I think it's kind of worked.

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And I don't think we should act in here.

This is you personally?

No, no, no.

That is what the car said?

No.

Yeah, my granddaughter is graduating.

So I won't be here.

But I I can attend by uh on the seventeenth, you will be on the fourth.

I'll be here on the fourth.

On our May thirteenth, the two of us will be on Zoom.

Okay.

And I had to change the encoder.

Oh June fourteenth.

I am going to He is the best news musician out of the region.

He's really really I'll see him at a couple of boost festivals.

So it's a park.

What day?

June the fourth.

I think I have the study commission.

Tab in wrong in my calendar.

There you go.

I better put it down on four days.

Actually, I fly.

Let's do it.

Eighteenth at four.

Right now.

Not the seventeenth.

Caleb, are you ready?

Do it.

I'll call to order the Bozeman City Study Commission meeting of April thirtieth, twenty twenty-six at four PM.

If you're able, please rise for the pledge of allegiance and then a moment of silence.

You may be seated for the moment of silence if you wish.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

Are there any changes to the agenda?

All right, seeing none.

Oh just formally the proposed language on G one has my name on it, but that is not going to be me presenting.

Right.

I've put my name on it.

Right or wrong.

It's just to yeah, you're right.

And I guess that is technically a change to the agenda.

We're not moving anything around, but we're going to discuss neighborhood associations, advisory boards, the municipal court, and hopefully wards and districts.

So we're going to ask all those who are present in any form, whether they're present or online, if they could possibly hold their comments till each one of those moments so that when we're discussing neighborhoods, we have all the neighborhood comments in the middle of that discussion.

Same with advisory boards.

Now I realize I can't make anybody not comment on things in the beginning, but I'd like to ask you, particularly if you're going to be around for the discussion uh later on, and it's a better discussion when people are here as opposed to them making a comment and then leaving.

I'm requesting that um in this public comment, it's this is anything that's not on the agenda.

Uh and I will give comments, make sure that there are comments, comment times available in each of the substantive discussions that we're gonna have.

So is there any public comment?

Put your mic down here in this.

Yeah, we have a that's right.

We have a microphone problem.

So some of them are not connected in the same way.

So I was invited to give public comments this afternoon earlier, and uh so I'm going to.

And my comment is thank you so much for your clear discriptions of when we're supposed to comment.

I really appreciate that.

Thank you very much.

And my name's Mary Bateson.

Great.

Thank you.

Is there any other public comment on anything within the jurisdiction of the study commission?

None online?

All right.

Next item is the consent agenda.

Items on the consent agenda are approval of study commission minutes and study commission claims review and approval.

Is there any public comment on the consent agenda?

Seeing none, does anyone wish to poll any of the items on the consent agenda?

Then I'll take a motion.

I move we approve the consent agenda for the April 30th meeting of the book local government study commission.

Are you as loud as me?

Because you sound not loud enough for me.

Maybe if you got a little further.

Sorry, I have the new microphone.

I heard it.

I mean I got the microphone.

Okay, but I'm just preparing.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

All those in four in favor, so indicate by saying aye.

Motion carries unanimously.

Next item on the agenda is correspondence or study commission update.

Any reports?

Mike.

Yes, I wanted to update with the Dame Guild uh PSA.

So we have that going back and forth with them.

They've accepted the contract language, the standard PSA template, the scope of services will be their proposal scope.

Uh we're signing the agreement at the original staff rate for that um price, and then to be determined by this body what level on the engagement to do later.

So that's gonna be in that agreement as this, and then we'll bring an amendment to select kind of an a la carte option on that engagement.

So just wanted to give an update on that, and it'll be um ready to roll.

Question?

Thank you.

Question, Jen.

Thank you, Mike.

And also, can you let us know approximately when this might be on the agenda for us to have a fuller conversation about what's next with the plans they're making?

For the engagement efforts.

Exactly.

Yeah, we'll um when we talk about the future agenda items, we'll we'll look at scheduling that so we can have some time there eager to come and talk with you all and get a plan together.

Any other questions or other information?

I would just say that I think that if they're starting in June or whatever, I don't know at the start date, but I think it might be great to ask them to put uh June 18 on their calendar.

Um so June 18 for everybody listening as the public hearing for uh and when everyone will be able to provide input on the full report, which includes the amended charter.

So thank you.

Great.

Any other comments, correspondence, or study commission update.

I have one.

Becky.

Um I met with uh three leaders after our last meeting on the 24th, um, three leaders from the Inc.

Um asked to meet with me, or we decided to meet so that I could hear more about what they're thinking.

Um that was a great meeting.

It was a Zoom call.

It was me and Barb uh meeting with them, and then um I met again with um Emily Talago who uh is just uh really provided some great edits mostly um uh just the flow of the of the document.

Like you have this word and this word, they're different.

I was like, okay, great, that's good to know.

So it's very helpful, and I appreciate the time from the Inc.

to be able to collaborate with us as we figure out what what's our next move.

Great.

All right.

Um anything else on this agenda item.

Seeing none.

Unfinished business.

Now we we've got a lot in front of us.

Um we're gonna try and do it.

Um in an organized fashion.

Not that we don't always do it in an organized fashion.

Um, but we're gonna start with neighborhoods because we've got into that.

Um, and we're gonna continue that process.

And the idea will be that um to the extent that we can reach agreement, um, it will go back to Barb and Becky for final drafting.

Um if it comes to pass that we can't agree on something and someone needs to make a motion to put it in or take it out, then that's what we should do at this point.

Once we're done with that, we'll shift to advisory boards.

And um basically we're trying to get Article 4 and Article 7.

The one part of Article 4 that we won't take up till we get to G1 will be the part that uh is affected the municipal courts, the judiciary, the judicial branch.

Then we will get to um under new business the judicial branch, and then we'll get to wards and districts.

And my hope is that we'll get far enough into wards and districts, kind of like as far as we did in neighborhood associations in the last meeting, so that the next meeting we can um finish that off.

But conceptually, we're trying to get to a point where Barb and Becky know just what it is that they're writing, and it will then get reviewed by Greg all coming together by the meeting June 18th.

We have pieces of this together, and um we and uh we will have a discussion on later meetings.

I don't want to get into that now, but there are some miscellaneous pieces out there, and we need to uh itemize what they are and move forward from that.

Does that work for everybody?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

So neighborhood associations.

Who wants to start, Barb or Let me start off just a little bit if I could, Barb, and then um and then I'll ask you to add what I miss, and then we can open it up for discussion.

Does that sound reasonable?

Okay, great.

So uh on the 24th we had a discussion about the proposal that would you reference exactly where in Article 7 we are?

Uh I'm gonna do that exactly in just a minute.

Yep, absolutely.

Um for those of you who are in the audience, um, and for those of you online, there's a clean copy of Article 7 on the table right back there.

So um it got messy enough.

So I'm gonna talk about the things that we um added since our last meeting, but it got messy enough that I just wanted to make sure I wanted a clean copy.

So just please grab that.

If you're online, you'll be able to find that in the documents that are um with the agenda.

So on Article 7, um, we started with the public engagement, um, we added a little bit of language under seven section 7.02, um, just recognizing neighborhood associations, the inner neighborhood council and advisory boards as essential partners in the municipal decision making process.

Then we move right into 7.03, the neighborhood associations.

And you can see the parts that we um that are either underlined or blue, so it's one or the other.

So that's fun.

And we later we wanted to be able to address the advocacy piece.

And so we added uh neighborhood associations will champion the needs of their neighborhood to ensure informed decision making.

Um under part B, the recognition of neighborhood associations, we added there shall be a city program that supports the creation and maintenance of resident-led neighborhood associations.

And then once we get into the one, two, three through nine, or one through eight, really, um, you'll see the things in blue, and those things are either combined a little bit or or new.

There were nine, and you can see now there are eight.

Um in number two, uh, we did a rewrite and kind of blended some things.

Incredible to make sure it's not just residents, but really it's residents, property owners, business owners, and nonprofit organizations or other organizations located within that neighborhood association boundaries.

Uh number three, one we added that we wanted to make sure that's continuity of governance.

So the neighborhood association really is a governing part of the governing system versus a neighborhood group, which is defined in the ordinance as a group of people that get together and support each other.

I I'm not part of a neighborhood association, but we are certainly a neighborhood group in my neighborhood.

Um then by the time we got down to number eight, it seemed a little redundant, and so we took that part out.

Um to the inner neighborhood council, uh, you can see that the ne uh uh the we added neighborhood level and or citywide issues just to make sure that um it was going to be able to address neighborhood level.

And you are gonna see that um things were rearranged just a little bit just to make sure that we introduced the inner neighborhood council and the um the liaison before we start talking about the liaison and the inner neighborhood council so that people knew what it was we were talking about.

Um added a number six under C.

Uh when Inc.

develops formal recommendations to an issue of importance, there will be an opportunity to present these recommendations during a city commission meeting.

So that was brought up that we didn't want things on the down low, we wanted things to be in the public and and demonstrated in the um during the the city commission meeting.

So we added that in, and then you'll see again in number seven that the city commission or or designated staff shall publicly provide timely responses.

So we added that word publicly uh as we heard clearly under city liaison number D, you see again they're rearranged just a little bit, uh, not just not just liaison, but partner and liaison.

So really trying to explore that partnership.

And then part of what we talked about at length at the 20 on the 24th, we heard clearly um we had started with the entire city shall be divided into no more than 20 neighborhoods.

Instead, it's the entire city shall be divided into neighborhood associations and formed to represent each neighborhood.

And the intent there is that they will be drawn, and you can see in the very next next number three, the city of Bozeman liaison shall work with Inc.

to to grow participation, develop boundaries to include all Bozin residents, and that's really the goal of the neighborhood association.

It's not just a hand pick few, but really since it's part of the the governing voice and public engagement, which we've heard so much about, we wanted to really say that's that's the intent.

Now, how you all get there, that's gonna be a you thing, because the the charter is the what and then the people and the ordinances is the how, right?

And so and uh we pulled that back.

Great idea, Barbara and I had didn't work with the 20 neighborhoods, so we pulled that back out after listening well to everybody.

Um then I think that was all.

Um, we're gonna get to the recommendations when we're all done with talking about advisory boards too.

So let's just that's all I've got.

Barb, what have I missed?

I think the only thing that I would add is if you go back to 7.03B, um number eight.

We took out the consensus-based language around advisory input.

So now it just reads capacity to develop and transmit reasoned advisory input on neighborhood and citywide issues.

Well played.

Thank you.

So um with that, I'd like to open up for some discussion uh with the commission and then open up to public comment on this version.

I'm just gonna go around the around the room.

Jan, would you like to start?

I am really pleased with this latest version and want to thank all of the folks involved who have really helped us think this through and the work that um Becky and Barb have done to bring it to a very cohesive and helpful.

And I'm sorry I made that comment earlier.

Of course, you were gonna tell us where it was.

Okay.

But anyway.

Not necessarily, I forget things.

I understand.

Um so I I personally want to support it.

I had made the suggestion we take the number out so that we didn't get um that that would be uh wouldn't h hold us back in ways that we heard from people.

I also think this the level of the uh cities partnership and commitment to what that looks like in very tangible ways is super important.

It's one of the reasons I did want to run was to really help strengthen the neighborhoods and make them the kind of um structure that would allow for local concerns to come from the bottom up and have a more direct partnership with all of the different uh elements of our city, both the elected and the administrative.

So I'm prepared to support it and don't have any uh questions.

Thank you so much, Jan.

Deanna.

Uh there were uh a couple of things.

Um is your it is mic on?

There were a couple of my it's on.

Okay, great, thank you.

In um I'm sorry, uh this would be 703 number five.

The language, when practicable, I think is very vague.

And um uh should be eliminated.

And simply um a statement that the uh INC shall be consulted during the formative uh stages.

Thank you.

Number five.

Number five.

Thank you.

And then the next one, um uh six.

Um I think that uh maybe just adding a uh a phrase in here that would put them on the equal standing, say with the staff report, uh, because uh it they should be granted more than just the customary three minutes.

And I think this would be a good place to ensure that they get an actual uh voice at a commission meeting.

Let me uh interrupt you for a second.

Mike, I we don't always know the verbiage.

That was the intent as not just a public comment, but actually get to present um present these recommendations during a city commission meeting.

Does that clarify that it's not just for for public comment, but they are offered time on the agenda?

Or is there a way to strengthen that language so that it's not just the three minutes?

We thought that present was the key variable, but yeah, I think um be an opportunity to present these recommendations.

Um an appropriate agenda item.

Um something to that effect.

I this is one where I definitely want to words miss some things with Greg, but I think the idea being we want their presentation to be as part of the general process.

So we wouldn't necessarily want it to just be come and present, but it's not when we're discussing the ordinance or the plan or whatever the policy thing is.

So I think it would be on the something to the effect of the accompanying agenda or something to that effect.

Great.

All right.

Sorry, Deanna.

Okay.

And then oh Jan, did you have another idea about that?

Just to comment because I I I understand the goal here, I think, but I read it as when you have formal recommendations that would become an agenda item, and that agenda item would have whatever time it needed to be able to have full um opportunity.

So I I saw it as a stronger, I interpreted it as a more stronger uh uh provision, and I didn't know if it wasn't in that if that wasn't the attention or if we want to have something stronger that would make it the intention.

That that was the intent, but I I I'm taking the the comment and the suggestion.

I wrote it down so Barbara and I can work on or smithing that.

Go ahead, Deanna.

And um, I think the next one is on boards.

Uh so the neighborhood um uh council does set its own agenda, correct?

The neighborhood what?

That uh the Inc.

Inc does set its own agenda in during its meetings, correct?

As opposed to the um advisory boards.

Yeah, you mean as opposed to the city setting the agenda in the in the current structure, yes, Inc.

sets their agenda.

Yeah, it says that number four, C4, the inner neighborhood councils shall meet on a regular basis to address city white concerns, foster dialogue between neighborhoods and city leadership.

They also write um they adopt bylaws governing the conduct of business, emphasizing deliberation, transparency, inclusive participation.

The bylaws need to be approved by the city commission or as designated by ordinance, but they are adopted by the neighborhood council.

So I think the way the meetings are run is outlined there, I think.

Yeah, okay.

And then I guess I would like to just um make one more pass at uh incorporating the suggestion in the language that GVS proposed for that um uh formal the formal presentation for their uh input.

The and I'm sorry, the um and what section are you looking at?

I'm I'm well you're well you're looking for that.

Let me let me see if I can help you.

Deanna, do you want to look for that and I can move it to Barb and come back to you?

Okay.

Okay.

Barb, go ahead.

I I know I know we we put together the notes and uh listening to feedback.

I didn't want to, um, just in case something came to you since I talked to you.

I've said a lot about this already.

Perfect.

Mike, yeah, so I was gonna say I think um what Deanna was getting at was the comment of a um neighborhood impact statement, I believe was the language that the Sentinel had used for in advance of our last at our last meeting.

Um as I'm reading this, that's what that formal recommendation and presentation would be.

So um I would have avoid saying anything comparing it to a staff report because those take into account um legal analysis criteria that require training and technical expertise.

Um but when they're developing a formal recommendation, um and then be there will be an opportunity to present these.

Um I take um some understanding from Jan that she's looking for more than uh on an already planned agenda item, because it it to me sounds like there may be um interest here to make that recommendation be in its own agenda item.

And uh and that if I'm understanding correctly, I think that I think that gets a little complicated when you have you know legal hearing requirements for instance saves.

I don't know that that's our intent.

Barb, you you you seem to have an idea.

Well, I I think to address Deanna's question about this concept of a neighborhood impact statement and um the the desire to make sure when Inc.

develops recommendations on a particular topic, they get something more than the individual three minutes at a public meeting.

I think in our conversations with members of Inc.

Um and and listening to all the public comment from members of Inc.

at the last meeting.

But that they did want to make sure that that if there was an issue before the city commission that was gonna affect a neighborhood or affect many neighborhoods, and Inc.

was was going through the time and labor to come up with a set of recommendations that they be given time during the agenda item about that said thing.

So that when the proponent of the project got up and gave their presentation, there would be time for Inc.

to give their presentation on their recommendations as well.

And so that was the intent of this number six under C is to not go as far and be as prescriptive as the neighborhood impact statement language, but to still ensure that that Inc.

got some more time than an individual would get up and do in a public comment period.

Does that make sense?

Actually, what I'm looking for as well is that Inc.

uh also have the ability to bring an agenda item forward, not just comment on things that are already on the agenda, but that they can.

So uh it seemed to me that the impact statement uh would uh maybe uh facilitate that.

So I think um since we're on this and we're talking about it quite a bit.

What I've got right now, when Inc.

develops formal recommendations on an issue of importance, there will be an opportunity for time during the agenda to present these recommendations during a city commission meeting, and I'll c we can clean that up.

I think I think Barbara and I understand the intent here and we can kind of push some words around and figure out the best way to make it so that it's got the intent that's not just the three minutes stronger, that it's actually on the agenda, uh that they are had the ability to bring forward the issue of concern.

Does that sound like go ahead, Mike?

And I'm also interested, I want to give you time to anything else on this in this document that you'd like to comment on.

Uh so I just want to make sure that we're clear.

If your intention is to allow Inc.

to put items on an agenda, that is going to be a you're going to need specific language that gives them that power in that exact wording.

If you want them to say we made a recommendation, City Commission, you will hear this item, you will put it on an agenda.

That is very forceful language that is very different than what you have here, in my opinion.

So if if that's the avenue that you're looking at is for a way for Inc.

to set items on an agenda.

Whereas currently the agenda is set by either the city manager, the mayor, or three members of the city commission.

I understand that.

Yeah, I hear what you're saying.

And it um I didn't we didn't say Barb and I are meeting with um Greg Sullivan Sullivan, the city attorney next week.

Okay.

Um so uh we're gonna be able to run, I'll make sure to that we do that appropriate because I know it we don't want to clash with the bylaws and the uh how all that works with the city either.

I I think that's an important uh addition that we have to do.

Yeah, thank you.

Anything else, Mike?

Not on this section.

Okay.

Carson.

Okay, I'm just gonna run through a couple quick things and then a couple other comments.

Um I think it's covered, but just for the record, under um section 702, where it says citizen advisory boards commissions and committees, the the city in the past has formed ad hoc committees if ad hoc is included within that, and then ad hoc committee is specific issue, specific time.

I'm thinking of um the library land task force that I facilitated before I was on the commission, where a task force was put together of stakeholders to try and figure out how to solve a budgetary problem that involved the library that had moved at that point.

Same with the Affordable Housing Ad hoc committee task force that was created uh again.

I had the pleasure of facilitating that long ago.

There may be issues where you're trying to get uh all the stakeholders together to discuss it and come up with recommendations.

I just want to make sure that's not precluded.

So Carson, in um 7.04 C D, we need to get numbers in here.

Um instead.

Um it says subcommittees of existing boards, commissions, and committees may be appointed by the city commission without the necessarily necessity, excuse me, a public solicitation.

Are you saying that we should add and now we're getting into advisory boards, but ad hoc or do we add an ad hoc to number two?

Or do we think if you add an ad hoc to number two?

Okay.

Um citizen advisory boards, commissions and ad hoc committees.

Okay, thank you.

It's really very subtle and probably unnecessary.

All right.

Two.

Um I I'm thinking the word um champion is an interesting word.

What section are you on?

703A.

Thank you.

Um and uh maybe that's a compromise between advocacy and advisory.

It is um but uh I'm okay with it, but I think that the same power needs to be afforded to the advisory boards as the inner neighborhood council.

So and maybe Deanna was going to get to that when we get to that.

Um but but I uh what I'm driving at is if this word is right here, is it going to be right for advisory committees?

And if it's not, then is there a better word to put in there?

So we can we can hold that.

I'll circle that word, we can come back to it.

Right.

Great.

Um the other thing that I have um, and uh and it applies to both neighborhood associations and um advisory committees, but I would put it um under um somewhere in here.

The the well I don't know where listen to it and then you can um the purpose of neighborhood associations and boards is to provide advice and recommendations to the city commission, to encourage public participation in civic affairs, and to assist in public education on matters within their purview.

That latter point, the public education, I think isn't quite in here, because what you really want is the neighborhood associations to disseminate what the city is doing and why it's doing it in a positive way or a negative way, depending on what they think of it.

Um, but uh a way of keeping people informed.

And um I was gonna add that to the advisory boards, and the question is there a way to add it here as well when we're talking about purpose.

I'm wondering if we add something like that under Section 7.01.

Yes, and that might be a good place to add it.

Can I have that piece of paper?

Can I take a picture of it?

Uh you can take a picture of it.

I I'll probably need it back.

And I won't know till I know.

Um then as I move my way down.

Um I think and I'm now on seven O three Cive.

Um budgetary priority discussions.

I think you've got to either limit it to budgetary discussions that affect the neighborhood associations, or take it out.

That's too big a responsibility and way outside of the expertise or um really the input of the neighborhood associate.

Do you do you want them to be part of the budget discussion when we talk about um water treatment plants and stuff like that?

I I just think that may be too asking too much and putting too big a glitch in the in the um prior the budget priorities.

I also want to note, and I don't know if this is still true, but when I was on the commission in the month of February, in January, um there were priorities created by the commission, followed by uh budgetary discussions at which all of the commissioners and the general public was allowed to attend.

So that if you had a particular budget item, you you didn't participate, but you were able to hear one, what the department heads wanted, two what the constraints on the city were from a budgetary standpoint, and you got an idea sort of how the um uh budget was developed.

I don't have a problem with inviting someone from Inc.

or the advisory boards in general the public to sit in on those meetings, because I think it's very instructive, but it it also grounds you in, wow, this is not such an easy thing to develop a budget as we might think.

On the other hand, if we what you're talking about is budgetary towards what the neighborhood associations get and what part of the budget they are, I think they should need to be a part of that.

So duly noted.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um under D, no, I'm sorry, seven.

Oh four, 703 E.

Composition and responsibilities?

Um position and responsibilities.

I wonder if here or in the recommendations, we should put a little bit of some standards for um how they build neighborhood associations.

Um it gets to that discussion that we had before about how equal should they be, what should be the range of of difference.

Um I I think it's clear it should be geographic, and I think you have the word geography in here already.

Um but are are there standards that that we should be thinking about for um that ought to either go in recommendations or um in the in the charter.

Um I I had comparable number of residents um neighborhood associations should be left the ones that currently exist should be left intact, um, except in situations when they're um so small that um the size of them begs for um consolidation with another one.

Um those were the two things that I thought, but creating neighborhood associations around similar character and um neighborhood culture, I think those kinds of words I I probably think these that belongs in the recommendations as opposed to in the in the charter.

And so I think Mike and Becky all want to talk at the same time.

Let me just clarify one thing before we start making comments.

Um first of all, when we think about, you know, remember we're at the point now where it's like, okay, what should we add, what should we take away, right?

Yeah.

And so I want to point out two things as we figure out that.

Um when we had the make 20, that was way too prescriptive, is what we heard clearly.

So uh again, where the what, y'all or the how, right?

Y'all meaning the city, the inc, the neighborhood associations, people who live it live here.

Um so number three after uh E3 on page three of the hard copy, the city of Bozeman, neighborhood liaison staff members shall work with the Inc.

to grow participation and develop boundaries, you could say geographic boundaries, to include all Bozeman residents in the neighbor in a neighborhood association without any neighborhood having more of a voice than any other.

So um how that happens then gets to be a y'all thing.

I see you're smiling, I love that.

Um and then the only thing I want to point out is that uh in the recommendations, last page C we put in there, and so we could add possibly to this, uh, the city should work collaboratively with Inc.

to increase participation in neighborhood associations so that by 2036, at least 50 percent of city res residents are included in a neighborhood association.

Boom.

I saw that.

Right.

Um if if that all that happened, would what you said probably be a part of that?

I mean, I don't know if the neighborhood associations will stay the same.

Maybe they'll change.

Maybe some of them will say, you know what?

Turns out we're friends with these guys.

Maybe it will just be a new one.

But I don't want to limit them and say you can they have to stay as they are.

You can only add or whatever.

It's like y'all figure that out.

This is the intent.

So I'll stop talking.

I don't know who's going to be able to do that.

Jan, go ahead.

Jan.

I'll go in order again.

I just had a question in my reading of the um composition one uh E1, and that is I read the words uh to maintain conformity with the minimum standards established by ordinance in order and so forth.

I thought there was an ordinance that already established very six pages.

Pages pages.

I thought there was an ordinance that already established very thick pages, pages, yeah, like I wasn't sure if I should read this now because of Carson's comments as that ordinance needs to be uh in a recommendation to be pulled up and reviewed and possibly changed, or the ordinance itself is both as a process and its content, um, we're gonna leave it alone.

And to me, that's part of the y'all figure that out, right?

Maybe you need to change the ordinance, maybe you need to do whatever, but Deanna.

Well, in regard to the formation of neighborhood associations, I'm looking at uh E number two.

Yeah.

And um I I or in this whole section of E, I don't really see a place where we're saying that these neighborhoods are organic, that they are formed by the people within the uh neighborhood.

And this could be read uh to um uh allow the city, the entire city shall be divided into neighborhood associations uh and shall be formed to represent um uh each neighborhood, I guess.

You know the intent there.

And I think we need to make it clear it's not the city that's going to do that.

Um Deanna, what about because um Emily was talking to me about this last night, that that sentence number two may be redundant with number three.

That and and to your point, some people are reading number two to think that the city is the one drawing all the, but really the city of Bozeman, liaison staff member shall work with the Inc.

to grow participation and develop geographic boundaries so that that division, so we just take out number two so that it's more clear.

What do you think about that?

Well, I think uh that would be good, but I think then number three still needs to say that um see the city of Bozeman neighborhood lies on uh staff member shall work with that's to me still doesn't make it clear that they're there to facilitate an organic growth, that they don't initiate the formation of a neighborhood.

Okay.

Um I understand your input.

On that.

Yeah.

I I think that it's imperative that the city, and it's best if it's done organically, end up in the next 10 years with pretty much the entire city in neighborhood associations.

I don't think 50 percent is enough.

Um I think where we are right now is definitely not enough.

And uh I don't know where we're gonna go with wards and districts, but in my mind, um you have to have something, some mode for everybody to look where where do they look?

Do they look to their neighborhood association, do they look to their ward and and all of that?

If if the end of 10 years we still have 30 percent of the city in neighborhood associations and we haven't adopted wards, then you're leaving 70 percent of the people out of one of what we're trying to create as a very important um mechanism for citizens to take part in the city.

They're the advisory boards that we're gonna get to, but the neighborhood associations are another piece.

This is in my mind a big experiment.

And um all of it has to come into balance in a way that's gonna work.

And so if the Inc ends up demanding too much time on the city's agenda be uh over things that are not that important, inevitably that's gonna lose its cachet when we come around to the next time.

So it's gonna be really interesting um balance between the commission, the staff, the citizens, um, in the in the ways that we're encouraging them to take part.

So uh I I like to the way it is.

I think it it's clear that Inc.

is gonna be intimately involved in figuring out how to expand the neighborhood associations in conjunction with the city, but the city presumably is is hiring somebody, and that's one of their main functions is to figure out how to grow the neighborhood associations across the city.

So I would leave that language the same.

Um because we're saying in conjunction with Inc.

Yeah.

And I think that's enough.

So um two questions.

One is Barb, I think I I I I understand clearly what we're trying to do.

We just need to mess with all these words, I think.

And then Carson, just for you know when recommendations number C, C like cat.

Um we said, okay, when the next uh charter and the next study commission rolls around in 2036, if we could get up to 50 percent, that would be great.

Are you saying that uh a hundred percent would be another number we could use 80 percent, 82 percent, 76 percent?

Yeah, I I I don't know how you express it.

What do you want it to be?

A substantial portion of the city residents would be the language I would use.

Yeah, okay, thank you.

I'd like to pause.

You mind if we pause in public comment, or do you want to add just something?

One note.

In that number two, if we do keep it, uh if we could say shall be formed by the neighborhood residents to make sure that it's from the bottom up and not the top down.

Thank you.

Mike.

Yeah, so um looking at the the format and the structure of this, this composition and responsibilities is solely talking about the inner neighborhood council.

This is not talking about the creation and recognition of neighborhood associations.

So to Deanna's point, if you want something about the neighborhoods being neighborhood initiated, organic, whatever that term needs to be, it should be in the recognition of neighborhood associations topic and not under the composition and responsibilities of the inner neighborhood council.

So that that's where reading the way that this is laid out, the composition and responsibilities.

Got it.

Correct.

I'm saying that the the way that this is drafted, that E is more reflective of C than B.

And if you want that content to be related to neighborhood recognition, it should be like how those are recognized, how those are created.

Yep.

Something that puts a guard rail on the minimum standards that are contained in that ordinance would be in that place.

And then the other part is just structurally here, listening through this.

I think you want to move the city lead city liaison role up to immediately after the purpose because the city liaison's role would be both related to what would follow next, neighborhood recognized neighborhoods and the inner neighborhood council.

So make it 703C.

So what you have is um currently D, I would make it B and then move everything else down one.

So it should be B.

Then city liaison, then the recognition, then inc.

Got it.

And I think the part of the problem with um E is that these one through five need to be specific within and within the recognition portion and not a general category by itself at the end.

So I agree with like entirely deleting what's currently E2.

And then these composition and responsibilities are merged into the other sections as opposed to being its own.

A plus.

Got it.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you so much.

That's so helpful.

Okay.

Uh yeah, I'd like to pause our comments and then um ask the for public comment on the neighborhood associations, and then uh I think we're ready to start finishing up this.

So um study commissioners, if there's anything burning to say, please organize your thoughts while we're um moving forward so that we can get on to our next agenda item.

Please step forward, state your name and share your public comment, and thank you.

Hello, my name's Mary Bateson.

And um I as I was listening, I had a new thought, and I'm sure that this is gonna drive everyone in the room crazy.

But it's on uh section one under recognition of neighborhood associations, page two on your document, I believe.

And it's clear geographic boundaries.

While that seems easy, simple, and yeah, the most logical, I would suppose.

Uh, what I'm thinking about are new neighborhoods that are forming in Bozeman that are composed of very tall large buildings that are apartments or condominiums, and that the people living in those new large buildings are going to have issues that are quite different than single family homes in smaller neighborhoods that already exist, and that I don't know if how easy it's going to be to work between that kind of situation.

Um it's something that's really I'm getting all shaky and kind of emotional about even talking about it because it's a change in Bozeman that's huge, and we really don't know what the effect is going to be down the line, and I just don't see that the representation will be the same.

I I would think that the issues in the different uh kinds of buildings are gonna be different, and that they may need their own kind of representation.

So thank you so much.

It's I don't know how you'd solve it.

That's a y'all thing.

Uh please step forward for uh further public public comment.

Thank you so much, Mary.

Appreciate that and state your name.

Well, it's already on.

Um, Alison Sweeney, Bozeman resident, uh, city commissioner.

Before that, I about three years ago started a new neighborhood association from scratch.

So um to your point, Mr.

Carson, about um information needing to go from the city to the neighborhoods.

Under a certain recent city manager, we experienced a time where the neighborhood association and Inc.

were almost completely castrated, and that was the only thing that they did is they you know disseminated information back to their neighborhood.

If you're gonna put information like that in here, please clarify that it is two-way communication that we are seeking because both of those components are equally important.

Um then, okay, I'm gonna give you a few specific things.

Uh 703 neighborhood associations on the second page number six, um, inclusion of all residents in the neighborhood association.

This okay.

This is impossible.

I have my neighborhood has 500 addresses.

I am incredibly proud that we have a hundred of those people who've come forth and joined the association.

So I don't know what the intent is behind that, but please do some work there because I mean so I are you saying you only invite a hundred?

No.

Do you invite all 500?

Oh my gosh, yes, multiple times a year.

Okay.

We have what we call the flyer ferries.

So someone on each block who puts flyers on every single door.

So they're of those, and they do that multiple times a year, and the city sends out the postcard.

Great.

Like we try, we try so hard.

You cannot force some people to join up.

Some people are just not joiners.

Um, so that language is a problem.

I'm gonna run out of time here.

Uh the next um number seven, same page, uh, demonstrating that it has a means of regular accessible and two-way communication with all residents in the neighborhood.

I want you to put that word association back on there.

Um, because if that is the responsibility of just the association, and the city is not a party to that, again, you are placing that really heavy burden on the association.

Um if you're gonna form a thing, a voluntary civic organized thing, I understand that you need to have the ability to demonstrate that you can communicate with everyone in that association, but again, just leaving it at all residents in the neighborhood, it's just a big um.

I would also say, please don't let Inc put stuff on the agenda.

Even I don't get to put stuff on the agenda.

I gotta run around and get three people, so that's just too much.

Um the G okay, 703 E number two, don't need that at all.

Um, in number three, strike out the last part without any neighborhood having more of a voice than another.

And I am so sorry, but I really this is important.

I wasn't gonna use specific neighborhood associations to be called out, but Marwin Lindley, they have around 40 homes in their neighborhood association, but they have a really specific geographic location that is not contiguous with other areas and does not have the same sort of issues.

They have issues really specific to their area.

Um but you know, then trying to get them into a neighborhood association with five at 500 addresses like mine.

It's just it's a little bit arbitrary.

Um I had one last note here.

Okay, and then I was glad to see here your dialogue around the last page, the recommendations in green.

Um if that's 50% of the city covered by neighborhood associations, if that's geographic, then you need to make that clear.

If you're trying to shoot for 50% of residents to be included in an association, again, I think we're gonna have a hard time with that.

We can't even get 50% of our residents to vote.

Thank you so much.

And again, if you have other things specific, you can always email us too.

So that public comment is always available.

Further public comment, uh I appreciate that, Allison.

For further public comment on neighborhoods.

Hello, not Natsuki Nakamura, Bosman resident, um, member of the economic fatality board, but not speaking on that behalf.

Um I'm gonna apologize.

I missed the last meeting, kind of watched some of the recording and I missed earlier discussions, so I'm not I'm not fully caught up on how we got here.

Um, but I am surprised by the yeah, some of the pieces that Alison Sweeney pointed out in section E about trying to get the entire neighborhood or neighbor city represented by neighborhood associations.

I think in previous conversations that I've heard, there was like uh it would be great if any neighborhood that wanted to form a neighborhood association had support, absolutely.

Um was also conversations about if we had wards, it would be great if they aligned with neighborhood associations.

But I think I heard pretty clearly both from Inc.

and from other residents that like it seemed like forcing it to force everyone to have a neighborhood association if there wasn't the will to keep it going.

Um it seems surprising to put to put that in expectation that every neighborhood would be represented by a neighborhood association.

Um I think putting it in here as well as the piece about every without neighborhoods having more voice than another is overstepping into Inc.'s bylaws.

So Inc.

can decide how as a body they want to have representation if they feel like bigger neighborhoods should have more weight than smaller neighborhoods.

So you could set up a system of having multiple delegates from a neighborhood or you know, votes that matter, they could make sure there was more representation.

But I think putting it here oversteps how Inc.

wants to handle that kind of situation.

So I think it's very inappropriate to put that in this part.

Thanks.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate your comments.

Further comments or input for I'm gonna say input on neighborhood associations before we move to online for those in the room.

All right, thank you so much.

How about online?

Okay.

Uh not right now.

Not right now on online.

So I think that we have received a lot of great comment.

Barb, is there anything further specifically that you want to clarify or ask?

Um, we have the ability to um ask the nice people who are here to clarify something, or do you feel like you have enough?

And then I'll say I'll give everyone one more chance to comment, and then we'll need to move on.

Barb.

I I feel like I have enough mics.

I was confused by Mike's structural thing as the one that moved E to the bottom, but when he said merge stuff into the other two sections, that helped me.

Great.

So great.

Thank you.

Deanna.

Yes, you know, I missed one uh important area that I would like for us to talk about, and that is um section um uh B.

Two.

Section 7.03.

703 B number two.

Number two.

Okay, the definition membership.

Yeah.

Okay.

And um in terms and and I I would uh make this applicable to both uh neighborhood associations and advisory boards that we consider uh whether or not uh businesses and uh um nonprofit organizations which have a voice with the city through other uh channels should actually be a part of the uh uh neighborhood associations and advisory boards because basically it's the businesses and uh and sometimes the uh nonprofits that are impacting the neighborhood and um I'm thinking that we should talk about this and perhaps limit the membership to residents of the of the neighborhood and not include uh businessers and businesses and developers and um other special interest groups okay so the organized neighborhoods and we're gonna talk about advisory boards later but so the idea for you that you're saying is that you'd like to take out business owners and nonprofit organizations.

Unless they reside in the neighborhood well and that's the idea they have to live there.

Well nonprofits don't live in the neighborhood.

Sure they do uh can I mean like next to the bridge Barb, do you have something to help clarify?

Well I just wanted to note that this definition of membership specifically came from the recommendations that Inc submitted to us.

So it was their language that is reflective of how the neighborhoods and Inc are currently operating.

So that's why we included it just so you know that's where it came from so to that point I would sorry Carson jump in.

I I think Becky was saying that the nonprofits businesses they're they're contained within the geographics of a neighborhood the um nobody would argue that Bozeman Deaconess isn't part of the neighborhood in that area they're closer to Marwin than just about anybody else but to Commissioner Sweeney's point item six the inclusion of all residents in the neighborhood association I think can be stricken given the definition that you have in two six and two got you okay Carson so I was trying to deal with Alison's comment um it and the way I would read this is the definition of membership cut out the word eligibility includes all because the thrust of what you're trying to write is that if you have a space if you have a house a business or whatever in the geographical limits of you're a member from the perspective of the the numbers and all those other things you don't have to have signed up to be um to be a member and and I think that needs to be clear and um because I had never thought of it that way I'd always thought of it the way I think you were thinking of it.

Yeah you live you're in the neighborhood you're a member um you may not want to join or you may not go to any meeting I want to be active but you may not be active but you're a member and and that that is the key point of that um and then yeah I I've got something else but should I wait?

Yeah let's hold on just for I'll come back to Carson Jan you want you had a thought about the nonprofit business owners piece.

Yeah and I also want to appreciate what Alison said as well in terms of really trying to get 20 percent is 25 percent of uh any organization to be active is a major miracles and I think we have to be realistic about that.

So I'm glad to hear that and I think we're all understanding it.

But I felt uh very good about this um section because I it seems to me that it was written to try to say all of these folks should have a stake in what they create and that includes um I watch my own neighborhood which is uh surrounded by a park but now we have any number of businesses that are new and changing and growing I want them to have that stake and to be part of beautification to be part of whatever policies make it more um livable so I I would like to keep that but understanding that um this difference if you're if you're a member or you're active that we recognize that but they certainly could be both part of the consultation but if there are challenges with some types of organizations and I have my own but um but I think that's an opportunity to work with them to help find common ground solutions.

Yeah, I I will say just from experience, um, I was a former CEO of cancer support community for 18 years, and we we were I don't know if there was a neighbor, I don't know if there is a neighborhood association there, but and we never received any information from them, but I will say we were definitely part of the neighborhood.

You know, we we knew our neighbors, we talked to our neighbors, we helped pick up garbage, we did all the things to be good neighbors in our neighborhood, and um and I think the more that for me I like it in there because the more that we can promote that, like I'm not just gonna plot my my nonprofit or my business in your neighborhood and then ignore you.

Um actually I'm part of your neighborhood.

So I think it in for enhances that or encourages that partnership experience.

Carson, you wanted to I I just wanted to respond to something that Mary said, and there is you know, I'm gonna just say democracy is really messy and it's complicated.

Um another way to look at the whole neighborhood association thing, which I'm not promoting, would be to create what are the interests of the various people around the city, because you definitely identify appropriately the people that live in high rises for want of a better term, we don't really have high rises in Bozeman, but higher rises.

Um they did definitely have a different interest um than um, but there are innumerable other interests around the city as well.

For instance, um a lot of the uh newer communities on the fringes of the city were built to be walkable communities, and that hasn't totally come to fruition the way it is.

And so you could say people in the southeast and people on the northeast have a community of interest.

I'm hoping that Inc.

serves the function of combining those differing interests with one another.

If on the other hand, what you're saying is how do you have a neighborhood of high higher rises and single family dwellings, and that's a neighborhood association, that's something that I think Inc.

and um the city are gonna have to sort of figure out how you go about doing that.

Um you you definitely want people in a higher rise to be respectful of people in the single family dwellings that are near them.

Um and so there is a value in having um having that, but we're not gonna construct the perfect even though I pretend to think that we can.

Thank you so much.

And I think with that, um Barb and I will do our absolute best to now construct um Article 7.

Um and remember, because we made this article seven, the article numbers will change a little bit.

Um please remember that um these edited documents are gonna stay on our website.

But when we bring you um kind of the the new version of the charter, it's gonna be a clean copy.

And you can go back and you can look at all these colors and think about good things.

Um but um and we'll have time for comment on the full uh on the full charter on the 20th on the report that contains the charter on the 28th.

So this is not the last time, but but we're getting very close, and we're gonna be starting to look into this whole document as a full document.

So if that's reasonable, I'd like to move on to article number four.

Are we just gonna skip boards?

Um yeah, no, we're not gonna skip boards.

Thanks, Mike.

Um, so on Article 7.

I was just wondering if you were paying attention and if you're sitting up straight and if you had enough coffee.

Well, you meant 7.04.

That's what I meant, 7.04.

Thank you.

Um so with uh with 7.04, we made um quite a few changes.

Uh but uh and I will walk through those as well, unless Barb, you prefer my honor role, should I just keep going?

Um yeah, I'll just say when we went into the existing charter and realized that there was pretty extensive language about neighborhood associations, but only a paragraph about advisory boards, we're like, well, that's kind of goofy.

And so we put in some of the same elements in terms of purpose and role and that kind of stuff into this section.

So with that.

And you'll see too that the um it um it was just kind of all these words squished together in the last charter, so we just wanted to make it more readable as well.

So we just wanted to make it more readable as well.

Remember everything in the red.

We've not looked at this section before.

Everything in red is new.

Everything in red with lines through it are things we took out of the last charter.

Everything in black stayed.

And in terms of substantive differences, um there's in 7.04 um G, I mean F.

We did add, except we're really we added this for conversation.

Um except for prohibited by law, the terms on all boards shall be staggered and shall be limited to two consecutive terms.

We added that just to see what we think.

And then we also added that each city board shall have an identified commission, uh liaison and staff liaison who are expected to attend all meetings to be able to, you know, improve the effectiveness.

Um a lot of the um language is just kind of clean up there.

And then we added a whole section, which we may end up moving a little bit, section 7.05, which are just principles of public engagement.

We took this right out of the charter, the model charter that we received from the governance center, uh, Dan Clark.

We shortened them because they were way too long, and we don't like to read that many words.

And so we just shortened them up.

And it is inclusion, transparency, accountability, accessibility, and collaboration.

It was it's been suggested to me by the neighborhood association to move this section up under like 7.01.

So we might move it, but let's just talk about the content.

Anything I missed, Barb, in terms of advisory boards before we open that up to conversation here, and then know that we will take public comment as well, because it's very helpful.

Just that um 7.04 A and B also came sort of from the National Civic League's model charter in terms of laying out the purpose of city boards, commissions, and committees, as well as the the powers.

Um thank you so much.

Uh Carson, we're gonna start with you this time.

Good.

Thank you.

Um we saw one part um if you add the the purpose of boards that you took the picture of.

Um the the other piece that's in here for me that is problematic is the advisory boards.

This is 704BA, and you know uh uh this is just totally format, but it would be nice if you went number letter smaller number or Roman numeral um because BA.

Um I'm thinking that the city commission should, and I'm not sure charters the right word, should establish the charter, meaning this is what we want the board, this is what the board is doing.

Which one are you looking at?

I'm sorry.

B 704 BA.

Okay, gotcha.

Uh in other words, you have the boards adopting a charter for the board.

And um I I think if you get put on a board, um, you know, where where does this what's the idea?

Um but separately, I think the board should be responsible for its process and procedure.

And I think a little help from someone that knows what they're doing can do it, particularly if we can eliminate some of the um more onerous sections of um the ordinance um 52, 32, 23, 53, 2023.

There's two threes and fives in it, and I can't remember what the rest of it is.

Um that give the advisory boards a little more um flexibility to talk to one another, to talk to other people, and to um let minority positions come out and be known because when issues that they propose to the commission come before them, uh I I think it's easier for the commission to understand what happened if there's a little more flexibility than that than um there presently is.

Um I also think and I don't know where this goes, that there ought to be I guess there is now in existence a job description for um city commission liaisons to the boards.

Is that right, Mike?

And I and I could read that and I thought some of that was was pretty good.

So maybe we don't need to touch that, but that that is something that that's out there.

Um let me see what else.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, the way I wrote it was it this is BA again, each advisory board shall be established by city resolution, which shall include the purpose of each board, the number of its members and desired skills and experience of his members.

The board and city staff and commission liaison shall establish annual priorities and public engagement processes.

That's good.

Yeah, that's good.

Um then I do want to just add and then come back to you and give you time.

I I want everyone to notice in the recommendations.

Um we've not talked about, and that is that the city resolution 5323 um was mentioned many times, and that we're asking that the um the city commission review and revise uh it to address the following issues, A, B, and C.

So I just wanted to make sure that everybody was aware of that um and understood that Barb did a great job of capturing the areas that were of concern and put those all in there.

That can't be in the charter, but we do have it as a strong recommendation.

So go ahead.

Carson, then my my last thing is, and I can't find it right now.

Somewhere in here it says um the role of advisory boards is to be advisory.

And uh I would that gets back to the word champion.

Um what's the iterationship between being advisory, being advocates, being champions for, because I think in um the neighborhood associations have their role, but I also think that the advisory boards have a role that's not just advisory, but that just needs a little more oomph in it.

And that's why I pulled out the word champion, and I don't know if there's a way to put it in here or not.

Can you think about that and let us know the words that you might use while I go go around the table?

I I will, but thank you.

Where is it in here that it says under purpose advisory boards assist the city of Bozeman by providing expert guidance, representing community perspectives, increased transparency, and review policies and proposals before decisions are made.

Advisory boards serve as valuable platforms for broad early public engagement on important issues and decisions by providing opportunities for resident engagement, city advisory boards strengthen decision making and public trust.

So 7.04 B, where it says powers, that first sentence says they shall be advisory only.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's where I would change the word, and I'll work on a word for the Mr.

Okay.

Mike.

Comments around the advice the advisory board 7.04.

Yeah, I actually have a lot, so if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to go last.

Okay, thank you.

Um Deanna.

Should we do public comment?

There are uh I'll start, but um I would like to see in here somewhere where uh the charters uh have the authority to set their own agendas.

The advisory boards excuse me, advisory boards have uh the right to set their own agendas.

And I feel like uh while you did put in the recommendation about the 5323 language, that um the right of individuals on the advisory board to voice a minority opinion should be protected in the charter.

Because as it is now, the city adopted a resolution which uh uh prohibits that.

So I would like to see language uh in here, and I think that um if we looked at the language in um uh the GVS uh proposal.

And I'm sorry I didn't mark it very well.

I could uh uh I'm uh we can look at that.

Um and I'm wondering if the it's under the powers where Carson's language that I don't have in front of me, but that that that the commission uh sets the the size of the board, that kind of thing, but then the board shall develop um uh we could say agendas, annual priorities, and public engagement processes in advance of formal deliberation, decision-making efforts.

So we could add something in there.

So thank you.

Okay.

What else?

The uh qualifications and membership.

Uh we didn't really define that in this uh uh in our language.

And here is where I think it is important that we look at um the uh advisory boards as not being a vehicle for heavy voices, developers, and individuals who are pushing their own agenda to come in through an advisory board.

So I think that anyone who is dealing with the city or is um proposing development uh before the city should not be allowed to sit on an advisory board.

So if there's a conflict of interest, right?

Okay.

And if and I can find that language specifically what uh if you if there's something specific you're thinking and can email it to me, that would be great.

What else?

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

Um again, another really great job here with a few suggestions, of course.

Um first of all, I think you're using terms inner mid or in in exchange in sorry.

I'm not sure when you use words like advisory boards under a purpose under 704, and then we go into powers, we have boards, commissions, and committees.

Are you using the term advisory boards when you do have advisory boards that start out in not only um 704A and also in um under powers?

We've got advisory boards, and a couple of times if if they're interchangeable.

Are do you mean all of the boards, commissions, and committees are under that label advisory boards?

Or is this generation you're trying to create?

That's an interesting point.

In the in the last charter in 2006, it says it over and over again.

Advisory boards, commissions, or committees.

Advisory boards, commissions, or committees.

Like it just keeps repeating that over and over.

We should what I hear you say is that was probably a good idea, we should do that.

I'm just thinking that perhaps uh we don't even start the word uh under 704 uh city boards or it's you don't we we don't say city advisory boards in the title of this section.

So maybe add that as one way to address it, but I just wasn't sure if there's a separation.

Let us let us mess with that just so it doesn't get so clunky and you know 15 pages because we're using the same word.

Go ahead.

I think that's a question we're gonna have to talk through with Greg on Monday because the city does create boards, commissions, committees, and we have and that's the way I asked.

So we'll we'll have to understand we'll talk that through.

We may just have to repeat it.

Sure, okay to be consistent.

Okay.

So thank you.

And then I wanted to also stay with the the uh A purpose when we have them uh advisory boards shall assist the city of Bozeman by providing expert guidance.

I'm just a little leery about the word expert, because it feels like it can really um eliminate a lot of other ways that people bring value to the boards, but they may not have an act an expertise.

It might be do you have a PhD in this?

Do you have a law degree?

Do you have those kinds of things when we have both lived experience and um uh a variety of other backgrounds?

So I just wanted to question the word expert guidance.

It might say expert and other guidance if you want to keep expert in.

Or experiential guidance.

Pardon?

Experiential, expert and experiential guidance.

I think that's would cover the expert and experiential.

Would be great.

But there's a lot of or just guidance.

Thank you.

I'll go with that.

Perfect.

So then let me move to um B Powers.

Um I think when I read the advisory board should adopt a charter.

Um in my mind it was a job description.

And is that what you mean to say, or is this under what?

Uh I'm sorry, powers B.

And then under powers number A, yeah, advisory board should adopt a charter.

We we talked about that, but I wasn't sure if that's what you meant was a job description or almost some sort of bylaws.

A charter um uh is used frequently, like for example, um, if you it um as in if you have a nonprofit, I I'm on the hospital board.

So for the executive committee, there's a charter.

Says this is this is what your your powers are, this is what you're supposed to do.

This this is your job, uh a charter for the governance committee.

So so it's kinda it's not a job description because no one's got a job.

We have a group of people, and so the charter kind of explains that.

So is that the language that we're still that we use in the city?

What language do you use in the city?

It depends.

Can you get closer to the microphone?

It depends.

So I was gonna talk about that.

Um we don't use the term charter for a board.

Typically it's gonna be a purpose statement.

Uh it's gonna be a role, or it's gonna be um bylaws, rules of procedure, the the terminology fluctuates.

Um what term could we put in because we can't put all those in here?

A document.

I have different thoughts.

Um I don't think the board should be dictating their own.

Um the city commission, we're gonna change that to the city commission should adopt a direction.

The city commit if these boards belong to the city commission because they're creating them.

The city commission should be allowed to decide whatever they want to do with that board.

Well, yeah, yeah, but the idea is that they actually say the advisory board shall be established by city resolution.

And that would have within it the purpose and and other information.

And then we get out of the word charter because the charter is problematic.

Because we're starting a charter.

Right now, would that work?

I th I think so.

Okay.

I think the this section is largely too prescriptive.

Okay, thank you so much.

And thank you, Carson.

And then I was going to say also with the word annual priorities, it seems to me it's their priorities.

Okay.

I'd like to just add that for consideration because I think there's been um a need from my discussions with people on advisory boards that we need a mix.

We need the city priorities that obviously drive a broader agenda, strategic plan, city values, but also there are people that bring this expertise and experiential um uh gifts to their uh to their role and that they ought to be able to have more of a partnership in that way.

Okay.

And then only one more item, and that would be what I'd like to create is number C, which would probably be really number three, but we're not gonna get involved with A's or numbers and letters.

Um but no, okay, that's A, that's B.

Yeah.

So this would be a C according to this document.

And that is um that these boards reflect the reflect and represent the composition of our community, and that we measure that each year.

Okay.

All right.

You know, I'm starting to see that we're gonna make quite a few edits to this section.

Um and I'm also uh wondering, like we've gotten some great input, but I think we're gonna be making quite a few, because we're already commenting on things we're already decided to change.

Um and so I'm wondering um two things.

One is Mike, I'm guessing uh you've got your dictionary out.

It's very thick.

It's the old Webster's one, and you want to wordsmith a lot of this, which is amazing because I really because I really really appreciate it.

The question is do we want to do that here, or do you want to share some of the because it it's hard for people like me or BAR to find the words like charter, for example, right?

That's not the right word.

What's the right word?

Are there things that do we want to do that right now?

Do we want to pause and and ask for public comment on the advisory um boards, committees, and commissions?

I think Mike should give us a good summary of what he's talking about.

And then get public comment?

And if it gets to wordsmithing, he he'll know that and you can deal with that separately, but conceptually, I think we should hear from Mike and then take public comments.

The concepts.

Okay, great.

I I was gonna try to tackle this more conceptually than wordsmithing.

Um the I'll start with the um what I think is the easiest part here.

Uh 7.05, I think should move up into 7.01.

Okay.

Um so these principles should be applicable to both neighborhoods, Inc.

and the boards, so we should put it near the top so it's guiding what comes below.

Um so you had asked previously for me to talk about 5323.

Um I can give you the elevator pitch version of that right now, and I can go into any details you want.

But shortly, I just wanna say I think there's a um the commission wanted a organizational structure that it didn't have universally across the different boards.

So one of the things what that this did was it created a set rules of procedure for boards where the city is the primary appointee.

So not Board of Health where it's mixed and joint, but if it's primarily the city appointing members, then they were gonna set what those rules of procedure were.

And it was to standardize them in a format closest resembling the city commission meeting for just flow understanding of both the public and the members.

So that was one of the key things that it was.

It was also to define roles, duties, expectations, um, which had never been done with the boards.

They had here's your board, here's your subject matter, go.

In 2013, they gave um templated bylaws to to the boards who then some of them just took them as they were, some completely changed them, and so to rein that back in.

Here's what the here's what the rules of procedure would be.

Um I have a lot of thoughts on the one-body one voice.

I think most people misunderstand it.

So I'm not gonna go too deeply into that right now.

Uh the city commission is already stated that they are gonna have a work session on boards.

They're gonna talk about their policy around boards.

Um, so I think the recommendations can go to them in that as part of that process or in that process.

So you're okay with the recommendation that's written.

Or is there do you want to change that recommendation?

I have a lot of changes to that, but it gets into more wordsmithing.

Okay.

So I was just gonna save that.

The uh two consecutive terms, like I'm just working my way back up.

Um what do you think of that?

So the identified commission liaison, staff liaison.

Uh I don't see a need for that in the charter as it is defined in their own.

What are you looking at?

Uh H 7.04.

H okay, got it.

CHIP.

Um, I don't think that needs to be defined in the charter.

Uh they can define that in the way they want to operate their boards.

So um the serves without compensation is typical language in all of our stuff, so I don't see any issue with that.

Does H happen right now?

Yes.

Okay.

It it's the it's in all the in that 5323, it says there were there will be one for each of these boards.

So all of the boards that the city is primary appointee, they assign a commission liaison, they can assign a staff liaison.

And do you see them uh attend both attend the meetings all the time, 100% of the time, 92% of the time do you figure?

But greater than 90%.

Greater than 90, okay.

There's always a staff person, it might not be the same one, depending on attendance, and the commissioners have used substitute commissioners, so there is a representative from the commission at meetings that they can't make.

Hey, I'm gonna be out of town, but this other person can fill it for me.

So that's already happening.

Okay.

The two consecutive terms.

Um I think if you if you want to put term limits, you need to be specific about whether or not this means that your two consecutive terms eliminates you from any other board, or if it would allow you to serve in a different board.

Currently, our big five boards have something similar with these two term limits, but they're only related to that specific board.

So if you spent two terms on the sustainability board and you wanted to move over to urban parks and forestry, you could then immediately go in the what would be your third term, but it's on a different board.

Um the appointments portion that you have here in A.

I think you um strike the words through media channels.

So you have following public solicitation advertised not less than twice annually.

Okay.

It was the newspaper, so we made a good advancement, but where are you uh broadly under the powers?

I I don't think you should be defining the powers.

If you're gonna have the commission set up there, you're you're granting the commission may create powers, commissions, and agencies or committees as required by state law or as desired.

Maybe they want to set different powers.

So you're defining powers in here, and maybe they want to do an ad hoc committee like Carson talked about.

One of the most effective boards that I ever worked with was the Trails Open Space and Parts Bond Board.

There was a $15 million bond.

We set up a board, they decided where that money went, the bond was expended, the board went away.

Well, we have ad hoc later, Mike.

What I'm wondering is, are you saying that they should not be advisory only and that they shall not that they should have administrative authority?

I think that should be up to the board or up to the city commission.

When the city commission created the uh document when the city commission created the parking commission, they gave them authorities that are permissible under state law but not required.

When they created the downtown urban renewal district, they set that up as an urban renewal agency.

Statute lays out the authority of like the library board.

So I I think by sit by putting it powers in here, you're unnecessarily handcuffing.

Um then your A and B within there.

I don't think the the board should define their own.

Um if these boards are to support the work of the city commission and the commission's priorities.

That is a that is a fundamental discussion.

Like, so what are the purpose of these boards?

Right now, the purpose of the boards is to support the city commission.

If the city commission asks them to support their priorities, that's their work plan.

That's what they adopted in their policy that's in that high performing boards.

The the limitation of boards to be able to put whatever they want on the agenda is it was a direct reflection of the chaos that ensued when boards were creating their own agendas previously.

So the commission saying, hey, you're here to help us, help us with the things we want help with and not chase every shiny squirrel that you see going down the street.

The idea that the if these boards are a creation, like so I'm ignoring any of the statutory required boards, the ones that the city commission creates, then the purpose of the boards is not to assist the city of Bozeman.

The purpose of the boards is to assist the city commission.

Okay.

And the city commission should be able to say how they want that help.

Whether it's a we want you to come together and help us do a new tree plan and you make a board, all they do, or our water resources plan that's happening right now.

We're creating a board, they're working on the plan.

Once the plan's done, that board goes away.

That's a viable model for boards.

All right, okay.

Gotcha.

So they they should have that authority.

I I think they're the elected officials, they get to decide in that majority how those those work.

So defining the purpose, um, I I agree with the statements that like we benefit from the guidance, representing perspectives, increasing transparency, reviewing policies and proposals.

I agree with all of those things in that purpose.

Um valuable platforms, the opportunities for engagement.

Um I just don't like advisory, period.

So if we just talk about city boards, that was just a functional change that we had to do in the clerk's office because some of the boards were advisory, some are governing, some are policy boards.

So call them city boards, not advisory boards?

City boards.

Okay.

Um when you talk about the repetitive may create boards, commissions, agencies, or committees.

I would just make a parenthetical behind it that says city boards.

So anytime you were referring to city boards, you're talking about all the things in the first time.

That's all I'm saying.

The same way that you did with Inc.

up above, and you do on abbreviations, I would just say city boards.

It gives a nice shorthand that doesn't insert connotations in that word advisory.

So if a board is going to have an authority, then they have that authority.

So that's the shortest version of what we have.

You nailed that, Mike.

You nailed that.

Thank you.

Barb.

So what I hear in all of that, which is great, is keep A purpose and delete B powers.

Or change it to responsibilities, I'm wondering.

And we change change some things up, or yeah.

I broadly would say A and C stay, B goes.

So yeah, let's let's kind of work on that.

All right, let's pause.

Um not for a break.

Heck no.

No way.

Instead, let's take public comment on city boards, which includes committees, commissions, and ad hoc.

Boom.

What are you just going to say?

Hi, Henry Ham.

Bozeman Resident.

Um I think I've just got three little things to say.

One is maybe this has already been dealt with, but I think uh 704BA about advisory boards adopting a charter and annual priorities.

I think that's just not the way it should be.

I think Mike's been quite articulate about what I agree with him.

I think these boards uh exist because the city commission has decided they wanted some advice from citizens on particular matters.

And I think it's a city commission that should therefore determine what the brief of uh each of these boards is.

Um I I think I'd be very happy just to see B go away.

Um term limits.

Um I think there probably should be different terms for different boards.

I think some boards it takes a while to require to acquire the expertise you really should have to be useful on that board.

I think the one I served on the community development board is an example of that.

Maybe some others, um, not such a long term.

I know there has been a problem historically with people getting on boards and staying there forever.

Um, but I think about how best to deal with that, and I wouldn't hamstring the city commission, for example, too much in deciding how to deal with that issue.

And then the last thing is I'm very much in favor of the clear statement that these boards exist to provide advice to the city commission.

Because I think that helps clarify a lot of these matters.

I guess finally I had to say, Mike, I think I agreed with just about everything you said.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

That was so uh so helpful.

And um the second thing you said, I wanted to clarify with Mike.

Um, do do each of um in the document that explains each each of the boards, each of the city boards.

Is there a a time commitment, uh, a term uh to his point where maybe there's different terms, like this board has a two-year term.

This this board has a six-month shelf life, and there are no more terms, but that if we said term limits would just be it might be a varying amount of time.

Yeah, so the different boards did have different terms.

Um when we went to the consolidation to keep them staggered on the ones where we could determine the length, we made the first term for half of the board three years and everybody else two.

Okay.

And then they went to two-year terms after that.

Okay.

All right, thank you so much.

Further public comment on uh city boards.

Uh Daniel Cardi, Bozeman resident.

Um powers or responsibilities, uh board should be able to add uh items to their work plan.

What we're seeing now, for example, on the community, on the uh economic vitality board is that um they're supposed to actually do um beaufication awards, but their city staff liaison has said no.

So even though that is under their uh remit, they're being denied that um responsibility by their city staff liaison.

So whether that's corrected in 5323 or the charter might be up to this group.

Um under 704 appointments compensation terms and qualifications.

Um first under 704 Chowdhury the same on all boards.

Those could be three years to start and then two years staggered, but certainly no longer than two three-year terms or two two-year terms, uh consecutively.

What we're seeing now, especially on the community development board is long-term people who um one who is at least one or more who are developers who stand to gain financially from decisions that board makes.

So I would say that under qualifications, uh, no one should be allowed to sit on a board who stands to gain financially from that um being on that board.

Um also there was a member on, or there is a member on a um on the community development board who was awarded a uh professional services agreement by the city at a rate of 250 to around 230 or dollars an hour.

So I think anybody who sits on a board should not be allowed to accept any kind of a contract from the city.

That's just that's just totally conflict of interest.

Um under recommendations, uh resolution 5323 is a disaster.

Um it needs to be rewritten from scratch.

The one-body one voice principle violates our principles of democracy in that dissenting opinions are not um are not advanced to the commission in writing.

So I wouldn't strengthen that or that recommendation to the city.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

And um one of the ways that we talk about you know who should be the terms and qualifications is conflict of interest interest covers.

I have a financial, I have a family, I have a historic conflict of interest.

So that when you see that term come back up, conflict of interest, that's a very well-defined uh concept on board.

So thank you so much.

Next public comment, thank you.

Thank you.

Mary Bateson.

I'm really happy to go behind uh Dan Cardi because I get to disagree with him and agree with him.

Well done.

So I am not a fan of term limits and do not believe that it is necessary to go into the charter.

And if these uh boards and committees are um products of the city commission, the city commission should make the decisions about term limits if they need them.

Uh and I agree with Dan all the items, the things he said about conflict of interest, and I'm actually surprised that there is nothing in this language covering that issue, and I do believe it's a huge issue.

Uh maybe it wasn't left in because that's more covered in the resolution that's in green.

Uh, but that's something you might want to consider adding to the charter.

So thank you.

Please know it's fully considered.

We just didn't think of it.

That's why you're here.

Further public comment.

Hello, Natsuki Nakamura Bozeman, resident, member of the economic vitality board, but not speaking on that behalf.

Um, I just wanted to make a few comments on section 7.05 principles of public engagement, which might move.

Um, just wanted to flag some words that might be a little bit loaded and maybe just steer away from it.

Um, under inclusion, you say design engagement to be open, represent inclusive representative.

I understand what you're trying to mean, like you want a variety of voices, but representative at times has been used to say, oh, we're we're overhearing from this population, and so that's we're gonna discount this population we're hearing from to hear from someone that we haven't heard from yet.

That's like no not participating yet.

So I think representative could be a way to minimize voices, and I don't want that to be used in that way.

Um similarly, actively create beyond usual participants.

Again, that might be discounting people who are showing up, and so maybe think of a way that doesn't you can elevate new people but not discount existing participants.

Um also bringing in new voices again, discounting perhaps existing voices.

Um and then just I I fear some of these words sound good but might be hard to come to agreement on what these means engage effectively, meaningful ways to influence decisions.

Um I think the city commission recently had a conversation about one of the priorities is to engage meaningfully with residents.

That was one of the goals.

Um a lot of it was how can this the city thinking about how they can improve communications to residents?

There wasn't a lot of ways of how to incorporate ways that residents would feel more heard.

And so um, yeah, what does it mean to be engaging effectively?

Is that just city increasing the communications or is there is there a way that we can actually say in the is it putting that language actually helping residents feel heard more?

Um and then lastly, the make participation easy, convenient times.

Um I think that's also been something that's come up in a lot of different ways.

I don't there's never gonna be a good time that works for everybody.

Um daytime's probably work better for city staff to have meetings and times within their work schedule.

Um but people work days, nights, weekends, so there's not really gonna be a convenient time.

So I put that in there might be kind of meaningless.

Thanks.

Thank you so much.

Further public comment on advisory.

Excuse me, city boards.

And Alison, since you wear a few hats, will you let us know who you're speaking on behalf of right now?

Yes, absolutely.

Um Alison Sweeney, Bozeman resident, um, city commissioner.

Are you speaking on behalf of the commission or on behalf of yourself or on behalf of the case?

I can't speak on behalf of the commission.

Um I just want you to be clear.

Yeah, I I can't speak on behalf of the commission.

No one commissioner can speak on behalf of the commission.

So you're speaking on behalf of yourself today.

Yeah, informed by the experience, I guess.

So that's uh yeah, just want you to clarify that for yourself.

I think it's a good idea.

Yeah, totally.

Um, in my personal opinion, I do like the language in 7.04A that says assist the city of Bozeman.

And I like that you included language for the advisory boards to do engagement.

I think a lot of people don't know we have advisory boards, and that it's a great way for people to help um inform city policy.

It's also the first and arguably more robust opportunity to engage over a long period of time when we're rewriting a plan.

Um people have almost a year to participate in that process, but nobody knows it's happening.

So I did kind of like that that they assist the city of Bozeman, not just the commission.

Um I'm one of those people that believes advisory boards should have a little more autonomy.

So I'd like them to elect their own chair, which you know, that sort of stuff maybe doesn't belong in the charter, but um adding to their own work plans and agendas.

Um the commission does create them through an ordinance, which I think is great because that lays out you know what's the intent and purview of this board.

Um we have big issues with conflict of interest.

And I I do actually think the charter may be a great place to reiterate that there is strong language out there, but we have problems enforcing that.

Um you want people's expertise, but you don't want someone who is actively profiting from a policy that will be examined by that board.

Um the term limits thing, you know, as long if you're going to say something about term limits, give the commission the ability to make exceptions.

Um, when we were right rewriting the unified development code, it went on much longer than it needed to, and the commission made an exception for certain members to continue serving because their expertise was valuable.

We're soon facing the same exact thing on the historic preservation board where someone with really valuable experience that we need participating in these two big programs, we need that person to continue.

Um I feel like that's thank you.

That's great.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, thank you.

Further?

Sorry, I actually don't like um E.

The commission may authorize the city manager to establish special ad hoc commissions for specific purposes without public advertisement.

That sounds like giving that person a lot of authority to cherry pick, and the city manager is already the most important um powerful person in the city.

So thanks.

Mike, can I ask is E I think that was in the last that was in the last charter?

Is that really a thing?

Or do we just take that out?

The commission may authorize the city manager to establish special ad hoc commissions for specific purposes without public advertisement.

I think it's something that they have done in the past.

For instance, I'm thinking of the uh climate action working group.

They didn't publicly advertise, hey, we're recruiting for members for this term because they didn't actually set a number of members.

They just said, hey, we're gonna get a bunch of people together who are interested in talking about this thing.

So the city manager recruited people, our sustainability team talked out, talked to other members in the community, and we got interested folks to come in.

So I think that the ability to do that in a like, hey, uh we want to make a the um consensus model for Fowler Housing is another one that I think would fall in this authorization.

So they put together a group, an ad hoc committee to bring in a facilitator to work a consensus process for what may be developed on a parcel of land.

So I I think it's something that is not used a lot, but it just formalizes that authority that these types of things can happen in select circumstances.

If I could the affordable housing task force handpicked by the city manager and the commission for the purposes of getting all of the various stakeholders that were involved in creating affordable housing across the city in the same room together for a consensus process.

So I I don't I don't think it's terrible to have this clause in there.

But if you took out the public advertising, so what you you'd still end up as long as the commission or whoever was doing putting it together has gets to choose who's on it.

Okay.

Can I respond to some of the public comments?

If it's necessary, yes.

I only say that just because of time.

Oh, you do have some.

Okay, let's finish our public comment.

Thank you, Caleb, for keeping us on track.

Um so we have Emily Talago.

Um I am gonna allow you to talk.

And you have three minutes now.

Okay, thank you.

I will try and be brief.

Um Emily Clego, both in resident.

Um the I just want to make a comment about the board.

Most of the dialogue that you guys have been having, it seems to be about boards that the commission establishes when they're deemed necessary, which they kind of operate like a cabinet and they have technical expertise.

Um, but what I I do want to hear from you as study commissioners is whether you want to mandate any city boards or committees that actually operate independently on behalf of the city as opposed to like just serving at the pleasure of the commission.

Um it can serve as kind of a check and balance of power.

An example of that is like so the ethics board.

Um our existing charter um houses the you know the ethics stuff under the general provisions, Article 7.

Um, so maybe this is just an organizational issue, but I do think this is the point at which you say, okay, you can have boards that you you know create or disband at you know, at their necessity.

But I do want to know if you think it's it's a good thing to say you must have an ethics board because there are some ramifications in with Montana law as far as where do you go directly to the county attorney if you have an ethics complaint or the first stop the ethics board at the city?

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Further public comment.

That was it.

Yeah.

That was it.

Okay, thank you so much.

Mike.

Uh so yeah, I'll uh I'll start with Emily's comment first.

Yeah, she said independent board, and the first thing that I wrote down was Board of Ethics.

Um we have that board of ethics in a different section of the charter.

It's mandated that we create a board of ethics, like she said, statute says if you have a board of ethics, your complaints go there.

Statute lays out that you it has to be three members, and that you can have that, otherwise any ethics complaints would go to the city or the county attorney.

So speaking of ethics, um, I want to talk specifically about conflict of interest.

We have a very robust ethics program here at the city.

The charter mandates an annual training for all board members, elected officials, and staff.

That's not a requirement that any other community in the state of Montana has.

We run those trainings.

Um we we have a frequent use of the city attorney in matters related to conflict of interest.

Um while people may believe or perceive conflicts of interests, any of the examples that were given here, I know went through the city attorney and a conflict, a legal conflict of interest did not exist, and that's why it was permitted to award a contract the way it was.

So if we use the word conflict of interest in the charter, it will be understood what that means.

Absolutely.

Okay.

And it's in there.

And I I don't think we have problems enforcing conflicts of interest.

I think we have problems with people understanding what actually constitutes a conflict of interest.

So specifically the mention of a developer being on our community development board.

That is a requirement of the state that we have somebody designated as the explicit representative of the development community in order for the city of Bozeman to have impact fees.

So if we want development to pay for the impacts that development has, we have to have them have a representative on our planning commission.

Okay.

Thank you.

Also with terms, um the I you know listening to this, uh a couple examples came up, and I think uh very good argument is to be made not to have the term limits in the charter.

Uh so the community development board does have term limits.

They're limited to two.

It's one of the reasons why HAP is no longer on that board.

Um so they are limited by that already in the creation.

Historic preservation advisory board does not have term limits.

So you could keep somebody for multiple terms passed.

Um to HAPS point that some boards require a longer lead to understand, like the Board of Ethics.

If you put this in the charter, you would be turning over your Board of Ethics members every four years.

And that's a place where you want continuity in governance.

Um the 5323 keeps coming up, and specifically one body one voice.

And I'm just gonna say that we saw two excellent examples of that already.

When Natsuki acknowledged her membership on the economic vitality board, but that she's speaking on her own behalf.

And when Commissioner Sweeney acknowledged that she does not have the authority to speak on the behalf of the city commission.

That's what one body one voice means.

It is not to stifle dissenting opinions during discussion.

It's not to say you can't disagree.

It's to say when an entity makes a determination, that is the will of the entity.

If this body votes on any motion and it's three to two, the study commission recommended this.

The dissenting opinion that we hear about would be the opposite of what the motion was.

So if it's an I move to approve the application, the dissenting opinion is not to approve the, and that's recorded in the votes.

The actual nuance of the communication, what happens in that discussion that's publicly available for anybody who wants to go and see that.

Mandating that or requiring it is creating an additional burden some additional burden that is contrary to best practices for how boards and deliberative bodies work.

So Mike, I I I want to be careful that we don't need to get in.

I fully understand the depth of concern are on the that that particular resolution and it's not in the charter.

So but we're not going to be able to do that.

So that's why I'm responding.

Right now it's a recommendation.

Because other everything outside of that is I just want to be careful how we spend our time discussing the depths of that particular resolution when we are not here to change it.

Is it okay to have it as a recommendation?

I don't see any problem with you having a recommendation.

I think it might be moved by the time you adopt your report.

Okay.

Anyone else here want to take that recommendation off of our recommendations?

For the public to understand that the charter sits inside a report that includes a section called recommendations.

So you'll see recommendations on the bottom of each of our uh documents for each of the articles.

All those are being compiled by our good friend Barb here because she's in charge of that page of all the recommendations, and they'll all be listed there.

That gets handed over to the city commission and the staff, and they can either do it or not do it.

It's literally a recommendation.

It's kind of like recommending a teenager take a shower every day.

It's either going to happen or it's not, right?

That's right.

And just add on 5323 specifically.

We've gotten a lot of public comment about it.

Yeah.

Right, wrong, or indifferent.

Um that one voice provision has created the perception that it is stifling dissenting voices.

And so it's a city commission resolution.

We have absolutely no authority to change it.

So all we're trying to do is say, hey, we recommend you got to take another look at this resolution.

To clarify these things.

I can tell you that people on those boards have come to me and said, after the decision is made, I'm not allowed to talk to anybody about it.

I don't know that that's in there or how they got that interpretation, but they've been told by people in authority.

That's what they tell me.

So that's why the recommendation, right?

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, so you're supporting the recommendation.

Okay, great.

All right.

I Barb, now do you think we have a I think we're gonna maybe make some changes to this section.

Should we move along?

Um can I sorry?

Um I I think where there's a difference that needs to.

I do not think any more than the neighborhood associations are there solely for the purposes of the city commission.

I don't think that the advisory boards are either.

The advisory boards in my mind are citywide issues that are important, and the boards are there for the city, not just the city commission.

And so I I would not change that language to um let the city totally direct them, which is why I think advisory boards should be able to put things on their agendas and discuss them.

And Mike, it was chaotic.

Sometimes, I've said this twice today, so it makes it true.

Democracy is chaotic and it's messy.

But those boards had uh uh uh a connection to the community so that things came from the boards to the commission and vice versa, and it was a good thing, and there was uh enough independence in the advisory boards.

So if it becomes the commission dictates, then the boards are gonna be inevitably less valuable to the community in terms of community input than they have been.

And then the the conflict of interest pieces I think is just worth a little bit of a tiny discussion.

I was originally my first start was on the cemetery board.

The chair of the cemetery board was one of the two um what do they call those things you put on a gravestone makers in town?

And um we didn't have any ethics um clearly stated or whatever.

Those two people knew what the needs of the cemetery were and how things needed to go and they had value in their presence.

Sometimes they just went totally over the top.

One one, for instance, columbarium, a great addition to the cemetery because you can bury more sets of ashes in a smaller space than ever.

And that came up in the the world of cemetery, they brought it to the commission.

It was great.

All right.

When did he step over the line?

One of them bid on providing the first columbarium to this to the cemetery, got the bid.

It was competitive, everything was great.

Bring something to the cemetery advisory board after the fact to pay him more money than the bid had been.

Okay.

There's clearly unequivocal conflict of interest, can't do that, needed to step out for that discussion.

So there is some value in having some people who are involved in the area where the advisory board is involved on the board.

The question is how do you balance that undue influence that they might have otherwise?

I think we're settled on term limits, I think should be depend on the board.

And yeah, that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

I'm going to recommend that we take a five-minute break, which should get us back to here at 18 after.

And we look at Article 4.

One of the things we're going to look at in Article 4 is some language around the municipal court.

And I'm seeing some people here who are possibly from the municipal court.

And so I'm going to just very briefly introduce that and then ask Carson and Jan to go over Section 4.05 first, and then we can review the rest of Article 4 if that's okay with everybody.

Okay.

So 618, we'll gabble back in.

So there's one other piece that you and I talked about is I have one other recommendation under Section 7 under public engagement.

I'm happy to come back to that after we the judges and company and administrator have been here for a long time.

So I don't want to get in the middle of that.

And they are presenting.

Yes.

And I'm going to invite them up here.

Okay.

Who's present?

So you want to come back to Article 7.

So I want to come back to Article 4 and then come back to 7 after.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

We'll take a short frame.

I didn't used to be here.

And when I went back to breaking up the history, there was a random meeting in the 80s when we took out the boarding order.

I'll call the Bozeman City Study Commission meeting back to order.

And welcome our guests.

The court administrator and two judges.

How often do you have the pleasure of that company in one place?

Thank you very much for coming.

I'm going to let you introduce yourselves.

In the present charter, there's like 10 words about the entire court system.

And the separation of court, judicial, I'm sorry, court or judicial, legislative and executive across the country has been somewhat eroded over time.

And so the judges brought to me some language, brought to Jan and I, some language, and uh you all said we could talk to them.

And so we have two pieces of amendment to the charter.

One is Section 405 that adds that the court shall operate independently and separately from the legislative and executive branches of city government.

I think that's an important clause.

There's a second uh uh change that's not in front of us today, um, which is to the Article One of the Charter, which basically indicates that the city operates with executive legislation, legislative and judicial branches.

Um with that, um I yield to the judges.

Thank you.

Um and the court administrator, and I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name, but I'll introduce everybody because that'll that'll be really helpful.

That will get me off the hook, although I've put myself on the hook card.

No worries.

I'm Judge Colleen Harrington.

I have been um uh municipal court judge for over 14 years, um, and have seen a very big change in uh society uh when it comes to the judiciary.

This is um Miranda Johnson, she is our court administrator.

Uh we recently changed that position last year with an ordinance um to allow her to be an administrator because of the fact that our courts are getting um more complicated in terms of having multiple judges.

Um there is going to eventually be potentially a third judge uh just with the caseloads and things like that, and so that a court administrator is really helpful to help do the managerial roles and the administrative roles.

She came from the county, so she actually has both city and county experience from the judicial side.

Uh so we're very excited to have her.

And then Carolina judge uh Carolina Tierney, she is our second or our um other municipal court judge, we have too.

Um she was elected in 2021.

No, 2023 for 24.

Yeah, there you go.

Um, and she is currently the chief judge uh because we rotate that role um every two years as well.

So I'm gonna just jump right in because I I do understand the time efficiency um and how much you all have to do today.

Um, but I did believe that it was very, very important that um the judiciary is um addressed in the charter.

And part of the reason why I think that this is such a great opportunity to really um preserve that separation of powers in the charter.

I loved uh Ms.

Frank when you Frank's when you said the charter is for what and not how.

Um and so I believe that this is in this is part of the what.

This is part of what makes the city the city, um, and to make sure that we have that independent judiciary.

Um I did want to bring a quote from Justice Ginsburg because I think that this really does highlight why it is important.

And her quote is an independent judiciary is essential to the rule of law in any land, yet it is vulnerable to assault.

It can be shattered if the society law exists to serve, does not take care to assure its preservation.

And that is what this language does.

Um I also wanted to address why it's not called the municipal court and it's just called the judicial branch.

Um in Montana law, there are three types of lower courts, which is what municipal court is, um, and the city had the ability and originally started as a city court and then changed over into a municipal court under the laws of the state.

And so, in order to make sure that this is not hamstringing anyone and to make it very broad, that is the term that I wanted to use was just the court, not municipal court, so that if there was something that happened in the city and it in the next 10 to 12 years that needed to get changed, we're not hamstringing the city from being able to make the change that needs to happen.

So that I just wanted to highlight that part as well.

Um I do know that the original language that I proposed was much more of the what and how.

Um, and so after a conversation with both Carson and Jan, um Miranda and I sat down with them and met with them on Friday when Judge Tierney was actually in a trial.

Um, and so kind of worked out through some of the language of I understand why you believe that that was more broad and much more into the how instead of the why.

Um, but I do think that this preservation of the separation of powers is incredibly important.

And to be Bozeman has always tried to be a leader for the entire state of Montana, and having this language in there is that lead, uh is that leadership that shows other cities and towns how to make sure that the judiciary is um protected, uh, that independence is protected.

Judge Sherry and I recently just had uh attended the judicial conference.

We're required to do that twice a year, and that's under state statute.

Um and to to know I've been doing this for 14 years and talking to the judges and knowing um the infringement that has been happening across the judiciary um from many different angles to have more preservation and more protection is uh is so important.

So we're open to any questions that you have.

Yeah.

I have one question.

Sorry.

I have one question.

Thank you.

That provided more clarity and yet also is really specific to the to the what.

Section point 4.05 says is titled municipal court.

Are you saying that the title should be, you can see it there on the screen?

The title should just be court or city courts or I actually do think that we should be taking it out from underneath the departments because I think that that makes it very confusing.

Um and make it a you could either put it under the general powers of section one to where it it shows that it we are of independent branch of the government.

Um and so that's why I did name it the judicial branch, um, not just municipal court or the court, but to actually name it the judicial branch, so that it is clear we are not a department.

Um that has happened many, many times and not just in Bozeman, where the court is considered to be a department when they are not.

Um and when it's convenient for a department, when it's not convenient, we're not a department.

Those are the types of things that I'm trying to make clear here by separating it out and creating it as a as the step as the third branch.

So what you're what you're if I'm understanding you correctly, you think that this section should be in article one.

If that is the proper article, I I don't know if that's the part of pop proper article or not.

I am not as skilled in the charter as you all are because I have not focused on that.

I do think that it maybe should be even a separate article where it's a just a very short article.

But then we are an independent branch, and it just highlights that we're not we don't fall under the city departments or the legislative or the executive were our own branch.

Okay.

Carson, you have an idea.

Yeah, I I think we should create a uh separate section article and call it judicial judicial branch, and then go from there with what they were what we had.

I I didn't catch that nuance, and I'm sorry that I did not, but I don't think it should be in one because that doesn't separate it out.

Um talks about all three branches.

How about I look at the whole like line up all I can look at all the articles kind of lined up, see if if it's how it can fit because one of the things we're we've done, like we took article, we took public engagement, made it a separate article that's Article 7.

Um it if it would be okay uh between now and then we just kind of look at that, see kind of where it all fits.

And I I'm not tied to an article four.

I I like I just I do think that it should be its own article.

I hear what you're saying.

Correct.

I am not stepping on your toes to determine how the flow of the charter should go.

Um, but I would ask that it be a separate article.

Thank you.

No further questions from me.

Anyone else?

Deanna.

Uh uh first of all, thank you for being here.

Uh I have a question.

Uh I do like the idea that uh we establish very early in the charter that we understand the structure of government as being the executive, legislative, and judicial.

And so it appear uh maybe even right after the preamble, or you know, so it's laid out.

But I have a question in terms of the purpose.

When I think of the judicial uh uh branch of government, I think of it as that body to which people can bring uh questions as to the legality of a law, for example.

Is that one of your duties as a municipal judge, or are you enforcing just uh ordinances?

So we we handle all misdemeanors in the city limits of Bozeman.

We also handle orders of protection, um, and and we do have the ability to address uh and to hear ordinances.

So in terms of if someone gets cited with an ordinance, they can make an argument to the court uh through a trial um on whether or not they're in violation of that ordinance.

Um and some of that can be a challenge to whether the ordinance is constitutional or not, but that's not necessarily that's gonna be in the in the whole process, just like any case would be if um they believed that a law was not constitutional, an attorney or a uh defendant could make that argument, and then we would have to decide that.

Um so we are that branch that they would come to, but they are also brought to us by the executive branch with citations and traffic citations and um criminal citations.

Uh so that's kind of how people get it into court with us is that it is mainly because of our jurisdiction and because of the way that the state law is provided.

Um we hear all misdemeanors within the city limits of Bozeman and the MSU, um, all ordinances from the city limits of Bozeman and then orders of protection that can be in the county, if that helps you.

Yes, thank you.

Okay.

And I'm happy to go way more into that if you really want to know the ins and outs of it.

Um I was trying, I'm trying to do very broad strokes for you guys just because I know your time is very valuable.

Other questions.

Is it something that we could uh address in the charter in terms of just letting people know that that is uh one of your powers?

Should we should we list your powers in the charter?

I I think uh one of the issues that was brought up is that um the charter the stat state statute limits the charter to create a local court.

Um you're not creating a local court, and we are uh controlled by um the municipal ordinance that created the municipal court, but we are also mainly controlled by state statute.

So I don't know that you necessarily want to reference in the charter state statute, besides the fact that it's Montana Constitution and the laws of the state of Montana, um, because that covers it, and that's where they would find what our authority is and what our control powers are and and all of that.

Um I think that's a better place to send people versus having it in the charter.

And if we got it wrong, uh oh.

Yeah, exactly.

So and I would never want to have anything to invalidate a charter when you guys have done so much work to it.

And that's why this is very broad language, but it's very specific in the sense that we have the authority under um the Montana Constitution to be a separate branch of government, and it's just making sure that that we're bringing that from the Montana Constitution into the Bozeman Charter.

Other questions one other question.

I'm sorry.

But uh where we say um uh exercise judicial authority on behalf of the city, is it not also on the behalf of the people?

Um yes, but I I think the city is inclusive to the citizens because we're elected by the citizens.

And so when we talk about the city, it's both um not only the city government, but it's also the citizens of the city because they elect us.

Okay, thank you.

I think someone should ask a question of Judge Tooney and Miranda, the court administrator as well, because they waited so long.

You certainly can.

We're here um to answer any questions that you have about you know the function of the quarter or um anything to really support what Judge Harrington has been working on.

Um so but we are also happy to let her lead.

So do you think the language independent and separate is good enough?

Um I I think that um it is uh I'm I think that it it would is likely consistent from other um from language from the uh the US Supreme Court from the Constitution from the uh Montana State Constitution.

Um and so I think that that is broad enough that it uh provides uh that independence without constraining um anyone and and and um and so I think that it is both broad but specific.

I think is the way I would say it and use some lawyer language that way.

Thank you.

Miranda, do you want to say anything?

No, I wouldn't agree with that.

Thank you.

See, now you said something.

You said no.

Anything else?

Thank you very much.

Well, we thank you so much for your time and for your consideration on this.

Um we are happy to follow up if you do want something specific or you want more information.

Uh please let me know, contact me.

We have no problem with you coming into court so you can see what we do.

Um all of our um hearings are public, and so we always invite everyone to come in and see what we do, just because it's not it's not very well known, and it's really hard to describe in a short period of time without kind of seeing how it works.

So just like watching you all has been fascinating.

I'm sure if you walked into court you'd find it fascinating that of what we do.

So thank you.

Thank you so much for your time.

I appreciate it.

And we really appreciated the time you took with us last week to help us clarify um all that we've been able to bring through you uh in this moment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anything else before we head off?

No.

Okay, perfect.

You excused I had a thought about the location, if you'd like to hear it.

I have a thought about it.

Well, you you first, it might be in a I think I think to her point under the powers of the city is Article One.

And where we define the three um the three different and we've got other language to put into Article One and we define the three different branches of government, and then we bring that into Article One right in the very beginning.

Um I think she's correct that it doesn't belong under departments.

I have a suggestion.

Okay.

Just to not elevate any one of the co-equal branches of government.

It's I it seems to me it would be weird to insert it into Article 1, which is generally about the inclusive powers of the city across all three branches.

So my suggestion would be that we have Article II remain the City Commission and that we insert it.

Um and then Article III is the city manager, and then we make Article 4, the judicial branch, and then we go into Article, then Article 5 becomes departments, offices, and agencies.

I like that.

You go general, legislative, executive, executive, judicial judicial.

And that was my suggestion.

Great idea.

I think we learned that in the meeting with them about how to have this ranking of separation of powers as well.

Thank you.

And now schoolhouse rock is playing in my head.

All right.

Can we um go back?

Is there any other recommendations for the changes in Article 7?

And do you want to run this or do you want me to run this?

Since since we're on Article 4, do you just want to finish that?

Yes, I think.

Because I I'm curious, we didn't make any other edits.

So are there any other edits that need to be in Article IV?

Which will become Article 5.

Right, right.

Yeah, the numbers are all goofy.

So the current Article 4.

Um Mike, we'll start with you.

Any further edits in Article 4 as presented.

Okay.

Barb, anything else that you're seeing in there that we you haven't?

Okay.

Deanna.

I I would like to.

Is your microphone on?

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Um in the uh section 402 B.

Uh is that what we have now?

Everything that's here is what it's currently in the in the charter.

Yes.

We haven't made any other edits except for section 4.05.

Okay.

Then I'm very good.

Carson.

I'm good.

Any public comment on Article 4?

Wait a minute.

Deanna.

What about this um legal officer?

Is that our city attorney?

That would be our city attorney.

Okay, and that is not under that is okay.

Got it.

Yeah, because that's a that that's the department kind of thing.

Right.

With that, I think we've got um guidance for Barbara and I to do whatever we do with this.

Is that correct?

So we're not going to make a motion on anything today to adopt, or could we make a motion on this?

Do you want to make a motion to um adopt the and it's as presented?

Yes.

I move to adopt um Article 4 as amended and to move it to a new location, which would become article you can just say to have Barbara and Becky.

The discussion.

Okay.

So the title would be judicial branch.

And thank you.

And the title.

And the title would be judicial branch.

I was glad we clarified that.

I'll second that.

Thank you, Carson.

We have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, same sign?

Yay.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Let's go back to Article 7.

Uh Carson, you said that you had something that you wanted to add.

So I I don't think this belongs in the charter.

I think it's a recommendation, but I've heard it from a number of people.

And the idea is to suggest it once every year or whatever, but I would suggest once every year.

The city have a town hall-like meeting where this commission is in attendance and people from the city come and they say whatever they want to say.

Um separate and apart from the various places that were there.

And the second part of that in in my mind might be that there be then be a uh second meeting, and this is more detailed than I would put in a recommendation, but in my conceptualization, each of the commissioners takes on, you know, the they divide, they figure out what the major trends are.

Each of the commissioners takes on one trend and then in in the second meeting comments on it.

Um in whatever way the commission seems to be uh deems to be appropriate.

And I think it's just another source of public input that we could recommend to the city, and they could do it or not or whatever, but I have heard that from a number of people.

I support that as a recommendation.

It's a recommendation.

I think it's a great idea, and I think it's trying to get at what a number of people have even said to us, even recently in the bathroom, where we're talking about the sort of more informality of this organization as a study commission, which we can be, and what it feels like sometimes to be in front of the city commission.

And once a year would be a minimum in my mind, but hopefully it happens at least once a year.

Any public comment on that recommendation?

You can just do a thumbs up if you want, or a thumbs down, thumbs up.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

I love that.

Is it thumbs up a matt?

Yeah, there's a mah and there's a same, another.

All right.

Any further thoughts about adding that?

Others will go ahead and add that.

So when we look at the recommendation to I don't even know if we can we need to motion Article 7.

I think what uh Barb and I need to do is make one more run and an edit and bring it back on the 13th of May.

Start out that that time, just saying yes, we we do agree with the basic tenants of Article 7, and we can move on and live another day.

Um but I don't know that we can do that right now because there are so many so many edits.

Is that a reasonable things to say?

Go rewrite, and we'll be back on the 13th.

Yep.

Yeah, Bart.

I mean Deanna, you have more to say about that.

I just was going to add one more thing, and that is that I would like for you to take a look at um the eligibility um uh language suggested in the um uh GVS document.

It's uh on in their document, it's um section 505 um Dine.

And where would you want it's down on the bottom of the very last page?

Okay, and where would you want that put in Article 7?

Uh uh this would be in the um eligibility for uh advisory boards.

And this is uh this is pretty wordy, uh, but I I think that we should take a look at it.

And uh because we have talked about um uh financial um uh uh conflict of interests, and I do believe that rather than just relying on the board of ethics and these advisory boards, um uh it's the last page, uh Jack.

Sorry.

Last page.

Yeah.

Um and um I don't think that's the right.

Yeah, I got you.

I got that written down.

Uh in any case, um uh let's take a really close look at that.

Thank you so much.

And just to be clear, Deanna, that's the document they sent us for our last meeting, not the document for this.

No, uh, that that was my confusion because I don't no, I was just thinking maybe they could be merged or always sent out together for future if there's if there's going to be future references.

Well, to be honest, I didn't get this document.

Um for some reason I I don't think it was handed out.

It's in your document.

I'd I put printed versions of it all.

They emailed it to us at 1.42 a.m.

Okay.

Let's um decide where we're going now.

Next item on the agenda is discussion on wards in districts.

Oh I, for one, but um I I know we've been here almost three hours.

I would like to spend half an hour on that.

Just seeing where people are.

And then 15 minutes on having had that discussion, 15 minutes on um May 13th, and then we're done at 7.30 and we're we're out of here.

May 13th will be a um Wednesday meeting, will it not, Mike?

Yeah.

And so depending on how it looks um after this discussion, maybe we're all right and we'll get through it.

And and maybe we'll need no, we'll need more.

So what you're saying is that we just want to kind of take a once over temperature of what we're thinking around wards and districts so that we can identify how much time we need to lay out in future meetings or meeting, because we can have one more to discuss things and make decisions.

And just for clarity, even though that is a Wednesday, we don't have a hard out of the team.

Oh, nice.

Thank goodness.

Which is like good, because the 13th, we are actually supposed to take our first look at the entirety of the revised charter.

So I think we can move that to the 20th, though, if we need.

I don't think we're if so, we will not be discussing anything on the yeah, okay.

Okay, so the 20th will have the charter and the 28th will have the full report.

Is that are we game for that?

Going around the table one time.

Doing a once over?

Yeah.

Okay.

On the words and boards and districts.

Just what are you thinking?

Okay.

I'll be next.

Who wants to start?

I can I I can start.

Go ahead.

We'll start over there.

Um so I have a lot of thoughts and I keep going back to what is the problem we're trying to solve.

Um and we we have heard a lot over the last year and a half of people feeling like they're they don't there's a lack of representation on our commission.

Um as I think back on everything we've learned about this topic and all of the materials that Dan has shared with us and all of the reading that we've done, it it feels to me like there are two aspects of that question in Bozeman.

One is geography and people from different parts of the city, different quadrants of the city feeling like the way we elect our commission right now means everybody is from the South Side.

Um so that geographic piece is one.

The other piece is the sort of lived experience and the lack of younger people serving on the commission or the challenges that younger people have in serving on the commission.

Um renters, people who are working full-time jobs.

And it seems to me that when it comes to that particular aspect of representation, um that's not a problem we're gonna solve by changing the way we elect commissioners because the barrier for those folks, what I hear from people, the barrier is more about how much people get paid to serve on the city commission and the fact that you still have to have a full-time job or at least a part-time job in order to serve on the city commission.

And so I feel like um that's not one we can solve through the charter.

That's one we're gonna have to talk about recommendations that we might make about compensation for our commission and our mayor.

Um and or maybe it would partially be solved if we expanded the number of people on the commission, because many hands make lighter work.

Um the geographic one is a problem that we could solve through wards.

And we've also heard some incredibly thoughtful testimony and public comment about the downsides of that as well, in terms of fighting between wards for resources from the city, parochialism, who's going to look after the city as a whole and those broader issues, which makes me more interested if we're going to go toward some kind of ward system in talking about doing it like the county does it, where we split the city into four wards, and we require commissioners to live in the ward, but we still vote for them at large, so that we have the geographic representation, and we're still voting at large, so commissioners are responsive to the entire city and still have to look, even though they carry the perspective of living in a particular part of the city and what that brings.

So I guess that's kind of where I'm at in thinking about it and really open to hearing what other people have thought about this as we go forward, but that would be the ward system that I would be most interested in talking more about.

And then I'm also very open to being persuaded to keeping the system as it is right now, where we elect people at large and try to solve the representation challenge through other means.

To do a citywide campaign is no small matter, and it takes quite a bit of money.

Whereas wards would take uh well, one-seventh the amount of money to participate.

And uh it would encourage young people and people who uh, and I've heard it uh complained that uh the only people that can run for commissioners are people of means because of the low pay and so forth.

But I do believe that our young people are capable of taking on pretty big uh uh second loads and uh operating a ward-sized uh campaign is affordable and doable, and um uh citizen leadership uh requires sacrifice.

Service is not easy.

Uh, and and uh all of us know that when you uh take on a voluntary uh pos or a government position that you are committing a great deal of time to it, and it's just uh part of the commitment.

And um I think it's very important to maintain citizen leadership and not uh create uh a design whereby you have career politicians or you train up career politicians.

Uh we want people to live in the city, that they are creating the policy that creates the environment uh in which we live and work and run our businesses.

So I would like to see uh uh seven wards, and again, I bring up the possibility that we would elect seven commissioners, and then the commissioners from among the seated uh commission would appoint or elect, choose uh a mayor who could serve for two years, and the mayor would have the responsibility to keep the commission uh uh thinking in terms of the totality of the city rather than the um uh uh uh what is it, the siloing that goes on when people uh begin to just represent their little uh area or make side deals.

Um the mayor would have to be that person that it really encouraged uh cooperation among the wards, and if he did a good job, he could have four years in that position.

And it would make the work lighter to have seven wards and um uh and more doable, and so uh I I hope that we look at the possibility of doing seven wards, and I have gotten that kind of feedback from a number of people.

Thank you.

Um yeah, I've been very impressed with the level and passion of comments for and against a ward district type of system.

I know it can't be a formal district, but that type of system, and um continuing an at-large um process.

And I think about it, I've I've also tried to read as much as possible the really helpful information that um Dan provided that others have provided that I've been trying to provide myself, and also looking at ways that um each of those systems benefit or or limit um what can be the outcome.

And I think for myself, because I also, besides wanting to run on a personal platform of strengthening neighborhoods, so we had really strong vehicles for neighborhood issues to be at the table to be given um equal treatment and the resources that they need and the concerns that I have with wards duplicating that in a large way, and the fact that I also ran on a promise to have the largest possible democracy in whatever systems and structures that we um are able to recommend to our voters that I want as many people to vote for our elected representatives as possible.

So I'm leading very strongly on keeping at large, maybe we add one or two additional at large that the entire city can vote for.

And that's because I think we will have greater representation, not necessarily in geography, but I do not believe geography is a destiny.

I am not looking for somebody in my own neighborhood that would somehow um represent my neighborhood.

I'm looking for the very best qualified candidates and the people that represent uh the um variety of uh folks that are living in this community, people that can afford to live here in order to actually run and represent us in a um uh in a in an at-large position.

And I think that also requires compensation at a much bigger rate than we are able to provide now, if not saying it needs to be full-time like the mayor because I support that for the mayor position.

I think that mayor should be an independent running, a person that runs independently who wants to be a mayor is committed to that particular job and not coming from a group of sitting commissioners, however they're elected.

I think that's a really important role that we have we've been missing, although we've been getting for very little funding, and that um I don't see any of these folks as career politicians.

I want the quality of people and the um whatever limits if we set any for terms can take care of career politicians, but I don't think that's the issue.

I think the issue is to have the very best we can, and I certainly don't want to live, I don't want to live in a neighborhood that really can't generate the quality that we deserve and that I deserve, and that uh may end up with a particular group of folks that can only afford to do this because they're retired, they're older, they are um not bringing the breadth and depth of the life experience uh that we have.

So I'm leaning toward uh but pretty strongly uh about because of our commitment to neighborhoods.

Without that commitment, I wouldn't feel as strongly about the at-large, but I would like to see um perhaps an additional uh commissioner or two as we are growing, but I think we could live also within some means of keeping the five commissioners, one of whom would be a mayor, all of whom would be elected at large.

I think that's all I've got.

Thanks.

So the wards and districts is a very interesting um topic, and I'm I I want to much of what you said, Barbara resonate with in terms of um what's the problem we're trying to solve?

And we've heard loud and clear that people are not feeling represented, uh they're not feeling heard.

And I think that the new addition of Article 7 with public engagement will really help with a lot of that.

I think about okay, why do we have so many people running from the South Side?

Certainly it is financial.

I I do appreciate a lot, Deanna, when you say that our our young people are resilient, hard working, strong, and they gotta put food on the table.

And many people don't have one job, they have two or three to be able to do that.

And so you know, uh I think that people get asked many times, will you run for commission?

I'd love to, but there's just no way.

I I ran into Christopher Coburn the other day at the gym, he was just back visiting.

He's like, that was impossible.

I'm like, yeah, I get that.

It was impossible.

It's too hard to have a full-time job.

What was I thinking?

I know.

I don't know what you're thinking either, buddy.

But um, so I think that that's an issue.

When I think about geography, is geography the problem.

Anyone on any neighborhood could run right now.

So is it a problem?

Or is it really uh a financial problem?

And I'm interested to see, and there's some research around when you have strong neighborhood governance and advisory boards, that helps others think about I could run for commission.

So if we have strong neighborhoods and strong neighborhood governance, that will help people start to think about well, maybe I want to run for commission, right?

That kind of leadership development pathway to help people be able to do that.

Um so I think I think that's important.

Um so when we talk about geography voice, does it I I don't think ward solves that problem.

Um I think that in 10 years when we have 100%, isn't that what we're going for of people in a neighborhood association, and hopefully there's much more two-way communication, and hopefully there's much more of a neighborhood voice, and we still are saying, wow, we need to have wards, that might be a thing.

So we're not saying never.

I'm I would say not now.

In terms of um the campaign, that's the one area that really resonates with me in terms of it would allow people to campaign much easier, and the campaign is a whole lot shorter than the service, right?

If I had to just work hard for six months and campaign, that would be one thing.

I can do that for six months.

I can campaign, I can work hard, and I say I as a human who lives in this town, not I'm not running for anything.

Um but to then do it for the for the life of the service, that's a whole nother gig, right?

That's a whole nother gig.

So the campaign, yeah, that that's interesting, but I think at the at-large is better.

I also think about the county struggle, which is just kind of interesting in this moment in time.

They have the wards with the at-large, but finding someone to run from that other neighborhood, all of a sudden there's this huge challenge, and now we are have two commissioners.

So that's a problem.

Um then finally, do we need more commissioners?

Uh, Barbara, I think that's interesting because we could say, well, how do we solve this to get people who are middle-aged, younger, to be able to run when they're trying to feed their families and take care of life, right?

Um we could pay them more.

Um, and we could make that a recommendation, and maybe we'll do that.

We could also have more commissioners to lighten the load, like you say, Deanna.

Um, and so if we had if we went up to seven, we could do that.

That's certainly not unheard of around Montana, certainly not unheard of around other communities our size.

Um I I I could be swayed to do that.

I would not be swayed to uh select a mayor, though.

I want to choose my mayor.

And I think it's really important that when someone to size to run for mayor, that is a whole different level of engagement than being a commissioner.

If I run to be a commissioner and all of a sudden I get selected as mayor, A, I might not have any of the skills, B, I might not want it, and C, my community might not have wanted me in that role.

And so when I go to other meetings around the state to represent the city of Bozeman, I might not do that so well.

When I go to other meetings around the country to represent the city of Boseman, the state of Montana as a mayor, I might not do that so well.

And so I think electing the mayor is elected the mayor.

And I would not at all be interested in selecting the mayor.

So if we elected six commissioners at large and then elected a mayor, I could I could say, you know, as a way to say, okay, maybe we lighten the load, and then maybe you can have a full-time job and run for city commission.

Maybe that's possible.

Um yet everyone does have to be here on Tuesday nights.

So I don't I I wonder if that's the solution too.

Like, is it really that I mean, certainly not having to be on three advisory boards, that would help.

Maybe I mean if we end up with you know 30 neighborhood associations, then that would help having seven people for sure, but otherwise we all have to read the material.

We all have to show up to the meeting on Tuesday for sure, right?

So that's kind of that's kind of where I'm thinking.

So to sum that up, I'm not interested right now in Warzone Districts.

I I'd be open to more commissioners.

I'm not interested at all in not electing our mayor.

Thank you.

Mike, do you want to talk about this?

Yeah, just real quick.

I think um I personally think at-large mayor makes the most sense.

I'm not a fan of wards generally.

Uh I'm not overly convinced by the uh campaign cost argument, knowing Commissioner Pomeroy's last election, I think she spent about $500 to have her entire campaign.

So I I think it's um yeah, mayor at large, not a not a huge fan of the wards idea, but I did want to um plant a seed for people to think about with the expanding the commission.

Our last charter had a trigger mechanism to automatically require another vote by the citizens if they wanted to expand that.

Um they put a time, so it was in 2010.

That question was asked of the voters, voters said no.

One other way to do it.

Um previously, the city when we expanded from three to five commissioners, that was a population threshold.

Um it was required by the state, but it was a population threshold that changed us from three to five.

So is it something that we would be interested in saying, hey, ask the voters in two years after this new charter, or upon 75,000 people, or whatever number.

So just an idea of other uh options for potentially expanding the commission.

Okay.

Um when uh I start this in my head with what's the perfect way to run a city.

And to me, it is an elected commission that is responsive to all of the citizens, and um that works in all the ways possible towards creating what I'm gonna call the public good.

There will always be in a city differing definitions as to what's what's good for the city.

You know, I've heard over the 30 plus years that I've lived in the city.

Oh, we really need a uh house for people to live in when they come out of prison to adapt, but not in my neighborhood.

That needs to be somewhere else.

And um, you know, those things get worked out in the way they get worked out, but they're not always the best ways.

Um and part of being the um the perfect city commission is being in touch with all of the issues that one can be physically in touch with in the city and all of the desires and wants of the people.

And then making those decisions in the most uh the best possible way for everybody.

Um there also is a leadership role on the commission, and that means to me that sometimes the majority of the people actually haven't, for whatever reason thought things through enough and need to be led towards a better place.

And that you see that in cities where the desire to keep the cost of taxes down, lead cities to let their water systems go to hell in a handbasket, and in the end, everybody pays more.

And it's it's always imperfect, but there has to be that leadership.

And with that in mind, then I look at this the city commission, and I hear the complaints.

What's the problem we're going to solve?

What I've heard about geography is everybody on the commission lives within two miles of each other on the south side.

And the optics of that are not good.

Right now there is a a commissioner that does not live in that immediate area.

And I haven't thought of the others, but I think they where does Alison live?

I thought she's in overrides sector.

She's in the JANT neighborhood.

Right.

So South and further south, but one of them lives on the north side.

So nice.

But what so what's the problem with that?

Is it that they are only seeing the city through the eyes of the immediate neighborhood they live in?

Or does it come from somewhere else?

Like it's notorious.

I don't know if it's true anymore, but when I was running, the people on the South Side all voted.

So if you were walking neighborhoods, you walk the neighborhood of the South Side.

And I had time, you know, there you are, right?

I didn't have a regular job, although I did work.

I worked as a mediator, but I could schedule around it.

Um so I went all around the city.

And to me, understanding all of the problems around the city and where they're different, is a really important function of the city commission.

And the question is, how do you get that?

How do you get to that place?

Um I'm not sure we're big enough to have seven, five wards where you vote for the person that lives in the ward, and only the people in the ward vote for it.

Um because I I just don't think the people will come up, and certainly if we don't pay more, and I'm gonna get to that in a second, um, you'll get people like me, and I happen to think I was a very good commissioner, but so what, you know, uh among this one more old white guy that um got elected to the to the city commission.

We're seeing a break in that right now.

We have two very young city commissioners.

So that demographic is kind of covered right now.

I don't know that that um is indicative that we don't need to do anything about it.

Um I still think we're at a place where you want your city commission to be thinking of the issues that affect the entire city, not just the smaller issues that that affect a given neighborhood.

I do think there are neighborhoods with very different issues, and they need a voice.

And I I've supported the neighborhood associations as a way to get that voice out.

I push on the 100% simply because if you look around, where are there not neighborhood associations?

It's kind of in some of those same places where people aren't voting.

And uh I expect some of us are gonna say, and I think we'll be somewhat accurate, if you actually voted as a ward for somebody that was living in the ward and that was gonna represent you in the ward, you'd probably have a bigger turnout than what we're having right now.

But I just don't think we're there yet.

Um I lived in LA for many years.

I actually thought their system worked pretty well, but it was huge.

You know, it was it was a different a different place than that.

So for me, um it comes down to do we have districts meaning you have five, and I'll get to numbers in a second.

You have five different districts or four, and someone has to live in each of them, but they're elected at large, which which then requires them to be responsive to the needs of the entire city rather than the one.

Or do we continue the experiment with neighborhood associations and leave the commission part the way it is and see at the end of 10 years how much bigger are we?

Is it working?

Or are there people that that are feeling disenfranchised?

I don't think I've heard anybody say that because most of the commissioners live on the south side, that a decision that got made about my neighborhood on the west side was wrong because they didn't understand it.

Like sewage pumps, um, things like that, which sometimes get people a bit out of shape, uh roundabouts.

You know, they don't put any roundabouts in their part.

I don't think that exists yet.

And maybe I just haven't heard it.

Um but so I'm tending towards either a district, you have to live in the district because that will give you a little local knowledge around, or um, we just rely on the neighborhood associations to go forward.

On numbers, I I think the mistake that we're making is not putting away in the charter for people to do this as full-time jobs.

I think every position should be a full-time job.

I know that you could um every commissioner could work 40 hours a week.

It's not 60, so you know, depends on how you want to find define full-time job, but there is work that would be helpful to the city for five people to work full-time.

And if we don't pay them for that, you're gonna end up with people who um are either retired, uh, don't need a job, um, and you will skew against the demographics that we've been precisely talking about.

Um the other piece that that I that I just want to address briefly is the thing about representation and um developers and corporate entities.

I think, and this is kind of my experience, that having citizen representatives, meaning people that have other jobs, has the advantage of they're in the community, they uh are familiar with what's going on, but it has the disadvantage that the people that are making money off of building in the city um have too much sway.

And um you come into this job and um the first few months, all you're doing is whatever's on the agenda, trying to make a good decision about that.

Um the developers are all very friendly, and um it's very hard to be a part-time legislator and stand up to the legislators.

Some have been able to do it over time, um, but I think that if you had a full-time group of people that were running the city, that it would be a different situation, and the trends could be there.

Just one quick example.

Um the neighborhood outside of the, and this is just one example of of this exact phenomenon, was built to be a walkable community, and there was at the center of it a commercial area surrounded by a housing area, and the money, as it turns out, was all in the building single-family dwellings or townhouses.

So all of those got built, and none of the commercial got built.

And there's this sort of there was this hole, it still exists a little bit.

And the developer came to the city commission there, and also on the um southwest side of town and said we'd like to rezone from commercial to um single family dwelling to R1.

And they wanted to do it because that's where the money was.

But the whole concept of community was lost by them.

And um we we turned them down.

Um I'm glad we did.

But a different set of commissioners, a little more naive.

They'd have said sure, why not?

We we get this.

The hotel.

What's the hotel that um the what?

Armory or AC.

Nope, the one next to it.

Not the armory, not the AC.

I know, I know.

The other one next to her.

Whatever that is.

The element.

When they built that hotel, the builder decided and the developer that they could put two huge signs on it that said the element.

And one would stick out over Mendon Hall, and one would stick out of whatever that side street is.

And totally violating the sign ordinance.

They came to the commission and they said we'd like a uh variance.

And the commission, relatively experienced people have been around a long time, said no.

If you go down there today, you will see the struts for those signs are still there.

And I asked one of the people involved in it.

I said, How come you don't take the struts down?

We're gonna have a commission that's forget has forgotten this issue, and they're gonna let us put the signs up eventually.

You just wait and see.

And so having that memory and having people that are devoted to sort of thinking about the common good, the sign ordinance being one of them really makes a difference over time.

So I'm really in favor of trying to build a commission where people can support themselves well enough by being commissioners.

Um I'm not fond of term limits either because I think experience matters, but I do get the idea the last thing that we want is a commission that gets elected and they get elected for the next 30 years, and it's all the same people.

Um so maybe there's a way to combine the pay with the term limits, and people either have to move on or not.

Um I don't think we need more people on the commission at this time.

Um I do think there are a couple things we could do.

One of which is we could ask back that could be something people vote on.

Could be one of the options, or it could be done like it was the last time, which was five years from now, people can vote.

Do they want more commissioners?

And in that way they can see how it's going.

But to me, the crucial experiment in this next 10 years is will the neighborhood associations fulfill their promise.

The promise being that they will actually bring to the city commission the information it needs to govern really well.

And um, you know, my worry is that they will only be um I don't want this because this is not in my because this is in my neighborhood and I don't want it here, and I'm not thinking about the city at large um and the common good, but um that remains to be seen.

So I'm open to the barb idea, or uh and I don't I don't want to put it I don't know who's or the the idea that that we stick with elected five people.

I am seriously worried about the the mayor, we need to elect the mayor at large large, and the mayor has to take on more responsibilities across the state to look out for the needs of cities in uh an era when it's um it's gonna get tougher uh before it gets easier.

So do we want to stop there?

I talked way too long, and I'm sorry for that.

But can I just real quickly chime in on the mayor?

Because I didn't talk about that.

Yeah.

Um I I feel very strongly that we should elect our mayor directly for a four-year term, and that that election should be at large.

Um I I see the mayor playing a very important leadership role, not just on the city commission, but intergovernmentally and across the states.

Um and so I just wanted to say that.

I I'm not in favor of the seated commission selecting one of that members to be the mayor.

I think we should vote on it, and I think the person should want the job.

Um so Carson, um this kind of leads us to for all of us to think about uh we have one more meeting to make decisions.

And then Barb and I need to bring the final charter to everybody on the 20th to you know to kind of do the final look on the 20th.

And then we bring it to the public with the report on the 28th.

So we have one more meeting.

And right now, what we have on as I'm taking notes, minutes or notes of what we've just discussed.

We've got the Article 4 final look.

We have the um article one and adding the judicial branch and and maybe preamble.

But we also have Article 5, the financial, and that's mostly dates and things that the that the finance folks came and talked to us about.

Some of the smaller edits we can just put into the final charter.

We can look at it then, right?

Um but these big big pages, these big articles were going one by one at that time.

I think it's important that we actually vote.

Um we want to be we want to notice this, so I don't think we should do it today.

Vote on the mayor elected or chosen.

Um and then the size of the commission and pay recommendations.

And I think I put those both together.

Um we can decide whether we change the size of the commission or make it as a suboption.

And then whether we make the uh recommendation for pay or whether we insert something into the into the charter.

That's a lot.

On the 13th, we don't have to be done by six, but we do have to at some point go to bed.

And then and we have to make a decision about how we're gonna elect our commissions, whether we're gonna continue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, whether it's at large or or wards.

Yep.

So that's kind of what we're looking at.

So I thought on I thought on the thirteenth, we would not be approving your language yet.

No, I think.

Yeah, so the thirteenth is the remainder of the ward district issue and then all the sub-issues that you mentioned.

Yes, yes, that's right.

No, the language comes on the 20th.

Okay.

You scared me there.

Um I I think we owe it to the public for them to weigh in based on what we said.

Um, and then we can proceed from there to narrow the issues, which uh you listed them, but number, do we have districts?

Um mayor, although we've actually decided mayor.

The question is, does anyone want to change it?

Do we want to change it?

Right.

We know that uh some of us think that.

Um and then pay.

What have I and then miscellaneous stuff, the preamble?

Yeah, and some of these things I think just out now that I've made that list.

I think Article 1, the judicial article, the preamble, and the Article 5, which is the financial, of course, none of these numbers will stick anymore.

I I I think Barbara and I just need to write put it in and hand it to you on the 20th and say, what do you think?

Um and um and I will certainly when we start that meeting point out, these are the or even in in the in the agenda we can say we've already reviewed these.

This is where you can find the edits, but this is you know, these are the ones we haven't gone over yet.

But we're not gonna have we're not gonna have time to look at them all separately.

And I don't think there's many edits.

There, there are more minor edits in those areas.

So then we'd have article four final look, um, size of the commission, commission elected, election.

So those all kind of go together, and then um the mayor elected.

Just to be really clear, it's it's not only they're being elected, but what kind of a commission are we electing?

That's the structure question, right?

That's yeah, the commission election meaning how.

Yeah.

The ward versus the yes, absolutely.

I would just add those words.

What's article?

What's Article 4 final look?

Yeah, I think we voters are thinking we should just I think the next time we see the charter should be any of the charter language should be on the 20th.

Okay, so don't bring it back to the stuff that you've never seen before.

We'll present it in track changes for stuff that you have seen before and we've been workshopping, we'll just have it as regular.

Okay.

Thank you, because I thought we had voted on the Article 4.

So no, not Article 4.

I mean Article 7.

I apologize.

They're all the same in my mind.

Article 7 is neighborhood.

Just trying to save you some time.

Just so we're clear over here.

The agenda for the 13th.

I will be bringing you the Dane Geld contract for authority to sign.

Then we'll have the wards, districts at large.

And then so I'm actually gonna flip those.

Say we have the mayor discussion.

Wards, districts at large.

And then the third piece that I'm seeing is some combination of the size and pay.

Old businesses, Article 7.

Right.

For three different things.

And then to what Barb said about the Article 7.

Are we bringing that on the 13th, or are we saving that for the 20th?

Okay.

That's fine.

Saving for the 28th.

That's fine.

That's fine.

And that's what what about the miscellaneous pieces?

We'll put we'll bring that in the final charter on the 20th.

Like the preamble.

Yeah.

Okay.

Article one, uh the new article and the financial.

Does that work for everybody?

Uh question.

Uh uh.

Uh question.

Is it legal that they would uh get the language uh that we could see the language for seven um by the thirteenth?

And um and make suggestions just individually to Becky and Barb for anything that we see there that we might want you to consider or reconsider.

Because I think coming with that all on the 13th with little discussion uh to see how our discussion today was incorporated is I'd like to have a little bit of time.

I I think it would be a good idea if you all could do it that before we you all publish your version that we're gonna approve for a change, because we can on the 20th.

If if it got around and people suggested minimal changes, um it's gotta be I guess it has to be open.

Yeah, we we would need to just add it to the agenda, but maybe we could just time limit it and say you know, you got 20 minutes, 15 minutes to say what you need to say about Article 7, be done with it, and then know that we will just you know, Barbara and I will just sit and listen and either we'll make the answer or we won't we'll bring it to you on the 20th.

Um but yeah we do that at the end of the next meeting.

At the end of the next meeting.

Yes, not we get the move the old business to the end.

Yeah.

What's the old business?

Article seven.

So the public engagement article.

The public engagement.

No, the public engagement document.

The public engagement article will be the fourth item.

No, no, that'll be first.

You just said what at the end.

I'm sorry, article.

I'm I'm thinking of the delegate people.

Dane Geld, that contract's gonna be on consent.

If you want to talk about it, you can.

And yes, the thing you're talking about is last.

So for our order, mayor.

Wards are at large.

Size and pay.

And then the public engagement article.

Article stuff, yeah.

Would be our fourth thing.

I don't like to use the numbers because they're all changing now.

They're all changed.

Yeah.

Yes.

The target is there.

Okay.

Yeah, I like the title that is.

Right.

Now I'd like to take public comment because I promised we would on wards and districts.

If there is any.

Or you can wait until we have a next meeting, too.

Which is when we're going to be discussing it.

Okay.

Let's see.

Um hello, Natsuki Nakamura Bozeman, resident, uh member of the economic vitality board, but not speaking on that path.

Um I just wanted to say I went to the Gallatin County Study Commission um public hearing that they had last night.

It was very informative, interesting to hear their discussion.

One of the interesting things that they did, um, they said that from their outreach, they heard specifically from Big Sky and Gallatin Gateway that there was a feeling of being unrepresented, and that they were hoping to have maybe five districts.

And so they actually asked the clerk recorder office to mock up a five-district map that people could actually look at and conceptualize.

So using the actually doing like based on the current population, what that would look like with five districts.

So it was just helpful to get that specific visualization and thinking about does this actually help you feel represented?

Does it feel like a cohesive district to you?

I don't know if you have time to do that, but that was a really interesting and like tangible way to make that discussion more productive.

Yeah, and also don't know if we have a feeling about which neighborhoods feel unrepresented if we can pinpoint it as well as um the Gallatin County did.

Um I've spoken on words in the past, so I won't rehash some of my reasons, but um it's one of my concerns with a new concern that I haven't brought up is that um a lot of our natural neighborhood leaders are actually already currently volunteering with their neighborhood associations.

Um a few of them threw their name in for a possible appointment.

I think if they had gotten appointment appointed, they would have had to step back from their neighborhood association because they wouldn't have the capacity to continue to volunteer in that way.

And so that is something that you might again, if you're trying to have that neighborhood activity, we're already getting that a lot of volunteer time in that way.

Um I also wanted to say that whatever you guys decide.

I hope you guys put a minority report in your report.

Um, the Gallatin County study commission again had a minority report that included that helped capture some of the pros and cons and discussions that aren't actually being presented as a vote, but it was helpful to see that.

Um, and they said it was good to memorialize that discussion as a good place to start the discussion next time if we intenue is decide again to do a study commission.

Um, so in regards to those in conversation about one body, one voice, and again, not speaking as a board member, but just what from what I'm has experienced as someone who's attended city commission meetings.

Um we right now don't have like a minority report or dissenting report in some of these board discussions, and so what happens now is that the staff member might in the staff report sometimes they include that as a split vote, sometimes they don't.

Um, and then they use the according recording of the the board time as the minutes, and so commissioners can go back and watch it, but they don't always have the time to, or they don't always do that.

And so um I'll just finish this and I won't give another comment.

Um so I think what ends up happening is that sometimes you can tell that some of the commissioners haven't watched the recording because they asked um what did the board say about this or why did why was it split?

And when there isn't an official minority report, then it puts a either the staff liaison or the commission liaison in the position to kind of editorialize on the mo in the moment um and kind of speak on their behalf, and they might not be capturing the nuances of the discussion or what the points they were trying to make.

Um so it's not so much that the minority feels like they can't make the opinion heard in that discussion, but in order to properly memorialize it, that's why we're hoping that there could be a recommendation to have the dissenting opinion included in the staff report.

Um I've also seen in commission meetings that sometimes intentionally or not when this the staff liaison or the commission liaison is reporting back, they might say that it was a unanimous decision when something wasn't quite so unanimous.

Um again, just to be able to memorialize what some of those discussions were to build a more nuanced discussion in the future.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

Um always you I had such uh wisdom to us.

Could you make sure that comes to us in a written comment?

Sure.

Okay, thank you.

Any other public comment.

Mary Bateson, uh Bozeman resident.

I will try to keep this very brief.

You've heard me speak about my opposition to the ward system of uh choosing, and I won't repeat that.

I will just say that I'm still opposed to using wards and would like to um have us continue at large voting.

Um in the past, I have been sort of skeptical about the need to vote separately for a mayor, and I'm ready to change my position and agree with you that yes, it probably makes sense to have that be a separate choice.

So you've convinced me.

Uh as far as the size of the commission, I would prefer that we stay uh at a lower number, because I would also prefer that we would be able to afford to pay uh increased compensation for the people that serve.

to vote separately for a mayor and I'm ready to change my position and agree with you that yes it it probably makes sense to have that be a separate choice so you've convinced me uh as far as the size of the commission I would prefer that we stay uh at a lower number because I would also prefer that we would be able to afford to pay uh increased compensation for the people that serve I think there's a limit to the endurance that someone can have to provide public service for free and it's and that is one of the things that leads to the uh inability of having younger people or minorities or you know people with lower income serving and that's a perspective we need to have so I thank you guys for your service and hope that uh you have a good meeting on the 13th guys I won't be here thank you for your comments is there anyone online Caleb there is yes we have Emily Talago and I will let you speak now you have three minutes thank you Emily Twego Bozeman resident um I just want to share a personal perspective um as somebody who who has run twice um and lost twice uh the first time I ran in 2021 um I couldn't have done it without teaming up with um actually a housemate Evan Rainey um and even and then at that point um I still work two jobs uh but so running a campaign while working two jobs uh was difficult um very very demanding of time um if all you did was just go to the sponsor forms it takes it it does take time uh when I ran 2025 uh I completely took off one of my jobs so I was only working one job then and um it was still i it is very very demanding of time so it's not lost on me at all the idea that if you're in a ward based system um it's so much it it it's just uh it's just a different lift um it's a much lighter lift uh as opposed to campaigning against you know throughout the entirety of the city and getting that kind of coverage as well as um then there's some vulnerabilities too to like you know where funding is coming from and uh big out of state support so I just wanted to share that perspective with you and then I would say I appreciate that kind of taking the pulse of everybody on what your position is kind of um as it stands right now with the question award um it I I would I read through the community or the the community survey results actually actually and it's interesting because a lot of your some of your positions um diverge considerably with what the report results were so I'm hoping that uh when you guys circle back next time if you could let us know like you know not just your personal opinion and study to issues which obviously we elected you to to use your discretion um but also just uh from an engagement standpoint like what what you heard from the public public comment conversations that you've had that really informed your positions.

So thank you.

Thank you Emily thank you very much.

And that's it.

All right anything else if not this meeting is adjourned at 745 Thank you.

Goodbye