00:00:04,160	S1:
City Current. Produced by Dakota Media Access. In-depth discussion with Bismarck and Mandan city officials. Watch on Government Access channel 602 HD or tune in to radio access 102.5 FM. Always local. Always current.

00:00:26,160	S2:
Welcome to this Bismarck City Commission edition of City Current. A few of the topics we'll touch on today. Update on the triage center. We'll get the preliminary budget for the new police department and salute our public workers as they responded to that Lockport apartment fire last week. Thanks for joining us. I'm Tom Gerhardt from Dakota Media Access. Joining me is Jason Tomanek, Bismarck City Administrator. Good to see you. Good day to you. It's been a pretty, uh. Last night's meeting had a lot of meat on the bone, I guess I would say. But to start things off, first of all, you recognized Apex Engineering for their work with the Siddique collaboration there for the South Washington Project. They received an award.

00:01:09,340	S3:
An award from the American Council of Engineering Companies. It's the Engineering Excellence Award, and this was for South Washington Street. As you mentioned, this was a project a couple of years ago that involved a variety of things from sidewalks, street lighting, shared use path, a ton of landscaping, a roundabout. There's a transit pullout along the way, and this is the conversion of the South Washington Street corridor from two lanes to three lanes. And this was paid for using the half cent sales tax. But the the award went to Apex Engineering Group, which was our consulting engineers that helped on this project. And a couple of their staff were there to share the award with our commissioners and Gabe Schell. Our city engineer did a nice job introducing them and talking about the project. So this doesn't happen every day. We don't always get an award. But as Gabe pointed out now, when people drive South Washington Street, it is the award winning.

00:02:04,870	S2:
South.

00:02:05,350	S3:
Washington Street corridor.

00:02:07,390	S2:
So I happen to be there actually just a couple of days ago visiting some friends, and it's just astounding the amount of growth. I know we're getting off topic a little bit, but there's a lot happening on that South Washington area.

00:02:19,430	S3:
Yep. You jump across Burleigh Avenue now and that was once a cornfield is now a variety of business condos and residential units showing up. And you've got that large apartment complex there as well. So yeah, South Bismarck is still continuing to grow.

00:02:35,390	S2:
National Public Works Week is May 17th through the 23rd. But I wanted to mention that and thank our public works folks, but also alert people to an open house that's taking place May 19th from 5 to 8.

00:02:49,650	S3:
P.m. and that will be at the Public Works Facility, 601 South 26th Street, will have Uh, equipment on display. It sounds like some door prizes. There will be a ton of activities for the kiddos to do. It's free, open to the public. If you're interested in what our facilities look like or what any of the equipment looks like. If you want to talk with staff, I suspect our forestry mascot, Forest Von Flickintale will be there as well. So if you want to give somebody a fuzzy high five, that would be the chance.

00:03:17,210	S2:
So on the on the graphic, gotta be there. Yeah. Right. And uh, of course 601 South 26th Street again, May 19th from 5 to 8 p.m. and, uh, yeah, you probably get to see some pretty cool equipment too, I'd imagine.

00:03:30,370	S3:
Definitely. Yeah. And interact with some of the staff. I mean, these people do this work day in and day out, in some cases 24 hours a day when we're talking about snow removal and some of those activities.

00:03:41,090	S2:
So kind of the offensive lineman of the community. Yeah. Uh, doing all the, all the work but not getting a lot of attention. So a nice, nice time to say thanks for all the work that they do on the regular agenda. The community triage center, Rene Mont came and provided a really thorough update on what's happening, and I thought we could go through some of the things that she talked about and just put a graphic up on screen. There were five activities in this phase two of this triage center, and I know there's a few things you wanted to touch on.

00:04:16,110	S3:
Yeah, I think just at the top, you know, activity number one, convene and organize. So that's really a major role of public health in this entire project is to pull all the agencies, all the stakeholders together and really be able to conduct informed conversations. There are a lot of service providers already in the community with the triage center is looking to do is bring them into a singular location. The term Renée uses often is wraparound services. So it's not just a low barrier shelter, but then it's also some of the services that can come with it, whether it be addiction counseling or detox services, that can certainly be part of it. Or maybe it's just helping people get back on their feet with an employment opportunity or some of those things along the way. So the city's role to bring the stakeholders together and have these intentional conversations about what it is we're looking to accomplish, what it is we're looking to do to try and solve some of these problems. I think that's that's a very important thing, a distinction that we need to talk about. But then also, Renee shared a tremendous amount of data that they've collected over the past few weeks with survey information from people that are experiencing homelessness in the community. What caused it? How often has this happened in your life? Where did you come from prior to living in the Bismarck Mandan area? Some of those statistics were very interesting. I think about 75% of the people that they surveyed at that time indicated that Bismarck is home to to them, and there was something in their life that caused them to become homeless. Didn't get into all the specifics of that. But then also, what are some of the desires and the needs of people that are experiencing homelessness at that time? What would a triage center mean to them, and the safety and the security of a place where they can maybe have some storage for their personal items? So when they are out looking for a job, they know that their personal belongings will be there when they come back and they don't have to drag them along and go to some of these places and do these things with them. But we have also talked about the impact of maybe deferring some of those visits to the emergency room. In a lot of these cases, people don't have another option when they're experiencing a medical situation, so they'll visit the emergency department. We've heard from Sanford their numbers for emergency department visits is up and setting records in the community as well. And so these are some very pretty bright indicators of areas where the triage center could perhaps intercept some of these individuals and get them to medical treatment, medical facilities that aren't necessarily that frontline emergency department scenario for either hospital in the community. So again, not all the answers, but there is more and more information coming together and informing these decisions as we go forward. And yeah, it takes a little time to get to these answers, but this is very critical information for Renee to be sharing, for stakeholders to be providing for the commissioners to be consuming, because as the Commission navigates these next steps, it's really helpful for us to know what we should and shouldn't be doing.

00:07:23,510	S2:
This was another graphic that I put up on screen that hit me, I think, and to me, it it humanized what someone who's homeless may be experiencing. And the number one answer as to what a priority would be for someone homeless would be just personal safety and security, which is just literally, yeah, basic human needs. And then secondly, uh, access to showers and restrooms. Again, kind of these basic needs that. People in crisis or homeless or what just need places to go and and then be able to get back on their feet. Right. Be productive members of the community if that's the direction they go. Right.

00:08:05,890	S3:
Father Joe Hubbard was there last night or Tuesday night and spoke in support of this triage center. Of course, Father Joe is the new director of Ministry on the Margins. But he shared a story of an individual that he's encountered since his time coming to Bismarck, who was using Ministry on the Margins services, but now has gone through a number of positive steps in his back into the community and working and much happier than initially. So, um, again, no decisions, um, officially, but we will. Public health will continue to move forward on this and continue to report back. And, uh, Renee did touch on the Rural Health Transformation grant that has been made available. There are some potential avenues for the city to explore potential grant funding to really give a good boost to this project moving forward. So the Rural Health Transformation grant is something that's going to likely move pretty quickly. There are some components of it that may or may not work for Bismarck, because we're not necessarily, quote unquote, rural. Uh, but we do serve a large rural community. We know that there are people coming from outside Bismarck, Mandan for the medical services in our in our region. So we'll be looking with local state leaders to try and find a way to best utilize some of those grant dollars that are out there as well.

00:09:28,350	S2:
We also received a report from Chief Meyer on the new Bismarck Police Department that will be Begin construction. It sounds like sometime next April or May, depending upon the weather. But backing up, he gave a little perspective on why there's a need for the the new police department, Of course you've said. And he reiterated the current station was built in 1979. It caught my attention. They had 52 sworn officers at that time, and now they have the ability to have up to 136. So more than doubled. And they're just, as he said, simply out of space.

00:10:03,120	S3:
Correct. Yeah. And the building has been well used. It has served its purpose tremendously. We will find a way to repurpose that building as the process continues to unfold. For the design of the new the new police headquarters in northeast Bismarck. Some of the topics that were touched on last night, there were two architects that we've engaged with that are helping us get through this process, JLG locally. And then they've partnered with an agency, Roth Shepherd, which they're based in the Denver area. Roth Shepherd specializes in just law enforcement centers. And JLG, of course, being the local architect can navigate the, you know, the Bismarck Mandan construction and design scene pretty fluently. So between Eric Hoffer and Brian Berryhill representing JLG and Ross Shepherd respectively. They kind of tag team the presentation of Where Are We today and What Do We Know? And ultimately where we ended up was kind of the potential dollar amount that it would take to construct and fit up this entire facility. But before we get there, they've talked about what have they done to this point. There have been a lot of discussions with the staff, with not just administration staff in the police department, but all the way through the rank and file. They've done ride alongs, they've watched shift changes. They're experiencing a day in the life of an officer. And where are there efficiencies that could be gained? Where are there improvements where maybe there's some some reductions in sizes of office spaces and things like that. As we explore this new location? I think it was it's important to mention the architects at this point are not in the design phase. We don't know what this thing is going to look like yet. What we do know is the square footages and the sizes for the components that will eventually fit together into a comprehensive and cohesive design. So right now they're looking at basically programmatic and space needs. How many square feet do we need for training, for parking, for locker rooms, for briefing rooms, for community space? All of that ends up coming into a total square footage. And I think we're in the neighborhood of 103,000 537,000ft². It's an interesting number because many years ago, back in 2019, 2020, the city embarked on a space needs study with a different architectural firm, and they helped us determine public health, public works and PD. This the information that they gave us back in 2020, compared to the information that a completely different group has come to today, they're within about 1500 2000ft² of each other. That is just astonishing to me that I don't I don't even know how to describe this. Other than that we have very good information from two design professionals for them to get within 2000ft² when we're talking over 100,000ft². Right. That tells me, as the administrator, that we are being very intentional with the design. We are being very modest with our requests and our needs, and that there isn't a lot of abandoned or underutilized space where we're being the most productive with what we've got. And ultimately, where does this get to us? Well, this gets us to, I guess, maybe the the potential target number, which is what the commission was asked to determine last night based on the information from the architectural team that we'll be doing the design work and the construction manager at risk that we have hired, those two organizations are working collaboratively to get us the most well-informed construction numbers that we can get. And the number that was shared last night if we're going to construct this thing and fit it up, meaning it's got all the carpet and all the desks and everything that we need to occupy that space. It's around $97 million. That's the deviation from the information we got 5 or 6 years ago. At that time, the price was about half. And so I think the takeaway from this is 2020, 2021 disrupted everything. But it had significant impacts to the construction and delivery of materials and goods, the procurement of goods. It's not going to get any cheaper as we go forward between labor rates and procurement and all of these things. And so $97 million is a it's a big scary number, I understand that. But Commissioner Risch pointed out we have a dedicated funding source for this, thanks to the voters back in November of 2024. They said yes to a half cent sales tax and a portion of that half cent sales sales tax collection will go towards the construction of police and fire and emergency services. And so that will be the revenue that we would use to build this facility. That's not to say that we're going to be frivolous with these dollars. We still have to be extremely careful as we go forward. But right now we're we're on a good schedule. We'll really start to get into the meat of the design and really get to tighten up these numbers. Some things are going to grow a little bit, some things are going to shrink a little bit. But the commission said consensus wise okay, if 97 is your number then let's target that number. Keep us informed along the way. We'll definitely have some more benchmarks and milestones before we get to that guaranteed maximum price. That's part of the process that we go through with construction manager at risk delivery. But ultimately, it seems like we got a thumbs up from everybody across the board. We appreciate their their trust and support in this, and we will continue to work forward and come back with more information once we. Once we have those items in hand.

00:15:38,460	S2:
So at the preliminary budget Commission accepted that passed it last night. If I remember right now, design would start this summer. They needed that okay to move forward. Correct. Doesn't mean it's going to cost that much, but it's approved or preliminary lead preliminarily to that amount. That's the target. And then then fall and then again potentially next. Uh, spring construction would.

00:16:02,700	S3:
Be hoping best time for us as a, as an organization looking for contractors, you know, February, March of next year so they can start to build their schedules. We get generally favorable bids at that time. So if we can push push bids out in early 2027, we're hoping for groundbreaking in April and May and then about 22 months worth of construction. So if we're groundbreaking in May, maybe we're ribbon cutting in October of 28 somewhere in there. And, uh, we'll a long time right between now and then, a lot of decisions that need to be made. But it's it's fun to talk about the timeline. It's it's interesting to go through this process and we'll keep everybody updated along the way.

00:16:45,280	S2:
And again, this is in northeast Bismarck.

00:16:48,240	S3:
The corner of century East Century Avenue and Valley Forge Street. So we're just west, not even a quarter mile west of the intersection of Century and Centennial. Yeah.

00:16:59,080	S2:
Moving on. We, uh, you came to the podium then to talk about the City of Bismarck's comprehensive annual report. I think you said something of this nature from this comprehensive of a level hasn't been done in a.

00:17:12,680	S3:
Lot of my knowledge. Yeah. So I'm coming up on 20 years with the city. And in my time there were many departments that would do individual annual reports. I started out in the planning department, and so we were reporting on the number of permits, the number of applications, you know, the type of work that we were doing. What this comprehensive annual report does is it reports out from every city department, and now not all the information is the same, because certainly not every department is doing the same type of work, but it is the general scope and and breadth of their work that is being reported out. And so it's a it's a good collection of information. But it's not just that there's a little history of Bismarck. There's projects that we worked on just throughout the year of 2025. And so, as the name implies, in annual report, we'll be looking at doing this year over year. So those projects and things would change. But much of the data in my mind will carry through from year over year. So then you can start to hold up these annual reports and say, well, what were we doing in 25 versus what are we doing now in 28? You know, all of that helps inform staffing levels, um, fees for services, the types of work that we're doing. What are the trends. But I think it's important to note that none of this would have been successful had it not been for the help of a couple of students. Yeah, that.

00:18:33,050	S2:
Was.

00:18:33,210	S3:
The Bismarck State College.

00:18:34,630	S2:
Cool.

00:18:35,070	S3:
Touch. So we've had good luck in the past working with students. Previously, we worked with some design students from the United Tribes Technical College. They helped us with a media kit. It's another way that we're trying to help get the word out of who we are as an organization in this go around. It was two semesters worth of work for these students at BSc. The their primary role was to help them not not necessarily gather the data, but to build the data into a format that we could use as a printed document. And so a lot of the design work, the how the pages are laid out, how the information flows, the graphics that were used, the images that were available. All of that came from Kayla nd Kerstin Hills, Hilzendeger a couple of students at BSC. I mentioned this at the podium. I think this is great for students to be able to hold up a document that they were part of, and to show a potential employer in the future that says, I did this as a college student, I helped create this material. I think that gives them an advantage in the workforce when they're out looking for professional employment, but it also just gives them something for their portfolio, something that they can differentiate themselves from anybody else in the future. So it's a great collaborative effort. I appreciate all the departments that came together. We had several of these copies printed, so we'll be sharing them with our community stakeholders. We'll have it posted on our website. I think there's an announcement that's gone out on social media. So you can click the link. You can read through the whole document. We would love people's feedback. Are there things that you would expect to see in an annual report that we didn't include, or is there a bunch of information that somebody might not find terribly valuable? We can help you understand that, but we would we would love some feedback to to know, hey, we put a lot of time into this. Did we hit the mark? Did we do something that provided value and and benefit to the community? Or do we just spend a bunch of time on something? Nobody's going to look at you since the prior.

00:20:30,410	S2:
Exactly. And just a shout out, I guess, to the citizens of Bismarck, I know you have the collected photos from 2025, so we saw the beautiful cover. I'm certain there are a number of images throughout the annual report throughout that our contributions from from folks that live in Bismarck from from 2025.

00:20:49,060	S3:
Correct. And we do give them photo credit. There's a page in the document where we do recognize their submission. So this call for photos has been great. We have a very picturesque community, and it's with everybody having a smartphone in their pocket. It seems like everyone's a some level of professional photographer, and when they're willing to share those images, we're glad to use them and and and share that information too.

00:21:13,620	S2:
Let's just touch on the city's procurement policy. You hired a procurement officer in 2025. We heard last night, and there's been a lot of time and effort put into developing a new policy. I heard last night that the Bismarck policy will be more stringent than the federal government policy. And. Heard about dollar thresholds. And maybe some of this is a little into the accounting nerdy world. But I think as a taxpayer, people would want to hear about this.

00:21:43,120	S3:
It's all about accountability. For us, it's about being able to purchase goods and services at the at a competitive rate. Um, did we have a procurement policy before? Yes, absolutely. Did we have an individual focused on procurement for the betterment of the entire organization? No, not until this year. Uh, there are 25 budget. So with the onboarding of Joshua Fern, he has been a wealth of knowledge. He's got prior experience in other places, both government and private sector procurement. And when we cut Josh loose on this project, he just went after it. And it has been great to have the buy in and the feedback from all the departments as well, because different departments have different needs when it comes to procurement. Greg Haug at the airport is going to have a different process to procure services through the FAA or general construction because of the FAA. Then somebody may be in city engineering that's looking for professional engineering services. And so what Josh did was consolidate the policy that we had today, but then really amplify it with all the different components that we need for each department to be thinking about. And you're talking about levels of purchasing. So we have a $10,000 threshold, supplies and contractual services with a cost of $10,000 or less, may be procured on the open market without competitive bidding. So up to ten grand directors have the authority to go out and purchase things that they need, but anything between 10,000 and 100,000. Now we're talking about a request for quotes, maybe a request for proposals, but definitely multiple bids. Multiple examples of here's the same item. Here's three different prices. Now we'll take the best in the lowest cost of all of these things. But then level three, anything over $100,000, we are at a formal competitive solicitation, which is a request for proposals that we get into. Also, issues with sole source purchasing and emergency purchasing sole source is a unique topic. You think about some of the equipment that is part of the water treatment plant or the wastewater treatment plant, and we've got these giant pumps and they are very specialized pumps because they're part of a system. You can't just go to the local hardware store and pick up that pump. So a sole source becomes a very valid discussion, sole source, meaning you only have one vendor to go to. Well, if all the equipment at the wastewater treatment plant is project why brand we need to buy project wise pump when the pump fails. So Josh did a great job addressing all of these things. It was great to see the commissioners tremendously supportive of this. I think it was Commissioner Risch that noted. Josh is the procurement department, which was kind of funny. Josh is part of the finance department, but his impact for the organization has just been great with all the work that he's done. So we're happy to have this. We I'm anxious to roll it out and let all the departments work through these processes that have been established. And then anxious to see are we did how close did we get? Do we need to make any tweaks or do any adjustments along the way? But I'm sure that this document will serve us well into the future.

00:24:58,090	S2:
Well, he mentioned, you know, benchmarks, century code, other communities. I mean, it's not like this was just developed out of thin air. I mean, it took in a lot of comprehensive look at how to develop this and other policies. I wanted to before we get into just a few things happening around the community, just toward the end of the meeting last night, Fire Chief basically came to the podium. We had that apartment fire at Lockport and just tremendous community response. And I think, uh, I said to you, Renee Moch had a line that it was the best of public service. So many agencies in the city came to the surface to help in this response. And I just wanted to give you a couple of minutes to talk about that.

00:25:41,470	S3:
Yeah, it was certainly an unfortunate, very sad situation with an apartment fire, with any fire. But I think we need to touch on some of the highlights here, that there were no fatalities. There was a minor injury from one of the firefighters and just two animals perished in the fire, say so that that is a great outcome. But I think we're Joel was very wise to bring this forward was it isn't just the fire department that goes on here. It's the Public Works Service department bringing fuel to the fire trucks to make sure that they can continue to work continuously so that too many things, but also the Public Works Utilities department making sure that there is water in the hydrants that the pumps are pushing water in this general direction at one point.

00:26:26,120	S2:
Increased pressure, he said.

00:26:27,560	S3:
Last night there were nine fire apparatuses functioning simultaneously. If each one is drawing 1000 to 1500 gallons a minute, that water doesn't just show up in the pipe. So Utility operations is getting involved. But then, of course, you've got the police department. I heard a story of one police officer who was running oxygen tanks back and forth. When a firefighter would run out of oxygen. He was picking up those bottles and taking him back to the fill station. So here's another agency that's coming forward. But then in the middle of the night, what? Nobody realizes that our building official, Brady Blaskowski was down at City Hall, found the building plans from the original design, and was working with our fire marshal, Owen Fitzsimmons, to better understand how this building was constructed so the firefighters could get at the situation. I mean, those things go unannounced, but that is the really the response that comes with an organization like ours. Never mind the fact that at about 930 that night, Public Health gets a call. And now we've got residents with some medical needs. Everybody's getting displaced. Some people don't have their medical medications. Some people have special needs because of different abilities within their bodies. And so public health comes in and deals with some of these things. It was just it's who we are as an organization. We're all going to work together. We're all going to do what we need to do to make this happen. But I think it was great for Joel just to kind of touch on some of the other city departments that were part of this. That doesn't even mention all the private sector agencies that came forward, whether it be Enable, Pride, North Dakota Alliance Association, the Red Cross, Salvation Army. I mean, there's so much response to this, and it's just nice to see the community, the citizens coming forward with donations and support and all of this. So the story could have been much different. No doubt about it. But I think it was great that the Fire Chief Boespflug, was able to demonstrate that we as the city. We are a team and we are all going to come together to these types of responses, and we're going to do what needs to get done.

00:28:26,630	S2:
Yeah, and that's what really struck me. I'm glad you went through his. And I think he said last night, hopefully you didn't leave anybody out. But it's just far. It's like the tip of the iceberg and saluting the fire department. No doubt that just all the other supports there to make the best of a horrible situation. Right. Uh, we've got a public information meeting coming up. The city of Bismarck does, I should say, on the half cent sales tax extension. So May 14th, 4 to 7. I think there are three separate.

00:28:55,830	S3:
I believe on the hour.

00:28:57,070	S2:
On the hour.

00:28:57,670	S3:
There will be a presentation of the half cent sales tax that Gabe Schell or city engineer will provide. But it's also an open house. So if you have questions, there will be information available, staff on hand to ask these questions as well.

00:29:09,590	S2:
So when you head to the polls June 9th, you're informed. But yeah, I didn't want anybody to think it's a three hour presentation. No. Correct. And of course, that'll be at Public Works, 601 South 26th Street. And then if you go to Bismarck Streets, you can find more information about that, but just want to pass that along. Also, June 9th, we just mentioned there's a lot of election info. You know, through the League of Women Voters, we televised as many and have as many debates on demand as possible at that website, Dakota Media Access.org/elections So that's a great resource. There are a number of other resources that you can click on that page to find out everything from where to vote to who the candidates are. And so I wanted to pass that along. The Secretary of State of course, has information to. So you can go to those websites and a couple notes on the library. Of course, math has come and gone, but on the 15th, just wanted to alert folks that the library will be closed.

00:30:13,330	S3:
There will be closed. And this is a needed step in the renovation of the public restrooms throughout the library. And so. Unfortunately, due to the dust and the fumes and the perils of construction, it's just easier to keep the door shut that day and just welcome the public back on Saturday the 16th.

00:30:32,270	S2:
And the good news on Wednesday, May 27th. Used book sale, the summer reading kickoff. That'll be from 2:30 to 4:30. And finally, if you want to find out what's going on in Construction World the Bismarck, you can go to BismarckND.

00:30:51,790	gov/streets S2:
So a lot of information passed along today. If you want to play it back or see last night's City Commission meeting, listen to great local music. Download our apps. We have DMA app. You can find community programming, all the public meetings, Radio Access app, a number of podcasts, local music all at your fingertips. You can find it all at Dakota Media Access.org. So until next time for Jason I'm Tom.

00:31:17,840	Have a great day! S1:
For more information on what was discussed in this episode of City Current, visit BismarckND.gov or call (701) 355-1300.

00:31:27,760	S1:
If you have suggestions, comments or issues you would like addressed in future episodes, contact us at info@freetv.org. This program airs on Government Access Channel two and 602 in HD or on Radio Access 102.5 FM. It's also available as a podcast on RadioAccess.org and as a video viewing link at FreeTV.org. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of City Current.