The Fargo City Commission met on Monday, September 15, 2025, at 5:00 PM in Commission Chambers. The meeting included a consent agenda with 27 items, a public hearing on the 2026 preliminary budget, discussion on resident comment policy revisions, a recommendation to continue the Downtown Engagement Center and begin relocation outreach, approval of property tax exemptions, and updates from liaison commissioners. A motion to add a discussion on a social media post by a city employee failed. The meeting adjourned at 6:56 PM.
2026 Preliminary Budget (Public Hearing):
Downtown Engagement Center (Item 30):
Resident Comments (end of meeting):
Agenda Amendment (Social Media Post):
We'll call the meeting to order. We'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. I invite you to join us. Pledge allegiance to the play in the United States of America. Roll call, please. Call Pack here. Papcorn? Here. Strand? Here. Turnberg? Here. Mahoney. Here. I think there's a video we have said you guys are going to show it now. Yep. It was a very proud moment for me going up to Grand Forks and assuming the role as chief in that community. It's a great community. I've learned a lot. Uh met a lot of great people up there. But coming back to where I started and starting to see the familiar faces and the fire stations and the people that I spent most of my career with was very heartwarming. It was it was a good experience to come back to that. Wow, this all looks familiar. And it's a great community, and I'm really hoping that the experiences that I have, I can bring something to the department and the city. There's been a lot of those things that have helped shape my leadership. One going back to college and finishing my bachelor's degree, going through the first accreditation process with the City of Fargo back in two thousand nine, ten. I did that for about a year and a half. Going back to the National Fire Academy for numerous classes, including the executive fire officer program, and then having the opportunity to go to Grand Forks and having to learn a whole new community, a whole new staff of elected officials, a whole new department, and being able to navigate that and navigate it successfully. Those experiences and all of the things that I've done combined, uh, including the emergency calls that I've been on over the years, the floods here in Fargo. They've all contributed to my knowledge. The people that I've worked for, I've had some great leaders in front of me. I've worked for technically five different chiefs in my career, and I've learned something from every one of them, as well as my direct line supervisors. All of those years of knowledge and experience, as well as my education, have definitely culminated this event in my life. And have a lot of respect for Chief Dirksen and the chiefs before him, Chief Hoover, both both progressive, both pushing the department forward. Uh, you know. If if we're staying, if we're standing still, we're moving backwards. And so my first priorities are one to learn the needs of the department, what's changed in seven years, where's our priority, where's our focus? When the community voted to support the public safety community with the public safety sales tax uh vote, uh, was a clear message to me. And I believe one of the most important parts of my job is to meet the needs of the community. We got to make sure that this organization is providing high quality service to the citizens who we serve. Very good. Uh there are some people that I wanted to speak on 64th Avenue interchange. I think there's a group of about seven people, and we just ask those people to reach out to Kimber, and we could set up a meeting to discuss some of the concerns. Uh we have had our public hearing for Metric Cog prior to this, so if those people will just contact her this week, we would be able to maybe uh sit out and visit a little bit. Is there a motion to approve the order of agenda? Mr. Chair. May I can we just get a second first, please? Can I get a second? Second.