The Bozeman City Commission met on Tuesday, April 7, 2026, at 1:00 PM (MDT) in a regular meeting that included a mayoral proclamation, two special presentations, a public hearing and vote on the Bike Fill Community Bike Park master plan, and various administrative items. The meeting began with a brief technical delay to connect Commissioner Magic. Public comment was heard on several topics, including annexation zoning, women’s rights, sustainability, and the bike park. The commission approved the park master plan unanimously, along with consent agenda items and a board appointment.
Yeah. Yeah, thank you for your patience on that. Okay, sorry. With that brief technical delay while we're making sure Commissioner Magic can participate, we'll get this meeting started. Thank you all for joining us here today and online for those participating in our April 7th, 2026 Bozeman City Commission Commission meeting. Just want to walk through a few uh procedures of how this meeting is going to go as well as how to participate. So those of you that are here in the room, you'll have the opportunity to public comment. Those that are online and joining us will be able to participate and give public comment via the raise your hand feature if you're video conferencing. You can also watch these, of course, via uh cable channel 190, and you can listen in from the city's website or dialing in on the phone number that's on all of our agendas. Um, those are the various ways that you can participate during this meeting as we're going. Uh, if anybody has submitted written public comment prior to noon today, that was distributed to all of us, and we were able to read that and factor that into our deliberations. Um, but just wanted to make sure that everybody knows those are the ways to be able to participate. If anyone has any uh um accessibility needs to be able to participate, um, Mr. Moss, our clerk is the guy to go to to make sure that you can be accommodated. Um we will have opportunities for public comments associated with each of our various agenda items, and I will call those out as we're going. Um, so if you're here for general public comment or for particular item, we'll make sure that you are uh squared away so you're not you don't miss your opportunity. Um so without further ado, we will uh begin our meeting with a pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence. Thank you. Moving things right along. We were looking at any changes to our agenda. Mr. City Manager, do we have any changes? Good evening, Mayor. There are no changes tonight. Great. Um now moving on to FYI. We'll start with the commission. Any FYI from my colleagues on the commission this evening. I do have two. Commissioner Smee. Um so I just wanted to give an update for both of the advisory boards, um, urban parks and forestry, and then the Historic Preservation Advisory Board, which have met since our last meeting. Um the Urban Parks and Forestry Board had a packed agenda with the engagement plan for the urban forest management plan update, the bike fill master plan, and the board's two-year work plan. There was some public comment expressing concern that a heritage tree program was not listed as an essential component of the urban forest management plan, and we've received some comment along those lines as well. Um the board did make a recommendation to amend the engagement plan to add a final board review meeting uh to examine the draft uh before it comes to the commission. And then several members were actually able to attend a walkthrough of the bike fill site with city staff and GVLT members, and they were all very impressed with what they saw. Um I was bummed I wasn't able to go, but the board members all liked the choices that were being made for placing features in different areas. Um they saw the value of the decisions that were being made. Um, two of the members did actually express concern for a bird survey. Um, and I believe we're gonna hear uh some updates on uh that is likely gonna be part of it. So um, and then the board did end up moving their work plan to the next meeting in order to have more time to review it and discuss because it was a packed agenda. Um and then the historic preservation advisory board received an update from community planning collaborative on the progress of phase two of the landmark program. Uh no proposed code changes were presented, but the presentation did include examples of regulatory and non regulatory preservation programs across the country. A major point of discussion was how the landmark program is going to interact with the neighborhood conservation overlay and how the process for nominations would differ for single structures or sites versus districts. I just wanted to share one insight that the vice chair made. It was an analogy of how the current historic districts being surrounded by the NCOD is kind of like Yellowstone or another national park being surrounded by conservation districts or a national forest. The distinction between preservation and conservation, and both of those are really important roles. Staff did inform the board that any regular regulatory components will need to be housed in chapter 38 of the Unified Development Code itself. So that's a really important thing for the community and for all of us to understand going forward. They expressed interest in a program with a low barrier to participation in order to make historic preservation more accessible and inclusive. And they received a rundown on engagement events for next week, which staff has been really great about including us in those.