All right.

I call this meeting to order.

Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you all for attending this evening.

Will the clerk please take attendance?

Mr.

Mayor, there are six council members present this evening.

Councilmember Wayne Avery is absent, and City Attorney Vince Jones is joining us via conference call.

All right.

Thank you.

Item three, approval of the agenda, entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

So moved.

Second.

Please call the roll.

Doran.

Aye.

Hager.

Aye.

Neymar.

Aye.

Specker.

Aye.

Tilton Byrne.

Aye.

Wendell.

Item four.

Open forum in order to provide equal access to all during the open forum and public comment portions of the meeting.

Each individual offering comments shall not exceed the allotted three-minute period.

The podium light turns green to yellow and when there is one minute remaining.

Your time for comment is expired when the podium light turns red.

Is there any member of the public who wishes to address the council on an item not listed on tonight's agenda?

Okay.

We'll move right on to item five.

Bonnie Foster or City Clerk will do a presentation on onboard gov.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the council.

I'm excited to share with you tonight this program.

It's on board govern it's gonna allow the city to go to a paperless volunteer board application process.

So what is on board?

We call it an open government solution.

It'll allow those citizens online access to complete those volunteer board applications, and it will allow staff to make easier updates of board members' contact information, term management, expiration reports, and so much more.

Why do we want to do this?

The existing process is paper, it's very manual and it's very time consuming for staff.

Online applications are gonna eliminate that paper process.

Provide more transparency in seat management, board member contact information, historical records who've sat in those seats.

So you'll see the purpose statement at the top, the second line here, and this word here is where it's gonna take us over to our new manual, our new module, the meeting information, and then this link which takes you to the insight page.

Each one of those on the individual board pages is board specific.

So let me bring this up for you.

So you can see it a little bit larger.

So you'll see up here it's a board.

You'll see we have a direct link to the creating authority for that board.

Here is gonna show up with vacancies, or we have seats which are expiring soon.

Those will run on 60 day notifications.

We've got a duplicate link here to take you to that agenda's minutes and uh video page over here, easy access.

Who is our staff liaison for that board?

Here's their office phone number, here's their email.

We've got the description of the board once again, so you don't have to go back out and come back into this duplicate again of the meeting information.

But the spotlight of this is this table down here at the bottom.

So this shows you who is currently seated on that board.

Each seat, each member is representative of one seat on the board.

We have some tabs over here.

So enabled seats, those are the current active seats.

If you click on all seats, we have a couple boards that have seats which they've left vacant or not filled at this time, and they don't have any needs.

So when you click on that, all seats, if there was some vacant seats, it would show on this tab.

But the history is what's really going to be, I think, helpful for the public and especially board members or board staff liaisons.

You can view the data two ways.

So here's a simple table, and it's arranged by seat.

So you can see the records for Airport Board go back to 1996.

So you can see on the seat, here are the names of those individuals who has served previously.

And then over here, you've got their terms.

Now, if reading a table like this just isn't how you like to see data, you can go up here and click on timeline.

You can see that data in a whole different time set.

So now you see the names as they go back.

You've got the years on the bottom, you've got the seats on the left, and the ones in green are your current seated board members.

And we talk about applying online.

On the bottom of every page, volunteer board page, you can apply for this board.

So all you have to do is click on that.

It'll take you to this page.

It tells you that you're going to apply for the airport board.

We do allow board members or citizens to apply for up to three different boards.

If you want to fill out the applications individually, you can do that.

Or you can fill them out all at one time.

Just click on edit.

And now you have the option to pick three other boards.

So you just click and then they're over here.

And then you can rearrange them by dragging and dropping and putting them in the order that you want.

And then as you go through the application process, just click on next, and that will take you through the different tabs that you would need to fill out.

Anything with the red asterisk, of course, is required to be completed.

And then once you're done, you just click on next, and that'll take you through the next questions in the next stages.

I do encourage you to go out there, play with it, fill it out for yourself so you know how it works, and click submit if you're a member of this of our residents that want to serve.

We would love to have you serve on our board.

When you're sitting on here, a fun feature is you can go to members.

This will bring you an alphabetical list of all of the people currently serving in a volunteer board capacity for the city of Brookings.

You can click on their name.

We'll choose Wayne, and you will see that here is his history of what he has served on for the city of Brookings.

Now we do not have the city council records in here as serving as a city council member, but you can see that he is serving as the mayor's designee.

And for any individual board member, the only piece of information that is considered public is your email.

So with that, I'll stand by for any questions.

Thank you, Bonnie.

Good questions.

Councilmember Tildenburn.

Thank you for the presentation, Bonnie.

This I think is going to be a really cool tool for folks to be able to use.

You mentioned that council seats aren't recorded in here.

Are there any plans to uh have council seats listed in a tool like this?

Because I think this is a really great interactive tool for the public, and that'd be fun to see as well.

Yes, we do have plans to get that added in there.

We just have not done that yet.

Great, thank you.

Councilmember Duran.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I'm really excited about this.

I think this will make it so much more uh easier for people to apply for boards and recruit volunteers for the community.

I had a couple of questions.

One for application management.

Um does this system also allow for all submitted applications per board to live on this, so then the staff to present to the board can navigate this system, or how does the application work after it's submitted?

Well, when an application is submitted right now, an email will come just to me, and then I will reassign that application to whichever staff liaison to take it for that board.

Okay.

In the beginning, we're just gonna do we're gonna drag and drop and create a report, drop it in an email so we don't have to scan anything, it's just a quick click click done.

Um, and in the future, we will gravitate towards the staff having access on the back end.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Well, that that works as well.

And then my second question is how does the history or timeline vary per commission?

Like with the airport that can go back to the 1990s.

Are we looking at that length for all commissions, or how does that vary?

Or how does that vary?

Out of curiosity.

For the data that we put in there, we based it on current board members and how many years or how many terms they've served.

So, like boards that served five or six, you have a member that's been on there really long time.

We took all those seats back to that time frame.

So as time allows, we would love to keep going and working our way backwards and adding that historical data.

Sure.

And that takes time, and and I appreciate the work that you've done so far.

I really like the interface of this.

I think this is a lot more user-friendly, and I'm excited for the community to utilize us.

So thank you for your work on this.

All right.

Councilmember Tilden.

Um, I just thought of another question, and that is um, there have been times over the years that we've had to appoint uh council member seats that become vacant.

Do we plan on using this application method when those future potential uh opportunities arise as well?

That is certainly a good option that we could do is go to this online and create that application process.

We can create our own application based on the board.

So, yes.

All right.

Any other questions, comments?

Thank you, Bonnie.

You're welcome.

All right, item six presentation and discussion.

Police facility site considerations.

Paul Bercino, our city manager, will present this item.

And I think the chief's coming up also.

Yeah.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council members, Paul Brazino, City Manager, Mike Drake, of course, chief of police will be tag teaming this presentation for you tonight regarding the alternative police sites.

Uh going back in time into November when we presented this uh uh site recommendation to you in the past.

We had public conversations.

What we heard from the public is for us to uh really consider the impact in neighborhoods.

And so from you as council, you had requested us uh to go back and look at these sites and uh look at how these sites might impact uh neighborhoods, uh congestion, traffic, uh, a number of uh criteria.

Um the public has not ever seen all the various sites that we've looked at throughout this process.

And so Mike and I's intent tonight is to share um the why behind why we need a new facility, uh the size requirement, and then the sites and make a recommendation to you at the end of the presentation.

So, Mike, if you want to go ahead and move forward with uh uh the why behind.

Yeah.

So when we were asked to look this over, I got here three and a half years ago, like the city manager had spoken, already been into this for at least three years prior to my arrival.

Um, what what the the whole need for the new facility came not only from the staff, uh the police department, but also the community's attention to that we outgrew the facility that we were in.

Uh we really outgrew it.

Um, it's a facility that is over 60 some years old.

It was the old original city council building before here.

Um so we're just using kind of the leftover space.

Uh, some of it can't be occupied due to structural um flaws in it now.

Over 65 years, we just can't use part of the structure, so we're only limited to certain square footage.

And going through all that with the deficiencies, and as you can see here, uh the different spaces and the conditions, it's come to light over the last few years that the police facility uh needed a new with the firehouse, needed a new facility because we had outgrown uh our current need for it for what policing and fire are calling for nowadays, and also structurally uh just the design of the building and and how it was built.

So these pictures, the one on the right, my right.

Um, when you look at this as something that it could be, it's kind of the look into the future.

On the left, that's the view that the public has when they walk through and into our lobby.

And they to me, again, for my professional experience, this is not a very welcoming uh it's we make it do.

But when you look down this car corridor, um it almost looks like the catacombs and our current design versus what we could have is on the right, something that is allowing in more natural lighting that's more welcoming.

Uh folks that come in in need have questions for our community.

They don't feel so intimidated when they look down a long dark hallway that was built 65 years ago.

Uh this is the current condition on the left.

Uh that dark areas where our dispatch works are our uh PSAP or emergency 901 communications center again served its purpose and its livelihood, but now we have two to three dispatchers working in this area, monitors on top of each other, uh handling over 46,000 calls a year uh provided to all our emergency services, EMS fire and police throughout the county of Brookings, uh, not just the city.

And again, just a quick visual on the right, nothing that we would want, but something that we could look for where there's more adequate space uh for them to work in, a little more natural lighting, a lot brighter um and the and the ability to to be able to handle those calls that we come into contact with every day uh now and into the future.

Here this police station is the space needs.

Working with our partners throughout this entire project, uh, between the consulting firms, the real estate firms, the architectures, and the construction firms, they do this for a living.

They build public safety and police facilities and firehouses throughout the country, mostly in the Midwest.

And they were looking at, okay, hey, what's the needs that we've seen in the police and fire facilities that we've built, you know, previously and currently, and then they also take stats from an entire comprehensive program.

Uh this the slide you're kind of seeing on the left, that that programming, that comes from about a 50-page document that's filled out.

Um and what they do is they utilize that to be able to program the needs, not only of the community, but the police department by staff, square footage, um, and what the facility should look like just in the way it would build, not the actual interior exterior look to it.

Um and then they look at it and they say, This is what we believe is your expert professionals that you're paying to consult of what you would be looking for in a police facility, not just for today's needs, but 30, 40, 50 years into the future.

And so they program it out with the amount of staff we have and what we may need due to our population growth and what the demands are, and they came up with the fact that you can build a one or two-story police facility.

And I'll just speak about the police facility right now because as we parse it out, um, that's really what the talk about tonight is.

If you're gonna build a one-story or a two-story police facility in today's day and age, to go the next 30 to 40 to 50 years, you really want it on either 3.2 to 3.6 acres.

And why that makes a difference is if you're gonna build a two-story facility because you are limited in a little bit of space, the the amount of space you're solving or you're actually saving when you go to a one-story building, is really just the square footage in the building, is the need for parking, uh, the expansion community, and and there's a lot of things that go into the 3.2 to 3.6 acres.

So somebody can see if you're gonna build a two-story building, yeah, you're gonna save a little bit on acreage, but the acreage of the amount of acreage you're saving is really the square footage of the building that you're saving in a one-story going to a two-story.

That's really the only saving you're seeing, which is why that the demand from what our experts are saying in this, the consultants that we paid, is that they recommend not going any less than this recommendation of either 3.2 or 3.6.

Because if we if we do, then we always run the risk of cutting our nose off or or cutting ourselves short in the future of the expansion for this community.

And when we build a facility like this, we want to make sure that we take into account today and tomorrow and well into the future because we don't want to build a public safety facility or a police facility that we're only thinking about today and not in the future for decades to come.

So, this before you is the comprehensive list of the 22 sites that we actually spent a lot of time on.

There are other sites that we spent just a little bit of time on.

This took us roughly six years to go through each and every one of these sites.

Every site we spent anywhere from two months to potentially six to nine months on the site, and that included everything from looking at the infrastructure to the zoning to the proximity to uh uh traffic and accessibility neighborhoods, those type of things.

Um I'll go through each one of these lists for those people at home that don't quite know where the location of each site is.

Um for you folks as well.

The all the items are the all the sites in orange we eliminated from this uh list.

Basically because they didn't meet the site size, as Mike just mentioned, that 3.2 to 3.5 acres, or it was just too expensive uh because of the infrastructure or stormwater needs for the site.

I'll go through each one of these.

So the first one, item number one is a 3M Sylvia.

We looked at a site just north of the golf course.

We tried working with Sylventum to attain roughly four to five acres.

They really wanted that land for future expansion in the future, and so that's one that we eliminated because it's not really available because they're not looking to sell it.

Uh, there's a site south of the pheasant, uh that's called the airport site.

It's under FAA requirements, and so that site is located right off of Maine.

You can see it is listed as item number two there.

Uh item number three is the Avara Larson Park.

There's a small track of land by the water tower there off of 20th Street.

Uh once again, that site was deemed too small uh to move forward with.

The marketplace, marketplace RTI, uh, and then there's a couple other sites there, the WeeS property.

Uh, all those are located next to where Target is going, just north there.

The city owns roughly 30 acres.

That's called the WES property.

We also have roughly three to four acres uh next to Target, as well as the RTI site is uh roughly five acres.

That's directly west of the Dakota Bank Center.

We also looked at private sites throughout the community as well.

Uh we didn't list those as a dot on here, but we'll talk a little bit about uh the hindrances and opportunities there with those private sites as we examined them.

Uh we looked at the existing site.

Once again, that site is currently only about an acre and a half, maybe a little less 1.3 acres.

So we eliminated that because it was too small.

The research park, uh that we looked at their Lloyd's building, which was vacant at the time, I believe still vacant.

We also looked at three other sites on the research park, and what we heard from the board is that uh the police depart facility didn't quite fit within their mission, uh, therefore the land wasn't available, so we moved on from those sites.

We also looked at the school site, which is one that we presented back in November, um, which is located off of Maderi and I believe Fifth Street there.

Uh the teener field, which is located just across the street, just south of the high school uh track, and then we also looked at the school district bus site, which is located next to our uh softball fields there on the southern part of town.

This was eliminated because of the cost of the stormwater improvements.

Uh water to get to that site was gonna be roughly 400,000.

Alternatively, because it is so flat and water doesn't drain well from that area, we're gonna need more land for secondary ingress and egress, which is critical for an emergency facility like the police department.

Uh we also looked at South Side Park.

Uh that land was roughly two and a half acres.

So once again, it didn't meet that 3.2 acre requirement, so it was eliminated.

We looked at the 72-hour lot, which is just north of the existing facility in downtown.

That's only about 1.3 acres as well.

So once again, too small of a site.

Uh, the WeeS property we talked about, that's just north of where the new target's gonna be built.

It's roughly 30 acres out there.

The Dakota Bank Center does have land surrounding it, and I'll show that here in a future slide as well.

Fishback Soccer Complex does have a number of uh soccer fields.

Each one of those fields is roughly four acres, and so there's opportunities there as well.

And then the community gardens, we eliminated that site, that's north of the university.

Up there at the community gardens, there's no infrastructure in place, and it's also in a floodplain as well.

So we eliminated that one from the alternative or from the list.

And then we have a uh third site, a private site called private site C.

This is located on sixth street, and it was less than three-quarters of an acre.

So we eliminated that site as well.

Um moving through these, uh, you can see them located all throughout the community.

And so, once again, this took six plus years, and each site took about anywhere from two months to roughly six to seven months to examine each site.

And that included analysis as I spoke about, as well as having some of our architects or our engineers and architects work through potential site designs to really determine if it was worth buying or potentially making an offer if it was a privately owned site.

After the November discussion, we as staff and council, I think really took to heart the conversations that we heard from the neighborhood and from the community, the concerns of potential traffic congestion, um, interpretation of unauthorized offenders potentially in neighborhoods, and most importantly, the impact of neighborhoods.

With that, we added into that analysis these six criteria that's before you tonight.

First, we start with finance, and we looked at what is the total cost of the of the land if we were to buy it buy it from a private uh owner, or if the city owned it, how does that impact our bottom line?

Replacement of any cost for infrastructure, because as we heard through those neighborhood discussions, there's usually groups that use this green space, and would we have to replace it, or are there other other costs we need to calculate into this analysis?

Stormwater drainage expenses because we do have uh storm issues, stormwater issues throughout the community.

We looked at restricted hazards, we wanted to make sure we didn't build this facility next to any railroad tracks or other hazards, but also wanted to mitigate any impact of the timeline of construction.

We also wanted to add into this analysis the impact of neighborhoods.

Now that we understand people's concerns, we really wanted to be cognizant of that in this analysis.

So we also added access and traffic safety, public access, and the future growth potential as well.

As Mike explained, we're looking at a site, roughly 3.2 to 3.5 acres.

That'll give us 40 to 50 years.

Any additional land is just uh additional gravy, if you will, uh, for future councils and future uh police facilities.

Adding that into our analysis, we looked at every site, and that's what you see before you today.

Uh, and on the bottom, we ranked them based on the weighting in this analysis, what I just went through.

What we found is that the Dakota Bank Center, if you see it on the very top and lining up, is the number one site that came through this analysis.

Uh, the very last site is the school district site uh number 10 that was presented in November.

It doesn't mean that the school district site is not an ideal site, it just means that looking at the criteria, looking at this new weighting, uh, that the most ideal site is the Dakota Bank Center.

Number two is the marketplace RTI, and I'll show that what this looks like on a map because sometimes it's easier to see it visually.

As you look at it on a map, uh the Dakota Bank Center, the marketplace RTI, uh, the marketplace, and the WISE property are all located up there next to where the Target and Aldi is being built into that general area.

And I'll show a map here for the public, what each of these sites looked like and what the potential uh size area would be for a three and a half to four acre site.

The fishback soccer complex was fifth.

Private site B, an airport site with private site B was six, uh, airport site was seven, uh, private site A was eight, Teener Field was nine, and once again the school district site was ten.

A lot of the waiting, once again, that impacted this these rankings were the impact of the neighborhoods, the cost, uh, the replacement of infrastructure, and those type of things that I mentioned earlier.

So when we look at this, this was an objective look at this.

Uh a lot of it came down to cost, impact of uh storm sewer infrastructure.

What we wanted to do is really add the nuances to each site, the subjectivity of each site for our recommendation to you before council, because there are things that we didn't wait in there that really we should be aware of as we look at these sites.

As we did that, staff recommends uh, and I put these in color cording coding.

The first two, Dakota Bank Center and the Weast property are almost interchangeable.

Um they're fairly high in the ranking that I showed you here just a minute ago.

The yellow areas, uh those are options, but there are obstacles with each of those sites uh that are more restrictive than the top two that we're recommending to you tonight, and that includes the airport site, fishback soccer complex, school district site IA in the teener field.

Everything in orange there, we recommend not moving forward with uh because of the potential of those sites and uh potential um impacts to your budget as well.

Once again, I'll talk about what that means here in just a minute.

So, what I'm gonna do is go through each one of those sites and I'll re reference back to this color coding right before you.

So as we look at the two green ones that we would recommend to you uh at City Council, and once again they're both somewhat interchangeable.

We would start off with the Dakota Bank Center.

Um you can see in the bottom right-hand corner, a box that's equivalent to about three and a half to four acres.

It doesn't mean it has to be located there.

I just put it on the site so you can see what it looks like in that area.

You could move it more to the left, you can move it more to the north to that center part and between uh those two buildings or clear to the north where there's a lot of vacant land.

Uh once again, it's entirely up to city council.

What we saw within this site is that there's a lot of pros.

There is no acquisition cost because you already own this property.

There's already plenty of infrastructure within proximity, located in 32nd and 34th stream.

Um there's future growth potential.

So if you wanted to add another acre to this potential development, that land is there for future generations and when you need to re and when you need to add on to this facility.

There are no known hazards out here in this area.

And then you have quick access to uh to many of the major arterials.

Though Mike will talk a little bit about how our policing occurs in today's world.

But if administration does need to get somewhere fairly quickly, they can get on the bypass, they can get on 6th Street or further down very quickly within this site.

It does eliminate parking if we were to locate it down here or potentially on the east side as well.

And that's for the Dakota Bank Center.

Moving on, this is the other green site that's interchangeable with the the top two that we recommended.

And this is the what's we call the WESP property.

Umce again, this is north of the target, an Aldi property.

This has the same pros as mentioned for the Dakota Bank Center.

The only con that we can come up with for this potential proposed site is that it does reduce uh the available commercial land in this area that has a potential to develop here in the near future.

Once again, this one and the site before the Dakota uh bank center are two that we would say are interchangeable uh and would recommend to you.

Now that we have heard concerns throughout the community and at times that locating it clear out here may be difficult for response as well as um communicating with the police department.

And so we added this slide.

This is one that we presented in the past and allow Mike a little bit to talk about our existing um sites that we have uh for workstations with the officers and how we patrol.

Yeah.

Thank you, sir.

Um the way the city is broken up in our sectors and beats that was recommended by the CPSM that you folks endeavored into the early 2022 and made a recommendation to do this after being here for a year or two.

We did a bunch of pilot programs where you know we had the city um no sectors, we had free range, uh free roam, then we had four, and then we had two and three, and we tried to we settled on this as a police department in east and west patrol area just to be able to be uh disseminate our police officers at the beginning of each shift, whether they come in at six in the morning or at six at night, they get briefed really quick by their patrol supervisor, and then they're assigned a sector and beat within the city that they're responsible for.

They get their equipment, they get briefed, and then they go and they respond out into those areas.

What that allows the police department to do is cover areas directly, whether there's calls there or not, they can be highly visible in whether it's neighborhoods or commercial environments designed for the west and east patrol areas, so they're not just reactive and hanging out at the police station and then responding out to a call.

One, it cuts down on a response time when you call an emergency 911 or you just need a police officer, they should be within a few blocks of your neighborhood or of the call by this design.

Now I'm not going to sit here and say they're always out there because they do have to come back and do file paperwork and pick something up, but 90% of their shifts should be spent in the streets in the field in these beats.

So regardless of where we put the police facility, I can assure you our police officers are always out there, always responding, and don't always come back to respond from police headquarters.

That's the first thing.

The second thing we did is knowing we were out in these uh sectors and beats, we didn't want our police officers to always have to come back to complete simple pace paperwork.

So we can use the East Firehouse, which you see up there off of sixth as a substation.

And we do that because of the sectors and beats.

Right now, the police facility is located in the west corridor, west sector, and we put the existing satellite in the firehouse that we already own at no cost.

Our IT stands up a station in there, they can go in.

Again, we don't bring defendants back to our facilities, so we can do interviews in there, we can do paperwork, and they can go back there if they're on the east side of the city.

We uh also have existing worst stations in a couple of other locations in schools.

Again, during normal business hours, it gives them another stand-up so that again, if somebody's at the East Firehouse or the police station is too far, they can always use those other stand-up stations.

So we usually have three to four within a city this size to be able to keep our police officers out on the foot patrol and out on road uh radio motorized car patrol so that they're not always coming from headquarters.

Um that's how we design that it is to make sure that we're covered no matter where you all want to put our police department.

I feel comfortable.

It will not affect our impact on traffic coming into and from headquarters, and it won't impact our response time, which is very important to emergency 901 and getting our police officers to the help they they need to get to.

Thanks, Mike.

So those are the two green sites that we talked about located uh northeast of town.

I'll go really quickly to the yellow sites, and these all have uh issues that are greater than uh any of the cons that we mentioned with the first two.

The first site uh we're gonna talk about is the airport site.

This is located directly southeast of the airport.

Uh the pheasant, if you like to eat here locally, is just located to the north here, located on Main Street and south of 8th Street in the corner there.

Um this land has a lot of potential, uh, a lot of land, a lot of space, a lot of infrastructure.

The main issues we related to this site are surrounding the FAA.

Currently, we believe we could get a lease option uh for this site within six months to build.

Uh that could be a long-term lease.

Uh, we would would be at the discretion of the administration depending on what they would want to do with that uh lease in the future.

The other option we have is to purchase this property.

Uh, we expect that that would take roughly six years with purchasing.

We would have to pay fair market value for this property to the airport based on uh analysis we've obtained from realtors, a realtor, we assume that this piece of property fair market is valued at 1.8 to 2, 2.5 million dollars.

Uh there is a risk associated with this site uh with the public safety facility because it is in direct line with the flight pattern, uh, the landing strip.

Uh moving on, fishback soccer complex.

Once again, uh a lot of potential on this site because of its proximity to infrastructure uh and uh collector streets.

The biggest cons associated with this, there has been an investment made into park infrastructure.

So you're gonna be losing that uh with the development of police facility.

Limit your growth potential as well.

Uh that area there in the corner is somewhat wet, and so that is also a concern as well.

Then you would require additional investment.

So this one would be more costly than any of the other ones that we've showed you.

Moving forward, this is the one uh that we presented back in November.

Once again, a lot of great uh opportunities here now is the land um size available uh for this uh potential development of a future growth.

They're uh great infrastructure within proximity, but the cons will be losing park infrastructure as uh noted through the conversations we had with the neighborhoods.

There's conceptions, misconceptions or uh assumptions that there would be congestion brought forward by such a facility, and then interpretation of unauthorized offenders within the neighborhood as well, and then proximity to schools was a concern that we heard from the neighborhood on this site.

Uh this site, uh located once again just south of the track, the high school track, has the same pros as the other site.

However, there are even more cons associated with this because it is in the lower line area, meaning that it does flood uh on the western part of this site.

Additionally, the school does want this land for the future.

You can see they've already made some investments with athletic facilities on the site.

They're also um the same cons as the other site, but also on top of that, we did accept a grant for this site, and so therefore we have to rebuild and replace this land in the future.

So a lot more with this site.

Um I added both the private site as well as the RTI sites for this one.

The pros, once again, plenty of infrastructure, some growth potential.

But for private land, we saw anywhere from on the west side of town, about 1.8 to 2.5 million to the east side, potential two to three million dollars for the amount of land that we're looking for.

A lot of this land would be better served as commercial land to provide a commercial space with the community of Brookings.

With that said, uh this was uh the the uh objective analysis and then adding in our new the thoughts and nuances for each site and our recommendation to you once again, though first and second sites are two almost interchangeable uh with our recommendation.

Wanted to make sure that the public knew and understood the finances and how this works if we should move forward with both of these uh projects.

Once again, looking at the fire and police department, we estimate the construction of this uh project, uh looking at both of them together to be 25 million dollars.

Currently, you as a city council saved 18.5 million dollars, uh which gives you a shortfall of 6.5.

And I always want to take an opportunity to say this.

Most communities bond the entirety of the 25 million.

This city council has saved 18 and a half, almost 19 million dollars.

That's really unheard of in today's age.

So you know, you should get a pat on the back for doing that.

Uh that means that if we were to take a bond out for the six and a half million dollars, the total interest paid over the 20 years at 4%, uh and that's gonna fluctuate when we decide to take the bond out here in a year to two years from now, will be about three million dollars in total over 20 years, that six and a half million dollars will be nine and a half million dollars is what we'll pay for that.

That's 478,000 a year is what we'll have to cut out of the capital improvement plan, of course, minus any revenue that comes in from uh any additional sales tax.

Uh scenario two, if you should decide to buy land, excuse me, same analysis, it just increases it to a total bond payment or total bond of $13.2 million and roughly $662,000.

That's if you're to buy land for that two to two and a half million dollars.

If you buy land and for some reason we have to uh ask for an additional two and a half million dollars, because this is a fairly large project.

There are potentially unknowns on some of these sites uh that we could run into it.

Of course, we never know what's gonna happen in the next two years with tariffs and everything else that's going on.

Uh, this could quickly increase an additional two and a half million dollars.

That means all in all, you would have a total bond of 17.6 million or 882,000 we would have to cut from our capital improvement plan, minus of course any additional sales tax that comes in from your endeavors at the marketplace.

So, in summary, we as staff recommend utilizing uh the land either at the WES or the Dakota Bank Center.

Um we recommend that any additional costs on top of that will only increase the amount of projects you have to cut uh for the foreseeable future in the next 20 years.

Current estimate for the fire and police projects is estimated at 25 million dollars.

With that, would be happy to answer any questions U.S.

council have for Mike or I thank you, gentlemen.

Council have any questions, comments.

Councilmember Tilton Burne.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um my question is um on the uh fair market value quote on the land uh uh that is near the airport there.

Um, does that fair market value quote take into consideration all of the FAA restrictions?

Because I would think given the limited uh availability of use for that space, um that that maybe seems like a high cost given that was just uh what um the uh realtor gave us as a very high level estimate.

You're right, we'd have to take further analysis on what that land restrictions would be if we went down that path.

Councilmember Wendell.

Thank you, Mayor.

I had a question about the uh overall acre requirement.

Uh whether it's a one-story or two-story.

I absolutely agree with um building in space for future growth.

Um I was sort of curious about um the parking needs in the facility.

If if we believe 100 spaces is a reasonable number, is that overshooting by a certain buffer, or would it really not change much if we didn't really take a second book in parking?

I'll just note that that feels 100 spaces feels high to me, is why I'm asking.

I I I'll take the first crack and maybe Mike.

I know Mike and John have been working more uh in depth with the designer, the architect, and the engineer, so he might um answer further uh the response to this.

My assumption is it is quite extensive as well.

Um my assumption is this is for full build out.

Um, but at the same time, we would put me as city manager I'd push back uh to see if we can't reduce that overall parking as well.

But Mike, maybe you can shed some light into this.

Yeah, that was a safety number they used looking at the size of the community.

Uh we didn't one thing we didn't speak about is the community room.

So they what they build in that, sir, is when they look at it is what's the total maximum you would need.

And if we were to build, say in the northeast corner, there's no overflow parking up there for folks.

So if we had a community room and we were using it and we're at full staff, I think that was their concern.

So they went on the higher end side.

I I do believe, like the city manager, that's a number that we can, as council staff, the city manager, that's something we can negotiate.

They did that as a worst case scenario.

You have an event there and your staff is there, so we don't want people parking in the streets or finding trying to find parking.

I think that was like their maximum high-level number, looking at the size of the community, the community room that we're looking and intending to build within our police facility, and then the staff as well, not just today, but 40, 50 years down the road.

Um I I appreciate that.

And I'm not sure a reduction in in required parking spaces would necessarily change 3.2 as our minimum.

It probably doesn't change the scenario a lot.

I wanted to start the conversation so that when we get into the design phase, we're zeroed in on the parking piece.

I think we've shifted our thinking even as we work with major retailers that they're not building parking just for Black Friday, but they're building it for what do you really need most days of the year?

The second question I had was one that I think has come up as we've had conversations with the community, and that's um a location that would be like this potentially across the interstate and accessibility for members of the community that might not have ready access to transportation.

You know, I think we've had some good conversation around how much walk-up traffic does our police department actually need on a daily or weekly basis, but also the potential of satellite locations.

When we've talked about a potential satellite location, more in the core of commu the community.

I thought of it a little differently than the way you described the stand-up locations that we currently operate.

So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about whether or not there is some potential thinking about a satellite office, and if that looks different than our current substation setup does.

Yeah, it it does look different.

Um what I spoke about is what we currently have, which we wanted to keep it under budget and make sure that we didn't expend taxpayer dollars to do this, not knowing where the facility was going to be, but that's an excellent question.

Umward, our satellite um office, what we've looked at is possibly in the new firehouse, and and we don't want to make an assumption we're gonna be on the east side of the city, but we've looked in the consideration of having an attendant there, having an administrative assistant, having an actual, you know, human beings there that can answer those questions of pet licensing, parking tickets.

The and we do get foot traffic, but uh predominantly 75% of it is that is that question of uh can I pay a parking ticket?

Uh what do I do?

It's a question that you know, police officer can respond back and answer it if it's a question about the law, but most people just need a friendly face to help them point them in the right direction.

Again, within budgetary constraints, that's what my vision is.

Um but I would I would want a human being there.

I would want it to be friendly and welcoming so that we still have that.

I I still, and again, I I want that attachment to the downtown and the west side.

I think it's important for our public to see that.

I just don't know how it would look, but in my mind, that's what I envision is not just the stand-up desk.

It's gonna have a human being there that can work and operate.

And then the other thing I failed to mention, and I'll go one step further, is the police department's endeavoring to go in very uh digital and online, like you just saw from our city clerk.

So a lot of things can be paid online, but I don't want to deter people from coming to the police department.

But if we can make it easier for them to conduct business with their pet licensing, with their parking tickets, with questions about ordinances that might help us.

But I do want a friendly face at the end.

So a satellite would be something I would look at as having someone there, at least business hours to help with if I'm downtown going to the post office and I'm going to some of the stores, I can stop through and be able to talk to somebody there instead of having.

But if I'm up near Aldi's and targets, I target I can always stop through the police department as well.

I know our fire chief has said that there is space available in that development of that new fire station downtown.

Having it in somewhat the same location downtown gives it that look and feel that it is still located with that core of that community.

Thank you for that.

Your your description, you know, more aligns with what I had hoped that could look like.

Thanks.

And just for all that, oh we know the the the fire chief gave us a thumbs up on the back.

Um are there any other comment?

Uh yeah, council member Duran.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you for the presentation.

I have uh a few questions.

First, I'll bounce off of what um council member Wendell said, and I appreciate your vision for the satellite offices when we talked.

Uh we had the presentation at the school, you know, we really talked about the safety center being integrated in the community and the benefit it could bring to the surrounding um buildings or neighborhood.

And so that was the vision that I had for the future public safety center.

So I appreciate that as well as the ongoing community policing efforts you have too, just supplementing that operationally.

Um so one question I have, let me start at the top.

Okay, so several of these questions we've had private conversations about, but I keep receiving them from the community, so it'll be a reiteration of that.

Um first I'm curious of the original list, that full list of 22 sites.

How does a piece of land end up on that list?

Whether, like how do we come become aware of it?

Um we walked through kind of the process after that, but how could it even end up on that first really lengthy list?

Really, what we did as a city, we looked at all city-owned uh uh land, all uh partner owned land, and then any land that fit that three to three and a half acre land.

Uh and that was the course of six years that that list was added.

So this list wasn't created day one.

It was really a journey, if you will.

Ongoing.

Thank you for that.

And then there's also been several conversations of what exists in this public safety center right now.

It exists with the fire department, dispatch and officers or PD.

Um, and we're looking at having the fire station in one location and then dispatch and police department.

Could you talk through like the operational efficiency and kind of the the thoughts behind keeping dispatch and police together rather than looking at separating that as well.

Yeah.

Um, as the the fire department has to be in a certain location.

So if we were to stay in this location, we would be fine meeting the requirements.

If we move almost anywhere else in the city, albeit with a one or two of the locations, we would have to parse and separate away from them just for the needs for the fire department.

As far as the police in the emergency 911 center, uh we have we sit on the board, we are integrated with them, there are our employees.

The efficiency of I've seen in my experiences the minute you break those apart, they become less efficient because there's less communication.

I'll give you for example.

We have a two-story building right now, and our detective bureaus downstairs.

The amount of time I see them, I have to go downstairs.

Now it sounds like well, it's not a lot of work.

Anytime you put distance or physical barriers between human beings, we just become less efficient in policing.

Um so my worry is if the dispatch center was broken apart from the police facility, there would be that disconnect, not only from the police, but from the sheriff's department, from UPD, from the fire agencies.

We would lose a little bit of that connectivity that we would have in our facility by keeping them there.

Um it just makes for an operational sense, especially if there is something critical that happens.

We have that brain cell right there, that that nucleus of folks that are gonna be working 24-7.

Whether it's an incident in the county or otherwise, having that in the department is a lot more uh efficient and effective when you're dealing with operations to keep them together, and especially for the size of our county and our personnel.

We're not a large county where we have these lands site where we have robust uh departments.

We have our emergency 911 meeting and we all come together in one room.

So to keep it together in one place, they don't just dispatch, but the answer calls administratively for all those departments, and then they also serve as you know, doing notary and other paperwork that we all require.

Putting them in another location would only duplicate efforts, make it less efficient.

It would also cost the taxpayers more money.

We'd have to find another location and then either lease it or rent it or buy it, and then it would just create, you know, it would save us maybe a little bit of space in the police facility, but then we would go into another operational period where we'd have three different locations we would be looking for.

And I just think that the cost of the taxpayer would not, it would it wouldn't be good with the efficiency and effect you know that we would lose as well.

I would add to that.

We have some of the best officers, but I would say we also have some of the best dispatchers here in Berkeley's Berkeley's County.

And it can be a very isolating job.

Um they're stuck in one room 10 to 12 hours a day.

And to having having that officer come in, talk to them about the situation that just occurred, helping them grow through those processes, both the officer and the dispatcher really helps build that cohesiveness, which is needed in the time of need when we do call them.

Yeah, I really appreciate both of those those notes of the position and operational efficiency as well as the well-being of our employees as well.

Um another question I had is at the presentation, we talked about how nationally a lot of police stations are going uh into or near schools.

I was just wondering in general, what national trends have you seen of locations within a community of where a police station exists typically.

Yeah, I mean, you really it's gonna be dependent on the community and their needs.

I've seen them all types of places.

I've seen the county sheriffs in the detention facility and a police facility altogether like Mini Haha County has it.

I've seen it where police facilities are out uh you know, you know, maybe on the outskirts of the town, just because again, for financial purposes.

So it really it operationally it doesn't impact a police facility.

Like I said, I went through the sectors and beats, how we operate.

It really doesn't impact operations as much.

You know, me as your police chief, I want a public safety facility or police facility that is welcoming to all our residents that people can find easily that they're proud to come to and they're not intimidated.

So wherever you put it, I'm gonna be happy with it, we're gonna make it work.

But there's no real trend.

I think it really comes down to what the community and you all want, where you want to put us and what you're looking at in near schools is a wonderful idea, and that is a trend of the future.

People are starting to put them in those areas.

I've seen them in shopping malls, I've seen them in neighborhoods.

It really depends on what the community expects and demands from us and what they really where they want it.

Wherever you folks want it, we're gonna make it work, and it's gonna be beautiful because we're from Brookings.

So I just look at it as yeah, I there's a lot of trends out there, but I think looking at this exhaustive map, you know, I wouldn't want your jobs of picking this place where it's gonna be, because it's really gonna depend on what our community expects and demands and wants and what's reasonable and what's gonna be cost efficient.

So I really think we can put this anywhere.

I just want to make sure that wherever you do put it, we're gonna operate efficiently and we're gonna give the best public safety services to our community.

I I would add to that that your police chief here is committed to community policing.

And so no matter where you put it, I believe that he's gonna focus on trying to find a way to engage the schools, either through the school resource officers through our wonderful program in the summer.

I can't remember what it's called, but I think every kid here in Perkins has gone through it.

Uh but he will find ways to find that connection by pivoting uh at an alternative location.

Sure, thank you.

I have a few more questions, if that's okay.

Thank you.

I really appreciate this presentation.

I've got a lot of questions.

There's been a lot of community interest.

So um this is important.

Okay, so then the next one is um I was just wondering in general, you know, we've discussed this of when we look at areas that the con or the trade-off would be economic development.

Is there some sort of tool that we could create to help us in our decision making process of understanding uh kind of that that economic trade-off of what we would be giving up and for example, like sales tax is one example of developing it for a public facility rather than retail.

Not that I'm aware of it.

All depends on the type of retail that comes into space and and the desire of that space.

Well we do have is we can tell you the expected market value of that piece of property that you'd be trading off.

Um any retail that comes in town adds sales tax.

Um, for example, we assumed with uh the Aldian target coming into town, roughly 350 to 400,000 to the capital improvement plan.

That's roughly 26 acres.

So you could break that down by acre uh to get what you think that could happen.

But once again, it all depends on the type of retail that comes in and then what a leakage study shows you as far as what retail is truly needed in the community.

Sure.

Okay, that makes sense.

Um and then I just wanted to confirm for the uh estimate.

I think it's on slide 19 of the budget.

Is that a 2026 estimate or when was that estimate created?

Uh are you well I would say that's that's the most current estimate for costs and for bonding uh of a bond.

Um we got just the most current estimate for the police facility less than three weeks ago.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Final question.

Um what's most important is the end users of this facility.

So it'd be the community as well as dispatch in the police department.

We've talked about, you know, once we move forward with the sider, even throughout this process, we're engaging the community.

We've engaged the community in the school presentation.

I was wondering if you could talk through kind of how you've engaged um the dispatch and police officers of this facility as well throughout this process.

Yeah.

Um, throughout the process, I'm pretty open and honest as a uh uh you're part of your leadership team, probably a little more open and honest because there's certain things we couldn't, and I was very upfront with them.

We were talking about private sites.

I really wanted to tell the folks about it, but it can drive costs up.

But I would be honest with them about it, maybe not the location.

Um, at all my executive meetings and my supervisors' meetings, I made sure that the police facility was spoken about.

So we have an executive meeting at least once a week.

We have an all hands meeting twice a year, and we have supervisors' meetings at least once or twice a month.

It's top of topic.

It's always on my agenda.

I always make sure that they know exactly what we're doing and what we're discussing to a T, except for certain confidential things you just can't talk about because it could drive price up and adversely affect us.

And then just recently, uh myself and the city manager gave them a full presentation on the on this and in in depth and and elicited responses from them.

Um it's always opened uh, you know, meeting with them and asking them their questions and concerns and talking about the sites themselves.

Um so I think that the process has been as fair fairly transparent as it could be with them.

Um, importantly trying to get their buy-in and and their input on where it's gonna be.

But more importantly, once the site is located and we're we're agreeing on okay, it's gonna be here, uh, that's really where the staff will come to life.

There'll be multidisciplinary groups meeting because the architects and the builders have to meet with them, they're the end users, so they are gonna have a really big say on the input of the design, the workstations.

Um it doesn't really come from the city manager and myself at that point, that comes from most of the staff in the community to see how the facility is gonna work, how it's gonna look, and more importantly, where they're gonna spend a lot of time away from their families.

Um, so they're gonna have much more say as we go on in this process once the site is selected.

Um that's kind of the intent in it is letting us get through the administrative part of this, keeping them informed, of course, but then at the end, once that site is picked and we have the build and we have the construction, they're gonna get act more actively involved in their workstations, their workspaces, and what it's gonna look like in the design as well as the community.

Sure.

Thank you.

Thank you for answering all my questions.

I greatly appreciate it.

Councilmember Hager.

All right.

I just want to thank you for all your work on going back and looking at all of these different potential sites.

I know after the November listening session, I, as the newest member of council, was really interested in hearing more about all of the background that led to that potential site being the one that was presented, and then in light of the community feedback going back and actually re-evaluating all of these sites.

So a lot of my questions really look at what we're talking about mostly on this slide, and then the one prior to it where it lists the final site recommendations without the staff kind of inserting nuances and whatnot.

But before we really get to that, one thing that I've heard a lot from folks in the community is why not just build on the existing site, you know, temporarily misplace the police department and rebuild there.

And it's my belief that's only like a one-acre size property, correct?

Correct.

It's about I think about a 1.2, 1.3 acre.

That's I believe with the the where the site where the fire department's gonna build on.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I just wanted to make sure that everybody who is watching here, whether it's you know online or in the room, understands that that's why that one's not even on this list.

So looking at the final site recommendations we have here.

So we have the Dakota Bank Center and then all the marketplace properties essentially.

And then if we go to the next slide, we have the Dakota Bank Center and the Wee's property, where the WES property kind of jumps up on the list, and then other marketplace properties jump down, where then some of these other ones kind of come up to the top.

So, like then we have like the airport site and the fishback soccer complex and the school district sites, which you know, kind of going through the pros and cons.

You actually have quite a few cons for you know, three through six essentially.

And so I would like a little bit more insight into how those kind of leapfrogged some of the marketplace ones, and then like why the WES property stayed up there, but the other marketplace ones are down below.

Because, you know, it a little bit difficult for me to fully understand like how we pick a site that is well, the purpose is for commercial development.

Like, you know, do we really want to be taking away that potential there for the community to grow in that area?

And so I would just like a little bit more on these different marketplace sites.

Yeah, so if we look at the marketplace site first, this is the we'll go to the bottom right-hand corner.

Uh this is the one directly adjacent to Target.

Our staff's opinion is that that site would be better served for retail development here, especially in the very near future.

Additionally, there's an option that Ryan Company has on that.

So there's an additional con on top of that that I didn't list on this one.

Uh to the east of that, even further is the RTI site.

That one's just adjacent.

And when we look and think about logically how retail is gonna develop in that area, those closest to Sixth Street are gonna develop a lot faster than potentially anything in the WES property.

That's what we pulled those out.

They're also a lot smaller, uh, so they're easier to develop and quicker to develop as well.

Though the RTI site, I think in total is about five acres, uh, that would be optimal.

So if it is a place where you want to go as council, you can go there.

Once again, as I mentioned, all these sites, though we ranked them one through ten, it doesn't mean 10's the worst, and you shouldn't move forward with them.

You can move forward with them.

It's just us as staff recommend not because it's such a smaller site, has infrastructure on every corner of that site, which makes it more advantageous to develop for commercial.

And then what was the other question on uh the other sites that you asked about?

It was mostly about those particular ones, but then why those ones drop down, but then some of these other ones with very apparent cons, like the air like the airport site really jumps out at me where at best we can lease the land and then maybe get a purchase option.

And there's just a lot of regulations that are in the way, which makes me leery of selecting that one to be quite honest.

So I was just surprised to see that one kind of jump over some of the marketplace ones.

In my mind, with this one here, sometime in the future we're gonna have to approach this as a potential developable site.

And so that's why I rose a little bit further.

We actually asked staff three years ago to start this process, and they have been working through it.

So sooner or later, we hope to have this site.

It's just not optimal right now to utilize it.

So that's why I think it moved up further.

Okay.

And in the ranking.

Yeah, no, that's helpful because I was just feeling like maybe I'm missing some of the nuance there.

And then my last question is I would like to revisit the map on the Dakota Bank Center location.

We're currently the green square is down at the bottom, which would make it closer to 6th Street.

But you said that that could be moved throughout that particular location, so that could be up farther and to the right on this particular diagram.

So that I mean, I know we're gonna have a presentation about the future of the Dakota Bank Center here after this conversation.

So if we are kind of thinking about things that are closer to 6th Street and some of that land that overlaps some of that parking potentially being developable land, moving it to the back would still work on this particular site, correct?

Yeah, so our thought was if if council wanted to move it here, you could also move it closer here to I think that's 32nd Street.

Um either those two options in the front are are optimal.

You would be taking away some parking in this capital approved plan.

We've often uh thought about adding monies to pave this as parking, and so you could always add more parking if this facility gets more use and that parking is desired.

You could also locate it here so you don't impact that parking, but it might impact future growth to the uh to the east.

Uh, you could always add it over here uh to the north where it doesn't impact much at all.

However, it's further out of the way, further out of the public's eye.

Um, and there is some work that needs to be taken out of that hill.

There's a hell hill that would need to be sculpted for that.

So that's what I meant by various locations on that site.

Yeah, for sure.

So I know just from my perspective and my line of questioning, probably becomes pretty apparent what some of my thoughts are in terms of trying to make sure that we locate this in a place that not only satisfies the community and the needs of our police department, but also so we're not hampering the future growth of Brookings, especially on our commercial property.

And so ultimately what I would like to hear is from our community members what they think in light of all of this information, which I asked some more specific questions about some of these sites.

So hopefully, as they're watching, they can then start formulating their thoughts and then get in touch with us.

So thank you so much.

Okay, council members specker.

Do you have any comments, questions?

I'm just wondering if there's going to be an actual public meeting on this.

You know, how sometimes we have with the construction with the board setup or I mean, similar to what we did with the last proposal, but more with these different options.

Because I agree with Lisa.

I think it would be nice to get more input from the public on what they think.

I mean whether we need a public meeting to do that, or whether we can just hear from them via email.

It's kind of up in the air to me.

That's entirely up to you as council.

If you have a site identified, you want to take action soon.

We could always have a public meeting and discussion through the design process.

Or if you want to have a public meeting before you choose a site, that's an option too.

Uh completely up to you as council.

Uh, would recommend you make a motion on that uh at the end of the meeting so we know what direction you as council's dire council wants to go to that process.

All right.

So with that being said, uh, I'm also gonna invite the public that's here.

If they have any questions or comments, I uh feel free to come up.

Please state your name and address if you have any comments that you'd like to make.

Or or if you have any other questions.

I also uh uh those that are watching online or will see this recording later on to uh please uh reach out to either city manager or us as members of the city council if you have any other questions, comments.

Um I think uh you guys did a pretty good job here giving us all our options.

I personally uh like uh the south end of the parking lot of the Dakota Bank Center.

I think it doesn't take away from our possibilities of other retail space because now that we've just gotten the ball rolling, uh we'll take away from the the uh the white property or or the RTA or or even the additional land that's right next to the uh target.

I I like the idea that we would preserve that for future retail space now that we might have something getting started there.

Um it it this wouldn't take a lot of the footprint in the Weiss edition, and it would probably look best right along 32nd just for accessibility for the officers, but I like the idea of the one down on the south end of the parking lot of the Dakota Bank Center because we can be seen there.

We have uh we have a visual of our police department right there along Sixth Street when people are coming by or coming into our town from the east or or uh leaving.

I I'm kind of just have leaned towards that position uh uh pretty much throughout the evening.

So are there any other comments, questions on this particular item?

All right.

We'll move on to item seven, which is presentation and discussion about uh the Dakota Bank Center and its future.

And I think we have Kristen Zimmerman, Samantha Beckman, and Johnny Mays will be presenting this item.

Good evening, council.

Um last at last week's council meeting, um, there was a motion made for staff to explore or look into the Dakota Bank Center and provide updates.

And so we put together a PowerPoint presentation to give you guys some insight into what's currently going on with the Dakota Bank Center.

Um Steward in the Dakota Bank Center for long-term success is what we're calling it.

So about the Dakota Bank Center.

It's located at 824 32nd Avenue.

The current footprint of the facility is 102,000 square feet.

The building was built in 2001.

The facility includes an arena, multi-purpose rooms, commercial kitchen, and open space.

Some of the benefits of the Dakota Bank Center drives visor visitor spending at hotels, restaurants, and local businesses, boosts tax revenue tied to events and tourism, improves quality of life with more entertainment and community events, supports local jobs and vendors through event operations and services, offers a flexible year-round venue for sports, concerts, meetings, banquets, and much more, generates facility revenue through rentals, ticketed events, and sponsorships.

The initial term of the agreement with Oakview Group OVG will expire on December 31st, 2026.

And while there is no requirement for the city to provide notice of non-renewal, the city attorney has recommended that the city notify OBG of his intentions by June 30th of 2026.

I'll turn it over to Kristen to talk about the financials.

Thank you, Mayor and members of council.

I'm gonna briefly go over the financials based on the Oakview Group's contract.

Um I'm unfortunately this is not a first time for this conversation.

Um I think City Council had the same conversation with venue works back when we went out for an RFP in 2021.

Um events have changed since COVID.

And just the cost of maintaining a building, they've all increased.

Um I just want to be real honest and have an open and honest, transparent conversation.

Um this is the building.

Um right now we're subsidizing the operations by about a half a million dollars each year.

Um in conjunction with that, there's about another half a million dollars in capital.

Um so when you look at that, it's really important to start having that conversation on what we want to see in that building.

Um what it could be, how it can best serve our community, and we'll talk about what that means.

Um in this graph, you'll see um the actual subsidy is in the blue columns.

The green is that RFP proposal that was originally submitted with the contract.

It varies greatly, but a lot of that comes back to um event changes and cost of doing business.

Um yeah, you can see a trend.

It's again.

National event trends.

Groups aren't traveling to the Dakotas as much as they once were.

People spend money differently too.

You'll find that people will spend very large amounts to go to maybe one concert a year rather than the five to ten concerts that they weren't once were.

I know I see that in my family when it comes to like Taylor Swift and those kind of things.

But you know, I'll go see concerts regardless.

But the growing subsidy to be building needs, though, too.

It's an aging facility.

It's now 25 years old.

So that capital commitment will likely continue regardless of what whatever we choose.

But those are some of the trends that we'll you'll still see moving forward.

And I'll turn it over to Sam where we can talk about other things.

Hello.

So like Kristen and Johnny had mentioned, you know, the OVG contract is up at the end of the year, which is why we're here today.

You know, we wanted to get some updates on the financials and talking about the trends.

Um again is not a reflection on OVG or their staff.

This is a national trend to have event centers not doing as well, less events, um, especially since COVID.

And so we have been, you know, having this recommendation come before you.

The Dakota Bank Center Advisory Board had initially asked for us to start creating a pay a plan for sustainable operations for the future of the facility.

So our staff recommendation is to do this through a community-driven approach.

Um, what that would mean is that we would want to do some sort of a community engagement session, open house type of situation, and really ask the community what they see for the future.

You know, there's several options that I see, you know, stick with an event center, pivot to another alternative use, like a recreation center is just an option.

Um you could go out for another request for proposals just like we did in 2021.

Um, or maybe there's really something that we as staff haven't been thinking of either.

So that's kind of our our recommendation as staff is to go forward with the community and see what they really want.

Um, either way, uh, we'll have to do some initial analysis of the current events, um, revenues that come in from the events, operational assessments in the meantime, really with a goal here to establish a clear practical strategy that balances community benefit with responsible stewardship.

Um, that's achievable for this outcome here.

Um so really we're looking for kind of council's input on what they see for the future of the Dakota Bank Center and the sustainable approach moving forward again.

Our recommendation will be to engage the community at this point and see what their thoughts are.

And we can take any questions from here.

All right, thanks, Sam.

Councilmember Specker.

Yeah, Sam, if you're um planning, and I think this idea of doing community engagement sessions is really good.

But when do you think that could be done?

Because I'm thinking maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to if it can be done sooner than later to combine it with the um safety center discussions with the community.

Yeah, we've um, you know, if you kind of backtrack our our timeline, um, our city attorney has recommended that we have sort of the option that we're gonna move forward with by the end of June.

So if you kind of backtrack it, the the best time frame to do some of these public engagement sessions would be as soon as possible, right?

So that we can have the public um discussion and bring it back to council maybe once or twice and have um everybody's input then at that point.

So to bring it back to council before we would have the contract kind of um deadline date that we would need to tell them by we would really need to start with public engagement soon.

So when you say soon, I don't know if um there's a time limit on public notices for something like this.

Like, could we do it in a week?

Could we do it in two weeks?

You usually would want to market it a little bit to make sure that people have um you know prior knowledge.

So I would I would say probably you would want to give it a minimum two weeks, but anywhere two to six weeks out, I think would be pretty okay.

Okay, thank you.

Council member Wendell.

Thank you, Mayor.

I have just some follow-up thoughts on Councillor Specker's questions and comments, and maybe this isn't even fully formed yet, but I was wondering if you could describe what you think would be included in community engagement.

Because I think you know, if we're thinking about two weeks from now, we're really just talking about like an open-ended listening session.

I wouldn't expect staff would be ready to facilitate a brainstorming session or that we'd be doing strategic planning two weeks from now.

So I'm wondering if you could help us understand like what do you envision this looking like and how do we set it up to be as successful and productive as possible.

My vision for it would be to move forward with some form of a brainstorming session.

Um really, I think there's we're still at the point where you know there's so many different avenues that we could go down, it could stay an event center, and I think we should know if the public wants an event center or if they want an alternative use, or if there's again other things that we haven't thought about.

Um, I think that's an initial discussion that needs to be had in that capacity first before we would go down a deeper dive if they you know if they chose an alternative use as their preferred use, then we could go down a little deeper into that alternative use that they would choose.

Yeah, and to answer your question further, I think we have to engage other user groups in the community, user groups with existing facility space, businesses.

If you do use it as an alternative rec space, those maybe other user groups in the community, and then potentially have an open discussion on that.

Otherwise, it's gonna be a free for all and not getting much direction.

So I think there's specifically more thought that needs to be put into what that process looks like.

And I understand that it will likely be a multi-phase process, right?

It'll start with lots of opportunities that we would narrow down to some more possibilities and we would structure what that looks like.

I just don't want us to like set an expectation that we're not gonna really be able to facilitate.

Uh I also think kind of place and setting matters, and so I'm not sure that this environment and a study session, having people come up to that microphone is something we want to replicate.

So if if we're thinking about that in the short term, I want it to feel open and like a brainstorming session if that's the goal, but I think place and structure kind of matters too.

I want people to feel really comfortable if we can.

Could I make a couple of comments?

Is well, I don't want to derail this, but um you know, I think it's also just really important to just reiterate if folks are watching that the staff at the Dakota Bank Center, I think are doing phenomenal work.

They're creative, they're problem solvers, they prioritize customer service.

I think Ashley and her team do phenomenal work.

My perspective is not dissatisfaction with our local staff at the Dakota Bank Center.

I think they are up against really difficult odds to make this venue in this market work.

Um, I do have some frustrations with OVG.

I think some of the realities they've cited for the shortcomings were true in 2022 when they did the forecasting that helped us to make the decision.

Um so I have a lot of frustration there.

Um, but that frustration is not placed on local staff, and I think it's just important that we iterate that when we're able to.

Um, I didn't mean to completely disrail that, I just didn't want to lose an opportunity to note that.

Councilmember Durren.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, my comments will be reflective of councilmember uh Wendell's as well.

That you know, as we discuss this building, I understand the community benefit that this building brings in its current state, and um even that the physical location the building holds memories and that in these discussions, we are talking about people's current livelihood, and so I'm I don't want to be you know callous in the discussions.

I am looking for that kind of community affirmation of the direction of this building.

Um, but I will just reiterate what council member Wendell said that the staff has really done a phenomenal job.

Um they work hours upon hours uh of trying to put on great shows and bring a great community benefit.

Um so I I will extend my appreciation to the staff of that building and Ashley and her team.

Uh I did wonder with the community engagement.

Are we just looking at community engagement sessions, or is there a way that we could uh do like a survey or some other kind of especially in that initial stage of just brainstorming?

Is there some kind of more passive way we could collect information for those who aren't physically able to go to a session?

Um we appreciate all public engagement, and I think all options are on the table.

Um, and it can be anything from a poll to you know, when the downtown master plan downtown master plan did its mapping.

Um I don't know if there's a way we could work that out, but I think all options are on the table and it should be a combination of online, in person physical calls, emails, what have you, um, just to make sure we're reaching the public as a whole.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

And I'm sure you're all planning it out right now too while we have these ideas.

So I just want to make sure, just like what you said, that we're being comprehensive in our approach.

All right, councilmember Hager.

Yeah, I would just echo everything that my fellow counselors have said up to this point.

I have one question and then maybe some suggestions about how we move forward.

So on the financials graph that we were shown.

Was OVG just completely off with respect to their expected?

Like, because that proposal line is just drastically different than what we're seeing actual wise.

So I'm the newest member of council, so is there any real you know, like information you can provide both to me but also to the public as to like Hawaii is just so drastically off.

I would say um, I'll have Kristen follow up on this too.

But the you know, we talked about on the next slide the the trends that we're seeing, you know, there are national trends, but there's also very regional trends too.

So um post-COVID also um, you know, threw a wrench into things too, and they submitted their proposal in 2021.

So you know, kind of right in that COVID time frame.

Um, but the I would say the the national trends are probably what I would point to as kind of the the major thing there.

Um yeah, so our market Brookings is a great community, and I wouldn't change it for the world, but we're also a really tough market when it comes to events.

Um we're in a secondary or tertiary market.

Um so when you think about those larger events, what are communic, you know, you we always hear why aren't there this kind of concert or this kind of event?

We've all heard that.

Um we can't force people to route this direction.

Um, and it's really hard, and again, OVG and their or our local OVG staff do an amazing job.

Um Ashley works her tail off trying to book as many events as she can.

Um, but we are in a very tough market, and things have just shifted.

Um, political climate change things, even with the election.

Um there's less and less events booking um during election years, and that's a trend, regardless of who's in office, um, people who spend less money those years just because there's some uncertainty.

So it's a lot of different factors that are accounting for that shift.

Um, but some of it may be that you know corporate OVG didn't understand our market and understand Brookings and the types of events that would do well here, not do well here, but um they were sell they were trying to sell their services though, too.

So um we gotta look at some of that.

Um we are so happy with the OVG local local reps.

Um, again, but events are different and they change and it ebbs and flows.

Um we can adapt or we can stay the same.

Thank you.

Yeah, because it just seemed like they just drastically underestimated what would happen with respect to the Dakota Bank Center.

So that definitely provides a little bit more insight there for for me, but hopefully everyone else.

You know, as far as moving forward, you know, I would like to echo what others have said about trying to get public input and also your recommendation to get public input.

I do like council member uh Doran's idea of a survey or something, but also maybe if we could provide some suggestions, not suggestions but possibilities, like maybe what other similarly sized communities have done with similar types of facilities, because it's nice having the world as your oyster, but also if some community members are like, I don't even begin to know what's possible.

So I know like um Paul mentioned, you know, maybe more recreation space, like maybe just some broad ways in which folks can really kind of start thinking about here's the general options, but we're definitely open to others, so you know, a fill in the blank or something like that.

So I guess that's one suggestion I have.

And then another is going off of council member Specker's idea of you know, maybe trying to combine this with a discussion about the police department, especially since the Dakota Bank Center site was high up on the list for potential police department sites.

So maybe there could at least be like one community engagement session that focuses on the possibility of that location with some changes to the Dakota Bank Center, and then maybe I don't know, another listening session for maybe some of the other highly ranked police department locations.

I don't know if that messes up timelines or anything like that, but I could foresee that being a good way to move forward for community members who maybe have interests in maybe one more so than the other, or maybe both.

I don't know.

I I personally would recommend keeping them separate, only because of the time frame.

Uh the police department were working on that design.

Uh, we'll be bringing back forward a construction manager change.

But I think marketing both is critical, making sure that we're getting it out there to the public so everyone knows where they are.

If that's the desire of council, you always need to make that motion recommendation.

Then the meeting that way we give enough time and space for people to be there and to come to those meetings, and so that you can attend too to hear that public input.

Councilmember Tilton Byrne.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um sorry, Johnny, were you gonna say uh I was just going to say that um the question I had and the comment I had has already been stated by my fellow council members, but I do want to reiterate it just because um that way staff can know that there's additional uh support for this.

But uh the first comment is that uh just want to appreciate the local staff that we have here.

When um events are happening out there, uh, whenever you stop out at the facility, the local staff is incredible.

Um, and I don't think that is in question in any of this, and I don't want the staff to hear that that is a question in any of this.

Um I think uh a lot of the things that we've discussed tonight are impacting what can happen locally.

Um I think maybe the um more corporate OVG is maybe just not meeting uh some of the expectations, um, but locally the staff out there is fantastic.

I I just can't say that enough.

Um, but uh to echo what council member Hager said, I do think that if we go into any kind of public session, public listening session, surveying whatever it is we do, providing at least some um you know multiple choice or menu of possible options could be really helpful.

That that doesn't mean we have to limit it to those items on on a particular list, but then at least it can start uh sparking some ideas in the community.

Um, because even for myself as someone who has gone over this multiple times and was part of the process back when we did the uh the um overview with OVG and and entered into that contract uh to even think about like well what could it be is difficult for me.

And if I'm this close to it and having a hard time, I'm sure members of the public would struggle even more.

And so uh if there are put you know possible ideas that we already have, um uh that might be just helpful to list those as options.

And I was just gonna say we can go back and take a look at it comprehensively and maybe see what we can what it can be, right?

So we can provide that information on where they can be, and we can also engage the public through maybe surveys, online surveys, focus groups, uh, whatever it takes to involve them so that they can be yeah, they they can tell us what they need in this community and what they want.

I was gonna kind of go down that road was is just talking to Paul about you know, we want to get this police department, get the community involved in it, get some decisions made on it, get moving on that.

But with the community center, maybe put the survey out first so that staff has an idea of what people are looking for, and then maybe come up with some possibilities and some ideas and possibly have a community meeting in say March.

Just throwing that out there.

I I think as staff uh we can go through the process and through surveys, come up with a game plan that we could present you guys in the near future on a timeline of possible public meetings if uh after hearing council's concerns and desires.

Because that way by that time we at least maybe by June we can maybe decipher whether or not we're gonna keep this facility doing what it's doing, or maybe have a hybrid or completely turn it into something else.

All right, council member Specker.

Yeah, I would just like to put a call out there to the public to contact us as council members, especially when it comes to the police department, because I do believe that that needs to be acted on sooner than later.

Um it would be nice to hear what they feel about these different sites.

And I mean, they can do that by contacting us or that's all.

All right.

Any other comments, questions on this particular subject?

All right.

Uh next week, January 27th.

We have our second meeting of the month.

Um, there's a few items in the consent agenda.

And then uh we do have uh one contract or or purchase uh to approve.

And then first reading on an amendment for the solid waste, Chapter 70 on particulars of e-waste.

And then second reading of the uh two uh first readings we had last uh meeting, temporary alcohol for St.

Thomas Moore, and then other business consolidated fee schedule, and then possibly looking at whether or not selecting the site at the Weiss Center if we're ready to pull the trigger on that if we've gotten enough community feedback, and then um any other topics that would be of future discussion.

Does council want to make a motion to have a public meeting on the police facility?

And when I'm actually thinking that of some other ideas um for getting community feedback.

I think that maybe some of us going to the service organizations and the activity center and just different community organizations to go over some of this and and get feedback from local organizations.

I think that's always a good way to get that.

So next week uh staff would plan on bringing back a resolution for you as council to set the location.

What I'd recommend you doing is just tabling it if you haven't had that opportunity yet, to a future meeting when you feel more most comfortable to make that decision, or tabling it with guidance to staff if you need more public conversations, um public meetings, or whatever you decide.

So no next week, between now and next week would be a good opportunity for you guys to think about what the public discussion looks like in that time frame means so you can announce it at that meeting.

Okay, all right.

Without anything else going on, um look for a uh motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second, all those in favor say aye.

Aye meeting adjourned.