I'll call to order the Bozeman City Study Commission meeting of April 2nd, 2026, and ask all who are able to please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

It will be followed by a moment of silence, at which point you can sit sit and contemplate if you would like.

Thank you.

All right.

And I'm going to propose that we move the item on the agenda, which is discussion with Jeff Krause and Danielle Rogers up to right in front of unfinished business.

We're waiting on one other person, so if he's not here, then we'll rearrange at the time.

But these three people have been kind enough to come and uh educate us a little bit on uh city advisory boards, and so I don't want them to have to sit through too much of the meeting if they don't want to.

Next item on the agenda is public comment on anything within the jurisdiction of the city study commission.

And um we're gonna we will have public comment as well at the end of the meeting, and if there's gonna be any motion, although I don't think that's likely today, because this is primarily a study session.

But if you would like to address this now or later, um please come to the front, give us your name and address, and take three minutes to uh tell us what your thoughts are on anything that's coming up.

Um if you want to hear our discussion and study discussion and then comment, you can do that as well.

It's totally up to you.

So is there any public comment at this time?

Hello again.

Uh good evening.

Uh my name is Abby Jones.

I'm here on behalf of the Gallatin Valley Sentinel.

I'm a resident of Bozeman.

Um so my public comment, we have heard you ask frequently if the topics you are considering, like word-based representation get to the root of the problem.

Your answers so far have been no, have often been no.

I just want to remind you today that the problem isn't just regarding one thing.

The people of Bozeman do not feel represented by their local government, and the solution cannot be found in just one thing.

The breakdown is in the entire system of representation.

The effectiveness of our local government is equal to the sum of its parts.

When you look at each item in isolation, you miss how they reinforce each other to create the issues we have today.

The lack of words has created a geographic monopoly on the city commission.

The city commission passed the one-body one voice, high performing boards resolution, resolution 5323, which effectively inhibits advisory board members from openly expressing viewpoints that differ from those of the city staff and the city commission.

This means that advisory boards cannot provide independent data or alternative ideas to the commission, and oftentimes applicants to the advisory boards are excluded because of their views.

The interneighborhood council program is weak.

We ensure that neighborhoods have no sorry, excuse me, which ensures that neighborhoods have no real way to make sure their input is seriously considered by the city commission.

If you fix the INC but keep the at-large system, the geographic monopoly of elected officials will remain.

If you create wards but keep the one-body one voice resolution, those new word representatives will still be operating in a vacuum of filtered information.

In addition, excuse me.

As you consider the information you learned today about advisory boards and the interneighborhood council, remember that you need to be solving for a government that makes people feel represented even when they aren't in the room.

In addition to supporting ward-based representation for city commissioners, I also encourage you to consider carrying ward-based representation into the city advisory boards.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much, Abby.

And that has to do with geography with Inc.

Um, and um the high performing board's resolution, which materially inhibits members of advisory boards to speak.

Thank you.

Is there any further public comment?

All the way from the back.

Thank you.

No, fortaining myself back there.

Good evening, study commissioners.

My name is Gracianne Caldwell.

You may know me as the initiator and lead on the Student Advisory Council initiative.

What is public campaign financing?

Public campaign financing is a system where the government provides funds to candidates running for office in order to reduce the influence of wealthy special interests.

There are three models.

Matching funds where we would match small dollar donations, grants, and my personal recommendation, vouchers.

Vouchers can be sent to each eligible Bozeman resident, representing a small amount of public funds that can be donated to a candidate of their choice, such as used in Seattle's democracy voucher program, which provides 100 per eligible resident in the use of city elections.

Why is this important?

We're a small city, 60,000 people, roughly.

Ideally, our candidates should not focus on outreach, should focus on outreach, connection, and presence in the community, not fundraising, not begging for money from crowds of people burdened by inflation, and certainly not large donations from the bigger players of Bozeman.

That is not to say I'm dissatisfied in the slightest with the results of the city election, but I do see an opportunity for Bozeman to be better.

Most people can't afford to give money or a lot of time to candidates during election season.

Those of us in the room are often a small minority of the Bozeman population who's able to contribute politically.

Implementing a small voucher system like two $5 vouchers for each Bozeman resident not only makes election financing more equitable to popularity and loyalty amongst the public, but it would increase voter engagement.

Ten dollars of free money for each Bozeman resident, costing us about 60 $600,000 allows people to contribute in a way that doesn't affect their personal finances.

Many studies have found this have found that this system works.

Individuals become the candidates' priority, not the corporate entities or the wealthy sponsors.

These may also be implemented alongside a campaign spending limit, which has been discussed in the past.

In Seattle, the candidates who have marked themselves as open to vouchers have a stricter limit on campaign fundraising because the average person was far more likely to contribute their free money.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Christiane.

Urging us to take up public campaign financing and your favoring vouchers as a as a way to do that to take the big money out of campaigns.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Is there any other public comment at this time?

All right, seeing none, is there any online?

None online, thank you very much.

Okay, next item on the agenda is the consent agenda.

Does anyone want to move anything off the consent agenda?

All right.

Seeing none, is there a motion?

Carson to make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Second.

It's been moved in second.

Because this is a consent agenda.

We don't discuss it.

Is there any public comment on the consent agenda?

Because it is a motion.

Seeing none and none online.

All those in favor, so indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries five zero.

Next up on the agenda, correspondence or study commission update.

I just like to um mention that in our packet uh, and a link is there is the final uh survey results from our working ventures group.

In here, you've got the community survey, the employee survey, the advisory board survey, and neighborhood council survey all put into one and kind of combined.

So if you haven't seen that, I just want to point it to you, but no further discussion.

Great.

Anything else?

Barb?

I just wanted to acknowledge that I will miss the April 15th meeting.

So that April 14th.

April 15th.

April 15th.

Yeah, I have a work trip to DC, so I won't be here.

Great.

Thank you for that.

Anything else?

The Chronicle Board is requested a meeting with two of us and two of the county.

And I've been trying to figure out when they meet every other Tuesday, but I don't know which Tuesday is the starting point.

Um I'm gonna suggest that Becky and I uh meet with them as a chair and the co-chair.

Um I think that's what the county is doing as well.

And I'll figure it out.

We'll figure out how to do it when we can.

Anything else?

Good.

That moves us right into the panel discussion.

Uh Jason Delmu is here.

Thank you for coming, Jason.

Jeff Krause, um, Danielle Rogers, and we tried to create a um, I don't know, uh people with very experiences with the advisory boards over the years.

So Jason was uh has been on advisory boards uh probably since time immemorial um and uh so he spanned the the uh the changes that went on.

Danielle um came on advisory boards with the new system, um, which we've heard a little bit about with public comment, and uh Jeff was the mayor and a city commissioner throughout um again spanning both boards.

So um I don't know how you all want to pick this up.

Mike, did you send them anything by way of uh prompts?

Uh I did not.

Uh just that uh our discussion was going to be primarily around their experiences with the boards.

Um so I wasn't sure if you wanted to start with the current, start with the previous form, or how you wanted to run that section.

So I didn't have much more than asking them to bring their experiences and be willing to discuss.

Um I I guess what I'm curious about, and I don't know what order you want to go in is sort of how how you all think the present system is working, how it could be better, and and maybe a comparison back to how it used to be and what was going on with that.

Uh I know that when I was on the commission, um the boards um were more um directed.

There was a bike board, there was a citizens climate action board.

I think it was the mayor's climate action board, actually.

I think Jeff started it, as I recall.

Um there was a recreation and parks board, and um they all had little projects that they did as well.

Um the bike board, for instance, had a bike to work week.

Um so I'm curious as to sort of where you guys want to start and who wants to start.

Jason, you might um I'm looking at Jeff and saying, Jason, Jeff, you might be the a good starting point if you want to.

Carson, could I um just make a suggestion?

I'm sorry, I couldn't get your eyes.

Um, but I think it might be helpful if Mike wouldn't mind just doing a very short summary of what these boards are and um really grounding people who may not be aware of what then will follow, I think, in a in a discussion.

Is that anything you two had talked about, or is that possible, Mike?

Well, I did ask Mike to come with uh you know to post what the boards are at present and which ones are mandated by the state and which ones are basically oriented um originated with the city.

Yeah, so uh our current listing of boards is available, excuse me, our board's website.

Uh keeps all the um board information, uh the members and any vacancies, all the applications, everything are handled through one system now.

Uh so state required boards uh include the historic preservation board that's uh related to a grant that we received for the historic preservation officer, our building division code of our building division board of appeals, the community development board, downtown urban renewal board, fire code board of appeals.

Now that we are a metropolitan organization, the MPO is a requirement, the library board of trustees, the police commission, those are both statutory requirements, and the new tax increment finance advisory board is a response to new legislation that came out of the last session, and then our transportation board.

It operates as our parking commission, and that is also a statutorily required board.

So we have a pretty good number of them that operate based in state law that requires to have them.

The uh for instance the community development board, in addition to being our planning commission with under the new MLUPA, it also acts as our impact fee advisory committee, which is a requirement to have an impact fee program.

So it handles a couple different statutory requirements in there.

Uh used to be planning and zoning, the new statutes kind of combined those statewide.

Uh organizations like the library board, they're actually a governance board.

So the they have the authority to hire the library director, that any of the library property is subject to the decisions of that library board of trustees.

Police commission, they have you know statutory requirements.

Um they review applicants and they are an appellant body for appeals.

Generally, the um the other ones we call the advisory boards.

Um we change the labeling here on our website so as to not confuse people that some of these are legislative, some of them are statutorily required, and some of them are merely advisory, so we've blended them all into the to the city boards.

And so things like the uh economic vitality board, uh the uh sustainability board, and our urban parks and forestry board, those are three that are wholly created within the city.

Uh we also are members of other partner boards.

Uh for instance the the Board of Health is the Gallant County City of Belgrade and the City of Bozeman jointly.

Uh and then we also have representatives on the urban transit board, which is a the urban transit district is a newer one.

Um there's a mental health council, a criminal justice council that we are uh partners with other communities in the region.

Um so we we kind of span uh some are ours, some are required, some are a blending of other communities.

Uh another one that I failed to mention, the planning coordinating committee, which is the Gallant County, City of Belgrade, City of Bozeman, and it works on what's known as the Triangle Plan focusing on development between Bozeman, Four Corners, and Belgrade.

Um so that's the quick version of it.

Um we do have uh a list.

We used to have close to 40 boards.

Um, the board of ethics is another one that is entirely created uh based in the charter.

So um the audit committee isn't isn't uh in effect anymore.

The city commission acts as the board of adjustment, and then the consolidation really combined similar um subjects into uh one body, the uh those big five as we call them.

So I think that's the down and dirty version of it, I guess.

Thank you.

So where were we?

Jeff.

Yeah, sure.

I'll I'll start.

Um, one correction.

Um at no time was I on a commission.

We did consider running off all the volunteers, but um, it never got any farther than a discussion at the commission level.

So the whole the 16 years, I was on the proposed city commission.

I was the liaison to five or six different boards.

Um, and that changed every two years.

So the five commissioners who are responsible for the liaison attending, being part of the citizen volunteer boards that we had, the the uh list of which you might have seen up there for briefly for a few seconds.

Um and um, and of course, I'm a strong advocate for welcoming volunteers back into city government.

Uh we just uh it seems like after I left we went into this, and part of it, I suppose was COVID, but we just went into this barrier mode of city government, and we never really recovered from that, and we still haven't recovered from that.

And you know, here we are.

Um I was you know, as uh I'll give you an example that I just heard, and that is that we don't have an audit committee anymore, and we don't have an audit committee, we're out of best practices for the industry.

Best practice for the industry is to have an audit committee made up of members of the community and members of the of the city staff, and you know, I did it as one of in one of my years as a commissioner or mayor because I'm a retired CPA active then, and uh, and it was designed to uh so that members of the community know what's going on, have faith in the in the city, right?

Have faith in the city.

And and and I, you know, I think we all know that the city of Bozeman has 40 some years of getting an award for their financial reporting.

Um I say that because the county hasn't issued a financial statement since 2022.

And uh so they're not only not getting any awards, but they haven't issued any financial statements for several years now.

Never mind that it's required by state law and everything else, but uh, and they have no audit committee.

And and and why doesn't anybody know that?

Well, they don't have any members of the public participating in their financial reporting requirements, and so uh the the importance of the watchdog feature on most of the for most of these uh committees.

There's a watchdog feature there.

Um and and I would say that's feedback, but it's also that bridge between community and government.

And I guess I uh I'll start again with the discouraging of the public from participating in your uh government is significant.

Look at all of these boards, all of these people that were participating in their government, motivated, volunteer, interested.

Um it was a a way of them to bring their talents and their um information to the effort.

I know when we I'll give you an example when I was going to the uh governing boards of the university system and saying we need a two-year educ two-year education facility in Gallatin County.

After one of such meetings, a woman came up to me and said, Well, what I do for a living is uh I'm retired here in the Gallatin County, but what I do for a living is is I'm a turnaround artist for community colleges that are failing.

And uh so she's been on the advisory board of Gallatin College ever since.

That had to have been 2007 or 8, somewhere in there.

And uh so we could we live in a county and in a city where there are literally thousands of people who are experts in the subjects that we deal with as a government that we don't avail ourselves of like the person that was doing that uh for us.

Um there is a necessity for a public connection outside of this formal room that uh you leave behind when you're not, and I see little way now.

We're doing walking tours and whatever, but there's a necessity for that, and and for meaningful public interaction, and that's far more than three minutes in a standing up at the podium.

Um what it allows for is sort of much more than meaningful when you're I don't know, I think most of the boards many times are mad at me for something or another.

So uh, you know, you would get uh because you're just sitting in a room talking to people, you would get a lot of interaction there, a lot of ideas, a lot of back and forth that you know that's the that's what creates the gold uh uh of public policy is um a lot of iteration, a lot of discussion, but at a level where everybody is equal, and of course, I was just a liaison, so I wasn't even running the meetings.

Um I was the liaison, and you know, sit here and take it.

Um and why did you do that?

And all of those things, and so the word goes out, the word comes in, people show up.

I think it's also much easier for the public to go to the volunteer board and to their volunteers.

It's somewhat intimidating to stand up there after three and a half hours of experts and attorneys and everyone else talking, and then you've been out there for three and a half hours, and now come on, you got three minutes, hurry up.

That's not what the volunteer board, that is not the atmosphere of volunteer boards.

Um you would get three or four or five or six points of view.

You would not, and it wouldn't be in this sort of line up and let us have it.

It would be they would say something, we would say something, another person would say something very much.

And I, you know, we're in this room together, you're all volunteers.

I don't think you're making much money doing this.

Going broke.

And uh I think it is, I think the more that you can behave like one of these volunteer boards of your than anything else, the better.

Um the informality of it, the uh you know the you make decisions true.

I mean, there were boards that felt like they wanted a bigger say in decision making, but I think that there is a pretty black line between advocacy and decision making, and that we've seen in government when you cross when you combine those two, uh, you know, you've you've left behind rational decision making to some extent because and you lose trust.

You want involvement, and then you want decision making, especially in quasi-judicial decisions, anything to do with design review boards and applications and those kind of things, you it's more difficult, right?

Because you are, if you're involved in the improval process, then you can't go out and gather petitions against it.

And we actually saw staff members in public cross that line uh a few times, and you know, that risks having a judge say it's just approved.

You guys cross the line.

So there is that, but I think for so many of these boards that we have here, and then I think another piece is um that the staff was there, so the staff um staffed uh many of these boards and participated in many of these boards, and so they had to hear it, address it, participate in it.

Um and um, and I don't think, and then when it came up to this level, I I think the citizens today, I think they feel like they get up there, and the staff and the attorneys and the applicant turns the 16-inch guns towards the public and blows them away.

And I've seen that at the at in the boards that in the big board that Jason's on, and and I've seen that in the uh uh when the city commission is up here, is that you're just out gardening.

You're just a citizen, and you know, there's no standing up to it.

And when we have these smaller boards that combine, they give us a better idea of what's going on, then people feel more involved in their government.

Um let's see.

I think it is an entry level into city government.

Most people think this is an entry level to city government.

Y'all are all running for city commission, right?

After you finish with this.

Well, what's interesting is that's the way that's these used to be that way, right?

They let this is what you know.

I was on the study commission 9496.

Probably see my name on the reports, and I was the liaison to this to the study commission 0406, because I was had previous experience before.

So this is my third study commission, not this one here, but one over at the county that I'm the chair of third study commission.

And uh, and so it was always looked on as a little bit as a training ground for future volunteers at the commission level.

But I think actually some of these boards that you see in front of you here on the uh they're a good way to do it, and they're relatively uh non-imposing, non-threatening what would you call it?

Platforms, yeah, equal.

Uh, you know, everybody is there, sort of doing their best, right?

And and maybe there's not there's fewer Roberts Rules of Order and they're not being recorded, and it's not them out there and us up here.

So it's uh I think it's a much better way of going on.

Um, I think about some of the people that I remember that were on cemetery boards and recreation parks advisory board and some of those boards that were so active in the community and every uh part of this community, you know, the uh the things that they did and and uh all going all the way back into the 90s and uh how I don't see that happening in the way it happened back then.

So those are a few uh things uh somehow our public discourse has to boil has to get away from the formal and get back to the community idea.

And I'll end with that.

Thank you.

I'm gonna jump to Danielle who's um I'd love you to tell us what board you're on and sort of how you got there.

Sure.

And what the experience has been like for you and suggestions as to what might make it better.

Uh sure.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm really glad to see some new faces and I really appreciate the work that you do.

Uh my name is Danielle Rogers.

I'm the chair of the economic vitality board.

I've served on the Citizen Advisory Board for four and a half years, and this is my last year.

I am terming out, but it has been an absolute joy to serve and to be among volunteers who really care about Bozeman and who give their time and effort to make sure that we have voices that can speak to these policies and ordinances that are really important to our community.

It does take a lot of time to serve on these boards.

We look at ordinances, we look at policies.

I usually spend about an hour and a half just reading, just uh just as you do, um, just reading all of the material and making sure that I know exactly what the material is and just coming up with questions that that I have that I think that other community members uh would have.

And it has uh been a joy to work with the staff of the city and to get to know so many other members of the community that I did not know.

Uh I don't know the other way that you used to do the the citizen advisory, I don't know what you called it, volunteer boards.

Uh so I'm not familiar with that.

I do think that that's a really great idea to try to maybe merge the two together.

I also think it depends on really what the needs of the city commission is right now.

What we're supposed to do is to really advise on those policies.

So if there's a way that you can merge the two, I think that would be really important, and to also not make more restraint to our city staff or to possibly even hire more city staff.

Uh one of the things that I also would recommend is to really think about how we can encourage more citizen, more community members to volunteer.

Uh right now we meet at six o'clock from six to eight, and it's really hard for people with young children to come.

It's hard for young professionals uh to get to our meetings.

And if you want to ride a ray of voices in our community, young voices or possibly older voices who may not feel as comfortable coming out at that time frame.

I think that's something to consider.

Uh I am really lucky in the sense that I have a flexible schedule.

And uh so that I can attend, but there are a lot of people that would want to attend that have families, and there's no way that they could do that because we do require in-person meetings for the majority of our meetings.

I also think about disabled community members who would want to participate.

So I hope that we take a look at that and consider more um opportunities to meet via Zoom or to meet at other times that would I think really help make sure that we get a wide range of voices to talk about these really important issues.

Um trying to think of anything else.

Did you but I I'm also here just to answer questions that you may have.

I don't just want to speak the whole time.

So do you have any questions about the board?

But I think we're gonna do is oh, after I suppose too soon and go around and ask questions.

Right, you have one more.

Um there's been public comment about the high performance board resolution and how it silences members of the boards.

And I'm wondering if you could speak to that a little bit.

Uh sure, I was really surprised to hear that public comment.

I I do understand the the one voice, but that is after a policy has already been voted on.

But in terms of giving your opinion on the board, your opinion is your opinion.

I you know, we welcome your opinion.

We don't all have the same opinion.

Uh so of course you're welcome to share and say whatever you feel um is in your heart in regards to any ordinance or any policies after something has already been passed by the city commission, then that's where that decision lays.

And um, so but I don't really see that as part of the the citizen advisory boards.

Um I don't really see how that having as much of an impact.

Um because that's once you know, once something is passed, it's passed.

But in terms of being able to speak for yourself, absolutely, and we always uh have disclosures before we speak about any policies or anything that are on that is on our agenda, so you have the opportunity to disclose.

Uh but I haven't felt like I've um like I haven't been able to state my opinion.

The only time is if I'm involved in something that is directly corresponding with something that's coming in front of the city commission, and that's an ethics issue.

Uh, but I haven't felt like I couldn't speak openly during the meeting that I chair.

Thanks.

Jason.

Uh yeah.

So I'm Jason tell me you Jason, will you pull the mic in front of your face?

I'm gonna try to microphones there.

You can't go wrong.

Can you is this not close to it?

There you go, that's good.

I was trying to not uh overcompensate.

Just okay, you tell me if you need it closer.

I hear you online and you need to probably hear it.

It's like echoing back in my ear, so I figure it's probably okay.

Um I'm Jason Delmu.

Um I had the good fortune to move here in 2001 by luck.

And it was just probably a few to several years later that I first got onto the uh shorthand called the bike board, technically it was the Bozeman Area Bicycle Advisory Board.

And I was on that for over a decade and was the chair when um board consolidation occurred.

Um on the community development board now as the vice chair.

I finished out a term that was vacated part way through.

So I guess this I'm on my first like full term.

Um I didn't um try to get on the transportation board, which took the duties of the bike board.

Um, because I felt like at that point I probably had more specialized knowledge about development.

Um I was a former lawyer or I'm a former lawyer, and um I started to become involved in small-scale residential infill development projects.

Um anyway, so when that opened up, I I got on that board um on the community development board.

Um I agree with Jeff that the complexity of issues and the expertise of some in the public warrants um not only more than three minutes of the podium, but also a meaningful dialogue between these folks and the city's professional staff.

Um and I've actually been advocating that for some years um, mostly like internal to the CDB, um, that maybe the boards could try out different approaches.

I mean, we don't necessarily have to mirror the commission's format of you know presentation by the especially for like work session type items.

I mean, if we're doing an application review, that's maybe one thing.

But it seems like that could be a try-out ground for what would be a more um almost like a work session where folks in the community with known expertise are invited to participate, maybe it gets a little like tricky.

I mean, you we wouldn't do that maybe instead of public comment.

But um, but it sure does seem like some of the issues we we deal with on our boards and what the commission deals with are more complicated than um you know, sort of a three-minute speech with no actual meaningful dialogue um would handle.

Um then I guess as far as the one voice thing goes, um I haven't really noticed that as being so much in play anymore.

Um my impression was that boards were taking actions, but then individual members were like giving frequent public comment to the commission, and it started to become blurry, especially if it was like the chair of a board.

Um I haven't seen any board member give public comment and be discouraged or chastised, like, oh, you know, you're you're part of that board which has one voice, so you're not allowed to come up here with your separate individual voice.

It seems like everyone realizes the nuance there, and that we can keep separate things separate.

So as far as that goes, I haven't seen that be a problem.

Um let's see, I just have a couple ideas or comments and ideas.

Um, so before it did seem like the boards were more siloed in their expertise.

Um for example, there was the bite board, there was the public traffic and safety commission, uh, people refer to it as PTSC and the parking commission.

Um, you know, so it just makes sense to put those things together because a lot of these things are systems that work together.

Um, same for the community development board, um of the terms have changed, but it used to be sort of the statutory roles of a planning board, the zoning commission at the time there was a design review board and the impact fee advisory committee.

So it did probably make sense to put those all together.

I mean, it's more demanding on the board members because you have all this workload.

Um, so in that sense, it could be a discouragement.

Um, but it does definitely seem better because the city is a system.

Um, and so to understand the purview of a single board, it's more effective to know more of the system or where it fits into the system.

Um, so I mean, I do think that consolidation was better for integrating those related things.

Um it kind of brings to mind an adage that uh I think I've heard Director Ross mention it too, like the best transportation plan is a good land use plan.

Like already you're talking that like your transportation board and your community development board are you know are really dealing with two super important topics that are also very intertwined.

Um it seems like economic vitality deals with affordable housing, you know, but the AHO is part of the affordable housing ordinance is part of the UDC, and how affordable dwellings can be is impacted by the land use code, right?

The UDC, same for like the sustainability board, right?

Um sustainability deals with land use, which you know implicates the pollution from commuting, uh compact development lessens the rate that the city expands into adjacent farmland, like the urban forests and heat island impact by what's allowed in the code.

Um so maybe like periodically, maybe twice a year, maybe there could be some kind of like a joint session uh between the boards where like some of this overlap could be you know discussed among people who've like really been immersed and have knowledge of you know these systems and how they work.

Uh and even if there's no like agenda action items, uh, you know, it could still be like a work session or just a very useful dialogue, and especially if like the respective city staff is there, you know, to help inform the conversation, whether it's technical aspects or uh limits, uh like productal limits.

Um let's see.

Maybe have a way to for boards and board members, well, I mean, not individually, but to discuss possible items uh for board attention.

And I'm just trying to contrast with that to the current setup, which is that the commission sets the priorities, the city manager figures out how to execute, and then the boards are kind of plugged into these processes, um, which is not to say that that isn't a necessary and primary function of the boards.

Um, but it's just to say that you know, some aspect could be that um you know, these boards on their own or their members might be perceiving issues within their purview that the commission might benefit from hearing, and that's not really part of the process currently.

It's just sort of like, you know, like for us, for example, it's like, well, there's gonna be uh you're gonna look at the initial zonings of annexations, you're gonna look at um, I mean, it's it's all kind of changed on their LUPA, but you know, the things we were looking at was like zone map amendments and um maybe like major subdivisions.

Um, you know, the trend has been from the state to keep reducing discretionary decisions of both the commission and therefore like the board.

And by that I mean they're saying like it's the director of the community development department that's gonna make these decisions as a professional based on code and whatever code requirements, and we're gonna get away from these like uh you know subjective uh type hearings.

But uh anyway, so the the point just being that of course we need to do the workload, but the commission might also benefit from you know, if there's ideas from any of these boards that the commission might benefit from hearing, you know, maybe building in again it could be twice a year or once a year, just to give that sort of affirmative uh input as opposed to just sort of like doing the work.

Uh that's that's about all I can think of off the top of my head, and I'd also echo what Danielle said about you know, if you have any questions or wondering how stuffed words, or especially if there's the more specific probably you have questions, probably the more useful we could give answers.

Great.

Carson?

Yes, Jeff.

Uh just one thing that I didn't touch on, and it's it just jumps out at me in a big way.

And I know you guys were thinking about this in some other ways.

Um the evolution of the city government over the last 20 years, 20 some years that I've been paying attention involved.

Um, and these, you know, so your guys are getting in you your group is getting into things like, well, how much should we pay the commissioners and is it a full-time job and some of those things?

And I think about that when I hear the discussion from Jason about and Danielle about well, we make a decision and move it on to the commission.

Uh when I joined the city government in 2004, I did it to serve the people of Bozeman.

I didn't do it necessarily to govern.

And so I think there's a dichotomy here.

Are the boards there to take instruction from these governors, the commission, and make you know, help them make decisions, provide them backup for their decisions, or are the commissioners there to serve and the more people that they can get ideas from, and the more discussions they can encourage, and the more uh volunteers they can get to involve them so to involve them in city government, will that create a better city government?

And I think as I've seen city government evolve, we've gone much farther, and maybe it's just size, right?

We've gone from 30,000 to 60,000.

So we've got to get a bigger mallet to control the meetings or whatever it might be.

But um the way this change happened, so and the people that were involved in making it happen.

I think that you should pay attention to that philosophical difference as well, and how it's affected our city.

Um because I think public service is a there's a lot of lip service to public service, right?

But um I think public service is something that you grow.

It's it's something you grow in your schools, it's something you grow in your other community institutions, churches come to mind because I'm sitting next to you, I think.

But but uh um it's something you grow.

And uh and you grow it in your populace.

And I I think you as a group need to think about that because that's what you're doing, right?

You're volunteering.

So you're not really governing.

And any decisions you make still have to go to the public.

Um, and whatever you can do to get more people here to help you make these decisions that the public will consider carefully and maybe approve, the better off you are.

I don't see the city commission differently in that regard as well.

I think the more they can get everybody on board before they put something in, you know, a governing decision in front of the people, the better off they are.

Thank you.

So we're gonna start on Barb.

Questions, comments?

Can I ask any comments?

One clarification question, uh Mike.

Sure.

Do the advisory boards have bylaws and do they have staff support?

Yes to both.

Yes to both.

And are the bylaws just one template that is given to all advisory boards, or does every advisory board make their own?

No, they with the high performing board, there was adopted rules of uh rules of procedure for all boards that are majority city appointees.

And are there term limits in there?

That's the last one.

The big five boards have term limits, none of the others do.

Okay, thank you.

Barb?

Are we on the Yeah, we're just gonna question and work our way around.

Well, it's not just one.

We'll keep going until in my mind we've got at least 25 more minutes.

Excuse me.

I was just asking if each time we had a question point in our agenda, we're asking one question at that time.

Yes.

Thank you.

Barb.

Yeah, um I have to pick which question to start with.

So give me a minute.

Okay, I'm gonna start.

So um since every board has a staff member to staff the work of the board, and a commission liaison.

I'm just wondering, particularly for you, Jeff, thoughts on how to balance the the just demands on workload that that places on our commissioners and staff if we were to move back toward increasing the number of boards if there were topic.

Like I I also I hear Jason's point about the integration of some of these issues that really are systems issues.

And so I'm not suggesting that we re-pull apart some of those consolidated boards, but there might be boards that we would want to add.

And so how do you balance the demands on commissioners and staff of serving those boards and serving those volunteers?

Well, I didn't have 100% perfect attendance at the at the board meetings.

Maybe Carson did, I'm not sure.

But I I know I didn't.

Um I think if you're looking, I mean, I had a full-time job, and I was the mayor of Bozeman.

Okay.

So if you're looking for an answer about balance, for me, you're not getting it.

Um I dedicated a significant amount of my life to public service.

Um and part of that was coming down here at nights or taking off, taking vacation time and um and doing things related to the city, um, having a radio show.

I mean, uh, you know, the the work is never done really um in a way that uh and and it's up to each individual, I think, to uh that's on the commission to balance that with their their private lives.

Um it was expensive to do.

I'm not talking about money.

Uh but I think that there was never a time when I left a board that I was liaison of that I didn't say, well, I was glad I was with those people tonight.

Um maybe once or twice when they were really letting me have it, mostly the bike board, I think.

Um I was pretty good for bicycles around town.

Um but I think that you know the I'm just gonna say it again.

Public service is either a calling or it's not.

And uh um and so this I think it was a harder question for the staff.

Um in fact I know it was a harder question for the staff.

For me it was this is what I signed up for.

Just gonna say it that way.

For the staff, you know, they gotta come at night and staff this and then do they work the next day, all the stuff that's on there.

And the truth is, you know, uh we have to dedicate, I believe, more resources to making sure we have a transparent and uh uh participatory government than we do now.

I think we went way over to the other side.

Essentially it was the decision was it's just so expensive and we have too many boards and we need to reduce the impact on staff.

And so if you're asking me, I think it was intense for some staff, some staff members if you look up and down this planning staff or whatever.

Um probably uh the attorneys, I think, um, were an issue because occasionally I would go to one and I would say, boy, I wish I had an attorney here with me to tell them to that they have ventured into the deep blue sea here and need to back off of that, you know.

Um probably uh the attorneys, I think um were an issue because occasionally I would go to one and I would say, boy, I wish I had an attorney here with me to tell them to that they have ventured into the deep blue sea here and need to back off of that, you know, uh some more training for your board, I think would help that.

Um but I think the the impact on the staff and really that's money, the impact on the city budget to staff this so that it isn't so hard on the staff is probably the main thing.

So you know, outreach is not something you are a uh uh somebody from Denver to do for you.

Outreach is something that you design your government to do.

Thanks.

Deanna?

I'm sorry.

If either of you two want to weigh in on anything Jeff said or the question, jump in or not.

You don't you're not required.

I mean, I think that's definitely uh significant concern.

Is that uh the coverage you the added coverage you'd need from the commissioners and the staff?

Um I mean to me the main downside is just the more they're consolidated, the bigger the work.

And so you need a volunteer that can commit that time.

So that's a that makes it harder.

You know, it reduces your pool of potential volunteers to only those who have that much time to give.

But I mean, it just seems like it's a better system for all involved to have a more comprehensive system-based knowledge of these boards.

Deanna.

Yeah, I guess this question would be for uh for um uh Danielle and Jason to weigh in on how it is now, and maybe Jeff, you can tell us how it used to be.

And that is the hiring process.

Excuse me.

Um does the um what is the interview process like right now?

And um and what is the onboarding process like as well?

And uh Jeff, you can tell us how that differs from when uh uh the interview process was different than it is now.

And also uh are you requiring new uh advisory board members to weigh in on the uh 20, but what is it, 5323 resolution uh when they hire on.

Oh, okay.

Uh so I can just talk to you about the interview uh process and what that's like.

Uh so we do have a website where you that's where you apply if you're interested in serving on any of these boards.

There are a list of questions relating to the various topics that the board covers.

So for economic vitality, that would include things like affordable housing, economic growth, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and also public art.

So those questions will um it's pertain to those themes because they want to find people that are knowledgeable but also are really passionate about those things.

So after that, then you have an interview with the commissioner and also with Mike, I believe you're there too.

No, you're not there, okay.

I'm not remembering that correctly.

Commissioner Chair and Staff Liaison.

Okay, so commissioner chair and staff liaison.

Um as chair, I've never been part of an interview process, so uh that might have changed recently.

Uh so you have a 15, 20 minute interview where they ask you various questions.

They go over some of the answers that you gave.

You have time to ask questions.

Uh and you do have if you do reapply, you do have to be interviewed again.

Um actually my second interview was quite a bit more intensive and was about 45 minutes longer than my first.

So it's something that the commissioners really take uh really seriously.

And um, and they have uh a set um view in terms of how they want to make sure that each you know each advisory board is um is filled.

And then in terms of onboarding, that's been the hardest for me personally as chair, and when I was vice chair, is our onboarding process right now is um essentially the ethics training, and I'm sure that all of you have also had that ethics training, right?

Uh I have um asked for a more comprehensive onboarding where we go over the structure of meetings.

Are we using Roberts Rules of Order?

Are we going to mirror what the city commission does?

And kind of go over a little bit more in depth uh about disclosure, about conflicts of interest.

And I think because when I first got on the board that they were newly reconstructed, the city was still trying to figure it out.

But now that I've been on been on the board for four and a half years, we really haven't had training like that at all.

So what I have done is I've asked also for uh safety training.

Yeah, which I was very, very happy to um to make sure that we had that, and I recommend we have safety training for all of the advisory boards and for the city commission.

And what happens there is a police officer will come, they'll tell you what to do in case of an emergency, in case of any physical threat, how you can contact for outside help.

And I would also love for the opportunity to disclose how to handle uh online complaints, potential threats that have come to commissioners and sometimes uh indirectly come to members that are on citizen advisory boards and it's very hard to navigate.

Um you had another question.

I do just a point of clarification.

Uh did the conflict of inter interest discussion occur during the interview process, or I I'm hearing that it doesn't occur until after they're on the commission.

And you're uh then dealing with conflict of interests.

Well, the conflict of interest is is during the ethics training, but in terms of the interview process, uh I don't remember any questions in regards to conflict of of interests.

Of course, you always have the opportunity to disclose and to uh withdraw from participating in the meeting if something that is on you know on the agenda is a direct conflict of interest, and you know that you can't be impartial or unbiased.

And one of the great things that the city does is you can contact them, you can contact your liaison that that is uh helping with your board, and they can contact uh the attorney and and you can ask them.

And there have been many times where I have done that.

Um, and they've been really great about letting me know um if it is conflict of interest and what I can participate in uh if I need to make a disclosure.

So uh but in terms of like during the interview process, that's not something that's directly um asked.

Thank you.

Anything more from Jeff or Jason?

No, I was only ever an applicant.

Um in uh on the bike board.

I don't I don't either we didn't do it that way or it didn't happen to come up when I was chair, and uh yeah, so I haven't been involved in the uh selection or the onboarding process of new members.

Yeah.

Um well there you saw how many boards there were.

And uh and people were able to volunteer for those boards.

Um we didn't have ethics training until after 2007 or eight, which is why that paragraph needs to be written and incorporated into every local government.

And uh and I think that that clarified things for a lot of people.

Um, we we appointed boards as a commission every two years in public in front of the public.

Sometimes people got up and spoke to us and asked for the job, and sometimes they didn't.

Um recommendations.

Sometimes it was just somebody new that said, hey, I'm uh I I biked across America and now I want to be on your bike advisory board kind of thing.

Um because and I think it goes back to that issue of are we governing or are we volunteering to participate in our government?

And it goes back to what kind of government do you want to be uh top-down or bottom-up.

And so I think you know, we spent a lot of time out there digging for volunteers.

And part of it was the participation in many of these boards wasn't as momentous, right?

You weren't advising the commission on you were advising the commission on policy, but you were not making policy in the way that they do now.

You were not involved in the governance part, and so it was very different.

Um I can see, and I think you know, you can um I I don't know that I mean I've seen a lot of hiring practices by bureaucracies over the years, and I'm not sure that having giant hiring committees that vet candidates for years and hiring someone to help you make a hire and all of the stuff that we do now is any better than the boss making a decision and you've kind of avoided um if you've if you make a good or a bad decision, you've avoided accountability for that now, you know.

If you make a good or a bad decision, you've avoided accountability for that now.

You know, so I you know, I'm uh the process was much less formal and but I think you know the uh the ethics piece um that was added with the charter being adopted was critical.

And it goes to what I was saying before about separating uh advocacy from uh quasi judicial decision making.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thanks, and thanks to you, all of you for spending time with us.

I'm interested in what happens with the advice that your boards provide to the city commission.

And I'd love to hear from the two current chairs and people that are on boards, Danielle and um Jason, particularly if you have examples of two things.

One being whether um the work that you do to come to a advice that you're going to formally recommend to a policy brought to you by the city commission.

Where does it go?

How do you know if it's meant anything?

Do people in your um on your boards feel that their time is being well used?

Would be part one, and I'll come back with part two if I can.

Sure.

Really good question, Jan.

Um so how does that how does that work is basically what you're asking?

So it really depends on what the agenda is, but I'll just use a motion uh for an example.

So if there's an ordinance that comes before us and we have a motion and we talk about it and we vote on it.

Um we also will after that point.

Um our staff, whoever the staff liaison will make note of that and will write notes uh about the meeting and minutes about the meeting.

And um the commissioner liaison is also there, so they're really there to listen and to get a feel for uh what our board thinks about potential issues and certain issues.

So after all that, what I have been told is that uh that will go to the city commissioners and they will read it or they will read the minutes or they'll watch the meeting.

Um does that happen?

I don't know.

I I hope I hope so.

I mean, that was the goal, right?

Is if if you're there to provide your opinion, you want to make sure that your opinion is being heard.

Uh I think because we do have that liaison component that um that is basically a fail-safe to make sure that our opinions will be uh listened to, and so very important to have that liaison and to have a relationship with that city commissioner.

Um I am also thinking about times where maybe we have felt that um our time and voice maybe was not as appreciated as we would like.

That definitely comes up.

And I think part of it is just a misconception of what the boards are.

I think a lot of members did think when they came on the board that they would be involved in policy making and they'd be involved in in more hands-on work.

And um, so just knowing what you're signing up for, and that can definitely be during the interview process and um definitely during the onboarding process.

I would love to see that um changed in a way that feels more organic to the needs of our community.

I very much feel that these boards are an act of service.

I have lived in um in Bozeman for over 30 years.

I love Bozeman, and I wanted to contribute and share my opinion and certain expertise um to better serve this community.

Um I'm gonna give you an example of when that did not happen, and our board is very upset.

Uh there was a time where we received um motion language, and I can't exactly remember what it was for, but we received it after it was presented to the city commission.

So there was really no need for our opinion because they had already voted on it, and there is there's a lot of um of hurt and surprise and disappointment.

Um a lot of people that are on this board really on all the boards, not a lot of people, everyone that are on the boards take it very seriously.

received um motion language and I can't exactly remember what it was for but we received it after it was presented to the city commission so there was really no need for our opinion because they had already voted on it and there is there's a lot of um of hurt and surprise and disappointment um a lot of people that are on this board really on all the boards not a lot of people everyone that are on the boards take it very seriously so we definitely had to have a conversation with the city commissioner our liaison and also with the um with the staff to find out why that happened and to make sure that that would not happen again and that only happened one time and something happened with scheduling and they needed to get it done um within a certain time frame and our meeting was was um past the time frame that they needed it but because there is nothing in the bylaws that stated that it had to come to us before they actually vote on a motion you know they were not in in compliance but uh that was really disappointing but luckily that you know that only happened once or twice at most and Jeff would you mind I'm sorry Jeff Jason would you mind offering your perspective yeah um I think it seems mostly good um commissioners frequently reference what happened uh at our board or even you know that they that they watched um I I mean you know commissioners have political electoral accountability boards do not and and I and I believe they really should should only really deal with like the merits or the substance um and the commissioners can make the political judgments including a key issue that I've uh heard Carson speak about which is trying to determine you know like what is the best thing for the community and and also sort of has every aspect or have the important aspects of the community have their interests been you know adequately voiced or represented or determined because you know the at least as it stands the commissioners are elected on a community wide basis to make decisions for the you know trying to do the optimum policies for the you know however you want to say it like you know the most good for the most people or you know strike that balance um it which is difficult but I mean I I feel like our boards have um you know largely been seems like our input has largely been acknowledged and I guess I would say too the flip side of that is it's incumbent upon the board members to understand the decision criteria and you know rigorously and faithfully apply those criteria because that's the criteria the commission needs to to do so if you're not doing a really thorough job of that then you're you know not probably presenting the the best um advice to the commission and so you know the degree to which you have like really thoughtful nuanced analysis right is probably proportionate to how persuasive that would be to the commission.

But like I said that's like sort of like all on the merits and they've got this sort of whole other you know electoral accountability or you know political aspect that that they also need to weigh that I feel like is not really or shouldn't really be part of a lot of what you know our boards do.

I mean a lot of times we have statutory criteria or code criteria that we're supposed to be evaluating like an application against and I mean they are too but in in some policy type you know discussions um I'd say you know that their latitudes always they've always got broader latitude to try to determine if there is I don't know political I don't want to say wiggle room but you know judgment or some basic thoughts on that.

Thanks I'll pass on my part two and wait for my next turn thanks Becky.

So I'm gonna get uh nitty-gritty uh if we can so I as I look at resolution 5323 which uh for everybody who's listening it's a resolution establishing standards for the recruitment and selection of board members establishing standards for communication establishing expectations duties norms and behavior for all appointed city boards commissions agencies and committees we can't put any of that in the charter is only X number of um pages long and the charter is something that is like is like a bylaws right and so it it dictates how things are going to set up for the next 10 years and so what I want to know is what should be in the charter so all this is very interesting information and and helps I think guide perspective but the question of the day is what should be in the charter because that's what that's our job right and so when I think about that I think about um right now you know Jeff you keep talking about how we went from many boards to a few boards right now it just says that you have to have the ones that are required and you and the city commission can appoint whatever they want and so uh when we think about what my my big question is what should be in the charter and so things like um should we list certain boards should we list an audit board to make sure that then you know the next human being who's

And so when I think about that, I think about right now, you know, Jeff, you keep talking about how we went from many boards to a few boards.

Right now, it just says that you have to have the ones that are required, and you and the city commission can appoint whatever they want.

And so uh when we think about what my my big question is, what should be in the charter?

And so things like um, should we list certain boards?

Should we list an audit board to make sure that then you know the next human being who sits in the chair doesn't screw that up and miss it?

Are there other boards that should be listed by name that always had that name?

Should there be an ethics board or whatever, right?

So um, or should there be terms listed in the charter?

So what what should be in the charter?

Because like all this training and stuff is wonderful, and but that's in the resolution, right?

But the question is what should be in the charter?

The resolution.

Let's go on now.

Do you want to put that?

Can can we have the resolution up?

Because I haven't read it.

I'd love to have an opportunity to read it or uh the 4.07 of the charter.

Yes, the charter.

Yeah, so you can see what's actually in.

It's only about 150 words in there.

It's very short.

Okay.

Yeah, it's 4.07.

Page nine.

That's it, right there.

All right.

I'm gonna go over here and read it.

Except for boards and commissions established by statute, the commission may create boards, commissions, or committees as determined, all city boards, commissions, committees, will be established by the city commission and members appointed by the commission and the mayor.

So when required by law, following a public solicitation through the newspaper, gotta kill that.

Uh advertised not less than twice annually between public solicitations, appointments can be made to fill unexpected vacancies.

Um, and then it goes through and talks about subcommittees of the existing boards, may be appointed by the city commission without the necessity of public solicitation, and the commission may authorize the city manager to establish ad hoc special commissions for specific purposes, and except for where be prohibited by law, the terms on all boards shall be staggered, but it doesn't say how long they are.

Um doesn't say two or four years uh in billings, it says that there are terms and that um and should it be say that they have to be voluntary, and should it say that they have to be, I don't know.

Um, should we require staff support and commission support that every uh board that we have or committee we have should have a commissioner and should have a staff person on it?

I'll stop talking.

That's why I need to know.

Yeah, do you want me to start or stomp?

You want to start here.

I'll I'll just sit back and listen.

Okay.

Yeah, so the original question, what should be in the charter?

Yeah, what should be in the charter.

I got it right here.

I think we have to decide first and foremost what type of boards we want to have, and and if we're going to keep the current model.

I mean, I'm hearing today that you're kind of thinking or you haven't proposed anything, but suggesting that we have a different model for these citizen advisory boards.

Uh so that needs to be that needs to be talked about and stretched out, and um, I think before I can give any um direct recommendations, I do think obviously the terms are term limits are so important to have in that.

Um right now the boards are what the boards are.

So uh I think I'm just gonna deal with it at as uh as it's written.

Um also I'm curious to know if the bylaws are a little bit more fleshed out with some of the questions that you were asking, and I bet you that they are.

Um if if some of the questions that you had asked about term limits and uh are in the bylaws or if they were written specifically this way so that there'd be more flexibility.

Let me let me add to that then, because the whatever's in the charter stays despite who sits in the chair.

So what should always be, no matter what.

We can change the bylaws tomorrow.

We can change the resolution 5323, we can change that tomorrow, right?

We can change that tomorrow, right?

But we can't change the charter for 10 years.

So like like Jeff's point, there should be an audit committee, and maybe there should, right?

And so if there should, then if you put it in the charter, there will.

But if you don't, it'll be like, well, it depends if the next city commission decides that maybe we should.

Or maybe they forget and they don't.

Right.

Right.

So think about it more about like what should always be to guide you know the decisions.

Like, for example, if we name them all, those are their names.

If we say bike, a bike committee, then it's a bike committee and not a transportation committee.

So we're stuck for 10 years.

So maybe we don't put that in.

I mean, so what should be in the charter?

Well, can that be changed too?

Does it can you not for 10 years?

Not for another 10 years.

This is our moment, right now.

Well, yeah, we can't change the charter to change that.

But even changing the charter is sort of like saying, oh, you can amend the constitution.

Yeah, can't do that.

Um I mean, it could be more theoretical than practical.

You're gonna ask me the study commissioner or the what do you want?

What should be in the charter around advisory boards to to guide good advisory citizen participation?

Okay.

Oh, no, please answer.

Oh, well, I'm not answering for all of us, you know.

So for me.

Um, you know, the strategic plan said to broaden and deepen.

Um a charter is not a strategic plan, right?

But I don't know that what they did a few years back, broadened and deepened.

Um so when you it says this is very permissive, they may do things.

What it doesn't do, it doesn't have that um why do it?

Why have any at all?

It so it doesn't say uh to increase public engagement or to encourage uh participation to uh support the role of govern in the community.

It doesn't um uh encourage volunteerism, it doesn't uh help with credibility of the government by you know having a larger participation.

It doesn't so you're not saying why.

And I guess you know, the study commissioner in me that says constitution should be broad and also uh vague uh probably would put something in there about why have them at all.

And I think that you know that goes to what I've been talking about to begin with.

So that's Mike discussion.

I mean I would think you would just want that charter to be flexible for whatever might come.

Whatever new situation might come up, whatever the legislature might change, you know.

I mean they changed the planning board and zoning commission, they those names they're not a thing anymore.

No, it's called the can't remember the it's whatever's called it.

I should know, but uh we've seen it the planning hurt you a lot.

Well, yeah, I know, but um yeah, I mean it's the same basic roles, so it wasn't so important to know the title, but but uh my point would just be I think you want it to be flexible.

I mean, unless there's something that you feel like has to be in there, because if not this necessary thing wouldn't happen, but um you know I read that language and it says you know, as the term necessary, I think like, oh, maybe should be necessary and advisable or advisable to make it even just like oh, we just think it'd be beneficial.

It's not necessary, but we think it would be helpful, but I just think you want flexibility.

You got some.

I'm also just wondering if this is just typical standard language for charters.

I have I've never read one, so I don't know, but I'm I'm curious to know if this is standard.

Have you read any other for Yeah, I got them already?

Okay, is this standard is this standard language?

It is.

I mean, some have terms.

Um, and then the neighborhood one portion requires staff that that the city appoint a staff.

Now that went from a full-time person to appoint one person, so there's that for for neighborhoods, that's our next discussion.

But you know, we could say that it must be you know attended by you know, say you held an advisory committee, and uh you never had a commissioner, you never had a staff person in it.

Would it be helpful?

Or useful?

You know, and then what should the term limits be?

Um for now I we have to have a liaison and a staff person for for our meeting.

In terms of term limits, they are in our bylaws.

So uh because we started and we needed a staggered term.

Um I think the first term I served is three years, and this term is two years.

So moving forward, it's a two-year term.

And then you are termed out, so you're not allowed to reapply.

I have heard uh after a certain amount of time, and I don't know the specifics of that, but this is what I've heard.

You can reapply to that specific board that you served previously, but I believe that that's in the bylaws.

I don't know if it's standard to include that in the charter or not.

So I really have no expertise in this area.

Just one, since you ask about the audit committee.

Um there is an ethics chapter.

Uh there's an ethics chapter, you have an ethics section in the charter.

Um I personally believe, like your ethics committee that's in there.

That's authorized.

We didn't have one of those before we had a charter.

Um in the years 04 to 08, I think it was, when the charter was finally implemented, we didn't have anything like that.

And uh but we did have an ethic, we did have uh an audit committee.

Um you know it's great.

The the city values their financial reporting, their annual comprehensive financial statement.

Excellence.

It's great, 41 years, or maybe it's 42 now.

Um but in my mind, some amount of oversight into who you pick as auditors who you so you're asking Jeff, the retired CPA here.

Um a person that I think was always on the audit committee, probably.

Um it is the citizens that are on that audit committee.

And sometimes it's hard to get one.

Okay.

So if is it addressed by the charter?

I don't know, because I think the charter terms for the neighborhood council are too specific since you didn't ask that, but you get that feedback.

Um I did then, and I think now that it's too the requirements are too much for a constitution.

Uh but I think you know, so it's either in the financial section or in the um best practices call for an audit committee that have outside citizens.

Now, what to do if it's in the charter and you can't get any outside citizens, I don't know.

So it's hard to put something in the charter that says pigs fly, or you have an audit committee, right?

Because sometimes you can't, but um you could say in ethics somewhere, not should have something like that, some kind of advisory, not limited to, but if possible, something like that.

Thank you very much.

Yep, thank you all very much for spending some time with us.

The underlying theme that I'm getting, and I'm just trying to get my arms around it, and then we can talk about or we can talk about purpose in the charter, because I think the charter doesn't have purpose here, and and the vibrations that I get from across the city are that the citizenry, the residents are less and less involved in the process.

And so if you take, and this is gonna be more of a speech.

Um I'm gonna get to a question, I promise.

But if you take I'm shocked, of course.

If you take some of the boards that have how many members are there on the economic vitality board?

Um and what boards were consolidated into that, Mike.

Okay, and Khab, the old affordable housing board.

So you no seven people were there, used to have close to 21 or more.

And though the people that were on those individual boards were more immersed in the affordable housing community, whether they were Habitat for Humanity, some of the church groups that were concerned about affordable housing.

And you add all of those.

How immersed are the members of the committee, the advisory boards now in the community in which they're operating?

Because I feel like that's where we've lost.

They would do all sorts of things like that.

I assume that's not happening anymore, or certainly not in the direct line to the city.

Am I right?

Is there still some kind of so I can actually speak to that one a little bit before you guys think?

Yeah.

So the um so Go Gallatin is a separate entity that sponsors the bike to work week, and we partner with them as far as the bike counts.

We actually have a uh transportation demand management coordinator, and one of the key functions of that position is multimodal transportation.

Um the individual currently in that role is a prolific biker or transportation engineer, bikes to work 12 months a year.

Um so they're both involved in that function.

Did they connect to the advisory board or do they connect your transportation board?

What they try they work with the transportation boardation board.

Yeah, I mean, I would say that uh it would probably be a fair summary that uh the bike board at the time was kind of piecing together what it could through volunteer and partnering with the Gallant Valley Bike Club and Bike Kitchen and whatever, but um I believe that you know it's a more capable you know system now for doing bike counts and tallies than you know we ever had.

Um we were almost more just like the grassroots trying to quantify like that, hey, this is a need of this magnitude, or even to try to determine how big is it?

Um but uh yeah, I mean, as far as that's that specific example.

So do you all think that the connection to the community from the old system is just as strong now as it was then?

And I should just shut up and let it be because it doesn't feel like it to me.

Um but what do I know?

Well, I don't know what the old system was, which is a shame because I've lived here for so long, so maybe that will answer some of your questions.

Uh I think that for the members of my board, all of them are directly uh involved in the different areas that um we talk about.

So right now we have someone that is a vice president um bank, we have uh professors, economic professors, we've had people that have worked for nonprofits like HRDC, um, I've worked with um nonprofits and mutual aid uh groups that uh work directly with affordable housing um and diversity equity and inclusion.

I think that's part of the interview and vetting process.

Uh so in my um and in my experience, people have been um I think maybe the the question would be how do we make sure that the community also knows what's going on with the citizen advisory group so that we can get a feel for what they're thinking.

I think that that's the missing part, but in terms of the um the outreach into the community, and maybe it's just different because the economic vitality board uh is structured in such a way that having that type of uh interaction with community might make it a little bit harder.

Um but um uh I I definitely think that every single person that I've that I have had on this board is is very talented and provides a lot of insight and experience and uh definitely deserves to be there and does think of it as uh an avenue of service, and we've had some go on and move on and become mayor that served on our board.

So um I'm I'm really pleased with with the quality of of applicants and and how uh they interact in the community Jeff.

Well, I think you have to decide um what communication is?

Is it a two-way street or is it top down?

I think in the end that that's what you're doing, you know.

Are you doing public engagement?

Are you encouraging uh participation?

Are you encouraging volunteerism?

Are you leaving avenues open for people to participate to come up with new ideas?

Um, or are you hiring a group of experts to help you govern the city?

Which of those are you doing with your volunteer boards?

And also, what is the need today in government?

Is government because of these changes we've made?

Is it more accessible?

Is does it feel like it's our government to the public?

Is it do we think we have a stake in the decisions being made?

Um do we feel comfortable walking into the rooms where these boards are made and engaging those boards in conversations?

Would a person that moved here three months ago feel comfortable walking in and or that's been here five years but has a great idea, wants to do something that's out of the current realm of possibility or consideration, feel good about getting involved in a in a basic level with the city?

And then how does the commission gather information?

How do they participate?

I actively go out and seek information from different people in the city, even today at 73 years old, retired.

And how do they do that?

By this public, by the thing where we wait three and a half hours and then give three minutes?

Is that what we're doing?

Is that how we gather public information?

Or are we out there encouraging as many people to participate as they we can so that we can get all kinds of feedback that we both go out to and come back from so that it's working forward and backward?

And so you have to decide what you want these boards and the and these these volunteer boards to do.

And I think that's the decision.

That's why Section 407 is silent on that, and that's why we're silent on that as a city.

And we've evolved to this very, I think, much more bureaucratic system that we have now.

Um, and I think COVID played a part, the barriers that we put in place for that, and then I think coming out of that, just the nature of the leadership, uh wanting to minimize staff, that uh staff time, you know, and the pressures on staff to get the other job done, totally understand that.

And then I think the commissioners who looked at it and said, I just don't have time for all of the things they're asking me to do.

Um I think those are the pressures that you have to balance that with and how that affects your desire for public participation in uh the local government, which is really should be the closest government to the people and the most responsive and the most active in going out to the public and getting them involved.

I I definitely agree with everything that you said, and it's one of the reasons that I brought up how do we make sure that we provide opportunities for people to serve uh on these citizen advisory groups in ways uh that more people would be able to serve and to start thinking about what that would look like.

Would it be providing child care so that someone that is uh a married young couple could participate?

Would it look like having more online meetings?

Uh would it look like being more involved at MSU and trying to get a young voice?

Um so I think that all of that makes a lot of sense.

Uh, but I think you have to obviously you're tied within the um structure that you currently have now, and I don't know how that would change or if that's something that is in even within your preview to um to change what that would look like.

I would love to see an example.

Um I don't know what the previous boards were like, but I would love to see an example.

I think that would be great uh so that we can see would that work for us?

How does that work?

Um I think that we have an opportunity to really make sure that we are listening to our community members.

A lot of that starts with the city commission.

I think that asking volunteers to uh lend their voices is the major um is is the major object of these boards.

I'm very involved in the community, uh, but I would I would be careful about asking volunteers to do more than they already are.

We already have a shortage of volunteers.

Postman is a very expensive place to live.

People are working two jobs, three jobs, people are in school.

Um I think maybe if we wanted to have more of a community engagement board, then that can be a direct board.

That could be a specialized board where that's all they do.

Maybe they get updates on these citizen advisory boards and they go out to communities, they have meet and greets, they meet people for coffee, and we advertise that.

Um I think that that would be a wonderful kind of compromise.

I just I don't know what that would look like.

I don't know if there's a model for that.

So I think it's interesting.

I'm just wondering what does that look like in actuality.

I would just add, um, you know, when filling a vacancy, the chair and the staff and the lead and the commission liaison can look at the areas of expertise and compare to the current board makeup and you know, try to take an active role in you know, plugging any gaps of what we're talking about.

Um I agree with what Jeff said about making known opportunities to participate and try to make those opportunities you know convenient for people in all different situations.

Um I would also add that you know, non-participants are part of the community, and we have data on you know, for example the number or the percent of folks in the community that are housing burdened, like from their rent or mortgage, and the number of in the community that are getting commuting each day, you know, then and it's not like this these numbers are just sitting out there so conveniently, but I mean, like we see them like in the transportation master plan reports or in the um economic updates that we get.

And you know, so you can kind of know who's out there, and like she was saying, you know, we know there's people working with multiple jobs, we know there's young families with kids, so we should probably expect that it's not so easy for them to participate.

And so either we could make it easier for them to participate, like she said with you know child care, for example, but we also don't need participation to know who's in our community and what they need, and we can craft policy, you know, just using doing the best we can to understand the situation with every means possible.

He doesn't like that.

I don't I don't know how data keeps you warm at night.

And I don't know how data um involves people out there in the government.

I don't know how the use of data personalizes this government and provides ownership for the public in this government.

I don't yeah.

Well, I guess I'm not a because I only signed up to be a CPA because it was a tool, not a way of life.

And uh and so I'm not a data-driven guy.

I'm a person-to-person driven guy.

Um as your mom knew, you know.

And and I and government at the local level need just to be, we don't need to be New York City.

Um, we need to be Bozo, Montana, we need to have our roots in the community.

And you do that by involving people in the community, not gathering data about the I guess I wasn't trying to say the exclude, but I'm saying that like if if we know that the certain tens of thousands or certain percentage is rent-burdened based on whatever data, like we can know that that's part of the housing affordability situation.

Same for if we know that like 16,000 people, I think is the number going from memory, are in commuting every day.

We probably know that a few of those people, some some part of those people don't want to live in town, but probably a lot of those people would live in town if they could.

And they don't want to spend their time commuting, they don't want to spend their money on gas and oil changes and all that.

So whether they have the time to participate or not, we still know that they're out there and we can factor that in to our policy without treating them as like data in some perjorative sense.

But I'm just saying, like we can do the best we can to understand the situation and craft policy getting information from every potential source that there is, and I'm just saying that personal participation isn't necessary for you to be part of the community or for your situation to be factored into uh, you know policy.

Uh, in terms of data, it's so important for our board.

In terms of data, it's so important for our board.

And I often um ask for more data, just so I can stand what the numbers are.

What are the percentage of unhoused people who are actively looking for housing?

Um what is the percentage of people that are currently working that are not receiving child care and need supplemental um help with that?

If I don't know what the data is and they don't get the collective whole picture, of course, that human aspect is a part of it, right?

I mean, we're human beings, but you also have to have some measure metrics to know what's really happening in your community.

And um I think that the human aspect of it is really does start from the top down.

And that's a great question for the city commissioners to really um delve in.

And if there is some sort of of um break there, I mean it's something that can be addressed and and dealt with.

I mean, our city commission were elected for a reason.

You know, we all voted for a reason.

So um and that can probably be done a lot easier than than we think.

I'm sure that there are some really creative ways that that can be done so that more people feel heard by their representatives uh in terms of citizen advisory groups.

I I have never heard anyone come up to me and say, you know what, I I don't feel heard um on your board.

Um most people don't know what they are, to be quite honest.

To be quite frank, they don't know what these boards are, and that is that's probably another part of the issue.

But only a select number of people are really going to be um are really going to want to participate in these boards.

It's the this isn't something that people routinely say, hey, you know what?

I I think I want to come out on Tuesday night and look at data on affordable housing.

They may go to uh a BTU meeting, they may go to a HRDC uh event.

Um, but ours are so specialized that um I I don't know again what that would look like.

Not to say that it's not needed.

And I also think that the data can be conducted in a way that involves a community and and maybe through surveys, maybe through personal narratives.

Um so I think there's a way that you can do that so people feel more inclined to speak up.

Um but there's always going to be a segment of of our population that just won't, because most people don't.

They don't speak up.

Um and how you address that is um something that is far above my pay grade.

Thank you.

So we've gone an hour and a half with this.

If anyone has a pressing question for these, um thank you very much for coming, people, um, then we should ask it.

But if not.

I have time, so if you have a question, go ahead.

If not, what I think I'm gonna suggest is if there's anyone in the audience that wants to talk about advisory boards right now, we take that public comment, then I'm sorry, I have to have a break.

Um I'm not explaining why.

Never mind.

Um thank you all very much.

And uh I we really appreciate uh your time and thoughtfulness on this topic.

Um so now I'm gonna ask is there any public comment on advisory boards uh that anybody would like to uh step forward the same rules as before.

Okay, Daniel Cardi Bozin resident.

Um thank you for all the discussion questions.

I think uh Commissioner Franks has uh come to the bottom line, the best question of the night.

What in the charter needs to be changed?

So um relying a lot on what former mayor and county study commissioner Jeff Krause has said, and the other two representatives who are currently on city boards.

The uh inner neighborhood council is currently rewriting some of their organizational things, and what they have is a statement of intent and purpose.

That is what is missing from 407, not just for city boards, but for commissions and committees as well.

And so that's what I would suggest and that this commission write a statement of intent and purpose.

So thank you.

Thank you, Dan, for the comment and the idea of intent and purpose going into the charter.

Hi everyone.

Thanks for the great discussion.

73 Jeff is not old to run again.

I'll be your campaign campaign manager, although I have no experience.

You need to identify yourself.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I am Mark Campanelli.

Uh I'm a Bogart Park neighbor.

Um I actually told myself to do that right as I was coming up and I forgot.

Um I saw all the faces.

Uh I also am the um president and ink rep for Bogert Park Neighborhood Association, but not you know, speaking for myself.

Um I was gonna read more of this, but I was just talking to somebody about the state of Bozeman and ended my first paragraph with Bozeman seems to be losing its admittedly young soul rather than nurturing it.

And I see that you know, in Jeff's comments, especially about it just I mean, we grew so fast, but to just knock out all these um boards at the same time that we grew that fast.

I think it's kind of like here we are.

Um we need we need to nurture the middle.

We need to nurture that civic engagement of people in the middle, not using Bozeman as amenity.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who are so you know just working so hard they don't have the time.

We want I want to move those people below up into the middle and make that an expectation of civic engagement with everything going on in our country and the economic forces at play.

It's a really tall order.

And then with the local amenity-driven Kardashian condo movement here in Bozeman, it makes it even harder, maybe.

But um the this the stuff Jeff says just really resonates uh with how I see Bozeman changing.

Um I had one other uh point that I wanted to make, which was this great quote I found recently by Walter Littman, who's apparently some journalist.

We're all think alike, no one thinks very much.

And I see this emphasis on consent.

I see it especially in the commission, uh, but also with these one voice rules for the boards.

Like democ I mean, they say democracy dies in darkness.

I joke now that in Bozeman democracy dies in consent.

Like we have to have discussions.

The ethics training to focus more on how do you have a pleasant disagreement with somebody, right?

Especially in our world of Twitter, um, rather than these supposed like not having economic uh interests when I see so many boards that just seem to be now economic and economically interested in trying to move money that the city collects into different people's pockets, and that's just kind of what I see.

So anyways, those are my two big points.

Um sorry I rambled a little bit there, but I really thank you all for all the work you've done and the time you guys have come to get.

I really appreciate that.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mark.

Um, I like the concept nurturing the soul.

Democracy dying in consent and um ethics.

How do you have a conversation with someone that you disagree with?

So thank you for that.

Is there any more public comment at this time?

We do have some online.

Um we are gonna start with Amy.

Um just remember to introduce yourself and you can begin now.

Hello, Amy Hoitzma.

Um I'm the president of the Northeast Neighborhood Association.

And I'm sorry I tuned in late.

So um I I'm not sure if my comment is going to be to point or if I'm gonna say if I'm saying something that's already been said.

But I just wanted to share my perspective as um as the president of a neighborhood association.

I'm essentially a community organizer, and my job is to get people to participate.

Um and I feel like when we had more citizen advisory boards, um that meant more participation for a couple of specific reasons.

Um, one is that the boards were more you know focused on a specific area that someone who wants to participate might more readily because they're interested in that specific area.

Um the second thing is um you know some people are afraid to speak at to the city commission.

And so a smaller sort of more intimate, less intimidating citizen advisory board might encourage people to speak.

Um also the agenda is more limited because you know the city commission, if you want to speak, sometimes you have to, you know, you gotta be there for a couple hours.

So anyway, I think it was um I think we lost a lot in in consolidating the advisory boards.

We lost a lot in terms of citizen participation, and um I would encourage bringing that back.

Thanks for all that that you're doing.

It's really interesting to listen to.

Thanks, Amy.

Um I I heard you saying more participation because it's less formal in front of an advisory board and less intimidating.

And we lost something when we narrowed the number of boards and the way we did it.

Okay, and then we will have is that Rob and introduce yourself as well, and you can begin now.

Hi, my name is Zara Osman, and I live uh on the west side of town.

I would like to say that I agree with what Amy Hoitzma just said.

Um in the in the idea of combining lots of different boards into fewer boards.

Sure, there may have been some efficiency gained, um, especially um as Mr.

Delmu uh uh said, it was um kind of address more systems.

But instead, if we want these boards to be about public participating, then we should have more boards that feed into better systems and those systems be the task um created by this charter or by the study commission so that we we have uh a lot more boards feeding into better systems.

The other thing is um there are some the I oh and the idea of a community engagement board as uh uh Danielle Rogers talked about sounded like a really great idea.

I think that's worth considering.

Um there are there is some question about how commission liaisons communicate what what happened in an advisory board meeting and communicate this to the commission.

Um there's a lot of time uh spent by these advisory board members uh discussing and before they vote.

And some of that is important for the commission to know.

And I and I don't know how that's communicated.

I don't uh so what I don't know, then of course I I imagine that there's not as much communication perhaps than what is happening.

Another thing is some boards seem to carry more weight, some carry very little sway in commission decisions.

If a board has more sway, then is there a possibility that the public can participate in the selection of board members?

Unelected board members should not um uh have more sway and those advisory boards um and and should not only be appointed, but then maybe there should be some kind of um election or participation.

And then um finally I wanted to say the idea of being termed out is very important.

Um and then another uh uh thing is there are sometimes a lot of projects happening and the public simply can't keep up for all the reasons everybody stated.

There was a year, I think it was either 2017 or 2019 where we had several plan updates happening concurrently.

There was a community plan, transportation plan, downtown improvement plan, NCOD study, and it was impossible for any family to be able to participate.

And that seemed almost um overwhelming.

It was overwhelming and almost felt kind of deliberate.

Um perhaps stagger projects, if possible, so that we don't do that to the public and we don't have public um having to make a decision if they were gonna participate in a planning uh transportation plan or uh or a downtown improvement plan.

Uh thank you very much.

Thank you, Zero very much interested in your thoughts on the community engagement board.

Um and um the the uh the concept of what what's the purpose?

Is the purpose of the boards to have more participation or is it something else?

Um and uh you like term limits.

Any other public comments?

That was all of them.

All right, then we're gonna take a break.

Let's say till five minutes after six, that gives us seven minutes to take care of business.

Thank you very much.

We're in recess.

So if we could get started.

Mr.

Clark, I see you here.

Thank you for coming and waiting.

All right, where are we on the agenda?

You appear on our agenda twice, Dan.

So I assume you're just gonna do uh the two things at one time without a break.

Well and what are the things?

Um final no, I'm sorry, further learning for wards and districts.

Oh.

And then learning session for neighborhood associations and boards.

Okay.

Mr.

Chair, did I sent information out at the end of last meeting?

I guess it seems like three lifetimes ago.

Uh I guess if there's any questions or comments on that, I could respond to that.

I I should have reviewed that.

It was almost sent and forgot.

Um I could I can talk in any more if you have any more discussion about the wards, uh, what was it, wards and at large?

And I I know go ahead.

Oh, no, I'm waiting for Carson.

Sorry.

So Carson, how do you want to for Dan or comments on what he sent out?

I have one.

And probably others.

First of all, Dan, thank you so much.

You've put a lot of work in a short period of time, getting all my information, et cetera.

But I was very curious, because we're getting a lot of um important information at the global level, comparing 80 democracies at the national level.

What do we know about Montana's cities that have wards districts?

Do they have any research?

Do you does your center do research on them?

And maybe that's a recommendation we ought to be making.

Um if that helps you, frankly, politically budget-wise or whatever.

But I keep wanting to go back to see what is it that Billings in Missoula and all the cities that have the districts or wards, um, you know, how how do they evaluate themselves?

Are they are they the ones that have actually uh decided to vote uh every 10 years to look at their local government review if they have wards and districts?

Is there a correlation there just just as a one example?

And if so, what have they learned every 10 years?

What is their redistricting plan every 10 years?

It seems like we ought to know that.

And this is just not about you and the center.

I know you've got plenty of things, but I feel like it would be very important for future uh local government study groups like our own to have the data from our own state.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Yeah, and and appreciate the interest.

Uh and again, as we've said, we don't have the resources or the the ability to conduct that type of research at this point, and it'd be great if we had additional you know, persons on staff to to be able to parse those types of questions to inform this process to make it uh more meaningful.

Um to be honest, I guess I I all I can all I can draw upon uh in to add to this conversation is with the work that I've been doing in the state for 20 years, uh working intimately with with all these local governments.

This it's rarely ever brought up.

It's not something they think a lot about that I'm aware of.

Like at least those conversations that they're happening, they're not getting to me.

However, where it is a conversation, I think I've mentioned this before, and there's a is the very small rural communities that are having a difficult time because they're small town of 250 people is divided in half, and they've got to find two people on one side of town, two people on the other side, and they'll often get three people on one and one person on the other, and it's like how do we and so it's become an impediment uh for them to fully staff or or get their their commission uh uh fully staffed.

So then they're they are the ones that are are opting to shift from the wards to the at-large.

But at the level I think I think what you're looking at is at the this level uh where there's a more complex community with different uh uh what I'm thinking um things that are interacting.

That's I I've had a bunch of pastries and diet coke today, so I'm a bit well done.

Um yeah, a lot of different things are in influencing this process that uh there's a complexity here that you would see in Missoula and Billings and Great Falls that uh it hasn't come up as been an issue.

They've pretty much locked in a lot of these communities, they they adopted it like Great Falls in 1976, Billings 1976.

I'm not aware of them looking back at it, and and and they haven't been doing the local government review either.

So I yeah, but that's but I but point taken, and you know, and I think if if we were to get more resources, these would be interesting conversations to have interesting things to look at to inform this process that happens every 10 years.

Yeah.

Carson, I got one.

Dan, you've said before, other people have said that if we're gonna change the charter, there's got to be a problem we're trying to solve.

And then think that this is going to be the solution.

So for City of Bozeman, um where we have what we have now.

If we were gonna say that we were gonna go to Oregon Districts, what would be the problem we're trying to solve?

And uh, and then how would it solve that problem?

Are you asking districts or wards?

As defined by Dan.

Anything other than at large.

Yeah.

Yeah, I and I think, and I'm and I think in one of the papers that I presented to you I think last time, but I I think it's so the representation question, I think is a legitimate question that that uh that you feel as a study commission that there would be a greater value to having representation across the entire geography of the of the city serving on a board so that on the commission so that that those lived ex the lived experience of those locales could be represented in this room, and then so I think that would that could be the rationale.

Now, whether people want to buy into that or not, you know, that that's part of the public debate.

But I think that's where you could start that conversation is that we would that we feel that we of value to uh to to try to achieve a broad representation geographically uh because you can't control very easily who is going to run, but you can control where they come from, and that's one of the levers that you have control over in this process.

And that would be assuming that our increased representation, the problem is uh geographic and not people who can't run because they have a full-time JOB.

Right.

Something like what else is affecting that representation?

So people are feeling represented by what would be the question.

Yeah, but because there are there are there are probably a list, a long list of barriers, and and there are some barriers that you you have the ability to uh to manage, and some you don't.

And then those those levers, if you will, that you can you can flip or pull, uh then the question is if we if we were to pull this lever, what do we anticipate getting out of this?

And that I think could be the the conversation that you could put in your you know, in your uh your tentative report saying we're proposing this change because we're trying to achieve this thing uh that we don't feel we're currently getting with our structure that exists, and and like I've said before, this is all an experiment.

Uh the conversation we just had about the the the mega board versus the multiple boards.

It's it's an experiment.

And then and that the question is now that it's been in place for a while, is it working for us?

And are we is there certain things that we that have because uh in most of these conversations or these decisions, there's trade-offs.

And so we recognize that by doing this, there's gonna be some downside, but we hope that there's these things we anticipate happening will be a greater upside.

And I think it was probably the same conversation.

I'm assuming when they decided to go on the on the boards.

We're you know, there's some downside with having 25 boards, and by doing this, making it down to seven boards or whatever it is, we're hoping to achieve this outcome.

And now that it's played out, has that outcome been achieved and what is the cost or the the you know, has that been greater than we expected?

Um I think that's opportunity uh for either you to visit that and look at the charter.

Is there a way that you can uh use the charter as a lever to restore some sort of a balance or apply rely upon the political process, right?

That you know, and this is what we often see that there it's it's waves and valleys or hills and valleys that we try something and we we go along until it's no longer working and then becomes intolerable, and then we create the change, and then we ride that new change for a while until it it shifts.

And so and that's what I like about this process you're engaged in.

That's what I like about having the flexibility built in that allows the the city to be responsive because as was said today, Bozeman's different today than it was in 2015 or whatever.

Um thank you.

So it's helpful.

Other questions, comments on the information that we got from Dan following up.

Then he's gonna go into uh more of a presentation on neighborhood associations and boards.

Anyone else?

Double questions?

Barb.

So Dan, I'm I'm still um I'm still because I think as we think about how to solve the the problem of people not feeling represented and not feeling like they're able to participate.

Um I think we also have to think about what what are the unintended consequences that could flow from that decision.

And so when I think about potentially moving to a ward system, I'm getting, even though it's not our responsibility to draw the lines, I'm getting tripped up on trying to understand that process in our rapidly growing city that's geography is shifting.

And and as I was walking down here, a neighbor stopped and asked me a question about how you draw the lines that I'm now gonna ask because I think I know the answer, but I'm not 100% sure.

And he asked about if they're in drawing wards for a city commission election, if there is a connection between existing precincts through which we elect our state legislatures, or if it is its own separate lines on a map.

Um and and I think the answer is it's its own separate lines on a map that's not connected to the other lines that we have, but I wanted to make sure that's true.

Uh I I am I'm not aware of anything in the state statute regarding this issue that can speaks speaks to that part that you need to conform with existing uh jurisdictions.

There is other sections of the law, like when you're creating a special district, it encourages you as you draw those lines to try to match them with existing jurisdictions.

It's just easier for the Department of Revenue when they're trying to calculate taxes for a new taxi district to stick within certain lines, new, and then they can just add that aggregate.

But this is more of a political designation that isn't tied.

So I I so that's why I haven't seen the language uh that would make that requirement.

So I think you're there there's the flexibility whether you do you create those maps or take or propose maps, or whether you leave that to the commission once it's adopted to say, okay, now we'll using your criteria will engage the GIS department to flesh these out.

Um so if you have criteria, they'll have to use that in that criteria and create it.

If you don't have criteria, then they'll just say, okay, back to your gerrymandering question we have.

Yeah, and I'm just I'm trying to understand if there's a way to avoid the gerrymandering issue, and but more importantly almost is there a way to avoid having to redraw the lines every three years because our population is shifting.

And I think I well, well, what you can do to avoid the redrawing is you can set a standard as well as saying that that any one district would will be it'll be triggered to redraw the districts or the wards, sorry, the wards would be redrawn when plus or minus x percent is reached in a deviation fromes that make sense.

We you just annexed in another 300 homes, and that just shifted one and now it's out of balance, and it has to be plus or minus certain percentage for it to say, okay, now it's it's legitimized a need to reevaluate this.

There's an imbalance here, and at what level you've got to decide what level would create that imbalance.

If if we've got you know, four districts that are at 10,000, we've got one at 12,000 is is that 12,000 are being represented by one voice, you know.

What what's the trigger?

And I guess those are the conversations.

So it's a plus or minus 20 percent, is it plus or minus 30 percent?

Uh and and so yeah, I I guess that would be a way to to consider that.

And I think you can I can I think I provided some language, some proposed language that's used in other like Seattle, I think was the gold standard that they said is one that uh the language they use really has best they can given the the levers they can pull to make it as equitable as possible and reduce the the opportunity for gerrymandering in in politics.

Deanna?

Dan, do you have any uh research or uh anything to tell us about a charter language that might suggest how the lines are drawn and is there uh an appointment of a committee which would include um citizens to sit uh on that uh committee to to draw lines?

Yeah, I I believe I provided that that gave language for uh an independent committee that is uh that isn't made up of it had certain people uh who was not eligible to serve in the committee.

Okay, that was the the language that you included in this in this one.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

So there was there was but sample language from other uh cities that have been uh so you you compiled that from other cities or yes.

Oh okay.

Yeah.

And I think uh thought I gave it to you like last Friday morning.

Yes.

Or night.

I I read it.

Okay.

I don't know when you provided it, but I read it.

Yeah, when you asked the question about the gerrymanders, like that's a good question.

And it was people dialed it in.

Yeah.

Oh but that was for that was for um inner console uh neighborhoods.

Is this recommended language?

Is that no?

It's it's Seattle study.

It's on the ask a follow-up of Deanna's question.

Sure.

Um that is do we have any um evidence of how the Montana cities are re uh redistricting every 10 years?

Are they working pretty much the way we redistrict at the congressional level?

That have wards.

In other words, Montana cities with wards, how are they um keeping up with uh population changes?

Do we have knowledge of how they do that?

From my knowledge, they are only evaluated every 10 years, and they're using the state statute as the the uh framework for for initiating that.

I'm I'm not aware of anyone, or at least again, it hasn't come risen up to to connecting with us, uh doing a mid-year or a mid uh decennial uh redistricting or rewarding.

I'm just thinking that would be very relevant to us to see how other cities as we still continue to grapple with whether we want to be represented geographically or otherwise.

So the county just redrew its districts who did that.

I just know that from the news where there was a four-year-old map, and someone got yeah.

Who who changed the map?

Uh well, I believe it was probably uh by resolution was initiated by the county commission for the GIS department to create a new map that that meets the statutory requirements.

The map was brought back to the commission for their adoption, and then I think it was I don't know the whole story, but my assumption is it's probably just an error that that the map on the wall likely was not updated.

I I don't want to speak out of term, but so there's a state statute that says this is how you do the redrawing after the census, and it got done.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, so it's just an automatically triggered thing that they should that I don't know how many of them do it, but it's something that's required.

There's a lot of things required that sometimes just doesn't get done.

Mike Yeah, so um last fall I had reached out to the clerk in Missoula about how they did their ward boundaries.

Uh they were doing it every two years, they were doing a population analysis to determine if that threshold was changed.

They reverted back to the every 10 years.

Um so they they made that change last year to switch it to only go with the census data as opposed to their their own.

Um, and then they're yeah, their um their ward boundaries they had a big presentation back in, so they did it in 2023, and then in 2025, instead of doing the reboundary, they determined they were gonna do it in response to the um census every 10 years.

So when it came up on the two-year cycle, they changed their policy to do it every 10 years.

So I know Missoula went had been doing it more frequently.

Um that created a couple of incidents where somebody was in a in a ward, then the boundary changed, and then they kept their term, and then when they came up, two sitting members were now up for re-election in the same ward.

So that boundary shift raised its ugly head there.

Um, but yeah, they switched back to the after the census.

Becky.

I have a question for us with the help of Dan because I might not say it right.

And the question is, and I'm I'm reading um one of our public comments from Nasuki, um, is we are I think we're hearing loud and clear that uh citizens feel like their voices are not being heard.

But and I'm wondering, how do we feel about is it a name is it a uh because I can't vote for I can't have my person sitting on this chair, or is it because I don't have strong enough neighborhood association because I don't have strong enough advisory boards?

And one of the things that and so I'm thinking geographically is really about the the I'm not feeling represented in my neighborhood uh by the person sitting in the chair, not by the neighborhood association.

And so she said two things I think are interesting, and I'm just throwing it out there in terms of do we have a problem we need to solve by geographic commissioners?

And what she said is Bozeman's 87% white, and the non-white population isn't concentrated in particular neighborhoods, like we sometimes see in other cities, low-income residents also aren't concentrated in particular neighborhoods.

If we want more socioeconomic diversity on the commission, one issue is that most commissioners need to be retired or have a job that pays well enough so they can blah blah blah.

So is are people not feeling represented because the person sitting in this chair isn't from their neighborhood, or are they not feeling represented for a different reason?

So that we don't create a solution for a problem that we missed.

You know, it's kind of like it makes me think of I'm cold, so I'll put on a big huge thick parka for the Antarctica, and that'd be hotter than a pistol, right?

And so then it wouldn't serve my purpose, it wouldn't be the answer that I need.

So I'm just curious as to all of us to what do we think about that?

So do we want to have that discussion now?

Because I think it's an important discussion.

Um what what got us to this place of um and I'm trying not to have the discussion, but if you all want to, then I'm I'm good with that.

Do we want to have that discussion or do or is that the discussion that we have when we just next week when we start doing that?

I prefer that we wait.

I'd love to have that discussion because I stay awake at night trying to figure out this answer.

But I also feel like we have put out particular topics that people may have come here and would want to comment on, and I just want to honor that because they're an endangered species.

Deanna, I think we should discuss it now.

Barb.

I I was gonna say I'm I'm fine waiting because I think it would be useful for all of us to go back through public comment that we've received over the last year because we've had conversations with Inc.

where we've heard neighborhoods don't feel represented.

We've had other public comment where it's sort of a more lived experience feeling of not being represented.

Like I think we've had a lot of both.

Um that's and I at least feel like I want to go back through and test that memory.

I can definitely retract my request, and but I'm writing it down because you're right.

There are people here from the neighborhoods who are waiting for that conversation.

All right, so my suggestion would be let's hear Dan's presentation, then see what time what time we have and whether we want to launch into the the next part of the discussion.

Does that work for you, Deanna?

Yeah.

Okay.

Are you gonna take public comment on words before uh you go to the discussion?

Or would you like to have to wait?

I I would like you please to wait.

Um, because uh we're at 6 30, and Dan is gonna take another two hours at least.

God forbid.

I know.

All right, sorry, go ahead.

Dan, the floor is yours.

Okay.

I think we should have taken I've been working just trying to manage my time, but I apologize.

I just didn't wasn't able to get this material to you ahead of time.

So I'll hand it out now.

Whatever leftovers, I think there'll be a couple left over.

Okay.

Oh, those are can you tell me which one of those you want to do?

Those are that that those are the research articles.

Okay.

And then another email I sent that had the created handouts.

So this handout I'm providing you now is the sections of each of the city charters of peers in the state, and what their charter says about neighborhood councils, uh, neighborhood associations, uh citizens council, I think Helena calls it the neighborhood councils, and then they have a mega mega uh call the citizens council.

So now you can see the language that that is used.

Uh Silverbow County from what I uh Silverbow, but Silverbow, they from my understanding is their charter, it just is one of those things listed that under E authorizes community councils.

So it's authorized, not required.

So to my knowledge, umte Silverbow County does not operate with uh community councils or or neighborhood councils.

Um Bozeman, of course, you're familiar with what your charter language is.

Um Great Falls uh it's interesting.

Every two years I'm there doing training for their boards, and uh I was just there about six weeks ago, and they have uh uh a mandatory uh every two years a mandatory training for them to maintain their seat.

This is by ordinance.

Their seat on the on the neighborhood council, which is an elected position, they need to attend the board training uh so they understand governance and process.

Um they're elected.

Um other than what it says here, I'm not sure of the effectiveness.

I don't I'm not aware of the relationship.

It's just not something that is risen to the level that City Great Falls or their uh city council or city, yeah.

I think they call themselves the city council are engaging us around that issue.

Um Helena, we have had a lot of conversation with Helena over I'm saying probably at least probably two years about their neighborhood councils and their Helena Citizens Council and some of the struggles and challenges that they've had there, and those are elected seats as well.

Uh but most of the time they're not they're appointed because no one runs for those seats.

We can talk about that, you know, why why are people not engaged?

Um struck down in Missoula, they have a uh citizen uh community councils in and in 2006.

Uh a young person, or I don't know how young they were, a person out ofoulah working on a master's degree during the study voter review process, and as a as a part of that, they had this uh master's student do their thesis on uh the neighborhood council, and I think they looked at one of them, and so that's been informative.

Uh and I've used some of that in this material here.

Um I think that's that's the extent that those are the communities that have neighborhood councils.

Uh I am not aware of any other municipality in the state that is not on this list uh that operates community councils or neighborhood councils.

I think it is a generic option for all city council all uh plans of government that it's rarely initiated or acted on.

It's just an option.

Um thoughts or questions on on that that handout.

I don't know if I shared that with you earlier or not.

Is was the first time you're seeing it?

Yeah.

I uh the email these electronically, so they should be made available to you.

I think I got them to to Mike just before we started.

Can I ask who draw who designates the neighborhood?

No, neighborhood.

Can can I just run around to my block and say, okay, now we're a neighborhood council.

And okay, well, we'll let you in too, because you're special.

Or does the city draw do the city draw the the line saying you guys are a neighborhood?

Yeah, so uh most of these, it's gonna be that they're authorized and whether they're required or not.

I think with Helena, I'll use that as an example.

Helena, they have the entire city is is covered.

So they have neighborhoods, I think they have 14.

Uh I want to say there's 14 neighborhood councils, there are elected seats, and then and then those neighborhood councils, those each of those councils elect a representative serve on the Helena Citizens Council, which is going to be made up of the uh 14 members of the each of the 14 uh neighborhood councils.

And they have a very specific charge uh in the charter, and that is, and this has always been kind of a tension, and I'll just kind of a cautionary tell, and I don't want to spend a whole lot of time uh discussing Helena, uh, but they have their purpose, uh it's in that purpose is to review and recommend actions relating to the annual budget and make recommendations relating to future development of the city.

Those are the two purposes of why they exist.

Uh and and to my understanding is the city of Helena and the city council has not done a lot to provide structure, uh purpose, direction, a framework to operate from, uh, because there's another part there that says that they are to operate independent, right?

That first sense uh collectively comprised of Hell of a Citizens Council operating independently from the city commission or city officials.

That has never been defined legally within the city.

So the city council has a definition of what that means, and the community neighborhood councils have a definition.

The Hellison Citizen Council has a different.

They all are operating on different expectations, and that has created a lot of frustration, angst, a lot of uh ink being written.

Uh and so we're working with them, uh the city of Helena to try to figure out how after nearly 50 years uh of history and tradition and norms to try to bring that to to some sort of a purpose.

Uh and and this work, by the way, that I've I've been working with you on, I think is going to be very instructive and informative for a conversation in Helena.

So as I was doing this, I'm like, oh my goodness, this is gonna be great to add to this conversation in Helena to help them because I think there's a lost opportunity.

I think there's a real uh opportunity for if done well, these neighborhood councils to to meet that need of how do we get this uh engagement and and but but I think there's certain criteria that needs to be part of that plan for it to be effective.

What is that?

Oh I'm glad you asked.

Oh Jan, you had a thought?

Um yeah, don't go away on that subject.

I also just took a quick look at uh which of these were either connected with wards or at large uh representation.

That's as far as I got, but it made me what I've been interested in all along with our study, and we've heard from uh different uh folks that are involved with our neighborhood associations and Inc.

Um, about the relationship between um electing folks either at large in wards or wards, and if wards um were to be uh the direction we had or some partial way of them, um how how will that relationship work together?

Um, even in the the boundaries and the uh lines that are drawn as Barb referenced at the very beginning, how to make sure that they were not crossing all of those boundaries.

But in terms of whether or not the actual relationship between uh the effectiveness, you know, my favorite word, the effectiveness of the cities that are at large, um are they are they having better uh success with, and I'm hearing Helena didn't uh better success with their neighborhood associations, or is there any kind of a relationship between the success of neighborhood associations and the type of uh electoral systems and structures they have?

Yeah.

Uh so if I were to call Helena and Great Falls are both elected at large, uh they both have neighborhood councils.

Um I'm not sure how uh Great Falls has their structure uh and what its relationship is to the wards, but it's not a it's not uh I think it might be something for consideration as well.

Just if if you're if you are choosing to go the ward route, oh what would be the relationship?

Is there a relationship, or could you geographically right?

Because neighborhoods don't necessarily what may not necessarily follow exactly political boundaries you want to create for wards, right?

And then Billings doesn't have any notion of a at least here in their charter of neighborhoods at all, and yet they are a very strong ward community, right?

And yet they are a very strong ward community, right?

And they have 10 commissioners.

And so that may serve as, right?

That ward is, you know, well, they're gonna have five wards, and so two per.

Yeah.

Think about from a ground up perspective to be able to think about the grassroots um pipelines, experience, voices that we would want to have very strong neighborhood associations.

And that's why I keep raising Seattle because I think it's one of the strongest in the country.

But also, um, how then can they best integrate with whatever representation electoral system we have, and then of course, all the discussion we've been having with the city city boards, and I think that would be a part of another discussion that we want to have before the month is out.

Thank you.

Um the handout I just provided uh in the question, what oh, sorry.

Are you starting where you left off before Jan ask you the question?

Is that okay?

Yes.

Yes.

Just making sure we didn't lose something.

Did we lose something?

We could go ahead.

Okay.

All right.

Um recording.

The so the the question too what what what is it and back to this effectiveness, right?

So I'm I'm keen on that that question effectiveness.

And so I again my my process of going out and finding a bunch of of papers, you know, academic papers that are written about neighborhood councils and the studies that have been going on and case studies and and what can we learn from these uh about neighborhood councils and their effectiveness.

And so I doing a bunch of grinding with that, and and our good good buddy uh artificial intelligence saying, okay, here's a bunch of these articles.

And how are these articles looking at effectiveness and what does effectiveness look like?

And it came up with f for uh criteria for effectiveness.

Now, whether these are what you feel are appropriate or not, this is what we've come up from from these uh I don't know, eight or so studies that that uh Mike had up on the the screen.

And did it not make the rounds to you?

Oh they're on their way.

So you'll see there the the uh improved two-way communication, and and and so what I'll say is when I look at a lot of these uh charter language, they're not there's not a level of intentionality.

They're just saying they're we're creating them, they have this kind of vague purpose, and then it's really relying upon the the local government, the city to flesh that out, to create the the detail, the nuance, how it's gonna be structured, what how what how do we want that relationship to be?

And I think with the example of Helena, this that there has been an animosity, just to say publicly, and I probably you know, I'm sure if they're listening, there has been a tension between the neighborhood councils, right?

This independent idea between each neighborhood or between the neighborhood and the commission.

Okay, yeah, this independence to where they feel like there has been communicated on occasion that we're the fourth branch of government, and our Helena Citizen Council exists to be a check on the commission, which weird face.

It's like that's that's not a thing.

That's uh anyway.

So it again is trying to figure out, right?

And providing that direction and purpose and scope, so that that gives it, and I think when you do that, when you provide that purpose and focus and scope, then you're gonna allow people that want to you're gonna it's better to attract people into those positions to provide that relationship.

And one way you do that is gonna have a two-way communication.

I'm listening to what you have to say, I'm going to respond in some way as a commission, and then we're gonna communicate back, right?

There's a give and take.

Now I will say that in the the literature, um, what I have found is that there's a lot of references to Minneapolis.

And and they initiated, I mentioned this, I think last time we met in about 1990, they started this this they had a they had a vision, a philosophy, they created a framework, they invested resources to implement that, right?

And so it was it would and and as a result they affected change because of their commitment and their vision and their and their the purpose and framework, right?

You if you're gonna do it, you're gonna do it.

Umes that bother you're like so anyway, so so what I'll say is that with 1990, and that's still the poster child that they're raising up, is what happened in the 1990s.

It is it is a challenge to make the commitment to have this relationship.

All right, so so back to the the effectiveness.

So improve the two-way communication, increase uh residents' participation in planning, budgeting, policy discussions, right?

Give them purpose for them to feel like I am affecting impact and change.

Uh serve as legitimate advisory board rather than advocacy.

If I don't feel like I'm a legitimate part of the process, that frustrates me.

So if I don't have a legitimate avenue to participate, then I'm going to advocate.

I'm gonna shift my role from partner to now an advocate.

Is that is that making sense?

So there's some some subtlety that we've got to think about is your framing out what potential language might look like.

Are we counting for this?

And then uh build neighborhood level social capital and leadership capacity.

So is it an investment?

This could also be seen as the reservoir of future leaders, right?

Your advisory boards, your neighborhood councils, this is where the future leaders are gonna sit in here in these seats, are gonna be practicing, are gonna be learning how to engage, to have difficult conversations, to disagree, to make decisions, to practice parliamentary procedure so that they can be effective when they hit this stage here.

Um drawn heavily from those uh references there.

Um what I wanted to also say, what I found fascinating, and I uh as I went through this, is some of the the research for effectiveness spoke to me because I do other training on uh employee engagement.

So the Gallup, uh they do a lot of surveys and they do this a worldwide survey on employee engagement, and the things they say of what managers can do to increase employee engagement, seem the exact same things in my and also based on my experience, because I've worked on both sides of the equation.

I've worked with within communities, rural communities across the state of Montana, how do they engage to affect change in their community with or without local government?

And I've been working with local governments, how do you work with the community and the citizens to affect change, right?

Uh and and these are the things that resonated with me.

So you look at the bottom of page one there, also supported by Gallup.

The research shows uh having connection to a common mission and purpose, feeling clear about role, expectations, and priorities.

And this is, I think the challenge with Helena.

They've never really sat down to say, this is your role, this is what we expect from you.

Here are our priorities.

We want you to respond to these, to engage your neighborhood, to talk about these things.

We've heard anecdotally from people in Helena that they said, I thought I could get involved and create change in my community in my neighborhood.

I joined the the neighborhood council and and realized oh, this this isn't this is not the avenue for me to create change.

So they backed out and decided I will find other ways in which I can affect change in my neighborhood because the structure, the purpose was lacking.

And it be just became oh, if I wanted to join this group to rail against the city and all the bad things they're doing, that's a great form for me to do that.

I'm not here to rail against the city when I don't think like what they're doing, I'm here to make a change.

This is not the place for is that making sense?

I don't want to, I should say the nameless community.

Uh, because now if Helen is watching this, they're gonna be angry with me.

Uh ask for input, act on it when possible, right?

It's the same thing we're hearing as these community or these uh neighborhood councils.

We we want your input, we hear your input when you bring it back to us.

This is what we've done with the input.

We're gonna return and share with you.

This is why we did it or what we didn't do or why we couldn't, but I think that communication is empowering for people, and once people realize, oh, this is legitimate.

I can impact my neighborhood, I can impact the city, and I can have a voice, because the way the structure is set up, you're gonna find people more willing to step up in serving those roles.

So the volunteerism, if we're struggling with volunteerism, it could be because people don't feel like the volunteerism in that form is gonna be a mechanism to be uh feel like my I'm valued and I'm creating change.

Um it goes on.

I don't want to read to you exactly what it says here, but um and and the the part like uh Minnesota that there's an investment in the development of these neighborhood councils, right?

And so if we're trying to, you know, I don't want to you know throw anybody in the bus, but I don't want to be thinking about how do we save money, reduce time, you know.

It's it's a it's a it's a discussion of investment and its priorities, right?

We have limited money, how do we prioritize these things and what do we value, right?

Minnesota wasn't sitting on a pile of cash, Minnesota or Minneapolis decided this is a priority, and we want to to invest in this priority to have this kind of impact, not unlike what you're doing here.

We have a vision, we think this is going to work, we're gonna make an investment, we're gonna try it, it's all an experiment, and we'll evaluate it, and we'll tweak it or abandon it.

Um so these are the things in which we're evaluating the community neighborhood councils, sorry, the community council neighborhood councils, and then with each of these, you'll see under uh number one and number two, these you know, and three and four, there's these uh what is what does the research say?

Um, why it works, and then we I usually come up with some sort of a suggestion.

And what I've ended up doing, not a lot, I'm not making recommendations to be clear.

Where am I at?

Deanna, this is not recommendations, however, I also know, particularly with policy development, it's easier for you to respond to something than it is to try to figure out what should it be.

So I'm gonna hand out another packet.

This will be the last one for the day.

And it's it's included in the last couple pages of that handout.

But what I've done is I've created a comparison chart with your existing charter and incorporated some of these suggestions about how to make the existing language stronger to where you're incorporating those four points of effectiveness.

Now you can debate whether those are the right points, whether we should add another one.

That's fine.

We can we can keep working this.

Uh, but but this is this is those four points of effectiveness, and thinking about how do we incorporate language into the existing charter just to elevate that?

Uh and and knowing, and I and I want to honor the conversation that was held before I came up here in that how we view the charter.

And it it's is it are we splitters or clumpers in a way, right?

So we do we clump it all and just say we're gonna have a very generic language and let the the local government figure it out?

Are we gonna be very prescriptive?

Right, and two philosophies.

I I oscillate between the two all the time.

Um so you've got to decide.

Do you strip down the language for neighborhood associations and make broader latitude for the local government to decide how they want and and and let me back up?

Strip it down and replace it with what they were saying earlier about purpose and intent.

What was it, purpose and intention?

Somebody somebody made that.

Yes.

Yes.

Purpose and intent and purpose.

Intent and purpose.

So strip it down and just focus on language for intent and purpose, and then allow the local government to interpret that and to create the infrastructure for that meets that intent and purpose.

That's one option.

Or create the intent and purpose and and go a little bit further in creating that structure.

This this is how we want that intent and purpose and allow that to be experimented with and uh you know change it if you need it.

And the other thing, the hope is no uh Becky, you were saying earlier that we, you know, this is good for 10 years.

The reality is you can change this anytime you uh it's gonna be stuck for three years.

If you make a change, that change will last for three years.

But any time after that three years, it's back on the table again.

So you got but well, no, that the commission could do it too.

Yeah, the commission can place on the ballot the question, or it could be a petition.

Yeah.

So a petition, where the people are angry enough that they say, hey, we want this to happen, we don't care what you say, or that you can petition, you can prevail upon the council, the commission and say, hey, we really want to see this change.

Can you place this on the ballot and allow the public to weigh in?

But it's a high bar, regardless.

So look, so that's uh I guess that's what I have for you in trying to respect your time.

Um and and to be clear, Deanna, these are not recommendations, but uh uh helpful.

Yeah, it did put recommended revisions, but but they're there are suggestions, right?

And it might with the intent of something for you to respond to, something for you to engage the public around is does do you feel like this will help us achieve uh a more responsive two-way communication, developing capacity within these uh uh neighborhoods, uh strengthening the network and and getting that grassroots participation, right?

So these neighborhood councils are that bridge between the commission and the public, right?

As our boards are often seen as that bridge.

And so part of it's a philosophy that you want to have.

What's our philosophy about this?

And then how do we create a structure or framework scaffolding that allows us to accomplish that philosophy that we have or the vision that we have about what we want government in Bozeman to look like?

And what are the tools we need to use to do that?

So I don't know if that was a whirlwind, if there's too much, not enough things for you to these coming to us in our email box.

Yep, yep.

And I provided all those articles, Barb, for you to geek out on, like you said last time.

So uh and I even have the uh the master's thesis from U of M on Missoula's uh it was from 1996.

Yeah, when they were doing the the local government review, and I think they're looking at their charter at the time uh film.

All right.

Questions of Dan.

Do you want to go that way?

Starting with you, Barb, if you have one.

You're not required to have a question.

I do actually have one.

Um an observation about our current language is that it does not require that all neighborhoods have a neighborhood association.

I look at Missoula, Helena, and Great Falls and sort of putting aside the election piece, they all require and the city commission designates neighborhoods.

And and it I'm wondering, you did not include that in your recommendations.

So I'm wondering if you have thoughts on the pros and cons of that.

To be honest with you, I didn't realize that they were that we didn't that the whole city wasn't covered with the neighborhood council.

It's not, and I think that's part of the problem.

Oh 28%.

That's what I just heard today, and I probably should have done a little more research, but uh yeah, so that now I think that's another good conversation to have.

And and I think that could I think there's a purpose for that for having a neighborhood, it's an opportunity to come together.

Although I mentioned last time I I don't participate in that, but but I value what neighborhood councils can do.

It can create community, it creates a resiliency within that community because we have connections, relationships, it builds trust within that community.

Um that can spread, right?

It doesn't just have to be within these political lines that we've drawn on the map, but I think having an intentionality about creating engagement within our community and purpose and connection to where we're looking out for each other, right?

It can be a lonely place, uh, particularly now with the internet and social media and some of those things, you know.

Well, my community is you know this group, you know, out here in the world versus my neighborhood.

Um so that I think I think there could be some value in fostering that.

I think there's some civil civic value to that.

That it's just my opinion, so take it for a public comment for what it's worth.

Can I can I just jump in here?

One one thing, so I have the code section up here about how an area gets um created, and that's it.

That's in our municipal code implementing the charter requirement.

One of the things that was brought up in the in the past, a member of a neighborhood association did not feel that the boundaries of their neighborhood association represented what was currently viewed as their neighborhood.

Um so there wasn't the contemplation that I can read in here for revising those once they're created.

So the the current ordinance that's out there specifically says of an area not recognized previously, may form a neighborhood association.

There's nothing in here about splitting one, changing the boundaries after it was created.

So in this particular instance, like I don't think I'm breaking any news, it's midtown.

And with the way 7th has developed, east of 7th and west of 7th are very different locations, but the boundary goes from about 3rd to 11th.

And so the feeling that the people east of 7th are in the same neighborhood as the people west of 7th isn't felt by the residents in that neighborhood association.

So while you're thinking about this, if we're gonna continue this, and it's not going to be a city dictated, and they had reasons for that in the previous charter that they wanted it to be the neighborhoods themselves to self-define, but if it's not going to be city dictated, there should be some mechanism for modification at a future point.

So just something that had come up in the past with discussions about neighborhoods.

Um so I just thought I'd share that right now.

Sorry, I'm about to sneeze, so someone jump into the fray.

Oh, okay.

Um to explain my amusement.

I I was born and raised in Minneapolis.

Oh, and and I went back to visit it uh two summers ago, and most of the neighborhoods were either taken over by gangs or burnt to the ground.

So whatever they did to form cohesive neighborhoods, I don't think really worked, but that it's a different conversation.

Um my question to you is you're very uh this is all very open for discussion and back and forth and let's get everybody's ideas.

Are you familiar with Bozeman's um uh no one voice, one body, one voice uh policy you're looking at you're not okay.

Well, which binds our councils and advisory boards to discussions, uh, and once they reach a decision, then no one can talk about their uh dissenting views except privately with the city manager.

They can't go, you know, it's it's so it's a very um that's what the commission, the city commission is that's that's uh uh it's a resolution 5323 and uh applies just to the commission or to no, it applies to all the city, uh all city uh neighborhood councils and advisory boards.

Correction on that 5323 explicitly does not apply to the inner neighborhood council or neighborhood associations, it only applies to boards and committees that are majority city appointees, and the city does not appoint any neighborhood association representatives, they don't appoint Inc.

anything like that.

I also if you want to get into a discussion on 5323, have a lot of thoughts about that line, and I just disagree.

Yeah, there's a philosophy behind that, right or wrong, but there's a philosophy that drives it.

Could you um uh are you coming back to us?

Oh, I hope not.

Oh, okay.

My sarcasm.

Well, it's just a governing philosophy that you know, then which is all debatable, but that this is a philosophy that apparently has been adopted by policy that uh there's a little legitimacy behind it, but yeah.

Um just say that when the decision is made in this room, even if it's you know if it's three to two, when the city city manager sits somewhere around here, the city manager when he leaves this this room is gonna implement that at 100%.

Does that make sense?

Right.

So once we made a decision, we're all in, and we're not gonna talk about the decision.

It's it's like that is now gonna be the full-on, we're doing this.

Okay, but I'm talking about the the advisory boards that were formed to advise and bring uh bring information forward.

But I stand corrected, it doesn't apply to neighborhood council.

So uh that discussion I'll have to to to be back when we're back with uh advisory boards.

Um I guess I have uh no other further uh questions.

Thank you for your work on this.

Okay.

I got no wow.

I do, but I'm not I can't stay much longer.

Okay.

I I don't know if this is a comment or qu it we've sort of been into this, but would it be helpful?

Uh I think everybody would agree that if the city, every house in the city was a part of a neighborhood association, that that would be a good thing.

Um but the question is how do you do it in a way where you're encouraging participation rather than requiring it, or um you're creating a mandate that's never going to happen because you you've created that.

Uh and it's different in my mind to trying to create um wards which are bigger.

Um just I guess if we in some fashion recommended put it in the charter or whatever, something that said the city neighborhood coordinator should be a full-time job, blah, blah, blah.

And a task of that person should be to create boundaries for neighborhood associations.

Is that doomed to failure?

I don't know about doomed to failure.

I'm thinking about one of the communities that was on the list.

Who was it?

Can I add to the question?

Yeah.

And uh, and would it be like you can only have 14 neighborhoods, however, that person goes and draws them, but we can't have 52.

Oh, let's just have 106, right?

How does that work all together?

So one of the so language, I was gonna try to pull it up here, and I think you'll find in the constitution and you'll find it throughout the statute that's that it's the power to adopt, amend, and repeal that that you know, whether that's used with neighborhood councils where where neighborhoods that feel like they can they can they can be created, they can amend themselves, you know, how do we how do we dissolve, how do we change boundaries?

I think creating some of that flexibility, and this is what I think is a great example oftentimes as we're governing, it's we're responding to a need, right?

An expressed need, how do we deal with the need, and not and necessarily anticipating the whole big picture, or or you just didn't have the imagination of what that picture looks like until it's like the next thing shows up, it's like oh didn't even see that, and well, let's go back, right?

And so that so being willing to re-engage, and this is that that that more perfect union, right?

We're we're trying to figure out how do we just make this better, and we keep revisiting as our our needs and issues change.

So I think and I'm maybe getting lost in your with your question here, but I think that idea of the adopt amend create uh or create adopt amend repeal, providing that ability uh I think you were saying to the what was your question?

You know, I got lost there.

It's the question sort of raised the how do you get full neighborhood association representation across the city in a way that's likely to work because you could create uh make it 25 neighborhood associations which someone researched very carefully and sort of tried to put together the right number.

So what's the uh 2,500 people per neighborhood association, something like that.

But when you do that, what's the experience of you create a this is your organization and no one gives a damn?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, that I think that we we can kind of look at like Helena is you maybe like that.

It's just there isn't that purpose and intent uh that exists there very well.

Um, I think it's twofold.

I think what you're what you're what we're discussing right now is structure.

What's what should be the structure?

The other part I think is is what's the what's the vision?

What's how do we how do we make them effective?

How do we have this engagement, right?

This this community this engagement by the public to where they feel like their voices are being heard, and this could be a mechanism that in these neighborhoods, people can convene and they can discuss issues.

And if it's this is what I often say to to elected officials relative to their appointed advisory boards, when they're saying we can't get anybody to participate, can't find any volunteers to say yes, we'll serve on the board.

It's like, well, how are you treating the boards?

Yeah.

And and are you engaging them?

Are you saying, here's a challenge that we have?

We want you to engage bicycles, we want you to engage on the issue of bicycles.

And we want you to come up with a strategy and a plan.

We would like to have XYZ happen within the next 10 years.

We want you to figure out how to make that happen.

And bring your recommendations back to us for us to to ratify it or canonize it.

And I think it really depends upon how the whole system works.

So you you you engage them, you give them a charge, and they come back and you say, thanks for participating.

And we're not going to do anything about it.

Do you think they're going to put the effort in next time?

No.

So it so it comes back to this philosophy, right?

You need to have a philosophy, and that philosophy is going to be transitory within elected officials.

That's the model we have.

So either you're going to make it part of the institution, right?

Where it's part of the DNA, regardless of who sits in these seats.

This is how we believe and how we feel, how we value this type of engagement.

And then that's when you're going to canonize that in your charter, or it's going to be canonized the administration of this organization.

But that administration can ship based on what these folks want.

Does that make sense?

So that's what I think it really comes down to that two-way.

We we see you as valuable partners in helping us govern this city.

We need your input.

So it's thinking way out ahead, push it out to the neighborhoods, give them purpose, talk about these things, give us thoughts and recommendations because it might look radically different from one side of seventh and the other side of seventh.

And how do we then at this table figure out how do we meld that into some coherent policy for the whole city?

Anyway, those are thoughts.

And then one quick are there any examples in Montana where the wards are defined by neighborhood associations or neighborhood associations all fitted to different wards and have some coordination there for between them.

I haven't looked at that level, and that would be interesting to look at.

That's what I was asking.

Yeah, the 14, yeah, the 14, like I'm looking at Helena with their 14 that was a selected 14 with the charter originally, and it hasn't been changed since 1976.

So it's been operated with 14.

And I'm sure Helen has grown since that time.

And how they how they manage that, I don't know.

But Helena has elected at large, as does Great Falls.

Yeah.

Who else?

Butte.

Butte has districts.

Because they're a county.

So it'd be interesting to see how they overlap, and then Missoula likewise.

It'd be interesting to find out what their but they have they have six wards.

Six wards.

17 councils.

How many?

They have 14 neighborhoods and six wards.

Okay.

And then they annex something new.

Yeah.

Any other questions of Dan at this point?

Dan, I just really want to appreciate all this additional work and bringing the effectiveness criteria to us because I think it's going to act as a foundation, certainly for me, in terms of how I want to look at some of the other proposals that we are going to make.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Dan.

I really appreciate it.

Are we ready for the last round of public comment?

Is there any public comment?

And then I'll just say what that is.

Hi, I'm Mary Bateson, Bozeman resident.

Thank you for considering my advocacy for at-large voting.

Thank you for the word.

Thank you for allowing citizens to continue to vote for the best candidates who exhibit integrity, skill, and experience.

I really don't want to be forced to vote for an address.

Thank you for considering that this November 2026 election, Gallant County will have only one candidate for the position of District 3 commissioner.

Is this democracy?

Consider the damage and cost that wards can have and districts are having in real time for our community and our democracy.

Thank you for adopting the position.

I know you haven't done that yet, but that at-large voting provides Bozeman citizens better outcomes than a ward system would.

Let's leave it at large.

Let's not do a 10-year experiment.

Thank you for the work you're continuing contributing to our community, and thank you for listening.

Mary, thank you very much for your advocacy for at large voting.

Any other public comment?

Hello again.

Uh Mark Campanelli, uh Bogart Park neighbor, uh president of the Bogart Park Neighborhood Association and Inc.

representative.

I've been the Inc.

rep for maybe I think it's about three years now and president for a couple of years.

Um, a couple items of feedback.

I actually was on the subcommittee of Inc.

that provided some suggested language.

I don't know how many of you have been able to review that.

That was a little while ago.

Um I'm happy to circulate these documents.

It was in our packet, just so you know.

Oh, it was okay, great.

Thanks.

Sorry.

Um I was I'm totally unprepared for coming to this meeting tonight, so I do apologize.

Anyways, I'll I'm happy to circle back.

Um Alison Sweeney, who is now commissioner, is is no longer going to be part of that subcommittee.

But um thanks for reviewing that.

I appreciate you guys considering our feedback.

Um we did discuss a lot about this idea of like dividing up the city and mandating sort of neighborhood associations.

Uh in the end, and I maybe I'll just speak for myself here, but I think I had some agreement that we really like the organic nature of people who are motivated and coming together for the neighborhood associations.

That is also used as a double-edged sword against us that oh, you don't represent the whole city.

And um that is for a careful um politician to judge, right?

To weigh that in their evidence.

Um that's what I have to say on that.

Um, because you do have more activist neighborhood associations and then ones that are more informational, right?

So there's a picture there.

Um, but the the neighborhood associations do form a check and balance by having sort of this other way of doing things.

And I I think a lot of us agree that that's very important.

Um if we do go to wards, um, I view it as that wards council person.

That's their job to kind of rally neighborhood associations in their ward and then use that as a tool to get information and and talk.

Um I'm I guess I'm a little less against mandating and like the whole idea of wards for me is to like that's that's kind of your job to make it happen as opposed to mandating.

Um the two-way communication part here and and these recommendations is spot on how many times we feel like we're screaming into the void.

Um and then people want to become a little bit more activists when they don't feel like they're being heard, and then that creates these weird dynamics.

So just yeah, just please listen to us.

Um communication street.

Uh number nine on page two has this capacity develop and transmit reasons consensus-based advisory input.

Again, I'm having a uh neighborhood meeting, annual meeting on Monday.

I want to pass the disagreements and the agreements up, right?

Like, why is it always have to be this like one voice?

It's just the polarization of our our world now, I guess.

Um so yeah, the minority report is important, and I'm out of time.

And sorry, I had jotted down notes kind of on the fly here, and that's it.

So again, thank you for listening.

Thank you, Mark.

Um interesting to me was the idea of if you had ward and award representative that part of their responsibility would be to rally the neighborhood associations and get them uh more active.

Um I hear loud and clear the two-way communication point.

So thank you for that.

Is there any other public comment?

My name is Pam Bodie, and I am a Bozeman resident.

And um again, I'd like to thank you all for the work that you are doing and for volunteering to be elected for this honor of helping the city be better.

And thank you also for the research work that you provided tonight.

I was especially excited to see the part about um having neighborhood associations serve as a legitimate advisory body rather than an advocacy or a political body.

And I think that the current neighborhood associations have strayed in some times in the recent past on and have dabbled in political action.

I'd like the study commission to take a close look at the Great Falls example.

When I first saw this about a year ago as part of the neighborhood association surveys that went out, I was excited to see the opportunity that neighborhood association officers could be elected in a general election.

I think it really shouldn't cost too much more for the city to add another name or two onto the ballot.

And I think it also would help the neighborhood associations feel more legitimate in that the their representative is someone who they actually chose.

It might increase voter participation if they had a local person that they were advocating for.

So please just if you consider those two points in your deliberation.

I appreciate your time.

Pam, thank you very much for your comments and the making the distinction between legitimate advising advising versus advocacy.

And uh fascinating to see what's happening in Great Falls and having elections every two years for the various neighborhood councils.

That was something I got assigned to, and I kind of looked at that and some of it seems to be working, and some of it seems not to be working.

Um I'm happy to talk to you a little bit more about it later after the meeting, which will end very soon, I think.

Any other public comment?

We do.

Um we are going to start with Amy again and remind her to introduce yourself.

Hello again, Amy Hoytzva, um president of the Northeast Neighborhood Association.

I um I'm struggling, I I I did some uh Googling in the last hour while you were talking.

I had attended some training as part of uh the neighborhood associations some years ago with the through the city, and had learned that there are two distinct types of neighborhood associations, and one um some cities have it as a it's a unit of land use planning.

So it's it's mandated in code this requirement that all neighborhoods have a have a neighborhood association, and then there's the more informal um setup that we have here, and I just want to um point out the sort of the tension with the neighborhood associations, it at least with the the formation of the Northeast Neighborhood Association, you know, the city um is sometimes not your it you were advocating it uh against the what the city wants to do.

Um and that's how the Northeast Neighborhood Association was formed, um, wanting to build a transfer station in the neighborhood, basically.

Um so there is that tension, um, and I know and there's trade-offs because I spoke with uh the I can't remember his name now, the fellow from Fort Collins who was uh who was um the other candidate for the director of community development, and he said in in Fort Collins they have the neighborhood associations are they're staffed, you know, they they have a staff and they have they have resources, which we do not have, but you know, there is this tension with being um a an arm of the city versus being an advocate of the neighborhood, maybe sometimes um in opposition to the city.

Um I I I guess I'm sort of reiterating what Mark said in a little way, but um so I I just want to I just want to put that out there.

Um I also wanted to speak about the issue of the defining the boundaries of the neighborhood.

Um the Northeast Neighborhood Association, the the boundaries are huge, and there really are differences between the issues that are faced by the people who live east of Rouse versus west of Rouse and but every time we've tried to change the boundaries and turn it into two neighborhood associations, people freak out and they they're like, we want to be part of Nina.

We're not gonna we don't want we don't want a different neighborhood association.

So it is what it is.

Um we uh love our neighborhood as big as it is, and we try to engage everybody and um this is tough stuff.

I really appreciate the um what you're what you're considering.

So I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Amy.

I think you've captured some of the tension between being an arm of the city and an advocate for the neighborhood.

And I'm fascinated by the Northeast neighborhood boundary disputes.

I did not know that I got the idea that one side of Rouse had different ideas than the other side, but I did not know there were efforts to change the boundaries from time to time.

Thank you for that.

And then we do have uh Zara as well.

And you can begin another.

Hi, my name is Dara Osman.

Uh and again, I live on the west side of Bozeman.

And I am also one of the steering committee members of the Valley Unit Neighborhood Association.

Um but in but right tonight I'm speaking on behalf of myself.

Um I wanted to um just talk about how neighborhood associations um recently we have kind of been uh growing and developing and we just are in the process of updating our bylaws um which are going to be finalized this next week.

And sometimes, as as I very much agree with what Amy Hoytzma just said, um neighborhood associations absolutely may decide um decide as a group to have an advocacy role on certain issues.

If we don't do it at the neighborhood level, then at what point do neighborhoods and residents have an opportunity to voice their concerns.

And the way that we are addressing this in our new bylaws is that we are in order to ensure that the neighborhood association representatives who attends the INC meetings, and at that INC meeting sometimes makes a representational vote for a decision that is going to be then forwarded on to the commission.

Um in order to truly represent that neighborhood, we are because it's easier to take polls and surveys now, that is what we have uh done uh the last few times, and I think that has made it a lot easier for us to truly represent our our our neighbors.

So um and also uh neighborhood associations um are kind of a nice alternative to the ward idea.

And the reason is, as uh Mike Moss said about how midtown east of seventh versus west of seventh um is truly different, um that is actually exactly why I I believe neighborhood uh or awards will not work.

I live on the central west side, and if we have somebody, if I'm blocked, say we we broke Bozeman up into four units, um, and uh and I'm grouped together with um the northwest side of Bozeman, they have they may have very different concerns and very different um uh ideas of what is is important.

And I so I don't think you can just indiscriminately uh divide up the town that way, but neighborhood associations make a lot more sense.

Um they do need more investment from the city.

In our neighborhood, we have uh you know a lot of condos and apartments as well as single family residences, and sometimes um in order to get the word out, email is the best way, especially to get those polls and surveys answered.

So what we how do we contact all those people?

Well, we we need some help from the city.

Right now we only have one opportunity once a year to have the city send out postcards.

Um and um, but maybe there's some other ways.

You know, we have everybody has an email address associated with their utility bills, and maybe that is one way we could grab um uh email addresses for various neighborhood associations, especially if we're gonna utilize them, uh not necessarily make them more mandatory, but make them more effective.

There might be some ways that we can connect um representatives better to all the different more transient residents because especially um these days people don't stay in the same place and trying to to go to 600 different front doors and front porches uh is is a tough thing to do to ask uh the steering committee of the various neighborhood associations to to do that kind of um uh uh door knocking.

So uh especially when it has to happen multiple times a year.

So um yeah, we we just need some more investment from the city and and maybe we are um gonna be treated a little bit more um uh like a uh uh uh a member and a part of the decision making process um in terms of feeding information to the commissioners.

thing to do to ask uh the steering committee of the various neighborhood associations to to do that kind of um uh uh door knocking so uh especially when it has to happen multiple times a year so um yeah we we just need some more investment from the city and and maybe we are um gonna be treated a little bit more um uh like a uh uh uh a member and a part of the decision making process um in terms of feeding information to the commissioners thank you thank you very much Sarah for your thoughts I appreciate hearing of ways to determine what the neighborhood association wants polls and surveys um also the thought of should neighborhood associations be seen as an alternative towards um and third um investment we need to put money into this if we're gonna help it work um the way that we intend it to thank you very much for that Caleb any more public comment there are no more great I think um now a brief conversation about the next meeting um Jennifer just a reminder I mentioned last meeting I invited uh County Commissioner Zach Brown to join us at the first part of the meeting I've got a long list and Carson and I are meeting tomorrow to develop questions for him in advance so he can prepare um but it could range from compensation which we've been thinking about to um filling vacancies the district representation that's been uh referenced earlier candidate voter turnout and redistricting among others so I think it'll be a uh very uh helpful conversation thank you great you might have noticed that Jen Boyer attended and so I saw her and she can be here by five o'clock so um I'm gonna suggest that we start with Zach and her at five great do the rest of our uh meeting business from four to five thank you anything else on the next meeting Deanna we had a lot of public comment uh today on um uh the um uh 5323 and I think we should put that on our agenda to uh take a look at that and um discuss if it would be one of our recommendations to uh have the CityCon uh commissioners can Mike can can you make sure we all get a copy of it for the next meeting and then if you could come with your thoughts on it as well I'd appreciate that anything else for the next meeting um the the other um question is uh and I can't remember what the question was but the we never resolved we uh had originally had a uh meeting scheduled for the week of April 20th on the 234th on the well it was originally on the 23rd and then there was a conflict and we couldn't have the meeting room we never resolved whether we needed to schedule another meeting that week I feel like we do because we have not yet been able to actually start talking about some of these topics and what changes we may or may not want to make to the charter and as one of the co-drafters of our report I'm feeling increasing stress about our deadlines.

Yeah in addition Greg has a proposal that he would like us to discuss regarding the request for um survey information by the Gallon Valley Sentinel he he thinks we need to make a decision on that there is a recommendation so I I think we should meet that week and the real question is when can we do it Mike I think you had sent out a save the date on the 24th is that accurate that's why I have a calendar anyway oh it's a Friday yeah it's a Friday I was going to suggest if we were available on that Friday since that's been the only date that we've been asked to commit to one that we meet maybe noon to two or noon to one thirty um if at all possible I know people have paid jobs and I'm reluctant to interfere with that but that's a suggestion I actually have that day off because it's the last Friday of the start of the you're just gonna let's yeah let's start early I can meet it an eight hour meeting um no you can get a piece of my day off you can't get my entire day off what's available on that day right now I have the room reserved from one p.m for us until then on the 24th.

One to three we have I I have it from one until the end of the day it's two hours there's nothing there's nothing else in that can we do noon to three?

Good noon to three anybody?

So this is uh April the 22nd.

24th.

How about noon to three?

Let me let me double check on the big device.

Do it with me.

Maybe the volume year.

I have a doctor in it, too.

Are you out of it?

No, it's I can try to be scared.

That's what it is.

And then I can move on.

Okay.

No, no, no.

All right, let's aim for noon to two or three.

Okay.

And we'll confirm it on the uh at the meeting on the 15th.

Okay, and what time?

Noon to two or three.

And Mike, is it available at 11?

Uh rooms open all day.

Is it 11 day or something?

Well, that then we could get done earlier, 11 to 2.

Jan has a an appointment at 2.

11 to 2?

I can do around to 2.

Well, let's try and figure out all of us between us 11 to 3.

What two-hour period could we fit in there?

And then we'll I'm flexible.

Flexible.

Okay.

And Mike, if you can just check it out and then we'll on the 15th, we'll concretize the actual time.

Is that all right?

If we're gonna do it on that day from 11 to will you send it out so because I'm looking at it right now.

So it's until the 15.

So rooms wide open that whole day.

All right.

So should we try for 11 to 2?

That's let's aim to try.

All right.

Okay.

That's good.

Anything else?

If not, this meeting is adjourned at 7.40.

Gold Star Dan caller.

No.

Oh sorry.

Goodbye.