GFPS School Board Meeting (July 14, 2025)

001Good evening everybody and welcome to the school board meeting on Monday, July 14th. Uh I'm president I'm not president, I'm superintendent uh Terry Brennan. I'll be presiding over the meeting until a board president is elected. Uh but until then uh would all of you please rise and stand for the pledge of allegiance on the southeast corner. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. At this time, I would ask business manager Brandon Bombachuk to read the board meeting norms. >> Yes. Thank you. The school board members will be prepared, will be on time, will value and respect others, exercise thoughtful deliberation and conversation, be professional at the board table

002when and when visiting with the general public, speak up when the norms are not being followed, and advocate on behalf of students, and keep the community in mind. >> Thank you, Mr. Bomb. And we'll continue with you uh for the declaration of the school board. >> Yes. Thank you. Um, in the board packet you'll find a number of the uh board members listed. I'll just point out that Josh Anderson, Dave Burgerer, Dr. Cheryl Hodak, Joel Larson, Bill Palmino all are in terms June 2026, while Amber Flynn, Jay Cleven, um, Dr. Lun, and Jeff Manley are through terms of June 2028. >> Thank you. Now we will move on to the election of the president of the school board and I will go over the process just as a refresher for everybody. Uh as the chair

003of the meeting I will call for nominations and any member may call out a nomination. No seconding of a nomination is necessary. Nominees can decline a nomination during the nominating process and then um whoever is nominated I will ask if there are any further nominations and I will ask that question three times. And if there are no other nominations, um then I would ask for uh to close the nominations based on a action, somebody to uh make that motion and then I would call for a second and then we would move on to a roll call vote and then we would uh discuss the results. Actually, we would have the results of the roll call vote. uh and that's basically just to get to the point of the election of the of the president of

004the board and then I will call again for the motion uh to elect the person for president of the school board for the fiscal year 2526 and then a second would be um requested and then we will do a roll call vote. So there'll be two roll call votes uh during this process. If there is a second nominee, we'll take the nominations. Uh we'll vote on the nominations in the order that they do come in. Um as soon as one of the nominees receives a majority vote, I will declare the nominee elected and no votes are taken on the remaining nominees for that office. Are there any questions about the process? Okay. At this time, I would call for nominations for president of the Grand Fork School Board. >> Dr. Lon, >> it's my honor

005to renominate Mr. Dave Burgerer as president. >> It's been a nomination for Dave Burer as president. No second is necessary. Are there any other nominations for president of the school board? Are there any other nominations for president? Are there any other nominations for president? I would call for a roll call vote to cease nominations for president. Roll call vote. Cindy, please. >> The motion and a second. >> That's right. We need that. >> May I have a motion? I'll move to close the floor nomination. >> Thank you, Mr. Cleven. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Bill. Now, we'll have a roll call vote. Thank you. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Burger, >> yes. >> Flynn, >> yes. >> Podak, >> yes. >> Cleven, >> yes. >> Larson, >> yes. >> Lun,

006>> yes. >> Manley, >> yes. >> Pomacino, >> yes. >> Nine. Yes. Zero. No. One. Zero. Absent. Okay. Now, we'll have our uh second motion that we would need on the on the floor is to nominate Mr. Burgerer as president of the school board. >> Moved by Mr. Larson, second by Mr. Cleven. We will now have a roll call vote again. >> Thomasino, >> yes. Manley, >> yes. >> Lun, >> yes. >> Larson, >> yes. >> Cleven, >> yes. >> Hodak, >> yes. >> Flynn, >> yes. >> Burgerer, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Nine, yes. Zero, no. Zero absent. >> Congratulations, Mr. Burgerer. You are now president and you take over the meeting from here. I will now call for nominations for the vice president of the school board for the 2025 2026

007year. >> Mr. Palmino. >> Yeah, I would nominate Josh Anderson. >> Josh Anderson is nominated. Are there any further nominations? Are there other further nominations? Any further nominations? I would call for a motion to close nominations for the vice presidency of the school board. >> It's been moved by Mr. Cleven. Is there a second? Second by Mr. Manley. We'll take a roll call vote. >> Lun? >> Yes. >> Flynn? >> Yes. >> Pomacino? >> Yes. >> Larson? >> Yes. >> Cleven? >> Yes. >> Hodak? >> Yes. >> Anderson? >> Yes. >> Manley? >> Yes. >> And Burgerer? >> Yes. >> Nine. Yes. Zero. No. Zero absent. >> Motion passes. I call for a motion to elect Josh Anderson as vice president of the Grand Fork School Board for the fiscal year 2025 2026. >> It's

008been moved by Mr. Manley. Is there a second? >> Second by Mr. Cleven. We'll take a roll call vote. >> Hodak. >> Yes. >> Larson, >> yes. >> Manley, >> yes. >> Cleven, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Flynn, >> yes. >> Ponosino, >> yes. >> Lun, >> yes. >> And Burger, >> yes. >> Nine, yes. Zero, no. Zero absent. I declared Josh Anderson elected to the vice presidency of the Grand Fork School Board. Congratulations. The next item on our agenda is the approval of tonight's agenda. I would seek a motion for approval. It's been moved by Mr. Manley. Is there a second? >> Second by Mr. Cleven. Any discussion? We'll take a roll call vote. >> Pomacino. >> Yes. >> Anderson. >> Thank you. >> Anderson. >> Lun. >> Yes. >> Flynn. >>

009Yes. >> Larson. >> Yes. >> Manley. >> Yes. >> Cleven. >> Yes. >> Hodak. >> Yes. >> Burger. >> Yes. >> Nine. Yes. Zero. No. Zero. Absent. Motion passes. Item four is the public comment period. We're about to enter into the public comment period for our meeting. Although state law does not require us to hold a public comment period, we have chosen to do so because we believe it is crucial for us to hear from our community members about their concerns and issues. Having said that, please note that the board is here to listen. The public comment period is not designed to be a discussion. Accordingly, please do not expect board members to respond to your concerns or questions now. This is because we take your concerns and questions seriously and want to have sufficient

010time to process and research issues. if need be. We will, however, respond to your questions and concerns at a future meeting or have proper staff get back to you at the appropriate time. I also want to point out that under state and federal privacy laws, we are unable to entertain any comments or questions about school district personnel. Please know, however, that we take personnel concerns very seriously. On these matters, we would ask that you would go through the appropriate administrative channels. Finally, we recognize that right now in our nation and in our community, we are polarized on a number of issues. That said, we want our schoolboard meetings to serve as an example to our students that members of our school board and members of our community can deal with controversial issues in a civil

011manner and demonstrate mutual respect for one another. In that spirit, we will insist that all speakers and members of the audience maintain civility and respect for any divergent views that others possess. We ask speakers to please address their comments to the board directly. Finally, I want to remind everyone listening in the room and online that you may submit written comments to the board in lie of speaking during the public comment period if you so choose. The board will now entertain public comments. Each individual speaker is allotted up to three minutes. The individual time limits will be enforced so that all members of the public who wish to speak may be allowed to do so. At this time, I have four public comment cards. If there are any others, please bring them up. Now, the first

012speaker I have is, and I'm reading cursive here. I believe it's Mona Leak. Mona, if you would come to the microphone, and perhaps Mr. Bombach, if you could turn the microphone on. Thank you. >> I did. Mr. Brener. So, okay. Thank you. Can you hear me? Okay. Good evening. My name is Mona Leak and I live at 3231 Lord Circle. I'm here tonight to speak to the agenda item 6F uh the consideration of Northridge pilot. And I have four quick points because I only have three minutes. I could talk a lot longer. Okay. Number one, I'm absolutely opposed absolutely opposed to giving tax pilots to the developer and I'm opposed to giving any tax pilots to apartment developers. I don't believe taxpayers should be subsidizing apartment development in our city. And number two, common sense

013tells you that they are in direct competition to all other apartment owners in this community as well as businesses. And I think it's really unfair that this is being asked. You're basically picking winners and losers in our community. And I say, let there be a free market. It will bubble up. We will get what we need in this community. We have a lot of good people. Um there are at least three other proposals of developments coming down the pike. That means you'll be addressing this issue again. And if you do approve it, you'll continue to address this issue. Where does it stop? Are we going to be giving the bowling alleys and the car dealerships pilots pretty soon? What's next? And I I thought Mr. Felin would be here, but he I would think that

014he'd probably if he were, he'd come up here and tell you we've done this before. And I'm well aware of that. We have Franklin on fourth. That was the pilot and I believe Northridge developed that. We also have Memorial Village one and two. Two areas that they're double dipping into taxpayer money. Okay. Going on to number three. Am I on time here? Okay. Um I think the city has really been pushing the lack of housing in Grand Forks. We hear it all the time. It's on the radio stations. It's brought up at all the meetings. And I think this is a play on your sympathies to get these pilots passed for these individuals, but they haven't the city has not given any documentation of a survey that's been taken of all the other apartment owners.

015And as well you could you could put put in there the realators association. And what's really important is I would like to see documentation that tells you the percentage of apartment owners that have responded to said surveys that they throw out at you. >> Thank you. Please make your final point. >> Okay. Number four, final. I believe you will be in violation of North Dakota Century Code 4057 if you vote for this tonight. I learned of this because of Andrew Krauss who is the owner of Albatross Golf. >> Yep. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Andrew Krauss. That was a good segue. Um, my name is Andrew Kranik. I live in Grand Forks and I own and operate Albatross Indoor Golf Club. This Northridge pilot program is in violation of NDCC 4057.1 as it

016provides for unfair competition with existing businesses. Those would include other rental property owners. It would include other gym and fitness business owners, and it can include me and my livelihood if they include a golf simulator as an amenity. Yes, one simulator has a major impact on my business, even if that one simulator is for only for apartment residents and guests. Northridge built the district. A Facebook post for the district reads, quote, "Amenities include a state-of-the-art gym that will make you cancel your gym membership." End quote. Northridge also built the Bowden, which has a golf simulator and has had a major impact on my business. Great for Northridge, the district, the Bowden, and the free market, but not for great for this proposed project or the multiple other developments proposed to be coming to you next

017from Dakota Commercial, with this one and those ones providing for unfair tax incentivized competition. North Dakota Century Code 4057.1 states, quote, "An unfair advantage shall not be given to new or expanded enterprises, which is to the substantial detriment of existing enterprises." End quote. This includes all tax incentives, including pilot programs under this chapter of NDCC. Mr. Felen and Mr. Bochensky have aggressively been pushing the need for housing and these associated tax incentives. Bansky and Felen have publicly stated that our vacancy rate has been at or below 2%. Finally, from Mr. Felin, I have where that data was coming from. He provided me with a 28page consultants memo addressed to Northridge. Memo shows a vacancy rate of 1.3% based upon a market snapshot of 876 units from eight complexes. The city has claimed to have been

018using the Greater Grand Forks Apartment Association for their rental housing vacancy data as seen online via their housing dashboard. Greater Grand Forks Apartment Association data shows in quarter 1 of 2024 based upon 8,000 pulled units the vacancy rate was 5.75. Quarter 4 of 2024 based upon 7,800 units vacancy rate was up to 6.55. First quarter of this year, the vacancy rate dropped to 3.6, but with only 6,500 units pulled. And keep in mind, this includes about 800 to a,000 airmen here temporarily through the B1 program who are leaving us in November. So instead of using all this data, not perfect data, but the best most objective data we've got, the data they've claimed to have been using, they instead decided to use a developerprovided paid for memo showing a much lower vacancy rate based on

019876 units rather than 6,500 to 8,000 units. All in an attempt to sell their housing shortage narrative to you all, to the county commission, to city council, and to all of us in the public. Mr. Felen and Mr. Brochansky have lost my trust. I encourage everyone to insist on objective hard data when being presented any further sales pitches or presentations by their team. Don't let city leadership and staff muddy the waters by questioning what competition is. I'm telling you that one golf simulator in an apartment complex for its tenants and guests is detrimental competition for my livelihood. Don't let our mayor question whether a washer and a dryer in an apartment unit is the same thing. Having clean underwear accessible in your home is not the same thing as having a golf simulator or other

020discretionary amenity in your home. >> Finish up, please. >> Thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it. >> Our next speaker is Mary Coponin. Copenan. Good evening to the school board and it's Caponin. I'm here just to add to Andrew's points. I agree with him on all the things he talked about and also Mona Leak. I have a unique experience in Georgia where I live for 20 years. These tax they were called tax allocation districts. They were used a little bit differently. Instead of trying to draw, my understanding is they're supposed to draw industry jobs and people to Grand Forks these tax incentives. And I know pilot is a little bit different. I don't have a good understanding of that part. But the my point is the tax incentives in Georgia were intended to

021keep taxes at the base rate after the development was built for 20 years. Um the the idea was at the end of 20 years they would collect a lot more in taxes from the property. It did not work completely as planned because a lot of the properties that were built were built in blighted areas, which was what they were targeting. And those businesses went under the minute the economy turned sour around 2006 through 2010 or 11. They went under and the county that I lived in, Gwynette, never did collect the higher taxes. and these places were just abandoned and foreclosed on. So that's the only issue I had to bring up today. They were also not for residential. They were all for commercial or um like shopping malls and office type developments. They did not

022do it for residential that I am aware of. I was very involved in these things in Georgia. That's all. >> Thank you. Next I have Bob Calgar. Hello Bob Kger. Uh again here to talk about the TIF financing for Northridge. Um I think Mr. Feland keeps referring to a 2% vacancy rate which I have been confounded to find because I can't find that anywhere. Through the apartment association, Grand Forks apartment association that we belong to, we're at 5.6%. And of course that fluctuates every quarter with changeover and whatever, but we've been managing 750 units for 28 years and our average has been 5.45. So that might be a good indicator and it might not be but it's not 2%. I mean if we can anyway I don't know where he gets the 2% number but

023I can't find it and it doesn't work with our information or in our our management either. It's the vacant rate is far higher than it's 2%. Plus, half of the units in Grand Forks are not in the apartment association. So, you don't get a report on vacancy from them. And you don't get half the reports from the actual people that are in the associate won't submit them because we don't want to because they want to keep their information to themselves. But, uh, funding $6.7 million is, uh, you know, a it's just incredible that we would have to do that. I mean, if you got if you have a look closely, if these are $238,000 units, that's not your entry level unit. That's a high-end luxury unit, right? Why are we considering financing high-end luxury units

024when your main need, if you're going to do something like this, is at the bottom end. That doesn't make any sense to me. And quite frankly, I don't know how it makes any sense to anybody else. And as far as competition, this is direct competition. Memorial Village One, Memorial Village 2, most of our units are on the north side of UND. Complete competition. And as the mayor, when I asked him how they could do this, all he said was I said, "It can't be built if we don't give them the money." Well, does that shock anybody in here? I mean, you can create a spreadsheet to look any way. Well, I think we all know that. Just to garner the tiff money, I could make these units look like $140,000 units. I can make them

025look like $300,000 units just on a piece of paper. So, do we get to see everything that's on there? Do we get to see the entire estimate and go through it to make sure that these people are being honest? Number three. >> Finish up, please. >> Yeah. Thank you. Agenda item five under superintendent recommendations for discussion. 5A is the finance committee report. Mr. Bombach. >> Uh thank you, President Berger. Um just give a quick little introduction to that. Um the finance committee really just took uh one agenda item when they met on July 9th and that came from a board um request for future consideration on on a June 9th meeting and it was largely talking about these payment in le of taxes and a in a general context. There were examples that were talked

026through similar examples of of tiffs as tax increment financing um pilots and then also just um touch base on a couple of these that were coming our direction. But um I would certainly turn it over as it was more of a general conversation to uh Mr. Promiscino. >> Yeah, I would I think that's pretty much what we we talked about on the tips, but I think the the biggest point we wanted to find out is what would happen if we decline because we were always told by the the retired uh uh county auditor that it would be too hard to for them to operate. But we asked for a legal opinion from our attorney and we did uh receive that which is in our packets and it give us the ability that if we do

027resign decline the uh motion then we would receive taxes as they should be. And then we felt as a group that we should bring it to the board to just have a general discussion of what people are thinking on if they feel if you feel that's the thing to do and because we do have two on the agenda tonight and there are a few more coming down the road. So comments from other committee members before I open it up for discussion. Anyone else at that meeting wish to add anything? So >> questions from board members, Mr. Cleven. >> So reading the legal opinion from our council, it it gives an option of negotiating different terms. So we could conceivably say something like, hey, we agree in concept, but we need different terms. And that would

028not hold us beholden to the 30-day period. uh 30-day period being if we don't respond in any manner, we assume acceptance of the tax uh incentive. But if we say, "Hey, we'd like to negotiate different terms," that 30-day clock no longer applies. Is that the correct reading of the of the legal opinion? >> Yeah, I'd like uh Laura Cobb to respond to that if she wouldn't mind coming to the mic. It's it's her legal opinion that came to the committee. So, Miss Cobb, if you wouldn't mind. >> Thank you. Um, that's my understanding is after the school board responds within that 30-day window that they um would then enter into negotiations with, I believe, the county and the city on the terms for that um property tax incentive. And then I suppose once new terms

029were negotiated, they would again probably uh reiterate and give you another 30 days to make a decision. Um, that would be my understanding. >> Thank you. Other questions from board members and uh this we've had previous legal opinion that has given us the council that this form of project is compliant with North Dakota sentry code like and I don't think that attorney attorney's here in the room, so maybe we can't get a distinct answer on it, but I we had that legal opinion prior. Um, is that the board recollection or am I misinterpreting something we've seen? >> Dr. Brener, >> I'm sorry I wouldn't have that right at my fingertips. >> Okay, other questions or comments from board members? Dr. L. Well, when I've looked at these tips and I want I want to get

030feedback from the rest of the board. I've I've always looked at it through the lens of the school district and what's the mission of the school district and the mission is to is to educate the youth in our community. So, I've had kind of a narrow narrow opinion or narrow thought process on this. I I look I look at all of them as okay how does this benefit the school district or how is this a negative impact on the school district you know and the benefits are generally fall into two categories. One we get more people moving into town and so we get more kids in town and then the second bucket is usually is usually financial tax wise. So, you know, are we getting taxes now? If if this isn't built, what happens to

031that tax? Does it does it go up or not? And so, I've always had kind of a narrow opinion. I have not gotten into the the deep woods because I've always felt that's that's what the city council should do. and and maybe I'm thinking too narrowly and I guess I'm interested in what other board members have done or are thinking about doing when when we look when we look at these uh because you guys know my original opinion is we shouldn't even be in this business and if it wasn't for some other city in the state we wouldn't be because we weren't initially that got changed but by state law so I'm just curious about that >> other questions or comments from board members Yes, Miss Flynn. >> Um I uh so we're doing the

032finance committee report, but are we voting on this later? >> That's correct. This is under discussion. Uh and under the next main bullet point of our agenda, um there are two pilots under consideration, 6E and 6F. Um this this cover memo and and board member Palmino's comments allude to the fact that we're now discussing this legal opinion as it relates to the a potential pilot for these two under consideration. >> Okay. Um so my question for this portion of the meeting then would be um just to clarify that if we voted no um as a a board and the other entities voted yes if the project still went through it would be the responsibility of the developer to pay our full share of taxes. Correct. >> Miss Cop. >> Hi Amber. Um yes, that is

033correct. So our portion of any um property tax incentive that we did not vote in favor of would be tax true and full value of that of whatever the project ends up being. Miss Flynn, does that answer your question? Do you have a follow-up? >> No, I do not. Thank you. >> Other questions or comments from board members? Yes, Dr. Hodc. In re response to Dr. Lun's point about um stating what I believe or what I feel or what I think based on my experience based on teaching school finance for 20 years based on teaching ed law and such in teaching all of those students to be good superintendent and board members as well. I always talked about we as a board are elected by the community by taxpayers and that those taxpayers expect us

034to be efficient to be effective with their tax dollars that they give us. And so I look at it that in order for us to continue that um thought that we are good stewards of the taxpayers um that when we are now spending over when I looked at it over five some point million dollars in the next two years on the salaries that we all approved when we have taken a good hard look at what the state is telling us that we're not going to receive. When we take a look at what the federal government is doing right now and taking that away from us, the cap and everything that's happening on mills and taxes for the state through our legislature and such, I do not believe that we should be just saying go ahead

035to these big companies. um go ahead, use our money and hoping that we'll receive a return on it. I have been again researching left and right. I agree with the comments that have been made about that vacancy rate, what the Grand Forks Apartment Association puts out compared to that report that just was handed to us at 400 p.m. today. in looking at that one which was a paid um by the but for analysis and everything else I think in order to be a good steward of the taxpayers I will vote no you asked that's where I'm at >> other comments or questions from board members uh Dr. one >> ju just a quick followup Sherry on that. So the the only comment I would disagree with you about is our money right now. We aren't

036collecting those taxes on on that and and so I'm not sure you can say they're using our money because it really isn't our money unless it got built. That's that's the only minor disagreement I would have with your company. >> They get our money, >> right? But if we don't approve, then we don't we don't lose we don't lose any money. >> Other comments, questions from board members, Mr. Larson, I I mean I I look at these two projects pretty differently also. You know, I think we have one and to for Mr. Krauss's next point, a $240,000 unit that feels like a pretty high-end unit with built-in golf simulator and gym. It's going to impact other people. I view that very differently than attracting an international business to town. And so offering tax incentives or

037abatements or whatever. Um those are very different uh analyses in my opinion and I think I'll probably I don't I don't know yet where I land on this. So I want to I want to hear more and but I definitely think about those two factors. >> Do I see your hand, Mr. Cleven? >> Yes. Thank you. Uh, I just want to remind all >> Oh, the darn thing. I always put myself on mute in meetings, too. Uh, I just want to remind everybody we're talking about the committee report. >> Let's kind of hold the heavy lift until the agenda item where it's appropriate. Certainly helps with note notekeeping. Uh, do we have to take action on the committee report? >> This is simply an item under discussion. The major bullet point five. Thank you for

038the clarification, Mr. Cleven. >> Anything else from board members? Thank you. >> Thank you. >> We'll move on to item six. This is 6A. Schoolboard regular meeting schedule for 2025 2026. Dr. Brener. >> Thank you, Mr. President. You have a memo from me in your board packet uh outlining the the meeting schedule for uh for this coming academic year. And tonight, obviously, we're already in our meeting. I just wanted to call out a couple of um notables here. July 22nd is a Tuesday. Um and it's it's noted as a special meeting because typically we in policy we only have one meeting in July. Uh so it's not called out because it's a Tuesday, but it's called out because we typically only have one. Um but it's important that we have a second meeting in July.

039Then you can see the rest are on our standard Mondays on page one. And then if you go to uh to the back page uh Monday, January 5th and Monday, January 19th, those would be the first and third rather this than the 2nd and fourth. And that's um that's due to the North Dakota Association of School Administrators midwinter conference that I would be attending. Then the only other one I would um call to your attention is Monday, March 9th would be the second Monday um of the month. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of that week would be considered spring break, but we would be in school that Monday and Tuesday. So, we will keep our board meeting uh intact on that day. And then um the final one uh May 26th is a Tuesday due to

040Memorial Memorial Day and that happens on a regular basis uh each and every year. And then just planning ahead uh a year from now in 2627 our organizational meeting will be scheduled for July 13, 2026. Administrative recommendation is to approve the proposed 202526 meeting schedule for the Grand Forks School Board as outlined. Any questions from board members? Mr. Cleven. >> No question. I was going to make a motion to approve as recommended. >> It's a motion on the floor to approve the proposed 202526 meeting schedule as outlined. Is there a second? >> Second by Mr. Larson. Any further discussion? >> Yep. Mr. Palmino. Yeah, I was just wondering is it the July 29th is that the one for the budget that we'll look at because when we had talked in finance, I know it has

041to be okay by August 10th and our meeting is on the 11th. So, >> yep. Now, that's exactly the right calculation. Um, so we'll do the preliminary budget. The final budgets are due to the county until October 10th. >> Other questions from board members? >> We'll take a roll call vote. >> Larson, >> yes. Palmino, >> yes. >> Pleven, >> yes. >> Lun, >> yes. >> Manley, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Podc, >> yes. >> Flynn, >> yes. >> Burger, >> yes. >> Nine, yes. Zero, no. Zero. Absent. >> Motion passes. 6B is our consent agenda. I would seek a motion to approve the consent agenda in your packet. >> So move. >> It's been moved by Mr. Palmino. Is there a second? >> Second by Mr. Larson. Excuse me, Mr. Anderson. We'll

042take a roll call vote. >> Cleven, >> yes. >> Manley, >> yes. >> Hodak, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Flynn, >> yes. >> Larson, >> yes. >> Lun, >> yes. >> Pomicino, >> yes. >> Burger, >> yes. >> Nine. Yes. Zero. No. Zero absent. >> Motion passes. 6 C. Consideration of use of building fund dollars for summer projects. Mr. Bombach, is this you or Mr. LW. >> Yeah, I'd be happy to introduce this one. Um, President Ber, members of the board, um, largely projects won't come to you unless they exceed an a North Dakota Century Code stipulated threshold of $50,000. These are all less than that. The reason this comes in front of you is use of building fund dollars needs explicit approval from the board. These are projects that I would describe

043or fit right into Jonathan's maintenance plan on a regular, but we need that explicit permission to expand it out of the building fund. But if you want to highlight the projects you're committing to, Uh thank you, Mr. Bombach. Yeah, we have two projects on here. As you can see, it's the painting of the Kushman uh field press box and the metal paneling around. That was a joint effort with the parks. Um something that kind of came up last minute because they had informed me that they were painting Eagles Arena and then then uh Kushman Field Fields paneling and press box would not match that and would look a little bit silly um in my opinion. So they had uh asked if we would we would be interested in painting that since they already had a

044contractor there. So we talked with the contractor procured procured a quote and um and would like to paint that. So for that piece it's $9,870. The second is the replacement of carpeting in Red River 611. Um that is due to a relocation of some uh programming from Red River to the CIA. We removed some of the specialized equipment out of out of there and realized that the carpet needed to be replaced. Um, so we we would like to replace that carpet this summer. So we have extra functional space in Red River. In addition to that, I just have a contingency of 10% that prevents me from having to come back to the board in case there's a snafu or we have to make a small change. Um, but so the full ask is uh $16,630.85.

045So the administrative recommendation is to improve the use of 1663085 in building fund dollars for the painting of Kushman Field and the replacement of carpet in room 611 at Red River. I'll stand for any questions. >> Questions from board members for Mr. Elwine. >> Mr. Cleven, >> would you rather have 20% contingency because 1,500 bucks goes pretty quick. It does, but I'm confident uh I'm confident with that number. >> Okay. >> Other questions from board members? >> Miss Flynn on the phone. I'm trying to remember you're there. >> I do not. >> Let's seek a motion to approve the use of 16,630 and85 cents in building fund dollars for the two projects as outlined by Mr. Elwine. >> Motion to approve. >> It's been moved by Mr. Manley. Is there a second? >> Second by

046Mr. Larson. Any further discussion? >> We'll take a roll call vote. >> Manley, >> yes. >> Lun, >> yes. >> Larson, >> yes. >> Homicino, >> yes. >> Hodak, >> yes. >> Cleven, >> yes. >> Flynn, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Burger, >> yes. >> Nine, yes. Zero, no. Zero absent. >> Motion passes. >> Thank you. Thank you. 6D, consideration of proposals for food service disposable supplies. Mr. Bombach, >> President Burgerer, members of the board, this is the North Dakota Century Code component that whenever you ex you would expect to exceed $50,000 for services or product, you would need to go through an RFP process. So, in front of you is the results of an RFP process relative to proposals for uh food service disposable supplies. And you can see here we got

047three responses by the deadline. Um largely driven by price. You'll see that the administrative recommendation is to award to Cole Paper who is currently the incumbent. Happy to stand for any questions. >> Questions from board members for Mr. Bombach. Miss Flynn. >> No. Seeing none, as you can see, uh, outliers outlined in the memo, I'd seek a motion to select coal papers proposal to provide food service disposable supplies. And moved by Mr. Palmino, second by Mr. Cleven. Any further discussion? We'll take a roll call vote. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Hodak, >> yes. Flynn, >> yes. >> Manley, >> yes. >> Lun, >> yes. >> Ponosino. Larson, >> yes. >> Cleven, >> yes. >> Burger, >> yes. >> Nine, yes. Zero, no. Zero absent. >> Motion passes. 6E. Consideration of request for payment in lee

048of taxes for Agristo North Dakota LLC. Mr. Bombach. Yeah, President Burgerer, members of the board, I largely will just introduce this topic and introduce um some guests here tonight. I just wanted to underscore a couple of key components here. In summary, at the beginning, you'll hear a lot more about it, but just um some of the the impacts that you'll find here to our school district in this payment in le of taxes is described as a 90% um pilot over 20 years. And you can see it's articulated in the cover memo just where that takes the current property tax uh current property tax levy for the school district and then where it would be at the end of the 20 years just articulating that that's school specific. And then secondly too um with this industry

049it might draw families and students into our school district. So you can see an estimate there. Um largely hinged on if 20 or 15 to 25% of those families are bringing children with them is where you get the estimate of 59 to 99 students. The current rate of per pupil payment from the state of North Dakota this year is 11,349 per student. So you can see that that range is about $670,000 to uh $1.1 million on those enrollment impacts. Um introducing city administrator Todd Felen joined here. I know by Mayor Bachensky, um, city attorney G and President and CEO of the Grand Forks Region need to see Keith Lond. I'm sure they'll have a lot more to articulate um than I can. >> Do I? >> Are we live? Hey, thanks for having me. My

050again, my name is Todd Felen, city administrator for the city of Grand Forks. Um, so I'm excited to talk about both these projects. Um, and uh, like I would say all of us, I I'll get this out of the way. Uh, none of us like to talk about tax incentives. Um, but at the other hand, we want to we want to be winners, too. So, um, really um, this Gristo Gristo project is one of the biggest wins um, for the city of Grand Forks and I dare say for the state of North Dakota in a long time. And it just so happens it's coming to U Grand Forks. It's quite incredible. Um, I've talked here before. or how do we get projects done before we get here? Um, the city of Grand Forks puts in

051infrastructure and makes land available for industrial projects. Um, we we go through Bank of North Dakota financing along with our Grand Forks financing to help subsidize interest rates. Uh, are two things that we do. We we have you enter on the last two things, which are the tax incentive and number two uh to have a community somebody wants to locate here in Grand Forks. So, you've played a large part in those last two and I would agree with you. I've been city administrator going on 12 years. Things I'm working on now, I would not have been working on 12 years ago. I would not have worked on the career impact academy and helped that get over the finish line. I would not have worked on an ultra sports complex. I would have not worked on

052a children's museum. All those projects um have happened or will have happened because the city of Grand Forks. Those are not in the city of Grand Forks portfolio. But I think what we have in a mayor and a city council is we're about one community and how do we get things done? And so certainly we're out of our lane in a lot of areas where in other communities, school districts work on those projects or park districts, but we're we're at the we're leading and trying to move these projects forward. That's why we're involved in a lot of other things and um beyond what we're trying to do for essential uh services in Grand Forks. I have to say a lot of thank yous on this agreeto project. These projects don't come here suddenly without a

053lot of help. Um, we've gotten here number one because of the Northland potato growers. Without the Northland potato growers doing all they've done with test trials over the last three years, this project wouldn't be here. It would be in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, not in Grand Forks and in our region. So, this is a huge win. And so when you see our Northland potato growers in our uh in our region, you should say a big thank you because without them uh this project would be going to um Wisconsin. The other thing we had to work on in this project, big thank you to US Senator John Hovind. We had to work on BNSF on rail traffic. He's the one that helped lead that project. So thank you to Senator Hovind. I want to um also say

054uh thank you to so many state representatives. Governor Armstrong, a Commissioner Goring, seat Commissioner Ken Burch, BND D uh North Dakota Department of Water Resources in our state legislature. I'm going to talk about one of the things that we helped close a deal and you probably can imagine how how hard it is to get things done at the state legislature. Well, we were able because we could demonstrate this is a locally driven project. We got the state legislature to agree to a $30 million forgivable line of credit to help close a gap between us and the Wisconsin state primarily for land acquisition and infrastructure. We were able to get that done and a nearly unanimous votes in both the Senate and the House which is quite incredible. It shows you um the state of North

055Dakota is behind this project. Uh again, I've talked about the sweat equity of our potato growers over the last three years. we wouldn't be here without them and what they've done. And so really what we're doing here is we're trying not to mess this up at the very end because there's a lot of people have put a lot of time and effort into this thing. And this what I'm not talking about tonight is is a very small piece to a bigger hole that's been going on on this particular project. So I want to give you context. We're showing up here this evening, but there's been three to four years of work on this particular project. Um we should be very thankful right now agree to along with other um food processors are going through a

056a worldwide expansion. Why are they going through a worldwide expansion? People like to eat frozen foods and frozen potatoes. And so that's why this is coming here. Agristo is finishing up a project in France. They're finishing up a project in India. And their next investment is in North America. And just so happened they they're planning to locate in Grand Forks, North Dakota. That's a pretty incredible thing when you think about it. Um, why North Dakota? Our strong a community. Fast growing area for their potatoes in northeast North Dakota and and northwest Minnesota. Business friendly and room for growth and expansion. And finally, they enjoy being in Grand Forks. They like our shared values. They like our culture of collaboration. And they like how that we get things done. That was probably the biggest piece they

057like about Grand Forks versus the site in in Wisconsin. But there had to be other business related things for them to pick Grand Forks. So, we should be very proud of our community. Sometimes uh we're not as proud as we should be. Um but we got a great community and um in large part that's why they picked Grand Forks. We had to close the gap because um we have better potatoes. our potatoes were so much better than in Wisconsin. It was quite incredible. Um the other thing that we have with our our crop is that over since the 80s and 90s, uh our dryland potatoes um have really reduced over time. This potato variety that's going to come from Europe will be grown approximately 50% in irrigated land, 50% in dry land. So, it's going

058to return a lot of those dry land acres that have been lost. So you you this is a win for Grand Forks, but it's a win for Hoople. It's a win for Park River. It's a win for Grafton. And this is a win for the entire region um of potato growers. For example, in 1990 um state of North Dakota, we planted about 150,000 acres of potatoes. Um in 2023 was 76,000 um acres. So we're returning the highest valued crop to our region through this project. So, this is big deal for Grand Forks, but it's a huge deal for our region in bringing back a value added crop like we're going to bring. Um, in this case, the state of North Dakota, I talked about, they provided a $30 million um um forgivable loan to help

059close the gap between us and Wisconsin. Wisconsin's closest to the market. They're our challenge year is where where we're located. So in in Wisconsin, they were going to truck the potatoes to an interotal facility in Chicago and quickly get to the east coast, to the southeast, and to the south around Texas, and they were going to beat us to market. We needed rail to close that gap. That's why we we worked hard on this thing. The $30 million is going to help close the gap. In the state of Wisconsin, they were giving them free land. They were giving them a 20-year tax incentive um for 100% and they don't tax the land or and I'll talk about some of those incentives, too. Um, so we really needed to work and we we should be very

060thankful to the state legislature for stepping up to help close that gap. Without that $30 million, this project would be going to Wisconsin. And uh when you see somebody like uh Representative Hagert, we started maybe with $10 million and you know what he said? Let's go for $30 million. He led this and got it done for us. Um that's the kind of support that we had and he got um representatives to sign on to his bill throughout the state of North Dakota. We had to have a a land uh site that was ready to go with infrastructure. That was the Fuong site. Certainly, um you probably can recognize we went through a lot with Fuong over a couple years. Um but we didn't quit. We didn't curl up in the fetal position and give up.

061We knew there would be another opportunity and so we kept developing that property with infrastructure. And so the city um by the end of this will have invested $30 million in infrastructure to make that site land um available. So without us doing that, we wouldn't be in this position today that we are. Um the other thing I want to talk about when we're going to talk about this site and the tax, the reason why that property is as valued as much as it will be this upcoming tax year at $1 million is because the city has invested $30 million in infrastructure. We've reszoned it to industrial. That's the reason why it's now instead of um being worth not a whole lot, that's why it's worth $11 million because the city has um stuck our neck

062out and has made it happen as part of that development. The last piece was this 20-year 90% tax incentive, the pilot incentive. So we started with again we're starting from behind the where the state of Wisconsin was giving them a a 100% tax incentive to include the land. They were giving them the land for free to to entice them. We started at a 20-year 80% tax incentive on this project and in order to narrow the gap we said we would present to our colleagues one being you to go to a 20-year 90% tax incentive. So, that's where we got to the 20-y year or 90% to help close that gap along with the state of North Dakota's $30 million forgivable loan. The schedule right now is um Agristo um Agristo probably in the August September

063time frame once we wrap up um some of these matters that were in front of you. They're planning to buy the land from Fuong. They're currently in environmental design and permitting right now on that on their project. um they've they've selected a general contractor um for building of this facility. They're working with our area farmers um through their aronomous and um the city of Grand Forks is working on a development agreement that's going to spell out all the particulars um for this project to move forward including this pilot. And so things are fast moving forward where where they would start construction in earnest um next spring and maybe some site development yet this fall. So back to the pilot. So right now um assuming the 90% over 20 years, keep in mind this is a

064phase one project. So the phase one project is estimated we're going to say for today's purpose is about $450 million. It could be $450 to $500 million. There is a phase two in this project if they're successful uh in phase one. And and we give ourselves a lot of credit. Uh most of the credit goes to Agristo because they're the ones that have to make this project happen and make it profitable. They're organizing a team from their corporate headquarters to come to Grand Forks to make this investment happen and make it successful. And so that's kind of the wherewithal that they're bringing to our community. They're going to be moving to our community uh to build get their networks going on and to really make this project successful. They already are in the market. They

065sell to the retail market versus JR Simpla primarily serves the restaurant market. So there's a differentiating differentiation between those two. They serve the grocery store market and um well-known u retailers like um Sam's Club and Walmart are their are their customers. They want to be in the United States. We well well know what's going on with the current administration. They need to locate invest in the United States to continue their um ability to do business in the United States of America. right now. Um, even though I'm we're saying it's a $450 million project, we're saying we're valuing the the real estate property at about at 186 million, which includes the $11 million um property value. And so the other thing, the state of North Dakota, the land is always taxable. So the $11 million is

066taxable no matter what. That does not get any tax incentive. The other thing you do is during construction, none of the project none not the project is not part of the pilot at all until they're substantially complete. So obviously the state of North Dakota is doing that so that you move through the project sooner rather than later and get it done. Um otherwise it's going to be 100% taxable. So I just ran some numbers and I know Mr. Bombach has two, but um in the year 25, our estimate is the total um taxes that will be paid on that site will be 181,000. Um the school will get 68,000 of that. In 2026, it'll be $429,000. The school will get 161,000 of additional revenue. In 2027, it'll be a little over a million and the

067school will get 379,000 in additional revenue. In 2028, we estimate the value at 1.4 million, which will be additional 535,000 for the schools. In the year 2029, uh we assume there'll be, you know, final completing in the 2029 tax year. That's where that it'll be 10 10% taxable. We estimate the taxable value will be 476,000 in that baseline year and the school district's revenue will be 179,000. and whomever is here in 21 years after that year. Uh we estimate the property value of that property will be 3.7 million of which the school district's revenue will be 1.4 million. In addition to that, they'll be building an additional 150 million to $200 million in in potato storage. So this um is going to be a huge investment for our farmers in our region. It's going to

068create renewed or brand new storage for these potatoes. Um, with all the expenses the farmers are going to have, they're excited because they're going to have a crop they can they can um they can sell for a significant revenue amount. So, that's also going to come. Some of that revenue will likely come to the city of Grand Forks, too, because it'll be in and around where the facility is. It's going to create um about 660 jobs, both direct and indirect. Mr. Bombach talked about the number of students we analyzed. We we estimate over 4,000 construction jobs over this 3 to four years of construction. And so it this project really is a big deal. Um there are no additional expenses on top of all those revenues for this Grand Fork school district. I think that's

069all revenue that's going to come to the school district. You also have the added benefit of any student coming here because of this project um for added revenue. So, the city of Grand Forks with our state partners really have um invested a lot in this project to get it where it's at. But I really once once again I want to really spell out our our potato growers and all that they have done regarding this project. So, with that, we have others here um from Keith Lun to Mayor Buchensky. Um this is a big deal for Grand Forks. We can't say it enough. Um the seed commissioner testified and he testified this is the best project that's happened in North Dakota in decades and it's coming to Grand Forks. So I just want to give you

070some context kind of project we have in front of us. With that I would seed anybody else who would want to say something further >> before we do that. Any questions for Mr. feeling while you've got the microphone if you wouldn't mind just if there's anything from board members that you wish to clarify before we because I know you have others coming to the podium but since we have a natural break here any questions from board members Mr. Cleven >> comment >> the microphone please. >> I mean I I see no other need to belabor this point. I'm prepared to make a motion to uh accept the uh tax incentive as as summarized in all of our documents. whatever the proper phrasing of that motion is, uh, with the added comment that in our region

071for economic development, this is the gold standard. And there's nothing but positive here, and I'm very prepared to make a motion to accept it. >> Okay. So, I'm trying to parse out the the motion from the the comment just to clarify. Mr. Cleven, uh, are you moving that the board, uh, accepts the pilot request for 90% property tax exemption for 20 years? So, there is a motion on the floor. Is there a second? >> It's been second by Mr. Palmino. >> Is there any further discussion? Uh, Dr. Lun, >> I wouldn't mind hearing from the other presenters before we make a decision. Sure. So, Mr. Felen, do you have somebody on >> I think Mayor Brochensky would like to say a few words. >> Sure. >> Well, thank you. I'll I'll make it brief. I

072agree with uh board member Larson and Cleven, but these are probably two vastly different projects that we're talking about. To me, this one's an absolute no-brainer what this is going to bring to the community. So, just want to thank you guys for hearing at hearing hearing us and and and considering this. The only other thing I would add is Agristo even at 10% is going to be the second largest taxpayer in the community. So you can imagine once that comes off in the future and we have to think long term. I think it's easy to think short term with this 3% cap because we got to survive yeartoear. We've got to make investments that are going to help us dig us out of a hole for decades to come and people that are in our

073situation long into the future. So I think we get a big bite of the apple now. We get a lot of growth, economic growth. You're going to see the farmers do well. They spend money in Grand Forks. I know that firsthand. I'm married to a Park River gale. She's not a potato farmer, so there's no conflict there. But, uh, you could ask Brandon Bombach. He'd be up here presenting if it was 3, four years ago. This is upgrade up his wheelhouse. But, uh, just want to thank you and I won't belabor it anymore and just, uh, do hope that you, uh, give it an affirmative vote. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Mayor Bensky. Are there others, Mr. Felen, that you had on on deck? >> That's probably enough from us. Yeah. >> Okay. Uh,

074so just a reminder, there's a motion on the floor and a second uh to approve the pilot request for 90% property tax exemption for 20 years. Any questions or comments from board members? Dr. Hodc? >> Yes. Um, these aren't questions, they're just comments that I would like to make. First of all, there's no guarantee that we would get those students that supposedly are coming due to the fact that there are private schools, homeschooling, and such. So, I really question when they're using that as a reason for doing that. Also, I question the fact that um are all Northland potato growers on board with this and where is that documentation? I question where the documentation is on Simplot being there. Also, that the fact is that if they were indeed at the beginning of all of

075this talked to and spoken to, why weren't we? um in response to the words that were used um this is just a small piece at the end. Um then apparently we weren't needed if we weren't um brought to the table at the very beginning and when I'm sitting here as a board member trying to protect students. These are the issues that I'm bringing up. Also, I applaud that you think that the legislature has done such a tremendous job helping out these companies and progress and everything else. I would question what has our legislature done for K12 education because it hasn't done for us what it apparently is going to do for the others as well too. So those are just some comments that I want to make that there is no guarantee and I just

076think that we shouldn't just be applauding people for doing things that um sometimes appears to be lining other people's pockets. I'm not against the progress. Um I do have a relative that is a potato grower in Grafton. So um it I'm torn. I'm just not going to let money leave us and lie of that there will be money down the road. Thank you. >> Other questions or comments from board members? Mr. Larson, >> I have uh a question. Mr. Cleven was awfully quick there. Um, has the county has the county approved this yet? >> Yeah, they they approved this last Monday or last Tuesday. So, sorry. >> Okay. So, we're the last piece. >> Uh, ultimately this will come back for the city council for the final public hearing and approval. But the last Yeah.

077of the taxing entities. Yeah. >> Okay. Good. Did you have something, Mr. Club? >> I do not. No. >> Uh, Miss Flynn by telephone. Nothing for me. Thank you. >> Other questions or comments from board members? I have just one to state publicly. Um yes, there's revenue coming online. Uh you know, we saw the potential numbers. Um the possible increase in students. Um, educating students does have some expense, whether that's hiring additional staff, whether it's trying to figure out space for them, a possible public referendum for a new South End Elementary School. Um, so it isn't a zero. I just want to state that it isn't it isn't all revenue. If we if we have 59 to 99 new students of various grades and ages, um we have staff to hire, uh which um growth

078is good, um but it's not expenseless, um and and yes, we're we're thankful for the per pupil payment uh that we do receive from the state. It certainly wasn't the increase we were looking for. Um so just wanted to put that in the air. Uh, other questions or comments from board members? Okay, one more time, a reminder, there's a motion and a second to approve the pilot request for a 90% property tax exemption for 20 years for the project outlined in your memo. And we'll take a roll call vote. >> Flynn, >> yes. >> Cleven, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Bodak, >> no. Alsino, >> yes. >> Lun, >> yes. >> Manley, >> no. >> Larson, >> no. >> Burger, >> yes. >> Six, yes. Three, no. Zero absent. >> Motion passes. We

079have six F. Consideration of request for payment in lee of taxes for North Property 01 LLC doing business as the reserve. Uh, Mr. Bomb. Yeah, President Burger, just to clarify, when the board packet went out, we had um some information that then got adjusted to the electronic link. So, I just wanted to be clear about what was updated here. Um firstly, there was some changes made that reflected the latest pilot structure. It went from 100% for the first 5 years and was adjusted to 90% for the first 5 years. So, there's some other documents that are um within that are adjusted that reflect that additional change. Um, also there was some additional information added including some of the vacancy uh uh information that that'll be included in there. Uh, and then lastly also letters of

080support from the Grand Forks Air Force Base in Altru. So those were late additions. Um, just wanted to make sure that I announced them that they were on my end of getting those added to the packet, but they are available online electronically right now. So if there's any inconsistencies or questions about that, I'd be happy to answer for that. >> Sure. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Bombach on that piece before we turn things over to Mr. Feland? Any questions on discrepancies from board members? Okay, Mr. Feland, President Berger, members of the school board, I think this one's going to be a little harder. Um, we're um we're here before you regarding an important issue of housing. And so, um, you have two, um, letters of recommendation regarding, uh, we need to do something with

081housing from both the Grand Forks Air Force Base, Colonel Monroe and Ultra CEO Todd Forkl. Um, there's a letter not in the packet, but we've also been meeting with U. President Andrew Almer of the University of North Dakota regarding concerns um, for regarding housing too. I also want to I want to thank you for your approval on many housing incentive projects that we did uh during the pandemic in the in the midst of the pandemic and it's quite remarkable when you see those projects today how successful we have been growing out of the pandemic. Um so when you look at Franklin on fourth uh the beacon memorial village one and two um allan those are all projects that private developers working with u the public sector took a chance on Grand Forks that we were

082going to be successful coming out of the pandemic and look at how fortunate we are and um we're fortunate because we have those facilities because we got we have a booming University of North Dakota and um Memorial Village H2 2 is already um fully enrolled um without school starting at this point in time. We've been able to h um house the bomber mission from Ellsworth Air Force Base and because we could demonstrate that we had housing. And so those are those are success stories of being proactive, taking a chance on yourself and having housing availability so that we don't miss opportunities. And if we hadn't done what we did, we would have missed an opportunity hosting the Ellsworth Bomber Wing. We would have missed opportunities to accept all the students we're going to be once

083again be able to accept under a record enrollment at the University of North Dakota. So, thank you for approving all of those. They have served us well. Mayor Buensky um and the city council, again, a lot of these issues are all of our problems or all of our successes. And so one of the issues that we're trying to work on is housing and what do we do? And so I think Mr. Baky, we invited him uh to one of our meetings um first off working with this current this past legislative session. the city of Grand Forks was pondering um actually purchasing a property um in and around the north end Walmart um placing infrastructure on that site to create um housing in that area. So that would have caused that would have been a huge

084investment for the city between the land acquisition and the infrastructure development um on that particular site. you know, that's probably in excess of a $20 million investment um for the city over time um working with the with the property owner. We were pondering doing that. Um we went through the legislative session and and uh like you have spoken, you don't win all of them at the legislative session. Um the the at this legislative session with housing, we were hopeful for some infrastructure grants that um the state was going to set aside for housing projects like we were talking about. um at the end it just didn't come to any anything substantial and so we've gone to plan B and um on how do we create additional housing with what we have currently. So um our

085concern is that we haven't had any building um multif family unit permits taken out over the last two years. So what we're what we're accomplishing right now is are projects that we started um three four years ago which is a great thing. So that was our concern. So how do we move forward? We engaged our development community um just like a good public p private partnership of how do we move forward with projects. So um that's what's in front of you. These this is an easier way for us to go ahead and facilitate housing in our community uh in a in a range of housing in our community too. So, I know there I understand there's some discussion about whether this this building is um u is going to create too nice of uh apartment

086units, have too many amenities, create too much value um for the city of Grand Forks. Um we're working right now on housing units that are across the board with u with various entities. And we're looking at infill sites where we already have in where the city's already invested infrastructure and how do we incentivize projects that move forward that would have moved forward um before under a lower interest rate environment and a lower construction cost environment. Um so that's kind of how we got here as a as a plan B. Uh I know I understand there was probably discussion on what the vacancy is and we could probably argue all day long. Right now, we're at a historic low vacancy. Whether it's at 1% or 3% or at 2%, it's historically low. You just have to

087ask somebody trying to find an apartment in Grand Forks. Right now, I just talked about the Agristo project that's going to bring um thousands of uh construction workers. It's going to bring 600 plus um permanent jobs to our community. Um, we're fortunate that we're working on other um, egg value added egg businesses like uh, Epitome Energy that we've been here that you approved an 83% 15-year uh, incentive. Um, that likely will have direct jobs about 150 um, and if you want to just double that with indirect, that's probably 300 jobs. We're working on data centers um, that want to come into Grand Forks and these would be the high-end data centers with AI and machine learning. Um, that's going to bring over 100 jobs to our community. Um, also and then I already talked about

088the growth and expansion that's happening at Grand Forks Air Force Base, Grand Sky, and the University of North Dakota. So, how are we going to be successful and not miss opportunities um by being so principled that we should just let the private market do what it does and and it's not going to do that. The other major difference is the University of North Dakota has privatized their housing. They're not building housing themselves. they would have a hard time going through the border, higher ed, and going to the state of North Dakota to get funding for housing. That's why they've outsourced it. Johnson Controls is either building um their housing, their new dormitories are all facilitated by Johnson Controls. Um the public private partnerships that we just talked about, Memorial Village 1 and two are all

089RFPs that were um sought out by UND and we'd help facilitate those projects u to completion. The Grand Forks Air Force Base has less housing than because they privatized it. They rebuilt it and they have privatized housing. They're not going to build housing anymore. Housing has been devolved to the local community, which is a great challenge, but it's a great opportunity. If we can figure it out, really great investments can continue to come to Grand Forks because we figured it out. And we well should know right now the federal government is not going to come to our aid to help us with our housing issues. The state of North Dakota is not going to. It's up to us to figure it out and what we're going to do. And that's what this option is. And

090that's why I really respect Mayor Bachensky trying to come up with solutions and when one solution doesn't work, we go to the next solution to try to figure it out and just of ringing our hands about it. Those are the really the opportunities um of why we came to where we are today. This this particular project does have 155 units with underground parking. It's proposed to start um late this summer with a completion of the spring of 27. It's just east of the Sanford Clinic and Edgewood Senior Living. So in that 47th Avenue area, we assumed a land value of $1 million and then an improved real estate value of 27 million. So for about a $28 million investment overall, the investment itself is estimated at 37 million, but we're what we're seeing right now

091at about $28 million is the taxable value for that particular project. And I'll just run through some numbers uh that we've we've worked on it. Right now, we're proposing a 15-year um effective 77% tax incentive. So, it would be a 90% over first five years, 80 over the next six years 6 through 10 and then years 11 through 15, it would be at 60. And the reason we started out at 100, 80, 60. We did have a meeting two weeks ago with the county commission as Mayor Bochensky talked about, they did approve the uh the Agristo uh project 4 to one. Um but they they postponed this decision. We're going to be back there tomorrow um late afternoon and we're going to pick up the discussion there. And my discussions with um Commissioner Rustad, his

092discussion was, you know, Todd um as taxing entities, they need something upfront in those first five years. And that's where we arrived. We went back to the developer. We went back to our financial analyst from Baker Tilly and we have agreement that we can make this thing go with a 90% upfront. So that'd be um 10% to the taxing entities on this particular project. So with that years 1 through five um the total taxes additional taxes on that site would be between 60,000 and 63,000 over that time period. The Grand Fork schools would benefit um between 22,000 to 23,000 per year. In year 6 through 10, which would be the 80% um the total taxable value would be between 110,000 and 115,000. Grand Forks Public Schools revenue benefit would be 41,000 to 43,000. Years 11

093through 15, which would be 60%. The total taxes we estimate would be between 214,000 to 223,000. and the school's benefit would be 80,000 to 84,000. In year 16, uh when the project is fully taxable, we're estimating the taxing taxable value would be 535,000 and the school's benefit would be 201,000 um for those projects. Again, we talk about these but for analysis. So, what we're trying to say is all the if plus or minus if all the taxing entities are in this project can move forward. But for us not following through, this project is not going to happen. So, um, our former council president, Hal Gerson, used to say on these things, um, a 100% of zero is still zero. And so, he'd always want to get the projects across the finish line that we can

094actually get developers, uh, to move forward with projects. Um, I know you should ponder that there are other projects that we are reviewing. I suspect they're going to go through city council and they're going to go to our local government advisory committee and they're going come back to these uh this board and the county and back to the city council. So, this is a bit of a litmus test on what we're going to do with housing because there are a few others. I just want to highlight others that are coming. There's a project called the domain which is 153 units. It's on 47th Avenue in and around where the proposed new Hugos would go on the south end. Okay. The next project is Kings View, which is um off of 62nd um in that golf

095course area. That's a 45 unit uh complex. Um there's a Burkholtz edition which is off of 17th and 42nd in and around where the Children's Museum and Alter Sports Complex. Um they're look they're going through planning and zoning right now, but they're looking in and around 350 units in that area. One we just talked about at city council is on um 39th Avenue South right by Furniture Row. Uh right now city planning and zoning is considering reszoning that area which is meant for commercial and turning that into residential because we got plenty of commercial in this town. So that'd be 165 units um that's proposing that. The uniqueness of that one is that they're looking for federal and state tax credits to create a low and moderate income apartments in all of those 165 units.

096So, that's one of the unique ones. The other ones I just spoke about would be more market rent, but these would be uh low and moderate income apartments. So, what I'm saying is we got a handful of projects. I know some people um also want to know where were we at with Ray Richards. My understanding is I talked to President Armacost. He's going to meet with that town home association. see what can they get done in that area. I don't know if, when, or how that's going to look like moving forward. That one's a bit on ice at this point in time, but we have several others that are coming. And so, I just want to let you know um whatever happens tonight, and there's likely to be uh a few more coming here in

097the next month or two regarding residential um properties. The other thing I just really really want to do is um we talked about how do we the mayor Bachensky is really being on how do we grow our tax base? We grow our tax base through um a gristo. We grow it through even through apartment complexes because this is adding $28 million of investment in our community. And so what happens when we don't grow the community? And we've had significant growth in our community that, you know, the city of Grand Forks has helped promote over the years. And that growth has helped us be able to invest in quality of life investments in our community. I went back and uh Mayor Buansky and I we we've pondered a lot about the Columbia Mall because people come

098to us and what are we going to do about the Columbia Mall? And we've worked, we've been to Chicagoland where their offices are. Nothing happens. And it is one of the biggest detriments we have to the city of Grand Forks other than what probably the other thing which we're working on right now is air service, commercial air service to Grand Forks. So, I just want to highlight what can happen when we don't continue to grow and develop or have owners and in this case it's Northrush Construction who believe in the community are willing to invest and I always say to people who are worried about this if this in if this land development property development was so easy we'd all be in it. We'd all get equity partners. We'd all go bank loans and we'd

099all start just building apartments all over the place. It's it's it's risky. It takes wherewithal and it takes somebody sticking their neck out. And so whatever happens tonight, we should be just be thankful for the developers we have in town that are willing to bet on our city. And I'm I'm really impressed. I'm going to give you some numbers on the Columbia Mall. Okay. So when we come back and the the values have increased, there are some values in Grand Forks that are going down. um the Columbia Mall itself, okay, not including all the all the satellites or the anchor stores. Okay, in 2017 we had that valued at $30 million 30 $30.9 million. I asked our assessing department, what's it valued at today in 2025? 3.4 million. If we take the whole area, including

100all the box stores out there that are owned by other entities, in 2017 that was valued at just over 59 million. Today, it's valued at a little over 18 million. So, we have to be thankful though for those that are willing to invest in our community because others are not. As much as we've tried to conolul and you know what we've said to Columbia Mall owners, what do we need to do to help you reinvest in this property, make it a better mixeduse development. We're willing to stick our neck out and work on tax incentives to help grow that. Think of that increment that has been lost and worried about what we're not getting with this potential new revenue if the project comes. We're losing revenue and tax dollars on that. And all you have

101to do is our taxable rate is 1.65%. So take that value and multiply it by that and you will see how much tax value we've lost. And so really we're just trying to work on the housing. We don't have all the answers, but we're trying to do the best we can to try to create housing. The other answer we get is what are we doing with single family housing? We're working on that, too. If you look at the development on uh we were going to work on it over by the Walmart, but Grand Valley is a development. The city has invested millions of dollars in infrastructure development. We've provided the cap we can on single family incentives. That's two years for the builder, two years for the homeowner. We've capped that out. We can't go

102any further on that. We've deferred special assessments for three years to help people do do things. So, we're carrying those costs. So we're we're all in on housing no matter what it is so that we can be successful as a community because I just ticked off all the projects that are in front of us to include with our partners of UND Altru and the Grand Forks Air Force Base and they're relying upon the community to deliver housing to deliver education to deliver quality of life investments so that we can be worthwhile place to maintain missions here and to grow their missions. And maybe with that, I'd call on Mayor Buchensky because really this housing um review started with him and just trying to move the needle on housing. So I'd see if he could say

103some further words. I don't have too much to add. I just think again this is all part of the growth story. If we can't have a community that can't grow, if we can't develop housing. So we've been working on it. single family apartments all through that range and trying to find a way to get projects done. It's very nuanced. It's complicated. You can certainly look at we've got about 14,000 units right now. This could add on this particular unit, this project, 155. We need about 250 a year. UND students, they're not going to come here and live in single family homes. People from the base that cycle through here for two years are not going to buy homes. I love it. I want to have as many people move into single family homes as possible

104and they can grow their equity. They can invest in business. they have more disposable income. Um, the more rents raise and the more we spend on housing, the less disposable income we have to spend on other businesses in town and that should scare the heck out of our business community. So, I it's all part of the growth story. Again, this is asking the other taxes, do you want to participate? Is this something that makes sense to you? Do you feel like housing is a need? If not, then vote no and we'll again we'll go back and try to find other solutions. But we're trying to grow the community together on beh the benefit of everyone. Prices are going to go up. You got to pay your teachers raises. We got to pay our employees raises.

105If we don't grow the community, that cost all comes on us. We need new facility. It's going to come on everybody that's here. I'd rather have new growth and spread that cost on the people that are moving here rather than it being all taken by us. And I understand we feel like we're giving them something. You've got someone that's coming and you normally charge them a hundred bucks and you're saying for the first five years you're going to give me 10 bucks and then the next five years you're going to give me 20 bucks, 40 bucks, and after 15 you're giving me 100 bucks every year. and we're going to say, "Well, I want the 90 right away." Well, you're not going to get the 90 if you don't accept the 10 for a period

106of time. So, we can beat a dead horse and say it's our money or whoseever money we want, but it doesn't exist unless the project these projects come. So, I guess it's again, this is up to your board. How do you see the future of Grand Forks going? This is one option. Um, we wanted to bring it to you because we want your input. So, uh, with that, I don't know if anybody's got any questions. Certainly, uh, we probably belabored it quite a bit. So, thank you. questions from board members for Mr. Feland or Mayor Bochensky. Dr. L, >> just just help me walk through. So, we have we have a developer named Paul Mossino and a developer named Anderson. H how does how does this process work? Cuz I've heard insinuations and not so

107subtle insinuations that well, you're giving it to these people, but you're not giving it to to the rest of us. How how how do you how do you how would you answer that? How would you perceive this as being a fair way of doing things? >> It's we're not going out and talking to people and saying, "Bring this to us." They're coming to us and saying, "Hey, we see that there's a lack of housing. All of our apartments are stock full and prices are going to go up. We got a project, but we can't afford to do it with inflation, with interest rates. Do you want to look at this project? Can you have your third party look at it?" So, we don't go out and solicit this. This comes to us and then we

108we bring it to the third party through a pre-application process. So, they can dig into all the numbers. They're going to dig into what's the market rent rates, what's the what's the construction look like, what are those costs, what are the revenues. They do that deep dive. That's Michaela Hwitt, who I think was going to is I don't know if she's on or not or she was trying to get on, but that's a third party. That's not even the city of Grand Forks doing that. These are experts in this field. Um, and that's who we go to. So, we're not going out talking to them or finding them. They're coming to us saying, "We've got an idea for a project, but we can't get it done unless X, Y, and Z happens." We at least

109look at it and we look at it. And if I could, Chair Burgerer and and member Lawn, one other thing, you know, people say, "Well, what how about if I want to renovate my We've maxed out that incentive, too. So, if you want to renovate your house, you get a 5-year 100% incentive from the city of Grand Forks. Um whether that's commercial or residential. So, that's the max we can do on a renovation remodel per the state of North Dakota. So in every category of what the state allows us to do um we're doing that in this case I know we're at 15year 77% effective rate overall um the developer came in and asked for 100% 20-year and to some degree you always ask for the max right our analysts took a look at it

110and has more right-sized it with still being able to move forward with their debt coverage um with their equity investors ers uh to make the project move forward. So we created the local government advisory committee so that everybody would hear the project first and so there's two members from all the various boards. Um and so we've tried to do as much as we can uh as soon as the state legislature passed the law. I think it was in 27 Dr. L when uh Burley County and the city of Bismar got sideways. So guess what? We all got put into this. And so we've tried to be as proactive as possible for any of these projects that are greater than five years. >> Other questions from board? Yes, one more. Dr. L. >> Just just a

111quick followup a little different. Uh how would you respond to to the the discussions that that what what's happening is illegal against state law. >> I would defer to our city attorney to answer that question. question. >> Oh, there we >> um I've done quite a bit of research on this. I went back uh from the start to when the uh uh legislation first started with the tax exemptions back to 1969. I follow the legislative history all the way through. Uh the change occurred in in 1994 where the payment in lie of taxes was first introduced and passed. There's two sections of uh 4057.1-03. Subsection one is the property tax exemption. Subsection two describes uh that you can in lie of a property tax exemption. You could do a payment in lie and the legislative

112history behind that and I'll read it. It it talked about at that time agricultural pro uh uh properties were the only thing that were available for exemptions. this statute and and it was came from legislative counsel and explaining the change saying that the payment of low of taxes uh is on all businesses. It does not apply only to agricultural commodity processing facilities. This applies to any revenue producing enterprise. And um I also looked at some later attorney general's opinions. one were uh uh the issue was with a property tax exemption you need to apply and obtain that before you start construction and with the payment of Louisie that's not necessary and in fact in 1996 the attorney general uh ophined on that differentiation and pointed out the difference between an exemption and a payment in

113loo and uh in this instance the construction had already started and the attorney general uh said you're not eligible for the exemption you're eligible for a payment in Lu because it's a different type of tax incentive. So the uh the you know I've done a lot of research on it. You can do a payment in L for what's called a project and a project is defined as any revenue producing enterprise and again it goes back to that legislative history that I've looked at. Um and again there's another attorney general's opinion that talks about what is a revenue producing enterprise and in that instance uh it was a speculative building where they weren't generating revenue. It was pure speculation seeing that the if the value would increase and the attorney general uh opine that that decision

114as to whether that particular property is revenue producing or a project is a factf finding uh determination by the local governing body. And so that uh also revealed to me that these type of uh uh projects would be eligible for a pilot pursuant to the statute in the way the legislation uh was adopted back in 1994. >> Other questions from board members? >> We have question. >> The chair does not recognize the public at this time. Uh Mr. Larson. >> So, I I voted no on the Agristo one, not because I didn't support it. Um, but because I think we as a as a board, or at least I'll just speak for myself, I would like to have more of a say than we just get in line with the city and the county and

115take the same cut. I think that we as the school board have a different responsibility to the students and to the teachers and to the parents that if I get in line for my 10% of what I think should be paid, um I don't like that position, if I took 50% of it and you guys agreed to your 10 as the city and the county, I'm okay maybe, but I think there should be a little more um skin in the game from the city and county and less so from the school. And I so that's that's where I'm at on this project and I was the same way on Aristo. Um that said, I appreciate the investment by our local people investing locally. I like that. I appreciate Aristo's investment as well. On this one

116particularly, I struggle with these kinds of things. And in both of these applications, um, the portion on, sorry, I just had it here, annual revenues, both of those were left blank. And so what this says to me, thinking about this, my background being in co-ops and nonprofits, is if I'm a nonprofit entity trying to make a 2 or 3% margin, I can show that in here and I could probably say one or two or 10% is going to make a difference in my bottom line. If I'm a for-profit entity coming in here and this is a 40 $37 million project and in my mind as a for-profit entity, they're looking for 10, 12, 15% margins. They're not chasing the twos and the 3%s like nonprofits and co-ops, I'm probably my numbers are not entirely accurate,

117but they're probably close. So then if we're looking at someone to give a 10% or a 15% profit on a on our avoidance of taxes for our kids and our families, I struggle with that. I think that I want to incentivize it. Maybe it is 50%, maybe it's 75%. Um but I don't think 90% and and this structure for 15 years is the right vehicle to incentivize these folks for investment in our community. That's my position. or questions or comments from board members. >> Chair Burgerer maybe just because it came up with what's the internal rate of return? >> Mr. I don't know if Michaela Huitt's on there, but she's reviewed the numbers and maybe she could hit where this project is um making its marks over this time period if she's still available to

118answer those questions. Chair Burger, we did have a technical difficulty with that phone, but I've got it queued up where I can call her into this if you'd like a commentary on that. >> Sure. If if you could work on that and and we'll we'll get to that point. I have I have one question in the meantime, and it has to do uh somewhat to Mr. Larson's point. Um historically, have there been any or is there any appetite for any sort of clawback on a project like this? So we under we understand the current landscape uh with inflation with interest rates. Um could we entertain any discussion about if in 3 years that landscape's drastically different? Uh have there have those conversations happened? Could they happen? What does that look like? What would that look

119like? President Burgerer, thanks for reminding me of that. We did talk about that at the local government advisory uh committee. Um at the end once everything is finalized and the project is actually moving forward, Mr. Gostad uh develops the development agreement that incorporates all the legal ease as well as whatever the incentive part of that we did talk about that so that for example if in five years uh Northridge goes back and refinance this project and I I think the interest rates around 6.8 and suddenly it becomes 4.8 8 that we could um have a clawback or a look I think a look behind they had we had various ways as you recall President Burgerer that we talked about this that we would at least be able to do that and you know the developers

120going to think well if interest rates suddenly uh fall that much there must be problems in the economy so we'd have to balance you know what would happen on interest rates versus what's going on in our economy but it would at least it would allow us an opportunity to go back in time so that if things did change we would change with that. Is the developer going to love that part of it? No. But I think that's something if if you were willing to approve that, we would certainly incorporate um that into this um particular development. Mean I'd hand it over to Mr. Gusta to talk about the development agreement. >> Yeah, the answer is yes, you can put those provisions in. Um it's just a matter of uh setting forth the parameters as to

121what would trigger uh uh review and what would trigger modification to the agreement. Those are all fun things that I get to do. uh in developing the development agreement uh or I I call it a pilot agreement. There's a number of other terms in there including uh standards for their construction and things like that that are beyond even the scope of uh what our city ordinances uh include as well. So all of those uh certainly can be incorporated within the agreement. >> So then just to follow up and I think this came up during an earlier agenda item. If, for example, and I can't speak for any other member of the board, I'm just supposing uh that there's an appetite from this board for something to that effect. Um, but we certainly couldn't come up

122with a proposal in the next 20 minutes. Um, and again, I'm just supposing um that if uh if there were a motion in a second for this current proposal and it was not accepted, would that then trigger this next round of conversations? Let's bring something else back. just help us understand how that how that plays out uh and how it might affect the project. >> I can answer that and maybe Laura can can come up as well, but uh you've got the 30-day window to respond. Um you have to provide a response if you're going to participate or not. And if you're not, if you're willing to uh entertain negotiations with respect to that agreement, uh it would be the next step. Uh, Mr. Bombach, do you have someone by telephone? >> Yes, Michaela's on

123the phone. We're just going to figure out how well this idea works. Michaela, can you hear us? >> I can. Yep. >> How about everybody in the room? Can we hear Michaela? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. How about say hi one more time? I've adjusted. >> Hi. Can you hear me? >> Much better. So, we can hear you clearly. And I think that there was a question to see if you would comment on some of the work that you've done uh specifically the uh internal rate of return. >> Sure. So I can I can give a um very high level summary. Um as as was provided in the introduction and we were retained by the city to provide an independent financial review of the request that was provided uh that was submitted to the city

124for the up to the year property tax exemption. Um the review that um that we do includes um the financial information provided by the developer. That includes the the sources and uses of funding, the annual operating um uh performance of the project including the projected uh revenues from the new um rent residential units, the supplemental income, the operating expenses. Um and what we are looking for is in that financial review um understanding the the need for financial assistance and what we're looking for in this case and what the uh results were is that the financial assistance that is provided through the property tax exemption uh allows the projected revenues to support both the annual operating expenses as well as the debt service um and and provides a reasonable rate uh rate of return to the

125developer investment. So to elaborate on that a little bit more, if there's no property tax exemption and the developer is paying 100% of the the property taxes generated by that new um $27 million building, the um available cash flows to support the debt service um would be at a level below what is uh would be uh required by the lender. The lending terms, I know we we talked a little bit about interest rate. The lending terms are um uh provided. There's a term sheet provided by um the proposed lender. The um minimum debt coverage requirement is 1.3 times uh meeting availability of revenues of 1.3 over what the debt service payments are. And uh without the property tax exemption, those minimum debt coverage u requirements would not be met. Meaning that the developer would not

126be able to obtain the level of financing that is proposed in the project. Uh right now the level of financing is uh 70% debt. So it's 26 million and uh 30% equity or 11 million and again without the property tax exemption that level of debt financing would um have to be lower meaning that there would be a higher level of equity that would be required. Um and again with the property tax exemption the uh the project has a negative cash flow in the early years without any exemption meaning that there's no uh return to the um investors and it also doesn't meet minimum debt coverage requirements. Um the step down uh property tax exemption as proposed does two things. One, it provides that annual cash flow relief that allows uh there to be sufficient cash

127flow to meet the uh minimum debt coverage requirements that are necessary to obtain financing. And two, over the 15-year period of time provides reasonable cash flow um to uh provide the the metric that we look at internal rate of return, which reviews the both the annual cash flow and the uh hypothetical sale of an asset in the in year 15. Meaning if the developer um completes the project, holds it for 15 years, and sells it, what would be the overall return on that $11 million um investment. Um and what we've seen again is without any property tax exemption, the uh debt coverage ratio is below what would be allowed to receive the financing and the internal rate of return is allow is below what the um the market would bear. uh meaning there would be

128no investors attracted to this project. However, on the other side, uh when the developer had submitted the original up to a 20-year property tax exemption, when we looked at that scenario, um we found that that level of assistance would be above the market threshold, meaning that that's too high of a of a um incentive for the project. And so thus part of the recommendation um is both to allow the project to be financially feasible but also allows the project to perform within what's considered a reasonable uh rate of return um based on the recommended 77% blended uh assistance or tax exemption over 15 years. questions from board members for Miss Flynn. >> Um, are the inputs of what's provided for financial statements and the outputs of your decision only good as the inputs that you're

129given? So, could there be potential information that you don't have that would change a decision of, let's say, if an entity did not approve the tax incentive that they could still move forward? >> Michaela, I'm not sure if you could hear that, but there was a question about the quality of inputs uh into the report and then the outputs. And uh ju just wondering if um if the circumstance changed here where the school district did not participate, what would that do to the viability of the project? >> Um I would say the the analysis as uh presented is based on the um the the combined um participation from all taxing entities. If there's a change from that participation level, um we would need to do a revised analysis and see how much it impacts the

130overall cash flow of the project. Um, the other thing I would add is, you know, when we're reviewing the financial information provided by the developer, um, we do provide some sensitivity to, um, some adjustments to what they're assuming for annual um, operating revenues and expenses um, and and the overall analysis over over that 15-year period um, to understand how much um, adjustments would be uh, could be made that might alter what the um, recommended level of assistance is. So the the short answer is if there's um we have not done an analysis that would uh reduce or eliminate a participant and how that would impact the overall performance um to the point where um if further adjustments would um impact the overall feasibility financial feasibility longterm of the project. >> Miss Flynn, any followup from

131you? >> No. Any other questions from board members? Mr. Cleven? >> Yeah, I'm looking at uh page I think it's 26 of the of the packet file we had. It's the pie chart for operating expenses in the butt four analysis. And I'm kind of struck by something. Property taxes are estimated to be 2% of the annual operating expenses. Management fees 25%. seems a wellnegotiated management fee might might get the operating cash kind of where it wants to be without the incentive. Um the observation, I'm not a realtor developer. I don't know how those contracts get get uh you know purchased out and negotiated, but I thought that was an interesting observation. Uh my biggest thoughts on this are just spatial. Like if if people are paying attention to the community, we've been having some vigorous

132debate on attendance boundary issues. Uh this project across the street from South Middle School, which seems to be able to handle some students that doesn't seem to be our biggest problem, but our elementary schools are a challenge. And this one feeds to our most overcapacity elementary school. So it makes a hard situation on attendance boundaries exacerbated and in the short term exacerbated. Uh what what might be a problem we can manage for 10 or so years, maybe it's a problem we can no longer manage at all. And that's a real uh my biggest consideration on these this and the future upcoming uh apartments that will be in front of us. So that's where my head space is right now. So, thank you. Questions or comments from board members? >> I have some additional comments. >>

133Yes, Miss Miss Flynn. >> If we were uh just doing for Michaela. >> No, please go ahead, Miss Flynn. >> Um my comments um echo a lot of what Jay just said. Um I I feel like we would be burdened with potential for um more students in those tight boundary areas and certainly we can do the work to um help provide a solution to um wiggle some stuff around. Um one of my main concerns is I feel like um we heard a speech from Mr. Feland about how we're partners in this and that we have a a a part in growing the community. Um I think we need to take a hard look at at how um we're really being partners here. Um I feel very much like in this process our hands are tied

134and this should really be one meeting for a discussion and one meeting to decide the vote. It is constantly feeling like we're being brought with these big projects. And I'm not fully against TIFFs. I support the idea especially for a project like a Gristo and um what that could do for our community. Um but a lot of these other ones it feels like we what we just heard was if you don't move forward with this and you don't support this, you're going to impact future development in Grand Forks. And that kind of feels a little threatening to me. Um, and I I take a little bit of offense to that. Um, we can do a better job as partners together in talking about these projects. Um, I know LEGA is um a part of of

135the conversation and there's uh a piece there, but those conversations then don't get brought back to uh the school board and we don't have conversations about that. So now we're sitting here getting a presentation the same day we're supposed to vote and we're on this timeline. um it just doesn't feel right to to make that decision to support it when I frankly have a lot of questions. I've heard from a variety of citizens who no one has emailed us saying um we support this decision at least for me personally. Um and I just feel like uh if if the developer uh uh wants to make the numbers work, they can adjust it. um they don't have any outstanding debts for for taxes. So that leads me to believe that overall they're sitting in a pretty

136good financial position and they would figure it out. Um I believe that if we are in a position to look at what's best for our district, um that is the primary focus here and I think voting no is appropriate here and that if the developer still wants to move forward, they can. But we can take our full share of taxes from the beginning. Um, and you know, I I don't think that uh saying if we vote no or yes to this one, it impacts the next one. Um, certainly that might impact someone's decision to move forward, but that doesn't mean that my vote is going to carry the same for each project. I take each one of these um as they come, but I think the the city can do a better job at looking

137at how these are presented. Um, if the county has another opportunity for it to come back, certainly we should, too. Um, but I don't think that we should be the ones asking for that. I think that we should uh have a process honored where we hear about these things, ask questions or there's some presentation from LA prior to us having to make a decision. So, um, I don't support this one for those various reasons. And I think the best decision for the kids in our district now is to utilize our full share of the money uh, right away. >> Thank you, Miss Flynn. I just want to characterize or I'm sorry, clarify one thing. Um, you maybe heard Miss Flynn say a couple of times, uh, GA, uh, maybe it was tough to hear over

138the telephone. That's the government affairs committee. So maybe to some of you it sounded like GAP or GAF. Uh, but this is a a committee of various government affairs folks. So I just wanted to make sure that Miss Flynn that everyone understood what you were talking about. Uh, any other questions from board members comments? Dr. Lun? Seems like we're beyond questions. We're just a comments. It seems like um I I have to politely disagree with my two members about about students coming in. Uh yeah, it it could have given us some temporary issues with Discovery and Century, but that's a good problem to have. It's a lot better than we have declining enrollment and we're having to struggle. I think those are solvable kind kinds of issues. I I'm not a very good gambler. Uh

139um but in reading the room, I don't see a lot of positive things coming from the board about this. I'm wondering if the board is not in favor of this, would they be in favor of rejecting this, but with the the thought to negotiate a change as as as Mr. Larson had had brought up, or is it we're just going to out and out reject it and then we're done with it? >> Other questions, comments? Mr. Cleven, >> I'll offer some positives. Uh I heard nothing about anything tonight that makes me concerned about the future of Grand Forks. And I I've actually talked to people. I'm not an investor, but I talked to anybody who is. I'm like, you want to make a bet, go buy municipal bonds for Grand Forks, North Dakota, because we're

140a good bet. We're going to get our business done. And like Mr. feeling. You said we find a way to get things done. And I'm going to segue that to what uh Dr. Lung just mentioned. Uh and I actually learned this from the esteemed Mr. Feland. Always find a way to say yes. And and that's actually what I think we should do. And that's why I asked the question earlier, Mr. burger about can we can we give ourselves time to find a way to say yes as opposed to just saying no tonight and just washing their hands. So I'm all in favor of finding a way to say yes. Uh I don't think we're there tonight. Uh my own personal observations um but I know we can find a way and I I would love

141to get the opportunity to do that. >> Thank you. Other questions or comments from board members? We do have before us uh a decision. Uh we're still within the 30-day window for this pilot application. Um I don't believe we have another meeting scheduled before uh the conclusion of that 30-day window. Um, this is under a recommend recommendations for action. Uh, and so at this point, I'd be looking for a motion from a board member regarding this pilot application. >> Yes, Dr. L. >> I'll make a moment. >> Oh, sorry. I've I've recognized Dr. Lun, uh, Miss Flynn. So, just one moment, please. >> I'll defer to Miss Flynn. Oh, >> okay. Miss Flynn, the floor is yours. I would make a motion to not approve the tax incentive request in front of the board. >>

142Second. >> Okay. So, there's a motion uh uh to I suppose the language would be deny the pilot request for property tax exemption as outlined in your memo and it has been seconded by Dr. Hodc. Uh is there any discussion? >> Yes, Dr. Len. I would I would make a motion that we amend that we not only reject it, but that we we offer to begin negotiations. >> Okay. So, uh there has been a request to amend the motion uh uh to add an addendum which states uh the board's willingness to enter into negotiations regarding this pilot request. Uh I'll go first to you, Miss Flynn. Are you willing to accept that amendment to your motion? Sure, I'll accept that. >> Okay, it has been accepted. Uh >> uh. >> Oh, okay. Just parliamentary procedure.

143Let me just do one more thing and then then I'll defer to you, Miss Cop. Uh Dr. Hodc, would you accept that amendment? Okay. So, so that amendment has not been accepted. So, currently the motion on the floor uh is to reject the pilot application. Uh and uh we still have discussion on this uh but it seems like Miss Cobb has something to add that might help and aid our conversation. So please >> just per the statute any rejection has to have a detailed reasoning for that rejection and then you also have to indicate whether or not you're willing to participate or not. So it has to have both of those two parts to your motion. why you're rejecting it and then if you're willing to participate in negotiations or not. >> Okay. So, the

144legal council has added that um we at least need to have a reasoning. Uh and so, Miss Flynn, I believe I'll go to you. Uh since it's your motion, um the original motion is to deny the pilot request for property tax exemption. Um, would you be willing to articulate why for the purpose of of uh of Miss Cobb's legal opinion? >> Uh, yes. It's my belief that uh the school district would benefit from denying the tax incentive to receive the full amount of tax benefits from now moving forward. And I believe that the developer would um be able to figure out how to financially move forward with the project. >> And Miss Cobb, before I go to Dr. Hodc, is that a satisfactory reason why for the purpose of statute? >> I don't believe that

145there is a threshold for that in the statute. You just have to detail the reasoning why you're rejecting the property tax incentive in the letter back to the city as well as if you're willing to participate participate in negotiations or not. >> Thank you. Uh so to Dr. Hodc, are you willing to accept Miss Flynn's addendum regarding the reasoning behind >> Yes. >> Okay. So the motion currently on the floor, as I understand it, and please uh either one of you correct me if I'm wrong, um is to deny the pilot request for the property tax exemption as outlined in the me memo. uh for the reasons articulated uh by Miss Flynn uh the amendment which was uh agreed to by Dr. Hodc. Um and I hope that between uh Cindy and and Laura Cobb

146we have um we have the reasons stated. We also I guess have an audio record uh for the purpose of the letter um regarding the pilot application. So uh again the motion is to deny the request. the reasons have been outlined um and the amendment regarding entering into negotiations um was not accepted by both parties. So the the motion uh as currently on the floor um would not entertain uh the board's uh willingness to enter into negotiations about this application. With that being said, any questions or comments from board members? Dr. L. >> Just a point of order or question. I'm not an attorney, but thank goodness there's a room full of attorneys in here. I I offered an amendment to the motion. I think that offer has to be seconded and then it it

147can't just be rejected by the two original motions. I think if somebody seconds my motion to amend, I think it's debatable and votable, but again, I'm not attorneys in here. I'll let the attorney speak in the room. >> So, my understanding of parliamentary procedure, and I'm willing to uh willing to learn tonight as well, uh we had a motion on the floor that was seconded. You offered an amendment. The original two parties to the motion have to agree to that amendment. Is that not correct? >> No. Dr. Lun is correct when he says it needs to be seconded. >> So my amendment could be rejected if nobody seconds it, but somebody has to have the opportunity to second and then it becomes debatable. >> Okay. Thank you so much. So, uh, with that new piece

148of information, uh, let's go back then to Dr. L who's offered an amendment uh to indicate the board's willingness to enter into negotiations regarding this application. Uh is there a second? A second by Mr. Anderson. U so we will then have discussion about the amendment which will either be attached or not attached to the original motion and then we'll get to the motion as a whole. Is that correct? >> Yes. And you can do it in two separate motions if if it is easier and clearer. >> Yes. Okay. So, u let's talk about the board's willingness to enter into negotiations. Uh yes, Dr. L. >> I just hope you're still willing to serve as president even though you're just newly reelected. So, thank you for your your hard work tonight. So, uh, the amendment on

149the floor to the motion is to add in a statement regarding the board's willingness to negotiate a different set of terms for this pilot application. And that has been seconded. Is there any discussion on that particular motion? We'll take a roll call vote on the motion to amend the motion, the original motion, uh, to indicate the board's willingness to participate in negotiations regarding this pilot application. The roll call vote, please. >> Pomino, >> yes. >> Manley, >> no. >> L, >> yes. >> Larson, >> yes. >> Cleven, >> yes. >> Hodak, >> no. >> Flynn, >> no. Anderson, >> yes. >> Burger, >> yes. >> Six, yes. Three, no. Zero absent. >> The motion to amend has passed. We now have a motion on the floor to deny the pilot request for property tax exemption

150as outlined in the memo for the reasons stated eloquently by Miss Flynn and to indicate the board's willingness to enter into negotiations regarding terms for the pilot request. Is there any discussion about the motion on the floor? >> Dr. Len, >> I I just think this says nothing of the final outcome. I think what this does, it gives us opportunities to talk about are there other ways to do this? We could still at the end reject it if we're not happy with with the negotiations, what what comes of the negotiations. I don't think there's a final yes or no on that. That would come back to us. Okay. >> Thank you. Other questions or comments from board members? Miss Flynn. >> No. >> Remember that was just a an invitation for a comment or question,

151right? We're not at the roll call vote part yet. >> Yep. >> Okay. Any other questions from board members? We'll take a roll call vote. Anderson, >> yes. >> Flynn, >> no. >> Hodak, >> no. >> Cleven, >> yes. >> Larson, >> yes. >> Lun, >> yes. >> Manley, >> no. >> Palmino, >> yes. >> Burger, >> yes. >> Six, yes. Three, no, zero absent. >> Motion passes. >> Just want to thank everybody for their time and consideration. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. We're moving on to item seven of the agenda. Are there any announcements? >> Dr. Brener, >> I have a couple on a lighter note to end this meeting. Um, uh, spa's wrapping up at Grand Fork Central, uh, this week. Tuesday will be the final night of Guys and Dolls. That's our

152freshman and sophomore group. And then this week starts all shook up at Red River High School. Um, so if you don't have your tickets yet, uh, please get those. And if you didn't catch it in Friday focus, but this is really more for the public than anybody else. Emily Daws, uh, teacher of the year, Grand Forks teacher of the year is a finalist for the North Dakota teacher of the year. Happy news. Are there other announcements? I have a couple. Just to first of all piggyback on Dr. Brener's announcements, uh, to be a finalist means one of the final four finalists for teacher of the year that will be announced in Bismar this fall. Uh so please watch for more information about that. Uh many of you know this uh we have a meeting nearly

153immediately following uh once we adjourn we'll take about a 5m minute recess before we reconvene uh our second meeting of the evening. So uh take that opportunity to uh to stretch or um u grab a drink or something like that. So about five minutes in between. And finally, uh, many board members maybe saw this request already, uh, but the North Dakota State, uh, um, board, school board association's board of directors has an open seat, uh, for the Northeast region, uh, which is our region. Uh, so if any board members are interested in putting in an application to serve on uh, as as the Northeast director, that deadline is August 1st. Uh, so please uh, reach out with any information. Um, we'd like to fill that seat uh for for the schoolboard association. Okay. 7B, board

154requests for future consideration. Yes, Mr. Palmino, >> I have a comment to for the administration. Have you guys been aware of the large ditch or holding pond that is being created by Discovery School? if you have a chance to go buy it. I mean, they're building a lake out there and I think we have to really visit with our administration at Discovery if that's going to be some concern with our kids. Not so much concern with when there's, you know, water and they can see it and that it's a spring and the fall when the ice is on it because it's going to be a lot deeper than it was before. So, I think we need to kind of take a look at that and be >> discovery. It's like they doubled the size of

155the one at Discovery. So >> yeah, I don't >> just just for the good of the public maybe checking in. Dr. Hodc and Mr. Baky if you would just turn your mics on as we hear the responses. I echo that concern and I was going to ask someone to answer whether the city is putting up a fence or if that was going to be an expense for us because it is huge and I'm very concerned. >> I was just going to say thank you uh board member Paulino for bringing it forward. We'll look into it. Thank you. >> Other board requests for future consideration, Mr. Bombach, I've never gotten a chance to do this before. Schoolboard meeting norms, how did we do? >> In all sincerity, I think that it was very respectful conversation. We

156did very well. >> Thank you. And we are adjourned.