All right.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us tonight.

We will call this meeting to order for the Tuesday, March third Bozeman City Commission meeting.

A few ways to make sure that folks know how to follow along and participate.net and clicking the view live event link.

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Um if you are trying to submit written public comments, um any public comments that were received by noon today were distributed to each of us and that is true for all meetings in all boards um by noon the day of that meeting.

Um when we get to items that have public comment, we will start with public comment in the room before opening it up to online public comment.

There will be public comment uh as an opportunity during just general public comment on issues that are not on our agenda tonight, as well as on uh for associated with each and every action item that we will have before us this evening.

Um if in just to as a also reminder for anybody that has any uh accessibility needs uh to participate, either to to hear to to speak, um, or any other needs that are related that we can accommodate here at City Hall, um our deputy clerk Alex Newby will be the point person to to let us know that you have those needs.

And without um further ado, we will move into our Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silence.

Before before we do so, um the the city manager and I are going to to share a a few remarks um and just keeping in mind um a lot of heaviness and pain that uh many in our community are experiencing after um some some deep tragedies that our community experienced over the last week.

Um and so perhaps um an opportunity to keep those families and those neighbors um in your thoughts this evening during our moment of silence.

Thanks, and I'm gonna go to the other side.

Okay, moving on to changes to the agenda for this evening.

City manager, are there any changes?

There are no changes tonight, Mayor.

Okay, moving on to FYI.

I will start and then open up to my to my colleagues.

I know there's a few thoughts on this this item or as well as from the city manager.

It was hard to figure out exactly what to what to say in seeing families in in our community experience tragedies all the time.

And yet we had two in the span of a few days that were extremely public that shook the community in a different way.

One of which was a teenager of high school age who appeared to have ended ended their own life.

A tragedy that is all too common to so many Montana communities.

Always feeling powerless to have intervened, never knowing what the signs are, and just wanting to lift up there are resources in our community, there are resources available to help those in crisis, those that whether that's you or someone that's close to you, um 988 will take you straight to our local suicide crisis line.

Um some incredible, incredible people over there that save lives every day in this community, answering answering our crisis line.

And it feels as though no matter how much we we talk about the the truth and the the pain of this issue, it doesn't, it doesn't always, it doesn't seem to make a difference on our trends.

Um we're still in Montana um often fording with the top position for suicide rate in in this country.

Um we're still well above double the national average.

Um and and just knowing that the only things are our control is to make sure that we seek help when we need it, um, to encourage those around us to seek help and to connect and be gentle with with one another.

The other, of course, was was the tragic loss of life of Leslie Brown, a uh a hero in our community working as a who's a nurse um who was um taken from our community in a in a fatal traffic accident.

And I think this was this this seemed to really reverberate deeply throughout the community.

Um in part the sudden and deeply almost nightmarish tragedy of losing someone doing something that they do every day that I think many of us may feel with our loved ones when we watch a family member, a friend, a spouse walk out the door to do something they do all the time, we expect them to come back.

And somebody in our community um didn't get to have that experience, got to see um uh an enormous, almost unimaginable tragedy befall them.

And just wanting to honor that that pain and make sure that those folks in that neighborhood and in that family that they're not holding that alone and that city halls hearts go out to them.

Um we will talk um uh potentially tonight if if of what uh what items we're working on in future opportunities to address these.

Um any traffic death is too many.

Um and it unfortunately is is too common.

Um and and it takes the you know the work of of government and of our partners to to do what we can to address those, but um just as a as a stalwart reminder to be caring, be kind, be gentle with one another, um, help one another mourn together.

Um these are tough, these are tough moments in our community, and and we can only do them together.

Um other FYI from my colleagues.

Yeah, Deputy Mayor.

Um well, thank you, Mr.

Mayor, for putting voice to what so many of us are feeling.

I I wouldn't fully associate myself with your comments, and just thank you.

Uh, and again, the heart goes out to the community and to the neighborhood.

I um on a more pragmatic scale, I would love to to have um there's been a lot of discussion about speed limits, road safety, um, this uh you know, our safe streets plan.

We it's it's on one of the priorities we'll be talking about later tonight.

I would love to elevate that, and I hope maybe some fellow commissioners might join me in in saying we need to have that as a as a as a work session, get some information from the city to have a discussion here among us about kind of how we make sure that this this doesn't happen again.

You know, I want to I would like to bring Kelly Fulton into the room.

You know, it's another tragic accident that is still with us.

Um a high school um geometry student who brought so many students out of that you know, math um hell, and um was again lost crossing going to work, you know, crossing crossing Oak Street.

So I would just love to bring that in and ms you know, Mr.

Mayor, Mr.

City Manager, if we could put that on sooner rather than later on our agenda.

Thank you.

Commissioner thanks.