City Current - Bismarck 7-29-26

Ready, set, summer with the Honda Summer event, with available features like all-terrain tires and off-road tuned suspension, the rugged Honda pilot, bridgeline, CRV, and passport. Have all you need to get summer ready with the most fuel-efficient full-line automaker in America. Visit your local Honda dealer today. See dealer for financing details. Based on EPA estimate of 2024 large full-line automaker fleet-wide fuel economy. EPA Automotive Trends Report 2025. Coming up on this episode, a city current will visit the July 28th Bismarck City Commission meeting. Go over the Bismarck Mandan Convention and Visitors Bureau's annual report and the impacts it makes on our communities. Look at design options for the city county building and also. Get a look at the 2027 preliminary budget for the city of Bismarck. 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. I'm Tom Gerhardt from Dakota Media Access. Thanks for joining us today. Jason Tomonik, Bismarck City Administrator. Good to see you. Glad to be here. Thanks for hosting. Active night at the commission meeting. Yeah, as you were running through the, here's what we're going to talk about. It's like those are pretty heavy lifts. Those are some heavy and interesting, interesting topics too. And all impact, all of us. Yeah, definitely. Let's start with the Convention and Visitors Bureau Report, Annual Report. A lot of impactful statistics that Sherry Grossman, the director, was able to provide last night, including, and you had talked about this for Red, White, and Boom, how you're able to capture information now to help provide context to what's going on in the city. And clearly they're able to do that in the tourism industry, too. And the 1.7 million total trips was one statistic that. caught a lot of attention. How do we get to that number? And it's a lot of cell phone data, a lot of information, card data and things like that. But a lot of spending, a lot of hotels, a lot of restaurants, and a lot of folks visiting Bismarck. Yeah, those are the top three categories for visitor spend is retail, hotels, and restaurants. And that's exactly what we would expect. That's a lot of what we do when we travel. And for the Convention and Visitors Bureau, those are important numbers because they're helping. You know, infuse business in the local hotels and the restaurants and why does all of that matter? because it cycles back to part of the revenue stream for the Bismarck Mandan Convention and Visitors Bureau through the hotel motel tax. So 75% of that tax that's collected locally goes directly to the CVB for their operations every year. The other portion of the CVB's revenue is predominantly through charitable gaming for a few gaming sites in the community. And then there is also a small gift shop at their location at 1600 Burr Boat Drive. So if you haven't been up there,

It's a great place to go buy gifts for people. There's a good number of Bismarck Mandan things around the store. But overall total visitor spend $300.6 million in 2025. And as you mentioned, 1.7 million trips to the Bismarck Mandan area. Sherry did note some of those. Some of those numbers are not unique visits. They would be business travel that would be back and forth multiple times a year. Regardless, that's 1.7 million times that people are in Bismarck, Mandan, that wouldn't have been otherwise. Right. Then some other statistics, 339 meetings and events hosted. How are we getting these people to visit Bismarck? So some of these big events, as we know, have tremendous impact. That's one thing we've learned through the evolution of the Bismarck Event Center is the importance of being able to host a conference or conferences in your community. Why is that important? Because of what we were just talking about. It puts people in the hotels, puts people in the restaurants. But it also captures them here for several days at a time. And that's one way to. described economic development. It's people coming to our community and leaving their dollars here as opposed to spending them in their communities. And as we know, those dollars will continue to cycle through our local economy as many as seven times through. And so all of that attraction to the Bismarck-Mandon area is a primary driver in what the Convention Visitors Bureau is doing. They're out selling the merits of our community to... planners and conference organizers to encourage them to come to Bismarck with their events and activities. And we've talked about this several times in the past, but when people from out of town come here and spend money, that helps offset some expenses and helps the city do improvements and things around town. 25% of that hotel motel tax goes towards improvements at the Bismarck Event Center. Tangentially, one of the items on the agenda last night was to accept bids for the HVAC improvements that are beginning at the event center. That project is being funded through the hotel sales tax collections. So it's... It's a big cycle of money working through the economy, but in the end, it all comes back to these are good things for Bismarck Mandan because it's bringing dollars and it's promoting jobs and tourism and it's just a good part of how we make Bismarck Mandan work. One thing Sherry talked about a 10-year plan. I have a graphic of people are watching that they can take a look at. And how they're looking to the future to continue to impact Bismarck. The CBB just completed a destination master plan about a year ago. It was facilitated through a consulting firm. And so it's basically their 10-year roadmap. Phase one, years one, two, and three.

Big ideas there or goals and objectives there would be to launch events in riverfront programming. And we're seeing that under construction today down on River Road. The CVB was one of the original groups that infused cash into that project to allow the design to start to work forward. So that's very much a tourism attraction piece. And then a hotel study that was just recently completed as well. And so there's a lot of information in that study. that would encourage hotel developers to be looking at Bismarck Mandan for new construction. Years four, five and six, phase two, build and activate would be the theme there, convention hotel construction. This is something that we continue to talk about supporting the Bismarck Event Center. Having a business class hotel within walking distance of the event center would be huge to support those conferences and conventions that we want to attract for all the reasons we've already talked about. And then to be able to promote larger events and increase visitor volumes. That's phase two. And then seven through 10 grow and lead. Then we're talking about citywide conventions. Tourism is a permanent economic driver. People thinking about Bismarckmandan as a place to come and visit. Also, kind of a fun thing. I think I was just sharing on a recent vacation. One of our friends used AI to help plan part of the vacation. And the Convention and Visitors Bureau has a new tool. I think Sherry said they're the only one in the state that offers this where you can go on their website. type in some information and it'll kick out some ideas, whether it's hotels, restaurants, activities, just prompt you to know what's happening at where to go. Yep, it's almost your little tour guide. And I'm sure you could tweak it to your family's needs. If you've got X number of kids, you like to do outdoor things or sports things, you feed all of that in there. I guess I should try it at Bismarck Mandan resident. Would I agree with its recommendations? I think that's a good test. But CVB definitely has lots of partners in the community and driving business, driving activities. That's a big part of what they're doing. So I think this is going to be a neat little feature that they can offer on their website. And Sherry did know last night that if you're not a member, your informational still. Come on. So it's not excluding. Correct. Businesses that aren't members of the. I think it's geared towards members first to encourage participation as a member, but then also just realizing that it's all about the visitor experience and making sure that our guests have a good time and tell their friends and come back and do it all over again. Well, next on the agenda, and I'll let you provide some context and some background, but was the renovation and design options for the city county building. The Burley County is in the process of moving into the Provident Life building. I think it's by the end of 2027, they should be out. That's where I understand. That opens up possibilities for.

for what will be done in that building and allow for some updates and upgrades. Updates, upgrades, renovation, safety improvements, security, accessibility. Those are all big drivers behind this. So maybe a little context for somebody that didn't catch the meeting. The city of Bismarck has owned the property at 221 North Fifth Street. We called the city county building. We've owned that since 1984. Purchased it from the Q&R clinic. converted it from a clinic space to an office building. We've been there ever since. In the time that I've been with the city since 2006, floors two, three, and four were renovated, one floor at a time. And renovations involve your typical updates, new walls, new office furniture in certain places, new floor coverings, but then also moving some departments around at one time. Public health was in our building. Of course, they moved down to fifth and front, and now they're out on 26th Street. So there's been some changes over the year, certainly. But the biggest driver, of course, is the fact that Burleigh County is leaving the first floor, which now we have 25% of the building that we've never used as the city. And I guess when I think about how do we best utilize the resources that we're given, I'm one of my first thoughts drifts towards the Tom Baker meeting. Right. We're in the basement. We've been in the basement this entire time. It presents challenges. It presents accessibility challenges. I believe there are safety and security concerns in there. The ceilings are low. There's columns to hold up the building. The site lines aren't great. There's just some things that a modern commission chambers would offer that the Tom Baker room is just simply lacking. And so thinking about how do we repurpose the first floor, is there a way we could pull the chamber? from the basement and repurpose it on the first floor. We've been working with Endeavour North Design, which is a team of architects, and then they have assembled a design team of professionals that include engineers, structural, mechanical, electrical, there's a landscape architecture team on this. So we've got the full discipline of design professionals looking at this building inside and out. And the group came forward last night with five options for the commission to consider. The basic option A really just addresses some of the maintenance needs in the building. The building needs a new roof. We have the oldest elevator in North Dakota. I was going to bring it up if you didn't mention it. I was a history. I was an old elevator. As a history guy, that's probably not something we want as a distinction. No. And it is the only elevator in the building. And I believe I misspoke at the meeting on Tuesday when I said it's the only way to the baker room. That's not stairs. There are two sets of stairs. But it is the only elevator in the building for all four floors and the basement, all five floors, essentially. And it's reliable. There's people that use it every day. I don't want to give anyone the impression. It's not safe. It has regular service and all of that. But like with any piece of aging infrastructure, it needs more attention than something today might. So thinking about all of those components, how do we start to work through this? And so option A really looks at the roof, the elevator, and probably the biggest expense in a lot of these options is the HVA system. Currently, we have...

The building was built in three different phases. We have three different HVAC systems. And as I mentioned at the commission meeting over this last hot weekend, the cooling tower went down. There was a blip in the power. It caused something to happen in the system. Sunday evening, I stopped by the office and it was 90 degrees on the fourth floor. That's unpleasant working conditions inside or outside. And so fortunately, our building maintenance crew, they're well versed in this old building. They've dealt with it many times. They got the air conditioner up and running and everything was fine Monday morning. But it just speaks to the challenges that this building presents from a maintenance perspective. So option A, roof. elevator, HVAC, we're looking at an estimate between 11 and almost $13 million. And that locks the door to the first floor. That really doesn't do anything with the campus based. The county is vacating. So that's a high number to start with. And so when we work up from there, we're looking at other options. Option B, we're talking about the mechanical systems, the elevator, the roof, and then moving the commission chamber from the basement to the first floor. There's a portion of the first floor. That has fewer columns than the rest of the building. So there would be a little better sight line. It could accommodate about 150 people. So a similar size for those you can see the screen. Yeah. That's essentially the southeast corner of the building. If anyone's familiar with where the county recorder's office is today, that's a big part of the space that they occupy would become the commission chambers. Minor rearrangement to some of the departments within the building. And we're talking 26 to $29 million for those changes. Option C, this one gets creative. Option C considers removing a portion of the second floor. And you would say, well, why would you consider even trying that? Because then it provides a higher ceiling space within the commission chambers that is on the first floor. A higher ceiling, why do you need a higher ceiling? Because then you can elevate the table, the dais, where all the commissions would be sitting. It's not to provide any sort of intimidation, but it's a perspective. For those that are sitting towards the back of the room, if that table is elevated even one or two stairs, now you can start to see people across the entire room and as a presenter standing at the podium, you're closer to eye level with the people that would be making decisions. So it's an aesthetic choice, but there's an intention behind it. Option C also looks at shifting the front door to the south and... Because of the structural work, because of the reconfiguration of the second floor, we're talking somewhere between $35 and $39.4 million. That's a big number. But it really keeps us in that location. Option D, and this is the one that seemed to get a little bit attention from not just the steering committee, but also the commission kind of gravitated towards this option as well. This considers, again, expanding on the half block or the quarter block south of us that is currently a parking lot, reconfiguring the entire building to the south side, now being the front door, and then adding onto the building a proper commission chambers that has the appropriate height, windows, technology, accessibility, safety, security. Cole Johnson with Endeavor North Design, who gave the presentation, talked about a secure line.

On every floor of the building, a place where the public is welcome, a place where they can engage with staff, but beyond that secure line is where the offices and the resources that the employees would utilize. This option D accomplishes that in many ways because it adds a new front door, it adds a stair tower in an elevator corridor that then provides a small lobby area on every floor. So when staff are in need to meet with the public, there's an area right off the elevator that makes that happen. Today you're wandering through departments, you're in off of corridors and things like that and it works. Certainly, but we know that there are some efficiencies that could be done with this. And so the remaining portion of the empty lot or the parking lot south of us would then also become a public plaza. This then presents a very significant civic location, a civic space where you've got... City Hall, City Hall Plaza, you've got parking structure next to it, right at the intersection of Fifth and Broadway. This becomes an opportunity for public gatherings, activities, events. None of that stuff has been designed or programmed yet, but it creates the place for these things to start to happen. And Cole mentioned last night, too, if I'm remembering correctly, that... that additional space moving the chambers out, that could facilitate other public events while keeping the remainder of the building locked down. Yep, that's a great point. With a room this large, you'd want to be able to provide opportunities for more things than just government meetings. And so what type of things might that be? We're not even sure yet. Maybe it's programming. Maybe it's community events on the weekends. I don't know, but having the security. and the technology to be able to keep the building safe but yet still have that other portion available. I think we'd absolutely want to consider that. I was thinking of the Bismarck Historical Society and the monthly programming and what a space that could provide for us to record. Well, and part of this design also creates what they're calling as Heritage Hall. Again, all of this is conceptual. It's to talk about. It's to get the ideas flowing. But this idea of Heritage Hall on the first floor of this building becomes a space that's not just a lobby, but it's now an educational opportunity to share. the rich history and the culture that Bismar can celebrate over its 154 years. So as a member of the Bismarck Historical Society, I think they're kind of calling my name on this one. So, but again, none of this has been finalized. The purpose of this discussion last night was to show the commissioners what their options are. This option that we've been talking about, option D, kind of fell in the right range for.

feasibility when it comes to pricing and the estimate was somewhere between 34 and 38 million. Mayor Smith challenged that a little bit and said, you know, what could you do for 30 and see how those designs are refined? But then, and then option 5, option E, we should talk about that. It was a consideration of a completely new city hall. The city of Bismarck owns a vacant surface parking lot northeast of our building at the corner of 5th and Thayer, directly south of the Provident for those that can see the screen. Provident is in the kind of the background of the picture, but then in the foreground would be a brand new city hall. There would be parking underneath the building, about 38 stalls, commission chambers off to the side, and it would be a smaller footprint. And Cole had explained the reason is because it could be designed more efficiently than the building that we've retrofitted that was designed for a completely different purpose back in its state more than 100 years ago. So new construction, Range on that one was $46 to $50 million. These numbers are high. This is the world we're in. This is construction. These are the materials and equipment, and we're paying talented people to do great things. And so here's the price. Consensus that I heard from the commission was we can't just do the three things and then lock the first floor. That's not a good use of our time. So option A off the table. Option E, that's too high of a price. We're not looking at building new because then we still have the responsibility of what do we do with our existing? Right. So we take option E and option A off the table. Now we're down to B, C, and D. Option B had kind of some potential modifications to the first floor. Option C was the one where we talked about removing the second floor. The group said that's not a real feasible option either. So now we're down to option B and option D. Option D is the addition where there would be a construction of a new chamber. Option B would be retrofitting the first floor to have a commission chamber on the first floor. And so. That's good direction for the design professionals. Now they can really focus on two of these concepts and start to get a little closer to the numbers of what it would actually be. Start to refine these designs. We can ask more questions. The understanding that I have from the commission is to return at the second meeting in August. And hopefully at that point, we can come back with a recommendation of, here's the path that we think makes the most sense. Obviously, the commission will make this decision. And we will go from there. I think the mayor and you both talked about it last night too, but bringing the financial picture to the table. How are we going to finance whatever option is eventually? Thank you for that. That's, of course, part of all of this. We can't do anything without a budget. And so we've been talking with our new finance director, our comptroller, certainly with the architects. They've been talking with general contractors. The numbers are what the numbers are. So how do we build a budget that we can represent that could not break the bank, but yet still accomplish what needs to be done? And so that'll be part of the charge over the next month is to come back with a proposal that the commission can consider there. And if everything aligns, we'll keep working.

And from there, all sorts of things unfold. We could have an entire episode of just what happens if they say yes to option A or option B. So, yes, construction talked about that. Do we stay in place during renovation? Would we move to a different location? There's an expense to that. There's a disruption of services. Where does commission meet during all of this? All sorts of things to consider it on their own. Yeah, lots of choose your own adventure paths that we can take here. So we'll continue to work. We're in great hands with the design team. This has been a lot of fun being a part of this. It's fun to dream about things. But I also understand these numbers mean something. And we can't just be throwing millions of dollars around like it's insignificant. What I would like to offer is that this investment into City Hall solidifies the city of Bismarck as a permanent tenant in downtown for many lifetimes into the future. I think that's a great position for us to take. I think it's important for us to be a good neighbor in downtown, and this really demonstrates that and it encourages others to do the same with their properties. So we'll keep working on it. We'll come back with the recommendation that makes sense in the near future, and we'll see where the commission wants to take it. Speaking of budgets, the 27 preliminary budget was brought to the table last night, eventually unanimously approved. That doesn't mean changes won't happen. But just wanted to walk through the process and highlight some of the key things that were talked about. last night. Yeah, definitely. So budget process really starts back in March and April with our fiscal services team, putting together all the information that the departments need to build their requests for the year following. And keep in mind, our budget cycle is calendar. It runs from January through December through December 31st of 27. And we're doing that in July of 26. So we're doing an 18 month forecast here. And we're, By no means are we perfect, but we've been pretty consistent with our methodology here, and we will continue to do that. And so we have a budget committee, which is composed of the commissioner that holds the finance portfolio, today that is Mayor Schmitz, the finance director, Ryan Score, assistant city administrator Doug Susie Wiles, and myself. Of course, we bring in other staff, Eric Lund, our comptroller, and a good host of the accountants from our fiscal services department, all work together. And one by one, the departments come through and present their requests for base budget adjustments, do employees, new equipment, capital improvements, fees and charges. All of it gets considered. And the goal of last night was to develop and present a balanced budget that incorporates all the prudent use of the resources that we have, considering property tax, sales tax, certainly general fund departments, enterprise fund departments, which are those that generate their own revenue through fees. That would be the utility operations, the streetlights and traffic signals, the airport. There's a number of them.

Again, we could spend on another episode just talking about the budget. But what were some of the highlights from the budget? Of course, we're capped at a 3% increase from year over year due to House Bill 1176 that was passed at the legislature in 2025. So we are proposing a budget increase of 3%. How does that mean everybody's taxes go up 3%? No, there's still valuations on property and all of this is involved. What it means is that our general fund budget cannot increase more than 3% year over year. And so when we talk about the general fund, we're basically collecting about $39,000, $39 million in property tax collections. And then we have another of other revenue streams, whether it be charges for services. investments on earnings on investments that we have and then of course licenses and permits and fees for services that we provide the operating expenses over 53% of our general fund budget goes to public safety police fire and 911 emergency communications 53% 37.6 million dollars goes to those three departments From there, then we've got all the other general fund departments that include administration, HR, legal, planning, building inspections, engineering, and they go on and on. So, in a big part of the budget that goes towards all the general fund departments is essentially salaries and wages. As Eric Lund mentioned, Our human capital is our biggest expense across the general fund because we are investing in people and paying them for their time to do the work that they provide. So that doesn't change year over year. We've got 650 full-time staff. We have a police department with 130 sworn police officers. You start to add those salaries up, those longevity, the benefits. It's easy to understand where we're spending a lot of our money and it's on the people that are here to provide those services. So. What else would you like to know? We talked a little bit about the utility bill fees. I think there will be a general increase of around $3. And when we talk about the utility bill, it's everything. It's recycling. It's your water consumption. It's your sewer. It's the street lights and traffic signals. It's the curb stop fee. All of that is part of your utility bill. The water utility is not a general fund department. In other words, the revenue it creates through monthly usage is what they use to operate day by day by day. So when you say my property taxes are paying for the water, no, not really. Your consumption is what's paying for the water. And I'd encourage anybody to take a look at the breakdown on their utility bill, but we're very mindful that year over year, those increases are manageable. We don't want to be jumping. 30, 40% across the board with fees and charges. We want to be able to make small incremental adjustments that are in line with a consumer price index adjustment year over year. We believe that that helps people budget for their own households, their own properties. And for us, it is predictable rather than, oh, gosh, is the city going to raise the rates here? Well, yes, we are, but it'll be a small amount to cover the increased costs that those departments or divisions are incurring as well.

So last night, the commission voted to accept their preliminary budget. And now I think it's the first meeting in September. Some adjustments can be made not adding to the budget, correct? Correct. Because we're capped at that 3%. Historically, that was the expectation is that once you develop your preliminary budget, that was the highest amount you could collect or the highest budget you would set. Now we're just going up to 3%. So there can be things taken out and added in, but it won't ever exceed that 3% cap that's set by the state. And essentially, you know, some changes will be, adjustments will be made in the next coming weeks. But by September. I think September 8th is our public hearing. It's the first meeting in September. So, of course, we'll advertise that in the local paper and go through those steps. But that would be the public's opportunity to come forward and share their concerns, support. Questions, that's why we do that every year to give everybody the chance. And if they have questions about what's in the budget, I would encourage them to go to the city's website, get the agenda packet from last evening from the July 28th commission meeting. All the material that was presented by the comptroller and the finance director last night is attached to the agenda packet and scroll through it. There's a lot of information there, but if you have questions, reach out. We'd be happy to explain some of those things. Make sure everybody understands what it is we're recommending here. Just a final note toward the end of the meeting, Commissioner Rish brought up something I think you wanted to mention. There's a couple of dumpsters disposal units, one on the north end of town, one on the south end of town where folks can take. Tree branches. Tree branches. Stumps and live or things like that, but tree branches. Four inch diameter branches. And so in the past, for many of us, you may remember a time when the city would pick up what we called extra is you could lay things next to your trash can on your pickup day. And our staff would jump out of the truck, pick it up and throw in the back and carry on. Because our trucks, our garbage collection trucks have changed, they no longer make the style that we were using before. We now have just one individual in most trucks. An individual very rarely leaves the cap. So we're not picking up extras. So we've got a lot of calls. Hey, there was a windstorm. I've got some branches. What can I do with them? I don't want to take it to the landfill. I don't have a truck. So Commissioner Rish worked with Steve Solwey. Steve is our public work service operations director. We now have two locations as of Tuesday the 28th where there are roll-off dumpsters. One of them is on Santa Fe and South 12th Street down by Cottonwood Park. The other one is up on Ash Cooley Drive just west of North Washington Street near the Water Tower. For folks that are familiar with those sites, there are grass dump sites, but there are also the two sites where you can help yourself to woodmulch that the Forestry Division drops off. You can now drop your branches. Not tires, not furniture, not appliances. If this gets abused, it's going to go away. But this is a service that we recognize was something that people appreciated in the past. We're going to try this out. And if people use it appropriately and respectfully, great. Now we all have a place to take our branches four inches in diameter or smaller.

Big stuff, big logs, stumps, all that, still go to the landfill. But we'll report out on this. If it continues to work, that's great. And if we see a problem with it, it's probably going to have to go away. As always, a number of street improvement projects taking place around the city and just remind people, then go to Bismarckendi.gov slash streets, and then you get all the latest information about what's happening out there in the middle of this heat wave that we've all been experiencing for weeks, it seems. It's summertime. Like heat dome, I think, is what I heard it described as. Yeah, it's literally just sitting, sitting above. And of course, if you want to. Watch last night's city commission meeting in full or scrub forward to your favorite place. You can download our DMA app or go to Dakota Mediaaccess.org and find any video, a number of videos on demand. Also invite you to listen to Radio Access 102.5 FM on your radio dial or also online at Radioaccess.org or we also have a radio access app so you can listen anytime, anywhere. So until next time, Jason, thanks for joining me. Have a great afternoon, everyone. For more information on what was discussed in this episode of CityCurrent, visit Bismarckndee.gov or call 701-355-130. If you have suggestions, comments, or issues you would like addressed in future episodes, contact us at info at freetv.org. This program airs on government access, channel 2 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 CityCurrent.