Yes, you as well.

Emily, did you print me an agenda?

I did.

Oh, good.

Yeah, I forgot to do that.

I got this all set up.

I was like, oh no, we forgot to do that.

Sorry, this is 4:30.

Good evening, and thank you for joining us.

Before we begin, I'd like to share a few reminders to help you follow along and participate in public comment.

You can attend or watch this meeting and future inc meetings in several ways.

In person here in the city commission room, live streamed on your computer via video conference using the link in the meeting's calendar event on Bozeman's main website where ink agendas are also posted.

You may also call in using the phone number and access code listed on the agenda.

Please note this option is listen only and does not allow for public comment.

To provide public comment, you may comment in person here in the commission room, or use the raise hand feature if joining by video conference.

When it's your turn, Emily Kiley will call you by name or submit written comments by emailing comments at Bozman.net.

Written comments received by noon on the day of the meeting will just be distributed and read by the INC.

Now let's begin with introductions.

I see a few new faces here, so I'll start with Angie over on the right.

Hi, everybody.

My name is Angie Kichowek, and I'm the rep for the Northeast Neighborhood Association.

Hi, I'm Zara Osman, and I'm the rep for the Valley Unit Neighborhood Association.

I'm Kath or Catherine Crumrine, and I'm the rep for Marwan Lindley.

I'm Alice and Todd.

I'm Alison Todd with the Jant neighborhood, filling in for Juliet.

Emily Mason, Figgins Edition.

I'm Dick Bacher.

Bridger Creek Lands Area of Neighborhoods.

Mark Campanelli, Bogart Park.

Kathy Rich, the University Neighborhood Association.

Beth Boyce.

I'm Douglas Fisher and I am your new uh uh Commission liaison.

Hi everyone, I'm Emily Kylie, community engagement coordinator here at the city.

Thank you.

Do we have any disclosures Beth Boyce, and I'm married to a legislator named his name is Brian Close.

He's currently serving in the Montana legislature.

Thank you.

Any changes to the agenda?

Emily, no?

No.

Public service announcements.

No.

Approval of the minutes of the January 8 2026 meeting.

Um I did have one request for a change.

I don't know if we do a motion first.

Um I got threatened to get sued by using the word keepers in my possible nonprofits.

So uh it got changed to trust, so East Gelaton Watershed Trust, if it ever becomes a thing.

But because it's a public document, I would appreciate if you could you don't have to necessarily change, you could say it's been changed to because I did call it the keepers at the I think at the meeting.

So if that makes sense, thank you.

Do we have a motion to approve the minutes?

I motion to approve the minutes from January 8th, 2026.

All in favor, raise your hand.

Aye.

Meeting minutes are approved.

Okay, onto the consent calendar.

Public comments on non-agenda items falling within the purview and jurisdiction of the board.

This is a time to comment on non- any any non-agenda matter falling within the scope of the INC.

There will also be time in conjunction with each agenda item for public comment relating to that item, but you may only speak once per topic.

Please note the board cannot take any action on any item which does not appear on the agenda.

All persons addressing the board shall speak in a civil and courteous manner, and members of the audience shall be respectful of others.

Please state your name and place residents in an audible tone and voice for the record and limit your comments to three minutes.

All right, good evening.

Uh Alison Sweeney, City Commission, not in any way trying to steal the thunder of Douglas Fisher here.

I am the liaison to the Historic Preservation Advisory Board.

And I just wanted to give you guys an update about that board.

And they will discuss the engagement plan at that meeting next week.

You can find the draft engagement plan on the city website meeting videos page attached to the agenda for HPAB's Wednesday meeting.

Since this board did author a letter to the city commission asking for specific involvement, I thought you might want the update that that engagement plan is now available.

The seven neighborhoods, either partially or fully within the NCOD are listed as external key partners, but everyone's input is welcome and crucial to the success of this endeavor.

After all, our historic downtown belongs to everyone, including future generations.

Right now, the community engagement plan is set to be discussed and adopted by the city commission on March 10th, though the six-month calendar is subject to change.

So please take this information back to your neighborhoods.

Let them know they can give feedback or suggestions about the draft engagement plan in writing to comments at Bozeman.net at the Historic Preservation Advisory Board meeting next week, and then again when it comes in front of the commission.

So thanks.

Thank you, Allison.

Any other public comment?

I'm not seeing any online.

No.

All right, let's move on to the special presentations.

Um we do have a strict time limit tonight, so I'd like to uh begin with a neighborhood traffic calming program.

Super, thank you all.

I'm Danay Gianetti.

I'm engineer with the city's transportation and engineering division.

I started last year with the city and was tasked from day one to formalize our neighborhood traffic calming program, which has essentially been run on sort of an ad hoc basis for eight or nine years now in partnership with the Western Transportation Institute.

The program is now fully housed within the city of Bozeman, and we have been meeting most of the fall and the winter, formalizing some of the programs policies and processes.

So I'm gonna run through this because I want to give ample time for questions.

Um and I do apologize in advance for PowerPoint karaoke, but I want to make sure that all the information is there if anyone wants to reference it back.

So I'll give you uh an overview of the program, what the application process looks like, how we are ranking and prioritizing projects, and then what the timeline is gonna look like for 2026.

Um also run through our program webpage, have a QA.

Um, but I might jump ahead because we have a little encore presentation at the request of Director Ross.

So the program definition is a citizen-initiated program focused on improving the safety and comfort of people traveling by all modes through a neighborhood.

The key part here is citizen initiated.

Um we have a few objectives defined here.

Most importantly is having a clear and transparent process for addressing citizen concerns regarding traffic on neighborhood streets.

Obviously, safety is paramount.

We want to make sure that the uh projects we're implementing are um intended to decrease the frequency and severity of crashes on our neighborhood streets.

We want to reduce the speed and discourage the use of neighborhood streets for cut through traffic, and as well as encourage you know all modes of transportation, particularly active transportation.

The project types within this program include temporary and seasonal.

The distinction here is seasonal, is you know, maybe a multi-year as the snow isn't typically on the ground this year aside.

Temporary would be if you know maybe there's a special event or a detour for construction and there's sort of an acute issue over a shorter period of time.

But the big thing is we want to evaluate these treatments on a temporary or seasonal basis to inform permanent infrastructure.

CIP projects are not included in this program.

In order for a street to be considered eligible, it needs to be a local street that's city owned and publicly maintained.

And as I mentioned, all projects must start as temporary before they would be considered for permanent construction.

The application process, we tried to keep as easy and straightforward as possible, but I certainly welcome feedback because this is the first iteration through this process.

It's web-based on our web page, which I'll show you in a minute.

And it's going to be on a rolling basis, but the program schedule is fixed.

I'll talk about the timeline in a moment.

But at a high level, the application is going to be the requester's contact information, location and description of their concern, an agreement to serve as the point of contact moving forward, and then a petition.

So the petition will consist of either 50% of signatures from addresses within one block of the project, or a letter of support from the HOA or INC representative.

And it needs to be provided at the time of application.

The intent here is in the past we've had projects that were constructed but not fully supported by the neighborhood.

So we want to make sure there's demonstrated support and that we're being effective with limited resources.

Once we receive an application, it'll go through a screening process.

Two of the three criteria outlist listed here need to be met for a project to move forward.

So a vehicle crash within the last five years within the location that they've requested.

A thousand vehicles per day, or the 85th percentile speed is at least five miles per hour over the posted speed.

So the city staff will be collecting data upon receipt of an application to check that, and then looking to see if the projects near a pedestrian generator, like a school or a park.

And I am inviting people to reach out if they want to make sure a project's gonna pass the screening.

We can do a preliminary safety and land use check.

We were able to triple our capacity for data collection this year.

So we we don't have quite the backlog like we did previously and are able to get to that much quicker.

When it comes to prioritizing projects, we do anticipate uh the chance that the request outweigh the available funding for the program.

So we've outlined a few metrics here, namely the occurrence of vehicle crashes, um, what the speed is, how many vehicles are traveling on the street, um, how many pedestrian generators, obviously, some of our neighborhoods have multiple schools and parks within walking distance.

And then this contextual consideration is sort of a catch-all of everything else because the context matters.

So, you know, is there some safety concern unique to this intersection that we want to account for?

Maybe there's not active transportation, maybe sidewalk gaps are missing and people have to walk in the street, something like that.

From there, we've assigned scoring with speed being weighted the most, obviously, from a safety standpoint.

That's something that this program can address, and that is very critical for folks to feel comfortable to walk and bike in the area.

The toolbox at this time consists of splitter islands, like I've got in the upper left.

We've previously installed on North 25th.

We've got curb extensions like we've done on East Alligator, traffic circles, and then pedestrian refuge islands in the lower right, which are all defined as horizontal deflection.

There's been interest in vertical deflection, things like speed tables, speed bumps.

In the past, there's been concerns with maintenance equipment.

We are working on standardizing a city detail for speed tables that is more plow-friendly.

Um, and so we hope to roll that out in future iterations, but at this time, this is our program toolbox.

So for the program timeline, um, right now the application window is open for 2026 installations.

It is going to be closing on March 6th, and that's only so we have time to do walk audits with neighbors to make sure that we have support for what we're proposing to do and have time to you know uh procure the materials.

And then installation would happen.

I'm an eternal optimist.

The snow will come and it will pass.

And so we'll get those projects out once you know we're we're in the usual clear for snow.

And then once we get into the summer months, we'll be doing data collection both for post-installation because we want to measure how effective these projects are in addressing the concerns of the neighborhood.

And then also applications that are received after March 6th will be considered for 2027.

So we'll start doing sort of the pre-installation screening for those.

Once we get into the fall and into winter, we'll be removing those projects before the snow comes back.

It will.net webpage, if you go to departments and transportation, there's a little button there that says neighborhood traffic calming program.

And from there, excuse me, we have a link for the application and then all the information that I just lined out in terms of the toolbox, the application process, the objectives, and the program definition.

So I know I blew through that very quickly.

Here's a recap of all that we covered before we jump into QA because this is related.

Director Ross had asked me to talk briefly about an effort we have running sort of concurrently, and that's to address our uncontrolled intersections in the city limits.

We have roughly 300 of them.

So this winter uh we just kicked off a programmatic approach for stop sign installations at all of the uncontrolled intersections.

Um obviously, you know, we have to balance that with the capacity of our streets and signs folks.

So the plan at this point would be to start with the neighborhoods near MSU where we have the highest uh probability of new to town or new drivers, and then working our way outward from there.

Um we haven't yet landed on uh the timeline, but we will uh start this summer with installing those.

So I'm gonna jump back here and open it up for questions.

Is a street like Highland Boulevard is in my neighborhood?

Would that be eligible for uh some traffic coming?

So that's a good question.

I'm fairly certain Highland's not classified as a local street, and so our arterials and collector streets we're handling, we're actually working through a process because we've received quite a few um requests, and we don't want to ignore those.

I mean, the problem doesn't go away just because we don't address it.

Um and we're actually meeting at the end of February to talk through that.

So I would encourage you to still reach out.

Um, and as we work through those solutions, we can definitely keep you posted and work together on something for you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That was great presentation.

Um, I heard you say something like neighborhood support.

Is there are there expectations that neighbors would put in some SWIP equity if a project is actually selected, like to help with painting or whatever.

Oh, that's a great question.

Thank you.

Uh, two-part answer.

So when it comes to projects that will be funded, installed, maintained, removed by the city, neighbors have the opportunity to either select and install artwork within uh the pieces.

Let me go back to our toolbox um photo.

So you can see, like in the upper right corner, we've got the little fish stencils.

I'm currently partnering with Bozeman High School's art club to come up with essentially a portfolio of pieces that neighbors could choose from.

Um, so there would be that opportunity for sweat equity.

The other part, but taking a step back, the city would assume responsibility for installation maintenance and removal otherwise.

And obviously, if we have folks working out in the street, we would be doing um traffic control, making sure everyone's safe during that process.

The other second part is if a project has really um well demonstrated neighborhood support, but it doesn't rank high enough for our limited program capacity.

We are working together to develop some technical assistance and an encroachment permit process where the neighbors could carry the project forward, um, and we would provide sort of that oversight and still offer traffic control during installation, things of that nature, just so we can still be collaborative, um, but understanding you know, there's only so many dollars that the program has allocated for now.

Danach.

So I'm with Marwan Lindley.

My name is Kath, and we actually have had uh really great success with some traffic calming on Cyprus as well as on oh gosh, I think it's Ailsworth.

It's kind of what we call the pork shop.

There's yeah, I can't remember the other street that's there's a talk, it gets confusing.

But the um I guess my question is we've applied in the past.

Do we need to continue to apply in the future?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So at this time, projects that have been previously uh installed through this program will be maintained through this program.

Um obviously it becomes challenging trying to evaluate the effectiveness of something that already exists.

We don't really have that pre-installation data in the sense that we would where someone somewhere where nothing's ever been installed.

Um we also have really great working relationships with a lot of those neighborhoods.

So we still have capacity to do that.

To take it one step further, we're also looking at, okay, the next evolution of this is permanent installation for some of those projects.

Um certainly my goal at this point is when the application period closes in March, I will be reaching out to those partners we've had in previous years and say, hey, are we still gonna do this?

What do you think about art, planting, and then move forward from there?

Thank you.

Oh go ahead.

I have a similar question as Beth.

Uh, would third between Kaggy and Graph be considered a local street or arterial?

Uh I believe, man, y'all are really quizzing me.

I believe that's also considered a collector.

We do have a project in our capital improvement program for South Third.

So stay tuned.

Um, but this would not be the program for that one.

Thank you.

Um, so a couple questions.

I I just wanted to clarify you had said um we needed 50% agreement from the homeowners in the area and um the um okay from the ink rep, or is it either or?

It's either or.

Yeah, sorry.

Uh let me get that slide back up because yeah, we're what we're trying to do is recognize, particularly for intersections, uh, you know, that's that's a lot of doors you gotta knock on.

Um, yeah, so it's a signatures or HOA or INC.

Okay.

But one of those needs to be provided at the time of application.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um and also on the university neighborhood rep, and so I'm curious about the plan going forward with um adding the yield signs and probably stop signs in that neighborhood.

Is there is that on gonna be on the um website, or should I reach out to um director Ross about that?

Because I'd love to be able to communicate that with my neighborhood.

Yeah, absolutely.

It won't be on the traffic calming, it's sort of a concurrent effort that Director Ross said, Well, you're there, mention it.

So that's why I have it as my encore slide.

Um, but certainly we've been uh communicating with our counterparts in Missoula, they've been doing a similar effort at a neighborhood scale, and their one big lesson learned is communication, particularly for the folks that have been living in the neighborhood for decades, and all of a sudden a stop sign appears.

It's like that muscle memory of okay, things are a little different now.

Um, and so yes, as we get through the initial planning, this is gonna be a late winter, early spring.

We'll be working with you all certainly to get that communication out there.

And please use me.

Um I'm happy to put out anything to the um neighborhood.

Awesome.

They will they will want to hear about this.

Okay, awesome.

Thank you.

That's it.

All right, thanks.

Um on the stop sign initiative, is that gonna be at all four inner all four directions, or is it two-way, or is there any reason about that?

Great question.

So uh without getting too engineering nerdy on you.

Uh, when it comes to installing two stop signs, um, the manual on uniform traffic control devices, which is what we sort of consider our guiding document for signs, signals, pavement markings, says um engineering judgment can be used.

When it comes to an always stop situation, there are warrants that have to be met.

And so with this initial pass-through, uh, generally speaking, we're looking at two stop signs being installed with no more than two blocks of um free flow.

So we'll be staggering directions.

Um there's there's a very interesting divide among traffic engineers on using stop signs for speed control, and there's two very strong schools of thought that you should and should not be doing it.

But it's undeniable they do slow traffic down at the intersection when people use it.

And so um while we're not directly using stop signs as uh speed management, it's an interesting byproduct of what we're trying to accomplish.

Um what we've um come to accept, admittedly, perhaps begrudgingly is Bozeman's not as small as it used to be.

And so our streets uh that have uncontrolled intersections have far more traffic on them, which means a higher higher probability of there being a car in a different direction.

And so we feel from an engineering judgment standpoint that most of the intersections, particularly working around the university and going outward warrant the at least two stop signs.

For intersections that already have two stop signs that we would be looking at doing four stop signs based on some data collection, it is a bit more resource intensive, but we do receive those requests and we do follow through doing that study.

So if you have concerns, by all means, please reach out.

Okay.

Second question.

Um for the speed portion of the three categories.

Is it just over a certain speed limit?

How do you guys do that?

Because like, for example, I live on Grand, right where they turn the corner where it used to be that everybody went down to Wilson.

Now they turn right right in front of so and people turn that corner going 25 miles an hour.

And we've many times had somebody come over and put up a thing to gauge speed.

And so we haven't qualified on speed.

Um but it's still reckless and it's still out of control.

And then also when you've got you know uncontrolled intersections and people are slowing down between intersections a lot of times, they don't get up to 25 miles an hour between in a block.

So how is that weighed in if that's like the number one sourcer?

Uh yeah, so going back to the screening criteria, um, we have a few.

Uh so speed alone wouldn't advance a project.

So there's other considerations that we factor in.

Um I will say grand is another one of those weird ones that feels like a local street, but it's classified as a collector.

So that's on our list of okay, what are we gonna do here?

Because within this program, it's not eligible, but the problem doesn't go away.

So we are working on that.

Okay.

I promise you there.

Um to your point about speeds with turning vehicles.

Whenever we set up the radar, we do it at mid-block because from a psychological standpoint, that's often where people feel most comfortable to speed up because they don't have the risk of conflicting vehicles, although admittedly that's not on folks' radar sometimes.

Um we set the radar up at mid-block with the intent of catching the highest speeds uh on that corridor.

So if we're in a turning vehicle situation, if there's a concern about speed, we would try to do it mid-block in advance because people are probably gonna slow down some unless they're you know up on two wheels, you know, trying to make the turn.

So we're trying to capture that.

And then if it was on two corridors, we would want to set the radar up at two separate locations.

So just be sure to communicate that, you know, if you're looking at two separate.

Um by all means we could do that.

Thank you.

Hi, um, thanks for coming and talking with us.

Uh I live right near Bulgar Park, so that painstakingly almost I think it's like a half mile long 50 mile an hour with you know the pool and the parking pull off there, a parking pool off for Pete's Hill, uh getting over the Galligator then at the very end, which is kind of site limited.

Um we have probably a hundred plus units coming online on the north end of church, uh right at Babcock.

And it's already like a two-way drag strip.

Um and there are in some of the neighborhood plans, it shows you know bump outs to get across uh Babcock a little more safely.

So does traffic calming at all apply to these one-way streets that surround our main street that and I'm really concerned about just church, sorry, Raoul's church and wallace.

I think they're gonna put a stop sign in at Wallace and and uh Babcock with one of these named developments.

And then one other thing was reading some of the traffic report uh traffic studies, it said there was some concern of uh two-way traffic, two-way, you know, head-on traffic collisions by changing the one-way street, at least at the very end to two-way.

And my opinion is cars have way, way more protection for a crash than a pedestrian or a bicyclist.

So that seemed like a little bit of an odd statement to be worried about.

Anyway, so that's just my two cents.

Thanks.

Thank you for sharing.

So I guess the question is will the one-way streets be eligible for any sort of traffic calming as is shown in some of the plans.

Yeah, so uh again, uh they're not classified as local streets, and Rouse, uh, this city has an agreement with MDT.

Um, and that's not intended as a cop out.

It's that it's a bit more laborious coordinating with an entire other agency that has um not necessarily priorities that align with ours in terms of prioritizing active transportation and slowing speeds down.

Um oftentimes the DOT is more interested in vehicle throughput.

And so we do get those, you know, um conflicting design philosophies, quite frankly.

Um so that those streets are not eligible through this program.

Um we are working um, well, I'm not directly involved, so I don't want to speak uh you know uh in the wrong on those, but certainly if you have you know specific ideas or questions, reach out and director Ross or someone in transportation can help you.

And I could tell that you guys really did review the traffic study, so thank you for that.

You put being mislabeled like Olive Street.

You know, there's you guys caught some things, so I do appreciate that.

Yeah.

Okay, we're running over time, so can we thank you very much.

Thank you all.

I appreciate you.

Thanks for putting your time in on this.

C.

Bozeman Creek introduction to the INC.

Hello, I'm Jim Madden.

I'm one of the co-directors of C.

Bozeman Creek.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And um I appreciate you all fitting us in in this particular meeting uh because the next phase of paying attention to Bozeman Creek is starting next week, and um the consultant team will be in town for the first time.

And there's a meeting set up for anybody from the neighborhood groups to uh come and meet them and learn more about the process going forward.

And that's next Tuesday, the 17th from 12 to 1 upstairs in the mason room.

So uh I think there's some representatives that are already signed up for that, but any and all are welcome.

So the impetus of the city, the reason that C Bosem that Bozeman Creek is a priority for paying attention to and making improvements to is uh in one sense fundamentally uh on the flood risk.

And so there was an engineering study that was completed last August that analyzed exactly what the flood risk is and provided some alternatives of how to uh improve things and reduce the flood danger.

Um so these are some um images from that report.

Also, whoops, also um the insurance risk is high.

This is a this is a map from uh an insurance outfit that rates risk for uh places all around the country.

Um so the data for trying to move the water safely through, particularly downtown exists, and the next step is to um determine a vision of how we could make an asset.

We as a community could make an asset out of the creek as it goes through downtown on top of um improving and mitigating the flood risk.

Uh in other words, we have this opportunity if we're gonna start moving some places for water to go, we might as well make places where community can engage with the creek and it be could become a real asset for the for everybody.

So um this fall, um I have my seasons right?

Yeah, last fall, the uh city had an RFP to choose a consultant to work with um the community to develop this vision.

A team consisting of an architecture and urban design firm called Port was picked, and they are teamed up with an um water resource uh engineering firm in Boise uh called Rio ASE.

So they will be leading this effort, and the citizens group, C.

Bozeman Creek, and the city will be um working together to facilitate that process.

The goals for this vision are these five to enhance flood mitigation efforts, improve water quality and ecological health, increase access and connectivity to parks and trails, support economic vitality opportunities, and strengthen community access to this namesake creek.

Um this is a diagram of how the communication and um work to develop a vision will take place.

So the um consultant team is on the bottom, which includes all those um disciplines, and the top is the city of Bozeman and C Bozeman Creek.

And in that nexus in the middle is where the community engagement will happen.

There's about 35 groups on the engaged Bozeman page that will be included and kept up to date and participate.

So I'll turn this over to my colleague Steve.

Thanks, Jim.

My name is Steve Noble.

I'm a neighbor.

Yeah, right in that point right there is where all the advice and counsel we expect to invite and be party to the whole process over the next nine months, 10 months.

Some of the people have been curious a little bit about C.

Bozeman Creek.

What is it?

We're not on anything.

We're uh we're a coalition, if you want to call it, of uh subject matter experts.

One Valley Community Foundation is uh is a big helper with us, obviously the city.

We've got engineering firms, architectural firms, landscape architectural firms, uh, water science people, Trout Unlimited, uh, Montana Department of Commerce helped fund the study that illustrated that flood risk and helps come up with alternatives to mitigate the flood risk.

Um since there are about 40 people that are part of this coalition and have been together for many, many years, um, we offered to the city to leverage some of the local talent in a lot of those disciplines like landscape architecture and the like and engineering.

So we put together a little advisory group.

You can kind of see the names there, Jim and me and Ellie Staley represents the city in the downtown um partnership, urban renewal district.

Um we've got uh architects, former Mayor Cunningham is part of this to try to help us kind of steer the policy considerations, uh, not to make any decisions, but to just help us understand what some of the implications may be.

Uh communications firm and a guy that uh showed up at the Sitlas City Commission meeting when the question came up well, just exactly what is geomorphology.

Just so happened that Peter Skidmore, one of our team members, was in the in the audience and helped explain uh what it is.

Don't ask me, please to repeat it, but it's clearly that it's a part of his discipline to bring to this.

So this advisory group is not a decision-making body.

It's it's simply I like to think of it as leverage, but if the consultants want to know if there's any local ability or talent that knows and has already studied the creek, and we can ramp up the speed to get to uh good alternatives, that that group can help them find it.

As Jim said, right there at that nexus between the city and and uh and the consultants, we are determined uh to involve at least all of these groups.

You're on it, the neighborhoods are on it, uh, and all the other advisory groups.

And that's why I think as Jim mentioned next Tuesday, for those of you that can make it, you'll get to meet the consultants.

You'll get to see what their scope of work is, uh, all the details of what they plan to do and the schedule over the next nine months to make it happen.

There it is, uh pretty well detailed.

Um each phase will be presented to those of you that can be there.

But I stress, as you can see here, we've got the first quarter of 2026, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter.

I mean, we've got a year together to try to come up with the best alternatives after considering several options with input from everyone.

Uh and this kind of input.

Well, you know, one of the things that the the architects uh and the consultants have been stressing is to be to have the decision-making process be really accessible.

Uh, this was another project that they did in another city where they just put the map right out in the middle of a uh downtown public park so everybody could see what was going on.

There was fun little ways for kids to interact with it.

I mean, just to really make it alive as opposed to a uh a three by, you know, three-ring binder on a shelf somewhere hidden from everybody.

Um for all of you that have been involved in in kind of planning and decision making and design and so forth, um, and have even thought about the creek and what might come from it and how things are going to be made, how decisions are going to be made.

Um we kind of like this idea that we want to give people the permission to dream about what the creek could mean going through town, going through the northeast part of town.

And yet at the same time, we have to acknowledge others on the other side of the coin that want to just preserve the status quo.

No changes.

We can't afford any disruptions or problems or cost.

So what we hope to be able to do is kind of move at the speed of trust to consider this is an option that looks good with that option.

Let's put the two together and let the best ideas rise to the top.

That's kind of our approach to the to the whole process.

We're under time because intentionally.

This was fast.

More will be disclosed, or not disclosed, but more will be explained at the meeting on Tuesday.

But we wanted to be able to be here now just to introduce the idea, introduce us, the process, the consultants, and answer any questions if you have.

You know the its origins of Mystic Lake up in Highlight.

I think we'd be the first to admit that's a little above our pay grade.

But I think as the process unfolds and the meetings unfold and the opportunities for input come in, I'd say everything's on the table.

And I'll just add one more thing.

Can you talk into the mic?

Oh, sorry.

Part of our um citizens group includes um the Galton Watershed Council.

And so they have their eyes on the whole lower gallatin.

Yeah, I think that that over the four, maybe five years that Jim and I have kind of just been starting to advance.

We're we're artists.

Jim, in fact, was responsible largely for the piece of work that's on the bridge right out of City Hall.

So we've been trying to use public art as a means to draw attention to the creek, its cultural history, uh, its its significance as a as a testimonial to what the city is.

Uh so this coalition has built as a result of, hey, I'm interested in that, and I've got some subject area expertise that could be helpful.

And we've already studied it.

I don't know, we did we did a couple of literature dives.

How many?

There have been five or six studies of Bozeman Creek over the last 20 years.

They all remain nice bodies of work, but they're on a shelf somewhere.

So it's it it's we sort of feel like a couple of persistent creative people have just been pushing it along and pushing it along, pushing.

What's our our motto?

Patience and perseverance.

And we're gonna add another P going into this project, plausible.

Whatever comes out of this vision can be lofty and dreamlike and wishful thinking and so forth.

At the end of the day, it's got to be plausible.

So we're gonna be looking to find that central common theme that is plausible.

I have a question.

Well, first, thanks for the presentation.

Um the slide where you showed the goals, um, one of the goals was economic vitality opportunities.

And I wondered if you could explain what you mean by that.

What is how do you envision what that means?

Uh I'll take a style to stab at that.

Whoops.

Because the constrictions that are um partly causing the flood risk are concentrated in this stretch downtown where all the streets and buildings are on top of the creek.

Um, presumably there's gonna be some extra room as a creek goes through downtown to allow prices for that water to go and slow down.

And because it's in the right in the heart of the retail district, in my mind, the economic vitality is what could it add to the as an attraction and have healthy water that people can sit by and enjoy so that there's opportunities to appreciate and value the creek, which is an economic factor for businesses downtown.

And maybe the flip side to every economic argument is we've got to we've got to overcome this prevalent risk.

But what if there was a significant rain on snow event, and you saw all the maps, and it blew out the east end of downtown.

That would be an economic catastrophe itself.

So there's pluses and minuses to economic vitality, and we just wanted to wanted it to be part of the plausible realistic approach to the what future decisions would have to be made.

Oh can I can I time in?

Yeah.

No, you go ahead, Dick.

No, I was just wondering if there were any other questions.

Mine's not so much of a well, maybe it's a question, it's more of a request, maybe.

Well, first of all, I thank you for the presentation.

And it's really great to see that you guys have uh folks like Gellin Watershed Council on your team.

As we know, they're a really strong partner with the city, and they just completed with the city the updated uh water course setback manual and uh wetland buffers.

Um manual might not be the right word, but there's a newly adopted document by the city.

And so along those lines, um water course setbacks are included in that, including one for Bozeman Creek.

And uh I believe there's other another water focused entity whose name I can't remember right now, uh maybe working with the city and the county that has even bigger water course setbacks.

So I guess this is all to say that um since Seaboseman Creek is recognized as an official city partner, um, can we expect that you guys also will uphold the value of water course setbacks, which are scientifically backed as being important for flood uh hazard mitigation as well as other ecological reasons moving forward?

Um the answer is yes.

And um part of the scope of work for the vision plan is to review current codes and policies and make recommendations to update those, change those, make them more appropriate for this stretch of creek that we're looking at.

And that could include uh some sort of overlay district for the creek or or a recommended code changes.

When you say appropriate, are you thinking making bigger water course setbacks or smaller ones?

Or what do you mean by appropriate?

Um appropriate to better protect the creek.

Okay.

Well, and and I think in that study about the the larger uh setbacks and water course buffers um to protect the water courses through the valley.

What might be appropriate, and I don't know all the the neighborhoods out that way, but let's say out in the valley where it's just of just out of sourdough, where there's agricultural land and there's residential land, and there's hardly any uh setback to the or need for setback because there isn't anything there but agricultural land.

One standard perhaps that would be appropriate for that part of the valley compared to logically a different set of uh setback or or buffers.

We love the idea of buffers downtown.

We've got 26 or seven culverts and constraints just in six blocks from where we're sitting.

So again, what a solution might be for that six blocks would probably be different than what the solution might be for agricultural land out in the valley.

Right.

That's that's what appropriate, I think is.

Okay.

Well, I mean, I guess the the without getting too much into the details, part of that was um, you know, recently there's an approved hotel with a deviation.

Um and that setback was already half the size of the newly adopted uh water course setback plan.

So that was already at 35 feet.

And so we were already trying to get a deviation into that smaller setback.

So I guess it's just a a good time to, as one in one citizen, I would just like to see that we uphold the value of water course setbacks.

You're not you're not one citizen.

And I think we would largely feel the same way.

Just the question is we we would love to, as I'm sure all of you would stop time.

Nothing can be done, no.

I'm not sure the what the inference of that statement.

As as some of these uh projects have been uh brought before the city commission over the last couple of years, and we're looking out multiple years for the advantages of what a uh uh freer water course through downtown might yield.

We can't stop time now and wait for that goal to be realized.

Maybe I'm not making myself clear, but short of a moratorium on any building downtown or any other kind of massive.

Would you like that, Douglas?

Uh we got to deal with what we've got to deal with.

And and it it all of that stuff went through the typical governing process.

Well, I just I know there was a public comment signed by you with C.

Bozeman Creek Letterhead um supporting the deviation into the water course setback.

So there were a lot of conditions.

My my request that as a as a recognized city partner to protect the creek, um, and you know, with folks like Gallatin Watershed Council on the C.

Bozeman Creek partner page, I would expect and would like to see moving forward upholding a water course setbacks.

That's that's I'll just want to clarify one thing.

The deviation did not change the setback.

The setback was 35 feet and it's still 35 feet.

Except that um the I didn't think we were gonna get into this level of detail, but as my understanding is it was allowing encroachment into the water course setback.

So that's that's that's what the deviation was, and for better or for worse, it got approved.

Uh we we are our position was we didn't want to have anything happen then that would affect our longer term goals to be able to adjust and and modify so that the creek had more room to flow.

That's that's our principal goal.

We wouldn't be standing here if we wanted to just put up concrete walls, do what happened on Rouse, just shut it down and let it rip.

I I thought the artist rendering did show concrete walls.

Pardon me?

I thought the artist rendering did show concrete walls in that depiction.

No, I'm saying that those concrete walls on both sides of the creek throughout downtown with culverts and other means of sort of uh restricting the creek from any kind of living flow would be a terrible solution.

It's a possibility if you left it to well-meaning engineers to avoid any kind of flooding, put a 50-foot diameter tunnel right through downtown and rip it through there.

That's not our goal by any means.

Yeah, I was grateful that Trout Unlimited um uh talked about the watercourse setbacks and the importance of them and uh and the Gallatin Water Shed Council and some of their public comments give very uh good um substantiation for why they're important.

So that's great.

And they their voice, their voice in this overall project, their voice with C.

Bozeman Creek, their voice on Tuesday, will be just as uh fundamental to the process as anybody else's.

I'm free room talking.

We're happy to have a lot of the presentation.

Thanks.

Well, I don't know how to do this, so you'll take it.

Thanks, Angie.

Moving on to action items revisions proposed for the INC bylaws.

There you are.

There's a couple down here.

Yeah, that's the thing.

Thank you.

Hi, everybody.

My name's Kath, and I had the pleasure of working with both Angie and Zara on the ink of bylaws this last four weeks since we last met with the intention of making some improvements.

The last time that the bylaws were amended was on August 8th, 2024.

And it seems like good practice to be looking at them about every two years or so.

Honestly, it might even be better practice if it were every year, but given what I know we have for our own agenda.

I'm not sure how realistic that is.

So we we met because we saw a few concerns.

Well, we there was a concern that came up for a number of us regarding voting that happened at this meeting back in October.

There was some confusion about how delegates are able to vote, how neighborhoods are allowing them to do so, what constitutes an inabsentia, in abstention, rather, how do you vote with with those kinds of parameters and how many of us do we need to actually be able to vote?

And if somebody like me representing Marwan Linley is not authorized or wasn't authorized at that particular time to vote on that particular issue, then how do we handle that?

So we got together two different times this last month and started to dive into that.

And we got a little bit of um feedback and not feedback, rather, we got some suggestions from both Mark and Beth.

And you were all invited to be part of that process too, and really appreciate that they weighed in.

Let's see.

I will say, too, that this was a great opportunity for me to be able to learn a little bit more about Inc.

and the bylaws that that created that that Inc.

is based on.

And uh it was also really nice to be able to get to know Angie and Zara just a little bit better.

So I appreciate their time and their passion for this project.

I will say that Emily, I need to know how to proceed because I'm not sure if what we need to do is just make a motion off the top end for approving the updates and then go back in and figure out if there are changes.

Like because we haven't had chance to give up there or to give input, we can do that first.

Great.

So should we just open it up?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe maybe a question would be good if folks have a chance to read it before coming up.

Great.

Did you all have a chance to read it before coming tonight?

That's fantastic.

And know that our intention was to create improvements.

Uh if we added anything or took anything out, that was our intention.

Sometimes it was also to make clarifications.

So based on uh some of the input that we got from Mark and Beth, that was our jumping off place, but we also had our own concerns and questions about things.

So yeah, and do you want to say anything else or Zara?

Do you want to say anything else about this process before we open it up?

Maybe also explain what's in their hand, like the printout.

So what you're seeing is one of our iterations of changes.

And we you're seeing this as a printed version versus the version that you got via email from Emily, in part because we were we were combining all of the edits to make sure that we had them all complete.

Emily didn't get those until Monday per our bylaws.

We couldn't send them out as an email to you prior to this meeting, but that's why she made copies for you.

So what you're seeing are comments on all of the pages, and including the comments that are grade.

Those I'm I'm not exactly sure why there's grade comments and pink comments, but they're all they're all they're all important.

So just take note of all of them.

The one section that is probably more complicated than any of them is the representation and voting, which is section seven.

And I added a few points about that, that we are we added some points about that actually.

That the intention is to simplify and clarify how delegates may vote in the following sections.

You can see where they are, B C D and E, B, C, D, E and F, to identify the differences between the administrative and representative voting at ink meetings in both uh uh bullet points E and F, how a delegate's vote may accurately represent their neighborhood association.

That's what NA means.

Uh via this was a suggestion that we created an emailed survey for representative voting, which you can read more about in F.

And finally, to clarify how a majority is determined.

And the majority of attending delegates who cast a vote as stated in Robert's rules.

So are there any questions or there any comments from any of you?

I think maybe another way we can think about the different versions in front of you, is the paper version that you have in front of you is just kind of showing our work.

The electronic version that we have up here is the one you received days ago that um that you guys have read.

And so that's the the clean version.

And that's the version that we're asking for your consideration of and potential vote on tonight, as if you think it's ready to be moved on to the next step in the process, which is legal review before it's presented to the city commission for ratification.

So it unless um did anybody and I want to take over here, but I guess my thought is as you were reading this at home, the one that's on your screen right now.

Did any uh questions come up for you?

Why did they put that in there?

Or did any suggestions for improvement come for you?

This would be the time to provide those now.

And then um it'll in real life, I could type it in here and we could see what it looks and feels like and have that be part of what we ultimately hopefully will we'll vote on tonight.

So I have a couple new thoughts since reading through this first one, take it or leave it.

But um in the definitions, uh the idea of a coalition of neighborhoods.

So um I don't think that's that is not the ink, not the entire ink.

Almost like a subcommittee of neighborhoods.

I I don't know what people think about that, but I'm sorry, Mark.

Can you repeat it again?

Um three what?

Uh just the idea of a coalition of neighborhoods, like take the Bozeman Creek plan.

So there may be neighborhoods that are particularly affected by something, and they may want to work together as a coalition.

It's just a thought.

This is not in place of six.

Are you talking about bullet six in section three?

So yeah, so that's it's kind of the opposite of that.

Like a neighborhood group might be like a subset.

It could fall under neighborhood group.

This is actually good.

That's a good point.

I had this kind of question when I was going through this.

Could a neighborhood group be a group that's bigger than any given one neighborhood represented as a neighborhood association.

It might just fall under that then.

Um I'm just thinking like uh um yeah, it was just a different structure that didn't I didn't think was necessarily represented here, but like I said, it's not necessarily worth holding up anything over.

Um neighborhoods that would be like around the the north side neighborhoods or something like that.

Or the university neighborhoods could coal to work on various and again, it's just something I don't know, maybe it's more trouble than it's worth.

Um, or that number six, I think probably could be interpreted, maybe.

Um it's not always necessarily a smaller group, I guess is what I'm getting at.

Like a um a neighborhood group, you think of like a few people on a block got together because they're mad about something, maybe.

But it's just a thought.

Um the more important thing I was thinking is um do we leave it up to an individual.

I'm just gonna read what I wrote.

Do we leave it up to an individual association on how to replace an ink delegate who was removed?

And then we probably should require somebody get notified in the neighborhood association.

Honestly, if I like got booted off because I was an ass.

Sorry, I shouldn't have said that.

But like I don't even know of anybody who would like know for like two months, like, oh, what happened to Mark?

So uh I do think notification there is is probably the Mark, where are you looking?

Uh I'm sorry, uh I don't know.

I think it's I think it's 10A.

I just made a note in my notes.

Roman number five.

Okay, so we should all be looking at the version on the screen now.

Because I think um this version on paper, there might have been some reorganization.

I think the edit editorial changes are reflected, but the order might have changed.

So let's all look at the electronic version.

And so I think he's talking about Roman Moral XA.

Where would you suggest we put in what you're suggesting, Mark?

Because I think that's uh valid point.

This does look like give me just one second to read, sorry.

Um I think it's B, maybe.

B?

So that's where you actually remove somebody.

Okay.

And then there you would say.

So I guess you could either have the things.

This is you could have this is actually, I'm finding there's a repeat.

So this line right here, B can be deleted.

Is this already set up for tracking?

That one just stood out at me.

Um I don't think so.

Okay.

Hang on.

Oh that's what's happening.

I think it's an excellent point, Mark.

It it's every time I talk about it.

Yeah.

So I just need to make it so I could track changes.

And absolutely that would be part of the procedure of removing somebody is notifying that they were going to be able to do that.

So we can just add a sentence to that process.

I had that same note, actually, Mark, it's funny.

In my in my version.

So do you have any particular language that you want to use there?

Okay, perfect.

No, I don't.

Okay.

Angie's good with language, but um, yeah.

Uh so that's what we can.

So just at the end of this area, yeah.

And it would just be a protocol, right?

For the neighborhood.

So what is it that you would like to see happen?

Uh Emily, would you be able to like email an alternative?

It seems like the city liaison should you know inform other steering committee members in that neighborhood association.

Great.

Yeah.

I mean, one would think they would know about it, but I've seen stranger things happen where all of a sudden like nobody in the neighborhood would know.

Well, if the ink rep gets removed, and they are the le and they are essentially like the pivot point between like that's true for me.

My neighborhood, if I got removed, they wouldn't know unless I told them.

But if I was mad about it or I didn't want to, you know, I didn't want to tell them, then it would be up to somebody else to say something.

So I want to make sure I say this as we go along.

So do I want to say that's great, Mark.

Thank you.

Are there any other comments?

I think sorry.

And I'm hogging.

So I'll just get through this is my last one, I promise.

It's okay.

One thought is do we want to leave it to the neighborhood association association itself to define what representation means here?

It's this the survey.

Um currently, because we don't have a common set of bylaws for all the neighborhoods.

I don't know if that's I don't I just I almost wonder if the neighborhood themselves should decide what they think is sufficient representation.

Um it's just it's sorry, that's and again it's not a necessarily a change, but something I thought was worth discussing.

What are you concerned about happening there?

Um well, like my neighborhood may not even be happy with that being sufficient as like a representative.

Like a survey, an email survey.

Because I mean this is a personal concern of mine.

Like yeah, we allow college turnover and parts of my neighborhood and stuff.

Like how do I know who's really seeing the survey?

And you know, it's not like we have an official election office trying to you know keep tabs on everybody.

So it's just something to chew on.

I don't know what other people's thoughts are, and I'll be quiet now.

I would agree with that.

Scan is huge, and it's really hard to get participation and get everybody involved.

Yeah, it's um we're trying to figure out how we're gonna do this stuff, but what would work for one neighborhood and what would work for like our neighborhood is probably gonna be different.

That's a good point.

I mean, our neighborhood when we're just communicating issues, for example, we use WhatsApp and email.

And that doesn't work for, but our neighborhood is smaller, so that works for our neighborhood, but I can understand for a much larger neighborhood that the you know that what works for one doesn't work for another.

So email is a great suggestion.

And I don't know what the solution could be, you know, for a neighborhood like scan, for example, Tammy.

I don't know if you have an idea about how do you currently get out information to your neighborhood.

We don't.

We're trying.

We're we're just starting again.

We have um, you know, I don't know how many um homes are in our neighborhood, but we have a list of about 50 people on our email now.

We just had our first annual meeting in multiple years.

Um it's it's challenging, and it's a small, small group of people that show up for these things.

Yeah.

Um so we're we're brainstorming on that right now.

That is one of our next things.

Maybe the solution could be in the interim, and I don't know what we put in bylaws is we're essentially wanting buy-in, right, from each neighborhood to be able to say what works for them.

And it doesn't necessarily matter the means by which the information gets to them.

Uh in other words, a neighborhood may decide that they're okay with a much lower representation of respondents essentially to an to an email.

So we I don't remember what our what our language is, but maybe that's something we could play with is the neighborhoods can have their own agency around how much representation is important to them based on your chair, your co-chair, uh, and your secretary, based on you know, another annual meeting.

So I in the meantime I'm not quite sure how to handle it.

But I should have led, of course, I didn't with what I like, which is this definition between administrative votes and representative vote, that's really great.

Um at least we're defining some things.

And then um second was um oh, well, I actually do think it would be nice if this if we were able to come up with common bylaws.

That's not for right now, maybe, but so moving in that direction is great.

So I don't I don't mean to say I want to reserve this right to the neighborhoods.

I just think in the current state of affairs, that makes more sense.

So thanks.

So in letter oh, do you have a suggestion, Zara?

Oh well, yes.

One of the purposes of this um particular modification is that when we had uh and we were all discussing last summer a representational vote about um uh something that we would as as a group, as a body, recommend to the commission.

And um it was really helpful to have that survey.

It was uh even though for V UNA, even though we didn't have all of our membership uh participate in the survey, we I mean, that's how democracy works.

You know, you who those who show up are the ones who vote, and that was very helpful to me as the Inc.

rep.

I had the confidence to um to cast a vote representing the majority vote based on that survey.

Um otherwise I I was I wouldn't be sure, you know, if I was truly representing.

So and I understand we are also struggling as a and we're trying to continue to revitalize our group.

So we're also struggling with communication, and not everybody can, you know, responds.

We send emails and not everybody participates, but again, hopefully that'll catch on.

And again, I think it's a good the surveys are a great idea.

It's just I don't really even know if my neighbors think it's a good idea, though.

Do you want to it sounds like maybe you want to put in a little release valve in there like via majority of responses of a survey, blah, blah, blah.

Or as determined by the neighborhood.

Or as determined by the neighborhood association.

Um, how do we put this there?

I think that's great.

I like that.

Um because there's some things that might warrant that, and then there it just kind of depends on.

I don't know if this is the right place or if anybody has another suggestion about where the placement or the language is, um, please speak up.

And sorry.

You know, don't go ahead.

And you know, uh out of deference to our city staffer right here.

Does that does that how does that feel for you?

Um because you did help us with it already, and we thought that this would just help maybe solidify that a little bit more because it was so helpful.

Yeah.

Does that seem out of line to add to your workplace?

Yeah, absolutely.

Workload, I mean.

Yeah.

Great.

What else?

Can I can I just offer a thought as as your as the person who might be ultimately getting the there may be some times when Inc.

will want to respond quickly to something that arises before the city commission.

And you're stuck here with a bylaw that says you can't distribute, so you can't make a decision unless you're distributed to the neighborhoods more than two weeks or no later than two weeks prior.

I just my my thought for this group is that you may just want to say as determined by neighborhood association bylaws and leave it at that and not tie your hands with this, oh wait a minute, we need two weeks to respond, so on and so forth.

I know the city doesn't move very quickly, but there may be times when you want to move quicker than that.

I'll tell you why I think we put the two-week part in there.

It was in part thinking about you, Emily, and making sure that there was enough time that we weren't literally just dropping it on your lap, right?

So we were just trying to think about like the actual uh constraints that might be around that, but I think your point is a good one.

Yeah, I agree with Douglas.

I mean, the the vote that uh precipitated all this was uh to delay the UDC decision, and that was time sensitive.

I mean, we had to and we could collide with the agenda and all that, but um to throw that extra timeline on there would have made that point moot.

I mean, we could just get a little bit squishy and say when possible.

That might just be enough.

Yes.

Okay.

Preferably.

I like squishy.

Oops.

There we go.

Yeah, it's it's it's X'd out.

What else?

Well, first of all, I just wanted to thank you.

I this is amazing work.

Really appreciate what you guys did and how you dove in.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Yeah.

No, no small undertaking.

Uh I I I'm thrilled with the survey.

I mean, I know it doesn't work for all the neighborhoods, but this having a survey and having something Emily would put together even if it's last minute to go out and we we use email, and that seems to work for our neighborhood.

Um it's it's great, and it's really comforting to um have that as backup uh to express an opinion.

So I know that it's not just me.

It's as best as I can I can assess it's my neighborhood.

So I I love having the survey.

And to have a um a a consistent survey for all the neighborhoods, I that's great.

So I really appreciate F.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Emily, what's the for saving on our PC?

Just control S.

Control the CTO.

Yes.

Okay.

I have I have a please.

Okay.

Um jumping down to I guess that would be X1 six.

Re representation and voting.

Yes.

Um scan.

I I was talking to Jim about this.

Um we would like to know if it would be possible to um rather than stating select one delegate and one alternate delegate to Inc.

Could we do one delegate and two alternates or one delegate and per the bylaws of your association?

Maybe per neighborhood association again.

I mean, I think that that's I think we feel like it would really function better if we had two alternates.

It was does anybody have any problem with with that?

Could you say at least one alternate?

Does that cover it?

I I think if you put in a clause that just says per I don't know how you'd word it.

Well, how did we say it before?

Per neighborhood association bylaws or when I've looked at other other neighborhood association bylaws, it's just an alternate.

So I feel like that leaves it kind of open.

And alternate, and that way you you could you could, yeah.

I mean, there's intention here even in this conversation, right?

So yeah.

Does that sound okay?

That's great.

Great.

Um and then secondly, similarly to that.

Do you want to hold on just a second, Tammy?

Do you want to speak to that?

Well, I know um correct me if I'm wrong, Zara, but Luna is a situation where you and Patrick alternate, right?

So that's not explicitly in here, but is that in your bylaws that you guys alternate, or is that still even outside of the neighborhood association bylaw?

So an arrangement made with the staff liaison.

Yeah.

Um at this time, because of um, you know, we're we're actually revising our bylaws and we want to kind of be um con in conformance with these bylaws.

Um, but we have been alternating.

Um I don't know if that's how if that's how this body wants to do it.

It was a suggestion that Emily made when we lost um a steering committee member and and we were struggling to figure out how to replace the ink rep.

Yeah, I don't know if any of the bylaws specifically say you can do that, but it would the intent is so that there's not a barrier, you know, for someone to come in.

So I just bring that up to say should uh where I just added or per neighborhood association bylaws or arrangement, formal arrangement made with I don't know, is that getting into detailed?

I think that's a little too detailed.

Yeah, I think just like per neighborhood association bylaws would be okay.

How does everybody feel about that?

Okay.

Any other suggestions?

Continuation of that.

Sorry about that, yeah, of course.

So then in B, I just was trying to get some clarification between B and C.

They seemed um a little unclear to me, a little confusing.

Um it says the alternate delegate to Inc.

may exercise the same rights and privileges afforded to the designated delegate until the absent delegate returns to a new or a new delegate is selected, but then in C it talks about the delegate needing to actually provide a proxy and some signing.

Is that at the beginning, or is that it's well, I think C is trying to designate what a prox what the proxy process is.

So B is really trying to identify what how a delegate is chosen and how an alternate is you know, what that process is, and section C is really about how proxy works.

Does that make more sense as you see it with that language?

Yeah, to me, B is more about the initial designated delegate, and then when that designated delegate can't come, there's an the alternate one that we've already talked about before comes.

And then whether it's the designated original or the alternate or alternates, they get the same uh single vote.

Um then if there's a vacancy in either of those positions, those have to be filled within 60 days.

And then C is more about let's say there's a particular meeting that said delegate couldn't come to.

That's when if somebody who's not already the designated delegate or the alternate delegate is gonna come, it gives still an opportunity for that neighborhood association to get a vote with a proxy person.

Does that make sense?

That makes more sense.

Yeah.

We were trying to do a whole bunch of things in all of these sections.

We were trying to make it really clear how you could vote, what would happen if nobody from your from your organ from your neighborhood association was present, you know, again trying to address some of the issues that we saw happen in October and be thinking about what are some other possibilities of situations that might come up.

And some other, I would say bigger massaging pieces that we worked on was um differentiating between administrative and representational votes.

So if it's if it's administrative, if if it's pertaining to like how we function, then everybody who's here should be able to feel free to cast a vote.

If it's if it's related to actually representing your neighborhood, those were the ones that we felt like you really need to get the pulse of your neighborhood before casting a vote.

And so hopefully your bylaws say you can do that, and if not, maybe your neighborhood association can be moving in that direction because that would be great.

Um we also wanted to build in that in if for whatever reason a neighborhood association has that they would never want to cast a vote to represent their neighborhood.

It does not benefit the INC as a whole for them to be counted towards quorum if they can't even vote.

So we tried to clear up that messiness.

Yeah.

And did we do a good job?

I don't know.

Thank you.

I think I think it looks great.

And compared to the previous version, I think it is much more, you know, all those nuances came through.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There's two things that I noticed in this version that I'd like to change.

Um the first one is instead of this proposed draft update of 1272.

Should we change this to 212?

Good catch.

And then there was one other thing.

At the very end of the document.

Some of our extraneous notes were hanging out.

I just want to get rid of that.

Oops.

How do I go back in?

I'm so used to working on a Mac these days.

This is hilarious.

The updated date appears at the footer of every page.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, you mean here here.

You mean here, aha.

Yes.

Um you're talking in D at the very end.

Okay.

So then the other major, I'm about to write the word majority, which is what's making me think about this.

The other major change that we made, and I don't know if you already mentioned this, was there were lots of there was inconsistencies throughout the document.

Sometimes it was a two-thirds vote, sometimes it was a majority vote.

To clean it up, we just switched it to majority.

I mean, that's what the city commission uses.

If it's viable for them, we figured it could be viable here.

It just seemed it seems like it's more easily understandable.

It's cleaner.

I see lots of nodding heads.

So I'm gonna right here.

Um this was the word where majority vote.

And then I'll put today's date.

And then I guess um yeah, thank you.

And then uh but what we would do here is if and when we take a vote today, that's where we would say the numbers yay and nay, right?

What I have highlighted right now.

I could see an argument for having even like uh quorum of neighborhood associations before you change the bylaws.

So we have a quorum.

Uh no, I don't mean I just mean in the doc like something, I think that's why the two-thirds vote is there for changing the bylaws, right?

It's a little bit higher.

Like I think the worry is like you meet right at right before Christmas and you get like three neighborhood associations are able to get in there and like change the bylaws or something.

Right.

I think that's a guard against maybe I don't know.

That that's something it's going through my head.

Yeah, so back in two thousand eight.

Wait, no, hold on, sorry.

I hear I hear you.

Um not saying four, I'm just proposing the alternative view.

Maybe that's a reason why that's a little stricter there.

Yeah.

I see in B that five people voted to adopt the by was and in C there were only four.

Yep.

Yeah.

Um now I probably have eight.

Yeah.

I mean, I I suppose it could be argued that yeah, two-thirds is a higher threshold.

Um do we decide that is required versus not uh when is a simple majority not enough.

If it only applies to the bylaws, I'm okay with making it two-thirds.

But I don't want any other votes to have to be.

I'm in agreement with that.

Yeah if we were gonna be majority, but if if you all want to go with two-thirds, I just I think for simplicity, yeah.

Majority is good with me.

I'm just doing a little Google, and it says, you know, when to use a two-thirds vote, and one of them is changing rules.

Like, I mean, this is just like the AI like Google search.

So yeah, when it's changing rules, suspending amending or ascending rules or orders of bylaws.

Um I think there's a section about that.

I'm scrolling back to try to find um authorization.

It looks like it was section um amendments.

It says these files should be amended by uh and you change the two thirds to majority vote of the delegates.

It's the one right before the effective date.

Yeah.

Well, Marma.

Amendments?

Yeah.

Oh, under amendments.

Yeah.