City Council - Regular Meeting

ALL RIGHT. WELL, GOOD EVENING, EVERYONE.

EXCUSE ME.

I AM MAYOR SHELLY CARLSON. IT IS AUGUST 10th, 2026. IT'S 530 P.M. THE MOOREHEAD CITY COUNCIL WELCOMES PUBLIC INPUT ON ISSUES LISTED ON THE AGENDA OR OF GENERAL COMMUNITY INTEREST, TIME AND COUNCIL PERMITTING. SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO THREE MINUTES EACH. If you would like to address the council during the meeting, you'll need to fill out a form provided by our city clerk and we will call you up during the citizens to address the council item on the agenda. You'll need to state your name and if you are a Moorhead resident. If comments were submitted to the clerk prior to the meeting via email or phone, those comments will be entered into the record. For more information on participation, please visit the council meetings page on the City of Moorhead website at moorheadmn.gov. We, the Moorhead City Council, collectively, with gratitude, acknowledge the sacred land the city of Moord is built upon. We acknowledge the people who have resided here for generations and recognize that the spirit of the Dakota, Ojibwe, Métis, and all indigenous communities permeate this land. With that, could I get a roll call, please?

Ryan Nelson?

Here.

Nicole Mattson? Here. Heather Niesmeyer? Here. Emily Moore? Here. Deb White? Lisa Borgen? Here. Sebastian McDougall? Chuck Hendrickson?

Present.

Mayor Shelly Carlson?

Here, and for those who are able, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Right, and City Manager Malley, do we have any agenda amendments?

No amendments to the agenda tonight, Mayor.

Okay, moving on to consent agenda, do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So moved, Neeson Meyer?

Second, Chuck.

Motion and a second, any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? That motion carries. We're on to recognitions and presentations, and the first is our Morehart Recognition Award, and I will turn this over to Lisa Bodie.

Thank you, Mayor Carlson, members of the City Council. We have somewhat of an unconventional Morehart presentation tonight. The Morehart selection committee chooses to recognize Billy Ward for his leadership and support to all wrestlers on the Morehead Spuds wrestling team. Billy is a 2026 graduate of Morehead High School. While he was at Morehead High, he was a three-time state champion, including an undefeated senior season. After his senior season, he competed and won the NHSCA Senior National Championship in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and he is a two-time Rumble on the Red champion. Anna Rajesh is a former teammate of Billy's, and she submitted this nomination, and you'll hear from Anna in a minute. The unconventional part of the presentation tonight is that Billy is now a freshman at Arizona State, which I understand is a very prestigious wrestling program. Moorhead is looking forward to cheering him on as he embarks on his collegiate wrestling career. So with that, I think it would be really wonderful to hear from Anna herself. about why she nominated Billie.

Hello. My name is Anna Rajesh, and I am happy to stand here as a Moorhead High School wrestler to talk about a very inspiring person for everyone on the Moorhead team. William Ward is a leader in the Moorhead wrestling community. He always takes time to help others improve And I remember at a duel, I had asked him to review one of my matches because I was having trouble trying to figure out what I did wrong. And he generously took the time to look over my match carefully and give me good feedback that I could apply in my future matches. I have also seen him at boys' practices displaying really good leadership skills by taking initiative and motivating people through hard practices and drills. William is also a very accomplished athlete. He's a three-time state champion, once in North Dakota and twice in Minnesota, a Super 32 finalist, an NHSCA national champion, a three-time Fargo All-American, on the national Greco-Roman team, and highly ranked on sports networks. He's also in the top 30 for future Olympian rankings. William is inspirational to me and everyone on the Moorhead team for many reasons. One reason for me is how he takes matches. I remember hearing him talk about the way he likes to approach a match is to have fun with it and not think about anything that you have to lose. You just have fun with it. And that really affected how I view and approach my matches. And it took away from a lot of the stress and anxiety I would have before competitions. Moorhead Wrestling is so proud of his achievements. And congratulations to Billy, his proud parents, and all of the proud coaches and teammates at Moorhead Wrestling. Thank you to the city of Moorhead, Mayor Carlson, and the award committee for selecting William for this award. Thank you.

So Billy's mom is here and his little brother. And do we have Billy online? Okay. Well, we'll take a picture and we'll make sure that Billy gets it.

But congratulations to Billy. And I think that it really shows the type of character he has when somebody is nominating him because he's helping others in that way. So it's not just about his stats and awards and everything. It's really about the type of person he is. So congratulations to you and your husband for raising such an incredible young man that we all get to continue to root for down in Arizona. Thank you. The next on the agenda is a presentation by Joe Rasso, and I will just turn it over to you.

I'll let Mike kick it off.

I'm Mike Arntzen. I'm Cardinal Glass Industries head coach at our Fargo insulating glass plant, and I'm also the chair of the Fargo-Moorhead Economic Development Corporation this year. I've been on the board now for, I think, five-plus years, and I know some of the important work that... that the EDC does for the City of Moorhead, Clay County, Cass County, and Fargo. And so, interestingly enough, I am, like 25% of our teammates at Fargo's Cardinal IG plant, a Minnesota resident. I'M A RESIDENT OF KURT'S TOWNSHIP, SO I GUESS I DON'T VOTE FOR ANY OF YOU ALL. I'M A HALF MILE FROM THE but I am a Minnesota resident and I do know, so I completely understand how being a border city affects Moorhead and Fargo. And so anyway, without further ado, I'll turn it over to our president and CEO, Joe Rasso.

Thank you, Mike. Really appreciate it. Mayor Carlson and council members, thanks so much for having us here tonight. With me, besides Mike, are several members of the EDC team. Ryan Osheim, who's our Chief Business Development Officer, Tiffany Jelinski, who's our Senior VP of Workforce Development, John Machacek, who's our Chief Innovation Officer, and Joey Ness. who is our vice president of business development. I know you have a packet of material that was provided from our organization to share with you tonight. And I don't know if we have a PowerPoint on that. If we don't, I can just walk through. We do not, okay. I'll just walk through some of the highlights of that packet and would offer up any Q&A from the city council related to that. One of the things that we provided, we actually provided two documents. The first was really what we call a Moorhead engagement document. This really outlines from our team, and this was produced about a month and a half ago, so there's been some updates of activities that we've had, but we had to reschedule our time with you Due to other other things on your agenda But I just want to highlight a few things that are in this document that really talks about how our Organization in partnership with the city of Moorhead and the business community is supporting the continued growth of the community one is We manage and started a program a document ready site program this program allows for companies who are looking to expand whether they're here in our region or or ones we're trying to attract in to be able to quickly locate a piece of land that serves their needs has all the infrastructure all the data available to make a quick decision the fact of the matter is is that our mission is to serve primary sector companies we've done that for 80 years here in the region and what that means is we work with businesses whose ceos wake up every morning and He or she is worried about selling their product nationally and globally. So it's about bringing money into the regional economy to support the other 13,500 businesses that are here in our region. It's a very important mission and one that we take very seriously in our partnership with you and others. Also, just to note, our funding is half funded by the private sector and half funded by the public sector, both Moorhead, Fargo, West Fargo, and Cass and Clay County from a public sector standpoint. and just about 130 private organizations as well. So besides that Document Ready site program, the Makara Industrial Park is a certified site in our region along with five others in hopes that we can attract new companies and obviously help expand our existing companies. We bring national site consultants into the region. Just in the last two years, we've had four different site consultants come in. give a tour of our region, including tours of Moorhead, both the industrial park, but then some of the amenities, what's happening downtown, Bluestem and other attributes that the community offers the entire region. We also support project activity. First and foremost, we want to support the existing companies in the region and those in Moorhead. And in your packet a few pages in are a list of the various existing companies. In fact, Joey was just at a meeting with Tom over at American Crystal a couple days ago talking about some of their needs. But you can see a very detailed breakout of some of the companies and the dates, the years that we spend going in to have these strategic conversations to try to support them. About 70% of this region's growth is assisting those existing companies across our region. We also attract businesses to the marketplace. One example that's been publicly known that we're still working on is the DG Fuels project. Just in conversation with Greater MSP, Missouri River Energy, the local power service here in Moorhead, and a variety of other partners, obviously working closely with Matt and Derek before him to make sure that we're doing what's necessary to support major attraction projects into our market. We also have worked with a variety of other companies that are noted in this document. And one of the things that I think is really a strength of our region, and I you know, telling everybody here is somewhat obvious, is our higher education system. We have the pleasure of supporting, obviously, in Morehead both, or all three higher education institutions with M-State, MSUM, and Concordia, but also NDSU and NDSCS. We put on a bioscience summit. This will be our fourth on October 21st of this year. I just want you all to know that one of the great things about that is all students from our area high schools And last year, we had, I think, over 50 Morehead High School students, and several dozen of the higher education students attend that. We want to connect them, if they're in high school, to the higher education opportunities in the region. And if they're already in school, we want to connect them to the careers that are here in the bioscience sector, and that includes healthcare across our region. We're holding that fourth event this year. If you want more information on that, we'd be happy to provide it to you and to pass it on. That sector in the last decade has gone from about $30 million to about $350 million in terms of its impact on the regional economy. In this packet as well is some information on what we call our smart book. So when we work with companies directly, we work with our cities, we work with our utilities, and especially our finance community, our banks across the region, a lot of times they're not aware of all the programs that are available. So this Smart Book document actually provides information on all of the available assistance programs, workforce assistance and others that are offered here in Moorhead either locally or provided at a regional or state level. And that's in that document that this has an attachment to in your file if you want to look at more details of that. We also do a lot in entrepreneurship. We know that that's a hugely important aspect of this regional economy. John leads that for our group. We spend a lot of time working with entrepreneurs in the region and with our higher education partners in their entrepreneurship work. It just so happens my wife, Dr. Bree Langamo, started the entrepreneurial program at Concordia. and is currently a professor there in business law and entrepreneurship. So a lot of ties that we as a family actually have across the region. So in addition to the workforce attraction, the assisting of existing companies in entrepreneurship, or I should say business attraction, is workforce development. We are the lead entity in the region to attract, to help with the attraction of companies. It just so happens that I think Today, I looked at our job board, and there are, I think, some 5,000, 6,000 positions that are being posted by companies across our region. So the ability to attract people here is critically important to the overall economy, and we do that in a lot of ways. I mentioned the Bioscience Summit. But we also produce... different tools. You know, we have the Live in Moorhead, Live in FM Region website to help attract people into the marketplace. And in your packet, you'll see an immersive manufacturing video that we did in partnership with American Crystal Sugar to help them tell the story to people who are interested in working for their business, what it's like in a virtual setting. So those are just a handful of the things that we do. There's also a bunch of partnership data listed in here. And then the last thing I want to share with you Mike mentioned about his company located in Fargo, but having dozens and dozens of employees who live on the Minnesota side. We reached out to companies like Mike's and others. And in this packet, there's a separate document, and it's just an example. We got information back from 22 of our companies. Now, that's about 8% of our total clientele. And those companies told us that they had 383 of their employees who live in Moorhead. So they live in Moorhead with their families. And sometimes I think the message can be, well, how are we working with companies just in Moorhead? But this is a regional economy, so we have to work with companies across the region and allow them to pick where they want to live. And obviously the assets here in the community, whether it's education, whether it's recreation, you know, all the assets that Moorhead has to offer and our region has to offer drives people to want to make a decision to live here. So even though these 22 companies are actually located in North Dakota, in Cass County, their employees, in a small sample here, live in Moorhead. Now what that means in terms of the generation of income to the city, We use a third-party economist out of NDSU, his name is Dean Bankson, to do economic impacts of what that means. And that's about just shy of $200,000 of property tax revenue for the city to use for all of the city services that you all provide and direct. So there's a story in this document, too, because it really helps to tell all of us in this room, I think how we can talk in a really positive and forward-thinking way about why it's valuable to consider living in Moorhead as these 383 folks have done in their families. So there's a lot more information in these two documents, but I wanted to just summarize both of them for you and obviously be open for any questions that you might have.

Thank you. Questions from council members?

Council Member Matson. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Rasso. Thank you for coming tonight. I have some questions. I always want to say that my questions should not be interpreted as having any kind of negative intent behind them. I just, I have questions. So, I... How do we define primary sector companies? I Googled, but I wanna make sure that Google and you are in agreement.

Yeah, so a primary sector business, as we define it, and I think is generally defined, is any company where a majority of their revenue is generated by selling their product or service outside of this regional market. Think of it nationally and globally. So American Crystal Sugar is a perfect example of that, where they're not selling all their product here in our marketplace. And when you look at this regional economy, there is about $25 billion of economic activity, and most of that activity from the outside is generated in four ways. First is transfer payments, state of Minnesota, federal government transfers money in to an individual or company or local governmental body. The second is tourism. The third is higher education, pretty important. And the fourth and biggest here and in almost any economy in the country are those primary sector companies. So we work with about 300 and 350 of those businesses within this region. Is that helpful?

it is thank you and so when we talk about the region is it cass county and clay county yeah okay it is do we have any and any of any of my questions you don't have the answer you can feel free to get back to me later do we have any sense of how many are located in morehead of your of your members how many would we have offhand joey yeah about 15. so it's it's a honestly it's a small percentage of our total uh makeup of our our clientele today Okay, thank you. And then last question that I have here is you said, you mentioned 5,000 to 6,000 open positions. I know we've had for a long time now a deficit of workers relative to the number of positions open. I guess I have more than one question on this topic. How does that 5,000 to 6,000 compare to like a year or two ago, if you have any sense of is that up, is that down?

Yeah, it's a little down. And I would say in large part due to what we've seen in terms of the global geopolitical, the national issues, tariffs, a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace that has led to a lot of companies holding back on hiring. We're seeing that with the recent numbers that are being reported out. And also holding back on making decisions on just capital investments and expansions. Having said that, In the last, and we can look year over year, but we tend to look in a little larger chunks of time. In the last seven, eight years, we've had the privilege of working on 171 projects, and the investment on those projects has been a little over $9.2 billion to the regional economy. This is the third most diverse region, metro region, economically in the country, which is, you know, surprises everybody. I see a few people nodding like, oh, really? And that's because of the diversity of this region a lot with those primary sector companies that are headquartered here, whether it's American Crystal Sugar, or it's Border States, or it's Shields, or others that have started up here, a Bobcat, right? And so this is a very robust economy, even with some of our challenging times that we're not only facing, but we're seeing faced, you know, really across the board.

Okay, that gave me one more question. Okay. I, so what I had, thank you, and this is the end, I promise. What I had been told a while ago, and I'm just wondering if this is, if I, maybe I was misinformed or if I'm misremembering, is that the bucket of those open positions that we've had, like a good third of them were service, kind of low-wage service industry positions, and then I want to say the other third was maybe healthcare, And then the other third was like higher wage, more professional kind of career. Is that still where we're at? Do you have any sense?

In general, one other way maybe to discuss this is what percentage of the jobs in the market on an annual basis require an education beyond a high school degree? And for this market, it's about 30%. Now, there's only one other metro in the upper Midwest that has a percentage higher than 50%, and that's the Twin Cities. So if you were to look at Bismarck, if you were to look at Des Moines, Omaha, and others, you're still looking about 30 to 40% where a degree above high school is needed. But if I could, the importance of skills development and continued lifelong learning is really what we're seeing from companies at all levels. So it's gonna be really important for our region to continue to support education, not only K through 12 and post-secondary, but ongoing training within all of our companies too.

Thank you very much.

You bet.

Council Member Neesemeyer.

I WANT TO THANK YOU AS WELL FOR JOINING US TONIGHT. I THINK THERE WERE SOME REALLY GREAT STATISTICS. COUNCILMEMBER MATSON STOLE SOME OF MY QUESTIONS. BUT I HAVE A FEW MORE. YOU MENTIONED A HANDOUT, THE MOORHEAD ENGAGEMENT DOCUMENT. I WOULD LOVE TO SEE THAT. IT'S MAYBE SOMEWHERE AND MAYBE I'M JUST NOT oh yes okay but the bioscience summit yes is in there too okay i totally missed that um because i was like oh because i assumed that the engagement document was with the bioscience i just completely missed that so for folks of you who also may have missed it um it's in our packet on our website for that information um so all high school students in our community will be participating in this engagement opportunity for this specific field area of bioscience October 21st.

And healthcare.

And healthcare, okay.

So just as an example, last year we had all of our higher education institutions present talking to students about advancing their training in their area of interest. and all college students who are interested in attending. So sharing this with Morehead Public Schools, getting more of our students, we work very closely with the Career Academy. And for those of you who aren't aware, I guess it's probably six or six years plus ago, we helped with the bond referendum that led to the purchase and the expansion of the Career Academy.

Thank you.

any other council members have questions council member borgen thank you i'm really happy that you came here joe i think historically moreheads kind of felt like you know what are we getting what's happening and to get a report like this makes us feel like hey we're part of the part of the equation here i think it's really important um and i'm really happy that you are working with downtown morehead inc because i think they have been really a great partner for all of the businesses in Moorhead to try to get some economic development, et cetera. just want to tell you I think it's really important that we get something like this every year so we can see where our investment is going because we do invest in in your organization and you know we got to see what we're getting for our money and I'm just gonna tell you I'm very appreciative that you're here that you brought your staff here that makes Morehead feel like we matter to you all so I just want to give you props for doing that

thank you for those comments you absolutely do first i apologize we should be here more often and even though we're working with derek before and matt and stacia and others um being in front of all of you and and and the citizens who vote for you is is really important i remiss of me that i didn't recognize because she's not here tonight is councilwoman white just so everybody knows we have a board of 17. Six of those members are on the executive committee and Deb is one of our executive committee members. So please know that you're well represented. And I will say just at a personal level, the conversation that we've had that she's contributed to has been very helpful for the direction of the EDC, but also representing Moorhead in those conversations. Thank you.

Any other council members have any questions? I just have one, and again, thanks for coming, Joe. You had mentioned about the different programs that Moorhead has or Minnesota has to attract businesses to this side of the river, and I don't know if you are able to maybe answer this or somebody on your team, but I'm just curious, what do you think is the best program that Minnesota has that we can maybe lean into a little bit more to be able to attract businesses to this side of the river?

Well, I think I might give both Ryan and Joey a chance, because they've been reaching out to companies.

Would you guys have an opinion on that?

Come on up. Yeah, so everybody can hear your dulcet tones.

I think there's a few. And it's always important to remember, when we're working with companies, we like to say, get a hold of us early so we can help develop a strategic roadmap and identify programs and resources. that might influence decisions and outcomes uh on the back end right so it's not come to us when you've already made a decision so that we can just you know throw an incentive your way that's not that's not how we operate we're really focused on marshalling resources that help build out those roadmaps and influence those decisions so there's a few i think the border cities uh obviously incentives are critically important um just you know was kind of identified earlier that the uh by mike the the general nature of being a border city in two different states Job Creation Fund, the Minnesota Investment Fund are two really important programs that offer real dollars to support companies that are adding jobs and going through major capital investments. And that could be the type of program we can get in front of a company early on that helps them decide we're going to invest maybe 50 million instead of 20 million, or 20 million instead of five million. I know that the city of Moorhead took advantage of the infrastructure grant program for improvements to the, I think it was to the tune of $2 million to the McCarran Industrial Park. you know, leveraging programs like that are really important. That's not necessarily for companies, but that's kind of creating the environment for companies to come in and not have to incur a bunch of development costs themselves and come into a nice hospitable environment. And then, you know, programs like Launch Minnesota, John may be able to talk more about that, but programs that are focused on startup companies, whether that's grant funding, whether that's non-dilutive capital, I think are really powerful. In a community like Morehead, which has entrepreneurial-focused programs and resources and facilities, and a lot of young people and students in higher ed, those are really, I think, Great programs. I think there's always room to do more and lean into those more because I think if you can encourage an entrepreneur or founder coming out of higher education or just, you know, general member of the community to invest in growing a business that those are the things that start very small, but they grow into things that are really, really big.

And I'd add to Ryan's comments a couple things. One is I think that entrepreneurial ecosystem is critically important, especially for the community of Moorhead as we look at the spinoffs of young people coming out of the institutions. Last month or maybe a month and a half ago, I had the privilege of sitting in the Lisa Borgen spot over at the Spark Center. doing some work and and you know, I think B Corporation status, other things that the state has that I think really aligns with a lot of young people looking to start up companies is hugely important. And the last thing I'll say is, especially on the border cities, I had a chance to sit down with Senator Kupec last week to talk about that. So you know, just know that obviously we work closely with our Chamber. They're kind of the point on the business development agenda. but we're not far away and we're trying to stay in contact with those folks and share information to help guide really good public policy decisions.

Thank you. And I don't know if Mr. Mihachek wants to talk about, Ryan referenced that you might want to talk about the Minnesota Launch Program

He probably doesn't, but you just made him. Good job.

Just provide some more information. I think this is just really important because I think people are always asking, what are the programs on the Minnesota side? And we have a lot of great programs. They just maybe aren't getting the elevation and information out there like we should.

Unfortunately, that one will be the bearer of bad news, but Minnesota stopped that program about a year and a half ago. IT WAS AROUND FOR NOT QUITE TEN YEARS, BUT IT WAS GOOD WHILE IT LASTED BECAUSE THERE WAS WAYS TO DIRECT INVESTMENT DIRECTLY INTO ENTREPRENEURS, BUT IT ALSO INVESTED INTO ECOSYSTEMS. SO OUR REGION WAS PRETTY BIG. IT WENT FROM HERE ALL THE WAY OVER TO SAINT CLOUD. I DON'T REMEMBER HOW MANY COUNTIES. SO WE, IN OUR WORLD, WE'RE CALLED ECOSYSTEM BUILDERS IS THE TERM FOR PEOPLE WHO HELP ENTREPRENEURS. TOGETHER QUITE OFTEN. WE DID PITCH COMPETITIONS FOR THE REGION. WE'D GET TOGETHER AND HOST CALLS FOR US TO KIND OF LEARN ABOUT RESOURCES AND EACH OTHER BETTER. AND NOW WE'VE KIND OF ROLLED IT INTO MORE OF A LOCAL THING NOW. WE DON'T DO IT IN A DIFFERENT REGION, BUT I HELP GET ECOSYSTEM PEOPLE TOGETHER. NOW WE'RE DOING IT QUARTERLY. WE JUST HAVE ONE COMING UP ON WEDNESDAY AT CONCORDIA. AND IT'S KIND OF THE INTANGIBLE PART OF THE ECOSYSTEM THAT WORKS REALLY WELL. IT'S NOT JUST NECESSARILY LIKE this briefcase of money for an entrepreneur. I wish we had briefcases of money for entrepreneurs, but it's the importance of how connected your ecosystem is and how friendly you are. It's the part that I've been working on for a long time, and now having Laura doing what she's doing with the Spark Center, it's been great to kind of work with her over the last couple years to kind of kind of see what that can be. And it kind of rolled programming and then just be very visible and out there telling people about it getting people out and about and to do that. So again, that's, that's less of just like, here's a grant for you. But it's more of like, here's some, there's a team of us here that want to help you succeed and grow your business and start a business.

Well, thank you. I didn't realize I was going to call you up and get bad news, so now I feel bad.

That was Ryan's fault.

Yeah, we'll blame it on Ryan.

You can advocate for programs like that.

Yeah, and we'd be happy to work with all of you to advocate for those programs. They're really important to the entire regional economy.

Thank you. Again, any other questions or comments? All right, well, thank you so much for you, and I'll see your entire team coming. Thank you. Thanks.

Have a good night.

Right, moving on to the approval of the July 27th, 2026 meeting minutes. I have a motion to approve.

So moved, Nelson.

Second.

Motion and second, any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? That motion carries. Do we have any citizens in the audience who wish to address the council at this time? Again, any citizens in the audience? Seeing none. Moving on to... Mayor and council reports. Are there any council members who have reports from boards or commissions? Council Member Neesmar.

madam mayor um the public housing morehead public housing agency group got together at the end of july there are lots of things coming there was a very large insurance claim for a fire that was started it was put out but unfortunately there was a large overflow of water And so that left both of the elevators out of commission in the high rise. And I would like to applaud the staff for doing a great deal of hands-on work. Over that time, I learned that elevator parts companies close every year over the 4th of July for inventory, which makes getting parts for elevators very tricky. And so the staff were running up and down stairs with trash, with residents, with food. And so it was a great deal of work. I think coming after another large insurance claim has left our residents at the high rise hoping for no more fires or floods. And so my thoughts go out to them for their flexibility and willingness to go through all of this again. a few months after we had another sort of situation. Night to Unite was the first Tuesday of August, which was just last week, and I would like to thank all of the neighborhood organizers for their willingness to put and organize a gathering of their neighbors together, also to the city staff. I was able to make it to over half a dozen parties. I did not make it to every one on my list, and it is one of my most fun gatherings that we have in the Moorhead community. It is a nationwide shindig, but if you missed out this year and you really wanted to barbecue in your driveway with your neighbors, look for it. Morehead Police Department staff organizes the night to unite and puts together with local businesses wonderful gift bags for everybody to enjoy that hosts a neighborhood party and so if you missed it this year look for those communications and that information on the Morehead Police department website for your own community to participate and have a night to unite party. Also, the Citizens Police Academy is coming up. So if you are interested in doing a stint of several weeks this fall in learning about our police department, the staff, the divisions, sworn officers versus civilian officers, and all of the things that they do for our community, please consider putting in an application. That application can also be found online. It is limited to a number of folks, but I know several council members, including myself, have participated and found it a really outstanding program that our police department offers. If you are interested in learning all about the city, the Citizens Government Academy happens every spring. So look for that news coming in early 2027 for next spring's group. I also want to thank Place for Hope. Place for Hope hosted a Lunch and Learn for us in the community. I had the wonderful opportunity to participate along with Councilmember Matson, Borgen, and the Mayor. And we were able to have lunch and learn a great deal about A Place for Hope, which my knowledge was very limited. And so I want to appreciate Daryl, who is the executive director, as well as the board members, and some community cheerleaders who are there to show us around. give us a tour of Clay County's largest food pantry, and also to share some very meaningful statistics. A Place for Hope has seen increases of 30% for need of food and supplies for personal cares, and they've only seen a 3% increase in donations over the last year. And so currently there is a fundraiser and a collaboration of resources. It's called Spread the Love. And so you can use it literally if you wish and donate peanut butter, mayo. I was told that those two are like very popular items in the food pantry. But jam, jelly, or cereal, anything that you have interest or willingness to donate, you can drop it off at Vic's Bar and Grill. which is just off of main in Moorhead or a place for hope. And they're at 2419 12th Avenue South in Moorhead and they're open Monday through Friday, eight to three. I have a great deal of respect for all of the activities that are going on in the year. But I would also like to remind us that it is the primary election. Our city clerk works with Clay County staff to put a great deal of information together. All of that information for voting tomorrow between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. is available on the City of Moorhead website. So please check what? 8 p.m. Oopsy, thank you. Thanks for helping me out, Council Member Mattson. I was on a roll until then, until I got distracted by the livability in the packet that they had. And so vote tomorrow in the primary. All of the information is posted and hosted by the clerks. office in the city of Moorhead and so thank you to all of the volunteers and those who step forward to be election judges. It is a great way to participate in democracy but it takes a great deal of hands on deck which Christina Rust, our clerk for the city of Moorhead coordinates and organizes throughout the year every year for us to be able to vote. in each and every one of our elections. So a word of appreciation to Christina and her team for the great work leading up to today and for executing an enormously long day tomorrow. Thank you.

Any other council members? Council Member Madsen.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Council Member Niesmeyer's report reminded me that I've yet to send an email about Night 2 Unite, the two questions that I got, so I'll just do it right now. Oakport would like to thank the city for their new sign at Brentwood Acres Park. They appreciate the sign. They are wondering if they're on the list for improvements to the road into the park. It's marked service vehicles only, and so it's a little bit of a distance to get in there. There's no real parking on the road, so it's kind of hard to get in there. So no one was upset or complaining. They just asked if they're on the list to have that improved at some point. And then the other request I got was for more locations for sharps disposal in the city from someone who has a health condition that requires them to use, go through a lot of syringes. So thank you.

Other council members with updates? All right, seeing none. For mayor updates, Councilmember Nelson and I had our regional Red River Dispatch Center monthly meeting on July 28th. They have 34 out of 38 call taker dispatch positions filled, and they are still struggling with a few little punch list items in the new building, so still working through that, but overall things are going well with our regional dispatch center. Also had the opportunity to welcome the startup brew from Umbridge and Prairie to Morehead Day at The Loop. There was a really large group of individuals that were present and they really loved being able to be at the Spark Center for Entrepreneurship and talked about that maybe they should have it on the Moorhead side a little bit more frequently than they do over in Fargo. I was also part of the first Walk for Seniors Kickoff, which was held on August 6th. This is a program that has been started by DMN Industries with our essential walking loop. It's called Decades in Motion. And D&M Industries is sponsoring the first Thursday of the month, and they have very healthy snacks for people who are walking. It's at 9.30 in the morning, the first Thursday of every month. You get a punch card, you get 12 of them, and then you get a little prize from D&M Industries. So if other entities want to do some type of a sponsorship with the Essential Walking Loop, we encourage you to reach out to the city and you can do that. I also was able to read a proclamation for Pride Week on Saturday in Fargo over at the big Pride event that was held in Fargo on Saturday from, I think it was from 11 to 4 p.m. Let's see. And then last but not least, I also welcomed a new family into Moorhead. Habitat for Humanity was raising the wall on a second home for a single, this time it was for a single mom with two older teenage daughter and one in her early 20s, and they are going to be calling Moorhead home fairly soon. This is the second of four houses that they are currently building with some Saha funds that we were able to provide to Habitat for Humanity. This mother was, she actually had a group of coworkers come with her to cheer her on, and it'll be her first home that she has ever owned, so it was really exciting. She says she loves mowing, so I offered her to come mow my lawn too. THAT IS ALL I HAVE. I'LL TURN IT OVER TO YOU, CITY MANAGER MULLEY.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. COUNCIL MEMBER NIESEMER TALKED ABOUT THE PRIMARY ELECTION THAT'S TAKING PLACE TOMORROW IN MOORHEAD AND IN CLAY COUNTY AND ACROSS MINNESOTA, AND THAT VOTER INFORMATION, POLLING LOCATIONS, ALL OF THAT IS JUST RIGHT ON THE FRONT PAGE. ACTUALLY, WE'VE ATTACHED IT AS A BANNER ON EVERY SINGLE PAGE IN GREEN ON THE TOP OF EVERY PAGE AT MOREHEADMN.GOV. AND JUST A WORD OF APPRECIATION TO SECOND TO CITY CLERK CHRISTINA RUSTENTHIEM, CLAY COUNTY AUDITOR-TREASURER LORI JOHNSON, AND OVER 130 ELECTION JUDGES FOR THE PRIMARY ELECTION. IN NOVEMBER, THERE WILL BE 160. that are serving to deliver fair, secure, and accessible elections tomorrow. So really appreciate them. And then in 2026, the general election is Tuesday, November 3rd. So I just want to make sure everyone has that on their calendar too. Thank you.

All right. And with that, we do not have an executive session. We have no new business. So it is 616 and we are adjourned. So good night, Moorhead.