00:00:09,370	Everybody to the first meeting of the technical advisory Committee for the BismarckMandan MPO in 2026. It is 10 a.m. on January 20th, 2026, and I will call the meeting to order. Can we have a call for the roll please, Tracy. Dan N Naenn or Daniel Nairnn here. Tim Jacobs Deidre Hughes here. Gabe Schell.

00:00:52,100	He Loretta Marshakk Loretta Marchek Jarek Wigness He John Sai Logan Byzy Mitch Flanagan Natalie Pierce Will Hutchings and Chair Ripple here Thank you. The meeting is called to order. First order of business is public comment.

00:01:39,700	At this time, we will receive public comment that is restricted to items on the current agenda or the prior tax agenda of December 2025, excluding any public hearing items. Are there any comments from the public at this time? Se call for public comments. and a third call for public comments. Hearing and seeing none, public comment period is closed. We’ll move on to the tack agenda.

00:02:04,730	I’m sure that you’ve all noticed that there is a little different format to the tac agenda this month um as a reminder, TA and Policy board have both recently questioned the need for presentation of items that are being presented primarily for informational, uh, information, uh, I guess, um, or informational purposes such as administrative modifications to the tip or administrative modifications to the UPWP or

00:02:29,330	perhaps very, very brief progress reports on studies, uh, and so last month we did revise our format to put these types of informational items at the end of the agenda, um, even after other business.

00:02:48,630	However, we were further directed by policy board last month to actually change the format of the agenda to just include consent items and a regular agenda so that um these types of informational items can be put under a consent agenda. And so that’s what you see before you today. So we do have 4 items on the consent agenda, including the consideration, um, and approval of minutes from the December 15, 2025 TA meeting.

00:03:12,530	The Bismarck 2025 traffic data collection final status report, the 2025, um, intelligent Transportation Systems Regional architecture, final report revision, and notice of a 2026, 2029 transportation improvement program or TTIP modifications. All of these items were included in your packet for review.

00:03:41,970	What are the wishes of the tack Cape before a motion, can you, Kim, explain if the policy board provided any other direction as to what items they’d want to see on regular agenda versus consent agenda, or how that’s determined. They just specified items to be put on the consent agenda would include things like the minutes, uh, and again, the notification for administrative modifications and um minor report.

00:04:04,330	updates Um, just a note too. It sounds like those online are not getting audio. It looks like maybe Stephen went back to make a note of it, but Yeah, OK Thanks. I appreciate that. Well, we might have um members that were not hearing us call the roll. Uh, any further discussion? OK. All right.

00:04:34,230	We have a motion to approve the consent agenda. and a second Roll call vote, please Daniel Naren Yes, Tim Jacobs Deidre Hughes? Yes, Gabe Schell. Yes. Loretta Marshak I don’t think they can hear us, um, Jarek Wigness? Yes. John Saki Logan Bey. Yes. Mitch Flanagan Will Hutchings Yes, and Cheripple Yes, the consent agenda is approved.

00:05:20,100	Moving on to the regular agenda. So Kim, I’m thinking we might need to. We are not getting a quorum on our voting. No, because we’re not. Nobody online is able to hear us at the moment.

00:05:43,800	and we need audible, um we need audible votes from our voters who are participating remotely, so, uh, but my count we’re we’re short a quorum vote Chair, what is the quorum? Can you explain? how the freight industry representative particular is included or not included in the quorum if there’s not that person isn’t a person I know. Sure, thanks, Gabe.

00:06:10,970	Um, actually, it’s just based on our bylaws and so we do have two open positions at this time, the freight industry representative position has been open and we haven’t had representation on the tac for actually um going on almost several years now, um, in addition to that, we are still lacking a representative for the city of Mandan planning department.

00:06:36,530	So we do have two positions that, um, are not filled, um, however, because the bylaws have not been amended, we still need to go buy a quorum count of 8 voting members to approve any action by the board. um so right now we’re, like I said, we’re following one short on our For voting Hey.

00:07:03,170	If, if I made it, I mean, this doesn’t affect the decision today, but what would be the process for amending the bylaws? Is it something the TTA committee can do themselves, or does that require a policy board decision? It does require policy board and it would require that we bring it toacac and Policy board for consideration both

00:07:21,870	yeah. it would have to be placed on the agenda. We couldn’t just bring that forward. OK. Well, I would advise that we do that moving forward if we can put some efforts if it’s something that the City of Mandan’s planner position isn’t filled, that, that can’t be filled.

00:07:40,100	So for that period of time where it’s not even a position that the city mandate has employed how would we expect that person to participate in this board, so there might be some ways to, to talk about that if those positions exist or if there’s a person in that role or in an acting role that it counts, but if not, well, I, I don’t know

00:07:55,100	if it would need to hold it against our quorum calculation. It is something that we could consider definitely. Um, the other alternative is that our bylaws do provide for, um, proxies to be appointed, um, so in in the case of the city of Mandan, if they have um alternate staff who would be willing to provide their

00:08:20,600	expertise on the tac. They could certainly um they could sit in that position until such time it were filled on a full-time basis. Uh, that would be at the discretion of Mound Dawn and I guess given the situation, just so that we have full representation or as as full as possible, um, that

00:08:39,900	might be something that we could encourage. Um um apparently it’s funny I don’t know, what they could get on theota media Ax access and they talk the here, but then they were that’s what pretty bad. Yeah, and we can’t accept, um, like a, a raised hand.

00:09:09,600	We can’t accept a chat, um, I or nay for the vote. It has to be audible. We should have some Jeopardy music playing now. I guess for the sake of discussion, I’d, I’d support Gabe’s recommendations while we’re looking at our, our bylaws discussions and and also just to point out that I think other boards that

00:09:34,170	are managed in the city do usually do not count the quorum, at least in City of Bismarck, um, do not count unfilled seats as part of the corum and for the planning and zoning Commission, so it might be um, consistent with practices. Thanks.

00:09:49,270	I appreciate that comment, and I think this is definitely something that staff can look into updating here and then, you know, bringing back to the boards for consideration.

00:10:07,370	Um, I’m currently at an odd number, or would it create an odd number if you remove the freight representative we’re at 14 right now, so we’re at an even number, which is, yeah, yeah, is usually um not preferable. We usually like to have an odd number of board members, um but when we, we did add the city of Mandan Planner position, which currently wasn’t in our bylaws prior to, I believe, I don’t know what year that was, um, yeah, it’s been a while,

00:10:26,630	but that did create the the even number of board members for the ac. We might think too because we’ve had such difficulty filling the freight industry representative position, um, we may consider rephrasing that somehow, um, you know, that is that is it has long been taken to mean, uh, freight industry being trucking, um,

00:10:59,800	long haul trucking and transport, uh, maybe we need to expand freight because there are other modes of freight transportation, so, um, that might be some consideration as to expound on that language a little bit. You think about like our UPS FedEx deliveries, you know, and how they. get around the the region.

00:11:20,500	We’ve reached out to the North Dakota Motor Motor Carriers Association on several occasions and it, it’s looked promising, um but we’ve, we’ve never had anybody successfully uh fill that position and most recently, um, we had an offer by the North Dakota Motor Carriers Association to step into that position, but that was a staff

00:11:50,900	person that would be representing the interests of the motor carriers Association Board, and I said, um, that, that is something that we can’t do. It needs to be, you know, it can be somebody who is employed um, but they need to be representing the, the industry as a whole and not the board interests of an association, Gabe.

00:12:13,870	Maybe it’ll follow up to that, Kim, the the other three MPOs have a trucking or freight industry representative in their tac makeup or maybe it’s a little question if you’re more well suited to respond I think FMO has something related to Fred. I’d have to double check on that.

00:12:31,730	I don’t believe my not definitely does not, nor does Grand Forks, so. I mean, I, I would advocate too that it’s something that it’s a good offer to have out there, it’s a standing offer if someone wants to, great, but if we’re asking and they say no and it’s been multiple years of not being able to feel something.

00:12:45,700	I don’t wanna run into quorum issues. Right. Uh, With these meetings because we can’t conduct our business because there’s maybe just not the right fit anymore and maybe it was a good fit when we had that person previously in that role could be part of that.

00:13:00,800	Um, I need to get a note that for a brief moment they had audio online, um. felt that whatever you did a second ago, 00 it’s working. Um, yeah, B. I think it’s going through the mic in here now, so it might just be worse audio.

00:13:23,500	So if they can hear enough that’s fine If they can hear enough to hear our discussion and you’re talking to, it’s just gonna be like Well, maybe we can check and see if they are hearing us. Someone said Someone is? to OK OK Well. Try to do. Try it and see what works.

00:13:51,070	Yeah, let’s, let’s start with the roll call and in fact, um, we’ll probably call the entire meeting back to order. So, um, because we now have a quorum Yeah, we’re going to go and reverse this morning. Um, I’ll call the, the January 20th, 2026 meeting of the technical Advisory Committee to order and we’ll begin with a roll call, please. OK, I’m just gonna do the ones online that were missed. So Tim Jacobs. here. OK. Loretta Marshak.

00:14:23,630	Loretta Marshiek She was still having some audio issues in the chat. Tim. And then John Saki Mitch Flanagan Yeah OK and that’s it OK Well, we were able to hear one, so that’s enough for our call. Well, I heard Mitch and I heard Tim.

00:15:07,000	Yes it’s so Yes it’s so quiet. Yes it’s so quiet OK, yeah Yes it’s so quiet., we got it from the laptop up by the podium. I heard Mitch. OK, all right. So we do have 8 that are in attendance now. Um, we’ve already gone through the public comment period.

00:15:25,600	However, I will have to reopen that public comment because if there were any um members of the public that wanted to public to prevent present comment they did not have the opportunity. So opening the public comment for items on the current agenda or the prior attack agenda. Second call for public comment. and a 3rd call from public for public comment. Public comment period is closed.

00:15:51,730	Um, we’ll move on to the consent agenda, uh, for those that are online and did not hear, we’ve changed the agenda format based on tac and then further recommendations from the policy board to um forego formal presentations on items like UPWPD administrative modifications or administrative modifications to the tip.

00:16:22,730	Also, um, very light progress reports for studies that um are of very minor significance, um, or do not merit um any final presentation, um, based on this direction that was received from policy board last month, which would also include the approval of a minute, you see the new format, and we will begin with the

00:16:43,100	consent agenda. There are 4 items on that. One is to consider uh the approval of minutes from the December 15, 2025 TAC meeting. We also have the Bismarck 2025 traffic data collection final status report.

00:17:13,900	We have a 2025 intelligent Transportation System Regional architecture final report, revision, and notice of 2026, 20209, transportation improvement program or TTIP modifications. All of these items were included in the packet for your review. Uh, we did have a motion by Gabe Schell, uh, for approval of the consent agenda items, Deidre Hughes seconded the motion and we will have a, uh, are there any discussion points? And we all have a role called Vote. Daniel N Nain. Yes.

00:17:40,630	Tim Jacobs Yes Deidre Hughes Yes Gabe Schell. Yes Loretta Marshakk Jarek Wigness Yes. John Sai Mitch Flanagan Yes Will Hutching, and Cher riffle Yes, items on the consent agenda are approved. Moving on to the regular agenda, we have an ATAC Addendum for Fring Jerry Road Master Plan Modeling. Stephen Larson.

00:18:30,730	Thank you, Chair. Give me just one moment to share a screen with everyone. All right, good morning. Uh, today, I’m, uh presenting on exhibit, uh, D in your packet.

00:19:16,700	Uh, this is for an addendum to the uh master agreement with ATAx so the MPO has a master agreement with the Advanced traffic Analysis Center at NDSU for the maintenance of our travel demand model. Uh, so when the MPO or its jurisdictions require additional services from AAC. This is addressed by creating addendums to that master agreement. So today’s addendum concerns services. We would like ATEC to perform to support the ongoing fringe area Roadmaster plan update.

00:19:40,730	The MPO and the consultant are requesting that AA review previous travel demand models that were used to support previous studies that are relevant to this project, the 2014 fringe area roads update and the 2009 Beltway study.

00:20:04,630	ATA will also help to review the current travel demand model with a focus on roadways that were previously identified as future Beltway alignments in the 2014 Fringeeria Road Plan and perform some uh scenario model runs to help the MPO and the studio team understand how realistic the 2014 ForMP alignments are today and to explore alternative ways to accomplish similar transportation goals.

00:20:28,470	So the project will be completed by March 31st of this year. Again, we’re trying, uh, it’s uh February 1st through March 31st time frame. The contracted amount is 14,393. The 80% will be covered by the NPO, 20% will be paid by the 5 participating jurisdictions in this project at the Standard Population breakout, which would lead to Bismarck’s Sherbe’s 1727. Mandans at 576.

00:20:54,430	Burleig’s at 432, and Morin and Lincoln each at $72. Uh, the approved UPWP budget for 2026 has already set aside a little over 26,000 for AA modeling, so your jurisdictions have already budgeted for these local shares this year. So this is not an increase to the existing MPO budget.

00:21:17,330	It is simply utilizing some of the funds set aside for modeling in 206. Um, staff would then be seeking a motion to approve this addendum, uh, and I’m open for any questions. Thank you, Stephen. Any questions for Stephen on the ATAC addendum, uh, Gabe. Stephen, thank you.

00:21:42,500	Just maybe time wise and um process wise, when would the information be given to uh ATAC to run some of these models or model changes potentially relative to what the steering committee or or TA is looking at on the plan or the project because this just opening up the ability to do it but not really kicking off a tact to actually make any changes so.

00:22:00,530	So most of, most of the information ATA already has and the consultant is requesting access to a historic models and then also to be open to utilizing the current model and run scenarios specifically for the focus of this will be on kind of the previously identified beltway roads within that, um, and the time frame we’re trying to

00:22:25,630	um, again, we’re trying to get it completed as quickly as we can so that it can be fed into the um development and fringe area scenarios that the consultant will be bringing to the steering committee and to the public in April. is the idea.

00:22:43,370	Does that answer your question? I’m not sure if I partly I guess I would want to make sure that the steering committee has the opportunity to talk about what it is that we’re authorizing or telling ATAC to to model, um, when it just says option 1 and option 2 in this scope, I’m not sure what option 1 and option 2.

00:22:58,970	And so that that’s just what I wanted to make sure that we understood if that’s just being handled by MPO staff, and ATA or if that’s gonna be part of the steering committee or the full tack, I guess for that matter.

00:23:11,600	Am I understanding is that this will, we will be discussing this at our steering committee meeting next week, uh, but I’ll have to double check. on the exact details of that. Um, most of this has been driven by the consultant need, so I will touch base with Joe on that, but I’m pretty sure, yes, it will be coming to the steering committee next week.

00:23:29,270	OK, and that string committee, you mean this week, right? Oh yeah, this week, sorry, sorry, this week, that’s right. Sounds good. Couple days. It’s been one of those months.

00:23:49,530	Any other questions for Steven? Yeah, I had a question that $26,000 you referenced as um allocated for in the UPWP is that specific for this study or the just all studies that the MPL might need to have it do some modeling for. Yeah, no, it’s general modeling. OK, OK, yeah. Daniel Sure, I just have 11 point to make, and I, I think, I mean, certainly more information is always better.

00:24:06,630	I think just I’d maybe offer a and there’s some cautionary interpretation of the model for this purpose, because there’s not a perfect alignment between the assumptions that the travel demand model was built on and the fringer of Master plans assumptions, um, of course the travel demand model was built for the Metropolitan Transportation Plan, which is really looking at a certain

00:24:24,800	time horizon and a certain assumption about how the city and community will grow in that amount of time, whereas the Fringe Road master plan, as I understand it, is really neutral in terms of the time or the um expectations of the season’s growth, but it’s just really there for showing where the alignments should be if that

00:24:42,530	area does at some point in time grow in the future. So they’re, they’re not quite the same. And so I think maybe just when we use the data just to be mindful of those those differences. Yes, Daniel, thank you for that.

00:25:00,530	No, and yes, the consultant is aware of that we’re, we’re not the, uh, previous models are, so there we we would be utilizing previous travel demand models, they wouldn’t be specific necessarily to the um 2014 PRMP or the 2009 Beltway study, they would be just models that were used as part of that study process, but it won’t be. The parameters won’t be narrow. if that makes sense Great.

00:25:20,730	Any other questions for Steven? Any other comments on the ETAC addendum? If not, we would be looking for a motion to approve. This is Gabe moved to approve. I have a motion for approval. Is there a second? Thank you, Deidre. I have a motion and a second roll call vote, please. Daniel N Naen Yes Tim Jacobs Yes Deidre Hughes, yes.

00:25:53,900	Gabe Schell. Yes. Jarek Wigness? Yes. Logan Bey. Yes. Mitch Flanagan. Yep. Will Hutchings. Yes and Chair Ripple, yes, motion passes Moving on to item number 8 2026, 2029 transportation improvement Program Amendment with Steven. Thank you, Chair.

00:26:28,630	So this month exhibit E in your packet we processed uh one amendment to the 2629 tip, uh, the amendment is being advertised for the required 15-day public comment period. A public hearing will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday at the City County building uh, here and the David Blackstead room on the 2nd floor.

00:26:50,000	So the amendment addresses a project for microsurfacing on North Dakota 810 from 12th Street to Main Avenue. The extents of the project have been increased now to run from the expressway bridge to Main Avenue and the project cost estimates have also increased, as noted on the Amendment form, um, MPO staff would today be seeking a motion to approve the amendment contingent on no substantive public comments being received at the public hearing on Thursday.

00:27:13,970	Um are there any questions Can you just repeat the time of that public hearing? That will be this Thursday 10:00 a.m. at this location, 2nd floor. Any other questions for Stephen regarding the amendment? If not motion to approve to Thank you, Deidre We have a motion to approve.

00:27:49,170	Is there a second? This is Gabe 2 Thank you, Gabe. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Not roll call vote, please Daniel Nain Yes. Hi Jacobs Yes Deidre Hughes? Yes Gabe Schell? Yes. Loretta Marshiek. That’s. Jarek Wigness? Yes. Logan Bey? Yes. Mitch Flanagan Yes Will Hutchings, and Chair Ripple, yes, motion passes.

00:28:25,000	Thank you. Moving on to number 9 is the 2025 Fringe area Road Master Plan update. I believe that we have, well, we’ll see we’re expecting Joel Joe, can you try talking to us and we’ll see if you can hear you. If we can’t, I might just have to pinch hit with the audio issues. I am here.

00:28:44,730	Can anyone hear me? I, for whatever reason, after rejoining the Zoom, the camera doesn’t, I, I can turn it on, but I don’t see myself here, so I don’t know if you can hear audio. That’s pretty tough. I don’t think that that’s Joe.

00:29:01,800	I will just take the tac update and we’ll hope that the audio will be better for policy board. Uh sorry, sorry about that. So now, I will pretend to be Joel for a little bit and not do as well, but we’ll kind of give a brief update on the fringe area road, master plan, there’s been a lot, uh, going on with that plan

00:29:17,270	since uh we had our, we intended to have uh two public meetings in December on the 9th and the 10th. Uh, we were able to hold the Bismarck meeting on the 10th, uh, and that we had some good participation there.

00:29:36,100	Um, the people who were able to attend, uh, enjoyed the interactive activity that the consultant prepared, uh, to really introduce them to the plan and some of the challenges that we face in the update, uh, and then we were had to reschedule the Mandan public meeting due to weather, but we held that on the 13th, uh, and we, again, we had about 1010

00:29:55,700	participants and uh really good engagement. We got some, uh, some good comments. We’ve also been uh have developed and released an interactive map for the public to provide additional feedback and last time I checked, we had a, a good number of comments.

00:30:16,100	It looked like 30 or 40 comments so far on the map and we will continue to be collecting uh, public input on that for at least the next month. Um. so, as far as the public involvement goes, we’re pretty much wrapping up phase one, and we will be, uh, the consultant will be preparing a summary of the findings of that to include with the plan as the update

00:30:35,370	moves forward. We will be holding a second steering committee meeting later this week. I believe that’s Thursday as well, um, but, and then we will, where we will discuss, um, yeah, the data collection efforts that have been ongoing.

00:30:50,730	We are pretty nearly complete with what uh kind of the initial round of data that we need, uh, the ATA modeling that they will be doing to help support this plan and, uh, again, the public engagement that we’ve been doing. So there’s going to be some important discussion points for our committee, uh, later this week.

00:31:09,500	Um and we are, yeah, we’re just, uh, we’re on track and on schedule, uh, for the plan we’re looking at, uh, late summer, uh, for our final, uh, presentation. Are there any questions Um, for the engagement and the uh participants in those meetings, were you getting good representation from the ETA, the, the fringeer.

00:31:29,800	Yes, we actually did get several people or a couple of people in Bismarck and uh I think at least a couple of people and uh the demand and one that were, yeah, that were ETA or kind of um property owners on the outside. of the community Any other questions for Steven on the Fringeeria Roadmaster plan? Oh, all right, thank you very much, Steven. Thank you.

00:31:49,970	Item number 10 on the agenda 2025 Bismarck or Bismann Transit state of transit update. Deidre Hughes. Yeah, that’d be great Thank you. Good morningacac members. I’m happy to report on a few of Bisman Tranz. It’s 2025 accomplishments, as well as provide an update on some of our current projects.

00:32:19,330	Um, we celebrated our fifth year of a clean audit for fiscal year 2024. Um, we also participated in the city-driven transportation steering Committee, which resulted in the recommendation to the Bism or to the Bismarck City Commission to allocate $1.1 million to cover our projected 2025 deficit, plus an additional 1 million for future service changes.

00:32:39,100	Um, I was also able to testify before the state legislature in favor of a Senate Bill 2254, securing $384,123 in urban agency operational funding for 2026 and 2027 state fiscal years.

00:33:01,100	Um, we did have a meeting with the Mayors of Bismarck and Manden and also established a framework for how we would be distributing sales tax funds and uh the split between the two cities. We were rewarded over $1.6 million in competitive federal grants for operations and capital purchases. Uh, in 2025, we exceeded our advertising sales goal, reaching over $95,000 in advertising.

00:33:21,530	Um, we were also able to successfully negotiate our contract with We Drive You, which resulted in a $4 an hour pay increase for all of our drivers. Um, this was really a preparation to the service changes that we’re hoping to um introduce this year.

00:33:41,600	We fully transitioned our fixed-out fleet to wide tire bike racks and introduced 4 replacement pair transit buses into service, including the Flexus, which is equipped to serve both fixedro and paratransit modes. To maintain our fleet replacement schedule, we have already submitted orders for two replacement fixed out buses and 4 replacement paratransit buses in which 85% of the total costs are covered by federal grants.

00:34:03,630	In 2025, we provided 230,833 total trips, most notably the cat hadd at 13.6% ridership increase over 2024 W Pa Transit grew by 2.83%. Based on public input, we implemented a permanent revision to the orange route to provide direct service to CHI Hospital. We also strengthen our community transportation in input committee by recruiting through new members to ensure we remain aligned with the public’s needs.

00:34:23,270	As for 2026, Bizan Transit hosted two public comment meetings on January 13th. The purpose of these meetings was to solicit input from the community on what type of types of service changes they would like to see from Bizan Transit.

00:34:41,370	There was a strong support for the transportation steering Committee’s recommendation of 4 additional hours of cat bus service, and 3.5 additional hours of Sunday demand response service as well as opening that Sunday service to the general public. Other comments included requests for additional route, and additional route in Mandan. Questions on the number of drivers needed for the proposed service changes.

00:34:57,370	The cost of Sunday service and if additional buses would be needed to purchase for the service expansion. The next steps in the service change process is our public hearing, which is scheduled for Thursday at 10:00 a.m. at the transit facility. Comments will be compiled and presented to the Board of Directors for consideration later that day.

00:35:11,800	If the proposed changes are approved by the board, the final step is approval by the Bismarck City Commission. If all goes as planned, I hope to present the changes that the City Commission meeting on February 10th.

00:35:25,330	Um, this will allow us time for recruitment and training of all new drivers and staff members. Our goal is ultimately to launch the service changes on April 1st. Thank you for your time. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them. All right. Well, that was quite a year in review, um, and a lot of things on the burner for 2026 already.

00:35:41,170	Are there any comments or questions for Deidre regarding this man Transit’s activities. or anything upcoming Not seeing anything. Thank you very much, Deidre. I appreciate that. All right Uh, item number 11 on the agenda is other business.

00:36:09,070	Is there any other business to discuss? OK, so I would like to bring up under other business just what we were talking about prior to the beginning of the meeting, uh, some of our remote participants were not able to hear the conversation regarding the um Bismarck Mandan MPO’s B bylaws and the way that they’re written, uh, and the situation that was caused this morning by not having an audible roll call

00:36:28,870	vote of members to achieve a quorum. So right now the bylaws state that for the technical advisory committee, we must have 8 members, um, available to provide an audible vote on action items to achieve a quorum.

00:36:55,100	Uh, we have had difficulty in filling one of those tac positions for the last several years, and we have an additional position that um is open due to the fact that it is an open position within one of our jurisdictions.

00:37:16,100	So the discussion took place, um, at the beginning of the meeting that um MPO staff should take a look at the bylaws, look at amending those and um I think that we kind of hit on the possibility of focusing on that freight advisory, um, position, um, and either expanding the definition definition of freight industry or perhaps making that an optional um position.

00:37:46,170	Also, Daniel Nairn brought up that, um, some city commissions do not recognize an unfilled position as pertaining to necessary quorum and so that could be another option as well that we, um, make sure to include that type of language in our bylaws. Uh, are there any other comments that I might have missed regarding this other business discussion, Jim, there was a question about whether other NPOs across the state have freight representatives on their tack.

00:38:05,900	Um, I stand corrected. It’s FM Cog does not, but they do have a separate freight advisory committee, so that’s how they worked the freight into their their over all structure. OK Do the other two MPOs will have freight members? No, no.

00:38:30,630	OK, thank you very much Any other comments Gabe Because if we end up, uh, Kim getting into drafting or redrafting of bylaws, I believe the position that’s listed in the bylaws as the Bismarck Community Development Director and not the planning director. So there could be some you know work there to address this too if you’re touching it. Absolutely. Thank you. Good point.

00:38:50,600	Um, I was reminded BNSF is a representative though on the Grand Forks NPL, so they have freight and the rail industry, I should say. OK. I guess I admit I’m just as bad about thinking Freight *** trucking, so yeah, I think it’s a common, uh, maybe not misconception, but you know, we fall a little short in including all of our, um, freight transportation

00:39:09,870	industry, so, OK, uh, staffff will be taking a look at the bylaws then, bringing something back Um, we’ll bring this up to the policy board this afternoon under other business and then uh kind of move forward with their direction, but bring something back to you in February to take a look at.

00:39:28,700	Any other, other business? Um, I didn’t realize this big place for our updates. There is the upcoming North Dakota Transportation Conference registration is now open. Um, that, uh, conference is scheduled to be held on March 10th or 11th here at the Bismarck Events Center.

00:39:47,800	Um, and so if you’re interested and I encourage everyone at this table and in those uh who may be watching remotely to uh consider attending. In fact, there’ll be a presentation from one of yours truly here with Steph en doing a presentation for the North Dakota Planning Association there. Great. Uh, and where can folks find that information at Will? Yeah, that’s on DOT’s main website, so D dot.ndd.gov.

00:40:05,870	All right, thank you Anything else for the good of the order? to include other in other business. OK hearing and seeing none, thus meeting is Adjourned. Thank you.