City Commission - Regular Meeting

if I turn my mic on, is the roll call.

Commissioner Steadman? Here. Commissioner Zundel? Here. Commissioner Jorgensen?

Here.

Commissioner Erickson?

Here.

Commissioner Jodovec?

Here. All right, approval of the order of the agenda.

Motion to approve.

Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing none, All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. All right, approval of the minutes from the July 6th, 2026 commission meeting.

Motion to approve.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any comments or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Building permits. Commissioner Jorgensen, did you?

I would like to recuse myself from voting on this matter, please.

All right.

I move we approve.

Is there a second?

Mayor Jernovich, before we approve these, I do have a quick question for Mr. Scott, if I may. Yeah, please. Mr. Scott, the valuations that are in here, I was just curious because this is my second meeting. If you could just... explain a little bit, are the valuations that are put here for like the accessory dwellings or the decks, are those attributable directly to a home's value for property tax purposes, or will these numbers fluctuate over time in one direction or the other?

Sure, thank you, Commissioner. The valuations that you see tied to the building permits, those are values that the applicant has indicated their costs will be. The assessing department may reference those from time to time, but they really aren't a part of the assessed valuation that is tied to property taxes. So what you're seeing there are, again, applicant-driven cost values. Perfect, thank you.

All right, we have a motion. Is there a second? I would second. All right. Any further questions or comments? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. All right, the consent agenda. Commissioner Erickson, did you have a few questions? Did you?

I did.

On these?

I did. Mayor Drudvig, commissioners, my questions relate to a couple of the different consent agenda items. Just again, as an educational opportunity for me, I was hoping to see if I could just ask either, just one of the staff people, a question on two of the projects that we have. First, number 1358. And again, I just want to let everybody know, of course, I want to stay cognizant of the large agenda that we have, so I don't want to exhaust all of our time on this. Just really preliminary questions just so I understand. The project number 1358 is a project related to a cul-de-sac development, and Mr. Scott, I was wondering, just because I'm not as familiar with this process about how we do specials, and I wasn't able to get my computer started up so I don't have all of the flow chart in front of me, but the specials that are a part of this project Does that decision whether to use specials in this instance, in for any future project, is that something that comes before the commission every time? Or is it something that the developer puts in with their application? Just something along those lines, if you could expand on that.

Sure, thanks again, Commissioner. So when it comes to greenfield development, traditionally a developer will file a written petition requesting the city install improvements and use special assessments to pay for those improvements. And that is something that gets filed at the beginning of the process with the commission. So the commission then accepts that petition and decides whether or not to proceed, again, not only with the installation of the infrastructure, but whether or not to use the special assessment financing.

Okay, so at this point, this project will absolutely have to be special assessed because that decision's already been made in this process for this project.

Yes, I mean, I guess technically the commission could motion to reconsider that prior decision and that would take a majority vote to reconsider the item and then further discussion and decision after that, should the item be reconsidered. But otherwise, yes, the wheels are in motion to proceed with the development using special assessments.

Okay, thank you. And again, this is just educational for me, so I know the next one that comes across the desk, I understand the process a little bit better. So the other one is project number 1359. It's a sewer agreement between us and Mapleton, I believe. I don't have the The hookup fee that is a part of that project, again, kind of related to the special assessment argument, or not argument, but discussion, is that included in with special assessments? I saw that it was per acre, but just for my knowledge, moving forward, how does that hookup fee work? And is it a one-time fee?

Yes, yep. Thank you again, Commissioner. Yeah, so when we... Finance infrastructure upfront, one of the options available to the city is to then charge a hookup fee to reimburse the city for the upfront capital costs. Traditionally, that is gonna be done through a form of special assessments when it comes to, say, an open greenfield development. We would one time charge that particular area and include it with the improvement project, if you will, when that is special assessed out. There are other options and or scenarios that come up where we don't use special assessments. For example, if somebody were to plot a 10 acre track of land and want to build on it without needing city infrastructure funded through special assessments, well then we would work with that particular applicant And in our development agreements and subdivision agreements, we would outline their associated hookup fee and require payment prior to issuing things like a final plat or a building permit.

Okay.

Again, thank you. Just some preliminary questions, just so my understanding is clear. Thank you. Absolutely. All right.

I'll make a motion to approve this consent agenda.

All right. Is there a second?

Second.

Having a motion and a second, any further discussion or questions? Commissioner Jorgensen.

I would just like to point out, so it's public, that on item D, 1360, that the church is 100% paying for all of that. There will be no special assessments to any neighbors. It just says the benefiting property, but I want to clarify it is Hope Lutheran Church.

Good clarification. Any other comments? Hearing none, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Consent agenda passes. On to the regular agenda. Item number one is public comment. I think we have three people signed up for that in the order that they were submitted. Kurt Leppert. I don't, there.

Is this the agenda on the ordinance change for under 21?

Okay, thanks for letting me speak. My name is Kurt Leppard. I'm a West Fargo resident, owner operator of Silver Dollar Inc. for nearly 32 years. Our business has been operating for 60 years throughout the time. I've worked hard to follow state laws and city ordinances. I also remember the challenges we faced when we transitioned to all age operations in 29. Excuse me, 2019. Like many other businesses in our industry, we're dealing with a declining alcohol sales, which I understand are significantly down nationwide. I recognize that businesses are looking for ways to adapt, and I respect the success and reputation that Junkyard Brewing West Fargo has built through strong marketing and operations. However, tonight's issue is not about one business success. It's about whether under 21 individuals should be allowed in a liquor establishment without meeting existing state and city requirements. I'm here to respectfully ask you to reconsider your thoughts of changing this. While I understand the intent behind your proposal, I believe it creates unintentional consequences that gives one business an advantage over others that have followed the rules. City decisions should be a balance the interests of the residents, businesses, and taxpayers. I do not believe that this balance has been achieved in this case. My concern is how the situation is allowed to happen. the business originally applied for applied what type of license they apply for was it treated as a brewery under north dakota law or a liquor establishment if the city approved operations under the wrong classification this is a serious oversight the city has provided financial incentives while allowing selective enforcement of existing laws and ordinances meanwhile other businesses that are in competition with these businesses has had to follow those laws that are being overlooked by the city for this one particular business. I have the questions, are under 21 individuals still being allowed to be in there? When this license was renewed in years two and years three, how were the questions regarding under 21 access and the required documents answered? If this is an on-premise license for all minors, was the required CPA statement verifying food sales provided? Based on my review of the state law, I do not understand how the ordinance can legally be applied. My understanding is allowing under 21 individuals in a licensed program requires a special approval by the city commission, but these are for Collins 1500 and less. There's no other options for food. I guess I just, I know people will disagree with this and I really don't think I should have to be here. I think between the city attorneys, the city commissions and the liquor board in the past, this should never have been brought up and this should have been addressed day one. I don't know what kind of license they got first, but if it was not a brewery and then there should have been an established kitchen in that building from the day one. That's all I have, thank you. Thank you for being here. Any questions for me?

All right. The next person on the agenda is Lee Basler.

Hello, good evening, Commissioners. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak. My name is Lee Basler, and I'm here tonight on behalf of Skydive Fargo in support of recognizing the West Fargo Municipal Airport as a community asset within the growth area plan, case A26-9. Skydive Fargo is a nonprofit, USPA-affiliated skydiving club that has proudly operated out of the West Fargo Municipal Airport for more than 50 years. During that time, the airport has become much more than a place for airplanes to take off and land. It has become home to a community that has introduced thousands of people to aviation, welcomed visitors from across the country and around the world, and provided experiences that many people remember for the rest of their lives. We are the only USPA-affiliated skydiving club in North Dakota and the closest drop zone for many people throughout South Dakota, eastern Montana, and western Minnesota. Because of that, people travel to West Fargo specifically because this airport exists. Each year, we complete hundreds of tandem skydives, bringing first-time jumpers, licensed skydivers, friends, and family members to our community. Those visitors stay in local hotels, eat in our restaurants, purchase fuel, shop at local businesses, and contribute to the local economy. This airport makes those visits and that economic activity possible. Our impact extends beyond tourism. As a nonprofit organization, we are proud to give back to our community by hosting charitable events for veterans and first responders, providing complimentary tandem skydives as a small way of thanking them for their service. We also perform demonstration jumps at community celebrations and sporting events, helping showcase West Fargo in a positive and memorable way. We understand that this growth area plan is intended to guide West Fargo's future, and we support thoughtful planning and responsible growth. Our request is simply that the plan accurately reflects the value the West Fargo Municipal Airport already provides to our community. Today, the airport is more than infrastructure. It is an economic contributor, a recreation destination, a place where people experience aviation for the first time, and a source of pride for many residents and visitors. Organizations like ours are only one example of the many ways this airport serves West Fargo. We are not asking the city to create a community asset. We are asking you to recognize one that already exists. By acknowledging the West Fargo Missile Airport as a community asset, the growth area plan will better reflect the airport's role in supporting tourism, local businesses, outreach, recreation, and aviation in our community. We believe that recognition will help ensure future planning considers not only growth, but also the valuable assets that already make West Fargo a great place to live and visit. We respectfully ask you to amend the growth area plan to recognize the West Fargo-Minnesota Airport as the community asset it is. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thanks for being here. And then our last person who signed up for public comment, Megan Solberg.

Hello, thank you for your time. My name is Megan Solberg. My dad was Donald J. Solberg. He's the founder of Skydive Fargo, and I'm here to kind of follow up with what Lee said. Since my dad passed away on February 2nd of 2024, I started the Donald J. Solberg North Dakota Legacy Skydiving Foundation, which offers a skydive to one outstanding person in the community of West Fargo, Fargo, or Moorhead to inquire to sign up for a jump. A year after he passed, I opened the North Dakota Skydiving Museum. We do school tours for the kids for the schools in West Fargo, Fargo, Moorhead, home schools. And we have Skydive Fargo instructors that come out and give those tours. My dad moved the club to West Fargo in 1975. He started the club in 1966 at the age of 22. At the age of 21, he made his first jump out of my grandpa's plane in Hunter, North Dakota. And like Lee said, we are the only USPA-affiliated skydiving drop zone and one of the longest ones in the nation. And we do a lot for the community with the museum and the foundation. And we would love to be able to stay in West Fargo. And we are an important asset. We bring in a lot of people to the museum. We've had people from England in the time that we've been open. And we exist to support my dad's club. So he was very... He loved the city of West Fargo. I'm a longtime West Fargo resident myself, and I'm a big supporter of keeping aviation and keeping the West Fargo Airport where it is. So thank you so much.

All right. Thank you for your comments. Yes.

And I have a few things for you to kind of show you what we do. Thank you very much.

I had one summer in college where I did quite a few jumps out there, actually. And have never gone since, but not because it was great. All right, onto agenda item number two, public hearings. The first one, so we, Dustin, just so I get this right, we step out of the regular meeting and step into the public, gavel into the public hearing, correct? Is that how that works?

Actually, first you can introduce the item and then. All right. Yep, and then. Aaron will kinda guide you from there when to close out of the regular.

Yep. You're leading me. Aaron Nelson, Director of Planning and Zoning.

All right, thank you and good evening. So item 2A is the consideration of approval of the West Fargo Growth Area Plan. Included in your reading packet is the final version of the Growth Area Master Plan document, as well as an executive summary of that plan. The purpose of the item tonight is to formally adopt the West Fargo Growth Area Plan as an addendum to the city's comprehensive plan in accordance with the North Dakota Century Code. For some background information, this project originally kicked off in February of 2025 with the ultimate goal of strategically guiding the city's future expansion upon the completion of the FM Diversion Project and the associated removal of much of the city's future growth area from the floodplain. To this end, city staff has worked over the past 18 months with its project consultant, HKGI, to develop and finalize the plan document included in your packet. The growth plan complements the city's existing comprehensive plan by building on the original goals and vision of that plan, and by focusing on areas outside of the city's current corporate limits. The US Fargo 2.0 is the city's current comprehensive plan, focuses very high level, mainly focused on areas internal to the city, And so this plan, obviously as the name implies, focuses on the areas outside of city limits, which is the city's future growth area. The overall planning process included an assessment of existing conditions and issues, integration of past planning studies, fiscal assessment of growth scenarios, collaboration with city staff, and input from countless stakeholders. This would include landowners, partner agencies, city boards and commissions, development community, as well as the general public through various meetings, round table discussions, and larger open house events. the city commission itself has been engaged in three points throughout this various or three points through various stages of this project early on in the middle and towards the end obviously we have three new commissioners who are not involved in those conversations and so i'm more than happy to dive a little deeper into some of the project background and answer any questions you guys have here tonight So with that kind of very high level overview, here tonight we have with us Brian Kargis, president and project manager from HKGI, which again was the project consultant team that helped lead this project. Brian's here tonight to provide an overview of the growth plan, and then he'll also be available for some general discussion and any questions that the commission may have. Following tonight's discussion, the requested action would be to hold a public hearing and then to approve the reading, the first reading of the ordinance of adoption, which should be included in your meeting packet as well. So with that, I'll hand things off to Brian and then I can come back and kind of wrap things up prior to a public hearing. And again, happy to answer any questions you have now or at the end of the presentation here. So with that, Brian.

Thank you, Erin. Hi, Mayor, commission members. Thanks for having me here tonight. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about the growth area plan recommendations. I have about 30 slides here tonight. I'll try to go through this at a high level in about 10 to 15 minutes if I can, and be able to walk you through all the various pieces to this. Missed one there. Let's go to the agenda. Just what we wanted to cover here tonight, a little bit about the background information to give you some context into the planning itself. Then we'll touch on a lot of the key categories here from vision and land use, parks and recreation, transportation, utilities and infrastructure, all the systems that are a part of the growth planning itself. and then touch a little bit on the phasing strategy and the financial analysis that was a part of this plan to help guide some of the findings as well as what are the next steps for implementation as we look forward both longer term and within the immediate phase here the next kind of 12 to 24 months. Generally, the project area that is broken into two locales here, really the primary focus area you can see is a very large area, includes some components of the city itself. The lagoon properties, you can see the older rendering of some of those lagoon basins there in the blue. Some of the existing city industrial land there as well, but also takes it out towards the FM diversion. which is the blue north-south line, kind of towards the west side. Most of the focus of our study is within that general area. We do look at that secondary focus area for things like open space connections, transportation connections, those types of things as we look towards growth, but that's quite a bit of land to absorb over the next 50 plus years. Next. Part of this process is driven by some of the growth history that the city has seen. What you see here are two aerial photo images from the year 2005 all the way to 2025. And inside of that 20 year window you can see basically everything south of the i-94 corridor within the boundary of west fargo was developed within that 20-year time period there's a few outstanding areas of some real residential that were still in there but that's quite a bit of area that was developed within that 20-year time frame and we're looking at probably some similar growth once the fm diversion comes online for particular areas within the city And as you can see here, again, sort of before the FM diversion image there, with all the area in blue, that's within sort of the floodplain jurisdiction. What that FM diversion does by bringing more land outside of that floodplain lessens those restrictions. Quite a bit more land is now available for development. And that's not only within the city of West Fargo, that's also within other jurisdictions within the Fargo-Moorhead area as well. You can see that as parts of Fargo and Horace towards the south and as well as to the north. But quite a bit of that land is part of the growth strategy for the city of West Fargo. So let's talk a little bit about the vision and land uses. As Erin alluded to, the comprehensive plan doesn't specifically guide particular locales for land use categories. And what this plan tries to do is better guide locations for where some of these land uses may want to develop and understanding that in context with things like transportation corridors, utilities and infrastructure and where those runs would be to help support that development. The next two slides will look at those general land use types that you see there, the color bars, sort of categories of residential density. as well as commercial, employment, and industrial, and even indicating where parks could be included within this, particularly the connections between them. And then additionally, some flexibility in what we're calling a variety of different nodes here at different scales, more neighborhood or community-based, even larger scale regional nodes that may have more mixes of uses. So next slide. The land use development types here, we're trying to guide sort of precedent development looks for low density residential, which is primarily the land use area that you see there in yellow. Additionally, areas where we may see medium density residential, more like town homes, or higher density residential, which would be like apartment buildings. The higher density is usually attributed to more of those node locations where we have the intersection of higher transportation corridors, higher traffic volumes to help support that density. Additionally, we're looking at commercial locations that fit both neighborhood scale and larger regional scale. You'll see, I'll talk about this in the next slide on the nodes, but then strategies for industrial land or a more employment base, which is that 12th Avenue corridor the Lagoons property, as well as some of those areas around the Raymond interchange, likewise. As I mentioned, those nodes help to define general mix of uses within these areas. They're not so prescriptive, but the intent is where we have these larger roadway corridors that we have some supporting neighborhood uses for the surrounding areas. That's goods and services, that's convenience retail, that's some of the components that are needed for evening trips, morning trips for goods and services. The mixed-use community nodes maybe are more grocery anchored, have a larger scale of commercial development that's a part of them, but fit a broader community area, and that's located in a couple of different locations, both north and south of 94. And then the regional commercial employment nodes are really located at the interchanges, the one that's existing at the Raymond interchange and the proposal for the one at 15th Avenue south. Next. I'll touch briefly on some of the near-term focus areas that we studied here. And this sort of translates into some of the areas that would develop based on what we found at part of the financial analysis and some of the development areas. But we see as a part of this plan We have existing utilities and infrastructure very, very adjacent to the area here north of the 12th Avenue along the County Road 17 corridor and east of the Cheyenne River. The colors that you see on the map here are both a combination of what is the city of West Fargo boundary and indicative of the city of Fargo's growth area boundary, which are the orange, purple, and red areas as well. So we're trying to understand how those communities could grow together in this area, and then how those transportation systems would both connect. 40th and 19th are key connectors back to I-29. Those are general locations along County Road 17 where we would have neighborhood commercial nodes. Within that there's a network of collector roadways that would then connect back to those larger scale roadways over time. These are obviously going to incrementally build as development happens. But this also preserves some of those areas along the Cheyenne River as larger rural residential areas as well. Next slide. As we jump down towards the south along the 12th Avenue corridor, We're really just trying to guide the mix of uses in this area, provide some guidance on how development could take shape in this area. The diagram on the left is really more indicative of kind of building placement, having service and loading towards the rear, really focusing on the 12th Avenue as a kind of a community corridor. but also having supporting uses there for goods and services with some commercial nodes as a part of that to help support that employment base, as well as an option or a potential in this area for maybe other city services, which could be things like another fire station, things like that that could happen in the future. Along with this then are paired some of the larger transportation improvements that could occur here. Things like upgrades to 38th Street from the Raymond Interchange to 12th Avenue and making that stronger transportation connection more near term that would help market these sites that the city owns today. as well as some of the corresponding connections like 19th Avenue around and back down towards the Raymond Interchange longer term to help support that as well as the 26th Avenue crossing of the existing Cheyenne diversion there to bring that back down towards the Main Street corridor to the south. One area in particular we looked at as well was the area southwest of 94. And we discovered some significant challenges with development in this area, primarily due to limited sanitary sewer capacity in this area and some challenges around the transportation network. Ideally, I mean, this logically seems like it would grow to the west across the Cheyenne Diversion, but there's a number of transportation improvements that would need to be made, such as a crossing of the Cheyenne Diversion, upgrades to Christensen Drive, upgrades to some of the north-south connectors there at 15th Avenue. And what you see there in yellow is basically the amount of land that we could develop in that area before the intersections out towards Cheyenne Street begin to fail. in that Brooks Harbor neighborhood, we're already having issues with transportation backing up and light queuing. And a lot of that is because of the complex nature of the transportation patterns there. The only other way out of that area would be to go all the way up to the Raymond interchange and build another two, two and a half miles of road to make that connection to relieve that pressure. So that interchange that's proposed in that location won't come online for 10, 15 plus years into the future if planning begins now with the State Department of Transportation. In addition to the sanitary sewer and the traffic, there's other issues related to electrical service upgrades and redistricting of schools. So there's many things that complicate development in this area, Southwestern 94. Briefly then, let's just touch on parks and recreation. This plan provides an overall strategy for the growth area for a combination of parkways, neighborhood parks, and community facilities throughout. So we look at the broader network, how to help guide that and showcase where we can make these connections for larger scale park facilities and neighborhood parks. That's the diagram on the left. The diagram on the right shows how we begin to overlay and connect the series of parks that would be part of the neighborhood park program in the sort of 2 to 8 acre or 10 acre range and how those could connect to the surrounding development and parkways to help give that a guide for the developers as they look towards the future.

Next.

Additionally, we look at the on and off-road trail connections, things that are a part of the larger roadways, how those tie for transportation connections, as well as opportunities for off-road trail connections, the diagram on the right, that may be paired with trails as a part of the Cheyenne diversion or some of the greenways that we would see as a part of the plan that are near drainage ways. and even longer term should funding happen for areas along the FM diversion as well for larger scale regional transportation or trail networks. The transportation plan was really guided, we sort of, can you go back one just to, sorry, one just to the title slide, there. Just to hit those cover images of some background studies, a lot of this transportation planning with our partners from Apex Engineering, we're looking at some of these background studies, city staff helps sort of thread together some of the components with this, next slide now Emily, sorry, thank you. But we're guiding really an overall kind of master streets map for the entire growth area with strategies for where we would have a key Collector roadways, the connections for things like overpasses of the rail line or the diversion, future interchange like the one at 15th Avenue. Those kinds of things are all guided as a part of this plan. They're reflective from past studies, but we're incorporating all that here to help guide how development should respond to some of the larger scale roadway plans.

Next.

Utilities and infrastructure. As I mentioned, the sanitary sewer capacity south of 94 is challenging. Part of what we looked at with all this is the strategy for incremental growth that would start on sort of the north side and wrap its way around. Just tonight with the consent agenda item about that connection to Mapleton That may there's a new piece that happened throughout the study that may provide some ability to connect sooner to the south but it it still may take some time before it reaches the areas that are immediately adjacent to the existing city limits there on the west. But it may offer much more easy access for sanitary sewer capacity to the lagoon properties and other industrial properties along the 12th Avenue corridor. In addition to utilities and infrastructure, there are some strategies in here about phasing and fiscal sustainability for all the other services that need to be thought about with the city and planning. Everything from fire and emergency services, police and public safety, public works fleet and the need for that with a growing city. Thinking about how those departments would kind of incrementally grow. along with the pacing of growth with the community itself. Next. Stormwater treatment was one other piece we touched on as a strategy to look at an opportunity for larger regional basins that could potentially be tied to a greenway network or larger park facilities, rather than a series of smaller scale parks that put a big, or smaller scale ponds that put a bigger burden on maintenance for the Public Works Department.

Next.

Phasing and financial analysis. These were the two scenarios that we looked at. I alluded to this before. One that sort of starts with development south of 494. We had heard from the development community through some of our conversations during the stakeholder meetings that yes, that's a more desirable route. just because of the visibility and what is the perceived proximity, but also the area to the north, that's where we really have the available connections to sanitary sewer, all the utility services there without the capacity issues, because there are direct connect opportunities to the city of Fargo and the treatment plant there. So we looked at those. Next slide, sorry. essentially landing on scenario B as being the better strategy here, mostly due to incremental growth. And you can kind of see an increment of, we call it sort of, phase one through five, but these are almost sort of like four to six year-ish windows, depending upon pace, how all this sort of incrementally begins to grow and wrap around from north to the northwest and around towards the south. This focuses again on that County Road 19 corridor first, and then picks up the portions of that 12th Avenue corridor and the Lagoon properties as well. Next slide. Some of the bigger findings that were a part of the overall financial analysis summary is that they're comparable between the two at overall build-out. But because we're front-loading so much infrastructure in scenario A, there's significantly more risk involved with that. that we wouldn't necessarily see positive net incomes until roughly year 16 as a part of that because of the front load of so much of that infrastructure that also ages the infrastructure that's in place as well. Additionally, that over time, you know, the risk should development slow and the competition grows, that just gives more exposure to the city in terms of overall risk. And I think that is another reason why we're looking towards that more incremental growth approach with some of these other scenarios where we could look at starting some residential, looking at some of the industrial land along the 12th Avenue corridor and working our way around in terms of development, next. Finally, with implementation, Erin alluded to the project partners that were a part of this overall process. They will continue to be involved. Really great relationships with the Parks District and the School District through this process to help share information and think about of what those next steps would be. As a part of the implementation strategy here, there's strategies and action steps. Strategies are these more ongoing, longer-term pieces that we continue to revisit. And then action steps are more near-term that we'd like to be able to address and put into place prior to the floodplain land coming into development.

Next.

So here is the high level summary of the more detail that's in the master plan document. The strategies include continuing to update official controls, working on developing monitoring systems and growth indicators to help manage growth, preserving transportation corridors and a plan for parks, trails and open space as development comes. looking into regional basins and what that could do for strategy for both maintenance and development yield, and then continuing coordination with those adjacent jurisdictions and project partners. And for staff, a lot of the, and you all, the focus over the next 12 to 14 months is looking at updates to the comprehensive code, the lagoon strategy, I have a star, there's a slide, next slide, we'll talk a little bit more detail on that. Oh, go back one, sorry. The transportation and utility planning is key obviously for those initial phases. Those development funding strategies, hookup fees were talked about as strategies as well through this and that annexation framework working with the adjacent townships as we go through that process. And then the last slide here, there it is, thank you. A little more focus to the lagoon property, this sort of incremental step of, there's still some loose ends I think that need to be discussed between all of you and the city about things like the inert landfill, holding land for a potential fire station. Some of those discussions still need to play out. Preparing the area for development and taking out any other risk that comes with that. So having sort of really entitlement ready and then beginning to kind of market that property to a variety of different potential suitors for that. So with that, it's probably a little longer than I thought, but It's a big document, it was 18 months in the making, and I think there's some good content within this plan to help drive and focus development in U-Wall for the next number of years. So I'll pause there and wait for questions.

Thank you. Thank you.

Questions, commissioners? Commissioner Erickson.

Mayor Druidvig, thank you. Aaron, so just high level, A lot of documents, a lot of information to absorb. One of the key assumptions with this whole model that they put together is population growth. And it's talked about in the plan. frequently, but just like, to your knowledge, is one of the assumptions with population growth, the drivers of that, is that affordable housing? Like if we had a pie chart for what drives population growth, is affordable housing a large majority of that pie chart that drives growth in a community? Is that being one of the key assumptions?

That's a good question. I'd say, The document itself doesn't get into great detail in terms of population projections or anything like that. A lot of the population assumptions that go into this plan come from MetroCOG. Every, I think, five years, MetroCOG is part of their requirements for federal transportation funding. They are required to update population projections for the entire FM community. Like we talked about, a lot of this plan is based on past planning studies, the population projections from MetroCOG being one of them. And so I can't probably answer that question directly in terms of how big of a percentage something like that might cause or not cause growth, but certainly there are a lot of factors that go into the growth of a community, whether it's jobs, housing, any number of factors. But yeah, certainly jobs and housing are typically some of the big ones that are discussed as part of those population projections.

Perfect, and then if I can continue on that. So from the public comments tonight that we've had, the County Road 17 obviously prioritized in the growth plan. My recollection from going through it is the majority of that corridor residential in the growth plan.

Yes, it is. For the most part, I don't know if I can control the slides here, I can.

You're really right, what I'm getting at is the, whether it's federal constraints, state constraints of having an airport and then doing those activities in close proximity to residential areas, do you know, just off the top of your head, I know it's kind of, do you know, the challenges with that. I also know that our proximity to Fargo-Hector, there's limitations on that. I don't know all of the details, but just if you could, Unpack that for me.

Yeah, I'll try and you can let me know if I'm going too far astray here. One thing I wanted to mention as part of the public hearing aspect of this item is you should have received a copy of a letter from the airport authority. Leave Josh Gillen with the board chair of the airport authority is here tonight and I believe plans on addressing the Commission as part of the public hearing. And so just on the topic of the airport, what I'll say in relation to the growth area plan in general is there was a decision made throughout the planning process that the plan's gonna be pretty hands-off when it comes to the airport. The plan's gonna remain pretty agnostic when it comes to anything regarding the airport in general. And so there's not a whole lot of reference to the airport in the plan, and that is pretty intentional. It was kind of deemed to be outside of the scope of work for this project. obviously there's a lot of detail and topics and land area in general that goes into this plan. And so we did have to define some limits for what we're gonna dive into in terms of specific topics. And so I'll maybe just preface these comments with that. And then in terms of the County Road 17 corridor itself, yeah, most of that, I brought up the slide here that kind of focuses on the area to the north. For the future land use map, most of that area in the yellows and the oranges are residential areas. There are some more mixed-use nodes along the way. You'll also see there is a railroad track that kind of bisects that area. It's identified as, you know, it's not necessarily ideal to have a railroad right next to residential properties, and so that area might be a little transitional as well, or you've got a couple different options there. There are, I think, maybe a couple of references to the airport within the plan itself, one of which is just an acknowledgement that there are height restrictions around airports. And so that was intended to be just kind of a statement of fact, more than anything, that the closer you are to an airport, the more height restrictions there are in regards to federal requirements, and for the airport can provide more detail on what those might be.

Thank you.

I just want to make a general comment. I really appreciated that you reached out to parks and to schools as we do these plans that we're working in, you know, together to come up with these instead of just saying, here's what we're going to do and then kind of leave schools out there going, I don't know if we can do that or parks. And so I appreciate that it was kind of a community effort to put it together and that we're all sort of working in the same direction. So thank you for that.

um and maybe this was treated the same way as the airport was but there wasn't really an explicit mention of the fairgrounds and i know that's an interesting zone where we're going to have to develop around specifically was that i mean again was it intentional to kind of not really have anything in there or yeah hey well same same kind of conversation you know a little bit outside of the scope of work in in this regard there was um

I believe some conversations with Mr. Cody Cashman as part of this plan in terms of the future land uses adjacent to the fair. The fair has always indicated that they have interest in redevelopment or development areas that they don't plan on using in the future. So areas along the 13th Avenue and 15th Street intersection adjacent to the interstate there. where there is a potential for an interchange. I think the fair is in agreement that that area is potential commercial development. I think the fair would like to see development adjacent in terms of some opportunity for the fairgrounds as well.

I think, and maybe even the concept would be under the nasty word of annexation is, you know, I think there's this longstanding fear that we are going to try and annex them or, you know, even as we go into some of this next phase development. So I noticed there were some comments of people who wanted to be annexed. Are we aware of anybody that does not want to be? I mean, are there any specific things pending of people who see this and go absolutely not?

Yeah certainly there is. One of the public input opportunities that we had was an outreach to landowners within the study area. So landowners outside of city limits within this future growth area. So there are a lot of rural residential areas you know around the city today and so a majority of the folks that showed up to that open house I'd say it's safe to say that probably a majority of those folks were apprehensive of city growth into their neighborhoods as they see them. There was fear over future annexation and there again, the plan doesn't provide any specific recommendations for this area shall be annexed or anything like that. The plan really provides a framework for how the city commission, city leadership can think about annexation and when is the appropriate time TO ALLOW ANNEXATION IF A LANDOWNER COMES FORWARD AND WANTS TO BE ANNEXED, WHAT ARE THE QUESTIONS THAT THE CITY SHOULD BE ASKING ITSELF BEFORE SAYING YES? SO FOR EXAMPLE, ONE OF THOSE THINGS MIGHT BE IN ECONOMIC IMPACT ASSESSMENT. IS THIS GOING TO BE, IS THIS ANNEXATION GOING TO PUT THE CITY IN A NET POSITIVE FISCAL POSITION? THAT'S SOMETHING THAT COULD BE REQUIRED AS PART OF THE ANNEXATION PROCESS AS AN EXAMPLE. CERTAINLY PUBLIC COMMENT, PUBLIC hearings are part of the annexation process, and so short answer is yes, there is some apprehension. Longer answer is those are tough conversations that the city may or may not have to have in the future as the city grows, as the population grows, as the city receives requests for annexation.

CAN I ASK ONE MORE QUESTION? PLEASE DO. IS THAT ALL RIGHT WITH YOU? I NOTICED ON THE 12th AVENUE LAGOON AREA IS THE ONLY PLACE I SAW THIS MENTION, AND IT MADE ME THINK OF THIS BECAUSE WE HAD BROUGHT IT UP AT OUR LAST MEETING, BUT I SAW DATA CENTER WAS INCLUDED IN THAT. IF IN THE FUTURE, AND I KNOW WE at our last meeting directed staff to start gathering some input. Is it possible to do some version of an addendum of like, if we were to ever do this, where would an appropriate place for that to be as a part of growth? Like, is that something moving forward where if after you as staff have a chance to digest what we decided at our last meeting, that's something we can addendum on to something like this? Because that feels like a very unique consideration for something like that.

Yeah.

I don't want to oversteig, I'll invite Dustin to chime in if need be. I'd say in relation to the growth plan and the adoption of the growth plan as an addendum to the comprehensive plan, one of the main reasons that comprehensive plans exist and they're essentially required by the state is in order for the city to exercise zoning authority, for example. that's one of the primary reasons to have a growth plan. And so when you get into topics of specific land uses, data center in planning lingo or parlance might be no different than any land use, whether it's the gas station or residence, whatever it might be. And so some of those conversations might have to be at the detailed level of zoning conversations in terms of what zoning districts we might wanna allow or not allow such uses in. Certainly it could be the, to answer your question, The comprehensive plan, the growth plan can be amended at any time. We would just need to follow the staff's outline and century code, which is planning and zoning, public hearing, city commission, adoption via ordinance. But yeah, we could certainly amend the plan at any time.

Sure, thank you. Going back to Commissioner Erickson's question, given the public comments earlier and what I'm gonna guess might be a few more public comments in the public hearing, And I can appreciate the complexity of this and why we kind of set the airport aside. But how do you see that being brought in? Is it through an addendum to this six months from now? Or how do we answer those questions? Because I think I even brought it up to you in the open house that we had here a month or two ago is that it did feel like the airport was set aside. I THINK THERE'S SOME QUESTIONS AS TO HOW THAT DEVELOPS AROUND IT OR WHAT DEVELOPS AROUND IT AND HOW THAT IMPACTS THE AIRPORT AND HOW THE AIRPORT IMPACTS THE CITY. HOW DO YOU SEE THE PROCESS MOVING FORWARD FROM HERE?

THAT'S A GOOD QUESTION. AND THERE AGAIN, I DON'T WANT TO OVER SPEAK. I CAN ONLY SPEAK FROM THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT'S PERSPECTIVE. I THINK THAT ULTIMATELY THE CITY COMMISSION CAN DETERMINE how that conversation unfolds in the future. One option might be to make an addendum or amend the growth plan if that's the best place for that conversation to fit. Otherwise, there are all sorts of different topics that take place outside of a growth plan. This growth plan provides a very high level framework maybe for thinking about these things, but. It's not a rule book we have to follow. Correct. Precisely. Yes, yes, exactly. I understand that. Yep, so the comprehensive plans Their nature, as their name implies, are very comprehensive. And as a result, they're not very detailed in any given topic. And so once you start getting down the path of detailed conversation on any one given topic, to use an example from transportation, we work with MetroCOG all the time on corridor studies, where we're focused on one corridor within the city. you know, that takes place as a separate study, separate document. We're not adopting it as a part of the growth plan, but we still use that plan to help guide decisions, guide growth decisions. And so, you know, that's another option would be to have us, you know, a different study. Otherwise, you know, assembling working groups, different things, there's all sorts of different options, I'd say, but.

Any other questions before we open the public here? Yeah.

Obviously, I'm not going to benefit financially from the adoption of this, but parks is mentioned and schools are mentioned is. Are there any concerns with us voting?

Alright, so this is the time where we gavel out of the regular meeting and into the public hearing and first reading of growth area plan consideration and approval. Is there anyone who would like to make a comment? Welcome. If you could state your name and address.

Josh Gillen, West Fargo resident and chair of the West Fargo Airport Authority.

John Meyer, also on the Airport Authority, the newest member on that board. Just got out in January here. Also a pilot, plane owner, and hangar tenant on the airport.

Thank you, Mayor Jerdavig and commissioners. Appreciate the time. Hopefully I won't take up too much of it. So first off, I think we support the plan. I think it looks great. But to Erin Nelson's point, I did see the airport was not mentioned in the plan. It was actually mentioned twice, but it was kind of in a negative light, and I'll get to that. And so hence, that's the reason why we're here today. So our ask is to recognize the airport as a long-term community asset. and to coordinate with the authority for land use near the field in future planning, whether that be some sort of addendum to the growth plan that is more detailed towards the airport. So pretty low bar that we're asking for today, non-binding, no land use designation changes, nothing to touch the lagoon vision other than maybe some ideas. But like I said, the gap in the plan, the airport was only mentioned as quote, a challenge that stands in the way of development, end quote, and something to quote, screen from view, end quote, and never as an asset. Again, one of the reasons why I'm here. But I would like to say the West Fargo Airport is an active asset. I wanted to hand out those. So this report in front of you was just released, actually it wasn't even released, it was sent to me today by the North Dakota Aeronautics Commission, which is their annual assessment and review of economic development for airports throughout North Dakota. This one specifically is for D54, which is West Fargo's airport and It was looking at the economic impact output of 2.8 million. I know a lot of times we get stuck looking at what kind of property tax does this thing generate? And we look at that number and don't really look at the broad spectrum of the jobs and the businesses that are there and the number of people that come in that use that airport specifically and not Hector. So I thought that this was really good for you guys to take a look at and digest. I'm not gonna go over it in too much detail. I think a lot of the numbers jump out stand for themselves. But one of the items I wanted to address is I think we have a very unique rare opportunity here with the West Fargo Airport. One, I think that most cities would love the opportunity to have. West Fargo, because of our proximity to Hector, is not federally funded, which gives us a different set of rules. And one of those things that would, benefits that would be there for us to consider would be developing an air park with hangar homes. high value properties, high tax base, bring in executives, company owners that travel a lot for work, and this would definitely attract those people in. As far as the North Dakota aeronautics study goes, like I said, $2.8 million a year in economic impact, 29 jobs, about 386,000 annual tax revenue, 41 based aircraft, roughly 13,200 operations per year. I think we've got 22 hangars out there right now, fuel maintenance, ag aviation, flight training, West Fargo public schools, aviation program. And then we have Skydive Fargo, which brings in a lot of people from a lot of different states. So the idea of the hangar homes isn't new. That was in our plan for 2021 for the West Fargo airport development plan. We also, in 2023, I had some developers approach me about the idea. We teed up some meetings with the city and had some pre-development planning meetings with the city planner, with Aaron Nelson and some others. There was a lot of excitement and energy around the idea. The only thing that happened is it was basically tabled because of the flood diversion needed to be certified. And so the idea, the last left off that meeting was, let's pick this back up once we get closer to the flood diversion certification so that it was actually financially feasible for developers to develop that area and bring utilities in and so forth. So tonight, the action we're asking for in the letter that I wrote, I had asked to have some language added into the development plan, but speaking with Aaron Nelson, he said at this stage, that may not be possible. I'll leave that to the commissioners to decide how they want to handle that. At the very least, we definitely ask for the city commission to approve the plan with a motion to direct staff to coordinate with the airport authority on future growth and adjacent development. And also just recognizing that the West Fargo Airport is an asset. With that, I'm certainly open to questions if you had some other comments that you'd like to make, John.

Yeah, I thought you did a wonderful job there. My closing comment is, you know, as we look at this, right, I mean, we've heard from Sky, we've got the board, our position, but, you know, as a user of it, as an airplane owner and, you know, based on the airport, you know, to step aside from the authority, I just wanna, you know, go before the commission and say, you know, an airport is more than just a runway. It's a public asset. It's a transportation asset. I've heard it's an economic development asset. And I hope it'll be given the same careful consideration that we give as we're here tonight looking at this growth plan, any other critical piece of infrastructure. And I think this airport is a unique benefit to our city and with careful planning and consideration, it will be for the decades to come. So thank you for your time.

All right, any questions that anyone has at all?

Commissioner Jorgensen.

Mr. Gillen, how far out does the airport rules reach from like the runway? You talked about the height of the buildings and stuff like that.

So I think that's another coordination point that we'd like to be in sync with the city on since there are no zoning requirements rules that dictate clearances as far as elevation. because the development of the area around the airport as the elevation increases of the buildings that can affect airport operations. So what I would do or suggest is having the North Dakota Aeronautical Commission involved in that process so that they can help line us up with what does that look like so that we can work that into the plan. And before I forget the one other idea I did have with the lagoon is I know in the development plan it did mention that We need to screen off the airport from the development to the west there. Having some hanger homes on that side as well would definitely give you that buffer and barrier. And those homes are expecting any noise or things that come with living at an airport. But to your point, Commissioner Jorgensen, I think the aeronautical commission is probably gonna be our answer for any future meetings. And I can dig into that a little bit more and get you the space that's needed and what that looks like. I would encourage that. Thank you.

Outside of, because I think your point is very valid and I think sometimes the difficult parts of some of this is some of the very important partners, whether it's the airport or the fair, some of our neighbors with major land ownerships, it doesn't, This can't capture all that. So I guess I'm wondering what, is there anything that we can do that would signal like we want to keep all of our partners involved, whether, I don't know if that's a resolution where the five of us are saying we definitely encourage and want that communication with partners as we grow. I'm just, I'm trying to figure out like outside of amending the physical document at this stage in the game, if there's anything outside of what you've had here that we could do today that would make it even better. Does that make sense? It's a very vague question, maybe a tough ask as you're on the spot up there, but.

Well, I think speaking with I think speaking with Aaron Nelson, he thought it would be difficult to push the plan back to planning and zoning because that's what would be required to make an edit of it. Maybe Aaron wants to add some ideas and can speak to that too.

I guess is your anxiety that you don't feel like we are going to consider the airport or is there something underlying that? Again, whether it's a resolution, whether it's a statement, whether it's a grant, whether it's directive, is there something other than the physical document that could be done that would bridge the gap?

Well, I think just, you know, stating that you all feel that it is an asset for West Fargo, I think would suffice and asking city staff to coordinate with us. You know, Aaron and I were kind of jokingly talking back and forth saying, you know, is the airport authority an actual department of the city or not?

Very confusing and complicated. Yeah, you know, it's like...

You know, we're an authority, but we manage an asset for the city. So we're kind of in a gray area there. But we would just ask to be part of that coordination because I think we can develop a great plan, which is a win win for both the city and the airport. And so that's all we're really asking. And to answer your question directly, the anxiety piece, I think not seeing it in the plan and not being part of the conversation early on, and then seeing a couple of negative comments in there made it feel like we're going to get rid of the airport at some point. We're just not quite seeing it yet. I'm just being front and honest. Throw it on the table.

But as I'm saying, I think that's kind of the anxiety of it not being mentioned.

But I wonder if there's like a mayor, like a proclamation or a... Or it might be part of the motion to approve this plan is to direct city staff to work with the airport authority on some ongoing discussions as to how it fits.

And maybe that's also to create some sort of addendum or exhibit B, so to speak, after the fact, six months down the road where we actually form a subcommittee and sit down and talk about those plans and formulate them, bring the developers in that are interested and start formulating that plan so you guys can actually see what that vision would look like. Because I can explain it verbally, but I think when you actually see it on paper and you see a layout, and you see what it looks like and what the impact would make, that speaks a lot more than just me standing at this podium.

Yeah, I just think we would have this similar thing, whether, again, I think Mr. Cashman would feel the same way. I think the airport authority feels the same way. I'm sure there's people in the crowd that thought maybe there's a way to... Yes, a part of the motion, a working committee or something.

And that's where I was leading with the question on how far out you guys go so we can make sure we encompass that. Yes. Not stop half miles short. Anything within so far rings a flag that, hey, we need to get a hold of the airport authority and let's get them and get together and make a plan together.

Yes, we'd appreciate that. I can let some other people speak in case there's other speakers. So thank you for your time. Thank you.

Would anyone else like to speak? We can ask him after. Mr. Worthy would state your name and address for the record.

2421 McLeod Drive East. I would just like to remind everybody is that as the community grows and develops, it's taxpayers who pay the bill. And the taxes have grown dramatically faster than the population has grown. So as we look at plans and potential plans, please take consideration that population can't continue to have taxes growing much faster than the population does. ends up maybe working against population growth if that occurs, because it has grown dramatically faster than population with our last growth. So just ask that you'll remember that as you continue on with your discussions. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Anyone else like to make a public comment? Good evening, if you could state your name and your address for the record.

Ted Bryan's 850 10 and a half Avenue West. Just have several general comments. The airport authority kind of took 90% of that away. It just felt like when this plan is made, there's a couple of things that I've noticed personally. One, like I say, the airport and the fairgrounds just seemed like they were left out of it, whether intentional or not. I know through the years, there's been a group, just through scuttle, group of people that do not want the fairgrounds, do not want the airport. It just kind of felt like that there might've been those voices just on optics. Also with the West 94 plan, It felt like us residents were kind of kept primarily in the dark. We were not consulted at all. Going forward, like I say, getting to meet Aaron and planning and the zoning commission, having a relationship going forward, but just in general, just saying, us as residents would like to be notified beforehand rather than a yard sign that ended up getting destroyed like the week after a storm. That's how I found out about the West 94 plan. There was a sign, like a yard sale sign on the corner of 13th and Cheyenne. But like actual mailers to the residents, then like I say, finding out on the backside through either a news form article or something through the various news outlets in town. And then we're just kind of like, whoa, wait, what? Like I say, we like to be able to constructively work with the city, with commissioners, with planning and zoning that way. Everything works better because like I say with the 13th 15th corridor There's it's already a bottleneck already and my big concern is with that Adding the interchange going from Brooks Harbor and if they're gonna keep it the two-lane or even like a center turn it's just gonna make it compound the situation that much worse and So it's just something we would like to ask going forward with the city. So. All right, Mayor.

Commissioner Jorgensen. Dustin, I'll need your help on this. There is a spot on the city website. You can sign up for all alerts and all the meetings. Yeah. And then I believe it gets emailed to. I can't remember what the name of it is, but.

Yeah, no, you're spot on, Commissioner. There is a. the availability on our website to you can pick through an assortment of options to what information do you want to stay informed on and once you sign up for that you can be notified via text message or email certainly yep and then there's like i say one last comment to that is like say there's older residents in that area like a mailer just say like i say sign up for

you know, the alerts and kind of what is being planned, basically.

We're trying to use the technology in the world.

Yep, that's what I say. Yep, bridge everybody into, so that way everybody knows about it that way, so somebody doesn't come up here flying off the hip or create a situation that's not needed. essentially it's pulled up on the big screens now that notify me so yeah we're we're gonna like i say that'll be i'm gonna sign up for him like i say talk working with aaron and everybody moving forward so thank you for your time thank you any other public comments

One more time, does anybody else wanna speak on this topic? All right. Hearing none, we will close the public hearing, go back into the regular hearing. Commissioners?

Mayor Dernvig, just some comments. Yeah. So really good, Really good community feedback. A lot of different perspectives to consider. Mr. Withey made a good point. We're constrained. Taxes are going up. We're under a 3% cap. We're trying to develop responsibly, considering all stakeholders. A couple of the questions that we had as a body to staff and to the residents I think were really good. I still have gaps on whether the city or whether the airport can grow or whether it is stuck in place, whether it can grow at all. And then also just the other whether there are zoning constrictions about as we develop, can we have anything over two stories in that area? Those are conversations obviously that we'll have down the line. I guess my question to staff would be from these comments is, Push fast forward 10 years, there's growth in that area, there's homes. Can that airport remain exactly as it is? Can you have that airport in your backyard, but not in your backyard, you know, 200 feet?

Well, I guess I'll start with, I guess my understanding of that scenario. If anything, I'd point out an example of, I think it's Kindred's Airport. There is a residential neighborhood, around, I don't know if it's the entire perimeter of the airport, but there is a residential neighborhood developed right along the municipal airport there. So there are options for development. My understanding is, yes, there are some height concerns or restrictions. I don't know the regulations on that, but the state has a lot of good information. The airport authority also works with a consultant that probably has some of those answers. We can certainly sit down with them. But yes, development is possible. It's just if we're looking to bring in multi-story apartments, for example, those might have some limitations as you approach the flight path of the airport. Aaron, you want to add anything?

No, I think Dustin summarized it well. Ultimately, I think the only thing I would add is the city can add controls. There are some height restrictions based on FAA regulations. What some jurisdictions do is they basically take those height restrictions and turn them into zoning restrictions. And so that gives the city a little bit more ownership and leverage when it comes to enforcing those height restrictions.

Okay.

But yes, development is possible. There's just some height restrictions to be aware of.

Okay. Thank you. I guess I would be willing to make a motion with the caveat that you suggested that we move to approve the plan as it is, but direct staff to continue to work with the airport authority, the airport board in whatever way they think is best and mutually beneficial for both parties without amending it, just adopting it as is.

WOULD YOU CONSIDER AMENDING THAT TO ALSO INCLUDE THE FAIR?

YES, I WOULD. ALL RIGHT. SO WE HAVE A MOTION TO LET'S SEE IF I CAN GET THIS RIGHT. OR MAYBE EMILY HAS IT RIGHT AND I DON'T NEED TO GET IT RIGHT. BUT TO APPROVE THE GROWTH AREA but simultaneously to direct city staff to engage both the airport board and the fair board to have conversations and help finish my sentence, Commissioner.

Ensure that they're part of the stakeholder process.

Okay. And to potentially bring back in a future meeting kind of some updates. Absolutely. as we go forward, all right? Is there a second?

I'll second that.

Dustin's like, this is very messy.

Just need a point of clarification. Okay. So just to clarify, are you directing staff to engage with the airport authority and the fairgrounds in the near future to discuss the growth area plan and then bring back updates regarding that or is this more of a direction that as development does start to occur that we would continue to work with and engage and invite those stakeholders to that process?

It's not either, it's Commissioner Erickson's motion so I think we'll go back to him for clarification.

So I believe the plan says that we'll revisit this every two years, is that correct? That's the goal of the plan is we'll revisit And as that conversation starts up, probably the year prior, you'd engage those stakeholders to get them at the table as we look at revisions to the plan, if that helps.

That helps, thank you.

Now Aaron's standing up because he's like, hmm.

We'll get there eventually. If I may. I don't know that there's anything specifically in the plan that talks about revisiting the plan every two years. I think there is some action steps that should take place within the next two years. It would be kind of an ongoing decision on where to go. FROM THERE. I JUST WANT TO POINT THAT OUT.

SOME CONVERSATIONS EARLIER THAN LATER WOULD BE BENEFICIAL, THOUGH, TO AT LEAST START THE DISCUSSION, I FEEL. AGREED.

WHAT IF IT'S AN EXPLICIT MENTION? BECAUSE I KNOW ON THE PLAN YOU TALKED ABOUT UPDATING THE PLANNING AND ZONING ORDINANCES. SO IS THAT AN APPROPRIATE TIME TO HAVE A REALLY DIRECTED ENGAGEMENT OF THAT FOR THE PLANNING AND ZONING? LIKE, IS THAT A GOOD MOTION CHANGE TO BE SPECIFIC AND EXPLICIT BECAUSE THAT'S HAPPENING IN THE NEAR FUTURE?

Yeah, absolutely, I think, you know, I'd say staff's intent would be to be reaching out to these partners anyway. And so, you know, certainly when it comes to the specific action steps identified in the plan, that would be appropriate, you know, as those conversations relate to those entities, to be reaching out to them, certainly.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any further questions?

I'm trying to digest the list. So I really think if I'm hearing Erin and Dustin both, this is a process that our city staff already do. and we want it to be very clear it has to happen when they already say it does happen. So do we need a motion if they're already using that as part of our general process? Then they tell me go into a new development, they probably already reach out to those partners to take care of that?

I mean, I'll just say from my perspective, the airport was by our decision very much so left out of this conversation. So I think directing staff to engage in that conversation to make sure that, you know, I think Mike does feel a little bit necessary, but that's just from my perspective.

I think it's important that our partners feel like we value them and we want them engaged in that process. And I think that that's part of it is that optically it's a clear message that we agree that they should be included and be at the table when we're having these conversations is my perspective as well.

Any other questions or comments? Otherwise we have a motion and a second. Emily, I think we're here to vote. I can't wait to see what the minutes say though.

Watch the video, rerun the tapes.

Steadman? Yes. Zundel? Yes. Jorgensen? Yes. Erickson? Yes. Jerdvik?

Yes. All right. Aaron, you're up again.

All right, thank you. So item 2B is an amendment to the general plan for urban renewal and urban development. So here again, I'll start with a little bit of background information. First off, for some context, the general plan for urban renewal and urban development serves as the city's foundational policy document under North Dakota's urban renewal laws. And it's necessary, for example, for the city's ability to utilize tax increment financing as a revitalization and economic development tool. This specific amendment was initiated back in May at the request of Beyond Shelter Inc. in partnership with the Housing Authority of Cass County. Beyond Shelter Inc. identified the general plan as a document that could be strengthened to better position the city and its non-profit housing entities, or its non-profit housing partners, I should say, when competing for state and federal housing resources. At the May 18th meeting of this year, City Commission directed staff to prepare an amendment to the general plan incorporating housing policy consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and then to bring that amendment back for consideration of approval. So staff has worked over the past couple of months to create this amendment, which is presented tonight for consideration of approval. Again, in response to that direction. The amendment adds a new section to the existing general plan titled housing revitalization. The new housing revitalization section establishes housing related objectives that are distilled from the West Fargo 2.0 comprehensive plan. It identifies two types of priority housing investment areas and also outlines a few implementation techniques to support the housing objectives identified. The new section does not alter or replace any existing content within the general plan, other than updating some formatting, updating some dates, and then updating reference to the current version of the comprehensive plan. So both the existing and amended versions of the general plan are included in your meeting packet for reference. At the July 14th meeting, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of this amendment. And the recommended action tonight, again, is to adopt the resolution approving the general plan for urban renewal and urban development. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions now. Otherwise, Christopher Miller with Beyond Shelter Inc. is also present to provide a little bit more background context as well. AND THEN TO ANSWER ANY GENERAL QUESTIONS, EITHER NOW OR ELSE AFTER THE PUBLIC HEARING. BUT THIS IS A PUBLIC HEARING ITEM AS WELL, SO PRIOR TO ANY ACTION WE'LL NEED TO OPEN UP THE PUBLIC HEARING. SO UNLESS YOU HAVE QUESTIONS FOR ME, I CAN HAND THINGS OFF TO CHRISTOPHER. ANY QUESTIONS FOR AARON?

IF I MAY, AARON, WAS THERE ANY EXPLICIT COMMENTS ON THIS PROPOSAL FROM P&Z?

NOT FOR PLANNING AND ZONING, NOT THAT I CAN RECALL. Okay. Christopher was there too. I'll ask if you recollect any comments.

No, the only comments we had were when we conducted meetings, community meetings for the development. That's kind of driving the change in this process. So if you wanna give a little background or. Sure, so hi, I'm Christopher Miller, developer with Beyond Shelter. We're a non-profit affordable housing developer in the state of North Dakota, mainly Fargo, West Fargo. We were responsible for working with Housing Authority of Cass County on the project Monterey and Brighton apartments up on Maine and Cheyenne there. So we're working on a development across the street here for 76 affordable senior housing units. And one of the requirements for the funding applications for low income housing tax credits for this project is revitalization of a community. And typically that's for older neighborhoods. and with our conversations aaron participated in those as well with north dakota housing finance agency broadening that out to newer developed areas where land can be more expensive and being able to get those revitalization points to make a stronger application so this project will bring in probably about $22 million of private equity by utilizing and leveraging the tax credits and the other public funds for the development.

Any questions? All right. Hearing none, we will step out of our regular meeting and open the public hearing for an amendment to the general plan for urban renewal and urban development. Is there anybody who would like to make a comment? Once again, anyone wanna speak? And I was very specifically told we have to ask three times. So once again, would anybody like to make a comment? Mr. Withee.

Thank you so much. I think nobody cares about this topic. Actually, my wife and I were just talking about this topic recently and she was wondering, so what are the updates on this thing? I'm strongly in support of it and I look forward to moving forward with this. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Last chance, anyone want to make a comment? All right, hearing none, we will close the public hearing. Commissioners?

I'll make a motion to approve.

We have a motion to approve. Is there a second?

Second.

We have a second. Any further comments or questions? Hearing none, Emily? steadman yes zundel yes jorgensen yes erickson yes yes all right item number three uh aaron you're back up offices at the preserve edition request for subdivision approval all right thank you take a second to navigate the packet here

Okay. So item three is a request for approval of a 10 lot subdivision. This request comes to you with a recommendation of approval from the Planning and Zoning Commission. The subject property is located at about the 2400 block of Bluestem Drive, which is just southeast of City Hall here on the southeast corner of the same block. The proposed subdivision is intended to replant six existing lots into 10 smaller lots to accommodate future commercial development. The property is currently within the C, Lake Commercial Zoning District, and there are no proposed changes to the zoning. The proposed subdivision would include 10 lots on one block, which would be serviced by a private drive internal to the subdivision. The plat would rename the private drive as Summit Way. The current, the existing current plat has this private drive named Alexander Way. The roadway and utilities internal to the subdivision would all be privately installed and maintained. The development agreement that accompanies this plat, also included in your packet, outlines the terms and conditions for the long-term maintenance of those private facilities within that private drive. So a public hearing was held at the June 9th Finance and Zoning Commission meeting, and no comments were received at that time. Overall, staff finds the proposed subdivision to be consistent with city plans and ordinances. The requested action tonight is to approve the final plat, including the associated subdivision agreement. And with that, happy to answer any questions you have for staff. Any questions?

I guess I'll just ask one. I noticed the work's already started. Yep. I'm not sure if that's a question or a comment.

Somewhere in there, there's a question. So the property is already platted and is already zoned. It's not much different from the plat you see here. The private drive is largely the same. So the work that you're seeing out there now is the installation of the private infrastructure within that private drive alignment. So really this is just a reconfiguration of the sizes of the lots within the development is the main reason for the replat. So. Commissioners?

I'll motion to approve the final plat, including the associated subdivision improvement agreement.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any further questions or comments? Hearing none, Emily?

Steadman? Yes. Zundel? Yes. Jorgensen? Yes. Erickson? Yes. Chertovich?

Yes. Item number four, second reading of ordinance number 1281 relating to discharge of firearms and carrying loaded firearms. Chief of Police Peter Nielsen.

Good evening, Commission President Jerdabig, fellow commissioners. I stand before you tonight for the second reading of Ordinance 1281, which is the discharge of firearms or dangerous weapons. A brief summary from last time. Back in 2022, we came before the commission and asked for an agreement to allow the USDA to shoot off firearms within the city limits. However, this time we're coming, and that was for a year-long period. This time we're asking for a continuance and to run this consecutively as we change the ordinance. With this, we did go into a, an MOU was presented to the USDA to kind of clean up some of the back end Details out of that were taking place which would be the for the USDA to make sure they're contacting the police department contacting dispatch so when they're utilizing some of this. Euthanization of some of these animals that are on in the city limits that they would let the police department know which was not happening in the past so. This reading would just be a few different changes, especially in number five, to allow the USDA to do some of this activity. There's also some ordinances in there under G and H which would kind of get our ordinance to the city to reflect state law as well. So at this time, we don't have anybody present from the USDA who was, they were here last time, but we do not have anybody here and I stand for any questions on the second reading. Commissioner Jorgensen.

Does this also include Game and Fish? Are they fall underneath that?

They would not fall underneath that. This would just be for the private USDA one to come in and to follow the MOU. What was happening in the past as they were coming out to different businesses and doing some wildlife management and the police Department will some of the back before the before we came in front of the Commission were not notified. We then were notified. We came in front of the Commission and it was for a year long. That's all it was for. And now we're just asking to change the ordinance. The second reading. So there's more guidelines and more rules that for that entity to take place in order to take place. Thank you chief.

Other questions?

I move we approve.

Alright, we have a motion. I'll second. WE HAVE A SECOND. ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?

THANK YOU, CHIEF.

NEXT ITEM IS NICK LEE, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES, THE ORACLE NET SUITE GOVERNMENT ERP CONTRACT AUTHORIZATION.

Mayor and Commissioners, before you tonight is a resolution authorizing the City Administrator to execute the agreements for the purchase and implementation of Oracle NetSuite for Government, along with a separate recommendation for an implementation contingency. An Enterprise Resource Planning System, or ERP, serves as the City's core financial management system. It supports functions such as accounting, budgeting, purchasing, and financial reporting. The need to replace the city's ERP system was identified more than five years ago as a strategic priority as our current system was aging after being purchased in 2003 and was increasingly unable to provide the functionality needed to support the city's operations. Last November, the Commission authorized staff to begin the competitive request for proposals process. Since then, we've evaluated 13 proposals, conducted extensive demonstrations, completed reference checks, negotiated contract terms, and worked through legal review. Based on that work, staff is pleased to bring forward this recommendation. Oracle NetSuite for Government is a modern ERP solution that gives staff the tools they need to work more efficiently, better serve the city, and represent an excellent overall value. Staff has been impressed with the product throughout the evaluation process and is excited to begin implementation. You'll also notice there's an implementation contingency included with this motion. This request is simply intended to provide transparency regarding potential additional costs and flexibility should temporary implementations assistance become necessary during the project. Our plan is to complete the implementation in-house and we remain confident in that approach. However, since the size and importance of this project along with recent staffing challenges within finance, staff believe it's prudent to have a contingency available Should additional temporary expertise or capacity become necessary to keep the project on schedule while maintaining day-to-day operations? If the contingency isn't needed, it won't be used. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Lee. Just two things. One, how long will it take to get it fully implemented? And I'm also curious, since it wasn't here before, do we know of any other city organizations currently using Oracle? I mean, I'm assuming that was part of the process when we selected it. Was there anyone else locally? So you're not going through this all by yourselves in case there's some hiccups along the way?

Not in North Dakota. I think around the cities was the closest one. Of course, we did query around all of North Dakota and who had something and something new, and there was not a lot. A lot of people have legacy systems. There's a couple people that want some new stuff. Some people weren't too happy with it, so there's no clear-cut local favorite. As for implementation, 1-1-2028, Yep, one one 2028 is our go live date.

That's a long time for implementation.

Yeah, we we gotta make sure we do it right and we want to give herself time to do it because we are planning on doing it in house.

Mr. Mayor, pardon the interruption, but I did want to clarify that Nick and his team, they did consult with a half a dozen or more local agencies that are using Oracle in this product, and that was part of the due diligence before making a recommendation to select them. So they did come with a lot of good references, and I know Mr. Lee spoke with some of them personally and had a lot of good feedback with them. Thank you.

Commissioner Erickson. Mayor Jernigan, thank you. Mr. Lee, I'm really excited about this for all of you. You know, this is, I know that the state uses this technology, the cloud, the security that comes with that additional layer of protection. That'll be great. The, one of the words that you used in your memo was business continuity, and that's one of the reasons that I'm most excited about this, that you guys are doing it, is the preservation of institutional knowledge. If there's turnover and you get a new person in the role and they have to relearn that position, this, is that what you meant by business continuity?

Yep.

Okay, perfect. Great, that's the only comment I had.

A couple of comments and questions. First off, as somebody who used to sell and implement ERP systems, I'm probably the only one that actually found reading the contracts fun and interesting, which makes me kind of weird maybe. But I think the contingency is really a smart idea. I know we've talked about the project management piece of this, that there's a project management responsibility on the city that's above and beyond your job or anybody else's job. can be a considerable effort. So I think that's a smart move. There are a number of companies locally or individuals locally that I think we could contract with for that, if it's necessary. I realize it might not be. Can you speak just a little bit to, over the 10 year time period, assuming, I'm going into it assuming we're going to go past the initial five year period, where those funds are coming from? Because I know a year ago the Commission approved It was a large dollar amount to come out of capital improvement sales tax that not all that money is getting probably very little of that money is going to be spent this year. So tell me about the implementation versus the subscription costs versus that contingency.

Right, yeah, the capital improvement sales tax will pay for all the one time costs like the setup in the initial purchase. And then the thought is once it got up and running, it would come out of the finance budget, just like the current software that is coming out of there.

I appreciate the clarification. Thank you.

Any other questions? Is there a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve Oracle NetSuite as our ERP.

All right, we have a motion. Second. We have a second. Any additional questions or comments?

Mayor Jermig, if I could, just one last question for Mr. Lee. I asked Destin earlier this, gosh, what day is it? Monday, last week, there was no way that we could get a 10-year contract for this. Is that correct?

You mean signing it all up front and not just doing the first five year and then signing another five year? Yeah, that's how they presented it, I guess. I don't know.

And the only reason I ask, right, is the likelihood of us staying with this product after we integrate and put all that investment in? we're going to use this likely for more than five years, right? And so just the thought, if you could secure that cost on the front end, those savings, that would be diligent if you can do it. But obviously they have an incentive to renew. And so, okay. Thank you.

It does say that six through 10, there is an option renewal locked in annual rate of listed on the bottom of that slide. chart, sorry I didn't mean to speak for you. Below the potential 10 year cost, right below that there's an asterisk that says optional six to 10.

There's a five year deal that we're locking into and then we have another five year renewal option at that dedicated rate, which isn't too much higher than the initial rate and this gives us a flexibility to opt out after five years if something weren't going right, so. Kind of wins for everybody.

Thank you. All right. We have a motion and a second. Any additional comments or questions? Hearing none, I'll pass it over to Emily.

Stedman? Yes. Zundel? Yes. Jorgensen? Yes. Erickson? Yes. Jerdavik?

Yes. All right. On to item number six, draft 2027 preliminary budget. City Administrator Dustin Scott.

Well, good evening. Thank you, Mayor and Commissioners. I know you've had a busy evening, and we appreciate all the hard work you're doing. I'll make this as brief as possible, but let you kind of pause me whenever and ask questions. I know some of us are getting a little hungry here, so I'll, like I said, I'll walk through the slides. They've been part of the packet over the weekend, so I imagine you've had an opportunity to look at it, as well as I know that you've been involved with some of our review meetings. So, again, by all means, stop me when you have questions. So first and foremost, I want to thank all of our department heads, as I did last time, and thank our commissioners for the hard work that's been going into the budget. And I am very proud to say that we are net positive across all of our major funds. Not using the word balanced because we're not there yet. That's really a term for the final budget, but at this point in the process and where we stand, we are net positive throughout our major funds, and you'll see that later on in slides. This has definitely been a collaborative approach this year, which really culminated and started with the adopting of our guiding principles, again, which we'll get to in another slide. I think that's been a very impactful way to start our budget process, and I look forward to continuing that effort into the future. Commissioners continue to be engaged. We certainly appreciate all the questions, the feedback and directives. And again, that'll help refine the budget as we move forward. And there is still work to be done. As you know, the last commission meeting, we had a couple of directives that were made of staff, one of those being to look at use of economic development sales tax dollars, as well as there's also some discussion regarding our long-term stability, which is one of our guiding principles. So again, there is work to be done and I look forward to continuing to receive feedback and moving the budget forward. As far as milestones, You can see where we've been, and towards the end of the presentation, we'll get to where we're going. So tonight, this is really an overview of the first draft of our preliminary budget, and it's really focused on the major funds. So when I say that, that is our general fund, our library, our airport, and then our utility funds. So we are not getting into our sales tax funds or our debt service funds, those things, special use funds, those types of things. an overview of our guiding principles. I won't read them all verbatim, but again, I feel like that has been a tremendous way to start our budgeting process. So jumping into our expenditures, just wanna reiterate some of the starting point benchmark numbers that helped us prepare the 2027 budget. Up top, We, at the start of the budget process, we do invite our department heads to submit requests for new FTEs. So as you can see here, we had one request come out of the finance department for an accountant. I will say that department is definitely very lean. They need additional help. This accountant would likely primarily focus on utility billing aspects, which is why we're proposing that they would be funded through our utility funds. So again, sewer water, sanitation, those utility funds. And then our fire department has made a request for three firefighters. If you haven't looked at it, there was a five-year strategic plan adopted a couple years ago or two, three years ago. And in that strategic plan, the fire department has outlined a goal to get to, if I recall, it's about 17 firefighters per shift. And so at this point, they are at 12 firefighters per shift. They're still trying to get to that next level. So that's where they have moved forward a request for three firefighters for next year. COLA, COLA at this point, we are sitting at 3%. So the numbers that you see in this preliminary budget reflects a 3% COLA. One thing that I will point out that is not in here, Thank you, Mayor Joerdebeek, for pointing this out, but there's also steps that are built into our salary structure. That's a very intended design structure. We have 11 steps, so depending on where somebody is sitting, they will receive a step until they get to that final step, in which case then they are at the maximum potential of their particular salary, which is a good thing. We want all of our staff to get there. So... The 1% of COLA, by the way, in the general fund equates to about $285,000. So just for point of reference. And then at this point, we are estimating a 10% increase in our health benefits. We are going out to market and we hope that that number will come down. But as we all know, nationwide health insurance has been increasing. So we are sticking with this estimate of 10%. So here's the numbers. On the left side of this slide, you have our general fund departments. On the right side, you have our utility fund departments, as well as the other funds which include airport and library. I believe there was a question about Is the airport a department or not? Operationally, they don't have staff that are on payroll. They do pay an airport manager, but they don't have any staff that are on a regular payroll, if you will. So yes, they are an operating budget department, but not with city staff. So, there's a lot of, information that will come with the final budget process where we will provide additional narratives and context that will help explain all of these departmental budgets. For now, we are providing the summary viewpoint. The departmental detail will also be published following the meeting here, depending on the feedback or any directives that we get tonight. We would look to probably incorporate some of that before we publish those, but each of our departments that you see here, we will have itemized budget detail that will be provided on the city's website. A couple notes here to mention. Number one, on the kind of bottom left here, left side of the screen, there has been some discussion about creating an equipment fund. So when we went through and developed the guiding principles, there was a survey that went out to department heads and commissioners, and some of the questions were asking about things like funding one-time large expenditures with a one-time revenue source, or saying it in a different way, focusing our day-to-day operating expenditures with funding those with the commissioners. consistent revenue sources. So the idea being that we could try to minimize the ebb and flow throughout a budget. For example, if the street department needs $500,000 piece of equipment, well in one year that really jumps their budget up, but then the next year it looks like it really drops off. And so just trying to mitigate some of that, and then also developing policy where we will be very intentional about how we use an equipment fund and how we set aside money annually to put together a long-term plan and strategically use that fund to then guide our equipment purchasing. At this point, there's $265,000 that is set aside in what we are proposing to be an equipment fund. I'll just be even more specific. that $265,000 is not included in the other numbers that you see here. So it is truly off to the side as a budget request, but at this point it's proposed into the equipment fund. So before I move on into the revenues, are there any questions regarding the departmental expenditures? Okay, we'll keep moving. Revenues. So revenues are, for the most part, it's staff using their best judgment to forecast what next year's revenues will be. For some revenue sources, it's a little more straightforward. Property taxes, for example, are fairly straightforward calculation that we can develop. And as you can see here in the pie chart, our property taxes make up 47% of our general fund revenue. So where does all that other money go to fund those general fund departments? We have permits and fees. We have interagency funds, things like the state aid and highway tax funding that comes from the state. We have interest on investments. and then transfer schedule. And the transfer schedule is where we will move things like our public safety sales tax dollars into the general fund. So that shows up as a revenue. Other things that are to be considered here, we have made some utility rate adjustments that's reflected throughout the budget. We are assuming a 3% admin fee from our utility funds to the general fund. So again, It's a work in progress throughout the entire budget cycle, if you will. Until we get to the point where we have to make some approvals, those numbers will stay somewhat in flux as information comes forward. So for example, the state aid and the highway tax, we generally won't know a final number until late July, if not maybe even early August. So we are continually adjusting our revenues until we have those final pieces. Property tax calculations. This is just a slide to demonstrate how do we determine our property taxes. Again, we have the 3% cap that caps the increase in property tax revenue from the prior year. Historically, we would talk in terms of mill rates and mill levies at this point in time, but with that legislation in place, we now talk in terms of what was last year's property tax revenue, and we cannot exceed a 3% increase to that. And the city also gets to account for any new growth valuation. So again, this is a slide that's just demonstrating how that calculation takes place. And this particular slide here is just showing the breakdown of where our property taxes go. This is taken right out of our equalization report that goes out annually, so it's really nothing new, but it is, I think, important context to understand that your property tax dollars are going to multiple agencies accordingly. And so then here are the plethora of revenue sources that go into our general fund. And I will not go through all of them, but again, these numbers are somewhat in motion until we hit a point in time and we lock it in. And so as new information comes, we are gonna continue to adjust these forecasts accordingly. So I know the numbers are really small. The audience is really not able to see those probably, but I'll pause here for a second, let you digest this and then ask any questions.

Any questions on this slide? To be clear, I'm saving a few questions to the end.

Perfect. Perfect. Moving on. Okay, and then summary of our other revenue sources. So again, primarily these will be our utility funds. And then we do have the other revenue sources for the library and airport. They predominantly rely on property taxes as well. They have a couple other funding sources, but for the most part they are relying quite a bit on our property taxes. So then this takes us to our summary slide of where we sit and when I say we are net positive through all of our major funds, you can see here this is where our revenues are currently sitting at a forecast higher than what we are proposing for our 2027 expenses. Again, all of these numbers, I can't stress this enough, this is all still a work in progress. We're gonna continue to gather your feedback and directives as well as obtain additional information to help refine the budget as we move forward, but very proud of our team for returning very responsible expenditure budgets to help get us to this point so early on. So other considerations, as I mentioned earlier, we have the directive from the commission at our last meeting to explore other or explore options to utilize the economic development sales tax fund to cover costs or revenues associated with incentive programs. We are working on that. Staff have had a couple meetings. We are working with the city attorney to explore those options. So we look forward to developing that and bringing that back to a future commission meeting. The equipment fund, I've already talked through that a little bit, so I'll skip down to the last one there. Working group focused on long-term financial stability. As you recall, that is our top guiding principle. I think it would be prudent to put together a working team to really start to focus on long-term financial stability topics. a range of topics. How do we afford the facilities that we might need into the future? How do we afford all the equipment that we might need into the future? How do we afford ourselves as we move into the future? All of these things, it'd be great to put a team together to start really putting pen to paper, projecting out those costs, finding revenue sources so that we are abiding really by our guiding principle. Any questions before I move on? One or two slides left here. So the next steps, again, continue to get our commission feedback and directives. We will hold additional review sessions with each of you. We started doing this last year, but as you all do have individual questions and comments, we will work to compile all of that into a consumable report where we will provide answers to those questions or the additional information that you're wanting to see. We'll put that into a memorandum that we can publish on our website and bring forward with future budget presentations. Over these next couple weeks, we will be working on that and bring that forward to our next meeting on August 3rd. And as you recall, August 3rd is where we are gonna propose to approve the preliminary budget. And lastly, again, understand that these numbers don't have any context or information with them. So we will be developing that narrative as we progress through the budget. So really this slide is just rounding out the formal process, if you will. As you can see off to the side there, we'll have ongoing review, feedback, and continue to refine our budget. So with that, I would stand for any questions.

I realize tonight's not the night for us each to go through every question we have in the budget or we'll be here till morning probably. I would like to bring up one and it goes back to something I know you and I've talked about Dustin You know, I have a very firm belief that ongoing operational expenses should be Budgeted for every year and paid for with the revenues that year, right? That's that's where my question to Nick actually came from as it related to the software Subscription and the annual cost of that that we'll see for the next ten years That brings me to the you know rent for City Hall because that's not how we pay for City Hall today which is a very sizable amount of money that is not budgeted for in this same way. And I'm of the belief that it really needs to be. And that is actually why even two weeks ago when we were talking about the economic development sales tax, I believe those funds can largely offset that rent of approximately $650,000 a year. So that's a fairly sizable change to what we've put together so far. So I wanted to express that tonight. But my other thoughts and so forth I will put together for you.

I just have a point of clarification. We were talking about health insurance. We're planning for 10% increase. What was last year's increase? Because when we look across, I mean, I'm hearing 18 or more. I mean, what did we do last year?

We assumed or we budgeted for a 10% increase sometime after the budget was approved. If I recall the final increase that we received was 10.8 so.

Might be a nice general. Okay, the other question, you put in there COLA that were general fund budgets, so I'm assuming that you're talking about everybody not in utility. If you included everybody, how many employees are in the other section that may not be included in that COLA number? You said it's general fund budget, so I'm assuming that's the people in the general fund. Is that correct, Austin? Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, thanks. So if you added the utility people, how many employees is that? I mean, is it going to be relatively close to 285? Is it going to be 325? Is it going to be 350?

I believe it's around $330,000. If you add the entire staff receiving a COLA, I believe that's equivalent to about $330,000. For a percentage point? For one percentage point, yes.

When I saw general funding, I realized that we separated all the employees out. That's why I wanted to make sure I understood that correctly. Thank you.

When, I guess, is a good time, because I think there are some pieces. So, for example, your directive or your your conversation on City Hall rent. I tend to agree with you. So is this something you would seek a motion on to have now, or for example, like the FTE request, is that something you would like to vote on now so you know we're at with it, or how do you prefer to get that feedback?

Thank you, Commissioner. So I'll leave that up to you. You could do it in a formal capacity tonight. with whatever directive you want to give. So whether that's a motion to direct staff to make a change to whatever you feel necessary or important. If not tonight, we will be back here on August 3rd to approve the preliminary budget and there are options there. You could approve the preliminary budget as presented and we can continue to consider changes as we move forward, or you could approve the preliminary budget contingent on directives given at that meeting. So again, for an example, a motion to approve the preliminary budget removing items X, Y, Z, or including items X, Y, Z. you have options there. And if the budget is, if the preliminary budget was approved as is on August 3rd, we could still, we would hold the hearing on September 8th, and we have time again to take formal directive until we come to that October meeting where now we have to approve a final budget. And at that time, again, you could make a motion to approve a final budget contingent on whatever changes you wanna propose.

As fun as that sounds, it doesn't sound very fun to choose that date. DO YOU HAVE A PREFERENCE, MAYOR ON HOW?

I'M NOT SURE I NECESSARILY HAVE A PREFERENCE. I THINK THAT REALLY COMES DOWN TO HOW YOU WOULD RATHER GET THAT INFORMATION. I MEAN, WE CAN CERTAINLY TAKE THE TIME TO PASS SOME MOTIONS TONIGHT, BUT OR... YEAH, I MEAN, THE BIG THINGS THAT I SEE, I FEEL LIKE COLA IS A BIG ITEM.

I FEEL LIKE THE STAFF FTE REQUESTS ARE THE BIG ITEM. I FEEL LIKE THE CONCEPT OF WHERE THE CITY HALL money is coming from. So I guess the reason I bring it up is, do you need formal direction now if we're gonna change any of that in this? Is that better to do now as opposed to wait a month?

Well, I'll share my opinion on the matter. My opinion would be that if you have time to continue to obtain information and further review the budget, then maybe wait to make motions until you feel that you have had a good opportunity to review all that information and are making the most informed decision that you can. So again, saying it specifically, we do not need any formal directive today. Over the next two weeks, we will continue to get feedback from you via whether it's in-person meetings or email questions, comments, that information will get compiled and brought forward at the August 3rd meeting. So through that, there might be some underlying directives in the background there.

Your intent is to try to pull together that feedback and bring a budget on August 3rd that is reflective of what you believe is consistent across the five of us. Is that a fair statement or not?

So no, to clarify, what we would do is we would collect all of that, bring it forward so that this budget would continue to move forward as is. We wouldn't make a change unless formally directed via motion. But through that collective response, we would highlight areas. So if there was comments from Commissioner A and Commissioner B to increase the COLA from three to 10%, we would note that. There won't be that. Sorry. But that's what I'm getting at, is that we would demonstrate what are the questions, the comments, the requests for additional information. And through that memorandum, there might be a very clear, identifiable, call it topic to consider. So whether that be COLA or whether that be staffing.

I just worry these are very large numbers, I feel like, for these topics.

Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with the three things you mentioned are the three things that are on my list. I guess I would look to the other three of you like where are we all prepared to make a motion on some of these things tonight or would we prefer to wait two weeks? Commissioner Jorgensen.

As we all know, this is the biggest thing we do every year, and as Mr. Scott mentioned, he's still taking in more information. We still don't know what the funds are coming in. I don't want to rush this. I mean, we're dealing with the taxpayers' money. We need to be, so I just assume, I'll say I'll vote against making any decisions tonight.

I'm kind of, I think we should wait. And I really think that once you get the final numbers from June 30 and you see the actuals compared to budgets, that you'll see that where the funds may, we have carryover from each of those, but those all then go into the next, plus the income coming in. And I think we're too soon to do that until we see some of those numbers. But I think the direction, knowing that's coming, that we should at least consider that. But going forward.

Commissioner Erickson? Mayor Jernovich, Dustin, I, so in my personal professional background, right, there's arguments of equity and there's arguments of monetary arguments, right, that you can make. This, the FTE, idea to me right now whether it's today or a month from now the equitable argument for that right now did we approve any FTEs last fiscal year no okay so what the and and I know what the motivations for some of the the asks for the FTEs, right? Sometimes your goalpost is moving and you need to try to meet those expectations to meet accreditation standards or whatever it might be, or for the finance individual, internal control recommendations as a result of an audit right whatever those those motivations might be the equitable argument to me right now even as i hold the the fire portfolio to me the equitable argument is really difficult for me right right now on you know there's there's city-wide expectations right and So I totally agree, maybe not today, but I don't know truly for me what's going to change from now until the end of the month. But I just thought it would be beneficial to get that comment on the record. The other question that I had, if I may, the equipment fund, Dustin, I read through that. And it's a pooling of resources, right? And then people will take out their equitable share in the event they need something. Is that how it works? And it's beneficial to pool your resources? Is that kind of what that idea is there?

Yeah, the idea being that we would, first and foremost, we would develop policy regarding the establishment, the funding, and the use of that equipment fund. Ideally, we would develop a 10-year equipment plan across all departments that are going to foresee a need for that. each department that would use that fund would have an annual contribution to some level to help fund their needs so that they get a three to six years down the road, they have been contributing, and now they come forward with their request. There's other ways to fund that fund in capturing things like a surplus in a given year or yep. So there are a multitude of things that we will consider as we draft and develop policy, which is in the works right now.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

All right. So I think the consensus is we will all continue over the next week or two to work with you with our feedback and questions and look to make more progress on this on August 3rd. Very good. Appreciate it. Next item is the evaluation of potential amendments to Chapter 10-01, Alcoholic Beverages. Dustin Scott, City Administrator.

Thank you again, Mayor and Commissioners. So really this is an item that is requesting direction to move forward evaluating ordinance amendment options. We are not proposing the revisions tonight. We are asking to explore options to potentially amend our ordinances regarding alcoholic beverages. During our annual liquor license renewal process, one of our local establishments downtown, Junkyard Brewing, they did point out that there were some changes made at the in-century code during the 2021 legislative session. So we, as staff, did take a look at what those statutory changes were and just looked into this a little further with Katie, our city attorney, and started to understand that other communities have made some ordinance updates to reflect some of those statutory changes. So we thought, well, let's take this to the Liquor Control Board, get that discussion at that level, And then ultimately that board forwarded on a recommendation to direct staff to explore this further. Again, to evaluate what policy or ordinance amendments would be beneficial for us as a community. So while this may have certainly originated with Junkyard Brewery, identifying that century code change, as if we are authorized to move forward, we're gonna be looking at this through the lens of the entire city. adding potential license options that would be beneficial for all of our businesses to have access and consideration for. And right now the request is to move forward exploring these options and we would bring proposed amendments forward to a future commission meeting for your consideration. With that, I would answer any other questions, and Katie is also available from the legal aspect.

Commissioner Erickson. Thank you, Mayor Jernovich. Dustin, my concern with this, right, as you know, at the Liquor Control Board, just for everybody's information, was the... competitive disadvantage as the one public comment alluded to right if they're if they it's a sunk cost for them if we approve that ordinance revision right if we if we say you don't need to have the 5149 requirement there's an exception as long as there's a setback they're accompanied by an adult et cetera, et cetera, right, then they don't have to necessarily meet the same requirements that the other establishments had to at the time. Did I characterize that correctly?

I want to make it clear that we're not proposing any revisions right now. So we don't know. At this point, we may bring forward an ordinance amendment that has eight different permit options if you will which absolutely could benefit any and all establishments so I just want to keep that frame of mind that at this point we're starting with a blank canvas and asking for direction to kind of put the pieces of a puzzle together and what options are out there first of all first and foremost what are the legal guardrails that are now present in Century code and how would we want to amend our ordinances to provide additional options and also then take a look at what are some of the other communities doing? What is Fargo doing? What is Grand Forks doing? Why not, you know, Bismarck? But when we do bring those forward, if the commission feels that we're creating a disadvantage, that would certainly be a consideration. So I just, again, I just wanted to make it clear that we're not proposing anything yet. We're asking to look into what is available.

Thank you.

Would you do that by asking stakeholders maybe some of those varied questions to see what the barriers might be coming directly from them as you build this policy? Is that your thought process?

Absolutely. We can certainly engage all of the restaurant and bar establishments that are in the city.

might wanna ask would be to involve Chief Nielsen or a member of his staff as we're crossing over that Miners and Liquor Establishment slope.

Yes, absolutely. I'll expand upon Commissioner Erickson's question. Are we creating an advantage or disadvantage by how we're choosing to enforce the current ordinances?

Yeah, I guess I'd, the way we enforce our ordinances right now, we have a liquor license renewal process, we receive those applications, we review them. So that's pretty consistent across the board, if that's what you're asking or?

Well, so I mean, based off of the ordinances we're referring to today around patrons that are under the age of 21, do we believe that we have any establishments in the city of West Fargo today that are in violation of that?

Yeah, yeah. In the past, Junkyard Brewery specifically, yes, they were under the impression that if accompanied by a guardian, a minor could be there. We have since resolved that matter through this last licensing renewal process. And again, through that, that's when they did share the changes to the Century Code and just asked that the city consider expanding the types of licenses through an ordinance amendment.

But we believe them to be following those ordinances today.

Yeah, yeah. At this point, there's no reason to believe they're not following the ordinances, but it's generally, and I refer to Chief on this one, but I believe we go in and out of establishments periodically and check in, but if anything, we respond to complaint-driven type concerns. I don't believe we go in and out of establishments looking for call it compliance. That's not why our law enforcement are out there, but they are out there and partly just to build those relationships, make sure that there's, they can put faces to. So again, no reason to believe that somebody is out of compliance today, but yes, there was an issue that we did resolve with them through their liquor license process.

Any additional questions? Is there a motion?

I WOULD MOVE THAT WE DIRECT STAFF TO COME BACK TO THE COMMISSION WITH VARIOUS POTENTIAL OPTIONS FOR ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS AND THAT PROCESS INCLUDE ENGAGEMENT OF EXISTING LIQUOR LICENSE STAKEHOLDERS.

ALL RIGHT. WE HAVE A MOTION ON THE TABLE. SECOND. WE HAVE A SECOND. ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS? HEARING NONE, EVELYN?

STEDMAN? YES. ZUNDEL? YES. JORGENSEN? NO. ERIKSON? YES.

Motion passes four to one. All right. Item number eight. So we are stepping out of the regular commission meeting.

We will adjourn the regular meeting and go into an executive session. So I'll defer to Katie on any specifics that need to be. And you have to read all this.

Yeah.

Oh, I have to read all that. Okay.

Yeah, you can't go into an executive session without it. All right. And take a roll call vote, please. And take a roll call vote.

TO GO INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION. OKAY. THANK YOU FOR THE CLARIFICATION. ALL RIGHT. WE'RE GOING TO BE CLOSED EXECUTIVE SESSION PURSUANT TO NDCC 44-04-19.15. WOW. FOR PURPOSE OF ATTORNEY CONSULTATION REGARDING NUISANCE ORDINANCE VIOLATIONS AT 4540 WESTPORT PARKWAY AND 1125 LEGION LANE.

And we need a vote. You need a motion? I would move. All right, we need a motion.

We have a motion and a second. Now we need a vote.

Stedman? Yes. Sundell? Yes. Jorgensen? Yes. Erickson? Yes. Dradovic?

Yes. All right. All right, I will bring us back to the regular meeting. Do we have a motion?

I make a motion to direct the City Attorney to commence civil proceedings in the District Court to evade and enjoin the nuisance violations at 4540 West Orange Parkway.

Is there a second? Second.

I WILL NEED TO RECUSE MYSELF. GOOD JOB.

WE'RE GOING TO GET CLOSE. NO DISCUSSION. SORRY. I ALMOST SCREWED THAT UP. EMILY?

STEDMAN? YES.

YOU'RE RECUSING YOURSELF? ZUNDEL IS RECUSING, YES.

JORGENSEN? YES.

ERIKSON? YES.

Motion passes. Is there another motion, Mr. Jorgensen?

I make a motion directing the city attorney to commence civil proceedings in the district court and to abate and enjoin the nuisance violation at 1125 Legion Lane West in West Fargo.

Is there a second? Second. All right. We'll take another roll call vote.

Steadman, yes. Sundell, yes. Jorgensen, yes. Erickson, yes.

Trudevig, yes. Motion passes. All right, city administrator's report.

All right, thank you, mayor and commissioners. Let me just dive into my Extensive stack of notes here. Bear with me as, I'm sorry. Couldn't help myself. Really just one update for you. As you know, last meeting, there was a directive to staff to start looking into public engagement opportunities regarding data centers. We have, I just want to report that we have met as a team to start brainstorming some ideas. We look forward to engaging the mayor and commissioners here over the next couple weeks and hopefully bring something back for a meeting in August. But with that, then I would stand for any other questions. All right, any correspondence? I think all correspondence has been distributed.

Yes, and I will update your mailboxes as well.

All right.

But I don't think any of you have gotten any new ones yet.

Does anybody have any non-agenda items?

Nope.

All right, motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second. Alright, we stand adjourned.