5 30 p.m.

And I welcome each and every one of you to the regular business meeting of the Billings City Council.

I'm going to call this meeting to order and ask you all to rise.

We're going to say the pledge, and then please remain standing while Councilmember Kennedy gives the invitation.

If the United Please bow your head.

And we ask that you be present with us in this meeting.

Grant to these council members and all gathered here the grace to listen with open hearts, to speak with charity and clarity, and to act with integrity and courage.

In moments of disagreement, help us to remember our shared purpose, the good for all of our community, and the dignity of every person.

Lord, calm any unrest or division among us.

Replace frustration with patience and conflict with understanding.

Help us to seek not our own will, but what is right and just.

Councilmember Shaw.

Here.

Nicholson.

President Pittman.

Here.

Agary.

Here.

Kennedy.

Here.

Aspen Lider.

Lindley.

Here.

Boyette.

O'Donnell.

Here.

Mayor Nelson.

Present.

Thank you.

Moses to the minutes.

March 27th, 2026 is still pending, but we have April 13th, 2026.

And may I have a motion, please, to accept the minutes.

Councilmember Boyette, a second anywhere.

Councilmember Shaw, any discussion?

All those in favor of accepting the minutes of April 13th, 2026, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say no.

Motion passes unanimously.

Council Courtesy.

So I see we have an elected representative in our audience.

Welcome, sir.

Thank you for your service.

Appreciate it.

Councilmember Aspenliner.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor.

So most of you have probably noticed all the big silver medals overstanding on the wall.

It's uh pleasure of mine to introduce the uh Billings All-Star Cheer Gym.

Um the rebel team.

They compete at uh youth level two, and they just took silver in the world cheer competitions in Orlando two weeks ago.

Um many of these girls.

Um I'm a big advocate of youth athletics and youth sports in our community, and I think we we owe it to these successful teams that represent our city well that go out and carry the Billings banner, um, not just in the state, but in across the country.

And so um these are all girls that are 13 years or younger.

They're coached by Abby Mulvaney and Peyton Romero.

And they went undefeated this season uh until they took silver at the world competition.

So what I wanted to do was was have these girls come up and introduce themselves, give us your name and which school you go to in town.

And uh, and then after that, um come up front and we'll take a picture with the council.

So you can just start a lineup at the podium, Chris, if you can help them with where they're going.

Chris, if you can help them with what where they're going and uh coach, if you want to bring it up at the end and and just say a little bit about your team, that would be awesome.

Casey come on.

We can have one at each.

Oh, we bring it down to you.

Your name, your school.

Uh my name is Miley, and I'm from Lockwood Middle School.

Um, my name is Skylar, and I'm from Castrock Middle School.

I'm Emma, and I go to Will James Middle School.

I'm Zoe, and I go to Ben Steele Middle School.

I'm Remy, and I go to St.

Francis.

I'm Aubrey and I go to Castleworth.

I'm Julia, and I go to Broadwater.

I'm Savannah.

I go to Madison Crow.

I'm Mia, and I go to Will James Middle School.

I'm Valentina and I go to St.

Francis Catholic Schools.

I'm Parker and I go to Metal Arc Elementary.

I'm Coach Peyton.

And I'm Coach Abby.

Come on, right up here, really.

All the way back.

We want Will James right in the middle right here.

We forgot to say no giggling.

And in all honesty, Mayor, girls, thank you very much for the effort and the work that you put in, and thank you for representing our city the way that you did all year in competitions across the state and across the country and representing doing buildings well down in in Worlds.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Aspen Liter.

Hey, will the Vaishnava family come up, please?

If I told anybody uh while they're walking up, if I told anybody in uh that I had an applicant who could converse about the American experiment, the revolution of the Articles of Confederation, the Civil War, Civil Rights Movement, the Act of 1964, our government as a republic, and the concept of federalism, separation of powers and the function of branches of government, and that they could speak about and converse about several Supreme Court cases and had committed the articles and amendments of the Constitution to heart, they'd say, bring that applicant to me.

And if I told you that the lady standing at the podium, Shri Vaishnava, where's your folks?

Bring it, come on up, folks.

Was 12 years old and just won our civics B, you'd be even more excited.

So I'd like to present Shri Vaishnava, who will be who will tell us a little bit about her civics be and where she's gonna go from here.

Hi, I'm Sri.

Um, I was a contestant in the National Civics B or can you talk right into this?

Oh, sorry.

It moves a little bit so you can move it.

Thank you.

Um I'm Sri, and I was part of the Civics B.

Um I was chosen in from 20.

Sorry.

Okay.

From 20 contestants to come and present our ideas of an essay um to three judges about ways to help our community.

I chose the idea of helping underrepresented schools in competitions like the Civic Spee to be more incorporated in those sorts of competitions.

Um I got to work with my dad and my mom to get there, and I'm very thankful for my teacher who gave me this opportunity.

And thank you for all of you for inviting me up here.

Thank you.

So where do you go next?

Um I will now go to a competition in Helena where um I'll be with nine other contestants and um the first place winner will go to Washington, D.C.

to present their idea with 50 other contestants.

Thank you.

Congratulations, Mr.

and Mrs.

Vaishnava.

Would you like to come up and get your picture with us, please?

And bring your teacher.

Thank you, folks.

Thank you for your hard work.

It's appreciated.

And we're proud to have folks like you living in our city.

All right, we have uh two proclamations tonight, um, and I will read them both.

Whereas this United States of America was founded on faith and trust in Almighty God, that all through our history, its citizens and leaders have called upon and worshiped God, and whereas the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America allows us the freedom to exercise our right to gather and pray.

And whereas President Harry S.

Truman in 1952 joint signed a joint resolution of Congress establishing a national day of prayer, and in 1988, President Ronald Reagan set forth the first Thursday of every May to be the national day of prayer, and whereas the theme for the 75th National Day of Prayer is glorify God among the nations seeking him in all generations, based on First Chronicles verse 16, when King David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.

And whereas the right to worship as we choose was included by our founding fathers in the Bill of Rights to the U.S.

Constitution and enshrined as they proclaimed our independence from England 250 years ago.

Now, therefore, I, Mike Nelson, the mayor of Billings, Montana, the largest city in the state, do har hereby proclaim May 7th, 2026 to be our national day of prayer in Billings, and I invite citizens to gather together on this day to pray in their homes, their neighborhoods, and their churches for our nation, for our people, and for our leaders.

Secondly, whereas National Travel and Tourism Week was established in 1983, is an annual week-long celebration in May that underscores travel's essential role in driving our nation's economy, cultivating vibrant communities, and forging connections, and whereas Billings hosts 2.6 million visitors annually for business, medical needs, and leisure, generating an average of 621 million in spending at local businesses and accounting for 20.8% of the travelers to Montana.

And whereas with 55 hotels, hundreds of restaurants, and numerous attractions, Billings is well equipped to host even more visitors, enhancing our city's reputation as a premier destination, and whereas tourism reduces the average tax for a tax burden for residents by over 680 dollars per year.

It supports one in 15 Montana workers and contributes one and a half billion dollars in direct employee compensation, 38,000 jobs and 308 million in state and local taxes from non-resident visitors, and whereas tourism boosts billings economy, creates jobs, fosters community pride, and enhances our city's competitive edge, ensuring a bright a vibrant community where people want to visit and live, and whereas by supporting tourism, we invest in our future, ensuring that Billings continues to thrive as a premier destination in Montana and beyond.

Now, therefore, I Mike Nelson, mayor of Billings, Montana, do hereby proclaim May 3rd to May 9th, 2026 as national travel and tourism week in Billings, and I encourage all residents to recognize and celebrate the significant contributions of travel and tourism to our community.

That was a long one.

All right.

We move to council reports.

I think we'll start with council member Aston later.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor.

We're here tonight, a lot of us are here tonight because a woman in our community is dead.

Her name matters.

Shauna Grove.

Before her, it was Carrie Daly.

Before her, it was Megan Strach.

Before her, it was Jenna Moncata Lacombe.

Before her, it was Melissa Darling and her son William Darling in 2022.

In the past 24 months, we've seen two confirmed domestic violence deaths, homicides, and two homicides likely tied to domestic violence in our community.

Law enforcement Excel itself acknowledges, and we see it in the statistics in the reports every year.

The two of the three years that I've been on council now, domestic violence is the number one driver of violent crime in our community.

It's near 50% in our own statistics.

This isn't rare anymore.

It's not unpredictable.

It's systemic in our community.

And we don't talk about it.

In nearly every domestic violence homicide, there are warning signs.

There were prior threats and escalation.

There were often points of system contact.

These deaths aren't just crimes.

They're missed intervention opportunities by our system and by our community.

We have to get honest with ourselves about what we can change and what we can fix, the things that we can impact in our community.

And some of some of the things that we can't.

But we have to talk about them.

One of the things we can impact is the way we train our staff and our officers.

Oftentimes our training around domestic violence is limited.

Some of that's budget constraints.

That can't be the excuse anymore.

They're classroom based or online.

And it's not universally reinforced across all ranks within our within our police department.

We need to change that.

And we have to take a stand at some point to start making this matter.

We need mandatory live scenario-based domestic violence training, training that reflects escalation patterns that reflects course of control, and that reflects and helps our officers and those in our system understand victim behavior under trauma.

That's different.

Training has to include every officer, supervisors, lieutenants, command staff, our chiefs, and our assistant chiefs, all levels throughout the system.

Domestic violence isn't a routine call.

These officers know that more than anybody.

Those are statistics across our country and they're and they're true in our own community.

But that lethality is not just for the officer.

That lethality risk also starts once the officer leaves that call for the victim in that case.

So one of the things that I'm going to challenge my council members to do is to commit the budget to improve training.

That's something we can do today.

To improve the training, increase our training budgets, and specifically increase investment in domestic violence awareness throughout our system.

We need to invest in live simulations.

We need to invest in cross-agency training, and we need to invest in survivor-informed training models.

These things exist.

We don't have to create them.

They're implemented in other places across the country, and they work.

Training is not enough.

We have to measure that, and we have to enforce it.

So one of the things that I'm asking the chief for a public and transparent plan from the police department that includes new training requirements, a review of the system that we have in place.

I want reports on completion rates from all officers at all ranks, evaluation metrics to make sure that we are hitting the mark, and ongoing refresher standards.

This isn't a one once and done.

If training is critical, so is accountability.

And it's up to us to hold our leaders accountable.

We can learn from other cities.

But I'm asking our leadership, the city administrator and the chief of police to look at what's look at what's working in other communities.

Come back with a comparative analysis of what we're doing versus where things are being successful and we're seeing reductions in rates.

We need tracking of high-risk offenders.

We need dedicated DV units.

We've got two domestic violence investigators.

Two years ago we had one.

If this is the highest violent crime in our community, we've got to do better.

And we got to commit more resources.

And we need stronger victim offender separation enforcement.

So I'm asking for you to pull a comparative plan together.

Develop a plan that can be implemented here.

Develop a training standards program and come to me with a budget for it.

We will find the money to make this happen because we can't keep doing what we're doing today.

We're working on the Northern Lights Family Justice Center.

This is a critical opportunity for intervention in our community.

But it's only critical if we do it right.

And I'm not convinced we're doing it right now.

The structure of that matters.

That's what we're working on.

We've been working on it.

We need to get it done.

Funding stability for the Family Justice Center matters.

And I think we have we have committed to you that we are willing to fund that facility.

Coordination between agencies and nonprofits, nonprofits in this space has to happen.

That is not happening now.

This can't be another program.

The Family Justice Center can't be another program.

It can't just be another program under the umbrella of a nonprofit.

It has to be the umbrella that all groups and organizations, including our own, come under.

And it has to be the center pillar for us to change and break the cycle of generational violence.

On the news, a lot of people talked about legal reform.

That we're only doing what we can do within the law.

That's a frustrating comment to me.

I've spent two sessions in Helena working on Brody's law.

And the same people that got on the got on the TV and talked about changing the laws so that this can work better, were also the ones that killed Brody's law.

Two years, two sessions in a row in Helena.

The Montana domestic violence coalition killed Brody's law.

The YWCA killed Brody's law.

They worked against it.

That can't happen.

So we all have to be committed.

And I'm asking for our city attorney, the city administrator, and the chief of police.

If we have barriers legally that are holding us back, bring them to the legislative committee.

There's a bunch of really smart people that are motivated and willing to work on legislative changes.

We have great legislators in this city that are committed and have been committed to changing the law to improve the safety of our committee.

Bring those things to us.

I don't want to hear us talking about the barriers.

Identify them so that we can start working on fixing them.

That has to be our commitment.

For our community, especially the men in our community.

This isn't just a systemic issue.

It's a community issue.

We have a jail mill levy coming out.

A big part of the reason that these guys are back on the street is because we don't have any room in the jail.

Restraining orders don't work because you can't put them in jail for violation.

Separation orders don't work because there's no room at the end.

So these guys are put right back out on the street to continue to violate, to continue to abuse.

That mill levy is the single most important thing that we can do for community safety in our city.

Nobody wants to pay more taxes, but there is no other way to give officers the tools that they need to put people in jail where they belong.

Who lead our city?

And we have to be committed as a council to fund it appropriately and to put the resources in place.

Those four women in the last 24 months, they'll be more.

Excuse me.

I think Mr.

Lindley, you'd reserve some time also.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um I realize it's going to be a long night.

Um, but I do want to say a couple of things.

Um, not only in support of my word mate, but more importantly, in support of the women and the victims in this community.

The city of Billings failed Shauna.

We failed her.

And we're failing other women in this community who are living in fear right now.

This has to change.

We have a moral responsibility to protect women from the predators who aim to harm them.

And right now we are not meeting that.

So I'm very specifically going to call for two things.

First, evaluating our domestic violence protocols has to become this council's top priority.

I'm calling for a special dedicated work session on this topic as soon as possible.

If we all can take the time to talk about zoning, then we can take the time to protect the women in our community.

Every part of the system needs to be on the table.

How we train officers, how we respond to protection order violations, how we assess risk, how we coordinate with the courts on release decisions, and how we support victims.

Other cities have figured out how to do this better.

We can too, and we will.

When you think about that, think of how many folks are in this space today.

How many of us have experienced abuse?

We all know someone, or are that someone who has experienced abuse?

My message to you is this.

Such as support and education around domestic violence.

A support system can help you see how you have been isolated, removed in proximity from your family and friends, so that your abuser can have full control over you.

Does your abuser discourage you from pursuing higher education from working at any kind of job?

Does your abuser prohibit your access to your bank account?

Does your abuser use your children to manipulate you into doing something you don't want to do?

Domestic violence isn't just physical.

It's also psychological, financial, emotional, and sexual.

Educating yourself about the cycle of abuse can save your life and can even save your children's lives.

Because domestic violence affects them too.

They know that when their caregivers are screaming at each other and physically attacking each other, it is very scary and very wrong.

And statistics show that they have a very strong chance of growing up to be either a victim or an abuser.

No one desires this for the future of their children.

Reaching out can be very scary.

You will have an inexplicable gap in your work history.

You will be financially dependent on government programs to sustain you because your abuser holds all the cash.

All of these things are unfamiliar and scary.

And I only say these things for the benefit of those who don't understand why doesn't she just leave?

But never forget.

You are valued and you are needed.

There are so many people in this world who want to and are able to help you.

Please reach out to me, to a family member, to a friend, or to a local organization that is here to help you.

You are not alone.

Thank you for that.

Mr.

Kennedy.

With my other hat, I run the family tree nurturing center.

We have a child care full of children.

We offer parenting classes.

We offer supervised visits, home visits.

A lot of our parenting classes do not have their children yet, and we try to unify the parents and the children.

And those children are going through the violence that's happening at home, the abuse that's happening at home, and they carry it on from generation to generation.

So I wholeheartedly support that we go forward and that we start addressing this in the city of Billings.

Thank you.

I didn't know Miss Grove.

However, I'm obviously not over my loss, July 4th last year.

And spent the next year with the survivors, her friends and some of her family.

This is an important subject, and I wholeheartedly support what's been said up here today.

So I have a couple of little housekeeping items.

First, Mr.

Kokulski, how long would it take staff to pull together the summaries that Mr.

Lindley asked for?

Thanks.

Um I don't have an exact timeline.

We will certainly, we've got our tactical meeting each Tuesday morning.

I would hope we're talking about a few days.

Not a few days, but not weeks either.

Um to do it right to to give it the time and the information that's needed.

The I suspect in all these cases, we're dealing with extremely complex components of the criminal justice system that are not all within the city of Billings' control.

That's not an excuse.

So all three of those to give you the information just on the city is not going to be a thorough report because anything that's a felony has got to be worked in coordination with the county attorney's office.

So we'll need to work with them, certainly sense and understand the sense of urgency to immediately work with our city attorney and chief of police to at least start outlining, not sitting and waiting, even the outline of what that looks like and what the timetables look like to provide you with information.

Could we schedule a special work session within the next 10 days?

And you absolutely can, and we will report on everything that we have that's public information to that time.

Council be open to that.

We'd like something along that lines in the next 10 days, maybe a lunch meeting that we could at least get an overview and begin to understand the complexities of the city side of it.

I think that would be a good place to start if that's okay with the council.

Thank you.

Um here is to speak um regarding this topic.

Is anybody here for this tonight?

I see five or six hands.

Would the council be open to uh opening a special discussion session, not discussion session, but listening session right now?

Move it up in the here to speak about the the domestic violence issue tonight.

We'd like you to come up.

Uh, you'll be allowed three minutes.

Please give us your name and uh the ward or where you live, and uh tell us your story.

If there's if could you also please come stand in the aisle, make a line.

I think everybody here wants to speak tonight.

So in the interest of saving a little bit of time, lining up would help us.

Thank you.

Good evening.

You ready for me?

First of all, I want to extend my deepest condolences to the victim's family, her friends, and our entire community.

I will meet you up name and name and address, please.

Thank you.

Uh, this is a devastating loss that affects far more than just those who knew her directly.

My name is Sarah Hinkle.

I'm a local business owner.

I've lived in Billings for just over 15 years.

I've owned businesses here for the last eight plus.

For the last two and a half years, I've provided personal safety, situational awareness, violence prevention, self-defense, and firearms training to victims and survivors of domestic violence in our community.

This training's provided free of charge to victims and survivors, and all other income generated from regular clients is donated to organizations or reinvested directly into additional victim and survivor training and support.

This work comes both from professional experience and personal understanding of the trauma that violence has created in our community and in my life.

What we're seeing in cases like this is the painful reality that protection orders, while important are not physical barriers, which you know.

A determined violent offender may still choose to offend regardless of law, systems or court orders in place.

That does not diminish the value of those tools, but it does highlight their limits when used alone.

That's why enforcement must be immediate.

Consistent and decisive violations of protection orders must be met with swift action and meaningful consequences.

Repeat violent offenders must be treated as the serious and ongoing threat that they are.

And at the same time, victims must receive more than a document.

They need consistent follow-up, real-time support, safety planning, emergency housing, advocacy, and coordinated resources that remain engaged long after an order is issued.

In my work with survivors, I consistently see visible gaps in that follow-through.

People describe feeling afraid, unsupported, and left without consistent contact or resources, even while the threat to them remains active.

Many are actively seeking help through multiple avenues, and when they do not feel adequately supported or protected, they often seek out additional resources elsewhere simply to survive and stay safe.

From their perspective, the danger does not pause just because a report has been filed or a court order has been granted.

This community has to address those gaps directly.

What I've seen is that people, when given training and practical tools, there's a shift from fear and isolation to confidence, capability, and a stronger belief in their ability to survive and preserve their life and the life of their loved ones.

While navigating whatever systems are available to them.

Accountability and prevention cannot be passive.

They require coordinated action between law enforcement, the courts, advocates, educators, and trained community resources working together with sustained commitment.

I offer my services to this city, including training consultation, program support for victim services, survivor education, and violence prevention and this initiatives.

I will welcome the opportunity to contribute in any task force working group or coordinated community effort focused on improving safety and outcomes for victims on my time and on my dime.

I appreciate your your time.

Thank you very much.

And my condolences again to all her friends and family and our community.

Thank you.

I'm folks, folks.

I'm sorry.

We we can't do applause.

It's a free speech thing.

Come on up.

Hello, my name is Lily Iamoni.

I'm a local uh Billings Montana resident.

Um, I'm also the founder of the Montana Domestic Violence Railroad, and I'm a uh survivor myself.

Um I come to you today um because I have lived the system failures in Yellowstone County.

Um November 15th of 2022, I was strangled by my partner.

I went to call for help, and I was threatened by his family for calling for help, so I did not call for help.

This led to my second strangulation on October 1st of 2023.

At this point in time, I tried to call 911 for help and I was wrongfully arrested.

36% 36% of victims that call uh for help are the ones that get arrested.

I'm a black woman, so my bruises and markings had not shown up yet, and so I was wrongfully uh arrested, spend a night in Yellowstone County jail.

I OR'd out, um, and my whole entire life was changed after that.

Um, I've been in the court system for over three years, and it has just been a whirlwind.

Um, post-separation abuse is real.

It continues to go on because one wrong move from the Billings Police Department changed my whole entire life.

I do not have protection.

I have failed protection.

I have asked for two protection orders, and they have both failed.

A lot of training is lacking in this community.

Attorneys need training, police officers need training, judges need training.

I stand here and I created the Montana Domestic Violence Railroad because a lot of local resources cannot help enough.

Domestic violence does not pick a specific demographic.

Um, people with money, people that are homeless.

It does not pick a specific demographic.

So many of us survivors are afraid to come forward.

Just in the last 48 hours, I have have had so many people across the state of Montana reach out to me for help.

I have offer also given up my own home to how survivors of domestic violence and have had local judges send people to my house because it is a safe place.

I stand here to help support whatever I can do as an advocate here locally in Billings as survivor and the founder of the Montana Domestic Violence Railroad to make change.

It's not an if with these abusive men, it's the win.

They will kill.

I knew Carrie very well.

And the person that took her from us also could have taken one of my best friends from me 10 years prior.

Took him 10 years, but he ended up killing somebody.

We need to bring awareness because we need to be more proactive.

We know it's going to happen.

We know what these men are capable of.

I understand domestic violence goes both ways between male and female, but the statistics are proven over and over.

It's the males that end up killing their partners.

I have a 750% chance of being killed by my partner due to strangation, even though I left him.

45% of homicides after we leave our abusers happen in the first year.

I stand here to raise awareness, not just for Shauna and Carrie, support of the family because we do not need to lose any other women to domestic violence in our community.

Thank you.

I'm also a survivor.

I've been in the court litigation for the last three years, and I think that needs a reform.

I want to talk about the police.

They've saved my life before.

I think that there's too much focus going on to the police and a lack of their action because uh CPS could handle the 80% of CPS cases when their kids are removed as unwarranted.

And just like Lily was talking about, that can be turned into abuse.

And so I'm a family advocate.

I I appreciate the police and everything they do.

They probably have the hardest job out of anyone here.

So they don't think they get enough credibility as far as training and involvement.

What I've learned, I've learned from narcissists that have their own platforms, and I've learned from survivors, and I've never been able to understand narcissism because it's the bystander effect.

If you're in a city, either you're empathetic or you're narcissistic, and there's no really anything in between.

You know, you can't be on the fence, and so you have to decide whether you're going to be empathetic or narcissistic, and if you're going to stand by and watch this go on.

So I think that the police need to have actual victims come in and talk to them and explain how it is to be a victim.

The abuse that I've encountered has just evolved into legal abuse.

I've I've spent over 50,000 55,000 trying to get my daughter into a safe place.

My order protections are being denied.

I had to make an abuse discovery with over 200 videos of absolutely terrorizing in my home of my daughter and myself, and it was dismissed, and I'm tired of not being heard, and I want more advocacy for men.

There's nothing for men.

I've called the Northern Life many times.

I went to the YWCA instead of helping me, they told me to call the police, and then I was reprimanded by that.

I I called CPS many times.

I was reprimanded and retaliated against by CPS.

The GAL made herself unavailable to me.

She interviewed my daughter with the abusive mother and the therapist that was manipulating her.

My daughter still doesn't have freedom of choice because of her safeties at risk.

And I need help myself.

And so I want to be heard.

I there needs to be a reform in family law.

In other states, they've completely abolished it because it's a closed system of attorneys, and I'm even being publicly slandered by opposing counsel on Facebook by a professional attorney.

It's totally out of line.

I was threatened if I disclosed the the abuse that my kids would be taken away in a court of law.

And so I think the police deserve more credit.

And I think CPS needs to be responsible.

I have five new laws right here into legislation.

Thank you, Mr.

Miller.

Legislation.

Thank you, Mr.

Miller.

Come on up.

Hello, my name is Kinsey Minor.

Kinley, could you just pull that down?

Thank you.

Sorry, I'm really nervous.

My name is Kinsey Minor.

Um, Shauna was a childhood friend of mine.

I am also considered one you would call considered a survivor.

January 14, 2012.

I no longer had to walk on eggshells.

I no longer had to fear my family or eye safety was at risk.

I no longer had to worry about saying something or acting wrongly, wrongly in the eyes of a man that I chose to lay down with, have kids with a man that I chose a lot of things with in the beginning until I was stuck in a vicious cycle of honeymoon stages.

If you don't know what that means, consider yourself blessed.

Lucky, I don't care.

It's real.

There was times I seen so much of my blood after his episodes.

Because it looked like there was so much.

And that's why they would find bloodstained wash loss in the garbage.

Truthfully, he beat the crap out of my head and my knee with brass knuckles.

That is just a few day details of so many instances.

What saved not only my kids and I's life, but my two sisters and my mom, January 14, 2012, was a night of events that ended in a blaze of glory gunfight in my mother's living room between a Yellowstone County detention officer and my kids' dad.

19 gunshots total.

After almost five years, the same night he threatened to shoot my mom in the face.

I could seriously go on and on about all the whys.

But I was released from the cycle of his abuse.

For almost three years following his death.

I still stand on this when I say I was more freer in prison than what I would have ever been out here with him on these streets with him still alive.

This man was a danger to society, and it was very well known.

My family and friends were scared he was going to kill me.

They even questioned if he had something to do with our daughter's death when she was almost five months old.

Her death was ruled since by the corner.

But for my family to ask that should speak volumes of what he truly was behind closed doors.

Our court system needs to change.

Shauna's family should not have to be here tonight.

No family should have to be here tonight.

Hello, I'm Lauren West, and Shauna's my boyfriend's mom and my granddaughter's grandma.

And the family shouldn't have to be here tonight because of the circumstances.

We went to the police numerous times under the circumstances of what he was like stalking.

He was he was nonstop harassing this family.

And we went to the police so many times, and they just brushed it off and brushed it off.

They let Tanner be around Shauna when he wasn't when there was a restraining order in place.

And I believe that they really failed her because she would be here right now if they took action sooner.

They they should have taken action.

He was supposed to have he was supposed to be followed up after he got out of jail the first time, and he had zero tracking.

I don't know what else to say.

Or not my whole life, she always told me.

Tanner was gonna kill her.

My last meeting she had with her, I guess a turny or whatever.

She was telling crying, telling them Tanner's gonna kill me.

She always knew it was gonna happen.

It was just a matter of time.

I always called, I called numerous times, called the cops, said hey, Tanner's at this location.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

He's such a high risk.

It's gonna take us so long before we can even figure out how we're gonna approach this property.

They didn't, it's like they didn't even want to catch him.

And I feel like they just kind of let him kill my mom.

And I just I hope this never happens again.

I hope there's never another kid like me standing up here begging for change.

I just I hope it happens.

Hello.

Hello, am I there?

Hello?

Okay.

Um, my name is Crystal Hattery.

Um, I was a co-worker of Shauna's, and I knew her for a good four years.

She was like second family to me.

Um I really wasn't prepared to give a speech, but I'm here, and I'm just gonna speak from the heart.

You know, because I'm a woman first and a mother second, and it's really hard.

I've had an abuser before.

And he told me one day, he said, and it's always stuck with me ever since.

He said, your fear is all I need, and that's what he had over Shauna was her fear, and I just want to be another voice for her.

Like I said, as a woman first, and as a mother second.

She's got five beautiful babies, and they're here.

They're here.

She's got sisters, she's got nieces, she's got nephews, um, friends, myself included.

And she did not, she did not deserve this.

And um, I hope moving forward that her name will not go down in vain, and her name will make changes because that's exactly what we need, so we don't have kids who could say this, that their father killed their mother.

It's not fair.

They don't deserve it.

Nobody deserves it.

And um, I really I'm just again, I've never done this before, but I'm here just saying it on my heart.

Change does need to happen.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Madeline, 3390 Canyon Drive.

I'm here in memory of Shauna in honor of her surviving children and family, in spite of another terrible man.

Dominica, you are very brave for being here.

Time has barely passed since the world stopping destruction of your beloved sister happened.

And yet you immediately found an opportunity to say something publicly about the lack of support and violent result of Billings PD in action.

The energy of this moment for the Billings area women and domestic violence survivors is known.

We keep each other safe.

Today, and again on Sunday, there will be a uh vigil, and we will raise our grief up together and from the bonds needed and form the bonds needed to fulfill the security needs of survivors and victims.

Yes, we want and expect more from Billings PD, but I can only control my actions.

My favorite author, Octavia Butler once wrote everything you touch, you change.

Everything you change changes you.

The only lasting truth is change.

The ripples of this moment will change our future, and it's already shaped all of us here today.

I challenge city council to fulfill the requests made by Aspen Liner and Lindley and the support of Aguirre and everyone else.

We need to shape change.

I didn't know Shauna, but I'm so sorry for your family and what you're going through.

This is 150% preventable.

Can you speak into the microphone there?

This is 150% preventable.

We're living what they probably lived in the past a year ago.

My daughter was attacked by her husband in December.

He remained in jail for very few days, not even long enough for us to get a security system up.

And he was back on the streets.

He had a GPS monitor on his ankle.

Several times we thought that we spotted him, and we did.

Cut their air off and threatened to bring a baby to lure your daughter, who finally made safety out of her hiding place.

Two days here and two days there and 24 hours here is too much and not enough.

The GPS monitors that they want you to feel safe with are not in real time.

Nobody gets an alert if that person is in your area or stalking you or looking through your windows or parked on a hill with binoculars.

It's fixable.

I know that my daughter had called the police one time.

She knew what had happened, had information about what had happened, and they said, I think you need to call the police in Roundup.

Because that's where she works, and he was violating there.

The order was out of Billings.

She finally gave up.

She called Roundup, they said call Billings.

We call Billings, they said call Roundup.

She says multiple times, this is why people stay.

This is why they never leave.

This is why they end up dead.

Nobody knows what to do.

A phone call's made.

Everybody from your dispatch that answers the 911 call to the officer that shows up to the person that is in the prosecutor's office.

Nobody should ever have to go find an answer to who we need to call.

But we we can't have the clapping here.

Just like we can't have booing either.

So it's a fairness saying we don't allow reaction to the to the comments.

I apologize, but that's the way it's gotta be.

Go ahead, folks.

Um, I guess uh one and let you know what kind of person you're fighting for.

Shauna was more to me than a friend.

She was like a sister to me.

And she's like the way she loved.

It was so big the way she looked at her granddaughter and I said the way she loved her son and would go out of town for his heart surgeries all the time, the way that she loved her grandma who passed away, and that she was everything to her, and Tanner got her out of very vulnerable time out of her life.

And I just want you to know that Tanner is not a good person at all, and that there's things he's done that's just not good.

And Shauna, she's somebody that's she walks in the room and you're just like, she's like, hey guys, and she's just so amazing, and she's just a good person.

Then you're fighting for somebody that has so much love for so many people, and she loves her kids and her family.

And uh, she was like a second family to me, and she saved me through so much of my stuff and my own abuse and this year go through something like this, and her family it's just so unreal to me.

Um I would just like to see just more action, acting quick, quicker.

I understand like there's a 24 hour or something about people just carrying, but like with somebody that's so dangerous, and somebody that has done multiple things, like, and you're that is so violent.

I just think that there should have been more action super quick.

Um, I'm just I'm like so sad and I'm just so angry, and I just want something to be done.

I want justice for Shauna, even though it's not gonna bring her back.

Thank you.

Before you get started, Miss, for our records, could you please tell us your name?

Brittany Brown.

Thank you, Miss Brown.

Hello, my name is Danielle Rodriguez.

As a domestic violence survivor myself, I feel like there is never any precautions put in place to protect us.

You can file as many protection orders as you want to, but it doesn't ever stop them from coming for you.

It doesn't ever stop them from breaking in your house.

You can call as many times as you want.

Sometimes the the reaction to it is delayed.

Sometimes you're waiting for hours for somebody to show up.

So you gotta take measures in your hands and protect yourself and your children.

Sometimes it's locking yourself behind a bathroom door to have it kicked in.

Shauna was one of my very best friends.

And I never would have wished that upon her.

She had such a kind and pure loving heart.

She helped me out through my own issues, gave me a place to live when I had nowhere to go because I was in the middle of leaving somebody who was very abusive.

She was a guardian angel just like her grandmother.

She had the largest heart I've ever seen out of anybody.

And I hope that Tanner gets his.

Help Esper not cry because she doesn't understand why she's upset.

She's just missing someone.

But at night when they miss her and stuff, they're like, Can mom come back?

Why can't she come back?

And I just have to tell them she can't.

She wishes she could be here.

She can't.

I just wish that like I didn't have to grow up with the idea that the police can't do much to help my family or anything because they failed my family.

And those little boys and that girl and Cougar and Mason, they have to grow up with that idea too.

Because we were failed.

And there are plenty of families who are failed.

And something needs to change.

It's everybody.

Council reports.

Are there any council reports for the night?

Mayor.

Just for the sake of we have so many other things going on.

I will give a legislative report next meeting.

Yes, sir.

Budget and finance this Wednesday from nine to eleven.

So what's that mean in practical terms?

You need seven out of 11, or actually seven out of ten, because uh councilmember Asmilletter will be recusing himself.

So uh that's critical.

Reminder, we will be in this room several times over the next uh week to 10 days prior to the prior discussion.

We've got budget work sessions both next Monday and Tuesday evening.

Um also we have uh strategic planning uh process.

The staff side of that reminder is May 6th, council and staff together with uh bridge group uh who's helping us with the strategic plan.

This is kind of step one in that core values vision mission set up for the fall for the core value, or I'm sorry, for your strategic plan on May 7th.

That's all day.

We have a special closed executive session will be held at noon this Thursday, uh April 30th, concerning the interim city administrator candidate evaluation and review.

So uh that's noon uh on Thursday of this week.

And last but not least, there was one.

I'm sorry.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

I I would imagine you'll step in to the you may start here and probably I'm sorry, step into the RimROC conference room in in executive session.

So yes.

Noon here City Hall.

So this we can send out an invite.

I'll have um Juliet send an invite to you for your calendars.

So you got noon this Thursday, you got next Monday normal time and place for the meeting, then the following day, Tuesday, uh, Monday and Tuesday for budgets, as far as what will happen here in the next eight days.

And then last but not least, there's one expert ex parte communication that came in after three o'clock today for regular agenda item six B, the zone change 1078.

And mayor and council, that is all I have for announcements.

Just for uh clarification for Tuesday's meetings at 5:30 also.

Yes.

Yep, same.

So we'll be in here 5:30 next Monday and Tuesday.

You'll start here this Thursday, but probably slide over on the executive session to the conference room next door.

Very well.

Thank you.

Okay, that moves us to public comment on none public hearing agenda items.

Those would be agenda items one, two A, six C, seven C, and eight only.

Uh you'll be required to sign in if you want to speak on those items.

You'll be limited to three minutes.

Um maybe suggest the if you're here to speak on the non-public hearing portions of the annexations and zonings, the that is done at during the public hearing portion of those items.

That's a great point.

So as Mr.

Aspen lighter said, if there are items on the agenda that are coming later and there's a public hearing, you can save that.

But uh, we'll move to that part now.

So if there's any public comment, please step forward.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Jeff Kettleson.

I live at 489 South 44th Street and buildings, and I'm a voting member of the public.

Mr.

Mayor, point a point of um ruling.

I would like to speak on 1G, 1J, and also 2A.

And I'm requesting three minutes per item or less.

No, sir.

Three minutes.

So I got to speak on all three of them in three minutes.

Okay.

We'll go to two A.

A couple of months ago, the park district board put port put forth a proposal to sell the parkland in a parking lot.

The property was valued at a at a well over a million dollars.

These properties were fully paid for assets of the city and owned by all the residents.

That time at that time it was revealed that the total cost to cut all the grass amounted to the insignificant amount of $13,000 per year.

Councilmember Boyette.

I specifically remember you stating at the RimROC neighborhood meeting that you didn't care that an individual was already cutting the grass on a park.

And the city needed a revenue stream to accomplish this forever.

Tonight the park district is back in front of us again, seeking approval to build a building that does not have a dedicated revenue stream and will operate in the negative.

The project put forth will not pay for itself and will require an individual.

Well, in this case, the city tourism bureau improvement board to pitch in and try to make up for the revenue downfall.

It doesn't, and it will not do that forever, Councilmember Boyette.

If this proposal is approved as it's presented, it forces more debt upon the citizens.

We need to protect and preserve and improve our assets that we have, our existing park land.

So council member Boyette, I ask you tonight to lead the charge, stand by your previous vocalized values, and express that you are not in favor of this.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Kettleson.

Hello.

Hi.

I am Laurie Cameron.

I live at 1448 Boulevard Bench Boulevard up in the heights.

Tonight I come to you because in 2015, we were notified of a special review impacting our private property.

We worked with that developer to put into place features that were deleted as a new master plan and new owners took possession, and that was approved by the planning department.

The private access has become significantly more dangerous due to sweeping away of the said features.

Loves to play chase.

But us if something should happen to her.

Thank you, Ms.

Cameron.

Um, point of order, your honor.

This is correct, not a time for items that are not on our agenda.

Correct.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Hello, council.

My name is Rebecca Knoll.

I live at 1109 Lewis Avenue.

I'm here today to speak about um item number four on your agenda, which is the disposition of the lot at 802 Yellowstone Avenue.

Oh, excuse me.

I'm sorry to interrupt, but um the time to speak to that would be at then there'll be a public hearing right after that.

We hear that item.

Oh, I'm sorry, I was very confused about how you said this is the time for public comment.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Okay.

I'll be waiting.

Come on back.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor.

Council members.

Uh, just to clarify, so if I have comments about a particular thing not on the agenda, this is the time to address it.

Nope.

No.

Okay.

Nope.

This would be agenda item.

I too was confused by what was coming across.

It's a long agenda.

I see that.

We all are been there and done that.

Okay.

Thanks all right.

Come on back.

Any other public comment regarding non-public hearing agenda items one, two, six, C, seven C or eight?

Seeing none, I will move to the consent agenda.

Do we have any separations?

Mr.

Mayor.

Mr.

Aspen Later.

Yes, um, I'd like to separate agenda item one J for purposes of recusal.

My firm represents that developer.

Thank you.

Any other separations, Mr.

Nees?

1G.

For reason of separate voting.

All right.

Any other separations.

Seeing none.

May we have a motion, Mr.

Neese?

I move to approve the items of the consent agenda as submitted with the exception of the item uh uh G and J.

It's moved for separation.

Thank you.

Second.

Mr.

Nichols beat you to it.

Thank you.

Second by Mr.

Nichols.

All those in favor of approval, please say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed.

All right.

That mayor.

Sorry.

I just wanted to uh ask Councilmember Boyette if you wanted to talk about the donation for the library.

He normally does that.

Ah, Mr.

Boyette.

Thank you.

I'm missing out on that.

Um David and Nancy Myers.

Uh a thousand dollars for a donation to the purchase of library books.

Applaud, I applaud them for doing that.

This is what it's all about is helping the kids read books.

And a thousand dollars goes a long way, so thank you very much, Mr.

and Mrs.

Meyer.

I agree.

Thank you very much, Mr.

and Mrs.

Myers.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Nees.

Item one J.

Is there a motion to approve item one J.

Mr.

Boyette?

Thank you, Mayor.

I move that we approve item one J as read.

Do we have a second?

Mr.

Neese.

Any discussion regarding item one J.

Seeing none, we'll call for a vote.

All those in favor of approving item one J, please say yes.

Yes.

Yes.

All those opposed, please say no.

That passed 10 to 1 with uh council member Aspenlighter recusing himself.

Finally, item one G.

Do we have a motion regarding item one G.

Mr.

I'm sorry, Ms.

Ms.

Shaw beat you to it?

Uh I move to approve item one G.

Mr.

Kennedy, would you like to second that?

I will second that and then I will make a uh another motion.

Go ahead, sir.

I would I would move.

We approve item G, the annual action plan, but we drop the foreclosure program and put the remainder money in the first-time home buyer um instance.

I would second that.

All right, we have a guess that's a substitute motion, Mr.

Kennedy.

Is just amended motion.

Thank you.

Amended motion.

Uh I'm sorry, I'm confused.

Was that that was an amendment to the motion, right?

So we need to vote first on the amendment and then the motion.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you, Ms.

Shaw.

So regarding the amendment, any discussion.

Mr.

Kennedy.

I would just I would just say we've had a lot of um opposition on the council on the uh on the foreclosure program and the expen expenses on it.

And so it's better to remove that program, pass the budget, and then um move the money into the first-time home buyer um assistance program, which will help more people.

Thank you.

Mr.

Neese.

Yeah, I think over the years this program has really competed with the private sector and has not done very well.

The city has lost their shirt on this uh more than they need to.

Um I think uh we need to look at a different way to use that money and first-time homebuyers would really give that that uh first-time home buyer the op opportunity to move into new housing.

So any other discussion, Ms.

Shaw?

Um, I won't support the amendment, but I I will support the underlying motion um because I trust the work of the community development board, and this is their recommendation to fund it this way, and so that's why I will be voting no on the amendment.

Thank you.

Any other discussion?

All right, so we're gonna vote on the amendment.

Um to remove the uh foreclosure option and move that money into first-time homebuyers program.

All those in favor of the amendment, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye aye.

Any opposition?

Ms.

Shaw and Ms.

Ageary.

Okay.

So the amendment passes.

That brings us to the motion.

We have a motion from Mr.

Kennedy.

From Ms.

Shaw.

Thank you.

You got it.

It's the underlying motion now with the amendment.

Say that again.

It's now the underlying motion to approve with the amendment that passed.

Thank you.

As she says.

So any discussion on that.

No.

I'll call for a vote then.

All in all in favor of the motion, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposition, please say no.

So that passes unanimously.

Oh.

Did you really?

I'm sorry, it's it didn't get over the break yet.

It didn't help me as much as I thought it would.

So it's uh uh Ms.

Aguirre said no.

Okay.

We'll move on to item number two.

Could somebody please read that for us?

Public hearing and resolution approving Amin Park Recreation Campus ARC operations fees and naming rights.

Staff recommends approval.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Okay.

So tonight I'm standing before you talk about the ARC resolution and T-BID uh MOU.

Um Ms.

Ali Egert is here in house with us uh from visit billings.

Should you have any questions about the MOU?

And Casey Collin is online with us.

Should you have any questions about the sports tourism uh portion of the resolution and MOU.

So the big question is we have to ask is how did we get here?

Um this has been a long time coming in the way of the conversations.

Uh this started all the way back in September of 2024 when city administration and PRPL leadership met with TBID to discuss supplemental funding for the courts complex at the ARC.

That conversation continued into March of 2025 and then was had a conditional approval in April of 2025 of supplemental funding to the ARC in the amount of 500,000.

In the same uh April of 2025, uh myself of representatives from Langless Construction, AE Design, Johnson Consulting, who did the pro forma, um, showed you the final construction design timeline and also pro forma of what it would take to execute and operate this facility.

Furthermore, uh, from that April 2025 meeting, council had suggested, I will not say directed, but suggested that a subcommittee be put together, uh, which I called for one, which had a representative from each of the wards that had uh PRPL leadership administration come together and look at three different operational modalities for this facility.

It was it was private, public, private, and then uh public.

From that, uh, we met numerous times over the course of many months to explore and investigate uh all the different operational modalities of this facility.

Based on that information, uh in September of 2025, I stood before you gave my report at that meeting.

It was a unanimous vote of nine to zero to have the PRPL department uh operate this facility on a three-year, what we call the runway during this three years as well.

It is in sync with the MOU with TBID.

At that September 2025 meeting, uh a resolution was requested that would come back before you uh when we were ready to start looking at truly the operational side of things.

Okay.

So this brings it up.

There's five areas in this resolution.

The first area uh overtly states that this department will run uh the facility for three years again with uh the TBID monies, but it has to follow a few guidelines.

The first would be hitting different metrics, both in performance and in financial.

So as you see before you, FY27 would set the baseline, the performance metrics.

28, we would build upon that baseline by 10 percent, and in 29, we build off the 28 uh numbers by 5%.

Financial metrics are as follows.

An FY27, the goals to recover 60% of operational cost, FY28, 80%, FY29, 100%.

A question was asked this morning if those percentages are inclusive of the T-BID money.

Obviously, they are not because those monies will offset to that 100% expense.

Additionally, another component was to assemble an advisory board.

After looking at different advisory boards across the nation of facilities of this nature, we we came to this conclusion that this advisory board, and again, it is advisory, would be composed of five individuals.

There would be one seat from SD2, School District 2, one seat from the Billings Tourism Business Improvement District.

That is Casey Conlin, who would be in that seat as a sports tourism director, three uh community members, and then two ex-officials, one member from your body, one member from my PRPL leadership.

This morning also I received inputs uh stating that uh there could be an amendment to the resolution stating that uh the billings tourism business improvement district seat would be contingent upon while they are uh funding and/or while uh PRPL receives uh funding from them.

Another aspect of this was the sponsorships or naming rights.

Before you, uh we looked at the naming rights throughout the whole facility.

One thing that I've said over and over and over again is that we have a luxury that we had the monies to build this up front, provided by Sabura.

So the naming rights sponsorships can actually help for operational offset.

We have uh two big buckets of naming rights.

You have one with the more of exclusive and one that I call kind of the investor bucket.

Going from top to the bottom here is you have the main building at a million dollars for 10 years.

Uh, in relation, uh Signal Peak Ice Arena did their building, which is a permanent naming right.

We do not have any permanent naming rights uh for 6 million or 60 years.

Um so we are still in line with that.

We did use them as a model quite a bit to come up with these prices.

Then we have the building community lobby, five years at 500,000.

We have four interior courts at uh five years, 150,000, a multi-purpose room for three years, $30,000, five exterior, three on three basketball courts that are uh uh located on the west east and west ends, uh, three years, $15,000.

And then we have $95 sponsorships available that will also go on the east and west walls.

Now, one thing that we did talk about as the subcommittee is that up to 50% of these funds coming in from naming rights can be used for operations.

Up to 50% would be dedicated to the reserve in years one through three.

That number grows a little bit by 7525 years four through 10.

Obviously, the goal here is to hit both both things of solvency and the $2 million reserve that we want for capital improvements and or uh uh o's that may happen down the road.

One thing that is different from this that we had not talked talked about as a committee is the very last bullet point, which is uh Neptune annual radio advertisements.

We have Neptune Radio at Rose Pool.

Um we have not used the advertising availability within this system.

Um we now have look at it, price it out.

We will have 10 or excuse me, 12 of these slots available uh for companies.

Uh it's very exclusive.

We do not run more than just 12 companies on a loop for one year at a time.

Court rental rates and revenues.

Um, again, looking through here, there are two minute two different modalities to this is you have the everyday court rental, which is the first portion, and then tournament rates.

Um, if you're doing the four primary courts, those primary courts can be converted into eight different smaller courts.

That's what you'll see up at the first bullet point.

You have the tournament rates.

Tournaments rates are a little higher because that also bakes in custodial services, uh, things of this nature.

The exterior courts at $25 an hour, really round out the packages of the fees there.

The last bullet point there is that all revenues would remain at the facility as a quote unquote PRPL enterprise fund.

Obviously, it's not a true enterprise fund, but for lack of a better phrase, that's what we want to call it.

Additionally, uh, it was pointed out uh to me uh by uh council member Nice.

Um one of the things that we talked about as a committee is this.

So the goal of solvency, the goal is to hit that two million dollar reserve.

What happens next?

There would be a sentence also that needs to be added into the resolution stating something to the effect that all excess revenue could be directed by council for use within the PRPL department as needed.

Finally, it's the uh MOU between TBID and the city of Billings.

It's a three-year duration.

Total funding is $500,000 over those three years.

It is not $500,000 per year.

The funding distribution is broken out as follow $100,000 for startup costs, up to $160,000 for any shortfalls that first year, 185,000 for any shortfalls the second year, and $55,000 for any shortfalls the final year of the agreement.

Um PRPO department will provide quarterly financial statements, both to your body and to TBID board, showing our progress, showing that we are hitting these metrics and that we're being very intentional between the court rentals, tournaments, concessions, um, and any other funding uh or revenue streams that may come in.

And with that, that's it, sir.

Thank you, sir.

Umspenlighter.

Yeah, thanks, Mr.

Mayor.

I so I was I was one of the one of the five on the subcommittee and and chaired the subcommittee.

And we did we did a lot of work in that committee, and and we did a lot of work around the financial solvency.

And and believe me, when we entered that process, I was as skeptical and dubious as anybody that we could see a light towards making this facility solvent.

Um through a lot of work from the staff, um, some really great planning and and thought around implementation.

I think we're there.

Um the uh the MOU, I I appreciate some of the comments that um and corrections that councilman Nees made.

The the only one that I really want to talk about that I think needs um some clarification is is a permanent seat on that advisory committee from the TBID and or from Mr.

Conlin.

Um the reality is the visit billings and the sports tourism folks are gonna be working very hard, not just on bringing things to our community, but bringing things to this facility.

Um I know that there is a there's uh an inclination to try to tie that board to their financial investment in this facility, but I think it goes farther than that.

I think that's that can be maybe short-sighted on our end um in looking at it that way.

I think the success of this and the success of sports tourism and billings is is directly tied to this being one of the cogs in that big wheel.

You know, the Metro dealer park, the ice arena, the high schools, the Lockwood track facility, the new um Dela Stadium, those are all facilities that the visit billings and the sports tourism group is going to be working on.

Frankly, I think it's smart of us to leverage the resources that they have created that we just don't have.

Um, we're not gonna have the budget for a sports tourism manager to be traveling around.

We have to leverage what Visit Billings is going to be investing and the leadership that they're gonna provide.

And and I think it is it's critical that we keep them on that board, regardless of whether they're financially involved or not, because they have to they have to be aware of how we're operating that thing.

Um, so that's the only thing that I would push back on, Mr.

Neese's comments.

I think it's important that that stays permanent.

The rest of the comments that Mr.

Neese provided, I I'm I'm 100% supportive of.

Mayor, do you mind?

Thank you.

Um, Mr.

O'Donnell's next, and Mr.

Kennedy regarding this, what Scott just talked about.

Well, why don't you let's go through the progression and then you can respond?

Kevin, uh thank you uh for that.

Um, you know, I when you said that uh on one of your slides that the council approved uh PRPL managing this uh last last year, of course, the majority of us weren't here at that time.

So excuse me for not knowing very much.

So reading the report, I am quite impressed with the work that the committee uh that Scott Aspen later uh referred to did.

Uh you mentioned there's uh a private, public, private, and public on there.

Can you tell me what went into the discussions of why not why this is not privately uh managed?

Councilmember O'Donnell, uh Mayor and Council.

Uh that's a great question.

So we looked at different uh operations and all of those aforementioned modalities.

Some of it came down to just functionality.

Some of it came down to uh we already do X, Y, and Z, let's say concessions.

So it doesn't make a whole bunch of sense for us to have a privatized the concessions part of it, but concessions are such a uh revenue generation.

The one thing we also learned is that with a lot of the private companies that we looked at, for one reason or another, um, they were turned back over to the city.

Uh this could be five years, it could be seven years down the road uh for a number of reasons.

Now, that's not all of them.

There were plenty of successful ones also that remained private.

Uh a big part of it is that because this facility is unique, uh, it is not a true recreation center.

It is a hard courts facility at 58,000 square feet with approximately 50,000 uh square feet of hardwood.

There's no fitness component, there's no aquatics component.

This serves a real um focused niche is a great word uh for our for our community and region from that uh because of the TBID funding as well, that would help offset for those three years.

Um it all kind of aligned up of, you know, let's see if we can do this.

Let's see if we can make this solvent.

Um, then if not, then we can explore.

So in two years, I'll be standing before you all again asking about okay.

So here's the data, here's our quarterly reports, here's our performance metrics.

Do you feel that we can continue operating this facility?

I personally believe that the answer will be yes.

All right.

Uh Mr.

Kennedy.

Yes, Gavin, as we uh as we discuss this, as we put this together, as we voted to bring it forward and everything.

The one thing I one of your slides called it a um what was it, the PRPL enterprise fund.

I want to make sure that everyone understands that this would be an enterprise fund.

This is a standalone project.

Um, it's standalone over in the uh at the area where this building is.

Um we don't we do not want as an enterprise fund, we want it making money.

We don't want to be taking money away from it and cutting it back because the money generated should run it.

And that's the that's the whole scope of what we put up with this building, and we designed it.

So I would hope that we would name this an enterprise fund for this uh um for this endeavor that we're doing.

Mr.

Nees.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh I was also on the um uh committee on this and uh serving with Councilmember Asperliner and Kennedy along with Tom Repsis and uh former council member uh Ed Gulek.

Um and it was a uh it was very difficult to consider the parks department even running this facility.

But after going through all the different options, um I'm I'm extremely optimistic um that this that the parks department can do this as it's laid out.

Um and so while I probably was a no-vote going into this in no way no how um I I think we have good three years we're gonna give a run with the help of the TBID, I think uh it's gonna get that uh running start.

And um I think this will be a very successful operation.

Um so uh I hope we support that, but going back to what Councilman After Splaner said and my comments about I I do agree that um the visit billings does have a lot of uh value there.

But my concern is we don't just want anyone.

Someone like Casey Conlin, who's on there would be on there is extremely valuable.

I guess my question to you to regard regarding if we don't have someone on there, should we if we're gonna have them on there, should there be qualifications of who this person serves on the board, so that we make sure it is someone with the expertise of of Casey.

Mr.

Mayor, if I may go ahead, Mr.

And Councilman East, I think that's that's a valid point.

And and Gavin, uh my question to you would be can we craft that in a way that so long as it's a sports tourism manager, that is the position.

It's not just a TBID board member or a TBID representative.

It is the sports tourism director.

And if that position goes away, so does that seat.

Can we craft it in a way?

Yeah, councilmember Aspenlighter, mayor council.

We can absolutely craft it down to uh very specific if we want.

Um I would I would say this.

I have no problem with that.

Um visit billings, uh T bid, what have you?

Their best interest is they get a person on here that's going to help drive the engine of this facility.

So I I we can go as specific as you like.

Uh I think they're going to always choose someone that it's going to be the best fit.

Ms.

Shaw.

Thank you.

I I'm super excited we got to this place.

I was also skeptical we would get there.

And so I'm very happy.

I think Parks is going to do a great job with this.

I fully am confident that in two years we're going to be back and moving forward.

My question for you is about the naming rights.

Um once we pass this resolution, assuming it passes, is this a go forth and sell the rights?

You launch your whole campaign.

Do you need anything else from council before this comes back and we actually have to officially accept it?

Councilwoman Shaw, Mayor, and Council.

I too am excited.

Uh it's been a long journey.

I had hair when this started.

So I would say this, you know, we're gonna revisit the naming rights uh for inflationary costs at some point.

For right now, they're set.

Uh the final naming rights sponsorships, advertisement policy citywide is currently uh being vetted by legal.

Uh so we're in a good spot.

After tonight, then I'm really gonna start working the phones.

I'm I'm ready to make a motion if we're ready to approve just one more question, Mayor.

Go ahead, Mr.

Nece.

Um Gavin, I think you and I, when we talked this morning, I didn't ask you this to clarify, but I think I know what the answer is, but I just want to make sure one of the comments was under paragraph three when they uh we're directing um staff to create an advisory board.

That is a staff advisory board, not a council advisory board.

So we don't have to set the rules or guidelines or appoint people other than that one council member we may appoint.

But I just wanted to make sure I think that was the recommendation I made to change that or add the word staff to that.

Make sure that's clear that you are in control of that advisory board.

Councilmember Nees, mayor and council, you're absolutely correct correct.

It is a staff advisory board.

Thank you.

Any other comments for I I do have one thing.

I have a little bit of experience in uh event planning and event sales and uh and naming rights and all the other good stuff.

This is in a great spot.

They're a really great spot.

Nothing like being king of the region, and that's what you're gonna be.

So congratulations.

Um I guess we'll open up to public comment regarding this issue.

That's the approving amen park recreation campus operation fees and naming rights.

Is there any public comment regarding that?

Seeing none, we'll entertain a motion.

Um get down to where the hell did our little sayings go in this new format.

Oh, there we go.

Uh having conducted a public hearing considered written and spoken public testimony.

I move to approve a resolution for arc operations fees and naming rights as recommended by staff.

Thank you, Mr.

Kennedy.

All right.

Yes, Mr.

Nees.

Is that recommended with we recommended it with the amendments that were submitted?

Okay, thank you.

Okay, we have a second to that one.

Um any any discussions of the motion, Mr.

Neese.

One more change that I would correction I would point out is paragraph um uh six in the MOU at paragraphs uh six F uh points to uh five C, but it needs to be corrected to 5D just for correction on that reference point.

And I talked to Gavin about that as well.

So just so you're aware of that.

Do we need an amendment to the motion then, Mr.

Nese?

No, don't need amendment.

It's a it's a just a correction edit, sir.

Okay, very good.

Any other discussion?

Ms.

Shaw.

I I just need clarification on the T bid position.

What what was the motion including?

So the the motion was to include that as a permanent position so long as it was the uh sports tourism perfect.

Okay, and I saw it Allie nodding her head.

So she's agreeable.

Any other discussion regarding the motion?

Mr.

Pittman.

Thank you, Mayor, Council.

Uh I think it's really important that we we do focus and and just don't glance over at that.

This is an enterprise fund.

Um we want them to succeed.

We want them to make money.

We want to, and and probably what we'd have to watch is making sure that we don't just limit their reserves.

It's good to have healthy reserves, but also not defer maintenance to do this in a way that you're taking care of the facility.

Um, and you're not doing it to to fund another part of the city or something like that.

The money gets reinvested, it stays there, and that they focus on taking care of this facility in the short term and in the long term.

So any other comments regarding the motion, then I'll call for a vote.

All those in favor of Mr.

Aspenlighter's motion, please say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, please say no.

Motion carries unanimously.

Item 2A Memorandum of Understanding between the city and tourism business improvement district.

T Bid staff recommends approval.

All right, sir, you're on.

Mayor and council.

That was the last slide of the presentation I just gave.

Uh again, the duration of this MOU with TBID is three years.

It covers $500,000 over the three years, not $500,000 per year.

Um the breakdown is that they are willing to provide a $100,000 of startup cost with 160,000 to come at year end to cover any shortfalls.

185,000 in year two of the agreement and $55,000 in year three of the agreement.

Is Ms.

Eggert here?

Could you come up for a second?

Thank you to the TBID for your willingness to step up.

We'd like to hear a little bit from you.

Yeah, mayor and council, thank you so much for having us.

Um the business billings tourism business improvement district is very excited to be um partnering with the city and with Gavin and PRPL.

Uh we know that this really will be a shining jewel in our community.

Um sports tourism is a $50 billion industry in the in the United States, and uh we know that we're a growing and blossoming sports destination, and this will really take us to the next level.

So thank you for the time spent on it.

I know it's been a long process, um, but we're just so excited for this facility to be opened and for us to be bringing teams here, and hopefully some of those girls that were here today can dance in that new facility and and we can we can share this wonderful thing with not just our visitors but our our local community.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Do we have questions for either presenter?

Mr.

Kennedy.

Just uh just a quick one, Allie.

Um, where does the T-bid money come from?

The tourism business improvement district is an assessment that's um added to each occupied room night in billings.

So per per occupied room night there's a four-dollar charge um that the visitor pays.

So these dollars are an asset an assessment that are are coming from our local visitor economy um that we're pouring right back into our community by bringing more visitation, but also through initiatives like this and our air service and so on.

Thank you.

Yeah, Mr.

Pittman.

Thank you.

Uh so it says up to a dollar amount.

Is that something, Gavin, that could be more could be less being offset, or should is should it actually be that number?

Um it is up to $500,000.

So it yes, theoretically, it could be less.

Um something that you know if if we do if we execute the way we think we will execute, um, my goal is to not have to use all of TBID's dollars to be honest, because that tells me two things.

One, we're solvent and we have the reserves matched.

Okay.

Um that's a big lift.

That's a big lift, admittedly, in the three-year runway.

Go ahead.

But I think that's an important marker to pay attention to as we go down the road because that that really is telling us how the place is operating.

Shaw.

This item doesn't require public hearing, so I'm gonna go ahead and make a motion.

I move to approve an MOU between the city and TBID as recommended by staff.

Do we have a second?

Ms.

Gary.

All right.

Any discussion regarding the motion.

Seeing none, I'll call for a vote.

All in favor of the motion to approve the MOU, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposition?

Another unanimous vote.

Thank you, folks.

Item number three.

Public hearing and approval of a purchase and sell agreement for the Babcock Theater with Art House Management LLC.

Staff recommends approval.

Hold on just a moment.

We'll see if we can get our council people back.

Go ahead.

We can get started.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Tonight I am bringing to you the resolution to approve the sale of the Babcock Theater.

This is following the council's direction from the April 13th council meeting.

Again, we need a minimum of six votes for it to pass.

And this authorizes staff to proceed with the purchase and sell agreement with Art House.

We're anticipating closing for June 1st.

The city will deliver one hundred thousand dollars to Art House at closing.

We advertised on April 10th, April 17th, April 24th, and the signs were posted at the Babcock on April 14th.

I have received zero calls or emails regarding this.

And that is the end of my presentation.

Thank you for that brief presentation.

That was nice.

Mr.

Kennedy, Mayor.

I just like to make a comment.

The hundred thousand is the deductible that the city is paying to the insurance company to pay for the ceiling that collapsed.

And so as we're not fixing the ceiling, we're paying the deductible to get the ceiling fixed.

And then with that, then we're looking at to turn around and turn it over and sell it to the uh to the Babcock group, correct?

So the hundred thousand dollars is for the insurance deductible.

That is part of the purchase and sell agreement.

So art house will take ownership of the art house during the construction of this.

Okay.

And the best thing for the taxpayers right now is we will no longer own that piece of property, and it will be in outside of the city's hands, which is uh is what we wanted to do the whole time.

So thank you.

Mr.

Lindley, then Mr.

Pittman, then Mr.

Nees.

Thanks, Mayor and Council.

Um, yeah, thanks for putting this together.

First of all, I love your presentations, they're show so short and succinct.

Beautiful.

Um, yeah, I think I mean for anybody in this room who has not yet been to Art House Cinema downtown.

I think if you if you go to that facility, you'll understand what the future of the Babcock is going to look like.

I think that organization is then gonna do a great job.

Um, of course, with them being the owners of it, it's gonna be funded through donations and fundraising, but I'm excited to see that, and I think it's the right move.

Mr.

Pittman, thank you.

So when you were posting things on the outside of the building, my understanding of our previous meeting was that we were that was just that we were disposing of the property.

Um, it wasn't listing the property for sale.

And it's my understanding, we never actually offered it to anybody else for sale.

Is that correct?

We did not list it for sale with the realtor.

Okay.

Mr.

Neese.

Thank you, Mayor.

That's about time.

Um I I would want to see this property moved into hands that could actually take care of it and do better than the city can.

So I am grateful that this is here.

But I'm I do have a couple of questions about the contract.

A couple of things on uh uh point number seven about the property condition being broom cleaned.

Obviously, we're not gonna have this broom cleaned.

There, they I just wanted to make sure that the buyer is, and I don't know why it wasn't filled out because there's an exception there to say something like the buyer accepts the property, you know, in the current damaged uh condition.

Um something like that.

And then the other can other thing I have, I don't like blank spots, and so on um page six or seven, the top addendum attached, it's just blank, and I would suggest we put none in there.

I'm assuming there's no attachments uh to this document.

If there are, I haven't seen seen any attachments.

I haven't seen it in the dungeon, that's correct.

Okay.

Okay.

As long as we as long as we uh you know fill out that blank spot on seven with the fact they're accepting the damaged property because it's definitely not broom cleaned, at least in that auditorium section.

That's you've been over there to see it.

It's a it's a mess.

Um, and then the other one, just any or none.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anybody from the purchaser here tonight?

Uh Matt Matt did give me a call on my way here that he was not going to be able to make it.

Okay.

Good.

Any other questions for our presenter?

All right, then uh we're gonna move to uh public hearing regarding the purchase and sell agreement for Babcock Theater.

Is there any public comment or public statements regarding that?

Good evening, good evening, Mayor and City Council members.

My name's Jeff Kettless and I live in the fifth ward at 489 South 44th Street.

I generally I I generally am against selling city property, but I'm just I'm really generally against selling sitter property to nonprofit organizations because they don't pay property tax to the city.

Uh from what I understand, this this town bought that building back in 2018, and I tried to find out how much you paid for it, but I couldn't find that.

But there was a cost.

The the citizens bore that cost.

And then through a mismanagement or forgetting to pay for insurance.

Here's the mess we're in now.

And we're gonna sell it for a buck to a nonprofit that's not gonna pay property taxes and to the city.

None of this sounds good, but what really doesn't sound good is to council members Pittman's comment that this administration didn't even list it with a real estate company.

I I mean that's ridiculous.

Uh I don't know anybody out here in the in public land that wouldn't list their property with a realtor.

So you know, uh to me, it's it's a bad deal.

I I stand and I I think that you should list it.

And I think that you should get the maximum amount of dollars that we the citizens have paid for this building to begin with.

Anyways, I hope you reconsider this.

Thanks.

Ms.

Shaw.

If is public comment closed.

It is now, yes.

Okay.

I'd like to make a motion to approve.

Having conducted a public hearing, considered written and spoken public testimony.

I move to approve the purchase and sell agreement for the Babcock Theater with Art House Management LL as recommended by staff.

Second.

Mr.

Nees jumped in with a second.

If there's a second, I'd like to speak to the motion.

Please do.

Okay, thank you.

Um, so just uh bring everybody up to speed.

The building was handed over to the city in 2018.

Art House has been operating it since that time.

They've been doing that very successfully until the ceiling fell down last year and and had it's been closed.

So from my perspective as a council member, there was a reason why we didn't go out to the highest bidder for this public building because we want it to stay as a public theater, which is it's been very successful at, and it's a real gem for our community.

So I think that's really important in the context of what we're doing here.

And I certainly hope this passes.

Thank you.

Mr.

Show.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

And as I said before, this is something we wanted to try to get off the city rolls and the liability there for quite a while.

And and to kind of uh Councilman Shaw's point, our house is doing a big been doing a great job with that theater.

They've they've really improved it.

Um they've actually put lots of money into that theater, not just you know, money they may have gotten from TBIT or the city, but it's really their own donations.

And this is this is where the community can really gather together and uh and bring in those donations because it's outside the city.

So if this is going to be successful, it's gonna be the people of the community who are gonna uh rally around the art house, rally around the Babcock and bring donations to them so they can actually uh improve this this uh facility.

So be looking for them.

I'm sure they're gonna be asking for donations, and you'll see a really nice theater uh created, and it'll be successful once they get rebuilt.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Neese.

Mr.

Pivin.

So I'll I'll probably be the one vote against this, and it's it's mainly on process at this point.

Um I really do believe, and and I asked the question when we listed this as surplus property that we weren't selling.

We we were.

You guys had no intention of listing this.

You had every intention of turning this over to the art house theater.

And I think um it does a disservice to us and to the public when we we don't at least offer it out there to see if there are better options.

I'm we might be back in the same situation in two weeks with nobody offering, you know, two dollars.

Um, but that being said, um, you know, I also am against uh them receiving being open to receiving TIFF dollars in the future.

Um I was I've been passionate about this on giving TIFF dollars to nonprofits.

Um it just doesn't pencil out right.

And so as we're as we're raking the the downtown billings, TIFF district over the coals for not showing profit or not having enough money or all that.

We also need to remember we just handed over another facility off the tax rolls, and so we have to take that into account.

Thank you, Mr.

Pippin.

Mr.

Boyette.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I think I read somewhere where there was about five million dollars worth of deferred maintenance.

It's not something the city is gonna take care of as five million dollars to fix this up.

I think that the art house will have the ability to get people together similar to Alberta Bear, where they say, folks, you want this to be good, do some donations.

I think the 100,000 deductible will at least fix the ceiling, let's then move forward.

I encourage us to go ahead and uh release this property to someone who we think can manage it and who's been managing it for some time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further comment?

Mr.

Neese, Mary, just a quick question to Gina.

Gina, I asked you this before if you could just state this for the record, I guess.

Did the city follow the property disposition ordinance as required.

Yes, Councilmember Nees.

All right.

Any further questions or discussion?

Seeing none, we'll call for a vote.

All in favor of the motion to sell the Babcock theater with art house management.

Uh please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And those opposed?

No.

That'd be Mr.

Pittman in opposition.

Thank you, everybody.

Item number four.

Public hearing, a resolution of intent to proceed with public notice and hearing process required for the potential disposal of property located at 802 Yellowstone Avenue.

Staff recommends approval.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Um, I'm just gonna uh do a presentation by calling out some of the highlights from the memo, just a little bit of background on this item uh before you open the public hearing.

Uh so uh the city of Billings owns this property at OT Yellowstone, and the resolution this evening initiates the process uh to um sell exchange or donate the property, the city owned property.

Um code enforcement opened a case on this property, a nuisance case in 2022.

And um we as we moved through that process and worked with the property owner ultimately in court, um, the property owner all decided to uh transfer ownership to the city, and we took ownership of it in December of 2024.

Uh, we then went forward looking for options to to complete the demolition um of that property.

It had a lot of um issues and material problems and such.

And we were able to uh working with Big Sky Economic Development, go through the Brownfields USA EPA Brownfields uh program and revolving loan fund program so we could cover all the abatement.

Uh there was asbestos and other materials in the in the structure, and then ultimately demolish the structure, which we uh which we did in September of 2025.

Uh we came to the council in December of 2025 with some options for uh development of the property.

Uh, we had done a community survey and and some outreach in that area and had proposed uh potentially a community garden on the site.

Uh the council uh decided at that time not to pursue the community garden, but to move forward to sell the property outright.

Um at this meeting, the action for the resolution dispose of the property, the council has the opportunity to impose restrictions on the property sale uh and any expectations you might have at that about the sale.

And um, one of the things that I called out in the memo and working with with Tina on the memo and with Gavin was that you did have a recommendation from your community development board um late last year and into this spring regarding some potential housing policy ideas for uh incentivizing housing and affordable housing in this case on city owned properties that you might be disposing of.

And so you'll see in the memo and the attachment some recommendations to that effect.

Um, and the board wanted to forward those to you for consideration, both for this property and really honestly for future properties that you may be evaluating since housing continues to be an issue in our community.

So with that, um, I'll uh be happy to answer any questions, but your action tonight is to approve that resolution, declaring your intent to dispose of the property, impose conditions if you choose, and um then we would move forward with the process for um the sale.

So thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Any questions for our presenter?

Ms.

Shaw.

Uh thank you.

Um Wyath, would you go into the breakdown of the money that was used to fund this um demolition?

Because my understanding is if we just put this up for sale to anybody with no restrictions and it's not listed as for a public good in some way, any proceeds have to just pay that back.

It's not going into any future city programming or anything.

Is that accurate?

Uh, Councilmember Shaw and Mayor and Council, uh, yes, that's correct.

The way the the loan program through the US EPA Brownfields uh program is set up is that um if we're not um using it for certain community benefits, uh, which in this case just selling it outright to whoever would purchase it is does not meet that definition, then any of the proceeds would first go back to paying off the loan, uh, the revolving loan fund through the program.

And that loan total was uh a little almost 85,000, just under uh 85,000.

Uh we also invested um, I think around 50, $50,000 uh in code enforcement as part of this process.

So basically, whatever it would sell for, it's expected that all of it would go toward that loan and wouldn't completely pay off that loan.

Follow-up question.

So follow-up is um hypothetical here.

We adopt the recommendations from the community development board, which I'm very, very thankful that they brought forward, and put some kind of priority on it related to housing.

Does that then eliminate that requirement for us so that we would have more flexibility in terms of turning this property over to somebody who couldn't maybe pay as much for it?

Uh Councilmember Shaw and Mayor and Council, yes.

Our understanding is that if the city were to um impose, you know, say this is what we want to develop this for, we want to uh provide housing for the community.

We want to look at affordable housing or incentivizing that housing, that that would fall into one of the community benefit categories.

Thanks.

Mr.

Nees.

Thank you.

Uh why it's just along the same lines.

If I'm reading the memo, it appears to me it doesn't matter if it's sold it outright on the market or if it's sold and used for some kind of qualified affordable housing.

They forgive the loan either way.

Uh council member Nees and Mayor and Council, they won't forgive the loan if it we just sell it outright.

That is where it is required that we pay back whatever amount we can.

Now it does say if we can't pay it all back, which is very likely, then they'll forgive the remainder.

But any proceeds would take.

That's what I'm reading.

Your memo states that uh trust indenture of any agreements between the borrower and the lender, the lender will forgive the shortfall.

This is talking about when it's sold um, you know, normal just on the market and it's sold at a shortfall.

And so it looks like they're gonna forgive it either way.

Councilmember Neise uh and mayor and council, they won't forgive, they'll forgive part of it if you pay back everything you get from a sale.

So if you get 50,000 back, we pay 50,000, we don't have to pay the other 35, correct?

So that's correct.

If you if you were to use it for a different purpose, a community benefit purpose, then you don't have to pay any of it back.

Well, it is I think there's this also talks about it'll forgive the shortfall.

So if you use it for another purpose, you're still whether you're selling it or you're using it, you're still gonna have a shortfall.

And so are you saying that we keep the property?

And then they'll forgive us the the uh debt?

Councilmember Nees, no, what I'm saying is so if you sell it outright with no parameters and so for whatever people can use it for whatever they want, then whatever you get in that from that sale, you will pay toward the loan, whatever that is.

And whatever, if there's a still uh um shortfall, then they will forgive that.

If you do an incentive program for the community and you say, yes, we wanted this to be served for a specific community purpose.

Can you give me an example of an extended program?

Because I'm not quite following you.

Usually, I mean, either we're gonna own the property or someone's gonna own the property and they're probably gonna pay us something for it.

Unless we give it away to like HUD or someone like that.

And you're saying if we give it away, they're gonna forgive the property, they're gonna forgive the note.

Councilmember, Mayor and Council.

So if you incentivized it some way to get a certain type of affordable housing development on the property, so you would put stipulations and say this is what we want to see on this property, and we want the the property, you know, the units to be available at a certain rate that meet, you know, an affordable housing rate, then that's you're imposing those things, and you're saying we're gonna expect to get something in you know for the long term on that property for for a housing benefit.

So that's that's and then we sell it for 50,000 and they're gonna still forgive the the note.

Or we sell it for 40,000, they're gonna forgive the note.

Correct.

Thank you.

Just clarification.

They'll forgive the shortfall, not the full note.

Is that what you're saying?

Correct.

Correct.

Okay.

Um, let's see, who's next?

Anyone?

Mr.

Kennedy.

Well, I think since I've been belly aching about this property for a long time and wanted it to get down, and and I think code enforcement is very happy it's down and tired of listening to me.

The the whole thing on this is you have apartment buildings right next door.

You also have an owner that owns that property that pays taxes on it.

They have every opportunity in the world to buy that property, create more lawn if they want to, or create parking places for their apartment building.

That would give them an opportunity.

But the one thing that people don't understand is you put it into um uh housing or anything else, it doesn't go back on the tax rolls.

So, you know, no matter what we get out of it by selling the property, we will have that loan forgiven, and it goes back on the tax rolls and it'll pay taxes.

So I think really what we need to do this evening is go ahead and put it up for sale.

That's not saying that if we don't get the right bid, we don't have to do it, but at least we go out there and we sell the property and uh see what see what comes in.

Thank you.

Yeah, councilmember Kennedy, absolutely.

I think the only thing, yeah, I mean, depending on who you sold it to, it yeah, it might or might not pay taxes, but other yeah, you're com that's correct.

Mr.

Friday, do we have liabilities on that land?

Uh or if somebody hurts themselves on it, or and do we have insurance expense on that land and that kind of stuff?

Uh councilmor, or mayor uh and council, um I can defer to uh to our city attorney.

I mean, yes, it'd be the same right now as any other city property, and then like we we're taking care of, you know, making sure we shovel the snow and stuff like that on the property, which we've been doing since uh it was demoed and we acquired it.

All right.

That that's a good answer for me.

Any other questions for our presenter?

Right, seeing none.

Yeah, yes, sir, Mr.

Neese.

Uh Wyatt, do you have anyone interested in the property now and uh as far as wanting to buy it?

Uh Councilmember Neese and Mayor and Council, I've had conversations with a couple of folks uh in town who have been interested in the in the property.

Um, and you know, we're talking about different ideas, talked about the zoning and the current, you know, what the current status is.

As is residential type, they're gonna just use it in residential, they're looking for zone changes as well.

Uh council member niece and mayor and council, um, a mix actually, both residential and potentially, you know, small office or neighborhood sort of thing.

And when we're selling, sorry, Mayor, to follow up with another question.

So if we're looking at selling this and there's a zone change needed, is that something that will come in with maybe an offer saying, hey, I'll I'll buy it, but I need a zone change to XYZ or whatever it is, so they can do their development.

Uh, Councilmember Nice and Mary and Council, I suppose that's possible.

Um, I guess that depends probably a little bit on how when we put it out for sale, what we talk, you know, what we provide in that.

All right, thank you.

Anything else for a presenter?

Okay, we're gonna move to a public hearing regarding this item.

Uh any public comment regarding the sale of 802 Yellowstone Avenue.

Welcome back.

Thanks.

Good evening again, uh, council and Mayor Nelson.

My name is Rebecca Knoll.

I live at 1109 Lewis Avenue.

So I'm a neighbor of uh the Meat House RIP.

Just kidding.

Um, thank you so much for acquiring that property and demoing it.

It was the very definition of an attractive nuisance.

Um, so you know, um the empty lot that is there right now, like a missing tooth is an in is an improvement over what was there before.

But um, I'm here tonight because I serve on the community development board for the city of Billings.

And um, the board that I'm a part of, we spent um quite a bit of time discussing how how do we incentivize affordable housing development in billings.

And it's just really hard.

It's really hard to get developers to want to house people who just aren't gonna be able to pay as much money.

Because you're not gonna make as much money.

So it's really not attractive.

Um of the very few things that uh we decided as a board maybe would work is that in the process of disposing of publicly owned land that the city prioritizes the development of affordable housing on city owned land.

So tonight when you vote to move forward with disposing of this property uh 802 Yellowstone, I would really urge you all to use some of the stipulations that our board outlined for you in our document so that this parcel at 802 Yellowstone can be developed in a way that will contribute to the fabric to the fabric of the neighborhood and be a benefit for those of us who live there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other public comment?

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Jack Hansen.

I was born and raised here in Billings.

I'm a property owner, a taxpayer, and a resident of Ward 4.

As you consider the disposal of this city-owned property, I urge you to establish a clear policy precedent for future such disposals.

This is just the first of a number of city-owned properties that you will deal with this year.

You can and should use this disposal process to advance the goal of incentivizing more middle market housing in the city.

You can set the precedent tonight with 802 Yellowstone by imposing some conditions or some purchaser preferences on this sale.

So as Mr.

Friday pointed out, the city will not pocket any money on the sale of this property, even if you go out to highest bidder, unless you raise more than $85,000, which you will not do on this property.

And to correct a misconception from council member Kennedy, this property will go back on the tax rolls.

If you sell it to a private developer that develops middle market housing on it, it will be on the tax rolls as a residential property currently zoned.

We have a chronic shortage of housing units in this city that are affordable to middle income families.

That is households who are making at or below the median in, which is currently about $74,000 in billings.

At that income level, a household can afford a mortgage taxes and insurance on a single family home with a sale price of about 270,000.

There ain't a lot of those out there in billings right now.

To be perfectly clear, the market is quite clearly not filling that void.

Sometimes private markets don't work.

But you can help create more of those housing opportunities as you dispose of these city properties this year.

In fact, as you just heard our community development board, the very committee you have impaneled for the purpose of carefully considering housing policy and making recommendations to you has recommended just such an approach.

I urge you to follow the community development board's recommendations.

It'll be a good outcome, not just for 802 Yellowstone Avenue, but for every other disposal property that comes before you this year.

Thanks.

Any other public comment regarding this issue.

Good evening.

Tell us who you are and where you live.

My name is Nathan Blanding.

I'm a resident of buildings at 539 Clark, just down the street from the said property.

Question here.

Um pocket neighborhoods, just individual small scale development that I can do with my own hands.

I don't have big crews.

That's just my own business, and we hire whoever we need as we go.

But this is an in-and-fill kind of property that's not like a big thing on the West end or anything.

It's just uh it's it's a niche that I'm interested in.

I put together a preliminary proposal to uh Wyeth Friday and council member Lindley, who I happen to know, uh, to do a first pass at what I would propose for this.

Uh the law is very narrow, um, which makes the overlay zoning that's been applied to this challenging to make anything as big enough.

So my suggestion in that proposal was to allow it to be a mercantile uh zoning, like like it used to be, where you could build right to the sidewalk, so you could have small scale offices below and then up above have apartments and so it's a you're dealing with some very high-level questions about city policy and things.

Mine's just a very simple uh proposal for what could be done there, what pencils out.

And in my experience, trying to do construction for less than 200 bucks a square foot is really challenging.

And even at that rate, with halfway normal rental rates, it still takes 10 to 15 years to get it to pay off.

So none of this is fast turnaround high profit stuff.

So if we're trying to do really low-income housing, it's it just without some kind of subsidy.

It's it's really challenging to make something that doesn't take forever to get paid off.

But um, my proposal doesn't require any of that.

It's just if it was available for sale, I'd be interested in putting in a bid for it.

And uh I put together a proposal.

So if your request this is a request per proposals without a request, so pardon me for jumping the gun there, but I put my foot forward of just to express an interest.

So anyway, thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Mr.

Blandy.

Any other public hearing?

Seeing none, we'll close the portion of our our meeting and uh I'll ask for a motion.

Mayor, I'll make a motion.

Having conducted a public hearing considered a written and spoken public testimony, I move to approve a resolution of intent allowing staff to proceed with public notice.

Um required for the and hearing process required for the potential disposal of 802 Yellowstone Avenue.

Second.

Who's that?

Thank you, Mr.

Nees.

And I would like to speak.

Go ahead, Mr.

Kennedy.

I'd like to speak to the motion.

Um 802 Yellowstone Avenue has been an eyesore for a long time.

And as you heard, you had uh um folks in the neighborhood say, let's try to do something.

It's a very narrow parcel.

Um, I do not want to try to do a community garden or whatever.

Go on uh South 27th and look at the community garden that we have on uh on city property over there.

It just doesn't pan out.

After a few years, people get tired of it and it just becomes a weed mess.

Um, what I'd like to do is is see I like that idea.

There's probably some other ideas.

There's a gentleman that owns the property next to it.

Um he might want to build um apartments there.

But one of the things that people look at is um we want to make it a public space right next to the people that have lived there and have put up with the falling of walls, people going into the place, lighting fires, everything else.

Let's kind of take into consideration, sell the property and get someone that's good to uh put something good there.

But I think really, and we did it for years with the county.

We really gave the first option a lot of times to the um landowner that lived next door because it was very important for them because that piece of property is so small, it would be uh um, it would be something that would enhance that property.

So I would ask the uh the council to go forward and uh put this up for sale.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Shaw.

Sorry.

Um thank you.

I'd like to offer an amendment to the motion um to prioritize housing when we go out for this RFP in a manner that would fit within the public good requirement.

If there's a second to that, I will speak to the motion.

Mr.

Lindley seconded the amendment.

The reason I think this is important is because if we just go and sell this to a developer that wants to make it into a parking lot, we're gonna be sending whatever money comes through the city back to the federal government, which I don't think makes any sense when we have this brownfield program designed specifically for this.

The other end of the scenario is if we prioritize housing, we stick that in there as one of our requirements and it meets this public good requirement.

It means we could offer this land for a dollar to a developer, just as we did the Babcock to increase the housing stock in our city, just as an example.

So to me, I think those are two very different things.

I'm only interested in supporting this motion if the amendment passes.

Thank you.

We're gonna speak to the amendment now, Mr.

Boyet.

Well, I mean, according to my math, we have 135,000 of taxpayer money in this piece of property.

I that's your money.

We shouldn't just give this stuff away.

I would like to try to maximize how much we pay back to the revolving loan and in the brown field.

This remember, this is this isn't government money, this is taxpayer money.

So I want to be able to sell it for as much as we can.

And a developer is gonna buy this, they're not gonna just turn it into a parking lot and pay money for it.

I think this gentleman right we had here was an excellent idea of a commercial on the first floor and apartments on the second, if with stone right, but remember this is taxpayer money we want to pay back.

Mr.

Lindley.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, yeah, I I supported the amendment because I don't think that the amendment included a desire to sell it for a dollar.

Is that true?

Okay.

So just to be clear, yeah.

Um, all it's saying is that we want to prioritize um proposals that include housing.

So I do think that that's gonna, you know, bring a fair bid.

Um, not to say that that's gonna solve solve all of our budget woes, but um I think that uh seeing more housing and seeing creative solutions to that is a good thing.

Mr.

Nees.

Thank you, Mayor.

I I won't support the motion.

I I think having it just sold is gonna leave it up to we heard one tonight.

I've I've heard of others that would put in a prefab duplex.

I mean, they're all talking about housing, all the the problem, the uh ideas I've heard, and I don't want to limit what the market's gonna do by just saying, hey, we're gonna prioritize housing.

That's gonna that's that's probably going to cause buyers who want to do some mixed commercial and housing, like as was proposed tonight, to kind of back off a little bit and say, Well, I don't want to I don't want to participate if I'm gonna put a bid in suddenly now someone who bids lower than me is gonna say housing, they're gonna they're gonna get it.

So I think we need to make sure, let the developers do what they do best because they get creative with the property and they build what they know the market needs.

And uh and and I think what will they turn out is not a parking lot that someone's just gonna park the car.

It may hide maybe the highest bidder will be the neighborhood, the neighbor next door because he's gonna pay overpay on that because he wants to outbid anyone else and make sure that no one else builds next to him.

We don't know.

I think we need to make sure that we leave it uh for the market to uh to to uh come what's there and I I believe you'll probably see some good residential housing there, but um it'll be what the market decides.

Thank you.

Mr.

Pittman, thank you, Mayor Council.

This I may need a little help here.

Um, if I want to make it a substitute motion, can I do that at this point, or do we have to act on this amendment before we go forward?

Councilmember Pittman, Mayor and Council.

You can there can be two amendments post uh pending at the same time, and a motion to substitute is a uh considered a motion to amend.

So yeah.

So mayor and council, I make a substitute motion that we list this uh uh property for sale and remove the exchange or donation as part of the conditions and put this out on the market to see what the market will do first.

I think we have a well I'll second that.

Thank you.

So I'll talk on my motion.

I think we have a fiduciary responsibility to the to the taxpayers.

This isn't just returning money that goes nowhere, as uh councilman Boyette's pointed out.

This goes back into programs that can benefit the community.

I think there's a lot of options here.

I would like to see it back on the payroll on the get it on the tax rules and be a productive uh corner plot.

So thank you.

Uh point of order.

I just need a clarification.

How is that different than the underlying motion originally?

I'm not sure that it is.

The other one was said only qualified purchaser.

This is stipulating.

No, the original the original motion was uh just a resolution of intent allowing staff to proceed with a public notice in the hearing process.

Uh we there were no conditions imposed.

So you might be right here, Ms.

Shaw Mr.

Pittman.

How is can you explain that then?

How in the executive summary that we were provided, it says potential sale, exchange or donation of city-owned real property.

All I'm asking is that we remove exchange or donation and put this property up for sale, and then we can look at all of the options that are proposed to us and make a decision based on that.

If you guys want to make a priority and there's an option where somebody comes with public housing or something, and that's one of their caveats to this proposal, then that's fine.

But if there's somebody that comes that wants to do some commercial or some small business on the bottom and parents on top, and and is willing to pay a lot more, I think we should be able to look at all of our options and then make a decision.

I I think the original motion was just sell um and it would have left the the exchange or the other two.

Am I correct here?

Mayor, um yes, Mayor and Council.

I I think maybe you and I'm confused here.

Um it sounds to me like maybe this is incorrect that council member Pittman wants to exclude the option of exchange or donation, but then by way of explanation, indicated that he wanted all options considered.

So if you remove the option of exchange or donation, you're not going to be able to consider all the options.

So I think leaving it as the original motion would allow you to consider all those different options of a land swap or um donation sale, all those different potentials.

I will withdraw my second trying to figure out how to word this.

How do I I guess how do I make it part of the record that I want this property put on the market for sale?

Not not another backroom deal where all of a sudden we already have a potential to give it to CDBG or home or anything else.

I want it out on the market, Mr.

Mayor.

How would I make that motion?

I think it was the underlying motion was to sell.

As long as that's clear, I'll withdraw my motion.

Okay, thank you.

Mr.

O'Donnell.

No, I'm fine.

Okay.

So we're back to the amendment to prioritize housing.

Uh we have a motion and a second.

Is there any other discussion regarding that?

Seeing none, we'll call for a vote on the amendment to prioritize housing.

All those in favor.

Say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Oppose, say no.

No.

No.

Okay, opposed, please raise your hand so we get you on a record.

So we have Mr.

O'Donnell, Mr.

Boyette, Mr.

Asvin Leiter, Mr.

Kennedy, Mr.

Nelson, and Mr.

Pittman.

Mr.

And Mr.

Nees, I'm sorry, I didn't see your hand.

I'm supposed to raise them up high for me.

And that brings us back to the original motion, which is to place uh which was read and uh as written in our agenda, having conducted a public hearing considered written as public, I move to approve a resolution of intent allowing staff to proceed with public notice and the hearing process required for the potential disposal of 802 Yellowstone as recommended by staff.

Okay, just so that I can make this just a little bit more muddy.

I think I now see where you're coming from, Mr.

Pittman.

Thank you.

So we could probably entertain another amendment if that's allowed, Ms.

Ms.

Davis Dahl.

Yes, mayor I could use my glasses tonight.

Before the Thank you, Ms.

Davis.

Before the last vote I wanted to just um point out I I guess maybe to provide a suggestion to council member Pittman.

If you if you the intent was to limit the um limit the way that staff proceeds with this.

So the city code section allows this property to go by public option auction direct negotiated sale or by competitive sealed bid.

So I think what you were trying to do was eliminate the option for staff to directly negotiate a sale.

So if that's if that's what you were wanting to do then you could craft a motion to limit the options by which staff can proceed with listing the property so why you're saying just as a clarification what I want is what's the the highest return we can get on this property.

So you know putting it on the market to the highest bidder or offer that we get um it's what happens in real estate all the time you put it up for sale you see who wants to buy it you can accept an offer reject an offer take a counter offer all of those go into the factor so yes that's what I want so do I need to make then I then I would suggest that you not limit how staff can proceed and staff will list the property and go from there Mr Nees thank you one more question because I why is mentioned there was a couple of people who were interested in the property there's another person I guess who I guess that one of those persons talked to us tonight.

Because their buyers have already contacted us so that we can if for some reason we get no no other bidders in higher than them we could sell directly to them.

So councilmember we have not listed that property with a real estate agent yet so we could do a direct negotiated sale with ourselves is that kind of what you're no I'm saying still go ahead and list it with the list it with a realtor but call the question Mr options for to exclude that motion supersedes discussion.

Hold on just a second here so any other discussion regarding that mayor thank you questions been called I just want to make sure nobody was in line first we're going to go to a vote then uh on the original motion all those in favor please say aye aye all opposed mayor I'm mayor excuse me that's I'm I'm sorry mayor you when you when the question is called there needs to be a second there needs to be a vote on whether to to vote so first of all you have to vote on calling the question and then you go to the original there has been a question called Mr.

Kennedy seconded it should we uh we'll go to a vote on that please forgive my ignorance here all those in favor of the question being called please say aye aye all those opposed nay mr niece opposes will go to a vote now on the original motion all those in favor of the original motion please say aye aye all those opposed Ms.

Shaw Kidok before we get to item five a little bit of housekeeping it's been ninety-five minutes since our last break we could either take a break now or after item number five what would you guys prefer now we'll be back in ten minutes

Yeah, I'm not sure.

Oh, in eighteen units four hundred.

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.

We take your seats if our clerk Miss David oh Miss Bowman.

For annexation twenty six oh two and zone change ten seventy nine.

Resolution approving annexation twenty six oh two, a parcel of land generally located west of Shiloh Road and north of Hesper Road.

Staff recommends conditional approval.

Um the area is about 144 acres in size.

Um the zoning, they are intending to go from agricultural to a mixture of zones, uh, corridor mixed use two, uh, mixed neighborhood three, and x three, and P1 zoning.

Um before I continue on with my presentation, I would like to share with you that the applicant has requested a delay for this item, and staff supports this decision.

Uh the reasoning for the delay is at the time that this was placed on the agenda, uh, the applicant and staff did not have a mutually agreed to develop annexation agreement.

Um respecting the wishes of the council, we would not have been able to add all the items together at the same meeting.

Uh so with that respect, we would request that the item be moved to the next uh city council meeting on May 11th.

Um last I was informed as of last Friday, I believe, uh we did in fact uh reach a mutual uh agreement.

Um, and that's already been slated for the May 11th meeting.

So everything is gonna be at the next meeting uh if the delay is granted.

Thank you.

Um I believe we still need to have a public hearing regarding uh this item.

No, yes, yes, we do.

Ms.

Dahl.

Public hearing only on C or uh.

I'm sorry, Mayor and Council.

Um for you have the agenda open for now?

Yep.

I apologize.

Um, you need to file A and B, you need to open the public the joint public hearing.

There does not need to be a public hearing for C.

Council can simply vote to move that to delay that to the next meeting.

But you must open the joint public hearing for this object.

Thank you.

So we will have a public hearing for 5A and 5B.

I'm sorry, I'm confused.

If I may or may I ask a question?

Yes, Ms.

Shaw.

Okay.

My question is um if we just have a motion to remove this item in its entirety, we do we still need a public hearing?

Yeah, it's okay.

Strange.

The the way city code is written the procedure for zone changes, does not allow council to take any action until you open the public hearing.

That action includes delaying.

Got you.

Thank you.

So I'm gonna open a public hearing and ask for uh anybody to who wants to speak to this to come forward.

You'll have your three minutes.

Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing, Mr.

Aspenlin.

Um, Mr.

Mayor, I would move to move agenda item number five from this council agenda and place it on the bus the business agenda for May 11th.

Do we have a second for that?

Mr.

O'Donnell.

We've been moved.

That's not correct.

It has to be moved to to delay A and B and move item C to May 11th.

The most important mayor.

Is that correct?

The public hearing does not need to be kept open.

The notice will be uh published again.

The most important part is that essentially the council is um approving the request to delay the zone change.

All the other items can be moved without the issue of opening a public hearing.

So you've opened the public hearing for the zone change.

You can accept the request to delay it to the next to the May 11th meeting.

So um, I think that's what Mr.

Aspen Leiter requested.

He's moved.

We actually need to accept the delay.

It's different between just moving it.

We have to accept the delay and delay request.

Mr.

Aspenlighter.

I don't really care.

Well, whatever it needs to say to get it to the May 11th meeting.

Can we just do that?

So I think Mr.

Aspen Leiter is uh agreed to use the correct verbiage in his motion, and we have a second.

Is there any discussion regarding that?

Can we get the motion so the our parliamentarian to make sure um it's correct and we don't have to re-notice the uh the project?

Thank you, Mr.

Nees.

Mr.

Aspenlighter has uh made a motion to accept the delay, the request to delay to a later meeting.

That's my under understanding of the motion, yes.

Okay.

So are we good, Mr.

Nice?

All right.

Thank you.

Um any discussion regarding the motion.

Uh let's vote.

So uh all those in favor of the motion, please say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, please say no.

That motion carries unanimously.

Uh now item C, we can move.

We can accept a motion to.

I'm sorry, who was it that did the second of that motion?

Mr.

O'Donnell.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll move on to item 5C.

Um, and we could accept a motion to move that to May 11th.

Motion to move that to May 11th.

And we have a second from Mr.

Boyette.

Any discussion regarding the motion?

Seeing none, we'll call for a vote on that.

All those in favor of the motion, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, say no.

That passes unanimously.

Now we'll move on to item six.

Joint public hearing for uh annexation 2603 and zone change 1078, Barber Farm Subdivision.

Resolution approving annexation 2603, a parcel of land generally located north of Central Avenue, south of Broadwater Avenue and west of 44th Street West.

Staff recommends conditional approval.

And then item B is the resolution for zone change 1078.

Same uh legal description, and the zoning commission recommends approval and adoption of the 10 review criteria.

Thank you.

Uh, before you get started, uh Mr.

Aspen Leiter.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I'll be recusing myself for from participating in discussion and voting on agenda item six in its entirety.

Thank you, sir.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Uh this is a joint public hearing with annexation petition 26-03 and zone change 1078.

Um this is a planned neighborhood development zoning, um, which is a tool that we use to um for properties that are 10 acres or more when they're being annexed into the city.

Uh, it allows the city the ability to uh require a mix of the zoning districts um when incorporating into the city limits.

It also allows us to do a phased annexation, but adopt the full zoning plan in advance.

So the process, um, although it's a joint hearing, you will have to take action separately on the zone change and annexation.

Um, and as stated earlier in the meeting, it was a while ago.

So just to recap uh the zone change, um, we did receive a valid valid protest, so that requires a two-thirds vote um in order to approve the two-thirds vote of um the majority of the voting members in order to approve that.

And the third portion, of course, is the ward boundary.

Um, if annexed, this would be in ward four.

Yes, five, sorry.

Okay, so um upon approval, um, phase one of the annexation is highlighted in yellow.

Um, and then phase two is highlighted in the red, which is the northern portion of the property.

Uh when considering an annexation, uh, it must be in an appropriate appropriate zone of the limits of annexation map.

The city must be able to provide services.

Um public improvements must be up to city standards.

There are requirements of property owners that they have to sign um within the annexation agreement.

Uh we have to evaluate density and land use that it to ensure that it's consistent with the growth policy plan and map.

Uh this property is within zone one of the annexation petition area.

So here is your vicinity map.

And I'm trying to expedite my presentation so that um you can get to the next.

Our agent has quite a bit more information to provide for you.

Um just a little recap.

This was before city council at the end of 2025, and the applicant withdrew their application for the property to re-evaluate and try to accommodate some of the concerns with the neighboring subdivisions.

With that, a couple of the concerns would be mitigated within the annexation agreement.

They negotiated with public works to allow a pedestrian-only access to the northern subdivision clover leaf.

That would be restrictive, no vehicular access at this time.

That would happen in phase two of the annexation.

The second one that was implemented and requested by the applicant and their agent was to require planting of trees to the north and west property boundaries.

Quick overview of the existing zoning, agricultural, residential use is allowed now.

And then the proposed residential and two allows single and two family residential zones.

And three, currently under the zoning code allows single family with the legislative in place.

We can't restrict we cannot restrict them from putting in duplexes.

Current zoning is agricultural.

And then the proposed surrounding is rural residential one to the north and excuse me to the east.

To the west is N4 neighborhood residential, and then there is corridor mixed use and a mixed use to the south of Central Avenue.

The new zoning and district includes a corridor mixed use one along Central, which mirrors the south side with NX One buffering in between the CMU and the N2 and N3 zones.

Also requested by the neighboring properties.

It meets the goals of the growth policy with regard to strong neighborhoods, home base, and essential investments.

As I stated, the agent has a lot more detail about density that he's going to explain.

Just a couple photos of the property we had to post during the April blizzard we had.

So I referred back to my previous photos that are a little bit more descriptive here.

Very well.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Currently, it's zoned.

What is it zone now?

It's uh agricultural county, is that correct?

Currently, yes.

What could they put in there now under the county rules?

I just if you have this left it as the county.

Any idea?

Um, under the agricultural zone district.

Um, any agricultural they can do, I mean a feed lot, um, equestrian facilities, um anything to do with agricultural Mr.

Mayor, Mr.

Mayor and Council, my name's Taylor Kasperic.

I'm with Performance Engineering.

We're the agent for this application, both for the current owners of the property, which I'll refer to as the Barber Sisters, as well as Mr.

Kal Kunkel, who would be the developer of this project.

I'd like to say thank you to Karen as well.

And as duly noted from past presentations tonight that short and sweet was appreciated.

And so I'll try to not repeat items that Karen went through and uh hit the high notes as I'm going through.

So just going looking back at the history of this project, we were here back in November of 2025.

And at that meeting, both from the neighborhood as well as the the council at that time, there were concerns, concerns raised about particular aspects of the project.

Since that time, we've we've taken the opportunity to speak directly with representatives of each neighborhood, as well as re-evaluate what we're putting forth in this proposal.

As you can see, comparing the previous proposal on the right to what we're currently looking at tonight on the left, we've made some pretty sweeping changes, including changing up to 43% of the proposal from N2 to N3, which was a request from the neighbors, as well as removing the NX1, which allows up to four plexes from that northern portion along Broadwater.

That's in direct response to both the neighbors' requests as well as council at the time.

In addition to that, we've nearly doubled the amount of parkland and open space that we're calling for in this application, going from about two acres to just over four acres.

As Karen noted, we've we've made the offering to be good neighbors to provide additional trees and plant additional trees along that western boundary and the northern boundary.

And to codify that or show that we are actually intending to do that, have asked for that to be included within the annexation agreement.

Lastly, and I think very importantly, in particular to the residents of Clover Leaf Subdivision, we coordinated with city staff over this over the last few months to remove the vehicular connection from this development to the north through clover leaf on Bluegrass Drive West.

That's not being required.

If for whatever uh reason that was added in the future, that'll be solely directed by the city at the time that cloverleaf is either annexed or it's needed for other purposes.

Not to recap everything that that Karen went through, I would just like to know that 43% of our application is N3, which is the lowest density zone district you could possibly apply for within the city.

Forty-two percent of our application is N2, which is the second lowest density that anybody could apply for within the city of buildings.

So 85% of our application are the two lowest density zone districts that you could pop possibly apply for within the city.

Speaking of density, based on the amount of road roads that we are planning on within this development and the way the zoning code reads as far as a minimum lot frontage per foot of road, we anticipate that you could fit approximately 360 lots on this development.

Given the that a lot of those lots allow for duplexes as well as one to four plexus, the maximum allowable unit count for this development as proposed would be just shy of 800 units.

Yes, can you hear me better now?

Great.

With that being said, our proposed density is roughly half of that.

So we we're planning not being anywhere close to that maximum density, but about half of it, which is close to what we were anticipating previously.

To talk a little bit about what our plan project is, I think it's easiest to reference uh current projects that are ongoing.

The local developer, uh, Mr.

Kalkunkel, he's from Billings.

He's been developing in Billings for over 25 years, and with that has come experience as well as a repeated product that he knows what people are desiring and has modified that over time to continually make it better and better and better.

The most recent project that is currently under construction is called Big Island Townhomes, which is out off of King Avenue West and about 46th Street.

Looking at an aerial view of that development, which you can see up on the screen.

Mr.

Kunkel has started to prioritize open space for his residents, which are billings residents.

Um finding that they they desire the single level for lease product that plan to provide.

Now, how this now, how how our our proposal correlates to the growth policy, it considers three different scenarios.

Our proposal at about six units per acre falls directly in line with the low density and the medium density scenarios that the growth policy considers.

I'd be remiss if we didn't also look into the future as far as what Billings 2045 is also considering.

Our proposed density of roughly six units per acre is on the low end of that urban residential zone district, which is intentional from the standpoint that we're trying to blend higher density city developments to the south to the adjacent county neighborhoods to the north and west.

This is the example that um Karen had on there previously.

When when considering the county developments to the northwest and further down to the east, though those county densities are on the order of one to two units per acre.

What largely drives that lower density in county developments is the fact that they need to fit wells, septic systems, and other infrastructure that makes those lot lots larger than it would be within the city.

For a city development being served with water and sewer, that additional space for a well and a septic system is not needed, which allows for a higher density.

And I make that point from the standpoint that county development and density is not comparable to city density, but that says nothing to the fact of having a residential use next to a residential use is still a compatible scenario.

Now I may spend some time on this slide just because I think it is of utmost importance.

So looking back five years, the city has planned for this property to be served and annexed into the city as shown by multiple projects that it's undertaken and investment that has been made.

Back in 2023, the city completed the Monad Road sewer extension project, which was a three million dollar investment to extend sewer down along Monad Road that would eventually serve this property.

Additionally, in 2024, the city completed the Central Avenue water main extension, which was roughly a million dollars.

That was to pull water out Central Avenue to serve both this property and the property to the south.

These type of investments by the city would not provide a uh return on investment developing as a low density piece of property.

The only way for the city to actually realize a return on investment of those is for a density that we're we're proposing, which allows for the cost of service to be attributed over time.

Going into the concerns that we have heard from the neighbors, um, primarily density, traffic generation for purchase versus for lease, adjacent property values and park space.

I did, as a lot of you may know, I did provide a lot of this information ahead of time, and it's in your packet.

So I'll try to breeze through a lot of it, but if you have questions on any items, I'd be happy to answer them at the end.

As noted previously, our our density at about six units per acre is directly in line with both the current growth policy as well as the billings 2045 growth plan looking into the future.

I would also be remiss if I didn't note that this project will likely be built out over 10 to 12 years.

This isn't gonna be 300, 360 units coming online all at once.

As past projects have shown, this will likely be taken down in about 100 unit phases, which really gives both the city and the developer time to fill up those units, as well as plan for future improvements that may be necessary and really realize what that traffic generation looks like.

I'll note again 85% of this proposal is N2 and N3, which are the two lowest dense zone options available in the city of Billings.

In regards to traffic concerns, it's fitting that the Yellowstone County is currently investing $1 million in improving 48th and Central Avenue.

They're installing traffic signals, turn lanes at that intersection, which will make an immediate and noted impact on the traffic along Central Avenue.

Additionally, we've conducted a traffic impact study for this development to see what the additional trips that are generated from this development, how that would impact the adjacent road network.

Coming out of that traffic impact study, it was identified that we would need eastbound left turn lanes and westbound right turn lanes to get into this project.

Additionally, it's identified intersections that would be contributed to financially so that the city and or county can utilize those funds to improve those intersections at the time that the impacts felt or down the road when further development, not just this development, necessitates the improvement of those intersections.

As was noted previously, the connection through to Clover Leaf Subdivision at Blue Grass Blue Grass Drive West has been removed from this application after further coordination with staff.

This project will be built out over 10 to 12 years, meaning that the potential impact of this project will be seen over time, not all, not all at once.

And lastly, as you can see on the map there, Broadwater Avenue is planned to connect over to Shiloh Road in the future.

It's currently half dedicated from the Yagan property to the north.

And Billings Clinic owns the property to the south, and it's already annexed into the city.

So it's a matter of time between one of those or both of those properties develop, and Broadwater Avenue is connected over to Shiloh, providing another east-west collector from 48th Street to Shiloh Road.

There's a lot of concern regarding four purchase versus four lease.

Frankly, it's not a consideration of the city, nor should it be.

Both both land development types and both housing options are completely necessary within the city of buildings.

30 to 40% of all housing is leased.

And so there's a vast majority or vast proportion of our community that needs four lease options when considering housing.

This is directly related and confirmed within the existing growth policy, which I'm not going to read them verbatim, but calls for smaller single unit affordable rental units, which is exactly what this project would be.

As it relates to concern regarding adjacent property values, it's understood that that would be a concern for the established neighborhoods to the north and west.

With that being said, both at the national level and at the local level, there's been no evidence or studies that have found that multifamily developments, four-lease developments reduce the property values of those homes that are adjacent to them.

At the national level, institutions like Harvard, UCLA, Shelter Force, they all look into this at a very high level because it's a common concern.

And none of none of those studies find that there's any evidence that that is actually the reality.

Looking more local, I think you can look at two new new developments, including both Anafeld and Ridgeland subdivision, which have both four-sale and four-lease properties.

If developers knew and if it was true that four lease properties diminish the property value of their four-sale product, they would be cannibalizing their own developments and they wouldn't do it.

A more established local example would be Forest Park, which is a very highly desirable neighborhood within the city, directly across the street on 24, directly across 24th Street.

There's 12 plexes, Billings Housing Authority apartments, roughly 114 units at a density of about 14 units per acre.

Forest Park is still one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the city, and the home prices reflect that, even with multifamily four lease property across the street.

They're west of Zimmerman, north of Grand Avenue.

Within the last five years, just shy of 800 rental units have been built within that area.

There's a very well-established neighborhood north of that on Colton Avenue.

And in looking at 24 homes that have sold over the last eight years, 23 of those homes appreciated at an average rate of 8.7%.

If it was true that multifamily residential developments decrease property values, it would be seen in that example.

And it truly just was not.

The patio town homes we're proposing are consistent with the states, cities, and growth policies, housing initiatives, which I think if you refer back to a previous item on tonight's agenda, are in desperate need within the city.

We're talking about providing affordable housing options or attainable housing options, is probably the more appropriate term.

And this would provide exactly that.

Lastly, I'd request city council to accept the recommendations of the planning staff and the zoning commission and approve the application.

I'd be happy to answer any questions, and I'd also like to note that the developer is in the crowd this evening and would like to say a few words after I'm done as well.

Before we get started on that, um, should we hear from the developer?

Would you like to hear that?

Okay, why should we give him up?

Thank you.

Everybody okay?

Okay, yeah.

Yes, we can.

Thank you.

So, real quick, um, I'm uh the neighborhood that I want to build.

The the people who are gonna live there.

Could you give us your name?

I'm sorry we didn't get that right.

My name's Cal Kunkel.

I'm a uh my address is 2729 Aspen Way, and I'm here tonight with my wife, Mandy.

And um, so this neighborhood doesn't have a voice right now, right?

It's just me.

And um, there will be in say 10 years, like 600 voices.

So if we all get three minutes, I'll only be here for like 30 hours.

So, anyhow, one thing about affordable housing.

Um, you know, the pro the neighborhood that I build is a market rate, uh market rate um properties.

Uh so when I say affordable, I mean just like a good deal and a good price and a good value.

I don't mean it's government subs subsidized, nothing wrong with that, but I just want to make sure because it affordable means a lot of different things nowadays.

This should be like maybe three minutes, okay, not too long.

Um, hello, Mayor Nelson and the members of the city council.

I'm Cal Kunkel.

I'm one of the owner members of this proposed neighborhood.

I'm a Billings native, born and raised.

My wife Mandy is here with me.

First, let me say, I think this is important.

I think when this is all said and done tonight, I think it's important for us all to um I say let's live and let live.

I think that's important.

Let's build something, let's create something, let's dream and be inspired.

Let me talk.

Let me talk about happy homes.

Happy homes is about building and creating a neighborhood for billing citizens to enjoy a happy and bright future.

A nice home is a comfort and a luxury.

A home where you can dream, be inspired, and live your best life.

I love our customers, and I'm happy and proud to build the homes for them to enjoy.

We have built over new uh over 20 new development properties and billings over the past 25 years from the ground up.

And we have built over 23 new properties in Helena, Rapid City, South Dakota, Cheyenne, Wyoming, Rexburg, Idaho Falls, Pocatello, and Twin Falls, Idaho.

We build a niche housing type.

It's a single-level patio home, a single level home with an attached garage.

Nobody lives above you.

Park your car and truck in the garage, no stairs for people with bad knees like me.

Front yards and backyards with patios, long driveways for big trucks.

Our homes are ever evolving.

Now building mainly duplexes rather than uh buildings with more units, right?

Just two homes per building.

The yards have more elbow room and lots of trees.

I really want a lot of trees.

Shorter streets create less drive-by traffic.

On the barber farm land, we are gonna create and build a special neighborhood.

We want a coffee shop, bakery, breakfast lunch cafe, and hopefully a neighborhood fitness center.

This will be a great benefit for all the nearby neighborhoods, and we'll create businesses, jobs, and we'll contribute to the local economy.

The plan is to build three phases over the next nine to twelve years.

Homes will be ready in about two years to live in.

The plan shows 360 homes, but and that's homes, not duplexes, 360 homes, but could end up around 300.

So to change the subject, I want to talk about the quality of life in billings as a top priority for people and our leaders.

Cost of living is a big determining factor when discussing quality of life.

Cost of housing, number one expense for most people are rising and expensive housing costs.

How do we make housing more affordable?

The solution, there's really one main solution.

By far the best way to neutralize and lower housing costs is to build more housing.

Any and every type helps.

That's around 40,000 people.

They pay property taxes and in turn city taxes equally as homeowners do.

These folks have earned the right to live in good, safe neighborhoods and live in nice and new homes.

This is an in-fill project.

Utilities are right there.

The sewer and water is right there.

It's just sitting there.

I think Taylor said the city has paid $3 million to get these utilities here.

This neighborhood will create property taxes of over $800,000 a year.

We have built at least three properties and billings, and at least one in Twin Falls.

That after the properties were built and finished, home builders built homes right next to us.

Why would home builders build next to us if homes, if their homes would be devalued by our property?

The truth is these homes and properties have never devalued anybody's home.

And I should know better than anybody.

I've built 43 of these projects.

And it simply is not true.

We are here to build affordable homes for lease at a great value to our customers.

I believe those units right there, that one bedroom, one bath there is gonna be leased for 1299 a month, which is great work for housing, retired people, great prices.

Uh we really bring a good value to these folks.

Proven and time tested by far, without a doubt, approving and voting yes for this zoning and annexation helps billings lower the cost of housing, lower the cost of living, and help increase the quality of life for all of billing citizens.

Respectfully and humbly, Mayor Nelson and all the members of the city council.

Please vote yes for this project.

It's gonna be a special neighborhood.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, questions for our presenters, Mr.

Boyet.

Thank you, Mayor, for gentlemen from performance engineering.

I would assume that most people would use central coming out of this development.

The central is just an old country road.

Is there what's the plans to make that a better road?

Because it's I mean, I've been on a lot and it's ugly right now.

What can you help me?

Yeah, yeah.

And thank you for the question, Councilmember Member Boyette.

Uh Mr.

Mayor and Council.

So Central Avenue, um, and talking with city engineering staff, they're going to be evaluating that as far as where it prioritizes on the capital improvements plan coming up here, as well as how it would align within the transportation improvement plan or the uh TIP that you actually voted on earlier tonight.

Um the reality is is that it's developments like this that drive those projects higher up the CIP plan, higher up the TIP plan.

Um obviously we'll be making our own uh improvements to Central Avenue, including the turn lanes that was discussed, uh, to really help out with the traffic that we will be generating.

Now that does nothing for county development out further west of town that would be using utilizing central to come into town in the morning, going back out in the county in the evening, but it will mitigate the traffic that's generated from this development.

Without projects like this, I don't think Central would get prioritized highly on the city's capital improvements plan.

Um to answer your question, that that is how Central Avenue from Shiloh Road to 48th Street would get built out fully is through the city's capital improvements plan.

Anyone else, Mr.

Nees?

Thank you, Mayor.

Tyler, the um I understand I mean this is all built around with county property, and so there's really not much you can do as far as connectivity.

But it does look like you have either pocket parks or is that what you're doing see these little green lines?

It's kind of hard to see without the are you putting these little pocket parts between some of the properties there?

Correct.

Yeah, the the pocket parts like I uh alluded to in my presentation.

I mean, those those are sized and space to allow for you know gathering areas, whether that be picnic tables, grilling stations, whatever it may be for the community, the larger the larger part parts spread throughout the middle of the development is where kind of the amenities such as like a pickleball court, basketball court would be incorporated.

So it's kind of tough in a development like this to actually have good connectivity to your neighbors and through streets and stuff like that.

And then you mentioned the fact that it's not gonna go north, you're gonna put a pedestrian, and that's you said phase two, or is that phase three?

Because I'm I'm confused if it's two phases or three phases.

Yeah, so the annexation, and just to clarify that point, I appreciate the the question.

The annexation is set up to be annexed in two phases.

Um ideally the city doesn't like to phase annexation to begin with, but in particular if you start talking three phases of annexation, it gets to be pretty muddy.

Um, so we do have two phases of annexation proposed with this, but the reality is that it's probably gonna be built out in three phases.

So the so the third phase would come uh that would be the furthest north, and that's where the pedestrian connection to the north via Bluegrass Drive would occur.

And that'll be built at the end of phase three, probably.

Correct.

Okay, so even though you haven't actually built out the north end, it's gonna be it'll be annexed into the city pain city taxes even before you start building on it.

Correct.

Um, and I wish we had a slide to show what you you did kind of did show that that prior that we saw last year versus this year.

And I want I really want to compliment you on this because this is the type of transition that I really like to see because you got county property, which we don't have comparable zoning for them.

All we have is N3, and you surrounded your property with N3, which is great, and then you transition into the higher density, which means you have to take the hit if there's any kind of immediate loss in that type of value.

So I appreciate you really working on this and coming up with a really good transition.

I did not like the transition last time, and uh this is this is uh I think you guys have done a really good job in transitioning.

Thank you, Councilman.

Thank you, Mr.

Kennedy, then Ms.

Aguri.

I have a couple of questions.

One is you've talked about two phases building, but actually three.

Can you kind of um tell me how many years through phase one, phase two, and then phase three?

Yeah, yeah.

So uh essentially, like you said, or council member Kennedy apologies.

Um this project is intended to be built out in three phases.

So each phase would be approximately about a hundred units.

We would start from south and work our way north.

Um I can see where the confusion is as far as the annexation being proposed in two phases.

Sure.

But it might be annexed in two phases, but it's gonna be built out in three.

Having three phases of annexation would be pretty messy, both from a tracking standpoint.

Um, and so even though it will be annexed in two phases, it can be built out in three, and that's what we would intend to do.

And your um your build out is over 12 years.

Yeah, roughly roughly nine to twelve years.

Um obviously that would be market-driven.

Um, but based on the assumption that it's probably gonna take about two years to get those those first units constructed in the market, and then building another phase every three years, you're looking at about nine years at the minimum, which is what we'd be looking at.

So one of the areas in we had we had talked about this.

I appreciate um we're not connecting into Clover Leaf.

Um Broadwater Avenue that will um connect to 44th out to 48th, and then over the Shiloh in the long run.

When do you plan on Broadwater Avenue being built?

Yeah, and that council member Kennedy, that that's a tough question to answer just because it's largely largely give me kind of an approximate.

Yeah, it may be constructed within that twelve 10 to 12 year time frame.

Um Yeagan zone the land to the north of Broadwater Avenue, and Billings Clinic owns the land to the south, and so it would largely be development driven based on those properties, similar to how we'll be constructing Broadwater from the northeast corner of Sundance subdivision to our eastern line, either of those properties developing would construct broadwater along their frontage.

Okay, along the the top area, um the southern or the northern most um area of this, it's N3 with single or duplex buildings.

Correct.

Is that what you're planning?

Correct.

Okay.

Looking at that, your denser area is to the south.

Correct.

Yeah, NX1, which would be the highest residential use that we're proposing, is in between the CMU zoning, which is commercial down along Central, stepping up to NX1, which is the higher density residential, allowing one to four units per building as kind of a buffer between that commercial use and into our N2 and N3 zone districts.

So we're probably not going to see any traffic or anything near the northern edge of this property for at least six years and then 10 to 12 before Broadwater ever gets built.

Yeah, I would say probably the 10 to 12 year time frame of when you'd see traffic uh along the northern portion of the development.

Okay.

Mr.

Mayor, I have one last question.

Go ahead, Mr.

Kennedy.

Turn lanes on Central Avenue.

How do you plan on doing the turn lanes in and out of this property?

Um, because central is narrow there.

Are you widening central between the property there and then doing ingress and egress in and out of this subdivision?

Correct.

Yeah.

So we would by adding the turn lanes, it would essentially be widening Central Avenue, at least for the extents of those turn lanes.

Typically, you're gonna need a taper, you know, coming into that turn lane as well as coming out of it.

So it's probably a pretty good stretch of Central Avenue that would be widened while we're incorporating those turn lanes.

The development directly to the south, Clearwater and 44 West, they also need to install turn lanes.

So I'm sure there will be some coordination between our project and their project as far as constructing those turn lanes.

So there's not construction after construction after construction along Central Avenue.

Okay.

Thank you.

Still you good?

All right, Mr.

O'Donnell.

Thank you.

Um so I've I've listened uh carefully to your uh talks, uh your comments about uh traffic, uh which is my chief concern also.

Uh it seems to me that not just your development, but all developments west of town, there should be a moratorium until the R tier arteries get widened.

Uh right now uh there is way too much traffic on uh central and on Grand.

When you get to where it's just two lanes, no shoulder at all on the whole thing.

Uh I I just don't see how you can widen that unless you own property on the other side of the road.

Do you do you own all on the other on the south side of Central?

So we do not own it, no, but 44 West and Clearwater subdivisions, they dedicated that right away as part of their plating, and we would be doing the same thing as part of this subdivision.

So it would be a full 120 foot wide right of way.

Who's building it?

It would be the developers.

What why or at the time?

When when would it be done?

Uh with this development, it would be in the first phase.

Okay.

Uh so what I'm looking at is in terms of the bigger picture, is that there's development to the west, there's Shiloh, and I live like four blocks from uh the uh development right off of uh uh Shiloh and Central.

So um there's two lanes, it would widen and then go back into two lanes.

It would still be a bottleneck uh to me.

It seems to me that that all development in the area until uh Central Avenue in particular is widened uh all the way uh is absolutely inappropriate.

I I don't have a ton of comment for that other than that the traffic impact study that we've conducted for this project in the case that by incorporating the turn lanes, the traffic from this development will be mitigated.

So Ms.

Mayor, let me just comment except for you widened it in those turn lanes, but before and after, it would still be two lanes, it would still be a bottleneck in that area.

Thank you.

Any other questions for our presenters?

Mr.

Nece.

Yeah, I may have a question for Karen.

Karen, I'm just trying to understand the traffic that's west of there in the developments that are west of there.

Is it is that is there any city developments farther west of where Barbara is planning to build on this particular one on Central?

I do not believe so at this time.

So all the traffic to the west is actually count, probably county traffic and county developments, and the county, do they require them to build out the roads when they put their subdivisions in?

No, they do not.

Okay.

And so the only way these roads are probably gonna be built is if we get people annexing into the city and building roads during that development.

So that's the only okay.

That's the only time we're gonna do that.

So if we don't approve this, this road will never get developed.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions for our presenters?

Thank you to the three of you.

All right, we will move to a public hearing for 6A and 6B, the resolution approving annexation and the resolution for zone change 1078.

Um I understand we're gonna have a number of people, so like before, please prepare yourselves, stand in line, tell us your name, where you live.

Um we'd be interested to know if you're city or county resident.

Um, and just one other thing.

If uh if y'all have pretty much the same thing to say, we'd love to hear it, but maybe an abbreviated fashion say is I I agree with the last presenter.

Um, I don't mean to abridge your free speech rights, but uh I just like to make that comment.

So go ahead, start with you.

Um thank you for allowing us to talk.

My name is Susan Sullivan.

I'm in the county.

I live at 810 Bluegrass Place.

I'm in Clover Leaf Meadows subdivision.

I've been there for 33 years.

I sent um all of you a letter the other um yesterday about my concerns, and I'll abbreviate those concerns.

Because today more information was presented that this new subdivision would produce $800,000 a year of property taxes.

There's a belief out there that our home values are not affected.

So here's the real facts.

You have to believe the for sale prices.

Another neighbor just dropped their home a hundred thousand dollars.

My letter that I gave to you has very high numbers in there about what happens when 500 homes are affected.

Okay, but I'm just going to take it down to 49 homes in cloverleaf.

So if 49 homes have a reduced property value of 50,000, and it's it's happening.

That amount is $2,450,000 a year.

The Barber Farms, they said was going to bring in $800,000.

It doesn't pencil out.

Council members, it doesn't pencil out.

I'm so happy to pay that.

I love where I live.

You have the obligation to protect the integrity of the neighborhoods.

You have the obligation to listen to the citizens, not just the business developers.

I implore you to look at the real numbers.

And those real numbers I just presented to you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor and Council members.

My name is Daniel Turner.

I live at 618 Hollowell Lane.

I am a manager with Happy Homes, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak here tonight.

I bring 13 years of experience in property management, including nearly 10 years with Happy Homes.

And I'm here to provide some clarity on the proposed neighborhood development and address some concerns.

There seems to be a misconception of who our customers are.

Our neighborhoods are designed to provide quality housing for a wide range of residents from young professionals to retirees looking to downsize.

We are intentional about who we bring into our neighborhoods and maintain a strict criteria process, including a minimum credit score with average credit scores of 723 at one property and 689 at another.

Our residents are financially stable and make meaningful contributions to local economies across several of our current properties.

The average household incomes range from approximately 5,300 to 5,800 per month.

The average age ranges within three of our neighborhoods are 39, 41, and 42, reflecting a mature and responsible resident base.

In terms of who live in our neighborhoods, these are individuals who serve and support this city every day.

They include city billing, the city of Billings police officers, Yellowstone County Sheriff Deputies, therapists, physicians, chiropractors, nurses, retirees, and more.

These residents take pride in where they live.

They care for their homes responsibly and value maintaining a clean, well-kept environment.

They are also individuals who prefer quiet, stable life diet styles, which contributes to a respectful and low-impact neighborhood atmosphere.

There have been concerns raised about the possibility of increased crime.

The truth is we have many police officers, public safety members, and healthcare professionals who live in our properties.

Our neighborhoods foster stability, pride of residence, and neighborhood engagement factors that naturally support safety and reduce issues over time.

These are the very people helping keep our neighborhoods safe.

We've also heard concerns about overcrowding in schools due to an influx of families.

While we absolutely welcome families, the majority of these proposed homes, approximately 60%, are one bedroom, one bath, single-level duplexes.

These units are not typically suited for larger households, making significant increase in school enrollment unlikely.

Beyond addressing concerns, this development brings a clear and measurable benefit.

It will support local businesses by increasing consistent year-round customer traffic, not just occasional or seasonal demand and contribute to the overall economic vitality of the area.

More residents nearby means stronger support for small businesses, restaurants, and service providers helping them grow and remain stable.

At the end of the day, these are hardworking individuals who deserve access to quality housing throughout our city.

They pay property taxes, contribute to the economy, and are a part of what makes this community strong.

Thank you.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Liz Schwartz.

I live at 4115 Cocoa Beach Way, which is one of the patio homes at the Sapphire subdivision.

And I'm here tonight to advocate for the development of this new community.

And I just want to share our personal perspective as one of the renters and why I'm grateful for communities like this.

But in my case, um, I've spent the last two decades teaching middle school and coaching speech and debate in the county.

And I am born and raised in Billings, and I'm proud to be able to continue living here.

I didn't always rent.

I was a homeowner for many years.

But after a house fire and a divorce and looking at today's housing prices and interest rates, homeownership is just not something I can make work right now.

So renting has allowed me to stay in the community where I teach.

And instead of having to move farther away, it allows me affordable living so that I can continue to save money.

And maybe Sunday I can be worried about selling my house for 100,000 less than I want.

Second, I just like to share my experience for living in the Sapphire apartment community, made up of patio homes very similar to those that are proposed for this development.

This community is made up of people like me, young professionals, healthcare workers, retirees, and we just want a safe place to come at the end of the day.

And maybe just a little peace and quiet after teaching middle school all day.

The reality is that not everyone can own a home at every stage in life.

And developments like this make sure that people who work here can afford to live here.

Creating more affordable housing keeps rental prices in check and allows our community to have hard workers, nurses, employees, and teachers like me to enrich our city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor and city council.

My name is Carmen Kyle, 4627 Sunburst Lane.

I'm in Sundance Ridge subdivision.

And I just kind of want to voice a few things.

I just feel a little bit like maybe the cart gets put in front of the horse sometimes.

I have looked at the CIP, I've looked at the TIP.

I know these things can be changed, but there is nothing in there for Central.

There is currently nothing in the five-year plan for 48.

That is something that has me a little bit concerned because there's a lot of projects to juggle.

And it would be really nice for the community to know that we're trying to do something to rectify some of the traffic situations.

And so I do think that's quite important, and I'm glad it has been mentioned.

But also, I just wanted to thank you for your service.

I actually downloaded your agenda packet, the whole 824 pages.

And I will be very honest.

That was very daunting.

So I respect what you're doing here today.

But in that process, I found out that the information relating to Barber Farm subdivision was on page 491.

And I kind of went through a little bit of that because I wanted to look at it and understand it a little better.

One of the things that I noticed was that they did reference schools.

And they did reference the overenrollment, specifically with Metalarc.

Uh, 644 enrolled students, 460 is the capacity.

Um they also mentioned the high school.

They've got an enrollment of 2176, a capacity of 1731.

Um that seems like something that we need to address right up front and come up with a plan.

Uh the other thing that kind of caught my eyes was the fire department resources.

There was a mention in there that due to all the development that maybe they need to look at the fire department resources.

And I do think that's something that should be considered at some point.

Police was another thing that was mentioned.

And it said that the safety levy was passed, which gave them more money to work with, more financial money to work with.

However, they also said with all these development, that there's gonna have to be more money to come in order to be able to police the area appropriately.

There's other examples as well.

Um, if you read through all the details.

The other thing I noticed was on page 492, it says subdivision improvement agreement of Central Avenue subdivision.

This proposed subdivision will be heard at a future meeting.

What is Central Avenue subdivision?

What's going to be proposed at a future meeting?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Can you hear me?

Uh my name is Janelle.

I'm a resident of Sundance Subdivision, which is adjacent to the Barber Farms 1078 zoning request change and annexation to the city.

Once again, I stand before you to express my opposition of this proposed higher density housing development of happy homes, which will include a minimum of 360 duplex housing units.

From the beginning of the process, we have been thwarted in our uh expressions of not wanting the development added to our area.

Adequate time was denied to protest due to misinformation from the city office.

We should have been given that time from the start, which was in 2025.

In the April 17th zoning meeting, it was stated a mistake was made and given till we were given till April 24th to do the protesting paperwork.

A 152 feet area from the property line of the barber farms is not an accurate protest area.

This affects the whole neighborhood of Sundance Subdivision as well as Clover Leaf Subdivision.

Happy Homes is not compatible with the character of the surrounding residential subdivisions.

We do not uh have significant, we do have significant concerns on Central Avenue traffic.

The 44th Street Web Subdivision will further strain, put further strain on Central Avenue with the aesthetics and the layout concerns relating to this proposed project.

There are no single family homes being placed in this proposal.

Why is that uh this many rentals will lower our home prices and increase crime with concerns about the long-term neighborhood stability?

A study from Harvard was introduced into the April 7th uh zoning meeting as well as tonight, uh stating there is no facts showing lower home prices or increased crime.

However, this study was not conducted in Billings, Montana or recently for that matter.

So that study is mute and outdated.

Once again, I do object to the annexation and the zone changes.

This area needs to stay in the county.

The Barber Found Farm family knows the benefit of the county as they have requested that they not be included in the annexation.

They want to stay in the county.

Thank you for your time.

Good evening, mayor and members of the city council.

My name is Mike Breshwine.

My address is 1210 Blackberry Way.

I live in the city, and I'm the real estate broker representing the Barber Sisters.

I would like to take a moment to speak on behalf of my clients and to offer you their perspective.

The Barber family is farmed, excuse me.

The Barber family has farmed this land for over 80 years.

It's a three-generation farm.

This isn't just a piece of property to them.

It's their family's legacy and their livelihood.

And for decades, they've watched this part of buildings grow up and change around them.

Neighborhood after neighborhood has developed on all sides of their farm.

And through all of it, not once have the barbers raised any protest.

They've never shown up to a city council meeting to protest in a neighboring development.

They've been patient, gracious neighbors, and have respected the rights of the developers and neighboring property owners around them.

And now their farm has become an island amongst the surrounding neighborhoods and developments.

And farming the land that's now surrounded on all sides by neighborhoods isn't easy.

Moving large equipment in and out of the property while remaining mindful of the safety and well-being of the neighboring residents has become increasingly difficult.

So after 80 years, three generations of hard work on this land, it's their turn.

It's their turn to exercise their right to sell their property and to move forward.

The buyer of the barbers have chosen has a proven track record of success right here in Billings.

He's built over 20 developments in this community that catered to both younger working residents and to retired individuals looking for an affordable quality place to call home.

And with each of those developments, similar concerns have been raised.

Concerns that, to my knowledge, have never come to fruition.

We believe the proposed single-level patio home community fits well with the other development going up in the area.

And at this point, we genuinely believe that the developer has taken his time and done everything he possibly could do to address the concerns of the surrounding neighbors.

He's adjusted the zoning, added the landscaping buffers, increased the number of parks through basketball and pickleball courts, as well as addressed a number of other concerns.

This revised application incorporates all of the requests provided by the surrounding surrounding neighbors and presents a development that fits squarely within the growth plan laid out by the city of Billings.

We respectfully ask the city council to recognize the good faith demonstrated on all sides and vote in favor of the barber farm development tonight.

Thank you for your time and for all you do for this community.

Thank you.

Hello, mayor, city council members.

I'm Derek Bartell, the business manager for Happy Homes Apartments.

Just want to touch base a little bit on what Taylor was talking about with the traffic, the six items he had there.

You know, just a quick reminder there was a traffic study conducted.

And you know, one of the staff members of the I think the planning committee uh community services said the project will have minimal impact on the area of traffic operations.

Um as mentioned before, there's currently a fully operational traffic light being constructed as well on 48th and Central.

So there is development occurring on Central as we speak, it just takes time.

Um within the traffic study, it was recommended that our project provide turn lanes on the east and west, like we've reiterated.

Uh, we agreed, and this recommendation recommendation does help mitigate traffic flow disruptions.

Uh so they so uh the billings residents or county can continue their route as as pleased.

Um, our again, our engineers have worked tirelessly with the city of Billings on eliminating the south connection into cloverleaf community so that there would be no traffic concerns there.

Uh we listened and heard the concerns and we got that accomplished.

Um, our felt our development also does not affect Grand Avenue and has zero impact on that north side of Clover Leaf.

So I know that was a discussion.

Um I do want to stress, and again, uh Taylor did a good job.

This is a 10 to 12 year project.

Uh, so it's not like 360 units are just gonna be dumped in two to four years.

This will be spanned out within that time span.

Um in the future of Broadwater will be built out.

I don't know the logistics or when that will happen, you know, 10 to 12 years, but that'll help eliminate any traffic concerns and flow as well.

So I just wanted to reiterate that.

Um, and thanks for your time.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Hello, or mayor.

Hello, mayor and council.

My name is Dean Kyle.

I live in the Mr.

Kyle, just move that microphone a little closer to your mouth there.

Start over.

Mayor and council, can you hear me now?

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Uh, I live at 4627 Sunburst Lane.

Uh I oppose the Barber Farm Zone Change Request 1078.

It does not meet the 10th statutory review criteria that is and it is inconsistent with the subdivisions bordering this property.

The Billings 2045 community survey had 1,129 total respondents with 737 people saying they wanted to see more single family detached homes.

We at Sundance Sun Division uh circulated our own community-wide protest petition over the week of April 19th, 2026.

And I have a copy of this for each of you.

I'd like to give you.

98 people opposed the change, and only two people supported that change, and they were somehow job attached.

So what this information tells me is that the people in this community don't want duplexes, they want single family homes to build a real future.

Also, the Yellowstone County Capital Improvement Plan tipped, and the city transportation improvement uh program, CHIP program, have no real road improvement plans for Central and 48th Street West for the next five years.

The surrounding schools are at or have surpassed capacity.

According to the city uh billings website, Meadowlark Elementary School has currently enrolled 644 students at a capacity of at 460.

Ben Steel is currently at 738.

Uh, and their capacity is 750.

West High is currently at 2176, and uh their capacity is 1731.

Some of this is a little bit repeat.

Uh the building's fire department currently serves this area, and they will need additional resources to maintain the high level of services due to the increased call for uh for volume and the burden that these annexations create.

This project is better suited for inside the existing billing city limits to infill vacant land with established infrastructure and not take away valuable single-family home sites that people really want.

I approve these.

Uh if approval of these high-density rentals uh uh is approved, uh they're not gonna help the committee.

They're gonna make a due hardship on traffic, schools, property values, facilitate crime.

So I just ask that you will vote note on the 1078.

Thank you, Mr.

Kyle.

I would like to give these two if I could have a copy for the question.

Just hand them to uh Ms.

Dahl over there or Mr.

Kokowski.

I almost called you Miss Davis again.

I'm sorry, Gina.

Hello, council.

My name is Tony Gaffkey.

I reside at 4602 Leahona Lane.

I've expressed my concern last fall in the city or in the county zoning and in to this council for the city.

So I won't be redundant in what I'm gonna say.

Um I would uh just make a few comments and then hopefully I can get some clarification from the developer.

Uh and uh I live at again 4602 Leahona Lane.

I am directly west of that, and I understand that there's a ditch right, and again, I'd stand corrected on any of this.

Um, that there's a ditch going north to south and a ditch right there, and then there's an 18-foot easement.

Uh, I believe it's an ingress into our properties that border that north to south or that um barber farms and our Sundance subdivision.

My comment hybrid question is as a landowner there, I would like to at some point uh build uh a permanent shed or um building there.

I've checked with the city and I've checked with the county.

Very conclusive that I understand that a building there is not um advisable if it's a permanent building.

My question and or comments on this are everybody that borders that uh has an 18-foot easement, that's very large easement.

And I understand ditch rights, I understand water rights, I understand anybody downstream has to have those ditch rights.

The concern that I'd have is that um if this um subdivision should go through, I'd like to see if the developer might consider an abandonment of that ditch and possibly a modification of that uh 18-foot easement.

It's very large.

18 feet is a lot of ingress into our properties, and all those homes again to the uh east of this have that, if I understand my CCRs correctly.

Covenant's conditions restrictions.

So I would like to um again, there's my comments.

I'd like to see if I could formulate that question towards the developer to see uh if they know that that ditch would be abandoned and um those that ditch right would be abandoned, and that that easement could possibly be modified to something smaller.

Understand it might be five feet, might be nine feet.

I would ultimately like to build something there permanent to the uh east of my property.

So thank you for your time.

Hi.

Oh, can you hear me?

Okay.

Hi, my name is Chelsea Thompson.

I live at 531 Candelight Lane.

Um my property will back up to Barber Farms.

Um, we're at the northern end of it, um, kind of about five or six houses off of Broadwater.

Um I'm gonna start from the beginning.

Um my husband and I have been homeowners in Yellowstone County for since 2008.

Um, we our second home was at um uh 3108 Country Club Circle.

If any of you know where that's at, um we unexpectedly had a 12-man um unsupervised sober living house move in next door to us.

Um if you want to know my true opinion on that, it's not good.

So um everyone told me if I didn't want to live next to that, then I should move out of city limits.

So my husband and I worked really, really hard for years to build a home outside of city limits.

Um we do that now just to have a high density area property move in right behind us, and it's frustrating because we worked really, really hard to get a property that we thought we'd be surrounded by the same properties, single family homes.

Um honestly, I would rather live next to a feedlot than this.

So that is my comment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are you in line, sir?

Oh, hi.

I apologize for that.

Would you like to go?

Just quick.

My name's Mike Burvey.

I live at 378 Light Stream Lane in Sundance.

Uh, I'm a neighbor to it.

I support this.

Uh reason for that is the time it's been on the market.

I personally don't see this going single family.

I'd rather not see higher densities than what it's at.

I like the height that is currently requested for zoning uh versus something else that might go taller, even if it's at the core of the property going higher, uh, affecting things.

I also support growth in billings uh because I understand that's what it's going to take to get these roads improved.

Um yes, my kids go to Metal Arc.

It is crowded.

That's some things that I think the city and the community as a whole, everybody can get involved with, not just tonight at one council meeting.

Um I've also been in these subject developments.

I feel safe.

I'd be comfortable letting my kids run around on the sidewalks, play, they're quiet.

There's not a lot going on.

And so that those are the reasons that I support this uh project.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

I sent an email yesterday to all of you.

I don't know if you got it and had a chance to read it or not.

But uh so excuse me, sir.

Could could you introduce yourself?

Sir.

Could you introduce yourself?

Tell us who you are.

What'd you say?

Could you please tell us who you are?

Oh, excuse me.

Roger Aldinger.

Uh I live at 4610 South Woodhaven Way, Aldinger Acres, which is right uh um contiguous to this property.

Excuse me.

I am not in favor of this, and I'm encouraging you to vote no because uh there are for several reasons.

Um first of all, I I cannot I cannot begin to believe how it could be called compatible with the surrounding area and the adjoining areas, the contigu, the adjacent and contiguous areas.

All you gotta do is drive out there and sit, you don't even have to drive into the subdivisions.

It's it's so obvious.

The only thing that's a little bit um compatible would be what McCall is doing right now across across on the other side of Central.

And uh, even that's not not really what we're talking about here.

Um, all these homes that are contiguous or adjacent, five different subdivisions, right lined up one after another.

They're all custom built single family homes.

I'm not against duplexes.

I own some in the city of Billings, but they're not stacked one one one one or on top of each other.

They're they're in in the they're um well, anyway.

The other thing is I don't believe it's good that there's a sufficient parks and trails because uh uh there is a private one in in Cloverleaf with around Cloverleaf that was done when I did our subdivision along with that one, and that gets a lot of use from people who don't live there.