these folks? Do you know project two, or do we allow the finance director to do that when they come in? No, I think it's a good, very good question. Um, what I got from the process leading up to this and then the review of the proposals and whatnot, is that the thing with the policies and procedures is for an outside set of bunch of ideas to come in, go through the policies and procedures that are existing. And there's a lot that does not exist, which is why we have a problem currently with irreconcilable, um, books. Because and that that's an immediate need, because that's moving forward into everything we do. So this is an outside look at it. Regardless if we put a new finance director in place or not. And I think the the need is so critical that I don't. Time is of the essence. In other words. 01:59:10,300 S6: I would move to approval to move forward with both projects. 01:59:16,100 S11: Do we need to approve both of them? 01:59:19,180 S3: I strongly recommend that, Commissioner. 01:59:22,700 S14: Second. 01:59:23,940 S3: We have a motion to second approve both projects. A further discussion, Commissioner Bachman. 01:59:29,820 S6: I think you're right. And the fact that the second set is for the outside eyes, we're going to need that anyway. So, you know. 01:59:39,700 S6: Whether we get it all done this year or drag it out over next year, that second project, that second phase is going to have to happen anyway. So it would be my hope we're going to have a finance director in place for that. Here's a fresh start and that might. 01:59:54,840 S14: Help. 01:59:55,680 S6: Get some better candidates too. So or have the ability to to promote from within at that point. But um. The exercise we've been going through hasn't really been fair for the candidates we've been receiving. So leveling the playing field, getting this all cleaned up, getting a clean slate for whoever takes over that position moving forward, I think is invaluable for the county. 02:00:22,920 S3: I would have to agree with that, because I can tell you that even if we hired a brand, if we hired a new finance director, tomorrow would know anything about the operation, policies, procedures, anything that's been going on anyway. So I'd rather have some things started on the policies and procedures side so that it helps to give a new person some better direction to begin with, because it's like coming in and drinking from a fire hose, you know. Any further discussion? Call the role. 02:00:52,960 S5: Commissioner Munson. No. Commissioner. Bacon. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Commissioner. Woodcock. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 02:00:59,380 S3: Yes. Motion carries. 02:01:02,500 S9: And the only other thing I have is just an update on the highway department. We did negotiate with our current county engineer, Dan Schreck. And we also, we are in the process of reclassifying the assistant county engineer position for Casandra. So we are well on our way for that. Okay. 02:01:23,940 S6: Thank you. 02:01:24,700 S24: Thanks. Okay. 02:01:27,460 S3: Thank you. Pam. 02:01:37,700 S3: County auditor Gorski, concerning auxiliary board applications. Welcome. 02:01:43,820 S5: Good evening, Chairman and commissioners. Yes. So on our auxiliary boards, we had one more sitting out there, and that's the Burleigh County Reorganisation Committee for the schools, and since we did finally receive enough applications for those positions, I figured I would go ahead and present them to you. 02:02:03,760 S11: Mr. chairman. That's my portfolio, and I would like to nominate Linda McDonald and Randy Strom for those two open positions. 02:02:13,040 S5: Second. 02:02:15,040 S11: They're both very well qualified. Uh, Linda McDonald has been on there quite a while. She's very well versed in the in the position. And Randy has got credentials with the schools already. So they're both be good candidates. 02:02:31,880 S3: Thank you. Motion a second. Any further discussion. Call the roll. 02:02:35,680 S5: Commissioner Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcock. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 02:02:42,640 S3: Yes. 02:02:43,000 S5: Motion carries. Thank you. 02:02:50,610 S3: Okay. 02:02:55,290 S3: I get tired here. 02:02:58,650 S3: I. 02:03:01,130 S3: Didn't get a nap. Um, Commissioner Munson, Missouri Valley complex committee request. Uh, Mister chair. Um, in the past, at this table, we've talked about, uh, the Missouri Valley Complex Committee and the work that they're doing. Uh, and the fact that we have. And I have needed access to staff. Um, we've used Auditor Koski quite a bit. Um, we are in need of using, uh, Mitch in the planning and zoning. Uh, as we get ready to develop the complex. And, uh, we do have some assistance that is needed for, uh, or from the county highway. Uh, so we've had the conversation and have had it in consensus, but I wanted to formally move that. The Berlin County Commission approved the use of county staff as needed by the Missouri Valley Complex Committee as we continue to grow. Second. 02:03:58,710 S3: I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Commissioner Schwab. 02:04:04,990 S14: What do you need from the highway department? What actually do you need? Because you won't sit and talk to me about it. You know, I'm out there fixing mistakes. We've got barricades out there. Now all of a sudden, you need staff. We had a meeting before the last meeting with Casey and the engineers. We can't force you to act. We've asked you. I've asked you for three years. You projects out there. Maybe you take a look at them. Nothing. Members know the thing about the. No, the thing about it is. 02:04:44,470 S14: You have seen the project list. We are short people up there and you want to go up there and take staff. Roads are our job, not developing the fairground. Now, I understand that you guys are looking for maps of the water and sewer up there. 02:05:08,050 Is that correct? S3: Correct. 02:05:11,130 S14: Do you want me to go find them for you? 02:05:15,090 S3: A request was given to Burleigh County Highway Department by the committee, and they were denied. And so all I'm asking is to let us talk to the staff so that we can get the information we need to move forward. 02:05:28,530 S14: You've been talking to the staff. Why didn't you go to the city of Bismarck and ask them? They put that in. They've got the plats, the maps. 02:05:42,370 S14: You know, I, I really have a problem. We've really structured that highway department for maximum work done, and we can't be pulling engineers and staff to do this and do that. We're short two people. So the question is what is the most important thing? Safety. I run it having these people run around inspecting docks and stuff. We are putting in the docks. We are going to at my direction. We're going to put that culvert in that collapse that should have been replaced. 02:06:24,270 S14: But it's your portfolio. You've got to run it. If you I'll run the portfolio for you if you want. 02:06:30,390 S5: No. 02:06:33,230 S3: Okay. 02:06:34,310 S11: Mr. chairman. 02:06:35,070 S16: I. 02:06:36,870 S3: Go ahead. 02:06:37,750 S11: I had a conversation with the chairman of the Missouri Valley Complex Committee, and they. They wanted to have a meeting out at the highway department because we've got a great highway. We've got a great meeting room with all the electronics, all the cameras and all the recording devices and everything, because I was involved with that when we first put it in. And you denied them the access to that? That's the one complaint I had. 02:07:03,010 Why? Why won't you allow them to have a meeting out there? S14: There is a reason for that. Number one, we have expensive equipment in there and we use that equipment to record meetings, etc.. Right. The engineers run it. So you're going to be pulling staff. Number two is we pay $18,000 for rent a month for this place here. There's a meeting up here where the commission even meets the meeting room. They got recording. We have. 02:07:33,290 S11: Control. 02:07:34,010 S5: When we. 02:07:34,490 S14: Put the stuff here. 02:07:36,970 Why aren't you using it? S11: Well, when we put that in originally when it was first built. That was supposed to be for other meetings of other other, not just the highway department. It's a beautiful room and we're not using it. All they want to do is have a meeting. 02:07:48,470 S14: What do you mean, we're not using it? 02:07:51,310 S11: You're not allowing anybody to use it other than what their. It was meant for everybody else. Well, originally. 02:07:58,630 S3: What I'm looking. 02:07:59,270 S14: At. 02:07:59,470 S3: Is. Mr. Commissioner, I want to address that little topic there. Commissioner Woodcock. I was there at the time. I don't remember any conversation about the highway department, um, having meetings for other departments. 02:08:11,630 S11: It was available because that was the intent to put all the recording and the TV and all that in there. And so other other county functions could happen there. We had we've had other things that I know of that are not exactly highway department anyway. I'm just asking the question. To me, it's a perfect place to have a meeting for the complex committee and you wouldn't allow it. So that's. 02:08:33,710 S3: It's a perfect. 02:08:34,350 S14: Place upstairs. 02:08:35,430 S3: I think moving forward, I would recommend the Provident Building for these sort of meetings and everything under one roof. 02:08:43,450 S11: In the future. 02:08:44,210 S3: Yeah. And I, I think that what's the problem with meeting at the forge building or here or anywhere because everybody meets here. You know, the water resource district, the planning and zoning. Um, what's what's the problem with meeting here? And and thirdly, um, staff from the planning department, I don't want to rain on his topics or whatever, but the planning department is short staffed as well. Mitch is having a real difficult time keeping his head above water. And I think to to just simply say the Missouri Valley Complex Committee, who is not county staff, this is outside people to come in and absorb the limited time available by our staff. Currently, I just don't know how we can do it. Similar to when we had the conversation about the maintenance guys going and fixing stuff around the parks. You know, we're short. We got a team that's supposed to have six guys that were too short and we can't, you know, like we had that conversation we just don't have we don't have the bandwidth pretty much across the county. And so I really struggle with trying to burden, you know, taking, like he's saying, taking engineers off of highway jobs to do something else is it's that's a poor use of resource. But Commissioner Barkan, go ahead. 02:10:18,390 S6: So first question scope. 02:10:20,310 S5: Scope. 02:10:20,750 S6: Scope of what's needed from staff because I'm, I'm not envisioning a whole lot of staff time. It's like, can you pull up a map here. Where's the roads, where's the sewer? Where's the water lines so that the committee can do his job. The other part of this is while that committee is not technically county staff or those facilities are, and those facilities need to be moved forward. So again, my biggest question, Commissioner Munson, was scope. 02:11:05,410 I mean, what are you envisioning from staff going into, uh, providing some information that you guys need to move forward? S3: So at this point, I'm a staff of zero. 02:11:08,930 S6: But but what do you need from the highway department staff or Mitch in the planning, which. 02:11:13,970 S3: So as we get ready to start planning the complex, um, Commissioner Schwab's team is going to have a big impact in how that road is staying, where, in my opinion, where it is, but how it's how it is also connecting to the other pieces and parts. 02:11:32,190 S6: So it's more a question of where's the infrastructure? Where do you want these? 02:11:35,830 S5: Where do you want the infrastructure? 02:11:37,310 S6: And we need to make that decision. The highway department is probably best. Planning is best. 02:11:41,230 S5: To. 02:11:41,350 S6: Make a decision on the roads need to go here and the sewers here and the water's here. And then the infrastructure is in. You go and start filling out the building space. 02:11:51,870 S3: We're not talking hundreds of hours. We're talking minimal hours. 02:11:57,070 S5: And again. 02:11:57,710 S6: That was the crux of my question is it's minimal minimal. 02:12:01,310 S5: Time. 02:12:01,750 S3: Minimal staff time. And again, at this point, I thought we had agreement that this was available. I will give Otto a lot of credit. He has answered to every request that we've had. Uh, he's had Thomas doing some quite a bit of work for us as well. We've been lucky to, to get that. 02:12:19,470 S6: Not dependent on this discussion, but coming back to, to planning. Um, we've had planning staff in the budget for quite a while that hasn't been filled. Not that that this is dependent upon that, but those positions need to be filled. They've been in the budget for a reason. Yep. So when you say somebody underwater, I ask, why are they underwater? And we've given the resources to not be underwater, but that. 02:12:52,290 S3: I can answer that one. 02:12:53,170 S6: That's part of this discussion. 02:12:54,530 S3: The director, for whatever reason, it's not, um, decided to move forward, has resisted moving forward to adding staff. And and I will back Brian on that 100%. He and I we've had conversations. Yeah. We've we've said hey. So it's hard to say. It's hard to squeeze more hours out of somebody who's already tapped out. Yeah. You know, I mean, it sounds like a small request. It is very minimal, but I just want it formalized because I think we have personally, I Personally, I think you can. You can work it out and ask the questions of the right people and whatnot without giving a committee any authority. You as a as a commissioner, um, can certainly work with other commissioners. That hasn't work. 02:13:46,100 Things happen, has it? S11: Has that worked? 02:13:47,820 S3: Commissioner, I think you will. He and I had a mr.. Commissioner Schwab has very graciously done everything I've asked him to do without a question. He is. If I've asked him. It has. It has gone through. Okay. So and I think that that would continue. Um, I, I honestly don't see the need for, um, the Missouri Valley Complex Committee to be calling the shots with county staff and making requests, um, simply because we're overloaded in, in every one of the departments we mentioned. And I know based on experience, that I could walk into the city office and find those maps and those things with, um, the water and sewer and that whole thing myself, that doesn't require any particular skill, and it sure doesn't require an engineer. So I think that it's kind of a much ado about nothing at this point, really. Mr. chair, there has been a motion and a second I call the question. Okay, call the roll. 02:14:57,200 S5: Commissioner Botkin. 02:14:58,840 S6: No. 02:15:00,200 S5: Commissioner Schwab. No. Commissioner Woodcock. Yes. Commissioner Munson. Yes. Chairman. Bittner. 02:15:05,120 S3: No. 02:15:06,440 S6: I would like to make a motion, though, that, uh. Um, Commissioner Munson, um, goes forward as the facility needs to be a park anyway. And as part of his portfolio, I think he has the ability to direct staff to get the information that the committee needs. So I would make a motion that staff provides any information or any materials that they need. Through the direction of Commissioner Munson, that the staff provides that second. 02:15:43,740 S3: For what purpose? Now run that by me. 02:15:48,980 So isn't that what we just did? S5: No. 02:15:49,660 So? S6: So the issue was having them make their request as a committee. 02:15:56,020 S3: Okay. 02:15:56,580 S6: The committee, the commissioner is going to be making the request, so everything will run through Commissioner Munson. I view this facility as a park, and this facility is going to need to be a park. And this is his portfolio. And he can work directly with the committee to facilitate anything that is needed by the committee from staff. As far as information. 02:16:18,740 S3: Okay, that sounds fair. 02:16:23,240 S3: Okay. Further discussion. 02:16:28,440 S14: You know, I kind of think this is kind of foolish. We have a choice here. There's meeting rooms, like you said, out at four H's meeting rooms upstairs. My concern is people having meetings, and then we need a flash meeting of people coming in. We get bridges going. We've got we have probably the most aggressive, uh, projects this year than ever. 02:17:00,760 S14: As a contractor, I know what disturbance is. And I think Commissioner Munson does. You know, if you've got something going on, you don't want people running through your meeting rooms and stuff. You don't get nothing done. It's distracting. 02:17:15,360 S3: That's not what part of the motion, though, right? 02:17:17,480 S14: Well, the thing is. 02:17:18,840 S3: That motion has something to do with just. 02:17:21,300 S6: Through. Everything's directed through Commissioner Munson, Mr. Chairman. 02:17:25,260 S3: Mr. chairman, hang on. Are you sure you want to continue? What's that? Do you need to continue? Mr. Commissioner. 02:17:32,500 S11: I feel there's a lack of cooperation amongst all of our departments and our commissioners. It seems like we're batting each other around for little dinky things like. Can you use this for a conference room? Gosh, what have we got? We got a multi-million dollar business here, and we're running it in five different directions. It just bothers me. 02:17:52,740 S11: I. 02:17:55,220 S11: Don't know what we're going to do long term, but we certainly I know I was going to wait till the end, but, uh, I'm not going to run. And I hope that younger people do and more females do. Uh, I hate to quote President Obama, but he said yesterday the Democratic Party's got it really got rid of the old guys. And I think we need the same thing. We're not political, but we got we end up with five old guys running everything. And I don't think that's that's not proper anymore. 02:18:29,800 S5: We're we're beyond I take offense to that. I'm not that. 02:18:36,200 S5: I don't know. 02:18:37,240 S11: You talk about interrupting. You talk about interrupting. You're interrupting. And I don't appreciate that. I don't like to interrupt anybody. I probably do, but I just think we need a new vision, a new outlook, and we're not getting it. We're getting a lack of everything. 02:18:52,640 S14: What? 02:18:52,880 S3: Is everything okay. Any further discussion on abortion? 02:18:57,160 S11: We're arguing about whether we can use a meeting room. Come on, guys. Jeez. For a. 02:19:01,840 S14: While. We have three meeting rooms, and I don't want an engineer. 02:19:06,680 S11: An engineer have to run the open. 02:19:09,440 S5: On the lights. 02:19:10,080 S14: Actually, we've got four meeting rooms. 02:19:12,600 S5: Good. 02:19:12,920 S11: Then one of them available to a committee that we appoint. 02:19:16,700 S14: The three are available. 02:19:17,900 S3: We have. 02:19:18,860 S11: No they're not. You said we couldn't use them. They're not available. 02:19:23,660 S5: You know, call the. 02:19:24,420 S14: Hearings the reason for that. Once it starts, then they're going to have staff do the stapling, the copying and probably mosey around out into the back. People do that. 02:19:37,740 S24: Okay. 02:19:39,180 S3: And that's what we're trying to avoid. 02:19:41,460 S11: These are professionals, commissioners. 02:19:43,660 S24: Crazy. 02:19:44,220 S3: But we have a motion and a second on the table. I think we already call the question. 02:19:48,340 S11: We don't. 02:19:49,260 S3: Know. 02:19:49,420 S24: We got a new motion. Okay. 02:19:51,780 S3: Call the roll. 02:19:52,620 S5: Commissioner Schwab. No. Commissioner Woodcock. Yes. Commissioner Munson. Yes. Commissioner Botkin. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. 02:20:01,740 S24: I forgot the motion. 02:20:03,740 S3: Um. Allowing me to be that person that asks staff for. 02:20:06,980 S24: Help. 02:20:08,220 S3: Rather than. 02:20:08,980 S6: Everything is directed through Commissioner Munson for the assistance. 02:20:13,280 S3: Know what I. What I think you need to do, Commissioner, is I'm not opposed to that. But I think that you should certainly be working with a portfolio holder more closely. You and I talked about that already. And and I'd like to see that because I think we can get beyond this little, um, this little contest that's going on. Okay. That goes for both of you. Um. 02:20:41,880 S3: Item number 12. Um, continued commission items from previous. Now we're going to talk a little bit about the off highway vehicle ordinance. 02:20:51,320 S11: Mister chairman, number number 11, we skipped. 02:20:54,520 S5: Nope. 02:20:54,920 S6: No. 02:20:55,680 S5: That's what. 02:20:56,440 S11: Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. 02:20:57,840 S5: Yep. 02:20:58,400 S3: About that old. 02:20:59,240 S5: Guy. 02:21:01,720 S5: Here. 02:21:02,080 S3: Couldn't resist. Sorry. 02:21:04,600 S5: I'm one of. 02:21:06,000 S3: You. 02:21:06,200 S5: One of the. 02:21:06,600 S11: Five old guys here. That's fun. 02:21:11,580 S3: Sorry. Okay. I walked right into that. If we can't have a little bit of fun. Um, so the next thing is, is this little conversation about off highway vehicle ordinance, and I've thought a little bit, you know, these folks in the room have really put in a lot of time. They didn't have to sit here for, for this whole time. And, uh, commissioners, you know, it's almost 730. How about if we take a, I don't know, short break. 02:21:40,060 S5: Five minutes recess. 02:21:42,140 S3: Yeah. Five minutes. Sure. Stretch a little bit, and then I think we are going to have some, uh, conversation with the public as well. 02:21:49,940 S6: Um. 02:21:52,340 S5: Sure. 02:21:53,140 S6: So, um, one caveat with that, just in case we are going to have other hearings comment on this too, because I know there are a few people that may have left. Yeah. Um, after the opening comments. So if anyone did, you will have an opportunity to speak again. Right. 02:22:14,600 S3: So okay, I'm going to point out that we are going to have some time limit on it. Um, I think it's reasonable to have a couple of minutes. Um, I don't think anybody needs more than a couple of minutes. And, and if your comments are going to be repetitive and whatnot, I just don't think that's necessary. This is not a headcount situation. And we do want information, but we will take a we'll we'll take, uh, until 730 according to that clock. Okay. Okay. We'll take a break and then we'll come back, folks. Okay. 02:22:48,240 S5: Um. 00:00:02,270 The ordinance. I remembered here that I've got a letter that was sent from Bismarck planning, and if any of the Burleigh County commissioners have a concern with a voluntary land annexation into the city of Bismarck, there's a City of Bismarck commission meeting scheduled for Tuesday, February 24th at 515 in this room. 00:00:26,600 I'll hand the letter off to the auditor afterwards in case anybody has. Any. Issues here. No, I mean, where's the property? Section 1242. Lots two through 11, block two. Lots 4 to 14, block 11. Lots one through six of block 12. And all adjoining right of way. Promontory point six edition. And it includes 10.91 acres. 00:00:55,870 And it is a landowner request. So I do appreciate the city of Bismarck doesn't do forced annexation. Okay. Um, moving forward with the proposed OHV ordinance, I want to make very clear. And on the advice of the state's attorney, she had a conversation with the auditor. 00:01:23,500 When these agenda items come out and the agenda packet comes out, it actually is published online. Um, probably like the Thursday or so before the meeting. The agenda is always close at noon on Wednesday, and the agenda packets, and that information is generally available on a Thursday. 00:01:45,230 And the reason for that is it gives commissioners time to look into these different things and have whatever conversations they need to have in preparation for the meeting. So this information actually was published with respect to commissioners. woodcox. Question earlier, um, do do any of the commissioners feel that we need to read it or what are your what are your thoughts on it? Because this is not a this is not a hearing on the title. 00:02:13,530 It's not a hearing on the thing. Um, personally, I would like to have a have a time limit on the discussion and limit discussion to things that have not been discussed already, but I would like to give the public that has certainly sat here through this whole long meeting and opportunity to address the board. 00:02:34,600 Anybody have any issues with that Commissioner Bucket? Yeah, I at this time I don't think we have to read it because it's not in stone. I think most of the people that are in the room, I give them enough credit to, they're probably versed in what the city ordinance looks like. 00:02:48,900 Um, but I would like to hear their input. And I think that's what we're here for tonight. Um. So I'm certainly I don't have any problem with that. Uh, if anybody wishes to speak on this proposed draft. Uh, once you come to the podium, give your name and your address, and we'll hear you. 00:03:12,600 And like I said, you know, kind of a time limit thing. I don't I don't feel the need to say 3 minutes or 5 minutes or whatever, but I think everybody's getting tired and you know what we're talking about. I totally understand. Turn on the mic. Thank you. No, sounds fair there, Brian. 00:03:31,530 And thank you for opening this back up for discussion here. I'm David Fisher. I spoke a little earlier. Um, kind of some main points I'd like to bring up. Um, or maybe I'm on some acreage. We graze horses on my property throughout the summer, and we have ATVs. I've grown up my whole life with them. 00:03:50,370 I have no issues. I've heard that in a previous meeting that some of these horses are afraid to go 20 foot from a fence line. Yet we have a trail in Morton County where ATVs and horses right side by side. So I just I think that's a real opinionated thing. 00:04:04,470 Um, I'm a father of some younger children, and I'd like to give them the chance to be able to go out, ride in the ditch with their father or their mother and not have a big ordeal to hold them up and drive them four miles out of town. 00:04:17,270 Um, there's maybe a handful of people that might cause some of the issues we have. It's very minimal. So I think one of the biggest luxuries of living in the county is we can park trailers in our driveway. We can park 2 or 3 vehicles without an HOA telling us what to do. 00:04:37,230 And I can fire up an ATV and drive down the ditch. I mean, that's that's a huge thing. Why a lot of people move to the county. Um, so pulling that privilege away seems, uh, kind of unethical at that. 00:04:59,800 Um, another point I'd like to bring up is, um, since 1987, we've been requiring AUVs to license their vehicles. Um, currently, there's a $15 trail tax on that licensing fee. There's 150 AUVs registered in the state of North Dakota. 00:05:20,730 Every two years the license is renewed, which comes out to $318,000 or more, and that doesn't include the $5 safety fee that does not include the $5 plate fee. Where has that money gone? We don't have any trails. In fact, we have less than 75 miles of public trails in the state of North Dakota. 00:05:40,730 So one of the things we did have was the ditch to ride in, and it was a public right of way. It is not your property. Pulling that right seems inadequate. We have Kimball Bottoms reclamation area, which is already really congested. So if I have to take my children down there, they're very small. 00:06:02,530 There's a very heavily wooded area where they could possibly get run over by somebody who can't see them because it's very blind. It's a very hard area to ride. It's very sandy. It's not a place for a beginner, but the ditch was always kind of a, I would say, a safer area for them to ride. 00:06:18,530 Um, most of the trails that have been in place have been done by volunteers and donation money. Not this. Not this tax. Um, in fact, if you remember when Cycle Hut was still around, they actually donated, um, various money to do cleanup Kimball bottoms, clean up the Mandan trail and etc. 00:06:41,230 and mow it and pick up garbage and all the other things. Um, so we're kind of looking at something. We're pulling a privilege. But, um, a lot of this state has been paying for the privilege to drive on public roadways since 1987 and ditches. 00:07:02,100 And so it just seems kind of unethical to pull that out when we haven't moved forward with looking at some more trail areas. Um, our first response as a county commission is usually to regulate the ATVs and use TVs. 00:07:23,270 And I think some simple things we could do to maybe remedy the situation before we post more regulations is send out a public notice, just like we do with pushing snow across your driveway and into the ditch, causing issues for the snowplow. Maybe we should send a notice so the ditches are muddy. Let's be respectful. 00:07:44,100 Just simple little things as a county, um, and possibly look into maybe opening up a trail area down the future where we can take some of the congestion out of the ditch. That's never it's been talked about. It's it hasn't been done other than Kimball Bottoms. But like I said, there is some issues with that area. 00:08:00,630 Um, I know some of the funding goes into patrolling Kimball bottoms out of this, but Kimball Bottoms is also a public boat ramp in a public campground. And you will find some other issues that require extra patrols and other public boat ramps in the area. 00:08:23,730 Um, just kind of a fair argument to have, but I would really like to see us really address more of pulling that privilege away, I think has some long term repercussions we're not looking at. Um, you wouldn't go to a boat Marina where people have boats in the water on a dock and then say, hey, uh, I don't like the view of your boat. You can't have your boat in the water anymore. That kind of takes away the whole point of living in some of these areas. 00:08:40,900 And some of these trails have been here for well over 30 years in this ditch. The developments came later. Not all, but some of them did come later. So, um, I would just like you guys to really address that. 00:08:58,630 And once again, I would like to thank you, Brian and Wayne and Jerry and Steve for recognizing and letting us talk about this issue tonight. Thanks. 00:09:26,100 I'll be quick. For you guys tonight. Good evening. Chairman Bitner and commissioners signing quick. My name is Steve Platten. I'm with Action Motorsports. Um, I stand up here today representing, uh, the six powersports dealerships in Bismarck and Mandan. 00:09:45,230 Um, we are in opposition to this proposed ordinance, and I just want to go over some facts tonight over what was presented last meeting to you guys and talk through some of the some of the things. So one of the topics was, uh, about service calls on OHV was a big topic. 00:09:58,900 As dealers, we wanted to dig into those calls and get some clarity on them and what they were. I spoke with Mike, Dan and Pelzer with Centcom, and we discussed the number of calls in 2025 regarding OHV use and complaints. There were 174 total calls in Burleigh County as stated at the previous meeting. 00:10:18,370 However, 96 of those 174 were responded to by Bismarck Police Department in the city of Bismarck. Okay, so after that, there's 70 by Burley County responded to by the Burley County Sheriff's Department, and there's eight by Lincoln PD. Okay. 00:10:34,470 Now, Mike could not get me the summary of these calls or who made the calls due to privacy laws, which I understand, but we want to focus on the 70 calls that are related to the Burley County Sheriff's Department. So next, I called the Burley County Sheriff's Department to try to see the nature of these calls and see if there's a fixed solution here. 00:10:49,900 What we found is that of the 70 calls, there's a report that I have there that they, that they made, um, 13 of those 70 calls were considered unfounded. Um, you'll see these in yellow on your sheet examples. They that have reported a younger rider in the ditch. Did not think they could ride there. Not really a complaint, I should say. That's just a fact. 00:11:06,800 Um. ATV tearing up the gravel on the road. Deputy arrived, but the basic, just basic tracks were observed on the road. Two kids on dirt bikes. No other information and no callback number. So 13 of the 70 the Burley County Sheriff's Department deemed unfounded. Move on to the next one. 00:11:23,970 14 of the 70 as you see in green on your on the document were actually coded when Burley County Sheriff's Department goes out and does extra enforcement, which they do sometimes they call in to send come what we found and say we're in the area doing extra enforcement on AUVs. 00:11:39,870 Okay. So 14 of the 70 so 20% is just the county out doing their job checking it out. You can see the ones in green. There's really no issues that law enforcement that was coded as extra enforcement, um, examples of that are stopped with out with stopped out with three dirt bikes, all legal, everything in order. 00:11:58,630 Extra enforcement. Able to stop out with a rider. All legal and everything in order. Extra enforcement. No activity. Okay. Seven of those 70 calls were, as you see quoted in blue on report, are not related to OHV complaints at all. We have reporting issues with the pickup is one of them. 00:12:15,870 It got coded as an OHV call and abandoned ATV on a section line. That's nothing to do with the complaint of people driving in the ditch. Correct. Um. An income. There's two calls or incoming calls that were cleared within one minute. For some reason, they were coded as OHV. 00:12:29,300 So what we're trying to get at and what we're trying to find out as a dealer is, um, is that the 36? The 70 calls were actually considered OHV complaints by the Berkeley County Sheriff's Department. Okay. Seems like a pretty small number compared to a big number that was presented to you guys a couple of weeks ago. 00:12:45,870 Now, on the attached incident incident map that I gave you, it shows the reported location of those 36 confirmed OHV complaints, with Hay Creek Township being the majority of the calls Mike from Centcom shared with me as he could not tell me names, but he could tell me how many identify how many people called. 00:13:02,500 Right. Um, he said one individual party called six times out of those 36. Okay. So what we're worried about is Hickory Township is roughly 24mi, and Burleigh County is over 1600 square miles. Therefore, Hart Creek Township makes up roughly 1.5% of the county. 00:13:21,730 So we feel that a county wide ban to appease a small percentage of the county seems sort of improper. And I think we don't have as big of a problem with people complaining if maybe we think we do. And I guess I would ask if the county sheriff's people would have anything to add to the report. They made that as comments or questions. 00:13:40,730 Okay, commissioners, any questions for him? Thank you. Appreciate it. Next. 00:13:58,800 Good evening. My name is Josh. Mr. chair and commissioners, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'll keep it quick, and I don't want to. I'm going to kind of take this from maybe a different angle than Steve a little bit. Um, first and foremost, I want to be clear that as a, um. 00:14:16,530 Yes, I'm a dealership owner of off road hybrid vehicles, but I'm also, um, an employer of employees in the county. I'm also a citizen, a taxpayer, and a voter in the county, and also an enthusiast of the products we're talking about. 00:14:37,630 And I think it's what's tough about this is realizing that concerned about reckless off highway vehicles are real. We all have to be concerned about that as an industry, as an enthusiast and as a resident, I think to but most importantly, the key distinction that we need to make on this is reckless. Operation is already legal or illegal by with no changes to our current. Oh excuse me. 00:15:01,070 Our current ordinances, the the behavior that's being described and handling is already not lawful. So really we have a gap in enforcement and accountability going on. We don't have an issue where we need to create a new ordinance or change what we have. It really is really an overstep. 00:15:23,330 I believe in this, um, step one as a as a dealer and I, I won't I won't dwell too long on this. Um, but most importantly, this is an economic impact directly to the county. 00:15:44,730 In the last 12 months alone, approximately 350 to 500 new off road, new and used off road vehicles were sold, sold through Burley County dealerships representing an estimated 10 to $15 million in direct economic impact. That is not counting any local jobs, tax revenue and other service parts, and maintenance and tourism. 00:16:07,730 While government responds to illegal behavior by restricting illegal use or when got you as commissioners or government responds to illegal behavior by restricting legal use, it sends a message that responsible ownership is not welcome. That does not stop reckless riders. It hurts local businesses and it hurts local employees. Um, like I said earlier, I'm a resident, I'm a taxpayer and a voter. I'm concerned also about the scope and the proportional response that you that you guys are looking at taking. 00:16:31,070 The minute we as a county start penalizing legal behavior to fix other problems, I think is a very slippery slope. The state of North Dakota is over 70,000mi, not one other county in the state has this type of ordinance. 00:16:54,170 And as Steve mentioned earlier, what we're really talking about is a few square miles and a few people that are complaining about this. I listened earlier tonight about budgets, about being short staffed, about arguing over who handles, who sits in a meeting room. And we're talking about now putting an ordinance in, and we're going to try. How are we going to possibly as a county go after. 00:17:16,900 And are we going to sign every area where it goes from another county? Are we going to how is our our sheriff's department going to handle this? How can we do that? I think the reality is we are not talking about a blanket problem here. A blanket restriction is not the answer. That is not good governing. 00:17:38,370 As a committee, number three, most importantly, as a writer and enthusiast, I want legal and safe places to ride. We have to have that. If we do not have that. What's going to happen? People are going to either outright non comply. They're going to eliminate it. And we talked about the consequences about this. 00:17:59,630 By eliminating this it actually increases risk. It increases safety risk. And I think by the city ordinance is not the same thing as a county ordinance. We all kind of. That's why we have a city and a county. We cannot lump them together. And to quite frankly, think that it is. 00:18:17,600 And I think we can continue to talk about this discussion. But I guess I'm asking you tonight in opposition to look at these facts, and let's not let this get out of control. We're all going to have different opinions. And that's and I respect that. 00:18:34,170 But most importantly, the minute one person complains about something else, the next thing this is this is a very slippery slope. I heard the analogy earlier. If someone doesn't like dogs, are we now going to go down the path because the a dog does damage to an area. These areas are public property areas, and I think there's many solutions that we can handle. 00:18:53,170 Um, along the way. So I'll open that for questions. Commissioners. Any questions? Thank you. 00:19:12,500 Hi, my name is Sheila Zacher and I live in the 4k estates out on Kent Drive. And I'm not sure who proposed this ordinance or so forth. Um, I'm here to actually support it to an extent. I honestly, I'll be honest, I have not read the entire thing. 00:19:31,470 Um, I want you to be able to hear what my experience has been. And so Kent Drive runs basically just north of 97th on 26th. I'm. Two houses in on Kent drive and I hear young. 00:19:48,430 Teenagers probably 16, maybe 12, going jumping the road on Kent drive because it's steeper. They will jump that for a half hour to an hour plus. And when I walk out all the way down to the road on 26th and I say enough, after you sit there and you listen to it. Ram, Ram, Ram. 00:20:17,530 I grew up on motorcycles. I am not against kids riding in ditches. What I am against is, is the fact that parents don't even know where their kids are, and they sit there and they do that, and then they turn around and terrorize me because they 00:20:35,530 go around the block, park right in front of my house and sit there and rev their engine, and then they go through my ditch in front of my house on private property. And that is very frustrating. 00:20:57,030 I was headed north on 26th and there is an elderly lady, probably 90 years old, that is on the west side of 26, three houses, maybe down from 97th, who I'm sure paid expensive to have her culvert area landscaped with rock about this big. And I saw two kids on motorcycle, one in a side by side. 00:21:27,600 The kid on the side by side was headed down, headed south on her approach her culvert where her mailbox and everything is. He stops midway and peels out. He actually wasn't going down. He was going up. Stops Peele's out and rips. Those rocks are spewing throughout her ditch on both sides. That is disrespectful. And that isn't the kids fault. That is the parents fault. 00:21:53,530 And I'm not against ATVs, motorcycles and things like that. I'm not. But when they the parents are purchasing these things and they're not supervising these kids and I don't care if they're legal to drive or not, I was I wasn't even a first grader when I was out driving my first ATV. And I respected people. 00:22:16,730 And when you see the ditches just ripped up with no grass because they want to jump it and it's nonstop, that is the frustration of me as a homeowner in the county. If and the thing of it is, is they can go across the road where nobody has grass that they're mowing. There's fields. 00:22:41,730 There's fields farther north of us where no developments are. They can go right out there. I don't care, but I do care when I have to call the cops and I'm informed that I can't do anything. I don't get a call back the first time. I bet I've called probably four times. Five times. 00:23:04,600 And I basically every single day that they did it. I called the county the county sheriff, and nobody called me back. And I said, I will call you every single time I hear them out there until somebody calls me back and they told me that they would increase the enforcement out there. 00:23:24,170 I've never seen a sheriff out there after I've reported these incidents, and that's frustrating as well as a homeowner. And I pay county taxes, and I'm a citizen of North Dakota as well. So those are my frustrations as far as this goes, because that 90 year old lady. She uses a walker to go check her mail. 00:23:47,530 And these kids don't pay attention. They don't give anybody the right of way. They could easily take her out. They don't stop when we go to, like, on Kent. When I'm headed west, leaving to get on 26, there's a stop sign. And I was told that us. We have the right of way there as a vehicle. 00:24:09,530 And they don't stop, they don't look. But I think it's wrong that they turn around and terrorize the people that tell them and ask them to stop that. That's enough. You know, if they want to ride that ditch and they want to go, don't constantly just be doing it, jumping it, jumping that approach. There are. 00:24:32,730 I just found this out. I knew that there was a mortar cross area where they have jumps in different things like that. I was told tonight that that is a membership only. Well, you know what? Maybe these kids need to go buy memberships. Maybe their parents need to spend a little more time with them. 00:24:49,370 You want to go out and you want to ride and have your kids learn how to ride. I get that totally 100%. I have motorcycles, license, I ride motorcycle, I grew up on them. But the fact the difference is, is he's supervising. These kids have no supervision. I bet their parents wouldn't even know where they're at. 00:25:09,970 And that is the frustration from me as a homeowner that I want to share with you it as a commission, and I appreciate your time. Commissioners. Any questions? Thank you. That pretty well sums up the pretty well sums up the issue. You guys with the Dealerships. 00:25:33,000 What do you think? We failed here. You know, I worked with your dealership guys, including the Honda guys, years ago, and I've heard that there's no place for them to go. But I'm the guy that created the play area out of the Missouri Valley complex and created the training area that North Dakota Parks and RECs used to train these young riders. 00:25:53,370 And we created trails out there, and we purchased a factory loading and unloading ramp. Then the problem got worse. And so we worked with dealers because there's a notion, well, we just need more education. Maybe we need more enforcement. 00:26:11,630 Sure. Going in to where they're doing something, you can see it and turn it in. I can't hear you with a license. Okay. We'll get to you in a second. That was that was kind of a rhetorical question, because that's really what we're going to have to start talking about, Because I can tell you. Business as usual. 00:26:30,730 Just letting the kids do this stuff, it's just not going to be the deal. I agree, chairman, I agree, but I will and I'll do it. I'm going to get to I'll ask you to wait until everybody else is done. I think you want me. Okay? No, I just want you to think about that. 00:27:05,170 My name is Lori Reese, and I'll be honest with you, I have not read the ordinances the way they're written right now. This popped up on my Facebook about OVS, and I really got to thinking about it. I really didn't want to be here. I had way better things to do. like sitting on my couch at home. 00:27:28,270 Um, than to be here because I don't really want to be here. But. But I feel like I need to be here. First of all, I'm a girl who used to ride three wheelers as a young girl back in the day. That's how old I am. Um, we didn't have ordinances. 00:27:48,530 Um, right now we live in Burley County. My husband and I, we live on a main road that gets ridden all the time. I know that you guys know where I live, and it gets ridden all the time by dirt bikes, snowmobilers, ATVs, AUVs, all the time. 00:28:15,530 And our actual. I don't have anything written, so I'm just kind of going off the top of my head and some notes I made. But our approach into our house is the greatest launching pad that there is for dirt bike. It's amazing, and we've had many people launching off of our approach. 00:28:37,000 And what we did to combat that is we went out there and we stopped them and we talked to them, every single one of them, and we said, please ride the ditches all you want. That's your right. We keep our lychees manicured, our lawn manicured. We keep it beautiful out there. 00:28:59,330 But that's their right to ride the ditches. 00:29:04,630 But we respectfully stop them. And if we have to chase them down the road, we will. We've talked to them and they've respected us for it. We said, just please don't jump the ditch. Go slowly over it. Or our approach. Excuse me? The approach. I've got three children that we raised. We've got snowmobiles, ATVs, oh, bees. 00:29:29,230 Everything. And horses. Two. Obviously, I can't ride a horse anymore because now I'm disabled. Unfortunately, that's part of why I want to be here. 00:29:44,870 The only to be. And the ATVs are the only thing that I can get on and enjoy my time outside in the sun and the wind. And you guys want to take that away from me. And I'm not the only disabled person that rides. 00:30:07,900 There's other ones we use our O to B's to help our neighbors, not just us, everybody. And when I say neighbors, I'm talking like two miles worth. That's what we call neighbors. I've gone out and collected a dead dog for our neighbor who is disabled too is on an oxygen monitor. We delivered that dog to our neighbor. 00:30:31,230 That wouldn't have happened if we wouldn't have had an OHV or excuse me, an ATV. At the time we've gone out, we've rounded up cattle. We've gone on rounded up horses. We have a great friend that lives down the road from us a few miles. 00:30:51,400 A little teenage boy who who cannot ride a horse and has had multiple surgeries on his spine. And he has a little OHV and this is the nicest kid you will ever meet. And he goes to the neighbor's houses and he helps the neighbors. He goes to a guy's house who's having mental problems and helps him, all because he gets to ride his be in the ditch. 00:31:17,000 So there may be a few bad apples out there, I get that. Believe me, I fricking hounded till the cows came home with my kids. Respect people's property, right? Colton, my oldest is here. He knows like I like his pounded my kids. 00:31:40,270 I realize that not every parent does that, but I would rather see the kids out riding than at home playing a game. So if some ditches get torn up a little bit, I'm okay with that. Ride my ditch all you want, I don't care. 00:31:54,730 I don't think it should be banned for a few bad apples to everybody. Don't take it away from me. I put my little tulip grandbabies. Well, three that's coming up now in my side by side and take them down to the school to play on the playground. Please don't take that away from me or anybody else. 00:32:20,000 Um, the other thing I wanted to say just made a few notes is. 00:32:27,370 These trails, these ditches have been around longer than any of these houses out here. Most most of the houses, these trails have been around. People have been using them. It's the houses that have encroached upon their business. 00:32:46,630 So I'm just asking. Please don't take it away if you need to. If you need to do something, maybe they shouldn't ride when it's wet out. I do know that. Wet. We don't even ride our horses in the ditch when it's wet, because we don't want the horses tearing up the ditch. 00:33:05,230 I mean, there's ways around this. You can have them stop at every intersection or maybe approach. There's things you can do besides banning this. 00:33:20,600 That's all I've got to say. But please don't take it away from me. Okay. Thanks, Laura. 00:33:44,500 Welcome. Hi. Where did we go wrong? We didn't go wrong. Commissioner Bittner. Commissioner, thank you for opening this up to public comment. Um, my name is Annette Caldwell. I live in Bismarck, and my husband and I have an open road Honda in Mandan. I did work with Commissioner Bittner on that riding area. 00:34:04,730 Um, and you said, what are the dealers doing? The dealers? Um, yes. We sell the dirt bikes, but we cannot be responsible for the behavior of those who have the dirt bikes. Just as the auto dealers cannot be responsible for those who buy an automobile and speed drive with a DUI or drive recklessly. 00:34:24,800 What we do as dealers is we heavily support the riding areas in both Burley County. The Rock, as it's called, and Morton County through financial contributions and helping those tracks be open. They are open. They are a membership track, meaning you have to buy a membership. It's very inexpensive. Anyone can ride there. Those are open to everyone. 00:34:46,730 We I know at least an open road. Honda. Encourage education. Talk to the parents. It does sound like there's some bad actors out there, but I think the better solution is rather than slap on an ordinance that bans OHV in this ones. I could nitpick it apart, but I won't. 00:35:04,100 Rather than do that, let's come together as a community. Let's come together as people who are having those problems with AUVs um, a dealer representative, a county representative, a law enforcement representative. We can come up with alternative solutions. 00:35:22,800 One thing that dealers did years ago and I can't remember it, was oh six or oh eight, the general session. We actually asked them to increase the off the North Dakota to increase the off highway vehicle tax. It was $10. We asked it to go up to 15. 00:35:41,070 Now the question is where is that money been going? And it was already brought up earlier, right? I can tell you that it doesn't go to Burleigh County. No, it doesn't go to Burleigh County. And in fact, the the the sad thing is, is dealers who collect it that we don't even know where it goes. Um, so I think there are solutions. I'm saying that there are problems. The young lady who just spoke. 00:35:58,270 Absolutely. My heart goes out to her. I like the sound of a dirt bike. She does, and I understand. Um, but in town we have, you know, we have people who speed up and down our streets. I mean, we all have issues we don't like to deal with, but I think there are solutions here. 00:36:13,100 But this blanket banning OVS is not a solution. It's going to cause more unintended consequences than we can even imagine. So I thank you for bringing this open to public comment. I think there's a lot of people here who are willing to work towards a solution that's going to be the best for the whole community. Thanks, Annette. 00:36:34,900 I'm going to keep it real short, but I want to kind of come from a different direction. Guys, I like I said, I sit through a lot of these meetings and I keep hearing ordinances, restrictions, ordinances, restrictions. 00:36:51,100 But yet in the same a few meetings ago, we said that Julie's office is understaffed, that we are subbing out services to private firms. Our Berkeley County Sheriff's Department, we all know how extensive of a territory they have, and we know that they have better things to do than respond to calls because somebody is tearing up a ditch. We know that there's emergencies. We know what they do. 00:37:08,830 We know they go above just doing traffic control and stuff like that. So what I'm going to ask you tonight is I'd like to see this tabled until we can take care of our staff, when you can assure us that Julie's office can handle the extra caseload, when you can assure us that our sheriff's department has 00:37:27,530 nothing better to do but respond to calls about kids driving four wheelers and dirt bikes? I tell you what, I'll stand up here and get behind you. But until you get behind our staff, that's who you need to be taken care of. My. 00:37:47,730 Name is Rick Fisher. I got an answer to this deal. My boat has got a registration on the side that you can read. These dirt bikes should have registrations on the sides or wherever so they can be clearly read. 00:38:07,970 And if this lady is out there terrorizing or ditch, she gets that number off and calls it in and you got the people who are doing it. That's all I got. Thank you. 00:38:26,470 Hello, my name is Earl Stadler. I live up on Centennial on Evergreen Avenue. Sign in. Yeah. And, uh. The the reason for doing that, just so you know, is we want to make sure that the record is accurate with your names and, you know, with the public names that show up. 00:38:49,470 And the big thing for me is we've got our service road that comes off of the highway there, and that is rutted out all the time. I've never called in since we had a meeting back in 22, I think was that big meeting when this came up. 00:39:14,270 But I've never called in once because law enforcement can't handle this. It's just, you know, by the time they get there, everybody's gone. There's just no way they can respond to this. But we've got serious ruts where they're coming out of the ditch and going back into the ditch. And there are probably they vary anywhere from 4 to 6in depending on the time of year. 00:39:34,700 And every year I've had to repair those myself. Um, we have a gravel entry road there. Um, the other thing is the the, the roadway when you come up has been tore up really bad too. And we never I've been out there 42 years. We never had an issue with snowmobiles. 00:39:58,900 Still don't because they're on frozen ground, never have had an issue with them. And they always they put markers out to, to to keep you away from unsafe areas and also where you come to the roads. 00:40:16,370 And I don't know if there's an ordinance right now that says these, oh, trees have to stop when you come off the highway or not, but they should. Um, so it's, it's it's a real problem. That's the number one thing for us is you come off the highway there and you're going, uh, well, it's 45 now, but most people are probably going 55 in that area. 00:40:40,530 They don't slow down much. And, uh, you you can't go too slow when you're coming off that highway. You got to get moving. And, uh, you know, I'm bouncing all over the hill, all over the place and cussing as I do. 00:40:59,470 So, so and that's been going on for, I'd say five years since these heavier duty units have come out with higher horsepower, bigger tires, and they're also street legal. So why don't they ride the streets? I don't know, but. And I can see, you know, they like to ride the ditches. I got no problem with that. 00:41:18,270 The second thing is that the ruts and the ditches, you know, they're they're also 4 to 6in. And when I'm out there trying to mow my lawn, I get high centered on those, those ruts. And that's not a big thing. 00:41:36,730 The other thing that happened was I almost got run over by a OHV because I was going down the road mowing or down the ditch, and one came right by me. I mean, he didn't go up high at all. He came right by me. And I thought, geez, if I would have turned just a little bit, I'd have been done. And then we had a dirt bike. 00:41:53,170 I was coming out of our area and it's all pine trees, so it's it's hard to see anybody coming from going to the highway from our approach. And, uh, he, uh, he had to hit the dirt down in the ditch because he was going too fast. He didn't slow down at all. 00:42:13,900 And, uh, most of the time, the ones I've seen are jumping the jump in the approach roads, whether it's the big ones or the the dirt bikes. I mean, I'm not standing out there, but but I just gave up. I haven't called at all. And like I said, I've been out there 42 years. 00:42:33,330 These smaller units, we never had a problem with them, never had the ruts in the ditch or on the road, the three wheelers and the smaller four wheelers. And now we got these big ones and there's all kinds of problems. So I don't know what the what the solution is, but I know one thing, uh, these roads, approach roads have to be taken care of. 00:42:52,500 And I don't know if there's. they got to put a tax on the owners of these things or what they have to do, but that can't go on. You can't have these approaches being destroyed. The ditches. 00:43:08,000 I don't know if there's anything they can do about that, but but the approach is that's a big deal and I think it is for everybody. That's all I got. Okay. Thank you. You know, um. Go ahead. 00:43:27,530 Let me guess. 00:43:32,270 Hold your horses there. Um, my name is Colton Reese. Obviously, uh, pointed out by my mother. Um, yeah. Their driveway is, like, ideal for for jumping. Um. You're inviting people to your house? You are your address? Yeah. But yeah. 00:44:00,100 Also on the same side though, or on the other side of the road is a section line approach that is also very good for jumping. That is where I went to go jump because I knew I would get my ass whooped. Sorry, but whooped if I jumped our own approach. But um, I would. I just have to agree. I don't think a blanket ban, uh, fits the problem. 00:44:18,270 Um, but to point out, um, the track at the Missouri Valley, that is dirt bikes only for my understanding. So that's my understanding. But, you know, I built it. I wouldn't really know what it's used for now. Since, uh, since I've been a kid, I think I've always been told. Dirt bikes. 00:44:36,770 Only four wheelers tear it up differently. Four wheelers not allowed side by side. It's not allowed. Annette, do you remember anything about that? The motorcross. Track and. Your. Track? Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. So you're you're talking. Yeah. Yeah. And I you know, I would agree that the motocross track is specifically. Yeah. 00:44:57,000 Have you ever heard of it? Exactly. But it's in the oval. I never knew that. Yeah. There's there's. Yeah. There's also it's a big it's it's actually pretty good size. I mean, we, we I've probably built more trails in the state of North Dakota than anybody working for North Dakota Parks and RECs, right at ATV trails, horse trails, mountain biking trails and all 00:45:20,470 some of the god awful terrain. And, you know, we we built that out there because it was a possible solution, because I recognized that the desert was actually pretty dangerous, and I didn't really want to encourage people to go down there. We have trails. I wasn't joking. 00:45:35,370 We had a we had an ATV with a mower behind it. I don't even know if it's still there, but we did have the loading ramp and the whole thing, so I don't want to interrupt you. You can go ahead and finish. Oh you're fine. That's good information. 00:45:46,870 I like I said, I've always been under the assumption that that was a dirt bike only area, so I don't know if that's something that's just hasn't been advertised. Motocross track. Let's make sure we're talking about two separate areas out there. 00:46:02,000 Now, I don't recommend going out there today because we have the road blocked off, and we're working on some things going through the sewer line and whatnot, but the weather's not real good for tearing it up right now. But that that is an area that was specifically for that. Go ahead. But you see, from my view, I thought it was just the dirt bike track out there. 00:46:23,070 So many people may not know about this other spot, so I don't know if that's something that is just lost interest in 00:46:33,730 not not per se being used, but not advertised either. But the knowing of it over the years is just dropped. Or if that can be something that. You know, it never got dropped as far as I'm concerned. The the whole goal was to further the education and especially the education of the youth. 00:46:56,170 You know, I happen to believe that you grew up with some really good parents, right? And I don't really think you're the problem. You know, I mean, we have a. He likes that stuff. Well. Come on now, mom. You mind? Let's listen. Let's give him some. Give him some slack. 00:47:16,530 But you got anything else you want to add? Uh, just again, I don't agree with the the blanket ban. Um, I think that does more wrong than good. There are bad apples out there. Um, maybe just kind of pushing more towards that riding area or some more areas. 00:47:36,170 Um, I know you said that the desert or Kimball bottoms is dangerous. It is. It is not a ideal area for for new and little people or young kids getting into it, but there are some areas down there you can use to your advantage for that. But that's that's all I wanted to put in there. Thank you. Thank you. 00:47:57,430 So your driveway is paved, right? Yeah, yeah. What do you suppose I should do about the kid that likes to tear mine up? 00:48:08,500 Yeah, I checked, I actually checked on doing that, but other things took priority. My new shop took priority, but I guess I could go chase them down, huh? Yeah. You know, I've had. And I'm sorry. I'm speaking on it. That's fine. I've had the best luck where I've actually ran out. 00:48:28,470 I just last year I happened to be outside. I was watching one of our side by side, and they were jumping my approach. Well, I couldn't say I was perturbed, but I ran down and got him on 22nd Avenue They just happened to stop and take a break, and they drove up and they said, boys. 00:48:46,230 I said, I want to tell you this. I said, you're allowed to ride in my ditch at the time and hopefully in the future. But I said, one thing I do not appreciate is you ripping up my asphalt on my approach. Jumping. Mhm. 00:49:08,100 Those boys, they were anywheres from 13 to maybe 16 or 17 and they thanked me because I didn't rip the manure. Yeah. Okay. We're going to have to, we're going to have to give him a chance. But but I agree with you, Dan. Um, except for the kid flipped me off. Now as I'm sitting here here. Well, you know. Okay. Go ahead. Uh, chairman and commissioners, my. 00:49:29,000 Name is Steve Smith. First of all. Thank you for the time to talk tonight. We do appreciate that. To your question of where do we go wrong? Um, with the Missouri Valley complex. Great idea. 00:49:47,100 When that first came to be, I was told about it by my former employer, Annette, and she had asked me, go out there and try to make some trails. Tried there's a or there was a former single track trail that was married with the motocross track as a hair scramble course. To ride that trail, you were in over handlebar tall grass that you couldn't see what was under you. 00:50:11,600 It was dangerous. Uh, very hard to make any trails, and as far as I'm aware, it never gets old. Um, that's unusual, because we do have it. We had certainly had. No, I don't know if it still exists, but we had an ATV that pulled a pull type mower. Right? That was the whole goal. But go ahead. 00:50:28,200 And somebody ran it. Yeah. Okay. Uh, news to me. Um, anyway, since. Then, going out there a couple of times, just looking at the property. Um, I was a fresh kid. 15 years old, with a dirt bike and a pickup. I didn't like going to the desert. 00:50:44,730 My parents really didn't like me going to the desert, so that's where I went. It was close to home for me. Uh, great area for the youth. And I mean, like 50 cc is what the sign says for the interior track. Anything, anything. To the south of that oval is a swamp. Three weeks later, from a single rain, it's wet. It's barely rideable. 00:51:05,900 I think it was a good idea. Um, I think the signs for 50 cc and under and the interior track was maybe a little much. Um, but I could see that if it was very populated at the time. Yes. Let the let the little kids have fun. Older guys go somewhere else. 00:51:21,370 Um, since then, I don't think it ever got any advertisement of knowing. People knew they could ride there. And they don't do it. I think it was kind of a flop. Personally, it was a good idea, but I don't think it was ever executed to what it should have been. 00:51:37,800 Now we're going to have the problem of there's a lot of homes to the east of that place. If that becomes an often ridden place, there's going to be complaints, just like there is about the motocross track. So to take it away in the county with a blanket, I think is a very bad idea. 00:51:56,330 Okay, thanks for sharing your opinion. No problem. 00:52:06,900 Don't slap your head yet. Let's see that coffee. 00:52:19,370 My name is Jack Katz. And. I live off of 80th Street, just north of you. Mr. Bittner and I actually lived on Birch Crest. And my thing was, is when we had little kids jump in the road there, right off the birch crest. 00:52:40,270 My wife went to her parents, their parents, and talked to her, and that was the end of it. Mother took care of it. You know, the kids no longer did that. But then we moved down closer to you. And I have grandkids now. 00:52:56,230 That first thing they come to my house is, hey, Papa, when are we going to go out on my side by side, you know? And I'm like, I don't want to take them down the street, go all the way to the desert. Because as you say, the desert isn't really a friendly spot. So I just go up 80th Street, you know, ten, 15 miles an hour. They enjoy it. I can stop whenever they see something. 00:53:12,970 And I'm like, well, I'll be taking that away from them. I guess if I can't do that anymore, I'll, you know, and I know the last time they actually came up and wanted to go here just a week ago lucked out. 00:53:27,500 Luckily enough, my son was with and he said, uh, hey kids, you ain't got your helmet with, you can't go. And they just okay, you know? So that's where I think you take away this ditch writing. You're taking away the fun with my grandkids, too. So I kind of would miss that, I guess. So that's about it. What I got to say then. 00:53:45,100 Can you stand a little humor a lot? All right. That's how you turn it. My approach is it. You know what? I never, ever go on your approach because you got your fence. One thing too close to the road with that debt. So I never go on your approach. Yeah. 00:54:03,070 So that that fence is on my property line. Because in my case, I actually owned the land to the middle. Of the. Road. That's fine. But my thing is, that ditch is steep enough. Like I'm not ready to get hurt yet. I'm getting older. I want to live. Yeah. You know. So. 00:54:17,630 Well, it's really unfortunate because back when? Years ago. Just so you hear the story. Uh, years ago, when I bought the land, I actually removed the fences because there was ATVs. And back in those days it was the three wheelers. But there was also a lot of horses and I didn't want anybody getting hurt on my fence. 00:54:36,130 I really didn't have any issue with until the time went by. Pretty soon the ATVs and motorcycles and snowmobiles just couldn't resist riding on this open chunk of land. And so I'd go and I'd put no trespassing signs and I'd do all that stuff. 00:54:55,470 And do you know that those kids were just going run right the hell over them? And what did you say? They're kids. Right? Yeah. Well, adults that are more respectful. And that's kind of why this has become such a become such a problem. Because honestly, I've never seen you out there tearing it up. Yeah. Because you I don't that's not the issue because. I. 00:55:13,830 Say a lot of times my brother's like, I got 4 or 5 brothers that drive ATVs or let's call them side by side. We don't drive ATVs, but usually when I leave McIntosh Avenue, I go up the road. 00:55:29,630 I just figured it isn't a big deal until I get to highway ten, and then we go up a little ways, and then there you can see the trail, and it's slowly getting covered up that you can hardly tell anymore. And so I like well, you know, I respect people's area and that's where it's like. Yeah. 00:55:48,630 You you probably noticed that I don't know if you're out there on Macintosh right when they started it, but the first thing they did was plant the grass. Yep. Grass hasn't even come up here in the ditches tearing it up. You know, that's the which side? Uh, it's not all over the place. And like I said, it was before the houses were in. It was. 00:56:05,570 It was right when it was brand new. You know, when I bought a couple of those lots to read. Digress here, but, yeah, I didn't think it was you that was tearing up my approach. Yeah. No, no, I respect your fence more, you know? Yeah. 00:56:24,500 First of all, I have to compliment the sheriff's. Department. When I call. They're there. And it. Doesn't. Take. Them very long now either. I'm getting lucky that they're in the area, or they just know that that area is a highly traveled area. Second of all, the ditches. We don't own the ditches. 00:56:49,000 We own the property inside of the Ford property pens, right? Not in my case, but depending on where you're at. Yeah. Well, moonshine. So we don't have to maintain the ditch. We choose to maintain the ditch. 00:57:11,170 I choose to maintain my ditch because I have a nice yard. I've got 2.3 acres of Kentucky bluegrass, and I got 92 sprinkler heads, and I've got nice trees, so I want my ditch looking nice now, my neighbor to the west. He could care less, but that's his choice I'm more concerned about right now. 00:57:35,630 I have a culvert that's over 50% closed due to this traffic. And the other thing is it's our taxes that we have to maintain the pavement. I'm out there all the time, picking chunks of pavement up so I can mow my ditch at my choice. 00:58:04,270 And now I'm also dodging ruts all along the road in the ditch so I can't mow my ditch straight back and forth. Have it nice. I spray it for weeds, I take pride, I want my image looking somewhat nice, the best that I can in the summertime. But when people are complaining about the ditches, yes, it is a right of way. 00:58:30,230 It's a property that we choose to take pride in. But my biggest thing is the safety of the people making turns off of 71st, or making turns off of High Top 26th Street. 00:58:57,700 And these kids are out there flying around, and they have no idea that the rules of a road are supposed to be applied when you're driving these vehicles in the ditch. So I was brought up the rules of play. 00:59:08,900 Am I right or wrong? Right. 00:59:11,630 What's that? All the rules? Yeah. Yeah. No, the other suggestion. You know what? The numbers being put on motorcycles, there's no way you're going to see them numbers when they're flying. There's no way. License plates. You're not going to see them little plates. So my biggest thing. I've got mixed feelings on it. 00:59:36,630 I'd like to say throw the ordinance right out there right now and don't even look back. The other thing is, I don't think it's the answer. What is the right answer? If you got 75 people, I bet you're going to get 76 different answers. Okay. Thank you. So it's getting to be what? 830. Um. Oh, no. 01:00:02,230 You can take your time. I was just going to say let's let's kind of not be covering, uh, bold ground. Okay. On. Okay. But I could tell you a quick story. I still to this day, own a machine that I bought from Dan Over here. Bean, bean. The best machine we ever bought you. 01:00:23,100 You shouldn't have sold that thing. Go ahead. Yeah. You did. 01:00:32,000 No, no 01:00:35,330 I don't. I don't know, even if you did. I'm telling you, it's it's it's an actually. You see, we own three machines. Um, the brand newest one, of course, we bought from Annette, and the other one we bought from, I think, action or or whatever, but that's the UTV. 01:00:50,330 Um, the one I bought from you is the one I actually. Right. You know, and that's because I have a choice, right? Yeah. Okay. Sorry, Curt. Okay. Not a problem. Chair. Bittner. Uh, commissioners. So, boy, it's been pretty interesting here. Um. 01:01:13,700 It's been a few years since I attended a meeting with, uh, planning and Zoning Director Flanagan about this topic. And so I've been somewhat neutral on it. However, um, if every writer out there. Were. Had parents like Therese. No. Problem. And then the other gentleman, wherever he is. Okay. Right here. This guy back here. Um, I don't think we'd have a problem, but unfortunately, there's a problem. 01:01:44,000 And the reason just might be directed all the way back to the direction these kids are being given. Because what's lost on society today is the golden rule. I don't even think a lot of young kids probably don't even know what the hell that means. Number one. And number two, uh, how we treat our neighbors. 01:02:03,800 I think that's been lost on society as long as it's not affecting me, you know? Um. It's okay. So I've heard a lot of really good points. 01:02:22,530 I'm somewhat I'm neutral, but yet I want to point some things out and I want to make some suggestions that would go toward developing solutions in lieu of a complete ban, because a complete ban would, of course, take care of all the opposition issues. But here's what I want to throw out to everybody. Um, this is for okay, full disclosure, I own a snowmobile. I'm part of the Rough Rider Snowmobile Club. 01:02:43,900 Any ordinance that is made should exclude utility vehicles, farming, ranching, horses, um, snowmobiles. I don't think if this were just snowmobiles that rode in the ditches, we wouldn't even be spending any time on this. Okay, I also own a UTV, but I made it street legal. And if everybody knows anything about this engineer, I do come into that stereotype. I'm extremely fussy. 01:03:06,800 I've had friends wanting to take it. Trailer, take it off road. I'm like, hell no. Same with my ATV, which I've had now, and they were bought locally here for 26 years. But when I moved up to Country Creek, I'm again too fussy. 01:03:26,800 Anybody wants to buy an ATV Arctic Cat that's got 200 miles on it, it's for sale. So I basically start it and run it up and down the driveway, which hasn't been run for 20. What's your address? 20, 20 years. But it is beautiful red and it's brand new. And anyway, so I don't ride off road except, you know, the snowmobile. 01:03:42,730 But I want I would like the powersports folks here almost 20 years coming up on just some months here. I've lived up northeast of Bismarck. I have never seen the amount of damage to the ditches that is prevalent today. Drive along Centennial Road, 71st Avenue, 52nd Street, 80th Street. Why? We've had an open winter. 01:04:07,800 We've had extreme warmth. The frost has been coming, even out of the pavement. I've seen it. The frost coming out of the cracks here in the last two weeks. 01:04:24,270 We might be at a time where, number one, maybe we do need to look at where do we get these funds that are being paid by the licensing for off road vehicles, and how can we get some of that money back? And maybe it's time to establish a trail like the Rough Rider snowmobile. North Dakota State Trail has. And maybe it's time to do some, uh, uh, maintenance. And, you know, the Rough Rider Snowmobile Club does signage. 01:04:42,100 So if we have designated trails, you know, of fair amounts so that everybody's happy, you know, stay along 71st and wherever, but that this there's somebody that's taking care of, you know, like Earl talked about and you've talked about your Bittner. 01:05:04,000 You're having to repair your and another gentleman here on moonlight, having to repair the road and the expense and the and repair the ditch. That's whose responsibility is it? One thing I want everybody in the county to understand. As an engineer speaking, our ditches are our above ground storm sewer drainage system. Okay? They are what moves water during rain and flash flood rains. 01:05:27,100 When you rut them out like that, you're changing the elevation. You're sending silts into our culverts and reducing the flow of the culverts and potentially causing overland flooding. You're also sending silts into Burnt Creek, Coulee, Hay Creek, Coulee, Country Creek, Coulee, etc. so right now, nobody has the responsibility to repair what is pretty extensive in 20 years. 01:05:50,900 The worst damage I've seen to our ditches. And I've seen some not good behavior. So there needs to maybe be some thought put in by the proponents for solutions on and working even with the Commission. 01:06:14,270 Where do we get the money to help property owners do the maintenance so that they're not high centering their lawn mower and not put it on the county who's short of staff and potentially funds? But where where can we, in lieu of banning this, which, you know, I think would be unfortunate because there's a lot of good families here that are doing the right thing. 01:06:32,700 But also, you know that there are little like the snowmobile club has little stop signs, you know, that are put up every fall at different approach roads and things. Um, and then when, when we have a winter and we have a, you know, a march that ends up in February, that there's we have just like rate weight restrictions when the frost starts coming out. 01:06:53,330 We have no ride, no ditch ride, you know, from now till the 15th of February or the 20th of February or the whole whatever, when the snow is gone and the frost is coming out early and even in March. No ride. 01:07:10,800 If you're caught riding in the ditches during the time, just like if you're caught with an overweight vehicle on a on a highway where the frost is coming out, you're going to get penalized. So we can maybe start to control some of the wear and tear on our ditches and approach roads by having certain periods like that, which shouldn't be unreasonable. 01:07:28,270 You know, we don't get to ride our snowmobiles. Hell, I haven't had mine out for three winters because there's no snow. So, you know, it shouldn't be too burdensome that, you know, during the last two weeks, no riding in the ditches until we get some snow or the temperature drop. 01:07:43,100 So that we can start to control the wear and tear. Number one. Number two is there. Definitely. This is on the parents. And to send your kids off miles away to tear up other people's property that has to that have to high center their mowers and deal with repairing their approach road is Unethical and it's actually immoral. 01:08:04,070 So there's also safety issue. Twice in the last two years, I've almost T-boned a dirt bike as I'm facing south to cross 71st Avenue on 52nd. The sun had set. There was twilight. I started to accelerate in there, accelerating to get home on a 4555 mile an hour highway. 01:08:22,630 So these off highway vehicles, dirt bikes, whatever, are not staying totally off highway. So there is a safety issue. Now if I would have two different events hit that individual. I mean, technically I wasn't my fault, but guess whose fault it would be? And guess whose parents would be suing me? It's a huge safety issue. 01:08:45,870 Um, and I see ATVs on the pavement going to and fro all the time. So we have to somehow, if you to put this on, our law enforcement is the most ridiculous thing because it's a waste of resources. They can't get there. They're gone. And that is a waste of resources. 01:09:04,430 So if anyone says, oh, we need to increase enforcement, that that that's stupid. Okay, let's just be honest. That's not a solution. Education. Well, we tried that already, but until we get parents, that's who we have to educate. 01:09:23,470 And I don't know how you get families to be more like these families who respect other people's property, but it should be common sense. If they were fussy like me, there never would be an off road vehicle ridden in the mud. But I mean there, they're mud flying. I've seen them doing this in the last two weeks. Fish tailing huh? Can I tell you a story? Oh. Another story. 01:09:42,270 Go ahead. Hey. Yeah. Yeah. Um. Oh, this. Was. Just the. The dangerous thing. And this is a real thing that happened because we're we're having this conversation about OHV and whatnot. Right? So this thing happened that actually had nothing to do with OHV. 01:10:00,500 Uh, Commissioner Schwab and I were taking a look at something out at the fairgrounds, and the road supervisor stopped in because my truck was obviously past the road closed signs, you know, and so he stops in, I want to know who was going to pass those signs. 01:10:18,730 And then he started to tell me that we have a problem down where they're doing that pumping station on the corner of Apple Creek Road and 52nd. And the problem was, they were dragging all of this mud out onto the out onto the road. And he says, wow, should I go over there? Yeah. 01:10:35,870 You go over there, you know, in the direction was if you need to shut them down, shut them down, because we had, you know, people and it was starting to get warm and we were going to have motorcycles and such. Right. 01:10:51,370 So I don't mean to take up any of your time, Curt, but so then just the other night, I'm driving into town and coming up 52nd, which is where we had all the mud and and the guys were out there and we made them use sweepers and stuff and threatened with, you know, taking away their birthdays and all that. And I get up here and I'm coming up to 52nd now on highway ten. And this guy in his in his lady come out of 52nd right in front of me. 01:11:07,700 And then they were going real slow. And of course, then I get up to them pretty close. And he's doing this thing like what you were talking about, going back and forth and back and forth on the road. 01:11:25,000 And I worked out, huh? As soon as he's gassed on it and spun his wheels, it confirmed that he had been in the mud and he was on this motorcycle. And he was. And I'm looking at that bike going, that is not a dirt bike. And I know he's not in the ditches. 01:11:43,800 And so if he's watching or if maybe somebody told the story, maybe it's online or anything, that here's the old man cruising up next to him at the stoplight going, hey, how'd you get that mud on your wheels? And he goes, oh, well, my my drive. I got a I got a dirt, mud driveway. Oh, okay. You know, I was just hopeful that he was going to be safe. 01:11:58,530 But, you know, after spinning mud up on my windshield, my concern was that those guys down on 52nd and Apple Creek Road were hauling mud out there again, because it was a Sunday, and they maybe thought they could get away with it. 01:12:15,900 So if that story is going around anywhere, it had to do with mud on the road. And we don't so much as want mud on the road because of the hazards to the traveling public. And we do take action and take that real seriously. So. 01:12:34,530 So I really think one of the solutions may be that like, for example, the Sheriff's department post no ditch writing from now, you know, February 1st to February 20th due to unusual warming and no snow. I mean, very simple. And if you're caught riding in the ditch in any way except for ag ranching, utility things chasing down, you know, a horse or whatever you're going to be. You're subject to fine. 01:12:59,800 But, I mean, I don't think that's unreasonable. We we we. We protect our highways during the frost time. Spring when the frost comes out. Why can't we start protecting the ditches? Because right now everybody says, oh, well, we live in the we have a right. We have a right to to do this. 01:13:16,970 But yet you're making other people pay to repair their ditches, fill in the ruts and repair their approach roads. Tell me how. That's right. Okay. And not everybody is as diplomatic as Mr. Reese here. 01:13:37,000 But I've heard a lot of stories from neighbors and people, as we've talked about this over the last, I don't know, probably been four years already, that, yes, they've had that experience where they're getting disrespected and flipped off. And then the other lady here talking about all the jumping, um, well, then what happens is that they tend to, like, terrorize that person then. Right. You know. And then. 01:13:53,600 So not only did they have the problem begin with now they got it like ten fold cause and it's happened to the kids. Realize and get help on 52nd. They've literally been terrorized. Yeah. And they did some things with fencing. And guess what? Two times they came and cut their barbed wire. 01:14:06,800 Two times we drove by and it's all curled up. And I mean, this is this this is. Yes. Houston, we have a problem. But I think the reason might just go all the way back to. They don't have parents like some of these here. Yeah. 01:14:26,170 So you proponents and I'd like, uh, the motorsports folks I own, from a Harley to ATV to UTV. All of it. I'm obviously a proponent. Um, but go drive around out on Centennial 80th, 71st, 52nd. Go look at the damage. And I'm telling you, in 20 years, I've never seen it so bad. 01:14:45,370 So all we would have to do is put a restriction during a period of time and we can minimize, you know, when it's dry out, the damage will be limited. But also, how do we get the funds? This is the solutions I'm looking for from all you proponents. 01:15:00,500 How do we get the funds to help pay for this damage and do repair in the spring and whatever so that it's not on the property owners? Where do we get. Do we look at like forming a trail for X number of miles and that are, you know, that there are funds that can go into the maintaining of that trail type of thing. 01:15:16,130 These are the solutions that I think should come out there instead of putting it on the adjacent property owners. I'm note fortunately, no one rides in front of ours because it's culvert, driveway, culvert. No one can. I mean, they'd be hitting a culvert every width of a lot. Thank goodness. 01:15:33,200 But I'm I'm like, what I just heard, I'm very fussy. I maintain that ditch I sprayed for weeds, all that. So I would honestly have a problem if I had to go out there and mow and be hitting ruts with my tractor, and then I'd have to pay to have dirt hauled in or go get it myself. 01:15:49,530 I just don't think that's right. And I think we need to come up with solutions on how we can maybe limit the amount of miles that are being ripped up and how we can help people pay for it, and then riding restrictions, you go on the, you know, just like we call 511 01:16:05,470 to make sure the roads are okay. We get to Fargo. We have we have some way that's simple so that all of the ones trail riders off highway vehicles know that. Yep. It's a green light we can ride now. Fire, fire thing. We do that. Nope. No burning. You know, this is not complicated. 01:16:22,000 So we could do something like that. That would have saved a lot of what you see going on out there and the mud across the approach roads. Um, you know, 52nd where we cross. 01:16:39,100 Just took my two vehicles through a car wash, and I'm having to drive slowly through mud, you know, and I don't live on gravel for a reason because I'm too flippin fussy. So, um, that's all I have. Thank you for. Thanks for the time. Mr. chairman. Commissioner woodcox. Um, we've got a couple of dealers. They're still here, right? We put an order. I'd like to get to ask a question. A woman short. Not real long. 01:16:58,170 Neither one of you want to step up here. Okay. Here's here's my here's my here's my point. Here's my point. It's an easy question. We put an ordinance in 2 or 3 years ago, and we thought we had the problem solved because it was county wide. 01:17:09,900 And it was it was we thought we took care of the problem. Has there been any change in since that time? Since we put that in? Have you seen any change as far as sales are concerned or anything like that? Has it changed at all? Did we do anything there? I'm sorry. 01:17:28,530 What do you mean? The first ordinance? Commissioner Wilcox, I don't think that we've seen a huge growth in sales. Covid was. Well, I'd like you to come on up. 01:17:37,370 I mean, it hasn't had we. Did we do anything? As far as you're concerned. Commissioner Wilcox, to that notion. You know, during Covid, we've seen a large influx of new consumers in the market. I'm talking people that were never in the powersports industry, a lot of homeowners probably in these areas. 01:17:50,900 You know, honestly, the ordinance was 2021 or 2022. Um, nothing else has changed in the industry since then, to be honest. But a couple things, like Missouri Valley is for young kids, that's a problem. It's for like we talked, it's for young kids, you know, people have nowhere to go. They see these trails or in the ditches. 01:18:07,600 And it's legal right now. And that's a place to ride. One thing I would echo is, you know, I think I know we can't solve a parenting problem. I know that's the problem. And we've probably talked about parenting problems in this county for the last 30 years. Right. 01:18:22,870 We all have opinions on how people should parent what they should do. But I do think there is um, obviously both sides of the table have some really good points. And as dealers, you know, we don't want to, um, be disrespectful to people. We don't want that. 01:18:36,170 Um, there's a lot of things that we can talk with, but I guess I would echo Annette as far as what she has to say. As to I just wanted to know whether we did any good. Was that a waste of our time? Because I think this is a waste of our time, too, right? I really do. I just think the enforcement really hard. 01:18:48,930 One thing I was in a state is that the state does allocate funds to Burleigh County for enforcement. It's not a lot. In the last in 2024 and 2025, they allocated $8,700. It's like a 158 hours in overtime that they allotted. 01:19:05,100 Um, you know, maybe there's avenues that we can get more from the state to a lot for more enforcement. I know it's really hard because we're shorthanded, so that's not possible. Money doesn't solve problems as far as extra people in time. So that's why I think the enforcement of of an ordinance isn't the answer. I think we kind of need to come together and find a common ground. 01:19:20,530 As Kurt talked about, um, there's a lot of different avenues we can take with this, I think. 01:19:26,470 Yeah. So. And it's really hard for dealers, I think, for us to, um, you know, police this. Maybe there should be more awareness. Awareness, you know, on a topic. Maybe this will do it. A lot of issues like this. Uh. 01:19:41,230 Chairman Bittner, no disrespect, but you talked about how a couple of years ago, you guys are over years, you've came to dealers and worked with dealers on this. I'll be honest, you know, and we're in Warren County in Mandan. Our dealership is is still very important to our business. We sell a lot of units in the county, but I've never been approached by county. 01:19:56,900 Uh, any counties? Morton County don't have any problems. For some reason. I don't think you. Were part of. The picture. This is long enough ago. We've been dealing with this a long time, right? Our family's been a dealer for 30, 32, 33 years. Chairman. 01:20:09,630 So I don't know if other dealers have different experiences, but we've all been longstanding dealers in the community, and there's never been a joint effort of, hey, we need to fix this or we need to start the topic. We had the ordinance that got passed 3 or 4 years ago. Well, I tell. You, um, maybe Annette can address that because I did work with her. 01:20:23,500 I don't know if you were in it or not. Okay, sure. Just just on behalf of of our dealership, we have never, um, I've been been in charge there for over 20 years, and I've never had someone come to our dealership from on behalf of the county and or anything to talk about how we can handle 01:20:41,070 this or what we can do or work together in a group. So, okay, so it may happen at some point, but it has not happened recently. So I think I think that's where we can start. All right. You may disagree with me chairman, but there had. No it's not I don't need to disagree with you. 01:20:56,270 Um there's there's no problem. Just to add to that, Jeremy. From Full Throttle Motorsports had. My. Dealership. For 23. Years. I've never been approached with it. I was part of action sports. I worked for his dad prior to that, and I don't recall that even out action sports. And that was when. They were in Honda. 01:21:14,600 That was when they were in Burleigh County action sports. Maybe it was a Honda solution. Yeah. So just just a just a little time. One more thing on the kids. The problem of course. I ride Honda's ATVs. So maybe that's what it was. One small thing on the problem, kids. You know, there's problem kids everywhere. 01:21:30,800 They're at the swimming pool. You don't eliminate the swimming pool. Um, there's always problem, kids. If you take the ditches away, they'll find. They'll find other areas to cause problems. I think you got it. Sure. I don't think you gave your name, did you? You got a Jeremy Hazen? Got a sign in. 01:21:44,230 Okay. Annette, did you want to add something? No, I think so. All right. Mr. chairman. Commissioner woodcox. 01:21:55,530 Go ahead. Go ahead. Jerry. I can make mine. Will be more than 30s. Okay. 30s. Mine's going to be short. I'm Dan Reese. Uh, one thing I can say is, over the years, we've lived out there for 20 years, um, had plenty of issues ourselves. We do maintain our ditch ourselves with the ruts. 01:22:16,370 We'll drag them and this and that. But there's been a few kids over the years other than the ones that I stopped and spoke nice to, that outran me. But I did end up finding their parents went and talked with them. And so I know where some of these problems coming from. 01:22:31,100 And I went and talked to their parents. Some have been receptive and the other ones are pretty much like, give me the bird. But at least I know when these kids are coming through. Where to go look. And at least if I call the sheriff, I know where to send them. 01:22:47,500 So to me, almost like a community watch out there, which I know it might be a little over and above, but I think we could find some of the bad apples, because obviously with the reports that young man gave and stuff, there's really not that many in Burleigh County. 01:23:03,500 And maybe we can start eliminating some of these guys that are the bad apples. So that's just another thought of the process. Maybe try to fix this without taking everybody's rights away. So that's all I got. 01:23:21,100 Could I make a comment to that? How many people starting with the dealerships, do you guys have on Facebook alone that fall on your pages? If you did a poster or. Can you come up with some? Oh, sorry, we don't know. 01:23:30,530 Kind of kind of going forward with that. Um. The self-policing. Uh, our dealerships alone back here. I know I've spoke to, um, Jeremy, uh, today, and he, you know, they they might have upwards of 25,000 or, excuse me, 2500 followers or more. Just just on the dealership site. 01:23:51,630 And some of them are individuals that purchase or look for what's up and coming. Um, that also could be motocross events, race events, hair scrambles, etc. but this could be a sell police issue. And like I mentioned before, we have this 300 and something thousand dollars annually. We don't have any signage saying, hey, be respectful. 01:24:07,170 Something as simple as a sign in the ditch goes a long ways. Guys, um, you want to keep this right? Follow these rules and lay them out. Um, there's really simple solutions to this. I don't I don't see. 01:24:21,800 And then, um, if you did approach to dealerships, they have a very large network of people that are in this industry, from the ATVs to the dirt bikes. And that could be worked together here because it is all one community. And furthermore, to just one thing everyone should keep in mind, it's really easy to give your freedom up. It's really hard to get it back. 01:24:44,000 So banning this I think, is a very slippery slope again, and I'd like to just keep that in everybody's mind. I'm going forward. Okay. Thanks for your input. This is not a question about freedom. I did that fight for freedom thing when I was in the Marine Corps. 01:24:59,700 I don't really need the the issue to be about freedom. Um, one of the things that I think we could do is, um, dealers and user groups need to get together and propose some solutions of their own. And don't give me this. I can, and I worked on this education. We'll work with education. 01:25:21,270 Additional signs in the ditch. That's a ridiculous thing to do because they didn't mind driving right over my No Trespassing signs. Now I'm a Burleigh County commissioner, and if the kid is so bold as to run over the no trespassing signs of a commissioner, do you think he's going to care about any of you? Anybody else's property? 01:25:43,000 I don't think that's a solution. So we need solutions. Because right now, I think actually my opinion at this point, because we have no money, no money to fix that. And when we do fix it, it gets it gets tore up right away. 01:26:03,600 Again, it's worse than it's ever been, in spite of all of the efforts, all of the chasing them down, anything the law enforcement guys have been doing. You know, at this point, um, until the user groups and the dealers can come up with some workable solutions, maybe work with North Dakota Parks and RECs, I know that they have, uh, trail grant programs available because I've built a 01:26:24,430 lot of those trails. There is options, but it's no longer our problem at this table. It's your. Problem. And I think it's up to those of you that have the machines and want to continue using them to explain to us, how are we going to fix this? 01:26:39,670 You know, we had a great big fire here not too long ago that was up at that. That golf course up north was that hawk tree. Yeah. We had, I don't know, Forest Service guys, fire departments from all around the area. 01:26:57,330 A lot of effort, including the Black Hawk helicopters, ferry and water to try to put out this fire. And you know what caused that? Some guy was mowing and he slid into one of those little ruts and his blade sparked on a rock. One little spark. And we spent how many thousands, thousands, thousands of dollars. Lives were at risk because of one little rut in the ditch. 01:27:18,900 And I've had somebody, you know, that sent me an email and said, well, I don't consider that to be damaged. Well, I think that was a heck of a lot of damage, folks. And the problem is the problem has gotten so large and that's why it got to us. We don't go looking for these problems. 01:27:34,900 Now we have the problem because you got two sides here. 01:27:41,630 And I'm all ears for solutions because I took a shot at it years ago and it was good for a little bit. And then pretty soon it's just like worse. So the status quo is not going to work moving forward. There's going to have to be some changes. Um, commissioners. Um, Commissioner Botkin. 01:28:03,870 Um, so I was part of writing the ordinances for the city. Um, and folks from the industry came and said, hey, why can we not ride these in the cities? And the biggest concern I had was speed. Um, but we got through that and made it work. The ordinance for the city is for the city. 01:28:22,500 I'm really not comfortable with throwing a blanket over the county for that, because those were specifically written for the city and they work I by God, they work well. And I just had a friend the other day that pulled up in front of my house on his side by side, and we beat us for a while. 01:28:41,700 There's a big problem, but what we're. And I'm a the generation that yeah, I survived three wheelers and we rode on gravel roads and didn't ride in ditches and and that's not the case now with gravel roads, it's just not legal because the, the big issue we're running into is the user groups. 01:29:03,100 There's very few of these side by sides that aren't road street legal. And you're running into, okay, you can't ride on the roads if you're under 16. Okay. We have a room full of people that have a big problem on both sides, and this is the the groups causing the problem. 01:29:28,500 So throwing a blanket over isn't the solution. You know, I played around with the the road ditch restrictions. Okay great. But we got two weeks where we get six eight inches of rain in the summer. Uh, managing that is a little bit difficult when they're frozen up, not damaged. I talked to our weed. Uh, um, officer today. 01:29:49,600 Um, he's got for me a lot of it. The damage comes back to water conveyance because ditches have to function. And we've spent how much money over the last how long fixing water issues from the city. Um, and now we've got more water issues. 5 or 6 million than I can recall right on my head. 01:30:07,170 Wheat officer has concerns because ripped up ditches, breeding ground for weeds. Makes his job more, um, cost us more money. Um, a lot of this comes back to me is we have this is the problem and this is the solution. No. It's not. Fix this. This is the solution. 01:30:32,530 Um, one of the things in my homework, it's like the trail groups. And Commissioner Chair Bittner has brought it up a lot, too. The money's out there for the trail system. Maybe that's where we need to get the user groups together, get the dealers together and start looking at where can we identify, you know, with the highway department, where the. 01:30:49,970 Should the trails go? You know, how do you get that connectivity within the county? Because the other part of this too, is you go out four miles. Six miles. I don't hear a problem. I don't hear a problem the rest of the county, it's what the former ETA was that that's where it is, that that's where most of it lies. 01:31:09,070 So throwing a big blanket over the issue and trying to fix the problem, I don't think is the solution. It's like, here's the problem. So thanks. You know, coming back to the user groups and who's using the vehicles and selling the vehicles, it's like a lot of different stakeholders that need to come to the table and 01:31:29,500 discuss how do we fix this. Because the blanket. Put. $800,000 in garrisons. 01:31:37,800 What can we do with $800,000? All right, Mr. woodcox. If you wanted to add something. I have, I really agree with you. I think it's a small number of people that are doing it, and I disagree with you in that I think this is an enforcement issue. It's not it's not a blanket solution. It's an enforcement issue. 01:31:58,100 And I don't know how we're going to handle that, whether we I know we visited with the sheriff off and on for two or 3 or 4 years, and unfortunately it's very difficult to enforce. But that's the only way I'm going to get these kids to quit. 01:32:11,530 I mean, you just you got to catch them in the act. Whether we create a a silent service that sits out there and and with a gun and and check speed limits, I don't know how we're going to do it, but I think it's more of a more of a. I can tell you how we do. 01:32:27,770 It. Well, if that if that's what we need to do, I think that's where we need to head. Well. You know, unfortunately, Commissioner, go ahead and finish. 01:32:48,070 I going to say if we I think we're wasting our time proceeding with this, with this or the, the the work we're going now, I think it's a waste of our planning department. It's time because I'm going to vote against it. I don't know what anybody else, but you certainly indicated your your feelings. So even though even before we see the ordinance, I don't think we can make it our ordinance that we put in three years ago. 01:33:04,170 What have we done? We still can't enforce that. And we're going to make it more restrictive. And we're trying to trying to make it more difficult to enforce. That isn't the solution at all. 01:33:15,170 No. I notice you don't have a solution, Commissioner. Commissioner Munson. Well, and I don't know if I have the solution either, but. But I do agree that if there is an opportunity to get dealers, users, and the state. Together. To create. Um. Trails that are very specific to. That's where they can travel. 01:33:36,970 That's about the only option I can find that is a solution. Um, I do agree that banning them doesn't help our sheriff's department at all. They can find some of these kids, but there, by the time they get there, they're gone. 01:34:00,800 Um, I have had conversations over the last several weeks, and some of the stories that that aren't here to talk about, you know, the intimidation by these kids when they almost run somebody over and they don't care. They laugh instead of apologize. 01:34:21,270 It's a parenting problem, but we can't fix that either, you know? That's that is that is nothing that we as a commission can create a law that says you have to parent a certain way. That's just not right. Um, the only solution I can come at with this is, is gathering up all the groups going to the state and try to find some established trails so that that's the direct. 01:34:37,900 We give them an opportunity to be in a safe place that isn't wrecking public property. 01:34:48,630 Go ahead. Kurt. Are there. Any. Rules whatsoever to ride. In our ditches? No, not. Exhibition driving really is about the only. It's about if there is a state trail ever. It's not going to matter. There will be rules and regulations. And I can guarantee you if there's a group paying for maintenance of that trail. 01:35:08,730 We have no easy way to find out if we can run our. We have bonfires a lot, and with the dry summers we have. I always check to see if there's a burn ban on. Yep, this is not complicated. You could solve a lot of the very costly issues to property owners in the county. 01:35:26,200 Won't stop the jumping, of course, but by simply having parents check is if we got two inches of rain or whatever. I'm sorry, but for three days, no riding in the ditches. 01:35:45,970 Yeah, you could simply have the ordinance say you have to check if there's bands for those days, and that leaves a lot of days out of the year to ride. And if you're caught riding, you're fighting. Period. That solves a lot of the damage problems I had. So how. Do you enforce. That? Hold on. No, no, I'm talking that. Well, that's a. That's that's a. Hang on, hang on. 01:36:01,300 We're not going to have a we're not going to have a situation where we're kind of talking all around the room. 01:36:14,800 Uh, does anybody else wish to approach the podium? Commissioner Myron. Anton. I have, uh. We've been riding for. Like, 25 years. Plus, my kids grew up. Doing the stuff. Right. And when you're. 14. You can go on line and get your 14 year old permit to ride the ATV. 01:36:40,330 And then there it tells you if there's water in the ditch, go through it, don't go around it cause you're going to ruin the vegetation. Okay, so but normally when we're doing this stuff, if there's water, we, you know, take them on the road. But then I believe according to Burley County, it's illegal. Even though our four wheelers we have, they are street legal. 01:37:00,800 We can go to South Dakota, Wyoming and all that stuff. They have horns, windshield mirrors. I don't know why we can't drive them in Burley County. I don't know why. Why is there any difference in a motorcycle, you know, and then. Yeah. Yeah. So they said district league. We could ride them in Burley. And you can drive. 01:37:20,270 Them. You can ride them on the highways. Yeah. Or they're not the highways, but I'm on the paved roads. Sure you. Can. Yeah. In the county of age in the county, but you can't be on highway 83 or you can't be on the interstate. Okay, well, that's good then. Jurisdiction. That's great. Side by side. 01:37:35,070 You can four wheelers and dirt bikes. Yes. I thought four wheelers. They. Okay, this is the ATV. We're not. Okay. But now if we could actually. Why can't we drive a street legal ATV on a paved road like 80th? Yeah. Would keep people out of the ditch. I drive on it. Yes, all the time, I don't know. 01:37:56,670 So where you got that idea? Yeah. I'm talking ATV, A little four Wheeler. I drive my ATV on the road. Okay. It's licensed. It's got the lights. It's got no a 14 year old. Yeah, because the rules of the road. Have 16. Driver's license. Yeah. I may have been. 18 year old. Okay. All right. 01:38:15,770 Okay. And I just got to know one last thing I wanted to. I'm sorry. Butter up. One of the worst things I think would do for, like, that guy in evergreen is putting stop signs going up and approach, because once you stop, you have, like, an 80 horsepower engine to kind of go uphill. 01:38:37,970 You're going to start spinning and tearing that, making more damage than doing that. So I appreciate that. 01:38:48,730 Okay. 01:38:52,100 Anybody else? Don't be shy. We're already getting late. Mr. Schwab's Commissioner Schwab. I want to make a comment here. This problem is not ever going to be solved until Kurt and this crowd goes out, gets the hoverboard going. The hoverboard? That's right. Back to the future. That back to the future. All right. Because let's get fit with us. Um. 01:39:22,730 Thank you folks. I really appreciate everybody's input and whatnot. You know, we weren't going to have this long, drawn out conversation, but I think it's important that we did. And I appreciate everybody. Um, thank you for letting us do that. Yeah. You're welcome. Um, I don't think I don't want to see any additional action on this tonight. 01:39:44,530 Um, I think I would like to see us put it on the agenda for the next meeting again and see if, in the meantime, we don't get any kind of meaningful, input. 01:40:05,270 You know, I have gotten emails and phone calls that have talked about the law enforcement, and they've talked about the education and they've talked about science and all that. But I think we've tried all that. And at this point, pretty much everything that we've done up to this point has failed. I think we can all agree with that. 01:40:25,270 And so I think between now and the next meeting, at least we need to think about it some more and maybe get some people together that can work on solutions. Because really, if we could go down the road and I have suggested this to another number of people, that if you pursue with a bonafide group and getting the funding through 01:40:43,170 the state of North Dakota and getting the things built and commit to maintaining them and doing it the right way, that may be a solution. Because status quo doing like it's been is not the answer. Okay, so I think we can all agree on that so well. 01:41:02,630 And that's a great opportunity to for the highway Department and the Parks department when it gets going is is, you know, go out and address some of the locations where there should be some trails in conjunction with some of the user groups. I mean, that's a solution. Well, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. 01:41:21,870 You know, at least having the conversation, I can tell you, I would probably fall over if anybody walked up and said they were volunteering to help fix anything. Not one person has volunteered to help fix anything. I live, I can't walk. I'd say the same thing I would, but I'm on. I got an 8,080% decision. Mr. chairman. 01:41:48,230 But Commissioner Quick 30s the two townships that are really the proper Hay Creek. And what is it, Gibbs? Is that it? Gibbs. Oh, They both have. And speaking monetarily, they both have money. They do. They take care of their roads and they they have a good tax base. 01:42:07,000 Why can't we approach them as far as putting money towards a solution? They take care of the roads. Well, I just heard today that. 01:42:13,370 Those townships are having significant money trouble. Well, I see the balance of Hay Creek and I see the balance of gibs, and I don't think they're in trouble. I don't know about Apple Creek. That was just talking to a township supervisor. Maybe they knew more than. Maybe they didn't know. Maybe it's a different township, I don't know. 01:42:31,800 The chairman of. Apple Creek Township, if they will actually. Help out. Yeah. Okay. Like I said, I don't think we're going to take any action. We'll have an agenda item for the next meeting. Um, and we'll go from there. And I want to thank you all again for taking the time to. Can we visit. 01:42:52,700 To, um, you know. Yeah. Hang in there. For. Yeah. Um, anything else for the commissioner? Schwab, I have two things. Make sure that if you have older people, they get their $1,600 tax refund in by April 4th. Second. Is any commissioner going to go to Carrington? I was going to. Ask. That question. 01:43:17,330 Huh? Do you want to go. For the garrison. Version? I'm not going. I'm I'm done with the public hearing. I think it's a foregone conclusion myself. I don't think there's going to be any issue that we're going to make a difference on. Thank you and I. 01:43:36,900 Are we adjourned? We are adjourned.