The Fargo City Commission met on Monday, September 30, 2024, at 5:00 PM in the Commission Chambers. The meeting lasted until 7:13 PM. Key actions included approval of a $116,750 Flock Safety technology purchase (4–1), adoption of the 2025 Final Budget with a 4.5% COLA and no new mill increase (3–2), and continuation of a special assessment hearing to October 14 due to a North Dakota Supreme Court ruling. Several public hearings were held on zoning, Renaissance Zone rehabilitation, special assessments, and budget amendments. Public comments addressed Flock Safety concerns, budget priorities, homeless services, and community programs.
Good evening. We'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. I invite you to join us. Roll call. Cole Pack. Here. Pepcorn. Here. Strand. Turnberg. Here. Mahoney. Here. Fire. October is fire prevention month in the Fargo Fire Department reminds residents to install smoke alarms in every bedroom outside each separate sleeping area and on each level of the home, including the basement. And to test smoke alarms at least once a month by pushing the test button. All smoke alarms should be replaced when they are ten years old or stop responding when tested. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Motion carried. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any corrections? Otherwise, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed, say no. Motion carried. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda items one through thirty-eight? That's a move. Is there a second? Second. Yes. Turnberg. Aye. Mahoney. Aye. Item 39. Recommendations approve the purchase of the Flock Safety Technology from the Flock Group for the Fargo Police Department. Chief Sabowski or who's going to give it? Bill AFLC. Good afternoon or good evening, I guess everyone. Appreciate the opportunity to come up here and just give a quick presentation on a purchase set we'd like to make as it pertains to safety in the city of Fargo. This is going to be a very short presentation, shorter than one that was given on September 23rd finance committee meeting. But at the request of Commissioner Saran, we thought we'd uh go through this a little bit for the public to see what we'd like to do. So we'll take about five minutes here to talk about Flock and the real-time crime center implementation. So a brief history of uh of what Flock is in 2022, we were uh asked to look into uh options to replace our downtown camera system. As we started to do that, we saw that there are uh much more advanced technologies out there, more than just uh cameras, but also cameras and license plate readers.