Minot leaders hold public safety Q&A

MINOT, N.D. (KMOT) - Minot city leaders are hosting a series of online Q and A sessions to walk through items on the city budget.

The first session focused on public safety in the city of Minot, which takes up about half the budget. On the police side they mentioned the importance of improving community outreach.

“We have a limited number of officers to patrol the whole city so if we can have those eyes and ears in our community feeding us information so that we can respond to the areas that need police,” said John Klug, Police Chief.

Most of the new expenses for the year came out of the public safety side. They made a point to say it’s for items that we need.

“This budget reflects a mix of both the community survey results, the needs that staff have identified or that department heads have identified that they need to do their jobs better, more effectively, more efficiently,” said Harold Stewart, City Manager.

Fire Station 5′s opening is weighing on the budget, but not as much as it could.

“We’ve actually started stockpiling a few things as we go along, especially if we can write a grant for something that could take the pressure off the needs for station 5,” said Kelli Kronschnabel, Fire Chief.

This is the first time a question and answer forum has been held like this for the Minot budget, city leaders want to do more in the future.

They have two more sessions coming up: general government Aug. 12, and public works on Aug. 16. More information can be found on The City of Minot Facebook page.

Copyright 2022 KFYR. All rights reserved.