Jill Schramm/MDN Minot’s Site 2, proposed for a gathering space, is shown Tuesday. The City of Minot is negotiating with property owners to purchase buildings and land.

Unease in the community over a downtown gathering place found its way to a Minot City Council meeting Monday, where differing, strong feelings among council members led to a decision to lay the matter aside until next month.

Council member Josh Wolsky presented suggestions that included potentially moving the gathering space out of the National Disaster Resilience Program and seeking other types of funds to complete it.

“In essence, I see a project that is in distress. What I’m offering here is the framework of what I think is a life raft,” he said. “Ultimately, I’m very concerned about the project, in part, because of a number of unanswered questions that remain. We have an uncertain footprint. We have an uncertain design. We have uncertain partners, unknown operational aspects. We have concerns about the budget, whether it’s, in total, the amount required to fulfill the vision that was put forth. I think we have some council actions that have thus far been predicated on funding fears and concerns with timelines. I think that’s been an element. And as a final part, I feel like over the last six months, I have observed the public attitude toward this project take a dramatic turn for the worse. On the whole, these circumstances are, I do not believe, the foundation on which a successful project is built.”

Wolsky offered a plan that he said should get the project back on track, starting with a commitment to the existing site, known as Site 2. He said rather than build a project to fit guidelines of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the National Disaster Resilience Program, the city should design and develop the project it wants to build.

“I would suggest doing this independent of NDR funding,” he said. “A point here that I think is very relevant to some of the recent discussions is we want to maximize property redevelopment opportunities and property tax revenue growth, and I have concerns about that particular item in some of the concepts that are being talked about.”

Council member Paul Pitner said he can’t get on board with Wolsky’s proposal. He questioned how true and unbiased the online polls were in selecting Site 2 for the gathering place. He noted the city’s obligation is to try to make Site 2 work, and if not possible, move on to another site.

“In regards to the bait-and-switch perspective that the community would have – that we’re going to move from this location to another – I honestly don’t see it. Where I do see bait-and-switch perceptions is the fact that we conveyed to the public that this project will be completed with the majority of NDR funds, and now we’re sitting here with proposal in front of us, talking about using taxpayer dollars to move this project along – all because we’re not getting what we want.”

Council President Mark Jantzer concurred with Pitner.

“This council made a decision to move the deadline date from the end of August back to the end of September for negotiations on the properties that are subject to this second site, site number two. And I think that we are subverting that process by taking this matter up tonight and not seeing the negotiations to conclusion, and I think we all know that there’s a possibility that the property owners will not be willing to sell for what they’re offered. And then we will have a choice of what we want to do, and it may be to continue this quest with the NDR money or it may be to try to divert those dollars to some other purpose and maybe continue at site two with some other approach. Or maybe that is something that private development and private entrepreneurs will decide to do anyway,” he said.

The council voted 4-3 to table the matter until after the property negotiation deadline of Sept. 30.

In reference to the gathering place property negotiations, Wolsky sought council reconsideration of its property acquisition policies. He said in at least one case, the city informed a property owner in site two that the city would provide an offer based on an appraisal. What happened is the city made an offer based on the city’s assessed value. Wolsky called the use of assessed value as inconsistent with long-standing processes. Consistency and fairness are lacking in the city’s current process, he said.

That brought discussion back to the gathering space.

“As it pertains to the gathering space, we have had huge missteps, and I’m going to own some of my own,” council member Shannon Straight said. “I’ve dropped the ball. I have to apologize to the public.”

He said the city has to own that it failed to follow through on post-flood visions such as Riverfront & Center and Brownfields and that it chose the poll method for a gathering place site that it now criticizes. He called for rebooting the project, asking the mayor to appoint a new council liaison to replace him on the gathering place project.

“Because I don’t think I have held up my end the bargain,” he said. He also called for resilience program manager John Zakian to step aside from the gathering-place piece of the NDR program to create a clean slate and restore public trust.

Mayor Shaun Sipma questioned the degree of the mistakes.

“I think the question is whether or not we as council, we as a community, are going to take a look at $6 million and short-change it before we meet our own deadline. Shift because we may not agree – or at least some of us may not agree – with the acquisition policy that the federal guidelines set for us,” Sipma said.

Sipma said he can’t go to the community for $6 million to replace the NDR money when there’s not enough money for the flood protection project. If NDR money is shifted away from the gathering space, the city should look at a public-private partnership to make the project happen, he said.

The tone of the discussion led council member Stephan Podrygula to speak from his professional position as a psychologist to avoid the council becoming what he described as a “dysfunctional family.”

“I want to make sure we don’t escalate things and start using language and polarizing ourselves without necessity,” Podrygula said. “Let’s kind of back up a little bit here and not make things more conflictual than they are, and I don’t personally see them as conflictual.”

Podrygula asked for clarification on the acquisition policy. City Manager Tom Barry explained involuntary acquisitions require the city to base offers on appraisals. Voluntary acquisitions allow for assessments.

Zakian said the use of assessments saves cost, and assessments typically are in line with appraisals within 5%. He said owners of properties within proposed gathering space sites received letters stating offers would be based on appraisals because at that time it was not known for absolute certain whether acquisitions would be voluntary or involuntary.

Council member Lisa Olson, who served on a committee that heard purchase disputes, said residents opposed appraisals because of the cost and the time they took.

“So people were not satisfied with an appraisal any more than an assessment,” she said.

Wolsky said the city needs a policy that exceeds federal standards.

“Yes, it probably would have cost us a little more on the on the front end to conduct appraisals, but if it had taken us to a place where the acquisition negotiations have gone much smoother, I can see it having saved us a whole lot of time and expense and public trust as well,” Wolsky said.