Mandan citizens request special election, discuss another petition

Mandan citizens discussed two petitions during their press conference on the steps of Mandan City Hall on September 14.
One petition requested a special election to fill the City Commissioner spot opened by Mandan City Commissioner Craig Sjoberg’s passing.
Susan Beehler, a Mandan resident since 1992, said the petition is not about who should fill the seat, but who should make the decision on the person that should fill the remaining two years of Sjoberg’s term.
“We believe that the voters of Mandan should have that decision,” Beehler said. “The citizens who signed these petitions are asking for the opportunity to elect the person who will represent the city.”
The petition had the required number of signatures and was presented to the city following the end of the press conference. The special election was discussed at the Mandan City Commission meeting on September 15.
After discussing the petition for a special election, Beehler announced the circulation of a second petition, looking to ban large-scale data centers. The petition states that it will ban data centers over 25 megawatts or more from being built within city limits.
Beehler said that they did not arrive at the decision lightly to create this petition, but the petition came after the citizens said they felt the city did not address their concerns about a data center within city limits in the creation of the data center ordinance draft at the Mandan Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on August 24.
Citizens sent written comments ahead of the meeting while 26 people spoke during the Mandan Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on Aug. 24. The meeting ended with the Mandan Planning and Zoning Commission approving the ordinance with six changes based on the comments read and stated at the meeting.
During the meeting on Aug. 24, Sheila Froehlich presented a petition with 1,460 signatures asking for a moratorium on data centers within the city of Mandan. Mandan City Administrator Jim Neubauer accepted the petition, and the Mandan Planning and Zoning Commission said that they did not want a moratorium because they wanted local regulations instead of state regulations.
During the press conference on Sept. 14, Beehler brought Froehlich up with her and said that the planning and zoning commission did not acknowledge the petition or thank Froehlich.
Beehler said she and other citizens felt the participation during the meeting was not meaningful, and Beehler requested the comments be sent to the City of Mandan in an open records request.
She had the papers with her to show that citizens were communicating with the City of Mandan, but Beehler said that they did not feel that their concerns were acknowledged.
Beehler said that she would have liked if the city presented the comments like an engineering project, showing a survey with the different concerns mentioned in the comments. She said that would have shown that the City of Mandan acknowledged the citizens’ comments.
During the meeting on Aug. 24, the City of Mandan said that they looked through the comments and created four changes to be approved that night based on those comments.
Beehler said that because the citizens felt that the petition for a moratorium was not acknowledged, they decided to create a petition to ban data centers operating over 25 megawatts.
She consulted with lawyers to draft the petition. Beehler said that the two petitions were announced at the same time because of the timing. The special election petition needed to be submitted within 15 days of Sjoberg’s passing to hold the special election, and the data center petition came from the citizens’ feelings about the process of the data center ordinance.
The data center ordinance has not been approved by the Mandan City Commission as the commission has not reviewed the ordinance yet. The review of the draft will be announced at a future time, and citizens can provide feedback during those meetings on the data center draft ordinance.