City Current
City Current - Mandan 8/7/24
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Produced by Dakota Media Access. In-depth discussion with Bismarck and Mandan City officials. Watch on Government Access, Channel 602HD, or tune in to Radio Access 102.5 FM. Always local, always current. Welcome to City Current. It's Wednesday, August 7th. We are recording here in the Dakota Media Access studios. I'm Mary Van Sickle, and I'm here with Jim Newbar, because it's a Mandan edition of City Current. Good morning, Mary, and thank you for having us on a drizzly Wednesday morning. Yes, a little break in the heat. Nice to have some rain though, I like it. I needed a shot after a pretty dry July. Yeah, good to see, and I think things are green back up again, so that's all right. For sure, and we are, as always, here to talk about the Mandan Commission meeting last night. That's why we get together, just talk about those highlights and some of the actions that they took. It was a long meeting, you know, a lot of agenda. Yeah, um, lengthy agenda, we've had a couple last several months that have been pretty minimalistic, which is okay, we're not complaining about that, but need some things to take care of last night. Yeah, I went for, what, two hours and 15 minutes? For us, that's a pretty long meeting, but again, really good stuff to talk about. Yeah, for sure. Well, consent agenda. I don't believe these items were pulled for conversation and discussion between the commissioners, but the first one that I thought was interesting, if you could expand on this, there was a change to your media guidelines. This is something that you produce at the City Administration Office that gives guidelines to commissioners and staff about what to do and how to direct inquiries from the media and the community. So we've changed their guidelines, and we use them again with three new commissioners, new mayor, two new commissioners, welcome aboard. Yeah. And to kind of give them a background, they've always been in place for a number of years, but with the measure on eliminate or the pros measure on eliminated and property tax, it's kind of like what can elected officials and city staff say, because there's very pretty strict rules on what we can say and what we can't say, we can deliver facts. I think you can't try and influence the way individuals will vote. But again, a good we've worked with the North Dakota League of Cities and Stephanie there has provided input into what we can say, what we can say. So that was part of, that was really the main addition to our media guidelines is if someone asks you about a proposed measure, here's what you, you know, hear the kind of the rules of the day and what you can say and what you can say. So this kind of came about because we had some recent training with the League of Cities, which they do provide this for all the cities in North Dakota, can valuable information about how to handle these inquiries. Yep. And it's good stuff. It's a matter of, again, because of the limitations that are placed on what elected officials and what employees can or can't say, it's a very good and appropriate time to do that as we've got a couple of measures coming up to vote on in in November. Yeah. And we'll start getting a lot of those questions asked of us. And I would assume that the overall overreaching information there in their directions and the guidelines is come to you or your city attorney for official responses, because otherwise you have too many voices, too many people. Right. The mayor is the official spokesman for the city. The commissioners, they can be asked questions. It's important for them to, well, I can respond as a individual, but not as a, and this is not an official position of the city if we haven't taken one. So again, it's a matter of providing some of that guidance to them. Some clarification there. Right. So also the last item on the consent agenda that we wanted to talk about was using utility funds for up sizing a sewer street costs that's coming out. Correct. So there's been the developers has established this sewer line in this street near Manhattan High School. But the city has determined it's not going to be big enough in the future to handle this. Right. Well, put. Okay. Try and simplify that or for my non engineering brain to kind of make some sense out of if we have, and I, this is not a, if we have developer needs an eight inch water line. And we say, no, we need a 12 inch water line so that we can handle things in the future. It's like the difference between in costs between that eight inch line and that 12 inch line is really a cost the city should bear as a whole. So we pay for that out of our utility fund. And that's not part of any costs to get special assessed back to property owners. So this, this has happened in the past. Absolutely. And it will happen in the future. So we don't want to have to go in a couple years later and say, Oh boy, I wish we would have upside this line. It does happen sometimes when development takes off in areas that we didn't expect it. But we try and be a little proactive in that manner and say, okay, really, instead of putting an eight inch line in the ground, we need a 12 inch or a four inch to a six inch or different size sewer lines that are necessary for development. And again, part of our municipal code would indicate, you know, the city shall pay difference in costs between that up sizing. Okay. So that forward, not really a we don't have a choice in the matter, because it's written in our code. But again, something that we like to make sure that the public is aware of the up sizing and over sizing of these lines to handle future development is a cost that we bear. Well, it's just being very progressive, for sure. Yeah. And part about, you know, we talk about the utility fund, it's never, you know, money has to come from somewhere, right? So part of that is built into our existing rate structure that we have, kind of reserves to help pay for things like this to come up, especially in this area where Amanda in high schools, yeah, a lot of beehive up there of activity, of sure. Very, very much, like you said, beehive of activity. There's some interest in developing a couple of different lines up there. Schools getting ready to start here. I'm going to say that in on the end of August. And like I said, so it'll be an interesting transition. Traffic patterns are going to change. I think once people see this new school is finished and operating, and then there's going to be a lot of interest in those lots that are right next door. I haven't been in the building, but the outside is pretty impressive. So and the renderings that are online as well. Yeah, they done a great job. And like I said, our goal for always to get the school up and open. Something to be proud of. Yes, very much. Thank you to the taxpayers who voted for that. And like I said, it's well, it's much needed and it's going to be a great addition to the community. All right. Under new business, a couple of groups coming forward with their budget. These are groups that fall within get funding, some of their funding from the city of Mandan. So they're not necessarily, they are included in your overall budget, but they do make this separate presentation. And this one, first one was the library, right. Barb sent us from as our executive director for the Morton Man and Public Library. It's great when Barb comes in and she kind of every year gives an update on here's the activities that have we have going on in the library. Part of the amount of our city property tax and our mills are levied are dedicated to the library. Barb came in and said, you know, here's what we've done. Last year, I think what was it? 34,000 visitors into the library had a summary on here's the room rentals with the addition that we put on a couple of years ago. The community rooms are being used extensively. I was surprised to see one at 104 or 140 events and there I'm going to let's like one every three days is going on in the community room. So great things are going on in the library. Barb presents her budget, which the library board of trustees has already given their green light to. And now it's time for the commission to get a green light to just pop up a picture of the library. That's adorable. It's obviously went through some major renovations. We've talked about that and that was 2022, I believe. So that kind of shows the exterior of the building and western of the library and the metal light pole you see there was one of the originals it was on the library when we were on 2nd Street. So that was brought over. And again, trying to pay homage to, you know, here's the former library and we do that. So yeah, and like I said, Barb did an awesome job on her library stats and things like that. So if you want to view that, I think we will have that up on our part of our agenda packet either it's in there now or later today we will get it out. Well, they've really ramped up their programming there too. So and we like getting their notices when they have something new happening. I know they have a social media page. We have the website up on the screen right now at mortenmandantlibrary.org. You can always go there. But I know they're on Facebook as well and probably on Instagram and X and all that. I agree with you 100% they have expanded their programming extensively and the ability to have the community rooms available for renting. I think Barb pointed out last night that's one of their focuses for the upcoming year is to make sure that those use those rooms are. It's well known to the public they're, you know, depending on what kind of group you are there might be a cost to rent those rooms. But again, they're doing a great job. And I think the public is really appreciative of having that extra space. Well, and the other thing it's so wonderful down there is that you're adjacent to the park in the depot and downtown. And it really makes it nice to walk a walk and there's playground. Can't talk about the library without talking about Morty the bookmobile and still continues to run. I think that a thousand patrons visit to the bookmobile last year. So that continues to make its runs. And one important thing that Barb said last night is that I didn't realize this but they don't have there's been significant turnover and they have no one with more than I think seven years at the library. So there's a lot of new faces, new ideas. And also they get questions on well, why didn't you use to do this or do that? And I think like Barb has done a good job of moving those things forward. And they're adjusting. They're adjusting. And one of the things that people don't know is that you can get your passport paperwork and do that through the library. And I just you know, one of the big attractors in that facility too. So ultimately commission approved the budget. So that's included in your overall 2025 proposal proposed budget. So also the library or the excuse me, the airport authority came forward and submitted their talked a little bit about what they've done this past year, but also talked about what they need for the future. Yeah, Lindsey Gearhart, the airport manager came in and did her thing. And that's always fun to look at pictures of the airport and also explain because people sometimes don't know that we have a regional airport in Mandan. That is I think the largest general aviation airport in the state. Yeah, I think we have 99 fixed based aircraft out there. Again, which is by far and away, I think twice what anybody other airport has in the state. So a couple projects going out there this year are, I think the runway is about 10 years old and in need of some tender loving care, joint repair and cracks and things like that. The also the big thing with the with the airport would be their main offices is that they did acquire property. The old terminal will I think probably be hauled away. And the new terminal is is up and signed. And there's really not even a difference between the old and the new is so there's so much more room, more inviting to pilots, travelers that come in, may need to stay overnight, maybe to we've got two vehicles out there that are available to pilots that fly in and want to come to town and you know, get lunch or suffered and or whatever have you but they are available. And again, Lindsey's kind of a one woman show out there working her tail off and yeah, great things are going on. Yeah, yeah, you can tell there's a lot of pride out there for sure. And again, commission approved the budget for then a coming year. Correct. Okay, the contributions from the city. Before we continue, just want to remind our viewers and listeners if you just joined us, this is city current. I'm here with Jim Newbar is the city administrator for the city of Mandown. And we are recording, I'm Mary Van Sickle, forget to introduce myself sometimes. We are recording this on Wednesday, August 7th. So this program will repeat up until next week when we sit down with with City of Bismarck. So next on the agenda, and this is under new business was an appeal from planning and zoning. Your planning and zoning department denied developers request to do crossings for irrigation purposes within a new development. Right. In short, down in the shores of Lakewood and this other southeastern part of town, new development, developer had proposed doing lawn irrigation and things like that from retention upon that they are have constructed. But that involves a private entity using the public right of way to cross underneath the streets. In essence, that's really the crux of it all is that public right of ways are intended for the public's use, not private use, other than your your public utilities are going or your water, your sewer, your streets, your cable TV, your gas lines and things like that. So big difference in the types of entities. I think that, like I said at the end of the day, the board said, yeah, staff recommendation is that it's very difficult. And once you open that door up to a public entity or a private entity crossing using the public right of way for their own benefit. And it wasn't it's not a critical benefit. You know, people have long sprinkling systems on their own. This would have been kind of a community line, so to speak would have been I think managed by an HOA. We look at that as yet is unique in North Dakota. And I think there's only one other example that was presented that there's a kind of a public or a private line, really kind of a quasi public private line crossing the using that right of way for those purposes. Yeah, there's alternatives that they could have done. They didn't want to do those. And then again, the commission at the end of day made a decision to yeah, we don't think that eight crossings, which is what it would have ended up being that full build out would be a good idea. And this was down in Lakewood area. This is a new develop. Another addition down there new development. If you take McKinsey drive and travel in a westerly fashion, you'll run into I think it's done in drive or done in circle. Okay, several new houses going up in that area. So there already are some some residential properties already things going on there. So very nice development and hats off to TRX and our gold hammer and his crew that this is a great development. A lot of houses being a lot of demand down there. Yeah, beautiful. On the side of the golf course, you've got yeah, so it'll be a good development. But on this particular issue, they're going to have to do some kind of pivot. Yep, do pivot. Figure it out. Correct. Yeah. So, all right. 2025 street rehab projects forward last night. This was interesting. More engineering is your group that you work with the city works hand in hand with or contracts with. And an assessment was made with various properties that can bring that map up real quick here and show all the different property. I should say areas of man down that an assessment was done. And this assessment involved not just streets, but not just streets. When we do when we look at street maintenance projects, it's a it's a full look at what are your water lines like? What are your sewer lines like? What is the storms who are like? What are your street lights and all that those things type of things. Some working back with some recommendations and some, you know, we are currently working in, I think it's area two a on the map, which is in the north westerly part, low straighter drive area, west of the man in high school area area to be is what we're looking at and what the board approved last night, which is again, mostly kind of described as from six Avenue going halfway to the west. Okay. Now, because area two a the rest of that is already that's being worked on this year. Okay. So it makes good sense. Okay, let's hit area two B and then the plan kind of looks at where should we be going after that. So again, streets were kind of hitting into those older areas of town. A lot of cast iron pipe, a lot of water breaks, streets are in in the condition that of need repair. And we're, like I said, it's a it's a slow, but is a process to move and try and hit those areas that we need to get to a plan for the future. Yes, where to hit those those most needed areas and make improvements and not anticipate that because you have had some water main breaks and keeping up with that is pretty tough or handling them as they're happening rather than anticipating. Correct. Yeah. So part of any overall strategy is you want to keep streets that that are unfair to good condition, you'd like to keep them in fair to good condition for as long as you can. And there are streets in town that we absolutely know we're going to need full depth reconstruction, new to curb, new gutter, new water line, new sewer line. And that's really the areas of town that they're there. We know we're going to get there. It's just a matter of when can we when we get there? So to be again, we've got another map up of the to be area. Can you do you know what these colored lines mean? It'll be your water and sewer and street reconstructions in there. So that kind of there's a legend on that map that'll kind of tell you what what kind of work will be done in those areas. And again, board approved moving to create the district and start that project moving forward. There will be a, you know, I think publication will be in the Manden news this week, which will start the 30 day protest period. Okay, letters, letters, costs, property, honors, and we'll, like I said, this would be the plan for 2025 project. Pretty much all residential here's pretty much all residential and single family residential some commercial in nursing day cares and there's team challenge in that area. Okay. But again, the idea is that this would be next year's project. Okay. And then following that after 2025, this is the target area. Again, nothing has been planned or designed yet. But this would be the mandate of proper, which is more of the closer to the core downtown and the older really your core downtown here. And this is again, area of town that we fully understand that the streets and waterline sewer lines, storms were need to be addressed. Part of our tasking of more earlier in the year was to okay, put these areas, give us some cost estimates. And now it is our task to them as to how should it be phased? Because there are times when you want to make sure you're in a logical manner, you know, these example is at stormwater. So if you fix the streets and everything on top of a hill, your stormwater has got to go somewhere and it's going down to the bottom of the hill. If you don't have your utilities and your infrastructure ready to go on the bottom of the hill, it's not ready to accept that stormwater. So we, in my non engineering brain what you need to start at the bottom of the hill first and then make your way up so that you build your infrastructure where all that stormwater is going to go. And then you start adding to it as you move up the hill. Makes sense. So we'll see. But again, that is a non engineering look at it. We've asked more to okay, give us your recommendation on how we phase these in. And we know these will be very disruptive to the neighbors. New street construction, new curb gutter and things like that are disruptive disruptive. Very much. If there's a better way to do it, let us know. But again, it is disruptive to the neighborhood and we want to make sure that we manage pieces that we can manage. Sure. It's plenty. It's good planning. Right. Also last night under new business, Matt Channendor came forward from the Mandan progress organization, talking about the holiday lights display and making a request to this Mandan commission for some funding from your visitors fund to add to the already lovely holiday display that was implemented last year. But we can walk through a little bit of that one he was asking for. Yeah, part of that is, you know, they ask goes to the men and visitors committee and they make a recommendation up to the city commission. That recommendation was to fully provide the funniness this sentence asked for. If you look at, you know, some of the maps, the holiday display has been wildly popular in downtown for the last two years. First year, a lot of snow made it through last year, whether it was a ton nicer. I think the number of visitors went from like 24,000 to 48,000. So a lot doubled. Matt is looking for a couple additional displays. Penguin, there's a ice castle that we're looking at. Also adding to some areas on the library entrances that would provide, again, a more festive entrance during that time. And also, I think adding some lights on the south side of the depot. And in addition to the those requests, it was they've met his work with the Mandan beautification committee to come up with. Okay, we've got decorations on the street light poles on Main Street. And their age, you know, they are they're they've seen better days, put it easy like that. Well, they go through a lot. I mean, when you go through every year, you're pulling them up and down, and then they're all exposed to the weather for a pretty. So there's a group that got together and made some recommendations on here's what we think the street light pole, the decorations on the street were like poles will stand out and they'll be kind of themed to be like groupings along Main Street. We didn't do Memorial Highway because we know Memorial Highway is going to be under reconstruction. And in turn, until we know what kind of street light poles are going to be in there, we're not going to buy that stuff until that time comes. So all inclusive but focused in the downtown park area, finishing up the library, the depot area, the light poles down there, new stuff, have a little picture too. We just had up of there's going to be some smaller components for it into to kind of fill in some of those you want some areas that I think after two years, you kind of know where the traffic moves around and around the park and and some of those displays will be to prevent like just trudging through and tripping off boards and things like that, literally hopefully to kind of direct traffic. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, I think a signature piece that Matt is looking at is a big ice castle and they've been asking, I think the public is a monastic and we'll give it something we can walk through. Yeah. And so I think the image on the screen is what they're looking at. And I think that is 16 feet deep. That's pretty cool. And yeah, so they've got this grew and they can figure out how they're going to figure out where they're going to put that. Not our not our not our bag. Yeah, they'll figure that out. But that's one of the things that I say and hey, this would be again, a signature piece for the park and trying to update and refresh things on there. He also mentioned that this North Pole display, which is again pretty large. He said they're going to ask that the North Pole, which is written in the top of this display, change it to Mandan or Dakota, and that'd be that'd be super cool. These all are really great photo ops too, as people are walking around, you know, selfie photo ops. And yeah, it's amazing the number of people that are down there. And I think the number of volunteers that assist with folks that'll be walking through there and you know, we've got a family of four and someone needs to take a picture. All right, there'll be someone there to help you. Yeah, take a picture. So nice. And again, this wouldn't all of these things wouldn't be possible without the volunteers with the Man in Progress organization, the businesses that help sponsor these things. And like, so it's a huge shout out to them. Yeah, it's a great attraction. I think the North Dakota Tourism Award went to Matt and crew for for getting this display up. So there's a lot of research that has to be done. There's a lot of time involved in getting this all prepared and not like taking your Christmas tree out on Christmas, even get set up. And this is there's a lot that goes into this and then again, a big thing. How do you power them? How will the storage of them, you know, maintenance over the years will be. I mean, they need attention. So yeah, very cool. Sounds good. And then ultimately, the commission said, yes, said yes, there are funds available, then it's important to know that the visitors funds that come in. We are limited by an earthquake or a sensory code on what those funds can be spent on. So some people would say, well, I don't just spend that money on street repair. Well, we can't. Now the funds are intended to attract visitors to your community. And that's what they're being. And there's enough in there. It didn't take the whole fund. I mean, it's just some of it. So yeah, cool. Resolutions and ordinances. You were at the podium talking about the initiated measure, the half cent sales tax that the Mandan voted on and passed. So how does that all shake down? Jim, what's going to happen with that? The action last night was really to, we need to put in our sensory code that here's the measure that was passed by the voters on June 11th. Now let's get into code. City Attorney Oster had worked with the North Dakota tax department making sure the language we had in there was correct. And it breaks down kind of the half cent that people approved was, if that's we'll call it a nickel, right, a half cent sales tax, three cents of that will go to police and fire buildings and vehicles. So it's very kind of restrictive that way in city hall accessibility. So we think of, all right, if we need to put an elevator on city hall, those funds to be used to help pay for that. So police buildings and vehicles. Okay. And the other two cents goes to public transportation. So it's not called out that it goes to businessman transit. It is for public transportation. So we'll have to figure that out again. Okay. Last night was the first consideration of the ordinance to put that in place for starting January 1 of 2025. I'm just going to ask when does this tax start? Okay. So and this is a sales tax over is a sales tax. And it is a half cent sales tax. So it's good. Well, last but certainly not least is your introduction, first introduction of the 2025 budget for the city of Mandia. So yeah, give us the high level view at the end of our time. Well, she does a great job in presenting. And some people will have or some entities will have, well, the mayor is going to present the budget or the finance portfolio holder presents the budget. We have always had Greg present the budget on behalf of the commission and on behalf of the department heads. So Greg did a good job of presenting a lot of new things in there. I think that in a nutshell, if your home is valued at $300,000, the we're not increasing the number of meals that we levy. However, the valuation is average probably going up 5%. 30,000 home up 5%. The increase would be about $43 a year. Okay. On your property taxes. Okay. Also, we have a utility bill portion of that. So I think that was part of that increase on your utility bill includes garbage sewer, recycling, streetlights, pick your favorite. I think it's a nickel on the on the garbage, residential garbage side, it's 61 cents on the recycling side. And then the other, I think it's $4 and change goes to, we need to replace the Collins Avenue reservoir. That is about 70 plus years old. We've done enough patches and repairs on that one. So that will, I think we accepted bids here a couple of weeks ago on that replacement. So you will see a new underground reservoir go up right next to the current reservoir on Collins Avenue. And that's to help pay for that piece of infrastructure. Okay. So those are high levels. Adding some new positions in public safety and administration as a part of all right, it's time to start increasing staffs in that area. Again, so a number of positions are being added. Again, using using existing resources to help pay for days. I think the there's four new police officer positions and we've applied for, I think it's a DOJ grant to help pay for those, a portion of those over the next three years. Okay. Two firefighters, an assistant city administrator, assistant city planner, again, those areas of growth. There's also a utility operator in public works. Part of that is in preparation when Memorial Highway is completed, then the city inherits the maintenance. So right now, there's no removal, sanding, you know, pothole patching is the responsibility of state North Dakota. When this project is done, that will be our responsibility. So we're trying to slowly ramp up. If you figure there will be five lanes of driving on that. Five lane signs, two miles is you'll have 10 new miles of roadway to maintain. Yeah. And so we're starting to will obviously need some new help. Yeah. And we'll need new equipment to maintain that additional 10 miles of roadway that will be added in addition to the normal new additions that start to come in. Sure. So what do you anticipate at the timeline here? How is how does this move forward? Timeline. So the first consideration was had last night. We then and last night, finance director Greg emailed Don Rohn, the document. So Don Rohn who is a Morton County Otter. She compiles that information from the schools, from the city, from the parks. And after that gets to Don, she then puts that information to the get there. You'll get a letter towards the end of August saying here are the all the public hearing dates for these budgets. Cities will be September 17th, I believe, where it is an actual public hearing on the budget. You know, the goofy thing about the budget on the preliminary one, we present the preliminary budget. We can't add to that amount. We can subtract from but we can't add to during this time between the initial presentation and also the the budget hearing. So those are the next steps. People will get a letter in the mail saying here's what it looks like is going to happen to your property taxes over the next year from city schools, parks, all those entities. So public hearing is what day? Public hearing is September 17th. Okay. So I think we did issue a press. I know we issued a press release last night. And you can find that on our city man and web page under announcements. Sounds good. Well, thanks. That's completes my notes. I don't know if you had anything else, Jim. I think we're good. One thing, grill with a cop. Oh, is on August 15th. At the Eagles Park, I believe from 530 to 730 at night. So if you're looking for a burger or a brought over now, I'm not sure I'm pretty much you're probably guessing it is. But again, it's a good time for the community to interact with our police officers and the public works is up there with a piece of equipment and fire departments up there too. So again, it's a good time for the community to get together, food beverages, beverages, police cars, sirens, we'll try and keep a siren to a dull roar. But again, a great facility to have that up. You do the Eagles Park North on Collins. All right. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah. And thanks for being here today. We appreciate it all. As always, do you in a couple of weeks. All right. Thanks. Thanks to you as well for joining us in this episode of City Current. For more information on what was discussed in this episode of City Current, visit cityofmandan.com or call 701-667-3215. If you have any suggestions, comments, or issues you would like addressed in future City Current episodes, contact us at info@freetv.org. This program airs on government access channel 2 and 602 and HD or on radio access 102.5 FM. It's also available as a podcast on radioaccess.org and as a video viewing link at freetv.org. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of City Current. It is Ryan Seacrest here. There was a recent social media trend which consisted of flying on a plane with no music, no movies, no entertainment. But a better trend would be going to Chumbakocino.com. It's like having a mini social casino in your pocket. Chumbakocino has over a hundred online casino style games all absolutely free. It's the most fun you can have online and on a plane. So grab your free welcome bonus now at Chumbakocino.com. Sponsored by Chumbakocino. No purchase necessary. 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