City Council - Regular Meeting

This meeting will come to order. We'll begin with a roll call and determination of quorum.

Next, we will have an invocation from Pastor Rob Crum, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. If you're able and willing, please stand.

Next, chair will entertain a motion for adoption of the agenda. Motion by Lehman, second by Roberts. All in favor? We have an agenda. Next, we will be moving to awards and recognition. I apologize you're stuck with me. The mayor is out today, but the awards are amazing and the actions are incredible. So I will head down to the front and begin to meet with the folks involved with the Active Heurism Award. And if that party would meet me at the front, we will begin with that. To present this award, I'd like to ask Councillor Armstrong to enter.

Welcome, we have Jamison Mallon-Eccles here, President Brian Tandy, Coach Charlie Flohr, as well as David Crum, all from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. So let me explain why they are here. A car was on fire, a teenager was trapped inside, and Jamison Mallon-Eccles ran toward it. On June 11, Jamison, our South Dakota Mines football captain, was driving to a friend's house in Houston when he saw a car lose control, cross the median, and crash. He stopped, called 911, and ran toward the wreck. Three teenagers were inside. Jameson helped two of them out, then turned his attention

Do you have any words for the audience, sir?

Amazing, amazing. We good with pictures? Okay.

Well, it's quite a city council when you don't have just one amazing thing, but also we have two. We will also honor the Goodwill of the Great Plains today. I believe members of the Sustainability Committee are in the audience. If they would please come forward to present a award to the Goodwill of the Great Plains.

OK, next, before general public comment, we would like to take a moment of personal privilege for Councillor Strowman, if you will enter the queue, sir.

Thank you, Chair. Recently, we learned once again for I think the 24th out of the last 25 years that Rapid City has the best tasting water in the state. If you grew up where Councilman Maher and I grew up, you would really appreciate the water in Rapid City. And I just want to commend our water department, the stewards that they are of this very precious resource that we have. It's getting to be in short supply during some of these drought years. And they're just taking care of things for us. And we owe them a lot. So thank you. Very nice, sir.

And with that, we will move to general public comment. This is a time for members of the public to discuss or express concerns to the council not on any item on the agenda. Action will not be taken at the meeting on any item not on the agenda except by placement on the agenda by unanimous vote of the council members present. I have one speaker request form, Mr. William Wagner.

Mr. Wagner, time is up, sir, but thank you.

This is the only item I have for general public comment. So I will close general public comment and move along to consent items 3 through 46. Would any of the council members wish to remove items for consideration? Motion to approve. Second. I have a motion to approve all items by Mr. Stroman and a second by Roberts. Pardon me, I made a procedural error. Let me back up. I open and close the general public comments and then I will open and close the open public comments as I have none before me. And now back to the consent items previously discussed. I have a motion and a second to approve all.

Thank you. that is the only comment i have for non-consent items 47 through 51. so with that i will close public comment and move on to item 47 number 26 rz031 first reading ordinance 6749 in ordinance amending section 17.06 of the rapid city municipal code a request by dgr engineering for the city of rapid city parks And Recreation Department, for a rezoning request from medium density residential districts to public district for property generally described as being located in Section 30, T2N R8EBHM, Rapid City, Pennington County, South Dakota, located eastern terminus of Knollwood Drive. Mo

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate Mr. Mason's comments. There's a few things I agree with as it relates to this policy or this, I guess, resolution. A few concerns I have. There's a note about human oversight. There's a note that uh we will be accountable on all of this information but there's some notes about being accountable for ai assistant work products decisions and communications it's i just want to say point blank i would find it alarming to outsource decision making to ai i just wanted to note that there's another note about disclosing it when it's appropriate i feel like that is amb

Next, we will go to Councillor Armstrong.

Thank you. May I direct some questions to Director Gilbert, please? Director Gilbert, thank you. It appears that Mr. Mason had some concerns. The two questions I got from that is he said, what does this policy mean and what does this policy do?

If I can just clarify. So you brought this forward. My understanding is it's the first step for a much more robust action later?

One more quick question. Are there any consequences for not passing this evening?

so director gilbert and director cushman you would feel comfortable recommending the council give you better direction on what to do next should we not pass this this evening correct okay thank you i yield council roberts

Thank you very much. I'd like to make a motion to direct staff to bring forward a more thorough document on AI usage for the city. Would that work, Karla? Okay. And then I'd like to hold the floor for a minute, because I have a few comments.

OK, we have a motion by Roberts to direct the staff to provide a more robust document on AI and a second by Lehman. The floor is yours, sir.

Thank you very much and I wanted to reach out to Jordan and say thank you for stopping today. Jordan was my first ward councilmate when I got elected to the city council 15 years ago. I very much enjoyed sitting with him and I very much enjoy having a resource like Jordan for AI and everything computer related. So I just want to thank you for coming forward and speaking on this Jordan.

Okay, the motion is on the floor. We have Councilor Strowman.

Thank you, Chair. I'm going to be in support of the substitute motion. And for a lot of the reasons that Councilman Tamang stated at the Legal and Finance Committee meeting, I'm not comfortable with this being a resolution. I don't think it has enough defined terms. I think if we pass this motion and then we'll receive back from staff something that we find a lot more acceptable for this purpose. I'm in support of the motion.

Thank you. Just for clarification, we're not voting to approve what they create. We're voting to have them create, correct? That is correct. Because this cart before the horse mentality we have so often here, I don't like, oh, gee, didn't know that. We're apologizing for doing what we wanted. We've got to stop doing that. We should have something to study and to look at and to justify before we give any kind of vote on any sort of policy. Thank you, Mr. Mason, for pointing this out. I totally agree with everything you said.

Seeing no more comment, we will go to a vote on this topic. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. Next, we will move on to item number 50, number 26PL080, request by AVID for Engineering Inc. for Elevate Rapid City for a preliminary subdivision plan for proposed lots one through 34 of Northline Business Park subdivision generally described as being located north of East Mall Drive, east of Haynes Avenue, south of Country Road. Move to approve by Secra, second by Armstrong. All in favor? Aye. And those opposed? Motion passes. Number 51, Fat Boys Inc. DPA Firehouse Brewing for a spe

I just wanted to make a correction. It's not really O'Hare Stadium. It's O'Hara. Since we had the president and the AD here, I thought we should. make that correction?

As a good lawyer would, sir. Duly noted. We have a motion and a second with the correct spelling. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. All right, next we go on to public hearing items 52 through 58. And we will open public hearing item comment. I do have a number of speaker request forms in this section. And we will begin with Clayton Severson on item 58.

I'm sorry, sir, time is up. Thank you. Next is Wes Hubbinger.

TODD BANDUCCI- Yes, sir. Paula, you also have a speaker request card? PAULA DUNCAN- I do, yes. TODD BANDUCCI- You're happy to go now.

And we won't start your timer until we get that sorted there for you.

Thank you. Thank you. Next is Steve Anderson.

That is the last public comment I have for public hearing items 52 to 58. So I will close public hearing comments. And we will move to consent public hearing items 52 through 55. Would the council like to remove any of those items for consideration? I have a motion by Roberts to approve 52 through 58 with a second from Sechrest. All in favor? Any opposed? Pardon me. Pardon me. 52 through 55 is the motion. Next, we will move to non-consent public hearing items 56 through 58. 56, 25 VR005, resolution 2026-011, a resolution for the vacation right of way for property generally described as being l

Thank you, Mr. Tamang. There's nobody on this council that believes in urban density more than I do. However, I also believe in good neighborly behavior. I see the only reason we're putting a triplex here is to maximize the rent. that's collected and I don't like the way this one large building sticks out. There's a logical pattern from single family to double family to quads in this neighborhood and I think that should be upheld. You know, sometimes we just do what is best for the entire area, not what's best for ourselves. So I'm gonna be voting and we wanna make sure on this vote, I don't k

Next, we'll move to Councillor Armstrong.

Thank you. May I direct some questions to Director Fischer, community development, as well as our safety. That would be Chief Culberson and Scott Sitz. Absolutely.

Community development director is in the queue.

First and foremost, I want to thank Mr. Severson, as well as Paul and Wes Heberner. for coming in and voicing your concerns. Director Fischer, and actually all three of you, would you be able to address the parking concerns as well as the safety concerns that these fine people have?

Mr. Armstrong, I think you came out of queue, but I'm happy to add you back in if you're. Would you mind clicking your button there so I can get you in? There you go.

If we could go to the police, and then I believe Director Fischer back again. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. I was looking through the Community Development Department's findings that was presented to the Planning Commission said staff has reviewed the major amendment to a plan development overlay pursuant to Rapid City Municipal Code and the goals policies and objectives of the adopted comprehensive plan and finds the following One, multifamily dwellings including a triplex are a permitted use in the medium density residential district and is generally in harmony with residential development in the surrounding area. Number two, the proposed triplex promotes infill development in an

Well, I'm going to go back to what I said. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. And all you have to do is look at that street and see that this building sticks out like a sore thumb among all those other single family homes. There's plenty of lots up and down around the corner to build triplexes and fourplexes that fit into the neighborhood. And I'm betting some of these people that are voting yes would throw a tantrum if this was proposed to be built next to their house. And so I have to keep that in mind and show a little empathy toward the people that are

Mr. Roberts. Thank you very much. This one I find to be very interesting because yes, we do need to infill. Yes, we do need to, uh, we need more housing. Yes, we do. There's a lot of yes we do's, but then you look back at the history of this neighborhood and this property, you know, the neighbors came together, don't know 20 years ago when the development was being done and they wanted to put a planned unit development on it to have only town homes in this direct area town homes and single family homes and that has been the way it has been until someone asked for a variance on it okay now I th

I Seen I see no further discussion. I have no motions on the table Second Lance Lehman has made a motion to deny the appeal which will allow the project to move forward. And there is a second by Stroman. Let's do a roll call on this. Can we pause for a moment? Carla, there's been some questions regarding what a yes or no means here. And I want the expert to just clarify this, please. So we're very clear. A yes means what, and a no means what. So there's no ambiguity here.

Does anyone have any questions about that? We will proceed with roll call now.

OK. And that is the end of non-consent public hearing items. Next up, pertinent to SDCL 1-25-2, to consult with legal counsel about proposed or pending litigation, there is an executive session on the agenda. We have a motion by Meyer and a second by Sechrist to go into executive session. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We are now in executive session.

have a motion to come out of executive session session by meyer for the second by roberts all in favor any opposed we are out of executive session okay um i was asked by the clerk to clarify the last vote on the record we will move to the city clerk sorry everybody the last vote was seven to three so i just wanted to clarify that for the record thank you Thank you. And we will move on to the bills list. Finance Department is chiming in, so I will send number 59 to them.

I have a motion and a second to approve with Meyer abstaining. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? And number 60, please.

Looking for a motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor?