We're in the Tom Baker room of the City County Building.

This will be the Board of City Commissioners meeting.

But before we start, if we can have Chaplin Wolfram lead us an invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Good evening, Mayor and City Commissioners.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Let us pray.

Lord, we thank you for this beautiful summer day.

No better place to be than in North Dakota in the summertime.

We pray your care and blessing for our community that you would uh watch over and protect our first responders.

Thank you for the service they render.

Thank you for these leaders as they make decisions that are beneficial for our community.

May they rest in you and seek your good and gracious will in their conversations this night and as they continue to serve.

We are grateful for your presence and ask that your peace would rest upon us.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much.

All right, we'll call our meeting in order.

If we can call roll, please.

Commissioner Rish.

Here.

Commissioner Zenker?

Here.

Commissioner Connolly?

Here.

Commissioner Cleary.

Here.

Mayor Smith.

Here.

At this time it's time for public comment.

I do want to make a note in case there's any confusion.

The South Meadows third edition rezoning hearing is actually tomorrow night.

It's not even on our agenda tonight.

It will be on the agenda planning and zoning tomorrow night.

So if there's anyone here for that, just so that they're aware that tomorrow night's a good time to come and speak to that.

And so at this point in time, we have public comment.

Anyone who wish to speak to an item that was on our prior meeting agenda or is on the consent agenda tonight or is a regular agenda item that is not public hearing.

Uh please come forward, sign in.

Uh tell us who you are and which topic you're speaking to.

My name is David Stout.

Live live in South Bismeck.

I'm here or two.

Ask a question.

Are we an actual city that it will take anybody?

I'm not sure following the question, sir.

Are we in which agenda item are we speaking about?

Well, I'm not I'm something different.

Completely different.

So I our our public comment is for the items on this agenda, last city's last meeting's agenda, and and that's what it's limited to.

No wonder nothing gets done.

Sorry, sir.

So it I'm gonna clarify, do just for clarification.

The there is an agenda item that's ETA.

This would be an opportunity time for public comment on that because that's not a public hearing later.

That's why it's on the agenda, so we can live give public comment now for those who might wish to speak to that.

Whenever we talk about the ETA, I always have to come say something.

You know, it appears that it looks like the fees for building anything.

Just for the record, I mean I know who you are, but for the record for those.

My name is Robert Field.

Okay, thank you.

But it it appears the fees for building on larger acreage lots is going up.

Is that correct?

Um, it are you talking about for 2026?

Yeah, and your fees schedule.

That yeah, there is a fee schedule, yeah.

So we'll we're we'll be discussing it next meeting, certainly.

So I mean so it so basically at this point you should change the title to the ETA because nobody in Bismarck has a five-acre lot unless they're in the ETA.

So it should be transparent that that's targeted in the ETA, not the city.

Fair comment.

Unless you're gonna get rid of some of the golf courses you never see anybody playing golf on, then you would have five-acre lots.

Fair comment.

I'm not appreciate your comment because we need to uh look at that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

For the record, Travis Jensen, ETA resident.

Um, and I want to echo what the past speaker just said about the uh the permit increases.

You know, we just had a joint um commission meeting not too long ago, and everybody sat that table and sounded like they wanted to make headway, but now again we hear another another deal where the ETA people are gonna be suffering.

You guys are making uh permit increases, and for those of the uh those watching and those in the audience, they did do a uh a uh quite extensive explanation, and I found it very interesting that the permit fees in Bismarck varied so greatly versus the county, but now you guys want to raise them again.

You know, it seems like you guys have it out for us, ETA people.

You know, maybe it's because we can't vote for you.

I I don't know.

But what can we do about it?

All we can do is stand up here and give public comment, otherwise our hands are tied.

We can't do anything.

When do we get some sort of recourse for disagreeing with the rules, regulations, ordinances that you guys are forcing upon us?

And I'm using that word forcing very prevalently because we are being forced.

We don't have a say, we can't vote for you guys, we can't do anything.

And you know, I look at you guys' agenda and it's hidden in there.

You know, it's hidden in the consent part.

So nobody really finds that unless you scour these agendas word by word, PDF by PDF.

A little transparency would go a long ways.

You know, you guys talk about wanting to make headway with the ETA.

I don't believe that.

I I really don't because again, this this raise, like he said, it's not gonna affect your your city folks, it's gonna affect us folks in the ETA, and again, you guys only want the ETA when you profit.

Thank you, sir.

Again, this is public comment.

Anyone who wishes to speak, please come forward.

A third or second call for public comment a third and final call for public comment.

Seeing or hearing anyone, public comment period is now closed.

Commissioners, uh with regard to consent agenda, I do need to note that we need to pull item items D three and four from the consent agenda because the applicants aren't ready to proceed forward, and that's uh transfer of liquor license.

Um so they've asked they've asked for it to be pulled.

Commissioner Connolly, you had mentioned something.

I would like to pull F2, and then I would move to approve the consent agenda at that point, unless there's somebody else that has something to pull second any discussion.

Here none will call roll.

Commissioner Zenker, yes, Commissioner Connolly, yes, Commissioner Cleary, yes, Commissioner Vish?

Yes, Mayor Smith.

Yes, Commissioner.

Um this is uh for public health to apply for a $30,000 grant.

Um when you go on to the PDF that goes with uh the agenda is it's for training uh for education where we go out to say um schools and that and talk about vaccines.

There's a lot of families that have kids in schools that aren't comfortable with that conversation, so um I'm gonna vote no on that.

So okay.

Any other discussion?

Um no, I guess I I would I do support the grant, but it's uh through the um North Dakota uh health and human services, uh the North Dakota department, so through the state.

Um I think a lot of our work that we do through public health is grant funded, and so I just don't want to skip out on any of those opportunities if it's something that we can provide to our constituents.

Obviously, they don't have to all take part.

Um it's their right to not, but um I still would like to like move forward with the process.

So I would move to approve.

Second, is there any further discussion?

Hearing none will call roll on that motion.

Commissioner Connolly?

No.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes, Commissioner Wish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Mayor Smith.

Yes.

We'll move to the regular agenda now.

The first item is to receive a representation from Joe Morriset, the State of North Dakota Director of OMB, and this is in regard to how House Bill 1176 works and to educate us and everyone else as to how it applies as we look forward to budgeting our final budget adoption.

Joe, welcome and thank you for coming and accepting my invitation.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor and Commission members.

Um good evening.

Pleasure to be here.

I've been in front of a lot of legislative committee meetings over the last 30 years, but this is my first Bismarck City Commission meeting, so I can check that off the bucket list.

Um but happy to be here and speak a little bit to 1176.

It was an important piece of legislation from the last legislative session, and I was uh honored to be a part of the work that went into it uh with uh Governor Armstrong and the legislative leadership.

And so I'll I'll just give kind of an overview, speak a little bit to what it means at the local budgeting level and kind of what it means to individual taxpayers, because I know that you know there are some there is some confusion about that.

So happy to answer any questions uh as I go.

Um so 1176 um it does it does four primary things uh in a a lot of statutory changes, but uh the the main thing it does is it increases that primary residence credit that that we we've had in the prior year at a level of $500, it increases that to sixteen hundred dollars.

It um it provides a a dedicated funding source for that.

So of course, from my perspective as budget director at the state, that how we fund that it was an important piece of this package.

The $500 credit was funded from the general fund, just the general revenues of of the state.

This is funded from the legacy fund, so it ties it directly to the earnings of the of the legacy fund, and that stream will grow over time.

And then of course the the challenging part that that you all are dealing with is the three percent cap, the reform piece that we're the imposes this three percent cap on not just cities but all political subdivision um budgets, not the overall budget.

I'll I'll speak to that in a bit.

Uh and then it it provides um you know kind of an incentive for for prudent budgeting and not necessarily maxing out that three percent cap by saying if you don't use all that three percent authority if you levy something less than that maximum three percent, you can carry over that unused levy um perhaps to to build that up for a a uh uh something in the future where you know you'd need that additional authority and levy that additional authority once every five years.

So the funding source, the legacy earnings fund is um it's it's the fund in uh in the state structure where the earnings from the legacy fund uh are deposited.

And so the legacy fund, as you probably know, uh receives 30 percent of all the oil and gas taxes collected by the state.

And so 30 percent of it goes into the legacy fund, the legacy earnings fund as it's been defined by the legislature, looks back for the last five years, calculates a percentage, eight percent of that average balance, and says that's what we're gonna call earnings, that amount goes into the legacy earnings fund.

So as the principal grows, that calculation will result in a larger and larger amount.

No matter what happens with oil activity, there will continue to be growth in the legacy fund.

So we know exactly what uh went into that fund uh in in July.

We know the the earnings because we have this this look back, it's not as as volatile as our as our accounts in the in the stock market.

It's based on this history of what the balance actually was.

And so the earnings that um that are available that were available for the legislature to decide what to do with in the last session totaled about six hundred and eighty-seven million.

And so the way the legislature allocated those, the first hundred and two million goes off the top to service existing legacy bonds that have already been issued, and we have this ongoing debt service.

Then the next 30 percent, which amounts to about 175 million, is dedicated to the Department of Transportation for Roads.

And then everything beyond that, the remaining the remaining 70 percent is allocated to the legacy property tax relief fund.

So that's 409 million in the state's two-year budget period of of July 1st, 2005 through June 30, 2027 that is allocated to this property tax relief program that I'm talking about tonight.

So this is just a an estimate.

It assumes that the legacy fund is going to continue to earn an average of about six and a half percent, which is what the actuaries assume for our pension fund, and that oil revenues are going to stay about the same in the on in the near future.

And so over the next 12 years, if those assumptions would hold true, the amount that's going to be available for property tax relief is is going to more than triple from about 409 million to about uh 1.3 billion by the 2037-39 binum.

Just a rough estimate.

I mean, you know, a lot of assumptions there, but just to give a perspective, this is a dedicated stream that will grow over time to increase the amount available for property tax relief.

So the three percent cap, the the challenging piece for the political subdivision budgets.

Uh so what's subject to the cap, it's just property, it's it's it's taxes levied on property that was taxable in the previous year.

And so there are a lot of exceptions to that.

Um there are certain levies that are excluded, and then there's the levy on any new property, any property that was not taxable in the previous year because it's a new development, that is not subject to the three percent cap.

Uh there could be new levies that are authorized by the legislature, uh new new levies or an exception to the three percent cap that's approved by the voters at a statewide general election.

That would allow and uh that would be in addition to the cap.

Uh levies, like I mentioned, the the portion of the legacy earnings fund that goes to service debt, um, any levy that's used to service existing bonded debt at the local level is is excluded from this cap.

Um other levies are uh certain other levies are excluded, like the Garrison Diversion levy or the levy statewide for the UND medical school, the one mil.

Uh and then any funding from any source that's not property taxes is not at all subject to the three percent.

So to illustrate that, here is a kind of hypothetical city budget.

Um a variety of revenue sources, right?

The kind of darker blue color is the portion of the budget in this example, and $89 million budget, $32 million coming from property taxes in the current year.

Um also revenue that comes from lodging taxes and other fees uh 20 million in this example.

If that would be sub if that would be estimated to grow by 5% in the next budget, that is not subject to the 3% cap.

Um the the little gold sliver on the in the 25 tax year, the uh assuming like 1 million dollars of additional revenue from new property that wasn't taxed in the prior year, that's outside the 3% cap.

And then sales tax in this example, the city's got a uh a local option sales tax uh that generates 37 million out of their 89 million dollar budget.

If that's expected to grow by 5% in the next budget year, that's not subject to the 3% cap.

So just to illustrate, in this example, uh the city budget could grow from $89 million to $94 million, have six percent growth, and still fall within that three percent cap because the three percent cap only applies to the property tax levy on property that was taxed in the prior year.

So um, of course, it's not um the math isn't quite as simple as just taking three percent on on a sliver of the budget.

There is a uh a calculation in law that allows a city or any political subdivision to take the highest of two alternate calculations.

So in law it's referred to as a base year levy or an adjusted year levy.

So the base year levy is a look back to kind of account for anomalies, I'll say, where maybe there was um you know a large piece of property that came off of the off of the tax rolls one year, maybe it was subject to tax, and then it became maybe the government acquired it, and then it's no longer subject to property tax, things like that that could skew a levy in prior years.

Things like that that could skew a levy in prior years.

So I'll go through each of these calculations, but my point on that slide was just that it's the higher of the two.

So the base year calculation would be this three-year look back.

So we would look at what was levied in 24, 23, and 22.

In this example, we've got uh kind of a normal progression of growth on the taxes that were levied on existing property, and then we would have some exclusions that I that I talked about.

We'd have some levies that are not part of the cap changes in what's taxable property.

Um but we've had we've got a normal progression.

We've got 16 million levied in 22, 17.5 in 23, and then and then 20 million in 2024.

Um if we had something different, if we had a higher levy in 23 because of some change in the city's needs or some change in what was taxable, subject to tax, uh, we would pick the highest of whatever whatever year was in that three-year period.

In my example, it's just the prior year.

But we would take that in this example the 20 million times the three percent, which would add 600,000.

So we would have a base year calculation of 20.6 million.

And then we would compare that to this adjusted year calculation where we allow for changes in taxable value, including new property.

So uh based on my example, I've got a typo over there, but it's um uh if we have 20 million in taxes levied and assume an 80 mil levy, we'd have taxable value of about 250 million in this in this city.

If we assume that there's some growth, um in this case, uh you know, percent and a half of new growth, we'd have three million in new taxable value, and then maybe we've got some changes in what's exempt from taxation, and so we adjust for that uh based on how it's defined in law.

So we would have an adjusted year taxable value of 252 million.

We would take that times the 80 mills that the city levied in in the prior year, and then we would increase that by 3 percent.

And so that in this example would give a adjusted year calculation of 20 point 765 million about.

So my point being we we look at we do those two calculations and we take the highest of those two, whatever is most beneficial to the city.

So it makes the math a little more complicated, but it does provide some ability to adjust and allow for changes in taxable value.

So in this case, the adjusted year levy yields a higher calculation, so the city would use that amount, 20 20 million, 764,800 would be the budget limit.

That would be the limitation on the maximum amount that could be uh levied on property taxes.

So then the the uh the question is what does that do to the to the mill rate, right?

The rate of taxation, because if the overall budget can't grow by more than three percent, um that doesn't say that doesn't uh limit how taxable value is going to grow.

Taxable value by a constitution should reflect the true and full value of the of the property in the political subdivision.

So in this example, we would have growth on existing property of I'll say 5%.

So that would take our taxable value from 250 million to 260.2.5.

And then if we have new property growth, the 3 million that I referenced before, um, we would add that in, we would make adjustments for other changes in taxable property, and we'd get to this 264.5 million taxable value.

But our budget limit is 20,764,800.

So to calculate our new mill rate, we would just take that budget limit divided by our taxable value, and in this case that would give us 78.5 mills, where we levied 80 mills before.

So any time in my example, we've got property value that's growing by about 5%, more than the 3% cap.

Anytime it grows by more than 3% cap, levies are gonna have to come down.

So in this example, we've got a reduction of about 2% in the mill rate, in the rate of tax from 80 mills to 78.5.

So the mill rate, of course, is applied uniformly to everybody.

What's not uniform is taxable value changes.

My house might change in value more than someone else's house, depending on the opinion of the appraiser and the market conditions in the location that I live.

So I've got an example here of four different houses.

So the and again the math isn't uh uh always simple when we talk about taxable value, right?

If we have a uh house that's valued at 300,000 to get to to assessed value, we take that times 50 percent.

To get to taxable value, we take that times nine percent.

So we get to $13,500 is our taxable value.

That's what we're applying the mill rate to.

So in 2024, all these houses had the same taxable value, $13,500, based on a $300,000 house.

But each of these scenarios changes differently.

Our taxable value on property A goes up by a percent.

In property B, it goes up by 3%.

Property C, it goes up by 5%, and property D uh goes up by 7%.

Our mill rate, again, I'm using hypothetical uh numbers here.

I said our city mill rate was going to go from 80 mills to 78.5.

Here I'm showing 220 mills levied in the prior year, 215.9 in the current year.

I'm assuming that all political subdivisions that levy a tax on this property have to lower their mills by the same in the same way that the city did, right?

With what whatever uh park district and and uh all the all the other taxing districts are are lowering their mills in the same way because the valuation overall went up by more than the three percent.

So we'd have a reduction across the board in mill rates, again, that's consistent across all properties.

So the the gross tax bill that a taxpayer is gonna see on their statement on property A, we had about a 2 percent decrease in mill rates across the board, but about a 1 percent increase in value.

Property owner A is going to see about a 0.9 percent decrease in their gross tax bill before we take into account the impact of the property tax credit, the primary residence credit.

And again, it's a primary residence credit, so if you if this is not a primary residence, then their gross tax bill is their is their tax bill.

If it's a primary residence, then they would be subject to the the deduction of that credit.

In property B, we've got a change in valuation of about three percent, but again, we had a decrease in overall in the mill rate of about two percent.

So this person is gonna see an increase in their tax bill of about 1.1 percent.

Property C, we had valuation increase of 5 percent, mill reduction of about 2 percent, their bill is gonna go up about 3 percent.

So you're probably not gonna hear from any of those folks.

Property D had a valuation change of about 7 percent, mill reduction of about 2 percent, their val their bill went up by 5 percent.

So my point is that it's not a the 3 percent cap does not apply to the individual taxpayer.

The 3 percent cap applies on the city budget, and the impact on the individual taxpayer is gonna depend on their their own situation and their own uh change in assessed value.

The very bottom line that the taxpayer is gonna see, though, is gonna be a significant reduction for everybody who is subject to the primary residence credit, because that was $500 last year, it's gonna be sixteen hundred dollars this year.

So in in all of my examples, taxpayers that are that are getting that credit are gonna see an overall reduction of you know 38 to 45 percent.

Again, this is a hypothetical example based on a 300,000 dollar house.

But um I I think uh that illustrates the impact.

So I'd be happy to answer any questions.

That's uh kind of my my overview of the bill and how it might affect individuals.

Are there any are there any questions for Joe?

Go ahead, Commissioner Zicker.

Mayor commissioners, first of all, thank you for coming and given this because it's um it has shed a little bit of light.

I still have the same concern that I had from the very first time we had the conversation that the message to um the property owners was that there was gonna be a three percent cap individually.

Obviously, through this presentation, that is that is not how it's supposed to be interpreted.

Um do you see are you get are you getting a lot of feedback from other cities, counties in the in the state?

As the same confusion that we we had, maybe.

I mean that's a fair question, I think.

Um, you know, uh Mayor, Mayor Schmitz and and uh Commissioner, I'm personally not.

Um, you know, whether the the State Tax Department is or the um League of Cities, Association of Counties are getting those questions.

Uh yeah, that that could be I I'm I'm I'm personally not.

Okay.

So I put that question to actually Joe and one of the other individuals in the governor's office, because that was my concern too.

And they both gave me the same answer that Governor Armstrong has not been at least fielding lots of those questions, but it I you know I'm not disagreeing with Commissioner Zenker's concerns that he's expressed, because I'm I'm sensitive to that too.

But I also know how the formula's got to work in order to be appropriately fair across property values, and so that's our struggle is how do we get there.

Commissioner Conley.

Are you gonna be presenting for Burley County Commission too at some point?

Um Commissioner, I've not been asked to do that.

I would I would if if I was asked to do that.

Okay.

Um the reason why I say that is we're 75 percent of the county and the county um they um did not sunset a half cent sales tax, and then they also added another half cent.

And um their conversations at that level that they're going to with the revenue generated from the sales tax, they're going to back out of roughly 20 mils, which is a little more than half of what their um amount is.

Um that's uh changes those numbers a little bit from the county level, and it would be interesting to see a presentation, say from an office like yours on what those numbers would look like when we add that little nuance into the conversation.

Yeah, Commissioner, I'd have to look at you know what what that would look like at a at a county level like that, but the any change in the sales tax again is not subject to the three percent, so it would affect that that base level that future three percent increases would be applied to if it affects the amount that's that's levied.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Joe, I appreciate you coming because I helped it it did help at least put some light out there to help us, whether it's good or bad or indifferent.

I just appreciate you accepting my invitation.

Yep.

Happy beer.

Thank you.

Commissioner Zinker.

Yeah, I do have one not for Joe, but maybe for Dimitri on this topic.

Demetri, are you online?

I am.

Oh, fantastic.

All right, Mr.

Cherniak.

So obviously you saw the presentation, sir.

And you have a copy of it so my biggest concern is um on those four houses is D.

Do we know how many properties that we have that are gonna be um based on because of valuations are gonna be more than that three percent?

So I I have Demetri, I think, pulling me some data I haven't yet seen, but I have I probably didn't go at three percent.

I think I took a higher number, probably above ten, I think she said I do I use three percent because I get to recover.

And if you don't if you don't have that number, Dimitri Um today off the top of your head based on the computer, um, if you could have it at least for next our next meeting when we talk about the budget and finalize the budget.

I think that would be commission sector.

All right, thank you, sir.

Commissioner Cleary.

I just think um it it'll be interesting to see those numbers, but we we do get presented with them every year when we talk about like the assessments and people's ability to protest their evaluation and that sort of stuff with uh Allison's team.

And so I think that like the group that House D, that person is gonna just be again those that list of houses that we get where their assessed values went up higher than 10 percent.

Uh they get sent out a letter, all of those things through the assessing department.

I think it's gonna be kind of that same category of home.

So it may be he should be able to give us the numbers of like the last couple of years too as to like how many houses that typically is, so that we we know what we're looking at.

So Commissioner Rish.

I think we make the need to make it clear under all four of these examples, property taxes dramatically decrease from 45 percent to 38 percent.

So overall with the sixteen hundred dollar credit, property taxes are going down, even for the person whose taxes went up seven percent in this example.

But that's only for people who are getting the primary residence credit.

Sure.

Sure.

So there's gonna be people that don't get those on there.

Yeah.

And and only based on the 300,000 market value.

And being in the building industry, sir.

It's really tough to only find a house that's only worth $300,000.

By double.

It's a break.

But the point was I mean, that's was good information for us to receive.

I do still want to have the, as I'd already asked Demetri to kind of sanitize that parameter because I because I think we need to know that.

It may affect our decisions.

Anything else?

Okay.

Again, thanks, Joe.

Appreciate you being here.

All right.

Next item is to receive a presentation from former mayor Marlon Hawkinson.

Um, I'm just going to introduce you that way, if that's okay.

Come on up.

I think the sign in today.

Well, you're on the agenda, so this is going to be a lot shorter than the prior presentation.

Um I don't envy you people in the chairs up there.

I sat in those chairs for 23 years and had to face some decisions I didn't like to make.

But I did those considering the will of the people.

That's important to me.

And if you I thank you very much for the time on the agenda, Mr.

Mayor, Commissioners.

In this petition, I want to explain a little bit for folks that don't recollect what it's about.

It lowers the water bills and the property tax only in Bismarck.

This isn't a statewide petition.

And briefly, it's an initiated ordinance.

Taxation and budget, no increases in existing or new taxes, andor fees or special assessments shall be permitted unless they vote of the citizens, and any future budget be budget being passed for property taxes or utility water bills, rates or costs, or special assessments higher than the dollar amounts they were in 2018.

2018 was a long time ago.

But this has been in the works for a long time.

Exceptions.

Any annexed property or developed property shall be taxed at the existing 2018 mill rate of 56.88, which is the levy.

At the time those properties are annexed or developed at their assessed value resulting from their annexation or development.

Any increases needed in budget items shall be allowed as long as the property taxes and utility water bills rates or costs higher than they were in 2018 dollar amounts are not exceeded.

So that is the total petition.

You probably have copies of it.

And I'm really not here to debate or argue the merits.

And that uh is laid out in this, which I'll put on the overhead.

And I'll take less than five minutes for the whole thing.

When you were sworn in, this is regarding the water bills and uh reduce our property taxes petition.

When you were sworn in, you took an oath to uphold the constitution and represent the will of the people.

1,600 signers are asking you to not violate or assist in violation of their civil rights, guaranteed by the U.S.

Constitution, the North Dakota Constitution, and the Bismarck Home Rule Charter.

North Dakota Constitution, Article 3, powers reserved to the people's states.

Quote.

The people reserve the power to propose and enact laws by the initiative.

End quote.

This article is self-executing, and all of its provisions are mandatory.

Laws may be enacted to facilitate and safeguard, but not to hamper, restrict or impair those powers.

The Bismarck Cornwall Charter states regarding initiated ordinances.

Page 580 section three ordinances may be enacted to facilitate its operation.

But no ordinance shall be enacted to hamper, restrict, or impair the exercise of the rights herein reserved to the people.

End quote.

And the signatures are no good.

That section is very apparent to hamper, restrict, or impair, and is legislative overreach by the state.

There's no time limit in the Bismarck Roman Charter.

So you commissioners can accept the petitions and not violating your oath to the people.

And Bismarck promoted charter, I'll add one thing.

So you can do that.

You can accept the petitions and not violating your oath.

If you do not do that, you have the power to simply introduce the initiated ordinance verbatim and pass it through the normal procedures.

Thus representing your oath and the 1,600 petition signers.

If you do not take affirmative action, I will print the petition in the Bismarck Tribune for people to sign and circulate and force you to take action.

Additionally, I have filed a request with the American Civil Liberties Union of North Dakota.

And they quote, I requ they principally address issues involving challenges to a government law, policy, or practice affecting the constitutional rights.

That is the civil liberties and civil rights of people arising only in the state of North Dakota.

End of that quote.

North Dakota Century Code 1-01-50 affects all of the citizens of North Dakota and their civil rights.

Further, the ACLU states they are, quote, especially interested in issues that may break new ground in an interpreting constitutional rights.

So my request is asking the ACLU to file a lawsuit against the state of North Dakota, the legislature, the North Dakota Attorney General, and whoever it takes to declare the time limit regarding petitions by citizens unconstitutional.

I firmly believe that.

And again, as I say, you probably wouldn't make a decision tonight whether to accept those petitions or to put it on by yourselves through the regular channels.

But you have my phone number.

You can let me know what you decide before I take this petition to the Bismarck Tribune.

Thank you very much.

Commissioners, do you have any questions?

So I I just I mean I have to address the concern that I have regarding the rollback because I've run the math.

And I don't mean to interrupt you, but I'm not familiar with that 10-minute, 15-minute presentation of what the state does.

That'll be up to you to decide, you folks.

So as I said, I'm not here to debate or to argue.

Thank you for the time.

That's fine.

I'm still going to make my comment because I think I have that ability to do that.

So if we were to roll back, I'll just take property taxes because that's the easy one for me, because it affects some pretty essential services.

And we would end up having to probe potentially riff somewhere around 35 to 40 percent of our police department, our fire department, and our street department.

And to put that in to perspective, we have somewhere around 160 police personnel, so that might be as many as 74 personnel, which I think would be a pretty big safety issue in our community.

And we have roughly 93 fire personnel, and that would be somewhere around 43 fire personnel or 40 out of that 96.

So I think you know, from my perspective, those are pretty critical concerns.

And in the in the street department, which is repairs and snow removal, you know, of our 41, that might be 15 to 19 people that would no longer be able to provide services and clear our streets.

So that's a real tough thing for me to swallow.

But um I that's just my comments.

Commissioner Zenker.

Mayor Commissioner, so I got to come since my portfolio, I had Michael do some math too as well, right?

So yeah, it'd be great 2018.

I mean, I would love to go back and buy furnaces and air conditioners and my equipment back to 2018 costs.

I see a bunch of people in that are business people in the room.

I bet they'd like to go back and buy buy those buy stuff at 2018 costs as well, right?

We all endured COVID and um spikes in costs for many years.

Um we have the same thing.

We have EPA changes, we have codes that we got to follow.

Um, those all add cost to water.

Um, and there's one there's one big, you know, kick the can down the road sort of thing that happened with multiple commissions before we approved uh funding of uh of increase increasing the water treatment plant and the wastewater treatment plant.

So those are all costs that are in the cost for water.

Yes, I get it, it's expensive.

I brought it to the table, I lost four to one, but we just got to suck it up and move on.

You know, so those things are all in motion.

We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars to increase plant sizes so we can take care of not only the the current needs that we have but future needs of the city.

And if we regress, we're not gonna be able to do that or finish those projects, it'll just become mothballed.

So I do have one question if I could keep going, sir.

Yes, absolutely.

Mayor Commissioners, I do have one because I remember um that that was an item on the agenda when Mr.

Hawkinson brought it in, and it was a previous city attorney where they had a discrepancy as how that conversation went.

Kind of put me on the spot here, Julie.

That's the warning, so to speak.

Um do you have do you have that information?

Um because we we were told that we're we have to uphold the oath.

The oath is to uphold the constitution and the laws of the state of North Dakota.

And I and do you have the interpretation from the attorney general on that?

Commissioner, I do.

So that was issued in October of 24 after a letter was um requested from the previous city attorney in July.

Um and so that attorney general's opinion is that the petitioner has one year to file or present the petition, meaning gathering the requisite number of signatures within one year to present.

And that did not happen.

Um the AG opinion also said that because the Bismarck ordinances did not specify a time limit, the time limitations in this entry code apply.

So that's how we get there.

And then as to the court, so the AG opinion also said that the application of that statute again, which is the one year time limit, did not on unlawfully encumber constitutional rights.

And AG opinions in general governs the actions of or govern the actions of public officials until such time as the qu question is presented by the courts.

So it does have the force of law until it's decided otherwise by a court.

Go ahead, Commissioner.

So one more question for you, Julie.

Is there a is there a time limit as to how long a petition can be out there, or is it just the time limit of from the your first signature to your last signature has to be within 365 days?

So once it's approved, they have one year to gather the the petition or gather the signatures for uh for presentation.

Right.

And if you if you fail within that year, you it's over that year, you can't reuse the petition that you have to go.

You can't recycle it.

Well, you can't recycle the signatures.

You can recycle your petition.

Right, but he's but you'd have to still go through the process to get it approved, correct?

Right, and then you would have to start with the signatures all over again.

Okay, all right.

Commissioner Connolly.

Um having go through this process and that I was the one that asked for it to be on the agenda, part of it because of the open meeting.

Um former mayor Hawkinson did speak with the mayor, and also when contacted me, said reached out to Commissioner Cleary on it, um, reached out to me, I just asked uh um not to talk about it and put it on the commission so it came out in all in front of all of us.

He's been here before, it's just out of respect to that open meeting.

That was the only way I could see getting to that end is putting it on the agenda so it could speak as piece.

But um, as far as uh like the initiated measure process, um the vetting it through court, I agree with uh um city attorney uh meese is is the that's the um in order to define the difference because even when we went through the one for public transportation, there was some interpretation to where the signatures were going to um be in when anybody running for office, it would have been that first week of April.

And then there was a question that went out, and because of conversations at the state level, it got pushed a hundred days out from that point, but then there's specific code in century code that um if signatures are accepted, the city administrator has or the whoever is designated per the jurisdiction has 10 days to verify those signatures, and if there's not a election, normal election during that time, um there has to be a special election per century code, and then the date got moved again, and that was all right in process when that initiated measure was going on.

So it's kind of a moving target a little bit, and that's where the courts come in uh to some degree, or it's defined by the legislature.

Commissioner Risch.

Yeah, Mr.

Mayor Julie, thanks for that clarification on the time limits.

Um I was a little concerned when we didn't have it in our own ordinance, but we got an attorney general's opinion.

But it's important we have time limits.

I mean, you might strike something out for 20 years, and the people that initially signed the petition have changed their mind.

We might have property tax reform from the state level, paying down property taxes, and people say, Oh, well, my property taxes are not so bad anymore, and they change their mind.

So we might consider amending our ordinance to include time limits, just or do we have to amend the home rule charter?

There'd be a home rule charter amendment.

Okay, we'd have to vote on it.

Just to clarify things.

But I have the police in the fire portfolios, and it would be devastating.

We approved a new fire station.

Um, if this passed, the fire station would likely be built, and we wouldn't be able to man it.

We'd probably have to shut down another fire station, lay off a third of the police force.

I I just don't see how this would could possibly work.

But anyway.

Anything else?

Okay.

All right.

Thanks for the discussion.

Next item is a public hearing on ordinance 63 6623 to amend title five regarding liquor licenses.

Douglas, evening, mayor and commissioners.

Title V of our City Code Ordinances addresses alcohol license and special event permits.

Um we decided to revise our uh our ordinance for a couple of reasons.

Um Whitney and City Administrator Tomonic had been sitting on some changes for a matter of time.

We we do this from time to time, evaluate there was some inconsistencies in our ordinance, uh, some things that didn't quite align with century code and some clerical adjustments that needed to be made.

And then also it was brought to our attention there were some concerns about how special event permits were being utilized by some of our license holders.

So over a course of several months uh this last year, uh the mayor called several meetings with license holders and stakeholders that um utilize special event permitting, and we got a lot of feedback as to what was going on and what their concerns were.

How the special events were being utilized, um, didn't violate anything in our ordinance, but it was questioning whether the intent was, I guess, genuine with what it was how was originally drafted.

So we took all that feedback back and um made those clerical changes.

That was really simple.

Other things that we did were um tried to make the business processes of the license holders a little bit more simple by aligning our renewal process with the state.

So the renewal will now occur.

Um deadline will be December 31st, and uh for this next cycle, we will have a six-month grace period to allow those license holders to have an extended license, and we'll send an issue new license for that.

But that's the high level changes that we can get into the minutiae if you would like.

But if you have questions for me before the public hearing, I'd be happy to answer.

So there is one edit that came to the ordinance that yesterday.

Yesterday, because it was pointed out there was a missing component.

Do you want to describe that, please?

For bringing that up.

Uh, in section one, um, it reads if you don't mind over you to you, a person may not sell retail at retail within the city limits of Bismarck any alcoholic beverage without first having obtained a license, therefore, as herein provided.

The section does not apply to public carriers engaged in interstate commerce or to a person licensed by the state as a domestic winery under North Dakota Century Code Section 5-01-17.

The part that we are missing would be a domestic distillery under North Dakota Century Code Section 501-19.

That's the portion that we needed to include that we left out.

So that would wherever you land on your motion tonight, I would just ask that you would include that language in your motion.

Okay.

Anyone have questions of Doug or attorney mees?

Okay.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone who wish to speak to this amendment to uh title five, please come forward, state your name.

Mr.

Mayor, Commissioners, my name is Rick Becker.

I'm a class D liquor license holder.

I reviewed the ordinance.

For the most part, I don't have uh any big concerns.

There they're in what I saw though, there's a redundancy, and I wasn't sure that seemed like there was two options.

Uh and what I'm referring to is uh 50104 G.

Perhaps I'm not looking at it correctly, but um we have our attorney uh trying to track with you so we can try to clarify that.

And I should have asked you to just sign in to Rick when you get it when you get a moment.

Okay.

Um for for uh the attorney, what I'm looking at is on page four of the nine-page document.

Is that correct?

So if if you look under about two-thirds of the way down on page four, and then approximately halfway down on page six, they both refer to G, but they're different language, so it's as though there's two options.

Yep, absolutely, because we need to make sure we don't have unnecessary redundancy for sure.

Hi.

So how is that where it says licensing and licensing?

Class G licenses and different budget numbers.

I don't think we have a whole lot of those cover yet, but we got the money for you.

Okay.

So one so one dot dot dot okay.

Two like that.

Because I'm not seeing that in my environment.

Do you have the nine-page document?

Yeah.

So four and six.

Yep.

I gotcha.

Okay.

Well, I'm not sure which version we said.

It seems like the second version would be the appropriate because you don't need the language because it's covered up.

Thank you for pulling that out for us.

Sure.

We definitely appreciate making sure we get it right.

It's just a matter of looking at it too much.

Okay.

Okay, second version is correct.

Great.

So we need that.

So just to clarify, then along with five-19, sorry to interrupt, Mr.

Becker.

Um, five-119, we need to on page four, we need to remove that class G license too, right?

Are we getting that?

If if we approve it.

Is that clerically correct?

Uh let me portion of the question of personal second one.

Okay, okay.

So I think that answers your question, Commissioner.

It does.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Okay, and then just um some comments or suggestions that I would have, just a couple.

Under 5013, that's the the special event or what we're now calling event.

Um, for the most part, and that was the big thing that the Class D license folks had an issue with.

Um, what we're trying to do is eliminate gray areas, just make it very clear.

Um, so everyone's on the same page.

The only thing I would add there is host and and perhaps indicate that the host must be distinct uh and separate from the liquor licensee and may not be an owner or employee of the licensee.

So for instance, uh, if you're doing a special event and someone's hosting that event, you're the provider of liquor, you can't also be the host, so that you're continually and forever able to just keep hosting your own quote unquote special events.

So that would be one suggestion.

Just help me out, Rick, if you don't mind uh in which paragraph.

I just I want to try to find host because there's a lot of words here.

Okay, go to page eight.

And um one A, the paragraph that's indented and full underlined.

Host is on the second to last line of that paragraph.

Um that's the referencing.

I'm just suggesting we clarify that host is not also any component of the liquor licensee.

Okay.

Um unrelated to special events, I we have talked, and whether we are the liquor license, say D's and E's are under a false impression or not, you know, when we talk about some of the other liquor license um categories, whether it's F for restaurants, G for catering, there's a couple of others, there is a 40 or 45 percent requirement that uh or a threshold that you must be under uh for liquor sales.

One of the things that has been presented to me, again, don't know if it's true or not, is that a way to get around that is to, for instance, if you have a jack and coke, you say that the alcohol is three dollars, but the coke you put into it is two dollars.

Or if you have a bloody marry, the tomato juice is four dollars and the vodka is four dollars.

So that's a way to get around it.

And I was just going to suggest that um for the Fs and the G and anywhere where you are already changing other language to indicate that you have to present your sales um that are presented to the attorney general's office or whatever it is, that you um also have language similar to the following, which would be for the purposes of determining the food and alcoholic beverage percentages, a beverage containing alcohol may not be separated, excuse me, separated into component parts of food and alcohol.

It's if you want to get around that, again, I don't know if this is something that truly exists, but if you're trying to close loopholes, that would be um one way to do it.

And then I only have one other thing, and that is really a a question.

I'm I'm curious on how things work.

Um the $25 fee change from the $30 fee is to um make it consistent with state law.

Uh the city's not been consistent with state law having charged $30 for for a long time.

I'm wondering, is there a process by which the city uh confirms that is compliant with state law periodically?

Is that yearly?

Is it because I don't know how it's been quite a long time that for instance this fee.

So is there someone who cor uh corroborates uh with the century code for the state that we're in compliance?

That's all I have.

Thank you, sir.

I guess if I can ask Rick a question.

Go ahead.

Um Rick, thanks for all your input.

Um I guess my one question, just also being a small business owner in Bismarck, I know you have multiple things that you juggle as well.

Um I just wonder with the whole like concept of the host and that the liquor license holder shouldn't be providing their own liquor for the I get what you're saying, but uh I also know how Bismarck entrepreneurs operate, and like yourself and like myself, there's many of us that wear multiple hats.

So are you saying like that that entity has to have its own LLC, has to be its own corporation, or can like an individual that has part of an ownership, like at your establishment, can't be part of ownership at, say, the boutique that they're providing.

Like is it an is it a person that you're concerned about, or is it the f like you're not wanting it all to be under the same corporation?

The what what I would I just feel like you're limiting some people there where you know like if they're building a whole nother business and they're hosting events and we are limiting them, you know, as far as how they can utilize that, which I think was part of the problem.

But it I just wonder, like as long as they're creating their own entities as businesses, if if you're part owner in one thing and part owner in the other, but then you have to go find someone else to provide your catering liquor license because you can't.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Sure.

Yeah, and just for the record, if if I were king of the world, we wouldn't have any of these regulations.

And people could just do what they want to do.

Sounds lovely, right?

Paying fees and buying licenses.

But what what my suggestion was is uh to try and help, because it seemed that there were many loopholes and many gray areas, yeah.

And to clarify, and if we're trying to make it so that a special event or now an event is truly what was intended, that you could not be a an entity holding a liquor license and just creating events for yourself.

The idea would be you have a charity uh holding an event looking for someone to provide liquor, or you have a wedding party.

Or a non-liquor license holding business or an individual.

Exactly.

Yes.

Now, if if you in your discussion decide that that's too restrictive, I certainly respect that.

Yeah, I get where you're coming from.

I just think that like it I think there's a version of it that's too restrictive.

Um I think there's probably a version of it that makes sense where you're it where if you're providing liquor to another entity that that has to be a separate entity.

You can't, you know, your establishment can't provide like liquor to your establishment at a different location.

It has to have another a different LLC or a different corporation or charity or whatever it might be.

I think you you probably get into some higher restrictions when you're just saying, like, oh, I can't provide liquor to myself at a different location if it's for uh anniversary party or uh employee gathering or whatever it might be, you know.

You know what I mean?

I guess the thing that I just don't want to make it too difficult if we're really wanting the goal to be that it's for events.

So we want people to have events.

You bet.

So good point.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate your comments.

Go ahead, Doug.

Mayor Commissioner, just a point of clarification.

Um we were aware of the the inconsistency with the fee for the $30 um that we had in our ordinance in the century colony 25.

We were only actually charging $25 since 2017.

And any time there's law changes, just as we did this year, um, all directors get together and evaluate, okay, what do we need to change in our ordinances?

It's just in this case, it was a really small portion, and we um in our processes were able to address it.

So just a point of clarification there.

Thank you.

Okay.

Public hearing, please come forward if you wish to speak to it.

Uh mayor, commissioners, uh, my name is David Withham.

I'm here to speak to this.

Uh I'm a resident of Bismarck.

I'm here to speak to this issue more from my uh in my professional uh capacity from a real estate development feasibility perspective.

Um mostly just kind of a comment on the technical lane technical language and ask some questions from a perspective that may have been overlooked when the or may not have been, but may have been overlooked when the language was uh being drafted.

Um so just kind of for clarity, the the perspective I'm taking on this with these questions is uh as looking at uh the development feasibility of a of an apartment building or a co-working space or something to that effect where adding some additional amenities might be justified by the potential to lease out that space for private events.

Um that's kind of where I'm coming from with these questions.

So uh I'm not here to um really support or oppose these changes.

I think I un understand the intent, if I can just kind of state it because I was not a party to the original complaint, or so I'm just kind of taking this language at face value, but uh as I read it, the intent seems to be to prevent the exclusive use of one license at multiple locations.

Um so uh you know it defines the purpose, it does not define the host with as much clarity as I would say to echo Rick's comment.

Um it does seem to create some gray area from my perspective of what is um how far can the language of uh you know so that that same section uh uh I don't have it in front of me here.

Um section 5013 1A.

So that's wholly new added section.

That's I think kind of the crux of this whole thing here.

Um the uh the language around the purpose date and host, that's sort of how uh an event is defined.

Uh I I think there could be some more clarity on what a host is.

Is it a venue?

Is it a person?

Is it sort of a combination of the two?

You know, what is a host.

I think the intent to Rick's point is that the host and the license holder are separate entities.

Um I think that is kind of the the purpose.

So from the perspective of the scenario that I mentioned where there's a space, it's advertised as available publicly, it's available to any license whole license holder.

Um, so that's uh maybe that's way a way to define the um the host with more clarity to sort of specifically say it's separate from.

So I again to echo Rick's comment.

Um but yeah, I I guess our intent is we don't want to get caught in the net of if we want to have some ancillary revenue from renting out this space.

Um, we're imagining private events, but maybe potentially pop-up events with a food truck that might want to rent the private space to you know more or less sell their food as a pop-up event, so how the language of the purpose is defined.

Uh I think you could even just hone in on the host definition more so than the purpose, but so there's um yeah.

So I I guess those are more my comments or my questions more than more than anything.

Um but my concern and my hope is that the the from the perspective of a venue that just makes the space available for events that there might that there's not over regulation of that um to prevent uh just a space that wants to in invest in some um some more ambitious amenities for the for the community to be able to make those those in those investments with the ability to lease that space out for events.

So those are my comments.

Okay, thank you.

Public comment.

Anyone who wish to speak, please come forward.

Any second call for public comment.

I don't see a pen.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you all.

I'm Michelle Kaufman, and I believe I am the reason that the language has been changed on the event permit.

Um I wanted to first speak to the host comment that was brought up earlier to Ann's point.

You know, I'm a partner in seven different businesses.

Um some of them do and do not serve food and alcohol, and we have plans for more businesses down the road and partnerships that do and do not serve food and alcohol.

So as an example, you know, if I open a flower shop downtown and I want to host a public event, then to you know Rick's example, I wouldn't be able to hire Shakers on third to cater alcohol to that event if that language he suggested comes about.

And so I'm not really sure that that makes a lot of sense to me.

Um but if it's different LLCs and different businesses, um, then I think that that's fair just to comment on that.

Um also to his comment, I have never seen a POS system that breaks out the alcohol and the mixer in a cocktail.

I've never seen that actually happen.

I don't know whether that actually needs to be added to verbiage.

If it does, that's fine.

But um all of our mixers and drinks have always just been wrung in as the drink.

You see that on your receipt when you buy one and you order one, it comes in at one price with one item, and it all gets billed as alcohol, whether it is or not.

Um the changes to the event permits are only being proposed because I used them for my uh pop-up bar downtown.

Uh it obviously made the D-license folders upset.

Even though they were allowed to use them in the same manner that I was, uh, they didn't, and they did not want me to either.

I will stand up here and argue that I don't think the language for special events was broken.

I think the system works.

The commission and administration has complete discretion over the permits that they grant each and every time one comes in and one gets applied for.

It allows for a lot more creativity and opens up a lot of different venues for people to be creative in some of the things that they host around town.

The more you restrict language, putting words in like special, you know, occasion, um different things.

I can see a lot of different ways that events can come up that you're gonna have to look at that and say, okay, is this reoccurring?

Is it truly special?

Is it actually an occasion?

Who is the host?

You know, I think that's a great question that I had too when I read it.

Um I would argue that the problem isn't the event permit, the problem is the current licensing policy with the class D license.

That problem is not going to go away.

Um there is another you know, business or event or something that they think infringes on that license, you will be back here having the same conversation over and over again.

Um I think that the city needs to reevaluate everything about the licensing policy, not just the event permit.

Uh instead of spending our time at meetings intentionally closing a small business like mine.

We should be spending our time creating more ways for them to open and thrive, regardless of the roadblocks put up to keep my event lounge closed.

Um I will find a way to overcome them, but I shouldn't have to.

I should be spending my time and energy creating instead.

That's what I'd rather be doing right now.

Um I know that three new D licenses were just put out.

I was made very clear there are a lot more than three people that are looking for them, so there are no guarantees that people get them.

I also don't think that they fit the bill for every single business that wants to open.

A class D license doesn't make sense for what I'm trying to do.

I'm trying to be open five to six days a month with varying themes and really low sales and small business mindset.

Uh hundreds of thousands of dollar license doesn't make sense for me.

Um I was also restricted with the special amount permit.

I had to cater all the food and beverages from my other establishment each and every day.

I had to apply for a permit each time, explaining the event in detail, and I had a strict food and alcohol percentage split to meet.

So it was already restricted and very different from what a class D license holder is doing with their business.

Uh every time this comes up, I believe that the city commission states that they don't like this policy, but they can't do anything about it.

Um it gets moved to the next group a few years later.

I stood up here six years ago and said the same thing.

Um and the next group says, well, this is the way it's always been.

We don't like it, but we don't know what to do about it.

Uh I'm asking you to do something about the greater issue.

And I think that this discussion goes far beyond event permits.

Thank you.

Any questions from Michelle?

Thank you.

Yeah, sorry.

Uh Michelle, just to echo kind of what I was asking of Rick as well.

When we're defining the host, because it seems like that is something that needs to happen.

Does it make sense to you that like that that entity or person has to be different?

Like that you can't rent to your same LLC or your same, like that that's a restriction.

Like I like I know you own multiple, whatever whether they're corporations or LLCs or whatever, what have you, that like if the restriction is just that you can't rent to your same entity, that it needs to be either an individual if it's a private party or like an a separate LLC or company.

Does that do you feel like that is already too restrictive of an ask, or does that do you understand the reasoning behind that?

I understand the reasoning behind it.

I'll be dead honest.

Like if that was the thing that you just can't rent to the same LLC or the same business.

I mean, I would find a way around it.

I think other people would too.

Sure.

I don't know that that shuts it down the way that they want it shut down with you.

I just wondered events at other sites and other locations.

And I know that you're not the only entrepreneur out there.

I know that Rick who spoke up here is multiple entrepreneur as well.

Uh as are there a ton in Bismarck.

So I just want to figure out if there's a feasible way to make it make sense without like punishing you for having more than one entity, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I think that the meetings that we had among you know with the mayor and the other license holders made it clear that there will be no solution that everybody's happy with here.

Sure.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

Thank you.

Second call.

The third and final call for public comment.

Public comment period is now closed.

Commissioners thoughts.

What are your wishes?

I I I the one thing I want to make sure is we do not put up so many barriers.

People can't do business.

And so I gotta be honest, I'm not overly excited about defining host because would that's gonna create barriers.

And then there's gonna be regulation around that.

And there's gonna be rules around it and policies.

So there are some things I think that Mr.

Becker raised that we do need to clear because there's some duplications, but some thoughts.

Commissioner Cleary.

Yeah, I guess I I would agree with that.

I mean, being a small business owner myself, having a lot of friends and acquaintances and citizens that are small business owners, I don't really want to be in the position where we're making it more difficult for them.

I I do see the other side of it.

The Class D liquor license has always been treated like an investment.

And so uh they're protecting their investment.

To what Michelle spoke about, where you know you're limited on the days you're open, you're still having to split food and alcohol sales up.

You're still expected to bring those things from the primary business.

I think that we are still creating enough, not I don't want to call them barriers, but enough like restrictions where we're not just allowing if you have a class class D license, you can open, you can use that class D license in any establishment.

Like that's not what this is.

I think that there's enough restrictions within using it outside of your main establishment that I think that that that's enough.

I don't want to make it like more difficult for people who are trying to do that because at the end of the day, we want people to be opening small businesses.

We want people to be utilizing spaces for events and making use of these permits because all of those attribute to the growth of our of our downtown, of our city, uh of the sales tax base.

So I guess if we're gonna define host, it would be my preference that it be defined in a way where it's not limiting.

I understand that they shouldn't be able to that like one LLC shouldn't be able to like be the liquor license provider to that same LLC's party that maybe it has to be uh to a person or to a different corporation or a charity, but so I'm gonna tell you that we already will have that as come up as a problem because I can think of uh fanatics.

Sure.

Yeah.

And so again, I really don't like I don't want to define host.

I'm gonna be honest, not just where I'm at.

I host as host and I just don't know how we define it without causing problems for one group or the other.

I mean, and and there's been enough restrictions put into the event permit that there's an ability to say no, you can't have a reoccurring event at the same space time and time again, which was what honestly was occurring, and that's part of the issue that we're trying to address here.

So that basically at that point, if it's in the same space, using the same same group is using the same liquor license as their event permit, the the theme, the thing they're celebrating, etc.

does have to change.

It can't be consistent, it can't be for longer than seven days at a time.

They're still held to all the other restrictions that Michelle spoke to.

So I'm good with that.

Commissioners, any thoughts or other thoughts?

Do we still need to change the G?

Yeah, make it consistent.

That has to be removed out of the right page here on uh page four six G should be gone just that small paragraph, right?

Six D is defining the percentage of sales and so forth.

Am I reading that right?

All of those so it would be Julie, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Uh on page four, going into page five, that whole section for G would be struck.

And then we would include the section of G on page six.

That's correct.

Yep.

I I was not following that all the way through.

The other note, as I mentioned at the beginning, we need to include the language for the domestic distillery in section one dash one as well.

Can you tell me that century for you?

Excuse me.

On page one, section one.

But does it need to be does the domestic distillery have a specific section?

Five dash oh one dash nineteen.

We we either have a motion or it's gonna die.

I guess I will move to approve uh ordinance sixty-six twenty-three with the addition to section one point one of the North Dakota Century Code 5-01-19 for domestic distilleries, and then the removal of Section G for the Class G liquor license located on page four, continued on page five I'll second it.

Okay.

We have a first and a second.

What is the discussion?

Commissioner Zinker.

Mayor Commissioner, so I will I mean I've said this more than one time that we've with the with the ordinance the way the class D's and E's are written, the city is created, you know, kind of a I don't loosely use the word monopoly for the guys who have it.

I shouldn't say guys, but the businesses that have that.

And they're based on some of the transactions that have taken place since I've been on this commission and banks financing that piece of paper because it has such a high value.

Without without detrimental changes to those businesses, I don't see how we can change that unless they come to us with a solution.

On on the class D's.

On the class D's and E's.

I'll I'll throw the E's in there lightly just because they seem to be a little bit more coveted as well.

But I and we have limitations on those and everything else we don't have a limitation on.

Whenever you put a restriction or a cap on something that and it deters businesses from happening, um that's it's a hindrance.

So if the Class D people that are out there come to us with a solution to not devalue or bankrupt you, basically, I'm willing to listen.

So I'll throw that out there for discussion.

I mean it it is there, and I don't know how to go about I mean it's it's been a value that's been created well before that uh we were here and um I I've scratched my head over that too because I know there are other communities that do not have that same situation.

But any other discussion hearing nominal call rolls commissioner Rish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Mayor Schmidt.

Yes.

Next item D.

Public hearing ordinance sixty-six thirty-five and annexation of part one, part of lot one block two and northern sky edition first replot.

Ben, go ahead.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor and Commissioners.

Uh Wilmet Development L L C is requesting approval uh of the annexation of the eastern portion of lot one block two, Northern Sky, second edition, first replat as outlined in ordinance six six three five in your packets.

Uh the property is located in Northwest Bismarck, uh northwest corner of North Washington Street and Ashcoole Drive on the north side of Wilkerson Place.

Uh the project area is comprised of uh 46,101 square feet within one parcel and one block.

Future land use associated with the proposal is community mixed use and the existing zoning is CG commercial planning and zoning commission.

Oh, I'm sorry, the it doesn't seem like the slides are keeping pace here.

Okay.

Um regardless, I'll I'll just continue on.

But uh the planning and zoning commission considered this request on June 25th uh uh meeting of the of 2025 and recommended approval of an annexation of the eastern portion of lot one block two Northern Sky second edition first replat as outlined in ordinance six six three five.

Is there any questions that you have that I can answer?

Any questions for Ben?

Okay.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone who wish to speak to ordinance sixty-six thirty-five, please come forward.

Thank you, Mayor Lannon Nymiller with Swinton Hagen Engineering, uh representing Wilmot development on this project.

Uh yeah, just the slight change of plans that is happening.

Um I'm sure everybody is aware that this area of the town is already uh slated for annexation.

There's a ticking clock on it already ten years from now, I believe the entire parcel comes in regardless.

Um but at this point.

Um but at this point, so uh the developer and one of the future buyers of the lot are still sort of kind of finalizing some of the deals.

Uh what we would ask at this time is that the annexation gets continued until the September 9th uh Commission meeting, which is the next meeting.

Um we just have some final details we're trying to work out at this point.

Okay.

Um since it's gonna be a continuation, we can just continue the whole public hearing until next meeting, correct?

Julie, is that can we just do that now?

And do we need yeah?

I think we'll need a motion.

Okay.

I'll make a motion to continue this public hearing at the next uh first meeting in September.

You want?

Sorry.

Any discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Commissioner Visch?

Yes.

Mayor Schmidt.

Yes.

Next item is public hearing on ordinance 6637, a zoning map amendment from A agricultural district to R 10 residential zoning district and major subdivision final plated Elk Ridge fourth.

Ben.

Thank you, Mayor and Commissioners.

I think I broke the the presentation, so we'll go without the visuals.

Uh the the uh project the mayor described uh is actually located in Northwest Bismarck between North Washington Street and River Road, east of Tyler Parkway and north of Frisco Way.

The project area is comprised of 23.65 acres and proposes 46 lots in five blocks.

Future land use is uh urban urban neighborhood and the existing zoning is currently a agricultural planning and zoning commission did hold a public hearing on this request uh at the July 23rd meeting of this year.

No members of the general public provided any oral or written testimony on this project.

At the conclusion of the public hearing, the planning and zoning commission did recommend approval of a zoning map amendment from the A Agricultural Zoning District to the R 10 residential zoning district as outlined in ordinance 6637 in your packets, uh, as well as the associated major subdivision final plat.

Any questions that you might have?

Any questions for Ben?

Thank you, Ben.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone wish to speak to this ordinance, please come forward.

Thank you again, Mayor.

Um yeah, just to add out a little bit what uh to Ben had presented there.

This is the next phase in the Elk Ridge uh developments.

Um annexation request did not come with this one, but we did process that later on, so it will be coming.

It's actually on planning and zoning tomorrow night.

So platin and zoning right now, and then the annexation should be coming down the road a little bit in the future.

But I can certainly answer any questions if you have them.

Any questions?

Didn't look like it.

Thank you, sir.

Again, this public hearing, anyone who wish to speak, please come forward.

A second call for public hearing.

A third and final call for the public hearing.

Seeing nor hearing anyone, public hearing is now closed.

Commissioners, what are your wishes?

Move to approve is presented.

Second.

Any discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Connolly.

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary.

Yes.

Commissioner Vish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Mayor Schmitz.

Yes.

Next item, F consider request for resolution receiving bids, order and preparation of engineer statement and awarding the contract for solar improvement districts.

SE 581 and 585, excuse me, and SE 586 and water improvement district 334 and street improvement district si 591.

Go ahead, Gabe.

All right.

Mayor and Commissioners.

This improvement or the these improvement districts.

Perfect.

Uh are the projects or the funding sources used for the extension of Vermont Avenue from Burlington Drive East.

Uh we have four different districts related to the four different types of improvements and different benefiting areas for each of those as well.

Uh we opened up bids yesterday.

Uh and we had three bidders on this project with the low bid being northern improvement company from Bismarck with a low bid of 764,179 dollars.

Our recommendation is to award to Northern Improvement.

Take any questions you may have.

Any questions?

Commissioners, what are your wishes?

Move to approve is presented.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Commissioner Rish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Mayor Schmidt.

Yes.

Next item G consider the request for discussion regarding topics to be addressed at the next meeting of the Bismarck City Commission, Burley County Commission regarding ETA.

In addition to that, we're we do have a meeting scheduled for a week from today for the joint joint committees committee, which we would also be will be brainstorming ideas for that as well, and that will have opportunity for public comment as well.

I think it's at 5 o'clock, if I remember right on next Tuesday.

I thought we were moving it to five.

So we can allow people to get get to make public comment.

Go ahead, Ben.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Uh and commissioners.

So just uh there were a couple comments that were made at the beginning of the meeting related to some items on the consent agenda.

I I think after talking with some of the gentlemen, uh the the reference that was being made was actually in relation to uh our fees and charges or community developments fees and charges that are changing.

These occur every year with the budget cycle.

And actually the items that were being referenced were actually zoning map amendment changes.

So we break zoning map amendments up into three different categories, those less than three acres, those between three and ten acres, and those greater than ten acres.

Essentially, the more the theory is the more area that's involved, the more staff time is involved to deal with that.

Um for each of those three categories, we're proposing to increase the cost by 100 dollars.

I would say the vast majority of zoning map amendments that we process are either in the city or are proposed to be annexed to become into the city to be to be uh urban, served by urban services as opposed to zoning map amendments in the extraterritorial area that will retain or remain, I should say, rural in nature or rural residential in nature.

Uh those are much fewer and far between those zoning map amendments that occur uh to become part of the city.

So uh if you have further questions on that, I can I can answer that.

Otherwise, I think from the last uh time that the full commission of the city and the full commission of the county met uh in this room.

Uh I think the request was to identify those areas we don't think we'll ever be growing into, uh, those areas that we might be growing into in the next 25, 20 to 25 years, and um areas that we might be growing into in that 25 to 50 year time frame.

Um we will have I think we're pretty confident, at least in some of those areas that we think we probably won't likely ever be growing into in terms of those are the mature built-out rural subdivisions.

Uh we can certainly present those uh to you all that are um likely not to turn over, that are likely to more expensive, difficult to provide services into, around and through.

Um I think where we would like to have a little bit more conversation with others uh is is on those areas, uh though that sort of that next level into the into the basically that 25 to 50 year time horizon that the city might grow into.

So I I think we'll we'll certainly have some information to present at that September 2nd meeting on those those subdivisions that uh are kind of built out and are currently in the ETA and at least from a staff perspective, we we likely uh probably wouldn't recommend retaining um if that makes sense.

So but we'd also be open to any other suggestions or try to address in the next week items that you want to address beyond that.

Are there other things that we should put on the go ahead, Commissioner?

Uh Mr.

Mayor, at the last meeting there were comments from the county side that we were financial burden on them.

There were some watershed things that they spent five million dollars on.

And um somebody made the comment.

Um I think it was Mr.

Field that's here.

He said, you know, he's got a home in Bismarck and he pays county property taxes.

He's wondering why in the world does he even pay pro county property taxes.

I used to think that myself, but of course we had to pay for the county court system.

But now we have a sales tax that pays for the county court system.

So we, the citizens of Bismarck are paying all this county property taxes, and the good mayor mentioned we pay about 78 percent of what the county raises in revenue.

So I think we should focus on some of the things that they're not paying for, including our parks, our golf courses, our um our street lights, uh my utility bill I pay 132 dollars annually on street lights alone, and these county residents come in and enjoy all this stuff without paying their their fair share.

Um we just had a discussion yesterday at the airport, one of my portfolios about the need to expand the airport.

And it's gonna cost quite a bit of money, and there'll probably be a request to the city to pay for part of this expansion of the airport.

We did it back in twenty two thousand, I think when we built the last airport, the city actually contributed money.

But people from the county use the airport, people from Lincoln use the airport, people from Mandan use the airport, people from Morton County use the airport.

But yet when we're gonna expand this airport, it's just the citizens of Bismarck that are supposed to provide all the funding for this airport.

So there's a lot of inequities between the city and the county where county residents get a lot of benefits, but the city residents have to pay the whole tax.

Library is another one.

Uh each citizen of Bismarck pays $35 annually, roughly to the library.

But if you're a Burley County resident or ETA resident, you get a library card for free.

So it's the burden is more on Bismarck residents than it is on the county residents.

It's a one-way street.

And the the accusation at the last meeting was that we're causing financial burdens on the county.

I don't buy it.

So I want to talk about them paying their fair share, trying to find a way path forward to get the county residents to pay the their fair share of the services they receive from the city.

Any other items?

Because we can certainly add those things or add to the agenda.

Go ahead, Commissioner.

Um I found where you're referenced, Ben, as far as the fees and things.

Um this is a pretty long list.

It's 39 pages.

And a lot of those are staying the same between 25 and 26.

Are none of those other things taking additional staff time to where they don't warrant an increase?

But in these particular cases, these I noticed like public health airport, which um airport's enterprise fund.

Um there's not increases there, or there's some increases there.

But on all of our other fees within town, they're the same.

Is there any particular I can't speak to other departments?

So the 39 pages, Commissioner, is every department.

That's just not community development.

So we have like maybe two or three of those 39 pages.

Um I can't speak to other departments how why if they're changing, I don't review that or look at that.

But I can speak to how we assess our fees.

Um generally about every two, two to three years, we evaluate what it what it costs, the average amount of staff time it costs versus the average amount of uh hourly rate a planner is in our department.

And um that that's how we kind of make those changes is periodically looking at those.

We don't want to wait 10 or 15 years before we make changes because then we're talking about bigger jumps.

So I would say about every two to three years, we're kind of assessing those those fees.

Um for the I I don't recall that any of our other uh I think actually we eliminated some of our fees this year in in uh for planning activities uh anyways, but the vast majority of our other fees remained stable, so or the same.

Okay, thanks.

Commissioner Cleary.

I guess just so Bed doesn't have to speak for other departments.

Uh we talk a lot about fees on the service side of public works because of street lights and landfill, et cetera.

And every one of those departments has a little bit of a different method to to the increases and decreases based on like with street lights, a lot of it isn't necessarily based, some of it's based on staff time, but a lot of it is based on the like high level of inflation of the equipment versus you're not seeing that as much in forestry, it's more for staff time.

So it just all of it varies like department to department, I would say.

Um with public health, those are providing to citizens, and a lot of that stuff we is always tried to run through insurance and all these other things.

So public health is kind of its its own beast, and they try to keep things as flat as possible when they're providing a service.

Um it just depends on the department, at least with the ones that I work with.

So go ahead, Commissioner.

Um if the next meeting, say joint is on boundary.

I think if we take on too many, we focus on one, it's appropriate.

Um but at some point in time we need to uh tackle the discussion that is most heightened, and and that's the um how to better represent the citizens that say only have limited representation at our planning and zoning.

So that should be one of them too.

We make sure that's on anything else?

the discussion that is most heightened and and that's the um how to better represent the citizens that say only have limited representation at our planning and zoning so that should be one of them too we make sure that's on anything else the other item that uh I think there would be interest in identifying uh is potential so the next time we get together uh mayor you referenced September 2nd will be the regular Burley Bismarck uh committee meeting uh the that won't be both full boards but uh the that I guess that is probably the next item of a business that there'd be interest in trying to nail down a date for that next meeting at both the full commissions um jason was kind enough to identify some dates uh that this room the Tom Baker room is open um and so I don't uh I don't expect that all of you will have your calendars handy and and ready but I'll just list off some of those dates and perhaps offline you can coordinate with with Jason or admin on what would be a common date for you all so in September the 16th 17th 29th and 30th this room would be available then this is like for a five o'clock I assume it would be five o'clock it would be five o'clock and I guess I would actually like to simplify this and just have admin send us those dates by each that's fine that will give us I was gonna ask what day are those dates yeah I it will just be easier for us to manage that rather than us trying to respond today and we do a doodle or something and because they then we also need to work with the county to get their you know how it's gonna mesh together and that's easier for me.

So thanks then anything no so the I guess you'll I I you all kind of talked about and it sounds like uh have the items for the agenda so yeah well and there may be more that come after next Tuesday's meeting sounds good thank you thanks all right uh is there any other business before we enter into executive session hearing none uh we're ready for a motion to go to executive session I'll make a motion to request going to executive session under an NDCC 44-04-19.19 for contract negotiation negotiation strategy second is there any discussion carrying on we'll call roll commissioner rich yes commissioner thenker yes commissioner connolly yes commissioner cleary yes mayor schmidt yes