Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, February third, twenty twenty six City of Bozeman City Commission meeting.

So any time somebody submits public comment virtually, um, as written public comment to Commons of Bozeman dot net or to any of us individually, if you get that to us by noon, the day of the commission meeting, those are distributed to us, we'll have time today on each of our agenda items for public comment in person, and we have the option for um virtual public comments as well.

Um those will be associated with each of our agenda items will also have public comment on our um general public comment for non-agenda um non-agenda concerns um for that fall under the purview of the city commission.

Um most of what we are going to be focusing on today, we just have one action item on our Gooch Hill sub area plan.

Um, otherwise we have a typical consent agenda and we'll get underway.

Um, if you would please join us in a pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence.

We know of one.

Um, we need to authorize the absence of our deputy mayor.

There are any other changes to our agenda this evening.

There are no other changes, Mayor.

Thank you.

Um, would anybody be able to help me out in authorizing the absence of our deputy mayor?

I live to authorize the absence of commissioner fit.

Thank you.

Commissioner Magic.

Commissioner Sweeney.

I.

Commissioner Bodie.

I mayor Morrison.

I the Deputy Mayor's absence is authorized.

And then we will move on to our FYI.

Any FYI from the Commission this evening.

I have one.

Just as a as an announcement.

There's some press release that went out about this yesterday, but just wanted to also echo this sentiment from the from the commission.

We have launched a podcast, the City of Bozeman.

I, as the mayor will be the host, the Bozeman Beat.

We had our first episode drop yesterday.

This episode was just a conversation between me and the former mayor Terry Cunningham about legacies and impact and vision and how do we know what we're doing and why we're doing it.

This is going to be basically the idea is hosted by the mayor, so I'll host the next two seasons of this podcast.

And if it seems like something worth pursuing, then we'll continue it with the next mayor.

There's a variety of reasons why this is in our consideration.

A lot of people listen to podcasts.

Not a lot of people can come to City Hall and sit through a commission meeting or participate in in that way.

And also there's a lot of conversations that we don't get to have in our findings on a decision here.

So this will cover really anything that falls under the you know the interest of the citizens of this community.

We've talked about talking of interviewing authors or business leaders or or otherwise.

So there's really that's any anything's on the table in these conversations.

So if anybody ever has either to my colleagues or anybody from the public a consideration for a topic or someone we should interview, or even if you would like to be interviewed and you think you've got a great story to tell to this community that that has an impact here, um reach out to us at podcast at Bozeman MT.gov.

That's where we're just going to be collecting all this information about where we want to go with it.

Um we've got a few ideas for the next couple, but nothing is immutable.

Um if anything comes up, we want to be nimble and being able to react and swarm as things come up.

Um really excited to try a new strategy for um communicating and getting getting some stories out about what the city's up to.

That is the only FYI from me.

Any FYI from staff this evening?

Thank you, Mayor.

A couple.

Um we have a new traffic calming program out there.

I just want to give a shout out to our director Nick Ross and his staff for launching this.

And it's to respond to residents' requests for seasonal neighborhood traffic calming measures.

And these are installations like traffic circles and curve bulb extensions that help drivers slow down and keep an eye out for people walking, biking, and rolling through our neighborhoods.

Um if you live in the city and you know a spot in your neighborhood that could benefit from traffic calming, please submit an application to us.

Uh now through March 6, you can apply online by visiting Bozeman.net and clicking on the front page banner.

Uh we'll the approved projects will be installed in late spring and be in place until early October.

Second but not least is the new uh year for the Citizens Bozeman Police Academy.

And this uh is our 19th Citizen Bozeman Police Academy, and it gives uh participants a uh chance to learn what it's like to be a Bozeman police officer.

And I know some of our commissioners, particularly Commissioner Sweeney has taken this.

Um you really get an opportunity to um really walk in the shoes of a patrol officer.

You'll spend eight weeks exploring our team's work, including SWAT gear and techniques, crime scene investigations, and the daily experiences of our patrol officers and detectives, and this hands-on program gets um participants into the into the thick of the action and connects our officers with the community, I think in a pretty cool and unique way.

So uh Citizens Police Academy meets from 6 to 9 on Thursday nights, and it starts March 26th, goes through May 14th, and you can apply it.