Bis to lose boat ramp

[Obi-Wan]

I'm sorry you feel that way.

What will NDBHA get out of this?

We'll get lemonade where there was previously lemons. If successful, we'll get 2 improved boating access sites with additional capacity and additional ramps. Something Bismarck needs, especially with the loss of the Grant Marsh ramp.

how is trading one ramp for another lemonade ? fox island is mostly landlocked and cannot add additional parking or access

 

[lunkerslayer]

Does our guest have any cadd imagery of the new boat ramps that are being developed, perhaps Brock would have been a better spokes man in his overall goal of letting the little people know that future river work is going to make boating in the Bismarck Mandan area even better. Instead of basically telling member like slappy that if he decides to file a lawsuit for whatever reason the people of Bismarck will be faced with legal issues for stopping a project that was hastily approved without feedback from the local tax payers of Bismarck and Mandan who will have their own interest and opinions that should have been addressed before the elected committee members decide to make if official.
Another thing how come Brock didn't make a decision to come forward a lot earlier to post his overall support that he see is good for anglers in the Bismarck area.

 

[Rowdie]

That is not my interpretation of any of these discussions. In fact, I think attitudes like this do more harm than good.

See above...

Well your interpretation could be wrong IMO. How can miss the TV news since 2018, and why has is it still not in the news? There's a reason we didn't hear about this until it was "Too Late". Sounds like standard OP to me. But nice guys like you will keep their head in the sand when the corruption is right in front of you.

It would be funny if people protested and shunt down the removal when they start construction. I can vision hundreds of boats on trailers blocking it all. Never happen though

 

[Obi-Wan]

Who pays for this? Agree it's a better spot though..

the same people who are paying to rip out the boat ramp, we the citizens

 

[Fester]

And poof just like that it appears our guest is gone....

 

[Freedom]

And poof just like that it appears our guest is gone....

You guys are just so welcoming. Looks like his organization did more digging than anyone here cared to do.

 

[Slappy]

Brock, thank you for participating in the discussion. I will follow up with more later.

No need to be rude to Brock or anyone. We can focus the negativity on the shear foolishness of the project concept, how it has been handled so far, and the abuse of taxpayers and existing facility users.

 

[BrockW]

The images below are concepts, not actual proposals. Just some ideas that were put together to get people thinking about what might be possible for utilizing and expanding these areas. The core idea and goal is increasing parking and adding an additional ramp to each location.
Fox Island

Kniefel Landing

 

[Bfishn]

This issue with any improvements at Kneifel is that ramp eddy and the channel going south to the river have constant silting issues. That entire location is just not conducive to a larger main ramp like Merriweather's is. It serves as a nice little alternative ramp but was unusable this entire spring because of silting.

 

[Wirehair]

Wondering what this area (when / if modified) would look like with an overlay of the Missouri at gauge level 20.5' ??

 

[Wirehair]

Thinking that FEMA is in the late stages of revising / publishing inundation mapping for Burleigh County. Would be interesting to see what it would take to remove this area from current flood level status via LOMR or some other mechanism. But what the hell....it's only State and local tax "free money" here in play.

 

[guywhofishes]

In 2023, we opened up a few thousand acres of Trust lands that were previously closed.

Why had they been closed?

 

[Obi-Wan]

Brock Wahl here from North Dakota BHA. I was notified of Slappys post and wanted to make sure the correct information was put out since I think he is twisting some information and not providing the necessary context. People are certainly free to come to their own conclusions.

First off, for all intents and purposes this project is going forward with very little likelihood of it being stopped. I know slappy doesn’t like that, and we don’t necessarily like it either, but unfortunately that is fact. The city commission has already voted to approve the land transfer, FALF has already received funding for the project, and a vast majority of public feedback is supportive of the project. We see little value in protesting a project this late in the game, given all the other variables at play. Especially since the goal is to have a new ramp on the Mandan side (car bodies) completed by 2025. I should add that the new Mandan ramp is supposed to have the exact same number of trailer parking spots as the Grant marsh ramp.

In terms of legal recourse, that is certainly an option slappy and others may pursue. Based on our consultations, that will be a giant waste of time, money, and energy. Fort Abraham Lincoln Foundation has checked all the boxes and obtained necessary grants/funding, commission votes, etc.

In our opinion, this means that if the city commission was to reverse course on their previous approving vote of this project, FALF would likely have a good case to sue the city for going back on their decision. A potential hefty legal bill for the tax payer.

So, the facts are what they are. At this point, our chapter doesn’t support or oppose this project. Not because we don’t have an opinion, but because based on our discussions with project stakeholders, it’s too late for any stance we take to mean much or do anything productive other than just be angry and obnoxious. With respect to the rest of the community and the many people who supported this project, we don’t feel that is a wise use of our energy. Instead, we’d like to pursue a way forward where anglers get something in return.

Additionally, public input/engagement processes began in 2018 and went all the way into 2023. From what I’ve seen and been told, there was a grand total of 3 mentions of the boat ramp during that period, and many more comments than that in support of the project. So anglers, including those like myself who use that boat ramp, missed our opportunity to weigh in with our objections or alternatives.

I will take partial blame for this. Our chapter was just getting off the ground in 2018 and city projects like this were just not on our radar for things to monitor. That’s not an excuse, we try not to miss anything, but in this case we just missed it. Like many anglers, we didn’t catch it until it was too late and the project was in the final stages before construction.

The meaning of this meeting was not to raise hell and get the project stopped. It was to gather input on how to move forward in a productive manner. Complaining on Facebook, or showing up and interrupting public meetings to shout rude things from the crowd offers no value and nothing constructive other than making anglers look bad. I had to convince stakeholders that anglers could come to the table and be productive to make this meeting happen, because many angling folks were the opposite of productive in the planning meetings earlier this year(after the project had received all approvals and funding necessary to move forward).

Slappy(if he is who I think he is) and a couple others, almost made the meeting completely useless. Luckily, there was a few there who saw the writing on the wall and were reasonable people willing to move forward and find a way to still get some benefit to area anglers.

So what’s next? I already have a meeting scheduled with the Bismarck Parks and Rec, Burleigh county, ND game and fish, and the city of Bismarck to talk about improving/expanding Fox Island boat ramp and Kneifel Landing boat ramp. If things fall the way I’d like with those stake holders, I will be going to the 2025 legislature to obtain the rest of the funding through a sovereign lands grant. Hopefully, this time next year the money has been obtained to make significant expansions to both of those ramps in both parking and additional ramps.

My chapter and I see this as a much more productive and respectful path forward than other approaches previously mentioned, I.e. using outrage and anger. Considering the public support this project had, I doubt complaining to legislators will be very productive as we will likely be out numbered if project supporters get wind of it and start writing in.

My intent with this post is just to inform the public of our assessment of the situation and our action plan moving forward. To make some lemonade out of lemons is indeed the way I would describe it. It’s not ideal, it’s not perfect for anglers, we wish we could go back to 2018 and get a redo, but it is what it is and we’re going to be men about it.

So, our opinion is let’s do what we can to get something out of this and get some significant improvements to 2 other ramps and welcome the addition of the Mandan ramp as well.

Thanks for reading this lengthy post and let me know if you have any questions.

" Additionally, public input/engagement processes began in 2018 and went all the way into 2023. "
I found nothing going back to 2018 looking for public opinion. from what I found it looks like you are not being truthful or at a minimum twisting the facts.

March - 2023 - Back in 2021, North Dakota Tourism notified Fort Lincoln Foundation that they were awarded a $250,000 planning grant from the North Dakota Department of Commerce. And in January 2022, the partnership planning officially kicked off. https://www.kxnet.com/news/local-news/bringing-new-life-to-the-bismarck-riverfront/

 

[BrockW]

" Additionally, public input/engagement processes began in 2018 and went all the way into 2023. "
I found nothing going back to 2018 looking for public opinion. from what I found it looks like you are not being truthful or at a minimum twisting the facts.

March - 2023 - Back in 2021, North Dakota Tourism notified Fort Lincoln Foundation that they were awarded a $250,000 planning grant from the North Dakota Department of Commerce. And in January 2022, the partnership planning officially kicked off. https://www.kxnet.com/news/local-news/bringing-new-life-to-the-bismarck-riverfront/

Correct, public comment on this exact proposal was not open in 2018. That is when the city of Bismarck took public input/comment for projects. My apologies if that was not clear.

The above graphics do not include 2023 commission votes or 2024 community input meetings for the “festival grounds”.

Again, I accept some blame here as I missed all of these input opportunities.

 

[Obi-Wan]

Correct, public comment on this exact proposal was not open in 2018. That is when the city of Bismarck took public input/comment for projects. My apologies if that was not clear.

The above graphics do not include 2023 commission votes or 2024 community input meetings for the “festival grounds”.

Again, I accept some blame here as I missed all of these input opportunities.

Very little was done prior to 2024 for public meetings for input on losing the boat ramp so to say this has been in the public for years is a very false statement

From what I found they approached the city commission in Feb 2023 and the commission voted in, I believe Nov 2023 to donate the land. The first I heard of it is in the spring of 2024 and when I talked to Commissioner Greg Zenker I was told this was not a done deal. He did give the twisted information of the 16 ( I could be wrong on the number ) boat ramps near Bismarck. Who I will not be voting for today nor will I be voting for Bakken.

 

[Bfishn]

The first I saw of the actual plans with no ramp was last fall. Once the final plans came out is when most people realized what was happening and I still don’t think most people thought this was actually a reality. These are the things the elected officials are supposed to vet and make a smarter choice on. I honestly didn’t think our city commission was this stupid to let this happen.

Outside of some of the die hard fishing crowd I still don’t think the vast majority of the public is aware of this. I think if construction starts on this things are going to get increasingly heated.

 

[Fester]

Why are people Okay with people trying to convince them how they can spend their money for them???????

 

[Fester]

You guys are just so welcoming. Looks like his organization did more digging than anyone here cared to do.

I don't welcome anybody who has an agenda of trying to spend my hard earned money. Pretty presumptuous of you to think he is the only one to dig into this. I felt there are a number if guys on here who have done research. Granted it's not his research on how he is going to spend your money.
With all that being said I would take his vision over the no ramp vision..still think they are both shit ideas....what's wrong with the ramp as is? Has to be dredged every 5 or 6 years? Big deal....it works it allows access to the river....WITHOUT taxing the piss out of citizens!

 

[guywhofishes]

For 2023 we had 4 wins in the legislature. Listen to us discuss them here.
https://www.backcountryhunters.org/north_dakota_bha_podcast_episode_2

I listened to this and from my perspective your group needs to look up the definition of “wins”.

And get a biologist on board to help you understand CWD transmission vectors in the wild - not pen studies. Good grief.

 

[BrockW]

I listened to this and from my perspective your group needs to look up the definition of “wins”.

And get a biologist on board to help you understand CWD transmission vectors in the wild - not pen studies. Good grief.

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

…and you’re in luck. We will be having multiple guests on in the coming months with direct experience in multiple CWD research projects using GPS collared animals.