00:00:25,170	Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Call the April. 6th, 2026 meeting of the Berkeley County Commission to order. First item is roll call. The members. Commissioner Woodcox here. Commissioner Munson here. Commissioner Botkin here. Commissioner Schwab, chairman Bitner here.

00:01:00,870	Next to the approval of the agenda. Commissioners, I have a request under, um, number 12, emergency Manager Sanger to add Providence, change order as item. B. Anybody else have any changes, additions or anything? Seeing none, I’ll ask for a motion to approve. Move to. Approve. Second motion a second to approve the agenda.

00:01:28,330	Any further discussion. Call the roll. Commissioner Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Baskin. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Next is consideration of the March 23rd. Uh, March 26th special meeting minutes. In March 16th, 2026. Meeting minutes and bills. Commissioners. Mr. chairman, I have reviewed all the minutes and the.

00:01:55,500	I approve the bills, but this is the March 16th bills. Uh, move. They be approved. Second motion and second to approve the meeting. Minutes and bills. Any further discussion? Caldwell. Commissioner Botkin. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes. Commissioner. Munson. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries.

00:02:18,370	Next item is, uh, Telecommunications Week proclamation. Um, I guess it’s in your packet. Commissioners. Um, is there any need to read it? Mr. chairman, I move to second. Motion to second to approve the Telecommunications Week proclamation. Any further discussion? Call the roll. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes. Chairman. Bitner.

00:02:44,730	Yes. Motion carries. Um, is that in here to sign, or is that. It is. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Next is public comment period. I’ll remind you that this is for items that are not on the agenda. Um, individual providing comment must provide their name and address on the form provided is restricted to Burleigh County residents.

00:03:08,000	Landowners should not repeat items already presented during public comment period. Public may sign the form, provided and signify if you agree or disagree on a specific item, rather than speaking. If their comments do not add to the conversation. Time limit and appropriateness at the discretion of the chair.

00:03:28,530	Limited to current agenda items or agenda items for the previous meeting. May be available during each agenda item at the discretion of the chair. Must be pertinent to Burleigh County. May not interfere with the orderly conduct of the regular meeting. May not be defamatory, abusive, harassing or unlawful.

00:03:48,330	May be prohibited if an alternative procedure exists to bring that particular type of public public comment before the entity, the public comment includes confidential or exempt information, or the public comment is otherwise prohibited by law. Misinformation presented may be corrected by the chair or other board members. Speakers may be guided back to the topic as needed. Does anybody wish to speak during the public comment period? And back. Uh.

00:04:16,370	Chair Bitner and commissioners, uh, I’m sure you’ve heard about this, but I called Steve Schwab Saturday because. I get your name, please. Tim Cook. Jim Cook, uh, I live out at, uh, Gibbs Township, and Concrete Creek and, uh, the, the the the garbage trucks are going through out there.

00:04:35,270	And I know you’ve all heard this, but they had to actually have a record come in and pull that out. And the record went into the it sunk so far in, he could barely get out. So what I’m asking is and I did a little study in the garbage trucks way between 14 and £33,000.

00:04:52,430	Now, it didn’t say if they were loaded or unloaded, but I think that the average wait, you got to remember the school bus of their 25 to 40,000. So it’s not just the garbage truck problem going on out there, but there’s multiple red flags up there. Everywhere you go, cars are bottoming out.

00:05:10,530	And I think, I don’t know if anybody’s driven out in that area. It’s a mess and it’s going to get worse. But what you got to realize is in the spring that water starts coming out, the water is just oozing out of them roads.

00:05:27,430	And so when you get up, heavy trucks going over, it’s going to happen every year. So I don’t know in the future if these these developments are going to have to get a better thickness of blacktop, because I think it’s going to start. I know that’s about 15, 14 years old where I’m at, because that was the first house out there.

00:05:47,170	But, uh, there’s a 20 years, uh, covenants on there for no, no specials. So I’m wondering who pays actually is the county or Gibbs responsible for fixing the roads? I heard some of both. And where does the money come from? Our taxes. Out of a general fund. I just curious about that.

00:06:11,630	I think I can jump in on that a little bit. Um, I believe in your case. What what I looked into, because I heard about that as well. Okay.

00:06:25,600	And I do have pictures of the of the garbage truck stuck in the road and the wreckers and the whole thing. Um, okay. In that case, the repair costs would be borne by the township, and it’s Gibbs Township in your case. Right. And so to answer your question, that is tax dollars that are township tax dollars. And of course, the county is, uh, involved. My understanding there.

00:06:45,870	And Dan or Casey can could speak to it, but Gibbs Township hired a private contractor to address that. And then we also sent out guys to, to work on on that same thing at the time, because we want to try to make it safe for the traveling public. Sure.

00:07:02,530	Um, so the last I heard at the time, our guys were on the way and of course it was snowing to beat the band and everything else at the time. It was great to be, and there was kind of a joke about. Yeah, or plowing mud and snow in the same day.

00:07:16,430	So, um, it’s really a tough thing. And the reason the township was, was doing that is because we’ve got this happening all over the place. Yeah. It’s not limited to um, and I did ask the county engineer if, um, trash trucks are exempt from our we have load limits on those roads.

00:07:36,630	And the question is, are they exempt or not? And I’m thinking we’ll probably hear something about that. No. Okay. It doesn’t sound like they’re exempt. So, um. But actually, like I said, the bus is way more than that. And that’s, you know, so they they’re going through there twice a day. Yeah.

00:07:55,730	So I don’t know, I just I don’t know if there’s a cure for it, but it’s going to be a mess. It’s going to get worse out there before it gets better. Yeah. So okay.

00:08:15,530	So does it does it does the county or the Gibbs township collect any taxes from Verde County? Do they get any money from the county or the. So where do they make their money from? Uh, your township portion of your property taxes. But that comes out of our general taxes. Your. Yeah, yeah. Everybody’s tax statement has a line on it that would be like in my case, it’s Apple Creek Township and yours would be Gibbs Township. All right.

00:08:34,270	Thank you. Yeah. Because they’re the ones that are responsible. It’s actually their jurisdiction on those subdivision roads. Good questions. Thanks. Anybody else wish to comment in the public comment period? I got some good info. Okay. Great.

00:09:09,000	Commissioners, my name is Curtis John and I was going to talk about this. But for Jim’s sake, um, we did attend the Gibbs Township annual meeting two weeks ago, and it was very informative. This whole topic and this road issue east of Rundle Road, I mean, it’s if you go from shoal south to 71st Avenue, you will see the alkali out to the east.

00:09:31,500	I mean, it’s along the country Creek Coulee. Um, it’s a soft spot. When you go east of Rundle Road and it’s a it’s a problem. One thing that was brought up by the Gibbs Township Board is that there is a change now that was made in Burleigh County.

00:09:51,230	That wasn’t the case when the roads were built up there. And that’s that. Their plat, apparently plats were approved before roads were put in or sale of lots. But something has changed now where they before they can sell any lots, they have to have the streets done.

00:10:11,870	And apparently the process and maybe Dan can speak to that what the approval process is so that a developer, in the case of Country Creek, um, developer they I know there’s like five editions.

00:10:37,070	Um, they built the roads and I don’t think Burleigh County engineering, uh, Dot was involved in that and I think I don’t know, Dan, if they are now, but, um, the road, the roads were the streets were not built to very good quality, especially over that soft spot, boggy area. So that that’s something that I hope will change. And when it comes to who pays for it, Gibbs Township has a budget. We were there. Um, I don’t know. It was X number of mills.

00:10:56,170	Took a vote approved. That goes as part of the that goes to the county. And so there are our property taxes do have a budget in there from Gibbs Township. And they are budgeting to try to get some of these street issues taken care of up there.

00:11:10,600	So 52nd Street Shoal all the way around is a big problem. And they are applying for grant funds. I forget the name of the program they applied last year and didn’t get get it, but they’re applying for that.

00:11:30,370	So I have uh, I can give you the information on when to attend those meetings and also contact information to my next door neighbor is the streets guy for Gibbs. So, um, one thing I want to mention here, um, uh, Commissioner Woodcox, uh, we the meeting three weeks ago. Um, I think you might. I found this amusing, but, um, because I’m going to get into AI and your AI.

00:11:50,900	If AI is doing the closed captioning. Um, I have a lot of. There are a lot of people that watch this on replay. So I had, uh, a couple people telling me that when the closed captioning was coming across an AI, your name wasn’t coming up. Totally correct. Really? Yeah.

00:12:11,070	Do you think I haven’t called them a couple, three times to change that? So I, your Commissioner woodpecker, when they when they. So. It comes up, I can, I can, I can insult your last name too. Well I’m sure you can. I’m sure you can. They used to do that in high school.

00:12:29,630	So do you want to go back to Saint Mary’s High? We can do that. But anyway, we still call you Commissioner Woodcox, just so you know. So even though the closed caption doesn’t do it right, one thing I, uh, that leads me into AI. It’s a hot topic, everybody. It’s coming to every county.

00:12:45,600	It’s already tried to come here and it’s going to come here. And all of you people that watch these, uh, the video of Burleigh County Commission meetings, people have to start paying attention to what’s going on. First of all, I don’t have I don’t get this whole race with China.

00:13:08,730	I don’t get see, this sounds like the same scare tactic that was used. Why we need to build a 24 inch CO2 pipeline around Bismarck. Why we need 2500 mile, 19 million metric ton pipeline around Bismarck. If we don’t have that CO2, the oil industry is going to be gloom and doom. If we don’t get that CO2. This is what keeps happening is the fear factor.

00:13:25,170	Now we have the fear factor coming into play with AI data centers. Oh my God, we’re in this race for with China. That’s all we hear. We’re just in this race with China.

00:13:42,270	Well, what does that mean? So you know, uh, Congress, uh, Senator Cramer tried to get through this private act, which has to do with with, uh, carbon scoring imports, because, you know, we’re like the cleanest country on the planet.

00:13:58,270	Major mistake, because eventually it’s just going to end up being carbon tagging, and we’re going to pay the cost on all this garbage, especially when it comes to carbon credits and trading. Well, I have my own private act, and the private act is I want someone to prove to me why this AI race and and these AI data centers that are coming to damn near every county in in North Dakota.

00:14:18,370	So we’re really we’re the cool climate up here, and we’re cool in more ways than just temperature, I got to tell you that. But, um, South Dakota, North Dakota, um, Montana, but really, North Dakota, South Dakota, we are under major assault. Um, they’re trying to build one now down by Saint Anthony. You’ve all probably heard about that. We’re talking about.

00:14:36,730	Get this, you farmers and ranchers. This is this is the collateral damage that is coming 60,000 an acre for 160 acres. Punch that out on your calculator. It’s $9.6 million. So what’s being used is what China’s a master of. And that’s a gold pot scheme.

00:14:58,070	So we’ve got people who are going to take the money. A lot of people would say, you’re nuts if you don’t take the money, but what’s what’s wrong and what needs to be awakened up here before a North Dakota PSC, which I think we have three, that commissioners there that don’t really have a good clue what the hell they’re doing,

00:15:14,100	especially when it comes to AI data centers and renewable energy and all that. Um, but when someone sells 160 acres and takes some money and runs or however many acres you want to sell and take the money and run, because big bucks for wind park or for solar or for AI data centers.

00:15:31,170	Your neighbors are suffering hugely. What has to happen, I believe, is that there needs to be collateral, uh, money. So if they’re going to take 60,000 acres, there needs to be 20,000 of that or that. That is for the collateral damage for all the neighbors around that, that still live there.

00:15:49,870	This this, uh, is happening over in Morton County with these big wind turbines that are coming from Minnesota. We’ve got battery storage now. We’ve got all this, these people selling out. And you know, who can really blame them? We’re talking instant millionaires. They sell the land. They moved to Bismarck, they moved to Fargo.

00:16:05,270	Whatever. They’re absentee owners. This is coming to Burleigh County. And the last thing I want up in my purview when I drive north to our house is to see a bunch of wind turbines or to have a data center.

00:16:22,370	I mean, already for this crazy, dumb, stupid, ridiculous CO2 pipeline trying to wrap around Bismarck. All of this nonsense, people have to start waking up. I want to share one thing with you. They there’s there’s stories and reports coming out. How? No, this is not affecting our power rates. No, it’s not really. Well, then.

00:16:41,100	In fact, I read one recently by a national entity that said, if you look at North Dakota, their rates have actually gone down. Well, who the hell what utility company is that? Because ours are up over 1.5 1.6% times 1.6 times what they were three and a half years ago, four years ago. So we got stuff like this, this, this summit.

00:17:02,730	And I keep talking about them because they made it tough for everybody coming after them, because the lack of transparency and we’re seeing the same fake false narrative garbage here, um, in the monitor just yesterday, today, the cost of a power line and substation needed by data center north of Fargo, which is

00:17:19,000	applied digital, it’s rose from 75 million to 110 million. Oh my God. But guess what? The good news is. The developer says the data center company will still cover the entire cost of the project. Well, they sure as heck better cover the cost of the project because we don’t need it.

00:17:37,900	If you weren’t there. But guess what? Who’s. And then it goes on to say that they need that line because 280MW, guys, 280 megawatt hours is more power on a peak day than the Fargo metro area uses. Utility companies love this. It’s like adding a whole nother metro area of Bismarck and Fargo to your load. It’s great.

00:17:58,800	It’s revenue. They don’t have to do a darn thing, but it says they need it to get power. Who’s paying for the generation? There’s going to be generation added.

00:18:18,270	Who’s paying for that? Guess what the bad news is? All of the infrastructure, jet transmission, all of the generation, the wind turbines, the battery storage that the data centers are going for because, again, another 30% tax credit. Guess who’s paying for that? Because Maisel uses a postage stamp rate. All of us and people need to start waking up and paying attention to this data center stuff.

00:18:34,600	And I know this commission is well aware of it because I’ve had conversations individually with some of you. So, um, we all have to start paying attention to this AI data center, and I want the proven act to apply. I want the private act to apply. Why we need these things so fast, so furious.

00:18:52,630	And we got natural gas being consumed and pipelines being built. Now for their backup generation. We got power lines being built, we got battery storage, we got more wind turbines and gas fired generation $7 billion based on electric. But oh, we need it.

00:19:09,100	The the commercial residential load is not growing that much in North Dakota. And there’s increased load in the oil patch, I get it. But most of this that’s happening and it’s all fake narrative because they’re trying their best to make sure that we don’t we don’t believe that it’s going to affect our power rates, our natural gas rates and our water

00:19:24,470	usage because they’re going to use a closed loop system. And there’s issues with that, too. People need to start paying attention. That’s all I have to say about that. Thank you. Anybody else wish to speak on the public comment period? Anybody else wish to speak? Third call.

00:19:44,600	Anybody else wish to speak? I’m going to close the public comment period. Commissioners, next item is a consent agenda. Do you want to pull anything out of the consent agenda for discussion? Otherwise, move to approve. second motion and second to approve the consent agenda. Any further discussion. Call the roll. Commissioner Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, chairman. Bitner.

00:20:09,170	Yes. Motion carries. Next is public hearing on special assessment district number 78. Ponderosa, Riverside village, page 20. Commissioners. I will open the public hearing on Special Assessment District 78. Um, anybody wish to speak on this? Okay. Go ahead. Dan. Yeah. Um, Mr. Chairman and commissioners, uh, just a little background on this.

00:20:40,800	The residents of Ponderosa Riverside subdivision have presented Burleigh County with a petition for paving improvements. The screening committee reviewed the petition on February 26th, 2026, and determined that the petition contained 28 signatures of the landowners, or 62.2% of the property owners.

00:21:02,170	The County Special Assessment Screening Committee and the County Board have reviewed the petition and have set this date for the public hearing for the Ponderosa Riverside Village, said number 78. I would like to point out after that petition was submitted to my department, we did have another individual stop in and add their name to that petition, taking the number to 29 signatures or 64.4%.

00:21:23,730	So, um, after the public hearing, I’d be happy to answer any questions. There is going to be a proposed resolution, but we’ll have the public hearing first. Okay. Commissioners, any questions for Dan? Okay. This is a public hearing. Um, for Special Assessment district 78, Ponderosa Riverside Village paving project.

00:22:10,970	Anybody wish to speak? My name is Glen. Carol. I live in Ponderosa subdivision on the north end of Sunshine Lane, at the very end of the cul de sac in the spring and fall when they plow our roads after a snowfall, they end up scraping what little gravel there is on

00:22:37,000	the road and pushing it into the ditch. As you can see in one of my pictures there, we don’t get as much traffic to pack the road down, since we are the only house on the end of the road. So when the heavy garbage trucks, mail vehicles, propane trucks, etc.

00:22:56,000	turn around, we end up having ten inch deep ruts right in front of our driveway and mailbox. As you can see that in the pictures. Also, just to push our garbage toad out and get our mail, we have to walk and all that mud. Every time we get any rain.

00:23:13,100	It takes days for our roads to dry out. Then when they dry out, we have deep hardened ruts scattered all over. Our property has approximately 100ft of driveway, 75ft of it being chipped. Rock.

00:23:33,270	That part of my driveway is completely ruined from all the mud being dragged onto it from our public road, and will and will have to be redone once we blacktop it. And Shiprock is not cheap. I do all my own oil changes and other vehicle work, and I’m tired of crawling under a vehicle and having dried on mud falling onto my face.

00:23:55,100	Not to mention hosing it off the vehicles and constantly sweeping public road dirt out of our garage. We pay property taxes like everyone else, and there’s no excuse to have these terrible public roads leading up to our property. They do nothing but destroy the value of our property.

00:24:14,600	If you want to go for a walk in our neighborhood in the spring or after it rains, forget it. Also, when our vehicles drag all this mud out onto the paved roads. This is a huge safety hazard. To conclude, like the sheet states that we receive from the highway department, the cost of blacktop in our roads has been going up 8% every year.

00:24:35,330	Dumping more gravel on our roads is not ever going to fix this problem. We have over 60% in favor of permanently fixing this issue right now. I believe we have 64.5%. Let’s get it done right and once and for all. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions from I don’t see any thanks. Here’s your paper clip. You want your paper clip? I stole it. Thank you.

00:25:20,000	Hi, I’m Elaine Grassle, my husband, Jerry. We moved to Ponderosa about 50 years ago or over 50 years ago. We bought the property before that. We valued the country, surroundings, safety for our future kids, the wildlife, the good neighbors. There were less than a handful of dwellings back then.

00:25:46,170	We appreciated lower taxes, although the amenities were few and still are. We appreciate, uh, for the majority of that time, until the flood, the gravel roads were good back in the day. Even 1804 was gravel. They were generally well maintained. Occasional problems were addressed. Might have been maybe a rough road taken care of by a greater.

00:26:13,370	The local roads had a slight crown on them, which allowed water to drain more readily, rather than the flat surfaces that we see today. And now, and which now the water accumulates on this. Uh, sturdy sides allowed for safe passage with oncoming traffic.

00:26:38,100	The other day, I slid off to the side when a car was coming past me. I’ve been driving those roads for over 50 years. Traffic was low and and even now a stable due to the limited number of lots that the roads serve.

00:26:58,270	When the main road was paved some years ago, there were neighbors who lived along that road who were especially concerned about the increased speeds and safety. Some stood outside asking folks to slow down. That seems to me to be visible proof that speeds could rise with additional paving. This poses a danger to kids, pets, walkers and wildlife.

00:27:24,600	After the flood, which affected so many of our roads, county individuals remarked that the quality of the new gravel was poor, and also that the alignment of the roads in some areas was inaccurate. So that’s another consideration. The alignment is not accurate. In order to have good quality roads, materials must be good. The base, the substrata must be good, and if it’s not, that’s what led us down this costly path.

00:27:50,230	The poor quality of the gravel that was laid down after the flood laid led us down this path. Whether the road is gravel or paved, there must be a good substructure. We probably have seen where badly. All have seen where a badly constructed road leads to poor quality and broken pavement and costly repairs.

00:28:14,600	I’m personally leery of the mushy sides adjacent to the pavement for a number of reasons, including cost breaking pavement along the side. Um, passing. We agree with some others that it’s better and less costly to stabilize and maintain.

00:28:44,470	Our gravel roads, though our names were on a page petitioning Burleigh County to create a special assessment district, we were not even present when all this petition business was happening. I was attending a relative who was sick. We signed nothing. We agreed to nothing. It is was quite a surprise when I arrived home from out of state, saw the information and immediately had to reconsider potential plans for that relative and for ourselves.

00:29:07,900	For me, people come first. These lower speed roads have been pretty safe for kids, walkers and pets. I know they’re muddy. Roads after the flood are discouraging, but recognizing that neighbors can be devastated by these special assessments or at least have hardship is a no brainer to me. People come first.

00:29:33,230	Retirees and others, some of whom were the first to improve the area, saved the area, watched out to preserve the countryside and the wildlife should not have to fear having to leave the house in which they expected to live out their lives. We are for improving the gravel roads, save the roads at a lesser cost and save people’s pocketbooks. Thank you.

00:30:01,370	Commissioners, any questions? We’ll see. Thank you. My name is Cindy Jennings and this is totally off the cuff. I didn’t plan on doing this. I live on Sunshine Lane, the opposite side that Mr. Crow lives on, and I really only have two points that I want to make. Being a retiree.

00:30:47,730	I’m home when cars drive up and down the road. When people leave for work, when the buses come up and down the road and I’ve often thought of even calling Harlow’s to complain about how fast the buses drive. And this is on the gravel roads. So the bus is driving faster is a factor.

00:31:14,600	Other cars driving faster is a factor, and my husband and I are retired and this will add a approximately $100 a month to our budget, which is already planned for other expenditures. So for a retiree on, um, a set income $100 a month is quite a bit of money. So thank you. Thank you.

00:31:54,470	Hello, I’m Dan Olson. I live on Magnolia Drive in Ponderosa. Uh, our household strongly supports paving the roads in our neighborhood. First, I want to acknowledge that this has been a community driven process. The petition that brings us here tonight passed with over 6% approval, which shows majority support.

00:32:18,700	I also recognize that some neighbors are concerned about cost, and I respect their concern. This is an important investment decision in our neighborhood. However, the current condition of our gravel roads is no longer sustainable. The roads are in very poor condition. There are ruts, potholes and wash boarding and there is significant dust and dry conditions.

00:32:41,000	These are not minor inconveniences. They are ongoing quality of life issues during extended wet conditions, especially throughout the roughly six months each year when North Dakota experiences repeated freeze thaw cycles. The southern portion of the neighborhood becomes extremely difficult to navigate on foot, bicycle, and even by car. When conditions are bad.

00:33:03,870	What should be simple everyday activities turn into unavoidable challenges. Walking outside becomes an obstacle course with persistent mud, deep ruts and uneven ground. The risk of slipping, tripping and unstable terrain is significant and should not be overlooked. As a household that values an active lifestyle, we find that routine activities like walking or biking become burdensome.

00:33:29,170	Reaching the paved northern portion of the neighborhood requires first navigating through muddy, deteriorated roads, and the return trip means facing those same conditions again. The result is consistent and unavoidable. Pets, shoes. Bicycles, clothing become covered in mud. This is not occasional inconvenience, but a reoccurring and predictable issued tied to seasonal conditions.

00:33:58,000	It is also important to address inaccurate or incomplete information that has been circulated in opposition to this project. There’s been repeated claim that maintaining gravel roads is more cost effective than paving, while paving does require higher upfront investment, gravel roads carry a significant ongoing costs that require frequent grading.

00:34:21,900	Periodic traveling, and continuous maintenance expenses that reoccur year after year and increase with rising fuel, labor, and material costs. In addition, poor drainage and heavier precip only accelerate deterioration, further increasing both their frequency and cost of upkeep. Over time. These cumulative expenses can rival or exceed the cost of paving, particularly in climates like ours. With regular freeze thaw cycles. Um.

00:34:54,470	It’s been suggested that Hay Creek Township perform additional base and gravel work, then evaluate its effectiveness. However, this parole proposal raises serious concerns. First, there is no guarantee that such measures would resolve the underlying issue. If they do not, we will have lost time and resources without achieving a meaningful improvement.

00:35:15,900	Second, there has been no formal action taken to advance this alternative. No petition has been initiated with Hay Creek Township or Burleigh County Highway Department to move this forward. This doesn’t guarantee what type of aggregate we get in the future. That could bring us right back to the same issue we have now.

00:35:37,800	So this leaves us asking, what are we exactly waiting for? It sounds the suggestion is to halt properly initiated and progressing, paving petition in favor of a speculative solution that may or may not happen. That that approach introduces unnecessary uncertainty and delay, given the known ongoing challenges and the progress already made.

00:36:03,370	Abandoning a viable path forward in exchange for an unidentified undefined maybe is not a responsible course of action. As a household that intends to live in the neighborhood for the next 30 or more years, we respectfully urge approval of the paving plan so we can move toward safer and more durable and more livable infrastructure for our neighborhood. Thanks. Any questions? Commissioners? Thank you.

00:37:23,430	Anybody else wish to speak? My name is Kathy Weiss and I have lived out in Ponderosa for 46 years, and I guess I could say I started this, but I will give Jean Walker credit for that last May.

00:37:43,800	Do deed, Walker posted a picture on the Ponderosa Facebook page of the Buddy Road between his place and by any stated that he was holding the first annual Magnolia Drive. Bud ride. Bring your four wheelers, your side by sides golf carts and a dish to share. Like crow type dad, it says bring a paved petition around it. He’d be the first one decided. I thought, you know, let’s just do that. So I contacted Marcus Hallberg.

00:38:02,370	The county highway department, and told him that the roads out here Ponderosa were terrible and asked him what could be done to improve them. And he said, Kathy, we will be out there this afternoon to check them out of the work. So we’re going to fast forward to November.

00:38:19,530	Mark is Colby, and he said he had a paved proposal drawn up and asked what I could meet with them. So I met with Marcus, dad and Casey at their facility, and I felt they just did a very nice job, put a lot of time and a lot of thought into making things work to

00:38:34,000	improve the road situation for the landowners of Ponderosa. They were not going to cut into the yards. They weren’t going to take any trees down except maybe one.

00:38:50,370	But they would need to do tree trimming to get their equipment through to some of the roads and need to build them up that all the roads were within the easement. Well, the first homeowner I went to was Glen Crow. He was going to be the first assigned. Second Ward was Jud Walker. While he was at home. I got his later. So going around to see what interests there was a paved Ponderosa.

00:39:09,370	I thought many homeowners were very grateful for what I was doing. They thanked me for my time. This was something that just needed to be done. It was long overdue. They were tired of the mud, the ruts and the dust. Some said their kids were looking forward to being able to rollerblade out here from their home.

00:39:28,800	Pavement would be safer to ride bikes, one homeowners said that would it rains. He can’t ride his motorcycle for about two days because the roads are so sloppy that he can’t get to the pavement. Some were concerned about the speed, some were filed with the dirt roads. There are some homeowners that said they could go either way. They really did matter to them.

00:39:48,600	They were okay to pay for it. If it goes ahead, but they don’t want their names shown on paper. Some said you don’t need my signature. You’re going to get the 60% needed for the project to go. I was. Asked by a landowner. Who pays for the upkeep of the maintenance of the future.

00:40:06,630	If the pavement of the project goes through. I asked Burleigh County that. Question and they told me the township pays for the materials. and the county does the labor. There is no future cost to the landowner. What’s paved? I guess you could verify that the Hay Creek Township said the same thing.

00:40:22,800	I was also told that the paving goes up about 8% every year. That’s a lot. Right now we are sitting at 64.4% that are in favor of the pavement. And if you add the handful of landowners that are fine to pay for it, if it goes through, they don’t want their name put down on paper.

00:40:46,730	You’re in about 73%. So there are some neighbors that I did not go back to for saying they’re just out of respect for them, and I’ll just leave it at that. So my husband and I own two properties at Ponderosa, and we would be assessed twice.

00:41:08,630	And I knew that for the begetting, if this goes through, this assessment was set up that if your property’s address or bad entrance are a Ponderosa Avenue, those properties are not being assessed because Ponderosa Avenue is already paved. Neither of my properties are on Ponderosa Avenue. So it is. I do feel it’s fair that I would have two assessments.

00:41:26,870	I feel that it would increase the value of my property if I would need to sell them. The condition of the roads is something a buyer would take into consideration, would look to buy a home.

00:41:44,470	I would like to thank the Burleigh County Highway Department and the Hay Creek Township for all they have done to help the Ponderosa residents with this project, and I hope I will be able to thank you for your support of this project. To make Ponderosa a better, cleaner, and nicer place to live. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioners. Any questions? I don’t see any thanks. You’re good.

00:42:26,630	Anybody else wish to speak on this item? I live out on Magnolia Drive. I probably live in one of the worst spots coming in from the dead end of Ponderosa Avenue towards my house. Um, and I agree with everybody else that has spoken in favor of this that I think it is needed out there.

00:42:43,870	Um, I do know that there will be financial hardship on some of the families that possibly can’t afford it. Um, and I know it’s been tried before in the past, but I signed the petition and I’m in favor of it, and I don’t need to repeat what everybody else has said about the quality of the. Roads. Commissioners, any questions? I don’t see anything. Thanks.

00:43:06,170	This is a public hearing. Anybody else wish to speak on this item? Second call. Anybody else wish to speak on this? Third call. Anybody wish to speak on special assessment? District 78. Seeing none or close the public hearing commissioners. What’s your wishes? Uh, chairman. Mr.. Uh.

00:43:32,600	Dan, one of the questions that, uh, has come up as far as the concern is, uh, speed what are the supposed to, uh, posted speed limits on Ponderosa and then the adjacent neighborhoods that would be paved.

00:43:49,100	Uh, Mister chairman, Commissioner Barkin, I believe that those are 25 mile per hour through most of those developments in those subdivisions. Uh, Hay Creek Township has a vast history of posting all of their subdivisions at 25. I’d have to verify that. But they believe that that’s the case in Ponderosa. Okay. Okay. And there would be no increase of speeds other than if somebody felt as far as opposed to speeds.

00:44:07,800	None of that would change. Correct? That’s correct. Okay. Um, and then I guess the the rest of it would be more of an enforcement question for Sheriff Lebon. But, uh, if there were some increased, uh, um, improprieties when it comes to speeds, then the people were taking some liberties.

00:44:30,000	Uh, that would just be an enforcement issue. That’s got nothing to do with the road conditions. He’s nodding his head. Yes. Okay. That’s all we needed. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Woodcox. Um, I haven’t I went out there this afternoon and drove through there, and they need to be paved.

00:44:53,630	I mean, there’s, like the people have said, there’s mud holes and potholes and and ruts and all kinds of stuff. Anyway, I’m I’m concerned with the plan that we’ve got to rebuild those. If it passes. Do they build the roads seem to be awfully flat. I mean, they’re just almost flat and there’s no ditch.

00:45:09,470	And are we going to build that up and build a better base than what’s in there? Because I’d hate to see a pave right over the top of what’s there. Um, Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Woodcox, uh, the township has said that they would donate or put forward, not donate, but put forward about $25,000 into additional travelling to try to

00:45:28,330	get a better crown on those roadways. Um, one downside to those roads is they are fairly narrow, and to get a proper crown, uh, with a with a motor grader is a little difficult with our, with our 16 foot mold boards, that’s about the width of the roadway.

00:45:43,900	So you essentially have to crown it one way or the other. Um, there are some tricks that I’m not I’m not a blade operator. So I’m sure that there are some tricks that they can use to properly crown those.

00:46:00,230	But, um, the township has said that if this moves forward, they were going to they were going to put forward, I think it was $25,000 towards gravel. Okay. Thank you. Anybody been getting stuck up there like some of these other subdivisions we talked about? Not to my knowledge. You know, you mentioned before we were talking about some of the roads out our way. Um, uh, blending in concrete and, and whatnot. Have you ever.

00:46:24,730	Have we ever blended in flash? Um, I, um, Mr. Chairman and commissioners, we haven’t personally in Burleigh County done any fly ash tilling or anything like that. I know it has been done in other states. I’m not sure that it’s been done in North Dakota, to my knowledge. But, um, something we could look into.

00:46:40,230	I think it would be a good idea because, um, like 35 years ago, I had a soft road in my yard, and back then you could still haul out of the, um, Haskett plant up here by the refinery.

00:46:55,730	And I hauled in a whole bunch of fly ash from there and blended it in, and my road’s harder than a gambler’s heart. It’s pretty solid. Yeah. Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, I, I, I know that the EPA has really been cracking down on what you can and cannot use fly ash for.

00:47:11,170	Obviously, it’s still used in concrete, but it’s encapsulated in the in the mixture of concrete. So, um, it would have to be just looked into on whether or not that that’s usable on a roadway system. Theory would be if you’re paving over the top of it, it’s encapsulating it. Yeah, absolutely.

00:47:28,500	There’s there’s base treatments and things like that that we’re currently using silica based products. Uh, base one is as a one of those products and, and things like that. So there are base treatments in fly ash as a viable option if it’s allowed. So. Commissioner Schwab. Uh. What do we use under the, uh, Apple Creek Road on that stretch, that last stretch we paved.

00:47:48,000	Uh, that was actually Portland concrete cement that was tilled into that roadway. I have a problem with fly ash. It has arsenic in it. Yeah. What’s a little arsenic among friends? No, I get it. No, I’ve heard that before. But, you know, like, in my case, it’s. Yeah. Well, it’s I suppose that’s anything’s.

00:48:08,800	Possible, but I’ve, I’ve been down there about two weeks ago and without a four wheel drive, I couldn’t get through some of them roads. And I think that if you blacktop them, you’re going to have to lower the speed limits in, say, 15 miles an hour, because they are very narrow roads.

00:48:30,730	They’re not 25 mile an hour roads by a long shot. And that will, I guarantee you, that’s going to have to happen. Uh, Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Schwab, that’s something that could be investigated. Yeah. I think that’s more of a township call than. Yeah.

00:48:52,100	And the state law requires us to do a few things, speed studies and things like that. So thank you. Okay. Any other questions for Dan? I don’t see any. Thanks, Dan. Mr. chair, I would move to approve the resolution. in the packet. Thanks. Second. A motion and a second to approve the Special Assessment. District 78. Any further discussion? Call the roll. Commissioner Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken.

00:49:23,000	Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes, chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Next item. Public hearing on off highway. Chairman. Go ahead. Commissioner. Um, just. Because we’ve got a room full of people and those watching at home.

00:49:48,170	Um, Dan, if you could kind of walk through what the rest of the process is moving forward with this now, just so people get a sense of the timeline and understand when the construction may take place. Just just a little brief synopsis, just so people are aware. Mr.

00:50:08,000	Chairman and Commissioner Bakken, uh, so the resolution that was in your packet provided us the ability to put the plans and specifications together and then advertise for bids. The plans and specifications are nearly done, and our plan is to have an advertisement for bids for the end and then open bids at the end of April, which we would present to the county commission at the May 1st

00:50:24,600	meeting in May. And then it will be up to the contractor for a construction schedule. So sometime this summer is the best construction schedule I would be able to offer at this point. Okay. Thank you Dan. Yep. Okay. At this point, we’re going to open a public hearing on the off highway vehicle ordinance. And resolution.

00:50:47,000	Uh, one or the other. Uh, there’s going to be some rules. You’re going to have five minutes to present. Um, you’re only going to come up once. There’s no sharing of time. Um, and if you’ve if you’ve already spoken on it, there’s probably no need for you to speak again.

00:51:06,070	I think we’ve, uh, well, understood everything that’s been said up to this point. So, um, with that, if you have a comment to make in regards to the off highway vehicle ordinance or resolution, Mona. Okay. That was quick. You want me to sign in again? Sure. I don’t think it matters yet.

00:51:42,900	Jeff Sadler I spoke a couple of weeks ago on this, so I won’t repeat what I spoke about then. Um, I have all of the paperwork filled out on the state’s website to start an OHV or off road association in Burleigh County to hopefully, um, spread awareness and hopefully turn

00:52:04,270	into a 500 and 1C6 after I get it started to if the option is available to accept funds from North Dakota Parks and Rec and start a trail system in Burleigh County, somewhere, somehow. Um, and I have not went totally public with it yet.

00:52:21,070	I’ve talked to a few people that I know that are into the sport, and, um, got the initial group started and we’ve just been waiting to hear what final decisions are before we go ahead and start an association. Um. I think that’s a good move, Jeff.

00:52:35,270	I appreciate you being there. Oh, I got a question for you. How long do you think it would take for this process to start? All I do have to do is pay the $50 fee on the state’s website and push submit to start the association.

00:52:57,170	And then I would get an initial group together to have a meeting to set our, um, leadership for the first year, and then we’d have to go public with the whole rest of the county to try to get more people to join the association then. But I have talked to all the dealerships. They’re all on board to support us in a dealership role.

00:53:13,170	Does anybody offer and help pay the 50 bucks you pay. In it? I’ve offered to pay that right away, and I’m sure I would get reimbursed as people join. And I was going to offer to pay. I was going to offer to pay the 50 bucks.

00:53:28,970	But you know, um, because I think, I think that would be a step in the right direction. The key thing is to time, you know. Correct. I think the last. Excuse me. Mister Chair, the. Last. time I talked. To a group that was trying to do that to get the non-profit approval, it was about six months.

00:53:42,530	By the time it got through all of the steps that it needed. To have. Yeah. Well, to get the initial one, I know it was very simple, but to get AC6 so you can accept funds from the state of North Dakota, you have to go through a certain process. But it’s understandable.

00:53:59,600	Let us know if you need any assistance on that. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else wish to speak on this item? Tough to beat that one. Yes. Anybody else wish to speak? Ken? Um, I might have missed some of the stuff from the last meeting. Um, did anybody talk about. Um. Same thing as a burn ban.

00:54:55,170	A off road ban? Has that been publicly talked about? Mr. chair. If I can, Commissioner. So it hasn’t been publicly announced at this meeting? Uh, it certainly has been talked about at the meetings where the sheriff was attending the North Dakota Parks and Rec was attending the dealers and myself.

00:55:11,730	And it has been one of those pieces that we’re working on, trying to determine. And this commission would have to decide whose call is it, you know, is it a combination of the highway department and the parks department? Is it the chair? Because the chair would have to enact, like on the burn ban situation, a special

00:55:27,800	meeting to call for that type of a vote. So it’s been talked about. No decisions made. That’s what I heard too. So that’s why I wanted to bring it up for, um, all viewing. Yes.

00:55:47,630	Um, it might be, I think, in the best interest of, you know, all of us in the county, there is a problem out there. Everybody knows it. There is. There is, um. Like, uh, some people say, where’s the parents? You know, I know what happened if, um, if the five of us were, uh, younger, it got solved differently. But, um.

00:56:12,530	You know, you know, got talked about a moratorium, too. I heard something about that, um, maybe not a not open ended date, but it’s got to be some some dates that are. And I’m just going to throw them out there for argument’s sake. Uh, April 1st of May 15th.

00:56:32,870	I’m just using some, um, also, maybe a, um. If we do come up with some strict rules, maybe a sunset clause that we’re going to try this for a year and it just rolls off the books eventually. And to give everybody a chance to see how it would work. Um, maybe hear from the people that are, um.

00:57:02,900	The, uh, people that are responsible for some of the damage to step up and be the adult in the room also, so that the rest of us don’t have to pass something that affects everybody, from Elkin to Wilton and and the whole county.

00:57:24,700	Um, and then so where do we get in there with, uh, the farmers, ranchers, utilities? It’s got to be a lot of wording involved in that. So that, um, we don’t have to come back and have another meeting and a meeting and all that. That’s that’s my $0.02 on that. I think, uh, we all know there’s a problem out there. We need to address it.

00:57:39,730	But a total ban, I don’t think is has, um, representative of helmet’s head? This wasn’t the intent, but there is a problem, and we got to step up and do something. But, um, that’s what I have for that. Thank you.

00:58:15,800	Anybody else wish to speak? Pat Thompson and I want to show a picture. So I don’t know how you go about that. Here. I agree with the gentleman in front. There is a problem. Everybody’s recognized that eight for a complete ban. That just wouldn’t work.

00:58:35,270	But aa some restrictions have to be put into place from what’s being done out there north of town. And, um, you talk about the fire type ban going on with everything is going on here in this, um. Hot topic going on. Can anybody guess when this was done? Is that right? Like that? Yep. Let’s go. If you can see that picture.

00:59:04,370	Just take that picture at night. No. Oh, okay. It’s Saturday. Is it foggy. Or is that me? No. It’s clear. I don’t know why it’s not coming in. Just took it Saturday. Yeah, it’s a hot topic. And they still went out by Crescent Ridge and tore it up half mile there. Go half mile north another half mile.

00:59:25,270	Just every square inch that’s mowed, an extension of somebody’s yard was just tore up. So some of them ain’t taking it seriously. What street is that? What’s that? What street is that? That’s 84th Avenue. Goes right by Crescent Ridge. I think it’s 84th Avenue. Goes all the way to the gun Club. Well.

00:59:44,970	For for what it’s worth, I ran into town on Saturday, saw the exact same thing, and I just lived three miles outside of town. And I’m thinking, man, this is the hot topic in Burleigh County right now. And guys are out there doing that. I don’t get it.

01:00:01,270	I don’t get it either. I was one of the first ones here, I think three years ago when it started. So it didn’t just pop up for a lot of you to think, it just popped up. You used to live out there. Don’t anymore.

01:00:14,470	Sold the property, but I spoke here before, brought pictures of damage, and within a week or so after the meeting, you see all the circles. That is not trail riding. We think we were targeted. After I spoke. Yeah. Something needs to be done. Restrictions. He mentioned. Maybe after sunset. No riding.

01:00:38,370	I would push it a little farther because there’s, um, noise ordinances brought up last week or the last meeting. Noise issues. Some people in the crowd thought it was a joke when somebody brought it up. I got video of motorcycles racing past the house.

01:00:55,370	Noise is an issue, and when you’re out there on the weekend after working all week, you want to spend your time at your place. And it’s the dust. When it’s dry, there needs to be some restrictions put on. And, um, who pays for the damages when you want some of that fix to the landowners? File the claim with you guys. Well. The. I’ll take that one up.

01:01:17,900	I don’t know if you if you heard it, one of our previous meetings, but at this point we’ve identified approximately 40 miles of damage. And based on the estimate from the highway department, which I think I said at the time, I think is low, they’re talking like 42, $43,000 a mile to fix that.

01:01:37,270	So just the ditch net damage, not the pavement, not the gravel or anything else, but that that’s like 1.6 million and that, I think, is something that has to be addressed as part of this, because that stuff’s never going to heal. No, I’m a trail builder. Yep. And when you try to mow some of that stuff, it’s.

01:01:56,800	Well, I mentioned it one of the last meetings too. That big fire up by, um, Hawk Tree Golf course here a couple of years ago that was caused by a guy who was mowing, and he fell in one of those ruts and his blade struck a rock. And there it went.

01:02:14,700	That involved helicopters and fire departments, rural fire from all around the area. You know. People got to respect that. That is rural property out there. That is not the city of Bismarck and me and a good Samaritan put out a fire one year out there, and the people who started it took off. And it’s just it’s the landowners.

01:02:30,530	I know somebody on social media made fun of the landowners said it’s the same ten people calling over and over and over again just to get the numbers up at all the complaints. It’s not. I called once and I was done. I was told there’s nothing that could be done.

01:02:47,070	So I only called once, didn’t file a complaint to get somebody out there. I just called and asked questions, learned a little bit and stuff like that. Another thing is who controls the right of ways or the easements. Tell me that. I can answer that one for you. Um, it runs the gamut.

01:03:05,800	There’s a there’s there’s a difference in who controls the right of way, depending on backstory. In my case, um, on one side of my property, it’s a section line. So there’s a 33ft to each side of the section line. That is a statutory area that, um, involves public travel. Um, and then another side of my property on the south.

01:03:34,070	It was originally a state highway, so that they purchased the right of way. So in that case it’s now turned over to the county. So the county owns the right of way on the south side of my property. Then on the north side, it’s in a subdivision.

01:03:49,530	Um, some of the lots. And that, uh, um, I suppose the, the road is probably controlled by a township. In that case. I don’t know that that’s a county. Out there. So it’s it really depends on where you’re at.

01:04:09,800	But according to information from the state’s attorney, none of that infers a right to, um, travel in that, in that public right of way. Because in most cases where you have easements is easements for a road. And I’ve read quite a few of them.

01:04:32,800	So easements for a road, I mean, for the road surface, and some of them are written so that there’s ditches included for the purposes of drainage of the roads, um, for the culverts and that whole thing, because the ditches become the conveyance for drainage as well as snow storage. Um, there’s been some misconception, people think that the ditch is there for that purpose of riding, and I couldn’t be further from the truth. Because that’s all by some young guys approach.

01:04:53,230	Three young guys that are riding one day. One of them is very respectable. One was a punk. Yeah. And when he left, he throttled his bike, shot down in front of me and jumped the intersection. Yeah, his daddy told him it’s government land. They can ride anywhere they want.

01:05:06,370	That’s not true. See, that’s why that’s one of the worst misconceptions out there. So 33ft from the center, the section line, the vertical 33ft. Is that where the public can freely ride.? If they can do it safely, which, like on mine. They can do it safely because we keep mowed so they can see where they’re going.

01:05:26,470	Well, that would that would be if we allow that, we don’t. necessarily have. To allow running right up to the trees, which is the full 70ft or whatever. Yeah.

01:05:43,800	In that case, um, like if you were up on 80th Street and you’ll see that there’s a fence, um, that’s out at the just inside that just outside the 33 foot. That’s legal. Yep. I know that is that is the guys land and same thing on mine fence.

01:05:57,630	Is the last meeting they have to get with the county or get where they make sure the fence is where it’s supposed to be, because you can put some of the fences are getting close to some of them roads and but they’re legal. They’re legal. That’s because in that particular case on that road, the county only has the 33 foot from the center section, center of the road. And then anything past that is an easement for a road.

01:06:18,000	And that means a road, not a not trails, not anything else. So I got another picture. I won’t put it up, but it is somebody’s hayfield they’re using. They’re not even in the ditch. They got a well-worn road through a hayfield. Yeah. And that guy cannot be happy about that, right? Yeah, I’ve seen that up.

01:06:36,430	On a lot of. There’s no respect for the property owners. And I heard the bashing on the social media about the property owners, and it comes down to a home that’s worth 500,000 to $1 million versus a $3,000 motorcycle, or a $20,000 side by side. They got more rights than a homeowner does.

01:06:55,600	Some of them people take pretty good pride in their homes, in their yards, and that right away is an extension of their yard. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else wish to speak? Second call. Anybody else wish to speak? Earl Stadler I’ve been up here before.

01:07:28,000	Um, I’ve just got a question. Is there been any discussion on if there was a ban to go, like, ten miles out, 15 miles out? So you’re not, uh, covering the whole county or are there issues in the other parts of the county, too? Well, um, there has there’s not been discussion at this table,

01:07:49,270	and we don’t talk about those issues outside of this table. So we’re kind of going through the public hearing process here so we can hear what people have to say.

01:08:06,530	But then I’m sure that we’re going to sit and and talk about whatever changes, whatever things that you know, are coming down the road on this. I mean, you’ll notice that we haven’t really debated anything yet. So, um, I have had those thoughts and quite a few people have mentioned that to me, and I’m sure will be part of the discussion.

01:08:26,900	You know, the only concern I have, um, is whether, like if we said like, say, five miles from the city limits, no riding, then are we just moving the problem somewhere else? I don’t know, um. Right now, for me, the focus needs to be fixing the damage. Yeah.

01:08:45,970	And I don’t know that we could fix it while still allowing it, because what’s the point then? Next year, I actually do that kind of work, and I can tell you that you don’t have to have a motor to cause damage on a trail. Some of the trails that we repair and fix never see a motor there. They’re either walking trails or bicycle trails.

01:09:05,700	And I’ve seen bicycle trails where we had to go in and fix them because people’s pedals were hitting the ground. Is it right? Yeah. And had nothing to do with a motor or mud because people aren’t out there riding a bicycle when things are muddy. But the first thing that happens is it powders up. Yep.

01:09:25,800	And then when it powders up, either the wind blows it, which, you know, happens a little bit here in North Dakota. Or the next time it rains, it washes it away. We see it all the time. I mean, it’s, it’s it’s a real big, real big deal.

01:09:41,170	And then if you keep allowing it, you know, you don’t have a ban on it, then next year you have to fix it again. Right. Well, you heard the part where I talked about the estimated cost from the highway department. That’s not a joke.

01:09:55,870	I mean, that and like I said, I think that’s on the low side because we do that work and that work requires smaller machines and and whatnot. And I’m sure that our guys are looking at it from the standpoint of loaders and dozers and blades and semis and. Stuff that include entry roads into property. No, that’s without at 1.6 million is without fixing the the roads like you’re talking.

01:10:14,900	I’ve got an entry road for five of us that you can come and fix right now. Right. So that’s that would be on top of that.

01:10:31,470	Cause I’ve been doing that for five years on my own and with a little bit of help, but it’s it’s getting to be quite a bit to put up with all the time. That’s all I’ve got. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else wish to. Speak? Good evening. Commissioners. My name is Dustin Krueger. Yeah. Sorry I couldn’t. Catch that. My name is Dustin Krueger. Okay. And I spoke at the last meeting, so I won’t repeat anything. I guess that’s already been said. That’ll help.

01:11:25,470	Um, so I, I hope that the blanket ordinance that is being proposed does not, you know, get passed as as written. Um, that being said, it seems like there’s going to be potential for some restrictions of some sort somewhere in the county or time of year. Uh, can, you know, wet conditions, whatever.

01:11:51,600	And if that happens, I know that on the proposal and I did bring this up last time, but I want to make sure to bring it up again, because I think it’s important when this is, uh, you know, something that’s being considered by the county commissioners is with the existing ordinance.

01:12:10,270	The wording is, uh, class two off highway vehicles is 50in or less in width, 50in or less. Now, the additional, which is what I believe is anything highlighted in yellow in the proposal, uh, under that section three. Item three, and then D, it’s just one of the added pieces. Uh, it is contradictory.

01:12:41,270	It says only OHV with a minimum width of 50in, meeting the requirements and so on, and will be allowed to operate on county roads. Those contradict each other. And, uh, you know, greater than 50in or less than 50in. There’s a difference in a I know you’ll know that. I want to just make. sure to point that out again.

01:13:03,330	And, uh, because I guess with restrictions that come into place that, uh, you know, I guess want to make sure that ATVs, the four wheelers are still able to ride on the county roads. That’s, I guess, my concern with that. Didn’t we talk about this last time you were. Up here? Yeah.

01:13:22,900	We did, uh, to to a point. So did you. Look, you have an ATV. I have an ATV. Yeah. Did you look at that little sticker? That’s. And that’s riveted to your. Fender and I and I don’t and I don’t, I don’t have one.

01:13:40,800	And is that is that I guess to be clear for everyone, is that part of this, you know, ordinance meant to basically ban ATVs from the county roads? I mean, is that that’s I mean, that’s how I’m taking it with what you’re saying.

01:14:00,800	Let me explain to you why the manufacturers put that on there, because the hard surface road, most of the older ATVs, you see, I have an older ATV and a newer ATV. And on the new one you can push a button and you disengage the four wheel drive. And and so the axles are more free wheeling. But on the older ATVs, um, the axles are rigid.

01:14:16,870	And so operating those on a hard surface road like pavement and whatnot, um, is real dangerous. And that’s why the dealers put they rivet that plate on your fender because they want you to understand just how dangerous it is. You know, we we run them on the roads. Um. Uh. You know, gravel roads and stuff.

01:14:37,330	When we’re doing these trail jobs and getting to the sites and all that stuff. But, um, it’s just it’s just dangerous, that’s all. And if we open it up for kids now, I think as an adult, you can make the decision whether you want to take that risk or not.

01:14:53,100	I don’t have a real problem with that. If if you want to make that decision with your own safety, who am I to stop you? Really? However, it’s the kids that really have the issue because they don’t have the experience. They don’t have the miles, you know what I’m saying? So that’s kind of the issue there.

01:15:11,930	Yeah, yeah. Correct. And to clarify, I know, uh, you know, the blanket ban would, would cause some, you know, real issues for, you know, families with the younger kids under 16. But it’s, you know, the over 16.

01:15:30,630	And so, you know, basically getting, you know, even if you want to go with 18 and over to the adults, that’s that was my concern with this point. Yeah. Well don’t kid yourself. There’s adults are causing just as much trouble as kids. Well, they’re. I mean we see it.

01:15:46,230	You know, I didn’t I didn’t even get down to, uh, Airport Road leaving the last meeting, and somebody was sending me texts of one of the people that was a good, responsible rider tearing up the ditches in front of their land. And then in less than 24 hours, we had an email or a video sent to us. The same guy tearing up and jumping approaches and ditches in his area from a different neighbor.

01:16:05,170	Um, and that’s a full grown adult, and I believe from the video, the way it looked to me, I didn’t put it in slow motion, but it looked like he had his kids on that rig with him. So you tell me. Right. And again, and to me, there’s there’s two differences.

01:16:26,070	There’s basically adults versus, you know, the kids. And as an adult, I’m just so concerned that because if, if, if this went through as, as written and enforced as, as written, that, uh, me as an adult and the group I ride with as adults that we can’t ride in a ditch, we can’t ride on the

01:16:42,530	road, we can’t ride at all with ATVs. The way it’s written.. Are you are you opposed to anybody riding on your land? On my land? Yeah. Well, on my on my land, I wouldn’t approach it on my land, in my ditch. I don’t care.

01:17:05,100	Well, I just occurred to me that, you know, if you’re if you’re willing to have the public riding on your property, that maybe you’d be okay with that. No, no. And I never, never said that there isn’t a problem. And that that riding on someone, you know, trespassing. So you’re talking about trespassing. We’re not, you know, not in the ditch anymore. Correct? Right. So yeah. So yeah.

01:17:27,000	Trespassing I see in my case, like I said, on the one side of my road, um, on one side of my land where people could ride if I didn’t have a fence there, when they would think there’s a ditch, but there is no ditch because I own the land.

01:17:45,230	So, you know, there’s there’s really no way that anybody can know for sure whether you’re on somebody else’s land or not. On most of these roads in Burleigh County. Well, yeah.

01:18:06,330	And you’re talking specifically for these areas where you actually wrote like like your, uh, your place where you own one of the richest, the ditches along your, your property. And yeah, that would be definitely a hard issue. Um, for anybody to know. Um, but but there. To Commissioner Munson. Oh. Go ahead.

01:18:26,070	Just as an FYI, one of the things that I’ve been doing over the last several weeks is I have been working with the GIS coordinator for Burleigh County, uh, and bounced a few ideas off of, uh, State’s Attorney Julie Lawyer as well. And coming up in one of the future meetings, there will be a proposed map that will be on our website. Could be on our website. That would list properties like Commissioner Bitner that you cannot ride in those ditches.

01:18:46,370	Uh, very specifically, uh, I’ve talked to several people in the rural areas where, you know, there’s a mile or longer area where all of those owner landowners own up to the centerline of the road.

01:19:04,470	And so to create a map that is available to the public so that they would know if they’re going to go out and ride, this is a stretch that you cannot right on. And so this is nothing that it’s going to take some time to get completed. Um, but it is in the works.

01:19:21,170	Um, to, to be able to give you the, the map and you can then decide or you will have knowledge that you can’t write on this road, which is in front of whether it’s Brian’s or Brian’s. Um, our Brad’s I. Sorry, um, but you would have that knowledge so that you can avoid those areas that are not good to ride on. Right.

01:19:41,370	And again, for me, with age group, I ride with, um, just that at any point in time, you that you can ride on the county roads to avoid those areas, um, you know, that’s, that’s just really the point I’m after on all this. Okay. Thanks for. Your time. Yeah.

01:19:59,870	And and also, I just like to add, because I know Commissioner Barkan, I know he’s on here somewhere because he had mentioned that, uh, I guess that he didn’t agree with during one comments with, uh, pulling the ordinance, you know, basically copy and paste city ordinance and put it in here, which seems like, you know, that’s basically what what happened, I think what’s causing some of

01:20:15,000	this issue that I have, I guess that I have issue with, with wording. And so. Okay, well, let me repeat what I said. That was just a starting point. And this board hasn’t even had a chance to discuss that yet. We haven’t. That was a starting point. Yeah. And really I’m just trying to help.

01:20:32,630	I honestly, I figured the board would want to know if any of any be aware of any inconsistency. So when it does come to that point, which I guess I don’t know when that is, but just so that’s taken into consideration. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

01:20:55,800	Anybody else? Good evening, commissioners chair Bitner and commissioners, my name is Kay Loco, and I am not up here to repeat anything but to present an alternative that has not already been discussed at this table.

01:21:15,370	To my knowledge, I do ask for a no vote on the OHV proposed ordinances, as well as the moratorium resolution, but not because nothing should be done, but because there are several solutions and proposals that have been presented and warrant consideration. And the time to be explored and implemented. Two things can be true at once.

01:21:36,700	There are real impacts in the county that need to be mitigated, and there is lawful use of public right of way and Bitner or Chairman Bitner, you and I definitely agree on the difference between the public access and the private property. Instead of putting broad permanent policy in place, the Commission has the opportunity to formally establish a time bound task force charged with investigating the issues, mitigating options, enforceable policy approaches, establishing criteria for any future

01:22:07,730	restrictions and, if needed, potential legislative considerations. I would like to commend and recognize Commissioner Munson for his initiative in putting together, pulling together OHV vendors, law enforcement. North Dakota Parks and Rec and others to help propose the solutions that you have in your packets tonight.

01:22:34,370	I urge the Commission to continue that collaborative approach and broaden the task force to include representatives from all sides of the OHV issues, namely landowners. I, for one, would volunteer to assist in that process. Let’s demonstrate how Burleigh County can be a leader in collaboration and solution based approaches for the greater good.

01:22:58,370	I again ask the Commission for a no vote on the proposed ordinances and the moratorium resolution. Instead, lead the charge to work together together to develop transparent, workable and enforceable solutions that we all can stand behind. I was down for any questions, commissioners. Any questions? I don’t see any thanks. Thank you. Katie. Chair. Bitner. Uh, commissioners. Saturday left the house. You know, we had 9.4in. Of snow. Left the house.

01:23:36,900	At 1230. Went south on 52nd Street to witness. Yeah. There were a couple of snowmobiles that were in there early in the morning. I heard them go by. I have pictures on my phone from 1230 all the way down 52nd Street. They run 71st Avenue. And you’re right.

01:23:57,970	Is it not? Almost in disbelief that how big of an issue this is? That we still have the defiance out there on the OHV folks coming back home went up. Centennial. Same thing. Two ruts in the snow. 52nd Street, Centennial at 6:00 in the evening.

01:24:21,270	Therein lies huge part of the problem. Um, putting the solution for all of you on the commission. See, the difference is, first of all, I’m not running for any office, so I’m not going to stand up here with a bunch of BS. And, uh, you know, fluffy, fluffy stuff and say you, the commissioners need to solve this.

01:24:42,170	You didn’t go looking for this. It came to you. It’s a public problem. I want the OHV stakeholders to come up with the solution. And part of the solution would have to be done immediately, is we have to stop the damage to the ditches and to the adjacent property owners like Mr.

01:25:03,870	Seidler here, who’s been and his neighbors have been fixing his approach. Road and his ditch. You see the ruts in his ditch right now along Centennial Road. He’s not going to be able to do any mowing until he starts hauling in a lot of dirt and a lot of the adjacent property owners.

01:25:17,270	Same thing. We have to stop the damage. We have sociopaths out there who don’t care about anyone else. They leave their property. They’re damaging other people’s property. So let’s let’s go with this idea.

01:25:41,270	How about if we start a list up here to kind of take it from you making up a map? Uh, Commissioner Munson, of those areas that are off limits, how about if we put a sign up sheet up here and every one of you off highway vehicle, ATV, utv the like to ride in the ditch, get a list of all the property owners.

01:25:58,900	That and it better be every one of you OHV people who are willing to let to sign up your property to be used by OHV folks. Let’s get all of the OHV proponents and stakeholders, every one of them that lives in the county out there.

01:26:17,900	Whether you’ve got them riding by your house now or not, whether you and there are some of our powersports folks that live out in the county that you’re willing to sign your property up, and we have a map that shows all those. These are all the properties you can ride by. Is that fair? All right. Let’s let’s put let’s put it on them.

01:26:36,900	And then the solution and I like the gentleman with the trail start. Jeff. Jeff I like see we talked about that. Now we’re talking about a process that’s going to take some time here especially to get the funding. We have to number one commissioners we we have to fix the problem that’s out there. Now. The ditches have to be repaired.

01:26:53,630	Someone has to pay for it. Now, how do we stop the further damage? So I brought this up at the Gibbs Township meeting, and there was a gentleman there.

01:27:12,630	After I made my pitch about ride restrictions, which I’ve spoke about from the very first time I stood up here, and he stood up and he had to play politics with me. He knew I was part of the North Dakota Rough Rider Snowmobile Club, so he said, so if we’re going to. I never said anything about a ban. I’m looking at solutions, but we have to set a timeline or this channel just get kicked down the road.

01:27:30,000	If you don’t do anything right now, which I’m not saying you should, but at the very least, we should set a timeline that if there is not a solution, you guys, you guys got enough big stuff to to deal with here.

01:27:48,270	I think the people that are the stakeholders in all this need to bring the solutions, need to carry the the load and not just say, okay, here, Burleigh County, solve all our problem for us. I mean, I don’t agree with that. I don’t. So he said to me, I think if we’re going to do something like that, we should ban snowmobiles too. And he did it just to kind of stick one at me.

01:28:04,000	And I said, okay, well, we don’t want to CO2 pipeline running through our county. I guess we should ban all pipelines, water, sewer, natural gas, I guess, uh, you know, I, I kind of in for a ban on assault rifles, but I suppose we should ban deer rifles and and handguns and shotguns, which you’re not

01:28:19,630	going to take mine over my dead body. Um, so here’s what I’m going to offer. Let’s do immediately. There has to be ride restriction. No ATVs, no motorcycles, dirt bikes, no ATVs in the ditches. From November 1st to May 1st or May 15th.

01:28:40,170	And guess what? I bet I can get the North Dakota Snowmobile Club to offer that. We will agree that we won’t ride in the ditches from May 1st to November 1st. I’ll bet you we can get that. So we’ll share part of the ride restrictions from May 1st to November 1st. We won’t be out there.

01:28:58,470	And when we want to be out there. Oh, by the way, that’s when there’s actually snow. And we’re not tearing up approaches and ditches. Those others shouldn’t be in the ditch. The day after nine inches of snow, we’ve got sociopaths tearing up our ditches along Centennial 77 and 52nd. We cannot have Sheriff leaving in his crew.

01:29:22,100	Police these idiots because they’re on the move. That’s not a solution. I think there needs to be a, at the very least, immediate fix. Immediate restrictions and immediate timeline set for the Jeff and company and the powersports folks.

01:29:39,000	And you, Commissioner Munson, to come forward and get a trail system set up, get the funding going, whether that’s two years, you get it done. If it’s not done in two years, and this continues, boom, drop the hammer, put the ban in place. So any questions, Commissioner Munson? Um, so, Kurt, did you happen to read in the packet the paper that the OHV dealers have put together? You’re almost talking the same language.

01:30:03,670	Okay. I so, you know, 160 pages. And I scanned a lot of it on my phone, and I saw that in there. I didn’t I didn’t get a chance to read it. Well, I, I and I kind of told you last meeting, you know, you and I are pretty close on to the same thought process.

01:30:15,800	Um, we do have a thought process of December 1st to May 1st. No, no, we’ll OHV in the ditches, I mean, period, because Burleigh County shouldn’t have to be fixing that stuff. And that’s when the damage is taking place. So if you get a chance, what’s been put in the packet for public knowledge? Okay.

01:30:33,270	We’re pretty close. All right. And along with Jeff, you know, with his 501, you know absolutely. The reason he did that is exactly what we’re all talking about. So we can build. That was great.

01:30:50,870	If we’re going to build trails, why not make sure we fix them as we build them, fix the ones that are bad and build the trails where we need to? Absolutely. And the adjacent landowners have to be part of the stakeholder group. Yep. And and especially if you’re going to do a trail by their property where they’re going to be mowing on each side of it. Yeah.

01:31:08,470	Um, you know, so I think, I really think there’s, there needs to be an incentive so the can doesn’t get kicked down the road for something to happen. And there are funding sources out there. I know I’ve been trying to help the commission and Commissioner Schwab.

01:31:24,530	We might have one mill, if we’re fortunate, from garrison to $760,000 can go a long way. But I know that’s going to be a topic coming up here. Where you go too far. On this. Oh, that’s right, he’s going to try to get some of our 10.3 million back. Absolutely. But you know, when. You talk. About a timeline from here to there. The. Highway department by law cannot.

01:31:45,800	Start. mowing ditches until June 1st. There’s wildlife. In. them. . Nesting birds. Yeah. I saw roost. Disappearing meadow. Larks and stuff like that. And that needs to be brought into the equation. And I. Did talk to a guy. Who said he. Would go back to. his dealer., and I told him if they don’t get some skin.

01:32:10,030	In the game and get people together and start policing themselves, they’re going to get a ban. Now after. We get done with. public input. You listen to a couple of things. I’ve seen and I’m out on them roads a lot. Unbelievable how these people are driving. So they’re going to they’re they’re. close and.

01:32:35,530	You know I, I really expected them to come up with something from our last meeting. They had talked about it never happened. It was just kind of well, okay, fine. Got by again. It’s not going to work anymore. No. And I think you OHV stakeholders need to start policing your own.

01:32:56,870	This harassment that you just saw pictures of. And there’s other people here who have been harassed also that to me I don’t know if there’s a fine big enough to punish people that are doing that.

01:33:16,100	And again, whether it’s adults or young kids or whatever, um, if it’s young kids, they’ve got they’ve not been taught the golden Rule. They’ve, they’ve got bad set, a bad example that any parent is allowing their son. And I haven’t seen really many young girls out there. So I’m gonna have to say boys.

01:33:32,330	But to, to do this sort of, uh, there’s people in the room here who I’ve talked to have been harassed terribly, just like you saw pictures of. And I just think that if we put in ride restriction and ban, just like a burn ban, I think the fine, if you got a complete burn ban, I think it’s $1,000. We’re going to hear about that today from our emergency management director.

01:33:51,330	I think we’re headed towards some burn bans. We’re going to be dry here. I think there needs to be a fine, huge if if there’s restrictions and you’re riding in those ditches, you’re costing us thousands of dollars of damage, just like road restrictions. You rip up millions of dollars to repair roads.

01:34:07,900	That’s why we have road restrictions, weight limits. So it has to be something severe. This $50, $100, $200. No. I think if we put ride restrictions in place and you’re riding that ATV in the ditch, that ATV gets confiscated. And I don’t know, just like you.

01:34:25,730	Just like you do something on the river gaming fish are going to take your boat, so it’s got to be severe. I tried that, the state’s attorney told me I couldn’t do it. Okay. State’s attorney, I think you need to change the rules. It’s not her rules, okay? Uh, no century code, not her rules. I know we’re fighting this entry code, but.

01:34:42,000	That I think that refers to the confiscation. The. Oh, I see. All right, well, just make a fine big enough, right? Make it $500 or $1000, because that’s the kind of damage at 40 some thousand dollars a mile, you can one Saturday.

01:35:00,230	One if the ditches were perfect, one ATV could cost easily $101,000 worth of repair work. So put it in perspective that way. Okay, okay. Thank you. That’s great. Tammy Kenner. Burleigh County. You know, if if something gets put in place, restrictions.

01:35:31,170	I just got a question on how can it be enforced? Because right now the stuff’s not enforced the way it’s the way it is. I agree with Kurt. I agree with Jeff. You know, starting a club, it’s all good. But, uh, if we can’t get enforced, you know, maybe, maybe Sheriff Liebman could come up here or somebody from the sheriff’s department and maybe they have a suggestion.

01:35:47,730	If you if you get your license numbers, follow them at home or whatever, you still nothing can be done. Yeah. We got I think not sure about the the bill number, but HB 1346 maybe that was put in place this last session.

01:36:08,700	You know, supposedly give the the sheriff’s department more power, more authority to come out and do something. But it still is not working, you know. So I’m there I’m sure they’re understaffed and hard to catch these guys, but maybe they have a suggestion. You know, because if we we can do all we want.

01:36:29,000	Big fines, you know? But if you can’t enforce it, you can’t catch them. So what do you do? You know, that was just my question. Okay. Thanks. I. Kelly, do you want to add anything to that? Two phones, two phones. Mr.

01:37:00,330	Chairman and commissioners, um, basically, as I’ve stated before, um, a total ban is the easiest thing to enforce because then you see an ATV and it can’t be there, and you cite them. Um. What we deal with is when you have people with a helmet on, you can’t just stop a vehicle. Just like we can’t just stop a vehicle on the highway.

01:37:24,370	Um, we have to have reasonable suspicion or probable cause that’s guaranteed by the Constitution. So if we don’t see a violation, we can’t stop it. And so it’s like I’ve explained to this board, um, when we’re out patrolling, um, we’re going to calls, we’re going to enforce and traffic laws.

01:37:47,330	We’re, we’ve got three people covering the entire county. And if we drive by an ATV in the ditch, that’s not exhibiting behavior that warrants a stop, there’s nothing we can do. Um, they only drive in the ditch. Commissioner Bakken.

01:38:16,330	Uh, so, Sheriff Layman, if, uh, we did have a restriction from a time wise perspective, say, you know, whether it’s like a burn ban or it’s a time period restriction that does give you the ability to go, you’re in the ditch. You’re not supposed to be there. So that would be a warranted stop at that point. And that that’s where we start.

01:38:39,100	I it does that help you do enforcement because it’s pretty easy to go. It’s like, okay, we’ve got a current ban on no matter what that looks like. So if somebody is in the ditch, they’re in violation of that ban. Mr. chairman, commissioners. Absolutely.

01:38:58,270	Um, you know, and I think that’s one of the things we spoke at that group meeting with Commissioner Munson, that and the dealers. Um, Tony from North Dakota Parks and Rec. Um, I think, you know, obviously the wetter it is out there, um, you know, that’s where I think some people to speak in, not in their defense, but I think some people just think, well, we can legally do this.

01:39:22,270	Um, we’re not exhibiting behavior intentionally tearing things up. Um, you know, and one of the other things, we run into a situation is, you know, um, there was a video that was sent to this commission and to our department, um, you know, and and what I got to say is. Uh.

01:39:46,900	Some people’s in person or interpretation of the driving is not the standard of the law. And so we got to work within the law. And some landowners, landowners may not agree, um, that we can’t cite that offense. Um, but we have to be able to prove the offense in court. So, um, in our profession, I always say this, we’re the neutral fact finders.

01:40:12,500	Um, we’re there. We’re not there to take a side. Um, and some people say, well, when you don’t take a side, you’re taking the other side. And that’s not the case. We’re there to enforce the law. Um, the law says some people can engage in that behavior. We’re there to protect their rights.

01:40:32,170	Um, some behavior is impermissible. We’re there to prevent that from happening. Um, one thing I am prepared to do is, uh, this budget I will be proposing additional staffing for our department to address this issue. Um, if this is what the people want, it’s going to take more resources.

01:40:53,630	So I’m prepared to ask for two deputies, um, to help us address this issue. Um, that’s going to have tax implications. But if it’s a problem and people want it addressed, we need more resources. Mr. chairman, Commissioner.

01:41:14,470	Woodcox, Sheriff, if we if we were to put in a time limit, say, November 1st to May 1st, and that’s up for debate during that period, if somebody is in the and we say we can’t, you can’t be in the ditches. If we if you someway something during that time, if you saw somebody in the ditch, you could enforce that. Correct.

01:41:32,070	We could put some teeth to it, some dollar fine or whatever it might be. I Julie, I’d like to ask the same question of you. Can we do that? Can we prohibit people from being in a a right of way for six months or five months, whatever it is? I think. It’s a lot of these are public right of ways.

01:41:49,730	So the North Dakota Century Code allows you to restrict the use on roads within your or areas within your exclusive jurisdiction. So yes, you can do that. So then if they’re in the ditch and during that time limit that we prohibited, they could be arrested in whatever it might be. That’s great sighted. Correct. Okay. Good.

01:42:14,230	Thank you. Kelly. Thank you. Anybody else wish to speak? Anybody else wish to speak? Third and final call. Anybody else wish to speak? I’m going to close the public hearing. Commissioner Munson, you have some stuff in the packet. You want to. Yes. Thank you. Chair. Um, the. The letter. That was written. Um.

01:42:52,830	By the, uh, the dealers, uh, We all had some input on that, and I wanted, you know, I wanted it part of the public record so that the the folks that are reading the packet, uh, prior to our meeting and for your commissioners to to, uh, see what we’re what we’ve talked about, what we’re

01:43:10,600	proposing. Um, one item on this list. I need to make sure I clarify or add, um, one of the dealers is name, unfortunately, was left off. And so, uh, Josh with Valley Motors was also part of this group. And I want to recognize him for that part and apologize for missing his name. Uh, on the letter.

01:43:31,700	But, uh, as we continue through this meeting, uh, a lot of the items that are in here are certainly items that I am more than willing to, um, make motions on as we move forward. So if there’s any questions of me, I’d be more than happy to answer. Commissioners, any questions for Munson? I don’t.

01:44:01,770	Know that I saw anything here, um, related to the repairs at this point. No, I have not had enough time to, uh, to get through that. I do know that, uh.

01:44:25,630	Uh, unfortunately, the way the state allocates money to the county, uh, there are funds that are being collected by the, uh, OHV dealers, um, both for licensing and taxes that are being sent to the state, which is in turn being sent to the counties. Uh, so we have received, um, in the last 25 years, almost $1.5 million with the funds from the state, um, from the OHV business. And that’s not dedicated to OHV repairs.

01:44:49,170	It’s not dedicated to anything specific. The state does not, um, specifically state how much of those dollars that are coming from the highway funds are from that purpose. Um, and I’m not saying that it should be. I mean, those dollars are are dedicated to our highway department for road repairs.

01:45:11,230	Road repairs include ditch, uh, in my opinion, I think I think, Commissioner, you’re mixing, um, mixing apples and oranges there. I would disagree. Yeah. Uh, I do know that the money comes from the highway department, and it does get allocated to the highway department and the townships. Uh, again, it’s not specifically stated for ditch repair. It’s it’s dedicated for highway repair.

01:45:35,070	Um, and to me, that ditches part of the highway. Um, so it’s it’s a subject that we have not addressed yet, and mostly because this was a heavy lift the way it was, uh, to get to the point where we are today, um, as we talked, when we get, uh, when we work with Jeff and get this 501, um, registered

01:45:55,170	and going, and we start working with, uh, different RTP grants in order to get funding to, to help with these costs of building, which in my mind would also be part of the repairs. Uh, at that same time, um, I think for me personally, right now, it’s, it’s prevention.

01:46:15,600	Uh, it is changing the fines. It is, it is it’s figuring out a way to keep the bad apples from ruining this for the rest of them. And we have some bad apples. And there’s unfortunately, we can’t legislative we can’t legislate parenting. And I think that’s where it starts. But that’s not what we can do right now.

01:46:35,330	I have to be able to catch them and find them. Keep my the dishes. When the dishes are wet. That I think is what we can do to limit the damage to our own road. Right of ways.

01:46:53,470	I don’t I don’t think from the perspective of a professional trail builder, I don’t think that wet is the only time there’s a problem. Oh, I guarantee you that we see trail damage from people walking and riding bicycles. Major damage. So don’t go thinking that it’s just because somebody is, you know, tearing it up when it’s wet.

01:47:14,370	Um, that that’s a problem that we see all over the state of North Dakota. I think if you ask, um, North Dakota Parks and RECs, they’re actively engaged in trail repairs all the time. Sure.

01:47:37,800	So limiting the damage, I think is, is job one, because it makes no sense to take any other steps if we’re not stopping the bleeding. Oh, without a doubt. I mean, and I think mine and I think that it’s better incentive for these various groups to work together. First off, if there’s teeth in it and first off, they’re not going to be able to ride if they don’t meet these benchmarks.

01:47:58,000	So if you don’t have something by the time this year is over, well, no riding until you have something in place. Then everybody’s feet are held to the fire and everybody has to work together for the solutions because otherwise it goes away, you know? And I don’t really want to see it go away either.

01:48:17,900	I build recreational trails, however, status quo doing, um, allowing what’s been going on now this total free for all in the ditches. Now that’s that those days are gone. So. Well with respect to apparently there’s a lot of agreement with increasing the fines and penalties. Absolutely. That that seems to be a key.

01:48:53,530	Can I start making motions? I have some prepared. for it. Well, I think you can take a shot at it. Okay. In that one specifically I want to I would move to increase the violation penalty from 50 to 150 for the first offense, 250 for the second offense and 500 for the third.

01:49:15,470	And every offense after that. What offense? What is listed up in our current ordinance? All offenses in our ordinance. Is that a change to our current ordinance in the first place? Correct. The one that’s in place right now? No, not the new one. Okay. Correct. Was that a second? No, no, no.

01:49:39,970	I want to see it. Mr. chairman, I think see it two 52nd time 500 and hang them. Well, the the. Question, I guess. What’s what.. I’m looking for an opinion from Julie here on on what the amount can be.. So.

01:50:08,800	If you look at what is in statute now for prohibitions under state law, we can’t really exceed what’s in state law. Just like speeding tickets. And so I believe they have it as an infraction. Um, even if it’s a B misdemeanor, I believe it’s the same. Fine. So it’s up to 1500. Okay. So so in your case was five, 500. thousand I think 1500.

01:50:29,100	I’m thinking 200,505 hundred again. The third time I don’t care about the third time. By that time we got scared I hope. But who knows. But I think 150 is too low. Is it going to stop? Apparently. Okay, well. Went from allowing his kids. I agree with you. Actually, um, we have a motion.

01:50:50,170	Is there a second? Mr. Chair? I would withdraw that motion. Okay? And I would move to increase the fines to two 50, 500 and a thousand second. Okay. I have a motion a second to increase the penalties from current $50 to 250 for first offense, 500 per second and 1000 for the third offense. Any further discussion? Chair.. Um. Commissioner Botkin.

01:51:20,970	So my question on that is that’s tied to our current, um, current ordinances. Uh. How does that play out? Commissioner Munson, if we’re going to put a time restriction on around this as well.

01:51:44,900	So just like the road restrictions, but, you know, the ditches are going to be too wet or whatever. Uh, we just had 9.4in of snow, so we know there’s going to be issues. What does that look like? Well. Mr.. In conjunction with this. Yeah. Good question. Commissioner, I, I’m guessing that there’s another motion coming up that’s going to. Okay. Well, I the reason I’m asking you.

01:52:05,870	Well, the reason I’m asking is because, you know, it seems like there should be a progression here before we get to this. Well. And maybe if we. Well, since the motion has already been made and seconded, let’s move on this. And then I will start at the top of my motions and work my way back down. Okay.

01:52:25,100	With that, Commissioner? Yes. Okay. Call the roll. Commissioner Bakken. No. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Go ahead. Not that I’m not in favor of it, but I would like to hear the rest. Sure. Sure, sure, Stan. Yep. I apologize. We’re not going to hang up on you for that..

01:52:49,500	Fair Enough. All right, so my first motion, I would move to deny the moratorium on the use and operation of in resolution 2020 601. Second. Okay. We have a motion, a second to deny the resolution. And that’s on the moratorium. Correct. Moratorium. Okay. Any further discussion? Yes. Okay. Um.

01:53:23,800	I’m in favor of denying the moratorium, but I do want to leave it open that we will address this. And if need be, immediately, if we need to take a look at. Okay, this just isn’t working. We need to go three miles out. Five miles out. Change the times. Um, and that’s something we can do at a county commission meeting. Uh, with immediacy involved. So.

01:53:45,530	Um, I don’t think. I just want. I don’t think we can commission. Well. Because we’re talking about, um, the language of an ordinance. And I think that changes. So changing the ordinance is going to require this same process that. Right. Okay. So the state’s attorney lawyer is looking at something here. Well, hang on. I think twice.

01:54:07,570	My understanding is the moratorium was a resolution, not an ordinance, which is a little. Bit different, right? Um. And it was supposed to be a limited time to give people a chance to work towards. Solutions. Correct. And it still goes through the same process, though.

01:54:29,000	So if you wanted to adopt a resolution at a later date to do a moratorium, you would have to go through the same process again. Okay. So my question then is is there a time limit put on that.

01:54:51,270	So if we were to postpone this or just, uh, push this back, but leave it on the table, does that still satisfy or is there, uh, does that still satisfy that we’ve already gone through the process and we don’t have to start over? Or is there a time limit that would say, no, it’s been three months. It’s been six months. We’d have to start over. There is. So could.

01:55:04,530	We table this? Yes, but I have to look up what the time limit is. Okay. Commissioner, there is. I would be. But she’s. In favor of tabling. I would be more in favor of tabling this. As we’re working towards other solutions than having to start this process over again. Well, that makes sense.

01:55:24,870	Um, she’s looking for that because there is a time limit. I do recall reading that. Yeah, I don’t recall what that is. Resolution is not that difficult to do. Another one. What’s so hard about. You have to go through this same process. You have to do the multiple public hearings. Yeah. It’s the it’s a public hearings. Yeah. It’s the two public hearings.

01:55:43,170	And it’s the you can’t vote on it for 20 some days after the first. Yeah. So so. We’re two months out. It’s a month and a half process. Yeah. I don’t actually have that on the cheat sheet. So give me a second. Okay. Mr. chairman.

01:56:29,170	Commissioner Woodcox, um, we’ve gone through this process now for quite a while, and I. I don’t want to see us have to do this again. We’ve got to make some decisions. We’ve got to make them now. We can’t. If we postpone this for 3 or 4 months, we come back again with another resolution. Man, we don’t want to.

01:56:43,500	We don’t want to. Nobody think wants to go through that. So I think we’ve got to solve our problem pretty quickly and and move on.

01:56:57,800	I think with the community activity that we’ve had just in the last two months, uh, I mean, when you have a resident that is willing to go out and start a 501 C on his own just to try to get the trail organization going, uh, there’s a lot of positive conversations in our community. I’m just trying to fix the few bad ones. I think once we.

01:57:16,000	That’s admirable, but that does nothing to repair the repair the existing damage or slow down the damage. We got to start somewhere. We can do that. After this. We got to start somewhere. Time limit on. It. , and that’ll help.

01:57:34,000	And I have a lot of faith in those efforts that have been put forward, and a lot of great work by a lot of great people, but we’re not. Time is also not fixing the problems in the ditch. So that’s why I would really hate to have to start this process over again.

01:57:55,600	If we have an immediate issue, we have to deal with, two months does not work for the landowners. I. Commissioner Bakken, I think the fact if we get to the point of being able to immediately restrict OHV travel for whatever reason, the Commission decides whether it’s wet, whether it’s dry, whether it’s if we have that ability and that’s coming up, uh, in a motion, then it’s a fine.

01:58:18,530	No matter what you’re doing in the, in the, in the ditch. Yeah. And I’d be fine with that because it’s like the road restrictions. It’s wet until things are dried up. Can’t be in it.

01:58:35,600	I do need some help with State’s Attorney lawyer afterwards to make sure we have the right language to be written. Very similar to a fire ban. It’s an OHV ban, and it’s a it’s on until a time period we choose or it’s on until the commission comes back and says it’s okay.

01:58:50,870	Um, but that is something that we have to be able to do, and that’s going to be a separate item. Uh, once we get a chance to work with, uh, statutory lawyer to make sure we have the right verbiage. So apparently I’m a motion ahead of you. You you you. It’s all right. It’s all right. You are.

01:59:08,530	But but I do appreciate your thought, because if this takes a lot of time to get the resolution back in play, we we need to know what that is. Mr. chairman, we have a motion and a second on the table. Are we waiting on. Yeah, we’re. Waiting on. Um, there was a specific question where we. I’m not finding anything that says when you have to act.

01:59:25,870	I don’t think they they are considering that it’s going to be held open for that long. I’m just saying, when you know how much time you have to give it before you can, between your first and second reading. So obviously, if you want to table that for now, um, it shouldn’t be an issue.

01:59:42,730	Um, because we’re still within the time frame of, um, it’s after the 20 days after it was last published. And so, um, if you want to extend that to the next meeting, I can look and see if there’s anything that I haven’t found in the 20s.

01:59:59,530	I’ve been, um, researching to see if you have to do it within a certain time frame. So then, you know, I’m I’m not willing to take any cards off the table here yet until we come to some kind of an agreement on what we’re going to do moving forward. I want all of these options to be available because. The chair. Commissioner.

02:00:16,370	So might I suggest we table this motion? Um, if you would withdraw this motion, table this until we have better information from the state’s attorney’s lawyer, and if we can leave it open, we could just leave it tabled so that we do have that immediacy.

02:00:32,900	We don’t have to go back and restart this whole process. Um, but we’ll have more direction next commission meeting. Is that fair? I would put my motion in and re make a new motion to table resolution 2020 601. How’s that sit with second? Second. Oh, I don’t want to pull my second. We can amend this motion. It’d be one. One.

02:00:59,600	I would amend my motion to table it. Then instead of deny okay. So Commissioner Bakken you caught that motion is to table. Perfectly fine with that. Yeah. Because if we can leave this tabled, whatever the period of time is, that’s going to give us more flexibility to react with this. If we need to quicker, okay.

02:01:24,370	Without having to put everybody through this same process again, because I am very cognizant of the people that have taken so much time out of their schedules, uh, passionate on both sides that have come to the commission table. And, and I don’t want to forgo all the work and effort that they’ve already put into that.

02:01:41,430	Okay, we got you. Okay. Any other comments? Commissioner Schwab? Why can’t this be handle like load restrictions? We publish. Them in the paper. And, uh, if you don’t read the paper, well, who reads it anyway? They get. They they get published on our site.

02:02:07,370	Why can’t we handle it like that? So in two more motions from now, I’ll get into that. You’re you’re ahead. Ahead of you. You’re assuming you want to just. Run through all the motions and we’ll come back and. Review them. And I can certainly do this one at a time. Yeah.

02:02:23,530	Um, I suspect you should maybe lay out your thoughts on this before they’ve got, you know, you’re you’re kind of muddying up the water with multiple motions and such. So where are you headed? Yeah, we gotta we gotta dispense with this motion on the table. Any other discussion? Call the roll. Did we get a second on that? What? You did. You did. Yours.

02:02:42,100	Yours? Yep. The motion is to table the. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Bakken. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. No. Just because I can. Because you can. All right, well, let me run through my thought process.

02:03:05,070	So because of the the language concerns that we have with our ordinance 20 3-1, my thought is to scrap all of the stuff that we brought in and start going through that line, item by item, because we’ve got again, like like, um, I forget Dustin had said, we’ve got two different definitions in there that clash.

02:03:25,330	So I would like to just scrap all of the additional, get back to where we are and start building off. I think that’s fine because like I said, all we did was just I had Mitch, uh, had Mitch just grabbed that city thing, and it’s a starting point. Yep. And that’s fine with me and I. So.

02:03:40,530	So the number three, um, I’m going to offer to restrict wheeled OHV operations in the road right away from December 1st to May 1st, with a fine of $750 for riding during that time period. Now, what I heard earlier was that may not be enough. Um, but that’s where I had started. At. Seven, 750.

02:04:02,430	Um, where the number four is, where I need to work with state attorney lawyer is to define how Burleigh County, whether it’s the highway department, the the chair, the park board that determines it’s to, whether it’s too wet, whether it’s too dry, whether we have whatever conditions that we can enact, a time period.

02:04:22,530	Uh, also to keep the wheeled OHV from our road right of ways. Um, part of that process, though, is what’s been offered by the sheriff’s department and by the dealers.

02:04:40,070	And I’m pretty sure if we asked Mary really nicely, we could use the, um, the county website as well as the everybody would publish that time period. So if there was an issue, maybe it’s even burn ban issue where we’re worried about fires in the ditches, we can extend that to OHV.

02:04:55,800	Everybody is willing to publish that on their social, on their website, so that we can get the word out as fast as we can. And I would bet if we ask the Tribune, they would help us out too. Okay, perfect, perfect. So so that’s that’s the option.

02:05:12,100	But I need state attorneys, uh, lawyer’s verbiage so that we at in our hopefully our next meeting, we can have that language in place so that we can do that. And, and I want all of your input. I mean, is it a highway department discussion? Is it a chair discussion. Is it a is it an action at this table? Because I remember the last burn, man, we had to have a special meeting, uh, to do that.

02:05:27,630	And if that’s the same scenario, then. The way. The way that works. Is the way that works or has in the past. And I think the law is, um, for, for a week or something.

02:05:44,170	You know, the chair can, um, do an emergency declaration and then in that, in that subsequent amount of time, then we have to have a commission action to continue that. So I would like, uh, state attorney lawyers help with creating that process, uh, so that we can have that available at our next meeting. Okay. So how would we be participating in creating that language, considering the public meeting laws and the whole thing? That’s the state’s attorney lawyer’s question. I’ll do some research.

02:06:16,230	Okay. I think it’s I have no problem with, um, uh, taking that yellow language out of there because like I said, that was just simply a starting point. And to get the conversation going, and obviously it got everybody’s attention.

02:06:39,100	However, however, the problem is severe enough that I do believe there has to be drastic action to resolve that issue. It is we can’t have this correct. That’s all there is to it. People are, um, I’ve heard far too often that some people are intimidating and threatening landowners, and I absolutely will not tolerate that in Berkeley County.

02:06:57,970	You know, I did my time in the Marine Corps, and if somebody is going to intimidate or threaten somebody, all they got to do is call me, okay? I have a very good friend that has had the same thing happen.

02:07:16,230	And and it is disgusting where she was almost run over and, uh, that individual turned and laughed, didn’t apologize, you know, and so, so yes, I’m on board. We need some stricter fines. We need some. We need some more enforcement out in the county to try to catch. And I’m very grateful for the for the North Dakota Parks and Rec to, to allow us to have some additional funding for that. Yeah. That’s I mean that’s minimal.

02:07:34,900	That’s not enough. But it’s a start. And I really think with these ordinances in place and the fines in place and if quite honestly, the restriction of wheeled OHV starts today, that should be part of that motion that we need to start that today.

02:07:52,870	Because again, we have wet conditions that are not appropriate for people to ride in. And as we’ve heard, people are smart enough to figure it out. Okay. So, uh, Julie, state’s attorney, can we do a something something in the meantime? Or does it have to be part of that ordinance for us to say, look, whereas it’s muddy, keep your

02:08:14,470	butts out of the ditch? I mean, what. That’d be your resolution. How do we get there? Especially if you want to do it for a limited time? Okay. So so if I made a motion to restrict wheeled OHV operations in the road right away from December 1st to May 1st, we’re still in that time period.

02:08:36,070	That’s effective as of today. Is that legal? If you. For the effectiveness to being. Today, if you put that as part of your ordinance and adopt that ordinance today, then it’s effective as of the date that it’s signed. Okay. Perfect.

02:08:56,370	But we can’t we probably can’t do that without this other action. We’re talking about changing the same ordinance. Or can we? Well, you’re you can amend the proposed ordinance that you have before you and adopt it today. That’s what the second reading is all about. And you can make amendments and adopt it at this reading.

02:09:14,800	But if we don’t, because he wants to work with you on additional language. Correct? That’s step two. Then. Then you would do that at the next public hearing. So we’d have we’d have to adopt a resolution today. If you wanted it to take effect today. Yes. And then we’d still have the option of the ordinance language for next meeting. Right? Correct. But we could adopt this ordinance. No resolution.

02:09:48,100	What this resolution, nor to. Adopt this ordinance. The ordinance because you’re wanting different language for the ordinance, right? Do you want to remove the yellow from the proposed ordinance? Right. And you want to work with the state’s attorney on additional language, additional language to restricting the fees in the dictionary? Yes.

02:10:15,900	So the resolution then would establish what you’re talking about for that time period between now and April 1st. And I would also like to see that tied to a county declaration, like a fire ban.

02:10:35,630	If there’s if there’s times when this commission feels that, you know, we get to say we get a wet spell or something, right? Like we did last week like last week. And if it was past that May 1st or whatever. And, um, granted, then that would probably be rain, but it’s the same thing, right? It’s still wet. So any motion that’s related to that resolution, we need to include that also to be able to do that.

02:10:54,330	However, the resolution that’s on the table change the language in the resolution. But we just decided to table that so that we had that available for future dates. Right.

02:11:14,270	So if we make that today effective, that shoots that resolution out of the game and we got to start when we got to go back to the ordinance, next meeting, next meeting because they’re both still in play. Right? Right now. Right. So the question is, do you I think there’s urgency, but. Well, I think there is urgency, especially from what we’ve seen already. And I drove to town on Saturday and it was all tore up.

02:11:35,500	And that and that May 1st is something that the dealers and I have worked on for a while. We’re comfortable with that date. Um. Okay. We’ve got on the table of motion to pick those dates, right? No, I was just walking through the options that I had. We don’t have a motion.

02:11:57,070	Motion? No, we wanted to discuss where we’re headed here now, and so I just wanted to touch base on a few of the other things we’ve talked about. The GIS coordinator, Greg Carlson, is working with us to create a map. Uh, the sheriff’s department already has the patrols. Um, authorized up to $9,000 additional overtime. Um, yeah. So really, it comes down to deciding language, and I’m hesitant to.

02:12:30,100	Use that moratorium now, between now and May 1st, because that’s how the ordinance language would be. So I don’t want to use up that moratorium for future. Yeah, it’s a catch 22, isn’t it? But if you table all of it for two weeks, we have people riding in the ditches that are going to create more destination.

02:12:52,530	Mister Chairman. Julie, what’s our option here? I mean, I see, you know, we’re out here at the fairgrounds and there’s a sign out there that says no public access. By order of the Burleigh County Commission. Because you’re doing what, construction out there or something? No one. Has been on the signs. Been on that fence for like, 30 years.

02:13:14,730	Well, I can’t tell you how that started then. That was before my time. Yeah. Mr. chairman. You kind of have your options. You either adopt the resolution or you adopt the ordinance, or you waiting to discuss it more. Mr. chairman. Commissioner Woodcox, we have an ordinance in place right now.

02:13:34,530	Can we amend that tonight to say no, to put the mayor 1st to December 1st or second in? Can we take that our our existing ordinance and amend it to put in language saying no, no, whatever May 1st of December 1st, then we we’re not fooling around with this public hearing and the ordinance that we’re working on now.

02:13:54,000	That’s our old ordinance that we have in place. , revising ordinances. Because I’m trying to think of something we can do immediately to take care of this season. Right.

02:14:20,600	The concern I would have as we go through the whole public hearing to public hearings and the notices and it just occurred to me that the language of the of what we would put in the motion, um, adopting a resolution with the language you’re saying that this is in effect now with additional changes coming next meeting. So. The short version is, um.

02:14:54,730	Revising ordinances is, um, it allows for you to have the executive officer who can appoint, with the advice and consent of the governing body, one or more competent persons to prepare and submit to the governing body for adoption or rejection and ordinance for the revision or amendment of existing ordinances.

02:15:15,470	Um, the attorney shall be appointed as one of the persons to prepare and submit such ordinance and such revision, including additional ordinances and amendments to existing ordinance, may be passed as a single ordinance, and may be published in a pamphlet. So, um, it’s got to be passed the same way an ordinance does. If you revise it. It looks like to me. So we don’t have to go to public hearings.

02:15:28,170	It has to be revised the same way you do a regular ordinance, because it has to be passed as a single ordinance. So you’d have to have that open to the public. You can’t just change something on there at your whim. You already deal with the fine.

02:15:43,900	This is part of the public hearing where they can amend the ordinance that’s being discussed. Now. Did you amend the other one? You can’t amend. You can’t amend the old one. We pulled the amendment. Yeah, I know the old one. Can we amend that without. You can amend it, but you have to go through the same process because you’re changing you’re revising that ordinance.

02:16:00,800	And so. it’s the same way as adopting an ordinance. But you can amend the one that’s before you. Now, before it’s passed. And you go to appreciate the legislature write these laws that.

02:16:25,000	So if we tabled everything, the concern I have is we have two weeks of the uncontrolled AUVs in our road right of ways. If we table everything until until next meeting. That’s true. But perhaps people who are listening to this meeting and realizing that the driving that they’re doing and the actions that they’re doing are causing this board to consider banning AUVs. I would. Have thought they might.

02:16:48,970	Well, one would have thought that that would already be in place. Um, but I think it’s. it’s really clear, especially since we’re just talking about what happened this last weekend, right, that they’re in danger of the few who are ruining it for everybody. And that’s my concern. If they’re even paying attention. Then they’re not. Yeah, you’re not. Catch 22.

02:17:17,170	Oh, and I have to revise that. If there’s a penalty associated with it, then you have to publish it once in the official newspaper. The title and the penalty. If it involves a fine. So and then it becomes effective. Okay. So the fines that we were talking about would have to be published once, correct.

02:17:33,170	Once that ordinance is adopted. Yep. And then it is official after that. Or it can be enforced after that. After that, for one publication in the paper which could take place, I don’t know, how long does it take to get that out. Yeah. So. So it’s relatively quick. So if you use the resolution.

02:17:59,370	With the end date of May 1st. So it would burn that card. Right. That’s part of my concern. So you could um discuss another resolution and start the process now, which would cut down on how long it takes.

02:18:22,970	Of course you still have the the waiting period and the first reading and the second reading, but if you wanted to entertain a resolution for after May 1st, if you wanted to do that tonight and put that as a date, you could begin the process again with a new resolution as well. Of course, you have to have the first reading. The second reading.

02:18:47,800	We’re going to meet this thing to death. That’s my my my fear. I was hoping for some swift rules and decisions. Well, the other part of this too, is chair is, uh, go ahead. I, I’m not comfortable going across the entire county.

02:19:13,530	We don’t have the issues across the entire county that we have close to the Bismarck metro. What do you think. We should do? The commissioner? Well, and do we need to look at tying a a mileage or or pick some geographic locations? Uh, you know, associated with streets? Uh, because the problem isn’t out in the county, and I am not in favor of penalizing county residents

02:19:39,630	for the sins of some metro residents. You know, basically, the old E.T.A.. That that’s just not equitable. Well, we know we know the location of the problem is close to town. We do. I mean, that’s that’s pretty. We do. So, like five miles from Bismarck, from Bismarck city limits.

02:20:10,100	Or we have the highway department figure out where you know what that map looks like, because that’s something we could actually easily publish. Here’s the map. No writing inside of these limits. No riding ditches inside these limits. Now. Oh, is it 70? Is it 70? First is 110th.

02:20:32,100	Is it 80th? Uh, to the east, whatever that looks like. Because now that’s something we can define on a map. Here we go. No riding in here because you people are screwing up the ditches and you’re infringing on private property owners.

02:20:52,370	But somebody out in Baldwin or Wing and Kelly could probably back me up on this. I don’t think the sheriff’s department’s got a complaint. Mister. Mister chair, can I respond to that? He’s shaking. Is it? Go ahead, Commissioner Munson.

02:21:16,530	Um, Commissioner Botkin, the only concern I would have with that is as we start developing trails, you’re going to have some that will be close to the city limits to allow these riders to get from city limits out. Well, and, Commissioner Munson, I, I, I I’m in favor of all of that. Okay? I’m not talking long term. I’m just talking until the trails are established. Sure.

02:21:40,330	But it seems a little heavy handed to penalize the entire county for a handful of people who are screwing it up for everybody else. I I’m never in favor of over legislating.

02:22:03,370	So if we were to look at some sort of a what that map would look like, hey, no riding OHV in the ditches here until the trail system is established, until we get further down the road, when we have better solutions. I would be in favor of that, but just throwing a blanket across for everybody else and penalizing people that aren’t the problem. I’m not in favor of either.

02:22:23,070	Right? Mister chair, one more question for State Attorney Commissioner Munson. So if we followed chair or the state’s attorney lawyer’s thought process and initiated a new resolution today, how does that look? So then that gets published. Then we have two public hearings. So if we started today, we’re still out six weeks before that is considered. Doesn’t do any good to do no.

02:22:49,730	Correct. You’d have to follow you have to follow the same process that you followed before. And um. Of course I have it. I don’t see why we need an ordinance or a resolution at all to say what happens in our jurisdiction. Right? Yeah.

02:23:19,870	So the proposed ordinance that you would adopt has to have a first reading at a public meeting. Full copies have to be available through the county auditor’s office. And then publication of the summary of the enactment of that, um, has to be in the paper 20 days before the second reading.

02:23:35,270	So you should have some proposed ordinance or resolution, and you can, I suppose you can take the one that’s currently in place prior to any amendments. And propose that resolution and then start the process. Mr. chairman, wish you we. Could throw another wrench in there.

02:24:03,070	What’s wrong with our old ordinance that we that we agonized over for six months and we got it in place, and now what’s wrong with it? Have we ever discussed that? I mean, why are we going for a new one when we’ve got an old one in place? We have trouble enforcing it. We’re going to have trouble enforcing this one. But why aren’t we trying to create the.

02:24:19,970	Community to answer some of that? Because a good part of that original ordinance had to do with exhibition driving. And like the sheriff explained to us, exhibition driving is in the eye of the beholder, and it’s what you can prove in court.

02:24:36,000	I got when I was a kid, I got exhibition driving tickets and I deserved it. So you earned I know what it’s kind of like. Well, you know it if you see it. Right. Um. This new one we have right here. Exhibition driving. I’m reading it right now. Yeah, but, you know, is is.

02:24:56,900	What if we took our existing ordinance and just what? The sheriff. We have an emergency situation. We hire additional people that would enforce our existing ordinance for the for this season.

02:25:14,900	Because if we enforce, I think if we enforce this thing that we’ve already got in place, the fine is law, we can I don’t know whether we can amend that fine or not without going through two public hearings and a double reading and all that. But, uh, I we’re making this more, much more difficult than I think we need to. Well, the original ordinance does not appear to be having any positive effect. It’s not heavy enough. That’s because we haven’t been able to enforce it. Yeah, primarily. Um.

02:25:38,970	Mister Chair, can I ask another question? Yes. Uh. So. state attorney. Lawyer, uh, resolution 2020 601 simply states that we want to put a moratorium on until an effective date of. And that’s open. It has. County wide. Wide, right. That’s what the more that’s what this is. So we can change we can change that.

02:26:03,700	Okay. Well that’s my question. So not without going through the whole process. No. We can change the language of of what we’re proposing. Yes. You can amend the current one and past that tonight.

02:26:21,170	If you wanted to have, you know, you had talked about having a table so you would have it available to you in the future if you wanted to, um, start that process again with one that doesn’t have an end date so that you can amend and figure out what new end date you wanted, you could propose that resolution again tonight and then start the process over.

02:26:39,870	So that one if if by May 1st, you wanted to basically extend that time period. You have this new resolution where you could add additional time. So if we took this resolution, put an end date on it, can we add a fine to it because it has no teeth. It just says you can’t do it.

02:27:03,270	What what does it look like for a fine for breaking the moratorium? So you could potentially add a fine to that too, because a resolution and an ordinance are similar. It’s just that a resolution has an end date. It’s a temporary basically a temporary ordinance. So you could amend that to include fines. Fine.

02:27:22,630	And so then we could then tonight have the first reading of resolution 2020 602 with this same language. That’s in our packet. And that would be our first reading. Um, not a first. Um. I don’t think so. There’s publication. Proposed ordinance provided to the commission, first reading at a public meeting.

02:27:45,000	So you’d have to announce a public meeting for that specific ordinance so you can propose that you’re sorry resolution. You can propose that resolution at this meeting, and then you can call for a public hearing to be set for it. So this would be then first. Out, this would be the basically the um, providing a proposed resolution to the commission.

02:28:02,530	Rather than waiting two weeks to do it again, we could at least start and get correct. And then the next meeting you have, you could have your first reading there. Okay. I just everything got to be so complicated because lawyers are involved. Not, not not really that. Could you repeat that was part. Of it. You got. Involved. Um, Commissioner Schwab.

02:28:31,370	The highway department goes out and puts on road restrictions, no set dates, but you pretty much know it’s going to be spring. And come summer, take it off. We need to set this up so the highway department can take care of the ditches. The same way we advertise it. And there’s nothing to say.

02:28:53,900	The highway department can’t go out and put load restrictions on or whatever in. The. Middle of the. Summer. We have heavy rains. We close roads. So I think the simple solution is the highway department says the ditches are too wet, had a four inch rain until further notice.

02:29:15,270	No vehicles. That would be the simplest thing. There has to be no dates or anything. It’s just there it is. And if and if they people can’t. If people aren’t able to be aware of when they can run these vehicles in the ditch, well, that’s running a stop sign, you know, same thing.

02:29:39,530	But I think that’s the way to set this thing up. How would we do that? State’s attorney? That’s exactly. What it’s going to. Ask. The department independently. Can’t. Well, they know when the ditches are bad. They know. When they are wet. And nobody should be going through it.

02:29:59,970	So why not just do it like road restrictions? I would have to look to see if you can assign that authority to a different department, because generally, like for a burn ban, that’s your authority to do. And so that’s why you have to have special meetings to, to make that decision.

02:30:16,730	As the board, I don’t know that you can reassign that authority. I would have to look into that. You’re getting a heck of a list, Julie. She’s not going to do anything for the next two weeks. Just stick around. I believe there’s more coming. I hope your dockets clear. It ain’t over.

02:30:42,730	So you’re you’re telling me that the highway department can’t put restrictions on the on the ditch? That’s if you’ll need it, right, right. What? She said. I can check to see if you can give that a defer that authority to them. You know, I know in statute there are certain things that, you know they can do like that.

02:31:01,630	Like you’re talking road restrictions or load restrictions. Sorry. So I have to look and see if you can do it for something else. Something that chances are not, you know, Commissioner. We’re getting nowhere and I’m going to make a motion to table this so that stuff can get put together.

02:31:22,970	In the meantime, we have a lot of people watching where it’ll get around. Be on your good behavior because. You can see what the cause and effect of this whole thing is going to be. And I really think that we should move on and get this stuff all squared up. Maybe you should. Remind them.

02:31:44,670	So I would advise the people that are doing the dishes and everybody says a few bad apples I drive, the roads are probably driven 7 or 8000 miles since they had the highway department. I have seen adults do it.

02:32:06,530	I’ve seen 2 or 3 vehicles like Monkey See, monkey Do going right behind, and you never can find these people that that did this. It’s just a few apples. No, it’s a lot of apples in this basket. They’re doing that. As a matter of fact, I saw three vehicles going down the road at around 71st Street, and they’re just having a high old time and they’re close to one another.

02:32:29,070	The lead vehicle got the vehicle behind him so muddy he had to stop. And the third one had to stop because that one had to stop. He got muddy actually trying to throw mud out deliberately doing this.

02:32:53,000	And if people don’t understand, if we’re going to let them ride in ditches, then we should let them right in the ditches in front of their houses. That’s the way I, I look at it now, because they get on the pavement, go over here and get in the ditch and damage it. Well, hey, what’s good for the goose? Good for the gander.

02:33:09,530	That would solve it all. It’s a parent issue. And it should also include the education that the dealers have failed to come up with. The. They got two weeks to go and get it done, and by then we’ll have this wording done.

02:33:31,470	But I would still like to see it worded so that if we get a four inch row, uh, four inch rain like we’ve had last year, we reestablish restrictions just by. So just like. Is there a motion to table? Uh, chairman, if I may, there was already a motion passed to table this, and. That was the resolution.

02:33:56,530	The resolution? That was the resolution. It was already passed to table it. About the ordinance. Nothing’s been done on the ordinance. Not the ordinance. Is there a motion to table the ordinance as well? Mr. Schwab must make that. Tabled it. Well, you made a motion to. Table the moratorium. Yes I.

02:34:17,470	Did. That was the moratorium, not the ordinance. Whatever. So is there a motion to table the ordinance? Yes. Okay. There’s a motion. Pushing anything until all the subjects. Put together. Okay. So we have a motion. Is there a second? I’ll second for discussion. Okay. Go ahead. Um. Commissioner Munson.

02:34:49,630	What else do you need? Can you lay all that out before we take a vote on tabling this? Do you have everything you need for the next steps? The. Largest. Or at least planned out for what? The next steps are? You know, we almost need a special commission meeting to. To discuss it. Yeah, yeah.

02:35:08,800	I mean, because we got we got a long list of other stuff to do here yet, folks. I mean, we’re not halfway. Through third of the way. Um, right. The only thing, Commissioner Barkan, the only thing that I really need is, uh. State’s attorney lawyer’s thought. Process on being able to.

02:35:27,100	Whether it’s the highway department determining that the ditches are too wet or if it’s a meeting of the commission, or how that language lays out. Um, whether it’s a special meeting, whether it’s chair’s decision, however, or the highway department’s decision, I really think once state’s attorney lawyer lays that out for us, I think we have everything we need. Well, we can probably. Okay.

02:35:47,730	We can probably declare an emergency, couldn’t we? And. See? I mean, if we wanted to do something tonight. Um, declaring an emergency is Mary Senger’s. Saying. Back there she could talk to you about that. Okay. Well, it’s just. That that that was my discussion point, though.

02:36:15,000	I just wanted to make sure that that Wayne had everything that he needed moving forward before we voted on this. Well, I could see a special meeting coming up here. Yeah, and I’m in favor of that. Okay. Yep. I’d like to be involved with the highway department on this. Yeah, absolutely. See, that’s why we’re going to have to get into us.

02:36:33,870	Probably a special meeting or something, because I think everybody is is no offense to Commissioner Munson, but you’re not going to carry that water alone. You know, that’s too much. There’s too much. Um, and there will be a significant amount of debate going into this yet. So, um, we have a motion and a second any further discussion? Motion is to table call the roll.

02:36:56,430	Commissioner Schwab. Yes. Commissioner. Woodcox. No. Commissioner. Munson. No. Commissioner. Botkin. Yes. Karen. Bitner. Yes. I don’t think we’re anywhere near a resolution. We’re not doing anything done. Yeah, okay. Motion is to table. Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Woodcox. I think we need long term.

02:37:30,800	We have restrictions on fireworks where we got a date June 20th through April 1st, whatever that is. We have restrictions on other things, like your load limits and that thing. We’ve got to come up with something that will solve this situation every year.

02:37:45,070	Not not just this season or that season, whether it’s a wet one or a dry one or a lot of snow or not, we’ve got to come up with something that will solve this problem, whether it’s whether it is ever it’s solvable, but at least set some restrictions on this that pass on year to year. So we don’t have everybody agonizing over it every year.

02:38:03,730	Well, you know, and there’s, there’s there’s another thing, uh, if it gets to be a drought year and, and. Fires start. We got to be able to restrict that to. Yeah. I think the date. are November 1st, May 1st. But I don’t think that’s a. Good most of. It work to. Do there. We still need that little additional opportunity.

02:38:22,370	It’s not enough right. We need to because I’m telling you I’m not I’m not joking. The damage does not just happen when it’s wet. You see it every day. Um, okay, so we’re tabling that till the next meeting. We’re going to work on some more stuff, and it’s probably going to be a special meeting next.

02:38:37,900	County engineer Shrek, we got a developer waiver request. I mean, we got a long list of things to get through here. So. Yeah, he. Took up like half the half. Of. His pass them. All right now we’ve moved a through L. Is that a motion? Yes. Yes. Why not? I’m gonna run down the hall. Why? Does anybody.

02:39:02,600	Have a problem with. That? Why wouldn’t. I think Dan just suggests that. Good evening, Mr. Chairman and commissioners. Um, we’ll get going as soon as it quiets down here a little bit. Yeah. Unless you want me to start now. Yeah. Okay.

02:39:30,730	First item on the agenda under the highway department is a developer waiver agreement or waiver request. Uh, under the current paving policy, developers, owners and property that is going to be platted or required to to, uh, propose platted subdivisions will include the construction and paving of all internal roadways and adjacent section line roads, and the construction and paving of at least one roadway

02:39:49,900	that connects into the existing paved road system. Uh, Carmen Beast Airfield. In the north half of the section 12 in Glenview Township, is proposing a one lot subdivision CCB subdivision, and is requesting a waiver of the paving policy. Under the pavement policy.

02:40:06,170	The platting of this property would require them to pave about a quarter of a mile of Township Subdivision roadway, waiving of the policy allows the county board to approve the proposed plat without a developer reconstructing and paving the required roadways at this time, it does not preclude the county or township from requiring them

02:40:20,630	to pay, requiring the property owner from sharing in the cost to construct and pave these roadways that benefit this property in the future. There is a proposed resolution in your packet. I would stand for any questions. Second. Move to approve. Yeah, okay. Try to keep up here. Um, the motion to second. Any further discussion. Call the roll.

02:40:40,600	Commissioner Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Commissioner Woodcox. Abstain. Yes, chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Next. Okay. Second item on the agenda is a accept petition to vacate right away and set a time for an end date for a public hearing.

02:41:08,500	Jim and Jeff and Kim Langer would like to have a platted right of way in Ponderosa Riverside village. Replant vacated. The property is located in the southeast corner of section three, Township one, 39 North, range 81 West, Hay Creek Township, Burleigh County. Uh, there is a map in your in your packet.

02:41:25,530	They have filed a petition with the county engineer under North Dakota Century Code 20 407 to vacate the access right of way. In order to vacate this right away, the county and township must provide must conduct a public hearing and ascertain any damages that are caused by eliminating this right of way.

02:41:42,230	Uh, there is a resolution in the packet to set the public hearing date for May 4th, 2026 at 5 p.m.. Move to approve. Second. Second. Boy, that’s that’s sounds like you already voted. Um, there’s a motion to approve the, uh, call for a public hearing, right on May 4th, 2026. Any further discussion? Call the. Roll, Commissioner Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Chairman. Bitner.

02:42:08,170	Yes. Motion carries. We’re on. Next item. Authorize the county proper County officials to accept the low bid for two new mower tractors. On February 17th, the county board authorized the county auditor and the county engineer to advertise for two. Advertise for bids for two mower tractors.

02:42:24,070	Bids were opened on March 25th, and the following bids were received. Uh Acme tools. In a bid of 3.997 2582, and Ardo Equipment in $400,038.32. There is a proposed resolution to accept the low bid from Acme Tools for 3.997, 25.82 for two. Act motion to approve Acme tools for 3.997 20. Man, is that close, huh? That’s a nice bit. Unbelievable.

02:42:51,970	Wow. Okay. Further discussion. Get it? Is it capable of handling ditch damage? Well, we’re going to find out. I don’t think we know. Resolution. Okay, Okay, call the roll. Commissioner Bakken. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Go ahead.

02:43:14,600	And the next item I have is the authorized, proper county officials to enter in a low contract, low bid bidder for gravel crushing on January 5th, 2026, the county board authorized the county auditor and the county engineer to advertise for bids for gravel crushing. Bids were opened on March 31st, 2026, and the following bids were received.

02:43:31,530	Gravel Products Incorporated was the the sole bidder at $1,008,000. Even. Um, this. If you do notice this is a little bit over our budgeted amount by about 250,000. We did have some savings in a few of our other line items or in our in a few of our other bids that we had out.

02:43:50,330	So that’s kind of how we were planning on covering some of this. I did talk to the the low bidder, and they are willing to reduce the amount that we actually crushed to try to get us back within budget, but I think we can cover the overages with the savings on a few of our other items.

02:44:06,170	So there is a proposed resolution at Stanford. Any questions? Any questions? Commissioners move to approve. Second second. Motion and second to approve any further discussion. Call the roll. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes. Yes. Motion carries.

02:44:31,870	Next item on January 5th, 2026, the county board authorize the county auditor and the county engineer to advertise for bids for pavement markings. Bids were opened on March 31st, 2026, and we had one sole bidder, Traffic Safety Services, in the amount of $257,295.02, uh, with which is within our budget. There is a proposed resolution, and I will stand for any questions. Any questions, commissioners. Move to approve second. Motion and second to approve any further discussion.

02:44:55,870	Call the roll. Commissioner Woodcox. No. Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Just because he can. Let’s create a resolution. Yeah. Okay.

02:45:18,900	The next item we have is, uh, authorize the proper county officials to enter in a contract with the low bid for Hay Creek township, Burt Creek township, Lincoln township, and county roadway seal coat projects on January 5th, 2026, the county board authorized the county Otter County Engineer to advertise for bids for county chip seal projects. Bids are open on March 31st. We had two bidders. The low bid was Asphalt Preservation Company. There is a proposed resolution to accept their bid and I would stand for any questions.

02:45:36,970	Any questions move to approve. Is there a second? Second? Second motion and a second to approve any further discussion? Call the roll. Commissioner Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Uh, the next item we have is, uh, authorization to action. Request for authorization.

02:46:01,670	Authorize the proper county officials to enter in a contract with the low bid to replace bridge number 08115 37.0, located on Apple Creek Road and local project number is 0181.

02:46:23,070	As part of the North Dakota Department of Transportation’s federally funded bridge program, we have received bids to replace one county bridge and remove one county bridge. Central specialties was the apparent low bidder on this project. It was within budget. There is a proposed resolution from the state of North Dakota, and I would stand for any questions. Which bridge. Is this? This is the one that would be east of. Oh yeah, east of 80th Street. Okay. Great move to approve.

02:46:43,170	Second motion and second to approve any further discussion. Question. Commissioner Woodcox. Is that all county money or is that some of that federal or. Yeah, this will have an 80 over 20 split through the federal. We get the 20. We have the 20%. Of that 1.6 million. That’s right.

02:46:59,870	And then the construction engineering is later on in this packet as part of this as well. And that we’d be on the hook for 20% of that one as well. Okay. Thank you. Call the roll. Commissioner Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Go ahead. Next one.

02:47:20,630	On February 17th, 2026, the county board authorized the county auditor and the county engineer to advertise for bids for project 0188 71st Avenue Northeast and Centennial Road Improvement projects. Bids were opened on March 31st and Northern Improvement Company was the apparent low bid. Uh. There is a proposed resolution I would stand for. Any questions to approve. Second motion.

02:47:44,630	Second to approve any further discussion, call the roll. Commissioner Botkin. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes. Commissioner. Munson. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Next one we have is on March.

02:48:04,000	On February 17th, 2026, the county board authorize the county auditor and the county engineer to advertise for bids for a gravel and culvert repair project located in Morton Township. Bids were opened on March 31st, 2026, and central Specialties was the apparent low bidder. There is a proposed resolution in your packet. I would stand for any questions on that one. Move to approve. Second motion and second to approve any further discussion. Call the roll. Commissioner Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Botkin. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes.

02:48:26,700	Yes. Motion carries. Next one we have is authorized. Uh, county officials to enter in the low bid for project 0191 North Ridge Estates and North Washington Street at 84th Avenue on February 17th, 2026.

02:48:46,470	The county board authorized the county auditor and the county engineer to advertise for bids for projects zero one, nine one and 0192. Micro Surface projects. Bids were opened on March 31st. Asphalt Surface and asphalt Surface Technologies was the apparent low bidder, and there was a proposed resolution I would stand for any questions. Any questions to approve. second motion and second to approve any further discussion. Call the roll.. Commissioner. Bakken. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner.

02:49:13,800	Munson. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Next one we have on the agenda is on February 17th. The county board authorize the county auditor and the county engineer to advertise for bids for a mill. An overlay of Apple Creek Road being Apple Creek Road. Phase two project bids were opened on March 31st, 2026.

02:49:31,330	Strata Corporation was the apparent low bidder and there is a proposed resolution and I would stand for any questions. To approve second. Motion and second to approve any further discussion, call the roll. Nay, River, I apologize that that is written wrong. So. That strata. It’s not strata, it’s knife river. Area on page 56 here. Yes. Yes.

02:50:03,270	Move. We approve. Second. So we got a. Got to remove the word strata. That’s right. Um, in the resolution. Insert knife. River. Correct. Yep. That was a slip on my part. My motion will reflect that. That’s knife River, not strata. Okay, so we’re good.

02:50:32,170	Everybody understands the motion to approve the low bid for knife River. Any further discussion? Call roll. Commissioner Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Okay. The next item we have is the approval of the selection of Bartlett and West. Perform construction engineering services for the project.

02:50:52,470	Numbers BRC 0815054 and Berg BRC 008037, which is the replacement of the bridge on Apple Creek Road and the removal of the bridge on 102nd Avenue east of US 83. The project will include, uh at the January 20th, 2026 county board meeting, the board approved Highway Department’s request to seek construction engineering services for the above

02:51:18,100	reference projects. On February 12th. We open proposals for the project. Three consulting firms submitted proposals and after a review, thorough review and the proposals and interviews conducted on February 24th, the selection committee ranked Bartlett and West as the most qualified qualified firm to perform services for this project.

02:51:37,870	We have negotiated scope and fee with Bartlett and West. There is a proposed resolution and I would try to answer any questions. Any questions, commissioners move to approve. second motion and second to approve any further discussion. Call the roll. Yes. Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, chairman. Bender. Yes. Motion carries.

02:52:01,800	Um, the last item we have on here is the approval of the selection of the apex engineering to perform preliminary engineering design services for their replacement of bridge 08-11239 on Lincoln Road during the 2025 legislative session. Flex funds were set aside to replace bridges throughout the state.

02:52:23,970	Burleigh County was awarded Flex flex funds to replace this bridge. Located on Lincoln Road a half mile west of 52nd Street Southeast. As part of the project, the local entity is required to pay for all preliminary engineering design.

02:52:44,070	The flex funds will cover 100% of the construction and construction engineering, as at the January 20th, 2026 County Board meeting, the board approved the Highway Department’s request to seek design engineering proposals, and on February 12th, we open proposals for this project. Four consulting firms submitted proposals and after thorough review of their proposals and interviews conducted on February 24th, the selection committee ranked Apex Engineering as the most qualified firm to perform these services.

02:53:04,870	We have met with Apex and negotiated scope and fees for this project. Uh, there is a proposed resolution. I would try to answer any questions. Any questions, Commissioner Schwab. That seems awful high for that bridge. The design of that bridge. Yes. Uh, that’s projected to be about a $5 million bridge. About 10% of that is what they usually get. Moved to approve.

02:53:26,730	Second motion and second to approve any further discussion. Seeing none, call the roll. Commissioner. Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes. Chairman. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you, thank you. You spent all your money. You got any idea how much you got? Any idea how much money? We just spent? So it’s all he’s.

02:53:50,470	Done now? Yeah. No. No more tractors for Dan. Ford trucks. Okay, next item on the agenda. County Planning Director Flanagan, at page 61. We got All-American subdivision, happy Creek Ridge, second subdivision, Waverly Park, fifth Riverside, a subdivision, final plat. All these horses subdivision and Ansley special use permit. Welcome news. Good evening. Commissioners.

02:54:18,000	Mr. chair, the first step is that all subdivision earlier this year, the owner at 8203 Apple Creek Road came to for building permit. He was advised to plat his property, which is 21 acres, and he wants to outlaw five acres out of that parcel.

02:54:41,000	Um, it it did have its concerns for, for staff because it was in a floodplain and adjoining floodway on the west side of the property. That’s the whole purpose is, is to build that building out of that of that floodway. The stormwater management waiver was approved on February 16th. Paving waiver was not required. The Planning Commission recommended approval at 9 to 0.

02:55:00,170	Um, in your packet to the site location and the final plat I stand for. Any questions. Commissioners, any questions? Move to approve. second motion and second to approve any further discussion. Call the roll. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Botkin. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries.

02:55:25,270	Next up is Apple Creek Ridge, second subdivision. Uh, there. They want the owners at a, um, uh, intended to. Create the, um, combined two, two lots in the Apple Creek second subdivision. A paving waiver was not required.

02:55:53,170	The stormwater management plan was not required because the original plat had the stormwater management planned at the public hearing, the Planning Commission recommended approval 8 to 0. Commissioners.. We approve. Second motion and second to approve any further discussion. Call the roll. Commissioner Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Botkin. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Next is the Burleigh Park fifth subdivision.

02:56:19,800	This is, uh, the contacted us regarding a proposed five lot subdivision on 11 acres. This is the, uh, the final part of that subdivision to be developed. Uh, the zone change from agricultural A to industrial is also part as part of the public hearing.

02:56:42,800	Um, this the original stormwater management was approved during the initial phase of that subdivision. The paving waiver was not required. The lot sizes vary from 2.51 down to 1.97 acres. At the public hearing, the Planning Commission recommended a vote of 9 to 0. Move to approve. Second. Motion and second to approve any further discussion. Call the roll. Commissioner Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner.

02:57:14,530	Woodcox. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Riverside for subdivision. Final subdivision. Uh, on Island Road. Review. Township. They were. We were contacted regarding a proposed lot combination for two lots located in Riverside. Second subdivisions. The owners were advised to do a short plat. Stormwater management waiver was not required.

02:57:38,730	A paving waiver is not required. And at the public hearing, it was recommended approval 9 to 0. We approve. Second motion and second. Any further discussion, call the roll. Commissioner Botkin.. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes. Commissioner. Munson. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries.. Next is Holly. Subdivision. Harleys. Horses. Subdivision.

02:58:06,530	This is on a State Avenue, uh, of Sibley Island Estates. Bruce and Holly Goslar. Um, contacted Burleigh County with a proposed lot combining three parcels into one with a total of 4.49 acres. They intend to build a horse barn. The lot will remain one R-1 residential.

02:58:30,630	The stormwater waiver was not required. A paving waiver was not required, and the Planning Commission recommended a 9 to 0 vote. To approve. second motion to second to approve any further discussion. How many horses are they going to have? They can have three. Okay. Call the roll. Yes, Commissioner Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner Baskin? You betcha. Chairman Bitner.

02:58:59,270	Yes. A motion carries. Inslee’s special use permit is next. Uh, hop, uh, custom builders applied to construct a 3000 square foot accessory building for for an owner who wants to store his RV and other equipment. The lot does not contain a primary structure, so they were allowed.

02:59:20,730	They’re allowed to build a 1200 square foot maximum, but they intended they want to build A300 zero square foot. Uh, so of course, that was from the special use permit requirements.

02:59:41,170	Um, they we did receive letters from the neighboring owners, uh, as part of that building, that part that, uh, before the primary structure, there was none opposed. We did not receive anything any letters from opposing parties. The owner intends to use the building to afford storage equipment. Um, this is roughly 1,100%, 1100 square feet, increase from the 1200 allowed.. Move to approve. Second, for a question. Motion and a second. Go ahead. There’s only one. The lots.

03:00:09,500	Only 1.05 acres. Can they build a residence on that? Yep. I thought our our minimum was 1.5. The. Or is that in a development. This is in a previous this is in the ETA. Okay. And so we still haven’t addressed that.

03:00:31,100	But you I mean technically according to Century Code, you could come down to 40,000ft. Okay. Um, our, our lot size for R1 for a new, um, subdivision is 65,000ft. For chairman. Commissioner Bachmann. Uh, Mitch, uh, being that there’s not a primary residence on this property, uh, this is precluded from somebody in the future, maybe having a different vision and putting something commercial in this building or not.

03:01:07,970	Uh, that was not discussed, but it wouldn’t be allowed. First. It’s a residential lot. Okay. Just wanted to clarify that. So thank you. That’s an mister chair. That was the that’s the intent of getting the signatures from all the owners nearby. 60% of the owners to let them know what’s going on.

03:01:31,100	And, um, the chance of it ever becoming a repair shop or garage or cars and that sort of thing. Okay. Call the roll. Commissioner Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes, chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Emergency manager. Senger. Consideration of fire. Emergency and burn restrictions. And a provident change order. Welcome, mayor.

03:02:07,230	Chair and commissioners, in your packet, I provided the information on the proposed burn restrictions. I do need to point out that what’s included also is, um, unnecessary off road motorized vehicle.

03:02:33,100	So anything other than paved or gravel surface, which is always been part of our burn restrictions when we get into the categories of the high, very high, extreme and red flag warning. Oh, that answers that question. Yeah. I’m glad. All of the fire departments were surveyed, and all of them are in favor of the burn restrictions through the end of October. We’re we’re dry. Commissioner Bachman. So I’m assuming that 9.

03:02:59,630	4in of snow that we had probably didn’t have that big of an impact, uh, county wide. Where where are we at for a deficit right now? As far as, um, the possibility of leaving the burn and restriction later in the summer, the spring? I’m not sure where we’re at for moisture, but the burn restrictions, um, having them on through the end of October,

03:03:21,530	there’s days people can do stuff and days where we don’t want them doing stuff. And that’s what the burn restrictions do. So it’s not a band. We’re not banning everything all the time. They’re just restrictions that tell you when it’s appropriate. Conditions are favorable. You can still do these items right.

03:03:40,100	And that’s what I wanted to make for a point. So people would reach out to Burleigh County. Your office, um, real fire and find out when they can and cannot do things. Correct? Correct. And it’s also cumulative for all the counties on, uh, the state’s website, the ND response.

03:04:01,530	And that’s heavily advertised as well as on our website, they’ll be able to find that information as well. We’ll have to approve. Second motion and second to approve any further discussion. Call the roll. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Go ahead.

03:04:26,100	Uh, second item is a change order for the remodel. I’m going to pass out some. information to you. Thank you. We have a change order request in our mechanical rooms. Um, second through sixth floors. We have a 96 inch by 11 inch.

03:05:09,330	Their voids in all of the openings that we need to do some fire blocking and fire stopping the complete change request is $67,672. The only change on um, from contingency. It’ll put the contractor over their contingency. So the request is for the $16,249.12. That on there somewhere? Yeah. It it, uh, no, that $16,249.12 is what would be over the contingency that they were allotted.

03:05:53,630	How’s our how’s our contingencies doing? What are we a lot. So it’s based on their original bid amount. What their contingency amount is. And almost all of them are close to or over their contingencies because of tariffs, up charges. And then the floor swap from fourth to second. Okay.

03:06:13,600	So anything over that dollar amount set by the commission I will continue to bring to the board. We approved. Second motion and second to approve any further discussion. Mr. chair, Commissioner Munson, isn’t this something that the architect should have caught during the design? We asked that question, too.

03:06:35,870	And it’s hard when you’re tearing into a 70 plus year old building. So there were some smaller voids there. But as they continue to do the construction process and putting in, you can see in the picture the additional piping and conduit that needed to be it opened the void up more and

03:06:52,370	more and more. So we need to close it. What you can’t see in the picture is the mechanical is three feet away from that, so it doesn’t give them much room when they’re with they have to work on the mechanical stuff.

03:07:06,000	They have to be able to stand on that. Plus it has to be it’s a fire stop and fire block to meet code. They call the rope.. Commissioner Schwab, no. Commissioner Woodcox. Yes. Commissioner. Munson. No. Commissioner. Bakken. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. Mary. Um, there’s two things under me here. County administrator discussion and North Dakota game and fish.

03:07:35,630	And I didn’t realize I kind of forgot that North Dakota game and fish was here to make a presentation. So if you guys don’t mind, I’d like to switch a and be around. And, uh, he’s he’s been real gracious sitting here. And I just saw his. I just saw his jacket.

03:07:51,230	I’m looking right at the game of fish logo. You guys mind if we hear him now? Sorry about that. I should have I should have saw that. And I apologize. That’s no problem. And so I’m Levi Jacobson with the North Dakota game of fish.

03:08:05,900	It’s not much of a presentation, but you should have in your packets a map. We were approached by a couple of landowners out by town of McKenzie. They wanted to sell the department their land. So we we do buy some land. We don’t buy a lot of land as a department. We have a pretty limited budget. So we have a process that we go through.

03:08:22,600	And one of the steps in the process is to notify the counties that the land is in. So these landowners have a total of 55 acres open. McKenzie there, it’s primarily wetlands. The bulk of them have been in the private land Open to Sportsmen’s Plots program for a number of years now.

03:08:40,170	So landowners wanted to sell it to us. We’re working through the process. One of the like I said, one of the steps is coming here. Another step we have to go through is notify all the landowners that are within one mile of the properties.

03:08:54,170	And we did that a couple of weeks ago with sent letters out, and we didn’t hear anything back from them. So when we own or lease land, we do pay 100% in lieu of taxes. And then we also control our all our noxious weeds. So that is a priority for us. Also. Okay, so I guess I don’t know if you have any questions for me or commissioners.

03:09:13,800	He contacted me about this and I have no opposition to the sale of land to the North Dakota game and Fish. So as the chairman. Is Bertie County buying this? No, no no, no gaming fish. The North Dakota game and fish. Yep. Yeah. Commissioner Bachman. Um so intended use for this land.

03:09:32,530	Uh, will this remain open to public hunting in some aspect or what are the intents, uh, what’s the intention of game and fish with this property? Yep. It’ll be added to our wildlife management area system. So, yeah, it’ll be 100% open to public access.

03:09:49,870	Will maintain it as good quality wildlife habitat as well as hunting cover. So everybody will have access to it. Thank you. That’s a benefit. I’d ask for a motion to approve. Move to. Approve, move to approve. Motion. Second motion. Second to approve. Thank you. Commissioners, we’re getting her done. Um, any further discussion? Call the roll. I got one other thing. Um.

03:10:10,700	So what’s not needed? But, uh, a letter of support if you guys would be willing. It’s awfully nice to have in the file, but. I don’t have any. I would make a motion to supply it. Supply a letter of support. How about you? Just acquisition? How about we just amend the motion to include that? Yes. Yes.

03:10:29,070	You okay with that? Yes. Okay. Okay. Seconds. Okay. Motion to approve with the letter of support. Any further discussion? Call the roll. Commissioner Woodcox. Yes. Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Baskin. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. Sorry to keep you awake. No problem. Thank you guys so much.

03:10:51,230	See you later. I shouldn’t I shouldn’t have overlooked that. Okay. Next thing is a discussion about county administrator discussion. As you recall, we had a special meeting, and we made a determination to make an offer to, um, Mary Senger. And she has subsequently accepted the offer for the position.

03:11:14,100	And she would like for her start date to be April 12th, I believe she mentioned, um, and so what we would need is a motion to appoint her to the position of county administrator to make it official at the salary we discussed. Second. Commissioner Bachman, are you choking or is that a. There’s a second. I coughed and said second. Okay.

03:11:40,100	Sorry about hey, you’re okay though, right? Right. Yeah. Okay. A motion and a second to appoint and approve the salary. Any further discussion? Call the roll. Commissioner Munson. No. Commissioner. Botkin. Yes. Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries next. Uh, Commissioner. Schwab. Garrison. Diversion. Discussion.

03:12:04,630	Yes. Uh, try to keep this a little brief. Do I have more than five minutes? No. I’ll start a clock right now. Okay. Three up there at the Carrington. Uh, they have an attitude problem against Burleigh County and the bigger counties.

03:12:29,370	They want the money, and they don’t want to do anything for them. It’s kind of like, you know, I compare them people to selling sandwiches. When you leave. Here’s a sandwich. That’s the best salami sandwich with a best special sauce on it.

03:12:53,730	And you get out, you bite into it and you spit it out and say, yikes, what’s in it? You open up that sesame seed bun and you find baloney and BS sauce. That’s basically how they operate. Uh, they won’t give us a time when they’re going to either approve or or withdrawal or not. It could be added to the agenda just before a meeting. It could be in July. It could be next meeting. In other words, go screw yourself.

03:13:28,000	Very. And we also asked them if they were going to take more public input. I would sure like to go up there and let them know I’m still alive. However, they won’t even commit to that. So that led up to AI research.

03:13:51,970	And if you look at these pages, I gave you, the State Water Commission approves more than 103.7 million for water projects across North Dakota. Well, if you go down to the line, you see the city of Mandan is getting some money. You see the city of Bismarck for 57, city of Dickinson. Uh, all the cities.

03:14:15,700	But what you don’t see is any financing from the Garrison Diversion District. But they claim a lot of times that it wasn’t for them. These projects wouldn’t go through. They have nothing to do with it. So I decided to take a little further. What is the garrison diversion doing? Well, yeah, it’s the next page. Playground project upgraded. Maddox Campground, purchase playground equipment.

03:14:50,700	Uh, purchase bleachers of the fairground at Foster County Grand Forks County, 50,000 for Ryan Light Lake trails and outdoor classroom. LaMoure to the Moore Park District for the completion of the Sunset Park Swim Center’s final phase, which must be a swimming pool. And they’re in the water. I guess. McLean County 13.

03:15:18,000	Almost 14,000 Riverdale Parks and Recreation make improvements. Lakeside Park tennis courts now they do tennis courts. Ransom County 32,742. To make improvements at a baseball field. I don’t know what the hell that’s got to do with water, but that’s where our money is going.

03:15:48,370	And Ward County 25,007 29 to rights Lake Recreational District, slash Ward County parks for the right. Rice Lake pickleball courts. They’re still doing pickleball courts, parks. It’s pickleball park is what I’m talking about really is 50,000 Minot Park District developed the South Hills complex. Uh. For disc golf. Now, can anybody tell me what disc golf has to do with water? You notice that? Maybe.

03:16:24,630	Maybe there’s a water hazard. You got a point there. It’s. But what it is, it’s a hazard to our us. Because that list shows they do nothing for this county. But it was 282,138 awarded. We gave them 700. And what was it, 30,044. A what 44. How much? 744 I think. 744 so we’re financing it all. Probably.

03:16:59,330	Well, they got money to burn yet. Well, sure. And I would I would suspect being that up at I didn’t make any friends by the way of a Carrington. I’m sure you guys know that. But, uh, I couldn’t believe that there were people up there that said this is a good deal.

03:17:20,230	This is not a good deal. This is terrible. And I have some AI stuff that we will put on the agenda next meeting. Uh, garrison diversion. Construction that outlines what they can can’t do and why they’re doing it. But at the beginning of that discussion up there, they showed a little bit of the canal.

03:17:43,430	Then all of a sudden it was, what, 36 parks and nothing would have been built. It was without them. So you divide what they put in their parks. By 36, you find out they hardly contributed anything. But they’re taking valor for doing it.

03:18:06,700	The valor of the people that God had done and pretending that if it wasn’t for them, it wouldn’t have got done. Which is BS. In that bun. Uh, as far as I’m concerned. So anyway, I. I got an extra sheet or two here. If anybody wants one. Uh, I appreciate. The point of this is they are doing no water projects. They come out of the state, period.

03:18:32,800	They don’t pay for any. They’re useless. Okay. I thank you for. Your. Chair money back. Hang on a second. Um, um, one of one of the things that I want to add is because we don’t know, um, what the agenda when they may have this discussion.

03:18:50,370	I was hopeful that we’d have an authorized staff to be able to attend to record these things on behalf of Burleigh County. If they get wind that it’s on the agenda or something like that. Do you have something to add? So move. Yes, we would we would absolutely be more than happy and willing to do that.

03:19:08,870	However, that being said, with the election season starting to really pick up, um, something might happen on a day that’s very, extremely pivotal for the election. Find somebody else besides you. Um, in the election staff.

03:19:28,870	But the goal is to authorize somebody to be able to record, to attend and record this, because it seemed like they were having a little bit of a blackout issue. Right. So moved. They did run into. The we have a motion to authorize staff of some sort to a motion. And second, any further discussion, call the roll. Commissioner Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Barkan. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes, Commissioner. Woodcox. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries.

03:19:51,630	Commissioner Barker, do you want to add something? Yeah. Um, state’s attorney. Lawyer. Uh, what is their statutory time frame for? I sorry, another time. Question for you. Uh, what is their time frame for rendering a decision to Burleigh County on whether or not they’re going to allow us out of the conservancy district or not.

03:20:19,500	I don’t recall reading, um, that there was a specific time frame after that for them to make their decision. I’m assuming they have to make a decision. They do. I’m pulling it up now.

03:20:48,430	It just says within 60 days of the date of filing the resolution and petition for exclusion, the board shall meet to consider such petition. It may grant such petition or fix a time and place for a hearing, which is what they did. Um, if a hearing is set, they have to do notice and publish it, um, and then have it not within a certain amount of time from the last publication date.

03:21:05,430	The board shall hear the petition at the time and place mentioned. It says, if after the hearing on the petition, they shall determine that the county requesting to be excluded will not be benefited, then they shall, by resolution, grant the petition. It doesn’t say when that is just after the hearing..

03:21:25,730	Is that something you can get? Uh uh, a determination from the, um, Attorney General’s office? Or can we dial that in a little bit and put that on the agenda for next commission meeting? Um, yeah, I can look into it and see what I can find out. Okay. Thank you. She just read the century code about it, so that’s pretty clear, Commissioner Woodcox.

03:21:48,100	Vague? It was very vague. Yeah. You mentioned all those projects. The reason the county didn’t get anything because we didn’t apply for anything. So if we. You mentioned all these projects that were approved by the county. Didn’t get anything because we didn’t apply for anything.

03:22:08,900	That’s if we apply for something, then they’ll consider it. But we didn’t apply for anything. Well. I’m sorry that I don’t think that when we give money, I don’t think that when we give money to the garrison version, we need to beg for money back. What are we going to apply for? They have 50,000. What is that.

03:22:27,630	Going to? I don’t even know what pickleball is. Pickleball court. We can probably get a pickleball court. Yeah. What I said yeah. There you go. Everybody wants to play pickleball next week or something. I’m agreeing with you too much. You two. Over there. That’s wrong. There’s something wrong there. Yeah. I hear you. Um. Mister chair. Okay.

03:22:44,900	One of the big things I’m hanging my hat on are staying in with. With, uh. Uh, garrison diversion is our rural Albany County water resource district up here is going to be building an addition, and it’s going to be like a year or two from now.

03:23:03,970	And in past times, whenever they’ve had major projects, they’ve applied for grants and they’re grants, they’re not loans or anything. They’re grants and they’ve received a lot of money from Garrison Diversion to do those, whether it’s a water tower or open. up. Now, can I finish, can I finish? Go ahead.

03:23:19,730	So that’s why I’m hanging my hat on that. If we were to drop out, I think there’d be a very serious consideration that that that project would not get any funding at all. So that’s my primary. Okay. That’s that’s that’s not true because they you don’t get the money from garrison diversion. It’s federal grant dollars funneled through them.

03:23:42,500	And you can just as well funnel it through the State Water Commission. They are not the only entity that can funnel funds. For that matter. We could probably be the conduit. This we are like we are for bonds and such. So that’s not a that’s just that’s simply not a. , uh.

03:23:59,470	Water treatment plants. Uh, water towers, reservations, it’s all funded by the state. They handle the money. There are just a bunch of money changers pretending that they’re doing all this stuff. That’s all it is. Okay, we’re going to move on. Yeah. Um, uh, state’s attorney lawyer, page nine.

03:24:25,900	You got a victim witness services with city attorney, opioid litigation, and we may enter executive session to discuss the opioid litigation. So the first thing I have on the agenda is a memo of understanding with the city attorney’s office regarding victim services.

03:24:48,100	There is a statute under state law that requires a collection of $25 to the victim witness fund for every case that comes to court, the city Attorney’s office has been collecting that for a number of years. They don’t provide victim services, and so they have this money that was pulled from the past.

03:25:04,730	And we had talked about the fact that when they have victim cases, if we would offer our victim witness coordinators to assist with that, and then the money that’s collected for that victim witness fund could come to our victim witness program.

03:25:23,000	What our victim witness coordinators do when they do have a case is that they are the basically the liaison with the prosecutor’s office and the victim explaining what the process is, um, checking to see if they want to get notification of court dates and things like that. Typically in municipal court, there’s an initial appearance, and then there’s a trial or a change of plea.

03:25:38,330	And so it’s not I don’t want to say it’s a lot not a lot of work, because sometimes, you know, victims are very involved with the case and do contact them. But in looking at the number of cases that they have that involve victims and the potential benefit that the county could get from that by collecting those victim witness funds, we believe that this is a good proposition.

03:25:58,000	And I have spoken with our victim witness coordinators who indicated that that would be something that they could do with their current caseload, as long as it didn’t get too much. And we do have a 30 day termination clause.

03:26:10,970	And so we will be monitoring that to see how much work we’re actually doing for the city, to see if this is something that should continue. Once we do start those services. Move to approve that cooperative agreement. Second motion and second to approve the agreement. Any further discussion, call the roll. Commissioner Schwab. Yes. On attorney’s advice. Commissioner Woodcox. Yes. Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries..

03:26:43,430	The second thing I have on the agenda is what appears to be the last of the opioid litigation. Um, this would be the remnant defendants. I did include the entire agreement, which is a very lengthy document. And I did include the attachment regarding North Dakota’s percentages and then the attorney’s fees agreement.

03:27:00,530	So you can see where the numbers were coming from. So I did include a memo which basically, um, highlights what that means for Burleigh County. Um, and so the recommendation is to accept that settlement. Move to accept. Second. Second motion and second to accept, um, recommendation of the attorney. Any further discussion, call the.

03:27:22,630	Roll call, Commissioner Woodcox. Yes, Commissioner. Munson. Yes, Commissioner. Bakken. Yes, Commissioner. Schwab. Yes. Chairman. Bitner. Yes. Motion carries. And then would that with that motion to accept, would that allow me to sign off on the documents necessary to get that rolling, or would you rather have the commission do that?

03:27:41,070	Well, I think the state’s attorney should sign that. All right. Thank you. Okay. Any other business for the good of Burleigh County at this late date. I ask the question. Yes, you can. Welcome back. Thank you. Um. Chair. Bitner. Commissioners, this is for emergency response. Manager.

03:28:05,100	Um, Mary Senger, did I hear her right? When? If I can throw a match on my bonfire, I can’t ride off road in the ditch. Yes, am I correct? Yes, yes, that. Is correct. Okay. I. I think the fine if I’m caught 1500. Okay. I have a big bonfire and I have big flames.

03:28:28,530	So I’m very careful. And I’m surrounded by trees up there. So I’m very careful. So I go on. I think I go on the county site before I ever throw a match on, isn’t there? I haven’t done it for a while, but isn’t there? Yeah.

03:28:43,700	Where where is it that I find I where I can or cannot throw a match on my bonfire? I. I that’s where I think it’s been a couple years since I looked. Okay.

03:29:01,230	So I think you just solved part of the problem that went on back and forth tonight that needs to be made clear to the public. If you cannot throw a match on your bonfire, burn your your pile of wood, pile. You cannot ride off road in the ditch. Good point, Bert. And the fine is $1,500. Yes. Right, the sheriff even. So your deputies need to know this too, because that essentially is a ban of the ditch riders. Yeah, yeah.

03:29:28,000	Mr. chairman, commissioners. Curt, don’t go too far. Um, the burn ban comes and goes daily. Yes. And so basically, our guys are aware of that. So when the burn ban is not in effect, there’s nothing we can do. Correct. I understand it when it is in effect.

03:29:50,070	When it is in effect, the penalty is a class B misdemeanor. So it would be cited into criminal court and it would go through that criminal court process. Whether I threw a match on my bonfire or hopped on my ATV and rolled the ditch. Any violation of the burn. Ban, Perfecto. You just solved a huge problem.

03:30:05,000	Part of it, and the public needs to be made aware how to find that information out, like your deputy’s day to day, week to week. Because we’re going to be in burn situations here. Oh, awesome. As I stated, the deputies are well aware of the burn ban. And actually, as of right now, there’s no drought in North Dakota.

03:30:23,000	I’m aware of it. Good. Well, yeah. All right. Thank you commissioners. You’re welcome. Any other business for the good