Remarks by John Strand
76 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 4
“Bear with me, but how much work would it take to get to the point where we look at it as stabilized and safe enough to not demolish immediately?”
“What would the assessed value of this house be in today's condition and in a repaired condition.”
“I guess, Mayor, if there's a way forward, I'd rather have $46,000 plus put into the house than into demolishing it, but how could we ever assure that the owners would comply and get it up to safety standards versus demolition?”
“Mayor, I move we give them a two-week extension, and there's no yielding in any way, shape, or form on that approach. If in two weeks it isn't up to our abilities to say it's safe, we've all given them every chance we can, but I would say two more weeks won't break the bank.”
“My thinking is we get this two weeks to get them up to the 90-day threshold you had initially proposed, and they had agreed to. And then, of course, the clock is still running for the next 30 days to finish it. That's my thinking. I'll say one more thing. I don't know. Mayor, you're in the world of real estate. It probably costs $300,000, $400,000 to build a house these days. You know, I mean, the cost of living is just, and to demolish an existing structure is not the most sustainably resilient approach in life when you're losing what's all been invested. If we can take this home and get it…”
“I'd like to tell the public, this is what this department is supposed to do. And we had many years of properties in Fargo, prior to me being here, that we're falling into blight, and we didn't have the ability or teeth to require people to keep their standards up to what their neighbors needed. So thank you for doing your work, and thank you for bringing this to us. And it's not easy, but this is on our shoulders. You've done your job adequately, and your team is doing their job. And now we're just working with the public to find a middle ground, but this is what the inspections department is…”
“Thank you, Mayor. Just one more shout-out to the public that, you know, with nearly 60% of our people living in apartments, we have a lot of people with concerns about life in apartments, and we have landlords that provide them their space to live in. So the mayor, when he ran for office, he advocated for us listening to and learning from the renters and bringing the landlords and the tenants together to the best world we can in the future. On the 21st, we're going to have a public forum here in the city in the chamber. a listening session to hear from people on all sides of the issues with…”
“If I might, wouldn't it be more appropriate just to advance these to the next agenda meeting because we don't have notice to give people a chance to respond?”
“Well, I applaud people going into a consent agenda, but generally speaking, if we can give our staff and administration an opportunity to be prepared to have the discussion you're hoping to have, that would be my preference.”
“Then, Mayor, I move that those two items just simply be put on the next agenda if possible.”
“Thank you, and the reason I'm supporting this pilot, I'm glad the request isn't more than five years. I kind of have this limit in my mind of five years as far as I'll generally often go, but 22 new jobs is why I'm supporting this. That's what private sector income growth is about, is 22 new good paying jobs. We had one a few months back where there was one new job. you know in the end but that's what this is for is to create new good quality professional jobs and it looks to me like they would deliver this. However, my question again is do we and are we assuring everybody that we will have a…”
“Thank you, Mayor. I'll clarify. I don't want us to be asking for the reports. We require it.”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“If I recall, I thought that we had revisited this topic of serving minors and serving people without proper IDs. I thought we had a new requirement that those folks begin immediately. One of the other requirements is incorporating scanners, ID scanners. What's the status of that? Where are we at with that now?”
“And if I might continue, my recollection is we had discussed it, and if there were violations, that was one of the options they were facing. So anyway, if the Liquor Control Board could pick this topic up again. Sure. One more question.”
“In each of these reports, you might not always know who the owners of the business are. You might know their name, but I'm not comfortable seeing the server's names identified in the documents. If there'd be a way to not have to list their name, because that's forever out there, that they were violating a law and breaking the law. If we could find a way to not have to identify the individuals who were serving, I'm not sure we can, but that'd be my preference.”
“Might I continue, Mayor? You may. That is happening on that front also, but when like clubs, District 64 had their license, false IDs, issues surfacing, that was a front and center conversation for us with scanners and use of scanners and requirements for scanners. And my general sense is if they had a violation, that was a requirement going forward. And my sense also was we'd want them all to use scanners if we could proactively get to that point.”
“I'm not sure if this works or not, but I know at least one of the sponsors is in the audience. If ever, I wouldn't mind hearing from them if they wanted to share a few words.”
“I move if, unless it's already been moved, I'll move. I'll second.”
“Would it be appropriate to hear from one of the sponsors at the podium tonight?”
“I want to thank these leaders in our community from all sides of the aisle for advancing this topic, which has been rumbling around for probably years. And I don't know where the public will go or not with whether they want wards or want more commissioners or not. But I want to thank our leaders. We have two former city commissioners and a former governor candidate on the steering committee. You know, and one thought that occurs to me also is there was a moment in time where they approached our commission here and asked for permission for our legal team to help work with them proactively to…”
“That calls for a legal interpretation. Are they even able to, if they wanted to, incorporate this into the November general?”
“I had the impression, I might be wet behind the ears, I had the impression it had to be its own standalone election by statute.”
“Thank you, Mayor. As I read this, you're talking four new police officers? Correct. And the chief was requesting eight or nine?”
“To get up to what he perceived a minimum standard. I think that topic needs some more work. And, and, and I'm not, and I'm just, we, we've got mo, we've got some time now to fine tune our budget. What we'd be doing, I believe, I understand it today, setting a ceiling at the mill levee, and then re, revisiting subtitles, subtopics. And I believe, I'm not sure where things will go, but the utility increase is a really important conversation for us to dive deeply into as, as well. So, number of officers and the utility rate increase of 14 some dollars per year, which is the beginning of a new…”