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Okay, well, welcome everybody.

Disclosures.

You representing Richard B can.

My disclosure is I am married to a member of the Montana House of Representatives.

And changes to the agenda.

Emily, I should note I apologize.

I need to leave at 5 30 today.

Okay.

I've run into a crunch, but just want to let you guys know what I'm saying.

All right.

Thank you for letting us know.

And should we go around the room and just introduce ourselves?

Okay.

Hey, everyone, uh Mark Himpanelli Bogert Park neighborhood.

Patrick Boer Valley Unit Neighborhood Association.

Alison Todd, Gent Neighborhood.

I'm Kath Cromer.

I'm with Marwan Lindley.

Hi, everybody.

Angie Kochoick of the Northeast Neighborhood Association, otherwise known as Nina.

Kathy Rich with uh the University Neighborhood Association.

And Jim Webster with the scan, South Central Association of Neighbors, which is South Tracy South Black and the Bonton.

Emily Mason, Figgins Edition.

And Vinci Aguera, Valley West the Lakes Neighborhood Association.

Yep, that's on Jackson, representing the uh Bridget Crick Association of Neighborhoods, known as BCAN.

Beth Boyson, oh, representing the No How I View neighborhood.

Josie McCallow, representing Curve Park Neighborhood Association.

Douglas Fisher, I'm your city commissioner liaison, and more importantly, a proud member of the Bozeman Creek Neighbor Association.

Nice.

Oh, so we have two people representing.

Oh wait, you're the only one now.

Um Emily Kylie, community engagement coordinator for the city.

All right.

Um approval of minutes.

Approve minutes from March 12th.

I move to approve the regular meet meeting minutes as submitted.

I second the motion.

And then we vote.

Or do we just vote?

Okay.

We'll just raise your hand if you approve the paper.

Following paper.

Okay.

All right, public comments on non-agenda items falling within the purview and jurisdiction of the board.

This is the time to comment on any non-agenda matter fail falling within the scope of the interneighborhood council.

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

Action item.

Hi everybody, I'm Kath Cromerine, and this is Angie, whose last name I cannot pronounce.

How do you say your last name?

Kochoek.

Kochoic.

Andy Kochoick, everybody, Angie Kochoick.

And Zara Osman, who was also part of our steering committee, who is traveling, or she has she wasn't able to be here today.

Yeah, yeah.

So it has been an honor for me personally to serve on this steering committee.

I have learned far more about our bylaws than I ever thought I would learn.

And I am still learning about them actually.

And in particular, the difference between a majority vote, one-third vote, and quorum and two-thirds and all kinds of things, which are very exciting.

And to collaborate on bylaws and learn the importance of them too.

So with that, I'm gonna hand things over to Zara to kick us off with Angie to kick us off.

Sorry, Angie, um, with some of the changes and where how we've gotten to where we are now, which is pretty we don't have a lot to do today, I don't think.

So I'm sure Zara's here with us in spirit, and she's like moving through me.

I'm just merely a vessel.

Um so I thought that we would just sort of briefly recap what got us here to today, which hopefully will culminate in a vote.

Um so just bear with me if this is old hat for you, but we do have some new faces here, and also for the benefit of the public, I thought it would be good just to kind of recap why did we have a bylaw subcommittee here in 2026, since the last one was done in 2024.

Um in March of 2026, no, sorry, in January of 2026, this body um approved to form this subcommittee.

And the primary impetus for this update to our bylaws was to clarify um the bylaws with regard to voting and reporting of voting results.

And so I think we are pretty happy with having um achieved that in our update.

Since then, we held three meetings as a subcommittee, in addition to the regular standing February INC monthly meeting where we also discussed this topic.

So, again, to recap in January of 2026, um our first subcommittee meeting, um we met as a three-person subcommittee to consider the feedback we received from you, our fellow members of the INC, and then we proposed a set of edits.

And in February, we presented them to this body, and again, we received your suggestions.

And then in March, we had a Zoom meeting with Anna Sivrud of the city attorney's office, and Emily joined us for that meeting too, and it was a very productive and helpful meeting.

Anna provided clarity on certain things that must be in the bylaws per code, and those other parts of the bylaws where we have uh some uh flexibility and creativity to add language as we wish.

And then in March, our subcommittee met again.

Once we had um that meeting with Anna, we got to review the document and as a whole again, and we realized that some of the things that we changed before we presented it to you.

Um, we realized well, maybe we should revert those back because there were certain decisions that we felt was really, really important to have broad um agreement on.

So, for example, on the removal of an INC officer.

I think we were trying to streamline things to like one-third, but we realized that's an area where two-thirds really makes sense, because that's not a light decision to make.

So we did take the opportunity to revert back to the original language in those cases.

Um before we jump into the most recent uh version.

Okay, the reason we postponed from the March meeting was um we realized there were a couple of uh editing errors that looked like they were our editions when they really weren't our auditions.

They were the original uh text, but it must have been cut and paste in a way that made it look like it was our language.

We didn't feel comfortable with that.

We wanted to make sure the copy that we're sending on to the city commission is accurate and showing what we added um versus what we suggested striking.

And so we have since made a new document that hopefully will show um every single change accurately.

So if you don't mind, Emily, if you can pull that one up, it's the one called Oh, yeah, go ahead.

AKZOKC final draft.

There you go.

And so just a screen through so in this document.

Most of you have seen this before when we talked about this back in February.

Only a few changes have been made since then.

I I addressed some of them in my talk right now.

But as we briefly go through this, if you see anything that looks like a strike through, that is what we're proposing to delete.

If you see anything that looks underlined, that's new language that we as a subcommittee with your input suggest to add to the bylaws.

And then if you see anything in red, that's new changes that we made since we met with the city attorney's office.

So that you could see like anything that was like a majorly changed since the last time you guys saw this document with us up here.

So shall we just quickly go through this?

And if there's anything uh of merit that we need to talk about, or not a merit, but of import to talk about, and we could talk about that briefly.

Yeah, I mean, do we do you think we need to go through every change?

No, I don't think so.

Yeah.

Is the size okay on your computer?

It is okay for everybody.

Okay, great.

I'm not sure what to say about it.

Okay.

So in the mission, uh, I think this is all the language you've already seen.

Same thing with the vision.

You can see what we've added, what we've struck.

Hopefully, you've had a chance to look at this before this meeting as well, because it was in the agenda packet.

Um, what was very interesting here is that number one uh per Anna's suggestion, we did add to the definitions what we mean by an administrative vote versus a representational vote.

Which is at that point, which is number eight.

Um and number six, you could see here it shows up in blue.

I'm sorry, I said red, it's blue.

Um we uh uh we played with uh adding this word yet, just to show that growth mindset that if a non-recognized neighborhood group um has not yet met the minimum standards, you know, we're supporting that, right?

Um so uh that's why we put in the word yet.

Okay.

Generous, that's great.

What's that?

That's generous.

Thank you.

Um let's see, I don't think there's anything major here.

Okay, so here in this, what's the section?

Under city liaisons duties, Roman number 06.

We did add the word polls only because actually it was a suggestion that came from uh uh from one of you.

I can't remember who mentioned it, but it might have been Anna.

But I thought it was also from somebody else who was in this group who had said that polls were helpful for their neighborhood in particular because of the way that they were communicating with each other.

So who knows?

I mean, it may have been both places, but anyway, yeah.

Yeah.

So we just thought surveys or polls.

All right, and then okay, I don't think anything really changed there.

Okay, yeah.

So this was the section I kind of referred to a few moments ago.

Um we saw the value in keeping it at a two-thirds uh quorum that would be necessary to remove anybody from this body, as opposed to streamlining it to one third and a simple majority.

So there's that.

Does it help any does it help anybody else like me to know what those numbers actually mean?

So simple majority is correct me if I'm wrong.

I think it's eight.

Well, let's start with the number of formally recognized associations right now is 15.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So one third, so one third obviously is five.

Um, two-thirds is ten, and majority is eight.

It just means that it's above half.

So seven and a half, if you you know, could split us in two.

Well, in this case, actually, I think two-thirds of 15 is ten.

Um in this case, a simple majority would be six.

Oh, because it's of ten.

Are you is that what you're saying?

That's how I think we were thinking we would interpret that.

That might be.

So maybe we're not as clear as we thought.

It's a little confusing.

Um that's different once we get to the bottom.

That's different for when we talk about bylaw changes.

Let's maybe pop down there.

Okay.

I'm not sure where that is.

I think keep going.

Okay.

Is this it?

No.

I think you have to.

So here.

Okay.

So now this one is what I believe we understood.

This one, an amendment to bylaws is even a higher threshold that we have to meet.

And this is per code.

We didn't have any say in this, really.

Um understanding is that if we want to amend our bylaws by taking a vote tonight, even we would need two-thirds of all the INC delegates.

Right.

Which, you know, that's 15.

Two-thirds of that is ten.

We need 10 of us to be present at this meeting.

Looks, I don't, I haven't counted, but are we there?

We're there.

Um it's not enough just to have 10 of us in attendance to then vote and get a simple majority.

For this thing, we need two-thirds of us to also support that vote.

So in this case, 10 of us, at least 10 of us need to vote, and all 10 of us would have to vote in favor.

Vote in favor of submitting these for ratification.

Yeah.

So that's my understanding of the difference between this type of vote versus a simple majority vote that would require a two-thirds quorum.

Yeah.

And I think it helps to put in context, Angie.

So thank you.

Yeah.

Do I have that right?

You think?

Okay.

All right.

So can we go back up again to where we were before we scrolled down?

Section 10.

I don't remember the section number.

Okay.

I think it was removable.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we talked about that.

Okay, I think we can keep going down.

Okay.

Apologize if we're moving fast.

I'm just trying to be mindful of time because we always seem to run out of time at these meetings.

Wait, so go back up for a moment.

Okay.

So this was an area where I feel like we struck a fair amount because this was the part that was it was too loosey-goosey.

Um so we feel good about it.

The city attorney's office looked at this and seemed supportive.

So I feel good about pushing this along to the city commission.

Um, I think we can keep going.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think we covered the major changes.

Does anybody have any questions?

Emily.

Um I didn't get a chance to review this before.

So I did, I didn't know if it was in here, but um, if, for example, the chair was unavailable for the monthly meeting, as and so was the vice chair.

Um my understanding that the way things are written now, maybe in the bylaws that we wouldn't hold a meeting.

Um is that the case?

Or is it kind of like the president, vice president, speaker of the house, and then the secretary would be able to do that.

You know, that's a good question.

That hasn't come up in our discussions.

Yeah, that was I was just looking at that.

Um I think it was under duties officer duties.

Which which what number is that?

City liaison duties?

No.

For the officers and duties.

It's it's section five.

Yeah, yeah.

Right there.

You see it.

Yeah, you're on it right now.

So it doesn't, if you go down a little bit.

There's nothing that says that the secretary treasurer will in the event of the that's a good catch.

Yeah.

I think on the fly here, uh, makes sense to add that.

If the chair and the vice chair are unable to chair a meeting, that um it would be great to still be able to have a meeting.

Yeah.

And therefore, the secretary treasurer.

I would put that in number three.

Got it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Maybe just cut and paste in the event of the absence of the inability of the chair or the vice chair.

To exercise office in the event of just from there.

Okay.

That's a squirrely mouse.

It's awful.

Squirrely mouse.

That's funny.

Which will be.

Did I t touch the wrong thing?

Maybe I did.

Let's just I'll just not worry about copying and pasting.

Yeah, maybe just type it.

What should I put it in?

Um right here.

I would say the secretary treasurer.

What's up with these weird circles?

Sorry, Emily.

Now it's gonna do it because it caught that she's coming.

Yeah, it's not.

It's the just her presence is an S.

Oh no.

So we're trying to copy and paste in the event of and then chair the yeah, change the vice chair to the Secretary Treasurer.

Um the vice chair.

It's also the smallest keyboard.

Yeah.

Uh there's one extra R there.

And then of the chair uh in the ability of the chair and vice chair.

Oh no, now it's going straight there.

Still doing it.

I think you have to click this up here to get rid of it.

Sorry, everybody.

Yeah.

No, this this is good.

I'm glad you suggested that.

Thank you.

Is uh is Beth able to ask a question while you guys do the text?

Not yet.

All right, let's make sure we save this as today's date.

Exercise the opposite.

Can we actually save this as today's date?

So we know how it goes, Beth, when you're under pressure, you can't you can't you really multitask at this stage of the game.

All right.

I think we I think we can handle it now.

It's not working.

Does the Secretary Treasurer really have custody of monies?

Well, the tr it's the tr it's the same position.

So yeah.

Are there any monies that we actually have custody over?

It's just gonna say it's just gonna say okay.

All right, what's your question, Beth?

And number four.

Under duties, the secretary treasurer shall have custody of all monies belonging to the ink.

That was there.

We figured maybe someday there would be money.

We didn't really touch that.

Our neighborhood has a little bit of money.

Our neighborhood does.

I don't know.

Yeah, our neighborhood does.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Any other questions?

Or suggestions.

Uh I think it's 12 F.

Okay.

Which is uh voting on the representational votes.

Which I can't do.

Oh, XI two.

Okay.

I think it's on the next page.

Is that is that what you said?

Yeah, F.

Great.

Um is that again, just to be clear, majority vote of all voting delegates present at that meeting.

Yeah, so you would not be counted in that vote because you're not a voting delegate.

Okay.

So that means uh someone who's representing a neighborhood whose bylaws do not grant them the chance to make a representational vote, would not be counted in a reperti representational vote.

Okay.

Yeah.

I always can try to like think up worst case scenarios too.

So forgive me for the yeah.

Yeah, well, you could abstain, but your abstention would not count as part of a would not count as a vote because it's an abstention.

What if we did a survey of the neighborhoods?

The surveys came back like pretty strongly in favor or not in favor of something.

Uh then the flu hits and somehow we still have a meeting, but like there's hardly anybody here.

And like so the people here want to vote kind of opposite to what most of the surveys said.

Like that could still happen, right?

Because I'm sorry.

Say say you're for instance again.

You could I'm trying to figure out the minimum number of representational people that can vote something through that would go to the commission as a position of ink.

Well, in order to have a meeting in the first place, you have to have five people.

If you don't have those five people, you can't even host a meeting.

But if you have a proxy, if anybody has a proxy in this room, it just means somebody who's standing in for you, then that proxy can vote on your behalf.

There's a there's a thing that I think we have, I can't remember how that works.

If there's any kind of official thing that you have to do as a proxy.

Yes, there should be written authorization.

If the designated delegate cannot attend a meeting, um, they should let Emily as our staff liaison know that their alternate is gonna come.

And then if an alternate can't come, then there's written authorization required for yet another person to to to sit in that person's seat.

But you should let Emily know and also CC the Secretary Treasurer, I believe.

But just a basic biophobie.

Fifteen sets of survey results.

Five people show five people show up at the meeting, three people vote in favor of a certain direction.

That's three on fifteen.

Like I it might be something we want to encourage more attendance and future revisions.

So I'm not I mean I am not criticizing you guys in particular at all.

I'm just there are weird scenarios where you could see uh things again, they're kind of in the edge case, but I think we were really trying to create a situation where we were setting neighborhoods up to succeed as best as we could.

And we had that same impression from Anna, the city attorney, that that's really the whole business of Inc.

is to really help all of us succeed as neighborhoods and as entities in the greater city of Bozeman.

So nobody's trying to make this fail.

If if there's a rogue situation, Mark, that you know, creates what happens in in your eyes, we'd probably revisit it, you know, as an ink and figure out what we needed to do.

But um is that likely to happen?

I think it's probably everybody just needs to come.

What's that?

Everybody just needs to show up, right?

That always helps.

Uh two points I want to add is I mean, I we've seen in recent history how the ink has already grown.

And as more neighborhoods become organized, um the ink is gonna even grow.

We might need a bigger room or set up out here or something like that.

So I think uh to kind of echo Kath's idea.

I think there's a general energy behind the ink and it's growing.

And I think the other piece of it is is for those neighborhoods that are going out there and gauging their memberships um uh desires on things, we wouldn't want to hold those neighborhoods back.

So I think they we had to do that.

In my particular example, if a commissioner were paying attention, they would see a bunch of survey results.

Yes.

And then they would see a very small vote going the other way.

And it would look stupid if they were paying attention.

Like it would look not something.

And again, this isn't a criticism of the Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Well, we and we can also, as an Inc take issue with it, you know.

Um so I I don't think it's quite as dire, maybe as you as you can probably.

That is one of the biggest criticisms we get.

So my mind is just trying to clear up a possible, you know, things people can shoot at us.

My husband loves people like you.

He's in quality assurance, so it's like you're gonna say you're trying to break it, he's trying to fix it.

Yeah, we're trying to fix it too.

I have a great video for him about how people write so offer and how QA tests software.

You gotta send it to me.

It's occurring to me that um maybe we should be calling for a motion to be made.

Um we started having some discussion here, but I guess we should call for a motion to be made.

And we have do you happen to have a uh a copy of that motion, Emily?

We have it written out right here.

Okay.

So this is one um that I think we crafted a couple months ago, right?

Um so I'm gonna read the motion.

Perhaps one of you would like to make the motion.

Uh I'll I'll read the proposed motion language, and perhaps one of you would like to make a motion to discuss this and vote on it.

Okay.

So the proposed motion language is I move to adopt this updated draft of the INC bylaws as prepared by the designated subcommittee with additional changes per INC review.

And the city attorney's office for ratification by the city commission.

Right.

Thank you, Patrick.

Thank you, Mark.

So I guess I want to ask Mark.

I mean, do you feel strongly enough about your concern that you would want to amend this or propose an amendment at this point?

No, I'm curious what people might think.

Um everybody just has to show up, right?

Like that's it's always helpful.

I really think that's what it means.

So maybe in the next iteration as we've grown and stuff we can beef up the number of.

If it's problematic.

I personally am not gonna die on that hill right now.

I mean, I just kind of want to point it out.

Does anybody else uh want to talk about anything about this before we take a vote?

Sure.

Having um I guess the minimum of five people for a meeting, so that's a third, like I compare it to the historic preservation board where I know I think we need to have at least four, if not five, but it's not and I realize the math is different with 15 people, but it just strikes me as a big red flag to accept having five people for a meeting and a vote by three people in one direction or another to make policy.

Three out of fifteen is 20 percent.

And to me, that dog doesn't hunt.

So what would you what do you want to propose an amendment?

Um to hike or at least have a discussion to arrive at say a higher number, like at least well, and I think we ought to go more than eight.

I think there was something uh ten people, I mean ten people to have a meeting.

That's two-thirds with 15 people.

I think we would hope that 10 of us would show up.

And again, to have a discussion first.

I'm not trying to ride roughshod over anything, but just to have you know some high and decent standards seems like let's start the discussion with doubling the size of people to tend to have a legitimate meeting, not five.

So it's kind of what we the conclusion we came to when it came for the removal of an officer or even a member.

Right.

That one was requiring a quorum of two-thirds, and then um a simple majority from that.

So that would be six.

Does that feel high enough?

For that and for this, which would be to take a representational vote.

Yeah, a simple majority of six, or at two-thirds, I guess on ten, it'd be seven.

Um, really?

It wouldn't be six?

Six.

On ten, wouldn't two thirds.

No, no, no.

A simple majority.

But if you had a two-thirds, no, well, so okay.

So this is where it gets really confusing.

So we always had to go back to there's the quorum required to take the vote.

Right.

And then there's the amount of the amount of votes you need for that to pass.

So a two-thirds quorum out of 15 would be 10.

Right.

Okay.

And then you have your 10 people voting, and if at least six of these ten vote one way or another, that would be the simple majority.

Right.

Simple majority.

Yeah.

Six, and it's gonna be a simple majority then for all items to be voted on.

Is that right?

Well, I think what you're saying is, and what Mark is saying is correct me if I'm wrong, that only requiring one third quorum, which means five out of fifteen to take a representational vote and a simple majority of five is three, feels way too low.

So maybe what we can do here as an amendment to our first motion is to change this from if you go to the representational votes area.

Is it in this section?

So right here.

You can go up a little bit.

Up a little bit.

Okay.

Um sorry, let me maybe let me drive for a moment.

Where are we?

Why are you guys really gonna thank you, Jim, for your feedback?

I I think I was I'm always thinking like why we wouldn't want to look stupid, right?

But that is not like it's actually maybe it is good to get it written down how we don't look stupid.

So thank you.

It's in 10 minutes.

I'm sorry, it's not representation setting is in 12.

It's in 12 D, the thing we're talking about, amending, you're right there.

Does somebody want to make a motion to amend?

Okay.

So yes.

So meetings held if there is quorum.

So we can have a meeting.

Let's say there's no voting to be had in a particular meeting.

We could have a meeting if only one third of us, five of us show up.

Okay.

Um then here we talk about voting is also subject to the one th the one-third rule.

So you could change that to two-thirds?

That's not the same as a representational vote, though.

I think this is like for administrative type votes.

Let's say we wanted to take a vote.

Hey, should we have a subcommittee?

That would be uh a majority vote of the delegates in attendance.

But if we scroll down a little bit more, where was that representational vote?

Bear with me.

Okay, here we go.

Um can I make a comment?

Here we go.

Um excuse me, can I make a comment?

Uh all the meetings are open to public and subject to Montana's open meeting laws.

So if five of us were at a block party or a coffee shop, I think that you know that's technically a meeting.

Okay.

So I also agree that it's five is way too small of a number, and I think two-thirds quorum for just holding a meeting is appropriate.

Okay.

I'm trying to look for the section that's dealing with this.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm reading this part right here.

Yeah.

Taking my first position.

Neighborhood representation 10 to 24 neighborhoods require a majority of vote.

Of all voting delegates.

Okay.

So yeah, so we want to an F.

It sounds like there's an amendment desired to require a two-thirds quorum.

Is that correct?

Because if you go back to the Yes, it's two-thirds quorum.

If you go back to D, it establishes that a quorum is one-third, right?

But when we get to F, we want to say representational votes taking a position on behalf of the neighborhood association.

Shall Acclay or Five Neighborhood?

Neighborhood representational votes intended to form the official position of the should require um a two-thirds quorum.

And so back to the question, is six enough?

Or are do you want to have a higher threshold of is a simple majority enough of a threshold out of 10?

Or are you guys thinking a higher number than that?

One other small thing here should be two-thirds quorum of voting delegates.

Yeah, I'm looking at two thirds quite underneath all representing and voting 12 where a meeting is held if there's quorum.

A quorum consists of one-third of current delegates.

I think it should be two-thirds.

So there's a difference between an administrative vote and a representational vote.

So let's say there was an administrative vote that was about, hey, should we form a subcommittee?

Like, do we want to hold that to the same standard as taking a representational vote?

That's the distinction there.

But there's also something in D that is gonna help us avoid being at the Christmas stroll and breaking the rules.

Yeah, it's the first sentence.

A meeting is held if there's quorum.

A quorum consists of one-third of current delegates representing recognized neighborhood associations.

That should be Oh, I see.

So you guys suggesting that we should change that to two-thirds.

So that would be ten.

Yeah, yes.

We'd have to have a lot but then we wouldn't need to have 10 in this room to have a meeting or online.

Have we ran into that issue before of not having 10?

Emily would know better than us.

We ever run into an issue where we didn't have two-thirds.

Um I suspect we have.

And just to be clear, before we didn't come up with the one-third.

One-third was original language.

I think before I was here, there was some times when there were not very many people on ink.

Um I wasn't, but since I've been here two years, there may have been like one or two that was lower than ten.

Yeah.

But we also had fewer neighborhood associations.

Yeah, and mind you, when when I came on about a year, a little bit more than a year ago, we only had 12.

So one-third was four.

Yeah.

So I don't feel like we've had that low of numbers.

Yeah.

And it's incumbent on us to come up with a proxy then too to really try.

Yeah.

As you pointed out earlier, yeah.

But I understand has your hand up.

Michelle, what do you want to say?

Go for it.

Yeah, I I think that um when we're talking about administrative votes, keeping it a lower number would be beneficial because the point is to have the meeting, not to hamstring the ability of having the meeting.

Whereas once we're voting on actual issues we want to bring to the commission, then it makes sense to have that higher number.

Right.

Yeah, I think that's essentially.

It is laid out pretty clearly that you can't miss the meetings.

And if you're going to miss, you need to switch yourself out with somebody.

So I think that line D, if that becomes a problem, that could be edited in the future, but you know, I'm not too worried about people getting in trouble at the Christmas troll.

I think that it's more important that we have a functioning ink that can gather with a lower number and a one-third quorum to sit in this room or online is important so that we are we are a functioning body and we're not holding ourselves to a higher number of people necessary than the seat commission.

Right.

I think that was part of our rationale as well.

What about a simple majority?

It kind of cuts it in between.

A simple majority for which one are you talking about?

Well, instead of one third or two-thirds.

For quorum, I think.

For a quorum.

Can you do that?

I think we need to know what I'm not following.

It would be eight.

Instead of saying so you're saying half?

Or more than half.

More than half.

Half plus four.

A meeting to be held.

The simple majority of the members must be in attendance.

Well, that's kind of splitting where we're at between one-third and two-thirds, right?

It would be a simple majority.

So instead of five or ten, it would be eight.

I just haven't heard simple majority used in that way.

Maybe it does use that way, but I've usually seen it as like a rat uh like a ratio of or not a ratio, a per uh fraction of the total.

Um I don't know, maybe that is a viable way.

You know.

Just a point of clarification.

I think this applies to emails too, right?

Like we start getting too many people on an email chain.

Yeah, that's why copy of the thing.

This number eight would then apply, I think, to emails, which I think is reasonable.

Okay, so I feel like we have a a second potential amendment that we're discussing, unless we're gonna group this all into one amendment.

Are we grouping all these changes as one amendment to our original proposed amendment?

Ask a few things.

One we haven't voted on anything to amend.

No, I know, but when I see city commission meetings, they vote, they have a motion and then they have an amendment, and then they vote on the amendment and then they go back to the main motion and vote on that.

I think that's how it's done, right?

Yes.

So would we vote to amend first?

Correct.

Okay.

I know it sounds backwards to me too, but that's how I've seen it play out in other meetings.

And it's only slightly related, but I was hoping to hear our city commissioner's update, and he needs to leave in 15 minutes.

Right.

So do we want to mull this over and postpone the vote till next month?

Um I mean, I don't know that we're in a giant hurry.

I think this is really important, which is why we took it on to begin with.

We want to do a good job of it.

We want to be we want to elevate the INC.

So can you capture in language, Emily, the amended motion around, let's just say um there was a a motion to amend section 12 representation and voting.

Would you mind can you capture that for us?

Just just so people can be thinking about that before the next meeting.

I guess I'm I I didn't write anything down.

I wasn't sure exactly what we were doing.

Well, I'm asking, can can you jot something down?

Because I yeah, I because I in here it just gets so uh it's so testy.

So would um Jim, would you be so kind as to based on what you garnered from people talking about we're talking about changing meeting quorums as well as represent uh representational voting thresholds?

Um so I think if we just generally talk about section 12, if folks can think about that before our next meeting um then I think we can continue this conversation.

Does that seem like a good way to go?

It does.

Okay.

I just want to apologize that I didn't I didn't catch this till now.

Don't apologize.

This is what this is about.

I think I think I mean this just goes to show how there's there's a lot of consideration that goes into it.

And some of it we thought, well, it was here, it must have worked.

So some but some things we felt strongly about that we felt like we needed to make um suggestions about.

And so this is the opportunity to do this.

So can you just um for Emily's purpose of capturing it so that she can then send it to us to all think about independently before we come back in May?

Can you restate um the amended motion?

Restate the amendment.

Or or restate the motion you want to make to amend uh I guess I'll just then we have something unique on this board that no other board, including the commission has.

And that is when we look and say, oh man, having 10 people for a meeting, that's tough.

Let's look around and remember we can have stand-ins.

Who else can have stand-ins for them?

Yeah.

Their seats, their votes on another board, including the commission.

Yeah.

No one.

Yeah.

So how maybe maybe to make this key.

I withdraw my motion.

There you go.

And I make a new motion that the uh the issue be tabled and will be discussed next month.

Sounds great.

Thanks, Pat.

Yeah.

Let's vote.

So let's table it.

So if you guys can mold the section 12 and any other ones that come up for you, quite frankly.

But this one clearly, you know, it's it's a rich conversation.

And then you're considering the quorum.

Or just wondering if you should have a question.

Just say section 12 representation and voting.

And I think at this point the motion's been withdrawn.

We agree to table this till next month.

And just so everybody can take some little bit of time on your own do your homework.

Do we need to vote on that, Patrick?

Yes.

No.

No.

Okay.

I have another point of order, Emily.

Since Doug has to leave, could we change the agenda to hear his report before yes?

Yes.

Do we have to vote on that?

Or can I just arbitrarily change them to that agenda?

You can arbitrarily change it.

Okay.

I arbitrarily change the agenda.

And that was we'll give his up.

I don't have much of an update for you all.

I'm really here to listen.

I think the the just a couple updates.

I just wanted to make sure things on a city commission agenda coming up on the 14th, we're going to have kind of a work session on pedestrian and traffic safety.

Um looking citywide at some um you know neighborhoods and and areas where we know that there are some slight problems.

And just in terms of how we work, you know, what what our um are we spending enough money you know in on pedestrian safety?

What what is that plan there?

Um then on the 28th, we'll have a work session looking at that list of priorities in terms of we'll we'll hear from the from city staff, you know, which of those trains or which of those priorities they think can can lead the station to how those will look going forward.

And we'll we'll have uh the five of us will have a chance to look at and and say, well, we really think we should leave let you know one priority or another kind of um take more of a priority.

Um then that's you know, kind of about it.

We um we did get your uh request for the moratorium.

I don't think you don't have a full you don't have a majority support on that on the commission.

Are you referring to the interim zoning?

Sorry, the interim zoning and uh every a request for to for us to you know pause or to um stop any of the larger larger developments of the NCOD.

Can you repeat?

We we don't have enough support, have discussions taken place.

There have been more of one-on-one or two-on-one conversations.

Again, you know, we can't have a full discussion, but there hasn't been a call by three commissioners to put that on the agenda.

I see.

And that also the the mayor doesn't support it.

I will say, you know, part of the thinking, I'm I'm one of those that that would uh doesn't want to do that in in part because we have gotten advice and it didn't come in from well, we we have gotten advice from the city uh attorney.

And I kind of wish frankly that that was put into the room as you guys had that discussion last week, but or last month, that there are um ramifications to having uh to uh to declaring uh you know uh emergency uh you know to to declaring an emergency and and putting an in uh emergency zoning or interim zoning that um have uh have ripple effects downstream and it just makes it more complex.

Don't you think it merits a public discussion?

I mean if we made a uh wrote a letter as the inner neighborhood council asking the council to talk about it, now you're saying you can't even talk about it because three people don't support it?

Why can't you just talk about it in what's a matter of public record?

We can all be informed.

Rather than ignore it, it seems that seems wrong.

Well, we got a lot of requests to put the items on the agenda.

How often do you get a request from the inner neighborhood council?

How often do you get all the people in the inner neighborhood council sending something like this?

This is unusual.

And it's in the fact that we have consensus and each neighborhood has come together to say we want City to talk about this.

And then now it's just ignored.

Come on.

I wouldn't say it was ignored.

Well, it's not going to be talked about publicly.

Because you don't want to bring it to the table.

But then that doesn't make us feel that good.

Well, I hear that.

And yes.

Now it's true, you know, the Interneighborhood Commission, you know, we hear you you heard we heard your voted on this.

Um it's part of it is that we we're we're working also with staff and and and trying to get, you know, work.

We we're trying to get our um those that work plan for the different for the priorities of which looking at the NCOD um revisions is one of those.

Um there are again, we're here we have gotten advice from the city attorney, and I you know I will bring this back up to the to the mayor and and the and into the commission room.

Um that there is a disappointment here that we have not um acted on this in a point.

I mean I don't know how many times there was hundreds of people that weighed in on that poll.

Um, yes, probably more than a thousand.

Um can I also make a request that we get some sort of formal language that we can share back with our neighborhoods because as you can imagine, the poll um the turnaround time of request to fill out the form, the poll was an issue that we heard um very loudly and clearly from our neighbors.

Um and then the results coming back and then the lack of understanding of what the next step was also created a lot of ruffled feathers.

Obviously, this is uh you know, hugely hot topic in Bozeman, and so I think we just owe it to our neighbors to be able to say, I mean, we send a weekly, a monthly email after these meetings, just giving a kind of update and and the notes.

They are going to ask us, so what's the next step with this survey?

We filled it out under duress, it appears.

Um, and now we want to know what's next.

I can make that request for sure.

Okay, thank you.

Yes.

So Commissioner is a great.

Yeah, it just deserves to be in the newspaper.

He should come talk to us.

I guess I would like some clarity because as I understand it, interim zoning is a tool that's allowed by the state for municipalities to use.

So I I guess uh I'm not a lawyer, but I'm trying to understand what would be the legal reason that we would not be able to use it.

I would I don't want to try and summarize that point.

It was uh it was nuanced and not exactly straightforward.

And I'd prefer to have the city attorney you know offer that, and I can I can ask for I I will make that, I will ask for that.

Right.

And to try to summarize Commissioner Fisher, like why we went to this in the first place with the landmark program out there as yet not finished, and the Lakota group starting the NCOD guidelines this very coming week, it just seemed appropriate because there was a sense we knew it's not an emergency, and that's not what the state statute says, anyways.

It says if there's a sense of urgency, and we felt there was the sense of urgency with these two programs not yet fully fleshed out that it made sense to again at the very least entertain the discussion.

Even if the vote was ultimately thumbs down by the commission to have a discussion at the commission level that's public.

That's the one thing I think you're hearing it here.

So I'll leave it at that.

But that's what's key.

And I think your commission, the um the priorities for this year speak to those things.

So it's like I think you would very much be supporting those priorities by at least entertaining a discussion.

And you said it is in the priorities in some form that NCOD is in the updating the NCOD is in the priorities.

Okay.

Okay.

And did I hear somebody say there's interest in inviting the city attorney here to the meeting to explain the reasoning or the debate?

That was me.

Okay.

So that's the city commission has hid behind the city attorney time and time again, ever since Amy Holleran built black and olive.

So I think the city attorney needs to come speak.

Or at least give us a formal statement.

And that is what it comes down to, and you guys are hiding behind that.

And the fact that you would even have a discussion when you have this many voices.

It's a disappointing.

I I would imagine that most of the people sitting around here are disappointed.

This is what we talk about when we say that there is a lack of trust, and you ran on that.

So the fact that you won't bring that to the table, that you're one of the um I know Magic would do it, and I know Sweeney would do it.

So you could be the third voice who could actually bring community discussion to the commission.

This is what we're talking about.

And I I hate to be so blunt, but everybody beats around the bush.

And Douglas, this is what we're asking for.

For you want to be the elected official who who builds trust.

This is your moment.

Build some trust.

I would think also as our commission liaison, I would like to see you as an ally in situations like this.

Because what you know, what's the worst that can happen is that you know you guys have a discussion and then maybe it doesn't fly.

But um, I'd like to think that the commission person who's sitting in that seat uh um wants to help elevate our concerns, especially when the voices about this interim zoning just within the NCOD.

These neighborhoods are not all located within the NCOD, and yet there was um widespread and unanimous support.

Can I ask quick before you have to go, Deputy Mayor?

Um, was there going to be a walk with the commissioner, or did we miss that already concerning the pedestrian safety?

I thought Jennifer Jen Magic announced something.

We did that uh at the at the end of March, along with the we missed it already.

There will be others, but okay.

But sorry, I just want to double check if I could announce to my neighborhood that that was happening.

So thank you.

Okay, so I will uh bring this back to the commission.

That that uh the this this board panel is very interested in a uh in a discussion at a commission level.

Um that you would like to hear from the city attorney on why interim on the risks of of interim zoning, why it's not advisable in this situation.

Um then um and if you could include the thousand people that weighed in via the surveys.

A request for language on why the city commission is not taking this up if we yeah.

Okay.

Um to that point I a question just going back to your um first part of your update.

Where are my notes?

Um so the April 4th work session and then the 28th meeting to review um are those open to the public?

Those are regular city commission meetings, they will be open.

That's April 14th.

14th.

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

I I just wanted to mention one thing.

The last time I checked, I might have changed, but um last time I checked our letter from the INC, I don't think was actually uh put into the INC folder.

I think it was somewhere else in public comment.

So if if it's possible to just verify, I mean, you know, I know sometimes there's overlap and it covers more than one topic, and sometimes it's hard to know where to file it.

But it would seem to me that um as a record of a formal recommendation by the INC there should be a copy of it in the INC folder, I think.

Sure, I can check with them with your mic and make sure it's thank you.

And it might have changed since I last looked at it, so think thank you.

I know we got it.

It was read, yes.

Okay.

Doing your uh updates now.

Of course.

530.

And then if I yes, um I do need to run, but but I I will take this message to the commission.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, okay, thanks.

I we're gonna be writing letters to the editor, and we're gonna bring it up because at least you should have a discussion.

Yeah.

Vote it up, voted down, but have a public discussion.

It just seems the basis of transparent democracy.

And yeah, we have to answer back to the people who filled out the survey.

What do we tell them?

Sure.

Right.

Um thank you again.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, everybody, for your comments.

Okay.

Uh should I move on to the award the award?

Okay, yeah.

So discuss neighbor and staff awards.

So I thought um, I think I had mentioned this a while ago, but um I thought it would be kind of a nice thing for our um for the interneighborhood council to annually um give uh an award for a city staff member and for um a neighbor that might be doing uh you know for the staff member, somebody who kind of goes above and beyond um and is in my mind is helpful and communicative.

Um and then the neighbor who's somebody out there who's doing something to benefit the community.

So if anybody can open that up for discussion, is there a process, Emily, that you've been thinking about or that anybody's been thinking about about how to do that?

But I mean, obviously there's a lot of residents, right?

Right, that's one thing.

Yeah, and then I don't know how many people are on staff, but I'm guessing there's a number of those too.

So um I mean, I think it's really just somebody who we might be working with on uh, you know, if we know you just happen to be working with a city person and it's a very helpful experience, and maybe some other people, you know, just kind of nominate somebody as a process.

People are would be able to nominate a neighbor or a staff person.

Is this a yearly kind of just once a year with the idea of this going to a vote when not sure to be determined?

Yeah, okay.

Yep, thank you.

This is very just beginning phases, but I just thought it might be nice for us to be doing something positive for the city staff and recognizing recognizing their efforts.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

I I I would just caution.

I I believe in I'm sorry if I got a little emotional there, but you know, this to me was flabbergasting.

But um in terms of this award process, I could predict they would become a can warbs we'd spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.

And um I'm not sure that's how I want to spend my time.

I want I would rather spend my time thinking of more things we could say as a unified voice to the city.

Uh because you know, people in my past as a community organizer, you you do have to elevate people who are doing good work.

Um, make all that.

But it it can become especially with this body, a matter of you know, well, you know, which neighborhood thing it just becomes a time sucking thing.

And uh, you know, in terms of how I'd like to spend our time, it's not a priority for me.

Personally, I'm not speaking on behalf of my neighborhood.

We haven't done a poll about it yet, so I don't know.

I was just gonna mention that um last year, I think in February, we actually brought um one of our neighbors um to be honored, uh Kathy Powell.

And I think we um I can't quite remember it was just the Inc.

board recognized her work that she did, um, years of work that she's done for the neighborhoods, and uh maybe we can go that route and not have it be every year, but if someone extraordinary needs to be recognized that a neighborhood could go ahead and bring it to the board.

I think that's a good suggestion.

I would I would think that in the case of a resident that we are voting for that that would be a representational vote, Patrick, but I would guess that for staff people perhaps that might be an administrative vote, but we would have to decide that too.

And I am a little concerned as well about the time.

I think that there's so many things that and the reality is that there's not a lot we can get done in any given meeting once a month.

And there's it just seems that our our time is precious.

How can we make the biggest impact in the city doing the things that we want to be doing in the ways that we want to be doing it?

And I I don't disagree that it is a gesture of goodwill to be able to be thinking about the people in our lives that really um are helping make helping us make help Bozeman be a better place.

Um and I like Kathy's idea of maybe it's not a formal kind of thing, but we're sort of holding, you know, in the ether the space for who are the who are the people that we recognize in this city that are really committed, and I don't know who you award that to.

Because I think there's a lot of people who are doing that kind of thing.

But anyway, that's my two cents.

Thank you.

Can you briefly what was the process uh with honoring that Kathy?

We brought it to um God, well, and I'm trying to remember the term.

Do you remember the term, Emily?

It was a resolution.

Yeah, it was a resolution.

And I'm I'm trying to remember also if we even brought it to the group, or if like if the chair just was like, yeah, I'm gonna think we just brought it to the chair and the co-chair, and they decided to um they they did a resolution to honor Kathy, and uh we had her come in, and she didn't really know what was going on, so it was pretty special.

But I mean there are those people that are just unique and have put in years and years and years of work that um we ended up doing a resolution, and it was a formal um this would it was a formal resolution that they did.

So it was for the record.

So maybe for now, just think about whether it's annually or every now and again, just honoring a neighborhood.

Yeah, and a neighborhood or can bring that to the attention that you know I have this one person.

Um yeah, so yeah, okay.

And it meant a lot.

I mean, I I know where you're coming, it meant a lot.

Yeah, that yeah, this person was honored.

Okay, all right.

Well, anybody else have any comments or thoughts?

Um I might make a suggestion that I love this idea, but I agree that it it starts to be a time suck and also starts to become you know very emotional or personal.

I might make the recommendation that during our annual meetings individually as neighborhoods, we take this upon ourselves because we know our neighbors and their contributions better than anybody else, and versus us promoting somebody and then potentially pinning them against another neighborhood who has someone who's equally um able to contribute.

And you know, it it just starts to get a little bit messy, and so maybe this is something that the neighborhoods could just take on individually.

Um, and then on the off chance that there is somebody that you know has has served 20 years of amazing service, and we as a collective want to acknowledge them, then that's kind of a one-off thing versus you know.

Okay, anything else?

No.

All right, should we move on to communication?

Um communication.

We were gonna discuss the communication best practices for neighborhood associations.

Yeah, this is what Beth brought up.

Also about next door.

Yeah, so let's just have a general discussion and maybe maybe we'll form a subcommittee to look at things.

Thank you for this information about what other neighborhoods are using it to communicate.

So let's talk about next door for a few minutes.

No one in the city monitors it monitors it or manages it.

I'm not sure how the neighborhoods are split up.

There's no one you can talk to there.

Yeah.

And there must be a better way for us to communicate with our neighbors, and I'm looking for that.

So in our neighborhood, we have a phone tree, we have we're trying to get a Google group running, but this is good to know what other people are using.

And maybe maybe other big cities have uh something available better than next door.

It can't be the only one out there, but I I would like to say this is a great list.

I'm I'm a communications professional and you know worked hard to try to build uh a communication system for our neighborhood and it's difficult.

Zara and I both talked to Emily about this and I I think uh we'd really need to be asking as a neighborhood council what more can the city do the study commission is looking to interneigh council as a as part of this government uh reorganization there are things that the city could do the city has everyone's address the city has many email addresses the city has the ability to help new neighborhood associations get formed we can help them if they are coming here we we need to have a uh you know sit down and say here's some steps here's what works here's what doesn't work but I think again we could ask the city to give us more help than they do.

Right now it's like five how much is the budget $700 per neighborhood association and that all goes to pay for the postage of a mailing a postcard once a year that's and then we don't have access to that we've got that postcard.

So that's that would be my input on this document.

The neighborhood where I used to live in Colorado had a listserv that was a neighbor had just managed it because he was very techie um and I don't know what is involved in creating listserv for various neighborhoods.

I don't know how much that would cost or how how much it would be to manage but that was a very effective tool of having that listserv.

So shortly after our initial meeting in Valley West in the lakes one of our neighbors created some Google tools for us and she created a how to guide so I she she gave it to me and I've never used Google tools and now I have a website I can update I have how you do it.

I could share that with the group and they're free tools and they're set up with a website an email and um a list surf which I haven't hundred percent figured out I've posted to it and I don't know if anyone's reading it and it might end up junk mail so I'm working on my communication but I have a very good how to guide established that I could share and people could mimic that and yeah we we had our meeting on March 5th and I think this was in my inbox on March 9th.

It was like oh I just happened to do this thing for you.

So it's really awesome.

But now I'm just trying to figure out I mean we have 36 people on our list and we're trying to figure out like get a conversation going and it's very quiet right now and I haven't sent out a lot and I want to be really mindful of I don't want to be bombarding people like how often do I want to send things and you want people to look at my email on my list there and participate when they have a million of their places.

So thinking about where we communicate is a big one.

It's really important and the the thing about next door is I have posted on it about the neighborhood association I've got a medium amount of traction I would say um and it's just another tool so I will continue to use it not because I think it's going to be useful but because I can send something to one of I'm using one of my tools and I put it on next door a whole different group of people might see it.

So it's low effort for me to continue to use next door so um so I would continue to my neighborhood go ahead would it be possible and I think this would be something for down the road but for the city of Bozeman to have a link on the engage site because that is where if you're a new resident and you want to try to understand what is happening in the city you go to Engage and you can find the link and so if down the road any resident wanted to click on the link that was inner neighborhood council that it could then push them to you know what neighborhood association would you be a part of or if there isn't one you can form one because right now if somebody wants to be a part of say midtown for example they have to ask around figure out which neighbor has any information.

There is a link on very process.

Um Cooper Park has 127 uh email addresses uh that we actively on a monthly basis um send communications out to.

I would love to hear from the Figins on the Marlin groups of how the WhatsApp and Facebook groups are working because we're looking, we have a good way of communicating out, but like I think you are looking for, we're looking for ways to engage our neighbors on a more conversational basis.

So somebody says, hey, I'm Snowden, I need a shovel, can I borrow it?

Things like that that are not always appropriate for email.

Um so yes, I'd love to hear from Figgins and Marlin.

Yeah, so I'm a representative, I'm the representative from from Marw and Lindley, and we started the WhatsApp group simply for that reason, because there were time-sensitive communication that we wanted to be able to get out quickly, and text messaging was cumbersome.

And email messaging isn't very relevant for everybody in in the neighborhood.

Um we also didn't want it bombard people's inboxes with messages and threads that they had to pay attention to, and WhatsApp is just an easy way of doing that.

There are other messaging tools that you can look up, you know, Annie, even if you guys wanted to, or anybody for that matter.

I know you're not looking for a solution, but if you wanted an easy way to have an app, essentially that you ask members of your neighborhood if they want to opt into it, they can, and it's an it's a relatively simple way to be in communication with them.

And for our neighborhood in particular, especially around the huge road construction project that we had going on starting in August of this year, there were it was really actually quite important to have that kind of communication because there were there were real-time updates, there was a gas leak that was huge that happened, and word got out about it instantly.

And the thing about WhatsApp is that even if you're not on it, which happened, there was enough communication in our neighborhood that that there was that the word could spread.

But I will also say that Marwan Lindley neighborhood is a different neighborhood.

Like we're our neighborhoods are not all the same.

And so we're a s we're a relatively contained neighborhood.

I think I'm not even sure how many households we have.

Um, I think it's around 40 or so, maybe it's a little bit more than that.

So it's a little bit smaller.

I know some of you have hundreds of people in your neighborhood, and that's just not apples to apples.

So that kind of uh situation works well for us where we have official business that goes out via email, and uh not official business essentially goes to WhatsApp, and there are very many people who are not on the WhatsApp, including the chair and the vice chair, so it's not everybody's cup of tea, but it has worked well for us.

And I think you touched on something like you know, first you want to use email, and then you want to use Facebook, and then you want to use WhatApp.

It's like every there's a million ways to communicate.

And I see like I see that you're using what what's what happened.

If I I was in your neighborhood, I'd be like, Well I don't use what app and I have to sign up for it and figure out how to use it.

Do I get spam and stuff?

So I think it becomes really complicated, and I'm not sure if there's one answer for everybody, or if you just like I someone created some Google tools for me, and I find them very useful.

And if people came to me and said, Well, I only use WhatApp or I only use Facebook or whatever, like I don't know what I would do because I got this one set of tools and I'm starting to figure them out.

So it's it's hard.

Yeah, and actually I think Ann, you you bring up a good point that sometimes the best thing to do is just what works for your neighborhood and what already somebody has some kind of experience with.

Somebody in the group in the neighborhood had already set up a WhatsApp group.

So all I had to do was figure out how to get it on my phone and figure out how to use it.

It wasn't that hard at the end of the day, and most apps aren't.

And as far as spam and other things go, it's a relatively clean app.

There's not a lot of stuff that comes through that isn't appropriate.

So it's worked well for us, but I don't know that it would work well for everybody.

So but there are lots of different apps that are out there.

I'd look into it and ask your neighbors what they're using and see what if they have recommendations.

Doing a survey, just saying, hey, here are five options, which one do you like?

Or maybe you don't want any.

Yeah, and maybe even narrow it down to two.

And it's up to you.

But it gets complicated too because like I'm gonna look at something on my phone, and if it's really in-depth, I don't want to look at it there.

I want to look at on a bigger screen.

So depending on the types of communications, it could vary.

And I guess it's like having a variety of neighborhood tools, I think would be useful.

Well, go ahead.

No, you go.

Uh I had uh the annual meeting on Monday, and uh what came up was people wanted to be notified by their by developments in our particular neighborhood, affecting our particular neighborhood.

To me, the answer is you sign up for the notifications that the city already gives.

That is a little too complicated, apparently for some people.

But then, anyways, trying to be productive, and uh Emily Kylie's kind enough to send me those often when she sees them in the neighborhood.

I am also uh signed up for the notifications direct.

Um but more generally, there are cases where somebody we may want to blast every something out by email to everybody, but then have certain people opt into the follow-ups or opt in to the get me off this list right away.

And we are going to be looking, we being me and one other guy in my uh neighborhood, are gonna try to look into using Google groups for that.

Um it could get noisy still at the beginning.

The other side benefit might be that we could then share specific emails or I don't know if they generate like these unique emails for each thread or something that maybe then we could share with Emily Kylie, so then she could make these communications direct to the neighborhood as opposed to having to go through me, which would lighten the load on me.

Um as well as not having to have Emily maintain an email list of her own, if that makes sense.

So, anyways, I'll try to report back on whether how much we can stretch Google groups with a free account.

Sorry, one other issue too is I think as a nonprofit, you can get like a like uh a better version of Google groups than like the base level, and I have not looked into that much further either, but it might be something where the city could vouch for us or something that we are nonprofit, and then you get like multiple email addresses, one for each officer and that kind of thing.

So, anyways, I'll shut up on things.

Michelle, do you still have a comment?

No.

Uh my faith the neighborhood Facebook page was uh created um before I we even had a neighborhood association, so I just was kind of there.

Yeah, it's really active, and it's like lost dog, um, the car driving on the trail, uh you know, it's all sorts of stuff.

And um, so I usually I send it's it is kind of cumbersome, but I'll send an email out to the emails that I have, you know, the people that I have emails for, and then I I will post it on the Facebook page because some like emails, some like Facebook, but I try to do both when it's you know information coming from me or like the monthly meeting updates from this meeting.

So but it works.

I mean, the people who are on face the Facebook page, and it is private, so they have to you know it has to be in um accepted into the group.

Okay, but yeah, it's good, it's very active.

Thank you.

Well, thank you.

Anything else?

Um do you want to do the one integrated water resource plan update?

Sure.

So as part of my duties on the inner neighborhood council, I represent us on the IWRP, and we met for the first time in of 2026 on Monday, April 6th.

And the WAC is the combination of the two committees, the public advisory committee and the technical advisory committee.

So now we're all working together.

And we reviewed the 643 self-selected responses to the community survey overview.

And we called them self-selected because it's not like we uh went out and did a random study and asked people, right?

They volunteered to participate in this study.

And um the reliability of water service was ranked highest in importance as a little surprise.

Recreational opportunities, not a high-ranking opportunity uh priority for people that responded to the survey.

And I think that may be in part because they are confident it will stay the way it's been, and they're not worried about it, but they are worried about water service possibly failing.

That would be pretty catastrophic.

WAC is reviewing 40 different concept alternatives for water use and preservation, including possibly restoring the sourdough reservoir, purchasing more shares in the highlight reservoir water supply.

Currently, we share that with a number of communities, dredging the highlight reservoir and continuing to identify opportunities to optimize the use of Lyman Spring.

These are just among the 40 that we're evaluating, and that the city is weighed in a little bit.

All alternatives and their ranking can be found at the engaged boseman page, engage.boseman.net slash IWRP.

And this notice will be included in the minutes because I already gave it to Emily.

And um so if you have any questions or input on that, how it might affect your neighborhood.

I just was kind of surprised by that.

Um maybe we could bring that up as a as a group or I can bring it up in May when we have the next meeting.

But those are the 40 priorities that we're gonna concentrate on.

So any questions?

So when you say 40 priorities, are they they're all priorities, like equally weighted priorities?

40 ideas to research and pursue potentially concept alternatives.

Okay, 40 concept alternatives.

Is one of them related to you know, finding ways to cap growth or not promote so much growth or you know, something more related to you know, reducing our demand rather than seeking more for some limitless to limitless growth.

Um anything along those lines?

Okay, no, thank you.

Right, anybody else question?

Our carrying capacity is infinite.

But but to your point, Beth, when you say you would like to see more in the realm of education, are do you feel as a member of that group that you can make suggestions that they're received and potentially incorporated?

Yes, I feel that people are very interested in what Inc.

thinks and want to work with them.

And there are a lot of hydrologists on there.

I mean, there are some major brains in that group.

Wow.

Uh and so maybe I can continue to advocate for it.

But yeah, they did kind of set the 40 40 concept alternatives.

And but I'm I the next meeting is to say what might be missing and what should be moved around in rank from those sort of three groups things we're gonna work on now, things we might work on and we're looking at, and things that we're gonna let fall away.

And so at that time I can I could that might be a good time for me to say we feel like the we should concentrate on the users in some form and not just um sort of the projects, but maybe that is the focus.

Do you feel like it would be you know at least worthwhile since since you are the INC rep to them?

Um maybe capturing just the few ideas that have been generated here to say, how about maybe weighting these along with those other that have already been identified or something just to have some flow of information back that way?

Yes, I for example Bozeman Creek.

I'm a little surprised.

That's that is mentioned there.

It is mentioned there for sure.

But I yeah, I would I'd like to see a little more um incorporation of what we talk about here.

Well, thank you all so much for pointing me to that position.

I'm enjoying it in learning quite a bit.

Thanks for doing that.

Thanks, Beth.

All right, um City Liaison update.

Sure.

I have some engagement updates.

Um there's a couple new projects on Engage Bozeman.

I hope you all are subscribed so you're getting my monthly uh newsletter.

Um, but one new project is that's been up since we've met, or that's new since we've met is NCOD guidelines update.

And um, I'm sure many of you know that the that we're starting community engagement next week.

Our consultants will be in town.

So the first open house is scheduled for Monday, uh, April 13th at the Bozeman event space.

It's um can I open house style come in?

Um stop in when you can between six and eight.

And then there's also going to be walking tours.

So walking tour April 14 from three to five in the northeast area uh northeast neighborhood, and then Wednesday, April 15 from 9 to 11 in the South Central neighborhood.

Um this wasn't on engaged, but we're also um having that neighborhood uh focus group, which there's one rep from each neighborhood association that is within the NCOD.

So uh seven, if I remember correctly.

Yeah, so seven um we'll be in a room on Tuesday discussing um the NCOD.

Um another new project that I think you all might be interested in is the urban forest management plan.

Um the first public event is scheduled for April 28 from noon to one, and that's online.

So if you could register, that would be great, so you can get into that Zoom meeting, and the registration link is on Engage.

Um that is April 28 from noon to one.

And it's gonna be pretty informational about the plan, about the project, and then sharing about how engagement may look.

Um yeah, and just be sure to subscribe.

You can subscribe to those specific pages so you get sp the emails for those um projects.

And then neighborhood updates.

This is a little premature, but um you all will vote for new officers at the June meeting.

Um so I know last year we're kind of scrambling to have people volunteer themselves at the at that June meeting.

So if you could just consider if you'd like to be the chair or vice chair or secretary or want to nominate anyone, um, just wanted to put that in your are all of those positions available for you all stepping down.

I think we're voting each year.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um and then this again is early, but um just FYI annual the annual report will go out that you're required to do the first of June, and those are due at the end of June.

So just a little heads up about that.

I have a question, Emily.

You know, you sent down an email recently about the street sweeping schedule.

Yeah.

And asked us to pass that on to our people, which is a great thing.

You know, we could put it on our Facebook site and we can send out an email and let everybody know when the street sweepers coming through.

I mean, that's a great role for us to play.

Has that ever is there any other way that the city is communicating that the people should go on that website and look up their street?

Yeah, I'll have to check with um our communications manager.

I think it goes as like a news item on the main on the main website, so that will go up on it on our city website, and that will go out as an e-notification.

I'm not sure if we put we may do social media posts about it, but I'll I'll double check about that.

But yeah, I think it's similar to um like the fall cleanup with the leaves.

And for the core neighborhoods, they they have the signs that will go up.

So yeah.

Okay.

And then we have the written.

We don't they don't have signs out in the western part.

They say they do say the subdivisions don't get signs.

Oh right.

Uh neighborhood written updates, I think, Kath.

Yeah, I I know that we've all written ours, and I have written ours out as well.

I'll let you read that separately, but I wanted to give a little bit of a voice to what we've been navigating since last August because it's worth it's worth um a little bit of airtime about it.

We're trying to bring a little bit more visibility to our situation.

We had uh sewer, water main and storm drains replaced in the neighborhood in various locations.

The biggest impact that you might have seen if you've been through the neighborhood is that golfway was used as a through fair.

Uh, the staging area for 4050 development, who was the I can't think of what it's called.

The contractor on the project had these massive trucks that they were staging over by where they make snow essentially for BSF and then draw bringing those trucks into the neighborhood uh through the week and back and forth.

Um, and that road has been cons is in considerable disrepair since then.

I don't know what the plan is for improving that road.

I know that the city is looking and they're aware of many of the things that I'll share with you, but I'll just highlight a few.

There are still outstanding claims from neighbors with 4050, the construction company, who has I learned have gone out of business.

So the claims that are still outstanding, including I I just want to pay um a little bit of tribute to one neighbor in particular.

They are um stand-up citizens have lived in Bozeman, I think for 30 plus years.

Their n their mailbox was knocked over twice by a 4050 crew.

And the insurance company refuses to take any kind of ownership because nobody saw it happen.

And nobody in the neighborhood would do that.

It's just kind of a ridiculous thing that that one of the one of the many, the myriad of many things that this neighborhood has been navigating since August.

We made a plea for Carl and or Sean to attend the annual meeting, even if it was just for a few minutes, just to have some in-person contact with our neighborhood because getting a letter, which they did send, which is a which was helpful is so much different than showing up in person and actually having a relationship.

And while we don't expect that that's going to change for our annual meeting, um, and we do appreciate the work that they have been doing on this project.

We are still wanting to try to have as much contact with them as possible.

And um, and I'm just saying it because we all may at some point experience in our neighborhoods um road construction issues or whatever they are.

I can't remember the the situation where when you have road construction where your road is deteriorating enough that your neighborhood actually starts needs to pay for that.

There's uh there might be some ways for us to advocate for ourselves a little bit differently.

So thank you for your your listening ears and for giving me a little bit of time.

Can I ask you one quick follow-up?

Yes.

Do you know if that's the first time they used 4050?

I don't know, but interestingly, what I went I recently looked up 4050 on Google just to s just to see if they were still in business, because I heard a rumor that they were not.

And there was a write-up, you know, like how you can leave up a Google business review that sounded like somebody from my neighborhood who, by the way, was stuck in his driveway for over three weeks and could not get his car in and out to go to work.

I mean, this is the kind of stuff that we had to deal with.

Um there was another neighbor in a different city.

I don't even know where the city was in Montana that had experienced almost the same exact situation, literally like six weeks before the project had started.

So I don't know how much due diligence the city did on that particular construction project, and we could talk about this offline, Mark, but I don't know.

I think these things are super important.

So like maybe they were they were on the rocks, they throw ailmary, the underbid everybody.

I'd love to see what the bids were.

Yeah, I mean, I'm just to review the city's process because it shouldn't, it's not only just the bid, it's previous experience, you know.

But I don't know that they have worked with the city before.

This company seemed pretty green in a lot of ways to me, but I have no idea.

It's also hard to get these contractors, so it is hard to get them.

That's right as well.

But that's right.

Yeah.

Thank you.

All right.

Um I I have a couple things to add, just the way the timing worked out.

Um we have done the committee to suggest language to the subcommittee of ink to suggest language to the study commission.

And the study commission is coming back saying, well, now that we've had the consultant um give a big talk, which I went to that study commission meeting, which is focusing on the neighborhoods.

Do you guys have any follow-up uh recommendations or comments on what the consultant said?

Beth, I don't know if you'd be willing to meet again.

Can we just have the same subcommittee go without a lot of fanfare?

Allison is obviously gone now, but um maybe we could have one meeting and then report back and maybe vote on some language to send at the next meeting if everybody is okay with putting that on the agenda.

And then sorry, my phone uh went out at me.

Um I we had Nick Ross, uh transportation director come talk at my neighborhood meeting.

Um this does not have to be an ink thing, but I thought I'd cast the net here again.

I couldn't get it into the comments because of the timing.

Um I would love uh for uh both Bozeman Creek, the tree streets um and scan, maybe and be in my Bogar Park neighborhood uh to form uh an informal committee to um to uh inform the master plan, the transportation.

That's what trying to get out of my mouth.

The transportation master plan is being updated.

I have lots of ideas on how you truly make our our neighborhoods and parks connected in a multimodal way.

So and and Nick Ross is all about this.

He would love for us to be the consultants for a change.

So anybody interested, I'll try to set out a separate email to those guys.

If other neighborhoods that are close together around certain areas want to group together, that's fine too.

I'm not trying to exclude you, but we have our particular Pete Hill, you know, type parks and all those work.

So uh last thing, um I I did want to point out that uh John Henderson, the C.

Bozeman Creek and the uh consultant support they hired did come to my annual meeting, they squeezed it in, it happened to work out.

Um I'm really appreciative that they did come and listen.

Uh John Henderson did most of the talking, and just as an FY, I've been to a couple functions now where John Henderson uh does seem to be kind of taking the lead, which is I think is kind of a good thing.

Um, but see Bozeman Creek still is there, sort of in playing some sort of uh liaison role.

And again, sorry, could just couldn't get that into the written comments, but thank you for listening.

I have a quick thing to add on um so we've heard a lot about this landmark program, but I think for some people it's not like really crystallizing yet.

We're not exactly sure, you know, everything about it and ideas that we can contribute to it.

So um, as our neighborhood, the Northeast neighborhood, we're having our spring meeting on Monday, April 13th at the Safety Center.

It's a potluck starting at 5:30.

The meeting starts at 6, and Commissioner Sweeney is gonna come to talk about the landmark program.

So if anybody wants to learn more about that in person from her, um, you're welcome to to join us there.

Did you say that time?

Sure, Monday, April 13th.

A potluck starts at 5:30.

The meeting starts at 6.

We have some elections we need to do at the top of the agenda as our neighborhood.

So I would imagine that Commissioner Sweeney would start talking maybe about 615-ish.

I know she's eager to get over to the NCOD open house, which is the same night.

Um, so but I just thought, because there's not super clarity about the landmark program for a lot of folks, and so I thought this would be an opportunity to learn more straight from Horace's mouth.

And we're still sorting that out because we just had our first presentation from a woman, Adrian Burke from what is it, Community Partners Collaborative in Jacksonville, Florida, that is essentially the consultant like Lakota is for the NCOD.

CDC is on the other end of this thing, and we just heard from her last Wednesday night.

So that was eight days ago, and there was all this kind of different information to assimilate.

And the biggest thing just to drill down quickly is how will the landmark program affect the existing NCOD?

Will it be a replacement for it?

Will it be separate?

In a nutshell with the landmark program, the areas it's supposed to pertain to is essentially any everything outside the NCOD, and whether it's an individual property or say a new district, that's where it's going.

But the feeling is well, the city may want to push that back and have landmark just take over what is the NCOD.

And I don't know if that's gonna happen or not, but the NCOD has a very specific list of things that are already in place.

So I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel.

So the question is how will landmark and NCOD uh exist side by side.

That's kind of where we're at, nothing definite yet.

All right.

I just have one question is are we gonna follow up at all as a group uh to keep the pressure on the commission to consider our uh motion?

Or our our, you know, because there's apparently uh Commissioner Sweeney told Zara, who told me that it's there's a our uh what do we call it?

Our resolution was is posted on the city, and you can do public comment about it.

Um but I I just feel like if we don't continue to ask, you know, if we're gonna do more types of this thing, and if we're just being ignored in this way, um I just don't think we can get by with not having a public discussion about it.

Well, absolutely, Patrick, and I agree with that.

And this is something where HPAB has not been that vocal but is getting more vocal now for all kinds of reasons.

There is a groundswell starting, but we need more of it.

And certainly I'll just say right here, you got two members out there in the audience who have been very vocal and are great, and even though they're not part of HPAB or part of this group, they sure as heck are squared away about um marshaling public opinion and whatnot.

So that's growing.

They've written letters to the editor, other and other people have too.

The question is clearly what we have to do is keep holding the commissioners beat the fire.

And that was done here tonight, and that was good.

Frankly, I applaud that because.

Well, no, but we can do more from here.

We gotta go back to our neighborhoods and tell them to put to email the commissioners and to write letters and things like that.

We have to leverage the power of the survey.

And we have to because otherwise, that's what I'm saying.

We need some communication.

Otherwise, what are we going to say to our people?

You know what?

You did the survey and the city decide to ignore it.

Yeah.

I I think we gotta be careful about the language too, Patrick, because it's pretty clear that they didn't ignore it.

But they're but the they don't have the same kind of response to it that certain members of this board are hoping for.

And I think Douglas Fisher pretty clearly said that he was planning on checking on checking in with the city commission and getting back to us.

And I think that it's appropriate that we hold that that line, but I heard him say that pretty definitively that that was gonna happen.

So yeah, I would say I would say I agree kind of with both of you guys.

I do believe that it seemed like Douglas heard us loud and clear today.

Thank you for getting the ball rolling on that.

I heard him say that he will take it back and discuss it again.

I'm hoping to at least bring it up for discussion.

Um I also believe that there's no harm in encouraging others to write individual public comments in support of INC's recommendation and asking that at the very least the commission hold a public discussion.

So I think it's a two-pronged approach.

Wait and see what he does, and then also keep uh keep up the pressure with uh other voices.

How does that mean?

Yeah, I think one of the gauge of a public opinion is public comments on our letter, then I'm gonna say we should encourage people to make public comments.

Right.

I think so too.

Yeah.

And to do so in a diplomatic and constructive fashion.

That's always so key because I know I learned and certainly learned some hard lessons last year, but also learned some good lessons when two of the neighborhoods, Angie Centennial Neighborhood and our neighborhood in the Bonton are part of it.

We're working on these um the UDC zoning and holding um those two neighborhoods at an RA zoning designation.

And we'll say that Commissioner Fisher coming to neighborhood meetings, doing walking tours, he showed he can be constructive, he can listen, and he can also just where he needs to play devil's advocate, but then be reasonable.

So certainly some of us here have seen his other side, and of course we you know you see a side too where something appears to be ignored at the commission level, but I think again, just continually keeping the pressure on in a diplomatic and appropriate fashion.

That's what democracy is about, and I think he heard that.

I want us to be careful about I don't want it to be us versus him.

I want it to be us versus the problem, what we're trying to solve.

And I think what happened today was really constructive.

And then I don't want to speak for him, but I think he was just going to let us know, oh, we're not gonna do it.

And there wasn't gonna be quite the pushback that happened.

So that was really good to have.

But yep, I don't want it to be about the commission.

I want it to be about NCOP, you know, this moratorium needs to happen and concentrate on that.

And at the most basic level process, right?

Just having public process to have a conversation.

So and reminding him that I mean he is, as you said, he should be our ally.

Yeah, that was a really important point.

Does anybody want to dive into state law in terms of how much the uh advising of the city attorney has to be made public?

Hey.

Some people think it should be an elected position, I think, right?

I don't think it is now, is it?

I might I make a motion that we that we end this conversation for the day.

Yeah.

I would like to see those legal determinations or we can add it to the agenda for next time.

Make sure we have that on there.

All right.

Uh with that, the meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all.

They're sitting on a green chair.

Would you help me bring them out to the audience or something?