All right.

Call this meeting to order.

We stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Okay.

Will the city clerk please take attendance?

All council members are present, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you.

Item three, the approval of the agenda.

Entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

So moved.

Any public comments on the agenda for this evening.

Please call the roll.

Avery.

Tilton Byrne.

Aye.

Wendell.

Aye.

All right.

On to 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 when there is one minute remaining.

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

All right, we'll move on to the next item of business.

Action on the consent agenda.

Are there any items to be removed from the consent agenda?

Seeing none, entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda.

So moved.

Second.

Any public comment on the consent agenda items.

Doran.

Aye.

Haker?

Aye.

Neymar.

Aye.

Specker.

Aye.

Tylko Byrne.

Aye.

Wendell?

Aye.

Avery.

Aye.

Okay.

On to presentations and reports.

I invite Anna Hunt, SDSU Student Association Government Affairs Chair.

Come up and present today.

Good evening.

Last time I was here, I talked to you guys about House Bill 1325 that President Spear and Vice President Sierra and I traveled to Pier to testify on.

We are proud to say that it was moved to the 41st day in an eight-seven vote.

So that requirement to live on campus is still in effect, and hopefully that bill is not coming back.

Today is crossover day, so they can't introduce any more bills, guys.

Um our student promotion fund committee also met and we voted to fund uh AISA's Wachipe event that happens March twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth this year.

So we hope you all are in in attendance.

Comments.

And as a student association's association, government affairs chair.

That's a mouthful.

From March 2025 to March 2026.

Thank you very much.

Yes, we want a picture of the council.

No, you're supposed to brand.

Okay, next thing on the item is Mayor's State of the City address.

As indicated in the city charter, mayor's state of the city address is required to update the city council's efforts in the past year.

This is a pre-recorded video highlighting those efforts in 2025.

I'm privileged to present the 2025 State of the City address.

This address is more than just a we are and how we respond when tested, and how we continue to grow with purpose.

The story begins on December 30th, 2024.

Many of us woke up that Tuesday morning to the news of a fire that had broken out in our historic downtown.

Businesses stepped up to support and make room for one another.

Residents showed up with patience, care, and encouragement, and city staff immediately began working behind the scenes to help establish plan and find a path forward.

That moment became a turning point, not defined by loss, but by resolve.

The programs are designed to encourage reinvestment, redevelopment, and long-term vitality.

We send a clear message, Brookings believes in its downtown, and we are willing to partner with those who believe in it too.

Those downtown incentive programs will reinvest in more businesses in 2026.

As our downtown businesses rebuild and reinvest, we are building a stronger identity together.

As we welcome Target, Aldi, and Quake Star into our community.

To responsibly and intensely support growth over the last couple years, the city created new tax increment financing districts to encourage workforce housing and sustainable development.

These districts include the marketplace, the Branch Creek neighborhood, Trailshead, Felventum expansion, and the Sixth Street Development.

In the last three years alone, with these TIFF districts, we've been able to add 378 housing units and 86 jobs in our community.

With the opening of interchange 130 in 2023, we are already seeing new opportunities emerge along 20th Street South.

In 2025, we welcomed the city's first quick start in our newest Starbucks to 20th Street South.

We're expanding Brookings in a way that is deliberate, connected, and forward looking.

Growth, however, only works when it's supported by strong infrastructure, and much of that work happens quietly.

Throughout 2025, the city continued the commitment to maintaining and improving the systems that keep our community moving.

We completed street maintenance and overlay projects, including the use of slurry ceiling, an innovative and cost-effective approach to maintaining our many miles of roadway.

We also completed sidewalk improvements, drainage projects, intersection upgrades at 22nd Avenue and 20th Street South, and the addition of a shared roof path along 20th Street South, all the way from Main Avenue to 22nd Avenue.

All these reflect a city that thinks carefully about safety, accessibility, and longevity.

In the Brookings Regional Landfill, we continue to work on the Leech H Force Main Project and built a new equipment storage building.

We also created a new residential drop-off area, making the landfill easier for residents to use.

The life of the landfill has been expanded through recycling program, including our holiday light recycling and household hazardous weight event.

That event broke records with 431 participating vehicles.

At the Brookings Regional Airport, the completion of the parallel taxiway and taxi lane extension ensures Brookings remained connected and competitive.

This is not flashy work, but it's essential work.

We also continue to modernize how the city operates.

In 2025, the city updated its annual digital budget books, expanded our online performance dashboards, and implemented new software systems to improve transparency, efficiency, and service delivery.

These tools help our residents better understand how Brookings functions and help ensure accountability and how city resources are used.

At the same time, we never lose sight of the fact that a city is ultimately about the people.

Our police department ramped up its community policing efforts and continued the Citizens Responder Academy for another year.

We also began the process of seeking CLIA accreditation, a nationally recognized standard that reflects professionalism and best practices.

We hosted community conversations about the future location of the police station.

We also selected the future site for our main fire station, just west of its current location on Third Street.

Financing the future locations of these facilities has been top of mind for the city council for many years.

The city has reserved $18.5 million to pay for the construction of these important facilities.

That's $18.5 million that now does not need to be financed through increased property taxes for Brookings residents.

These decisions are about resiliency and readiness for today and decades from now.

Our commitment to sustainability is also continued in meaningful ways.

Our city staff treated and removed ashtries across Brookings to stay ahead of the Emerald Ash Board.

They hosted a prescribed burn at the Dakota Nature Park and continued stormwater incentive and tree voucher programs.

In October, the city launched a food waste compost pilot program in partnership with the state of South Dakota.

In only three short months, nearly 7,400 pounds of fluid waste was collected.

We can't wait to see how much we collect by next October.

We also invested in mobility and access by beginning the master transportation plan, partnering with SDSU students on a solid waste route optimization study and hosting another successful spring bulky item pickup event where we collected over 400 tons of waste, metal, and branches.

Community life in Brookings remains vibrant and deeply connected.

The Brookings Activities Center expanded its membership in 2025.

The city took over ownership and operations of the Fifth Street Gym, now home to the Brookings Winter Farmers Market, and we continued renovations at the skate park.

In a single summer weekend, our park system held a record 40,000 plus people in our parks for multiple sporting tournaments and the Brookings Summer Arts Festival.

At the Brookings Library, over 1,000 readers participated in the summer reading program.

The library also received a 120,000 Lowe's hometown grant to improve shelving, furniture, and create a mural.

Thousands gathered for concerts, community celebrations, carnivals, and events like Uncle Sam Jam at the Dakota Bank Center, reinforcing that Brookings is a place where people come together.

And throughout the year, our staff continued to grow professionally, attending local, state, regional, and national conferences, bringing new ideas and best practices back home to Brookings.

Our community also received national recognition again this year, being named the number two most affordable college town in the U.S., the number four best place to live in South Dakota, the number four best place for young professionals in South Dakota, and number nine best college town in the Midwest.

While rankings don't define us, they do reflect what many already know that Brookings is a community that invests in quality of life.

Finally, I want to recognize the people who make all this possible.

Our city departments.

Our staff shows up every day to keep Brookings running.

Their work is thoughtful, professional, and often unseen.

They are planners, problem solvers, and public servants who care deeply about this community.

And they understand deeply that what we do is bigger than us.

As we look ahead, know that Brookings is not growing by accident.

We are expanding intentionally, supporting businesses and people, investing in infrastructure, and planning for the future in a way that reflects our values.

The story of Brookings in 2025 is not about a single project or event.

It's about resilience after challenge, innovation through partnership and steady progress guided by purpose.

It's a story written by a community that shows up by staff who serve with pride by leaders committed to stewarding our community in its next chapter.

Thank you for being part of that story for continuing to help Brookings grow in a way that we can all be proud of.

All right.

I'd like to make comment on this right away is I'd like to uh throw out a um thank you, uh a well deserved thank you to Jen uh YU Fawcett.

She did this pretty much all up together with a little help from Sherry Boardwick, our profession our public information officer.

Uh Jen did a great job on this.

Uh, and I'm sure she had a couple of helpers here and there.

And uh I'll tell you that right now, it wasn't the first take that I did on this.

There was quite a few redoes.

So, but anyway, it it uh I I think it's uh um it does a really good job of of what we've accomplished in the last year.

Any other comments?

All right.

We will move on to uh first readings.

Item 8A, introduction and first reading on ordinance 26 006, an ordinance authorizing budget amendment number 10 to the 2025 budget.

Ashley Rynch, our financial director will present this item.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the council.

This is ordinance 26-006, amendment number 10 to the 2025 budget.

This amendment increases budget authority in several governmental fund areas to properly close out 2025.

The total increase in expenditure authority is 153,614.60 cents, and the primary adjustments include the city attorney, reflecting new leader new relationship in 2025 with Woods Fuller, and some of the out-of-ordinary items in 2025 included code enforcement, the downtown fire, legal newspaper research, election laws, marketplace transactions, and the police and fire facilities.

In human resources, we had increased recruitment expenses, employee training, and um salary survey costs.

And then in community development, we had the addition of the associate planner position.

And Parks Recon Forestry, we have a net zero uh adjustment, just uh reallocating positions internally, and then in um appropriations and subsidies, we included some additional legal fees associated with the downtown parking lot purchase.

Finally, the Dakota Bank Center operating shortfall will be transferred from the 3B fund.

And this amendment ensures that we close out 2025 in compliance with state law and accurately reflect our operational needs.

The second reading of this ordinance will be on March 10th, and I'll stand by for questions.

Thanks.

Thank you, Ashley.

Uh since this first reading, uh is it any public comments on this item?

Council questions, comments.

Second reading, obviously, our next meeting on March 10th.

And we'll move on to the next one.

And uh item 8B, introduction and first reading on ordinance 26-007.

An ordinance authorizing budget amendment number one to the 2026 budget.

Ashley will present this item also.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council.

This is ordinance 26-007, amendment number one to the 2026 budget.

This amendment carries forward budget authority and surplus funds from 2025 into 2026 for projects and initiatives that were previously approved but not completed due to timing.

As part of the year-end closeout, we evaluate projects that span fiscal years and ensure that appropriate authority is in place for completion.

Key components of this amendment include a transfer from the general fund to the fire facility capital project fund to fully account for the estimated project price.

And these funds are from the general fund and designated from the city council financial policy projects.

This ordinance ensures transparency and compliance with state law as well as continuity with our capital and operational projects.

This ordinance will have a second reading on March 10th.

And with that, I'll stand by for questions.

All right.

Thank you, Ashley.

Any public comment on this item?

Council, questions, comments?

All right.

And we'll move on to item 8C.

Introduction and first reading on ordinance 26-008.

An ordinance amending chapter 94, Article 6, Divisions 5, Section 94-43, 473, related to projecting signs in the business B1 Central District.

Mike Strzok, our community development director, will present this item.

Thank you, Mayor, and members of the council.

Um to simplify what this ordinance is, it's one sentence being added to provide an exception that in the B1, our central business district, uh, you can have one project and sign every 25 feet.

The way the ordinance currently is written, it applies to any zoning district across the city as you're allowed one projecting sign per building phase.

Uh projecting signs are limited to 48 square feet.

They have to be 10 feet above the sidewalk and at least two feet set back from the curb.

In the downtown area, many of the lots down there are platted at 25 feet.

And we've had a few instances where buildings have consolidated over time and uh become one building facade, and therefore uh the interpretation is is you get one projecting sign.

If they were to keep those as separate buildings, they would each be allowed to sign.

So essentially, there's not any um real additional signage that is being allowed kind of along the main avenue front side, those are 25-foot wide lots.

There is the potential on corner lots because you do have uh more straight frontage um in a multi-tenant situation, they could have a project and sign every 25 feet along the corner lots.

Um this does come to you as unanimous recommendation from the planning commission, and I would stand for any questions you may have.

All right.

Any public comment on this item.

Council have questions, comments at this time.

Councilmember Wendell.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mike, did you work with the downtown organization or historic preservation at all in considering this change?

No, this came at the request of some of the business owners and some sign companies.

Um in particular, we had one where uh they had received a variance to have the additional sign.

Well, when you take the sign down, uh you can't put it back up unless you comply, and so they would have to go the variance route.

And they kind of brought it to our attention is is this building is actually two 25-foot lots.

Sure.

And that's kind of where it came from.

So we didn't consult with the downtown um you know, downtown business and our DBI.

We didn't uh talk to historic uh in the historic um districts.

The signs aren't reviewed by BHP C anyways, so they kind of just work through uh the city staff on those.

Yeah.

You know what it just seems to me that we have been really thoughtful about our approach to signage downtown, and I'd sort of be curious to know if our downtown organization has any thoughts or if there's any unintended consequences here.

Um I might ask that we would table this item until we could engage that organization if others would be comfortable with that.

Councilmember Specker.

Would it need to be tabled if the second reading if I mean I guess if we feel like we could get it done and have feedback from them prior to the second reading?

It just feels like if we tabled it tonight until we could gather that feedback.

I'm comfortable either direction.

I would recommend just trying to get hold of Kirsten before the second reading.

And then if there are modifications that she might recommend, we can act at that time.

I think what council could do at that time is either approve it, deny it, table it, and if there are specific modifications, you just have to have a sec and an additional reading afterwards with those adjustments.

Okay.

Any other comments, questions from council.

All right.

Thank you, Mike.

Uh item 8D introduction and first reading on ordinance 26-009.

An ordinance amending chapter 6, section six to eight, and chapter 74, section 74 to 40 of the code of ordinances of the city of Brookings.

Samantha Beckman, our assistant city manager, Bonnie Foster, City Clerk will present this item.

Hello, everybody.

Both of those pertain to sidewalk dining and more specifically modifications that we've made to introduce the parklets into the downtown district.

A parklet is a small seating area or green space that is created as a public amenity, either alongside a sidewalk or walkway, or likely in most cases here, in a roadside parking space adjacent to a business.

In 2024, the city partnered with Wooden Legs Brewing Company to conduct a pilot parklet program for a period of two years.

The pilot parklet program has been a success in its first year and has been tremendously received by the Brookings community.

Due to that success, uh staff is recommending approval of these two ordinances to fully allow parklets into code.

While in the process of updating both of these ordinances, we had the opportunity to engage wooden legs on multiple occasions, specifically having pre- and post-season meetings to understand and address challenges through these code updates.

We've also encouraged or engaged downtown Brookings and several city departments with these changes as well.

And then Bonnie's gonna talk through some highlights of those changes.

Mayor and council members in the ordinance that you see before you, you'll notice that there's two sections of the current city code that we are amending.

The first one is chapter six, which is changes to the alcohol section of our code.

We made some modifications to the hours of use in addition to following state law when it comes to sales and consumption of alcoholic beverages.

It also provides definitions of what is a sidewalk sales or sidewalk cafe.

What is a parklet?

And what is the procedure for applying for a permit to have either one of those?

The other section of code that we are modifying is chapter 74, which identifies the regulations for having a sidewalk cafe or a parklet.

It further clarifies application fees, area identification, required borders for safety, and adherence when using temporary structures.

The application that was included in your packets, staff took a streamlined approach, having one application for both permits, in which the applicant just needs to make sure that they check the right box.

The application also provides some additional details for them in a checklist, which is a very easy to read and reference format, ensuring that the application is transparent and the applicant can meet all of the requirements.

And then we just wanted to add one more thing too, because it is maybe the more common question that we've been getting as we've gone through this process.

Uh at this point, parklets are limited to the side streets only.

However, the sidewalk dining is still allowed throughout the downtown, so those main avenue businesses are allowed to have their tables up in that way.

Um and then with that, we'll take any questions you might have.

All right, thank you, ladies.

Is there a public comment on this item?

Council have any questions, comments.

Anyway, you I just want to thank staff for bringing this forward.

I think adding things like parklets is just an opportunity to create place in the downtown.

Um additionally, though, uh I wanted to ask Sam, is the downtown grants available for parklets as well.

Correct.

The lights camera action grant, that would be kind of a part of that action placemaking portion of things.

The lights camera action grant applications are due March 1st, and that is a 50% match up to $2,000.

So you can use it towards a parklet, yep.

All right.

Councilmember Specker.

Yeah, has um there ever been any discussion of doing something like parklets or sidewalk cafes in the alleys.

Not at this point.

No, there has not.

Okay, because I know when we looked at Fort Collins, they had a lot of that, which was pretty neat.

Um possibility of doing that in Brookings.

I think to respond to that, if there's a business interested, we'd gladly look at that to see what options there are and how we can make that work within the program.

Okay.

Thank you, ladies.

So we will have second readings on those four items that we discussed tonight on the March 10th meeting.

On to the second readings and public hearings, we will have item 9A.

Public hearing in action on a request for an on off malt license for KJN Investments LLC DBA Shorties Burgers and Brew to be located at 1224 6th Street Suite A.

Bonnie Foster will present this item.

Mayor and Council members, this is for a both this item 9A and 9B are related.

They're for the same business, KJN and Investments.

Gonna be doing business as Shorties Burgers and Brew.

This is going in at 1224 6th Street, which is the latitude 44 building that you see going up currently.

The owners are seeking a new on off sale malt license as well as an on off sale wine license for this location.

The first action in front of you, part of 9A is for the issuance of the on off malt license.

They are not seeking video lottery for this establishment.

If the council so approves, all paperwork will be sent to the Department of Revenue for final review and issuance.

Staff recommends approval.

I do believe the owners are present this evening if the city council has any questions for them.

Thank you, Bonnie.

Entertain a motion to approve.

So moved.

Second.

The owners are here.

This is your time to come up and advertise.

It's your opportunity.

Good evening, member or mayor and council members.

I'm Kim Dockin Nelson.

I was born, grew up, and raised my family in Brookings, and it's truly special to be here as the owner of Shorty's Burgers and Brew.

Shorty's is a locally owned family built restaurant focused on great food, community, and a welcoming atmosphere.

The ability to serve malt beverages and wine simply allows us to operate as designed.

We are committed to responsible service, proper identification, verification, and full compliance with all regulations.

Our goal is to be a positive long-term addition to this community.

Thank you for your time.

All right.

Any other public comments?

Council have any questions, comments.

When are we going to be up and running?

April 24th.

April 24th.

All right.

Any other comments, questions?

Please call the roll.

Hager.

Aye.

Neymar.

Aye.

Specker.

Aye.

Tilton Byrne.

Aye.

Wendell?

Aye.

Avery?

Aye.

Doran.

Aye.

All right.

Item 9B, public hearing in action.

On resolution 26-010.

Resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a 10-year on-sale wine operating agreement with KJN Investments, LLC, DBA Shortage Burgers and Brew owners, Joshua and Kimberly Nelson.

Bonnie, you got more to add to that?

I do.

Um just as a reminder, with operating agreements for the on-sale wine.

The city enters into those operating agreements for 10 years at a time.

There is a required five-year midterm renewal.

Similar to the malt license, all of the application paperwork will be sent to the Department of Revenue for final review and issuance.

Staff does recommend approval.

All right.

Entertain a motion to approve.

So moved.

Second.

Move second.

Is there any more public comment on this item?

Council questions, comments.

Please call the roll.

Neymar.

Aye.

Specker.

Aye.

Tilton Byrne.

Aye.

Wendell?

Aye.

Avery?

Aye.

Doran.

Aye.

Hager.

Aye.

Congratulations.

We're on our way.

All right.

Action on resolution 26-019.

Resolution on amending the consolidated fee schedule.

Ashley Rench, our financial director will present this item.

Thank you, Mayor.

Members of the council.

This is resolution 26-019 amending the 2026 consolidated fee schedule.

This resolution establishes a dollar per dollar 25 per pound fee for electronic waste at the Brookings Regional Landfill.

The landfill has secured a vendor to provide responsible collection, transport, and recycling of electronics, and implementing this fee allows us to recover those processing costs.

Beyond pro cost recovery, this change extends the operational life of the landfill by diverting the bulky electronics.

It reduces the risk of landfill fires with lithium batteries and electronic components.

And it also promotes environmentally responsible disposal practices.

All revenue collected will uh directly support the vendor processing and operational costs and staff recommends approval of this resolution as presented.

I'll stand by for any questions.

Thanks.

Thank you, Ashley.

Entertain a motion to approve.

So moved.

Public comment on this item.

Council have any questions, comments.

Please call the roll.

Specker.

Aye.

Tilton Byrne?

Aye.

Wendell?

Aye.

Avery?

Aye.

Doran?

Aye.

Hager?

Aye.

Neymar.

Aye.

All right.

We'll move on to action on preliminary plat.

10B.

Action on preliminary plat of block one of South Haven edition.

Mike Strzok, our community development director will present this item.

Thank you, Mayor.

And members of the council.

The action before you tonight is approval of our preliminary plant for the South Haven.

The historians in the community will remember this as the old Southbrook Mobile Home Park.

And so it was multiple lots.

They're consolidating them into one.

This went through a rezoning process within the last year or two.

Now they're ready to move forward with their plans for development down here on this particular piece of property.

They are showing the additional right-of-year on Main Avenue to preserve that.

If at some point in time in the future we need to expand that and so we'll have adequate right away there, and then uh the rest of it just meets our requirements for the subdivision planning.

Uh does come to you with a nine to zero recommendation from the planning commission.

I'd stand for any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mike.

Entertain a motion to approve.

So moved.

Second.

Moving second, is there any public comment on this item?

Council have any questions, comments.

Councilmember Specker.

I I just have a quick question.

One of these, and I'm not sure if it was this one.

Um, the planning commission and the city talked about increasing the easement size.

Is that on this one?

That it was different on the plat map.

Uh I believe that is in regards to the um right-of-way along Main Avenue, getting the additional seven feet to make it a 40-foot right-of-way there, and then making sure that the uh they're doing a private uh street or road on the north side, and so that's shown as a 30-foot private right-of-year.

Okay, so what we're approving has those stipulations in it.

Yeah, and um and even if it's not the preliminary plat just shows that um, but you would really get it on the final plat.

When they come to do the final plat, that's where you really want to make sure everything is shown because that's recorded, and so it's in our notes and everything to make sure that we verify when they do proceed with final plating that it's not only consistent with the preliminary, but all of those easements are shown to be accurate.

Thank you.

Any other questions, comments from the council?

Please call the roll.

Tilton Burn.

Aye.

Wendell, aye.

Avery?

Aye.

Doran.

Aye.

Hager, aye.

Neemaier.

Aye.

Specker, aye.

Item 10 C action on preliminary plat of lots one and two in block two, and lots one to three in block three of legacy addition.

Mike Strck will also present this item.

Thank you, Mayor, and members of the council.

Uh the preliminary plant before you tonight is for five lots on the east side of 34th Avenue north of 6th Street.

Um, the developers are starting out showing uh these five lots.

Uh there'll be a mission street that will extend from 34th going east.

Uh, the front lots can be served directly off of 34th avenue.

They're still working on details for the remaining portion of that and 57-acre um piece of property out there, but uh they they do have some utility and grading plans in place to address the um the sanitary sewer, the water loop, and as well as to address some of the drainage.

Um it does come to you with a unanimous recommendation uh from the planning commission, and I do know the developers engineer and uh the owners are present if you have specific questions for them.

It stands for any questions you may have.

Entertain a motion to approve so move, second.

So any public comment on this item council any questions, comments?

Please call the role.

Wendell.

Aye.

Avery.

Doran.

Hi.

Hager.

Aye.

Neemaier.

Aye.

Specker.

Hi.

Tilton Byrne.

Aye.

Okay.

So we have item 10 D.

Action on a sales tax incentive grant for Sequitur Edge.

LLC.

Uh Victoria Blatchford, our BP of business development for Secretary Edge.

And LLC.

Stephanie Mason from Business Development Director from our region Brookings Regional Growth Alliance will present this item.

Welcome.

Good evening, City of Brookings, Mayor, Council members, City Manager, and staff.

Really enjoyed the presentation.

Oh, Neemeyer, you are what a great way to say thank you to the people because it is.

As a 21-year resident of Brookings, South Dakota, I am pleased to be here in front of you bringing a new business to Brookings on a proposed project of an edge computing center for Brookings, not only to develop for businesses the infrastructure that we need for the digital revolution that is beginning, but also for the growth of Brookings for the right size and the right developments that we want from an economic development standpoint.

I have with me Stephanie Mason with our Brookings Growth Alliance, and she will be visiting with you as well.

What I want to talk to you about today is that Sequidor Edge has an advantage that we're going to bring to Brookings.

With Sequidor Edge, we have a tier three facility that we will be building, actually repurposing a vacant building in town.

We will be putting it into a certification where it has the fastest, most computing process that a mega scale has, but on a small scale size building.

The co-location is really unique about our project when we have all three together because there's several data centers across the state of South Dakota, but they're large and they're for sole purposes and they don't offer co-location.

Well, what's the big deal about co-location?

Co-location is important for our business continuity.

For example, here in the city, where is your servers at?

For our businesses, for our health care, financial institutions, our larger companies that have to have FINRA, HIPAA, the FDIC, the CISA, which is consumer information securities act.

I'm learning a lot about that.

Um, anybody with data, we've got to be able to have that secure.

So to be able to have the environmental and physical security along with the cybersecurity of a co-location data center here in Brookings, we can provide that as a business service to them for not only for the future of today businesses, but for the ones that we're gonna bring and attract to grow grow Brookings.

So an elephant in the room that I wanted to just address right away is the difference between data centers.

I just handed out a leave behind that would be really quick and easy for you to look at.

This I added a lot of extra data on here because I wanted the public knowledge to be there too.

Part of what I love to do is be able to provide information, educate, and advocate for the right information.

So when we think about data centers, there's the hyperscale mega center.

There's been a lot of conversation at the state level and across the nation, even.

But what is different is those are a hundred to five hundred megawatt power users, millions of gallons of water a day, and there is quite a bit of noise, particularly if it's a cryptocurrency center.

This is not that at all.

I'm pleased to share with you that we have been working with Mike Strzok and the development review team since I don't know, Mike, probably April of last year, uh, maybe May, and it had the opportunity to start looking for site selections.

Less than 10 acres is what we need.

30,000 square foot building, have a power need of two megawatts initially, growing up to after the phases up to five phases of modular development would be 10 megawatts.

The power company, Russ Higgerson at the BMU has been fantastic to work with, along with Kurt Cabris at the Swift Tell Center communications because we want to make sure that we have the connectivity, redundancy, the power, processing ability, as well as the capacity to grow because each of the businesses that would bring their technology, their servers, or use our high-power GPU servers with the NVIDIA chips, that will be important for them to be able to have that immediate power and the redundancy in that and have no latency.

So Sequidor Edge with the Edge Computing Center, we bring the power of a mega into a small operating system that services the local businesses.

Huge difference between mega and mega-scale data centers or even a general data center could be up a hundred megawatt need and serves only a sole purpose.

This is going to be serving the Brookings business community.

What's a tier three?

So a lot of questions have been around the tier three data center.

So a tier three means simply this: that the latency is less than one hour and like one hour and 35 minutes, that it can be down all year long, versus a tier one or tier two means that that data center might be down 29 hours.

Well, if we think about that with life-saving needs, financial institutions needing to have immediate data available, protection and security for everyone's data, whether it's personal or professional or financial, you need to have that hyper-secure, hyper personalized service and know that your downtime is going to be almost zero.

Now, the next highest level is tier four, tier four data centers are more at the government level.

So this is the highest ability.

Now our Swift Telecommunications does offer a little bit of co-location, but they too even have an opportunity that they're not able to meet the business needs that are happening here in Brookings.

What Sequitur Edge and that the request to support our sales tax rebate is going to help partner with us to be able to provide that co-location service in town for business services that are not being met currently.

I've been given permission by the CEO, Jay Bender of Falcon Plastics to share with you their example.

For quite some time, Falcon Plastics has been growing, which is fantastic for our business community business and Brookings community.

Well, they have had the challenge now that Swiftel Communication, they're not able to support their co-location in their building anymore because it's above and beyond the type of capability for power and capacity.

So they are look looking at moving their location of their cus their technical services outside of Brookings.

Sequidor Edge will help keep our Brookings technology here, those services, which is sales tax dollars to you, and to support our community growth, but then also be able to attract the right types.

It's an economic development catalyst for the right type of business.

The digital revolution is happening right before our eyes.

We thought when the computer would come, everything that we'd all lose the world's place for a person.

Certainly, AI is driven by people, and it's for the industries that we want to serve and that you want here in Brookings.

Our services that we will provide are the co-location, but then also for many businesses, they have they want to grow either by the scale they can't do it because of the budgetary constraints, so they can actually lease these high-power GPU servers from us for the AI software processing that they need, the AI pilot programs, hierarchical data storage, or even the cybersecurity.

We're actually partnering with Dakota State University to do a red team assessment that allows that will also show the certification that our cybersecurity is above and beyond what's available in the marketplace currently.

It is that proprietary and innovative for what we can do for our business community.

So, what is edge computing?

Again, edge computing is bringing the processing power and the speed that you can push pull the data from our edge computers right into our businesses where they use them.

And even it's not competing with your mega scales, the cloud providers with AWS and Amazon and Google.

It actually is complimentary because you may need to have a private cloud, and you can do that with your with Sequidor Edge here in Brookings.

You can't do that with a public cloud service.

They'll have unparalleled cybersecurity and the cutting edge infrastructure.

So the infrastructure, we have so much change that's happening and developing.

If we don't provide this technology infrastructure to our business communities, that business is going elsewhere.

Because that technology service, technology is growing to the top of the balance sheet of priorities for them to make decisions on and leverage to stay competitive in their industries, as well as be able to make Brookings competitive for attracting the right type businesses.

Okay, what what edge computing is not, right?

So we want to make sure and cover that again.

It's not a hyperscale cloud campus.

It's not a hyperscale data center.

It's not high traffic or high noise of a large industrial building, and certainly it's not cryptocurrency mining.

It is not a huge power user, and it's not a huge water user.

This is purpose-built, regulated digital infrastructure that's designed for reliability, security, and long-term community value.

Sequitur Edge is here to serve the local Brookings businesses.

Who needs the edge computing?

As I mentioned earlier, highly regulated industries, anyone with consumer data, large files, for example, healthcare, life science, financial services, the smart manufacturing, our ag smart ag.

We want to be able to grow that in research and development, such as SDSU growing to our R1 restional designation, public sector and government entities.

Anyone dealing with AI and business transformation, probably today, based on all the conversations I've been having with businesses, they've got their servers sitting in a basement in a closet that's not locked or secured.

They're having environmental issues, they're not able to cool the high power GPU processors if they do have them because it's environmentally unstable and you have to keep them very stable, as well as the connectivity, they don't have the dual redundancy for power and the network provision providing.

So it's really important that we provide that in one facility to serve a regional area.

Sequitur Edge is actually gonna take, we've been looking, uh looked at multiple sites in the city limits uh here in Brookings in Watertown and some in Madison.

We continue as a Brooking long-time Brookings resident and a believer in economic development that we have here in Brookings.

I definitely was an advocate as their VP of business development to bring it to Brookings.

It matches well with our university setting and the growth around us.

Our edge computing center can serve up to a hundred mile radius for this edge technology infrastructure.

So think about that.

All those services that we'll be doing, we'll be serving to a spoke out to Watertown, South Dakota, down to Madison, and over to Marshall, Minnesota.

So those businesses can use our edge computing center as well here in Brookings, and that is sales and service to businesses supporting in a regional network that comes all and stays all in Brookings.

The in the renovation of the 2324 Research Parkway building, which used to be the Discovery Benefits, it's been sitting vacant for the last five years.

It is in the research park.

So it is zoned as a state property, so we don't have to go through the zoning process.

But I want you to know we've worked very closely with the DRT team.

We want it to be conforming for all the additions and building that we want to do because we want this best for Brookings because we need and want to buy the land for our investor portfolio.

We need to buy the land.

Currently, right now, uh we that's not you're not able to do that with the SDSU land at this time.

So we're doing a 75-year lease so we can get site control and get going on the renovations to make it that tier three data center as soon as possible.

We do want to be able to open in the second quarter of 2027, and by taking an existing building that we have, we are going to be able to save time.

It's still about a 41 million dollar project that we're doing here in Brookings, but certainly the time frame we can help pick up some time there.

The power, as I mentioned earlier, we've been working very close with the development review team early on, but then also even closer with Russ at BMU to make sure that not only the distribution study has been completed as of last fall, but then there's a transmission or wait, no, transmission study was completed.

Now we're finishing the distribution center or distribution study, so we can work on the actual price.

This is not going to increase the rate payer.

Our current BMU has done a fabulous job of making sure to take care of our citizens' rate that they pay for electricity from BMU.

This will be in an agreement that we work out together with BMU in order to be responsibly fiscally and operationally for our investors as well as for our community because we're here for the long run.

A 75-year lease isn't just a short time, it's definitely long term, and we want to be able to have the funds to buy the land to fit the investment performance that we have because typically these are all set up as purchased land.

And with being in the research park, it's the right place.

It just doesn't have the right dynamic yet, and we need the city's help to overcome this burden.

And I think that's really going to open up our research park significantly because we have this technology infrastructure.

Water usage has been a concern for a lot a lot of people.

How many of you have uh pools, residential pools?

Anybody here?

Anybody have a residential pool?

Okay.

Well, not very often in South Dakota do we have pools, particularly on this side of the state.

But if you if someone had a residential pool, they fill it every year, right?

In a closed loop system, because of our proprietary design, we're extremely energy efficient and we're extremely water efficient as well.

It's closed loop, it takes 19 to 20,000 gallons, and the average household use thereafter.

So we only have to fill it one time.

So in future, when we grow and we add another module data hall on for a growing and serving our Brookings area businesses, certainly we will have to add more closed loop systems and we'll have to fill, but it's only one time.

It's phenomenal what we've accomplished in the proprietary design.

There will be four jobs, so it's not gonna draw on our 1.6%.

I don't mean to steal your thunder, Stephanie, but currently our unemployment rate for Brookings is only 1.6.

So we know that we we don't we're not gonna be pulling on large jobs, but we're gonna bring high-paying jobs that are technical to not only use students from SDSU and leverage the research and support them, help them qualify for higher research projects to be able because we'll have the edge computing facility.

Um also the other thing is we're gonna provide some local hands, but each of these businesses are gonna come as they are, bringing their servers into the facility.

They're gonna have their own IT teams, they have their own contracted service providers in the regional area.

They'll be using those same services.

We're not coming in to take over or compete, we're actually providing the infrastructure for them to be all successful.

Again, the building, this is an architectural rendering of the building.

We are looking to have everything be uh zoned and uh planned for modular expansion.

We do want to make sure that we have lots 11 and 12.

We're working very hard, and it's taking a long time to get that purchase to purchase option that we need, because we really do need to have that purchase made on lot 11 and 12.

The building we do have under contract, but again, we have to have a lease and purchase option agreeable to make the transaction happen.

So it is proposed, and we're asking and we're asking you now for your help.

I'm gonna turn it over to Stephanie Mason, and she's gonna talk about the economic impact that she's worked on.

Good evening, mayor, city council members, residents, Berkings.

Um, thanks for the opportunity to be here.

Most of you know I'm Stephanie Mason.

Currently, our business development director for Berkings Regional Growth Alliance.

Um, part of the work that we do involves supporting business expansion and extract uh attraction opportunities, and one of the ways that we can do this is by conducting um project economic impact and financial analysis studies.

And so I'm here with Victoria tonight to share some details on the projected economic impact for Sequitur Edge project in the Berkings region.

Um I'm gonna go through these numbers quickly, but hopefully give you it an idea, digestible fashion.

Um, but there is a full analysis report out there, and if that hasn't been made available to you yet, we can make sure that you guys get access to that as well.

So the software that we use for feasibility and implant analysis is called implant.

Um that is a nationally recognized impact software.

Um, and so a lot of economic development organizers use that to do these types of projected forecasting.

Um, the dollars that we are looking at are focused on the city of Brookings specifically, so we can focus on different regions, whether that's by county or by state, but the numbers that we're looking at today are focusing on the impact specifically to the city of Berkings.

So using implant modeling, construction activity is estimated to generate approximately 29.4 million in economic output during the building phase.

The project's also expected to generate approximately 477,500 in sales tax use for equipment purchases.

So please note the typo that's on your presentation slide there.

That's actually 477,500.

Um, along with an estimated 126,000 in construction related tax impacts.

So this ends up being um approximately 54.9 million dollars in one-time economic impacts for the construction project.

Once operational, the annual economic output is estimated to be 1.6 million dollars with labor income to be roughly 543,000, and then the that um excuse me, value added economic activity would be about 845,000.

So that's almost three million in total annual economic impact for operations once they're in the operational phase.

So based on Sequitur Edge's projections, the sales revenue that's forecasted to scale will be approximately 1.9 million to 10.2 million dollars in taxable sales that will be added back into the community once the facility reaches its fully stabilized operations to take place over the next five years.

So in short, this project provides measurable feasible fiscal economic impact during both the construction phase and then also contributes long-term tax-based growth for the region.

So Victoria had mentioned it uh previously, but why Brookings?

There are several strategic reasons why Secretary Edge is interested in the Brookings area.

Um, from an economic development perspective, Brookings is offering a strong regional location, alignment with our targeted industry sectors, which I think is really important, and then we have suited utilities for this project specifically.

Presence of SDSU, the research park, and then proximity to some of the surrounding communities that Victoria had mentioned positions Brookings really well to serve as this regional hub for a secured data infrastructure location.

And then why Sequitur Edge?

So why our community should specifically be interested in this project?

As the city continues to implement the community economic development master plan, a key priority has been attracting targeted industries and making strategic investments that support long-term prosperity.

Sequidar Edge aligns with this goal by adding secure digital infrastructure that supports ag technology, bioscience, advanced manufacturing, healthcare research, all the targeted industries that are identified as part of our strategic economic development master plan.

The proposed location with the research park actively activates public controlled land for private capital investment, and this is also consistent with the city's long-term strategy.

And then additionally, we're seeing increased demand from existing businesses that are asking for secure data scorage location, high performance computing, and in many cases, these services are currently sourced outside of Brookings, which means that the associated spending is leaving our economy.

This is the definition of leakage.

As highlighted in our annual economic scorecard, um, approximately 8.8% of local employment is in the professional and technical services.

This is supporting a meaningful concentration of industries and Brookings that would rely on this type of infrastructure.

And so this project uh strengthens our tax base while supporting long-term economic positioning for our community in the future.

Um again, I can make this full report available to you guys if you'd like to learn more.

But without overview for the economic and community impact, I'll turn it over to Victoria to help answer any questions.

Thanks, Stephanie.

Just want to end on it on a quote that I put together.

A local tier three edge data center like Sequitur Edge functions as regional digital infrastructure.

The same way highways drove the industrial revolution, advancing computer infrastructure now drives the data-driven economic economic growth.

Sequitur Edge is the advantage that we bring to Brookings, and we hope that you will support us as we ask for the sales rebate, sales tax repeat.

Thank you.

Questions.

I think before we start discussion, let's have a motion on the floor.

I'll make the motion.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All right.

We have a counsel.

Do we have any questions from the public, first of all?

Please come up and state your name and address, sir.

All right.

Good evening, council.

My name is Craig Jorgensen.

I'm from Aurora.

Um I am a SDSU graduate with a degree in computer science.

Um I worked at a global managed detection and response uh facility as a cybersecurity analyst for a number of years.

And I have worked as an IT service provider in a server situation or environment.

Um I give all that context to say I recognize the need and value for structures like this, but I do have some very serious concerns about the ramifications potentially on the community in terms of cost.

Um, and so before we consider a sales tax incentive, I would ask you to consider what some of the additional costs for a facility like this might be to the community.

Uh, first and foremost, um, quality of life is why I stayed in the area, and part of that is cost of living.

Um I believe that uh closed loose sips.

I want to mention that closed loose sips closed loop systems in certain in uh data centers like this are actually a category of cooling systems.

Um they encompass a variety of cooling systems, and the how they leverage water can be different.

And I would um be very interested to see how this particular center would be using its water system.

Um closed loose symptoms closed loop systems, um filter water over the CPUs over and over again, but then the cooling and dispu distribution of the heat happens through another system.

Um that water that is cycled through the CPUs is often treated with uh chemicals, glycol, and um anti-corrosives.

Um, and eventually that wastewater has to go somewhere.

Um, and while the longevity of this system might be great, um, there are our leaks and there are unforeseen circumstances, and sometimes these systems have to be flushed.

And so I would be curious to know um what plans are in place for um when that waste has to be dealt with and how Brookings will deal with it.

Uh also in regards to the power requirements for this facility.

I recognize 10 megawatts over the grand scheme might not be um as big as some of the other data centers we've heard about, but I still would like to have some guarantees put in place that costs will not be passed on to the citizens of our community because eventually if if they are not, we will eventually, as a community, be subsidizing this project if the costs are eventually passed on to us.

Um I also would like to mention um state legislature is currently in session.

Uh Senate Bill 135 was currently approved and it empowers local governments um to pass ordinances in regards to data centers.

However, House Bill 1005 was recently voted down, and it was going to be about state incentives for data centers.

And there's a chance that it might come back before the end of legislature.

And so I would encourage the council to maybe consider tabling the sales tech incentive at a local level until we have a better understanding of what's going to happen at the state level.

Um I again I want to mention that I do see the value in a in a project like this, but I do think um proceeding with caution is wise.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Do we have any other comments or questions from the public?

All right.

I'm going to start on this end over here.

Councilmember Specker.

Yes.

Um I agree with Craig on some of these things.

And I just want to go through what I found out.

Um you mentioned it's a two-megawatt data center with long-term scalability up to 10 megawatts.

And I thought it might be interesting to compare this power consumption to the average household consumption for this part of the country.

And based on the information I found regarding power consumption for Brookings or this region of the country.

Um, and I did confirm this with BMU, the two megawatts will end up using the same amount of power as 1,440 homes.

That's when you first build it.

At 10 megawatts, that will be the power that 7,000 homes use.

Um it's a lot of power, and I have a couple issues with this.

First, I'm concerned that this power usage for the data center may limit the ability of other companies to come here if the power needs cannot be met because of the high demand of this data center.

Second, and this was brought up by Craig, um, but I'll give a little bit more detail on this.

BMU buys its electrical power from two sources, both WAPA, the Western Area Power Administration, and MRES, the Missouri River Energy Services.

And the WAPA power is cheaper power, and it's allocated to a place, and you can't increase that amount.

Right now, 30% of BMU's electricity comes from the cheaper WAPA allocation.

Power to use to support this data center will increase the amount of power that BMU will need to purchase from MRES.

And so a higher percent of the electricity that Brookings will be using will need to come from this more expensive source, and this will lead to an increase in electricity cost to all BMU customers.

It is a tier three data center, and it will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Um in your document titled Frequently Asked Questions, you state that noise levels will be comparable to existing manufacturing facilities, will be, and it will be from chillers and backup generators and comply with local noise standards.

Can you tell me what the local noise standard is for Brookings?

For the light industry, I don't know what the decimal point is, but we meet the commercial and light industrial level is what I've been told by the DRT team.

Okay, because Brookings currently their standard is prohibiting unnecessarily loud, disturbing, and unnecessary noises.

There is no decibel setting.

I was able to find some noise limits that other cities use.

Um Minneapolis, granted it's Minnesota, not South Dakota, but it has a daytime residential noise limit of 65 decibels for peak noise and 60 decibels for median noise.

At nighttime, this is again residential areas, the noise limits are 55 decibels for peak noise limits and 50 decibels for median.

Now those numbers, so what you want to remember 60 for daytime, 50 for nighttime.

South Dakota does have from what I could find an ordinance about when noise abatement measures need to be taken.

And then residential areas, that's when the peak decibel exceeds 70.

Okay.

From what I could find out, tier three data centers, the outdoor noise levels typically range from 85 to 100 decibels.

These are noise levels 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

And this outdoor noise is generated by the cooling towers, the air handling units, the air cooled chillers, as well as the backup generators.

All of this equipment generates the noise.

As you can see on this slide, the yellow area is where you're proposing to build this with those that equipment to the south of that building.

The red lines represent the number of feet between that property line and residential areas.

So we're talking about a lot of apartments within 500 feet of a place that's generating 85 to 100 decibels.

Also, you have a joining or abutting land that's zoned residential.

That if those if your equipment is the coolers and stuff are built on the south side, you're then gonna end up being probably within a couple hundred feet of a residential area.

So it's for these reasons I will not be voting for this.

But I'd also like to end with a quote summarizing a 2025 report out of the University of Michigan Gerald Ford School of Public Policy that's titled What Happens When Data Centers Come to Town, and this is their concluding paragraph.

For states that have not passed data center tax breaks, the most simple policy recommendation is to avoid implementing such incentives, incentives in the first place.

Legislature should refrain from passing laws that grant tax breaks to data centers, as these incentives often fail to deliver promised economic benefits and impose significant costs on state and local budgets.

Despite claims of job creation, data centers typically generate few permanent positions relative to the scale of public subsidy they receive.

The high energy consumption and environmental impact of data centers constrain local infrastructure and undermine climate goals.

Redirecting public resources towards initiatives with more substantial and economical or equitable economic returns, such as education, workforce development, or renewable energy offers a more responsible and effective use of taxpayer dollars.

So that's why, in a very long presentation, why I will not be supporting.

Is it a time when I can comment back to a couple things just to clarify?

I think that would be easier for you to come in after each council member of the.

Yeah, just to make sure to clear the fact.

So we are an edge computing center.

We are not a data center.

So we aren't we aren't computing and processing.

The businesses come and locate their servers inside our business.

We will have noise, but I I have been reassured that we want to again conform to everything for the city as well as our neighborhood, because we want to be good neighbors.

We want to be a good business like anyone else would be.

And that's why the light industrial commercial level, we are fully approved unanimously by the research park to be in the park because they have a very long list of covenants to be in the park.

And we do have some individuals that are here from the Growth Partnership Board, and I do have a letter of support that I shared with you earlier that fully supports where we're located.

I did meet with the DRT team twice to ensure that our location of where we put our center is going to be in a good place for everyone around us as well.

So and we want to be good stewards, and so we are fully expecting, and that's what's unique about Sequitur Edge.

We do have a very proprietary design for our power usage.

The power utilization, let me just look this up.

We are expecting that because we're having to repurpose an existing building, the power utilization effective ratio will be 1.4.

The industry standard right now for data centers is 1.8.

So we are significantly more efficient with our proprietary design.

Also, the distribution study is still underway.

And as I mentioned earlier, and I've been talking with Russ, the transmission study was completed with no concerns.

And this the distribution helps decide how much the cost of the above and beyond.

That's something that we will work with.

We don't expect our community to pay for our electric by any means.

And so that will be a public, what is it, uh public power agreement.

If that's what we need to do, as far as I've understood, currently, right now, we'd still be a standard business agreement for the power you use that we have.

So it's not going above and beyond into a public power agreement.

It's staying at the standard level of industrial, um, is what I've understood.

And so we will definitely work.

So thank you, Councilman Specker, for bringing up those concerns.

Um I too feel the same way.

I want to make sure that we are being environmentally responsible and sustainable for our community's benefit, not detriment by any means.

And the sales tax rebate that we're asking for is on the construction and equipment.

It's not going on in the future.

This is the one time that if we didn't have our our project here, would not be here for the future sales tax revenue.

It's just during the construction portion, and then also the equipment of the the actual centers need to be able to be put into that.

We're asking for that rebate.

Once we paid it, then we're asking for a rebate back.

So we'll go through a standard process, and that's very common in economic development.

I thought about asking for the TIFF.

The community has had plenty uh at this time, and so I felt like we didn't need to worry about a TIFF.

Plus, it's in the research park is where we landed, and that is the right place.

With with the help of the city's tax rebate amount, we will be able to help purchase that land that is above and beyond an economic development land price is usually three dollars or less.

And that's that we're for our Rapid City Center, for our Carney Center, we're well below three dollars a square foot.

In the research park, it's between seven and eight dollars a square foot.

So your help and investment back into this community and the infrastructure that was talked about in our city uh state of the city address, this is infrastructure that we need for for the future, and it is as proprietary uh engineered to be as energy efficient and water consumption-wise.

And it is uh to the gentleman that talked about with the air, the water usage.

So the closed loop system, it's come a long ways, but we use actually the closed loop system with an air with a plenum air cooling on each one of the different cabinets, and so it's very again very efficient to the cooling that's needed at the cabinet level as well as the connectivity and also the power.

So the distribution study is supposed to be done in in I think next week, the first week of March is what Russ said.

Um so I'd be happy to continue the dialogue with you for that.

But again, the rate payers, I've been reassured that that would be something that we would work together, that that would not be passed on to the ratepayers.

That would be something as us, and we believe that it's our it's our largest bill.

Besides debt service, power is our largest bill, and we expect that in our performa.

All right, councilmember Tilton Byrne, do you have any comments?

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I don't have uh a lot to add um following the the comments that we've received both from the audience and from councilwoman Specker here.

Uh but would just state state that um at this time I don't believe uh city uh subsidy for this uh program would be appropriate because of many of the concerns that have been raised.

Um and so I will also uh be opposed to this tonight.

Councilmember Avery.

Well, I just like to thank you for coming and explaining this to us and to the public because we really haven't had any, we've known that this is in the works, but we haven't really had a presentation that for the council to and I know the public will probably that when they get the paper and read Mondell's article, it will be their first exposure to this too.

So appreciate that.

Um one of the things that we're thinking of that our total involvement in this tonight is just to act on your request for a sales tax rebate.

We don't need to approve it because it's gonna be on the where the property is at.

We don't really have any jurisdiction as far as I can tell.

So we're not you know endorsing it or not endorsing it.

We're just we're just asked to vote on the sales tax rebate.

The one thought that I had is that there's probably no piece of land in the city that's had more city funds invested or uh than that particular piece.

Just recently, we spent 1.9 million dollars to upgrade the sewer system so it would be adequate to uh take care of future needs.

So there's already substantial investment in that property, and uh a lot of uh you know everything that you need is kind of there with the streets, the the sewer, the water, the the building.

So uh I just don't know that we could vote for a sales tax rebate, because that might be the way that we recoup some of those funds.

The other is a very long-term um horizon for for getting some of that money back.

So whether whatever way we vote, it's not up or down on the project, it's up or down on the sales tax rebate.

Thank you, Councilmember uh Avery for bringing that up that it's a vote on the sales tax rebate.

Uh I think too for businesses, this is a vote on in building infrastructure for our businesses, and this is going to help make that happen.

This is a proposed project, um, and that's why you're just now hearing it.

But I had been working with the city's DRT team multiple times, and of course, with the key strategic partners of the BMU and uh tele community Swift Telecommunications.

Um so again, by not supporting a sales tax rebate on the initial repurposing and construction of a vacant building on public land in Brookings does not help our economic development catalyst for attracting new businesses and supporting our existing businesses.

So I hope that you keep that in mind when you think about voting on the sales tax rebate.

All right, councilmember Durin, do you have any comments, questions?

Thank you, Mayor.

Yes, I do have a few questions.

Um the first one that I'll start with is about the sustainability of the building.

So from what I understand, uh similar centers last about 10 years with the replacement of servers every three to five years.

So I'm just wondering, since you're seeking a 75-year lease, if you could speak to the sustainability of these types of buildings and the impact of e-waste in our community with us.

You bet.

Thank you, Councilmember Duran.

That actually is speaking to the terms and lifehood of a mega data center.

This is not a mega data center.

We we're not buying the servers, our business communities, our local business Brookings communities around us, even with Marshall, Watertown, and Madison, they'll be bringing their own servers here.

So that's the service.

They can lease the high GPU uh high powered GPU servers from us, but we that's going to be a very small portion of our business.

We're actually providing the space and infrastructure for them to do their business better, faster, and more efficient.

So it's really to not have this supported is impeding business promotion and growth.

Do you have any data to support the impact of e-waste with these facilities of since it's already existing in our communities of when we consolidate these servers?

What type of impact with e-waste does it have?

You bring up a great point too on the consolidation.

So many times there might be 20 servers that they have, and we're we're helping them condense down to have less servers.

And so I was really glad to hear the uh recommendation that the waste management is gonna go with an e-waste product because we do need to have those certified providers that can take care of the e-waste.

That is something that each and every one of the businesses we would hope would be uh again, that's their equipment that comes into our building.

We're actually we're providing the space, the protection and the security for them in our local edge computing center.

We're not doing the data crunching for them.

It's it's their equipment coming in.

So it's very different than any data center and concerns that you've had.

So but thank you for bringing up those two great points that the lifehood of it, the business.

Um, so as far as like turning the building and expanding on it, um, it does have some challenges because it's a repurpose, but it also will help us because the infrastructure is there, we we have to build in redundancy.

So we have to have redundant power and we have to have redund redundant network capabilities.

And so we're gonna have to do a lot of infrastructure ourselves in order to be able to get ready to provide the tier three certification of redundancy.

All right.

Any other questions?

Yes, a few.

Um and uh my next one is since you brought it up, you uh mentioned you know, attracting new businesses, supporting businesses.

Do you have numbers for either of those of how many we could attract and what um that looks like, as well as supporting how many local businesses would this be potentially supporting?

Brookings is still, I believe, the second largest manufacturing town in South Dakota.

How many of those manufacturers need technology?

I'm assuming all of them.

All of them.

And our healthcare, we're growing.

Our Brookings Health system needs to have life-saving measures that has to have real-time technology to be able to not only care for quality of the patient, but also be able to provide for education and offerings through telehealth and medicine.

And so that's what we support.

That's what the edge computing supports.

So when they bring their servers into us, we provide the infrastructure.

We're the last mile provider to support those businesses.

So the healthcare, our financial institutions, we've got some great financial institutions that are locally and regionally owned here.

For them, they they might be able to leverage our utilization.

Research, there are government research federal programs that require you to have a tier three.

We don't have a tier three.

And so that that would qualify a lot of our programs for the ag technology that we want to have in the future, as well as the healthcare and sciences technology that we want to grow.

So it it this is the catalyst that can bolster every avenue that look Brookings is looking to grow in.

It's the infrastructure that brings their technology in.

We are not a data center.

We can we can store people's data if they want us to.

That's part of the appliances as a service, but that's not our main business.

Our main business is to provide the infrastructure and the location for their safe, secure location of their technology.

And then they come in and they do their own work on their own cabinets.

Um it's like five layers of security, biosecurity, uh, yeah, man traps, you name it.

I don't even understand it all.

I'm a retired banker, not a technology person.

So do you do you have numbers of how many of the local businesses uh would be utilizing this facility?

I know that you mentioned one in your presentation, but just putting it down to numbers would be helpful.

Because we still are a proposed business, um, we were looking, so the total market study that was done in February, uh, we look at it in cabinet counts because again, we're leasing the cabinet space.

That's what we provide as a business service, it's cabinet space.

Okay, so if I recall right, for Brookings, and this includes the regional area of Madison, Watertown, and Marshall, there were 834 cabinet counts, and they do that based on the number types of businesses, the revenue size of the business, global or regional based businesses.

So there's 870, I believe it's 870.

I can get you the right number for sure.

Total cabinet count in the regional area.

500 and some of those are right here in Brookings.

So for us for Brookings, we have the opportunity to attract and serve, even if we could serve 25 or 30 percent of those would be fantastic.

Not everybody's gonna need us because it is for the high advanced technology needs of processing power and speed and security that our businesses will need.

Um, even uh anyone holding financial information, the HIPAA, the FDIC, attorneys, anybody with that, they're gonna have to have that private security.

That would be an excellent user of a edge computing center.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um and then my next question is about uh a comment that was raised in the public and that we've talked about of that safeguards for not having that cost shifting to our residents of Brookings.

So it sounds like you are in current discussions with an agreement.

Do you have a timeline of when that agreement would be in place?

You know, we haven't quite gotten to the agreement part.

They've given us an estimated range, and it's within our performer that we can manage for the financial aspect of the operations because again, power is the second larger, or yeah, is this is the largest expense that we have besides our debt service, okay?

Um, but with that, we do not want to have any of the extra need that we have.

We've act we've actually come together and provided solution ideas on how we could provide our own power.

We'll get there, I think, in the future, but it's a ways down the road.

Now, with the power, um, we definitely Russ says maybe the distribution it's supposed to be done next week, the first week of March.

So I'm hoping that we have something, and then we can negotiate, but we definitely will be working with BMU very closely in order to not affect our ratepayers.

It is definitely not something to burden them.

This is providing economic development and your investment back into for the for the sales rebate is to provide that economic development, a catalyst, because that our research park needs that help, and our Brookings community businesses need this.

Thank you.

And then uh following on sustainability.

I know that some facilities uh turn off during peak hours to not have a strain on the network.

Is this facility uh going to need to have any of those considerations?

Yeah, great question.

Uh getting down into the the nitty-gritty of power.

So there's a load factor.

And so in edge computing centers, because we're a tier three, we have to always comply with providing that power and network capability at all times, at least 90%.

So they may not be using it, but we have to be able to have the capacity to provide that at a 90% load factor.

And Russ knows that, and that's all part of the study.

We actually paid for the distribution study.

The BMU did the first uh study, the transmission, and now the distribution study.

We we already have invested in our community, not only the time and matching to your priorities to grow as a Brookings community, but the regional area, but we actually are paying for that distribution study, so we know how much we're gonna be paying to BMU.

Okay, just a few more questions.

This is the first public conversation we've had of this type of facility.

So I appreciate it.

It's great.

Keep asking answering them.

Um I was wondering if you could speak to a little bit more trying to understand the power demand and the water use.

We've been talking in terms of household usage.

So uh council member Specker brought up that for the power demand of a two megawatt, it would be equivalent to around 1440 homes.

Um when we speak of the water use in your presentation, you said an average household use.

Can you just explain a little bit more what that means?

Yeah, to fill the closed loop system, it'd be the amount uh like a residential pool, like a residential swimming pool to fill it initially, and then thereafter it'd be like office use or household use because it's our businesses that are are co-locating their servers in our space, it's their team members coming back and forth to the business, so bathroom regular bathroom use, um uh water usage for a small office.

So we do have the office areas and the work areas, and sometimes if they're doing a big transformation uh and change out of equipment, there's secure areas for them to be able to have, so they may be there prolonged hours.

So definitely we have to be prepared for that.

But uh the water consumption for that, does that answer that for the water?

So is it just so I'm understanding this correctly?

Is it one household per server or like I'm trying to understand in terms of the building?

Oh, sure.

For the entire building system, yeah, for the first phase of the 30,000 square foot 260 cabinets is what we're wanting at minimum to be able to provide in the building.

So that closed loop system is actually cooling the air, not the cabinet.

So there's no chemical with the water around the CPU.

Uh that that's a different type of system that the gentleman was talking about.

This is air plummen uh cooled right down on the actual cabinet.

So water would not be usage directly on any cabinets unless now we can customize that if there is the high need.

There are some GPU servers that demand such a high that it actually has to be immersed in water in chemical.

At this time, I've not come across anyone in the Brookings area that needs that kind of immersion cooling system at this time.

So not saying that it wouldn't be somewhere down the road, but there's no one at this time that I found with that kind of need.

Okay.

So our cooling system again is is very environmentally friendly.

There's no excess waste that gets put out anywhere at any time, and the water usage it is clean water.

We there's no concern on that side that I've heard from the DRT, and I've been there twice.

Okay.

That was gonna be my follow-up question is it was there any wastewater consideration or any plan that was recommended?

Okay, no, not not based on our design, because that's that's what's unique about Sequater Edge and what we're providing to our businesses.

Okay, and then my final question is just if you could speak to um we got a public comment around potential state incentives.

Could you speak to the true impact of the passage or denial of this rebate to um the how this project would move forward?

Yeah.

So that that does not have any impact on us because it's only looking at large mega-scale data centers.

So we don't we're not filling all the cabinets with servers.

So only a small 10, 15, 20 percent of our business will actually be leasing out servers to our business community that want to do the AI software pilot programs, they want to do the hierarchical storage with us.

The rest of it is our Brookings businesses and the regional businesses in those three towns I mentioned, they're actually gonna bring their servers to us into our region, and then Brookings benefits from that sales tax of leasing out that cabinet space and the infrastructure we're providing for them.

Because we're building infrastructure for that today, they're gonna come as they are today, but they're gonna have to grow.

Technology is gonna change faster than we've ever seen before, and we need to be able to be nimble.

We don't have the infrastructure.

Our businesses will be taking their technology needs and leaving, and they already are, as I shared with the Falcon example.

Okay.

I actually have come across uh businesses that have their servers and then the network uh provided out of Minneapolis, Chicago, and Denver.

Um, and they'd love to bring it back to Brookings, but they've never had most of these power, most of these agreements that uh get set up with businesses are three to five years.

So they can't even come back to Brookings once we're up and running.

They can't even come back unless they would cancel those contracts, which would be significant to them.

So this is a need that's been here, it's gonna become more prevalent in the future.

Okay, thank you.

Those are all of my questions.

Um just out of comment.

Uh, I just wanted to say that I appreciate all of your answers and your your detailed presentation.

I really do have a concern with especially that safeguarding of not having um the cost shifting to our residents.

I understand that uh agreement is being uh in the works, and you have a timeline on that, but when I look at just the city incentivizing and the role, I would want to have those safeguards in place for our residents before I'm open to that uh discussion.

Um I also do have some concerns around the environmental sustainability and the impact of the surrounding areas.

I fully understand the uh need that businesses have just when we look at the city's role of incentivizing and and the amount, those are our concerns that I hold currently.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, councilmember Hanger.

All right, I would like to thank you both for coming before us today and presenting, going through the packet material.

I had a number of questions.

I'm sure Nick and Brie sitting next to me can see everything that I typed out.

But your presentation did answer a number of them.

And my fellow members of council have asked a lot of the questions that I had on my list.

So I'm going to try and thread that needle in terms of not repeating anything that has already been addressed.

So I would say one of the things that's getting talked about so far is this issue of there's this need for the services that this center will provide, but that it can also attract additional business.

So I feel like this has just been getting talked about a lot in a pretty vague way.

So do you have any commitments from businesses who are currently contracting these similar types of services elsewhere to come back to Brookings if and when this center gets up and going?

So I do have some that are going to Sioux Falls or that are already there, as well as I mentioned the ones that are in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Denver that would come back because we'd have the infrastructure support.

We just don't have the co-location services.

Sioux Falls uh SDN recently built an additional data center uh co-location area for them, but then they also added on an extra wing, so to speak, for more services to support the healthcare and financial services down there in Sioux Falls, and so they're collaborating with their the business partners.

So I don't have set numbers because I again I'm a proposed project, um, and but I I do know that I've been we're working very strongly with SDN Communications, and they're one of the, if not the top provider to healthcare financials, um technology firms, um yeah, and that's who who will be working with us primarily.

And then as far as attracting businesses by having this service, was a leakage study conducted as far as how many businesses bypass Brookings because this type of center is not available.

No, we haven't done a leakage study at this time.

Um, like Victoria had said there is a number of businesses that are outsourcing this uh service today, and they are the targeted industries that um are part of the Berkings Master Plan and uh larger community sector, and so continue to have ongoing conversations with that looks like, and certainly could explore putting something like that together.

Okay.

So one of the other things that's been brought up a lot is the utility usage.

So just to bring everything together at this point, there's been a lot of conversations with BMU, but there's not an actual contract or draft of even a contract that really lays out what the costs are going to be for SACWater edge and how that will not be passed on to the customers, correct?

Right.

Okay, yes, and certainly we can wait until we get through the distribution because there's been a lot of conversation and concerns around that.

If that would be better for the council to be able to have more time for me to come back, I'm more than willing to come back by all means, because this is really, really important for the Brookings community.

That's why I'm so passionate personally about it, but also from a business, I see the innovation and the need for the future.

We're we're developing the infrastructure, the road system for technology for a data-driven economic growth.

And it can be here in Brookings.

Yeah, because I think Councilmember Specker brought up a variety of good points about really the specificity relating to how BMU gets its power and then how those costs are passed on to customers.

So I think that's essential with respect to this project, because that was definitely one of the sticking points that I had going through all of this.

And then getting back to some of the issues relating to e-waste.

So it was helpful in terms of understanding that companies would be bringing their equipment to this center.

So then is the center responsible for any waste, or would they have to come and take it back and dispose of it in their own communities?

It's their business, it's the businesses.

They own that's all their hardware, unless they're leasing it from us on those appliances.

And again, that's just a that's a really small portion, but we want to make sure that our companies and our businesses that are with us can be evergreen in their technology.

So they can lease time on these GPU servers that are high-tech without having to spend millions of dollars to buy them and then find out it's not what they needed.

Okay.

So I am a little bit concerned about the fact that we just instituted an e-waste program where we're trying to keep the cost low with respect to that, where there's going to be a lot of e-waste from a facility like this, even if they are supposed to dispose of it.

I'm guessing we're gonna take on a lot of the waste associated with that.

And so that would be something that I find concerning.

Also, just the fact that, like some of my fellow council members have noted, the lifespan of data centers isn't generally very long.

And I know you address some of the differences between the type of center you're proposing in these large-scale data centers, but even with that, I I struggle to potentially see how even a smaller center would last even the 75 years until the the lease becomes um up and you could actually buy the property.

Well, just as a correction, Councilmember Hager, uh that we are we will not be able to move forward with the project if we don't get a lease agreement with the state of South Dakota, the growth the board of regents with an option to purchase.

We need to be able to purchase the land.

So you don't have any sort of commitment quite yet from them with respect to that either.

No, we we are doing all our investment, all our due diligence, the engineering drawing, the plans, everything in in process and focus on making this happen here in Brookings.

It's been very positive for the conversation, but it will be going before the board of regents.

I think it's April 1 and 2 will be the meeting.

We have the full support for the research park and those part of the growth partnership board.

So we do have that.

And I did visit with Russ, he wasn't able to make it tonight.

I was hoping that he can make it for BMU to be able to answer your questions and bring some clarity if I'm not able to articulate it as well as he would.

But certainly I I want you to know that I'm I'm more than willing to wait.

Um, I can't wait forever, but I obviously I'm waiting for the board of regents till April 1 to see what we can do for the approval of a lease with the option to purchase.

That's that's what we've been asking for.

One more thing I wanted to mention too the power usage.

So think of it, Bell Brands would be a similar-size business of a two megawatt use.

So we talked about households, there's a commercial industrial building that's approximately that.

Right.

So I think there's still just some uncertainty about the fact that this particular project could go up to the 10 megawatts and what that would really look like, and even what that progression would look like as the center continues to grow as well.

So, you know, overall, I think not only from my questions, but also others that have been expressed, and even from the public comment, there's just a lot of uncertainty regarding this particular project.

And while there are economic development benefits, I still think it's really difficult to actually provide incentives for this particular project because of some of the sticking points that I've mentioned, where we don't have everything completely ironed out with respect to utilities and the impact that that would have on citizens.

So personally, I just can't vote in favor of the sales tax rebate without any sort of firm contract in place between Sequater Edge and BMU that ensures that our citizens will not be negatively impacted and experience increased electric bills.

My gut reaction, even when I saw this on our agenda was that I think this is probably coming before us a bit too soon.

But regardless, I looked at what had happened in other communities that you mentioned, like Rapid City and Kearney, Nebraska, and they hadn't granted similar requests.

So while I wish you the best in this particular endeavor, I will not be voting in support of the sales tax incentive grant.

Thank you, can councilwoman.

Councilmember Wendell, do you have questions?

Thank you, Mayor.

I'll be brief.

I think the other counselors asked lots of questions and raised lots of good points.

And actually, Counselor Hager just touched on something.

The clearest question I have, which I think she noted was whether or not the city of Rapid City or the City of Kearney offered any type of incentives before you chose those sites.

Sure.

So no, they did not offer anything up front.

But once we chose the sites and we they've been working in Carney, I think for three and a half years on that one down there.

That was the that's the first site.

Um they were able to find the land at an economic incentivized price to make it work because we're doing ground up construction there.

Um as I mentioned earlier, it's less than three dollars a square foot with infrastructure supported in that, and we're looking at having to buy land that's seven to eight dollars a square foot uh to be in the research park.

So significant difference.

So they didn't give it an outright, but that land was already set, and they give us um I think it was city-owned if I remember right.

So there is a definite incentive that was there.

It's not an outright council resolution.

Um, same thing for Rapid City, Rapid City.

We were able to work with the developer and come to a negotiated rate again, significantly below three dollars a square foot because they believe in economic development and serving their business community.

Sure.

So again, it's under three dollars a square foot.

You know, I might just echo a sentiment that I think counselor Avery shared, which is that I think the city has invested pretty handsomely uh in the research park area, millions of dollars to sort of pave the way for economic development and to support the business community.

And so, you know, tonight the action we're being asked to take is whether or not we believe this project warrants incentivizing.

Um, and I'm not sure that I've got any compelling evidence that it warrants incentivizing beyond the investments we've already made in that space.

And so I hope the message isn't that we're not real business friendly and economic development focused because we absolutely are to the tune of millions of dollars of investments in this exact neighborhood you're looking to build.

Absolutely, you have I'm just not sure.

4.3 million if I remember right.

Right.

I'm just not certain that I believe this project is one that we would incentivize in this particular way.

So I'm with the rest of my counselors and probably a no on this one.

Mayor Neyer, would it be an opportunity to withdraw the request or come to a work study with the contract because we are close to having that?

All right.

So that's that's to the pleasure of the council here.

Um I do have a couple comments myself.

Oh, yes, sir.

Um I voted in favor of this.

I'm on that research part park.

So I'm disclaimer, I did vote in favor of this.

I don't know if I can vote in favor of the sales tax rebate just because of of the concerns that we have.

Um we don't have all the answers tonight.

Uh we don't have the true true numbers that are expected to happen from BMU as far as rates and how they're going to be affected and how they would be increased in the future and who's going to pay for that increase.

Um I think there's some negotiation that probably could be done there.

I do have another question.

Have you contacted Governor's Office of Economic Development?

Are they working with you on the other hand?

Yeah, I am working on them.

We have a butt for clause just like what this would be for us to be able to purchase the land here in Brookings.

Um, we need the funds to be able to purchase it and be able to have that landlocked uh ownership.

Uh then the governor's office where for the Rapid City office or center and the Brookings Center both, they're separate projects that they're looking at for both the same type of sales rebate for the RPP program that we're asking for their assistance and help, and that also helps to function functionally provide the purchase of the land so we can catapult the construction because those two are greenfields.

Well, I should say Kearney's Greenfield and Rapids Greenfield, this will be the repurpose.

So your funds and theirs combined will help us be able to purchase the property.

We if we just stayed with the lease, it's a great lease rate.

I guarantee you, it's a wonderful lease rate.

But it's really from an investor standpoint and developing the infrastructure in setting up long-term contracts for our business to provide the businesses with the infrastructure long term.

We need to be able to own that property.

Okay.

Um the other concern I've got is the noise.

You know, we've we've already got established residents there within 500 feet of this facility, and it's been zone R3 just to the south of you.

It's going to be closer, it's going to be right across the border.

Um I guess I I would I would I would hope that if this project does go through, that you will try your best to put foliage up there.

Maybe taller walls, something to dissipate the noise, because that's going to be a concern.

There is a large service wall in the rendering that I have in there, it doesn't show it as well, but there is a large wind rendering and noise reduction louver system on the wall.

Again, I apologize, I'm not the technical side of that, but helps reduce the noise.

And yes, we are very um clear on that back service wall area.

Um we want to make sure that we have it as enclosed as possible and and neighbor friendly by all means.

Otherwise, the research park wouldn't approved it, neither would the DRT uh supported our project either.

And noise was not a concern.

Um we did talk about it, but it was not a concern at the high level.

Your backup power is uh diesel engines?

Yes.

Has BMU talked about during uh peak times to ask you to run those?

We've offered it actually.

They didn't ask, we offered.

I know that they've been working with almost everybody that has them so that we can keep the rates down there when we get to peak periods.

They'd like to see the diesel engines come start up because they're gonna run cheaper than what it would cost for us to pay on the peak period.

So um I do I do appreciate that.

I'm assuming the three green ones are the are the diesel engines.

Yes, sir.

And then uh and the other four boxes, those are part of the cooling system.

Cooling the chiller systems, yes.

Yeah, and again, it's plenty of air cooled, so it's a unique system that combines the best of each of the cooling systems without the chemical process.

But again, if we had someone calm, we could provide that if need be.

We would provide that for them in a safe and effective way.

So would it would it be easier to table this tonight?

Or do you want to re send your request?

I can I can pull the request back and come back again, if that would I vote well.

Councilmember Wendell.

I'll just speak for myself.

I don't know that we need to go through the process of of having you come back.

I would be ready to take action tonight on this.

Okay.

All right.

Councilmember Specker.

Yeah, and I also would be willing to take action, even disregard it, even if I don't think about the things that really bother me about it, because we're talking about a tax rebate for four jobs.

And I don't, I mean, when we vote on TIFS and we vote on tax incentives, it's for things that are bringing that are causing economic development.

And yeah, you're talking about a lot of different companies possibly using that, but these companies are now here a lot of them, and they're just using resources or servers in Sioux Falls or Denver.

It's not that they're gonna move here necessarily for that, and this is only gonna generate.

I mean, you're what you're asking for a sales tax rebate, is about equal to six years of what it's gonna generate later.

I mean, so that's a whole other so for that reason I can vote on it tonight, because I don't think I mean both Wayne and I are on the BMU, sit on the BMU board.

We know what's been going on with that, and if it gets worked out that they are parry paying their full share, I think that would be nice, but that hasn't been done yet.

That unless Wayne heard it last meeting.

All right.

Um any other council comments, questions.

I think we'll proceed with the vote.

Please call the roll.

Avery.

Nay.

Doran, no.

Hager, no.

Nehemier.

No.

Specker, no.

Tilton Byrne, no.

Wendell.

No.

All right.

Thank you, Victoria.

Thank you.

Um that is uh we have the progress report.

Samantha Beckman, our assistant city manager will present progress report for the month.

All right, hello again.

This is the February 2026 progress report.

Uh first up in the engineering division for 2026, they have several um routine maintenance projects along with the 22nd Avenue and 20th Street South intersection widening, which will affect the east corners of that intersection to help with better turn radius for large vehicles like semi's.

Uh we'll also be hosting a an open house for our master transportation plan tomorrow night from four to six p.m.

right here in the city council chambers, and invite the public to come give their thoughts on that plan.

The airport will also be working on constructing a new snow equipment building this year as long along with a fee and rent study.

In the police department, officers have been present at several community events lately, including hockey games, breakfast with badges, and career fairs.

And accident reports from the Brookings Police Department can now be conveniently purchased online through crash docs.

And reports are available five to seven business days after the accident for a four dollar fee.

In the fire department, uh some folks from the fire department were present at that recent breakfast with badges as well.

All Brookings Fire Department responders also took a tour of the Dactronics plant recently, which helps them familiarize themselves with the building should there ever be a uh response in an emergency situation there.

Pre-building or pre-build designs for engine three, tower one, and rescue one are all with the manufacturers now, as those have long lead times.

And we have funding in place this year to replace one wildland brush engine.

But after reevaluating the current conditions of the existing three brush engines, uh it was decided that better utilization of those funds would be to update the existing three with new pumps, water distribution, uh hoses, valves, sweep nozzles, uh, instead of replacing a one engine at that point.

So two of those three trucks have been completed and they are finishing up the third one right now.

In the library, they will be hosting a craft swap March 14th from 1 to 3 p.m.

where you can take your items uh that you want to donate to the library.

Um they will take those at the front desk March 7th through the 12th, and those who donate will have the opportunity to check out the swap before the public.

Um free will donations will be accepted and will go towards the Friends of the Library and the Berkings Arts Council.

The library also implemented a lucky day collection recently where books that are currently popular and in demand are up front and they are first come, first serve.

So if you find the book you want, you should consider yourself lucky.

In the Solid Waste Division, they are currently in the process of implementing their e-waste recycling program as well as implementing other items in the Solid Waste Master Plan.

In Parks Recreation and Forestry, uh community garden plots are now available to reserve.

Our Brookings staff recently met with Parks and Rec staff from Millbank to discuss program and event trends that they're seeing.

So always looking for opportunities to learn from our peers.

And we are also hiring for several seasonal positions right now.

So if you are looking for a summer job, make sure to check those out.

And just a reminder again that we're looking for volunteers for the wall that heals June 11th through the 14th.

You can either call the Parks and Rec office or visit our new web page, which is listed on the screen up there.

And last but not least, uh the City of Brookings recently launched a survey to gather community feedback on the Dakota Bank Center's future use.

The survey provides the public an opportunity to share their priorities, concerns, and ideas that will help guide city council and staff's decision about the facility.

We're asking all residents to complete that survey by visiting the city's website that's listed on the graphic on the screen.

Those surveys close at 11:59 p.m.

on March 1st.

Printed surveys are also available here at the City County building on the first floor by the Parks and Rec Office.

And public meetings are currently scheduled for March 18th to continue that conversation.

And then I've listed some of the upcoming concerts and events on the screen, so make sure you're buying your tickets there.

And we will take any questions if you have any.

Thank you, Samantha.

Any comments, questions from council?

All right.

Uh that is kind of the end of our business for this evening.

Our next regular meeting will be the 10th of March.

We have ex official reports.

Uh Heidi Gullickson uh concerns and uh and uh sincere thoughts on Heidi's family, passing of her father-in-law.

She was going to be here this evening, but father-in-law's funeral was today.

She will be here uh discussing outside agency funding recommendations at their next meeting.

And then uh the four uh first readings that we had this evening.

We'll have second readings on.

And the first reading on revision of division three and ordinance dead, dying, and diseased and infested trees.

So look forward to that.

Any other any other things that uh the council wants to bring up for future agenda?

Yes, council member specker.

Yeah, could I ask the city to look into residential noise ordinances?

We certainly could.

That would probably be on our uh planning commission's agenda.

No?

Who would it be on?

Uh that would be something that us staff can look into and bring back at a future work session for city council.

You you're looking at residential or industrial altogether.

Okay.

Okay.

We want to vote on that or do you want to be best?

Yeah.

Motion, second.

Second.

All right.

And we'll just write it and vote on it.

Call the roll.

Hager.

Aye.

Neemeyer?

Specker?

Aye.

Tilton Byrne.

Aye.

Wendell?

Aye.

Avery?

Aye.

Doran.

Hi.

Any other comments, questions for this evening?

Entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Meeting is adjourned.