515 on February 24th.

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

This will be the Board of City Commissioners meeting.

However, before we start, if Chaplain Staten would be able to come forward and give us invocation and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Father, we come before you today at Thanksgiving.

We're thankful we live in North Dakota, which you have blessed bountifully.

All of the uh oil, gas, minerals, and uh the farmland, the cattle, livestock, we're just praise you that we can live here.

And we thank you for your abundant blessings.

We ask today for protection for our law enforcement, our fireman, emergency responders.

Uh we be with them today.

We pray for our commissioners today, give them wisdom and discernment as they make decisions concerning our city, and uh we just ask you to bless this meeting, and God bless America.

I pledge allegiance to the United States of America Republic for which it stands under our indivisible liberty and justice.

Thank you, sir.

If we can call the meeting order, call roll, please.

Commissioner Rish.

Here.

Commissioner Zenker?

Here.

Commissioner Connolly?

Here.

Commissioner Cleary?

Here, Mayor Smith.

Here.

Our first item is public comment.

Public comment is uh restricted to the items on the consent agenda, the regular agenda or prior city commission agenda for the regular agenda to be excluding any public hearings.

So anyone who wishes to speak, please come forward, state your name, sign in, and tell us which topic you're speaking to.

You can bring it down.

Bring it down.

Okay.

Perfect.

Thank you.

You're used to be on this side of the table.

Umers, thank you for uh allowing me to uh this time to share my thoughts with you this evening.

Just for the record, state your name.

Oh, I will.

My name is Mike Schwartz.

And uh by way of introduction, uh I'm a longtime resident of Bismarck.

My folks moved here in 1968.

Um my wife Connie tells me, reminds me that uh we're going to have lived in our house on First Street for 40 years here in May.

So been around for a while.

I'm an Eagle Scout, uh, which uh, if nothing else signifies to you my dedication to uh public service.

I've uh served two terms on the Bismarck Park Board, and as Mayor Schmitz knows, I am uh starting my 14th year on uh planning and zoning as a volunteer.

So I I volunteer um as a as a service to you on planning and zoning and to the citizens of Bismarck, and I I thank you all for uh for the service that you provide provide to Bismarck.

The item that I'm here to visit with you this evening is the last uh item on your uh agenda from your February 10th meeting, which is the uh street utility and maintenance fee.

And I just wanted to let you know that um I'm here this evening because I oppose the replacement of the existing special assessments and uh moving it over onto the utility bill.

And uh the reason I do that is because I believe that the current special assessment fee process allows the citizens of Bismarck a voice in that process.

They're notified when uh there is a street project going on next to their property.

And then addition to that, they have the opportunity to protest it if they so choose to do that.

And you know, it it to me it encourages public participation in the process.

And it uh it allows people that are paying paying for the project to actually have a voice in what's being done.

Um I think that um the current um change, the possibility of a street utility fee is has really has two problems.

First of all, it's a bucket that uh just accumulates dollars and can be used by you know whenever wherever city administration sees fit with really out much without much citizen input.

And then secondly, in addition to that, the the other issue I see is that the charge for that fee can be bumped up without any city input.

So our citizen input, it comes to you, I would expect, and that you will uh decide how much it's going to be increased.

Now we currently have something very similar in place, and that is the uh street light and uh and uh signal light um traffic light fee that's currently in place.

And since its inception, and I don't remember when that was because I know it's been on my bill for quite a while, uh I've noticed in the last two years it's gone up five dollars a year, so ten bucks, and that's for commercial property, and four dollars for um for residential.

And it I I find it interesting that uh when I watched the uh the uh city commission meeting, and it would have been back in 23, um, I don't remember exactly when, I think sometime mid-year, where public works came to you and asked you for a contract to uh finish putting the street lights in, uh the LED street lights.

And one of the things actually there were three things that were asked.

First of all, um how much had been spent putting street lights in so far, and there really wasn't an answer for it, and then how efficient, how much was being saved by putting in LED street lights, and there wasn't an answer for that that I remember.

And then finally, how much the contract was going to be to uh complete the project, and I don't remember that there was an answer for that either.

Now that's to the best of my recollection, but um that that's how I remember it.

And you know, I'm not saying there was a problem with the request for the contract or any of that, but what I see as an issue there is that uh it's an accountability issue.

When you've got a uh a bucket of dollars there that you can spend, you know, uh it's good to have the answers for how you're going to spend it and to let the folks know.

Now I know there was a Bismarck Tribune article that came out later on that indicated that the uh street lights, the LED streetlights were 60 percent more efficient power-wise than uh uh others.

But again, that didn't come out early on.

So you know, I'm left wondering when I when I look at this and I compare it to what you're uh have in front of you as far as a street maintenance fee, if we're gonna end up with the same situation.

And I I certainly hope not.

I mean, I I think that uh citizen involvement and participation in street maintenance projects is very important.

Now I I don't and indicating you know the the traffic light and uh streetlight fee, I don't have an issue with uh street lights, but uh one thing I always wonder about is the traffic lights, and I keep thinking, you know, that's something that everybody that drives through Bismarck uses in that.

I'm not sure why individual property owners are uh covering that fee, why it's not part of uh the sales tax that gets charged.

So uh just a thought.

And then uh I wanted to to let you know that uh I did attend the public information meeting that was held over at Public Works, and um, you know, I listened to the information and I voiced my opinion, and uh one of the the thing that I indicated most is that when it comes down to uh the bottom line for me is I don't want it to cost me more money.

So, you know, if if if uh if it costs me more money than what I'm paying for special assessments now, um I'm gonna have a real difficult time supporting that uh that measure.

So I went back and I reviewed the 2017 uh steering body notes.

And uh uh Commissioner Schmitz, you sat on that steering body.

And uh of course you remember that there were a lot of um of options that were presented that came out of that.

Now a lot of those I didn't see in the information meeting from um from public works, but of course it left me wondering uh once this fee gets put into place, if it does, what's the scope going to be on it?

Where is it going to go?

And uh is it is it going to be more than just uh you know the the street in front of your house or your business?

Um I don't know, but it it it makes me wonder.

Um I did, you know, one of the at the information session, the reasons offered for requesting the uh the change from special assessment fee to the street utility fee was that uh people were tired of special assessments.

And I don't think you're gonna find anybody that you talk to that's going to say, yes, I love special assessments, please charge me.

But you'll find that most people understand the importance of street maintenance, and uh because of that, they're going to accept um the special assessment a lot easier than if you tack a charge onto their utility bill every month.

Um, and then the other the other argument, of course, was that well, this is working in Fargo, and so we should apply it here.

And uh uh I I think that's a a weak argument at best.

So most of the folks that I've I've spoken to like this current situation.

They like, I'm not gonna say they like it, but they understand it, and they uh um they they appreciate how things are done, and they think it works just fine and um should remain unchanged.

So at one point in the February 10th meeting, Commissioner Risch, you mentioned that uh there would be substantial changes or substantial savings to uh having this utility fee in place in in substantial savings in interest in finance charges.

And uh, you know, one of the things I wondered about as I looked at uh the Tribune article and the uh fee that was uh mentioned in there, is how is that going to equate to savings for the average citizen?

In other words, right now we're paying those finance charges in our special assessments.

And uh, you know, how how how does it come back to us?

Um I went out and I looked at uh I I went down to uh Burley County and I asked them to give me some numbers for my properties and uh for my home, and then I have a garage that sits on a separate piece of property, and they were able to go back about 25 years for uh special assessments that were charged to my properties.

And I can tell you when I take the uh rate that was given in again the Tribune article and figured it out, uh it's it's definitely costing me more money to uh go along with that when you when you multiply it out.

And uh so again, just making the point that uh I'm gonna have an awful difficult time uh supporting this if uh if in the end it ends up costing me more money.

Um I guess all that being said, again, Commissioners, I respectfully urge you to abandon the procedur the proposed street utility improvement fee concept and uh direct staff to find other ways to provide cost savings.

I and other interested citizens in Bismarck are not interested in additional monthly fees and are not asking for a change for the change that you're considering at this time.

And I thank you for your time this evening.

Any questions?

Mr.

Chairman, since he asked mentioned my name, um the way you save money is when we do a street resurfacing program, we borrow money to do the resurfacing program.

We pay interest on that money.

When you're a special assessed, if you don't pay it off right away, you're going to be paying interest on that money.

With this plan, if we can get it to be equitable, and that's the challenging part.

If we can get it to be equitable and not assess any more money than we absolutely have to, we save money.

We save money through the savings and interest.

I don't know if you've been watching the news, but Mandan's got an issue right now where they're doing some street resurfacing and some underground, if not just all resurfacing.

And some of these residents are being assessed $20,000.

We just moved to a different house last um August, and I paid $1,200 in special assessments for 2025.

I'll pay $1,200 for special assessments in 2026.

That's $100 a month.

I don't know.

We haven't we're just discussing this.

Commissioner Zinker has been a leader for a long time and working on this, and so is Gabe, our city engineer.

But I'm convinced, at least on the interest side of things, we'll save money, Bismarck taxpayers will pay less in the long run.

Does that mean it's going to be equitable all the time?

That's a pretty tall challenge.

And I I can I appreciate that, Commissioner Risk.

I just try and figure out how when you come up with the rates up front, how how do you figure in that interest savings to me?

And and you that's not an individual thing if we went to this.

It will be a citywide thing, and overall less money spent on projects because of no interest.

But again, Commissioner Risk, it's it the important part is is going to be each individual citizen is going to have to assess how it impacts them.

And that's how they're going to uh uh vote on this.

So for me, you know, I went and did the calculations.

I did not feel comfortable with what I saw.

Thank you.

Commissioner Cleary.

Um Mike, I appreciate your comments.

I just want to clear something up for you just a little bit on the street light project when we switched LEDs.

I know it was a couple of years ago, and I don't know if the numbers were said out loud at this meeting, uh, but it is my portfolio, and so is the finance portfolio.

And we did crunch the numbers, we did figure out what the savings looked like and if we could do it quicker, how much money does that save us?

All of that stuff was accessible because they already knew the savings behind LED and what they cost versus the regular lights.

So I just want to ensure you that we weren't just taking a stab at it hoping it would save money.

Uh we did run all of those numbers and you know, then we had to ask ourselves does it make sense to do it faster, even though we had to come and ask the commission about that, or do we just stick to the replacement plan and let it be a much longer process and at the end of the day, though it costs more money up front, it saves us money going forward because of how much longer they last and all of that with the LED lights.

And so we did, I promise, look at those numbers if you want to see them.

I'm sure Steve still has them.

So it was a lengthy conversation.

I just don't know how much of it was specifically spelled out for for everybody at this table with exact numbers.

So if they're not back in the meeting notes, I certainly could find them for you.

I would appreciate that.

Sounds good.

Commissioner Cleary.

It's it's one of those things where when you see something later on and you're seeing a 60 percent savings in uh um in power, you're you're asking the question once again, why are my rates going up every year and when we're saving money?

And I understand that it cost it was you know, I saw the the amounts per fixture that we're putting out there, and I understand they're expensive, but in the long run, sure.

You know, how does that how does that equate to savings?

And uh the street lights has been a very interesting topic for me on this commission because uh you have things like LED that can save you a lot of money, and then uh I think all the guys that say in those meetings would also tell you that uh street lights uh are one of the biggest things that have been affected by the inflation.

They the cost of them has gone up immensely.

I understand your point of like the citizens of Bismarck are not the only ones that drive on the streets and use the streetlights.

I totally understand that.

But I think there's a lot of balance in there, but I would happily talk to you about it more.

Um I we can get some of those numbers from Steve because I I want you to know that it wasn't something that we just decided to do without making sure that it made sense in the long run.

So I and I appreciate that.

Uh and and street lights I don't have an issue with.

The traffic lights or the maintenance is something that I feel should be handled.

Understandable.

Um just just to and I I'll try not to take any more of your time.

But uh one of the one of the items that really jumps out to me is I happen to have a garage that sits on a separate lot.

So um I have a separate, there's a bathroom in it, so I have a separate utility billing for it.

And most months my water usage, sewer usage is zero.

So my bill is sixty-two dollars a month.

Thirty-five dollars of that is street light and traffic light maintenance.

And and to me that seems like a lot.

And and uh that bothers me just a little bit.

My my property because I don't live there is zone commercial, which is part of the the issue, but again, it it just doesn't feel right.

Understandable.

Thank you.

Commissioner Connolly.

Yeah.

Mike, uh I really appreciate the fact that you came up and talking.

The fact that you said on one of our boards and things, you're very knowledgeable about some of the intricacies that a lot of the citizens aren't, just because you pay attention differently once you're involved that way.

And um, this has been an ongoing uh um conversation for a long time.

I was the citizen sitting in the room at those meetings that you're talking about in 2017.

A lot of times I was the only citizen there.

Um part of why this item is on there exactly as as it is tonight, is to ask the citizen by one vote, an advisory vote, if you're going to allow us to continue to have the conversation.

It would take a second vote to actually initiate it.

And the comments that you had uh since we taped these meetings are something that I'm gonna be asking the questions saying, watch this, because this might be something that you've been thinking about too, as we try to negotiate and trying to find that better answer possibly to the alternative of special assessments.

For a lot of people that don't own their homes that say rent, say um colonial estates in 2017.

Part of the reason for their rate increase was a purchase, but part of the reasoning behind it was is 12th streets special assessments went up.

And they had to pay that off in one lump.

So their rents were saying because of special assessments, your rent went up.

But after the special assessment was paid, the rent didn't go down.

In 2017, they were paying about 230, 240 a month for their lot rent, and they've crossed $700.

So there's that impacts you and I because these are the people that a lot of times will work in the Walmarts or the McDonald's.

Now they can't afford to live on $10 an hour, they need more.

So if it's going through escrow or anything like that, it's an unseen cost.

If it moves to the utility bill, say it's uh $30 a month or anything along those rates.

Now it's a tangible thing.

Based on our capitalistic system, anybody can raise rates.

But now it's not because the cost of government went up, it's because they have to explain it to the people that are used.

Does that get us somewhere?

I don't know, but that's one of those things to where when you're asking how does it benefit, that might be a side thing because we have a lot of people that can't afford to have their own home.

And that's why I think it's this was going to be on the ballot in June.

And I'd be getting behind everything you say to say this is too soon, too much to overcome by June and educate the citizens.

But what you're saying is the very things that we need to keep engaging and keep talking about to see if we can't smith that out.

Does an advisory vote?

If there's enough buy-in to where can we get to that answer by November?

It might be worth the civil discourse and the worthy conversation, if that makes sense.

And I wrote them down because these haven't changed since 2017.

I'm very big on citizen input.

So giving up the protests, that is an angst for a lot of people.

But it's based on property.

If you get up where Gateway Mall is, if Gateway Mall is for the protests, the protests win.

If they're against, they lose, regardless of population.

So how much of a protest rate is that if it's banked on one property?

Um citizens' checks and balance as far as rates go up.

That's a big thing.

I'd like to pencil it in.

Every time I say it, it hasn't been very popular at this table.

So but I don't mind talking about it over and over.

Um and it's that's why I like the fact that we're looking at an advisory vote versus um a yes or no.

And if it's at the same status in November, then all of this comes into play too.

So I appreciate your time.

Thank you, Commissioner Conley.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioners.

This is public comment.

Anyone wish to speak, please come forward?

Good afternoon, everyone.

So letter F is to consider the request to hear the insufficiency of protests on the resolution of necessity for street improvement district SI 594.

Um I own property in Unit 3, which is one of 11 units in this special assessment district.

I am not here to protest the work, similar to what the previous gentleman said.

I am a supporter of street improvements, especially taking care of those items now as opposed to pushing them off for later when they tend to get more expensive and require a deeper investment by the citizens.

However, I did want to bring to your attention that there is a contingency of us in that particular district who are concerned with the way that the special assessments are spread out.

After talking to the engineering department, we learned that they too agree that the policy might deserve some review and potentially some tweaking.

As you're looking at all of these districts, one thing that really caught my attention that I hadn't known prior to attending the meeting with engineering is the fact that these special um improvements include locations spread out across the city, which was news to me.

Now we advocate for economies of scale, which is something that we're taking advantage of.

However, what we also learned is that the costs are commingled across all of those different districts and then spread out evenly.

The challenge that we have is that the types of work that's needed, the um ground that's underneath all of the streets might be distinctly different than what we're experiencing in our neighborhood.

And in fact, by running just some quick calculations, if we were to look at our district on its own to have those costs simply special assessed, we would be charged less money than we are by having us commingled with all the other ten projects.

Um again, not here to protest the work.

We appreciate that investment in our roads and the accessibility.

We just want to draw your attention to how these costs are spread out and the impact it has, particularly on high density residential.

In addition to unit three, there's another unit that's in this special assessment district that features high density housing, and they too are going to be experiencing a disproportionate amount of the costs associated with this road work.

So I'm here just to draw your attention to it.

Um we are very grateful for the time that we got to spend with engineering where they walked through the projects, they looked at the policies and how the costs are spread out amongst these particular parcels and agreed that further review is necessary.

So I just wanted to get it on the record that this is something that you might want to take a peek at the same time.

Uh Ms.

Frank, do you live in Bismarck now?

I know you're a longtime mandant city commissioner.

Well, you're a mandonite too, but I do reside in Bismarck now, and then we also own property in both communities.

But any other questions.

Thank you for your time.

Again, this is public comment.

Anyone wish to speak, please come forward.

A second call for public comment.

A third and final call for public comment.

Seeing no one else, public comment period is now closed.

Commissioners, what are your wishes with regard to the consent agenda?

Um Mr.

Mayor, I'd like to pull D.

D is in dog three.

Okay.

With regard to the balance of the consent agenda, what are your wishes?

Move to approve.

Second.

Any discussion.

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Zinker.

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Commissioner Rish.

Yes.

Mayor Schmidt.

Yes.

Commissioner D three.

Well, the reason I pulled D three is it kind of jumped out at me.

Um the SDY dental uh office would like to have us issue a letter of support for a buy down or to the North Dakota Opportunity Fund loan program to buy the interest rate down on their loan.

Well, my issue with it is the building's already been built.

It's a beautiful building on North Washington Street.

Um dental uh building got nothing but here, but good things about this dental office, and that's all well and good.

And I don't blame them for applying for this hundred, it would amounts to almost 105,000 gift from the state government.

But it just seems to me that this building has been built, they're gonna build it with or without the 105,000 dollars.

Um, and they they cover, I guess, about five percent of the dental work in our community, Bismarck Mandan area.

So if we give them 105,000, or the state does, what about the other 95 percent of the dental work being done?

They they don't they don't get anything.

It creates a competitive advantage per se because they got to help with their building and some of the others did not.

So I have a fundamental issue with after the fact giving a direct or supporting the state to give them a grant um grant of 105,000 dollars.

And for that reason, I think we should not write a letter of support for SDY Dental item D3, and I'll just move that we don't do it.

Second.

Okay, we have a first and a second.

What discussion do we have Commissioner Connolly?

Uh I said the same thing in relation to it's a very good restaurant in the area, and they came up to the podium at the time and it's not a restaurant.

Um, no, not this one on our previous item before.

And that and they actually said in the because I was on the Renaissance uh authority then too.

But um so it's a different program, but they came up and they said that we plan to build it either way.

It's just we were encouraged to do this, and I was a no vote on that, and that's why I support what you're saying.

So the only comment I'm gonna make um is this this program, the interest by number flex pace, I believe is the program.

It's a Bank of North Dakota program, and uh it's funding that comes from the state, and they're looking the letter of support is so that they could go actually to the North Dakota Opportunity Fund to get the additional portion of it, which is not interest-free, by the way.

They have to pay that back at a at a rate of interest.

The North Dakota portion is interest.

It's actually a reduction in interest.

It buys down the bank loan interest.

From an economic development standpoint, um, th this was proposed as a potentially coming to the vision fund, and I didn't think it was appropriate because it came too late.

Had it come prior to the building being constructed, it probably would been herded division fund.

Not certain the vision fund would have supported it because it may not have fit the the line, but this is where the North Dakota Opportunity Fund component actually fits it because it's it is uh you know that incentive program is out there to encourage people to build pro build product property in various communities.

And I'm gonna tell you that Bismarck has not gotten its share of that flex pace buy down.

It has not gotten its share.

So from that standpoint, I support the letter of support.

We're not given any money from our vision fund for it because it didn't fit that criteria, but I do support us accessing the funding that's available through the State of North Dakota for our community.

Just to follow up, it is tax money one way or the other.

I mean, there's no question about that.

And again, I don't blame them for applying for it, they might as well.

It's like free money, and it's not a lot of effort.

So I'm not I've got a great deal of respect for the dental office and dentists in general, but uh they're usually in a pretty good position, um, dentists in general.

I just had an implant put in cost $8,000.

So you know it's not cheap.

You wonder why people are walking around without teeth.

Is there any other discussion?

Here none will call the roll.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary?

No.

Commissioner Rish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zenker?

No.

Mayor Smith.

No.

I'll make a motion to approve.

That's presented.

Do we have further discussion?

Harry None will call the roll.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Commissioner Rish?

No.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

No.

Mayor Smith.

Yes.

Thank you, everyone.

It's a it's a worthwhile discussion.

Regular agenda item A is a public hearing on the request for a new C1 hotel motel full service alcohol license for Adava, Bismarck hospitality.

Hopefully I got that close to correct.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone wish to speak on this topic, please come forward.

A second call for public comment.

A third and final call for public comment.

Public comment period is now closed.

Commissioners, what are your wishes?

Move to approve is presented.

Second.

Any discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Rish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Mayor Smith.

Yes.

Item B is a public hearing on ordinance 6653 annexation of lots two through 11, block 2, lots 4 through 14, block 11, lots 1 through 6, blocks, block 12, promoter point, 6th edition, and the adjoining rights of way for the click.

Drive, Morales Drive, and Moreau Drive.

Go ahead, Daniel.

Good evening, Mayor, Commissioners.

So this is a request for annexation.

The location is in Northwest Bismarck, or well, it would be within Northwest Bismarck if the action is taken.

It is north of Interstate 94.

It's near the intersection of Claremont Road and Valley Drive.

You can see on the map right here.

This is within an area that was platted as part of Pontory Point 6 edition back in 2017.

As is often the case, the platts come in and the annexations are done in phases.

So this would be not quite the last phase within preventory point six.

There's still a little bit of an area along Frisco Way that's remains outside of city limits, but it would be the majority of it.

This would bring in 27 uh lots for development of single family homes.

It is all currently zoned R5 for single family homes.

This area is within what we call our uh priority area within your urban service um growth boundary, which really just means it's it's already surrounded by city limits.

It's an area that's easy to annex and easy to serve with with uh utilities.

Uh the annexations uh do have public hearings.

Uh so with the planning zoning commission, they make recommendations, and they did that in their last meeting.

Uh this is an advertised public hearing.

Uh we do send notice to the township and the county uh as well as uh the newspaper, and that was done.

So this uh uh upon this public hearing uh we do recommend approval uh based on the findings that are contained in the staff report.

We meaning, I'm sorry, staff and the planning zoning commission both recommend approval.

Uh that would be, and I'll read this over again um of the of the items being approved.

Uh the annexation of lots two through 11 block um lots two through 11 block two, lots four through fourteen, block eleven, lots one through six, block twelve, promontory point six edition, any adjoining rights of way of McClintock Drive, Morialis Drive, and Madro Drive, and it's uh included in your packet um the full ordinance for this.

Any questions of Daniel?

Okay.

Um I think we're good for now.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone wish to speak to this, please come forward.

A second call for public comment.

A third and final call for public comment.

Seeing no one, hearing no one, public comment period is now closed.

Commissioners, what are your wishes?

Move to approve.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Commissioner Rish?

Yes.

Mayor Schmidt.

Yes.

Public hearing for ordinance 6654 zoning map amendment from conditional R 10 residential zoning district to RM10 residential zoning district for lots two through nine, block one of Cottonwood Park View edition first replat.

Daniel.

Okay, Mayor Commissioners.

Uh so these next two public hearings are both from the same applicant, uh, Edgewood Reet, and uh they're similar in nature.

I'll we'll do each one individually and I'll explain uh what they're requesting.

Uh the first one is in South Bismarck, uh South of Santa Fe Avenue.

It's just on the east side of South Washington Street, as you can see in the map, um, the west side of Camrose Drive.

Uh what they're requesting is to combine uh these existing eight lots into one lot.

Uh and to do so, they do need to change the zoning.

Uh the current zoning of R 10 allows twin homes, but the way the zoning works is they really have to be an independent lots.

Uh if they combine on the one lot, they really become a multifamily use uh of multiple buildings on a single lot.

Uh so the request will be to change from R10 to RM10.

Uh it's important to emphasize with both this one and the next application.

There are no physical changes proposed.

So it will look like this.

You can see on the map it's built.

Um, all four of the buildings, all eight of the units are built, uh, and they would intend to remain very much the same way.

Uh it's very similar uh to the lot across the street, which is on one lot currently.

So they would they would combine lots to be uh zoned similarly, and it would look similar to that as well.

Uh so this is a request that did come to us, and and uh and so they do have the right to combine the lots and change the zoning, and that's what we're processing.

Uh the planning zoning commission did hold the public hearing on this request on January 28th of 2026.

No comments were given um at that public hearing.

Uh so based on the findings that are contained in the staff report um and the planning zoning commission do recommend approval of the zoning map amendment from the conditional R 10 residential zoning district to the RM10 residential zoning district for lots two through nine block one of Cottonwood Park View edition first reply.

I think an uh a uh representative of the applicant is here as well.

So if you have any questions, they can answer them too.

Any questions of Daniel?

Go ahead, Commissioner.

Uh Daniel, what exactly is the difference between RM10 and R 10?

And why be in this it's already built up?

Why would anyone want to change it at this point?

Sure.

Yes.

Commissioner Rish, they thank you.

And we and we've asked that question, and that's been asked all along the line, so I've I anticipated that, so thank you.

The um well, the first the difference between R 10 and RM10 is R 10 is our two family residential district, but it's really intended for individual lots that are owned by individual entities.

Um the RM10 is residential multifamily and 10 dictates the density that's allowed.

So it's it's the lower density multi-family.

But in our world, once it's on one lot, uh it's one ownership uh becomes multifamily even if it's separate buildings.

So from a zoning perspective, that's what their purpose is.

Uh now the applicants, I I believe maybe I'll leave the question of of what their intent was, if you don't mind answering that one.

Okay, um to the applicant.

Okay, this is a public hearing.

Oh, Commissioner Connolly, did you have a question?

No.

I they'll probably say it in their comments because I listened to the planning and zoning.

Okay.

So this is a public hearing.

Anyone who wishes to speak to this item, please come forward.

Good evening, Mayor.

Commissioners Nicholas Cullen, Houston Engineering representing the property owner.

Um, in response to your initial question, uh the reason for this is twofold.

First of all, it is a tax savings to the property owner, as well as it's an administrative cleanup.

Um lot less parcels to take care of and address that answered it.

Anything else to offer?

That's all I have at this time unless you have any other additional questions.

No, thank you, Nick, because I heard all that at the planning and zoning.

Understood.

Thank you.

Anyone else who wish to speak, please come forward.

A second call for public comment.

A third and final call for public comment.

Seeing no one and hearing no one public comment periods now closed.

Commissioner move to approve.

Any discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Commissioner Rish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Yes.

Next item D, uh public hearing on ordinance 6655 zoning map amendment from R 10 residential to the uh RM 10 residential zoning district, minor and a minor subdivision final plot for Edgewood Vis Edgewood Village 7th edition secondary plot.

Daniel.

Mayor Commissioners.

Uh so this time Edgewood Reed is requesting approval of the zoning map amendment within Edward Village second edition second reply.

Uh in this case, there are 50 already built twin homes uh on individual lots within the R 10 zoning district.

Uh the intent would be to combine um as with the previous uh request into one lot.

Uh one difference here is uh there are a number of easements um both an access easement, so uh easements, utility easements.

Uh so because of the complication of that, uh there is a replat of this lot being proposed, uh which is in your packet for for approval along with the zoning map amendment.

Uh what this replat does is it basically cleans up the site.

You can see the existing plat with all all 50 of the lots and and all of the easements that are shown.

Uh the new plat, much simpler.

Uh the access easement is still there.

Uh Texas Loop is the name of the private drive, so that will remain as well as the utilities, and this was some of the other usements that are no longer necessary because it's one lot will be removed from the replat.

Uh the 50 twin homes will not change in disposition.

Uh we are told uh the intent is to keep keep them as is.

Uh the change will be the lot ownership of the of the one single lot.

Uh well, I'm sorry, the ownership won't change, but it will be one lot rather than 50 lots.

Uh the planning zoning commission did hold a public hearing on this request on January 28th, 2026.

No public comments were heard on that item.

Uh based on the findings contained in your staff report, and at the conclusion of this hearing, the planning zoning commission recommend approval of the zoning map amendment from the R 10 residential to the RM10 residential zoning district, and the minor subdivision final plat of Edgewood Village 7th edition second replats.

If you have any questions, I can try to answer.

Any questions?

Doesn't look like it, thank you.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone wish to speak, please come forward.

A second call for public comment.

A third and final call for public comment.

Public comment period is now closed.

Move to approve as presented.

And we got a buyer.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Commissioner Vish.

Yes.

Commissioner Zenker.

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Mayor Smith.

Yes.

Next item E.

Consider a request for approval of a street name change from El Rancho Road to Golf Drive and Country West 5th edition.

Daniel.

Mayor Commissioners, this is the last item for me for this evening.

So in this case, City of Bismarck and the planning department and CENCOM, the Central Dakota Communications Center, are requesting this change.

And it's essentially a cleanup of a long-standing issue.

We decided to request addressing the and I'll I'll get to some of the intent of it, but just the what will happen is the name of Errol Rancho Road will change to Golf Drive.

And it's really an historic accident, I will say.

In the 1980s, it was originally platted as El Rancho Road, and that was the intent.

Leading into the new Claremont family park, kind of into the Cooley uh area.

Part of this is constructed, part of this is not constructed.

Uh in the 90s, the a new plat for Country West neighborhood was was recorded, and they changed that plat name to Golf Drive.

And so that is the part of the road that has been built.

The part that hasn't remains El Rancho Road.

And the it's really only five lots.

They're all owned by the Bismarck Parks District, and they've been informed of this and they've consented to this change.

And there is one building, uh the Gate City Bank that's addressed off of Golf Drive.

Nothing is addressed off of El Rancho Road.

So no addresses will change of any buildings at least in this process.

And the only property impacted will be the parks district.

So really why are we doing this?

The the really the intent is if if there were ever an incident to occur in the Coolie, um it's it would be better for emergency responders to get a call to golf drive, because then they could just follow golf drive down into it and they they know where to go.

Um if they get a call from El Rancho Road, they may be looking for that road and there is no El Rancho Road.

So that that's really the purpose.

Clean us up and have everything addressed off of Golf Drive.

Um the street name changes that we do hold, uh they're not public hearings per se.

We don't advertise them, but we do send letters to everybody directly impacted so they can come and raise any concerns if they have them.

Um as I said, it's just parks district in this case.

They were informed.

Um, I'm not aware of any concerns from them.

Uh so staff do recommend approval of this resolution that's attached to your packet uh to change the name of El Rancho Road to Golf Drive.

Any questions?

Doesn't look like it.

Thank you.

Commissioners, what are your wishes?

Move to approve or presented.

Any discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Vish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Mayor Schmidt.

Yes.

Next item F.

Consider request to hear insufficiency of protests on the resolution of necessity for the street improvement district SI594.

Thank you, Mayor and Commissioners.

SI594 is our uh street maintenance asphalt uh reconstruction rehabilitation project that we'll have in our 2026 uh slate.

Uh the protests that you have in front of you and on the screen here, uh recognize the thousand or so parcels that we sent letters to.

Uh, we do collect and it is by the area of the um representing uh parcel.

So in this particular instance, all 10 units, um, none of them received sufficient uh protests.

We would call it insufficient protests.

And our recommendation would be to approve the insufficiency of protests.

I would also maybe recognize uh Ms.

Frank earlier talking on uh the Grandview Lane Condo Association.

It is something that when we're informed early enough in the process, we still have time to maybe adjust and look at what the policy ramifications would be of any adjustments, but any uh dollar or allocation removed from one property would have to be redistributed to other properties.

So we're just really sensitive to to not having a knee-jerk reaction to fixing something potentially for fear that it might have some unintended consequences elsewhere.

Uh really the drop dead date for that particular for this project, uh so long as this project moves forward would be in the summer of 2027, is when the specials would actually be spread.

So there is time to analyze this.

Um obviously we will try to get this uh resolved and if come back to to the board with any uh changes potentially before that, just so we can have a quicker resolution than that.

So without it taking any questions that you may have, uh but the recommendation would be to accept the insufficiency of protests for all 10 units.

Commissioner Connolly.

Could you speak specifically to the commingling of all of the different units and the costs predicate more than just like the unit three, but all of them listing?

Sure.

Mayor and Commissioners, Commissioner Connolly.

Uh so there's probably two components there.

One being with the City of Bismarck uh subsidizing the the costs associated with the project, uh, with a 25 percent for the mill and overlay component and then 70 percent for the reconstruction process uh within a particular unit, uh the the costs to that resident end up being very similar by the time we we subsidize both of those elements to the degree uh almost intentionally.

The costs, uh, even if we even when we do uh allow our contractors to bid the units uh differently, they can put a bid price of of ten dollars a square foot in unit one and twelve dollars a square foot for whatever that that element might be in unit two, we give them that opportunity, but rarely if ever do they actually c charge a different per unit price for those things.

So um in in every time that we have tried to to have a non-unified rate, uh really it it hasn't I'm shocking out of being a significant difference.

Um so I be I believe that because of our uh city's contribution of sales tax to buy down the specials allows a little more flexibility on the commingling, if you will, of those assessments, because really uh what we are promising at the end of that is a sufficient street uh and after that millen overlay process or after that reconstruction process, regardless if it's on the north side of town or the south side of town, right across the street from the batch plant or a half a mile or ten miles away, uh we would see similar bid prices for all that work regardless.

Good commissioner.

Um to follow up with that then since you've done it before and you have looked at it because it's been asked before, obviously.

When you bring it back, could you show how those numbers just to back up what you just said?

Mayor Commissioners, when I say bring it back, what do you mean by bringing it?

When you said that if we approve this so that the work gets done because of the timing of it and that the assessments won't hit until 27, that you'd bring it back in front of the commission if you re-look at it differently.

Could you also pencil in the explanation of how that commingling um proves what you uh just said is that it doesn't prove to be a huge difference?

Sure.

Yep, I can I follow what you're saying.

Okay.

Anything else, Commissioners.

What are your wishes?

Move to approve is presented.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Commissioner Rish?

Yes.

Mayor Schmidt.

Yes.

Item G, consider request to receive bids and award contract for street light and traffic signal, project SV 85.

Okay.

Uh Mayor and Commissioners, SV uh project or street utility and traffic, excuse me, street light and traffic signal.

Project number 85 is the replacement of the traffic signal at the intersection of Main Avenue and Airport Road.

We opened bids on February 19th.

Our low bidder was Denny's Electric LLC with a bid of 588,764.

I will note that this is funded for both uh it's about 200,000 or so dollars from sales taxes used in this project, as well as uh 400, 500,000.

So excuse me, um if I can actually get the actual product budget here.

So I don't have to speak out of turn.

The total funding amount would be 478,000 and some change from the street light and traffic signal fund and sales tax contributing about 235,000 dollars to recognizing that we are using our sales tax dollars that come into our community for things like traffic signals.

So I guess the comment uh that the earlier uh uh Mr.

Schwartz had uh very timely because we were able to show that we actually are doing that here in our community.

So with that, our recommendation is to award to Denny's Electric with the price of make sure I get that again here.

Take any questions you may have.

Commissioner Commissioner Rush.

Uh Mr.

Mayor Gabe, so this is just for four single street light replacement at Airport Road and Main Avenue?

This Commissioner four polls.

Mayor Schmidt's and Commissioners, Commissioner Rish.

This is for the four polls, uh the electronics, the the cables, the conduits, the controllers, all the innards, uh, as well as because of the polls and our requirements to uh make accommodations when we we alter the public right-of-way.

We're also ensuring that all of this is ADA compliant and pro aid compliant, and so we're also ripping up all the contract or the ramps and the corners and uh making sure that all those ramps are uh compliant for federal regulations.

Thank you.

It costs a lot of money, but it is what it is.

Anything else, Commissioners?

What are your wishes?

Move to approve is presented.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Commissioner Vish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Mayor Smith.

Yes.

Item H is considered a request from the Great Plains Food Bank for financial sport.

Jason, you're going to lead this out.

Good evening, Air and Commissioners.

Uh earlier this year I had the pleasure of meeting with uh Grace Renner and Marsha Paulson, both representatives of Great Plains Food Bank.

Um, and the request was centered around support from the City of Bismarck.

And as we do in these situations, I asked them to prepare uh some information for you to consider on how the Great Plains Food Bank has an impact in not just Bismarck but in the region.

And there was some information attached to your packets, and I believe uh Marcia and Grace will run through that presentation as well, along with a little brief video that uh kind of gives you a little background on who the Great Plains Food Bank is and some of the work that they do here in our community.

Um if you have any questions for me or staff after their presentation, we're happy to uh be here to answer those for you, but I will stand aside and let them get started with the uh their information.

Thank you, Jason.

Good evening.

Uh, my name is Marcia Paulson.

I'm the chief development officer for the Great Plains Food Bank, and um Grace will join me here in just a moment.

I appreciate the opportunity to be with you, Mayor and Commissioners this evening as we um stand together and talk about those in our community here who are living with food insecurity.

Uh we believe at the Great Plains Food Bank that together we can end hunger and that we all have a role in it.

And I'm excited to be able to share with you a bit about the food bank, who we are, how we differ from the charitable feeding network that we supply, and um what we can do together to meet the needs of our neighbors.

We do have a short video that we'll show that really um cues us up for the next conversation that we'll have.

We'll talk about some numbers both statewide and here in the Bismarck uh Burley County community, as well as um share the stories of those neighbors who are seeking services and why they are needing some of the support that our charitable sector is providing, and then answer any questions that you have after we um extend an invitation to the city of Bismarck to join us.

So uh with that, I will um cue up the video.

One in five individuals in our communities face food insecurity.

That's also one in four children.

Great Plains Food Bank is the one and only food bank in the state of North Dakota in Clay County, Minnesota.

We were set up to recover surplus food that would otherwise go to waste and get it into the hands of those individuals who need it most.

The vision here at the Great Plains Food Bank is to ensure neighbors are nourished, communities are strong, and systems ensure no one is left behind.

I get asked all the time what's the difference between a food bank and a food pantry?

A food bank is where we recover food, surplus food, by the millions of pounds from our food industry donors, and then we distribute that food to our hundreds of food pantries, shelters, and soup kitchens.

Last year, food banks recovered three billion pounds of food at one point was going to waste.

It's product that comes to us from the food industry, so manufacturers perhaps overproduced.

They donate that product to us.

Growers produce acres and acres of corn, potato, squash, onions that then is donated to us.

Our retailers, every bake box store, grocery store across our service area has surplus product.

We capture that food, our volunteers repack that food, we put it on our semi, and we get it out to the pantries who can then distribute to neighbors.

It's an incredible network.

You know, the face of hunger looks like you and me.

It's the child in the classroom next to your own children.

It's the family sitting in the church pew, it's the neighbor down the street.

These are folks who are working hard, who are trying to meet the needs of their family, but for whatever reason, they are needing a little extra help.

And so when families and children need us, we're there.

No one deserves to go hungry.

Not one, not 150,000 people.

When we can nourish neighbors and build strong communities and ensure systems can leave no one behind, that means that we're gonna end hunger together.

We have been supplying product uh into the Bismarck Bandan community for the last 43 years, and uh we've been working quietly with the food industry in order to be able to do that.

We've been working with our volunteers uh who are helping us prepare this food for for distribution throughout this community and across our state, and we have been working with community champions to be able to fill gaps in service.

We play one vital role in hunger relief, and that is the only food bank in the state.

But we can't do what we do without our incredible partners.

There is a document in your packet um that looks like this and speaks to those partnerships in action that we rely on so generously, always keeping our neighbors at the center of our work.

Umside that document is a map that shows the value and the pounds that are distributed to each county across our service area, all of North Dakota and Clay County, Minnesota, and the value of that food that is delivered by us into those counties.

Uh, we work with the Feeding America network of food banks across the nation, and um together we are uh feeding our our neighbors nationwide.

Here locally, we are touching the lives of one in five people in North Dakota, and unfortunately, one in four of them are children.

Nearly 50 percent of those who are served across our state are children and seniors.

Last year uh across the state, 12.3 million meals were distributed.

Uh 14.8 million pounds worth of food.

We had 3,800 volunteers of all ages sharing uh 12,000 hours of their service, and that service supported 205 food pantry shelters, soup kitchens, senior meal sites, low-income child care centers who are serving those who are food insecure.

It's in 104 communities.

And together we touched 167,163 individuals, and that is 167,163 stories.

Uh, whether it's a child going to school without without food, whether it's a senior who's having to make difficult choices between food and medication, whether it's a parent who needs to skip a meal so that their kids can eat.

Um, to me that's that's one too many, uh, and certainly 167,000 is way too many.

And so we are committed at the Great Plains Food Bank to continue this work.

Um locally, the numbers are just as astonishing.

And um, my colleague Grace Renner will speak to those.

Good evening, commissioners and Mayor Schmidt.

Down.

Okay.

Thank you for having me.

My name is Grace Renner.

I am a donor relations officer at our Bismarck location, and it is an honor to serve the Great Plains Food Bank.

I really get to do God's work and ensuring that no neighbor goes hungry.

So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the numbers here in Bismarck and Burley County.

Last year alone, we distribute distributed two million three hundred and fifty-four pounds of food throughout the city of Bismarck.

Um that was valued at over four and a half million dollars.

Um we served, which equates to nearly two million meals.

Um, we have more than 1,200 volunteers that come through our regional service center or our organization really wouldn't be in existence without the help of our volunteers.

Um, it's such a beautiful and vibrant place to come.

If anyone ever wants to come down and toward the regional service center, I'd love to give you a tour.

But really, our organization is run off of people who are passionate about making sure people um our neighbors aren't going hungry.

Um those 1,200 volunteers equated to over 3,800 hours of service at our regional service center or 30 um of volunteer service.

And within the city of Bismarck and Burley County, we have over 22 partner agencies.

So those include the Dream Center, Ministry on the Margins, Heaven's Helpers Soup Kitchen.

These are all entities that are receiving food from us on a weekly basis.

Um we have six school pantries throughout throughout the city of Bismarck.

We have four wellness pantries, so places like um Bismarck Burley Public Health has hosts a wellness pantry for us.

And then our mobile food pantry operates on a quarterly basis where we're setting up one of our big trucks in a in a parking lot and neighbors are able to drive through and load up their vehicles with food.

So we're really grateful to serve and to reach as many people as possible in the Bismarck community.

Last year in fiscal year 2025, we served 20,000 uh 109 individuals, 25% of those being children, and 22% of those being seniors.

Last year as well in fiscal year 2025, we rescued 1.7 million pounds retail food from big box retailers and grocery stores, the food that uh would otherwise go to waste that is still viable for our neighbors to eat.

So we're really proud to do that work and work really closely with our partner agencies through throughout the city uh rescuing food.

And then of course we are located um down off of South 20th Street, so kind of down by Dvorak Motors.

We have a beautiful um warehouse space there that's about 10,000 square feet.

Myself and a team of four full-time employees um at the regional service center, small but mighty team.

We are um we have a facility that holds seven semi-loads of shelf stable and perishable food product, um space for 172 pallets, and then of course our nice new volunteer engagement center.

Um we have two refrigerated straight trucks um down there, and again, I welcome and invite you all to come and visit our regional service center.

It's a great place to be.

I know Commissioner Reich has been there a few times, and I'm really grateful to see familiar faces there.

Does anyone have any questions for me or what the regional service center looks like here in Bismarck or who we serve?

Okay, I'm going to let Marcia take it from here.

Thank you, Grace.

Um, we also appreciate the City of Bismarck's support through community development block grant dollars.

We are currently in the process of wrapping up our second award really aimed at safety measures uh and enhancing handicap accessibility efforts in our facility and uh entering into our building.

So uh on behalf of our neighbors here, thank you for those past um investments.

You can see uh the list of our partners here in Bismarck uh that we supply uh everything from food pantries to meal sites to residential treatment facilities and shelter.

Um the human service zone was also a partner of ours in in uh 2025 as we moved through the government shutdown and the pause and snap benefits in partnership with uh the governor.

We were able to mobilize with all of the social service zones across North Dakota to get an additional million pounds out across the state and very thankful for um the zone here in Burley County uh to partner.

Uh we supply 93% of all the food that moves through the charitable sector every year.

And so this is food that um is fresh, uh, a growing amount of fresh food, uh, but also shelf stable.

And we're we're proud of the work that we do.

We're proud of our role in that.

We also know that a lot of our pantry partners rely heavily on that food that moves through the network.

And so um we also want to help build their capacity in order to diversify the the pounds that they are recovering in their communities as well.

And so uh we operate an agency-enabled food rescue effort where we empower the local pantries to um safely pick up product from other retailers that our truck and driver is not able to get to because of time and capacity.

So it really is uh a massive network that is recovering millions of pounds uh each year.

Beyond the charitable network that we supply, we also operate direct service programs.

And these programs are the school pantry programs, Grace uh mentioned, as well as wellness pantries.

We know that to fill gaps, to reduce barriers, to increase access, we need to go where our neighbors are going.

And uh we we have a lot of prairie pride here in this community and across the state, and we're we're not gonna want to ask for support.

But if we're talking with our nurse practitioner or we're talking with our child school counselor, and they know or we share with them that there's not enough food at home, they're an incredible resource in order to direct to other community resources.

And so we have pantries in the schools, we have um pantries at the clinics, and we are going to continue to provide resources into those areas.

Our seniors, we have a senior food pack program.

It is the CSFP uh government program that we add product to, and we have uh 800 seniors in the uh central part of North Dakota, uh hundreds here in uh Bismarck Mandan that we are supplying, and then our partnership with the Bismarck Burley Public Health in getting uh food that um uh is preferred and required for health and well-being into the hands of families who need it.

Um so our our work is robust, uh the needs are great.

We conduct a study every four years called Hunger on the Plains, and uh the data shows that uh uh people living in poverty and with food insecurity are dealing with more than just hunger.

They're dealing with a lack of transportation, chronic health conditions, many having two chronic health conditions, um, access to housing.

Uh and so it's just layer upon layer upon layer.

And so um we have to be at the table with others to do this work.

So we're in partnership with housing and legal and child care and uh workforce development.

We are the food provider at the table, and um we're excited about the collaboration that happens.

And when people are having to make tough choices, it's between uh paying their utilities, rent, fixing their car, putting gas in the tank, or forgoing or going to their doctor.

Um so if we can reduce the hunger needs, uh it allows them to uh make these other difficult decisions.

Uh part of the uh study shows um who is coming to the charitable sector, and the full executive summary is on our website, but um, you know, it's one in five individuals, one in four children, um seventy-five percent reporting um chronic health condition.

One in three do not have a vehicle that works, uh so relying on others or public transportation.

Um 41 percent attended um higher education, uh single caregivers, and unfortunately our Native American uh neighbors are facing hunger at seven times the rate of other communities.

Uh this data informs our work at the Great Plains Food Bank, and um we will continue to ask our neighbors uh where we can best uh invest our resources in the work.

Our invitation to the City of Bismarck tonight is that uh we invite the City of Bismarck to consider an annual investment of $50,000 a year over five years, starting in calendar year 2027, in order to feed our Bismarck neighbors, uh ensuring that food insecurity uh is diminished.

Specifically, the funds would be used to source, continuing to source, rescue, prepare, and distribute food.

We have an abundance of food.

This is not a food supply issue.

Um we'd get that food in and out through our partner network here in Bismarck and through the direct service programs that we talked about uh in filling additional gaps and needs.

The investment uh for our neighbors, $50,000 provides two meals uh for every dollar, so a hundred thousand meals will be supplied with this gift every year.

And the return on that investment, because most of the food we recover is donated, because volunteers help us prepare this food, uh we can turn that food into 228,000 worth of grocery product moving out across the city.

Uh four and a half to one return on investment.

Um we're uh thankful for the purchasing power that we have at the Great Plains Food Bank, not only with the Feeding America Network, but with local uh producers and manufacturers in order to invest every dollar uh in hunger relief.

Ninety-five percent of every charitable dollar through the food bank goes to feed people directly.

And so um we thank you for your consideration and uh happy to further explore this invitation to the City of Bismarck with you all tonight uh or as the um as the months uh progress as you plan for 2027.

Questions, commissioners.

Commissioner, Mr.

Mayor, I just want to thank you, Marsha and Grace.

Excellent presentation, and thank you for all you do in our community.

Well, we do we'll we'll be working on the budget in the next few months.

I don't know what the inclination is here.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Commissioner Connolly.

I really struggle with this being the role of government.

I mean, when you mentioned Grace, and I appreciate the fact that you said it's God's work very specifically within the Bible text and stuff, there's an approach to how we address the needs of people that are less fortunate.

And I don't know if uh the government role passes that test because it's always a need that's greater than the resources.

Um for the charitable side where it's somebody using their own flexible money in order to give through that relationship to another person that makes us all better, it's there.

But when it's government facilitating that, it's you're asking us to spend somebody's money that might be dealing with food insecurity themselves.

Yeah.

And that's a harder challenge, and that's why I say I struggle with it.

Um I appreciate the fact that Commissioner Rish says we'll be looking at the budget.

And I guess that should be part of our conversations rather than to uh for me to even make a commitment like that tonight.

I appreciate your thoughts, Commissioner.

We at the Great Plains Food Bank believe that ending hunger is a shared responsibility.

We as individuals um have a responsibility.

We as uh personers of churches, we as voting members of uh this state, we receive some state dollars uh to help us purchase meat products in particular and we like to purchase locally uh that product.

Uh we do receive uh private support, a large portion of our budget is private funded, very small percent is um publicly funded.

Um we did talk a bit about the C D BG grants, which is the prior uh primary uh support of public funding.

And so um we we invite you to consider being a partner in this work as the City of Bismarck.

We understand um the responsibility that you have in deciding where City of Bismarck dollars go.

Uh and we hope that um our neighbors here in this community can can receive some of that support to feed their families.

So I I also struggle because I find it hard because what other charitable organizations are going to come forward and ask for money, and I've been pretty clear of my stance on that in the past.

Um there are probably some services where the city will have to be involved when we do look at what homelessness is, but it's probably not a direct here's a check uh piece.

Um that that's my struggle.

So I mean, I obviously your request is to look at it in 2027.

We certainly will be heading into budget discussions that and um you know uh as Commissioner Connolly said I I I just don't know that's the role of city government.

We we have a limited resources ourselves.

And so thank you, Mayor.

Commissioner Connolly.

Or clearly, I'm sorry.

Okay.

Um thank you for all the information.

Uh my Renee and I had already spoken about it a little bit um when you reached out to her, but I guess to their point, um, I think this can easily be talked about more um in our budget committee information, um, planning, especially for a five-year ask and what that looks like, where that comes from in our buckets, that sort of thing.

Um I guess my other question for you, and this certainly doesn't have to be something you answer tonight.

I think that it would just be a question when we're talking in the budget committee.

Obviously, you're doing a lot of great work regionally, um as I think a hub in that region, we get asked to the mayor's point from a lot of entities.

Uh we play uh a you know supportive role for a lot of charitable organizations, regional type of organizations, and so I guess when we're having that conversation with transit or with other entities where we're we are playing a role, I guess my other my question would be like are other municipalities also playing that role?

Um, because I think that the city of Bismarck tends to get that ask a lot more than maybe some of our smaller counterparts.

Um and even though you're very obviously helping members in our community, I know that these funds are going to Fargo.

Uh and so like how how does that work?

Is Fargo playing that role too?

You know, I just it I want to make sure that it makes sense for us.

Uh, what role does government play?

Are we the only you know what I mean?

I'm assuming we're not the only ones that are being asked of it, but uh I just it's such a regional process, and so that's just more information that I would want, and it can certainly be later.

Um but if we're gonna be asked to step in in that capacity, like who are the other players in that role, if that makes sense.

Are there counties?

Are there you know uh that sort of thing?

I guess I would just be curious about um because to the mayor's point, uh there's a lot of charitable organizations in our community as well.

A lot of them are your partners that need our help too.

Um and we want to be good partners to them as well.

So thank you, Commissioner.

It's a it's a great question, and one that we um uh was asked a lot when we were at the North Dakota legislature uh as well.

If the state is going to invest, what are the counties doing, what are the cities doing, what are the townships doing?

And uh in good faith effort, we are uh visiting with counties and cities and townships and um letting folks know what the need is, uh what a role could be.

Um we um are one of a kind in that you invest in the Great Plains Food Bank, uh you're investing in 22 charitable feeding programs in this this community and impacting 20,000 individuals.

The dollars that would be coming from the city of Bismarck stay in the city of Bismarck.

They are spent every cent of it right here.

Um and we can show exactly how that would be done.

Certainly.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it.

Your numbers tonight certainly show that money is being spent here and the amount of partners you work with.

So I don't by no means um implying that, but I just am curious because you are so regional, like what that looks like for you.

Um I certainly think it can be, I think the consensus, at least that I'm starting to grasp, is that we would be talking about this within our annual budget.

Um and so I that's where I'm comfortable.

I don't know if I'm like ready to make a decision that's impacting five years tonight.

But I appreciate all the information because I know when Renee brought it up to me, I had a lot of questions, and I feel like you answered a lot of my questions.

So thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you for exploring the invitation.

Anything else?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

Uh next item I, regular agenda.

Consider a request to partner with Bismarck Parks and Recreation District to solicit proposals for community recreation facility feasibility study, Jason.

Our city engineer was gonna jump in line and grab this one.

I'm happy to hand it over, but uh he's got enough on the he sat back down.

So uh mayor and commissioners appreciate the opportunity to talk about this.

Um we're a little outside of our I guess traditional scope and area of focus when we talk about a community recreation feasibility study.

Uh so what does that all really translate to?

Um it translates to, if you can indulge me just a little bit on uh uh a history jaunt.

Uh back in 2019, the Bismarck Parks and Recreation District did a feasibility study that led to a community wide election in 2020.

Ultimately the question to the voters failed, uh but the question at that time was would you support an additional sales tax to create uh some type of public sports complex or uh sports and recreation facility in the community.

Uh that's essentially what we're looking at again here.

Uh but this time things are a little different.

Obviously, time has passed.

Much of uh many sports and recreation uh facilities have been added in the last five years, not just in Bismarck, but also across the river and Mandan.

And uh we've been talking about this, we being city staff, uh myself, uh assistant administrator uh Doug Wiles, um executive director of the park district, Kevin Clipfell, and uh throughout the many months, not just uh Doug and I and Kevin, but also uh Daniel Narran and the planning staff.

We've had some conversations with engineering about this on and off, but really where we are today.

Uh we're at a point where we know that Mr.

Clipfell will be retiring in June of this year.

And there is a uh there's an interest in bringing forward a study again to look at where we are today, what are the gaps we have in the community, and essentially address uh a number of questions that uh were asked initially, but I think there's one specific question that we would be looking at having answered that wasn't in the original study.

And from a city perspective, I think this is kind of an important feature and probably the point that gets us to the table with the park district.

The question that I think is important to answer with this study isn't just what are we lacking, what could we use, what type of facility could it be?

But for us, it's where would it be located?

Uh that was a question that wasn't asked initially, and it was something that I think in hindsight uh the voters probably struggled with.

Where did this where would this thing go and what would it look like in the future?

If we're able to discern some of that collectively in conjunction with the park district and uh city staff working together with a consultant, I think there's mutual benefit for both organizations.

Uh the benefit for the city of Bismarck is it will help us focus our areas on growth and development, extending infrastructure if necessary, but also recognizing that there will be a number of uh likely a number of private developments that would come in conjunction with this type of a use.

What does it do for the park district?

Well, it answers those questions of what are we lacking, where could it go, and and how do we get there?

Um why the partnership?

Why why some type of uh commingled effort here?

I think primarily, as I mentioned, with um executive director Clipfell's retirement, city staff could be the continuity through this discussion as Kevin's position becomes filled in the not too distant future.

I think uh having city staff there to bridge that gap and and work through that transition would help this project move forward.

In conversations with Kevin, we're looking at you know a typical timeline of probably nine to ten or eleven months, and so that puts us towards the end of this year.

Uh what do we know at that point?

Well, we have answers to the questions, and then we can have decisions on where we go next.

Uh as I mentioned in 2020, this came to the voters as a potential sales tax.

I'm not suggesting that's the final answer.

I think there are other avenues that could be explored as to how this thing could be funded or how it could be financially supported.

Uh the term we've been hearing in other cases is braided funding.

That might be the case here too.

I'm not suggesting or implying that the city is going to take the lead with raising funds or paying for this project.

I'm suggesting that the city and the park district work together to get through the study, and then we start to look at what those answers bring forward and how we can look at supporting that going forward.

Obviously, if we're talking about the end of uh potentially the end of this year, there would be no election in 2027.

Uh we're not looking for a special election, and I'm not again not implying that it would only be sales tax to fund this type of a project, but I think those are conversations that we would have throughout the process.

Uh also in conversations with Kevin, the estimate of the project expense is somewhere around 200 to maybe even 250,000 dollars.

Uh the ask would be to share in those costs equally.

Uh I understand that that's a big number.

And you might say, well, where does that big number come from?

Uh a lot of community engagement.

Uh the park district has a number of uh community partners across all their sectors, and I think having intentional conversations with not just those community partners, but just the general community at large, the elected boards that help make these decisions, that becomes part of what we would be tasking the consultant to do over the nine to ten months worth of work.

Um we're ahead of the park district on this one.

This is not come board come before the park district.

Their next meeting is the third Thursday in March, so um I guess we're in some ways taking the lead, but by no means looking to be in the driver's seat entirely.

We would be looking to be in the front seat with the park district as we go through this together.

Uh there was some information included in your packets.

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them for you.

Um essentially, what we would be looking for with the study could it provide or what could it provide?

Uh development of a detailed program with uh programmatic elements including a business plan and potentially conceptual designs, development of an estimate of probable construction, operation, and maintenance expenses, development of an estimate an estimate of the economic impact to the community, identification of potential funding sources, and as I previously mentioned, an identification of a suitable location for a community recreation facility.

So with that, I'm happy to stand here and answer any questions you may have.

Commissioner Zenker already indicated.

It was a small wave.

I got a small finger, I'm not a very big guy.

So all right.

So let's just let's I understand us taking the lead.

I really do.

Um first of all, I would be fully supportive of a rec center in the city of Bismarck and have been in the past.

I think the last time it happened, they came to us to put it on the ballot.

And we we approved it as a commission for them, also they would have had to go through signatures and their their processes.

Right.

I do I do have a problem with the cost of this study being, you know, quarter of a million dollars.

We've already got some information that the park district went through.

I don't understand why we just can't take that and um update it, so to speak, um at a less expense of what's what's estimated here.

Doesn't matter if us if we pay for it as a city or the park, it still comes from the same quote unquote pockets, right?

Um I think the last and correct me on some of these numbers if I'm if I'm mistaken, but the last time they went through this process to and voted on it, it was like uh 120, 140 million dollar building.

That sounds about right.

Right.

So and that was what'd you say 2020?

Correct.

Six years ago, throw some inflation on there.

We're probably talking at something in the neighborhood of 180 to 200 million bucks, right?

Potentially depends on the design, and and what's needed.

Sure.

Needs always equal wants sometimes.

So I think you have to you we have to understand what what that is, right?

We struggle at this table with the event center.

Um it took a lot of cans getting kicked down the road finally before we approved some remodels for the event center, some funds for that.

There's still people out there that said, hey, tear that thing down, build a new one.

But when you got a stomach of 400 and four or 400 million or 440 million dollar project to re to replace that, um, then all of a sudden the they change their the tune, so to speak, right?

Because again, that money still comes from the same spot, whether it's sales tax, property tax, whatever it is, it comes with from within the community.

Um so I guess my point is this.

Um I would ask ourselves first, and I would ask the park second, is what's changed from 2020 to today.

Are we still the same too conservative sometimes as a community to be able to get this done?

And that that would be the number one question.

And maybe there's a survey out there that they did or or something, um, because I think that's what that's what hinders us as a community.

We're too conservative.

We don't we don't want to take that risk, maybe because of the heritage of all we are, you know.

Although I'm a German Russian guy, so I'll blame it on my my grandpa and grandma and and my great grandgrandma type thing.

But uh but are we gonna be willing to take that risk?

And and um we can say it and some people don't like it.

Hey, there are other communities within our state that have fabulous facilities.

Fargo's working on their second, um, through my uh children playing sports and things like that.

I've seen some of the some of the stuff that's in other smaller communities.

I'll I'll tab the cat at Watford City.

They got a fan two fantastic facilities really up there.

You know, they have a different little bit different economic environment.

Um so that's question one.

Are we are we still too conservative to get this done?

Again, I fully support this.

Um I'm all in.

Let's do it type thing.

Uh, the second thing is it's gotta have a wow factor, right?

I said this before when we talked about the the hotel possibility in the by the event center.

It can't just be, you know, hey, here's a building, cut it up with some nets, do some things.

Um you know, if you if you look at the the research, we are we approved a letter earlier today for a group of people that are doing the next play thing, repurposing the old um super value slash unify warehouse.

It's a great it's gonna be a great project for the city of Bismarck.

But I can tell you right now today it's not enough.

That is only gonna fill a small void of of what we really need, right?

So what's the wow factor that we're gonna have that we're gonna have for this?

That's it.

I'm done.

So if I can address some of the comments or maybe follow up with Commissioner Zenker.

Um I've had I mean I got people coming to me all all day long that we need some facility and we need to be bold.

We've talked about being bold, and this is one way.

I agree that the the estimate of the consulting cost is a lot to swallow.

I think we have to refine what it is that we're looking for in the proposal or the the consulting contract.

I think that we do need to try to reuse what's already been done.

I gotta believe we can get done for a lot less money.

I think the the point that we have to put our we have to give some direction to staff to say let's go forward and see what we can get done.

If they comes back with a on an RFP with some number that doesn't make sense, well then it changes the tune.

Or there we go to some of these people in the community who want it on their land and say, write a check.

And then they may be may or may not be willing to do that.

So um it does have to have some kind of a wow factor.

What that is, I don't know, but it's gotta be, you know, we all look at what what's happened up in Grand Forks, what's happened in Fargo, and by the way, the Grand Forks project would not have gotten done had the city itself taken the lead.

Not the park district, the city took the lead to try to push it through.

Um and there's gonna be the the funding mechanism to it.

I think there's a whole myriad of potential items, not including sales tax that looks at it.

It all depends on where it's placed.

So my my feel is I would like to see us give staff the direction to let's proceed forward to get it developed the RFP, but also knowing that it's gotta be really refined, you know, and we need to use what's already been done in 2019 or 2020, whenever that was out there, and pull it forward.

And because I think we also need to know what it is the facility needs to incorporate.

With these there's another there's another recreation center going in in South Bismarck as well, not just the one in the old supervalue warehouse.

I don't know that it really impacts this.

I I mean I don't know that it really impacts anything on what is needed, because I think we are also losing out on a bunch of visitors to our community is gonna have a huge economic impact to us.

Huge.

I and I completely agree with that.

That's why, you know, I'm all in.

Yeah, I'm good.

So since it's more the direction we give, I think to staff.

I mean, that's my I think we're on the same page.

Sure.

Commissioner Conley.

This is one of those topics that I've done a lot of research ever since the original um uh consultant that they hired in the um 2013, I think.

And I even wrote a pretty extensive history on it after the vote of or right before the vote of 2019.

And then the park district also hired a consultant that wasn't very I mean it puts citizens that voted no against it in a pretty bad light.

And that doesn't speak well.

So but there are a lot of people that are uh conservative that are not conservative when it comes to sports, and they want this conversation to be had.

And uh there's a lot of people that have the resources in that.

And I would say kind of like you said, Mary is that um step forward, pay for uh have the private sector pay for the feasibility, come up with the dollars to pay for the feasibility study, and we can start exploring all of those other options after that, because the thing that has killed these projects is community buy-in.

That would be a great way to reach out and say this is community buy-in.

Well, I think we need to first find out what the numbers are gonna go asking for money until we know what the number is, if it's not unreasonable.

Yeah.

Commissioner Rish.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, um do we have it in our budget?

The hundred or hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, where would it come from if we did approve this?

Mayor and commissioners, we do not have the 100, 125,000 specifically identified for this project.

However, we do have commission special projects funds, which is set aside every year for potential things like this.

Uh we could also look at existing budgeted dollars that were identified for this year and reallocate those towards this project if it's the interest of the commission.

Okay.

Well, I've got some real reservations about it.

There's an old political adage, keep in your own lane, and this isn't our lane.

It's a park district lane.

It's good for the community, and if you know, um the citizens want it, I'm all in on it.

But when you look at the 2020 vote, 63 percent of the citizens voted against um raising the sales tax by a half a point to pay for the uh recreations facility.

So that's a problem.

Um the other problem I have is we've got a lot of stuff in the queue right now.

We're expanding the airport, new police station, possibly helping with the triage center, fire station, redoing this building, the event center.

We're talking 300 million dollars worth of stuff in the pipeline, potential for 300 million dollars worth of stuff in the pipeline.

So I don't know where the money would come from for for this.

Um the other thing is, you know, we as Bismarck residents, we already pay park district taxes.

We all do.

And I'm proud to pay my park district taxes.

It might make more sense if Burley County teamed up with the park district to um because they're not paying for the facilities that they're using right here in our community.

That might make more sense.

It's a complete long shot, but it'd be more equitable.

So I've got reservations about this.

And in in the fact that the park district has not even voted on it as of yet, and it's their domain.

I mean, if the park board had voted, yes, we want to proceed with this, and the park district came over here and gave a pres presentation to the city commission.

Well, that'd be a different deal than us taking the lead on the thing right out of the chute here.

So I you know, I don't I don't know where the park district is on this.

Has the park district the board members even voted?

And you keep saying you've you said that you got all these community people that are reaching out to you demanding this.

I've had zero.

I've not had a single person.

I'm in, I don't know, maybe it's just the maybe it's the ground properly.

But uh but I do know that the park district has been engaged on this, and so has the park board itself has heard some information.

But they haven't voted.

They haven't made any decisions.

They have not voted, but again, I think we we this is more than a park district.

The park district's gonna end up probably operating it, but this is a true economic engine facility if we can get it done.

And that to me is where that's why the city needs to be involved.

That's how we commit uh I don't know who was first.

Commissioner Cleary.

Um yeah, I mean I agree.

I I'd be interested in the scope, Jason.

If we're gonna like move forward, what does that look like?

I think we've kind of all said it's already we've already done a lot of the legwork, so does it have to cost a quarter of a million, or can it be less?

Um I I mean I'm willing to say I I didn't have a full grasp of the ballot measure and I did not vote yes on it the first time because my number one concern was nobody told in there was no implication as to where it was gonna be.

So that would be my biggest question with this research is like because I don't feel like we had any of that penciled out in the 2021.

Um like the there was no possibility of where it was gonna go.

There was ideas floated around, but it wasn't something that was built in.

But a lot of the other work got done in the 2020 stuff, so I think that we can use a lot of it.

Um I think to Commissioner Rish's point, like obviously this is a park board thing, but like you said in Grand Forks, sometimes things sometimes the city needs to be involved in order to get it going.

It's also I mean a facility that the schools will likely use, but it doesn't mean that the city can't play a role, um, especially if we can all agree that like when it comes to economics and bringing people into the community.

I mean, we l we see what happens down at the event center every time there's a state B basketball tournament.

There's tons of people around.

So I think that like that's great for our community.

I would like to see the city participate in it, but I think that like the scope of it, I think we could work on so that we're narrowing that down and really deciding what we need to figure out would be my point.

Commissioner Connolly Um to answer Commissioner Rish's um portion.

They uh the talks have always been ongoing.

The fact that they hired a consultant almost immediately after the vote to and part of the one of the terms from the consultant is um did was it presented right?

Or was the education appropriate or some of the unbecoming terms or was the citizen just ignorant to the conversation?

Um so they've talked about it and then they use the term voter tolerance.

So they were actually talking about the wording to gauge voter tolerance.

These are things that we have to overcome in these conversations if we're going to get the community to abrace it.

And there's been several people that have also reached out to me about this um as well.

Some of them voted no, some of them voted yes.

There was a whole organization, Park 360 that worked on that.

Ninety percent of it was gonna be covered by the half cent sales tax, 10 percent by private, and park 360 was working on that.

On the Fargo one, and I might be a little off on the numbers, that was working towards a 50-50, where 50 would come from private and 50 from local.

But then right after they built it, their memberships for a family went from between four and five hundred dollars to nearly a thousand dollars.

And so there's a cost to it too, because a lot of the people that you they went out and garnered buy-in to build this new facility, and a lot of the people that were looking at using it, now you just priced them out of using it.

So there's some things that we really need to discuss on it.

So just some of the history.

I I'll uh look up that article I wrote um back then and probably after April 6th, so I'll put it out there for people to see.

So do we have direction for Jason or not?

I would think we should wait until we hear something from the park district.

Um postponed a discussion.

I I'm I'm I'm gonna say I I don't think we should, but that's my opinion.

I think we should it if we're gonna move forward, we should try to move forward.

Um knowing that one when the new director for the park district is brought on, I mean they're gonna have their hands full with just getting around it, and that's part of why I think city staff can be the lead to that.

But I do want the the sc I would like to see the scope of whatever the RFP is that looks like or the the feasibility to be narrowed down.

That's my personal opinion.

Um I've been pretty pretty bold on that, I think.

So Commissioner Zinker.

So could we do this?

Could we could we have direct Jason to work with um Kevin to narrow down the scope and bring the bring the scope what the RFP would look like to our next meeting?

And then is there a chance that the park would have a chance to give their opinion on it prior to our next meeting?

Um mayor and commissioners, Commissioner Zenker, I don't have a calendar in front of me, but I the park district meets the third Thursday in March.

So help me with that date.

It's probably it'd be after the second Tuesday.

Yeah, we meet the 10th.

I suppose their meeting would then be something like the 18th or 19th.

Sure.

And it's not a race to get this done, right?

It's probably more critical to get the RFP out there, ask the question, that type of thing.

So would it be safe to say that that we could they could define the scope, they could have input on the scope, um, get it approved by the parks and then bring it back to us in the last meeting of but I think getting them that scope narrowed down is um that's a that's the stuff that if we wait to wait till after March, whatever now we're that much further down the road.

Yeah.

Because I'm I mean, I'm with you, I'm not in for 125,000 feasibility study.

It's gotta be a better way to do this.

Yep.

I agree.

Is that good?

Yeah, Mayor and Commissioners, if I may, the the 200 to 250,000 estimate came from uh executive director Clipfell's conversations with the group that did the study previously.

Uh I'll admit it it sounds like a big number.

Um, but certainly we can work to, as you've said, narrow the scope and really pinpoint this thing.

Um Commissioner Connolly.

The group that did the um uh background on the actual facility or the group that followed with the consulting afterwards.

If it's mayor commissioners, uh Commissioner Conley, I guess I'm not sure of the sequencing, but the group that uh executive director Clipfell had referenced is very done.

So I'm not sure if they did the first work or if they did the work subsequent to the election in 20.

Okay.

I believe they did the initial work that led to the election discussion.

Okay.

Commissioner Cleary.

Um I guess I would be comfortable with probably uh uh the timeline that Commissioner Zenker laid out where it's maybe your direction tonight is that we have you work with Kevin on narrowing that scope down.

Um and then once that happens, it kind of gets run by our board and their board, making sure it's on their agenda for March.

Um whether you take it to them and then we see we hear about it in our second meeting in March.

I don't see a problem with that.

Um then that way, at least to Commissioner Richard's point, we've heard from them and have some buy-in from them.

Um but I think if we could work on that scope, you know, starting now, and then we're not doing that after we talk to them in March would be my timeline thought.

I can work within those boundaries.

It won't be a problem.

Commissioner Rish?

Mr.

Chairman.

Well, if it doesn't go to the ballot to at least 2028, because we're gonna miss this year, I don't see much urgency in this at all.

But it if we have some sort of ballot funding.

If it's if it's a ballot fund measure, it may not need to be that.

Okay, but first I heard of it what when you know right about in the Tribune with your state of the um city address.

I it's news to me.

I'm not opposed to this such a thing.

It'd be great.

I I toured the one in Gillette, Wyoming, 190,000 square feet facility.

Unbelievable.

They paid for it in cash up front and put fifty million dollars in the bank in a trust fund to help with the expenses.

They got coal money out there, just like Watford City's got oil money.

I didn't say who did that.

I just said that funded.

All right.

Do you have enough?

Yes, I just I believe I've got enough direction to move forward.

I can reach out to uh director Clipfell and keep going from there and plan to be back here at the second meeting in March with a little bit more information.

Okay.

Thank you, everyone.

All right.

Next item J, consider request for approval of the projected list and home rill charter amendment meant language for the half cent sales tax extension for roadways gate.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners.

Our goal for tonight or our goal that I'd like to see for tonight is to get some consensus on the project list.

Uh so I have a short presentation here.

Uh a lot of this information was in the agenda packet.

I'll try to highlight some of the changes uh that we've seen from when the public was engaged initially to where we are now, as well as even changes from what we even have in the agenda memo to where we are right now as well.

So as a reminder, this is uh the kind of the the concept that we're looking at is a revised project list that would be funded uh through the half cent sales tax.

Uh we have a combination of some arterial roadways, uh, some of those being reconstruction, some of those being extensions or or constructions of new roadways.

We have some blue collectors.

Uh I believe all of those, if not the vast majority of them, are platted rights of ways today or planned easements, uh, but there's no road there today.

So a lot of those locations are our collectors, but we really don't have any traffic on those ones.

And then we have a selection of green roads or locals that are existing roadways that exist today that were constructed, and then the city uh historically grew around them without really a mechanism to uh require the reconstruction of those facilities.

You'll see Ottawa Street is one of those types of projects that were actually have awarded at this point in time.

So some of the changes that we had from what we uh presented to the public.

One, uh I guess I've highlighted all three of the changes, excuse me, four of the changes in some yellow highlight.

Uh, this was a combination of some comments from public members of the public, as well as defining the the timeline or or how long this extension would last before we'd go back to the voters for for a change.

So the longer that timeline is out into the future, uh the longer the sunset, the the hazier crystal ball is, but also the more projects we might want to have on a list.

So with the the direction of being uh a 10-year extension that was given at the last time we met on this subject, uh put some some definition on where we would anticipate the city being in that five to ten years for us to even consider uh new improvements.

So, with that, uh, one of the projects that was removed uh was a 64th Avenue extension up north of Hort Heritage Park near Tyler Parkway.

Uh we still have Tyler Parkway on the the corridor, so if there are improvements in the area related to intersections or capacities on Tyler Parkway, we'd still be able to use this funding to do so if this was passed.

Uh, but the likelihood of needing an extension through uh that bisects the residential uh neighborhood in the rural subdivision to the north, as well as connecting that to the east is probably not very likely in the next five to ten years.

Uh as we move easterly, we added the 1804/71st Avenue corridor between what would be Yukon Drive and 19th Street.

Uh that is a state highway.

Some of it's a state highway, some of it's a uh Burley County highway.

We could envision some point in the near nearer future uh having some sort of improvements there and being able to utilize this funding source for what those improvements might look like, uh both either at at the intersection of 1804 and US 83 or potentially along that corridor as well.

Uh we also, as we keep going easterly, uh removed a segment of 26th Street that is in more of the rural section.

Um it's already a constructed roadway, and we didn't uh feel it was necessary to show that it's not going to redevelop.

Um so we just trimmed that back down to where the road uh currently doesn't exist from selling the loop to the south.

And then the last roadway that we added was the extension of Yukon Drive uh by State Street and 57th Avenue, uh south of Fleet Farm, north of uh Bismarck Motor Company, in the same spirit as when we're looking at some of the other connectivity issues that we have and the DOT investment on State Street, and a lot of the feedback that we have received from them has been show us how we as the city have mechanisms in place to develop that the rest of the network before the DOT will want to invest on State Street.

So that's why we have 19th Street and segments of 64th on that on the project list.

Uh that's why we have Ottawa Street on the project list, and that's why we would have uh this extension of Yukon Drive on that project list so that we'd have that ability to offload some of that traffic that the DOT might consider as non-regional in nature and show that for just our local connections that we'd have on our community.

So uh as we then looked at how would we phrase this in a home rule charter amendment, uh this is kind of the the first draft, and we'll have a couple of slides that walk through each of these.

Um by no means is this the actual language.

This just kind of shows kind of a strikeout underlying concept of something that you would uh potentially see.

So as we worked the the first items I through uh seven or you know, one through seven, uh that is the original or excuse one through eight is the original project list.

Um initially and in your original agenda packet, we I went through the exercise of removing segments that were completed or constructed and then using uh copper lease more uh red ink or some red line red lining within that segment.

But on further reflection, some of these projects are still in a state of construction.

So even though you might say South Washington Street is has been constructed for two years now, uh we have not made the final payment to that contractor until the DOT has approved the final records, which means we wouldn't want to have something on the June ballot that then removes a list or a project that's already under construction from eligibility.

So it's either coming up with a clever statement that addresses that concern.

Uh my recommendation would just be to leave the project list as it is so that those projects are still eligible for reconstruction, but in no means would we anticipate reconstructing Ashcoole Drive when we just reconstructed that uh particular roadway three or four years ago.

Um but so the rest of the changes that you'll see on this slide reflect original corridors that we had from the original list, uh, but now expanded uh termini.

So maybe it's it's farther east, farther west, north south, etc.

So maybe it's it's farther east, farther west, north south, et cetera, or whatever it might be as a means to show those same corridors, but now the new eligible pieces of that corridor as we move to the next slide.

This would be the representing uh the additional uh locations, and these are all be uh as we start the first you know, nine through it looks like fifteen, I would say, uh are all uh categorized as arterial roadways.

Those would be arterials section line roadways or or thereabouts uh as we work our way from 16 or got to get really good at our no Roman numerals to read through this, uh 16 through 21, those would all be on that collector roadway network of of roadways, many of them not there uh today.

Uh but you'll see if uh for an example, let's say this Calgary Avenue segment.

Uh we'll say and it as a means to address the a segment of Calgary Avenue from Lichte Place to Centennial Road and another segment of Calgary Avenue and another segment of Calgary Avenue that might be on uh the map that we talked about.

We might try to um kind of roll all those up into one statement that just says Calgary Avenue from State Street to Centennial Road uh without the intention intended meaning that we're going to reconstruct some of the existing segments that are there, but just as a matter to make the potential ballot language easier to write and easier to understand for the public as well.

As we look to the next slide, um this one in a similar manner uh would be the intent is to describe the roadways that exist without probably giving their term I or they begin or end or the segments of them.

So we would describe their um configuration of being a rural ditch section roadway and then list the roadways themselves.

I was having a difficult time explaining what segment of Arabian Avenue because we'd have to get into west of XYZ Street to this street or 300 feet west of Washington Street to Washington Street, and it became a a problematic list, or maybe not problematic, but even lengthier list.

So I'm trying to be sensitive to uh the amount of paper that we'll be able to utilize on this question for the public and and try to make that as efficient and consolidate in any ways that we can.

So this was my attempt at consolidating that into the roadways that are out there and the ditch section segments of them to narrow the scope to to only that type.

And lastly, this uh is another change that we would uh need to figure out a way to talk about the new sunset.

Uh we had some direction at the last time we talked about it for extending this 10 years.

I interpreted that as being 10 years from when it was about to expire, I guess is how I interpreted that.

Um but as we had in the original item, it was kind of a a date uncertain because an ordinance wasn't passed yet.

We didn't know when it would start, so we couldn't say uh when it would end.

So we just said 10 years from when it started.

My the really easy way to change this would say 20 years after the date of first collection.

But I would be hesitant if if that would maybe confuse the public or some members of the public to say 20 years and not understanding it's 20 years starting eight years ago.

So I wanted to just be real clear with the date in this instance and just give a it's it's more that has to be refined in the home rule charter, but it gives a a date certain um concept for the public to use.

This actually be just be just short of a 10-year extension.

Um it would we couldn't just but I thought it would make more sense to end it on a January 1 instead of the end of that first quarter, which would be a true 10-year extension.

So with that, those are the elements.

I would take any suggestions, recommendations, direction that you have.

Uh but our goal here is to, if we can finalize the project list and we'd come back to you with the actual home rule charter amendment language.

If if you're finding what the changes that we would have, um there might be additional sections that we'd have to address.

And it would work with uh attorney mees to put together a packet that would be acceptable to produce on the ballot.

So with that, I'll take any questions that you may have.

Questions I like the list with Commissioner Zenker.

Yeah.

No, I I was just gonna echo that comment that I like the list, I like how it's laid out.

Um it gives good examples of the extension of it.

Yeah.

Um this has been fantastic for the city of Bismarck.

We've been able to be, we were we had to be reactive um to get some of these projects done, and now we can be we're still gonna be a little bit more reactive, but we can still proactively take care of some of the smaller streets that need some maintenance that or actually some asphalt that they haven't had in decades.

So I would I don't see any reason to change some of this unless there's some legal jargon that Julian might need us to change, but other than that, I'm good with it.

Commissioner Connley.

And he'd mention he's comfortable with the um smaller list than what it was potentially promoted to be on at the uh public works meeting.

And um I do uh uh think if you're going for a 20-year extension versus a 10, that might be harder for citizens to consider, so it might risk uh it failing.

Um that's only a 10-year-old he said it did certain the 20-year was talking about all the way back to the 2018.

Oh, right?

Okay.

Okay.

Now I understand.

It was approved in November.

Yeah, okay.

Sorry, I didn't catch that.

Um so that answers that question.

Um and I know one person that uh talked about as far as like the East Main that's protested out a couple of different times, and that wasn't included into this list.

Um if the fee for service fails, they're facing the same situation with high high specials along that area.

And it was mentioned that well, they need to show more investment on how they want to um develop that in a more efficient manner.

But a lot of these roadways are out in areas that don't have that answer either.

They're not developed yet either, but we're including them on the map.

Not all of these projects are going to get done, just like all of the projects before.

And it's gonna be a case-by-case basis, and they're gonna come across this table to where we discuss them.

I don't think there's any harm in extending that main street corridor from 9th to 66th.

So we can at least have the discussion.

If we exclude it, we take them off the table.

And I think there's a little inequity in that response.

And then um like for all of the ones because the expanding of the city comes at a price, the long-term maintenance, the cost of services, taking care of snow removal and things, that impacts the entire city.

So could we look at something to where all projects and benefiting properties must be annexed into Bismarck city limits prior to the approval of funding for those individual projects?

Because of those the cost of those services over time.

If I could maybe address those.

If this half cent sales tax were to include a reconstruction of Main Avenue, we didn't do that on the Century Avenue concrete pavement repair two years ago, excuse me, or the third street concrete pavement repair last year, or the upcoming main avenue concrete pavement repair we'd find this year.

So I'm I'm hesitant to intermix those sort of things because then if you live on or own property on XYZ street, you have this other funding source taking care of of this issue.

And if you lived one block away on a very similar street with similar dynamics, you're asked through the special assessment process to pay for that cost or that burden higher.

So I don't disagree that Main Avenue is kind of an odd duck in terms of other things, but we also have other corridors that we'd want to uh look at.

So if we ever did a uh special assessment policy rewrite that brought in more properties into our TRIS, or if we had a street utility fee that just took care of that um concern, those would be the issues or the routes that I would rather invest our or solutions towards than bringing in just this one corridor into a half cent sales tax for street reconstruction because I would argue there's going to be a lot more that are similar to Main Avenue that should also be included.

And if we do all of those things, we're kind of back to square one that we don't have enough money to do any of the things because we're maintaining these six roadways, if that's the that's the example.

Um I guess that's that's my response to that one as it relates to annexing the property.

Um I would argue that if I'm just recalling them, the only project that had a 100 percent of all adjacent properties annexed into the city of Bismarck is the South Washington Street project.

I would say even all of 43rd Avenue, all of Ashcoole, um Century Avenue, all of those projects had at least some properties that weren't annexed into the city.

Um so I would hate for us to have some sort of policy in place that uh had a required annexation or a city initiated annexation before we spend dollars on you know, sales tax dollars, community dollars on that particular facility.

Um I I think that probably puts a burden that's just kind of odd or or unnecessary potentially when we're just trying to look at what is that asset that is our asset doesn't really matter if the adjacent properties are annexed or not, that's our asset to maintain, and this will be the mechanism we would be using to maintain and construct them.

Go ahead, Commissioner.

Yeah, and if I could expand on that, so I think that would take us back.

We would regress.

I don't think we would then be reactive to a scenario instead of being proactive.

And I'll use I'll use from legacy high school, would you say Lick D, right?

To Centennial.

And I'm sure if you talk to the residents that live around there, they would love to see that section of roadway completed so those high school kids and those people coming from out of town could come down Centennial and hang a right or a left onto Calgary and go right to legacy.

So I mean, I I understand your your concern, but um to get out of the the ruts, so to speak, pun intended, by the way, um that we're in.

Um if we proactively if we proactively create those roadways, yes, there's maintenance cost to them, but it's a benefit to to everybody involved.

Any other comments?

Commissioner Rush.

I just want to thank Gabe for your good work on this.

I think it looks really well.

I'm I'm ready to go forward.

So we're not we're not taking the ballot language today, so that'll be coming up in March, right?

Mayor Commissioners, I'll be uh attending a training conference in the first meeting in March, but I would anticipate that second meeting in March to be able to come back here with a so I'm looking at whether or not we need to vote tonight.

We probably don't need to vote tonight.

That's all I was looking for.

Commissioner Connolly.

One clarification on the sunset date and the start date.

Um I was advised during that portion both for the transportation and working with citizens that um the sunset date prior to when measures like this came up.

And Julie, you can probably confirm with uh people that um it was listed as the same date as January 1st.

The reason why the citizen measure was changed to um December 31st was because of that advisement.

Just something to check into that was um some of the state measures that that came up.

Um if people want to ask questions, I can explain it more later.

Um benefit to the city, Commissioner Zanke, I do appreciate what you say.

Benefit to the city, good roads is a benefit, but it comes at an expense and the costs keep rising, and that's where the struggle is.

It's not gonna get any cheaper.

We've already had that discussion.

I mean, right?

That if we look at our previous our previous topics that we had with the rec center with the parks, that that building didn't it's not getting any cheaper.

It's not gonna be 90 million when they wanted 120 or 140, right?

I get it, I totally understand, but we also can't be regressive.

We have to be proactive.

And any time a city can be proactive and we can make and we can um establish a good presence presence presence, sorry, too many P's, and get and get things done in a timely fashion.

It's only a benefit.

And it does come at a cost.

I completely understand that.

But we need to be more forward thinking instead of reactionary.

And this does that for us.

Okay.

Anything else?

Gabe, I think you've got the general direction.

Yep.

Okay.

Thank you.

Next is consider request for approval of street utility fee advisory vote language.

Go ahead, Gabe.

As I mentioned before, I will be out of the office on the next meeting, so I wanted to have this conversation now in case you have additional conversations that you would like to have as a board or direction regarding our street utility fee.

So I have a just a real short presentation here to kind of walk through this.

The same similar information that was in your agenda packet, but we do have a couple more options for you to consider uh as we talk about an advisory vote on what a street utility fee would look like.

Uh really we're asking a couple of different questions, and we have to internally ask those first is what what are we asking the citizens?

Are we asking these citizens to advise us on the philosophy of a street maintenance uh street utility fee?

Are we asking them for uh direction to put it on a ballot, like making sure that we put the right amount of emphasis on each of those concepts as part of this this exercise?

Uh and then how much supporting info should be required.

It could be a really simple question.

Do you want this without telling them what is taken away, or you doesn't or or you could ask a question without explaining more of the process.

So it's just how much of this information should be um presented in the question and how much of it we will uh educate other manners and how much of it is just unnecessary.

So with that, uh we have four versions of really the same question.

The first version at the top was the question that was in your agenda packet, uh, which is a should statement asking direction from the public um should the city do something is really we're asking that that piece of it uh and it's really I would say soft in nature, you know, it's consider placing.

You know, should we consider placing isn't very uh active.

Uh we say a voter approved home rule charter amendment.

Um I think there might be some in the community that would not know that a home rule charter amendment needs to be approved by the voters.

So putting some of that information while redundant uh may help communicate uh to the voters uh the intention, and then the ask uh ultimately is creating a street fee to be included on the monthly utility bill.

Uh I think it's important to explain how that fee would be collected, but even that's in some ways a redundant piece or maybe not mission critical uh to replace the current practice of street maintenance special assessments.

So as we look at the second version, that's really the same type of question, but with just more active um tone.

Uh should the city of Bismarck place on a future ballot a home real charter amendment to create a street utility fee, included on the monthly utility bill that would replace the current practice of street maintenance special assessments.

So not a lot of difference between one and two, but just a little more active in number two.

As we get to number three, this is now asking their opinion, not asking what do they want us to do.

It's just asking what what they would like, uh, they being the public.

Do you support placing on the ballot?

An amendment to the home rule charter that would create a street utility fee.

Um include on your monthly utility bill in place of the current practice of street maintenance special assessments.

And then the last version is uh do you support a home rule charter amendment that eliminates the current practice of special assessments for street maintenance projects and replaces it with a new street utility fee that would be added to your monthly utility bill.

It's probably more conversational in tone and less uh, I guess formal in nature, but at the same time, we're it's an advisory vote.

We're just asking a question of our citizens, and that's really what we're we're after.

Um I will say that these versions were shared and uh Doug took this language to the Citizens Academy last week, Thursday and gave them some options of which one they liked.

And at the time it was the fifth one, but now we removed one of these, so that they liked the number four out of all of these ones.

The the last one was the one that was overriding or resounding support for that particular one.

Uh and by no means are these the only ways to ask this question.

There's also any infinite number of ways that you all could uh revise this language to get to that same point.

So my request today is if there's one of these that really speaks to you that we move forward with that and then uh once again come back with the appropriate language that would be uh something that we could use for that advisory vote in the the June election, or I take any other direction that you can provide at this time.

Commissioner Connolly.

I talked with you a little bit about this in the four and I do like the first one better.

Um one, it gives credence that there's going to be two votes required.

Even if they give permission to further the conversation, whatever we come out with to be transparent and out there in front of the community, it buys that time because this is a big conversation, and it gives us the opportunity to do anything and everything we can to present to the citizen um that on a transparent and interactive basis.

Um mentioning that voter approved the second time.

So it's not a one and done.

When you say do you support placing based on some other things, like we mentioned the event center um vote and um early on when the citizens voted it down, a lot of citizens took it as this is a yes or no on the project versus uh do you agree that we're gonna increase the bed and booze tax versus something possibly alternative?

And history's kind of told us that that wasn't a good way to go.

So that's why I like the first portion is um should we have this conversation so we're giving you the opportunity to learn as best you can.

We're gonna give you two good options, try to vet it, and then um we'll go forward based on what the June vote says.

My two cents.

Commissioner Rush.

Um, Mr.

Chairman uh uh the more I think about it, the more I don't like the idea of advisory vote.

It's complicated.

It's not like the sales tax one that's pretty simple, and you see all the the streets that are going to be fixed up or some of them are going to be fixed up.

This is complicated.

I go to a retriary group, I'll be there tomorrow morning, and guys say, Oh, when are you gonna try and take the developers off the hook and things like this?

There's a lot of misinformation out there.

My church after church on Sundays, I'm always asked about stuff like this at the barbershop and all over.

There's just a lot of confusion out there.

I wish everybody would have read um Zach's article in the Bismarck Tribune explaining it because he did a heck of a job.

But unfortunately, not enough people have read that article and understand it like they should.

I would rather that we postpone it till the November ballot or real vote.

But in the end term, do a real scientific survey.

So about 24% of the citizens of Bismarck will vote in June.

If we did a scientific survey of the whole community, we might have a better idea where people are at on this issue rather than just putting it on the ballot at a time where people really don't understand most a lot of people don't really understand it thoroughly.

And it'd give us more opportunity to talk about.

Well, put it let's put it this way if we did the survey, a real scientific weighted survey, and it came out one way came out very negative, maybe we just drop it at that.

But if it came out somewhat positive, well then we have time to discuss it, educate the pup public on what the issue really is, and they get to make the final decision in November.

When about 50 percent of the people vote rather than 24 percent.

That's just my thought.

I just soon delayed not having advisory at all.

Because it's just an advisory anyway.

No different than a survey would be an advisory.

Commissioner Connolly.

And I would be okay with that when the advisory vote conversation came up, it was the this is going on the June ballot, it's uh take it or leave it, or we'll keep it the same.

And then it was in my opinion, and the opinion of some people that have talked to me over the years, is that's just not uh I mean, there's been a lot of back and forth.

We even circled around.

Um Mayor, you were in a lot of those meetings.

Sometimes we were at one, and uh three-quarters of the year later, we were back at the original conversation, so it's gone around a couple of times.

So to get the information out there and consistent is truly about it, it suits the same purpose either way.

We can still have the discussions, even if there wasn't an advisory vote, but we need to work diligently on what's the black and white of it as soon as possible, so we can give the citizens a chance to understand it.

But one of the big things, like I mentioned to um Mr.

Schwartz's comment when we talk about the affordable housing, and I don't need to re-go over that, but I used to be a landlord where I own rentals as well.

And uh when we didn't incorporate the specials or anything, we just we chose a different way.

But um now what we're seeing with the corporate entities coming in, because of specials, we're raising rents uh 75 dollars a month.

Well, that rent doesn't come down.

That's placing a burden on our city, even after the specials have long gone and paid for.

Is now you got a tangible fee on the utility bill that they see every month.

Landlord could still raise their rates, but it's really hard to say we're raising your rent to $100 because the city raised our um fee 30%.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, one other thing, if we did do a scientific survey, we could add questions in there about the recreational facility, see where the public is on that issue as well.

Possibility.

But I think you'd ask more questions in a survey uh specifically around what the fee would look like, you know, what's the tolerance level.

You'd get more questions asked than what you can put in a ballot like this.

I have a hard time with it being a non-binding advisory vote.

I just don't know what that's gonna gain us.

I just I mean, if it came down with a resounding absolutely no, I guess we have that direction, but a survey I think gets us to the same same spot.

Commissioner Zinker.

So I mean, here's the deal.

We've got to give Gabe some direction.

Yep.

Right?

The poor guy's been a yo-yo for like 90 days.

What are we doing?

How are we gonna do it?

What are we gonna get do to get this done?

We've talked to we've we've we've done we've gone full circle almost.

This is like groundhog's day over and over.

So um I think it if I if if we're if you want to if you want a November ballot issue, then we need to vote on it right here to say we're gonna take it to November.

Um, which I'm not really in favor of because uh I just don't I know how valuable Gabe's time is in staff's time, and to go through that big heavy lift to try to figure out all those things.

I want to make sure that it's that it's worth a worthwhile investment.

If we want to, if we want to um go with the the study, um then let's make a motion to go that direction and then follow the study.

If the study like Commissioner Riss said is it's no, then fine.

Then we don't have a lot of staff time and gabe's time going through this big heavy lift to get this done.

You know, uh either way, uh if we had the vote in on June 9th, um we would still have the same amount of time to do that, or if we do a scientific study to do it, right?

Yep.

There's one thing I think that we need to that we need to uh bring up and Mr.

Schwartz acknowledged this that hey with the current special assessment scenario, you always get an option to protest out, right?

So I just wanted I just want to note that and if my math is correct here um that Gabe gave us for the previous item, he sent out or this or the group sent out about eight hundred and thirty-five letters, give or take to total parcel properties, right?

We received about twenty-four back out of those eight hundred and thirty thirty-five, right, which is about two and a half percent.

So I underst I understand the public input, I respect the public input, but I don't I don't think when we when we get the um uh special assessment districts off the top of my head for as long as I've been here.

I don't remember more than one time that we did not move forward with a project um based on people protesting out.

And he's right, right?

Mr.

Schwartz is correct.

Hey, more people need to be involved.

Um I remember a couple being three two, because there was a gentleman who was really close, and a couple of us thought we should just leave it out and it it didn't go that way, which is fine, it is what it is.

But the the real reason for the street utility fee, one is savings as Commissioner Rish referred to.

But the other thing is so we could maintain these roads just like we maintain our our water lines and our sewer lines.

We don't we don't special assess those, we collect those all through user fees.

It's uh it's the same thing.

And we and you're right, we need to keep those those rates as low as possible.

And because but we don't know the rates yet.

You know, we're using thirty dollars um an average because basically it's kind of what I said one day in a meeting.

Let's just use this so we so we have the same talking point.

I ran some numbers at one point in time and it kind of showed that that's that's probably made sense.

Right, yeah.

It seems practical.

Seemed practical.

And if you get a special assessment of X amount of dollars and you and you stretch it out over seven years and it's and it's less than that, um great, it works out.

You know, but if you go back um like Mr.

Schwartz said, if you go back twenty-five years, we know what happened in nineteen eighty when they did special assessments is not the same cost as today.

And he's right, that's his history, that shows the history on that property.

But I got a hundred dollar bill that says what they did in nineteen eighty is gonna be more today, and it's gonna be more in twenty thirty-five, right?

So um all we're trying to do with this is everything we do anyways at this table is try to minimize the cost to the people who pay the taxes to fund the city.

And we might not be able to give you exactly what dollar amount you're going to save by us doing this, but I can guarantee that there are not going to be eight hundred and thirty-five letters that go out that are gonna tell you you owe somewhere between fifteen hundred and eleven thousand or twelve thousand dollars because we're gonna we're gonna collect that money up front.

So um whichever way you want to go is fine with me, but we need to finalize the direction that we're gonna give Gabe and staff tonight.

Commissioner Cleary.

Um I don't disagree with Commissioner Rish.

I I probably after thinking about the advisory vote vote and then having to kind of do it all over on a bigger scale in November if depending on how the advisory vote comes out.

Um I would uh would be just as fine with a survey.

I think we're gonna still get an answer to the question, which is what do people think about this.

If you want my opinion on verbiage, um I think two makes the most sense.

Um and active tone makes it more concise.

But the first two are the only ones that explain that you're actually making a vote on a future ballot ballot, the other two kind of make it sort of feel like you're deciding right now on it.

So um, but I would be fine with the recommendation to you being like can can we do a survey instead and then see depending on how the survey comes out go go to November's ballot.

And mayor and commissioners, Commissioner Clear, I think the the the biggest win for the advisory vote, or if it took the form of a survey is just informing our organization if this is something we should continue to spend energy on.

So we don't want to get to a full-fledged here are the actual 23,000 accounts and how much each of them will pay and create a hypothetical utility for a hypothetical question, uh unless we know that that's the direction that there is a lot of support and going.

So I think that's that's whether it's through an advisory vote or through a scientifically valid survey that could help inform that.

I I think both accomplish that task.

We just want to do that early in the process, so we aren't um saving that for for later or spending resources before we know the results of that um survey.

I I I like the survey, because I think we can ask some few other questions in the survey than just one and be a little bit more pointed to try to get to, you know, if it if if you agree it's a good idea, um give them some ranges.

We have we can get some ranges of what the fee might look like and where's that tolerance level and maybe even more succinct the committees more questions asked in a survey as long as we do it scientifically through we have to pay for that.

We're I mean it's it's money yeah, it's gonna it's money well worth it spent.

And I think we get more questions out with better responses.

Um that's how I would lean.

Rather than do it on a ballot.

You want a ma motion of some sort?

We I think that would be appropriate.

Well, I'll make a motion that we conduct a survey um of Bismarck residents to determine whether or not they think uh replacing the special assessment for street improvements uh with the utility however you want to tune it all up, Jason.

Commissioner Connolly.

Um I'll second for discussion and then the discussion points would be make sure that within that survey we address some of the issues like citizen input, citizen checks and balances, and what possibly uh protests to said service might look like so we can encourage that input and discourse that we enjoy in this country.

It's part of putting the questions together for the survey.

Yep.

I just wanted to highlight it.

He came here that's why I'm saying we can ask more questions.

Get different feedback.

So we have a motion of second, any further discussion.

Mayor Christian, I would I would likely come back to you with the survey questions.

That's fine.

That's probably what we'll end up doing.

Um I guess I think if it's straight on the concept of uh the Commissioner Rish indicated of support for your street utility, I'm pretty clear on that.

Um Commissioner Conley, if you're asking for questions on how do we ask a question about protestability in the side of the survey, that's kind of a complex type thing.

I don't may I might need you all to look at that before uh we would send it out the door because I don't want to come back to a meeting in some future month with the results of the survey that don't meet the intention of what you were searching for.

The only question Mr.

Mayor Gabe, when you do the questions, you might want to engage with whoever is going to do the survey for the city first.

So you know, they craft these questions in a way that they're not leading and they're fair, and so we get an accurate picture of what's going on.

So you might want to find somebody to that you're gonna have do the survey with to help you with the questions.

Understood.

Commissioner Connolly.

And these are long meetings, so I'm just gonna say this and just I said uh I'll certainly send something forward.

I have a little bit of an idea, but you might need an oxygen tank and turn it up to three.

All right.

Let's call the call the role, please.

Commissioner Zenker.

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Strong, yes.

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Commissioner Rich?

Yes.

Mayor Schmidt.

Yes.

Item 11, considered directing staff to create an application for public transportation costs to be allocated to individual entities from the half-cent sales tax collection dedicated to public transportation.

I think it should be the well, the the share of the half-cent sales tax.

And that's Commissioner Conley's item, so I'm gonna let you present, Commissioner.

Okay.

Um when we were in the public transportation subcommittee meeting and things, a lot of people came forward.

There's a lot of needs to get populations of people from one point of the community to another point of the community.

And transit has been a longstanding answer to some of those questions uh since 1987, but there are definite gaps.

Um there's been movement of services um as medical facilities continue to do construction, they're moving where some of those services go in town, and it's not where the transit authority can get to in a very easy sense.

And it's creating some challenges for a lot of the people that are part of the um uh homeless coalition or other services like folk rehab and other things, and getting people to their jobs on time so they can maintain the jobs and people that can be actively working in our community, they're finding out that they can't work because they can't get to where they need to be or they can't get to medical services.

So as part of those discussions, Ministry on the Margins was uh an entity.

They were at one of the public input meetings, and they were asking about um what the where the conversation of the voucher um uh uh vouchers for some of these things that transit can accommodate for.

I met with them and transit used to go to the homeless coalition, and there would be a block of vouchers that went they went through really quickly.

There's a lot of members, and it was really hard for them to get there because there's some instability within that coalition.

So I've asked, it's not fair to me to talk what your input might be on it.

So I asked for it to come forth as an item.

Kudos to Ministry on the Margins.

They're going to talk about their needs specifically.

And can we consider an application process?

Kind of like we would do for our liquor licenses to where it's an application.

The rubric would be the same for any entity coming forward, but it's taxpayer dollars, so the vetting of each application would come to this table.

And they know that a decision specific to them probably won't be here.

They're just going to present what they experience and does it help us get to the that possible application.

Right.

Go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor Schmitz and members of the commission.

My name is Raquel Richter, and I'm a social worker at Ministry on the Margins here in Bismarck.

And I'm also accompanied tonight by prison re-entry manager, Nate Mickelson.

I'm here to speak on behalf of the many community members who are affected by the transformation the transportation disadvantages, and to speak to the potential city benefits of a pilot project or application process that for area agencies to fund local bus passes or transportation.

The premise for funding these proposals is based upon utilizing the half-cent sales tax dedicated to public transportation.

As research has shown, cost to be an important barrier to transportation access.

So first I would like to just share two real stories that have been experienced by individuals we serve.

Imagine recently being released from prison, trying to restart your life.

You bike around town, applying for jobs, carrying everything you own in freezing temperatures.

If you're lucky, you receive a bus pass from Ministry on the Margins.

Or imagine being an older adult living on the streets, your backpack with all your documents gets stolen while you sleep.

You need to get up north to the Social Security Office to replace your cards so you're eligible for your housing voucher that when you came to the top of the list, usually you have to provide identification documents.

But you're dealing with back pain, usually worn-out boots, and without transportation, even the simple task becomes overwhelming, and you're unable to qualify for public housing because you don't have your Social Security card.

On average, Ministry on the Margins serves 1,358 individuals weekly, many of whom are elderly, disabled, and of lower lower socioeconomic status.

Bus passes would benefit our population by providing transportation for work, medical, mental health appointments, and access to other critical resources.

City and community anticipated benefits are aimed at furthering economic growth and cost saving via multiple avenues.

So first, obviously expanding employment, educational health and housing opportunities.

The second way is decreasing encampment burden on downtown and area businesses, fewer calls to law enforcement and medical, and strengthening the overall social ties in the community.

So if Ministry on the Margins were to participate in this application process, or you guys were to complete a pilot project that the ministry would receive funding for bus passes or some type of transportation voucher, we would be distributing these vouchers at our open access, which is a time where individuals who are seeking opportunity, employment, housing, all those things we offer twice a week.

They would be able to come in and access these vouchers.

So the anticipated cost, let's say for a one-time distribution of 150 Bisman transit passes would run approximately $5,400.

So finally, for some additional support, I have included a handout outlining a research study covering the importance of transportation in those of lower socioeconomic status.

I don't know if I'm allowed to distribute those when I'm done.

But yeah, so I'll give you those when I finish up.

But overall, Ministry on the Margins remains committed to serving those who fall through the cracks in our community while encouraging opportunity and growth to better the city of Bismarck.

So thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Any questions?

Questions?

Commissioner Rush.

I guess um would you be able to maybe negotiate with some ride service entity to get a bulk rate or a fixed rate or whatever the things may be?

Do you have envision something like that?

Maybe it's one of the taxi service.

I don't know if um Uber or Lyft or something uh would negotiate with you for a set fee.

But is that kind of how you envision things or what?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, we have worked with um we're creative, try to think out of the box.

So if we have to get someone, let's say, yeah, for example, the Bobcat before the bus runs, we will try our best to use a lift, use different transportation services in the Bismarck area.

Obviously, it's just the funding is the issue.

So if we're able to, let's say, receive amount, a dollar amount that we would be allowed to use that that dollar amount, whether it's for Uber or a bus pass, I think we would definitely take advantage of that.

Commissioner Zinker.

So um I don't have a problem with the doing it somehow.

I think it's best that transit facilitates it, manages it in lieu of um us doing it at a commission.

At the commission.

We can finalize it at the commission level.

But they know the intricacies, the details, and those types of scenarios.

I I get that transit might not be able to do it physically with their equipment, but if they can facilitate the vouchers in those types of scenarios, I I would be a little bit more comfortable.

So that's kind of where I kind of feel is like transit's got the capacity.

Frankly, the City of Bismarck doesn't have the staffing nor the mechanism to do it, and it would be if as I would envision it, because this was brought forth to the steering committee or the subcommittee, and it didn't get a lot of traction there.

But transit, I mean transit is getting the funding from us.

And if they came forward with additional funding request, that made sense.

I don't think there's anybody at this table is going to deny it.

But I think since most of the services that come through transit anyway, they should be the ones they've got the infrastructure and the staff dedicated to that kind of service.

Commissioner Zenker.

Right.

Because I mean at the end of the day, who we got to hold somebody accountable.

We're gonna get held accountable.

Whoever we give this this task to is going to be held accountable.

I don't want to give, I don't I don't want to hold somebody accountable outside of quote unquote the the network, so to speak, right?

I get no pro again, I have no issues with them using it, coming up with something, but together I'm sure they can come up with some great ideas that it that's gonna be feasible and practical.

And then we can just move from that.

So I uh what I'm gonna say here is it's gonna be more of the ministry on the margins who might have some of the same people that need to be in honestly, I don't know how we manage within our own staff here to start doling that out, and if we can look to that hub, that center, to handle that for us.

They can come forward to it with a request.

I mean, we're we already know we've got the dollars, we also know those dollars need to go some other things within for transportation to provide some other protective devices in streets so we have safety when the bus picks someone up.

And we're going through it, there's a study that's being done by the Metropolitan Planning Organization.

It's gonna include those types of items, not the existing route expansion, but that, whether it should be a flag stop or just the pickup anywhere along the street like they've been doing, or hubs and whether we need more routes.

So that would be Commissioner Conley, I'm sorry.

Well, it with transit being part of my portfolio.

This has come up in the board meetings with transit as well.

And they did facilitate that on a smaller basis through the homeless coalition.

Um there was uh challenges and then with all of their regulation that goes into the other grants and funding that they have.

Um it's not an easy conversation to have them do it with all of the other hoops that they jumped through.

So in the meantime, when we got people that are struggling with um getting the services on the front side of things.

Are we just going to wait a longer period of time where people could be losing jobs and things?

I I think we can give direction or request to transit because what they're doing now with the some of the new routes or expanded hours, they're actually using purely sales tax dollars for that or local dollars and not the federal dollars because they can't use the federal dollars for that.

So they are actually carving that out separately.

Okay.

Oh, when Deedra is here at a future date, we'll have her explain it.

She as far as what goes through the uh board meetings and things, so we know definitively, so you can hear the same information that I was hearing.

So I think it think it's our job to ask them to do that and then them to come up with the solution.

Because we don't have the staff.

Like we don't have the staff within the city.

So not the bad concept.

Got no problem with that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Further conversation to be had.

Fantastic.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um do we have any other business?

Uh Jason.

Mr.

Mayor, I need to apologize.

I failed to remind you that we were going to talk about the contract negotiations with OBG before the meeting.

So I'm standing here to tell you that.

Yep.

So if you'd like me to this group or I had no, I had a note already.

So great.

Then I can sit down if you want to share the information.

So contract negotiations are proceeding at a at a normal contract negotiating process, I guess.

I think uh what's happened now is the drafts of that we sent out originally our coming back red line.

I think a lot of the terms and ideas and and dollars and cents are probably within range right now.

Uh the biggest item is termination clause for us to be able to terminate their contract.

And so hopefully that's going to be coming forward in the next week.

But in the meantime, um OVG will be on site the 9th of March for three days to begin the process of advising and figuring out and talking to staff and and so forth.

So we're close.

And hopefully by next by the next uh if authority board meeting, uh we'll actually have the uh an ability to have the negotiated contract.

OBG, this is the OVG as the contractor.

The the internet provider.

No.

No.

Third party manager.

Oakview.

Oakview group.

Right?

Oakview.

Yeah, well well, well, whoever is watching this, we should explain who OBG is.

Okay Oakview, yeah, okay.

So that's where we're at.

So any other I can answer questions if somebody's got question.

Okay.

All right.

I have any other business.

We are adjourned.

Oh.

You got I got one more thing.

Okay, go ahead.

So um I just want to so I know that March 1st is right around the corner.

And I know we we've agreed to some terms and stuff for the ETA and the and the uh Missouri Valley Fairgrounds.

I just want to make sure that that is all proceeding as it's supposed to, and we will meet all of our intended deadlines.

So that way we will still help close a gap, so to speak, if there's some lingering issues out there that that are city issues.

But um us and the county are good to go March 1st.

So as of today, I had a I had a conversation with staff and and with particularly Commissioner Munson and the planning replatting processes the county is gonna handle.

They gotta work with staff, our city staff from make sure any ordinances are complied with, but they're going on that.

And so by the end of March, hopefully we have the actual joint powers agreement signed or presented to both commissions by then for I's dotted, T's crossed.

So we have we so we cover whatever we need for fire and police protection out there covered.

So I'm not sure if I'm answering the question appropriately or not, but it's a goal.

They're taking the planning on.

And we're and everybody's on the same page and we're good.

Well, uh I mean I've got Daniel standing over here.

We need we need to get so the goal is, and Jason, you can you were part of these conversations, so you've had more conversations about the actual timing.

Mayor Commissioners, Commissioners Anchor, the March 1st date, yes, that was something that uh was discussed with the uh written agreement back and forth.

In addition to that was a joint powers agreement that both sides are continuing to work through.

Uh will we have that buttoned up and done by March 1st?

No.

Uh there's some particular details that need to get worked out between staff.

I think generally the intent is that uh the as I understood it in conversations with Commissioner Munson, they have concerns to be able to move forward with the replatting of the property and and taking the first position on that.

As the mayor alluded to just now, we have no concerns with them proceeding with that process.

I guess some of the questions where it gets a little tricky is which process do they follow?

So if the county is going to take the lead and and replant the property, no concerns with that, everybody agrees that that makes sense.

Do they follow the process of going through the city planning and zoning commission, or are they expecting it to go through the process of the county planning and zoning commission?

And if so, what is that last step look like?

And if you remember back to a negotiated ETA where I'm sorry, where we had joint jurisdiction.

This was a number of years ago, but the city process took precedent and the individual would follow that process with the understanding that the last step was for the Burley County Commission to approve the project.

All the issues are addressed and the priorities are taken care of there.

The other part of this where we need to work through the details comes down to site plan review, building inspections, and again, which process and who takes lead jurisdiction.

It's my understanding, Burley County is looking to uh administer that process for themselves within the fairgrounds site.

No concerns with that, provided city staff can be a part of those reviews when it comes to particularly fire protection, water and sewer connections, and stormwater, because those are all features that will impact how the city responds and city infrastructure.

And it's not to say you can or can't do it that way, it's to have awareness of what they are intending to do.

So our infrastructure is protected and maintained, but also uh all the connections can be done in a in an efficient and uh particular manner.

One other topic that's been discussed within the fairgrounds is whether or not the roads are public.

And if they're public, are they dedicated to the city as traditional public right-of-way like the streets that many of us drive on, or are they easements within the fairgrounds that are then maintained to county standards by county staff, gravel, ditches, all of those things.

Uh from a city's perspective, I don't think any of these things are deal breakers or game changers, but they are pieces that uh are worth discussing to make sure that we're not just simply creating an island inside city limits where the Burley County has total jurisdiction and we have no awareness of what's going on.

So by no means are these things that are insurmountable, but they are things that we have not had enough time to get to the end of the discussion on the So I'll I'll just do it.

I'll just say it in my simple contracting terms.

Just keep it simple.

Yep, right.

We got to provide them water, sewer, storm sewer, and fire protection.

Um as long as we can handle all those, however they want to manage their property, they can manage their property.

And that's what I said is why.

Right.

So if that's if that's the case and it's all hands on deck and this thing is done Friday at five o'clock and we have to have a special meeting to do that, then I I highly suggest we do that.

Sure.

In talking with fact I'm not telling to highly suggest I said we're going to get it done.

Okay.

In conversations with planning director Narin this afternoon, uh looking at the dates for future county commission meetings and future city commission meetings, the hope was that we could have this entire thing buttoned up by the end of March, knowing that it's got to go back and forth to a couple of different boards along the way.

But I would stand here in front of all of you pledging that city staff will continue to focus on this and request this the support and engagement of county staff so we can get to the end.

Next deadline, I think is March 12th or 13th, if we're going to hit the county's meeting uh in March and then hit this group's meeting, the second meeting in March.

Is that sufficient for your everybody?

I realize it's not the timeline, the March 1st deadline that we were anticipating, but we've had a we've had a lot of back and forth dialogue and continue to do that.

What me in my conversation with Commissioner Munson today, he was agreeable to that.

Commissioner Connolly.

Thank you for that.

Greg?

Or Commissioner Zenker?

Thank you.

Yeah.

Message received.

Thank you.

Thanks.