00:00:03,430	I would like to call the board of adjustment to order. and I think the first thing we have on our agenda is, uh approval. Do we do roll call first independently of approval of the minutes. Let’s do, um, roll call. Let’s start off with the roll call. Bomer Wengler here. Board member Jansen here. Board member Seifert. Yes.

00:00:31,170	Board member Lee here and Chair Clark. Yes, thank you. Um item one on the agenda is identified as meeting information. We’ve got some housekeeping to do. We’ve got to recognize the reappointment of board member Chris Seifert. Congratulations. Um, I’d like to introduce our new board member, Kim Lee.

00:00:54,730	Welcome aboard. It’s fun to have you on this side of the desk. Um, and both Chris and Kim have signed their oath of office, I believe. So that’s been taken care of.

00:01:17,700	Um, another thing I’d like to do is recognize the service of our departing board member Rick Woh, and I’ve got a resolution I’d like to read into the record, uh, for that. Um, it’s a resolution of appreciation whereas Richard Wald has served as a member of the Bismarck Board of Adjustment for the past 10 years and whereas during this time he has represented the interests of both urban and rural residents of the city of Bismarck and Burleigh County.

00:01:35,730	and whereas Mr.oh has given freely of his time and expertise in the many matters considered by the Commission. And whereas during his term of office on the Board of Adjustments, Mr. Wohl has distinguished himself for fair deliberation and common sense decision-making. And whereas Mr. Wall will now leave the Board of Adjustment for a well-deserved rest.

00:01:55,630	Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Bismarck Board of Adjustment that Richard Waldby commended for his dedication and his support for planned development of Bismarck and that the appreciation of the board of adjustment be extended to him. So I I’m pleased, I’m pleased to recognize all his hard work. It’s amazing how fast 10 years flies by.

00:02:20,170	Um and then the other thing we have on meeting information is election of officers. We’ve got chair and vice chair. We do this every year. So, um, we can deliberate and make a decision on, on those two positions. Let’s, um, address the chairmanship first. I would make a motion to, uh, re-elect uh do. Thank you. For cherrying.

00:02:54,370	Um-hum. Do we have a second on that? Thank you. Is there any discussion you’d like to have on that motion? OK. Take the roll, please. Board member Lee Yes Board member Wengler. Yes. Board member Jansen. Yes. Board member Seifert. Yes. And Chair Clark. Um, yes, thank you very much. I appreciate that.

00:03:23,630	uh, vote of confidence for this position. I really enjoy my time on this on this board Um, the second position we have is vice chair. I’ll make a motion to nominate Mr. Seifert. as vice Yeah, we have a motion. We have a second.

00:03:49,800	I’ll second OK Um, any discussion on that, on that motion? If not, let’s take the role on that as well. Board Member Lee Yes Board member Wangler. Yes. Board member Jansen? Yes. Uh, board members Seifert. Yes. And Chair Clark? Yes. Thank you. OK, that motion passes as well.

00:04:18,700	So we’ve got our we’ve got our housekeeping done, um, as we’ve recognized some different procedures here. We’ve got public comments on items from the previous board of adjustment meeting. I don’t see anyone present and we don’t have anyone online, do we? No, no, OK. So we can go to the next store and we’ve got the approval of the meeting minutes from the December meeting the December 4, 2025 meeting.

00:04:41,730	Has everyone had a chance to read over those? I would enter entertain a motion on, on those minutes. I’ll make a motion to approve Thank you. We’ve got, um, motion to approve. Do we have a second? I’ll second. Gristle second. Any discussion on those? Hearing none. Let’s take the role on that as well. Board member Wengler. Yes.

00:05:22,270	Board member Lee? Yes Board member Seifert. Yes. Board member Jansen? Yes, and Chair Clark? Yes. OK. We’ve got the approval of the minutes. And then the next item we have on our agenda is the Sattler Sunrise 7th edition Block 10, Lot 12. We’re revisiting this due to a, just an oversight at the last meeting.

00:05:45,170	So I apologize for Jenny, do you want to review the Chair Clark board members. I’ll go over kind of the same. same information as last meeting. Um, Jeremy and Amber Hassen Jaeger are requesting approval of a variance from Section 1403054C of the City Code of Ordinances, supplementary provisions, location of residential

00:06:09,730	accessory buildings to reduce their front yard step back along the north side of the property from 25 ft to 15 ft for an existing accessory building. There que request is located in northeast Bismarck, north of East Century Avenue and east of Centennial Road in the southeast quadrant of the intersection of Roosevelt Drive and 43rd Avenue Northeast,

00:06:29,600	the address of the property is 4225 Roosevelt Drive. The Board of Adjustment held a public hearing on this request on December 4th at the conclusion of the hearing, the board voted to voted 3 to 1 to approve the variants, and it was announced at the meeting that the variance was approved.

00:06:46,700	However, per section 40, 4707 of the North Dakota Century Code, the concurring vote of 4 members of the Board of Adjustment is needed to approve a variance. Therefore, approval of the variance is not valid. The city attorney has advised staff that a reintroduction of this request and a new vote be held.

00:07:05,270	The applicant and their contractor have been aware of this error via phone and certified letter. To recap the previous meeting, an accessory building was constructed on this property without a permit.

00:07:25,530	Our records indicate that the contractor reached out to the building inspections department to require, to inquire about setback requirements for the building in March 2025 and was informed that the property was located on a corner lot and then a 25 ft front yard step back along Roosevelt Street and 43rd Avenue Northeast would be required. Copy of the email between the contractor and the inspections department was attached for your review.

00:07:42,100	In July of 2025 during an inspection within the neighborhood, a building inspector noticed that the accessory building was being constructed. The contractor was notified and a permit was submitted.

00:08:00,530	However, upon review of the permit and the required lot surveys, staff determined that the accessory building did not meet the 25 ft required front yard stepback and that the building was approximately 15 ft from the property line adjacent to 43rd Avenue Northeast. As you know, we are in the process of updating our zoning requirements for the city.

00:08:17,800	The most recent draft of the proposed Land Development Code Code includes provisions for setbacks for residential properties on corner lots, in particular, a front yard setback along a side street, a street that the property is not accessed from is proposed to be 10 ft in the equivalent zoning district. The Land Development code is proposed to be adopted in finalized in the spring of 2026.

00:08:35,530	The public has been notified of this request, 14 letters were mailed to the owners of nearby properties on November 25th, and again on December 26th. To my knowledge, we have not received any inquiries regarding this request.

00:08:55,230	Pursuant to Section 140602 of the city code of Ordinances, the Board of Adjustment may vary or adjust the strict application of any of the requirements in the zoning ordinance in case of an exceptionally irregular, narrow, shallow, or steep lot or other exceptional physical or topographical condition by reason of which the strict application of the provisions of the zoning ordinance would result in an unnecessary hardship that would deprive the owner of reasonable use of land or building involved, but in no other case.

00:09:16,000	No adjustment in the strict application of any provisions of the zoning ordinance shall be granted by the board unless it finds the following that there are special circumstances or conditions that apply to the land or buildings that do not apply generally to land or buildings within the neighborhood and have not resulted from any act of the applicant.

00:09:33,630	that the strict application of the provisions of the zoning ordinance would deprive the applicant of reasonable use of said lander building, the granting of the variance is necessary for the reasonable use of the land or building and that the variance as granted by the board is the minimum variance that will accomplish the relief sought by the applicant.

00:09:52,330	that the grant of the variance will be in harmony with a general purpose and intent of the zoning ordinance and will not be injurious to the neighborhood or otherwise detrimental to the public welfare. The applicant did submit a written request that identifies their hardship and explains why the variants should be granted.

00:10:12,630	The document was also included within your packet. If you choose to approve the variances as proposed, staff asks that you identify a hardship and modify the review standards or fighting findings outlined in your staff report to support your decision. Do you have questions for I’m sorry, let me say that again.

00:10:36,630	Do we have any questions for staff? No, thank you, thank you OK, at this point, we would typically call up the, uh individuals seeking the variants. We don’t have anyone present, although it’s been made clear that they have been notified of of the hearing today.

00:11:03,430	Um we don’t have any other members of the public present, and Jenny stated that no one has responded to the letters that were mailed out. So at this time, I would like to close the public hearing on on the variants request and move into board consideration of the request.

00:11:26,230	in order to have a discussion on this, we need to have a motion on the table So just for our clarification, um, the reason we’re doing this again is because in order to have a variance granted, we need to have a vote of at least 4. and that is a little unusual. It’s statutory. Um, under the North Dakota Century Code.

00:11:46,100	So that, that’s the reason we’re revisiting this again, because we only had 3 last time. I ask of you is if you do make a motion to approve the variants that you articulate a hardship.

00:13:05,100	and include that in your motion Chair Clark, I realized I wasn’t here for the last meeting that I did watch it on, on, on public access, and I’ve read through the staff report. and I do not believe there are any special circumstances that would, that would, um, support granting a variance in this case. Um, had a permit been applied for Um, the, the the lesser setback issue or the setback issue would have been identified through the approval process of a permit.

00:13:25,900	And so I, based on the findings that are required, I would re I would make a motion to deny the variance as requested. OK, thank you so much. Do we have a second on that motion? 2nd. OK, we’ve got a second by board member Johnen. Is there any board discussion on the motion before us.

00:13:48,800	Yeah, I’d like to make a few observations that I didn’t include last time, but uh building 101, the key is providing apply for a permit. This wasn’t done. It was done 4 months after the fact.

00:14:10,170	Had they applied for the permit, they would have found out all the all the information they needed to know and the building would have been placed properly. uh so that’s why I really have an issue with this, and I do agree with Slee that, uh, the hardship I don’t see in this particular lot.

00:14:31,500	But the other thing I want to bring up on their statement of hardship they on their first paragraph, they said, uh contractor before permits reissued under the under the understanding that a fifteen-foot setback would be acceptable based on access and layout of the property. I guarantee you staff never said 15 ft was gonna be OK. as far as a setback, it hadn’t been approved, that hadn’t been changed.

00:14:56,100	you know, to this date, they were looking at it and I understand that, but like I said last time just because the legislators were looking at changing the speed limit to 80 doesn’t mean you get to drive 80 when it’s posted at 75.

00:15:16,970	And so we talked about the discussion was we talked about that staff would be able to be willing to hold off and if that changed in the spring of 206 this goes away but the applicant, the building, the contractor in this case. created the whole situation by not getting a permit putting the building in.

00:15:39,970	We have a building that didn’t get a con, didn’t get a concrete inspection and or electrical inspection if they have electrical to it. So in their concrete Guy didn’t even call them for inspection. So there’s a lot of mishaps on that end and I don’t think uh, staff did their job but not having the information given to them, which is the normal protocol uh in this case, we’re, we’re fortunate that the individual

00:16:02,270	we have an ordinance made that may be changing in the spring of 206. that would get them out of hot water. But at this point, we, we don’t have that in place.

00:16:21,500	and that’s why I’m saying no to this but they do have a staff reiterated last time, they’d be willing to work with the applicant that if that went through, then this becomes a moot point and life goes on. I hate to do this for this lot. Uh, I don’t see the hardship in it either based on what the lot is like. but that’s my thoughts on it Thank you Any additional discussion? Go ahead.

00:16:41,000	And I believe this the statement he made that day, I mean, they did apologize His other Guy oversight, and I believe his statement about you know, the 15 ft setback, I believe that was him knowing that it was going to be coming up the the change in that I’ve looked at that a lot and that’s

00:17:04,270	very unusual lot, it’s not going to cause anybody any danger or no one’s even going to know it’s there is my problem with that, the way it’s on 43rd Avenue. Um billings already there I mean, I know there were mistakes made, they were wrong doing that.

00:17:28,800	You’re right, but um, this coming up and it’s almost I know it’s not a guarantee it’s going to be approved by the city, um, but I I guess I don’t see a problem with it That’s my opinion, I guess And, and I would like to comment further. He talked about the email that went back and forth about. Um-hum.

00:17:49,700	Setback, but he didn’t ever address the permit. I mean, you know, when you start a project you pull a permit and that takes care of a lot of issues. This would have never been an issue. So that, that, that’s what I’m getting at. Right. And I don’t believe it was on purpose though.

00:18:06,330	I don’t, I think it was an oversight, the way Well, we can assume that owner because we don’t know. Right. You know. At the last meeting Right. I was talking about that.

00:18:26,900	Uh had they been before us prior to doing any construction on it? Would we have approved it in that situation? Right, I think that’s a really good point. I was just perusing through uh the material put together by staff, and I haven’t found it, but my recollection is there is a provision on there that we’re not to consider financial hardship. So we ought to be treating this just as if it had come in.

00:18:48,330	um, without the building in place already. And I do have one other thing to add, um, 43rd the boulevard, it’s weird calling it a boulevard because it’s a ditch section, but the boulevard is very wide in that area.

00:19:07,270	but 43rd Avenue is a, it’s, is an arterial roadway and at some point in the future, it may look like Century Avenue and using that as an excuse to push it closer to that property line. I don’t, I don’t think we would do that in another situation in the community. It is surrounded by a fence still can. I mean.

00:19:38,600	to his property line also That’s my question, too, in reviewing this, and I saw that. when I got this, but in, on page 13. um, the agenda item 4A of the header on top. the last, second to the last paragraph. says the City of Bismarck is in the process of updating.

00:20:07,270	zoning requirements, most recent draft proposed land development code includes provisions for setback for residential properties, in particular front yard set back along a side street. a street on that property is not accessed from is proposed to be 10 ft in the equivalent zone district. Is that 10 or 15 Thank you, Board Member Wengler, for pointing that out.

00:20:27,630	When I wrote the staff report last month, I had read, um, 15 ft from the draft, um, Land Development code, um, that’s for the principal structure, the accessory structure will be is proposed and drafted to be 10 ft in the latest draft, but again, that has not yet been approved. It’s in a draft state. We’re hoping sometime spring.

00:20:46,270	So, so that has changed from where we were at actually a month ago then. because I think our discussion a month ago was that it’ll be planning on being 15 ft, they’re proposed to be. So if I remember the the meeting correctly and I did watch it back and I apologize for not being here.

00:21:05,170	Um, Daniel Nairn, our planning director, did say 10 during his, um, presentation. So. Is there any additional discussion on the motion on the table? Excuse me, that’s probably deceptive. The motion, the motion before us. hearing no further discussion, let’s take roll on the motion. For Member Wengler No Board Member Seifert? No.

00:21:51,430	Or remember Lee Yes Board member Jansen. Yes. Chair Clark, yes OK, so in this case, we’ve got 3 voting in favor of that motion because it’s not a motion to grant variants. 3 is adequate to pass that motion. correct. Um so we’ve, we’ve addressed that issue, um, staff will notify the variance requesters of, of the decision at this, at this meeting.

00:22:24,530	Moving on to our final agenda item of of other business we’ve got a little bit of education we’re gonna go through. We’ve got our board of adjustments procedure and protocol. And I think Jennie, are you gonna OK I am, if you don’t mind, um. When a second. Since I was a denial. Yes.

00:22:49,330	Can’t we do another one for a septance No, we’ve Yeah, no, could they the question is, could they vote for approval of the variants It’s it’s already been denied. Mhm. But denial and then wasn’t 4 volts.

00:23:15,800	But that’s what I was saying for a denial, the statute doesn’t require that we have 4. It’s only to grant a variance. that requires 4, which is kind of unusual, but it is what’s in state statute. OK, thank you.

00:23:42,330	Chair Clark Board members, um, typically we, we don’t meet every month like we used to, um, a number of years ago, so sometimes we don’t meet until, uh, uh, April or May and, and we don’t necessarily have our ducks in a row doing the beginning of the year stuff. So I am gonna go through kind of an overview. We’ve got one new board member, um, and another one that was reappointed.

00:23:55,370	So for, for the board member and for the folks, the folks at home I’d like to go through a little bit of kind of the powers and duties of the Board of Adjustment and what we do here for the public.

00:24:14,100	OK, as, as we’ve kind of talked a lot this this meeting, um, we have powers and du duties and and authority set by the city zoning ordinance as well as North Dakota Century Code, um, 404707 specifically that the Board of Adjustment um act on variance requests. Um, there shall be 5 members, uh, appointed to a term of 3 years.

00:24:35,870	Um, again, the concurring vote of 4 members of the board shall be necessary to reverse any order, requirement, decision or determination of any such administrative official or to decide in favor of the applicant any matter upon which it is required to pass under such ordinance to effect any variation in such ordinance. So a lot of legal language, but basically 4 votes to approve a variants.

00:24:59,470	Powers and duties, what does the board of adjustment do? They hear appeals, zoning interpretations. We’ve done a couple of those in the past, maybe a half dozen or so. Um, we appeal or can hear an appeal of a notice in order. Um, typically we’ve seen those as maybe the accumulation of certain items prohibited or out of our junk ordinance.

00:25:16,070	Um, I think we did one a number of years ago regarding like a serial, um yard sale if you’ll recall, one thing we can also do is, uh, make a parking determination, um, and as well as hearing just our regular run of the mill standard variances from Title 14 are zoning ordinance, and those special regulations and

00:25:38,430	special variance requests for floodplain regulations. Oh, goodness, it was probably prior to 2020 when we made the the big wholesale change to our parking ordinance.

00:26:08,970	However, the code says that you can determine parking, so here we are, um, the zoning ordinance also defines a variance as a device which grants the property owner relief from certain provisions of the zoning ordinance when because of particular physical surrounding shape or topographical condition of the property, compliance would result in a particular hardship. upon the owner as distinguished from a mere inconvenience or desire to increase financial return. That’s why we asked you to identify a hardship. Zavariance does um include a couple of different components.

00:26:31,800	Um, we wanna identify that hardship or what is so unique about this part this property, um, that doesn’t apply to others in the neighborhood, and it’s not by action of the applicant. So exceptionally irregular narrow shallow steep lot or other exceptional physical condition or topographical condition.

00:26:56,900	Um, so the other component, the second component is by reason of all of those exceptional irregular things that weren’t caused by the applicant. The strict application of the zoning ordinance was would result in that unnecessary hardship and deprive the owner, um, reasonable use of their land or buildings.

00:27:18,500	and if you can um find good cause in one and 2, those first two components, then the commission must also find that all of the following findings, um, that the variance is necessary for the reasonable use of land.

00:27:40,100	That is the minimum variance to accomplish the relief that the variances in harmony with the general purpose and intents of the zoning ordinance and that it will not be injurious to the neighborhood or otherwise detrimental to the public welfare, things we talk about every time I say it every time I give a presentation Um, exceptional, what is exceptional? Um, forming an exception or very rare from Miriam Webster, it’s unusual or not typical.

00:27:57,230	Um, this little tidbit from Black’s Law Dictionary is left over from Janelle Combs. So I’ll just let you read that since I’m not an attorney. and hardship again, what is that hardship? It’s severe suffering or privation, deprivation, or suffering again, Oxford and Miriam Webster, and, um, the severity in which a proposed construction of the law would

00:28:23,430	bear upon a particular case founding sometimes an argument against such construction according to Black’s Law Dictionary. So floodplain findings, and we know flood plains are a little different, um, we have to not only find all the regular things in the normal variances findings in the zoning ordinance.

00:28:50,000	We also have to find these additional findings for any variants from floodplain requirements. We have to find that the variants would not increase flood levels during base flood discharge that the variance again is the minimum necessary considering the flood hazard to afford relief that the applicant has shown good and suffici ent cause for granting the variances.

00:29:08,170	Um, a failure to grant the variances would result in an exceptional hardship to the applicant and the granting of the variants would not result in increased flood heights, additional threats to public safety and conflict with existing local laws or ordinance, nor cause fraud or victimization of the public.

00:29:27,270	These variants, um, standards are these findings are part of what we call the Mod D ordinance. That’s the ordinance that, um, is given to communities to enforce as being part of the national flood plainsurance Program Um, so we’ve gone through the variances and all the things that we need to consider.

00:29:44,970	Let’s talk a little bit about open meetings, um, they’re public business. What we’re doing today is an open meeting, um, quorum 4 is a quorum for this board, which makes it a little tricky if somebody’s out, um, then we certainly, if we’re going to want to approve a variant or find hardship and modify our findings to do so,

00:30:00,970	we need to have a vote of 4, all 4 members, um, open meetings can happen by chance or unexpectedly. You could all be at a restaurant not knowing that everyone was going and then you’re all there and you’re talking about stuff and public business, and then we have a little bit of a problem.

00:30:19,170	So, um, public media or open meetings also can be through serial communications. Um, you’re receiving, um, mass or blast emails from an applicant or you’re all kind of trading emails or replying all things like that. We want to make sure that we avoid.

00:30:42,100	Just as a point of clarification, um, for you say if we all end up at Cracker Barrel. um, really what we would need is 4 of us to show up at Cracker Barrel. I correct. Unless we’re talking about er discussions. Whereas I think typically we would think it would be 3 of us, but because statutorily 4 is a quorum.

00:31:00,270	it would require 4 people to be discussing it. That is correct. You guys are a bit of a special board. You have a really, you know, we’ve known that. You, you have the, the unique task or job to to vary from the law really and vary from those ordinances.

00:31:17,900	So I understand why Century Code has that a little additional level of of requirement for approvals. So open records, um, I think a lot of you have worked kind of in this industry a little bit before, emails, voicemails, texts, um, regarding a particular project can be, um, requested as an open records request, and you would have to

00:31:37,170	submit that, um, deletion of any of your texts or emails or anything like that, um. rarely occurs without a, uh, digital footprint or a bread crumbs. So by deleting it, maybe you wouldn’t still be. held accountable.

00:31:58,070	So, so in addition, if there is a suspicion that you’re not handing over documentation that has been requested via the open records, um, policy or requests, then you would be in violation. So again, if we would receive one it goes through our City attorney’s office, they’ll forward it down to whomever, um, would be responsible for that particular item or request, and then we would go forth and gather the information on our

00:32:16,630	end and if there is any additional correspondence that we would have via email or anything like that, we would let them know that you would be probably somebody that they should contact.

00:32:40,800	Conflict of interest, um, doesn’t happen often, um, it occurs when your personal interests, particularly your financial interest of yourself, your family, um, or your business classes with what you’re asked to do during the year board session. Um, you can disclose the conflict. Um, you can recuse yourself, or you can ask the board, um, after you declo disclose that you may have a conflict to take a vote and decide whether or not you do.

00:32:59,330	Ex parte communication, um, again, it’s a little bit similar to some of that open meeting stuff that we talked about. It’s communication between you and any other person interested in an item before you, that could be the applicant that could be neighbors, that could be your buddy from the YMCA, which, whichever, um, you know that

00:33:20,900	any communications that we get when we publish the agenda and we send out those APO notifications. We send those to you prior to the meeting. Um, for that reason, you may have noticed you guys are listed on our website as board members.

00:33:38,370	Your contact information isn’t, we don’t give out your contact information. We direct somebody who, you know, wants to maybe know who’s on the board to look at our website. We don’t tell them where you work, we don’t tell them where you go. Go out for coffee. We don’t give them your phone number or email address.

00:34:01,230	Do you have questions On the bylaws Article 3 Yes. The board adjustment shell consists of 6 members, correct? I have a little bit. You’re jumping the gun here. He, he did, and that’s OK. He’s excited. He got really fired up by states that you’d need 4 votes, and you know, we abide by one and we don’t abide by the other.

00:34:20,500	So, I’ll, I’ll give you a little history on these Bylass here. Um, we look at them every year. We probably haven’t noticed before we do that, were there any questions on the first presentation that Jenny did or any comments. OK. All right.

00:34:39,730	So, a little history on, on the bylaws years ago we had 5, I don’t know if any of you were on the board at the time, but we consistently had a hard time getting a quorum. not even being able to hold meetings.

00:34:59,500	So it was decided, um, right or wrong, um, whoever you know gave us that information whether it was multiple attorneys ago or whomever suggested that we increase to 6, and we thought, oh, that’s a great idea that way. We’ll gamble a little bit if we don’t get everybody, we can kind of guarantee run the odds, we’ll, we’ll get at least 4, we operated like that for 15 years, probably.

00:35:18,100	Um, where previous city attorney Janelle Combs, probably when she was putting this information together for us. Um, a year or two ago said, hey, wait a minute, why do you have 6? You have 6 in your ordinance, you have 6 in your bylaws.

00:35:31,070	State law says you have to have 5, and we went, 00 my gosh, OK, we’ll retool, we’ll rethink this. That’s when we took that 6th member of the Board of Adjustment and asked him to be an alternate. So there’s no rule that says we can’t have an alternate. We just can’t have 6 sitting at this table.

00:35:47,170	So if you would like, we can work towards possibly filling an alternate position and modifying the bylaws to include that. OK this I, I do remember that. Mhm. 6 member all the time and. Um-hum. So. Yeah. And that’s what it’s coming from I don’t know. if we really needed the alternate.

00:36:14,800	I don’t know if that ever really worked out much, but once in a while. Once in a while. Um-hum. But that’s up to the staff, I guess. You know, and one thing we’ve chatted about to kind of talking through having what happened maybe last month to this month and and working with our counterparts in other communities, Fargo, Grand Forks,

00:36:31,800	um, I believe Fargo and Grand Forks, um, will give the applicant, um, a heads up when we do quorum calls and say, look, we’ve only got 4. This is what could possibly happen. We’re happy to reschedule your meeting to the next month and hope that we can get 5, and that’s been successful for them.

00:36:51,630	and we can start doing that if you’d like as well. Yeah, that’s interesting. because it, it, it, I mean, it’s every community within our state has to abide by that so you know what we’re kind of experiencing, they experience as well.

00:37:11,500	Yeah, and I, when it comes to having 5 versus 6 or having, or having an alternate, having an alternate. I think with the common use of Zoom, we’re more likely to get that absent member present. even if they’re present remotely. which is I think, a real beneficial. Yeah, Chair Clark, that’s a very fair point. Thank you. Welcome.

00:37:37,500	Any other questions? I like the idea of reaching out to the applicant to let him know that in doing quorum call that it might. be to their advantage to wait till the next month when there’ll probably be because we’ve been doing pretty well at having members present I think we’ve just probably had fewer meetings than we’ve had in the past

00:38:02,500	Chain Bormans, I think that’s an excellent idea, and we will start doing that. And then we do, um, Quorum call you a little earlier in the week. A lot of our other boards we call that day, but we do call you guys earlier in the week because we don’t meet as often as we used to.

00:38:23,270	Do for the bylaws, would that one change is the one that you’re recommending. It is. Do we need to take any formal action to make that change? Do we need to have a motion? I think it’s best for us to have a motion and direct staff to make that change and then take a vote.

00:38:39,900	OK. Um in addition to that proposed change, does anyone else have any proposed changes to the bylaws? that we should be considering. Hm. And this isn’t the proposed change to the bylaws, but the website also has the same discrepancy. of 6. Does it still? Well, it did today. OK. Well, I’ll take a look at that again.

00:39:18,370	I, I noticed that, uh, but it’s uh, not on the link, it’s when you, if you go into the website uh search for Board of Adjustments. It comes up with a um right at the top. OK. Explaining what the board of adjustments is, and it starts by saying there’s 6 members. OK, I’ll take care of that.

00:39:45,000	when you actually read into it inside it says 5. and I noticed that when uh, when I was looking at uh, the applications for, for the different boards. I noticed that it’s at 6. Well, I appreciate that. I’ll take a look at it. Clark. I also have one other possible suggestion.

00:40:12,230	Um, given Mr. Seifert’s comment about clarification that you only need 3 to denied. Maybe that’s worth putting under So on page 29 of the, of the digital packet where it has put that you need for, you need concurrence of 4, maybe saying a denial requires just a simple majority. I like that as well. Thank you.

00:40:30,470	It’s the best crystal clear. I got it here OK. So we’ve had some discussion on that. Do we have somebody willing to move forward with the motion to address those issues. I’ll move that we approve the bylaws as presented with two amendments, Article 3, I A. The Board of Adjustment shall consist of 5 members, not 6.

00:41:14,170	in Article 6 Item B that a simple majority is needed to deny a request Thank you. That will work Um I’ll let you take a vote. OK, any discussion on that? I or, excuse me. We need a second on that. Second. Thank you.

00:41:44,100	Any discussion on that I think those are great, um proposed changes. Let’s take a roll on that. Board member Wengler. Yes. For Meer Lee. Yes. Board member Seifert. Yes. Board member Jansen? Yes. Chair Clark, yes. OK, thank you Now, so I will amend the bylaws and they will be ready for your review and hopefully approval at our next meeting.

00:42:04,900	Perfect. Thank you. um that’s all we have for tonight’s meeting. Um, so let’s Adjourn our meeting at 5:43. And if I had a hammer, if I had a gavel