It is uh 5 15 on the 28th of April.

This will be the board of uh Board of Commissioners for the City of Bismarck meeting in a moment, but first we'll start with uh Pledge of Allegiance and Invocation of Chaplain Deacon Tony Turnis, please.

Uh invocation first.

I turned the order, sorry.

Yeah.

Let's pray.

Lord our God, we love you and we thank you for the many gifts you have given us in this beautiful city of Bismarck.

Come to us, remain with us, enlighten our hearts, give us light and strength to know your will, to make it our own, and to live it in our lives.

Guide us by your wisdom, support us by your power.

You desire justice for all, enable us to uphold the rights of others, do not allow us to be misled by ignorance or corrupted by fear or favor.

Unite us to yourself in the bond of love and keep us faithful to all that is true.

May you guide all our decisions so that they may be pleasing to you and earn for us the reward promised to good and faithful servants.

We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, sir.

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

Commissioner Ish?

Here.

Commissioner Zenker.

Here.

Commissioner Connolly?

Here.

Commissioner Cleary.

Here.

Mayor Schmitz.

Here.

First item on the agenda is public comment.

I think we'll we'll go ahead and I'm going to switch the order if I don't mind because I've got five proclamations first, and then we'll come back to public comment.

First one is whereas in 1872, J.

Sterling Morton proposed the that to the Nebraska Board of Agriculture that days be set aside for the planting of trees, and whereas this holiday called Arbor Day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska.

Therefore, be it resolved that I am Mayor Schmitz on behalf of the Commission do hereby proclaim May 1st, 2026 as Arbor Day, urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and support the efforts to protect our trees and woodlands, and further I urge all citizens to plant trees to gladden the heart and promote the well-being of this and future generations.

Signed the 28th of April 2026.

The next one is for bicycles.

Whereas the bicycle is an economically healthy, convenient, and environmentally sound form of transportation and an excellent tool for recreation and enjoyment of the City of Bismarck's scenic beauty.

Therefore, be it resolved that I, Michael, Michael Schmitz, Mayor of the City of Bismarck, on behalf of this commission, do hereby proclaim May 2026 as bike month in the City of Bismarck and urge all residents to join me in this special observance signed today, the 28th of April, 2026.

The next one, whereas the National Trust for Historic Preservation established May as historic preservation month in 1973 as a way to promote historic places for the purposes of instilling nation and community pride, promoting heritage, tourism, and showing the social and economic benefits of historic preservation.

Therefore, be it resolved that I, Michael Schmitz, Mayor of the City of Bismarck, on behalf of this commission do hereby proclaim the month of May his historic preservation month in the City of Bismarck, and I encourage all citizens to join me in this worthy observance.

Signed the 28th of April, 2026.

Whereas the landscape architects play a vital role in shaping the nature and built environments of the City of Bismarck, creating outdoor spaces that are functional, sustainable, and visibly appearing, appealing.

Therefore, be it resolved that I, Michael Schmitz, Mayor of the City of Bismarck, on behalf of this commission do hereby proclaim April as Landscape Architects Month.

I urge all citizens to celebrate and recognize the contributions of landscape architects in creating healthy, resilient, and vibrant communities.

Signed the 28th of April 2026.

And the last one.

Therefore, be it resolved that I, Michael Schmidt's mayor of the City of Bismarck, on behalf of this commission, do hereby proclaim May 3rd through May 9th of 2026 a small business week in Bismarck.

Urge all citizens to support small businesses and celebrate their many achievements and contributions to the daily fabric of our community.

Signed the 28th of April 2026.

So thank you for indulging me with those.

Five of them.

Now I'll move to public comment.

Public comment is open for anything on the consent agenda or the regular agenda that's not a public hearing or anything on the previous commission meeting agenda.

A second call for public comment.

A third and final call for public comment.

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

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

Mayor, if I could.

Certainly.

I have one item, uh, the encouragement agreement for next play LLC.

I just want to disclose that um I've been working with that group to design it and do that work.

And if anybody's got an issue with me um voting on that, then we'll pull that item.

I have no concern.

No problem.

With that, I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

Any discussion?

All in favor, or excuse me, call roll.

We could have done it that way.

Commissioner Zenker.

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly.

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary.

Yes.

Commissioner Ish?

Yes.

Mayor Schmitz.

Yes.

Moving to the regular agenda.

We have a request to receive a presentation from Bismarck Public Schools, Superintendent Dr.

Fosnott on the 2026 bond referendum.

So go ahead, sir.

You have the floor.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Good evening, Ms.

Mayor.

Thank you for giving us some time this evening to uh just give you maybe what we call the abbreviated slide deck as we've been going around the community to talk about uh what we're characterizing as you said the 2026 bond uh for some uh um maintenance and facilities work.

And if you're okay, I'll just go through a few quick slides with you.

So um thank you for the kind introduction.

Again, I have the privilege of being superintendent for the best and the largest school district in the state of North Dakota, um, nearly uh almost 14,000 kids, and uh get the opportunity to represent them every day and 28,000 parents, and I'd love my job every single day.

So, including stressful days like this in front of you and everybody else in the community.

But um just a little background and how we got here just quickly.

This has been a the districts had a long-range facility plan for years.

It's been around, it's had different iterations.

After Dr.

Sher's here, um director of uh business and operations.

We've done this multiple times.

Um, just came to us this summer again from our school board who just said update it, get it ready, we need to continue to work on this important work.

So they did that, and we presented to my board in January, and then it's been everything from that's been a path forward.

Um, how do we work to complete this important work?

And uh I'll characterize some of that for you.

And for people who want to know more, I gave you the link on the screen to find that.

It's right on the front of the BPS website, Bismarck Schools.org.

There's a big button at the top, 2026 bond, and we've been adding content to that to address questions and provide full transparency in what we're asking uh every single day.

We add something to it, I swear.

So um so if I break it down into really big buckets, the first one is modernizing and improving efficiency.

That's what we would characterize as all those mechanical systems primarily that live behind the walls and in the ceilings in the basements of our buildings that need updating.

Uh we're gonna put a lot of effort into that.

And then um the other main buckets, what we call programmatic, is making sure we keep our students safe and supported, um dealing with some growth uh growth areas in the district, responsible growth, and then also just community um our role as part of a greater community, and I think we have a distinct role in that as we uh move forward.

So when we talk about maintenance and HVAC systems, boilers, heating units, uh electrical systems, it could be um fire warning systems, those are all things behind the scenes.

Oh, sorry, that's on my screen.

Yeah, what am I doing?

Thank you very much.

Um I don't know, I have a meeting.

I'm supposed to be somewhere, I guess.

Um I tell me to be here.

Um actually it's uh those systems are what people don't see behind the scenes.

And it's uh I would want to I would want to applaud our maintenance crew.

Um we're spending four to six million dollars a year on maintenance in the district.

I think that's a significant investment.

But um we talk about those things like boilers, like heating units, air conditioning, ventilation systems.

Again, they they have a lifespan, just like the roof on your house, the furnace in your house, and even with the best maintenance, there is a time.

There's a time it needs to be replaced.

Hopefully, you've seen recently on our social media we talked about the boiler at BHS being 70 years old.

I think that's a um a feat of nature, a feat of miraculous feat that our make um our team's been able to keep that operational, but it has a time and it's at its time, it needs replaced.

That's just one example.

Um again, I would share you get this as well.

Those things don't get better with time.

They're not going to heal themselves, they're not going to be cheaper next year.

That's why we think it's really important we got to attack this problem now versus uh putting it off any longer.

And you can see the the that maintenance work, that that facilities work is across the 22 different sites in our district.

When we talk about keeping students safe, um really this is a key point for us, something that we know we have to deal with regardless of how the outcome of the bond would would come.

Is we have schools and we represent them by their logos on the screen for you and the public that still suffer from not having fully accessible bathrooms.

And I would tell you that's not just a student issue, but that's also an adult issue.

It's for the people that come visit our schools, it's for the grandmas and grandpas that come and visit.

Um I think in 2026, we should be able to accommodate those needs.

Um, and uh that's something that's high on our priority list.

And you have three schools, Wilmore Pioneer, Prairie Rose, that are multi-story facilities that uh don't have an elevator.

And I've said this multiple times.

We are doing um unique accommodations for families, everything from carrying students up and down stairs, that's happened in the past, to moving classrooms mid-year if someone has an accessibility issue temporarily to moving kids outside the building to get into a lower level and transferring kids to different schools.

They don't get the opportunity to go to their neighborhood school, they go to a different school that can accommodate their needs.

Again, we think an expectation for the community, your facilities and mine probably, that they're fully accessible to the those people in our community.

Um I think if I can steal the the words of our pastor, it was in our invocation this morning, fighting for the rights of others.

That was good enough for the prayer.

It's good enough for the work that we're doing every single day.

So we think that's high priority work.

Um also would talk about supported.

I'm gonna focus primarily on the fine arts.

One of the things that we heard from our community, uh century community was um having equal opportunities across the district for kids to to demonstrate their their learning and performance.

So one of the things you'll find the plan is enhancing our fine arts spaces at Century.

Um I hope you've had the opportunity to be in legacy.

I hope you had the opportunity to be in BHS.

Those are outstanding performance areas for kids that uh that uh show their talents in the fine arts areas, be it drama or orchestra or band.

Um centries needs an update as compared to the other ones to give our kids those potentials to to demonstrate their full capacity.

So that's also in the plan.

When we do some additions, which is in the plan, do some multi-purpose room additions on several schools, primarily our south side schools that are a little older, not designed with those spaces, and where we see some growth, like Solheim area.

We've been talking about um those multi-purpose room spaces.

Um that's good for us during the day.

It's also really good for our community.

It's good for after school programming.

We have about 350 kids between parks and Korea.

They're waiting for an after-school um child care placement.

Every time we build those out, gives us an opportunity to expand those programs with our partners.

And if you see on there, um we're renting facilities across BPS for 130 hours a day, Monday through Saturday.

Um we pl we are busy and that's a community facility.

We use them for Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, the youth rec, adult rec.

Um, so when we build out those facilities, we think that's an absolute um win for the community and for us during this school day.

So if we get into the money, which everybody gets to the money eventually, um, you can see that this is uh inside of our long-range facility plan.

I would make sure to um share with you the district has a plan to get on top of this and stay on top of it.

To get on top of it, we need community support to stay on top of it.

We're committing um our maintenance dollars and additional dollars to deal with what we'd call the green categories.

Let's stay on top of this.

So 15 years from now, when someone else has had the privilege of leading this district, because I will not be working that long.

I'll be well past retirement age by then.

That it's not someone else's problem.

And we think this is a uh our plan to address that in the future.

But when you add up all the colored categories and the programmatic work, it's 127 million.

That's where we came up with that number.

And the tax impact on 127 million using valuations for the school district as of last winter when those tax statements came out uh for every hundred thousand dollars, a true and full value on your home.

And remember that's different than business because the calculation is different, but on your home, that would be four dollars and seven cents a month.

Um we think that is uh is a ask, it is significant.

I don't I don't at all um downplay that the school's asking for additional dollars from our taxpayers.

That's not an easy thing, uh, but we do think it's a reasonable ask, and I will quantify that by showing you some other school districts that have recently done this similar work.

I saw another school district just today promoting a June 9th election in a small town.

Um when you look at other other class 2A schools that have recently run referendums for school construction and maintenance costs.

You can see um due in part to the good work that you do every single meeting and every single day.

We're growing thriving community.

I think you say there's about a thousand new residents every year that move into our community.

Um that's kids that get into our schools, but because of that, because we're growing and thriving, um, we can do this good work across Bismarck Public for less impact on our taxpayers than any of these other uh communities have done just recently.

And I would point you to Valley City in the upper left of that screen.

Um they went to the legislature two times looking for assistance to help build schools, and uh we know that because our legislators have said so, schools are local issues.

Local schools, local communities are supposed to address facilities, and so again, that's why we are coming to our taxpayers and our citizens uh here in June.

So my job is not to tell you to vote yes, it's not to tell you vote no.

I just get to tell you the facts.

I don't get to lean you one way or the other.

Um, but I would tell people it's important to go out and vote.

And I say not only for this question is important, but uh I have a board of five as well, three seats are open.

So it's not only a beneficial for the question, but it's to fill those vacancies that are coming to my board as well.

Um we have one incumbent running, Ms.

Amanda Peterson, but we also have some candidates, one of these in the room tonight that are vying for those spots.

And I would answer any questions you may have.

That's the very abbreviated version.

So anyone have questions.

I just appreciate you bringing it presenting because I think it's just important to get the information out as many ways as we can as to the need and the purpose.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Jim.

Thanks, sir.

Next is to consider request or receive the Dakota West Art Arts Council 2025 annual report.

And Dr.

Thomas.

Hello.

Uh thank you for having me here.

We have a number of our uh folks from Dakota West Arts Council community, uh Josh Johnson, our board president, Andrea Burst, who's a partner with Capital City Christmas, and Chris Kitko, who's there as one of our lead uh teachers who are here with us today.

Um great.

Um so I just created a small annual uh report for you here.

Um to share share a little bit about what we've done.

This is my uh about the end of my second year of being here with the Dakota West Arts Council.

Our mission is to serve our community and celebrating art in every in the everyday by cultivating and supporting all types of creative exploration and cultural artistic expression.

Um I uh took over DWAC uh a year, year and a half ago or so.

We uh had no really active members because we had kind of fallen off for about six months before I became executive director.

We now have 47 uh paid active members for organizations, arts professionals, and community arts supporters.

This includes pretty much every single major arts organization in our community the Symphony, Dakota Stage, uh the Civic Chorus, uh Children's Choir, uh Northern Platons Dance.

They're all a part of what Dakota West Arts Council does.

And one of the big things that we've tried to do is kind of act almost like the chamber of commerce and the arts for those folks.

We really work to help promote uh what they're doing, what they have, uh what they bring to our community.

And this year we have a new partner, which is Capital City Christmas.

We are their fiscal sponsor, so we helped them manage their funds and helped them write their grant checks.

And that really is a major project that happens in our community in November and December.

This is a list of all the members that we currently have.

And you can see there's just a wide variety of folks, individual artists.

We also have folks like Dakota Media Access, who's a partner with us, the Gateway to Science, Glance Spa, and a couple other organizations in there.

I would also point out Sacred Pipe Resource Center and some of the other community groups.

The North Dakota Art Project actually is over based in Mandan.

So we we have a few of our members who span across the river.

One of the things that we really tried to work hard on in the last year, year and a half, has been to create a community arts calendar.

When I arrived here in Bismarck six years ago, and and for four years, all I heard was people say, Oh, I wish we had an arts calendar.

And so that became the the number one and primary project that I had.

We got a grant from the Leach Foundation to help us to create a community arts calendar.

We come uh updated our website, and so now you can go onto our website uh here, uh Dakota West Arts Council is our our homepage, and you can see up in the top corner there community arts calendar.

We have these organizations that are there that are all kind of our are hosts, and you can go there and find events all the time.

It's really neat.

You can click on it, you can uh get uh right to a ticket, it'll show you where on a map it's located, it'll give you lots of information.

We even have uh uh business profiles, artist profiles that you can go and find out how to donate, all these things.

So uh this was a major, major project.

Now the uh Bismarck Mandan commun uh convention visitors bureau has created uh maybe what we've been all waiting for is a wide community-wide thing, but I just uh met with them last week.

Uh we are working uh in synergy together, so they're pulling events that are related to the arts because that was one of their biggest weaknesses at the at the convention and visitor bureaus, didn't have a lot of arts events in their schedules, and so we're helping them, and we're also working with Dakota Media Access on creating better uh partnerships together.

Um we created uh summer arts calendar last summer, we're gonna do that again this year.

We also created a holiday calendar, and these were actually in print, which you would think why would anybody want to in print?

There's lots of people who want it in print, they want to put it on their their uh refrigerator and be able to look at it.

This summer arts calendar that we created last summer had a hundred and forty different events that people could attend between June and the end of August, and we're in the process of getting ready to do that.

We want to do it from Memorial Day through uh the United Tribes powow.

We want to have that entire zone in this this summer's arts calendar.

And then we did one for uh the holiday season, which folks could then find out where all the holiday concerts are between uh middle of November and the middle of January, which included Vinterfest.

Um of our biggest programming things that we've been doing for a number of years and is getting stronger and stronger, is a partnership with Bismarck Parks and Recreation District, and it is kids' summer stage, and that's what Chris Kitko helps lead in the summer.

It's 10 weeks every single Wednesday at noon at Custer Park.

We have a kind of a music education experience, a concert experience, and last year we added uh craft experience, care after art experience.

It's like an hour and a half of uh opportunity for young, especially younger kids and families to be there.

Uh there was at least a few times where we had buses pull up from camps in town, and we had I think one day 120 folks uh at one of our uh kids' summer stage events.

Um it's really a great opportunity.

It's a um it means a lot to our community, but it also we can do it pretty uh responsibly when it comes to funding.

And then we have the summer song series, which happens uh at General Sibley Park one time a month last year because it was so popular in the previous years.

And then we have the summer song series, which happens uh at General Sibley Park one time a month last year because it was so popular in the previous years we added May, so we do May, June, July, and August, and we offer a free concert in the park, uh an opportunity for folks just to come.

And last year we had probably the most perfect weather every single day.

It was just like comfortable, and and we're we were excited.

Laughing Sun has been a good partner with us, and they bring out their beer beer van, and uh so it's a good opportunity to just kind of relax.

This year, General Sibley is having some construction, so our our August we're actually gonna probably try to move that into town here and try to bring it so that's more central in August.

But otherwise, we're doing this again this year, and this is really a very successful program.

And the last major thing that we've done last year, and we we restarted this last year was restarting the arts grants for DWAC members, and a good portion of that funding that we give out in grants is uh comes from what the city is allotting to Dakota West Arts Council to do our work.

And so this year we've awarded out 26,750 in arts grants to arts organizations and professionals.

Our priorities this year, and in fact, our priorities have changed from what Dakota West Arts Council was doing four or five years ago, which was more operational support.

Now our grants are focused on three components.

So this year, uh providing more free and reduced price admissions to concerts, programming it to people in Bismarck and the surrounding community.

There's we're really trying to get folks to think about what they can bring add into our community that's free.

Um, and also challenging the organizations in our community that pretty much only live on tickets to say, can you open your dress rehearsals to folks in our community who may not be able to afford to come to the concert?

Can you open this up?

Can you make arts more accessible to every person?

We second is to work to find uh ways to reach new audiences that might not traditionally event uh attend events, and that's that the goal of the open rehearsals is part of it, but also challenging folks to be out in the community.

One of the partnerships we had last year, which we'll do again this year, is that we're working with BAGA at Capital Affair, and we've created what we called last year Kids Zone, and it was just free arts and crafts opportunities for kids in in one part of Capital Affair, but also had uh performances and things like that all for free, so that this was an opportunity for folks to do that, and we heard a lot of good feedback saying, Thank God there was something for my kids to do because I we needed a break.

We needed just to sit down for a little while, and that was good.

And this year, especially we challenged folks to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States in as they were applying for grants, and we have a lot of uh good opportunities.

And so these are all the grant grantees that uh who got grants this year.

You can see a number of organizations, a number of individuals, um, and all of this programming uh happens between uh February and August of this year that we gave this money for.

And so that's what we have.

Any questions?

Thank you, sir, for the presentation.

Thank you.

Commissioner for what you do for our community.

Appreciate that, Dr.

Cog.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Item three.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone wish to speak to this, please come forward.

Good evening.

Uh my name is uh Rich Stedler.

I'm the executive director at Mat Pack Wrestling.

So basically, you know, nothing crazy or nefarious here, it's just we created a separate LLC uh still owned by Mat Pack Wrestling, basically to insulate maybe some of the liabilities that go with owning a bar to separate it from the rest of what we do.

So that's basically the uh the gist of what what what it is.

So still still nothing changing on the ownership group or anything, just uh a separate LLC.

Okay.

Commissioner Rish.

Mr.

Mayor, how many bars does Matt Pack or whatever the LLC is going to be called?

We just own the two.

You own two bars, just the two, correct.

Okay.

It it's a not for profit enterprise MATPAC, or is it for it's it's a non-for-profit mat pack uh is, but the LLC is a for-profit.

You know, pay the taxes just like everybody else.

It's a it's it's run completely separate of off of everything else we do.

So it's actually a separate separate board kind of that runs it too.

So the profits will go to MATPAC or individuals.

It the profit goes to running the web running the bar and paying the loans.

The bar basically has to stand on its own two feet.

You know, so that so the money will be reinvested into that.

No individuals are getting getting getting paid from this to uh uh to enrich themselves.

It just if there was excess, it would go into uh into the Matback Wrestling, basically.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Any other questions?

No.

Okay.

Thank you.

It is a public hearing.

Anyone else who 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.

Commissioners, what are your wishes?

Move to approve.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary.

Yes.

Commissioner Rish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zanker?

Yes.

Mayor Schmitz.

Yes.

Item D is the public hearing for an application to transfer the alcohol license from MatPAC properties LLC to LPM LLC at 804 East Maine.

I'm assuming the same comments.

Um I forgot to ask you to sign in when you were up here.

I should have done that.

I apologize.

Um as he's doing this.

Is there anyone else who wish to come to speak?

A second call for public comment.

A third and final call for public comment.

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

Commissioners.

I'll move reapprove as presented.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Cleary.

Yes.

Commissioner Rish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zanker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Mayor Schmitz.

Yes.

Item E is a public hearing on an application to transfer the alcohol license from Doublewood of Bismarck Inc.

to GHM Bismarck Holding Company LLC at 1400 East Interchange Avenue.

So public hearing.

Anyone wish to speak, please come forward?

And again, sign in as you as you introduce yourself, please.

Clinton Goring, General Manager of the Ramada in Bismarck here.

It's just uh the old owner sold at the end of the year, and then the bank has now bought in it, so it's just that transfer there.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any questions?

You know, anyone who wish to speak, please come forward.

Did you have a question?

Move to approve is presented.

Well, I I didn't close the public hearing either.

Any other comments?

Seeing no one coming forward, we'll close the public comment period.

Go ahead, Commissioner.

Commissioners, whichever you prefer.

Julie, can we just use that or not?

Uh make a motion to approve is presented.

Second.

Any discussion?

It would be in the minutes twice, but let's go.

Hearing none, we'll call roll.

Commissioner Rish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zeker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary?

Yes.

Mayor Schmitz.

Yes.

Item F public hearing and ordinance 6659, a zoning map amendment from A agricultural zoning district to RR residential zoning district in the cruise subdivision.

Good Daniel.

Good evening, Mayor, Commissioners.

This is a request from Lito Cruz, Damas Torres Viegas, and Verna and Barbara Hoover.

And it's a request for a zoning map amendment, as you mentioned, from agricultural to residential, uh and for a plat of cruise subdivision.

The location due south of the city of Lincoln.

This isn't an area that was within our extraterritorial area when this application was submitted, uh, which is why it continued through uh to today uh for your consideration.

It is no longer within the extra territorial area.

This isn't in a location that is now under the jurisdiction of Burley County.

Uh this particular subdivision is a two-lot one block subdivision uh on the south side of 48th Avenue Southeast.

Uh the intent would be for a um reconstruction of a residential home on a lot two.

Uh lot one, there is no immediate plans in the future for for development.

Uh the plan does comply with the future land use plan, which designates this as rural residential, and also the major street plan uh because of the dedication of right-of-way of 48th Avenue Southeast and the north side and uh what's the name of the street on the east side?

That would be Pinewood Loop.

Um so right of way is dedicated for those streets.

Uh there are some existing structures that would be within that right-of-way that are uh there today and and inside of the area to be dedicated.

Uh those remain as non-conforming structures, so they couldn't be uh improved or or added on to, but they could remain in place as is uh for um and they would be within uh in the Burley County Highway Department has uh affirmed that and there is a note on the plat to affirm that as well.

The Planning Consoning Commission did hold a public hearing on its request in March 25th, 2026 and recommended approval of the zoning map amendment from A agricultural to our residential uh and the major subdivision final plat titled Cruise Subdivision.

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

Are there any questions?

Commissioner Connolly.

Now, even though it's out of our ETA, doesn't Lincoln have their own ETA and does it fall within that?

So Commissioners, Commissioner Connolly, uh Lincoln does have their own ETA, but it does not fall within that.

It's under my understanding is it's it's not within their ETA unless they would choose to expand that into the future.

Okay.

Good for Commissioner Rish and I to know because we're on the Burley County board.

Thanks.

Any other questions?

Doesn't look like it, Daniel.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone who 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 coming forward and hearing no one, public comment period is closed.

Commissioners, what are your wishes?

Move to approve as presented.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Here none will call roll.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly?

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary, yes.

Commissioner Rish?

Yes.

Mayor Schmitz.

Yes.

Next item G is public hearing on ordinance 6661 of zoning ordinance text amendment to Section 1404 19 floodplain district and updated references.

I'll let you finish it, Daniel.

Sure.

Thank you again, Mayor Commissioners.

Uh so this is a request brought to you by the planning department uh as a zoning ordinance text amendment.

And uh it's it's quite simple.

Uh the full uh text of the amendment is shown on the screen, also shown in your packet.

It's simply to update the references within our ordinance to align with uh century code after changes uh to the law made in the floodplain chapter there.

Uh so North Dakota Department of Water Resources is asking local governments to make these changes just to stay in line with with the Century Code.

Uh the public uh the Planning and Zoning Commission did hold a public hearing on this request in March 25th, 2026.

Um based on findings can your staff report did recommend approval.

I can answer any questions you may have.

Any questions?

Doesn't look like it.

So again, 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 coming forward and hearing no one, public comment period is now closed.

Commissioners, what are your wishes?

Move to approve is presented.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Connolly.

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary, yes.

Commissioner Ish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zanker?

Yes.

Mayor Schmitz.

Yes.

Item H consider requests for approval of a Renaissance zone rehabilitation and commercial and commercial lease projects at 407 North 4th Street.

Go ahead, Daniel.

Thank you, Mayor Commissioners.

Andrea Burst, owner of Glant Spawn Salon and the property owner of Jab Investments LLC requesting approval of a rehabilitation renaissance zone project and a commercial lease or instance zone project.

The location, as you mentioned, is 407 uh North Fourth Street.

Uh this is an entirely interior remodel uh to the to the building, the portion of the building that is occupied by uh the Glant Spawn Salon.

Uh the intent would be to facilitate expansion of that business uh by updating and remodeling um the the building.

Uh the proposed investment would be 588,973, which does exceed the minimum thresholds to qualify for the uh property tax exemption.

The um just is a reminder of how this works.

The uh property tax portion of the Renaissance zone uh would be an exemption of the increment between the pre-project level of of assessment and whatever that assessment would be after the project is completed.

We've estimated that at uh as you see on the screen here, uh that it's just an estimate.

It will be confirmed once the assessing department does take that measurement after the project is completed.

Uh and there is also an income tax exemption as a portion of this, so the spawn salon as a commercial lease would be eligible for a five-year income tax exemption on their state income taxes.

The um Renaissance Zone Authority did hold a public hearing on April 9th.

And uh based on the findings in your staff report recommend approval of the rehabilitation and commercial lease Renaissance Zone projects uh at this site.

There was one condition to their approval.

Uh they were looking for a certificate of good standing from one of the applicants.

That has since been found, and and we have that um on file right now.

So that condition has been met.

Uh I know the uh property owner is here as well and can answer some more detailed questions if you'd like to know about the nature of the project.

Okay.

Commissioner's questions.

So I do.

Because I've already seen heard part of this once already last week.

Um my question is around the improvements and what of those improvements are specific to a salon and why a salon, which we have multiple in the city outside of the Renaissance zone should qualify, and what would that?

I mean, I know we've estimated the potential improvement value, but like I'm I'm kind of struggling with this.

It's an interior remodel, it's the building's already there, it's operating or not rehabilitating a vacant space.

Sure.

And if if if I may, um if the property owner is willing to give it a little more.

And that's why I don't care who answers those are just that's my been my struggle with this.

I'm just okay.

Thank you, Mayor and Commissioners.

I if your question is the updates being done during during this remodel project, or what are specific to the salon, my answer is similar to last week when I was on the call.

None of it's really salon specific except for one room, which will be renovated plumbing-wise electrically as well to house a couple specific treatment beds to offer water services.

So we need specific plumbing and draining for those specific beds.

So outside of those two beds, none of the actual fixtures as far as plumbing or electrical is salon specific.

Does that answer your question?

That partially, so go ahead, Commissioner.

I'll let you go ahead.

What kind of beds?

Canning beds or no, they're um there for water services, so head spa beds, body treatment beds to allow for not necessarily massage, but services that you need water to perform.

So that's why the plumbing has to be right under the bed.

So that would be the only interesting modification, if you will.

So are you are are there I areas of the building that structurally need remodeling and improvement?

I mean, I'm trying to get my head around the purpose of the re of the Renaissance zone and why it was there in the first place and how this fits that.

Sure.

So structurally, the um is an older building.

And so one of the bigger structure structural projects is removing an old staircase to expand the area and rehabilitate the floor and just to create space.

That would that's be the biggest structural um remodel.

Otherwise, it's moving walls to make the space a bit more efficient to work in that area, add proper plumbing, electrical needs for each individual treatment room as well.

Right now we don't have any plumbing in those rooms, so it's really hard to perform any service as far as our industry in those rooms.

Updating the bathroom facilities as well.

Um pretty much just everything needs an update.

I've I've been in that space for 16 years and haven't been able to address any of the needs for this area.

I have in other areas of the building, not just this spa area.

Um our windows are all going to be replaced as well.

Um very much needed.

They currently are all broken and have um styrofoam in them to keep for heating and cooling issues.

So does that help?

So I'm so those those are the exterior windows, probably those we can't see from the street front then from the alleyway.

You can see them from the alley point.

That helps me, helps me understand.

I was trying to get my head around some of those.

Yeah.

So this area is on the east side of the building on the upper level.

Okay.

Anyone else have questions?

I mean, I guess it's probably not for you, it's probably more for Daniel and just like a little bit of clarification.

Because I I understand what you're saying, trying to get at like what what is the specifics of this.

And so Daniel, please correct me if I'm wrong.

It's been a minute since we've talked about Renaissance Zone.

But with some of this stuff, especially rehab projects, I feel like the point or the reason for Renaissance Zone existing and being in very specific areas of the community is more about like the age of the building and what surrounds it and how limitation, like there's limitations with the things you can do to it and how it gets more expensive because of the infill all around it and the age of the building.

And like that's why she would have access to something like this versus a spa built outside of the Renaissance area.

And is that correct?

Like has more to do with the building, not necessarily the purpose.

To me, that feels more like vision fund, where it's like we want to make sure we're expanding the growth of certain types of businesses.

Sure.

I think that that is a good point.

And the Renaissance Zone program is governed by our Renaissance Zone Development Plan.

And really the intent of that is to see a district-wide approach to revitalization.

And so it's I think you're right.

It's not each individual building standing on its own.

Um the business development is an important part of it, but I think also the upkeep and um and in improvement of the infrastructure and the um just the the bones I should say, I guess, of of the of the district are probably the most important part of this.

Um and so yeah, that I think that's a good point.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Zinker.

Commissioner, since Renaissance RZ is my portfolio, I could, you know, we we have certain discussions at the at those meetings as well, right?

So in that uh, and Daniel, correct me in case I get some wrong verbiage here or anything, but within that confines or ordinances for the Renaissance zone, it doesn't say anything about specific businesses or anything.

It's all about the building.

So if obviously there's some dilapidation to the building if she's got foam in the windows and those types of things for 16 years, so that would that would help enhance the vibrancy of the downtown, right?

Um or of a uh building that's probably 70 years old or 60 years old, whatever it is.

Um a lot of those times were in a deferred maintenance scenario.

We've seen some Renaissance zone projects be um very needed.

And then we've also seen some that have been kind of on the edge, right?

The ones that are on the edge is what what created the the stagnant for a year where we didn't have NRZ program.

So um the good thing about this is that the only difference she'll still have to pay the current property taxes on the facility.

And the only um variant she's gonna get is for whatever the difference is from today's current value to what the potential could be.

And that's just an estimate.

I mean, what was it?

Is 1.3 to 900, so it's it's roughly 400,000.

You know, so it's it's not like she's getting a whole break as it was before prior to the the change where they got everything.

Um some of those scenarios are good for us because it helps just like when we approve letters that go to to the state for them to buy down interest rates.

Every dollar that we invest back into our city comes back to us in some type of property tax reform, right?

Or not reform, but in some type of property tax.

So if she's specifically putting something in this building for hydrotherapy or facials or whatever that is, that's just her business.

It'd be no different than if um there's large computer screens that go on walls for CPAs or doctors or whatever they need.

We don't determine an RZ level or it should even at a city commission level as to what we're gonna approve and uh approve or not approve based on what you put in your building.

It's not our building, so why would we have that type of input on that?

Um we have some rules and regulations on what can go on the outside, so it meets the the downtown design review and those types of things, but that's just to make it more cosmetic and and um more uh kind of natural occurrences or I'm not really natural, but more Daniel help me out here.

I'm looking for a word, dude.

Um streamlined or you know, it things have to they have a color for a reason, you know.

So I mean she answered some of the questions that I didn't have answered for me a week ago with because I was wondering more about the component structural items that I I didn't get to that last week, and so that was helpful for me to understand it because it wasn't really in our presentation either.

So Commissioner Rish.

Uh the estimated um property tax benefit, 29,600, is that spread over like five years or 10 years, or what is it?

That's 29,000 divided by five six thousand dollars a year, something to that effect for five years.

Yep, Commissioner Ish, that you you've got it.

That's exactly how how this is calculated.

And and as Commissioner Zanker said too, this is this is a purely an estimate.

Um this is estimating that the valuation in this building would go up from you know about 787,000 to 1200 uh to uh about 1.2 million.

So we don't know um, but that's the estimate about a 30,000 total over the course of the five years, and then another 30,000 total over the course of five years in the income tax exemption from the state.

Which mayor commissioners income tax is a state scenario, so that's we have nothing to do with that.

So I I appreciate the comments because that was some of what I was felt I was missing, but it was a whole different topic last week.

So come any other comments, Commissioners?

Commissioner Rish.

I guess the good news is it's only a reduction in taxes from the increase in value, not the entire structure.

That's because of the changes that were made at the Renaissance owned rules.

Yep.

Okay.

Commissioners, what are if there's no other discussion?

Move to approve is presented.

Second.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Clear.

Yes.

Commissioner Ish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly.

No.

Mayor Schmitz.

Yes.

Moving to item I can serve request for resolution receiving bids ordering preparation of the engineers statement and award contract for Steve Improvement District SI599.

Go ahead, Gabe.

Mayor Commissioners, we opened bids for SI 599, which is the extension of 15th Street from 43rd Avenue uh to the north towards Skyland Crossing.

We had two bidders on the project with the low bid being Northern Improvement Company with the low bid of 185,949.

Any questions, Commissioners?

Move to approve is presented.

Second.

Is there any further discussion?

Hearing none will call roll.

Commissioner Rish?

Yes.

Commissioner Zenker?

Yes.

Commissioner Connolly.

Yes.

Commissioner Cleary.

Yes.

Mayor Schmitz.

Yes.

Item J, consider request from the administration department to provide an update on this strategic plan.

Doug.

Mayor and Commissioners, if you recall back in November, you approved the most recent update to our strategic plan.

And during that discussion, uh you had requested quarterly reports.

And so this is the first quarterly report for our recent update.

But before we start on that, I wanted to bring this to your attention.

Each of you received this at your station there.

This is uh the uh the printed copy, the finished printed copy.

We worked with Odney to create this document.

So this is what you approved back in November.

Now our strategic plan is a living document, and things may change over time, but as a reference point in time, this is what we approved back in November.

So do you have any questions about that before I get into I just got one thing?

Mayor Commissioner, so I will uh the challenge when I was on the the strategic plan in 2019 was to make sure that commissioners kept that with them.

So if we ever need to reference it during meetings or whatever, or things that we're at.

So we we kept our vision moving forward, right?

So I'll make that challenge to you as well.

Um that you make sure you bring this to every meeting.

I only got four left after tonight, so some of us are excited about that, especially my wife.

Um so I will challenge you guys to do the same thing, um, because uh the team that put this together did a fantastic job.

Um, and I'm super excited to watch how this carries out because I can still watch from afar.

Thank you.

No problem.

That's still your funding.

No, not yet.

Not yet.

Okay.

Uh also in your packet, you received an actual report.

So this came out of our invisio or our up our reporting software.

Um, and I'm gonna take you to our public dashboard, which is something new that we haven't had before with our strategic plan.

I'm gonna show this on the website.

That's the easiest way to get to it for the public.

So this is public facing, and then staff will report on the back end, and it'll be updated every Monday, seven o'clock.

It it updates everything that's been put in.

So our staff will receive a request about two and a half weeks before we're I'm gonna give a report, and they'll put their updates in, and then it'll feed into this dashboard automatically.

So it's pretty efficient process.

So if you go to the administration page on our city's website, you can scroll down to the strategic plan.

And on the strategic plan page, there's a couple ways to get to this public dashboard.

You can in the paragraph here, there's a a link, or you can go to the left, top left corner and click on the public dashboard.

So across the top, you can see the strategic focus areas, which are in your document you have in front of you.

Um but then as you scroll down, you can get an overall update.

And remember we're just a few months into the strategic plan.

So 15% is where we're at so far, three months in.

And then you see some colors here.

It just shows what those colors are just a status.

So we have an end process, so that means we've hit a start date for a goal or an objective, and we have something to actually report.

Uh the purple means that it's upcoming, so we we haven't hit a date yet where we should have an update on that.

And that you're gonna see a lot of that in your report that you had in your packet and on this public dashboard.

Uh a couple colors that we should discuss a little bit are the yellow and red.

Those kind of look scary when you look at them.

You know, yellow means slow down, red means stop, but that's not what this means when we're reporting.

It's just a different way to relate information.

And they stand for minor disruption or some disruption and a major disruption is red.

And that just means there's just been a change in the path.

It could be uh we don't have funding or we haven't been able to hire somebody in the case of the uh street utility fee, for example.

We decided to change route and not pursue a vote in June.

So there is some disruption there on that update.

So that's just an example of what that could look like.

But if you look go into this different strategic focus areas, you can get to it from the top, and you have the different goals drop down, or you can go down here and it's shows it again.

So I don't know which you can I'm gonna go into infrastructure and development since I already mentioned it.

You can see there's some colors here, there's some actual updates, and this is a lot of the work that Gabe has been doing uh with the half cent sales tax extension and with the uh utility fee work, and then also with a lot of the buildings that we've been working on.

We have a lot of consultants hired right now to do architectural work for the police station, for the fire station, uh, and for this building as well.

So there's a lot of updates there.

Um I guess I I don't want to go into this a ton.

We could spend a lot of time going to each strategic focus areas, but you guys have that report in your packet.

But there's anything specific I can answer for you regarding where we are right now in our strategic plan, I'd be happy to do so.

So just one and that's probably more, and you I may have missed it when you said it, but how frequently is this public-facing dashboard updated?

Every Monday, if there's updates.

So we're so I think that's a great thing for our community to be able to see how we're moving.

You probably won't see updates nearly that often uh quarterly.

A few weeks before I would do a report is primarily when you're gonna see updates, but we've had some directors that have provided updates earlier in the process.

So yeah.

And we're gonna do some social media on this, letting our citizens know that we have this available as well.

I really like the public facing dashboard.

I think that's a great enhancement.

So Commissioner Cleary.

I don't have any specific questions about it, but I know when we originally started talking about this, one of my like main sticking points, and I think we kind of everybody felt similarly, is that the strategic plan should be actionable and you should be able to check things off as you progress.

It shouldn't just be a document, like Commissioner Zenker said, it lives and changes.

Uh so this progress report and being able to see it like lively get updated, I think is like a huge big step in the right direction from like the growth that we've seen with these past reports or strip past strategic plans.

So I think that's really cool, not only for our citizens, but I think for us too getting the quarterly updates, but then also getting to see like as you scroll through this, like you know, goal 1.1 like has an update, you know.

Like so, I think that that's really cool because it's it's very specific to the very the individual goals within the plan.

So I like I really like that.

I think that's a huge increase to visibility and progress for us.

So thank you.

I know it's a team effort, but it's really great.

Any other comments?

Mr.

Chairman Doug.

I'm wondering how you come up with the percentages.

I mean, I see the percentage in progress, this, that, and the other.

That's kind of um challenging to figure out the percentages or are you?

Yeah, so each of the goals and objectives, there's tasks below it.

So if one objective would have three tasks below it, they're simply just dividing it into thirds and drawing a percentage off of that.

Any other comments?

Doug, do you have anything else that you want to share?

I don't think so.

The next one will come in July.

Okay.

And if there's anything you would like changed on the report or more information for the port that's in your packet, this is that one's a very high level.

It's the first one I have done.

So there's more that I could do.

If you would like to see more in that, I'm happy to explore and figure that out.

Um but you'll get a lot of information from the dashboard as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

Is there any other is there any other business?

Commissioner Rish.

I just want to give a shout out to Public Works, not my portfolio, but they did a good job last week on a spring cleanup.

But I did notice that a neighbor had put some paint out.

And of course, they don't pick up paint or hazardous materials and things.

But I want to remind the public that actually at the landfill we've got something called the reuse it store.

You can bring paint, stains, pesticides, herbicides, hazardous materials or some things they don't take, but as a Bismarck resident, you can take it there.

And the better news is you can also take whatever you need that they have on the shelves.

Alicia Doctor is running a thing out there and she's got some people helping.

So you can go in there and take your things as a Bismarck resident.

Non-residents have to pay to bring such things, but Bismarck residents get to bring that, plus electronics.

And then they have it all neatly arranged on the shelves, and I've gotten oil and paint and all kinds of things.

So it's a good good thing for our community that we don't process these hazardous materials.

We actually allow our citizens to deposit them and other citizens to reuse them.

So a shout out to Alicia and Public Works for what they did last week and what they continue to do.

And that uh store is open, what is it, 7 to 3 p.m.

Monday through Friday, and on first and third Saturday, 9 to 2 p.m.

That's what I got.

Okay.

Any other business?

Commissioner Cleary.

Um I was just gonna embarrass you a little bit.

It's the mayor's birthday tomorrow, so happy birthday.

That's all I have.

No, I don't I'm not going to.

Did you bring cupcakes?

I didn't.

I shouldn't.

So nobody cracker in the crowd, or on that sad note.

We'll adjourn it.