(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "Prairie Pulse."

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll learn about Sheep Shearing Day at a Minnesota farm.

But first, joining me now is the Mayor of Bismarck, Michael Schmitz.

Mayor, thanks for joining us today.

- Thank you for having me here today.

- Well, as we get started, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and maybe your background.

- Sure.

My training and my career has been as a certified public accountant, and I've been doing that for over 40 years.

I currently am one of the shareholders in a firm here in town.

I originated a part of that firm 20 years ago when I broke away from another firm I had been a partner of, and a year and a half ago, we merged two firms together to create one larger firm.

We have about 45 employees.

My wife and I have lived in Bismarck since we were 10 each, roughly.

I came from Fargo originally, that's where I was born.

We have two children, two sons, a daughter-in-law, two grandchildren, and a foster son that we call our family.

None of the kids live here in North Dakota right now, but they're not that far away.

They're in Minnesota in the Twin Cities, and the good part about them being there, they're an hour flight away.

So we get to go see the grandkids frequently, and our oldest son is up in Duluth, so that's not very far either.

- Okay, well, you've been mayor now for how long in Bismarck?

- It'll be three years in June or the end of June, so third or fourth years, one more year of this term upcoming, and it's been a wonderful experience.

- Well, with that said, why don't you give us sort of an overview, and we're getting specifics more of what's going on in the city right now.

- Sure, I think, you know, a lot of things are happening that we never really hear about, and it'd probably be things that most people don't even care about.

But we've had a fair amount of road construction, redevelopment of some arterial roads.

South Washington, which is the main arterial going south, was redone last summer.

We'll have East Century Avenue expanded and extended this summer, and then to, you know, whatever the state is doing.

Obviously the interchange on the east side of the city of Bismarck is in chaos right now, which is a well-needed improvement, and in addition to that, we have a significant water treatment expansion and enhancement occurring, which we were fortunate enough to have some assistance from the state on that.

That's probably 30% through the process, I suppose.

We also have been enhancing our wastewater treatment facility at the same time.

And then obviously we have the river, which is a great amenity, and people come to use that.

And I think we have a lot of things happening culturally that, you know, are kind of hidden secrets between the Heritage Center, the Gateway to Science, events that happen down at our event center.

We're in the process of, you know, finding a way to enhance that, to develop additional traffic to the city of Bismarck with people coming here to visit, which may turn into residence.

If we can attract people to come to Bismarck for a convention, they'll look and find out how wonderful it is here to live in North Dakota and Bismarck specifically.

Maybe that helps attract some new talent, which we are certainly in need of.

Yeah, and of course the legislature just ended.

(John laughs) - Well, you mentioned the river, but what about water issues, and, well, maybe not flooding this year, but flooding issues within the city and sort of the management of all that?

- Sure, well, we experienced 2011, which is a pretty catastrophic event for the city of Bismarck, and that drove some changes from a FEMA standpoint and a mapping standpoint, which brought a bunch of property into a floodplain.

We have received an award from FEMA to develop a flood protection plan, which will fund a significant portion of that.

And also the state of North Dakota has now just recently granted some dollars towards that.

We will be looking to see if we can secure more, but if we can get this done, it will remove somewhere around a thousand residences out of the floodplain.

And those are residents of lower-income thresholds or moderate housing, very much more affordable or accessible.

And so it's really important that we're able to accomplish that.

It's a unique system because it's gonna use effectively a storm water removal system to accomplish it, but it's because we have internal flooding.

Our issue isn't the river.

We can block the river from coming in.

We are pretty successful at that.

But then what happens?

How do we get the water out?

And a flood in Bismarck, we've experienced.

If we're gonna have one, it's gonna be a sustained flood.

It's because it's driven from sources outside of our natural area.

It's coming from the mountains.

- Okay, well, you're talking about property, and what does the city's property tax infrastructure look like?

- The infrastructure or the property taxes itself?

- Well, the property taxes, I guess.

Yeah, - Well, I think not much different than the rest of the communities in the state of North Dakota.

If we look at what the rate is on a per value basis, it's around 1% of the true and fair value, and obviously with the recent legislation that's come through the state, that will be limited as to what can occur on a levy standpoint.

Our property taxes are 40-ish percent of the budget.

It doesn't really cover law enforcement, fire protection, and the street maintenance and upkeep.

We don't really fund all of those departments with that.

So obviously other sources of revenue help with the rest of the community and actually backfill that too.

You know, as everybody, I'm concerned about property taxes.

I don't believe that we should create a levee system that causes it hard for owners of homes to stay in them.

So I was grateful to see the legislature come forth with a package that is providing some relief first and foremost, and then they're establishing a mechanism by which the municipalities are able to fund some of their continued growth, but put a limit to it.

Do I always agree with the limit?

Maybe not.

I think we needed something because we've had situations in the city and in the state where property taxes were raised far faster than they should have been and putting people in harm's way of losing their home or other residential property, or even for that matter, commercial property, to a back tax.

And that's just not what we're here for.

- Yeah, so what kind of population fluctuations have you had, increases, decreases over the past few years, and what areas of town are you seeing growth or decline?

- Yeah, Bismarck has been seeing roughly a thousand people new to the community over the last, say, 10 years.

We are anticipating that to stay the same.

Certainly when we bring Mandan into the mix, the metro area is averaging really close to that thousand number, and I don't, I mean, I want everybody to be in Bismarck.

Obviously it's a great city, but I also want Mandan to be a very successful community.

They're very important to us, and I really look at it as the metro area.

From a growth standpoint of where people are placing their homes, the Northeast corridor has certainly been an area of growth.

That would be the Silver Ranch area or by the Legacy High School, but we're also seeing growth in Northwest.

We're just more limited to the Northwest because of where the river, and encouraging to me recently, it hadn't been going on for a lot of years, we do have some new development in South Bismarck.

That also is gonna be capped, because there's only so far south we can go before we run into the river or the airport going to the east.

But you know, I think as we look to the future, our 2045 plan would see that our growth will be mostly north, northeast, and that's good.

We're probably positioned now to handle that.

We're being more careful with infrastructure, and I don't want to see buildings put in a location that's so far away from everybody else that we have to now run a bunch of infrastructure in there that, under my watch, probably won't happen.

- Yeah, how many K through 12 schools are there in Bismarck?

- Oh gosh, well, we have three public high schools, two private high schools, and then also two private middle schools.

There's three private, actually four private grade schools.

And then there's the three middle schools that are public.

And I don't know how many K through five elementaries there are, but you know, since it's not in my portfolio of things, I'm sure we're in 15 to 20 range.

- Good, okay.

So what about the housing market?

You know, how is that, is it affordable?

Is it growing?

New construction happening all the time?

What's going on?

- Yeah, we have new construction occurring.

Our struggle as a community, and I would say as the state as a whole, is really getting to that accessible or affordable housing.

We know that we have a limited supply of single family homes right now, which is probably driving price to a certain degree.

I understand from the realtors that we're kind of a, that that price range of say 275 to 400, the houses don't stay on the market very long.

If they get over 400 to maybe 500, they're still moving.

But at 500, they're sitting a little longer, but there's not a huge supply of inventory.

Our home builders are all pretty busy.

I don't think we have anybody who's really in a situation where they don't have something to do there.

There may be a few spec homes they're sitting on.

We have some multi-family housing that's available.

It's market rate for the most part, which market rate is not always as affordable as we'd like to see.

So I think just like everybody else, I think we need to find ways to infill, create higher density that will help bring down, or at least stabilize and keep the prices from continuing to increase, because we have less land costs, less infrastructure costs associated with that.

That being said, you know, they're still putting up apartment houses and they're still building houses, but I think that middle market is the hard part, and hopefully we can find an opportunity for some builders to do a greater density for single-family houses and try to bring down some prices.

I know there's one developer in town that is really wants to see that in his developments.

He's not a builder, though, so you know, we all like our space in North Dakota for sure.

- Can you talk about the homeless situation or issues you have in Bismarck, and how are you dealing with that?

- Well, you know, we have a homeless situation.

That's a reality.

We have a couple of places where they can find shelter.

Not always do they want to go to that shelter.

The United Way has their facility, which is a high barrier shelter.

So if anybody has particular drug issues or alcohol issues, they may not be able to get there to stay overnight.

They can probably, I believe they can still access some services at certain times.

We have a couple of other places that are taking some of those individuals who are in a high or need a low barrier shelter, so to speak, but they're just taking them in.

I can't tell you the numbers.

We are in the process of looking at what we can do to find additional accommodations for them and also support systems.

But we have a homeless situation, and they probably are, at certain times of year, it's greater.

I fear most when weather is cold, because I do not wanna hear about someone losing their life because they're exposed for so long.

But it's very tough.

Public funding is not necessarily an opportunity for that.

We need a lot of private, public maybe can support it, but it's gotta be a combination of all of us, and it really needs the community as a whole to jump in.

You know, we know we're gonna have homeless people.

It's just unfortunate.

It would be great to say we wouldn't, but some of those people really want to be homeless.

We do have an ordinance in place that prohibits people from creating a campsite in certain places, and so that's been important, 'cause I think it's helped with some public protection-related issues, and it gave our police department an opportunity to help move those people along.

We don't necessarily find them right away.

We say, you know, "Hey, let's move stuff along."

If they find stuff is sitting on the curbside for a period of time, they'll remove it after they've notified them, but they can come and get it.

So it's, you know, I think the metro cities in the state are no different than others.

We probably have a better situation, and maybe a little better control, 'cause I think we're a pretty compassionate group of people, but it's here, and, you know, our public health and our law enforcement are doing everything they can to keep those people moving, and get them into places.

But if they don't wanna go, they don't wanna go.

- Yeah, what about the job market in Bismarck?

You're attracting new people here?

- We are.

We could certainly take more people to Bismarck.

Our unemployment is low.

I don't know how many unfilled jobs we have, but we have several, and we certainly could use more individuals coming in who have skills for anywhere from trades to the professions.

Our hospitals are always looking for people.

Our trades are always looking for people.

I can tell you my firm, as a CPA, we're always looking for people, and it's just a constant, I guess it's an opportunity.

I wouldn't wanna call it a problem, it's an opportunity because we have something to offer.

- Mm-hmm.

What is the Call for Projects initiative?

What's that about?

- So that's the Call for Projects is to ask the public to tell us what types of things they might like to see us have accomplished in the city, whether it be an art or cultural-type item, or a park-related item, or some infrastructure item, or, you know, just something to make the community more attractive to retain our people and attract people to come in.

And so, you know, some of the calls in the past have been, we have ongoing.

Right now there was a call for a project along the river, and we have some riverfront development that's not houses and not homes.

It's to create a space.

And that certainly has been controversial in some cases.

For some people, they're maybe not thrilled with it, but there's a lot of people who are excited to see that space be developed.

And so that's the idea is, "Hey, community, tell us what you wanna see," and then maybe we got somebody who can take it on.

- Yeah, with that said, of course the mayor position's not a full-time position.

And can you talk about the makeup of the city commission and how many commissioners there are?

And of course I believe they're part-time positions also.

- That is correct.

There's four of the commissioners.

It's a citywide election for all of us, and we have a rotating or staggered term system.

So when the mayor is up for election, two other commissioners are up for election.

And then on the off-cycle years, every other year, then there are two commissioners who run for, or those seats are open for elected persons.

It is a commission-driven structure, so there's only five commissioners.

So if it's a two-two vote, then by default, the mayor is the deciding vote.

But it is not a mayor all, where the mayor has any greater authority than the rest of the commissioners.

We're all essentially equal.

The job of the mayor is to run the commission and give guidance and probably some direction, but there's no veto power.

- You mentioned Missouri River a time or two.

You know, what is the significance of that for a historic part of the city and just the story with that?

- Well, Missouri River, obviously, if we go back in history, Lewis and Clark navigated it.

It is a great source of water.

It's an amenity that we use a lot in the community.

We have a lot of boating traffic, whether it's for fishing or pleasure.

it certainly is our source of water for our drinking water.

But it is a beautiful area to navigate.

If you are a boater, you can go up and down the river and find some awfully beautiful countryside.

It gets a lot of use as soon as the river is open and safe, and both communities, Bismarck and Mandan, I think can embrace it, and we probably could embrace it more.

And that's, I think it's one of the things that helps attract people.

There's great walking trails along it.

It's certainly, from what I hear from younger families, is it's a great place.

They love to take their kids to just walk and have peace, and you know, it's one of the places that we could probably call wooded along our communities, because we have that, you know, a lot more trees and shrubbery.

- You know, why do you like being mayor of Bismarck, and what makes it so special, the city of Bismarck?

- Well, for me, I looked at being the mayor as being really a service to the community.

I volunteered for 40-plus years and other things of more civic nature, narrow focus.

And this was an opportunity for me to expand and offer my services to the community at large.

I'm very proud of Bismarck.

We're a great community.

We have great educational opportunities, we have access to a lot of transportation in and out of Bismarck, and so the airport's easy to get to, and you know, just the beauty of Bismarck.

And we have a little landscape that's not flat, which I think is a unique attraction.

And we're only 145 miles from Medora, and we have the new library going in out there.

And so I think it'll be a great opportunity for us to welcome visitors.

- Mayor, we're out of time, but if people want more information, where can they go?

- They can certainly reach me at the city of Bismarck.

They can call the main office there, or they can email me at mschmitz@bismarcknd.gov.

It's on the website for the city of Bismarck.

And they can certainly reach out or contact Kalin, who's our communications person, and he'll make sure they get ahold of me.

- Thanks for joining us today.

- Thank you.

- Stay tuned for more.

(upbeat music) On Shearing Day on Joan Ellison's sheep farm, people come from far and wide to volunteer to help skirt fleeces, trim hooves and feed lambs.

After 40 years of tending to her flock, Joan's passion can still be felt through the haikus she writes about daily life on a small western Minnesota farm.

(cheerful music) (workers chatting) - I like the fleece on that.

I'm Joanie Ellison, and we're at our farm in Pelican Rapids.

We raise sheep and good times.

(laughs) Today we're shearing sheep.

We have 36 sheep in the barn plus six lambs, and we shear them in December, January, because we want the lambs to be able to get to their mom's udders, and with six inches of fleece, it's really hard.

Every year when it's time to shear, I send out an email, then I say, "Anybody wanna have an adventure today?

We're gonna shear sheep."

You can do all kinds of different jobs.

You can skirt, fleeces, you can give shots, you can wrestle sheep, you can haul fleeces.

And we've been doing this for 40 years.

I think people come to our farm for fiber days, and for things like shearing, because they really love making things, and they really love learning things.

And this is a place where they can come and learn about the sheep.

They can get ideas for projects to work on in the future.

They can share their enthusiasm with other people.

It's just a really fun, fun day.

People come from all over.

I mean, we've had people come from Western North Dakota, we've had people come from the Twin Cities, we've had people come just from all over the state.

We do this because my folks gave me a spinning wheel about 50 years ago, and I learned how to spin, and we moved to Pelican Rapids, and the store that I bought my wool from for spinning closed.

And we went, "Oh, what are we gonna do?"

That was before the internet, you know.

I didn't know any place to get wool.

So when I was having my second daughter, I was in the hospital and they brought me two books instead of flowers or candy or something like that.

He brought me two books about raising sheep.

And so we've been raising sheep ever since.

(workers chatting) - [Dave] On both hands.

- Our sheep are sort of Heinz 57 sheep.

My ewes are all different backgrounds.

But the rams, I buy specifically for what they give me.

And what the caramel rams give me is shorter sheep and really fine crimpy wool that'll be spun into something really nice.

And when the shear comes, we trim their hooves, and we only do that a couple times a year.

And then we'll give them their vaccinations, and we vaccinate them and we shear them at this time of year, because their lambs will be here in a week or two, and their lambs will have those antibodies from their mom's vaccination.

So we can vaccinate the lambs right now, and then six weeks after they're born, we'll give them their second vaccination.

Our sheerer is Tom Reinert, and he can share a sheep in three minutes.

When Dave and I do it because we have to, because sometimes sheep get injured, and you have to shear 'em, it takes us three hours.

So it makes great sense to pay somebody to come in and the sheep for you.

He also does a wonderful job.

The other people that are here are all volunteers.

And some have never worked with sheep at all before, and some of them have never given shots before, and some of them have never touched wool before.

So, but some of them are experts at it.

And then a couple of them just came for the ride.

The kids, I think, will learn a lot.

They will learn to feed sheep, they will learn to bottle feed lambs, they will learn to skirt fleeces.

Probably 10 or 15 people worked at skirting.

We spread the fleeces out on a table and then take out the pieces that have dirt in 'em, the pieces that have manure in 'em, the pieces that have hay, all the dirty parts.

People buy wool from me, they buy fleeces.

That's what you call the wool just after it comes off the sheep.

And then we bag it up and I take it into the house and I skirt it again just to make sure it's really, really clean.

If I get through the whole year and I haven't sold those fleeces, I take 'em to the spinning and carting mill, and they turn 'em into yarn for me.

(Joan laughs) And I really love haiku.

Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry that has 17 syllables.

The first line is five syllables.

The second line is seven syllables.

The third line is five syllables.

And it's supposed to be about nature and an about sort of an aha moment.

You set up a story, and then you solve it in those 17 syllables.

And I decided that I was gonna write one haiku a day.

And I started writing haikus about the farm.

I called that book "To Farm is to Hope," because it was part of a haiku.

And the reason I said that is because every time you turn around at a farm, something's going wrong.

And so a lot of the stuff that I wrote in my books is about the hard parts of lambing, the thing that makes it hard to do, and the only way that you can keep doing it year after year after year, is if you can hope.

You know, you hope for those days when the lambs are all healthy, and you hope for those days when the fleeces are beautiful.

And that's what I wanna share with the people that come is, you know, these are wonderful things, and why I called my last book "To Farm is to Hope."

Dave and I are 77, and everybody's saying, "When are you gonna stop raising sheep?"

But we somehow just keep doing it.

And as long as we can hire kids to help us put up hay and as long as we can do the work ourselves, I think we're just gonna keep doing it 'cause they're so damn cute.

(laughs) (sheep bleats) Oh my goodness.

- Well, that's all we have on "Prairie Post" this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.