Mandan City Commission Meeting – March 17, 2026
Mandan City Commission Meeting – March 17, 2026
On March 17, 2026, at 5:30 PM in the Bosch Frelec meeting room at Mandan City Hall, the Board of City Commissioners convened. The meeting included project updates, public hearings, bid awards, and a resolution to place a fire station sales tax measure on the June 2026 ballot. All votes were unanimous (5-0) unless noted.
Consent Calendar
- Agenda and Minutes: Approved the agenda and the March 3, 2026 meeting minutes.
- Consent Agenda (Items 1, 2, 4, 5, 6): Approved after item 3 was pulled for separate discussion.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Street Improvement District 242 Public Hearing:
- Martha Haroldson (resident within district): Expressed full support, citing water main breaks and appreciating the city’s funding efforts.
- Tom Schaffstall (property owner): Questioned the protest calculation method (area vs. number of properties). Staff clarified that North Dakota Century Code 40-22-18 uses land area, and offered to provide additional numbers.
- Lee Fleischer (resident on 2nd Street NW): Voiced support, noting health and safety issues, the benefit of the 2% loan, and the project’s necessity.
Discussion Items
- Project Updates (Jerry): Reviewed active projects including Memorial Highway, Mandan Proper Phase 1, water treatment plant, lead service line replacements, and street reconstruction projects. The protest period for Mandan Proper ends April 6, with consideration on April 7.
- Spring Cleanup Week (Mr. O’Keefe): Scheduled April 20–25, 2026; landfill open April 18 from 8 AM to 4:45 PM.
- Library Open House (Mr. Neubauer): March 31, 2026, 11:15 AM–1:15 PM at 701 5th Street SW; RSVP requested.
- Public Hearing – Preliminary Plat “1884 Edition”: Approved contingent on an updated master plan.
- Public Hearing – Street Improvement District 242 (Project 2B): After presentation (Jerry), the commission found the protest insufficient (45.2% by land area, under 50% threshold). The project is estimated at $18.2 million, with special assessments ranging from $5,000–$19,500 per residential unit ($32–$127/month over 15 years at 2% interest). Approved a motion to move forward with final design and bidding via Moore Engineering.
- Bid Award – Downtown Phase One (Street Improvement District 236): Awarded to SiteWorks Excavation for $5,014,000 (12% under engineer’s estimate of $5.7 million). Federal funds cover $2.356 million; city share ($2.686 million) from special assessments, utility fund, and infrastructure fund.
- Public Works 2026 Equipment Budget Reallocation: Approved reallocation from a roller purchase to a Maztech mastic dispenser and tools for road maintenance.
- New Business – Terra Valley Sanitary Sewer Project: Approved amendment to Apex Engineering’s contract to include construction services and community engagement.
- Resolution – Sales Tax for Fire Station: Approved a resolution to place a 3/4-cent sales tax extension on the June 2026 ballot. The tax would replace the existing Starion Sports Complex tax (paying off 14 years early) and fund Fire Station #3, equipment, and long-term maintenance of stations 1 and 2. The city’s portion of total sales tax is 2.25% (8.25% total). No property tax increase planned.
- Floodplain Ordinance (Second Reading): Approved Ordinance 1484. Staff reminded residents to check sump pumps with warming weather.
- Extra Duty Police Rate: Approved increasing the billing rate from $55 to $75 per hour for off-duty police services requested by organizations.
Key Outcomes
- Votes: All motions passed unanimously (5-0).
- Next Steps:
- Street Improvement District 242: Protest period ended, final design and bidding to proceed.
- Downtown Phase One: Contract with SiteWorks Excavation.
- Fire Station Ballot: Public engagement session April 13, 2026, 6:00–7:30 PM at Red Trail Elementary; vote in June 2026.
- Future Meetings: April 7, 2026 (5:30 PM, followed by Board of Equalization at 7:00 PM), April 21, 2026, and May 5, 2026.
Meeting Transcript
On this beautiful St. Patrick's Day, March 17th, 2026. It is 5 30 p.m. and we are in the Bosch Frelec meeting room at Mandan City Hall. Mr. Newbauer, could you please take the roll? Commissioners, Braun. Yes. Roar. Here. Schoberg. Here. Hein Chan. Here. Mayor Freelick. Here. And at this time, we will have Peyton Himeshbach from Troop Scout Troop Number 425. Lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. If everybody would stand, remove any headgear. Face the flag. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I applied allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Thank you, Peyton. At this time we will have announcements, project updates. Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. Put together a short slide for project updates. We're getting closer and closer construction season and trying to give just a kind of a general update to some of these projects that are active right now and will be active in the near future. First, Memorial Highway. People might see that in the news more and more. There will be representation from the NDDOT, from the city, and from each of the construction contractors on the project. Just inviting people to participate in that. It's a really good opportunity to have one-on-one conversations with people that know what's going on with these projects. During this project or during this meeting, we discussed the scope of the project, schedule, financing, and input process. We had a pretty good turnout. This would be the project, or this would be the input meeting after we sent out special assessment letters. So there was a lot of questions and concerns around the special assessment calculation and amount and payback period and all that stuff. So we had a lot of really good good conversations related to that. I think the general sentiment is that everybody acknowledged that the project was needed and was kind of excited for it. Just wanted to bring up that we do have project website available for the Mandan Proper Phase 1 project and many of our other projects. But if people weren't able to make it to the meeting, they could view the February 24th and March 12th presentation videos. There's an interactive feedback map on the project website if they have specific concerns they want addressed with the project, as well as contact information. And then the protest period started after our last commission meeting and will end on April 6th, and we will have to consider it at the April 7th meeting. So there will be a quick turnaround on that protest period. This one will be uh picking back up in the spring. It'll be picking back up in kind of a different way. Uh a lot of the one of the major items left to do is to peel back that retaining wall uh at the corner of division and Collins Avenue, and uh it should improve the site line uh when you are uh westbound at that intersection. Um and then what's left to do is really site cleanup work and reservoir painting. So that's a big one right there. And then just to highlight some of the other projects that we'll have active uh around town in 2026, water treatment plant phase three, Terra Valley Decommissioning, Master Lift Station Improvements, the 3A street rehabilitation project up by Red Trail Elementary. We will have lead service line replacements throughout our community, and then we have our first street reconstruction project, which we'll discuss in more detail later, and our area 2B reconstruction project, which we'll discuss in detail in more detail later.
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