Good evening and good afternoon, actually.

And welcome to our early start for our July twenty first City Commission.

We're glad that you're here in the room with us.

We've got an exciting long-awaited item in front of us today.

There will be opportunities to provide public comment associated with each item as well as general public comment and our consent items.

If you are streaming on our meetings video page, you will also be able to provide uh virtual public comment.

Um or you could have sent in written public comment prior to noon today.

And that was all those public comments that were submitted were distributed to us in advance, so we were able to read them.

For those that wish to just follow along or listen, um, you can uh watch on cable channel 190 um as well as call in or just stream from our video conference page where you cannot give public comment, but you can still follow along.

Um we will, whenever we have public comment, uh I'll make it very clear of which which items and which times we will have those public comment opportunities, and we'll start with public comment in the room first.

If there's anyone that at any point um needs any accommodations for uh to participate, either to listen to give public comment or otherwise, um our city clerk Mike Moss is the point person for that, and at any point uh that it seems like that's apparent, we can pause the meeting and make sure that everybody can participate.

Um without further ado, uh please join us and stand if you are able for the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence.

I hope you just feel like you're nice to say something to the remote, which one nation on your visible with liberty and just moving on to changes to the agenda.

City manager.

Just one change tonight, Mayor, and that's the order.

Um we're gonna move the mayoral mayoral proclamation to the first item after public comment.

Thank you.

Okay, moving on to FYI.

Any FYI from the commission this evening.

Yeah, Commissioner Magic.

Thanks.

Um I've been really going back and forth about my next walk and the actual date.

And I'm actually gonna um schedule it a week from this Friday.

It's gonna be an early morning walk of Bozeman Creek.

I know that I've already done Boseman Creek, but I thought it would be instructive to go now that the vision plan is out, and we can kind of take a look at some of this stuff from the plan.

So the idea is to meet at 7.30 in the morning out here in front of City Hall.

I'll make the announcement again next week, and we'll get it on the city website.

Unfortunately, last night I was thinking it would be this Friday, and it was announced that it's Friday.

That's not true.

Next Friday, August, no, uh July 31st, 7.30 in the morning.

Great, thank you.

Perhaps attended by myself.

Not sure.

Working on it.

Um any other FYI?

Commissioner Sweeney.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh yes.

Um tomorrow evening.

Um, myself and Commissioner Bodie is joining us.

We're gonna do a walking tour of um some zone edge transitions coordinated with neighbors in the area.

We're gonna meet at 6 p.m.

at Beale Park.

And um we've got some questions for people to give us feedback.

So the following week, Monday, so tomorrow is the 22nd, 6 p.m.

Beale Park.

Following Monday, the 27th, Commissioner Magic is joining.

Same group of residents, same tour both times, just multiple opportunities to participate and give feedback on zone edge transitions.

Okay, thank you.

Any further FYI?

Will you be hyping the disability fair at the Mayoral Proclamation?

Like the ADA, I'm about to do that right now.

Oh, on to you.

Um but feel free to add anything if if you feel like you want to add anything.

Um, so this uh this Saturday um will be our first uh first annual ADA month celebration.

Um day before the actual anniversary of the signing of the ADA.

Um but Saturday seemed to work better for more for most folks.

Um but just so folks are are aware it's it's gonna be fun.

I mean the whole thing is just sort of uh is basically a party.

Um the event will feature, you know, we'll have a ribbon cutting for these new the new trails uh that are at Windley Park.

Um some remarks from from myself, the proclamation reading, a 5k run walk roll stroll, um, and the unveiling and demonstration of our new downtown accessible parking map.

Um this is uh as so many of our our so much of our ADA uh work uh is done in in really close partnership with Ability Montana.

We would not be able to do um any of what we've accomplished um without their their support, their help and their guidance.

So we're really excited to partner on this this event.

So um this Saturday, Windley Parked from 9 a.m.

to 4 p.m.

Come on through.

Um any FYI, any further FYI?

Anything from staff?

I don't have anything tonight, Mayor.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Moving on from FYI to disclosures.

Are there any disclosures related to any items in front of us this evening?

Okay.

Seeing none, we'll move on to some minutes.

Um Commissioner Magic.

Yeah.

Uh I'll be a judge.

Okay.

Um I move to uh got it.

We'll open it up for public comment first.

I suppose I'll buy it by you second.

Um any public comments in the room related to our meeting minutes.

Second request for public comment in the room.

And a final request.

Mr.

Moss, do we see anything online?

I'm sure no request for comment, Mayor Okay.

Now we'll bring it up.

Okay.

Commissioner Magic.

I'm ready.

I'm a two approved consent items.

That's our next one.

We teach you up.

We teed you up, we we really set you up there.

Wow.

Never gonna let that one down.

Okay, so it's the minutes.

I'm approving.

Sorry, I'm like doing something else.

Um I moved to approve the minutes.

Um I don't have the correct agenda, uh, so they're from March 24th.

March 24th.

I moved to approve the minutes of March 24th.

Thanks for the help.

Yep.

Yeah, it's been moved and seconded.

I understand there is uh a desire to make an amendment to the minutes, a correct correction.

Thank you very much.

Um I move to amend the March 24th minutes to um change the recorded vote on the approval of the amended conditional approval of the Sundance Springs Commercial Lot 2 site plan 25238.

Uh the minutes here are recording it as motion carried five to zero.

I would like to amend that to reflect um motion carried four to one, with myself being the dissenting vote on that occasion.

Sorry.

It's been moved and seconded.

Do you wish to add anything else or is that?

Okay.

Any other discussion on the minutes?

Okay.

Mr.

Moss, would you poll the commission?

Commissioner Sweeney.

Aye.

Deputy Mayor Fisher.

Aye.

Commissioner Bodie.

Aye.

Commissioner Magic.

Aye.

Mayor Morrison.

Aye.

The amended minutes.

Are approved five to zero.

Now we're on to consent.

And so we have uh a change, the a fix to consent as well.

Um, and then are there any items as well you'd like to highlight, City Manager?

Sure.

Item G13 on the consent item tonight is an item that relates to the Fowler Housing Project.

I want to be clear to the commission, the community that this is in concert with our consensus process.

Again, nothing has been decided.

Uh it's a commitment that we made to the commission to the community, and we are keeping that.

So no presumptions here.

Um it involves bringing the consultants who have expertise in architecture and design.

Um the meetings are um next set of meetings phase three is August 10th and August 11th.

So this is in alignment with that, not um separate from that.

Also, there is a typo on consent item G15.

Uh the legal description is in error in the body of the resolution.

The legal description should be any subdivision, A-N-N-I-E, not A N E.

And the amount has changed to uh $232.80.

We sent the clerk sent that correction to each of you in your inbox.

So we have an amended motion that I believe one of you have that would make that change to the consent agenda.

Apologize for the error, but we corrected it and you have the motion to fix that.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, City Manager.

Before we do that, I'll open it up for public comment on consent.

Starting with public comment in the room.

Any public comment in the room on any of our consent items G1 through G15.

Greetings everyone.

Mark Campanellium of Bogart Park resident.

Just a quick comment on G14, the Bozeman Solar Project renewal.

I was really excited to learn about that.

I don't can't tell you how many times I've driven by that.

I'm working on a startup right now, and I did work at the National Renewable Energy Lab postdoctoral work on solar measurements, so solar is something near and dear to my heart.

Just a thought, and this sort of foreshadow some comments you'll hear later about the green power plan.

When doing these projects, please try to get some price discovery on what the utility is actually paying for that electricity.

I know that's a small, that's pretty small for utopia scale purposes plant.

So, you know, obviously you have to take the you know you have to take scaling and into this, but um I'm really really curious about price discovery for the next item coming up later.

And when you make these contracts and make these agreements, like I really think that should be written in.

Um it looks like some MSU students are doing projects with it, and I think that's great.

And I would love the data myself.

So we were studying degradation of solar panels, which again I've said before tends to be worse than people who really want to get these things built and tax credits moved to bank accounts.

Um want you to believe.

So, anyways, thanks.

Thank you.

Any further public comment requests in the room this evening?

Second request in the room and a final request.

Mr.

Moss, are we seeing any public comment requests online?

I'm showing no request for comment.

Okay.

Um seeing no further public comment requests, we'll close the public comment portion, bring it up here for a motion and vote.

Commissioner Sweeney.

I move to approve consent items one through 15 with the amended resolution as described by the city manager for item G15.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Mr.

Moss.

Commissioner Sweeney.

Aye.

Deputy Mayor Fisher.

Aye.

Commissioner Bodie.

Aye.

Commissioner Madrid.

Aye.

Mayor Morrison.

Aye.

Okay, consent is approved.

Five to zero.

Um, now we'll move on to general public comments on non-agenda items.

So this is the opportunity to provide public comment on anything that falls within the scope purview jurisdiction of the Bozeman City Commission, but it's not on our agenda this evening.

Um, we will start with comments in the room, and everyone who steps up, we just please ask that you share your first and last name, your relationship to the city, and you will have three minutes to provide your comments.

One of you guys have to go.

Daniel Cardi, Bozeman resident.

I'd like to bring the city's attention to the ongoing destruction of public trees by private developers.

Last year, um, home based partners was allowed to destroy at least four healthy green ash uh on Lammy to build a luxury hotel.

This year, the luxury Bozeman yards developers were allowed to destroy three, at least three public trees by the climbing rock out by the boson yards.

Um I'm sure that was completely unnecessary.

And the gas line contractors who are working on Westfield on uh the intersection where I live on the intersection of North Third and Westfield, just ripped off some limbs off another healthy green ash yesterday.

They just ran their heavy equipment right through the tree.

Um that certainly is not gonna make that tree any healthier, and certainly open it up to disease.

None of this destruction is in line with the city's commission's current priority of protecting Bozeman's natural environment.

And I wouldn't, even though some of these destructions were approved by city staff, and that's unfortunate as well.

So to switch topics, I'd also like to thank the historic preservation advisory board for their meeting last week for strenuously opposing the preliminary draft of the NCOD update that was offered by the Lakota group.

No, I think the Lakota group has got caught in the middle of a larger argument.

But the historic preservation advisory board did the right thing by essentially rejecting that draft and focusing on the importance of neighborhood character within the NCOD, which is which is also neighborhood character being another priority of the current city commission.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further requests in the room.

Good afternoon.

Hi again, uh Mark Campanelli, Bozeman Park uh Bokert Park resident.

Umbe I shouldn't be so afraid of the Emerald Ash Bore.

Or Elm, no, Ashborg.

Yeah, I always get this confused with the one that attacks the Elms.

Um anyways, time is of the essence.

So I want to do a little memory lane on the Bozeman Yards TIFF.

Um Bozeman Yards recently broke ground, or maybe I should say broke groundwater.

I got a lot of pumps going at that site.

Diesel generator running.

Luckily, it is a quiet one.

Um let's recall some key facts and figures from the Baker Tilly Financial Report on the project.

Uh phase one of the project use Acho shell incentives for a 10 foot height bonus, including two workforce housing units out of 39.

Again, please, you're welcome to correct me afterwards if I did get any of my facts wrong.

I do try to get them correct.

Um it also includes 1,624 square feet of commercial space.

And dare I say perhaps most of the Nina neighbors weren't super enticed by a new diamond store or wealth management firm in their neighborhood.

We'll see what goes in there, of course.

I can't predict the future.

Um with city assistance, the report estimated a 10.544 internal rate of return for investors.

I get three and a half in my savings account.

Umte that apparently the no assistance rate was estimated to be 7.346% internal rate of return, which did not meet the hurdle.

Uh so let's not kid uh anyone here.

This project is first and foremost an investment, which just so happens to house people.

I said that before, all while receiving an AOHO incentive and a 3.6 million tax incentive from TEF.

I know all of you who did vote on this didn't vote for it, or had the chance to vote for it, didn't vote for it.

Um anyways, uh the estimated sales price per square foot.

Again, we'll see what it really is for phase one was estimated 608, 608 for the affordable units and a thousand twenty-six dollars for the mercury units.

Um running out of time.

I'm gonna try both those transcript really fast, but uh staff had a sales pitch to the commission on 26 November 2026.

Uh I tried to transcribe it using some software.

I think this is an important feature of this project and also part of why we're able to do our renewal.

So in this case, the developer is providing all of the costs at the public infrastructure up front at their risk, right?

So if things go in any way go awwry in any way with this project, that public streets and public infrastructure and new water and sewer will be installed, right?

And that based on the development agreement, we would then issue bonds against the incremental revenues of the district in order to reimburse the developer for those eligible costs.

Now, if something go happens with the bonds market, if something happens with the legislature, um, those are risks are being borne by the developer alone, and I've run out of time to read the rest of it.

But forgive me for being skeptical in my caution, but after what happened with the MSU Innovation Campus to change the contract afterwards, like staff is telling you one thing and then change in my view, changing the story later.

I don't think that's cool.

And I'm worried for this really really luxury development that this could then be asked for again with a downturn in the economy.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Any further comment requests in the room this evening?

Mr.

Moss, are we seeing any public comment requests online?

First up, we have Emily and Tolego.

Are you there?

I am here.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners.

Um remotely to uh give you a comment about uh uh meeting scheduled and public notice.

Um our city code says that regular commission meetings happen on the first four Tuesdays of the month from 6 to 10 p.m.

That's been the rule since ordinance 2053.

And so I just happen to note that like it's not lately, it's not what's happening.

The June 23rd meeting starting at 530 today, obviously starting at 4 o'clock.

And then when I was looking at the six-month care now under August 4th is scheduled for 3 p.m.

and August 11th, it's just canceled entirely.

Schedule whatever you need.

And so that's not an issue here.

But when people participate and when these things are adopted, they they do kind of plan around that 6 p.m.

regular start time, you know, whether it's work schedules, child care, getting ride, whatever.

You know.

So when a meeting starts hours earlier than that, but it's still labeled as a regular meeting on the agenda.

I consider that it's really easy for someone to dismiss it, actually.

Um so in the past, when meetings ran outside of that kind of normal grind, they were often noticed as special meetings with you know asterisk very, you know, like calling out.

And so it was really obvious right away, something was different.

And um, I do think that's a better practice.

Um for sure, I just want to also name that like yeah, your work has definitely grown, meetings run long, and you're trying to use everyone's time well.

So I appreciate you know you guys being flexible and trying to accommodate multitude of schedules.

And but I'm just thinking that like as the summer, you know, winds down, you do have quite a few pretty consequential decisions coming up, and I think that work deserves the widest possible public participation and predictability is a huge part of what makes public notice actually work.

So um just a humble ask that when you do depart from the regular schedule moving forward, if you just make sure that that departure is pretty obvious.

Um mark it as a special meeting or special start time, something like that to call it out.

Appreciate it.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Mr.

Moss, who else do we see in online?

Uh, no additional requests for comment, Mayor.

Okay, we will close the general public comment portion of this meeting and bring it up here for um now our first item, which is a mayoral proclamation before our work session.

So this seems to have been a tradition for some time for the the mayor to give a proclamation um in recognition of Americans with disability month, and I'm um honored to continue that tradition.

Whereas the Americans with Disabilities Act or the ADA was passed on July 26th, 1990 to ensure the civil rights of citizens with disabilities.

Whereas Bozeman affirms the principles of equality and inclusion for persons with disabilities as set forth for the state of Montana and as embodied in the ADA, the laws of the state of Montana and the ordinances of the city of Bozeman.

Whereas numerous organizations in Bozeman and Montana work with constituents and communities to bring forth the promise of hope and freedom that is envisioned by the passage of the ADA.

And whereas July 26, 2026 celebrates the 36th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act with the first annual Bozeman ADA celebration, as we mentioned earlier.

Now, therefore, I Joey Morrison, the mayor of Bozeman, Montana.

Hereby extend greetings and best wishes to all observing July 26th, 2026 as Americans with Disabilities Act Awareness Day.

And in recognition, I will be offering these proclamations to an ADA or an Ability Montana staff member who's present with us this this evening, um, George and we'll um wait for photos this coming Saturday.

We've got a big crew together, but really excited to um cement and proclaim this um partnership with with Ability Montana.

Okay, now we're on to the meeting potatoes of the meeting.

City manager, you want to tee us up here?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Um, we're excited to be here tonight as our assistant city manager Cola Rowley makes her way to the podium.

Uh, just briefly uh in your adopted priorities and the associated work plan.

There's an item under engage meaningfully with the community that is a review of city advisory boards.

Um, as you will recall in 2021, the city consolidated numerous advisory boards.

I think we had over 40 at that time with a commitment to revisit the changes and to ensure that the key functions remained intact.

So we've that's five years ago now.

And uh we are here tonight.

We should have been here earlier, but we're here tonight with a review of those boards.

This is a work session.

So uh Cola has a presentation tonight, and then we want to turn this over to you to uh share with us uh your thoughts and any direction that you have as we consider whether we need to make uh changes to the advisory board structure or any of the parts contained therein.

So without further ado, this is Cola's first presentation in front of the Bozman City Commission.

This is one of her favorite things that she gets to do as an assistant city manager.

So uh we'll get a smile on her face and we'll get on with this work session.

But uh this is iterative.

We want to hear um your thoughts and any direction that you have as we move forward.

Welcome, Cola.

Thank you.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Uh do you pull this up, Mike, or do I?

I go ahead.

Okay.

Sorry, that's a tiny space for a mouse.

Uh so this is advertise as an advisory board work session.

I recognize that's a misnomer, um, as you know, some of the boards do have set to statutory functions.

Um, but regardless of that, the commission has a lot of discretion when it comes to these boards.

Um, and they're they're your boards.

So I'm just gonna give a high-level overview of the review in the report and then pass it over to you.

Um, these are really your thing.

Um, Chuck did a good job of describing kind of the background of why we're here.

There were around 30 boards uh before 2021.

They're listed on the right hand side here.

All of these were independent boards, uh, plus some intergovernmental boards that we don't have full control over, and so those were not included.

After the consolidation, there were 16 boards.

So 19 of the boards were consolidated into five super boards.

Uh the audit committee was eliminated, and 10 remained independent.

The staff had suggested six superboards, which are listed over here, and then during the hearing for that process, the commission um decided to go with five super boards listed here, as well as a slate of boards that they did choose to um remain independent.

So for the for the review scope, I really focused on kind of these five super boards, as well as the historic preservation advisory board because they had interest in being included and um having some conversations.

This aligns with one of your priorities to strengthen advisory board efficacy to ensure alignment with community goals.

I do want to point out that this effort was focused really internally in looking at that functional and efficacy piece.

I did not do a public engagement effort to look at alignment with community goals.

That could be a phase two or something associated with the strategic planning uh or something like that.

So this kind of internal look at functionality.

I did interviews with the staff liaisons to the two those boards, the board chairs, the clerk's office, um, who is kind of helped helps operate the boards quite a bit, um, as well as the individual city commissioners.

I sent a survey to current board members of those boards, and then reviewed a lot of the context of what got us to where we are now and how do we currently operate, um, including going to some trainings and looking at those resolution 5323 is a big one.

That's kind of the the rules of the board that was very informative.

Informative public comment that was really helpful nailing down some things.

Um, and then although I am new to the city, I'm not new to government or to boards, and so I did come at it from a lens of some lived experience uh with boards.

The big takeaways are among these internal participants, really, consolidation was successful.

Um across the board, there was consensus that that was successful.

Uh people feel that it is more streamlined and continues to address major community issues uh with a few things that we could talk more about that are included.

Uh it's a more efficient use of everyone's time.

It's less confusing, a less confusing way for people to engage, and it concentrated high-quality board candidates.

So it was successful and a lot is going well.

Of course, the report was then focused on what could we do differently or what are perceived improvements?

And the conversations really quickly turned to that because um people were really solidly behind the consolidation.

So with the feedback I got about opportunities of what we could do differently or perceived improvements, I kind of organized them into four buckets structural and organizational adjustments, communication and process improvements, modifications that can affect potentially the feelings of autonomy and being able to participate in a meaningful way, and improvements to training education and expectation setting, including the need for consensus interpretation on things like one body, one voice, and then consistently communicating that with the board so that everybody's on the same page.

So there are about 50 to 60 considerations in the report.

So I'm just going to kind of go over the topics, and then you can dive in wherever you want.

Understructure and organization, there are changes to specific boards.

Economic vitality has a disparate mix of functions that don't necessarily all go together, and they're not all being currently addressed by that board.

Recreation has not been addressed by the sustainability board and as an odd fit.

Sustainability is a focus area in all of the board resolutions and is also a standalone board.

And there have been conversations about how is that best like functionally integrated into board work and is this the best way to do it.

The community development board could remove a commissioner as a voting member.

It's the only board that has that because it used to be required, but under MLUPA, that's not required anymore.

So staff would recommend removing that voting member.

Conversations about standing versus ad hoc boards.

Again, how do we best address the issues that are before us?

People feel that we are addressing most of our major community issues still, but we may be missing the mark on a few of these things that got brought up in this list.

Term lengths, term limits, gap and service requirements, those are almost entirely up to you.

Some of them aren't, but are those where you want them to be?

The high performing boards resolution, resolution 5323, again kind of governs the boards.

Parts of it are interpreted differently by different people, kind of back to that expectation setting, and are perceived perceived as overly restricted, restrictive by some people.

So I pulled out nine specific provisions that are potentially contributing to some dissatisfaction for you to examine.

And then kind of into the nitty-gritty of meeting components, quorum definition, minutes and materials and the timing of those things.

Under processing communication improvements, in 2021, there was a relatively straightforward process laid out for work plans and reporting.

And neither of those are currently being followed.

The work plans are not being accepted by the commission, and reporting occurred, I believe, one time.

So we're lacking that feedback loop that was put in place.

So either reinstating that practice or putting something else in place so that boards can get clear guidance and have that feedback loop.

They would also like to have more coordination between the commission and amongst the boards as appropriate.

Recruitment is inconsistent across boards and could use some work.

Procedures, this is really like rules of procedure.

These boards operate almost identically to the city commission, and except for without the express ability to have work sessions in their model agenda.

So some are confused about whether they're able to do that or not.

And with the inability to have a work session, the formality can seem very stifling to the members, and they feel like they can't have those nuanced discussions where their expertise could potentially be the most useful.

Check-ins, six-month check-ins are in resolution 5323.

They're not occurring.

Again, either do them or take them out.

And boards would like to have the ability to have joint meetings as appropriate.

Autonomy and meaningful participation is something that came up a lot.

Maybe people use different words or had different feelings, but I think they kind of fall into this bucket.

And commission engagement, I think, is key.

Even without other process or communication changes, the liaison involvement can be a conduit for ideation and collaboration and really empower that board leadership to fully carry out their roles.

I think this could help shift more work to the board rather than all the work being on the staff, which can reduce staff burden and also mitigate any perceptions that staff are leading or managing the board inappropriately.

Some board members would like more engagement opportunities like tabling and events.

And a big one is being engaged earlier so they can actually be formative and impact the outcomes.

There's a lot of feelings of like we're a checkbox or we're an afterthought or it's coming to us and it's going to the kitchen commission tomorrow.

It's not going to change.

So we're not actually being having meaningful ability to participate or change outcomes.

And then training expectations can always improve training, be clear, and then that expectation setting and education of the board members.

So that's kind of the topically how it's arranged.

But since there is a lot of detail in the report, I made a work session guide that you can use or not use.

But how it's organized is kind of three overarching questions that I think can address a lot of specifics.

Things were discrete direction would be great if you care to give it about definitional things and changes to resolutions.

And then operational items that if you don't disagree with them, we probably don't need to spend a lot of time talking about them in the work session.

So I mean the real big question, right?

Is like what's the role of boards and how do we build a system that enables and empowers them to be successful?

And I think the three overarching questions I have here kind of uh fine-tune that a little bit of how should the boards be structured, how should they operate, how should communication with the commission and among boards work, and what is the right amount of autonomy for these boards and how do we foster purpose and meaning amongst the members?

If we get to it and want to, um, there's kind of a listing of some discrete decisions uh that would be helpful for staff if the commission wants to make them.

And then if anybody wants to talk about any kind of things that I've categorized as operational, wants to pull those out.

Um otherwise, next steps would be I try to understand all the things that you want out of this, and I'll go back and make any changes to resolutions or uh processes or whatnot, and come back to you likely in the next next phase.

So that is all I have for you, and I'll leave the questions up, but happy to answer questions or go somewhere else.

Thank you.

I'm Cola.

The her report is the meat of this issue.

I know that you all read those.

Um the presentation was kind of an overview, so this can go anywhere that the commission wants it to go, and we are here.

Great.

Thank you for that presentation.

Um I yes, I assume much of this will be us discussing with one another, but um I have some questions.

I'm sure others have questions.

Um Deputy Mayor, do you have any questions for staff before we open up for public comment and then move into discussion?

Yes.

Um, just yes, I guess um thinking about this this last question on uh um of the three that you have here, you know, kind of have you did you as you were talking with others, did you get any suggestions on how to reduce the formality, but also be you know functional in terms of you know that we maybe want to consider putting it put on the table?

I think being clear that whether work sessions are or are not allowed would be helpful.

There, I think that's kind of the biggest thing is a board that doesn't feel like they can even have work sessions, then they can't have an open discussion.

Um I think the way the meeting the meetings are just run in a very formal manner, and it's more a cultural shift that would allow people to feel more open and able to engage in conversation.

Um maybe like getting rid of Robert's rules, for instance, or is there a way to be a little bit less formal about it?

I think that there's the belief that you probably don't need to be that formal in an avoid in advisory board setting.

Sure.

Okay.

And then the other question, um, I'm just wondering how has staff or did you hear you know this this notion of kind of standing versus an ad hoc?

Um how is there any consensus, I guess, in your or you know, uh thoughts on how do you how to best use an ad hoc um uh you know, when to use an ad hoc um group or when to put them together.

And what they might do.

Is that uh I'm assuming it's just kind of maybe a really specific targeted issue like the Fowler Avenue housing or whatnot, right?

Yeah, oftentimes it's like time limited or a very specific project, right?

If it or something that you don't anticipate needing for years on end, right?

We're not gonna always continue this.

And I think um it says that they last generally for six months or until their task is complete.

Um that is kind of a guide of about how long maybe one of these would make sense, but you there certainly have been ad hoc committees that have bigger projects that are a couple years or something, right?

But it's with the intent that when they start, they are there to accomplish X, and then they are done, right?

As opposed as opposed to standing boards that just are continuously active.

Yep.

This is maybe an impossible question, right?

And they'll help staff in some ways in terms of coming with what solution to the problems.

Or make it, would it kind of slow things up to work like something creating?

I think that isn't possible.

Yeah, I think it depends, right?

On what the topic is.

I think it's definitely helpful for staff to sometimes have a committee, sometimes a very informal committee.

Again, back to this formality thing, right?

Um, of people who are experts and can guide them, right?

Like we hire very professional staff, but nobody wants to be an island, and it's very helpful to have a group of people who are experts who can help guide you through different projects and processes.

So I can see there's certainly times where they're very valuable.

And then I think there are times where it could be potentially um inhibiting to staff.

That's more helpful than I expected.

Thank you.

Yeah, so those are my three questions.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Commissioner Bowie.

Yes, thank you.

I have a couple questions on the sustainability board recommended section.

Um there's a couple there that feel like they would kind of be additions to an existing sustainability board, and then um one of them says um boards could be required to have at least one member with sustainability expertise to ensure that sustainability principles are consistently incorporated into each board's work.

And I'm just wondering if that would be like in addition to having the sustainability board, or would it be essentially like dissolving the sustainability board and then just placing a sustainability focused person on each on each one?

Um could you have some clarification to kind of what the recommendation was there that yeah?

I think it could be done either way, right?

Um I I think that the purpose is that the functionality and the integration of sustainability in all boards has not has been relatively clunky and hasn't necessarily worked incredibly well.

Um so either trying this instead or add using this as an add-on to really get that addressed.

I think that's one of the ones that is more so it's the second board it goes to, right?

Um, as almost an afterthought of something, or it went to transportation and then oh, it should go to sustainability, right?

And um just making sure that it's more of a focus.

Um great.

So I guess the follow-up question is the the second bullet point there says sustainability focused initiatives could utilize ad hoc committees to support specialized project needs.

Um can you help me understand or like give an example of um a project that might be appropriate for an ad hoc committee that like wouldn't necessarily fall under a clear responsibility of an existing board?

Natalie could probably give you a much better idea.

Um, but I would say you know, potentially we've been doing a lot of um solar work at the WORF and things like that, and we're hiring tax consultants and we're hiring specialized accountants and um that's Natalie is a department of one, she does have a support staff, but um, I think that for that project, and I'm not very helpful to her, right?

It's very technical.

I think something like that, if there were a small group of people that uh Natalie could have kind of leaned on um for support, that would have been helpful to her.

Right, like the the current sustainability board, they're not all solar experts.

They've got like a variety of sustainability or environmental backgrounds.

Right.

So you're saying it'd be like a yeah, a more like technical ad hoc group.

Okay.

Um I'm gonna pass it off.

Thank you, Commissioner Magic.

Any questions?

Thanks.

Just two.

Uh thanks, Cola.

You did a nice job.

Um better than I would have done on my first time.

Uh recreation uh housed under sustainability board.

Do you know the thinking behind that?

Why that happened in the first place?

Seems like an odd fit.

Does I have Mike and Greg were around at the time?

I maybe don't remember.

That's fine if I didn't watch that hearing.

Um the process that we followed back then to create that was pretty lengthy.

Uh it was ultimately a decision of the commission of which function went where.

Yeah.

And as far as like the commission's rationale for that, I cannot remember.

Maybe Mike touched.

I was there as well, and I don't remember.

So I don't need an answer, but was it like recreation sustainable?

Uh so that was how I justified it.

Say water and swimming pool.

Um I don't know.

Okay, uh second question.

How many public art projects do we get within a given year?

And you have feeling that's infrequent.

Yes, and I think it's not a oh, do you want to respond?

It used to be quite infrequent only when a partner in the community wanted to use city land, whether that was a park or for example, the library or even Main Street, and we would sort of just deal with them as they came up with the creation of the 1% for our coordinates six plus years ago, maybe.

Yeah.

Um it took a little while for projects to like start after that 1% for our coordinates, and uh I can't remember the threshold, but there's at least a half a dozen projects that have that I can remember right now that have a public art component.

So maybe about one eight.

I would say that's pretty accurate.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you.

Commissioner Sweeney.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um most of my questions were answered in your presentation, so thank you for that.

Um if we were to sort of uh manipulate or change the um economic vitality board to kind of elevate housing, would there be an option to have different staff liaison?

I mean, how much flexibility are we looking at in that?

Yes.

Okay.

I would say so.

Um, thank you.

And then this concept of an ad hoc board.

I guess are there kind of two visions for what this might be?

Like one is to advise on a certain project or a specific um policy or strategy that we're going through that would have like a really you know clear mission and a timeline and a deliverable.

And then is are we thinking of ad hoc as also kind of letting boards collaborate with members?

Um to tackle certain things.

So, like what I'm thinking of is, you know, recently the historic preservation advisory board wanted to create a subcommittee to work on demolition because they have a lot of work going on right now.

And um, it was decided that you know an official subcommittee is subject to open meeting laws, and it was going to be a lot of burden to form that.

Um so are these ad hoc groups subject to that same open meeting type of burden, or would they be able to advise more flexibly?

That's a question.

So we've taken the position historically based on the way that the Supreme Court has looked at open meeting issues related to boards and committees as that's a fundamental component of the governmental function, and so yes, that subcommittee is subject to the right to know and to notice, and then we've translated that into if you're gonna form a subcommittee, it needs to be noticed, and the public needs an opportunity to participate.

And so would the ad hoc groups be the same thing?

Yeah, okay.

Um then I have a question about the audit committee.

I was not paying attention when this was a thing.

Um could you give me an example of something that they would audit?

Um so I think at that time, and again, I wasn't here at that time, so it sounds like the audit committee did what the commission currently does, right?

Um so you are you review the annual audit presentation from the third-party auditors and the related materials directively, so you engage with the auditors and see those presentations directly.

My understanding is that that used to be done by this committee, and that it was one of the reasons that the committee was um dissolved is because the commission took that on themselves and wanted to be directly engaged with the audit.

Okay, excellent.

Yeah, thank you.

They weren't audited, it wasn't a committee to my knowledge that audit that did auditing.

Uh right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Although that could be useful sometimes.

Um, and I have one more question.

Yeah, go for it.

Okay.

Um is it possible for us to create some sort of working group that you know helps do like I'm thinking about the inner neighborhood council, which I know is a unique body, but um, they formed a small working group to do um recommended language for the charter or recommended um bylaw updates.

So they did the work.

Um it was a number of members that did not constitute a quorum, and they brought something back to the board for a presentation, and it really allowed them to get more work done.

Um all decisions were made in the public purview and at a public meeting.

Is there a venue to allow boards to do anything like that?

One of the hallmarks of this commission and previous commissions has been these decisions in this work be done in the light of day.

And I think that is it would be a step backwards if we uh created um any kind of official city construct that would do work that wasn't in the public's eye.

So you have the power to create committees?

The boards have the ability to create subcommittees to do that work, but it all has to be publicly noticed, the opportunity for the public to comment and participate, and I think it would be a step backwards for us if we um moved away from that, but ultimately it would be your decision.

That's all my questions for now.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um I've got just a couple that they're kind of building on some of what Commissioner Sweeney was just asking, but most of mine were asked.

It's really it's still kind of on this same thing of right to participate.

You know, we've decided all we we record all of our meetings.

And I'm curious about the flexibility we have on that.

In part is sort of where I'm going with that is is if we create more boards as it currently stands, it's more time for staff because that apparatus over there is not easy to get folks up and running on how to run the meetings, granicus, laser feach, all these all these tools to make boards fully autonomous.

Does it have to be that way?

Do we have to be streaming our meetings?

Or are there other ways that we could create a record thereby limiting the amount of staff capacity that's committed to these boards?

Um I honestly I was not prepared that we were going this direction tonight, so I'm kind of off the cuff right now with this.

Um Montana, the constitution requires notice and opportunity to participate in governmental functions.

So recording of a meeting is a method of documenting what happened at the meeting, and that is something that the city boatsman has chosen to do, and then to provide that service throughout the commission and then all of the boards.

Um that's when those meetings occur in this room, that's how we do that.

Um that is not a requirement that meetings be recorded with a video or even audio, but in order to facilitate the right to know and under statute, there needs to be minutes taken.

Um that does not necessarily have to be done by city staff.

But in order to accomplish a meaningful right to participate, those minutes need to be accurate and reflect what not on not what was said, but what occurred at the meeting.

So, yes, there is some level of flexibility in how the city can do that.

I think what I would suggest is if you're gonna go that route, sort of create an alternative path and make sure there's some level of consistency that we can train to, and then as sort of the custodian of the records that the board creates that the city staff, the clerk's office, our office, city management, can really understand what happened so it can be documented and preserved under the records requirements.

Okay.

That's very helpful.

Um I have a lot to say about that part.

So the other question I have is really just on the I see I I've served on boards that have like not city boards that have sort of a one-body one voice type of consideration.

I see other cities that have something that's sort of like that, some that don't.

Um what was the the goal um of the one body one voice component?

Nobody nobody I mean I I can guess.

Okay.

Um I'm having to go back and remember what we did five years ago.

I know Mike was also involved, and so Mike may have a perspective.

I think there was concern at the time that a board would be presented an item, make a recommendation to the commission, and then the recommendation would be would come through like a staff report on what had happened at the board.

And then there would be a board member that would decide that they wanted to then take it on themselves and come and comment.

And that board member then would uh may have been minority or may have had a different opinion, and so that board member would then not a hundred percent accurately reflect what the overall discussion had occurred at the board meeting.

That's just my recollection of why uh management at the time proposed that rule and the commission adopted that rule.

Now I've been asked at times when board members show up.

Can we tell them not to give their comment because they were maybe in the minority of what the board had done, and I think that's a speech issue, and so the answer that I've always given is no.

You cannot say to a board member who is showing up, you cannot give the commission your perspective on what occurred.

Um part of the reason that we have instituted a system where board members now culturally know to identify themselves as a board member and then to be able to share that they are a member of the board, but they're speaking for themselves was to give the commission an understanding of the context of that board individual board members um comments.

Mike, is there anything you want to add to that?

Yeah, so generally with the determination of a body such as this, the the body speaks through the voted action.

Even if it's a split vote, the commission decided, the board decided.

So that one body one voice is to solidify that the body's determination was X.

Uh Greg's correct, we had uh an issue prior to consolidation of board members making appearances before the city commission or other bodies saying my name is X member of this board, and I think that's a bad idea in direct contravention to what the board itself had decided as a recommendation.

So this was a way to um highlight that once the board makes a recommendation, the recommendation is what was voted upon.

Okay, great.

That's more or less my understanding, and I think even the ethics training has one of those as a scenario of like someone kind of goes rogue and goes to the press or whatever and says you know, but betrays the the vote, the action, et cetera.

Um I suspect we'll have some discussion about that this evening as well.

Um further questions before we open up for public comment.

Okay.

Seeing no further questions, thank you for answering our questions and for that presentation.

We'll open up for public comment, starting with, of course, public comments in the room this evening.

Good afternoon.

Uh not used to standing on this side.

I guess I should say, yeah, Mike Mees, um mayor of Belgrade, and I was just very interested in in the discussion tonight, and I know for Belgrade, we've had similar discussions, especially on like the education piece, and we are um having the MSU local government center come and do a training for all of our boards.

We're inviting all of our boards and committee members and along with elected officials as well for Dan Clark and Ashley to give a training, and I think it's a good kind of level setting, and so I would extend an offer if Cola or somebody else would want to sit in on that, and I'm sure Ashley and Dan could always tweak some things too for you guys.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Several comments.

Um first one body one voice precision provision needs to go away.

In the past, it's been used punitively to remove the chair, a former chair of the Urban Parks and Forestry Board.

And so the Commission needs to implement a process to ensure the commission is notified when a split vote or dissenting opinion occurs.

It's a fundamental nature of our democracy that both majority and minority opinions are recorded in for posterity.

Second, we allow need to allow boards to meet jointly on occasion.

Commission liaisons, third, commission liaison should actively participate and ensure two-way communication, but should not force boards to go in one direction or another.

Four, we need to shift the culture from staff liaisons leading or managing boards to supporting boards.

Five, uh we need to engage boards earlier in projects and policy development.

So their input is meaningful early on.

Six, uh training on meeting procedures and facilitation basics is needed.

There are abbreviated Roberts rules of order, and this is especially important in handling motions and amendments to motions and when public comment is allowed, because right now it's pretty much a crapshoot when you can offer public comment during a board meeting.

And I think last, no one with a financial the potential for financial gain from any board decision should be allowed to sit on any board.

Currently, the community development board has one member that has gained from a financial contract given to it, given to this individual by the commission, and another individual certainly can profit by any um decision that the community development board makes.

And as a supplement, term limits are difficult, difficult issue.

I would say despite the fact that we'd all like to keep board members that we agree with, term limits are built into a lot of our institutions, and I would argue that term limits should be um strict and should be limited to no more than two terms.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Carney, sorry.

Sorry, but could you repeat number five?

I missed my notes.

Your fifth one with support, I believe.

Um engage boards earlier in project and policy development so that their input is meaningful as early as possible.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Hi again, uh Mark Campanelli, Bogar Park resident.

Um after watching kind of city government and getting more involved over the last couple of years, um, I came up with this saying, which is democracy dies in consensus.

Um again, it's it's something that actually came up even with the um the gov the study uh commission.

Um they use the word consensus and like half the people just freaked out because it just gets this bad connotation.

Um so to echo some of uh what Dan Cardi said uh regarding one bo one body, one voice.

I have a question like isn't each of you interested in the dissenting opinions when there especially, or the minority report, especially when there's like a five to four vote.

I think I would be and again, just we should be curious.

Um I watched the community development board's uh Bozeman Creek Vision Plan discussion.

I think that was yesterday evening.

Um it was I was a little frustrated at first, and I thought they were kind of screwing up, and then I actually because I caught the end of it live and then I watched it again.

But it what what it was really I realized was kind of bummed me out.

It was it was like a collection of opinions given sort of independently.

There wasn't really a discussion about certain I because I started hearing like contract uh contract seemingly contradicting things.

And so there is something to be said about having those discussions.

And one of my favorite meetings, I think, was with the study commission where they sat down here with us in the neighborhoods, and we all sort of talked.

Now you can't do that at every meeting, I understand.

Um, but I'm wondering if there is there a place for boards to have public office hours or an office hours before they kick off a work session.

That's more of a dialogue.

Just some ideas.

I know these are super hard for staff and everybody to sort of wrangle the cats, but just some ideas.

Um and you don't do that all the time, right?

You gotta save that for special occasions or more important decisions.

Um but I I do feel it shouldn't Inc.

often claims like they're the only ones that like talk to the public and then try to bring it to the commission.

I really don't think that should be the case.

I think all the boards should play that role.

Um last I came up here pretty PO'd a few meetings ago about what I saw, and I really do think was a blatant conflict of interest on the TIFF uh board where a real estate agent firm and agent had had like basically advertised a property um as being in a TIFF district, it was adjacent to the L Street Annex.

Like but to maybe diverge a little bit with Dan Cardi, I'd be told and they skip the disclosures in that meeting too, just by the way.

Um I'd be okay if they just had that person don't put them in a penalty box.

He definitely had something good to say about this this area.

You just have to separate him out and then make it a full disclosure that this is happening, and this is why this is happening this way.

You can still talk to him.

Just do it above board.

Uh and maybe we should audit if we're doing things above board.

I don't know if that happens.

So, anyways, I'm over again.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Any further comment requests in the room.

Second request in the room.

And the final request for public comment in the room.

Mr.

Moss, what's going on online?

First up, we have Emily and Tolego.

Emily, are you there?

I am here.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, and commissioners, debut mayor.

Um Emily Cleigo, Bosan resident, and I am pretty stoked to see this work at daylight because as in complexity increases and our city continues to grow.

Um, I think you know, dialing in the the organizational this is gonna set our fair city up much better for success.

I look at it as kind of you've got you know two different forms.

You have your standing boards that operate kind of like the commission's cabinet, you know, they serve with pledge of the commission, but they uh I I picture like a rock tumbler, right?

You know, like um they treat a you know a policy um proposition like the stone in that tumbler.

So it bounces from board to board to board.

And so the idea is that by the time it gets to the commission for final approval is very nicely polished, all the rough edges are off.

Um, and so you can very much uh try and avoid unintended consequences because you've had technical expertise with real world experience and and also just like an accounting um too for the very like real impacts that might happen to stakeholders uh in the community.

So the other one is this kind of ad hoc concept, and I it kind of uh what I thought of was like the recent biennial budget where um you guys did just adopt the budget, but as an example, depending how taxable values come back, you may need to very quickly make some decisions.

And so the idea of having an ad hoc committee that you can pull together very quickly to help you with that, these are all things to help you guys make um the best policy decisions you can and acknowledging that none of us can be experts in everything.

And so we have to do you know, we're very gifted in that we have um a lot of talent in our community to draw from.

Um, I I have just had a recent experience with the transportation board.

Um, I imagine that you guys would much prefer me go talk to them about some sort of novel parking management proposal and have them chew on that for a bit first before um you know taking up uh time on Tuesday evenings.

Um as and then two other points if you'll permit.

So the code that I mentioned in my previous public comment that about meetings, it also does state that for the city commission work sessions, so presumably I would think this extrapolates to their boards as well.

Um you're not bound to Robert's rules.

You know, if the chair wanted you right now, he could let me speak for half an hour, but I'm not going to.

Um, but yeah, Robert Tools are explicit um explicitly um stated that they they're they're not binding for work sessions.

And then the last thing I'll say, it's just a very specific nuance thing that I've brought up before, um, hoping to put a plug for it.

But one thing um with the inner neighborhood council uh chairing that board.

One thing that we found was this kind of book club model.

And so when I'm looking at the part of this report about um uh essentially the uh the board's operations is that what I noticed was the same presentation that's given by staff by board by board by board by board.

What we were able to do with Inc.

to send the link out to the recording from one of the board meetings.

And so everybody came prepared like a book club.

We watched the stack presentation.

Um we were able to discuss.

I think you can get a lot of efficiency there and um take some pressure off your staff there for sure.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Mr.

Moss, are we seeing any further requests?

I'm showing no additional requests for comment, right?

Okay, we'll close the public comment portion of this work session and bring it up for our discussion.

Um so we've got these um three big questions in front of us.

Um I think this is I think the best way for us to go about this is actually just gonna be fairly informal and just kind of talk through.

We can start with these, but I think we're we should probably expect that we're gonna go back and forth on some of these, some of these pieces and um see where we can get it.

I have a request.

If if somebody makes a strong, like here's what I think should happen.

I I wonder if there's a a way for us to just do a quick round rapid and say, do we have three on that?

Um, because sometimes I feel like the the topic changes, and then 10 minutes later I'm looping back to something Commissioner Sweeney said and saying, yeah, that's great.

Yeah, and I think uh I do think these will frame these three questions will frame some some of that to some extent.

Deputy Mayor, do you want to kick us off?

Sure.

Um maybe what I'll do, I mean I would these are great questions.

These are framing questions.

I think it will help guide a discussion up, but I think Ms.

Telago offered a really nice um uh step back in terms of like we need our advice.

We are the point of the advisory boards are to help us make the best possible decision.

We are really lucky in that we have a community with a lot of experts in areas where uh on issues that are are confronting us.

And so finding ways to tap that um to make it kind of a two-way street, I think is what is what when I was what has been excited by this this work and the and the potential here, and where I think we can we can kind of make some you know slight course corrections.

Um diving right into this this top was how should the boards be structured and how formally should they operate.

I I would love to see us loosen this a little bit.

I mean, I think we we need like this this superboard, so the we need standing advisory boards in our in kind of core topic areas um that we that staff and the public can come to regularly, and I think those need to be fairly formal just to kind of get work done with some you know off ramps to be able to say, okay, we need to have a more of a community discussion on this.

Um and then um but but I I would love to, you know, I I having sat through a you know work as a liaison with a couple and and it's a struggle to ask our kind of citizen volunteers to try and adhere to a Roberts Rules of workers.

I mean, I I really also hear I I appreciate Mr.

Cardi's frustration.

It's like, are you taking public comment or not?

You know, when do I talk?

Right.

It's um it's true.

And um I think there's you know, so there should be a way to kind of feel like I can go in, I can have a conversation with these people.

I can I can talk and and have that my my thoughts kind of you know work their way into this public dialogue.

Um and I don't know what that looks like, but I'm interested in in ideas.

I I do think that Robert's rules kind of gets in the way there.

Um and then um and that's why I also think that there would we need to have a way to to kind of bring together, I think um Cola, your your that description of you know, Ms.

Meyer and needing help with solar to put together some regulations is a great example where it would be great to get her a group and and that she could lean on within the community without paying a consultant or whatnot.

Um I don't know how that works with open meetings, but uh I would not expect that to be following Robert's rules of order.

I would expect that to be like get some people in a conference room, hit record on some machine somewhere, or have someone take some minutes and then um be able to kind of work through maybe just as a discrete question, but you know, on a needed as needed thing.

Maybe let me leave it there.

So uh you know, less formal and bring in a more of a of culture of of bringing groups together on specialty issues for discrete things.

Those are the two my two top suggestions for right now, but okay.

And just to make sure that I'm I'm understanding those those correctly, one is maybe not Robert's rules, something that lowers the formality and some support for the sort of ad hoc, like we need to, if we have a sticky issue, we can get some smart folks together.

Yeah.

Yes.

I mean, I think there are there will be sometimes when we want to be in a, you know, I'm thinking community development may want to stick more with Robert's rules because there's a lot more contention there and a lot more formality, you know, in terms of we have to get some uh there's a process we have to follow.

Yep.

Um transportation, sustainability, uh you know, economic vitality, those are more policies for you know, shaping our policies, and I think we can we can give that loosen that up.

Okay.

Yeah.

Is there my understanding is there's pretty much support for those.

Are we good to just kind of thumbs up on those two?

I think the ad hoc, I think there's more to flush out there.

I disagree with the Robert's rules part.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

So I looking over kind of the way the boards were structured in the super board consolidation process.

I was actually onboarded as the first chair of the sustainability board.

And it was a pretty robust onboarding process.

We had several different trainings.

I I got to talk with the city manager, um, some of the other board chairs, and we got oriented to how to do Robert's rules.

And I think that there's been just like uh a lapse of memory of like where those trainings even were.

Um I forgot that the training was there, and then this process found this like packet in my bookshelf that was like, wow, I should have been giving this to my board members.

Um, but you know, hadn't.

And so I I think what people find really confusing about Robert's rules is that we just don't support them in learning how to do them.

And I do think that they're important and helpful for facilitating conversations when there's disagreement and when board members are tackling the gritty issues, which I hope they are, that that will happen.

Um I I appreciate Ms.

Talago's recommendation that perhaps during work sessions we can relax the use of Robert's rules, but um I I think they create a better discussion.

And I I also know that Robert's rules are something that we as a commission intend to continue to use.

And our advisory boards are an incredible leadership ladder where people who want to learn how to engage with city government usually start there, and many of them consider running for office later.

And um, I would hope that I think that's one of the things that this commission has looked to in the past when appointing somebody to a vacancy, is that board experience because we know that they're going to be able to hit the ground running and understand kind of how a meeting works.

Yeah, I also want to defend Robert's rules.

I think the issue is that we do not there is not everybody's not trained on it, right?

Because it's actually, I don't think particularly complicated once you get your feet underneath you.

And yeah, we like still flub here every now and then, but not on big pieces, where I do think like as as I think uh Mr.

Campanelli spoke to you our meeting last night, like we did our discussion before before public comment because there wasn't public comment on it because it wasn't an a work session.

It was a discussion, it was an FYI discussion item that took an hour and a half.

And so it was very odd to figure out like where are we asking staff questions, when are we adding when's public comment gonna happen, when are we gonna make recommendations?

Where I just think actually trying to get to um more consistent adherence.

Um, for one, I think actually helps, I think it oftentimes helps the minority to feel like they have the microphone, this procedure of saying everybody's gonna get their chance, nobody can interrupt anyone, the presiding officer recognizes I think allows for dissent more easily.

Um but I think I feel similarly though during work sessions, like maybe all the mics are on and you're just kind of talking to one another.

But I'm not ready to not ready to let them go yet.

Yeah, Commissioner Sweet.

Yeah, so the fact that some boards don't aren't able to have work sessions.

I think if they're allowed to by law, I would like to see them be able to.

Um during those sessions, yeah, suspending Roberts rules.

Um and I also really loved the suggestion in the packet.

I was in a couple of places of having like video training modules, because that way every person who's onboarded, no matter what board they're on, can go access and complete that module, and we know they have that, and you can go refresh it if you need to.

So yeah, I think with the ad hoc though, I'd sometimes like to see them be a little more formal as well.

I believe we may have some thoughts from our city attorney on the work session question.

Um real quick with Robert's.

So nobody adheres to like the strict rules of Roberts.

And my perspective has always been as long as the rest of the members of the board can understand what's happening as the dynamic of a discussion and motions happen, and the public can follow along under their right to participate, then the deviation from Roberts is fine.

And okay.

We put Roberts as guidelines guiding parliamentary authority, exactly as Commissioner Bodie had said, in order to help us have a fallback to resolve disputes about procedure.

And that happens from time to time where I am asked and I pull up the 12th edition of Robert's rules of order, and I'm like, hmm, how do we resolve this?

Um the boards not being able to have work sessions.

I think they can.

And I think just because it might not be in that resolution that establishes sort of their order of agenda, that doesn't mean they can't do it.

So if between the board chair and the commission liaison and the staff liaison, they said the the idea is we need a work session fully have a work session.

Sweet.

Thank you.

I'm confused about this idea that boards can't have work sessions.

I I feel like every board I've sat on has lots of them.

Yeah.

I think I feel that in my memory on the EV board.

I feel like we did.

Is the question that the board can't of its own volition decide to have a work session on something that wasn't already on their work plan?

Is that is that what we're saying?

I heard from board chairs that they were unclear, they were since it's not in the resolution and it's not on their model agenda, they didn't feel comfortable doing it.

I think certain boards do it some.

Sometimes it becomes a discussion, an FYI discussion that then turns into a work session.

Um I did hear that either they aren't happening under new board chairs or they are concerned about doing them because they think they're not explicitly allowed to do so.

So just that clarification will be helpful, and I think adding it to the model agenda that's an easy, that's a low-hanging fruit fix.

So I'm supportive of that.

Cool.

So there seems to be some consensus on relaxing Roberts rules during work sessions, boards should have them if they need to, and uh keep Roberts in there.

And I'll I'll second the idea of having it be a training module video.

So it's considered there's a quiz.

We need to get a we need a quiz on there.

If you don't pass it, you're off the board.

Yeah, okay.

So Robert's I mean, there's a huge, you know, as Mr.

Sullivan said, there's a huge spectrum in terms of Robert's rules of how you work at that.

Um, and maybe we keep it in there, but is there a way to keep it, you know, on a more of the looser end of the scale?

Yeah.

And and for instance, do our do our advisory boards need to sit up here in this dice.

Could we set up a table where where they discuss, you know, or or is are we limited by our technology because you you have to be here.

I mean, don't we have the portable mics in the you know I get could we do we do we have to be have them you know kind of separate from the audience?

Could they be more integrated?

I mean that's small detail, but sure.

Sure, we've done it a number of different ways.

Um I remember work sessions where we pulled out the tables and had uh uh a square with our portable mics, and it was more of a conversation the public actually sat in in between staff and commissioners.

It was very informal.

That's certainly an option.

This is the only facility where we can stream it in the way that that we have streamed it in the past, which I think is an important thing for participation.

But the work sessions is the city attorney described are available to um as a tool for the um advisory boards.

I understand the issue of it not being expressly allowed and that has led to some confusion.

This is helpful.

I had something really great to say and I just went off the track.

I'll come back to it.

I'm sure it was really insightful.

Brilliant.

Yeah.

Any follow-up on that no I'm just confused whose turn it is I think city attorney I just want to add one more thing.

So when we develop that high performing board's resolution that list of agenda topics mirrors the commission's list of agenda topics.

So the commission's list doesn't include work sessions.

But it's still always an option.

And so I say that because the boards in my experience working here for the city.

Have kind of always modeled the way that you guys run your meetings as sort of the standard that you guys have for for the formality and even the informality of your meetings that is also applied to the boards to create some level of consistency between how a board operates and how you operate.

But Deputy Mayor to your point though I I think it's really the bare bones of Robert's rules is sort of the expectation.

I mean there's so many that still like ask for a motion to adjourn the meeting you don't need to do that like some things like that.

But I think just one I think well let our board members like sit a little taller that feel like okay I know how to do this and I know how to have this meeting is going to go.

But yeah I don't think it needs to be it's not you know it's not a trial.

Right.

And I don't want to get lost in the in the weeds of Robert's it's just it just um you made a really good comment about um you know there's a desire for more nuanced and thoughtful discussion that sometimes gets lost in that and that's what I'm I mean so I whether however we do it but Roberts could be a fine container but but it's that kind of more thoughtful and nuanced and more kind of uh give and take conversation without losing the minority voices without losing the dissenting voices.

That's what I'm trying to try and get and I think sometimes the the formality gets in the way of that and I think that's what um Bola identified here and and so however we do that it's fine.

But but it's just the the the to me the goal is to get to that more thoughtful thing and and and one of the things I would love to talk to is that more of a two way communication but let me pass the mic and see about those you know other phones.

Yeah Commission Bowden.

Okay great.

So I'll tackle this first question how should the boards be structured and how formally should they operate beyond the kind of Robert's rules discussion that we've already had um I like the recommendation of removing the commissioner as a voting member from the community development board and adding another member um after the NUPA kind of updates.

I think that just makes sense as an alignment.

I think it fits there a lot better.

I remember being on the sustainability board when people came and had a lot to say about the pool and all of us being like wow is that in our board resolution and so yeah I I think that's just like a much more logical place for it to be both as far as like expertise and where the public would expect to give that kind of feedback.

So I like the idea of a advisory board weighing in on public art and beautification and the economic vitality board functionally has not been doing this.

I don't think that's necessarily a shortcoming of how the board has been functioning.

I think it's just like an awkward thing to fit in with economic vitality and perhaps having a staff liaison that had a little bit more of a focus in that or a kind of a joint leadership from a staff liaison that's focusing in in art and beautification would make more sense.

Um I don't like the idea of there being no public engagement on art, and I can imagine that conversation being expanded with the right leadership to include conversations about a number of like random acts of silly disvents that occur in parks and are very much art focused, but a little bit less they're they're temporary art installations rather than permanent murals or um sculptures that are in front of our public buildings.

But I I also think it could be really great for the community to engage on what artists are selected for those 1% for the arts projects, because the the projects that we select tell a story about our community, and um I hope that the public gets to be part of the decision about kind of what what is the story we're telling.

Um I don't actually have a great idea about whether or not to separate that out from economic vitality and create a different board, or to just give more um structured support for how that could be happening through economic vitality, and I'd be interested in hearing this commission's um opinion.

Kind of review the other board's work plans and single out places that sustainability board should also be involved, and the idea of some joint work sessions, I think is a great opportunity for this.

Um, you know, transportation board and sustainability board could be um talking about parking or um active transportation projects.

I like the idea of technical committees um as um our assistant city manager kind of described for for uh Ms.

Meyer to focus on solar, for example.

Um I don't really know how we would implement the idea of having one member on each advisory board have sustainability expertise.

Like I just don't even know how we would um like what qualifications we would say, you know, is it is it a technical degree?

Is it like you know or equivalent experience, or is it like a lot of people who serve on advisory boards just have like a passion in that area and not any actual um professional experience, and so I I think that one could be difficult to implement in practice, and what I would actually recommend instead is that um in the trading module section, we talk about everybody kind of getting a training on here's our belonging and Bozeman plan, and here's what's in it.

The the climate plan um I think applies to every single board and should also be part of that training for every advisory board member to understand like what what our goals and directions are there.

Um we pause there for thumbs.

Yeah.

Because I I think a bunch of those are also sort of in the house housekeeping cleanup that I I suspect might be short.

So I could.

Do you got them?

Yeah.

Nice.

Um I completely agree with the community development board.

I think that it's been awkward having a commissioner, have two votes.

Uh, I think we need to continue to have a commission liaison to that board, and then be able to kind of substitute for one another, which we haven't been able to do um prior to MLUPA um agree with recreation uh coming out of sustainability, going to urban parks.

Um seems like public art, particularly the one percent for public art.

I wonder if it's better, would be better served as a annual ad hoc committee per project.

If we're truly not getting many and have that ad hoc committee be maybe some board members, maybe a commissioner members, so the public who might live in the area or you know, can um participate in some way.

The beautification awards, I've wondered if Inc should take that on.

They're more on the ground with neighborhood groups.

Um other group that seems like Inc.

need something uplifting and awards are very uplifting.

Umity abort.

I pretty much should agree with the recommendations, except that third one, the uh Commissioner Bode flagged.

I think it would be difficult to manage that.

Um I think the power of the sustainability board working as one board um would be watered down if we're spreading.

Yeah, I agree with everything.

Commissioner Magic just said wonderful idea to give Inc.

the beautification awards.

Fabulous.

Um I was a little bit surprised reading this.

Um, because there was almost no mention of the historic preservation advisory board.

And I had sort of a similar idea, like I wrote down when it says why just sustainability um HPAB needs to be more integrated into our planning and growth as well.

Um their purpose and intent in our code is to integrate historic preservation into local, state, and federal planning and decision-making processes.

So you know, and this is one of those things where I would I would love to see more cross-pollination between sustainability, historic preservation, and community development.

Um, because I think all three of those have a lot to contribute in shaping the way we grow.

So, you know, I don't I don't know how we do that, but I I would like to see it become kind of a culture of well, historic preservation needs to look at this, kind of in the way that oh, sustainability needs to look at this.

And maybe it's the board chairs looking at each other's plans and saying, oh, you know what?

Actually, this is really touches on our mission as well.

We should look at that as well.

So um I I think can we hold that piece for this third question that I think is gonna get to the I I think this question of like what's the expectation and how much how much do we want to to deputize our boards and how much work do we want them to like what should the work expectation be?

Um, because I think that kind of speaks to that is like you know, how much should the board chairs be looking at what other boards are doing or looking at what the commission's doing.

Um but I heard you say thumbs up for the things that Commissioner Magic and Commissioner Bodie had spoken to.

Any okay.

Do we have those?

I think all uh good with all those recommendations except the special sustainability designee on each board, which we could just decide by if they're part of the city composting program that you know they're that qualifies.

I forgot to say one thing on sustainability board.

I I think wetlands needs a home, and I I would propose putting it under the sustainability board, um, although I think there could be an argument for it living in urban parks and forestry, and would appreciate having a conversation about that.

Um certainly the wetlands code update did go through sustainability board previously, although um it's not explicitly there.

And and also water conservation does not, it's not written into sustainability board's resolution, but I I believe that it lives there as well.

I would agree on those two subjects.

Two.

Yeah, Deputy Nett.

Oh, I was gonna, I mean, I haven't shopped this around, but I was gonna propose that we change sustainability to be more of an environment.

Environmental and water board, right?

Where because right now sustainability is mostly climate.

Um we're not making a lot of progress on climate change, but we do have big questions about environment.

We do have good questions about water, we do have big questions about wetlands where you know we could wrap those, you know.

So I was thinking of reframing sustainability in that direction.

I mean, I I certainly wouldn't want to take climate out in that, you know, there's a lot of electrification goals and um you know, solar and renewables happening at sustainability board, but I do think a lot of the board members have expertise in um regenerative farming and uh water rates, and so I I do think maybe adding the word environment to sustainability and environment, so something like that could be appropriate.

Maybe conservation instead of environment.

I'm I'm just I'm I'm weighing like the implications of the word conservation.

Yeah, I don't know I just I don't think I don't think it shouldn't name change.

I think it's similarly like just a yeah, I'm I'm also supportive of trying to broadcast in some way the brand differently as to what the main focus because certainly um there's not that many climate-related, you know, they get they get updates, we get updates and things like that.

There's other things that would be great to have the sustainability board tackling that are not under their purview right now.

I did have one thought on um how the boards are structured and this uh allowing more than one remote participant to account towards a quorum.

Um I've been on a board where that's been uh an issue.

And um I would have no problem with board members being allowed to have remote meetings uh at like we are.

Are we limited to three a year or something?

Um limited to remote meetings or limited to how many commissioners can't participate remotely.

Both so boards, I I would think it's it's fine if we need to have a quorum made up of two people remotely, but we don't want to make it too easy for them to not show up.

So maybe let them do it only a couple times a year.

I I see.

Um is there a a limit to how many commissioners can be absent and still meet a quorum?

Yeah.

So if three you we couldn't have three remote commissioners.

No, yeah.

Okay.

So the remote participation came about on the heels of the pandemic.

And when the commission came back in person, there was the way I remember this was we're doing this in person.

And recognizing then that remote participation in those remote remote meetings, they worked.

We were able to spend a year or maybe more conducting the city's business through complete remote meetings.

Um that was a decision by the commission to come back into the room.

And then the commission said, okay, well, we do recognize there are moments, health issues, travel for business that could um that we can still allow that to happen and have a robust meeting.

So we added remote attendance, and I'm looking at Mike to help me remember those.

We added remote attendance, commission decided one, you still needed a quorum in the room.

And the presiding officer needs to be in the room.

And then they also had decided the commission at that time that it they didn't want to have sort of a commissioner always attending remotely.

So they limited the number, and I can't remember what the number is for per year, four per year.

So I also remember we recently updated that because we were having issues with quorum for community development board.

And so the commission, I think within the last year or two, updated the remote participation uh rules for boards.

And I think that might have been about in the fall we did that.

Yep.

So I just share that to like that was the foundation for how we got to where we are today with your remote participation rules and then the board, the board's rules.

If I remember correctly, one remote attendant does count towards quorum.

Is that correct?

I'm gonna look at the mic.

I I haven't pulled up the resolution.

So I'm looking at it right now.

Uh for boards, one member can count towards a quorum.

For the city commission, a quorum must be in the room.

So yeah, I I guess I don't feel a need to tweak that rule necessarily.

I think another that's still under this um that that was brought up a few times in the report.

Um, is do we say a quorum is a majority of the appointed members versus a majority of the authorized members?

So if there's uh you know, a vacant seat, um, do we say the quorum needs to be you know the majority of six, or do we say it's the majority of seven, or do we say it's the majority of five if there's only five people on the on that board?

I wondered what that meant.

Um I I think it being a majority of the authorized members makes sense because that holds all of us accountable to recruiting and filling those vacancies, whereas um otherwise we could just kind of be working at a deficit for a long time and not have that.

It's like, oh, we got the three that we like, you know.

We have five we like.

Yeah, yeah.

And the other thing I'll just say is that I think it's important that we name voting members because we've created these ex officio student positions that um I believe are going to start sometime this fall.

So um authorized voting members.

Yeah.

And I I think and we've brought this up.

I think a lot when I was leaving the Urban Parks and Forestry Board, there might have been still a vacancy or two, and we were trying to stress, like Mitch and I talked like we should be saying in every the start of every board meeting there's a vacancy.

Go find somebody.

Like just stressing like banging the drum every single time, like it's coming up, we need replacements for these board members who are termed out.

Something that just continues to motivate commission leads on and board members to go find some folks.

I did make a note here where it says clarify whether it's appropriate for staff to recruit board members, and for me that answer would be no.

And my answer on that would be yes, because on particularly the community development board where we need professionals on that board, staff has been really helpful in finding former um staff members from the city of Bozeman to take roles and they have more contact with um folks in the field.

And it doesn't mean we have to accept them because ultimately that decision is ours.

But I think the more people we can have out there helping point out, you know, people who could be terrific board members, I think the better.

Yeah.

And that's actually the board that gave me the most concern about that was that you know, I think we need a really wide gene pool for those kinds of decisions.

And um, you know, I'm reminded of Hapel's um extensive written comment after you know retiring from a number of years.

I had no idea he felt the way he did, and he was right on.

I shared so many of his um perspectives that you know, because the boards are supposed to be advising us, there may at times be a little bit of tension with staff.

And so, you know, I I feel like so much of what we do is initiated in the staff anyway that I would really like to see board members and us independently solicit applicants.

I can give an example on the community development board.

Uh it was a board predominantly made up of males, and we tried to find some females and staff helped find uh a couple of females who applied and just you know helped add diversity that otherwise, you know, we were struggling to find folks.

I think I'm I'm more just want to say I I don't I just don't think that's necessarily in a an essential or even in some ways appropriate to decide like it's just like it would be so hard to decide like who was solicited by a staff or former staff member versus otherwise.

Like I just think that's would would get a little odd.

And I don't think at the end of the day, we get to choose whether we appoint them or not.

Um I don't think I don't I don't know if I've ever even heard of necessarily like staff saying like, oh, here's somebody who'd be great, and then it just gets like ramrodted through the the commission.

Like I feels like it's solving a problem that I don't necessarily see as happening.

I I think the only situation in which it's a problem is if um the board is not recruiting and we aren't doing a good job of announcing to the public that there is a vacancy, right?

Like if if we have many ways of recruiting good applicants, that is a benefit.

And I wouldn't want to take a tool out of our toolbox of having staff be able to um recommend, you know.

I I think we have members of the public, for example, that call Nick Ross all the time about bike lanes or safe crossings for schools.

And I bet Nick has some great ideas of who would be a passionate member of the transportation board.

And I think there are other directors like that who interact with people in the public that don't necessarily email us as commissioners.

We might not even know that there's someone with a strong passion here.

So I think it's a it's a tool in a toolbox, and um we should I I like the suggestions of um making sure the board knows that they need to have an active role in recruiting and that um we should be announcing it at every meeting and you know all of these things are good is my point.

Okay.

Is there anything more on this first question or was there anything from City Manager City Attorney on?

Yeah.

I want to say something about quorum.

So the quorum, the the high performing board's resolution establishes a default rule for quorum.

Many of the functions that at least the big five boards operate under have very specific statutory procedures that call out how to designate a quorum.

So in that high performing board's resolution, we said, unless otherwise established by state law, here's how the quorum works.

So this is more relevant with old zoning commission rules and under MLOPA, and when MLOPA happened, we asked the legislature to fix the quorum issue.

Um I say all that because we can establish a different default rule.

I think we would need to look at Roberts and sort of see how that worked.

Um that is different than the default rule we have now.

But you're still gonna have statutory requirements that would control if in conflict with the default rule.

So I don't I can't tell you off the top of my head right now where that's gonna happen and which boards are gonna be that way.

Remember that we structured this pre-MLUPA and before reform happened under for the land use statute.

So designating a quorum and having a quorum and being very accurate about that is incredibly important to justify and make valid the decision that the board makes.

And for land use if statute says and LUPA says that that regulation has to go to community development board.

We gotta make sure that the quorum process is accurate and we have a quorum, because that could invalidate the entire regulation if we didn't do that right.

So just add that if there's a perception out there by anybody that the that the staff goes and handpicks prospective board members that think like the staff does or that will do the staff's bidding, um, nothing could be further than the truth.

We've been asked many times to um help find people to serve on these boards, and that's when we help find people to serve on these boards.

As was mentioned earlier, the city commission appoints them, the staff does not appoint them.

So you never have to agree with anybody that the staff identifies as a member of any of the boards.

That is this city commission's role.

Thank you.

Um Commissioner Magic.

So on this first question.

Yeah, a couple of little things.

Um section uh 33H was called out kind of later in our report.

It talks about board interactions with staff meeting to be respectful.

I would say uh I would make that more broad that all aspects of board meetings need to be respectful.

The audience, the public needs to be respectful with the board, the board needs to be respectful for one with one another.

I've seen all of those go kind of chaotic and um so it's not just board and staff.

The second, and I push for this five years ago.

I'm gonna push for it again.

Um far again.

Uh I've never agreed with term limits.

Um I found them problematic, problematic on the community development board when all of a sudden a number of terms were up in the middle of a big project.

I think that we still have the power not to renew someone if they reapply.

Um I just would get rid of the term limit requirement.

Okay.

Thoughts on term limits.

Sure, that's in mind.

I mean, I'll go, I'll take a swing at it.

Go ahead.

Um, yeah, I I understand the the desire to kind of keep expertise in our boards, and and certainly there are some boards that are are highly technical, and I think community development board is is the the case in point of the situation.

Um, however, at the time that the super board consolidation process happened, I think that there was a real challenge for young professionals and um younger community members to get on these boards because um there had been people serving on them for like a decade.

Um, and that just I think creates a consolidation of a certain lived experience in an advisory capacities.

Um perhaps the students serving on advisory boards in an ex officio way may help bring um a younger student perspective, but there's still a large portion of our community um young young families, young professionals that I think were previously struggling, and I was able to get on the sustainability board because of this board consolidation process and kind of everybody at once was removed and had to reapply.

Um and I I do think that that created a lot more um diversity of opinion and length of um residency, etc.

in in our advisory um fleet for lack of a better word here.

So uh I I'm in support of um the the term limits.

I I wonder if there's uh the the possibility for some differences in like very highly technical positions, but um I'm not sure how we would kind of distinguish that.

I agree with you in that we need to have diversity on our boards um and a wide diversity from gender, age, uh income profession, geography.

And I don't think that term limits is gonna uh be the answer to that.

Um I think it that diversity can happen with choosing the right people at the right time and mixing things up, and I think to maybe add kind of a statement from us that we want to see our boards reflective of the community and diverse is a way to get there.

So the only concern I have with limiting terms is that I think the community development board is one, I know HPAB is one, these boards they have certain seats that must have certain qualifications, and I think that's by state law.

And I think on HPAB, if we don't have those qualified seats filled, we can't actually have a board.

And then that puts our historic preservation program in jeopardy.

And I don't know how it is for the community development board.

If we don't have those, you know, people with certain qualifications in those seats, would we then not have a zoning commission?

So maybe for those technical seats that are in those or those two boards, that is something to think about.

And there are some boards, and HPAP is a good example of community development boards, some of our other boards were were reviewing a plan, maybe it's the NCOD.

That's a multi-year thing.

And if you have people coming and going, sometimes I think that can I don't know, you know, in one scenario that can be great, you're getting different voices.

In another scenario, that can be chaotic.

You're getting new people who haven't had the privilege of listening to comments before or listening to why we've done this in the first place.

So I think there are arguments both ways, but I after serving on a board for many years, I tend to think that term limits just don't serve a useful purpose.

Deputy Mayor, do you have an opinion on term limits?

I I don't have a strong opinion.

I tend to agree more maybe with Commissioner Bodie on this one where it does bring it does force a re uh uh you know a turnover and it does force us to bring in new voices in a way that we wouldn't uh you know I know community development board is more technical, but I I know it was it was you know, our our transportation board, we lost a lot of expertise when we termed two of our chair and and vice chair out.

But I think we're thriving with the replacement we got two good replacements in, and and we're off in new directions.

And so um I would all things being equal, I would probably favor staying with it.

Maybe we could make it three terms, but I think two terms is fine, and um I I think we can deal with that term over.

Commissioner Smeen.

Would we have the ability to make a special exemption if we were in the middle of a big project?

We we sort of did do that.

Um to we had to extend uh some because there was yeah, the community community development board was just gonna not be able to basically have quorum and we needed it.

Yeah, then I'd be in favor of like as long as we have that provision at our fingertips when we need it.

I I would say if we are going to have that provision, it ought to be time bound, um, specific to um if it's you know for continuity for a specific project, like that project needs to be named, and when that project is wrapped, like that's that's when that wraps.

I I kind of feel like that's it's too complicated.

I feel like we should just decide to keep term limits or get rid of them.

I I will personally say I am not that strong of an opinion, but I would prefer to get rid of them.

I don't think they actually do those mechanisms.

I think uh many new young people got to participate in the consolidation because you know we consolidated, but I think even if it we didn't consolidate, there was still gonna be a moment of sort of modernization of boards where there would have been there there was there what I'm trying to get at is that something clearly needed to change that needed to be a moment um for that to happen.

I don't think I I think this is now sort of a relic of addressing that challenge.

Like many chairs that I've talked to, folks have been termed out, they didn't want to do it again.

Um they didn't want a third term.

So I I don't think we're like really in the era still of like we're gonna have somebody who sits on a board for 32 years, you know, like I I would say that a lot of people who decided not to renew their their terms or got termed out and weren't that sad about it, was because the boards have not felt like an effective use of people's time.

Like there's a lot of other things that we need to address to make our boards feel um and actually be meaningful mechanisms of of feedback to the commission.

And um, if they were that, I would venture that people would want to stick around and feel like they were making a difference.

And I think it takes a while to on board and feel comfortable on a board that the more time you spend, um, I think there is value in having some longevity and consistency on a board.

I think it can be it can be.

I mean, you can have an another example where longevity drags you down and you don't get anything done.

But um I just like the flexibility of no term limits, and then the commission at the time can kind of make more fluid decisions about who sits on a board.

I think as we're going through this conversation, I was uh I was originally kind of like and I'm feeling more and more strongly about the term limits as we go.

Um and I I think I'm I'm feeling that way in part because um if you look to like almost every body of our our government at every level, we we have these term limits to create that that opportunity for new leadership.

Um it's it's in our House of Representatives, um, both state at the state level.

Thank you.

So state house, state senate, and I would argue both are kind of dysfunctional.

Yeah.

Um we don't have term limits.

So perhaps you know, if we're gonna do that to our boards, we should do it to ourselves.

Congress does it, but I think Congress, US Congress perhaps would benefit from some of those.

So I wouldn't say it's across the board.

Yeah, perhaps places that do, I don't see good results.

Perhaps not every level of government here.

That's that's um expansive.

But I I do think that it in a town of 60,000 people, if we lose one person who has an expertise in architecture, like we should be able to find another one.

Um and if we find one person with an expertise in historic preservation, like I don't I don't think we are engaging properly with our community and investing in developing um new leaders and engaged community members well if we have a silo board that when one person leaves it it fails to operate.

Like I think that's a failure on us as a commission and on our staff and our processes to foster a culture of civic engagement rather than I I think I would I would buy the argument if we were a town of like a thousand people, maybe.

Uh but I I just know we have this expertise here.

Yeah, I would I I want to couch my opposition to term limits as having nothing to do with that.

Um it is my uh I think they are anti-democratic.

Uh I think they are they are in infantilization to the to the commission at that time, they can decide to renew or decide this person served long enough.

Um but it really like don't feel that strongly.

Like I'm not gonna die on this hill of um the term limits, but I I similarly do not feel like losing a historic preservation person should mean that like we can't find someone else, we can't find another qualified person in a city of 60,000 with an architecture school.

Could I suggest we punt this one?

I mean we seem to be a little divided here.

I mean, they're much more substantial.

We ain't doing anything with it.

That'd be great.

Yeah.

Um I want to add there was a question earlier about composition.

So community development board was brought up and the historic preservation board.

So from my understanding about HPAB, and in order for the city to have the certified local government program, we have to have the composition I think that the federal government requires.

We can certainly check on that, um, but I think that's the case.

Um state law used to mandate the composition of um the planning board and no longer does.

And so I think we reformed that when we did the reform last fall.

Um we kept the commission member on there.

You guys have discretion to do that.

Um I think the impact fee advisory board.

The statute also changed and may no longer require certain membership.

So when we develop the consolidated boards, one of the things that we had to puzzle out was all the various state law that controlled separate functions and whether state law controlled the composition of that membership.

And so the sort of if you looked at community development board, the crazy composition that was the result was the result of impact fee advisory functions going into well, that's transport.

I think that was transportation.

So that's why we ended up having structured those boards in that way.

And so if you're gonna change composition, I think there's room to do that.

We just need to make sure if a board has a statutory function and the statute refers to the composition, then you gotta have those members on that board.

The impact board says one member from the development industry.

It doesn't say really what that means.

One other thing about uh how we how we handle boards.

So quite often uh terms end, and you guys had not reappointed somebody to fill that vacancy.

So we follow a rule that basically says that that person holds over until the replacement is appointed and takes office.

So if you have somebody that has a two-year term or they're they're ending their second term and they're termed out, and you have a project that's continuing to run, and there's four more months beyond their term limits, that person's vote is still valid under the rule that we follow about holdover holdovers.

Okay.

Are there any threads remaining on this first question?

Yeah, Commissioner Burke.

Um I'm just kind of following around the like appendix A document and just want to verbalize the high performings board resolution considerations.

I I'm in support of all of the recommendations listed there.

I've got some comments on one body, one voice that I'll leave for the communication question lower down.

Um I do want to note on section H, there's kind of this this question of should advisory boards be able to remove or they they can remove an agenda item, should they be able to add one?

And I I think this is um really relevant to this discussion of like what meaningful um ability do do boards have to operate.

And perhaps this is kind of looping down into like the autonomy question, but it is in the appendix A section about um structure and formal operation.

Does it make sense to dig into that now?

I kind of think that should go with the autonomy question.

Okay.

Um I feel all right waiting on that then.

And then the last thing I'll just say um the meeting minutes section.

Um I like the idea of having a board secretary and having them writing meeting minutes or figuring out how to expand our our contract to to have artificial intelligence write that.

But I I do think it's um a good use of a board members' time to to kind of summarize this and and could give like a pretty um helpful resource for for the community and and give somebody um uh it'd be another leadership position beyond just chair and board chair.

And I also like the idea of providing the meeting materials earlier, seven days in advance.

I know that would be a lift for staff, and um especially thinking about the community development board who meets on on Mondays.

Um I I know that they oftentimes have a really tight turnaround, and perhaps Commissioner Magic could speak to that.

Yeah, I think um seven days is generous.

I think Thursday morning is more realistic.

Um, just so these board members aren't having to quote work on the weekend.

They've got a couple of work days to actually dig in to something, ask staff questions and so forth.

So Thursday is um Thursday, Friday, Saturday, it's four days and else.

Yeah, I I similarly I I feel like seven days is just I think staff want to get it as early as they can.

I don't think uh setting it an arbitrary deadline is I think just feels like it's adding more crunch, where I think I I've never gotten the impression that staff before they have an action item that goes before a board or the commission is uh dragging their feet um to get it done.

I do think it would be wonderful, and some boards do it at the end of a meeting, they talk about the next meeting.

Um I do think it's helpful, you know, staff doesn't have to get the presentation together, but let the board know hey, we're gonna be discussing this, read this section of code or familiarize yourself with this adopted city plan, right?

Like give them some homework to prepare to get to the meeting because I think a lot of board members they want to contribute a lot, but they need the direction of like here's what you should be paying attention to.

I found that on the community development board has been great and also transportation board.

I'll just jump in and say I think we received a comment about the neighborhood um associations being one of our boards that does the best job of going to the public and soliciting feedback before the meeting.

And I I think this exact issue of maybe you you get the agenda on a Thursday and your meeting is the following Wednesday or Monday, there might be a few people in the public that you want to set up a meeting with before you have that um advisory board meeting and solicit a little bit more feedback, and it's just a tight turnaround if you're gonna go um do that outreach.

And I think that's the the concern I have.

Um, but I I think you've offered a um elegant solution, Commissioner Sweeney.

So if I think in some ways if we could better integrate our six-month calendar with the board kind of work plans, and then and then um and then those board members will or at least this the chair the chairs of those boards will know, okay.

This is if we're this is the kind of schedule we need to be on.

And then I think that just trickles down to a lot more structure.

And there I'm going out and talking to my community to get in well in it fails.

Yeah, I I guess we'll stop there.

I agree with the wanting to both on the internal side of you know what give the six months and being clear on who needs to see it first.

The boards are largely teed up to talk about that that will, but something that's giving the boards more opportunity to look at those things, I think would be a good idea.

And maybe that's something when we put something on the six-month calendar, we identify which board we want to hear from.

I will just say it was a bit of a fight to get HPAP to be able to weigh in on the B3 height and the zone edge transitions and so that's that's kind of where coming from like we should integrate this into planning.

The landmark program is gonna take historic preservation beyond the NCOD, and they're you know gonna be an important voice for guiding growth and you know, so it would have been nice if we could have, as a commission said way back when we put the B3 in the zone edge transitions, like, hey, actually, we want to hear from these boards, and you know, yeah.

I'll I'll add a second or maybe a third to the idea of the board agendas being integrated with our six-month calendar in in some way.

And and perhaps it's not possible to map out six months of board meetings, but maybe it's a a three-month calendar or something like that.

Okay.

Okay, we close in the first question because I think if if we're good to move on, I think we should take a break.

Okay.

We're we'll go on recess until 628, nine minutes.

We're back.

We're back in order.

We're fed, we're energized.

Get back at it.

And among boards.

I think this is this is the one body one voice.

This is role liaison.

Um, things like that.

Commissioner Banks.

And um seen us.

Kind of bring people in and establish this very kind of strict system.

And in some arenas, I think there is a place for that.

And I think that it's happened organically in a couple of areas, and I think the one body one voice that's kind of happened.

And we've had a couple of instances where board members will show up and talk to us, they'll separate themselves from their fact that they're not speaking up the half of the board, but I have found value over time and hearing from those folks, and I don't feel that it's you know, creating chaos or that we're getting a whole bunch of road board members showing up and saying, hey, I feel this and I feel that.

And so I really would like to see that one body, one voice soften and perhaps even go away and be replaced with something that just talks about if you want to go talk to before the commission, just separate yourself from the board and be upfront about what your comments are.

And similarly, if you write a letter to the editor, you know, just very very clearly state you're on this board, but you're speaking for yourself.

I think there are other things that we can soften too, and I think in doing so, it could help make our boards more efficient and increase the overall efficacy.

I think that rigidity has led to we've talked about Robert's rules of orders just that can be a very stifling sort of uh format.

Uh it does not really, I think uh foster uh environment where you you've got a pre-thinking that commissioner uh deputy mayor future talked about the back and forth, and I think we want board members, these volunteer commission uh citizens to be able to speak their minds and to not feel uncomfortable in that formal setting.

So I would like to do what we can to lose some of the rigidity and make these boards feel a little more empowered and autonomous to kind of do what we want them to do, which basically is help us manage the city with good ideas and I've got different ideas about how boards can communicate with us from having you know, we will occasionally have a board member come and speak to us, but perhaps we do that on a more regular basis to have a board chair come and speak to us and provide a summary.

Maybe we have a couple of board members during a work session actually sit in and participate in a work session, something to integrate us a little bit more so we don't have these separate meetings on different nights and you know, continue kind of this operating in silos.

Uh so that's just kind of some of my thoughts.

I want to loosen it up and I want to hear more from board members without having to watch the entire meeting or attend the meeting.

Fast and loose, many bodies, many voices.

Um Commissioner Sweeney, anything you'd like to add?

Yeah, I I'm so glad you suggested the possibility of removing that language, one body, one voice, because I'm softening it is not enough.

I would like to see that language go away.

I've seen it used to intimidate board members.

I've heard from members of the public that they would not apply for a board because they felt they would be gagged.

Um, and I've seen it be in the ethics training unequally administered to different people and different boards.

And so, yeah, incorporating the language of like if you would like to come and speak to the commission, disclose your position, and that you are speaking on behalf of yourself as a private citizen or whatever.

I like the idea of having someone write minutes, a secretary who can then give a summary.

And I was even going to suggest maybe that summary could be submitted to the commission via public comments so that you know there's a public record of it.

And the reason I I like this, I was afraid to ask for the AI transcription for more boards.

But the reason I like this is because you know, I can go read the summary for 10 boards in a week.

I cannot watch that many board meetings in at length in full.

So I think having some sort of written summary that could include both, you know, the findings of the board as a whole, and then maybe some about the dissenting opinion or disagreement or whatever the situation is.

I just find that really valuable.

So I I guess I've never understood the concern about one body, one voice, but but I get that there's others in the room who feel differently.

I feel like for the record, we have always asked whenever whenever staff presents board used it or when the liaison presents and the board has been an advisory board's been split.

We've often asked for what the dissenting vote was and what the conversation was.

That said, um I think what yeah, I agree.

We need we we just need to loosen.

We don't need to be quite as tight.

The and whether that means we get rid of it or we amend it, it doesn't matter to me, but I think we need to loosen it.

Um the thing I wanted to really focus about with this conversation and in an independence be, which is really helpful, um, Cola.

Thank you for that roadmap you gave us.

Um is that very first bullet point on uh on page B1 where how do we do we allow it's the second clause of that?

Do we allow for ideas, opportunities, and proposals to generate from the boards to the commission outside of that work plan process?

You know, um we do bring and that's kind of where again going with this loosening idea that's maybe more informal, it's more of a give and take.

And and I think this bleeds into the autonomy question, so we can bring that in at the at the whatever point, Mr.

Mayor.

But but to me, that question of how do we bring in, you know, how do we tap our boards for the expertise and the and the what they're seeing in the community, the priorities that they're seeing in the community, and without kind of going rogue or going off in their own agendas in ways that are perhaps unproductive.

Um that's a that's a balance and an art that that I think deserves kind of some attention by us, um, but I would like to find a way to encourage Commissioner Bowdy.

Yeah, I um feel attached to the one body, one voice language.

However, I do feel like the the sentiment around some amount of formality of like when you are on a board, you have an elevated position of voice.

You get the opportunity to be on the record and discuss something in a long form.

Um our commission meetings are already lengthy, and I think we we struggled to get everything done in the time that we have.

I I don't think it's super appropriate for um you know all seven board members to come up and again give their individual opinions.

Um that that record is there for us to to reference.

Um I I think my memory of of what I was told when I joined a board right after the consolidation process was that there were people who um were kind of taking advantage of of that platform to um kind of beat a drum that they'd already had the opportunity to really express in a very formalized noticed and recorded manner.

And so I I think that we should um the the response of this one body one voice, I think was an overcorrection, and it didn't create a um avenue for a dissenting opinion to be um clearly articulated and passed on.

I think board members have to um kind of take the leap of faith that us commissioners took the time to watch the video and listen to their dissenting opinion rather than just getting that you know, this board approved this decision.

And so I I'm really excited about the idea of having a dissenting opinion be written up.

Um I would appreciate if there was some bounds put on that, you know, like I don't want to receive a 50-page manifesto.

I think we can probably put like a word count or a length limit on what a dissenting opinion could be, but after after there's a void a vote with a dissent, it would be that board members' responsibility to write up their dissenting opinion.

Um I I like that better than having the secretary be the one capturing the minutes and kind of passing that on.

Like I I want the dissenter to be able to articulate in their own words.

And if there's multiple dissenters, I think similarly to the Supreme Court, those those people would confer on their joint opinion.

Um I could even see the value in perhaps somebody votes yes, but for a different reason than the staff recommendation.

Um I think there's also a mechanism in our in our court system for somebody to write kind of like a I'm forgetting the word for it, is an amicus or a I I've been told you can pronounce it both ways.

Um but yeah, uh Amicus or because that's friends of the court, but there's there's another word for like you are a justice and you have another reason to vote yes, different from the main opinion.

Concurrent.

Thank you.

Um yeah, I I think that that would give an outlet for board members to have a really clear and formalized way to provide feedback and not feel like they have to come give public comment the night of.

Um it would be attached ideally to our packet, and we could read that in in preparation.

And I I would appreciate the opportunity to not feel any barrier in reaching out to that board member and trying to understand more if I if I had questions.

And that I think could be relaxed a little a little bit.

That's my thoughts on the one body one voice.

I I have some other communication thoughts, but I I think I'll I'll pass it on so we can kind of make a loop on that.

Um yeah, I'll uh just chime in.

I think I'm I'm I don't feel any love to the one body one voice thing.

Uh that that provision.

I will just say I think it's odd because board members do have an elevated voice to then come and hear from them again when they've had an opportunity to opine.

I don't think necessarily this and I don't know exactly what it means for us to create uh the dissenting point because frankly, in every staff report I've seen where there is such a thing, we see their dissent.

It's in the report.

It says here are the people who voted yes, here's the people who voted no, and here's what their concerns were.

So I'm I I just don't know what exactly the the elephant in the room that I'm worried about is that it's like actually just that the historic preservation advisory board is like frustrated that they haven't been listened to or felt listened to, and if there's a different way for us to address that or or what, because I it's certainly not a concern I've ever heard raised by community development board members.

Um I've never heard any other boards that I've been a liaison to or served on ever say, I wish that my dissenting view was carried forward.

So I don't I don't know what we're lacking in the dissenting view that we need to institutionalize in in some way for our boards.

Like it, I don't really feel like this is a problem that we have right now.

So I don't want to call out individuals, but I will say that the three people that I know have had experience with this are on three different boards.

So it is not just HPAM.

I I also think that there's been many times where us commissioners had to ask what the dissenting opinion was.

I I don't think that that is always captured in the written report from staff.

And so um if we ask staff to make that a formal part of whenever there is a dissenting voice vote, it should be captured.

Um I just think that could make staff feel uncomfortable having to represent somebody else's opinion.

Like if we're gonna go to the steps of formally asking for that dissenting opinion to be included, we may as well allow the dissenter to express their um opinion directly.

I tend to agree with the mayor on this one.

I think we're I I don't I don't see the problem we're trying to address.

Um, the board's uh I just I think it's gonna create more uh kind of inject a create more work for both staff and for the kind of the board chair to get this together, it's gonna create um.

I mean I I just I think we're going we are relying on our boards to give us a decision, they give us a decision.

Yes, there's some maybe there's some tension in the process of that decision, but ultimately we have to make a decision.

And and we we can get from the the um from the staff liaison from the commission liaison and from anybody who feels strongly enough to testify their sense of of what's maybe wrong with that decision, but to institutionalize um this this notion that well they have to give us a 300 word or 100 word assessment of their decision, and you could also put in a concurring decision.

I mean, just I I think that's we're we are not the Supreme Court.

Like we don't even do that for us, right?

Yeah, I agree with the mayor and deputy mayor.

I'm gonna still reiterate my support for having the secretary have we should have a written record of you know something that occurred at this board.

I also am slightly uncomfortable that we have these boards, we ask them to advise us, but then we let that go through the staff is the burden of carrying that or the commission liaison.

I I think I want to empower the boards to send us something directly.

Sorry, go ahead.

There's a question lower in the autonomy section about whether or not the staff liaison should be leading the board or supporting the board.

And we can talk about that later, but I think this dissenting opinion piece is a um operational, operating that aspect, that that question of whether the staff liaison leads or supports.

I I think when the staff liaison leads, they are they are summarizing for the board kind of what their decision was and bringing that to us versus supporting the board to take the own leadership of expressing their their own opinion.

Um so I don't know if this is kind of foreshadowing our our opinions on the autonomy question.

Um but yeah, I I still feel strongly about the dissenting opinion being concise.

I I don't think it would add additional workload onto staff if it was really explicit how much length you could write and what your window to do so was.

And if the board member who dissented did not succeed in getting their dissenting opinion in by the deadline that they had, then we just don't get a dissenting decision, and that's on that's on them.

But they're gonna they're just gonna show up to the meeting.

Like I don't think we can reasonably put a deadline because they can just show up, you know.

Like the the the issue that I have is that if we strike one body one voice, we effectively say you get to do that, which I agree with.

If you didn't like how if you disagree with the decision, you have the right to submit a public comment.

But I think like elevating it into this like this different weird spot is where where I'm feeling odd of feeling like we're solving a problem that doesn't exist, or or a problem that is to me largely solved by saying you can submit written public comment.

Or at least taking away that.

I mean they could do that right now, obviously, but take away the weird feeling of like, am I overstepping?

Am I doing something wrong?

I think having something that gets elevated or incorporated into the staff report or the staff are tasked with incorporating in, even if they don't have to write it, I think is just muddying this up quite a bit.

I I don't envision I envision the board issuing something to us directly, not through staff.

Then I I think individual members of the board can do that.

Well, but what about the official recommendation and then with a dissenting opinion?

Absolutely not.

I I that's an interesting question for us to consider what the expectations of the board are.

Because I think if we're at the moment deciding uh actually staff don't write up a report based on an action item, that it's the board writes up their own report.

I don't know if that many boards are gonna want to write up like a 30-page document about how something relates to Montana Land Use Planning Act or our strategic plan, which is the expectation that we have of staff when they write something up for us.

Yeah, I I think I'm talking about something much simpler coming from the board.

Okay.

And not suggesting that the staff report would go away.

That's both okay.

Yeah, just a point of clarification.

I think we're gonna when we talk about roles, I think the city commission's role has gotten confused.

The city commission's liaison role has gotten confused.

The resolution places the obligation of the city commission liaison to bring actions to this commission.

So somehow, like other things in this board um organization, we've lost sight of that.

And I I don't know a better way for this commission to hear what an advisory board did other than the commission liaison, one of you reporting back to the commission.

So just that's something for you to consider.

Yeah, I think that's uh that's sort of the confusion that I keep coming back to is like if one of us lies, like it's pretty clear, you know, like here's what the board said, it went 5-0, nobody disagreed when there was disagreement.

Like I I just think I yeah, again, to just feeling like it's it's it's coming from a different it's it's coming from a real place, and this is the wrong solution, is what I'm trying to say.

Okay.

So question, and this is something I struggled with since before even being elected, is we should have this conversation about how we get information of what happened on the board meetings to the commission.

Like I was gonna give an FYI update later on the TIP board and the HPAP, but that's like a quick, you know, little blurb.

I there are here here's where this is coming from.

I would like to be better informed about what all the boards are working on and the process that it's going through.

And right now, what that means is sitting down and watching hours long board meetings.

Is there a more concise way to get reports from the boards to the body that we can work out?

Yep.

This board, as a part of its regular agenda, could have an action item that would be to report on the activities or the decisions of a board uh on your regular city commission agenda.

That might be a memory jogger, it might be an intentional way to get um those reports back to this body through your liaisons.

Deputy Mayor.

I mean, I was fully respect the desire to you know keep abreast of all our advisory boards.

I I mean I think this this is becoming a fascinating discussion of what the role is of our commission and how what what sort of level we want to be at.

You know, um I would I I approach this seat as being it we need to be high level and and I expect our our advisory boards to be working on on things and and developing them and and then so that you know uh we or I can't keep my eye on all those things.

That's why when the staff report comes to us, when the city liaison report comes to us, that's when I um it's it's really helpful.

But um, and so it's it's you know it's helpful to hear when when an advisory board takes an action, but I don't personally me, I don't particularly need an update on the discussion of a you know, if uh of a of a transportation advisory board discussion on you know an issue that's gonna eventually come to us until they actually take the action.

Um so I'd prefer our meetings to be more high level and more um, you know, there's there's bigger things we need to be focused on other than what our our advisory boards are dealing with.

So I'd I'm content with getting the information when there's a staff report, unless there's some important action that is taken that you know um is is super relevant.

I want to kind of frame my support for the dissenting opinion um recommendation in that I I was assuming people wouldn't be able to come back and give another comment.

It would be essentially keeping the one body one voice, although it's not one voice if we allow it.

You know, it would be keeping that policy if you you can't come and give a an additional comment on why the dissenting uh written opinion is your opportunity.

So I I tend to agree with the the mayor here that um if they could still do that, it it feels duplicatus and it doesn't actually it's it's not solving uh a problem.

Um so I I think it's a it's a forking road.

It's it's either you don't get a comment again and you get a write up this formal thing, or you get to comment on on whatever.

And I I will say that while we do have a number of board members giving public comment, they are I think in large part not commenting on a decision that has already been made um or discussion that has already happened.

Um they are commenting on something outside the purview of their board or um appealing to us to bring something to their board for discussion.

And I do think that the removal of this one body one voice would have a shift in what people are talking about from the days.

Okay, because I feel like there's we've gotten the clarity of our respective stances on one body one voice.

It sounds like there's majority to strike, not a majority to do the dissent, but it because we're to by virtue of doing that, allowing board members to come and give their opinion.

And I I I also I think I feel similarly with the deputy mayor um maybe from a different angle that I just I think to me, I want to hear from the boards uh when their recommendation is coming to us.

I don't necessarily feel strongly to need to hear about them each time, but I also you know commissioners are allowed to do that.

They can give an FYI, like here's what the board got into.

Um I don't necessarily um I don't think it'll add an essential part to the structure of the board or to the of commission meetings.

Um I you can go ahead and okay.

Um I I will um confess to uh regularly listening to the Bozeman brief AI summaries of the the boards and have found them to be really informative um to just keep me in the loop about like what's what's coming, even if it was just a discussion and not a um formal formal vote.

And so um that's not a recommendation to change anything here, but I I think it's it's a naming that this has been a tool that has benefited my ability to um have a sense of what's what's going on more broadly without having to watch two-hour meetings for all of our boards, and if it were to no longer be a free thing that was provided, um that would leave a hole in the tools that I have at my disposal.

I just have a room with six TVs and I just play them all at the same time.

It's pretty good use of time.

Deputy mayor.

I'm curious if I mean if it's the will of this commission, you know, but I'd love to hear feedback on on how and whether we want to allow for ideas, opportunities, and proposals to generate from the boards and come essentially to us as opposed to it being more either staff-driven or driven by us in our work plan.

I I think it's a shift to the third bucket, like the autonomy one, which I'm super excited to get into, but I know totally.

I think maybe the last, I don't know if there's anything more on the second question.

The one thing that I have just some thoughts about because I think we each approach our commission liaison role differently.

Um as an example, like I feel odd it giving recommendations for what they should do.

Like our microphone is real loud.

They are quick to want to do what we're there saying.

And so I think that's one part of the yeah, I guess just to kind of open it up, like what is a what is a harmonious relationship between the liaison and the board look like.

I I think that if as individual commissioners in our liaison role, we're injecting our opinion into the board, then I I think we have muddied the waters of what is the actual board's opinion.

And um I I think that will that will foster distrust in our board process for the remaining commissioners to know if that was authentically the board's opinion or kind of the superimposed commissioners' opinion.

And I don't say that to infer that I see people doing this, but I think to directly answer the mayor's question.

I I think our role is to be exceptionally hands-off and facilitate them to effectively run the meeting and um arrive at their own conclusion.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

Um except um I don't think completely hands-off.

I I would like to say that we can be helpful, we can provide background, we can be a conduit to you know work with the city manager and get staff to help out with things.

So I like to think that we have a more active role and in helping the boards be, you know, the best they can be.

And I want to just sit back.

So I had an experience recently where I was cautioned for inappropriate contact with staff.

And it was hours before a board meeting.

And I was very cowed by that.

And so during that board meeting, a chair recommended that a plan update not include recommendations for code.

And in that moment, I realized actually the commission does need recommendations for the code in that plan update.

But because I had been cowed, I don't feel to this day like I upheld my responsibility as the commission liaison to that board.

So there's a balance.

Because it was in the engagement plan.

So I'm just hoping that the consultant follows through with the engagement plan and doesn't derail that because of the board chair and my non speaking of.

I think generally the yeah, I think there's a balance to strike between being hands-on.

I think the the lines that I think I was trying to pull up the resolution because there are some things that says this is what the liaison should do, and it doesn't necessarily have like a list of what they shouldn't do.

Um the commission liaison has the following duties, lead the interview of applicants, serve as the primary contact with the board for the city commission, assist with resolving questions regarding the role of the city commission city manager staff liaison and the board, so sort of general government function things, serve as contacts rather than an advocate, unless assigned as a voting member.

Review the board's work plan and make recommendations to the city commission regarding the board's work plan, support efficient board operations, and assist training of new board members.

And that part that you read about the advocacy, I think is important, and I think there's a fine line there that I advocate when I'm here when I'm an independent commissioner speaking my own voice on something, I would feel uncomfortable doing that in a board setting because that's when I want to empower the board to do that.

I might make a suggestion, like hey, you know, are you missing this?

Or I I my perspective is this, but I I think I would shy away from trying to encourage them to fully embrace something that I feel passionate about, want to advocate for.

So there's that balance, and I felt uncomfortable in community development board a number of times where I felt like I went last, I let everyone speak first.

Um just using care and caution and respect and recognizing when we become advocates when sitting in this room.

Okay, okay, are we ready to move on to the last question?

Um I just want to quickly lift up that I am support supportive of the recommendations in the document to have commissioners improve interview questions to help screen for appropriate qualifications or characteristics.

I I've actually already done that before, so if it wasn't allowed, perhaps I'm out of line.

But I I think that the this the template questions are very generic and individual boards, it's it's helpful to have some some differences.

And I did add um, I think some some standard questions that uh are about this is how much time commitment this involves.

Are you do you feel confident that you can make the required percentage of meetings?

Are you available on this day that the board meeting is?

And I think having that incorporated into all the questions would also be helpful.

Um I was not aware that it was the commission liaison's role to coordinate interviews.

I think that the staff liaison has done that for me in all of the boards that I have advised.

So if that is the commission liaison's role, um perhaps we should recommit to that.

And if it is in fact the staff liaison's role, I I think we should edit that.

I'm glad to hear you say that because that's been my experience too, and I just took it for granted that that was how it goes.

Yeah, I would be grateful if staff could continue.

I know it's a lot of work, but I would be grateful if staff could continue to coordinate those interviews if that's within their ability.

We want to be helpful in providing excuse me, administrative support that the commission needs.

So I just wanted to point out that that duty is stated in here is lead the interview with the applicants.

Yeah, there's a it's not schedule.

It's yeah, like and I I don't think that's ever occurred.

Mike could speak to that, but it's lead the interview.

Oh, okay.

The the document says coordinate interviews.

Um, so I I think I just got confused by that, the leading them.

Um I I will also say I have been inconsistent about making sure the board chair was participating in the interviews, and I think that is um a really helpful thing, and that we should inspire to always have um aspire to always have the board chair um helping to select the candidates.

I like that function as well.

Um, and then I also noticed the second bullet point.

Okay, it's on page B4 under processes and communication.

Define processes for interboard coordination, including joint meetings.

Um I just think we should allow that or do that.

Did does anybody else have interest in that?

I'm sorry, what are we looking at?

Uh page B4 on appendix B to the work session guide.

Um define so processes and communication.

It says define process for interboard coordination, including joint meetings.

Staff should coordinate more closely to identify shared interests early and align timelines appropriately.

This is what I was kind of getting at earlier, where like I think our community could benefit from sort of some cross-pollination, like in a way, I've been keeping boards informed of something that a different board is working on that, you know, like historic preservation, urban parks and forestry.

There's a lot of crossover on trees.

So I've just been sort of doing it.

But you know, community development and historic preservation have a lot of crossover.

Um sustainability in community development.

I mean, there's like all kinds of I just feel like we should have a way to have some joint meetings.

I I think I previously also supported the idea of joint meetings, and I I want to also lift up um Ms.

Lago's comment about having the advisory board watch the meeting on the same topic, and I think perhaps a joint meeting is not always needed, but there can be some kind of efficiencies in cross-pollination in that way.

I do too.

Okay.

So there were the two other things.

I mean, and I don't know how important they are, but to remove the six-month check-ins from resolution 5323.

I had no idea we had six-month check-ins.

And then considering maybe some annual joint work sessions to improve communications and alignment.

These are both on page A5 and section two.

I would love to find a way to work that in.

And maybe we spend, you know, maybe it's something where we meet at four o'clock and we meet for an hour and a half or an hour and 45 minutes with a with a with with uh in a in a work session with a board with a board.

And then we start our six o'clock meeting.

But um, but I'd love I'd love to that that two section four.

Four, yeah, it's four.

I think it's something worth exploring with which is a work session.

A joint work session.

And six-month seems um free too frequent.

I I would maybe consider annual if that's something we're looking at doing.

Well, my suspicion is the any of these changes are gonna require changes to 5323.

So I think there might just be an opportunity for us to look at a menu of things that we would want to shift.

Are are the check-ins between the commission liaison and the board members, or at the chair and the board members, or the staff liaison and the board members?

I don't know.

Yeah.

Um I think you're referring to page four of resolution 5323 under training of board members, which uh has a requirement that says board members must participate in a six-month check-in with staff liaison and commission liaison.

I think that's what you're referring to.

Yes.

Okay, so if I remember correctly, this was about onboarding.

So it's and so when you get a new person, there's the clerks on boarding process, the staff liaison and the commission liaison.

The idea was for them to work together to bring the person on and help them understand the dynamic of the meeting and all that.

And then this was an obligation that was written into the resolution to put a burden on the new board member to then be willing to do another check-in at six months.

How's it going?

That's what that I remember that being designed for.

I don't know if there's another six-month provision.

That's what the report was referring to, was that um, but those are not occurring.

Um that's why I say and or you know, um, do some ongoing check-in process as opposed to just this first six-month check-in that isn't happening.

And this would need to be including the city manager, right?

Because we're not allowed to meet independently with staff.

It's it's my understanding that we can meet with the staff liaison of the board that we're the commission liaison to to support in setting the agenda and um yeah.

Yeah, I think that's ongoing.

I mean, I haven't even been emailing them.

I think it's a broader discussion about providing direction as opposed to asking questions and um asking questions.

So uh when we drafted this in front of the commission back in the when it happened back in the day, um the idea was the management, the administration of board was a shared responsibility between kind of the clerk's office and technical issues related to their membership, and then the staff liaison as the one that generally brought the majority of work through to the board, and then the commission liaison, those two coordinating to sort of provide the the guidance, the education, the oversight of the board.

So it was a partnership between the commission liaison and the staff liaison.

That was the intent when this was drafted.

Okay.

Any I feel like this is mostly gonna go under the changes to 5323 if if it comes back in front of us.

I feel okay about a single six-month check-in after the appointment process.

I think that makes sense rather than an ongoing thing.

Yeah.

Once a week for the first six months.

Until you're really on it, and it's just quizzes.

Um we ready to move on to the final question?

Okay.

I think this gets to the you know the core alignment, misalignment of what is what's the purpose of the boards and how what's and you know the relationship between staff commission boards that I think is there's layers of autonomy, there's layers of transparency and accountability, there's layers of staff capacity and things like that.

Um is there anyone that wants to kick us off?

Sure.

Um my initial thought broadly is to allow boards to put things on their agenda that are outside of their work plan.

If the board has a work plan, some boards don't.

Um a lot of the boards are created with some sort of mandate or structure in the code that says what their powers and duties and kind of their purview are.

I think that's valuable for us.

Um I've been thinking about this a lot.

I I know every two years the board gets to sit down and create their work plan.

And um it's a really challenging thing to do to predict everything that's going to be relevant.

And I think we have a challenging time doing that as as commissioners as well.

And so you're you're really just trying to take your best guess at what's the important things to work on and what do we know now?

And then there's these emerging issues that come up.

Um, something that I worry about in giving boards like the full autonomy to explore something that they have determined is an emerging issue.

Um, is that if there isn't a moment where they check in with the commission and say, hey, is this a good use of our time?

Like, is this a direction you want us to go in?

They could expend a lot of their energy in something that the commission was never going to want to talk about or weigh in on, and they could use a lot of staff time in supporting them and building that you know, I idea without getting to a place where you know that the commission didn't find that to be in alignment with our two-year priorities and uh wasn't the majority of us was not willing to take that on.

And um, so I I wonder if there is a way for there to be a formal edit to their their work plan, um, kind of an appeal of, hey, there's this thing that we didn't realize when we made our work plan.

We think this is really important without leveraging a massive amount of staff time, kind of pitch the commission on we want to add this to our plates, we could kind of quickly review that and say, yes, go forth.

We do want to hear your opinion on this thing and give them the the license to dig deeper into that.

Um I I think kind of paired with this would be the need for a little bit more of a formal um review of what those work plans are from the board.

Right now, we the commission make our work priorities and then the boards make their two-year work plan, although sometimes that happens before because we take longer and it's a little bit staggered and confusing.

But theoretically, they're they're developing their work plan off of our priorities, but we I think only once it might have been in this report.

Like we've very infrequently gone back and said commission stamp approval, we like this is a good work plan sustainability board.

Um, these are things we want you to be to be working on.

And so if we had some kind of formal like, yep, this looks good, they would feel the certainty that they were headed in the right direction, and we could have that um kind of sense of this board is doing work that's gonna support our decisions, and then there could be an amendment process, and and maybe it's quarterly, we have a are there any additions or changes, and we could kind of rapid fire make some some um quick calls on this is worth exploring or or not worth exploring.

Um one more element to this idea is that the priorities that we set, um, I feel like we set them kind of in a vacuum from our boards.

And the way that I imagine this whole system working really well is actually before we set our priorities, we get some recommendations from our boards about what they want us to have as our major priorities for the next two years.

Um the tricky thing about this is that we try to set our priorities in January after an election, and in order for this to work, we would need the board's opinions before January, and some of the board members who make those recommendations may be ending their terms.

And so it's it's kind of an awkward stagger, but uh essentially we'd be soliciting board opinions in December about our priority setting.

We do our priority setting in January with their feedback, and then we'd kind of full loop, they'd set their priorities and we'd kind of approve that with the option for some amendments to be made with these emerging issues.

That's the whole pitch.

Dr.

I'm a little more aligned with Commissioner Bodhi on some of those, but not all of them.

Um because I sat on a on a commit a pre-consolidation board that was driven by you know driven by a long time, long time chair and and vice chair, where they were driving the their bus.

And and we were all along for the ride, right?

They had their agenda, they were and and and it took a lot of staff time.

Um it took a lot of um just a lot, it just took a lot of stuff on there.

There was no clear connection with how it was connected to what the city commission was working on.

Um and and so it ended up being, you know, kind of a waste of time, frankly, from my perspective as a as a school's trustee representing, right?

Um so I think it's important to keep our, you know, to have some some appropriate channels, but there are times like when so the other, sorry, the other flip side to this, the elephant in the room, so to speak, is the request for the interim zoning commission uh ordinance that came from uh one of our historic preservation board, right?

And inc.

And um where you know, putting things on our kind of agenda, you know, I mean ultimately it's up to us as the elected representatives of this community to through control and shape that agenda, and it's on us, and um it's not on our advisory boards.

Um we're elected to set that agenda.

And so um there, but there has to be a way to be able to say, look, we're not gonna, you know, we we hear a concern, but we're not gonna make that the community uh, you know, have a big community discussion on this because of X, Y, and Z.

Or, you know, that's so that's where maybe it's it's partly that we um have some sort of sort of channel where in October we asked for ideas, you know, for you know, priorities that for the for the next commission and and kind of put those in the room as we as the new commission in January comes together and and makes its and sets its priorities where it's it's one of the if we get these reports from all of our our advisor boards.

Um that said, I I mean I I respect and I feel like there's a way there needs to be a way for for an issue that kind of comes up in not in October that that comes up, you know, like the ICO, but the the flip side is that is that we have to, you know, it's like we control the agenda, it's not one of our advisory boards that's gonna turn something, a concern that they see into a into a citywide kind of issue, unless you know we agree.

And I don't know how we do that.

Can I just point out that we have a commission priority, one of the four that says to protect Bozeman's heritage, neighborhoods, and natural environment.

So, did the Historic Preservation Advisory Board when they made that recommendation not elevate the commission priority enough?

Because I think that's exactly the type of emergency I would like every board to be able to react to.

If the sustainability board finds something going on in our community that they need to react to and respond to, I would like them to.

Same thing with the transportation board, public safety.

I would like them to be able to respond to us.

And I'm seeing and hearing to all your all sides of the issue here, and I would agree that I don't think there is one clear answer.

I think when you get a unique situation in a room zoning is probably a good thing to point to.

And I think to have our boards work on that would have been to Commissioner Bodie's point a lot of time spent on something that this board was not ready to consider.

Can play a good role in elevating some of these issues if they do come up to us in talking to individual commission members and saying, hey, got an issue here.

Do you think we should take this on try to get three votes going to Chuck and putting it on our agenda?

So there are ways to do that.

I think you know, there are probably examples of that happening, but I think it should fall on the commission liaison to work with the boards that if there is an issue, you know, start working it around and see if it's gonna make you know the cut in being considered up here.

I I think that's that's right.

And I would just add that the interim zoning process, the way that it came to us as the commission is that we individually gave our opinion during FYI.

We didn't, we didn't actually get to have a formal decision moment.

And I I think part of the reason that I was not excited about having a formal full-on action item is that um it was clear to me through individual conversations that we did not have three people who wanted to bring this forward.

Um I think that it was hard for the community to understand that process if we had had a clear way for the for the um historic preservation advisory board to come to an agreement about yes, we want the commission to review this.

That didn't take a lot of staff time.

Perhaps one of the board members themselves pitching the rest of the board on this, they get a consensus of yes, we want the commission to review it, and then without having the full action item deciding the issue of interim zoning, we could have said this has enough merit that we want to spend some staff time on it.

Let's make this part of HPAPS work plan and kick it back to them.

Then our staff could have invested the time knowing that this commission wanted them to use their capacity in that way before bringing it to us for a full-on action item.

And I felt like I was stuck in this position of choosing full action item or kind of like this awkward FYI moment when we could have had a much smaller um much smaller action item on add this to the work plan, yes, discuss later.

Um, that I think would have given HPAP a more understandable process for bringing something forward.

Um, or maybe what would have happened likely would have been add this to the work plan.

No, we don't think this is the way we want to utilize our staff time at this moment, and that would have been their their chance.

I just want to clarify that the way that recommendation, it used no staff time.

Like Jim Webster, member of Historic Preservation Advisory Board, worked with the chair to discuss with the other members if they would like to take up the issue that he brought to Inc.

And then they wrote a recommendation without any staff time.

That so that wasn't they were not burdening staff by doing something outside their work plan.

They drafted it themselves.

So yeah, I agree that was a mess of a situation, and I think we did the community a huge disservice by not dealing with it in a different way.

Yeah.

I again I think I'm coming back to the like what's the problem that's being solved piece.

I actually I completely disagree.

I think that is exactly, I think that's the system working as it's supposed to.

If the if there is not a majority of people on this commission that want to do something, it is not a political to put something on the agenda.

It is not no cost to put something on the agenda.

It sends a signal that something that is potentially not actually up for debate is up for debate.

If the majority of the commission does not want to do something, I think it's important for us to not have a channel where I think it's really moving boards into actually being political operatives.

Like that's what they inherently become when they can decide we are going to compel the commission to take up an action item.

That's what that is.

I don't think that that's not nefarious.

You know, I that just means they are a political entity.

If they can decide I'm gonna move my my fellow board members to put something on the city commission's agenda, that's you know, that's in the public arena.

Um that doesn't mean that they're a villain or bad or anything.

That I'm just saying I don't know if that is the direction that we want advisory boards to go in.

Right.

So we should probably create a structure for um.

I mean, I don't know.

Do you guys want boards to have some autonomy in what they discuss?

Because if if we do, then we should probably create like a structure for them to do that.

I yes.

So I guess I I got I felt like we got pretty derailed on this specific piece of like, I actually think the interim zoning ordinance is like not a helpful example for this because I think it worked as it's supposed to.

Three people on this commission don't want to take something up, it doesn't make it onto an agenda.

That's the purpose of this form of government.

Um, the question broader of how do we give more authority that I think is still inversely related to the amount of staff capacity that are committed to the boards of can boards run their own meetings?

Can they be not recorded with video?

So we don't need a staff person that runs this apparatus that we can just record it with audio or minutes or things like that.

I think that's what I imagined were the nuts and bolts of the autonomy question, not as to whether they can compel us to take up an item or not.

Um because I I do think I think it's it's a big deal to decide that boards can say we're putting this thing on our agenda that's gonna have the seal of the city of Bozeman, that staff are gonna feel compelled to put together materials, reports, etc.

And if we're not gonna challenge change that into something that's more driven by the board members and the board members are responsible, I think we're in an odd spot.

I think if it's the latter and it's more on like we're we're really putting significantly more expectations on board members.

That's what I kind of feel like it's the trade-off.

Like could you clarify that?

So you wait.

I was trying to outline what are the the considerations that I see, I guess.

We got the nuts and bolts compartment, which we can get to.

Uh, I'd like to put if we could put that aside for the bigger philosophy questions are does the we let the the kind of the board chair or the boards put something decide what their agenda is gonna be with a requisite kind of responsibility on staff to kind of help prepare and provide an analysis and assessment of the impacts of of that particular agenda item, even if we don't know what the what we as a commission was that that's the question you want to answer.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think what's currently happening is that staff are kind of directing what's on their their work plan.

Um they do get to add additional things on their work plan that are outside of our commission priorities, but my experience of serving on a board was the board would say um sustainability board, for example, like we really want to talk about AI data centers.

Um we weren't talking about that at that time, but like for instance, it could be happening now.

And and the board, the the commission, the staff liaison would say that's really not something that the commission is working on, and we don't have staff capacity to dig into that.

So we're not we we really can't put it on the work plan.

And I I do think the staff liaison holds a lot of power in that position to kind of explain what is the staff's capacity to do something.

And I do think oftentimes staff are spot on about what it is that we are prioritizing as a commission.

But I I think it is possible that this commission might disagree with what's the best use of staff time and want to hear that idea from the board and and make our own determination on hey, this isn't something that we had talked about being our commission priorities, and it's an evolving new problem or just a problem we hadn't considered yet because we don't currently have a mechanism for the board to recommend things to our two-year priorities list.

Um that it could have a stifling effect on kind of the expertise and creativity of our boards to offer those options to us.

Um I think that we as commissioners need to understand that if we do this, we will get a lot of ideas that we will have to say no to.

Um and currently our staff are filtering for us what is something we we hear about it or not.

And I I think that creates an ease for us on what kind of decisions we have to make.

But I think there's an argument to say that it's it's less in service to the board members being active in their role.

And uh we as commissioners perhaps should be more active in that decision of what it is that staff are working on or not working on.

So yes, I I that's been my experience that the staff writes the work plan and it's pretty much not questioned by the board.

Um, you know, what if Bozeman or Gallon County was having being being courted by data centers, you know, would we would want to be able to react to that nimbly and probably have the sustainability board make a recommendation, I will point out Missoula just created an interim zoning ordinance for data centers.

So I mean, yes.

Yes, we might have to say no to a lot of things, but I like this idea of giving them more autonomy over their work plan and what they work on.

Just one more thing I'll add is that if there is an opportunity for them to bring things to us, the idea that they could do that at any time at any meeting, I think is is a bad one.

I think it could really derail the um work plan items that we've all voted on and need to do.

And so if there was a mechanism for this, I would feel really strongly about it being um uh very time-bound.

You know, this is that this the chair of the board gets to pitch us for a 10-minute presentation, and then we we vote on whether or not we're going to explore the issue more more, not yes or no, we're doing it, but like we're gonna spend staff time on it, or we're not.

Um, and I wouldn't want that to happen every meeting of every month.

Like it's it's quarterly, or it's once every six months we hear the ideas and we deal with them and we we move forward to our kind of work plan items.

Could it be a written request to just keep it really simple?

Like not have to come and give a presentation.

Um it would still have to be an action item, and we'd still have to take public comment if we were voting on it.

Um I think the city city manager wants to add just a couple clarifications.

So the interim zoning in Missoula was the county commission.

County, not the city of Missoula.

I think that's important.

Um there's a really interesting balance here, and that's why we're having this really interesting and thoughtful conversation.

Uh it could vary the staff works for the city manager who works for the commission.

And if we get to a spot where the advisory boards can direct the staff to do this work, we're quickly gonna get out of balance with what the city commission priorities are and what the priorities that you tell me you want, and that gets directed.

So a very simple question to a staff member could result in hours and hours and hours of work.

So I just ask you to think about that as you think about.

I think there's a really important relationship between the staff liaison and the commission liaison.

And if those folks aren't talking together, and if the commission liaison isn't bringing that work of the board to their fellow commissioners, then we will get off balance and we will frustrate each other with different ideas about the way things should go.

One last thing.

And the bike board quickly became an advocacy board and quickly got off balance because they were advocating to the city commission instead of discussing policy issues and making recommendations.

So we dissolved the bike board and gave it to the Gallatin Valley Bike Club, where that's a citizen advocacy group, and anybody can create a citizen advocacy group.

I don't know that that's the role of our the city commission advisory boards.

Yeah, I I think uh I think I can agree that there is a world to put more authority on the shoulders of the board members.

I think the best intervention for that is either like end of year, here's what we're gonna do next year that reflects the commission priorities, or every two years when the work plan is coming together, um, that's more frontloaded with the relationships between the the relationships and role of the commission liaison, staff liaison board members, rather than boards getting to decide, hey, this is not on the on our agenda, but we want to put it on the agenda.

Like as an example, like I think this is what I keep coming back to is like the this problem piece is like if the sustainability, if somebody on the sustainability board heard that there was a data center being proposed in Bozeman City Limits, and they went to the commission liaison and said, hey, I think the commission should take this up.

And then that commissioner can go find two other people and slap it on the agenda.

The reason why I keep going back to the RM Zoning Board is that threshold was not met.

Yeah.

Where if some one of our board members wishes to do that, they can talk to me, the city manager, or get three members of the commission, just like anything else that gets brought before and put on put on our agenda.

But I I don't think as like an example, if like the economic vitality board, we really wanted them to opine on housing policies within the city before our August 4th work session, and then they decided no, we're not gonna do that because we want to do something completely different in our July meeting.

That would be really frustrating for us to have just decided, okay.

Well, that it's their discretion.

And so now we have to go into this work session with no recommendation from a board that we want to have that recommendation from.

Their July meeting was canceled.

I'm not sure that we're gonna get a recommendation.

I I'm not sure either, but I I just mean that is a hypothetical.

I think I'm gonna need more clarity around what you said about the commission liaison and the staff liaison.

How is that working together allowed?

Like what is this, what does that look like?

What right now I don't even email them.

I don't know.

It seems to me that you need to have a conversation with the city manager to work that out.

Okay, because you guys all have an understanding of like how that works.

I don't, yeah.

So doing your I'd be happy to weekly meeting talk about it, you know, really go for roles and how that all works.

Okay.

Because it's standardized for you guys.

Well, we've figured it out in an appropriate balance where we're not burdening staff with stuff and directing questions through chuck, you know, there's procedures there, so things don't come unraveled.

So okay.

And I guess I'm happy to talk to you as well.

Yeah, it's just interesting.

How do you work together to support a board without having though?

And I'll say in the hypothetical that I was giving, I was imagining this is all happening like during the meeting, like of that board, that towards the end of the meeting in FYI, somebody says, hey, what about this?

And then that commission liaison can decide what they want to do about it.

Yeah.

Yeah, Deputy Mayor.

So can I lift up something in Cola's report going back to that?

I think maybe maybe this is already clear to everyone.

You know, she said and I think this is really wrong about there's a general understanding that advisory boards are not meant to be fully autonomous.

However, clear desire exists for more than is currently felt to be available.

Right.

And I'm wondering if we could do two things to kind of give it a little more structure where where you can where you we have avenues for that that outlet for that some autonomy.

And then I'm thinking one is to maybe in in the October, you know, thinking of a two-year stretches, right?

If we were to have, say, over the two two-year commission term, essentially, um, or uh have a uh a joint meeting with each of our advisory boards.

That's where we could have more and have it be a work session.

That's where we could invite, you know, kind of um you know, concerns of things that they see, and we could talk about you know, kind of our priorities and they can talk about their priorities and have it be kind of a a two-way, really two-way communication work session.

And then the other one is to encourage them in the October before an election or during you know elections is to is to kind of solicit ideas for the next commission's set of priorities that would again we would we would consolidate.

And I think that might really help um to give that kind of at least give some avenues.

Um I wonder if that's you know, it would require us to have a joint meetings with our boards, but and I think that can happen.

I I like um under considerations, you know, the engaging boards earlier in project and policy development.

And I think that can happen in a variety of ways, but I totally agree with that, and uh that can be a way to kind of empower boards.

So they're seeing their fingerprints on some of the policies that we're getting ready to adopt.

Well, and if I may build on that, one of the complaints I've often heard, and I frankly felt sitting on the sustainability board, is that is that often you know the the the staff liaison would come to us with a particular problem and we'd have a session, we'd talk about it, and it would that would it would kind of disappear into city hall, and then the cake would kind of become out fully baked, and and then we would give it be given three questions about do we like this, this, and this, right?

I mean, and um I mean I you know, I I'm wondering if there's more of an of a process, and I know this takes more time from staff, but but to have maybe a uh maybe more frequent check-ins, or to have it be more like you're not see, you know, how do we get get a um give our boards some kind of input as as the ingredients are going together before we get a fully kicked policy that's that's going to be going to the city commission next month.

You know, that's the kind of question I have in terms, and it's not so much autonomy, but it's more like allowing them to have more say or more of an input as this cake as we're we're in the kitchen making you know, drafting the policies.

I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the process of the urban forest management plan update.

Like the board's been giving good feedback with the consultant, and I think also the um historic preservation board with the landmark and NCOD, they've been giving um good feedback that seems to make a difference.

The TIFF board, um, I think they're doing really well for you know, I I think I feel like they are being engaged early.

I don't know.

I have nothing to compare it to.

Well, and it could be to give credit to our city manager that that was I was on a sustainability board under a different city manager under a different regime, and I think things have changed, I'll be to to the staff's credit.

Um because that the NCOD process did seem very much like you were there regular check-ins.

So let me walk that back.

I think we've given a lot of input on this and the two extremes.

We want something kind of in the middle, we want to be able to give a little bit of an autonomy, but not too much.

Yeah, I maybe we've exhausted.

I think that there's clearly no there's gonna need to be a net a next something here.

I don't think we're getting to um tight clarity on how we want the boards to look after after this.

Um but I feel, yeah, I think we've got a lot of good guidance to go off of.

Do you want to take up your nuts and bolts basket that we've set aside?

Yeah, because uh a bit in part of well, I guess the one that I think is still that I'm curious for thoughts on and and reactions from staff, because I I think this is also there's just a lot to this would be a pretty big shift for us as to you know what do we create ad hoc boards and what is the mechanism by which we put people on them.

What's the expectation of staff to support versus how much weight or responsibility is put on the individual board members?

Um that I think kind of gets to many of the kind of nuts and bolts pieces of what is what's the expectation?

What's the bar?

It seems like they could be super helpful under the right circumstances, but the just their nature being another board is gonna take a considerable amount of staff time to organize that for a short period of time.

Um so I think to craft them for the right purpose and to use it them infrequently and try to plug in our current boards into the projects as much as possible.

You know, I thought about the the percent for art.

Should that be an ad hoc?

Maybe that would be too complicated for it to be ad hoc.

Um and it should plug into an existing board.

But to kind of balance it that way, it it seems like there could be an opportunity where something is big enough, significant enough that it's it needs its own thing and it needs a diverse kind of makeup of people.

I think that the stakeholder groups that we've convened for tenants right to counsel and the Fowler um affordable housing project feel not dissimilar to this idea of an ad hoc board.

I think the difference is that they were um uh they maybe didn't meet multiple times with that specific configuration of people as maybe one one meeting with tenants, one meeting with landlords.

Um yeah, so maybe that it's less of a cadence thing and and more of a a one-off collecting a lot of feedback from people with particular expertise.

And I I think those were immensely helpful for advancing the projects.

I mean, still to be determined how this Fowler affordable housing situation um all wraps up.

But I I think the focus group model is one I'd like to continue.

And um I don't really understand where ad hoc boards fit if we're already using focus groups.

Yeah, and and maybe it's not you know, maybe we're this isn't the right spot to have this conversation.

I guess I just mean I agree we have the mechanisms to do some of these things, but it's not clear how we initiate that.

Like how what how do we determine, we as a body, whether it's just a policy, like I think we have the authority to create new boards whenever we want to.

So like it's it's not necessarily like a can we do this thing.

It's more of a what's the what's the threshold by which and mechanism through which we want to say this is a an issue that rises to the level that we want to create a six-month board or something to that effect.

Like I think that the integrated water resource plan um tack and pack, I think are like a good example of this that's extremely high capacity, like um tons of consultant time, tons of staff time.

Like I think that's the like you know, the Rolls-Royce of these, and what's the you know, what's the 1968 Volkswagen bug of these mechanisms.

I think that's sort of what I'm trying to figure out, whether we even need to do or whether we as a commission feel it's an important thing for us to outline how and why we do that.

We've we've also done this for the climate plan and the blonging and Bozeman plan.

Um and I I think the the recurring theme here is that it was an established project or plan that we wanted to work on and identified that we needed more capacity or more input than than we had rather than sort of an outside question coming in.

Um not to say that we shouldn't consider the opportunity to have more flexibility there, but just looking at what's happened in the past is um using as a tool to address the projects we had already committed to working on.

Yeah.

It it may be moot and something that we just do when we have projects that demand it.

And I'm fine with that.

Um Mayor, you you are correct.

You have the ability right now in the charter to assign temporary um advisory committees.

I have that authority too.

Um I think those things will become self-evident to you.

You'll know when you need to do that, and you can do that.

So that might be something to consider as we ponder these other things.

Okay.

Anything else on this?

Any clarifications from staff.

I say this a lot to this commission.

You guys are unafraid to tackle the hard things, and this is one of the things that we've been thinking about for a number of years now.

I think we've got some really great direction.

And if you will, we'll take this as a staff, and we will uh report back to you on kind of what we heard and maybe some ways to change uh whether it's to amend the ordinance or whatever it is.

Cole, did you have anything that you wanted to close with?

Look how happy she is.

She was taking copious notes.

But and seriously, thank you for this conversation.

I think we'll get back to you soon.

Thanks, Cole.

Yeah.

This was we knew was going to be an ambitious thing to tackle, and that's why we moved the meeting earlier in the day.

Maybe because start at two.

Um we're how do how's everyone feeling?

We good to go.

We're full speed ahead.

Let's get Nick Ross up here at special presentation time.

Nick Ross.

Uh the Keggy Boulevard construction update.

Uh, we've had some conversations about it, and Nick is here to let us know where we are and what's coming up.

Great.

You got about 90 seconds.

Um I hope there's no more than is that 26 slides?

Background slides, four slides for this presentation.

Umrison, members of the commission, thank you very much for your time.

Um glad to follow this up with a non-controversial project that we get to talk about.

Uh so uh thank you for your time tonight.

I was um hoping to bring bring you and the community a quick construction update now that we are advancing the Keggy Boulevard project.

Brief background of where we came from.

So what will future Keggy look like?

Uh last time I was in front of you.

We discussed the uh fine and reach consensus on the final scope of work for the project that will consist of a multi-lane typical section, uh, generally two in each direction, separated by landscape medium.

Uh the project will fully reconstruct uh the existing Keggy Boulevard from 19th over to Wilson, including curb and gutter, 100-year design storm stormwater system, street lighting, landscaping.

And then also new shared use paths along both directions of Kagey.

Two roundabouts, two new roundabouts, one at the intersection of 11th, one at 7th.

Uh, two pedestrian tunnels, again, one at 11th and one at 7th.

That'll be the east leg of Kagey at 11th and the west leg of Keggy at 7th to support multimodal movements across Keggy Boulevard.

And then two modified traffic signals where they currently exist, one at 19th and one over at Wilson.

The Wilson traffic signal will be rebuilt to remove um the uh eastbound to southbound slip lane for better pedestrian safety, and then also we'll be rebuilt with what are um called um protected intersection elements uh to more uh safely move bikes and pedestrians through that intersection.

That will also include a new path uh from the Galligator Trail where it ends right now at the um Cal-de-Saq down directly to the intersection to lead folks across Keggy at the safest place possible with the signalized crossing, including a leading pedestrian interval on all of those legs.

So that's where we've come from, where we're headed.

Big updates for tonight.

Um so after the city uh uh gratefully received uh about a 25 million dollar uh federal grant to um fill the funding gap for this project.

Um DT, who is still leading the project delivery of the Kegy Reconstruction determined that they needed to seek an alternative delivery method to meet the grant obligation timelines.

Um so they chose uh a design build alternative delivery method where the final design engineer and the contractor are selected on one team, develop the final plans together, and can get to construction within they projected about 18 months faster than the typical design bid build process.

Um this past um April, I believe, uh we selected the team of CK May and DJ to lead uh the final design and construction of the project.

City still plays our role in design review.

DJ will be the engineer record, and CK May excavating right out of Bozeman, Montana will be the uh prime contractor to deliver what is the largest transportation project in the city's history.

Um they are great outfit.

I have full confidence in them.

Uh and they were both the best technical submission for the design bill contract and the lowest price.

And so by far the best team that we had available.

So, how are they going to go about doing it?

Um, we initially expected this to be a two to three year project uh with the first season coming next year uh to be the biggest one where we would shut Keggy down between 11th and 7th to build the roundabouts, the tunnels, and the roadway in between the two, basically between when school university is out in May and then back in August.

Um the CK May team came back and blew the other two out of the water by saying that they can propose a construction schedule to substantially complete the whole project basically in one year.

And so how they're gonna go about that.

Um beginning in about March, they will begin building the outside Keggy Boulevard improvements while maintaining traffic on the existing two lanes of Keggy between 19th and 11th.

Then when that allowable three-month closure between school sessions starts in May, they'll expand their crews to continue working on those sections and then dedicate time to build roundabouts, tunnels, and intersecting roadway there.

And then they'll also expand crews because their pitch was the least amount of traffic disruption that's ever going to have on Keggy Boulevard while you do the stretch from 19th to 11th and from 7th to Wilson is going to be when you have it closed in between the two.

So they think they could they they are on the clock and obligated under uh penalties to get the whole thing done now, essentially by the end of next year with only some supplemental work to be completed, uh landscaping paths, that kind of thing, uh lighting um in the early part of 2028.

So a little bit of a different look at that.

Um, this is sort of a cross-sectional view of Keggy.

Uh so in those early phases in uh March um March to May, they'll sort of be working on the outside of the corridor, maintaining traffic on the inside, business access the whole way around.

Then they'll get to that closure in the middle uh between May and August, complete that, and then come back and finish the paths, the lighting, landscaping, uh, all the way up till November 15th, which is their winter shutdown for next year, and then supplemental uh the incidental items the following spring.

So that's the big news for us today.

Um we've got a great team.

They're locked and loaded to pull this off a lot faster than we thought we would have the impacts.

Of course, any time we close a road, we have to set up a detour.

And so they also had um uh a pretty compelling approach to that.

Uh so um right now the plan for that three-month closure uh is to have the primary sign detour coming down South 19th to graph and up south third.

Um they're gonna support traffic control through that closure with a temporary traffic signal uh at the sort of the weird South Third graph intersection that hasn't been converted into a routeabout yet.

Uh and then the city will follow up uh next spring and install uh rectangular rapid flashing beacons uh permanently at two locations along South Third West Ridge and Arnold to support pedestrian traffic across South Third in advance of the expectation of some additional traffic on that road during construction.

That being said, any time we have a long duration closures, what we typically find is that people find alternate routes.

Um we don't expect all 18,000 vehicles per day that typically travel on that stretch of Keggy to be doing that full detour down South 19th, over Graf, and up South Third.

People will adjust traffic patterns, but this will be the proposed signed detour for the project.

I told you.

And with that, uh this is special presentation format, but I believe uh city manager and Mayor Morrison would uh like to entertain some questions.

Yep, that was 90 seconds.

We did it.

I was that's all that was.

Um any questions for Director Ross and Bodie, what do you got?

Um thank you for the presentation and the brevity.

Um I'm curious about the um planned bike and pedestrian detour.

That's been an issue, I think, with the 19th and 7th um construction projects, and uh do they have a kind of outlined path for that?

Uh for better or worse, there's really no bike or pedestrian facilities west of 11th.

And so that is going to be closed during or when school's out, um, there there's gonna be very little uh bike pedestrian traffic on KE itself.

Um the the difficult part, and there's unfortunately really no getting away around no way getting around this is that both intersections will have to be closed to northbound and southbound traffic as well.

Uh and so there's really no effective way uh without parallel routes adjacent to those intersections uh to get bike and pedestrians or vehicles across those intersections during those closures.

So uh the closest place for somebody would have to be down to Wilson to walk or bike across Kage during those during that limited three-month period.

Um aren't we required?

Doesn't ADA require us to sign kind of the detour?

That would be the closest um the closest accessible route.

In order, yeah, in order to build the tunnels, um, we have to raise the roadway by three to four feet.

And so that means with that grade discon discontinuity, there's no way to make an accessible route through the construction zone.

And so the the accessible route has to use the most closest adjacent access.

Um because the you know the school itself kind of does create a little bit of a block in that zone of our street grid, you know, unfortunately, there's no closer way to cross than those locations.

Thank you.

Commissioner Matt.

Just a quick question.

Thanks, Nick.

Um, will this timeline be on engage Bozeman or how can the public great question?

Um so MDT is also leading public engagement for the construction phase.

I've got the okay from them to have this be like the little bit of the launch publicly of this information, but um it's gonna be incumbent upon them to post all of this stuff on their project website uh that the city would then promote.

I see.

Okay.

Thanks.

Commissioner Sweeney, any questions?

I have no questions, but I can attest to the efficiency of CK May when they are under threat of penalties.

Our streets in front of our homes are beautiful and completed lickety split.

Deputy Mayor, do you have perchance one of those pocket slides?

Uh an image of what that uh South Wilson and uh Kegy intersection is gonna look like by chance.

Unfortunately, I do not though.

We can describe it.

Okay, could you maybe then describe that?

Um how so how are we gonna get pedestrians?

I mean, so I I've just context, I've been to Figin's Editions Neighborhood Association, Bozeman Creek Neighborhood.

So you know, the two bordering that closest to that intersection, they're concerned about how we get pedestrians back and forth.

Especially like kids going from to Sacage Wea Middle School.

So could you walk me through maybe or us through a little uh how you know a kid coming up either the linear trail, yeah, it's particularly linear trail where or coming down that um I guess it's uh South the South Third before you hit Kage.

It ends up in that cul-de-sac.

Where do they go?

Sure.

So um I have like 60 seconds.

Uh so a little bit of a uh uh um uh uh history.

So uh when we got City Commission approval of the scope back in 2023, they strongly advised one of the tunnels to be located pretty much on the Galligator alignment across Keggy.

Um in order to do that, it required substantial right-of-way uh from both MSU to the north and the museum into the Rockies to the south.

And it implied then that the Galligator Trail itself would traverse through the Museum of the Rockies property.

Um we were not able to get agreement uh on that future alignment or the right-of-way necessary to do the tunnel there.

And so we reallocated that intent to the tunnel at South 7th.

The best that we can do at that point without a grade separator crossing.

So right now it ends in the call-de-sac, and you're kind of left to figure out what you're doing there.

There will be a 10-foot shared use path built from that call-de-sac down to the northeast corner of the KG and Wilson intersection, so signalize intersection.

The geometry of that intersection will be revised to reduce crossing distance and tighten the turning movements.

And then there will also be a leading pedestrian signal phase installed in the signal system.

So when you actuate the signal, you get a head start for the pedestrian to cross Keggy before turning traffic is kind of coming right on to you.

And so without the option to grade separate, that's really the greatest suite of engineering tools you can design into the intersection of that type to promote safer pedestrian crossings there.

Any further questions?

I'm guessing we're too far along in the process to go engage with MSU again and the museum.

For the tunnel, probably.

Which is part of that letter that we approved on consent to keep that discussion.

Exactly right.

I hope you can I mean I hope that that this uh those discussions can continue.

We studied um both um subsurface of tunnel options and uh overpass options, preferably from an engineering perspective.

I strongly would recommend the overpass just from a groundwater gets higher the further we get wet, the further we get east.

And so that was going to be a very tricky pedestrian tunnel to build, given the fact that we can't elevate the roadway at that location, would have to send it upwards of almost 20 feet below ground, and then figure out how to deal with the pumping of the groundwater for the rest of the history in Bozeman.

So very much potential that future project could come to fruition.

We could consider monkey bars, you know, other more active methods to get across the street.

Certainly not ADA compliant, I would suppose.

Thank you for your time.

Um now moving on to our we have it our engagement plan for the transportation master plan.

Well, I think mayor.

Uh I'd like to welcome Emiliano Esperazo to the uh Esparza, excuse me, um, to talk about the uh 2027 Transportation Master Plan update.

And this is the approval of the community engagement plan.

So you have a motion as a part of this, and this is uh a really big, really big thing coming our way, which is why we're bringing the engagement plan to the commission for review and approval.

Um that's what we do on plans of this size.

Great.

And this is your first time presenting to us.

That is correct.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, welcome.

Yeah.

Uh good evening, Mayor Jory Morrison, uh, Deputy Mayor Douglas Fisher, Commissioners, and City Manager Chuck Wynn.

Um, my name is Emiliano Sparza, and I serve as a city city engineer.

And today is my pleasure to be in front of you to present for adoption the community engagement plan for the Bozeman Transportation Master Plan update, also referred to as the TMP 27.

The objective of the TMP 27 is to provide a comprehensive update to our 2017 Transportation Master Plan.

Historically, the city's been updating its master plan every 10 years.

Last update taking place in 2017, before that in 2007, and now it'll be updated in 2027.

Uh the TMP serves as a strategic guiding document for transportation infrastructure investments uh based on the needs of the transportation system, but also incorporates decision-making principles that include public feedback.

Um the transportation plan also is the official transportation issue plan that meets the Montana Land Use Planning Act.

The project team that will be carrying out the TMP 27 consists of a project principal, Nick Ross, Director of the Transportation Engineering Department will serve as project principal.

I will be serving as project manager managing day-to-day activities.

And Taylor Lonsdale, Transportation Engineer will serve as technical advisor along with a consultant team, the public, and a technical committee.

The consultant team selected to support the TMP 27 consists of three firms.

Sambill will be providing project management and community engagement consulting services.

Kittles and Associates will be providing transportation, social economic, and safety consulting services.

And Logan Simpson will be providing road ecology and sensitive lands consulting services.

As I mentioned earlier, the TMP is a strategic guiding master plan.

Therefore, it is going to build upon previously completed master plans, including work that is currently in development, like the Safety Action Plan as part of our Safe Trees for All effort, the bike and progestion gap analysis completed in 2025 that identify missing links in our active transportation system, and the Sensitive Lance Plan that was completed by the city and others back in 2023.

The purpose of community engagement for the TMP 27 starts with informing and building awareness, informing our public, our key stakeholders, the importance of the document and how it will be utilized by staff to drive infrastructure investments to our transportation network.

It's also to foster inclusive participation, make sure that as we develop this update, we're engaging a broad cross section of those that make up the city, uh city residents, uh landowners, businesses, service providers, and also institutional partners that are part of the city.

Um it is also to gather meaningful input, provide many opportunities to hear from stakeholders, learn from their observations, um, learn from the recommendations they have, and um project recommendations for the outlook of the transportation network.

Um, also to encourage collaboration and transparency.

We have to demonstrate how we're intaking that public feedback and how it's being utilized to shape the TMP 27.

Um, all of that will be enveloped by documenting the feedback and again by showing how that feedback is being utilized and developing the TMP 27.

The spectrum you have before you shows the various levels of public engagement the city utilizes when developing projects, recommendations.

Uh for the TMP 27, we found it appropriate to start in this first column.

Consult and inform the public.

Um, share with them the goals and objectives of the TMP 27, get their feedback to refine those goals at later stages in the project, circle back with them and share the project recommendations and use their feedback to value engineers those recommendations.

This is a starting point, a baseline that will progress based on the public feedback based on what we learned and based upon your direction as commissioners, mayor, and deputy mayor.

Um, again, a flexible approach that will take one step at a time.

The community engagement plan will implement a strategy that consists of a joint public engagement for our safety action plan and TMP 27.

We found it really important to not decouple safety from discussions and analyses on the current state of the transportation network and the outlook of the transportation network.

These two have to happen together, and it is our plan to have joined uh community engagement and also not exhaust our public with soliciting for various feedback on different efforts when there's a lot of synergy to be leveraged here.

Um we will also be leveraging feedback from our technical working groups.

These are internal staff within our transportation engineering department, also our community development department, and institutional partners like the Montana Department of Transportation, um, MSU and other uh transit providers and many more.

Um, and as I've been reiterating, the general public will be leveraging their feedback.

The engagement will be facilitated through a platform that will consist of a project website on engaged boseman.

Um that website will be updated regularly with the latest project updates, maps, meeting invitations, surveys, a commons response matrix that tabulates community feedback, and how that feedback is being utilized throughout the process.

Um, engagement would also happen through many meetings being kicked off of one citywide open house to share the goals and objectives of the TMP 27 and use that feedback to refine those goals.

Engagement would also happen through many meetings being kicked off of one citywide open house to share the goals and objectives of the TMP 27 and use that feedback to refine those goals at later stages of the project, present the outcome of the update for public comment.

We would also be hosting regional workshops to talk about regional specific issues and projects, discuss the needs of the downtown versus the south side of town and the west side.

I will be concluding with this slide looking at the timeline for developing the TMP 27.

It started last month when we met with the Transportation Advisory Board and presented the scope and approach for community engagement.

It was well received.

And now we are here today presenting for adoption the official community engagement plan.

If approved, we move on for the rest of the year in August going into December 2026 and developing the goals and objectives and conducting the analysis to identify the current state of our transportation network.

Going into next year, January through 2027, we started looking at that future outlook, start looking at projections and the different uh futures that would be uh encompassed in the TMP 27 with the goal of having a final draft ready for review and for community feedback.

Um and after that feedback is incorporated, we will move um into the fall with public hearings for adopting that that final plan.

Um with the ultimate goal of having a final plan by the end of the year in December 2027.

With that, I'll open it up for any questions and comments.

Thank you for that presentation.

Um glad to see so many things coming together.

Um Commissioner, or are we all the way back around?

Commissioner Magic, any questions for staff?

Uh no questions, but great presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Sweeney, any questions?

I had two written down and you answered them in your presentation, so thank you.

Deputy Mayor.

I I do have a question.

And maybe it's not one you could really answer, but I'm just wondering how do we build some visionary thinking of this?

How do we get that out of the community?

And and um, you know, not thinking about like today's bosom, but thinking about you know, we've had discussions here about um you know, really making Bozeman thinking about Bozeman more of us as a kind of as a bike town or as a you know.

Yeah, I'm just wondering where does that come in?

Like how you know, we we had we a coup a week ago, two weeks ago, we had a really kind of it was exciting to have this kind of visionary thinking about C Bozeman Creek.

And maybe that was more aspirational, and we have to deal with nuts and bolts in this TMP.

But I'm just wondering where do we get some of that inspiration and thinking?

How does that work into the final product?

Yeah, great, great question.

Um, I very much believe that we need to take a holistic approach, which is why I mentioned earlier that this TMP 27 is going to build upon previously completed work.

We're gonna make uh use of the um land use plan, the sensitive lands plan, the pedestrian gap analysis, all of these things need to come together and provide a baseline framework, but also look into the outlook of the transportation network.

It's a stepwise approach where we're putting all these different things together to build that that blueprint.

Um, and the one missing link that we don't have yet is that public feedback, which is why, again, we have to take this one step at a time and value engineer that that vision as as we learn more about as we define our destination.

And then it's like thank you.

And so you said you were they were gonna start with a citywide kind of introduction to the goals and objectives of the TMP or the Transportation Master Plan.

And I'm sorry, I was just I was just trying to pull it up real quick.

Could you give me the high-level version of what those goals and objectives are?

Like what would how would what would you say is the top goal or objective of our trans of the next edition of this transportation master plan?

Yeah, I'll I'll reiterate my role in this project is project manager.

And my my um is to maintain make sure that this project is completed within the scope, the budget and schedule, but my personal perspective on it is safety.

Uh we need we need to take a look at safety, and we need to make sure that it's considered in all aspects of not just expanding our transportation network, but also how it operates.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Bodie?

Yes, thanks.

Um I appreciate the presentation.

I don't know, uh a month or so ago now in response to multiple um pedestrian and cyclist tragedies we've already had this year.

And I am just trying to understand where that kind of vision and opportunity to improve our system fits into this plan.

Are we trying to address um the concerns our community has around bike and pedestrian safety with this plan?

This plan would include the plan that will.

That is the safety action plan.

The safety action plan is currently being developed, and it's looking at what are the routing intersections with high crash incidents with high injury incidents, and not just identifying those, but developing mitigations for addressing those safety concerns.

Okay.

So a follow-up question to that is and I saw that you've chosen the consult column on um, you know, what kind of level of involvement the community has.

And I'm just curious if you could uh expand a little bit more on why you all chose consult over involve or collaborate or anything you know higher on the public participation scale.

Yeah, great, great, great question.

The transportation master plan again, it's it's a strategic guiding document.

It's very technical, and we definitely want to leverage the expertise of our technical uh transportation consultant team along with the expertise of our management team.

With that being said, there's a lot of great feedback to be received by our residents by the public.

Um we are proposing to start there and then adapt as needed based on that information and based on that feedback we get from the public.

Okay, great.

So would there be um the opportunity to select something higher on the column list just specifically for the discrete um safe streets for all part of the project?

I I agree.

Yes.

There is the option to do that.

Uh would we make that decision later on, or is that uh a decision we're making now?

That that is the kind of decision that we will make as we get feedback as we conduct these public meetings and and talk about the um scoping elements of the safety action plan and and take it take a temperature reading.

Um obviously we know safety is something we need to look at.

Um how we get there, that needs to be determined.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Great.

I I have just one that I think we we got to a similar question before when we were thinking about um stakeholders.

This has come up a few times in in conversations with the urban transportation district, metropolitan planning organization, just looking at the external stakeholders.

So we got residents, we've got MDT, we got the county, metropolitan planning organization, um, urban transportation district, which brings in Belgrade without explicitly naming Belgrade as as one of these partners.

But two parts of the community that have big impacts on our transportation that are not on here that I'm not sure if it's worth opening up or what the the thoughts are.

Knowing that thousands of residents get in their cars and drive to work in big sky, and the airport is this huge conduit of visitors to our to our downtown.

And I we keep floating ideas of uh airport to downtown bus system or a Bozeman to big sky more robust bus system, knowing that that takes these cars off of the road.

Um is that just really am I getting ahead of beyond the scope of what's really on the table here or uh is there what's kind of the room to try to wrangle them into this?

Knowing that also big sky is not you know they're not a city.

They're yeah, I think that's a great question.

And and you are within range.

Uh we're having those discussions with our consultant team to look at not just at a micro picture but a macro.

Look at the regional patterns of travel.

Um, how many trips are being generated by external forces, right?

But utilizing and exhausting our transportation network, right?

Um we have the airport as you mentioned, tourism um and other services that depend on our transportation network.

So will we working with our consultant team to identify those patterns, identify that demand, and then use that information uh to determine who else to engage and who else to partner with as we start looking at the regional transportation system?

Okay, I appreciate that.

And yeah, hope that there's and would trust their you know what they're kind of seeing on the ground too as to whether this is uh um worthwhile.

Um, just kind of I I feel like we consistently are sort of talking around the demand reduction versus supply increase of parking of lanes of road, et cetera.

And so um those are huge strains on our um transportation system.

Any further questions?

Okay.

Um we will open it up for public comment.

Thanks for that presentation.

Um starting out with public comments in the room.

Any public comment in the room this evening on our transportation master plan.

Good evening.

Hello yet again, uh Mark Campanelli, Bogart Park neighbor.

Um I am the Inc.

rep and president of Bogart Park Neighbors Association.

Um there are a few neighbors that will they're particularly interested in some of the the development happening on the north end of South Church and parking along Olive and stuff like that.

But I speak for myself tonight, but just as an FYI, there is definitely bigger neighborhood interest.

Um I'm trying to get actually a couple neighborhood associations all around Lindley and that area of our neighborhoods parks to give input on this master plan to how we connect up all the neighborhoods.

But I just speak for myself right now.

Um so I walked here tonight watching folks speed way past 15 miles per hour along church along that big long walk.

Um, and again, if I'm impatient, I've quickly find myself going 25.

Um it is a challenge.

Um I walk my kids to Longfellow and uh for one year Hawthorne.

So I had to cross Babcock with them, Main Street, right?

Like sketchy times sometimes.

Um but it's my favorite part of the day was walking with my kids.

I know I've said this before here.

Um today or or nowadays, my kids are older, but I still see the classes from Longfellow.

There's summer camps going on, they walk down, I just watch them from my neighborhood, or they cut over to Bogart Park to do their run.

They have a big fundraiser run that they do.

So lots of classes walking.

So when I nitpick about the width of the sidewalk along Bogart Place and where it was placed so that there's extra crossings and chances for interactions with cars, it's because I see it.

So and I I just watch it and I worry for these kids, right?

Probably too much.

I do have anxiety disorder, probably.

But anyways, you it's it's it's it's worthy worry.

So I can't understand all the big picture of getting to big sky and get I know it's a pain to drive on the west side of town.

That's about all I can say about that.

But uh we are looking, I think, as neighborhoods to have that like maybe you guys got the global picture figured out, but as you move locally, you gotta cast a different net.

You cast that net locally.

And Nick Ross got an earful from me recently when I went back and reviewed uh the SID meeting for the story street uh repayment.

So that it was a 50% city, 50% us project, and there's some finagle about that.

But just the engagement was you could tell they hadn't really found consensus with the neighbors.

It was like a 46% against call.

One neighbor had her own speed bump across story store.

The road needed to be redone, don't get me wrong.

But she had her own speed bump across.

That was lost.

Now we get people turning or coming out of the pizza parking lot, and it's just like and we're going between one 15 mile per hour zone at the parks to the other 50 mile per hour zone at Longfellow.

And so that they were on it, like one right here.

They gave the they said we should have traffic homing, and it didn't happen.

So anyways, again, I just look for that like good process, good guidance, cast the right size net, depending on the size of the project.

So thank you.

Thanks.

All right.

Oh, sorry, we're actually we're closing public classes.

That's why I was gonna not come up here again, but uh Mike Mees, mayor for the city of Belgrade.

I I appreciate the comments for the collaboration, and I think you know, between the UTD and the MPO, it's been really good.

And just wanted to make a quick comment about the airport and Emma Commissioner Bodie might have some newer information than I do, but I think we've have a potential route that will go from Bozeman to the airport, circle around Belgrade and back to the airport and then back into Bozeman.

And I think we've got support from the airport on that of being able to have their workers be able to utilize some alternative transportation and not have to impact their parking and also it may you know not take away necessarily from the rental car business that makes a lot of money as well.

So um I I appreciate uh you know Commissioner Brody's work on on the UTD and all the collaboration there.

So thank you.

We would never want to impact the rental car industry.

Gotta gotta keep them protected.

Any further comment requests in the room?

Second request and final request in the room.

Mr.

Moss, what do we see in online?

I'm showing no requests online, Mary.

Okay.

We will close public comment portion, bring it up here for a motion discussion and vote.

Commissioner Magic.

Yeah, thanks.

I move to approve the community engagement plan for the 2027 master plan update.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Would you like to speak to your motion?

Yes, I'm gonna support the motion.

Um really excited to start this process.

It's my hope uh per my commissioners, fellow commissioners' comments that within this plan and that that we see kind of a different vision for our community, and one that tilts more so than it's done in the past towards safer streets, more traffic calming, more opportunities to get out of your car and feel safe riding your bike around town and walking opportunities to take a bus.

Um getting us like I said, out of our cars and slowing us down if you happen to be driving.

This is our opportunity, and it's really up to the public and up to all of us to kind of encourage the public to participate in this engagement.

So really critical to for this to help set the stage for the vision that we want to see upholding our safe streets for all.

Uh and I'm excited and I'm gonna support the matchup.

Commissioner's meeting.

Thank you.

Yes, uh, I was very excited when you cited the Pratt plan and the pedestrian gap analysis, um as well as the census of lands plan, because I think um that is gonna help us inform safety.

Um and so I just have a a question for this commission.

I wonder, could we um and I want to thank Mr.

Campanelli for giving the public comment?

The one um sort of amendment that I had thought of proposing would be to have an additional advisory board meeting with the inter-neighborhood council.

Um we have neighborhood associations on the south side, in the downtown area, and on the west side.

And the macro plan, the vision is really important, but I do think local on-the-ground um input can be really informative, and also um those neighborhoods it would be great to notify if there is going to be any change to the road classifications, like if a local is gonna be redesignated as a collector or something like that, just to give them a heads up of you know, a change and be able to weigh in.

Um so if we were to make a motion about that, would you guys be supportive?

Deputy Mayor.

Well, I mean, you know, we could certainly have a is that something we would need to motion to to uh we would I believe so.

This is a this is an action item to approve the the plan.

Or I guess yeah, that's a good question.

Do we need to I uh in the past we've just said if that's the commission's direction, we will make it happen.

Yeah.

I would also remind that um they have the opportunity, Inc.

does to participate in this from this day forward.

And um, we will if the commission directs us, we will make a special presentation to Inc., we can do that, and then encourage them to participate in the regular engagement.

Okay.

I really think it would be beneficial to have a presentation and conversation with the interneighborhood council and get their feedback.

I mean, I don't know if any of you have used the intersection of story and church where Pete's Hill, I mean, it is a weird pedestrian intersection to navigate.

I just, you know, and I I think neighbors could have had something productive to and there, you know, there's eight million different scenarios just like that all over the city.

So yeah, I would also support it giving going in front of Inc.

with this.

Um, I think that's a great idea.

So I would, but I would I would also I'm I'll be supporting this.

I would encourage us to be big to be vote uh visionary in this in this plaster plan.

I agree a hundred percent with Commissioner Magic.

You know, this is this is a chance for us to think not just not just where we are today, but where we want to be in in 30 years.

And and what you know, I I would take uh I would frankly I would take a little bit of a page out of the C Bozeman Creek uh engagement effort and the the you get energy and excitement by by presenting a vision and and then you can get feedback you know from there.

Um you know, just as an example, I would love to see us as a uh a policy recommendation that we make sure that w if you're building an arterial street or a collector street and there's a pedestrian crossing, there is no at grade crossing.

You have to lift that street over it, or you have to build or lift the path over it.

You know, that would be a great policy, I think, for this to start to put some infrastructure in that would make this town much safer for bikers.

Uh but that's the kind of thinking I would love to see come out of this process.

Commissioner Bodie.

Um I will also be in support of the motion.

Um the only kind of flag that I had was on the engagement levels.

I do think that um the one selected makes sense for kind of the level of technicality of the entire plan um at consult.

But um for the safe streets for all, I would like to see a higher engagement level.

I I think perhaps involve would be appropriate and would allow for the the community to kind of inject the the vision that the deputy mayor was just speaking to um to to help us imagine like the the what ifs of our transportation system.

Um and so I I look forward to having that conversation at the time that it is appropriate to do so.

Um but we'll just kind of um highlight that for for future.

And I um uh appreciate the um the Belgrade Mayor Mies bringing up the the UTD because yes, in fact we we are scheming, we are planning um for better coordination with with Belgrade and the airport, and I I think that um the UTD and the MPO have this on on their minds in in a lot of ways.

Um I'll I'll sneak peek that we have already determined uh a way to loop the airport into the um regular route going to Belgrade.

It only takes five trips a day, and so um that's not uh going to capture all of the airport users, and um we haven't rolled that out yet, but but will and then depending on um the future future um funding from the kind of district level if if we are able to run and pass a levy, um one of the proposals is to increase that to ten runs a day.

So um while that's very much still still under discussion, I I yeah it's it's being planned, certainly.

Um and I don't have any concerns about this going to Inc.

if that's the desire of this commission.

Great.

Um thank you.

I'm I'm also excited.

Well, first, just for the record, I think it's important to note uh Commissioner Bowdoin referred to the Delgrade Mayor as Mayor Mies, showing respect for the office while Mayor Mies said Emma multiple times, just to just to put that out there, just to remind everyone what happens when doggrade comes over to Bozemar.

What's going on over here?

Um yeah, really excited to have this often run it.

I remember ex feeling excited about this in January when we were talking about this in the commission priority setting.

Especially as we're still just uh I think some word of the deputy mayor of what's the big vision for the future of our community is we're still in this kind of awkward liminal city experience of not quite density where buses can meaningfully replace all car travel for for individuals, but it can replace some and what's the what's the in-between?

What's the ways that people get around, what's the ways in which our infrastructure serves to promote well-being and safety, um, knowing that really there's nothing that has ever taken cars off the road other than choice and giving people an alternative to using a car.

Um that that's the only way that we've ever seen effective policy delete cars off of the road, and I'm excited to see um the vision that this community has for how we how we carry us forward over the next 10 years.

Any further discussion?

For for the record, I would just like to name that I take no offense at at the end of the day.

Oh, I took it on your behalf.

I I I'll take any opportunity.

I'm upset.

You're just mad about the water.

I'll just take any, you know, Belgrade's got it too good.

That's all I'm saying.

Mr.

Moss, would you pull the commission?

Commissioner Magic.

Hi.

Commissioner Sweeney.

Hi.

Deputy Mayor Fisher.

Hi.

Commissioner Body.

Hi.

Mayor Morrison.

Hi.

Motion passes five to zero, our penultimate item.

Yep.

Can we fail to take a brief break?

Just like a we're gonna take a break.

Yeah, I just want to say that Emiliano is our trans or our uh city engineer.

And he is an amazing hire.

He's doing amazing work with Nick in the whole engineering and development review space.

Um quite remarkable uh what's happening in that department.

So I Emiliano, I'm glad you're here, Nick.

You're a great boss.

So thank you.

Yeah, I would I would just echo that for Emiliano as well, sitting in a few meetings where, you know, no they were they were no softball questions with our partners on water ditches and things like that.

He was doing a great job.

Okay, uh a break has been requested, so we're gonna do is four minutes sufficient.

Okay, four minutes.

We're coming back at 8.50.

All right, the show is back on the road.

We are opening it back up for second to last item.

City manager.

Thank you, Mayor.

This is to authorize the city manager to sign the Green Power Program lead community agreement with Northwestern Energy and our incredible sustainability, everything sustainability.

Natalie Meyer is here to present tonight.

All right.

Thank you, Mr.

Wynne, and good evening, Mayor Morrison and members of the Commission.

Once again, I'm Natalie Meyer, your sustainability program manager.

It's really good to be here tonight to review and vote on the Green Power Program Lead Community Agreement.

I'm joined this evening by Mr.

Charlie Lane, Director of Regulatory Affairs for Northwestern Energy and MSU Bobcat, who will share a few introductory comments and be available to answer questions.

Staff from the City of Missoula, Missoula County, and Bozeman have finished talks with Northwestern Energy on the framework for the proposed green power program, which will provide an opportunity for many Northwestern electric supply customers to voluntarily purchase power from a new renewable energy facility in Montana.

Our colleagues in Missoula, Ann Geiger and Spain Newman are viewing remotely this evening.

They're partners to this project.

And I would like to thank Charlie as well as city and county leaders in Missoula, both elected and staff, past and present, for their resolve to get this green power program to this phase.

And before launching into this agenda, I'm going to turn it over to Charlie for just a moment to offer a few words.

Thank you.

Sooner than I expected, but happy to talk.

So again, Charlie Landham, the Director of Regulatory Affairs for Northwestern Energy.

It's a pleasure to be here.

It's been a long time coming.

So good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Commissioners, and members of the public that are here and also watching online.

It's been a few years since the adoption of the term sheet and since I was here for that adoption of the term sheet.

It's been even more years since I lived in Bozeman and went to college at MSU here.

We're just talking about how fast the time goes.

Northwestern Energy really appreciates the opportunity to work with the communities and customers that are seeking additional options to meet their sustainability goals.

At its core, this green power program is about customer options through conversations with local governments, businesses, industries, and industrial customers.

We heard a clear interest in having additional opportunities to advance sustainability objectives and demonstrate a commitment to renewable energy.

This program responds directly to that customer interest, creates a voluntary program for interested customers to support their sustainability goals to renewable energy resources located here in Montana while helping communities pursue their own environmental priorities.

As I see some nods.

She may focused, uniting force during some difficult conversations and continue doing the hard work.

So on behalf of Northwestern, I do want to thank Natalie for her partnership, her leadership and her commitment to making this step in this program a reality for the city of Bozeman and for other participating communities.

Finally, I would like to thank the commission for your consideration and support as we continue moving forward with this program and seek approval from the Montana Public Service Commission.

And I'm happy to answer any questions that come up.

Thank you very much.

Well, thank you, Mr.

Lane.

And I'll deflect just a little bit and say this really has been a team effort with Missoula and Northwestern from the very beginning.

So today's agenda, big picture.

We're going to talk briefly about why we are aiming to establish a green power program.

We'll talk about the guiding principles that have been the North Star for program development.

We'll talk briefly about timeline and process, where we've been and where we're going.

We'll specifically highlight the impacts of approving the LEED community agreement tonight and future city commission steps, recognizing this is one step in a longer process.

So for the LEED communities, the green power program is a key strategy to reach 100% clean electricity in Montana without changing state law.

Currently, there's no renewable or clean energy standards at the state level.

The net energy metering cap is limited to 50 kilowatts, great for residential, limiting for commercial customers.

There's no enabling legislation for community solar and just limited customer options for new clean energy through Northwestern and its service territory.

We recognize that this is the green power program is not enough to reach our goals, but it is what we have identified as the most significant opportunity available to us.

It's just an option for customers of regulated utilities to buy power from newly developed renewable energy sources through a special rate or tariff on their utility bill.

It's not a tax.

These programs exist across the country.

It's not a new concept in any way, but it's new to Montana.

Some people have asked along the way, why would we contemplate paying more for clean energy when it's generally cheaper on a per kilowatt hour basis?

Well, it it is in fact commercial and institutional buyers who have chosen to pursue clean energy that have driven the clean energy transition.

According to the Commercial Energy Buyers Association, commercial and institutional buyers have added 143.8 gigawatts of clean energy in the US since 2014, and that's at out of an estimated 370 gigawatts of installed clean energy in the U.S.

So these voluntary deals are significant.

About 40% of our installed clean energy.

So the guiding principles that were developed when this commission adopted the term sheet.

Is to make sure the program does not negatively impact non-participating customers.

This is also known as no cost shifting.

On that first guiding principle, what sort of project are we talking about?

It's likely a new solar or wind resource just based on the economics, potentially paired with storage located in Montana.

The size will be capped at 50 megawatts for the initial phase of the program, and the resource will be owned and operated by Northwestern Energy.

So when we think about utility scale, 50 megawatts doesn't mean a lot to most people.

So we just have an example here.

If we were to take that portion and target getting 35% of Bozeman's commercial load to subscribe to the program, we would subscribe to 8.2 megawatts.

And that would move us 10% closer to our clean energy goal, which might not sound significant, but most of our solutions fall in the realm of less than 1%.

So this is a big opportunity.

Guiding principle number two, accessible and attractive.

The contract terms and eligibility specify that all local governments, not just Missoula and Bozeman, commercial and industrial Northwestern Energy, general service, electricity customers may participate for the depreciable life of the project, which is for wind or solar would generally be considered around 25 years.

Residents and participating jurisdictions will have the ability to opt in for short-term subscriptions where that jurisdiction has enabled the subscription.

So if Bozeman were to subscribe to two megawatts, we could allow one megawatt to be available for community subscriptions.

And importantly, participation is completely voluntary.

It is an opt-in program.

Accessible and attractive.

Just speaking briefly about the program rates, there's two main categories here.

We have the fixed costs, which are made up the action of the actual cost of building the facility, the long-term operations and maintenance, insurance, the revenue requirement, including return on equity that is totaled after we get the RFP results, spread out over the life of the project, and that becomes a fixed cost on an annual basis.

On the other side of the equation, we have a floating credit, and this is going to be based on the market value of that energy, and there will also be a capacity credit, so two components to the credit.

Our early modeling of pricing and energy credits indicated a modest premium.

But we are aware that with the expiration of the tax credits, tariffs, supply chain disruptions, it could have significant impacts on program economics.

Tonight we're not committing to a subscription agreement.

We're committing to filing with the PSC and proceeding with, if successful, proceeding with an RFP, and that's the point in which we will fully understand the cost side of the equation.

The guiding principle number three, no impact to non-participants, all costs incorporated into the subscription rate.

And the program design ensures that program costs are fully recruited from program subscribers.

Some additional provisions in the lead community agreement.

It identifies the process for PSC approval, commercial and industrial customer recruitment, and issuance of the RFP.

It talks about an opportunity to participate through the depreciable life of the project with the option to extend.

In other words, once the facility is paid for, there's just OM costs.

If Northwestern continues to operate it, participants should be able to participate.

And there's also an agreement to collaborate on future projects.

We didn't want this to be a one and done scenario.

For those who track renewable energy certificates, these are the environmental attributes of the generation from the facility.

Those will be retired on behalf of the participants.

So no double counting of those environmental attributes.

So where we've been, I won't go into great detail here, but you you might recall that this process really started in 2019 with the provisional adoption of our 100% net clean electricity goal, in which we designed our climate plan around these goals.

Then also in 2019, the public service commission directed Northwestern to explore a green tariff.

Some of those parties were Walmart and Montana DEQ, City of Bozeman and Missoula participated in those conversations.

Then in June of 2020, Missoula entered into an MOU with Northwestern Energy that specifically identified a green tariff.

And in 2020, December of 2020, Bozeman adopted our climate plan that officially adopted that 100% net clean electricity goal and identified the green tariff as a pathway to reach that goal.

Then in February of 2021, we entered into an interlocal agreement with Missoula County, City of Missoula, and Helena at the time.

This agreement was just an agreement to move forward together and share associated costs.

Then in January of 2024, the sustainability board recommended adoption of the term sheet and this board and this commission approved it.

And here we are with the lead community agreement approval this evening.

So what is in the LEED community agreement?

It really just outlines the roles and responsibilities for the lead communities and Northwestern to bring the Green Power Program to the Public Service Commission.

It specifies RFP design and process specifics, not all the specifics, but really just the process side.

Each community will need to sign its own agreement with Northwestern.

The Missoula City and County Commissions will be considering this next week.

Then finally, the lead communities and Northwestern will jointly file the tariff, a rate structure with the Public Service Commission.

Important provisions that will be included in the agreement that's in your packet.

There were some blank lines.

And these are the items that will be filled in there.

It talks about a PSC filing date, and we've agreed to September 15th, 2026 with the possibility to extend by mutual agreement.

And there is also a an initial notice of interest to be submitted with the agreement.

And this is represents the city of Bozeman's municipal anticipated load.

The number in front of you represents city operations for all the eligible accounts.

Some of our accounts were not eligible.

And it excludes some anticipated upcoming generation from the solar project at the water reclamation facility.

And I should also note using Mayor Morrison's terms, we were deleted some kilowatt hours from energy efficiency and conservation.

So this number actually has become smaller over the years.

And we want to have a conversation with the commission at that point.

So looking ahead, we'll just walk through these steps.

Hang with me here.

So this timeline will inevitably need to be adjusted.

But assuming the PSC approves the documents, the tariff without modifications or terms change that the communities don't agree with or Northwestern doesn't agree with, then we would move on to collecting notices of interest from commercial and industrial customers.

We would have 180 days to collect those notices.

Then we would transition into the RFP process, which would take about a year.

And thereafter, that's when we would transition into construction.

What's entailed, it really defines the roles and responsibilities, and we're submitting that non-binding load information.

Does it commit the city?

It commits us to filing a tariff.

And it also commits us to paying for the costs of the RFP if we don't move forward with a project.

However, if we do move forward with the project, those costs will be distributed among all the participants in the program.

So it is a financial decision, and that would precipitate some additional costs that I'll go into in these next columns.

Filing a tariff at the PSC.

What's entailed?

That's really a commission approved program design.

It doesn't commit the city to subscribe at that point.

But it may entail costs associated with legal representation and expert witnesses.

Then subsequently, if we make it through that process, we'll go to recruit subscribers and submit notices of interest.

That's the non-binding load information that informs the design of the RFP.

It again does not commit the city at that point, but we want serious participants.

And then as needed, there could be some cost associated with recruiting subscribers.

And that's not defined at this point.

The last step, approving the subscription agreement.

That is where there is a firm commitment.

It's the binding subscription for the life of the project.

But by and large, that the city would be committed for for the duration of that the life of the project.

And so again, just want to reiterate we're talking about a utility scale renewable energy project.

And yeah, we appreciate their input.

So tonight the recommended motion is I move to recommend the city commission authorize the city manager to sign the Green Power Program Lead Community Agreement with Northwestern Energy and administratively approve future minor changes.

With that, I will open it up to questions, but would also like to offer an opportunity for Charlie to clarify all my mistakes.

I appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you.

Thanks for that presentation.

Thanks for sticking out for a late meeting.

I think that you answered this, but I'm going to ask it anyway.

Subscription agreement with potential stakeholders in mind.

Did you reach out to them?

Was there a collaboration in drafting that?

Oh, thank you for the question.

And this project has the duration has been so long, a lot of that engagement incurred over a longer period of time.

But yes, we did have some direct engagement with certain entities that were particularly interested, especially those who have clean energy goals.

So we we did um check in and ask for input from commercial and industrial customers.

Excellent.

Thank you.

That is all the questions I have.

Deputy Mayor, any questions?

Yes.

But first, let me start with some thanks and appreciation for taking a really complex topic and boiling it down to a really really um really accessible presentation.

So thank you for that.

Um we're looking at a 9.6 megawatt hour uh commitment under this under this RFP.

Is that is that my understanding then?

That was really an example, an illustrative example.

Um for the city of Bozeman, our load commitment would probably be closer.

If we were talking about a wind facility, it would probably be closer to two and a half megawatts.

Um that larger number was representative of other commercial and industrial customers voluntarily participating.

I see.

I see.

Okay.

So and and when we go up for the RFP, we have to put we have to put a number in there, is that right?

What we're committing, Bozeman is committing to.

Correct.

And that will be based on the notice of interest.

Based on the All right, wait, sorry.

Sorry.

So we're gonna first put a notice of interest out there.

And then we put together the RFP.

I'm sorry, you you went through all this.

You've got it.

Okay.

Okay.

And so we'll s we'll we'll get a better sense once we get the notice of who all wants to buy in.

And that was what will ultimately set our number.

That will determine um the size of the resource that we include in the RFP.

Got it.

And then once we get the pricing back, um, we'll go back to all those um entities that submitted a notice of interest and say, here's the final pricing.

Are you still interested?

And then we would ask them to submit a subscription agreement.

Got it.

And then we would be on the hook for that.

Right.

But we could say or we could find even you know, we can even as a city say, oh my gosh, okay, it's it's gonna be result in a whatever percent increase in energy prices, and some future commissioners gonna say no, that's we're and then we're just out for the cost of the RFP.

That's that's correct.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think that's about it.

Do you know how roughly how much Missoula is going to be asking for, or do it thinks that they might be interested in?

Um for their municipal and county loads.

Um I I would say in total, and this is just an an estimate, um the the three communities would represent around 11 to 13 megawatts of yeah.

Okay.

Fair enough.

And then the other final question is was there any dissent on the on the sustainability board about moving forward on this, or was it a unanimous decision?

It it was a unanimous decision.

Thank you.

Commissioner Booty.

I neglected to give the FYI update about sustainability board earlier.

And you would have known that had I, you know, not abdicated my responsibility there.

You also would have known that if you read the staff report where it includes that.

Yeah, or watch the meeting video.

Which is the expectation of every item.

Yes.

Thank you.

Um I had the great benefit of watching um this presentation in the sustainability board, and then also getting to um speak with Natalie directly.

So I have asked many questions and had them all answered.

I will pass it on.

Okay.

Commissioner Magic, any questions?

Uh yeah, thanks so much, Natalie.

Um thanks, Charlie, and John, and you've played a role in this over the years as well.

I think you said it correctly, um, Charlie, that this has taken a lot of persistence.

And I've certainly seen that over the years.

Um as far as the communities that are a part of this agreement.

I noticed over the years, Helen uh dropped.

Is there opportunity for communities to join?

Um here either before it goes to the PSC or after.

So certainly, we would um welcome collaboration.

Um Helena just um dropped out from the role of being a lead community and but they can still participate in the future.

Um they can submit a notice of interest, they can submit a subscription agreement, they could um voice support at the public service commission.

And that's true of any community, including Bell Gray.

Throughout Montana.

Is that why you're staying here so late?

Belga is just pretty skeptical of Northwestern Energy.

Like I don't think they do I need to wear my other hat and come up and introduce myself.

Mr.

Question.

The PSC.

So I'm curious about their role in all of this.

Are they just kind of a stamp of approval of the agreement?

Or is it a more substantive approval of the concept of green tariffs?

I would like the director of regulatory affairs to answer that question.

Okay.

So all rates, all tariffs, all programs that Northwestern offers have to be approved through the Public Service Commission.

They approve all of the rates and schedules that we have.

So this would be a tariff-rate schedule, a voluntary but a tariff rate schedule that is an optional schedule to the community's CNI subscribers and then potentially residential through those communities.

So in order to be able to offer this program, the public service commission does have to review the entirety of this program.

So what will be presented to this the uh public service commission will be the um community subscription agreements, the CNI subscription agreements, even the notices of interest, and the entire concept of this program will be presented to them for their approval of this uh really it's the tariff itself that the commission is approving, but under that structure would be those uh subscription agreements.

Does that help get away?

Yeah, I think I'm more interested in kind of their um acceptance of this kind of rate structure and use of renewables.

This will be a novel presentation in front of the commission.

Uh it's probably difficult to anticipate how they may uh rule on on this.

I think how it's been designed has been in a way that isolates the expenses of this from the cost shifting from other customers, and it is a uh driven by uh customers and our customers' uh desire for this program.

So um we're um hopeful and anticipate that the commission will appreciate that the protections are in place for the rest of the customers, and that this is a program that is being asked for by our customers.

That was a very good lawyerly answer to that.

Um my last question, and this shows some of my naivety.

Uh the infrastructure and the supply that is going to be needed.

Does that exist or is that something that's gonna have to be built or added?

That's a good question.

The part of the RFP process will include uh the interconnection.

So depending on who is bidding, where they're bidding, and the costs associated with the infrastructure to connect them to the system will all be part of um that review process for the um the solicited bids.

And when you're saying who the who is the energy companies out there that are wind or solar.

Correct.

Okay.

Yes.

All right.

Okay, that's helpful.

Thanks.

Um I think I just have one that's sort of historical.

Um it's just really so my understanding, this is that we're the first, this agreement is the first of its kind in Montana.

Has there been any has anyone gotten partway?

Like what's the history of other communities trying this type of green tariff or other, you know, weed community agreement style of you know, public-private coming together on something like this?

To my knowledge, there has not been a similar effort.

Um, and part of the history, however, is that um Walmart was seeking a green tariff in the state of Montana.

Um so there has been some interest prior to this.

Um there's also um Northwestern offers um an E plus green program where customers can voluntarily purchase the renewable energy credits associated with a renewable project that could be located out of state or in the Northwest.

Um it's not really pairing that generation with pairing that generation with the the renewable energy credit.

So to my knowledge, no, it has not been attempted in Montana.

And if you can think of an example.

Yeah.

No.

Okay.

Okay.

Um remind me, I think you told us this in our two-on-one, one-on-ones.

When did Walmart start soliciting?

When did they start asking about doing that?

Um it was in 2019 that the Public Service Commission ordered Northwestern to investigate a green tariff.

So it was some time in that lead up.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any further questions?

Commissioner Magic.

Yeah, follow-up to your question.

So not in Montana, but per your map in many cases throughout the United States.

It looks like we're in the minority.

And I looked at California that was blacked out.

And it looks like California has a number of green tariffs.

So we're really one of the last states to be pursuing this.

That is correct.

If you if you want me to go back to that map.

Sure.

I think I counted like five states, maybe.

Right.

And actually where you see California and the Northeast.

Those states have a different type of program, community choice aggregation, which is enabled by state law, so they don't really need a green tariff.

But yes, there's only a handful of states that do not have some sort of program.

Okay.

Any further questions?

Okay.

Thank you for that presentation.

We'll open up for public comments.

Starting with, of course, public comment in the room.

Any public comment requests in the room this evening.

Good evening.

All right, home stretch.

Uh Mark Campanelli, Bogert Park resident.

Umks for all this.

I I take any criticisms I have with a grain of salt that like I have dedicated a huge part of my life to solar energy.

Um ultimately I I was gonna give some uh statistics here from Lazard's analysis, which is like a periodic analysis of the cost of energy.

And uh one of the recent analysis finds that unsubsidi unsubsidized utility scale solar without tax credits ranges from a levelized cost of energy of 0.038 per kilowatt hour to 0.078 per kilowatt hour.

While onshore wind registers the lowest possible LCO over the narrowest range from 3.7 cents per kilowatt hour to 8.6 cents per kilowatt hour.

We pay about 12, 13 cents per kilowatt hour residential.

So assume Montana's probably near the top end of that.

And I don't want to oversimplify with levelized cost of energy because there is the interconnect.

Do we have, you know, we haven't done maybe a lot of this here in Montana, so there will be extra costs.

Um that's those are pretty small numbers.

Like they beat uh peaker plants typically, natural gas.

Again, there's there's marginal costs if the peaker plants are already built.

But um anyways, they just built a peaker plant and it's like some of the most expensive energy, and with the geopolitical stuff going on, it's only gotten more expensive.

Um so let me switch here, sorry, to my other notes.

Um sorry, I don't have a Scott Boyd level analysis for an LC L COE for like a four kilowatt system on my own home.

Um then I would do it with a battery.

I'll probably try to get back to you guys about that.

Just in terms of if I'm looking at this program and I have to pay a higher rate, like does it make sense for me in my position, with fortunate enough to have my own roof, you know, to try to build my own thing.