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.

So that'll kick off the week of engagement with the consultants.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

Yeah, Deputy Mayor.

I just want to uh lift up the fact that uh the Langless Apex Steel team placed the final beam in there, and that new building that's going up on Main Street, one 112 East Main next to the next to the national.

Um that's a major milestone in any construction projects, particularly for a steel building.

And our you know, our downtown main street, you know, Skyline doesn't change much, and that's gonna be a be a new change of a new building downtown.

So it has been topped off.

Thank you.

Commissioner Bodie.

Thanks.

I want to lift up that the Urban Transportation District Board is meeting next Wednesday at 3 30 in the HRDC South Tracy building.

Um we meet here once a month, and um we just announced in the chronicle this past week that both that Streamline has reached its 20th anniversary.

And we're really excited to celebrate Streamline over this course of the year.

It's not going to be just like one day in this year, although there will be a big bash in August.

So keep your eyes peeled for a number of celebratory events as we kind of raise awareness for all that Streamline has achieved.

And um, yeah, I'll be keeping you in the loop.

If you want to join our meeting, we'll be talking about 20th anniversary planning and ways to improve the service.

Great.

Um, Commissioner Magic, do you have any FYI to share?

I do not.

Um, great.

I have one piece for uh close listeners is no surprise, but for those that might be new uh to this uh initiative of the city, the our third episode of the Bozeman B podcast is now out.

Um we are talking about something that I think uh floats around often in the ether of the odd winter spring we have had, which is about our snowpack.

Um we had an unusually dry and warm winter.

We talked with a snow expert from the NRCS about how that relates to our snowpack and our water supply.

Um, one thing that we discussed during the episode was the challenge of forecasting and the importance of spring precipitation, um, especially at the valley level.

Um we are actively monitoring our water levels and we'll communicate with with residents as needed about water usage during the summer.

But we do encourage residents to be thoughtful about how we use water on our lawns in particular.

There's plenty of moisture in the ground right now, no need to be using sprinklers at the moment.

Um, but saving water now helps us all when we need to uh make changes or or think about that more critically in this later in the summer.

And if you're interested in learning more and checking out our snow and listening to any discussion about our snowpack levels, you can check out our latest episode available wherever you listen to your podcasts.

And that is the only FYI from me.

So that's from the commission.

Any FYI from staff.

Thank you, Mayor.

I have a couple of items tonight.

Uh just a transportation update.

Uh we have a busy, busy, busy construction season this year.

We've already been able to start because of our mild winter, but we'll be working on 14 different projects totaling 29 million dollars this year that will help renovate our existing infrastructure and build capacity for our transportation network.

Our projects are being funded by a mix of grants, impact fees, paid by development and city assessments for improvements.

So one of the key utility projects is the MSU Interceptor.

We're excited about that.

It um increases our sewer capacity.

It's a large pipeline from the intersection of Keggy and Wilson to the intersection of Babcock and South Ninth.

Some of the key transportation projects include left turn lanes at Oak and Ferguson.

Safety improvements on College Street from 8th to 11th.

We know about that project from Director Ross and new connection on South on North 27th Street.

So we're at dead ends there at Oak.

It's gonna continue on to Catal.

So that will uh loosen up some transportation uh bottlenecks and improve safety in that area.

So um we're also including four new shared use pathway, shared use pathways across the city as well.

If anybody has any interest in any of these projects and wants to see what's going on, uh please go to Bozeman Streetreport.com and all this information is listed there.

Another important thing we're doing, super proud of our ADA uh work in ADA.

Um we take access to government material very seriously, and um always we encourage anyone who experiences any difficulties to to let us know.

But the Department of Justice has set a April 24th deadline for all local governments to ensure that they are creating accessible content and sharing that content in a way so that everybody can participate in in local issues.

So for us, that's things like our website, our documents, and our social media channels.

We've been working on those for years.

Uh, we also have software that uh helps us scan all of our websites and all of our documents to uh see if we are actually ADA compatible.

So not only are we working on the front end, we're working on the back end and ensuring that that our stuff meets the ADA requirements.

So all that's going on.

We're very confident that we are going to be ahead of the deadline, that we're compliant now, and I just want to thank the staff for their really hard work to make sure that everybody gets access to their local government.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, City Manager.

Um moving on from FYI to commission disclosures.

There are any disclosures from any commissioners related to any items on our agenda this evening.

Yeah, Commissioner Sweeney.

So I just on the safe side, want to disclose my husband is a member of the Southwest Montana Mountain Biking Association.

That's a mouthful every time.

Um I am confident that I can make impartial decisions and ask credible questions during our review later of the bike fill park, but uh they are a um enthusiastic supporter and will be a big user of the park once it finished them.

Wanted to disclose it.

Great, thank you.

Any other disclosures?

Okay.

Seeing none, um, moving on to our first item for the evening is just our approval of our um a few of our pre previous meeting minutes.

Um, Commissioner Bodie, would you be able to help us out?

I move to approve the regular meeting minutes as submitted.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Um is there any discussion on the minutes?

Okay.

Um, uh Mr.

Moss, would you poll the commission on the approval of the minutes?

Commissioner Body.

Aye.

Deputy Mayor Fisher.

Aye.

Commissioner Sweeney.

No.

Commissioner Magic.

Aye.

Mayor Morrison.

Aye.

The minutes are approved four to one.

And now moving on to our consent agenda.

Um for anyone that might be wanting to comment, there will be a public comment period on the consent agenda.

Um, City Manager, are there any items on consent that you'd like to highlight for us this evening?

I would just like to advise the commission and the public of two typos in the titles of uh G6 and G7.

These are for fiscal year 2026, not 2025.

Um, all the documentation that's available through those links is correct, but the titles are not.

I talked with the city attorney, and it's not a problem.

We just if I made that statement.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, so we'll before bringing it up for a motion and vote.

Um, we'll open up for public comment.

Any public comment in the room on the consent agenda.

Second request for public comment in the room.

And one final request for comment in the room.

Mr.

Moss, are we seeing any public comment online?

I'm showing no request for comment, Mayor.

Okay, we'll close the hearing.

We'll bring it up here for a motion and vote.

Um, Deputy Mayor.

I would move uh the consent agenda items G1 through G17 as presented.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Mr.

Moss.

Deputy Mayor Fisher.

Aye.

Commissioner Sweeney.

Aye.

Commissioner Magic.

Aye.

Commissioner Bowden.

Aye.

Mayor Morrison.

All right.

Consent schedule is approved.

Now we are moving on to general public comment on non-agenda items falling under the jurisdiction purview of the Bozeman City Commission.

For anyone that's interested in giving public comment, you can just step up to the podium.

You'll have three minutes.

The light will change to yellow when you have one minute left.

Um, and before, as you give begin your testimony, just give us an introduction of yourself and your relationship to the city.

Thank you.

Um good evening.

Hi there, good evening.

My name is Heather Higgs.

I'm a city resident in the Harvest Creek neighborhood.

Last night, the city's community development board got its first look at the annexation application 25-775, Hanson Lane Annexation that asks for zoning in the area between Oak and Durston along the area known as the Fowler Avenue Connection.

That application seeks a zoning designation of R3 or RB.

The proper designation is RA.

A zoning designation of RA is consistent with the city's growth policy, future land use map, and the development pattern of the surrounding area.

The Harvest Creek subdivision is immediately adjacent to the property, which is the subject of the annexation application.

The neighboring properties to this area are single household residential.

This is the dominant use of land in the surrounding area, not multifamily residential.

The facts on the ground cannot be changed, and the facts on the ground should not be ignored.

A zone designation of R3 or RB will allow development of density greater than six units per acre in buildings with heights greater than 40 feet.

Currently, the surrounding areas have a density of six units per acre or less, equivalent to a zoning classification of RA.

It is well known in the neighborhood that the city desires lands in this area to build high density high-rise housing.

Within the past 10 months, the city has made several public presentations of just such a plan for the land immediately to the subject property.

Harvest Creek is participating in a consensus process for another similarly situated adjacent parcel.

We think it would be good to extend the consensus process to include this Hanson Lane parcel in the persons affected by the annexation application in the consensus process.

The Fowler Avenue connector will join Annie Street from the east in Harvest Creek to its dead end on the western boundary of the subject property.

The city plans describe a roundabout at Fowler Avenue and Annie Street.

Traffic calming is needed.

As without it, there will be an unobstructed raceway along the east along Annie Street to Emily Dickinson Elementary School, which serves the neighborhoods east and west of the subject property.

The safety of these students who will be using this right of way needs to be made secure.

No annexations should be approved without definitive conditions for speed limits and installed traffic calming measures.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and City Commissioners.

My name is Jan Strout.

My pronouns are she hers, and on behalf of Chris Laird, who also lives in Northwest Bozeman, we are two of the co-chairs of the Bozeman City for CEDAW task force and are here in that role.

CDAW is the UN document to advance human rights of all women and girls in the Bozeman City Commission unanimously adopted our resolution four years ago in April 2022.

We're here to commemorate CDAW resolution's fourth anniversary as well as National Equal Pay Day in the city's 11th anniversary of our resolution from 2015.

We are also here to offer our appreciation and recommendations.

We first express sincere gratitude for beginning to implement the resolution starting with training.

And over the years, your ongoing efforts to adequately furnish our city with pay equity reporting and the Thrive Index.

Second, we'd like to vote support and the desire to see this city commitment in policy efforts strengthened to advance women's and community safety, economic equity, and security for all to benefit through the following measures.

One is to deliver intersectionality analysis in the Equal Pay Report.

And we understand the challenges of that, but we think a compilation of some of the intersectional identities might prove useful to prevent possible equity gaps and disparities.

Second, we'd like you to utilize the best practice research on pay equity to create recommendations specific to addressing the gaps and disparities.

Third, we encourage you to incorporate equal pay resolutions and relevant policies, including reporting as part of the Bozeman City for CDAW implementation because the City for CDAW has equal pay as one of its human rights articles.

These should be parts of a whole system of human rights solutions to fairly and equitably belong in Bozeman.

They're currently in three departments now.

And that's why we recommend a City of Bozeman Human Rights Commission at the level of a city advisory board that can bring together all of the city's human rights ordinances.

And lastly, we'd like you to look at other research to find the research by independent women's foundation and research institutes on the data because what we have discovered is that in the Status of Women report by the Women's Foundation of Montana, all of this will come to you in digital form.

We found that overall women in Montana have earned 71 cents for every dollar men earn.

Black women in Montana earn just 49 cents for every dollar earned by a white man, and women must compete by one additional degree to be paid the same as men with less education.

So in conclusion, we need these human rights commitments for our safety and security if we are to thrive and truly belong.

And we urge you to keep going in the right direction you're already taking.

We appreciate you and thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners.

Thank you for taking the public comment.

My name is Leana Bertelson, and I live in the northeast side of Bozeman.

And I'm also one of the co-chairs with CEDAW for the task force.

Tonight I'm wearing a University of University of British Columbia t-shirt.

My youngest daughter goes there.

She jokingly decided when she wanted to go to Canada, she said, Mom, my reproductive freedoms will not be under attack if I go out of the country.

And sadly, that's true.

Women's rights are being denied and attacked, which is why I find our resolution, thank you for your support in the resolution going forward.

What I want to say tonight is that what I recommend is the part about collecting data.

I wrote, I was one of the authors of that original report.

I understand the difficulty of collecting that data, but it is so important to have that intersectional data and to use that to inform your training.

I know that the city has limited resources, and so I find it just urgent that you use that tool to make the best decisions and the best use of our resources going forward to protect women's rights and all those areas that Jam had just talked about.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening, Commissioners.

My name is Gracianne Caldwell.

You may know me as a leader among my peers in terms of making a more equitable representation in the city boards.

Lesser known than that, though, is my advocacy for safety across Bozeman.

From personal stories and op-eds to my membership in the CDAW task force, my hope is that as Bozeman expands, our growing pains won't push out our most vulnerable.

Implementing the cities for CDAW framework and resolution is one of the best ways to get there.

But just as this resolution needs more support from you, you need more support in implementing it.

That's why we need a new human rights city board on the city board repertoire.

Not only does this follow in the footsteps of major cities, but it would address many of the issues we we see already beginning to spring up in Bozeman.

From issues such as little Gracie being harassed on public transportation to blatant human rights violations that are brought up to the Commission monthly.

That's not to say we haven't made strides.

The belonging and Bozeman initiative is great, and we have made significant progress within the realms of equal pay.

But we are also a city, a growing city at that, who may need better, more regular support.

So when looking at the CEDAW and the equitable resolutions, I ask that you remember who would benefit from a human rights commission.

That's all of us.

From fathers to retirees to MSE students, a human rights commission would be a new way to support Bozeman.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I'm Mary Allen and I'm with my politics of climate change class.

I'm going to be talking about why I think Bozeman should incentivize new developments to design more sustainable buildings.

The Bozeman community has not achieved our goal of reducing carbon emissions by 26% by 2025 as set aside in our climate plan, and this means the city is not on track to reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.

Bozeman has relied on Northwestern Energy to voluntarily change from gas to electric sources of power.

This is a slow transition, and one third of Montana's electricity comes from coal.

Coal is a carbon heavy resource, so it is preventing our environmental sustainability and progress in emission reduction.

Energy reduction in new developments and remodels is a way we can slow down our energy usage rather than just switching where we source it from.

According to the City of Bozeman's inventory, 50% of Bozeman's greenhouse gas emissions come from residential and commercial buildings.

Incentivizing all new developments to follow green building certifications is a reliable strategy because it does not rely on the cooperation of outside entities.

I recommend that the City of Bozeman follows a similar climate action plan for incentivizing all new developments like Boise, Idaho, Rockville, Maryland, and Greensburg, Kansas.

They use established certifications like LEED to reduce building operating costs while increasing performance by using sustainable design and building strategies.

Boise uses incentives such as tax rebates from the energy save, expedited plan review and permitting, and official officially funded loans that they also use recognition, including signs plaques and advertising.

Using grant funded loans that the City of Bozeman already has in place for sustainability could be another way to direct existing funds.

All these certifications have higher upfront costs, but buildings become on average 35% more energy efficient, which lowers operating costs.

And these buildings outperform during recessions and increase tenant demand.

Because of this, the average payback period for LEED certified buildings is three to ten years.

In cities that have implemented similar programs, there has been strong developer uptake with Seattle's green expedited program resulting in over 70% of new single family homes carrying a green certification.

Affordability and energy efficiency are important to the city of Bozeman and buildings last 50 to 100 years.

So incentivizing sustainable structures now will promote our long-term energy goals as well as create affordability during the operations of the building.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Hi.

My name is Kylie.

I'm also part of the Politics of Climate Change class.

All right, so the City of Bozeman continues to grow, creating pressure to develop remaining city land while many underused or vacant buildings already exist within the urban footprint.

Adaptive reuse or repurposing existing buildings instead of constructing new ones is currently encouraged but not prioritized in local decision making.

As a result, redevelopment opportunities are often overlooked in favor of new construction.

This matters because reusing vacant vacant buildings significantly reduces emissions associated with demolition, material production, and new construction.

Research shows adaptive reuse can reduce embodied carbon by 50 to 75% compared to building new structures because it preserves existing materials and infrastructure.

Even energy efficient new construction still requires carbon-intensive processes like concrete production, steel manufacturing, and transportation.

Reusing existing buildings also reduces infrastructure expansion costs, including roads, utilities, and public services.

Without a clear prioritization of reuse, Bozeman risks increased emissions, inefficient land use, and missed opportunities for revitalizing existing neighborhoods.

The Bozeman City Commission has decision-making authority over zoning, redevelopment incentives, land use approvals, and city-owned properties decisions, making it well positioned to influence redeveloped priorities.

The City of Bozeman should adopt a reuse first development policy for city-owned land and redevelopment decisions.

This policy would prioritize adaptive reuse of vacant or underused buildings before approving new development on city-controlled parcels or providing incentives for new construction.

The city can implement this through several steps.

First, by creating a city inventory of vacant and underused buildings suitable for redevelopment.

Second, requires staff to evaluate reuse opportunities when considering development proposals.

Other cities have successfully implemented similar approaches.

Cities such as Portland and Denver have created adaptive reuse incentive programs and redevelopment priorities that encourage investment in existing buildings rather than expansion into underdeveloped areas.

These models demonstrate that local governments can guide development patterns without restricting private property rights.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And one final request for comment in the room.

Mr.

Moss, are we seeing any public comment requests online?

I'm showing no request for comment, Mayor.

Okay.

Seeing no further requests for public comments on non-agenda items, we will move on to a, I believe, a mayoral proclamation.

So this has been a tradition now for several years of uh honoring uh equal pay day um in the city.

And I will read the proclamation and I'm I'm uh will offer these uh these copies to um two tireless advocates of our community, Leana Bertelson and Jan Stroud for their advocacy efforts over the years.

Um yeah the passage of the equal pay and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, women and people of color continue to suffer the consequences of inequitable inequitable pay differentials, and whereas in the United States, on average, women working full-time earn 82 cents to the man's dollar, and whereas in Montana, women earn eighty-four cents to the man's dollar, and whereas the wage gap exists in nearly every occupation in all industries in every state, across all countries, at all education levels, and in the private government and nonprofit sectors, and whereas the gender wage gap results in women and their families having less access to financial resources and his unfounded subtle and unexplained causes that need to be identified and eliminated.

Whereas on June 8th, 2015, the Bozeman City Commission unanimously passed resolution 4601 supporting equal pay for equal work.

And whereas each year since 2015, the city has taken steps to collect data and identify tools that will assist in the diversification of city positions, encourage the use of innovative and improved human resources tools, and seek to be an active example in the efforts to close the gender wage gap.

And whereas in the equal pay for equal work resolution 4601, the City of Bozeman commits to commemorate equal pay, equal payday each year and encourage its citizens to recognize the full value of women's skills and contributions to the labor force and to take further actions as citizens and businesses to help close the gender wage gap.

And whereas Bozeman, Montana as a welcoming city, recognizes that when there are fair and equitable outcomes for all women and girls, our community prospers and therefore can become a city free of gender and other discrimination.

Whereas issues of gender disc gender equity inclusion and safety are community-wide problems requiring community-wide analysis and action.

Whereas Tuesday, March 26th, 2026 was recognized as equal payday, which symbolizes how far into the year women had to work to catch up to what their male colleagues earned the previous year.

Now, therefore, I, Joy Morrison, the mayor of Bozeman, do hereby proclaim Tuesday, March 26th, 2026 as equal payday, a day whose meaning and purpose needs to become unnecessary by achieving equal pay for equal work, reaching a day when men and women earn the same wage for the same work after the same time duration of work.

And I further proclaim that the City Commission encourages citizens and businesses to have conversations about gender parity, to explore ways in which we can address and work toward fair pay for all in our community, and I further proclaim that the city of Bozeman encourages local businesses to pursue their own hiring, promotional and pay policies that reflect equal opportunity and gender equity.

And I further proclaim that the city of Bozeman will continue to take a leadership role in the community to encourage its citizens to recognize the full value of women's skills and contributions to the labor force and take further actions as citizens and businesses to help close the gender wage gap.

And I will present these proclamations to Jan Stroud and Leanna Burgerson.

Okay, now we're moving on to a couple special presentations.

City Manager.

Would you like to tee it up?

Thank you, Mayor.

This as you just stated, and as this the city believes this is a critical issue, and we are making really, really important progress through a number of efforts.

And I'd like to introduce our director of human resources, Cassandra Tozer, to update the Commission on Equal Pay Day.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Commissioners and Cassandra Tober, the city's human resources director, and I am here to provide you with an update on our equal pay progress.

So in accordance with the resolutions that were just uh referenced in the proclamation, we continue to track our equal pay progress and we continue to report on that progress annually.

I am pleased to uh share that what we're seeing is continued sustained progress in reducing pay disparities.

Uh most significantly, we continue to outperform national benchmarks on pay equity.

So how do we do this?

The data uh is super important, uh, and the data is a lot of the data is included in in the report in your packet.

Uh but what's more important uh are the practices behind how we how we do this.

Um if not the biggest factor contributing to our equal pay progress is our consistent application of both hiring and compensation practices across the entire organization.

We have a compensation system that is intentionally designed to be fair, objective, and unbiased.

So how we pay, how we determine pay for positions.

We evaluate every single position using very clearly defined compensable factors.

And those are things like education, training, certifications, the years of relevant experience that are required to effectively perform in a position, uh, the level of responsibility that comes with that position, and working conditions.

So that we look at all of that, we take similar positions and we group them into pay bans, and that promotes internal equity and really reduces the potential for bias.

We balance internal equity with market competitiveness.

Both of those things are equally important.

Pay decisions consider both comparable worth within the organization and also external labor market data so that we can stay competitive.

Um balancing those two things uh equally uh helps us to ensure that internal equity among our different positions, uh, and also helps us to ensure that we're track we're attracting uh top top talent.

We have uh structures and bias reducing hiring practices, starting pay for a new employee is determined based on that employee or based on that candidate's qualifications for the position.

Uh we have a pay committee, uh which I know that many of you are familiar with.

Uh pay decisions for many of our positions go through the pay committee.

Uh the pay committee reviews and approves pay recommendations submitted by the human resources department, and that pay committee does not have access to any prior salary information about the candidate, uh, nor do they have any access to gender or any other personally identifiable information.

We have very transparent and consistent pay progression for employees.

Pay increases are applied through collective bargaining agreements and clearly define step and and merit uh systems.

In addition to that, we advertise uh all of the pay ranges for all of our positions.

They're all publicly available online.

So uh one of the highlights uh this year, and it has been a highlight uh in recent years, is the strong pay equity uh that we have compared to national benchmarks.

Female city employees in 2025 earned between 71% and 106% of male earnings.

And that's depending on education level, is what that chart is showing.

2025 saw positive progress for female city employees, particularly in those top three categories.

Most notably, we continue to see females with graduate degrees in slightly more than their male counterparts at 106% in 2025.

What that indicates is that we have a greater number of highly educated females in higher paying positions.

At the opposite end, females with a high school diploma earned 82% of their male counterparts in 2025, which is down from 94% in 2024.

What that indicates, and what should partly be celebrated is that we have seen a greater number of female employees in many of our field and operation type positions, which are lower wage positions with lower education requirements.

Variations between pay among city employees can be explained by their different levels of education, their tenure, how long they've been with the city, all of that contributes to the data here.

Looking around the state of the eight big cities, females make up between 26 and 39% of workforces.

So we're right about average when looking at our comparators.

We continue to see progress in traditionally male dominated fields.

Before obviously these fields also include police and fire.

So female representation in the top 25% of earners at the city has improved compared to historical levels, and that it reflects the long-term progress to progress in access to higher paying roles for females.

We have ongoing opportunity in those lower wage positions.

While the gender distribution trend remains relatively consistent year over year, female representation in that bottom 25% of earners increased by 17% from 2024 to 25.

And like I mentioned earlier, that largely reflects the increase in female representation in those lower wage jobs.

And this is something that we're always looking through every looking at through every staffing plan and budget process.

Career progression is important for everybody who comes to work at the city.

As an example, legal assistance, we created a legal assistant two position.

We created a court clue two position human resources associate.

We created a senior human resources associate.

Finally, the last highlight for 2025 is our continued investment in family supportive benefits.

We continue to track the use of paid parental leave.

In 2025, city employees utilize over 7,000 hours of paid parental leave.

Looking at the gender distribution in the use of paid parental leave, about 35% of that was used by female employees.

So that given our gender distribution, that shows that our paid parental leave benefit is used pretty equally by both males and females.

We also continue to invest in health insurance.

We continue to see the cost of health insurance increase every year, and unfortunately, there's very little that we can do about that.

But the city does continue to fully fund the cost of a health plan for the employee and their family.

And that's that's significant.

So those are the highlights in terms of our equal pay progress.

A couple of other things I would like to discuss briefly that are related to pay, that we haven't reported on for quite some time.

We continue to track factors that contribute to employee turnover.

Also we track to the extent we can the reasons for candidate withdrawals and rejection of offers of employment.

Our turnover rate is currently at 14%.

Ideally, we would be looking at uh between the 8 and 12% would be typical, and that's what we would like to achieve.

But the trend is um is going is going down, it's moving in the right direction.

Um you can see in 2019 we had a 35% turnover rate.

So we've made some significant progress.

Um how we track some of this information.

Uh we conduct exit interviews with employees who are leaving the city.

Uh we ask them why they're leaving.

Uh we ask them if there uh were if there are things that could have been done to prevent them from leaving.

Uh what we find uh is uh I mean people leave employment for a variety of reasons.

Um obviously retirement's a big one, people leaving for a different job, typically where pay actually isn't a factor, but it's likely a promotional opportunity.

Uh relocation, family or personal reasons, uh continuing education, and sometimes unfortunately, people are leaving because of pay.

Um from around 2022, 2023, uh we were seeing a huge number of employees leaving because of pay.

We were also seeing a huge number of candidates uh withdraw from our recruitment processes uh and turn down our offers for employment.

And the primary factors for that during those years was pay uh and lack of affordable housing.

So in recent years, particularly 2024 and 2025, since we've made significant progress uh in our wages and we've seen the availability of more affordable housing.

We're not seeing candidates turn down our offers because of pay or lack of housing.

And in fact, what we have seen is uh candidates coming to interview with us who they've already moved here in secured housing or or they've got they've got a plan lined up, and it's it's becoming less and less of a concern for candidates.

So that's very positive.

So we track all of uh this information through our exit interview process.

There's a lot of other different feedback uh that we gain from employees who are leaving employment with the city, um and and it's it's super valuable.

We share that feedback with the departments uh to to allow both HR and the individual departments to identify any areas that that may need to be addressed.

Um leave you with that's that's very positive and that we're celebrating.

Um, not only do we look into the reasons why people are leaving city employment, uh we look at people who come back, and we're getting into our summer uh short-term worker recruitment season, and we are seeing a huge number of short-term workers returning to come back and work for their second, third, fourth, in some cases fifth summer with the city.

Um, and that's a huge, huge improvement.

We've done some things in terms of pay to help with that.

It's also a huge credit to the departments who have these seasonal workers, they're really doing an excellent job at keeping them happy and motivating them to come back for another season.

So most notable, um, our aquatics division has 70% of their summer work is coming back this summer, which is just fantastic to see, particularly given how challenging it is to hire life guides.

We we know that that's been a case for a while.

So we're thrilled to have that many people returning.

That concludes the presentation.

Thank you, Director Tozer, for that presentation.

Um it's always uh full of information that's interesting to see.

Yeah, the art in getting an update each year.

Um is really informative.

Um we don't typically take questions.

I've not heard anybody expressing otherwise.

I think we'll move on to our second special presentation.

Thank you, Cassie, for all of your work.

I'd like to uh acknowledge Chief Josh Waldo here, uh, who's gonna give us the 2025 fire department annual report.

Lots of things happening in Bozeman Fire.

Well, good evening, Mayor and Commissioners.

Uh Josh Waldo, your fire chief here to give you the highlights of the 2025 annual report for the fire department.

So always uh like to start with our most important asset, and that's our people.

Uh so big year for our folks in 2025.

We added a lot of people.

We added 12 new people as part of the FEMA SAFER grant.

Uh it's kind of hard to believe.

They just completed their first year uh last week.

So uh they are now full members of the department out serving the community, uh and we're thrilled to have them.

Uh we had four members uh in 2025 who obtained professional credentials via the Center for Public Safety Excellence.

Uh we have roughly a dozen folks now in our department who maintain some level of international uh credentialing, which is super important to us when we talk about professional development.

And then uh one of our members last year, engineer paramedic Luke Zamansky was awarded the Montana EMS Responder of the Year Award.

So uh always like to start off with some highlights about our folks and some of the good things that they've done throughout the last year.

Jumping into our emergency response.

So if you look at the graph uh which would be on your left, uh the red number uh is how many times the fire trucks go down the street.

Uh the orange number is the number of calls.

So just as a quick reminder, one call may generate one fire truck to run, the next call may generate three, depending on what it is.

Medical call gets one, building fire gets three.

So that's why those numbers never match.

What's important though is that spike going up.

Um we made a strategic decision back in 2022 to stop going on a lot of calls.

And I I've told this uh body every year that I've been back, we're on we're on borrowed time, and it's gonna turn back up, and here it is.

We saw it a little bit in 24.

Now you're seeing it really start to turn up in 25.

Uh 26, I can tell you.

Oh, sorry.

Um the first quarter, we're 20% ahead of last year.

So we're definitely back on the uptick, uh, back to kind of the curve that we would have saw prior to those decisions we made in 2022.

So it's worth keeping an eye on as we continue to move through 26 and what the call volume looks like.

Um on the right, just kind of breaks it down for you.

What are we going on?

And to no surprise, EMS continues to dominate uh our workload at 46%.

I will remind you though, if you look across the country, most fire departments are doing anywhere from 85 to 90 percent EMS.

So uh a lot of that has to do with uh back to that strategic decision.

We we don't go on every call.

Uh it doesn't warrant a fire truck uh trying to be good stewards of our resources, but it's also a testament to we have a very healthy community here.

Um we are active, we are out, people take care of themselves, uh, and that reduces the number of needs for uh those EMS calls.

Concurrent or overlapping.

Uh we used to show this to you in an average for uh you know 30% of the time we had two or more calls going on.

So we've been able to refine our data a little bit more uh with some new systems.

We can actually tell you now that 72% of the time there's one call going on.

23% of the time, there's two calls going on, and five percent of the time there's three calls going on.

So we can get down a little bit deeper here.

Uh and this is just kind of a piece of the puzzle when we talk about you know how much demand is there, and I'm gonna kind of weave this together for you over the next few slides.

This is another one that's new to us.

Um response reliability.

So to kind of explain this to you.

Oh, it moved on me again.

I don't know what I'm touching.

Um if you look at fire station number two, 81% of the time, that fire station was home and ready to go.

They answered the call.

Station one, you'll see is at 69%.

Station three is at almost 68%.

Uh believe it or not, as we have shuffled stations around a little bit.

Uh, station one continues to be the busiest.

That is no surprise to us.

The majority of the work is still here in the core of the city.

Uh, but with station two shifting just a little bit to the east, station three is now the second busiest station.

So those numbers don't really surprise us.

I think the other thing that uh we would like to see in 26 is station two gets a little better because now you have the QRV, the quick response vehicle at station two as well.

We didn't have that uh for a full calendar year, so we don't have a good data set on it yet, but it's something that we'll watch again as we go through 26.

And I would expect uh you will see station two get better.

If the call volume continues to uh climb, you will probably see station one and station three get worse in this uh this graph here.

So then we get into response times.

Uh and I do want to remind you that we measure response times on the 90th percentile.

We do not do average, uh, that is part of our accreditation process.

Uh the averages can really throw you off.

You can have one good call and one bad call, and everything else in the middle, and it just kind of cleans itself up.

So we look at 90th percentile.

If you look at the grade box, uh that is the call processing time.

So that is the amount of time that the dispatch center takes from 911, where's your emergency, to them pushing a button which notifies us.

Uh you will see that uh they did make improvement uh from 24 to 25, they're right at two minutes uh in 59 seconds, but I will tell you that it's still uh far above where we want it to be.

The national standard from the National Fire Protection Association is uh 64 seconds now.

We we got a lot of uh room to work in there.

The orange box at the top that's us.

That's 100% in the fire department's control.

Uh, that is your turnout and response time.

So uh the same NFTA standards gives our folks 60 seconds to get on the truck.

Uh if they have to get dressed, it gives them 80 seconds, and then we got a drive.

Uh what's driving this here is the turnout times for us are pretty consistent.

It's the truck, it's the drive time.

So if you could back up a slide in your mind, I give this example when I give this presentation every year.

If the first call is at Walmart and Station One goes on that call, if the next call is right here at City Hall, you've got to get the fire truck from either station two or station three, your drive times are just running up.

So when you see those reliability numbers down in the 60s, plus that overlapping slide before, now you're starting to see that we still got a lot of trucks that are having travel across town to cover when another truck's on a call.

QRV will help with that.

Uh, we fully anticipate to see some improvement there.

How much is to be determined?

Uh, the map on the right, uh, that's just a heat map to kind of show you know where is uh the call distribution, and like I've already said, no surprise there.

The core is still uh the driver of the majority of the work for the fire department.

Uh, you see a little bit uh around campus, and then you'll see some of those dark spots uh just kind of scattered throughout town, and everybody always asks what are those, and I would tell you that the majority of those are probably your assisted living facilities.

Uh they do uh require a lot of service demands from the fire department.

Some other stats uh that we're pretty proud of here.

Uh we continue to put a tremendous emphasis on training and professional development.

As a reminder, per your insurance service office ratings and our accreditation, we're supposed to average 240 hours per member per year.

We don't have a problem doing that.

Our folks uh put a lot of time into training.

You can see last year uh we averaged 379, which is far and above uh where we need to be.

So kudos to our folks for continuing to come in every day and get better.

Uh our plans review and our inspection numbers, uh, our fire marshal's office.

You can see looks at just under 2,000 plans uh in a calendar year.

Uh I do want to make sure everyone understands that you take an apartment complex that has eight buildings at a minimum, you got eight sets of plans, and that's if they're perfect.

If there's adjustments, they have to refine them, they got to come back.

You could look at the same set of plans a couple of times.

I don't want to give you this uh misconception that there's 1967 new buildings in the community.

Uh this could be modifications, this could be uh existing things that are expanding out, but uh 1967 plans and then inspections, uh we did just over 4300 inspections.

Uh that's both new facilities and the existing.

As a reminder, the fire departments, one of our responsibilities is existing buildings.

We have the jurisdiction over those, so making sure that uh buildings that are brand new and buildings that have been here a hundred years are still safe for our community to be in.

And then uh like to finish with accomplishments here before we talk about the future real quick.

Uh we already talked about the 12 new firefighters.

I I cannot tell you how happy we are uh with those new members and their performance uh through their first 12 months.

Uh they've been a tremendous asset in addition to the department.

Um as a reminder, we did become accredited in 2025.

It feels like forever ago, it's actually been over a year.

Uh we just had to submit our first annual compliance report, got ray reviews, uh, no no flags on us there, so we're uh we're off and running, and then uh we implemented the QRB, uh, which we've already talked about.

So the future.

Um fire station number four still is out there.

Um we still have a tremendous gap in that southwest corner of town.

Uh that that problem is not going away.

Uh I know we've had conversations and efforts in the past, we're gonna have to have efforts in the future, and I know that this commission is aware of that.

Uh, we continue to talk about what EMS looks like in our community.

Uh we are working with the county hand in hand, city managers are part of those conversations about what looks right for all of us, not just the city, not just the county, but how do we do this in a partnership and a collaboration to to make sure that we have a stable and uh strong EMS system?

Um one of the things that I will tell you though, uh as we talk about EMS, the addition of the squad or the QRV.

We call it squad two.

You you're used to hearing it called the QRB.

Um when we talk about EMS and what an asset it has been.

That truck's been in service since December the 5th.

Um so we don't have a whole lot of numbers on it, but I can tell you in the first quarter of 2026, it's answered 20% of all the fire department's calls.

So we're getting some work out of that thing as we've kind of refined it, put it in service.

Uh, I would anticipate that number to probably go up as we figure out how to better utilize it.

But 20% right out of the gate, uh, we're super happy with that.

Um as a reminder, you you do have a new ladder truck on order.

Uh you ordered it in 2024.

Uh, it's just the nature of supply chain right now.

They haven't even started on it.

Uh I would be pleasantly surprised if they did start on it in calendar 26.

If they did, you might see it by the end of 27, but I'm just gonna be off uh a realist here and say it's probably gonna be 2028.

So uh your existing ladder truck was purchased in 2013, so by the time you see your new one here, your old truck will be 15 years old.

And then lastly, um we we still know we have some gaps in community preparedness.

Um this commission has talked a lot about in your strategic plan in the past uh about having community preparedness.

Uh a lot of people talk about the 72-hour plan for what are you gonna do as as a private citizen or a homeowner until emergency services can get to you in a major event.

Uh, and it was uh one of the areas that we we did get uh flagged in our accreditation process of having gaps.

So we're aware of it, we're working on it, uh, and we know it's something that's important to this commission and to the community.

So I know we typically don't take questions, but I'm happy to if the mayor would like.

Sure.

Um are there any questions from commissioners?

Yeah, Deputy Mayor.

I I do have one actually.

What is a good intent call from your like second slide?

Uh good intent call.

So uh it could be anything from um I thought I smelled smoke to my smoke alarm is turping.

I don't know why.

Um, and under the new format, it could even be that Mr.

and Ms.

Smith just needed help up out of the floor.

Maybe on a more serious I uh didn't expect to ask questions, but that's three minutes for that processing to process a call, seems uh I agree, it seems alarming.

And I'm wondering we don't control, I guess the city itself doesn't control the the 911 center.

Um it's too much to ask.

You have we do we have suggestions, but but it's seems like that's a quick place where we could find maybe two minutes in our response time that could make a huge difference for our community and wondering how what if there's something we as a commission need to be focused on or could could work on.

Uh it's a great question.

And I will I will say not yet.

Uh I'll tell you that we are uh as we speak, we were working today on a process to implement uh it's called a pre-aler.

So if you've ever called 911, they ask you a lot of questions.

And to be quite honest with you, after I know where you are and the general problem, the rest of it's bonus for us, right?

So if you can tell me I'm at 121 North Rouse and the buildings on fire, send a fire truck, and then keep asking all the questions.

And we're in the process now of testing um can the system do that for us.

Uh if you if you put too many humans in that chain, there's gonna be wink links, and that's not a knock on anybody in particular.

That's just that's facts.

Um so we're trying to get that to the level of you're at 300 East Oak, and there's a medical problem.

Then the fire truck.

And then get me all the rest of the information.

I think if we can get that uh implemented and get it working, I think we can carve that number significantly really quick.

Any more questions?

Okay.

Thank you for that presentation.

Um I'll just say you know, getting these uh procedural presentations from some staff has been just really enlightening, informative, and also I think each time you know we've now had a human resource director step up, our our fire chief up just a reminder of the the culture of excellence in in this organization and the ethos of of reaching higher and in pursuit of excellence, and um that comes from you know, you wouldn't like to admit it, but it comes from the city manager's office and all the way down to the director team and throughout the organization.

And um, we're really lucky to have that that uh that culture playing out in our organization.

Um moving on from our special presentations.

We have just our one action item this evening.

Um a very exciting uh presentation from our parks and recreation department.

City manager.

Thank you, Mayor.

This is a resolution adopting the the park master plan for bike fill community bike park, and this project is um quite remarkable actually.

And it started um through our partnerships.

Uh it's not something that's been on our radar for years and years, but it takes somebody like GVLT and somebody like Mitch Overton and just visionaries who um see a problem and look at different ways to um make it happen.

So here is our parks and planner, our planning parks planner, um Addie, uh, to uh present this item.

Thanks, Mayor.

Yep, thank you.

Um Commissioners and City Manager.

Um Addie Jaden, Park Planning and Development Manager, and I'm presenting the bike fill bike park um parkmaster plan.

And I'm gonna give some context of the site and touch more on the partnerships that have brought us this far and how we're in compliance with our parks recreation and active transportation plan um and give you a recap of what was discussed at the urban parks and forestry board meeting, which was already touched on a bit by Commissioner Sweeney.

And then Adam Johnson, one of our partners on the project will come up to go further into detail about the bark bike park design and a little bit more um on how we're responding to public engagement.

And I gave some direction to the park board.

Just want to quickly mention that we don't have a codified detail level for park master plans.

They kind of are on a sliding scale.

Sometimes we're just setting up the basic use of the site.

This area is passive recreation, this area is gonna be for tree planting, and pathways will go through it.

And however, with this presentation and this park plan, we have a lot of detail in there.

Um, and we will be gradually refining that through a site plan application, but um it's all fair game for comment.

Um we ask that when you're thinking about whether you support this resolution and passing our master plan.

Um have we established the goals that we set out to achieve?

And um are we responding to public comment, balancing the different aspects, and do you find it meets the the PRAT plan?

Um do you have enough information to make your decision?

And does it set up a clear vision to move forward uh refining our drawings and moving towards the actual construction documents?

So the context of the site, I think you're all probably familiar with.

But it is north of our solid waste facility on land that had been stripped to use to cap the landfill, and it's to the south of Snowfill Dog Park.

And on the west side, Maclehattan Road is our park boundary, and that's where our primary driveway access for vehicles will come off of.

And that road is getting upgraded as part of this project, some safety enhancements with a guardrail, and then a shared use path linking to the closest subdivision to the south that will pull bikers off the road.

And on the east side, Story Mill Road will be another property boundary, but there isn't for a lot of reasons.

There is not access on that side.

And I just want to mention the characteristics of the site itself.

Of course, on the south end, Churn Creek runs around along the boundary between the park and the solid waste facility.

It has very dense riparian vegetation and a steep slope as you head north from there.

And we've pretty much followed the same boundary when we established this as the primary road that solid waste uses to access the site.

There's another intermittent stream on the north end and additional riparian vegetation.

And then kind of in the center of the park, south southern center area.

We've we found some well good intact native grass that hasn't been stripped.

So you'll see in the parkmaster plan that's really set aside, and we'll be trying to direct all the trails away from that area, as well as the water courses and wetlands.

So we did bring forward, I think the end of last year or middle of last year, a memorandum of understanding that outlines our partnership with GVLT and the Southwest Montana Mountain Bike Association, and that lays out our responsibilities for how we're carrying forward this project from design through construction.

And GBLT has really taken the lead on that.

Swimba has been there as technical advisors and really helping us get engagement out to the mountain bike community.

And there will be a separate maintenance agreement with Swimba to assist as we move forward and take over operations and maintenance as a park department.

The MOU goes into how this project was funded.

I think the highlight there, similar to when we acquired 12 acres at Pete's Hill, over 800 individual private donors have contributed to this project, and the city is in for about 1.2 million, including a $750,000 grant that we expect to receive from the land and water conservation fund.

I want to also say thank you to this design build team.

Their images are throughout my presentation tonight, and they made our park master plan.

Beautiful renderings that help us illustrate what we're trying to achieve.

We also have a lot of partners that are going to activate this space once we open the park.

The bike clubs, Audubon, Gallatin Watershed Council will be there to bring volunteers, run their programs, and make sure that we're building a site that is intended to be inclusive of all abilities and genders, and it's really our partners that make that happen.

So I think you'll hear a little bit more from some of them, including Eagle Mount tonight.

So just quickly want to touch on some of the things that were asked for in the Pratt plan that this project brings forward.

In the top 10 items that were priorities for our capital investment, I think three of those were trails of all different types.

And this park will have all of them.

Water access for recreation was in the top 10 capital investments that were requested in our statistically valid survey.

The area that's been stripped to use as a cap has not taken back to very much ground cover.

It's basically dirt with tufts of grass in a lot of the area where the new trails will go.

So we have a good opportunity there.

And then on parts of the western side of Churn Creek, there is no vegetation right now.

It's more of the competing grass.

So we'll be working with our partners, Gallatin Watershed Council to get that re-vegetated in the near future.

And then finally, pavilions were another shade shelters and areas for picnics and events, another aspect of the Pratt plan that we're gonna bring forward with this plan.

And then wanted to recap some of the discussion from Urban Parks and Forestry Board and their resolution to you all to recommend approval.

It was unanimously adopted, and I think their comments from the park board were really supportive.

They didn't have hesitation, and they addressed some of the concerns that were raised in public comment.

They talked about the setback request from the Bozeman Tree Coalition and several of their commenters that are affiliated with that group, and pointed out that the nearest trail is following right along a very industrial, heavily used road that isn't going away because it's so critical to the landfill site.

We will be doing working with Audubon.

They reached out specifically, and they'll be coming on site in May and June to do start this bird surveys.

And this is something that they do in other parks.

They have an annual, I think in December, the kind they call it the Christmas bird count over in the cattail area.

And so we're absolutely excited for that and would love to work with them to share out what they're finding in in all our parks.

The park board addressed a crossing that was an area of concern.

It's a boardwalk that takes you from a main riders hub right across Churn Creek.

And it really brings you to this area of natural resource value.

So there's a wetland area to the west of it, and to the east is the area that has this dense riparian vegetation.

And so this is a boardwalk type feature, keeps people on the trail.

We aren't impacting the ground quite as much there.

And they they thought that was a great place to put this pathway because it straddles the line between these two resource areas.

And then lastly, um creek crossings.

The board got to go on site.

They could see the areas where we're choosing to cross Churn Creek are areas where the vegetation is less dense.

We're not cutting down mature trees.

And so those were those are chosen specifically.

And you know, just one piece there I want to mention is by crossing Turin Creek, we gain significant amount of length for the loop trail that will go around the whole park.

And that helps us with some of our bike clubs being able to come here for practice where they're in a spot right now where they're going, you know, mostly on trails, but sometimes on the road, and um this would enable us to encourage more people to use the park.

And it is our most accessible grade pathway because it's the longest route around the site.

Um their resolution as in yours.

This plan, this conceptual plan that was presented with your MOU really hasn't changed significantly, in my opinion, from when you first saw it.

A parking lot and a lot of trails.

Um we've gotten more creative through public comment and really thinking about the users that are coming to this site.

We we're gonna have more of a family hub close to the parking lot again, make it easy to get to, easy to unload and get to that shade and that convening space, and then there'd be a riders hub further up into the park to offer kind of a pit stop and shade area.

Um just on your agenda tonight, you you officially changed this use of the property from the landfill use to parks and recreation.

So I'll hand it over to Adam to go further into our design and public engagement.

Thank you.

I'm Adam Johnson with Gallison Bio Land Trust.

Um thank you, Mayor and Commissioners, for your time this evening.

Um, and presenting this draft master plan.

We'd like to thank the community members for coming out into Rose to provide input into this project and help us understand their desires.

We're grateful to everyone who participated in the wide array of public engagement opportunities, including presentations and public comments to this board, the focus groups, in-person open house events, online virtual open house, and an online survey that garnered over a thousand responses.

Many thanks to our partners and stakeholders for the many site visits to provide feedback and insight on environmental accessibility and programming concerns.

And additionally, we want to recognize the over 800 individual community members who generously donated to support this project.

This plan began as a dream all the way back in 2012.

We're thrilled to be here 14 years later presenting this draft plan for Bikeville.

So it's been a very long process.

This plan has been highly influenced by the entire public engagement process and aims to strike a balance between recreational trail infrastructure and the natural resources on the property.

This public the public comment overwhelmingly informed us that the community desires a system that provides a safe, progressive, skill building focus that is inclusive of all ability levels and ages.

A place where friends, family, friends, and families can come together to learn.

With this feedback in mind, we prioritize the placement of the beginner area, locing locating it in close proximity to the main hub area and in its own specific zone.

The perimeter cross-country trails and main stem trail will go around this area to facilitate intermediate and advanced riders while purposefully bypassing the beginner area with minimal interaction.

More intermediate and advanced trails are located further into the park where the geography is greater.

These areas are anchored to the rider hub, a distinct and dedicated gathering area.

Cross-country trail connections emanating from the riders' hub allow access to the perimeter loop system of cross-country trails for more advanced riders without having to descend into and interact with the beginner zone.

Priority was also given to the community's desire for one-way directional trails, an important safety feature to this system.

The layout supports multiple loop systems that will allow creative and unique routes desired by youth community youth cycling organizations while maintaining the directionality of the trails.

The highly requested downhill oriented flow trails will be located in the center line of the park with a clear separation from uphill oriented climbing and cross-country trails.

Throughout the planning process, consideration of the natural resources has been a primary consideration.

Majority of the site has been heavily impacted by previous quarrying to cap the uh adjacent landfills.

We've worked with our environmental partners through site visits and ongoing conversations on potential restoration plans across the project to assist in improving the already impacted landscapes and ensure protection of native vegetation and water quality.

We have also consulted the various community plans such as the Gallatin Citizens of Lands and Parks and Recreation Parks, Recreation Act and Transportation Plan, and also reference the UDC updates.

And we've also had conversations with regulatory agencies, especially Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks to ensure compliance with their regulations, policies, and plans.

Trails are focused in areas dominated by smooth brome.

The areas of sensitive native riparian and wetland vegetation are protected.

The trails are located in compliance with the Bozeman UDC code for setbacks, with a majority being over 50 feet from the waterways.

Bridges and crossings have been sited in locations of lowest impact to delineated wetlands and streams, crossing perpendicularly to the in the shortest route possible.

The hill slope on the northern edge of Churn Creek retains a robust native vegetation cover that supports wildlife bees and pollinators.

We recognize the value of this hill slope and its direct connectivity to the riparian and wetland corridor of Chern Creek and have thus set aside over five acres to create a 200 plus footback, 200 plus foot setback from the northern bank of Charm Creek.

Conservation concerns concern is centered around leaving space for animals to move through the park, particularly around Churn Creek.

We have worked to facilitate the wildlife that migrates through the park by ensuring that all fencing within the park is wildlife friendly.

We'll also be removing an eight-foot chain length fence along the western boundary to further open the corridor through the property.

We do acknowledge that a six-foot chain link fence is required by solid waste licensing requirements on the south boundary of the park.

With the winter that we have just experienced, the design team was able to spend a lot of time observing and considering the existing conditions and topography, waterways, and vegetation in the creation of this plan.

Beyond the cycling infrastructure within the park, the bike fill project will include a gravel pathway connecting snowfill and bikefill to the adjacent Bridget Creek neighborhood parkland and trails, providing a trail connection for neighbors to access both recreational facilities.

While the connection does not directly connect to the connect to additional existing city pathway and trail infrastructure, DVLC and the city will continue to work with landowners in Gallant County on future direct trail connections.

These connections are already identified and highlighted in the Parks Recreation Act of Transportation Plan as desired natural surface and shared use pathways.

We'd like to thank you and the Bozeman community for the engagement with this project.

Thanks.

And we will be putting additional opportunities for public comment as we refine everything on our engage website.

Okay.

Thank you for that presentation.

I think I heard from Adam's presentation.

I hope anybody, any members of the press or the bubbers of the public are listening.

GBLT you loved this winter, thought it was really good.

As a skier, I didn't.

And we'll bring it up here for questions.

Commissioner Sweeney, any questions for staff or for our GBLT representative.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for the presentation, but also all the work that has gone into this up until this moment.

Especially the folks from GBLT, thank you for meeting with me and walking me kind of through this site plan and how decisions were made.

And since I wasn't able to go to the site, that was that was really helpful.

So I think one area that we have some public comment on, and I just want to ask kind of about that decision was up, I think the crossing of this other creek in the um north it kind of does a switch back that is yep, right in there.

I'm guessing that that switchback, that decision was made because the terrain there is a little bit steep.

That's correct.

So we're in that area, we had to balance the crossing of the wetlands with also how steep the banks are on both sides.

Um we were constrained by some topography, but we have we can stay above the creek quite a ways.

We do touch the zone one briefly in there within the allowable um amount of feet for the setback.

Um but that gets us to a much better crossing location to be able to cross that creek and then ascend out of the drainage there.

Excellent.

Um then am I understanding correctly?

Is GWC Grid Aganton watershed council?

Are they gonna there some talk of I wish they were here about um maybe using this um this stream in the the northern part of the park as like training for rehabilitating vegetation actually?

That's correct.

Um we actually had we've had numerous meetings with them and continue to consult with them on not just the north the creek, the kind of intermittent creek on the north side, but also Chern Creek.

Oh especially the western side of that.

Um, you know, there's not much vegetate uh wetland vegetation or riparian vegetation along that section.

Um they're very excited to have the opportunity to improve that, um, get more vegetation going.

Um it'll it'll improve the stream functions in that area.

It also provides a good screening from solid waste offices.

Um, so kind of two prongs there that will work out well.

Um the northern intermittent stream um offers a lot of opportunity to do that as well, um, just north of the property where that creek goes on to private property.

There is some very nice dense riparian vegetation.

Um, and it does provide a chance for us to try to encourage that vegetation back down the creek corridor ways so we can get more in the area.

Excellent.

Um I guess just one more question about the water source on the site.

I know there's been a lot of conversation and a lot of thought um from staff about this, but um there's been public comment about can we use trees for shade more?

Can we use structures for shade more because it's more water conserving?

Can anybody kind of speak to you know what that situation is at the moment?

So, yes, we are considering a uh getting an example to be placed on here.

Um, there are already wells on site, so we have a limited amount of uh water that we can use for irrigation in here.

Our plan is to use that to get the our vegetation growing, get it established.

Um, and we are aiming to use as much native vegetation in this area that we can that's water wise that we don't have to rely on that long term, but we do want to get trees going.

We do want to get the native vegetation growing in the area.

Nice.

Thank you so much.

That is all of my questions.

Thank you.

Um Commissioner Magic, any questions for staff?

Yes.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um Thanks so much, Adam and Addie.

This might be a question for Addy.

I just want to clarify what we're approving tonight based on some of our recent recent meeting that talked about maps or plans.

I know that you have said in the staff report says that this is a conceptual plan and that what will happen if I understand it correctly, refinements will be made.

And then you'll actually submit a site plan that has the more concrete things in place.

Did I get that right?

Yeah, and I think what a good point to clarify here is there's a difference between a zoning master site plan for construction entitlement and a park master plan, which as I mentioned lays out how are we programming the use of the land.

And so we will have to move forward.

We'll have to submit site plan application in order to have the mass grading and the construction of the parking lot reviewed by you know city staff and engineering.

Yeah.

So the master plan that we would be approving tonight is pretty much laying out the majority of what we might expect to see.

But changes, some changes still could be made.

That's right.

Between master plan and site plan.

Yes, and a park master plan sometimes has elements that we don't have funding for right away.

Um, but that we've we've planned for it, we've shown it can fit on the site and it's um situated in a way, you know, in harmony with everything else on the site.

But that we would move through, you know, a conceptual rendering of a pavilion, then we enter into the budget and a constructibility of these elements and they might take a different appearance.

Great.

That's fair.

This is uh quick follow-up to Commissioner Sweeney's comments on water.

Um so the I using an exempt well, some of the public comment talked about the need to conserve water, and perhaps we should go so far not to have trees that need to be watered and not you know have a bike cleaning station.

Um can you talk about kind of the potential need to conserve water?

Do we need to do that in this case?

Are we expecting um through that exempt well, the need to conserve water?

Um I assume you read that comment, but if you could just fill us in, please, that would be great.

Yeah, first I'll comment on the cleaning station.

You we couldn't really use the well likely for that purpose anyway, because the well is going to have irrigation rights attached to it.

So that's likely one of those elements that we we won't do unless we get somebody who's willing to bring a water tank out there for us.

Um but the way my understanding of exempt wells work, um, you know, Adam mentioned there's a well at snow at Snowfill Dog Park already, and you've seen it.

It's there with a hand pump and the dogs drink water from it.

There's a well used at the landfill, the solid waste site.

Um, and however, they get their drinking water trucked in.

There is no plumbing to this site.

So the other thing we're thinking about and looking at is the regulations for when we develop a new park with through subdivision process with a developer, and in our city code, it says the best first option is an exempt.

Well, if you're able to get permitted for that, then you might look at uh irrigation rights and we would try to acquire those from a new developer.

So in this case, we're following city protocol.

We have to put in landscaping at trees around the parking lot.

It's required to mitigate the heat island effect and provide shade.

Um that's what is required of all site plans across the city.

And and even if we chose drought tolerant trees and native trees in that situation, they need irrigation to be, you know, to get uh established.

And then over 20 years they might create their own microclimate and we can taper off.

But it's it's a pretty hard requirement that we have to have in order to have a parking lot in this park.

Okay.

More complicated than I thought.

Uh uh.

Last question concerns noxious weeds.

And the report talks about spraying to take care of those weeds and the posting of kind of signage for a couple of days to kind of get people heads up that that spraying has taken taken place.

I assume that that's um standard practice for the parks department.

But is um I I'm wondering, I think that it can be common for us to overlook those signs.

And just what steps are taken to protect both particularly small humans and dogs when we spray for noxious weeds.

Um I wish one of our superintendents was here to answer, but um we've talked a lot through this public engagement process.

Um specifically asking in our survey will the public tolerate seasonal closures of this site when we have mud season um in a normal year, and when we're doing maintenance.

Um people we're trying to create that culture of understanding that this is something we might have to do.

So I think on a landscape like this, we can close parts of the site.

It's it's vast, and we could still have riders out there safely recreating, um, or we can close down the park in you know, coinciding with some other big maintenance project that we have.

I don't I don't think we're afraid to do that.

And um we do it sparingly, and we do it because it's the state law, right?

To to manage noxis noxious weeds.

Um I hope that answers your question.

Adam might have more to add.

I mean, I I would add that uh solid waste has been treating that uh that area for noxious weeds.

Um, the city has owned it.

They've done a fairly decent job, so it's not an overwhelming problem out there right now.

So it'd be more of a maintenance.

We're not trying to we we'd like to decrease, but there's not a huge population that we have to get out of that area.

They've done a good job of with the maintenance of that.

Okay.

Good to know.

Um I have my we have some follow-up comments on that, but on my questions.

Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Magic.

Um, Commissioner Bowdy, do you have any questions for staff?

Yeah, I I do.

Um, I know that you acknowledge the connection of this park to kind of the the bike paths and lanes, you know, going to the rest of the city is is uh pinned for future future work.

But I am just really thinking about like the crux of this bridge near where where Story Mill Road reach Mac reaches McAlhattan Road.

That's very narrow.

Um when I've biked across it, there's there's no bike lane.

I I'm just um worried about how we're going to address that uh pinch point in relation to this park in particular.

Um I know there was a comment about it as well.

Uh would any of would either of you have any perspective on um that particular pinch point.

I think you know it's uh it's certainly on the transportation department's radar and all the trails leading up to that spot in you know, Canyon Gate, they're gonna dead end.

Um and we know people are gonna bike up here, and there's gonna have to be some on-street shared bike, you know, traffic warnings and um those types of improvements until we can achieve other types of right-of-way.

Um I think a very long-term idea would be a shared use path going up Story Mill Road to the top of this park.

Um, that seems to be our most likely resolution.

Um, but I think because of all the constraints and um the it's not only the bridge, of course it's the creek too, right there, right along Mackelhattan.

Um, so we're we're a little hemmed in.

Um very visionary, but if you do look at the the Pratt plan and our active transportation plan, there are other ways that have been plotted out to get here, but they would take significant partnerships with landowners.

So it's not going to be immediate.

I might add a little bit that to that as well.

So the the bridge, the the that crux right there is also because it's where it goes from city to county.

So we duck into the county on the way to get back to city lands through that area.

So it's a coordination between the city and the county and GBLT wants to help.

But that bridge isn't necessarily scheduled for any replacement at any point by the county.

But we are still kind of we all know it's a pitch point, and you know, we we bring it up whenever we can about how do we how do we work to address this?

How do we find a solution?

So it's it's a multi-jurisdictional question in that area there because it's right on the city boundary and ducks into the county and back to the city.

That's a good point.

Thank you.

Um I also just want to lift up one comment I saw um curious about some trail redundancy.

The commenter says in the southwest corner, but I think they mean the southeast corner.

They they say the perimeter trail on the cross country trail are side by side.

And um I'm just curious why the trails were separated as two separate trails rather than consolidating them into one.

Um so with with our trail plans, these these trails are laid out in their approximate locations.

They're not exactly where they're gonna end up because we do a lot of field fit in terms of what is the micro topography of the the area, what's going on.

We did route two trails within that area.

So, you know, as I mentioned before, we have some directionality to our trails.

It allows that upper area to be used as a little bit more of a loop for different programming to be able to operate up there without having to re you know have traffic both ways on those trails.

So there is a little bit of redundancy, but allows the back and forth traffic without having to have people meeting on the same trail and causing any issues in their user conflicts.

Is that perimeter loop trail one directional or bi-directional?

So that's still a policy that we're working on.

Um it might be it might in sections be um bi-directional, but there's definitely gonna be some areas where it is directional.

Um as we we want to include some areas in that to practice like climbing switchbacks, you know, going up, and there'll be a different side to come down those switchbacks so we're not having people overlap trying to learn on top of each other in those areas.

So in spots we will there are probably a few spots where there will be two-way traffic just because of constraints, um, such as right along the uh um solid waste access road.

We don't really have room to put any other um directional trail in there, so there might be some short sections just where we're constrained to have that two-way traffic.

We're gonna make sure that two-way traffic occurs in a flat area that has very good viewshed so you'll be able to see anyone that's coming up the trail or coming down the trail.

Great.

Thank you.

Those are all of my questions.

My other ones were already asked, so thanks to my colleagues.

Deputy Mayor.

Yeah, all of mine were basically asked.

I just want to put a finer point on something, Commissioner Magic uh question, and really you just mentioned about form fitting.

I just want to make sure as we approve this master plan, and you you have the freedom to to move trails and adjust without having to come to us or being constrained by oh, this is what we said, you know, back in uh April.

Yep.

Um so yeah, with with the construction of trails, um, especially the mountain bike specific styles of trails, there's a lot of um working with the with the topography that we have.

So working with where we have even very minor benches that don't necessarily show up in you know one to five foot contour lines.

There's a lot of um topography in there that we want to use and we want to be able to uh use that the best we can.

We also will run into stuff in the field in terms of what's in the soil and what's in the dirt.

You know, if we oftentimes, you know, working we live in a very mountainous area, we find some very large rocks or whatnot that's embedded in the ground.

Sometimes we can't go around those, we can't get those out.

Um so we kind of have to figure out a way to deal with the terrain that we're that we're given.

Um and so that's where we we want to be able to have a little bit of leeway to to get those trails into the best spot they can be.

Um also be able to to adjust it slightly so we can get the the sustainable trail grades that we want.

Um that's trying to control how water flows down and across trails, creating small little spots where water gets stopped from going down the trail and sheets off the trail.

So we want to make sure that in the field we can create those very small rises and and dips to manage the water and whatnot in the field too.

That's all I've got.

Thank you.

Yeah, I the only other thing I wanted to add there.

Um ravine opportunistic, and we're using the cut from MacIlaton Road construction.

Um, we'll be pushing that up into the site and using that to shape some of these firms and um features of the of the bike trail too.

So opportunistic in terms of cost and you know, cutting down these emissions from transporting that off site.

So it'll make for a better bike park.

Great.

Any further questions.

Okay.

I have it's great to go axe.

All my questions were asked.

So I think seeing no further questions from the commission, we'll move on to public comment on this item.

Thank you.

So we'll start with public comments in the room.

Similar to the previous items, you'll have three minutes.

The light will indicate when you have a minute left.

And just tell us you'll have three minutes to have the floor, and just at the beginning, introduce yourself and tell us your relationship to the city.

Good evening.

Hi there.

Hello.

Thank you for having me.

My name is Molly Bowman, and I am the executive director of Bozeman Youth Cycling.

This is the local nonprofit youth mountain bike club here in the Gallatin Valley.

I'm here to express my strong support for the bike fill project.

Bozeman Youth Cycling has rapidly grown over the past 10 years.

We celebrated 10 years last summer.

We have a Bozeman Youth Cycling Youth Program for first through fifth graders.

We regularly have 200 to 250 kids in that program every summer.

We also have a middle school and high school mountain bike team with 175 to 200 kids on that team every year.

We have a wait list for both programs every year.

Our main constraint is limited trail access.

The ongoing demand for our programs really just highlights how important they are to the local, our local kids and families.

Our programs offer something increasingly rare.

They offer a fun, structured team experience that has no tryouts and no cuts at any age.

This is a really meaningful alternative for our community kids to spending more time at home on their phones.

At Bozeman Youth Cycling, we want to make every child feel welcome.

We emphasize fun because that keeps kids engaged, and we teach confidence bike handling skills, and we spend a lot of time on trail etiquette.

These specific skills help kids become better, safer riders, and better stewards of our shared trail systems.

Bike fill would be a huge step forward.

It would give young riders and old riders a dedicated space to learn and progress safely on their bikes.

Features in trails that move from a beginner to an advanced progression allow kids to build skills at their own pace and they build confidence as they see real improvement over the summer.

Even more so though, a bike dedicated park and trail system would help spread users out, relieving pressure on our multi-use town trail system, which is well loved.

This creates more space for everyone to recreate while continuing to grow our outdoor community together.

At Bozeman Youth Cycling, we see this as an investment in our youth and our whole community.

Thank you for support of this project.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Hello.

I've spent the last 10 years of my life riding with first Bozeman Youth Cycling and then the Bozeman Gallatin NYCA team.

It's honestly kind of hard for me to describe the what these teams mean to me.

They've really given me these lifelong connections and friends all over the state, and as well as this lifelong love of biking.

Even more than that, they've created this really positive supportive community that has abled that has been able to help me bike into my best self, as we like to say on the team.

But thankfully, I didn't have to leave it behind.

I have been a coach with our Bozeman Youth Cycling program for the past three years.

My past two years have been as a full-time coach.

Um I really love to coach.

It's very rewarding to be able to spread my love of cycling to the next generation of riders.

Um as a coach, I mostly work with first through third graders, and I get to see uh firsthand how important the right environment is.

A bike dedicated trail system with progressive features would make a huge difference.

It gives place, it gives kids a place where they can build skills step by step, feel confident and accomplished instead of overwhelmed or intimidated.

A great example of this is the Skills Park that Cross Cut Mountain Sports has.

It has a wide variety of skills.

So it's super cool as a coach to get to uh see kids make goals to hit different milestones, such as riding a twisty log or doing a harder rock garden.

Um the space that bike fill offers would be an incredible asset um, not just for youth cyclers, uh cyclists, but for the whole community, and that I hope you guys can fully support Bike Phil.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Uh Daniel Cardi Bozeman Resident.

I'd like to compliment the previous two speakers for full disclosure.

I used to work with Molly Bowman at the Bozeman Fish Technology Center.

Um first, I'd like to thank uh Sakaji Audubon for being willing to do a bird survey this spring.

And I would encourage the city to work with Sacra Julia Audubon to do annual bird surveys.

Building biological databases that the city of Bozeman can keep on record is something the C city needs to do going forward for every single city-based project from now into the foreseeable future.

Before any construction begins, please make sure that bird nesting season is over.

Please be respectful of the spirit and intent of the US migratory bird treaty act.

And finally, if I can read my writing, um which I can't.

Um I'll have further comments on the site plan.

Thank you.

I bet it was really sharp.

Whatever was left.

Yeah.

Good evening.

Uh I'm Brian Guido.

Uh I am the adaptive recreation program director for Eagle Mount.

Um, and I think when I first heard about the bike fill idea, um bike fill, that means absolutely nothing to me.

And then I finally saw their trail plan.

Um, and I think all like the bells and whistles and like everything really kind of flicked.

Um I think that I've been involved with adaptive sports for quite a while uh within the Intermountain West since 2010 and in some areas that mountain biking is specifically adaptive mountain biking has been pretty well adopted.

Um and we are a little bit slow to the game.

I mean, I don't think that that is unrecognizable by any means, but I think that what we're doing with this project that doesn't just make us slow to the game, that makes a full step forward.

Um we at Eagle Mount don't necessarily speak for individuals with disabilities, but we do advocate and we are actively seeking them out for outdoor recreation.

And I think that even when we have started our adaptive mountain biking program only within the last few years, um, have recognized just we have a lack of places to go.

And seeing that we have not only have a lack of places to go, what we really needed was uh a place to grow, essentially with the wide variety of flow trails.

I think you're gonna see that you're having something for everybody.

And just with even a little bit of inclusive design, um, which has absolutely been applied, um, will make it more enjoyable for everybody across the board.

Um, not only for all of our riders, but just for all generations.

Uh, we work with all populations and we really want to involve as much of the individuals with disabilities in our community.

Um, we just need places to do it.

And so this would just be a fantastic opportunity for that.

Um, you know, seeing development in a lot of different places and seeing this um on my end just for somebody who's trying to create more access and more outdoor recreation.

And for us, we try to accumulate all the technology that we can to help kind of offset the costs for uh local community and our participants.

And once we finally have a place for it, I feel like that's gonna really create the perfect space that we're all looking for.

Um so I can't um accentuate even more how excited I am about this project and what it can offer.

Well timed.

Thank you.

Any more public comment requests in the room this evening.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor Morrison, members of the commission.

I'm Bill Cochrane.

I'm a longtime board member at GVLT.

I'm currently not on the board, but I have been involved in this project since day one.

Uh Gary Vodenall, who was the trails director at GBLT for many years, and I had the first meeting with Kevin Hanlin in the solid waste offices 14 years ago.

I have been trying to get this thing done and moved forward for that entirety of time.

Um a little bit about me.

I'm uh just wrapped up 42 years of being in the bike industry.

I've seen uh plenty of other places that that don't have this sort of facility, and what this will do for this community um for people like Molly Bowman and her kids and the whole entirety of Bozeman Youth Cycling and the NYCA team and the cyclocross community here.

Um it's really for me been a labor of love and patience, and I've shed some tears over this thing being pushed forward, and when we finally got it to the point where the commission had said, let's do the road, let's get this moving, let's make a park.

This isn't gonna just be a Bozeman park.

This is gonna be a nationally recognized piece of ground that is going to be used and will increase traffic to this community and will be a community asset that will last for generations, and I am I applaud you guys for being willing to do it.

Thank you very much.

Um I have a hard time kind of articulating what I really want to say, but it's gonna be an amazing thing, and and it's as outdoor oriented as this community is.

It this we have been sorely lacking a facility like this for many years.

Um thank you for your attention to it, and I thank you for um approving this master plan.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Hello, my name is Joe Pugh.

I'm a uh liaison with the Southwest Montana Mountain Bike Association.

I've been working with the city and GBLT to uh help move this project forward over the last year and a half.

Uh I'd like to uh comment on the Southwest Mountain Bike Association's strong uh belief that this is an important project.

Bozeman is a city of uh of bikers.

We have a large environment bike community has been expressed here previously.

There's a lack of places for us to bike, and this will be a uh a world-class uh facility.

I want to ensure the council that the city and DZLT has been uh diligently working to get input and design from leading experts really nationwide.

Uh the team that they have assembled to design and build this project is outstanding, and they've uh done an excellent job of um getting feedback and and um uh other comments from you know everything from water to wildlife to um you know adaptive experts.

Uh as was also said this will be a low-cost facility.

It'll bring people to Bozeman from all over, whether it's through Bozeman youth cycling, bringing thousands of people for a weekend bike race from across the state of Montana, uh, as we've seen when other bike projects have been built in town, like up at Crosscut, the parking lot is full of cars from out of state and out of town.

It'll help the local economy, whether it be hotel rooms or restaurants, um, and finally I hope that once you approve this project and see it as a success, that you'll use it as a vision to think about what other pieces of city property can you use to help the bike community and help grow and improve the city of Bozeman.

And finally, I hope that once you approve this project and see it as a success, that you'll use it as a vision to think about what other pieces of city property can you use to help the bike community and help grow and improve the city of Bozeman.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further public comment in the room this evening?

And a second request in the room.

And one final request for comment in the room, Mr.

Moss.

What are we seeing online?

I'm showing no request for comment there.

Okay.

Seeing no further requests for comments.

We'll close the hearing and bring it up here for a motion discussion and vote.

Just to clarify the motions we're seeing in front of us.

The second one is if there are revisions proposed by the commission.

That's there's none that are proposed by staff at the moment.

Great.

Okay.

I think it falls to Commissioner Sweeney.

Would you like to help us with a motion?

Thank you, sure.

I move to adopt the resolution adopting the park master plan for Bikeville Community Park.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Would you like to speak to your motion?

Yeah, I have to admit, all the talk about this being a regional destination makes me nervous.

But I'm really glad everybody's excited about mountain biking.

Um I do just want to reiterate for my colleagues, the board uh members who were able to visit the site.

Um, you know, the drawing, it it can look very cramped, but they were all unanimous in expressing that on site, it's actually you know quite vast, and there is room for all the fun things they got going on here.

So I'm gonna trust the board's judgment on that and happily support the motion.

Great, thank you.

Commissioner Magic.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor.

I'm gonna be supporting the motion as well.

These projects that have multiple partners, I think are some of my most favorite and fill me with pride for our community.

Uh there is such a great group of people and organizations from GBLT, the mountain bikers, Gallatin Watershed Council, Audubon, the Bozeman Tree Coalition.

We heard tonight from the Bozeman Youth Cycling, Eagle Mount.

When we have that kind of participation, it always makes the projects better.

And I think that we've seen evidence of that here tonight.

We're going to continue to see evidence of that as this plays out.

We see the site plan and we see how this is going to look on the landscape.

So really excited, and I'd so much rather see a project like this than some other kinds of industry that we could have that generates reason for people to come here.

This is healthy.

I think can be good for the environment.

It's human locomotion.

We heard from Chief Waldo that earlier in the meeting talking about the good health found in our community.

And I think this is evidence of just that.

We are a healthy community.

And we are also privileged.

You know, it's pretty amazing to be talking about a park of this size and of this class.

I just want to touch on the weed out spectral quick, the noxious weeds and spraying.

I would like for our community to kind of build awareness about some of the effects of herbicides and pesticides, and that not only education building awareness, but making it okay as we heard from staff to potentially close a place for a short small period of time to tend to noxious weeds if we are going to be spraying.

So really excited about this.

Thanks so much for the people who participated.

And I thought it was incredible that 800 people have submitted some kind of donation to help make this become a reality.

Thank you.

Commissioner Bowdy.

Thank you.

Yeah, I will also be in support of this.

It's not every day that you see a supporter list that includes Wimba, GVLT, the DERT Concern, Bosman Youth Cycling, Eagle Mount, Gallatin Watershed Council, and collaborators like the Sacagawea Audubon.

There's just a really tremendous number of respected community partners that have been working on this, thinking about every possible concern, taking the time to address those those different issues and bring the community in.

And I just feel really confident in the amount of community engagement that it's received.

Those are some pretty big numbers in survey responses and work sessions.

I'm just really in awe of the vision, collaboration, and also philanthropy that this has made this moment possible.

And I'm embarrassed to admit I'm not a mountain biker, despite being a avid um commuter on a bicycle.

But I can't help but think about my high school self who got introduced to mountain climbing through a high school mountaineering club.

And because of a climbing gym in my community and a bouldering park outside, I had access to a sport in town that later in life took me to some of the most remote places in the United States and deepens my love for public lands and my understanding of why it's so important to conserve these places.

It's my hope that this park will help Bozeman and Galton County kids as well as adults fall in love with a sport that brings them closer to the natural world.

It's resources like this that sets a standard for our current and future generations.

And this park is going to raise the bar.

And I'd be remiss to not mention him in this moment.

This park was left on his left undone list in his final address to this commission.

And I am just honored to support it and support his work.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That was a dramatic ending, but I had one comment of uh constructiveness here, which is just that in my role on the Urban Transportation District Board, we have been considering a possible expansion of a streamlined route that would go to the M in the summer to access the whole trail network out there.

And I'd be really curious to have a conversation about the possibility of putting a stop near Bikeville or just collaborating about how we might be able to help people access this park through our public transit system as well.

Thank you.

Deputy Mayor.

I I just want to share all this.

I think this is a moment to celebrate.

We have 500, almost 500 kids who are signing up for this program.

And as a parent of a child who uh tried to get into BYC, those moments though, that before that sign up were uh were some of the most stressful on the calendar.

Um it would not be an exaggeration to say that that those programs fill up in seconds once that once that sign up goes live.

And and um and I think also the um you know the the just to congratulate staff and and our partners on the outreach um to to make sure concerns were held, to make sure people had had you know input on where the what what sort of terrain they wanted, what sort of features they wanted.

I was at the MSU work session.

I remember when when we when I saw it on the schedule, I was like, oh boy, you know, because a lot of city events don't quite get that MSU participation that we hope for.

But this thing was packed with students who were really excited by this.

And um, and that's something.

And and I think that's also that speaks frankly to to something here that was kind of mentioned, but but I think is really we need to underscore is that how this reduces pressure on other multi-use trails, not just in the city, but in the region.

Um and um Langer's Langers um has is just astonishing as you see these little kind of little features that little jumps that that mountain bikers are putting in illegally into the into the into the trails.

And I think this will help some of those, you know, reduce some of that pressure by we'll have those features there.

Um and they'll be safe to use, they'll be well designed.

Um it'll take off some of the pressure.

You know, you see the cuts going down on Pete's Hill of Mountain bikers going downhill.

And I I think this is this, I would say not too much of stretch to say we we've got a goal of protecting water, you know, taking steps to protect watershed health.

This is helping do that in Highlight Creek and Lick Creek and uh North Cottonwood, you know, and some of these other kind of iconic drainages that that we all cherish and love.

Um so not necessarily within our city boundaries, but definitely within our watershed, and this is an effort to to help that.

Um I think that there are some things we need to work on that bridge um over McElhattan.

We've got to come up with maybe some sort of flashing light to say bikers, you know, beware bikers or something just to slow down traffic.

Um but we can have that discussion when we have our our our public safety work session.

But I think this is a I really want to commend staff, commend our partners at GBLT.

Um and I can't wait to see what this does for like Bozeman Cycling for NYCA and just for our biking community.

Um thank you to my to my colleagues and to and to staff and you know just the the huge community collaboration that's gotten it to this this point.

I won't be um too long with my remarks.

I really appreciate the the remarks that have been shared so far.

Um of course excited to celebrate and and support this this resolution before us.

Um it does seem like we're making uh we're inadvertently making it harder and harder for MSU students to likely graduate.

Um they'll have access to world class mountain biking, world class skiing, and world class rock climbing that you could go to between classes.

That's a dangerous recipe for MSU's uh graduation rates.

Um but nonetheless uh hearing the span of time that it took to get to this moment is something that I think we know that that spans multiple uh city administrations, city staff, uh multiple boards of GVLT, multiple members of mountain bike association.

This is monumental in the effort that it took to to get it here.

And in so many ways, we know these opportunities are culture setting and placemaking for our community.

Pete's Hill is a cultural gem for our community.

The regional park is a cultural gem for our community, Cooper Park.

And now we have a similar experience with with Snowfill, and this too adjacent using an existing resource in an adaptive and clever way, bringing together community partners will be a community gem, not unlike those other storied parks that this community gets to enjoy.

And I hope only that the love and the the tr the cherishing that this park receives um matches the tenacity and the endurance of the advocates that helped to create it.

Um I'm really excited for this moment, and I'm glad that Commissioner Bowdy invoked um former Mayor Terry Cunningham, who was of course a huge, a huge champion and supporter of of this project, and um I'm sure he'll be excited to see it moving forward.

Any further discussion have the last words.

No, no, no, just to play on your reference about the time.

You know, so Riley Bowman spoke of the the NYCA you know slogan of biking to your best self.

There is another one that's often that's maybe less less referenced, but it would be apply here is that go slow to go fast.

And uh I often think about that in some of our city processes, but here we are.

Thank you for that.

Um see no further discussion, we will poll the commission.

Mr.

Moss.

Commissioner Sweeney.

Hi.

Commissioner Magic.

Commissioner Bodie.

Aye.

Deputy Mayor Fisher.

Aye.

Mayor Morrison.

Aye.

Motion passes five to zero.

Um, we have one final item before us this evening, an appointment to our transportation board.

Um Commissioner Magic, are you prepared to make that motion?

I am prepared.

So uh I moved to a point, Grace Gilbert to the transportation board.

Gilbert.

Second.

Sorry, before we move on to a vote, we do public comment on appointments, correct?

I'll open this appointment item for public comment.

Any public comment in the room this evening.

Second request.

Mr.

Moss, are we seeing any requests online?

I'm showing no requests, Mayor.

Okay.

Sorry about that.

Commissioner Magic, is there anything that you'd like to offer to this appointment or are we ready to vote?

Super excited to support Grace, and I'm going to be supporting the motion.

Great.

Mr.

Moss, would you poll the commission?

Commissioner Matthew?

Aye.

Commissioner Bodie?

Aye.

Deputy Mayor Fisher.

Aye.

Commissioner Sweeney.

Aye.

Mayor Morrison.

Aye.

Motion carries five to zero.

We have no further action items, but we do have an opportunity for any further FYI from the commission.

Yeah, Commissioner Bodey.

And I just, it occurs to me that we haven't had a conversation as a commission about how we as a city want to approach AI as a tool and what kind of ethics we hope to hold ourselves to as we consider this this opportunity.

I think much of the world right now is grappling with both the tremendous opportunity and time savings that AI provides.

And the consent item included a AI phone answering system that would, I think, help provide better service to folks who are calling during business hours and also outside of business hours.

And I I could imagine this would be a real add value to the city.

And yeah, just what what kind of can of worms this opens?

Obviously not prepared to have that conversation tonight, but I I would be interested in having some kind of facilitated conversation where we where we work through what our ethics are around this.

Can I give a quick response there?

Absolutely.

Thank you for that comment.

We have been talking about AI as a city for at least a year now, more longer.

And we have developed and are developing AI policies as it relates to particularly employees' use of AI in their work, but also AI in general.

If the commission has an interest in having uh a work session about that, we're certainly willing to do it.

But it is something that RIT department, our legal department, our director team has had several sessions on, and we do understand the ethics involved in AI, but also the opportunities to provide better, faster, more efficient service in some areas.

So I appreciate that uh comment.

Can I add one thing?

So we actually have a formally adopted policy that Chuck has adopted.

It's as Chuck said it's been at least a year, maybe longer on employees use.

You have to go through the IT director.

You have to get the department director's approval to use IAI.

Um the other thing that we're doing is making sure in our professional services agreements that vendors who use AI have to tell us that their work product that they're required to produce has been produced in part or in whole with AI.

And so we certainly understand the implications.

Somebody's charging a significant amount of money and then they're using AI to produce it.

Um it may be in the best city's best interest to see that they're using AI, but not pay full freight for AI.

And so it is certainly a part of conversations that people have.

We see it in our agreements too.

I I appreciate that, and and I don't want to start a conversation here, but I I think my comment is is more on the um less on the the security concerns of using AI and more on the you know world ethics of it.

Um but certainly I would be excited to see that um current policy and potentially have a broader conversation.

Thank you.

Any further FYI?

Yeah, Commissioner Sweeney.

Umbody's left in the room now, but I don't know if this is appropriate, but that young lady Kylie, who came and gave public comment about adaptive reuse buildings.

I would love to see her apply for the student advisory council position on the historic preservation advisory board.

That was a brilliant comment, and I thank her for making it.

Any further FYI from the commission?

Any FYI from staff?

All right.

Seeing no further business to come before the commission, this meeting is adjourned.