The Fargo City Commission convened on December 22, 2025, to address a wide range of municipal operations, public safety initiatives, and community development projects. Key discussions included the rollout of a new FCC broadband fiber initiative, a major transition for the Fargo Youth Initiative to a school district partnership, updates on river bridge reconstruction, a renewal of public safety technology contracts, an organizational restructuring of the finance and auditor departments, and the critical relocation of the Resource and Recovery Center. The meeting concluded with public comments regarding transit expansion and meeting transparency.
Note: The transcript indicates the public hearing for the alcohol license transfer was continued to January 20, 2026, pending potential landowner objections regarding a property north of the data center. The vote tallies on the Axon renewal and the Resource and Recovery Center lease indicate opposition from Commissioner Pepcorn.
Roll call, please. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. The Federal Communications Commission or FCC has an initiative to roll out a high-speed broadband internet access to every resident in the United States. And that includes in our community where they want to try to get the latest technology to make our residents or businesses more productive with a very high internet speed that can go back and forth. So that's part of the process. But what they've done is they've allowed companies to go into our right-of-way without our ability to deny them of that right. So we have to work with them to get what we want, put them where we want them to be and stuff like that. But there's no ability for us to say no, you can't do it. That's part of the broadband initiative nationwide. Oftentimes I think a lot of the residents and adjacent landowners really think their property goes all the way to the curb. And the right-of-way doesn't. I know they're asked to maintain it. They're asked to maintain the sidewalk, mow the grass, but it's really part of the public right-of-way. Then you add that utility in the newer area of the town, and it gets to be a lot of your front yard can be used for other things, even though it's your property or shared with the city. So there is a lot of misconceptions. Public right-of-way really starts back of sidewalk across the street to the back of the sidewalk on the other side. So that's the way we call the public right-of-and that's where all of the obviously the road that you use to get to it from your house, but there's so much stuff buried underneath the road. You have storm sewer, sanitary sewer, water mains, but then you have all the private stuff. Gas for heat, electricity for lights, fiber for internet. You know, all the things that our residents use are oftentimes buried in the right-of-way. In some of the newer areas of town, we also have an additional ten feet on each side of the sidewalk on the property side of the sidewalk called a public utilities, but that's just for burying other or the other various underground utilities that are used by our residents. You know, like I said, gas, electricity, internet, all those things are oftentimes buried in that utility easement as well. So just gives us more space to put our stuff in, put their stuff in, and not crowd the right-of-way. So if we have an emergency, we're not digging on top of everybody else. We can actually dig down and fix the water bay, fix the sanitary sewer, things like that. First thing you're going to see is all the locate flags. And those are all the flags that all the existing utilities are putting in to protect their stuff that's underground. And that can just be a sea of flags in some place. If you want to give us a shout, we could put a dot on a map and kind of you know let them know that there's something in that property so they can look for it. A wire to a hot tub or uh sprinklers, or if you have a pet fence that's underground and stuff like that, they know it's there. They'll try everything they can do to avoid it. But it's really on the homeowner to let us know that that stuff is there because that's the homeowner is really the only person that knows it's there. Probably the primary benefit is there's another choice. You know, we have a lot of incumbent internet providers that are been in this town for years, and this is just another choice. You know, whether it's better value, better pricing, or they think that they need to drop around and make sure that there are choices, and you can use the new people, you can use the ones that are already being uh already installed here. So I think they're the benefit of choice and competition and all the things that go with it. City of Fargo's created a website, it's Fargo ND.gov slash fiber. If you need more information, you know, reach out to the email address and send us an email and we can try to answer some questions as well. Interesting. That was nice to know. Uh is there uh motion to approve the order to the agenda. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carried.