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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-12-26 Public Comment - B. LaMeres and L. Sobena - PUBLIC COMMENT_ H.7 Midtown Urban Renewal District Fiscal Year 2026 Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2027 Work Plan and Budget and Fiscal Year 2028 Work Plan and BudgetFrom:Brian LaMeres To:Joey Morrison; Douglas Fischer; Alison Sweeney; Jennifer Madgic; Emma Bode; Bozeman Public Comment Cc:Lisa Sebena; Brian LaMeres Subject:[EXTERNAL]PUBLIC COMMENT: H.7 Midtown Urban Renewal District Fiscal Year 2026 Annual Report, Fiscal Year2027 Work Plan and Budget and Fiscal Year 2028 Work Plan and Budget Date:Tuesday, May 12, 2026 12:01:07 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Hello City Commission – We are forwarding our Public Comment further down below which we attempted to deliver to the TIF Board for their April 16th meeting. Apparently our Public Comment didn’t make it through the staff filter / screening process and thus was never read by any members of the TIF Board before they cast their votes on this item. Anyway, to summarize: again, we are NOT asking for TIF improvements to be made near our properties. Instead, we are simply asking for a reason why we were included in the Midtown TIF in the first place. If you cannot give us a reason, then please remove us from the TIF so that our tax increment can instead be returned to the General Fund where it can support this community’s public safety crisis. And yes, we mean crisis. Within the past month we had a Bozeman Police Officer tell us that “it’s worse than we think” and “we haven’t seen nothing yet” when it comes to the increasing crime in this town. And let’s talk traffic safety. And let’s talk budget deadlines while we’re at it. A month or so ago you asked staff if you could please have another Traffic Safety Work Session before adopting the budget. And you were told no. There’s no time. The budget needs to be adopted by June 30. We apologize if we’re missing something, but we cannot find anywhere where it says the budget has to be adopted by June 30. We will have much more to say about that soon, but for now, please refer to our Public Comment below regarding your Midtown TIF item tonight. And many thanks to Emily Talago and Michelle Osman for keeping us apprised of the goings-on with Midtown – such as letting us know about the TIF Board meeting below – as Emily and Michelle are not obligated to do that so whatsoever since we are actually not in the Midtown Neighborhood Association. Again, not looking for TIF improvements here. And respectfully we’re not looking for any more conversations with staff, either, especially since our message doesn’t seem to be making it through. Instead – similar to what we were attempting below when we tried to reach out to the TIF Board – we are simply appealing to the common sense of decent ordinary people such as yourselves. So again, please either provide us an explanation of why we are in the TIF or else please return our tax increment money to the General Fund the help fund Bozeman’s public safety crisis. Thank you! -Brian & Lisa Lisa Sebena & Brian LaMeres Lewis & Clark Motel 824 West Main Street Bozeman, MT 59715 Bozeman and Three Forks 406.586.3341 ♦ 406.285.3474 www.lewisandclarkmotels.com info@lewisandclarkmotelbozeman.com From: Brian LaMeres Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2026 11:06 AM To: 'David Fine' <David.Fine@bozemanmt.gov> Cc: Lisa Sebena <Lisa@lewisandclarkmotels.com>; Jesse DiTommaso <Jesse.DiTommaso@bozemanmt.gov>; Brit Fontenot <Brit.Fontenot@bozemanmt.gov>; 'Alex.Newby@bozemanmt.gov' <Alex.Newby@bozemanmt.gov>; Brian LaMeres <Brian@lewisandclarkmotels.com> Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL]TIF AGENDA E.5 Midtown Urban Renewal District FY 2026 Annual Report, FY 2027 Work Plan and Budget and FY 2028 Work Plan and Budget Hello David – hope you, Brit, Jesse, and Alex are well! Sorry I missed your call – I actually don’t see any missed calls on my cell and our front desk staff said nobody called for me, so that’s strange. Anyway, the conversation we were hoping to have was mainly a conversation directly with the new TIF Board via our Public Comment, so hopefully they receive that. And like we tried to say below, we’re really not asking for anything to be done next to our property…….other than to remedy whatever blight was identified that made our property eligible to be included in the TIF in the first place. Otherwise, like we also say below, we think it’s only fair and legal for us to be removed from the TIF so that our tax increment can be used to help combat the fast-rising Public Safety concerns in Bozeman. Thanks! -Brian From: David Fine <David.Fine@bozemanmt.gov> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2026 9:31 AM To: Brian LaMeres <Brian@lewisandclarkmotels.com> Cc: Lisa Sebena <Lisa@lewisandclarkmotels.com>; Jesse DiTommaso <Jesse.DiTommaso@bozemanmt.gov>; Brit Fontenot <Brit.Fontenot@bozemanmt.gov> Subject: FW: [EXTERNAL]TIF AGENDA E.5 Midtown Urban Renewal District FY 2026 Annual Report, FY 2027 Work Plan and Budget and FY 2028 Work Plan and Budget Brian - I called you this morning prior to receiving your email. If you want to sit down and discuss what we can do next to the Lewis and Clark Motel property, we would be more than happy to have that conversation. David David Fine | Economic Development ManagerCity of Bozeman | Economic Development DepartmentC: 406.551.0209 | david.fine@bozemanmt.gov | www.bozeman.net | he / him / his From: Bozeman Public Comment <comments@bozemanmt.gov> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2026 9:11 AM To: David Fine <David.Fine@bozemanmt.gov> Cc: Alex Newby <Alex.Newby@bozemanmt.gov> Subject: FW: [EXTERNAL]TIF AGENDA E.5 Midtown Urban Renewal District FY 2026 Annual Report, FY 2027 Work Plan and Budget and FY 2028 Work Plan and Budget For your meeting today From: Brian LaMeres <Brian@lewisandclarkmotels.com> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2026 8:29 AM To: Bozeman Public Comment <comments@bozemanmt.gov> Cc: Lisa Sebena <Lisa@lewisandclarkmotels.com>; Brian LaMeres <Brian@lewisandclarkmotels.com> Subject: [EXTERNAL]TIF AGENDA E.5 Midtown Urban Renewal District FY 2026 Annual Report, FY 2027 Work Plan and Budget and FY 2028 Work Plan and Budget CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Hello TIF Board Members – We wish to comment on Action Item E.5 Midtown Urban Renewal District FY 2026 Annual Report, FY 2027 Work Plan and Budget and FY 2028 Work Plan and Budget. Our concern is that, once again, as we look over the work plans and budgets for the upcoming years – including the Unscheduled Future Projects – we do not see any work scheduled anywhere near our properties. (We apologize if we are just overlooking something). And this has been the case every year since the Midtown URD was created. Some of you might be surprised to know that the Lewis & Clark Motel – and in fact that whole block – is within the Midtown URD. You can read more background further down below in some of our previous emails to the Commission. Contrary to what you might be thinking, we are not requesting any specific projects to be completed near us, other than to address the blight that was identified as a supporting reason for our properties to be added to the TIF / URD. We definitely would like that blight to be addressed, although it sounds like nobody is really sure what specifically that blight is. Otherwise, if there really is no blight that was ever contemplated to be remedied by TIF / URD funds, then we would like to be removed from the District so that our tax increment can be returned to the City’s General Fund (and to the County and School District if they are still participating). That is really what we want, especially given that Public Safety within the City is supported by the General Fund. And as you may have observed at Tuesday’s City Commission meeting, Public Safety concerns are on the rise in Bozeman. And the increase in driver-related traffic concerns, including fatalities, is growing even faster than crime. And, again, all these concerns are almost entirely funded by the City’s General Fund. And we heard over and over from the Commission meeting how scarce the resources are in the highly competitive General Fund. So this is a no-brainer for us, and we’re hoping that your fresh eyes and ears will see it the same way. To recap, please either provide us with the reason(s) that we are in the TIF / URD and the plan for addressing those reasons, or else please remove us from the TIF / URD so that our tax increment can go towards funding Public Safety in Bozeman to help slow down the crime, injury and death. Thank you! -Lisa & Brian PS We fully support the grass-roots initiative for Interim Zoning during the NCOD update. Lisa Sebena & Brian LaMeres Lewis & Clark Motel 824 West Main Street Bozeman, MT 59715 Bozeman and Three Forks 406.586.3341 ♦ 406.285.3474 www.lewisandclarkmotels.com info@lewisandclarkmotelbozeman.com From: Brian LaMeres Sent: Tuesday, May 6, 2025 11:57 AM To: comments@bozeman.net Cc: Lisa Sebena <Lisa@lewisandclarkmotels.com>; Brian LaMeres <Brian@lewisandclarkmotels.com> Subject: agenda item J.4 Midtown Urban Renewal District Fiscal Year 2026 Work Plan and Budget, Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Report Hello again City Commission – Picking up on the conversation further down below from about this same time last year. The response provided during last year’s Commission meeting by your staff person to our concerns expressed below was, respectfully, pretty pathetic. For starters he characterized our email as accusing the City of a “money grab”. I realize you hold this particular staff person in pretty high regard, but that’s quite an insulting tone to take when we’re just trying to have an informative discussion here. But go back and listen again to your staff person’s answer. He basically said that there’s a very slim chance that any TIF improvements will ever occur near our property due to the complexities involved with projects involving the Montana Department of Transportation. And this was clearly and obviously a known fact at the time our property/properties were added to the District. But our properties were still added to the Midtown District nonetheless. Yet (and I apologize if I’m just missing something) as I look at your Work Plan and Budget for Midtown on tonight’s agenda, once again I do not see any proposed improvements anywhere near our area of the District. So our tax money – instead of being used to fund dire essential needs like the Police Department – is instead being diverted to improve other areas of the District far, far away from us. And again, our own tax money is arguably being used to beautify the environment around our competition. Or the money is being used for “affordable” housing. Housing that by your own recent acknowledgment really isn’t affordable, but since it technically meets the definition of affordability that’s on the books, we’ll call it affordable. So again, we’d prefer no response at all instead of the kind of response we got last year – we’re mainly just getting this on the record. Thank you! -Brian & Lisa Lisa Sebena Brian LaMeres 824 West Main Street Bozeman, MT 59715 From: Brian LaMeres <Brian@lewisandclarkmotels.com> Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2024 11:58 AM To: comments@bozeman.net Cc: Lisa Sebena <Lisa@lewisandclarkmotels.com>; Brian LaMeres <Brian@lewisandclarkmotels.com> Subject: agenda item J.3 Midtown Urban Renewal District 2025 Biennium Budget and Fiscal Year 2025 Work Plan and Budget (Fine) Hello City Commission – Just a reminder that in 2015 you expanded the boundaries of this TIF district, yet since then the bulk of the projects in your Work Plan and Budget seem to be within the original district boundary. A cynic might say that the only reason you expanded the boundary was to be able to capture the tax increment from more properties, and that you never really intended to address the “blight” that you identified on these newly captured properties. If you pose this question to staff, they are probably going to reply with “all property owners within the district have the same opportunity to submit a proposal or apply for grants/financing” or something like that. With all due respect to staff, would you be satisfied with an answer like that? Or would you rather prefer that the City got to work addressing whatever blight they had identified so that eventually your property would have that blight distinction removed? That is what we are asking, since we have paid well over $150,000 into this TIF since the district boundaries were expanded to include our properties. And suffice it to say we would much rather have had that money spent on public safety and the schools rather than to construct amenities and beautify the environment surrounding our business competition on North 7th Avenue. Thank you! Lisa Sebena & Brian LaMeres Lewis & Clark Motel 824 West Main Street Bozeman, MT 59715 Bozeman and Three Forks 406.586.3341 ♦ 406.285.3474 www.lewisandclarkmotels.com info@lewisandclarkmotelbozeman.com City of Bozeman emails are subject to the Right to Know provisions of Montana’s Constitution (Art. II, Sect. 9) and may be considered a “public record” pursuant to Title 2, Chpt. 6, Montana Code Annotated. As such, this email, its sender and receiver, and the contents may be available for public disclosure and will be retained pursuant to the City’s record retention policies. Emails that contain confidential information such as information related to individual privacy may be protected from disclosure under law.