March 5, 2025 • 34 mins
Mary Van Sickle talks to Jim Neubauer about the Mandan city commission meeting on 3-4-25.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
City Current, produced by Dakota Media Access in depth discussion
with Bismarck and Mandan City officials. Watch on Government Access
Channel six oh two HD or tune in to Radio
Access one O two point five FM, Always Local, Always Current.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hello and welcome to City Current. I'm Mary van Sickel
here in the studios at Dakota Media Access. Welcome Jim
Newbar from the City of Mandam.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Good morning, Mary, Thank you for having us today.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Almost springtime. We're looking forward to it.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I think what temperatures wise, it's not as nice as
this past weekend, but we're going to get there.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
We're getting there for sure. But it is March, and
it's early March.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
So fair much. We're going to be careful.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, yeah, it's March fifth. Actually we're recording this program
on March fifth, which is the morning after the Mandan
City Commission Media.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Right, another good meeting last night.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
We went for roughly an hour, so all all.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Is good, and our job here is to talk about
the highlights, right, So that's what we're going to do.
One of the first things on the agenda was under
consent agenda and it was actually pulled for discussion or
should say some clarification. And this has to do with
the Union Cemetery, right, kind of an ongoing issue that
you got up there.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, we noticed that over the last few years that there
has been kind of a sloughing of the hillside on
the east side of the cemetery, and we want to
make sure that if there's something going on in there,
that we can duly protect the cemetery grounds and the
residents and the railroad tracks down below. So the action
last night was when we apply for a Department of
(01:40):
Emergency Services grant, then the city needs to make sure
that our we had a financial commitment, and so there
is a commitment when you apply for the larger grand money,
so they know that the city is serious about this. Yes,
we are. We need to kind of figure out what's
going on and need some help in doing that. So, yeah,
it's kind of a we want to make sure that
(02:01):
all the areas of the cemetery are protected and do
our best to do that.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, we have a map that we can pop up
to showing the location. I think most people realize where
this where the cemetery is. If you're on nine ninety
four going west, you pretty much go right by it.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
You will see it. And like I said, we it's
a it's a great place. Cemetery has been there for
a number of years, and like I said, we need
to protect the area that it compasses.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
And because it has been there for quite a few years,
it's having again this sluffing issues, some.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Pluff sluffing issues. Obviously, we have been in kind of
a wet cycle for a number of years. And is
the moisture in that hillside. It's always, from my knowledge,
has kind of weeped water on the east side, and
it's become more prevalent, I think in the last few years.
So we just need to do some geotechnical analysis on
that hillside. And is there a solution to make sure
(02:56):
we are protected.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I was reading in your agenda packet. Correct correct me
if I'm wrong. I think it said that the elevation
of this hill is forty feet higher than the railroad
tracks down below. So you I mean, it seems logical
it's going to have some issues over time the grave
sites up here, You've got a railroad track down here,
a lot of moisture. There's some issues.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Again, we want to make sure we're not None of
the grapes are None of the grave sites are in
danger in any way whatsoever. Right now, it's just the
edge of this property. We want to make sure that
if there are some things we can do to protect
it and preserve that area, that we do what we
need to do.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
And wasn't there like a water main break a couple
of years years.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Ago we had a result waterline break up there and
like I said, unfortunately that we're still dealing with some
effects of that, and like I said, making sure that
that hillside is restored and maintains current position, so continues,
We're continues again. Part of the action was to ensure
(04:01):
that the city has made a commitment and also for
us there will be more to come on this in
years to come, because then once they fix, whatever that
fix is will be I'm sure quite expensive.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, and your agenda packet had all that information and
it has different phases that this is going to go through,
and as I understood, it looked like phase one is
just being completed. So there's a few other steps that
are going to have.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
We hired a firm to do some preliminary work, probably
a year or two ago when they first noticed or
when that started to worsen and they provide us with
some background information and that led us to going into
we need to do a full blown exploratory move here
and the figure out what's going on and how we
can prevent again any of the hillside from continuing to
(04:47):
slough again. More to come.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
That was approved last night and pulled for discussion. But
another item on your consent agenda that was not approved
or excuse me not it was approved, I was not
pulled for discussion was a replacement of a loader out
at the landfill, right, and you know, only bring it
up because it's it's pretty spendy to buy these pieces
of equipment. I have a picture of what's going to
(05:13):
be purchased, and this is a John Deere.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Seven four p Oh do the tim Allen bark like that? Yeah,
there is some very expensive equipment at the landfill. One
of those pieces is a front end loader that it's
in pretty harsh environment and it is running all the time,
and therefore they get replaced I think about every five years.
This one comes at a cost of five hundred and
(05:37):
eleven thousand dollars. I believe the steel wheel loader or
steel wheel compactor that we have at the landfill, I
think is about a million bucks. And so this one
at five hundred thousand, again a machine that is used
continuously out at the landfill, and like said one of
those that there's not really a choice here. You need
(05:57):
to get them in and get them replaced on a
regular basis, and so that's what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I went online and got found the model of it.
It basically said it's large and in charge.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
It is large and in charge, and absolutely so we
make sure that folks come up to the landfill, they're
aware of it and they're not going to it's not
wise to drive behind these machines and again be aware
of their surroundings, and our operators are aware of the
surroundings too, so we just kind of make sure that
everybody is cognizant of There is some pretty sizable equipment
(06:32):
out there.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So it's not a new piece, it's a replacement for an.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Exist correct replacement of an existing piece. So again we've
got the major pieces of equipment out there, would be
the steel wheel compactor, this front end loader at half
million dollars. We just bought a new what I call
is a burn box for burning trees and things like
that out there too, and that has been delivered, so
we got some significant investment in the landfill of late.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah. Absolutely, we're going to move on to business now.
And this was one of the items we wanted to
talk about, was a city owned lot that has proper
another property owner has made an offer. Yes on this,
a staff recommended not to sell at that price at
this point.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, it kind of boils down to this is a
piece of property that the city obtained kind of an
odd shape. There's for not sure what happened in the
platting process, but there's really no access to a lot
that we came back to the city for back taxes.
We don't see a lot of those. But in the
case the individuals bought an adjoining piece of property would
(07:37):
like to buy this piece of property from the city
and construct some shop condos in the area.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, it's kind of tricky obviously because it's landlocked. Right,
the existing property owner who owns this piece wants to
buy this odd shape piece. Correct, it seems logical. It
was denied last night primarily because it's not fitting your
land use plan.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Correct, there's considerable there's topographical issues with this piece too.
You know, there's some fill that has to be brought
in and other things dealing with storm water and drainage issues.
So it's not a nice flat piece of developable, developable
property without some of that additional work going on. Again,
the adjoining property owner made an offer. They put together
(08:27):
a plan that what they would like to see there,
which would be shop condos. The adjoining properties to the east,
the south, and the west are all residential. The land
use plan calls for residential in this area. The special
use permit that they requested last night and also with
the offer to buy, would have not been consistent with
(08:51):
that land use plan.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, that seems a bit tricky when you put.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
This in a residential absolutely, and there's the on Asory
School which is right next door also, and so the
commercial use at the proposed buyer wanted to use it
doesn't fit that area, and they wanted to get some
commission input on that. Commissioners agreed that that was not appropriate.
Doesn't prevent the individual from coming back and saying, Okay,
(09:19):
we've got a different plan and here's another offer for
that property and for the commission to consider. So the
mid Midletterers had put the considerable time and effort into
presenting this they had been in communication with us from
the get go, and we have always said that this
is an area for residential, not for the shop condo
uses that were intended. But again they wanted to come
(09:41):
forward and have that discussion with the Commission last night too.
So doesn't prevent them from coming back with a different
idea or a different plan, and we certainly entertain that too.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Okay, sounds good.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Also under new Business Madison Sirmac brought forward a couple
of projects from the Growth Fund. It's actually one larger project,
but there are different parcels, so they had to be
presented separately.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Yeah, there are three different pieces of this property. A
lot of folks will know it from the area on
east part of First Street Andrea Lanking I think as
our chiroproject clinic on the west side that was finished,
and there are two pieces adjoining that property. So there
are three separate parcels. I believe both the east wet
(10:26):
the easterly parcels were under consideration for store for an
improvement grant money last night. So there we have.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
A picture we can pop up of the existing the
way it is right now, and it's partially finished. It's
in various states.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Here really and that's the result of former managed Senator
Doug Larson and his family died tragically a few years
ago and this is one of their projects they were
working on. Steve Keelan has now purchased that property and
as interesting and kind of finishing off what was originally started.
So again, it's been in a state of flux for
(11:05):
a little bit and due to those unfortunate circumstances, and
now Steve is ready to.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Kind of make move and that it would be nice
to make.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
This property, clean it up and make it look a
lot better than it looks today.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah, for sure, that's a big chunk there, so.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, both and siding windows. They'll have the handica accessible
doorways and things like that as a requirement of funds
going into this. And again we're looking forward to that
property being cleaned up and finishing off what you know,
you look at what Andrew Langing has there right now.
It's a really nice looking building and we expect the
(11:39):
rest of it to be very complimentary. And this again
another good another good project and.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Kind of tie it all together right nice.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yep, So Steve and for bringing that forward and Masson
and the growth Fund for recommending that it be approved.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
So pretty much unanimous all the way.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yes, so a good project.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, if you're just joining us, this is City Current.
We are recording this program on Wednesday, March first.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
March first yff, there we go.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, I almost said, may.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Not that warm out yet, and we don't want to
wish March in April away, right.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, for sure. And Jim Neubauer is here, City Administrator
for the City of Mandan, and I'm Mary van sigel So,
City Current talking about the Mandan Commission meeting last night.
Last couple of items resolution under resolutions and ordinances. There
was a final consideration on the moratorium that you have
a zoning moratorium in place.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Right. We had put one in roughly about a year
and a half ago, two years ago because we're undergoing
a kind of a zoning code rewright, and as part
of that zoning code rewrit we extended that time frame
by about six months. So this moratorium was set to
expire I think in February of twenty twenty five. We
expect the zoning code rewright is in its kind of
(12:58):
final stages, looking for that completion in May and June
of this coming year. So this moratorium extends on basically
cold storage units from being constructed and approved until I
think July one of twenty twenty five. Oh, okay, just
a few more months, a few more months, And like
I said, we just thought it was important to make
(13:19):
sure that we're consistent with that. And in fact, we
there haven't been any folks that have come in wanting
to do cold storage units, and so, like I said,
we don't. We're not putting any any project in peril
delaying in it. That was a concern the first time
we instituted in this, and we gave some exceptions and
(13:39):
said you have okay, thirty days or sixty days to
get your projects in that never, nothing never came forward
that was blocked. So again this is again another one
of those situations where there aren't any projects that are
being put on hold on this. If there were that
we be taking those into consideration, and this just extends
that moratorium until I think July.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
All right, Yeah, there's another ordinance initial initial consideration last night.
This is on prohibited camping in the city on public property.
This is similar to Ordnance Bismarck.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Put in place, very similar to a Bismarck put in place.
I know that Commission Schoberg has spent considerable time with
Wuty Chief stugel Mayer in Bismarck and crafting and with
Attorney Oaster and Chief Siggler and his crew about crafting
an ordinance that it's very similar, so that we're not
out in left field on anything, and we're just doing
this as kind of a pre emptive preemptive strike so
(14:39):
that we were not having any issues. And this is
a time to do it, because I think adopting ordinances
when you don't have issues is a better time than
coming in at the last minute and trying to be
reactive to these things. And that's what this ordinance is
attempting to do, is let's put some rules in place
in case something like this happens. If it does, we're
prepared and our department has the tools that they need
(15:02):
to deal with things like this, and we're not out
kicking people out of anything right now or and usually
it's a you know, you can't be camping here, you
need to move your stuff. And we've always had very
good cooperation in that vein, but sometimes there will be
the ones that are not cooperative, and that's what this
intends to deal with.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I have not witnessed any camping going on in the
in Mandan, is no driving through. I really haven't seen it. Chismark,
on the other hand, did have situations where there were
people with excessive amounts of stuff right on the sidewalks,
a lot of it in the downtown area, so that
again had to react and put something in place. Seems
(15:43):
to be going, okay.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
I haven't heard any I haven't heard anything, so this
is always good. I know that we have had instances
where folks and this includes the Heart River Levee, which
was important to include in there, because we have had
folks that have carved out their own little camp in
the levee system, which gets to be pretty serious in
the springtime if there's some high waters and things like that.
(16:09):
And this is to prevent some of that too, because we,
you know, unfortunately, we have had those instances come up
and we want to be able to deal with them
in a timely and forthright, in a fair and consistent manner.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And you told me earlier that this process has not
just been within the staff. They've done some outreach into
other organizations in the community that deal with people.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Who are absolutely because we know this is not a
this is not a single issue for one department to
deal with, because what it comes down to, if we
end up going down this road, then all right, we
have to have a public work screw involved because if
we're going to be moving things out, they're the ones
that are going to have to do it. We've had
We've been in contact with Western Plains Health, We've been
(16:50):
in contact with all of the other organizations. I think
they got a note on Monday that said, hey, this
is coming up. If you have any comments, please let
us know. And that's part of the first consideration where
you want to get this out in the public. Let's
take some comments if you have any, and we'll make
those considerations.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And I did notice the meeting that Sister Kathleen from
Ministry on the Margins wrote a letter a letter of support.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yes for the ordnance. Yes, very nice to see. I
know that sister Kathleen has been heavily involved in the
Bismarck and how they're doing things in Bismarck, and like
I said, she reviewed the organs wrote a letter of
support for it, which were very appreciative, and like I said,
we'll see if we have any other comments that come
in over the next week or so, and the plan
(17:33):
would be to have the second consideration, second and final
consideration on the March eighteenth agenda. If there's things that
come up in between, we could move that second consideration
to a later date, but we'll see how things transpire
over the next week or so.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Okay, sounds good. Well that wraps up our notes from
last night's meeting. Yes, but before we go on to
something else, I just want to ask you about chickens
City of Business. Yes, considering the chicken ordinance to see
it's coming back to him at some point time.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Have you had problems with We have not been very
interestingly and coincidental. I think Mayor Frelich and I were
chatting right before the commission meeting yesterday and he got
a random phone call and we put it on speakerphone
and it was someone from Bismarck calling Mayor Frelich and
asking about Chickens. So I think we have roughly thirteen
(18:25):
permit holders out there, and if in the time since
we adopted the organs a couple of years, maybe four
years ago, four or five years ago, and we've had
I think one loose chicken to deal with. Yeah, I
think one was running. If you call when and chicken runs,
(18:47):
maybe they run down Collins Avenue and created a little
bit of a ruckus. But other than that, I think
the owners, you know, we have a pretty set strict
set of guidelines on here's a type of coop, how
many chickens you can have, how far away this has
to be away from the property lines, and things like that.
So there's a really good diagram on our cityman dot
(19:08):
com web page that folks can look in. You can
type in backyard chickens and you'll find that right away.
Permitting process likes. I think we have thirteen permits last
I checked, and we have had very few issues with them.
You know. I think the biggest issue is when we
were dealing this, I think four or six years ago,
(19:28):
whichever it was, during legislative session and I get called
over to a committee hearing and I walk in the
capital and the people clucking of chickens was quite loud,
and I just said, thank you very much, and I'm
glad you're all watching the code of media access in
our live meetings, and it was it was quite entertaining,
(19:52):
and people were getting the kick out of it. But
you know, there's positions on both sides, two sides of
every story. Want to make sure that the folks that
have these chickens are taking care of them and they're
being respectful of their neighbors and things like that, and
so far we just not to say that there haven't
been issues, but we haven't heard of any issues today.
Knock on wood because soon we say that there's going
(20:14):
to be someone. But I think that the people that
want to do this are taking it seriously and therefore
making sure that they're respectful of their neighbors.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
It's a pretty big investment to put this in place.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
You know, chicken coops are not cheap and feeding them
and all that good stuff it's and just make sure
everyone knows there are no roosters allowed. You can have
the hand lane chickens in a way you go. But again,
we have not had issues with chickens and proud to
report that you.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Are known for your chicken leadership, leadership and chickens.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
The former planner, John Van Dyke was up in mine
not now, and we struggled where they're to bring this
in front of the commission, and finally we had a
lot of people I say lot handful ten maybe folks
that were kept pushing and saying, hey, we should, we
should adopt these and so we went through the process
and did that. Then, like I said, it's been pretty
quiet ever since. So long as there's no roosters. That's
(21:13):
pretty wie.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
That's right. Okay, We're going to jump off a couple
of extra items here. You want to talk about the
Mandam Messenger, ye, get it up on my screen. If
we can pop it up and show what it looks like.
You can get this delivered right into your your email
if you like, or you can go to the City
of Mandan and Cityomandan dot com and read the Mandan
(21:36):
upcoming events and the latest news on the Mandam Messenger.
It's really a valuable that is a publication.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Throw a big shout out to Carrie schmid or communication
specialist who puts us together with the contributions from all
of our departments that help provided ideas and proof reading
and writing and things like that. So we think this
is one of our more successful endeavors as far as
communicating to the public. And like I said, you can
get it online at any time, and you can get
(22:05):
a sign up and get an email when it's available,
and so it works out pretty well.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, I always read it. And then we picked out
a couple of high items we want to talk about.
The manning the Crying Hill.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Yeah, there's some discussion over this at Mayor introduced this
kind of rejuvenation of the letters on Crying Hill and
what we can do to enhance them, and really kind
of started this fall when an individual made contact with
us and said, hey, we should be doing something to
clean up the side of this hill. We made contact
(22:41):
with three affiliated tribes because they owned the land that
the M and D sits on, and city owns the
land that the A in N sit on, and so
in discussions with them, they were perfectly good with, Okay,
let's get this area cleaned up. We did that with
the help of on Bobcat folks that brought some of
(23:01):
their machines in and made pretty quick work of it.
And when we did that, discovered that the concrete letters
that were installed I probably guess forty years ago, had
you know, there was a pretty good deterioration state of those,
and just simply putting, scraping and painting was not really
(23:23):
going to be worthwhile. Sure, so Mayor Freilich, and like
I said, a couple of members of the community said, hey,
what else can we do? And so we entered some
of those discussions, and this is one of the final
concepts that came up. And again I'm important to note
this is a concept. It has not received any kind
of approval to move forward in full force with this.
(23:45):
It is a concept, and this is the one that
seemed to be preferred, and I will try and figure
out how to actually get this done.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
We talked about it again at our last city current.
This will also be illuminated, right.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
That was one of kind of we laid some ground
rules down at the beginning of the discussion, and one
of those ground rules was some of those were, it
needs to be respectful of the property and the history
of Crying Hill.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Is that you no, it's a little statue.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Fairlik's pretty good about that, and saying and remember the
person in this drawing is not real and I think
the letters are roughly twenty feet tall. That we have
and again concept conceptually, the idea was that we need
to be respectral the history and the heritage of this
site first and foremost, and how can we illuminate the
letters so that you can see them in the evening
(24:38):
and you could maybe light them up. We can do
a lot of things with LED lights nowadays that you
couldn't two years ago or five years ago, and so
the idea would be that we could light these up
in the evening, whether similar to if you see the
rail the lights on the LED lights on the rails
in Dykesterent Park, is that you can switch them out
when it's breast cancer awareness or maybe when it's marked,
(25:00):
which is Saint Patrick's Day. So maybe they could be
green for Saint Patrick's Day, red white and blue items
going on for the Fourth of July and things like that.
So there's some interesting concepts that we'd like to kind
of see that work through.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
And do I understand there'll be some fundraising associated.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Yeah, we would certainly prefer and Mayor came out and
said that we'd like to raise funds for this. From
the private side, we also will look at, you know,
should we do an entrance off of Mandan Avenue to
what would become future Division Street with a parking area
with some also placards and historical marketings so tell the
(25:38):
history of what Crying Hill really is about.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Up there.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
There are there's no official trails up there. I will
say that because it is still private property. It is
not public property, and we don't encourage folks to do that.
Do some people do that? Yes, we know that that
happens on occasion. We don't encourage it is still private property.
And like I said, part of it would be we
(26:04):
want to make sure we tell the story of Crin
Hill because it's a pretty cool story. And therefore the
historical markers and things like that would also tell that
story and encourage folks to stop by, take a look.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
What year did the sign get put up there? Did
that start?
Speaker 3 (26:18):
You know? The south side where we have trees planted
on the south side of Grin Hill used to be
rocks that were spray painted white. Yeah, okay, And then
there's some issues that came up. I happen to be
in nineteen eighty one one of the high school kids
that rolled the rocks down the hill on purpose because
(26:41):
it was this was a confessional here, No, it was
it was intentional that I think our basketball team was
asked to roll the rocks down the hill because there
were some people that would go up and rearrange the
letters in words that you may not want on full display,
and so we were asked to up their roll rocks on
(27:02):
the hill. We did that, and then I think the
trees were planted shortly after that. So right now those
trees have grown ups. You can't really tell that it
spells Mandan unless you're in your airplane or your your
own is flying over something like that. So and I
think after that then I think the letters went up
on the other side of the hill and there's some
history on that and all that happened too. But again
(27:23):
it's a very significant historical piece in Mandan that we
want to make sure that's how come we best tell
the story here?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, yeah, Also on your man messenger, you want to
pop up this screen here. This has to do with
the primary residence credit really important. The end of the
month is the deadline.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
And the month is deadline. We encourage We've had a
ton of folks coming into city Hall to help get
signed up for this and we do that through our
assessing office. They will help you, but again you can
do it online takes. I think there's maybe five or six,
maybe seven questions might take you thirty seconds to do,
or folks that do that or you can come down
and we will help help you through the process.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
This will still this is still at that five hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
The five hundred dollars primary residence credit that will show
up on your the first one showed up on your
property tax statement that you would have received in November
December of twenty twenty four, payable in twenty twenty five.
This is for the one that will be your statement
that would show up in twenty December twenty twenty five.
(28:28):
So again, you need to sign up for this. It's
not automatic. It's you need to go on and put
your information in and it is a very very straightforward
and simple process.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Do I understand though, that the legislature is talking about
expanding this primary residence tax credit, but this particular one
will lock you is locking you in at the five hundred.
But that could be expanded in the.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Future, right That is part of Governor Armstrong and legislative
leadership's proposal in House Bill eleven seventy six. I belive
that it kind of eventually increases that up to I
think fourteen and fifty dollars close to fifteen hundred dollars
again for your primary residence credit. So that's one that
we are obviously keeping an eyeball on. And like I said,
(29:13):
that will from what we understand, will still be a
sign up. You'll need to go and take some action.
It just won't be an automatic as the bill is
written now makes sense. Yeah, good, everything could change as
crossover has just occurred, and all the bills from the
Senate moved over to the House that were passed and
all the ones from the House that were passed when
(29:33):
we were a Senate. So now let negotiations. Let the
negotiations begin.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah, no, it's a little little heated sometimes. And you
did give a legislative update last night to the commissioners.
Not a lot of action between now in the last meetings.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
And a rinse and repeat. One of the ones we
were watching was the wastewater Collection and treatment. Some funninesssistance
there that originally started out had about fifty million dollars
or statewide moneies that got chopped in half to I
think twenty five million as I came through that. I
think the House Appropriations Committee that passed and moves over
(30:11):
to the Senate side. Obviously we'd like to see it
up to fifty million, because that's more opportunity for all
communities in are't goin to try and take advantage, and
waste water treatment plants and collection systems have typically not
been recipients of grant money. I mean, we can take
all the loan money we want out. There's not an
(30:33):
issue there with loaning. Loans have to be paid back grants.
In this case, this is grant money, and there's some
restrictions on there too, But again it's a good start.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I would assume you're watching those pretty closely as they
affect your waters absolutely, and you'll be coming back to
the Commission. I would assume many updates in the next
few weeks. All right, last thing I want to mention
if we could pop that screen up. We have apps.
We bought our Dakota Media Access app for quite some time,
(31:03):
but we just launched our Radio Access app and it
is awesome. It is so nice to listen to. It
a little easier to get I mean, we've been streaming
our radio access since the beginning Radio access dot Org,
I should say, and you can get there. Obviously, you
have to go through the website and listen and you
(31:24):
can get them whatever is on at the time, or
you can get into the podcasts or our music, our
music program archives. All of that is still available on
Radio access dot org. But the app makes it so
much easier.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Yeah. In fact, I was listening not to the app
but the radio on my way home from work on
Monday night to the Burly County Commission Media so catch
you know, you don't have to miss things?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yes, always sure well and with low power. Our over
the air broadcast signal is low power, so the signal
will drop in certain areas in the community. We've probably
got a radius of five ten miles outside if the
terrain is flat. But the apps make it so much easier.
And we've had the Dakota Media Access app that gives
(32:09):
you both the community channel and the government channel whatever
is on live and it also has an archive on
that app too, so super easy to use, super easy
to download. Whether you have you know, Android or Apple,
doesn't matter. You can get right in there. There's a
little QR code on this graphic that we can use too,
(32:29):
So all good. We'll continue to pump it get people
to sign up.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
It's all good. And I think the code of Media
Access and you marry you such a great job of
providing that service to our community, whether it's city, school, parks, county,
pick your favorite. You guys are there and providing the
service to the public. So that makes our from my standpoint,
(32:55):
makes our life a lot easier, you know.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
And it's all about keeping up with this technology. I mean,
have been around for a while, but at the beginning,
a lot of technology takes a lot more money, and
we just try and you know, grab them when we
can and when we see they fit in the budget.
And these are these are working very very well so far,
(33:17):
and we've made that investment and I think they're they're
definitely worthwhile.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Yeah, And the overall goal is keeping your community informed, yeah,
and engaged and things like that. And I think that's
the benefit of things like this is that while you
may be listening to them in the radio at one
or two point five, get out of five seven miles
and you don't have that, you can stream stream into
your phone or your vehicle or I'll.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Read that often I'm listening in the radio to a
meeting on my way home and then i'm because we're
out a little bit, the signal starts stir uping a
little bit, like, oh, I should have put them app
on and it can listen, so you often do so.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Change is tough for some of us. We'll get her
figured out.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Well. We got to accept it. It's here, always changing instantly.
So thanks Jim.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Thanks for having us as always much appreciated.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
See you in a couple of weeks. All right, all right,
thanks and thank you for joining us on this edition
of City Current.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
For more information on what was discussed in this episode
of City Current, visit Cityofmandan dot com or call seven
oh one sixty six seven three two one five. If
you have any suggestions, comments, or issues you would like
addressed in future Citycurrent episodes, contact us at info at
FreeTV dot org. This program airs on Government Access channel
(34:32):
two and six oh two in HD or on Radio
Access one oh two point five FM. It's also available
as a podcast on Radioaccess dot org and as a
video viewing link at FreeTV dot org. Thanks for tuning
in to this edition of City Current.
City Current, produced by Dakota Media Access in depth discussion
with Bismarck and Mandan City officials. Watch on Government Access
Channel six oh two HD or tune in to Radio
Access one O two point five FM, Always Local, Always Current.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hello and welcome to City Current. I'm Mary van Sickel
here in the studios at Dakota Media Access. Welcome Jim
Newbar from the City of Mandam.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Good morning, Mary, Thank you for having us today.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Almost springtime. We're looking forward to it.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I think what temperatures wise, it's not as nice as
this past weekend, but we're going to get there.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
We're getting there for sure. But it is March, and
it's early March.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
So fair much. We're going to be careful.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, yeah, it's March fifth. Actually we're recording this program
on March fifth, which is the morning after the Mandan
City Commission Media.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Right, another good meeting last night.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
We went for roughly an hour, so all all.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Is good, and our job here is to talk about
the highlights, right, So that's what we're going to do.
One of the first things on the agenda was under
consent agenda and it was actually pulled for discussion or
should say some clarification. And this has to do with
the Union Cemetery, right, kind of an ongoing issue that
you got up there.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, we noticed that over the last few years that there
has been kind of a sloughing of the hillside on
the east side of the cemetery, and we want to
make sure that if there's something going on in there,
that we can duly protect the cemetery grounds and the
residents and the railroad tracks down below. So the action
last night was when we apply for a Department of
(01:40):
Emergency Services grant, then the city needs to make sure
that our we had a financial commitment, and so there
is a commitment when you apply for the larger grand money,
so they know that the city is serious about this. Yes,
we are. We need to kind of figure out what's
going on and need some help in doing that. So, yeah,
it's kind of a we want to make sure that
(02:01):
all the areas of the cemetery are protected and do
our best to do that.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, we have a map that we can pop up
to showing the location. I think most people realize where
this where the cemetery is. If you're on nine ninety
four going west, you pretty much go right by it.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
You will see it. And like I said, we it's
a it's a great place. Cemetery has been there for
a number of years, and like I said, we need
to protect the area that it compasses.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
And because it has been there for quite a few years,
it's having again this sluffing issues, some.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Pluff sluffing issues. Obviously, we have been in kind of
a wet cycle for a number of years. And is
the moisture in that hillside. It's always, from my knowledge,
has kind of weeped water on the east side, and
it's become more prevalent, I think in the last few years.
So we just need to do some geotechnical analysis on
that hillside. And is there a solution to make sure
(02:56):
we are protected.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I was reading in your agenda packet. Correct correct me
if I'm wrong. I think it said that the elevation
of this hill is forty feet higher than the railroad
tracks down below. So you I mean, it seems logical
it's going to have some issues over time the grave
sites up here, You've got a railroad track down here,
a lot of moisture. There's some issues.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Again, we want to make sure we're not None of
the grapes are None of the grave sites are in
danger in any way whatsoever. Right now, it's just the
edge of this property. We want to make sure that
if there are some things we can do to protect
it and preserve that area, that we do what we
need to do.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
And wasn't there like a water main break a couple
of years years.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Ago we had a result waterline break up there and
like I said, unfortunately that we're still dealing with some
effects of that, and like I said, making sure that
that hillside is restored and maintains current position, so continues,
We're continues again. Part of the action was to ensure
(04:01):
that the city has made a commitment and also for
us there will be more to come on this in
years to come, because then once they fix, whatever that
fix is will be I'm sure quite expensive.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, and your agenda packet had all that information and
it has different phases that this is going to go through,
and as I understood, it looked like phase one is
just being completed. So there's a few other steps that
are going to have.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
We hired a firm to do some preliminary work, probably
a year or two ago when they first noticed or
when that started to worsen and they provide us with
some background information and that led us to going into
we need to do a full blown exploratory move here
and the figure out what's going on and how we
can prevent again any of the hillside from continuing to
(04:47):
slough again. More to come.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
That was approved last night and pulled for discussion. But
another item on your consent agenda that was not approved
or excuse me not it was approved, I was not
pulled for discussion was a replacement of a loader out
at the landfill, right, and you know, only bring it
up because it's it's pretty spendy to buy these pieces
of equipment. I have a picture of what's going to
(05:13):
be purchased, and this is a John Deere.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Seven four p Oh do the tim Allen bark like that? Yeah,
there is some very expensive equipment at the landfill. One
of those pieces is a front end loader that it's
in pretty harsh environment and it is running all the time,
and therefore they get replaced I think about every five years.
This one comes at a cost of five hundred and
(05:37):
eleven thousand dollars. I believe the steel wheel loader or
steel wheel compactor that we have at the landfill, I
think is about a million bucks. And so this one
at five hundred thousand, again a machine that is used
continuously out at the landfill, and like said one of
those that there's not really a choice here. You need
(05:57):
to get them in and get them replaced on a
regular basis, and so that's what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I went online and got found the model of it.
It basically said it's large and in charge.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
It is large and in charge, and absolutely so we
make sure that folks come up to the landfill, they're
aware of it and they're not going to it's not
wise to drive behind these machines and again be aware
of their surroundings, and our operators are aware of the
surroundings too, so we just kind of make sure that
everybody is cognizant of There is some pretty sizable equipment
(06:32):
out there.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So it's not a new piece, it's a replacement for an.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Exist correct replacement of an existing piece. So again we've
got the major pieces of equipment out there, would be
the steel wheel compactor, this front end loader at half
million dollars. We just bought a new what I call
is a burn box for burning trees and things like
that out there too, and that has been delivered, so
we got some significant investment in the landfill of late.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah. Absolutely, we're going to move on to business now.
And this was one of the items we wanted to
talk about, was a city owned lot that has proper
another property owner has made an offer. Yes on this,
a staff recommended not to sell at that price at
this point.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, it kind of boils down to this is a
piece of property that the city obtained kind of an
odd shape. There's for not sure what happened in the
platting process, but there's really no access to a lot
that we came back to the city for back taxes.
We don't see a lot of those. But in the
case the individuals bought an adjoining piece of property would
(07:37):
like to buy this piece of property from the city
and construct some shop condos in the area.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, it's kind of tricky obviously because it's landlocked. Right,
the existing property owner who owns this piece wants to
buy this odd shape piece. Correct, it seems logical. It
was denied last night primarily because it's not fitting your
land use plan.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Correct, there's considerable there's topographical issues with this piece too.
You know, there's some fill that has to be brought
in and other things dealing with storm water and drainage issues.
So it's not a nice flat piece of developable, developable
property without some of that additional work going on. Again,
the adjoining property owner made an offer. They put together
(08:27):
a plan that what they would like to see there,
which would be shop condos. The adjoining properties to the east,
the south, and the west are all residential. The land
use plan calls for residential in this area. The special
use permit that they requested last night and also with
the offer to buy, would have not been consistent with
(08:51):
that land use plan.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, that seems a bit tricky when you put.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
This in a residential absolutely, and there's the on Asory
School which is right next door also, and so the
commercial use at the proposed buyer wanted to use it
doesn't fit that area, and they wanted to get some
commission input on that. Commissioners agreed that that was not appropriate.
Doesn't prevent the individual from coming back and saying, Okay,
(09:19):
we've got a different plan and here's another offer for
that property and for the commission to consider. So the
mid Midletterers had put the considerable time and effort into
presenting this they had been in communication with us from
the get go, and we have always said that this
is an area for residential, not for the shop condo
uses that were intended. But again they wanted to come
(09:41):
forward and have that discussion with the Commission last night too.
So doesn't prevent them from coming back with a different
idea or a different plan, and we certainly entertain that too.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Okay, sounds good.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Also under new Business Madison Sirmac brought forward a couple
of projects from the Growth Fund. It's actually one larger project,
but there are different parcels, so they had to be
presented separately.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Yeah, there are three different pieces of this property. A
lot of folks will know it from the area on
east part of First Street Andrea Lanking I think as
our chiroproject clinic on the west side that was finished,
and there are two pieces adjoining that property. So there
are three separate parcels. I believe both the east wet
(10:26):
the easterly parcels were under consideration for store for an
improvement grant money last night. So there we have.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
A picture we can pop up of the existing the
way it is right now, and it's partially finished. It's
in various states.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Here really and that's the result of former managed Senator
Doug Larson and his family died tragically a few years
ago and this is one of their projects they were
working on. Steve Keelan has now purchased that property and
as interesting and kind of finishing off what was originally started.
So again, it's been in a state of flux for
(11:05):
a little bit and due to those unfortunate circumstances, and
now Steve is ready to.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Kind of make move and that it would be nice
to make.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
This property, clean it up and make it look a
lot better than it looks today.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah, for sure, that's a big chunk there, so.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, both and siding windows. They'll have the handica accessible
doorways and things like that as a requirement of funds
going into this. And again we're looking forward to that
property being cleaned up and finishing off what you know,
you look at what Andrew Langing has there right now.
It's a really nice looking building and we expect the
(11:39):
rest of it to be very complimentary. And this again
another good another good project and.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Kind of tie it all together right nice.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yep, So Steve and for bringing that forward and Masson
and the growth Fund for recommending that it be approved.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
So pretty much unanimous all the way.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yes, so a good project.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, if you're just joining us, this is City Current.
We are recording this program on Wednesday, March first.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
March first yff, there we go.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, I almost said, may.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Not that warm out yet, and we don't want to
wish March in April away, right.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, for sure. And Jim Neubauer is here, City Administrator
for the City of Mandan, and I'm Mary van sigel So,
City Current talking about the Mandan Commission meeting last night.
Last couple of items resolution under resolutions and ordinances. There
was a final consideration on the moratorium that you have
a zoning moratorium in place.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Right. We had put one in roughly about a year
and a half ago, two years ago because we're undergoing
a kind of a zoning code rewright, and as part
of that zoning code rewrit we extended that time frame
by about six months. So this moratorium was set to
expire I think in February of twenty twenty five. We
expect the zoning code rewright is in its kind of
(12:58):
final stages, looking for that completion in May and June
of this coming year. So this moratorium extends on basically
cold storage units from being constructed and approved until I
think July one of twenty twenty five. Oh, okay, just
a few more months, a few more months, And like
I said, we just thought it was important to make
(13:19):
sure that we're consistent with that. And in fact, we
there haven't been any folks that have come in wanting
to do cold storage units, and so, like I said,
we don't. We're not putting any any project in peril
delaying in it. That was a concern the first time
we instituted in this, and we gave some exceptions and
(13:39):
said you have okay, thirty days or sixty days to
get your projects in that never, nothing never came forward
that was blocked. So again this is again another one
of those situations where there aren't any projects that are
being put on hold on this. If there were that
we be taking those into consideration, and this just extends
that moratorium until I think July.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
All right, Yeah, there's another ordinance initial initial consideration last night.
This is on prohibited camping in the city on public property.
This is similar to Ordnance Bismarck.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Put in place, very similar to a Bismarck put in place.
I know that Commission Schoberg has spent considerable time with
Wuty Chief stugel Mayer in Bismarck and crafting and with
Attorney Oaster and Chief Siggler and his crew about crafting
an ordinance that it's very similar, so that we're not
out in left field on anything, and we're just doing
this as kind of a pre emptive preemptive strike so
(14:39):
that we were not having any issues. And this is
a time to do it, because I think adopting ordinances
when you don't have issues is a better time than
coming in at the last minute and trying to be
reactive to these things. And that's what this ordinance is
attempting to do, is let's put some rules in place
in case something like this happens. If it does, we're
prepared and our department has the tools that they need
(15:02):
to deal with things like this, and we're not out
kicking people out of anything right now or and usually
it's a you know, you can't be camping here, you
need to move your stuff. And we've always had very
good cooperation in that vein, but sometimes there will be
the ones that are not cooperative, and that's what this
intends to deal with.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I have not witnessed any camping going on in the
in Mandan, is no driving through. I really haven't seen it. Chismark,
on the other hand, did have situations where there were
people with excessive amounts of stuff right on the sidewalks,
a lot of it in the downtown area, so that
again had to react and put something in place. Seems
(15:43):
to be going, okay.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
I haven't heard any I haven't heard anything, so this
is always good. I know that we have had instances
where folks and this includes the Heart River Levee, which
was important to include in there, because we have had
folks that have carved out their own little camp in
the levee system, which gets to be pretty serious in
the springtime if there's some high waters and things like that.
(16:09):
And this is to prevent some of that too, because we,
you know, unfortunately, we have had those instances come up
and we want to be able to deal with them
in a timely and forthright, in a fair and consistent manner.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And you told me earlier that this process has not
just been within the staff. They've done some outreach into
other organizations in the community that deal with people.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Who are absolutely because we know this is not a
this is not a single issue for one department to
deal with, because what it comes down to, if we
end up going down this road, then all right, we
have to have a public work screw involved because if
we're going to be moving things out, they're the ones
that are going to have to do it. We've had
We've been in contact with Western Plains Health, We've been
(16:50):
in contact with all of the other organizations. I think
they got a note on Monday that said, hey, this
is coming up. If you have any comments, please let
us know. And that's part of the first consideration where
you want to get this out in the public. Let's
take some comments if you have any, and we'll make
those considerations.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And I did notice the meeting that Sister Kathleen from
Ministry on the Margins wrote a letter a letter of support.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yes for the ordnance. Yes, very nice to see. I
know that sister Kathleen has been heavily involved in the
Bismarck and how they're doing things in Bismarck, and like
I said, she reviewed the organs wrote a letter of
support for it, which were very appreciative, and like I said,
we'll see if we have any other comments that come
in over the next week or so, and the plan
(17:33):
would be to have the second consideration, second and final
consideration on the March eighteenth agenda. If there's things that
come up in between, we could move that second consideration
to a later date, but we'll see how things transpire
over the next week or so.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Okay, sounds good. Well that wraps up our notes from
last night's meeting. Yes, but before we go on to
something else, I just want to ask you about chickens
City of Business. Yes, considering the chicken ordinance to see
it's coming back to him at some point time.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Have you had problems with We have not been very
interestingly and coincidental. I think Mayor Frelich and I were
chatting right before the commission meeting yesterday and he got
a random phone call and we put it on speakerphone
and it was someone from Bismarck calling Mayor Frelich and
asking about Chickens. So I think we have roughly thirteen
(18:25):
permit holders out there, and if in the time since
we adopted the organs a couple of years, maybe four
years ago, four or five years ago, and we've had
I think one loose chicken to deal with. Yeah, I
think one was running. If you call when and chicken runs,
(18:47):
maybe they run down Collins Avenue and created a little
bit of a ruckus. But other than that, I think
the owners, you know, we have a pretty set strict
set of guidelines on here's a type of coop, how
many chickens you can have, how far away this has
to be away from the property lines, and things like that.
So there's a really good diagram on our cityman dot
(19:08):
com web page that folks can look in. You can
type in backyard chickens and you'll find that right away.
Permitting process likes. I think we have thirteen permits last
I checked, and we have had very few issues with them.
You know. I think the biggest issue is when we
were dealing this, I think four or six years ago,
(19:28):
whichever it was, during legislative session and I get called
over to a committee hearing and I walk in the
capital and the people clucking of chickens was quite loud,
and I just said, thank you very much, and I'm
glad you're all watching the code of media access in
our live meetings, and it was it was quite entertaining,
(19:52):
and people were getting the kick out of it. But
you know, there's positions on both sides, two sides of
every story. Want to make sure that the folks that
have these chickens are taking care of them and they're
being respectful of their neighbors and things like that, and
so far we just not to say that there haven't
been issues, but we haven't heard of any issues today.
Knock on wood because soon we say that there's going
(20:14):
to be someone. But I think that the people that
want to do this are taking it seriously and therefore
making sure that they're respectful of their neighbors.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
It's a pretty big investment to put this in place.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
You know, chicken coops are not cheap and feeding them
and all that good stuff it's and just make sure
everyone knows there are no roosters allowed. You can have
the hand lane chickens in a way you go. But again,
we have not had issues with chickens and proud to
report that you.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Are known for your chicken leadership, leadership and chickens.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
The former planner, John Van Dyke was up in mine
not now, and we struggled where they're to bring this
in front of the commission, and finally we had a
lot of people I say lot handful ten maybe folks
that were kept pushing and saying, hey, we should, we
should adopt these and so we went through the process
and did that. Then, like I said, it's been pretty
quiet ever since. So long as there's no roosters. That's
(21:13):
pretty wie.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
That's right. Okay, We're going to jump off a couple
of extra items here. You want to talk about the
Mandam Messenger, ye, get it up on my screen. If
we can pop it up and show what it looks like.
You can get this delivered right into your your email
if you like, or you can go to the City
of Mandan and Cityomandan dot com and read the Mandan
(21:36):
upcoming events and the latest news on the Mandam Messenger.
It's really a valuable that is a publication.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Throw a big shout out to Carrie schmid or communication
specialist who puts us together with the contributions from all
of our departments that help provided ideas and proof reading
and writing and things like that. So we think this
is one of our more successful endeavors as far as
communicating to the public. And like I said, you can
get it online at any time, and you can get
(22:05):
a sign up and get an email when it's available,
and so it works out pretty well.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, I always read it. And then we picked out
a couple of high items we want to talk about.
The manning the Crying Hill.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Yeah, there's some discussion over this at Mayor introduced this
kind of rejuvenation of the letters on Crying Hill and
what we can do to enhance them, and really kind
of started this fall when an individual made contact with
us and said, hey, we should be doing something to
clean up the side of this hill. We made contact
(22:41):
with three affiliated tribes because they owned the land that
the M and D sits on, and city owns the
land that the A in N sit on, and so
in discussions with them, they were perfectly good with, Okay,
let's get this area cleaned up. We did that with
the help of on Bobcat folks that brought some of
(23:01):
their machines in and made pretty quick work of it.
And when we did that, discovered that the concrete letters
that were installed I probably guess forty years ago, had
you know, there was a pretty good deterioration state of those,
and just simply putting, scraping and painting was not really
(23:23):
going to be worthwhile. Sure, so Mayor Freilich, and like
I said, a couple of members of the community said, hey,
what else can we do? And so we entered some
of those discussions, and this is one of the final
concepts that came up. And again I'm important to note
this is a concept. It has not received any kind
of approval to move forward in full force with this.
(23:45):
It is a concept, and this is the one that
seemed to be preferred, and I will try and figure
out how to actually get this done.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
We talked about it again at our last city current.
This will also be illuminated, right.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
That was one of kind of we laid some ground
rules down at the beginning of the discussion, and one
of those ground rules was some of those were, it
needs to be respectful of the property and the history
of Crying Hill.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Is that you no, it's a little statue.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Fairlik's pretty good about that, and saying and remember the
person in this drawing is not real and I think
the letters are roughly twenty feet tall. That we have
and again concept conceptually, the idea was that we need
to be respectral the history and the heritage of this
site first and foremost, and how can we illuminate the
letters so that you can see them in the evening
(24:38):
and you could maybe light them up. We can do
a lot of things with LED lights nowadays that you
couldn't two years ago or five years ago, and so
the idea would be that we could light these up
in the evening, whether similar to if you see the
rail the lights on the LED lights on the rails
in Dykesterent Park, is that you can switch them out
when it's breast cancer awareness or maybe when it's marked,
(25:00):
which is Saint Patrick's Day. So maybe they could be
green for Saint Patrick's Day, red white and blue items
going on for the Fourth of July and things like that.
So there's some interesting concepts that we'd like to kind
of see that work through.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
And do I understand there'll be some fundraising associated.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Yeah, we would certainly prefer and Mayor came out and
said that we'd like to raise funds for this. From
the private side, we also will look at, you know,
should we do an entrance off of Mandan Avenue to
what would become future Division Street with a parking area
with some also placards and historical marketings so tell the
(25:38):
history of what Crying Hill really is about.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Up there.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
There are there's no official trails up there. I will
say that because it is still private property. It is
not public property, and we don't encourage folks to do that.
Do some people do that? Yes, we know that that
happens on occasion. We don't encourage it is still private property.
And like I said, part of it would be we
(26:04):
want to make sure we tell the story of Crin
Hill because it's a pretty cool story. And therefore the
historical markers and things like that would also tell that
story and encourage folks to stop by, take a look.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
What year did the sign get put up there? Did
that start?
Speaker 3 (26:18):
You know? The south side where we have trees planted
on the south side of Grin Hill used to be
rocks that were spray painted white. Yeah, okay, And then
there's some issues that came up. I happen to be
in nineteen eighty one one of the high school kids
that rolled the rocks down the hill on purpose because
(26:41):
it was this was a confessional here, No, it was
it was intentional that I think our basketball team was
asked to roll the rocks down the hill because there
were some people that would go up and rearrange the
letters in words that you may not want on full display,
and so we were asked to up their roll rocks on
(27:02):
the hill. We did that, and then I think the
trees were planted shortly after that. So right now those
trees have grown ups. You can't really tell that it
spells Mandan unless you're in your airplane or your your
own is flying over something like that. So and I
think after that then I think the letters went up
on the other side of the hill and there's some
history on that and all that happened too. But again
(27:23):
it's a very significant historical piece in Mandan that we
want to make sure that's how come we best tell
the story here?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, yeah, Also on your man messenger, you want to
pop up this screen here. This has to do with
the primary residence credit really important. The end of the
month is the deadline.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
And the month is deadline. We encourage We've had a
ton of folks coming into city Hall to help get
signed up for this and we do that through our
assessing office. They will help you, but again you can
do it online takes. I think there's maybe five or six,
maybe seven questions might take you thirty seconds to do,
or folks that do that or you can come down
and we will help help you through the process.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
This will still this is still at that five hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
The five hundred dollars primary residence credit that will show
up on your the first one showed up on your
property tax statement that you would have received in November
December of twenty twenty four, payable in twenty twenty five.
This is for the one that will be your statement
that would show up in twenty December twenty twenty five.
(28:28):
So again, you need to sign up for this. It's
not automatic. It's you need to go on and put
your information in and it is a very very straightforward
and simple process.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Do I understand though, that the legislature is talking about
expanding this primary residence tax credit, but this particular one
will lock you is locking you in at the five hundred.
But that could be expanded in the.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Future, right That is part of Governor Armstrong and legislative
leadership's proposal in House Bill eleven seventy six. I belive
that it kind of eventually increases that up to I
think fourteen and fifty dollars close to fifteen hundred dollars
again for your primary residence credit. So that's one that
we are obviously keeping an eyeball on. And like I said,
(29:13):
that will from what we understand, will still be a
sign up. You'll need to go and take some action.
It just won't be an automatic as the bill is
written now makes sense. Yeah, good, everything could change as
crossover has just occurred, and all the bills from the
Senate moved over to the House that were passed and
all the ones from the House that were passed when
(29:33):
we were a Senate. So now let negotiations. Let the
negotiations begin.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah, no, it's a little little heated sometimes. And you
did give a legislative update last night to the commissioners.
Not a lot of action between now in the last meetings.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
And a rinse and repeat. One of the ones we
were watching was the wastewater Collection and treatment. Some funninesssistance
there that originally started out had about fifty million dollars
or statewide moneies that got chopped in half to I
think twenty five million as I came through that. I
think the House Appropriations Committee that passed and moves over
(30:11):
to the Senate side. Obviously we'd like to see it
up to fifty million, because that's more opportunity for all
communities in are't goin to try and take advantage, and
waste water treatment plants and collection systems have typically not
been recipients of grant money. I mean, we can take
all the loan money we want out. There's not an
(30:33):
issue there with loaning. Loans have to be paid back grants.
In this case, this is grant money, and there's some
restrictions on there too, But again it's a good start.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I would assume you're watching those pretty closely as they
affect your waters absolutely, and you'll be coming back to
the Commission. I would assume many updates in the next
few weeks. All right, last thing I want to mention
if we could pop that screen up. We have apps.
We bought our Dakota Media Access app for quite some time,
(31:03):
but we just launched our Radio Access app and it
is awesome. It is so nice to listen to. It
a little easier to get I mean, we've been streaming
our radio access since the beginning Radio access dot Org,
I should say, and you can get there. Obviously, you
have to go through the website and listen and you
(31:24):
can get them whatever is on at the time, or
you can get into the podcasts or our music, our
music program archives. All of that is still available on
Radio access dot org. But the app makes it so
much easier.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Yeah. In fact, I was listening not to the app
but the radio on my way home from work on
Monday night to the Burly County Commission Media so catch
you know, you don't have to miss things?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yes, always sure well and with low power. Our over
the air broadcast signal is low power, so the signal
will drop in certain areas in the community. We've probably
got a radius of five ten miles outside if the
terrain is flat. But the apps make it so much easier.
And we've had the Dakota Media Access app that gives
(32:09):
you both the community channel and the government channel whatever
is on live and it also has an archive on
that app too, so super easy to use, super easy
to download. Whether you have you know, Android or Apple,
doesn't matter. You can get right in there. There's a
little QR code on this graphic that we can use too,
(32:29):
So all good. We'll continue to pump it get people
to sign up.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
It's all good. And I think the code of Media
Access and you marry you such a great job of
providing that service to our community, whether it's city, school, parks, county,
pick your favorite. You guys are there and providing the
service to the public. So that makes our from my standpoint,
(32:55):
makes our life a lot easier, you know.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
And it's all about keeping up with this technology. I mean,
have been around for a while, but at the beginning,
a lot of technology takes a lot more money, and
we just try and you know, grab them when we
can and when we see they fit in the budget.
And these are these are working very very well so far,
(33:17):
and we've made that investment and I think they're they're
definitely worthwhile.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Yeah, And the overall goal is keeping your community informed, yeah,
and engaged and things like that. And I think that's
the benefit of things like this is that while you
may be listening to them in the radio at one
or two point five, get out of five seven miles
and you don't have that, you can stream stream into
your phone or your vehicle or I'll.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Read that often I'm listening in the radio to a
meeting on my way home and then i'm because we're
out a little bit, the signal starts stir uping a
little bit, like, oh, I should have put them app
on and it can listen, so you often do so.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Change is tough for some of us. We'll get her
figured out.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Well. We got to accept it. It's here, always changing instantly.
So thanks Jim.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Thanks for having us as always much appreciated.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
See you in a couple of weeks. All right, all right,
thanks and thank you for joining us on this edition
of City Current.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
For more information on what was discussed in this episode
of City Current, visit Cityofmandan dot com or call seven
oh one sixty six seven three two one five. If
you have any suggestions, comments, or issues you would like
addressed in future Citycurrent episodes, contact us at info at
FreeTV dot org. This program airs on Government Access channel
(34:32):
two and six oh two in HD or on Radio
Access one oh two point five FM. It's also available
as a podcast on Radioaccess dot org and as a
video viewing link at FreeTV dot org. Thanks for tuning
in to this edition of City Current.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.