City Commission - Regular Meeting

Hello. Hello. Hello.

Now I'll call to order the May 26, 2026 City of Abilene, Kansas City Commission meeting. Shayla, may we please have a roll call?

Mayor Ryan?

Here.

Commissioner Taylor? Here. Commissioner Lytle? Yes. Commissioner Meisenberg? Yes. Commissioner Kulhoff is absent. Roll call complete.

Okay. May we please stand for the pledge?

I pledge allegiance.

Next item is approval of today's agenda, and I would make a motion to approve the agenda with the addition of item 7D, the Abilene City Band budget presentation.

I'll second.

Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any commission discussion? Seeing none, we'll move to roll call vote. Vice Mayor Taylor.

Yes.

Commissioner Lytle? Yes. Commissioner Meisenberg? Yes. Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item is the consent agenda, which consists of the meeting minutes for the May 11, 2026 City Commission meeting, appropriation ordinance A-052626-26, and AP payment register.

I move we approve the consent agenda. I'll second.

Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any commission discussion? Seeing none, would a roll call vote? Commissioner Lytle?

Yes.

Commissioner Meisenberg?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Taylor?

Yes.

Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item under public comments communications is a public forum. If there's anyone that would like to address the commission on an item not on our current agenda, they may do so at this time. Do we have anyone that would like to address the commission on an item not on our agenda? Seeing none, we will move into heading seven budget presentations. First up is 7A, OCCKA Transportation, Morgan Thackston, and Terrell Grinner. You might tap that mic just to make sure.

It'd be very convenient. Perfect. It'd be nice and convenient if it didn't. All right. Hi, Terrell Grinter. It's good to see you all again. And I've got Morgan Thaxton joining me. She is new to the Abilene public transportation scene. She is our operations specialist. Is that right? Good. So we're going to go through this together. I always love to start with our vision and our mission. That is on our next slide. Driven with commitment and respect, we venture out to ensure the independence of our passengers for all communities we serve. That is truly why we do what we do at OCCK. And I've included OCCK's overall mission. Morgan's going to share some stories that drive us.

So I have a few stories here. The first one is Senior Lunch Bunch. Seniors ride the public bus to the senior center for lunch. Being able to make these lunches helps reduce isolation and supports their mental health. Not only are we getting seniors to the senior center for a meal, but we are also getting them to the grocery stores, appointments, community events, And for the first quarter of 2026, we have given 618 trips with at least one senior rider. With Abilene having high percentages of residents aged 60 to 64 and 75 to 84, the need for transportation will only grow. This service helps ensure people can stay independent and connected at any age. The next story I have is connecting a family to work, school, and success. For one Abilene family, OCCK transportation is part of daily life. Helping a father get to work and his two children reach their school safely, but it's more than a ride. It's about supporting opportunity, education, and family stability. The last one is Rides That Work. In the first quarter of 2026, 883 work-related trips were provided through OCCK. Of those, 647 trips directly supported major employers and local businesses in Abilene, including West Plaza's Country Mart, the Recycling Center, Russell Stover, Eisenhower Elementary, and Joe Snuffy's. These numbers show that public transportation is not only a mobility service, but it is a critical workforce support system for our local economy.

Okay, now two slides from there. There we go. There we go. Perfect. And to add on, This ridership is really, really cool to see. A lot of times people think that the Abilene public transit is to just get people to their doctor's appointments. This breakdown really, really shows that we are helping people live the best life that they possibly can. can or that they want to. 31% of our rides are getting people to and from work or work-related type training. Might be going for skills training, coaching, interviews. 28% are getting connected to nutrition. So that might be a food bank, it might be the grocery store, might be going to a restaurant or a gas station. 25% of the rides here in Abilene are to and from medical appointments. One thing that I want to point out, because this is a huge opportunity for us to work together for some funding, is education around our non-emergency medical transportation. It is already so convenient to get a free ride to a medical appointment. Chiropractor, dentist, Abilene has that covered better than any other community, honestly, in the state of Kansas. But one thing that can help us together is that non-emergency medical Medicaid transportation program. the rides are reimbursed through the medicaid provider and so if people are scheduling those rides the transportation entity can use that money as the local match so that would take pressure off of both of our budgets and we plan on educating the community for the second half of this year and next year to ease some some of the the pressures that i'm sure we are all feeling And then 16%, 16 for an other category is a little higher than I like it, but that just really has everything, education, recreational, somebody might be going to a park, they might be going to play cards at a friend's house. We wanted to make sure that we represented them. Now, our rides in 2025, that's the next slide. The consistency of this ridership, and we will see it throughout the year when we look at the next slide too, the consistency from year to year, and we're seeing that continue in this first quarter of 2026 even, oftentimes it's like, oh, well, if they just had a car, oh, well, why can't they just ride a bike? Some people might, it's nice out. We might see a little bit lower ridership in April because it's so beautiful and May is turning out great too, minus a couple of storms. But when we see this level of consistency, we are serving people that probably don't have any other choice. They need the public transportation to get to their resources first. And the next one rides by month in 2025. We see that very, very consistently. And then it got cold in November and December. Usually, we see a pretty significant spike in June and July, but that just shows that the two vehicles that we have in Abilene are serving people exactly the way they're wanting to be served. Now, Abilene as a whole, we have the vehicles, the two vehicles that are funded full-time with our partnership with you, but then OCCK has a large regional focus, and some of our other transportation services have impacted the people who live in Abilene. So we've given 3,000 rides. Go to the next slide if you can. We've given 3,000 rides in Abilene. The rides that you saw in the previous slide, those are Abilene to Abilene slides, and those are the ones that we are partnering for funding on. This is because of the scope of work that OCCK Transportation does. We get to take that value and go above and beyond. We gave 148 riders more than one trip. So they're using it frequently, might be to those doctor appointments or treatments or to work. And then an average of 18 requests per rider. So there's some that go to work Monday through Friday. There's some that need to get to cancer treatment or are going to specialists in Kansas City or Wichita. A look at our fiscal year 27 budget request compared to last year's request. You'll notice that the ask for the city of Abilene, we're going to leave that the same as the awarded amount. Budgets are not easy for anybody right now. So anything that we can do to make that more simple. As you look to the right-hand side of that, you will notice some changes, some changes Some items went up, some items went down. We can talk about last year's dollars amount spent and what we have spent through the first quarter. I know we don't have a ton of time, but I would love to have those conversations with you if you would like. Staff salaries is one area that it went up. Our 2025 budget request was for... About $151,000, so $186,000 is definitely higher with those payroll taxes and fringe benefits, health care, paying the drivers, paying the dispatcher, and we now have Morgan. So that will help that community partnership piece take the heat off of all of us, including maybe increasing our fares even. I left it the same, but it could have an impact there. Education around non-emergency medical transit will impact that. it's fairly low um the service that we're using so it's really just paying for the service that's taking people to kansas city and wichita but as soon as we can get it into the community a little bit more i would love to reflect those numbers for you guys Then the next slide is just another way to look at how that kind of divides up. KDOT is a wonderful partner, supports 70% of that using state and federal funds. We're estimating about $15,000 for that fair income. Our fare is $2 per ride. I would love to keep it at $2 per ride. An increase could put a bit of a hardship on passengers, and it can affect the overall amount that we all have to match for that KDOT. funding. So it is something that we can talk through if that's a decision that we want to make in the future. I don't think we need to make that decision right now, but it is something that we can discuss. All right. Any questions for Morgan and I?

I have a question on the portion you discussed about grant funding, funding for non-emergency medical. Do you have any additional details on that? Is there anything that we need to be doing to help leverage that more?

Tell everybody that you know. Anybody that has a Medicaid service has the opportunity. Some people have different programs through their providers. But if they call the transportation number on the back of their Medicaid card, they can see how many rides they get. And it can help people get to parent-teacher conferences. It can help people get connected to WIC. It doesn't just have to be a medical appointment that that non-emergency trip can do. People just don't know that it exists. And so a lot of rides get left on the table. And there's always the opportunity for those. It then does go into a portal and they can ask, hey, I want my preferred service to be OCCK. And we have a dedicated position to watch for those because the people that Tammy and Ricky have been serving for years, They want to keep serving them. And even if they go through that non-emergency medical trip portal, we want to still be able to provide that ride. Sometimes another entity can come in and give that ride, but they will always get that ride. And we can help advocate if OCCK, for some reason, doesn't get that ride picked up for them. We can advocate for them to receive the ride that they deserve. We've had some couple of horror stories in north central Kansas where somebody has been riding with us for the past eight years, and they all of a sudden had a different provider picking them up. And so we advocated side by side with them. We can't make that report, but we can encourage people's independence to stand up for themselves and what kind of ride they're wanting.

And with that program, they pay the fare up front and then get reimbursed. Is that correct?

They can sometimes. And there's a bunch of lingo that we could really get into it. But some people qualify for what internally we call a spin down. They do pay that reimbursement or they do pay the fare and then it's matched or whatever they need to do with their provider. They handle that independently from OCCK. Other times, if they are qualifying for those rides, they can get the ride and their Medicaid provider just handles that with us as OCCK. And we're responsible for on-time performance, the miles that we've driven, making sure that our driver is where they say they are going to be. There's a lot of things that we do to make sure that that funding is right on board.

Any other questions?

No, I'd just like to say thank you. I work up at the clinic and I know how often we get patients coming in on the OCCK bus. So thank you.

Yes. Thank you for saying that. And your drivers are awesome. I have heard they really advocate and they care about the clients.

They do. They do. One, I'm glad you said that because it reminded me. I didn't mention our wonderful software transition. Yay. New software is hard. We have Morgan. If anyone is still struggling with our software change and the nuance that it takes because, oh my goodness, Ricky and Tammy are the most efficient drivers. Like some of these line items are able to be more efficient because they know the community. They know the streets, like the back of their hand. You guys ever want to go on a city tour, we would love to help that. They can absolutely get you around. But yeah, With that software, it has not been easy to get the exact ride at the exact time that they want it. And so we have to teach the algorithm how to work. And it has been some growing pains for the last five months. But what it's going to provide for this group is balance. Better reporting, better accuracy in letting you guys know how many rides we're giving, how often we are able to give those, how many rides per hour we can give, and then how many people are continuing. Like the 148 individual passengers taking all of those trips, that all came from our new software system. And that's not something we've had in the past. So really, really exciting, but it has definitely created some heartburn for some people.

Thank you all.

All right, and our next budget presentation is 7B, Driving Dickinson County. Natalie Murado.

Thank you for allowing me to serve you, serve Dickinson County and Abilene. The longer that I'm here and the more that I'm out in the community and the more that I talk to people, this is an amazing place. And there's a lot of opportunity and I'm really excited. We've made a lot of strides. I've been here seven months, not even a year yet. I can only say I'm new for one year and then I can't say that anymore, but...

But there's still a lot to do.

And I would appreciate your continued investment as you have over the past five years to create some stability and consistency for me as I continue to lead into the next four years and try and hopefully change things around and better things with your help and your support. We're competing with every other county and every other state for workforce or business, for housing investment and all sorts of things. And so we need to set ourselves apart and we need to do what we can to tell that story and to say, hey, come here, come live, come work, come start a business. Abilene is amazing and so is Dickinson County. With that, I put some, I didn't do a nice PowerPoint. I apologize for that. I love that by the way, very good. And I love, oh, CCK, they do great work. One of the things that we've been able to do is to enhance our presence in the community and outside the community. People are paying attention now to what we're doing and that doesn't come easy. We hired a new marketing manager and she's been amazing and we'll have a whole marketing plan here shortly. And I did not provide you with our mission and our vision because we will be holding a strategic planning session and we'll be revising that. But I'll be glad to bring it back once our board has developed that. I've been able to help several organizations. The numbers of jobs and investment are actual numbers. They could be quantified. Those were actual jobs that I help in our jobs or projects that came through. There is many, many more in the pipeline working on many things. But as you know, in economic development, sometimes you can't say it till it's ready or tell the story till it's out. With that, I do have two board members here. Tony and Austin, as well as Carrie, Carrie back there.

I appreciate their support.

They've been great in entertaining some of my changes and trying to turn things around. And I appreciate that. With that, do you have any questions for me in the budget or anything? I sent quite a lot of paperwork, sorry.

Your presentation is good. It's just not on PowerPoint for everybody to see. Yes, sorry. I just want to congratulate you on the work that you've done in the seven months that you've been here. You have spiked visibility beyond my expectations. And this turnaround doesn't happen overnight. So congratulations on the work you've done. It's a big boost to our area. So thank you.

And I appreciate the patience. It takes time to learn every community and every business and every road. I asked Julie, I said, I need help. I had someone come to town and I didn't know how to find a few things. So I said, I need a tour. So she's going to get me that.

So any other questions? I've heard you're doing amazing also. So I think that's great.

Yeah. I appreciate everything you do. I love what I do. I love helping businesses. I love making a difference. And I think not really a job to me, the passion that I have. And I love wherever I go or whatever I do just to make it a little better.

Your videos are awesome. It shows.

Thank you. Any other questions? That's it. Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. And our next budget presentation is 7C, Sister City, Kim Schaefer, Jenny Hyatt. I'm just reading.

Hi, I'm Kim Schafer, and I'm the treasurer for the sister city board. We're requesting a $10,000 budget for fiscal year 2027. Each year, the friendship between Abilene and our sister city, Omitama, is nurtured and strengthened through our continued relationship. The funds that we receive from the city of Abilene help support this endeavor. The Sister Cities program was born out of a vision by President Eisenhower during his White House summit on citizen diplomacy in 1956. He envisioned a network between people from different communities around the world to promote peace and prosperity. This year, the Abilene-Omitama Sister Cities will celebrate their 42nd anniversary. The first delegation from Japan visited Abilene in 1988. And adult and or student delegations have made annual visits almost every year since then. We had a little break during COVID, but. The sister city board will use the funding that we received from the city of Abilene to cover many of our expenses. The expenses vary from year to year. If the Abilene delegation is planning travel to Ometama, the funds go toward delegate recruitment, delegate preparation, and board member or chaperone travel expenses. When the Ometama delegation is traveling to Abilene, the funds are used to cover local travel expenses, event and admission fees, daily excursions, and other related expenses. Additionally, funding received from the City of Abilene will be used to support awareness, interest, and educational programs at the elementary and middle school levels. We promote awareness, interest, and support of the Sister City program within Abilene and Dickinson County. In the past, we've hosted a sushi-making class, a taiko drum performance, and a Yosakoi dance workshop to just be available for community members and increase interest. The funds are also used to support collaboration and correspondence between Abilene and Ometama. They are used to purchase gifts for the city of Ometama and also to pay for the annual sister city international dues. The funding that we receive from the city of Abilene is not used for any student airline tickets or non-chaperone adult airline tickets. And we also do not use that funding for promotional products. The sister city board appreciates the city of Abilene's continued commitment to the sister city program. The funding that we receive from the city allows us to continue our friendship with Omitama Japan. Many lifelong friendships and relationships exist between our citizens. These friendships extend into our communities, fostering an exchange of personal and cultural growth and understanding. We can see firsthand how peace can be attained following the leadership of Abilene's own son, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Any questions?

Are you receiving or going to Omitama?

This year, this summer, a delegation is coming here.

Okay, excellent. What time frame are they coming to town?

They'll be, I think it's July 22nd to August 5th. 22nd to the 5th?

How many are coming typically?

This year, we are having four students and two adults. And that is their decision. Mainly, it's based on their funding and their ticket prices.

Gotcha. Okay. I think we...

chaperoned three the last a couple years yes yes i'm surprising it's so low yeah and so maybe it will our understanding is they had um money donated and when that they are thinking when that money runs out it will be gone so they're trying to limit it and we'll we are trying to like brainstorm with them about what are some other possible fundraising options. Right.

Awesome. Yeah. And just a little background knowledge. Obviously, there's a language barrier, but having been in Kim, you were also there having been involved in some of those budget discussions with the city of Omitama. That's kind of what we were able to gather. Years ago, they got a lump sum of money. And it's not ever being replenished. It's just one lump sum. And so by doing this, because I believe they cover the vast majority of the cost for their students to come over. And so that... That lump sum is being drawn down quickly, which is why they're trying to, I think, find ways to prolong it.

Maybe they've also, they're considering some other options, like maybe having them pay more of their individual tickets.

Definitely trying to find the workaround. Yeah. Yeah. Any other questions?

I think I appreciate the program. When I was in high school, we had a couple stay with us. And that was like back in 1990. So, yeah.

A group of us went for the anniversary celebration in March. And the city commission person that sat across from me asked, do you know Karina Ryland? And she and her mother had stayed with them 30 years ago. And so that while she's here, anyway, it was very, you know, it's fun to hear about the connections. And then this gentleman had stayed with the Johnson family. He had been in one of the early adult delegations that had come here.

Nice.

Thank you very much. All right. And our next budget presentation is 7D Abilene City Band. And I do not have a name on this one, so. Well, if you don't mind stating your name.

I'm Shelly Carroll. And we are just requesting to continue our same funding for $10,000 annually. This band is traditionally performed in concerts in this park here since 1881. I think we are the second oldest band in the state. There's one in Emporia, I think that is, older than we are. Every 12, we do about 12 concerts every summer. And one exception is the Christmas concert, which of course we do it out at the Eisenhower Center, part of their open house during the Christmas, the big Christmas weekend that everyone has. And then the other is the exchange concert with Celina when we go and play their concert on Monday and they come and play our concert on Thursday. And it gives us a chance to foster community. cooperation and it lets us be, at least we try to be, good ambassadors for other places. We do occasionally get asked to accommodate another request. I know one I particularly remember was someone wanted to do a 9-11 concert, an anniversary concert. And we did that. I think I was out of town or the first one, but the Chisholm Trail Parade, probably the band played in the Chisholm Trail Parade. So we try to be available to do other things to assist the community. As for extra funding and stuff that we occasionally get, we use the community foundation. We usually funnel all that through there so that we handle the A1C. Somebody tell me the The nonprofit number all of a sudden is 501C3. There we go. Thank you. Okay. All I could think of was Anne Lindsey. Okay. We go through there so that we don't have to, because they told us if we tried to make ourselves a nonprofit, we'd have to hire, it would take way more than we, than we have to do with. So we don't do that. And mainly in that is the Jeff Cope Foundation every once in a while when they feel like we need something or if we need something, we will let them know. It's extraordinary. A couple of years ago, we got a new timpani. And those things, believe me, are very expensive. and very expensive and we need for so it's very helpful to have have them and they put it into the community foundation and then we can get out from there usually through the city. I have to send a notice to your treasurer or your who then sends it to The Community Foundation, who then sends the check back to your treasurer, who then sends it to me. It's kind of cumbersome, but I'm hoping maybe we can work something out there that's really... But Jeff Code is that, and also private donations or memorials. Sometimes when someone has been in the band for a long time, they will, if when they pass, that'll be one of the things that they'll suggest as a memorial. And again, we just refer the bond to the Community Foundation and that way everything comes to us either directly from your funding here or it's been through the Community Foundation. I got anything else important to add? The other thing that we feel like is a real plus is that when you're a tourist and you're looking for something to do in the evening, hey, a free concert in the park, that's a real plus. You get to add something maybe you weren't expecting and still get and have it not cost anything. That's always good. one of the other big benefits we have is that we're multi-generational. We've got, well, I have to say now, Terry Teachins is our oldest one member now. We've had him in the 90s, but Terry's only in his 80s. And I'm the next oldest in my 70s. But yet we also have middle school students and everything in between. And it really is an opportunity for the kids that really have an interest and a talent in to expand their abilities and under the mentorship of those of us that have been around for a long time, help them. And I genuinely feel that it helps, because if you ever notice, our bands do spectacularly well. at all contests statewide. There are just wonderful. We always get firsts and what's well and exceptional. So I feel like we're extending our ability to help out the music program at the school. Thank you for your time. Have you got any other questions that are more specific?

Any questions for Shelly?

Thank you. I mean, it's pretty easy. We're, we're a band. What do you want? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Our next item under heading eight unfinished businesses, eight a consider approval of bid K dot C clip project number zero two one U dash two five zero four dash zero one Buckeye K 15 overlay public works director Anderson.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners, Brian Anderson, Public Works Director. We're here again visiting the KDOT C-CLIP project, project phase C-CLIP 1 and C-CLIP 2 for the two sections of Buckeye, one in the downtown area and then the South City Limits area. This project will be phased in three phases, with phase one being sidewalks, phase two being inner lanes, and phase three being outer lanes and any drainage requirements that are needed in the boxes. We received bids on April 30th. The one bid received was from APAC Kansas for the amount of $1,377,727.30. Based on the bid amount, the estimated city share is approximately $577,727. The funding source for this will be the GO temporary obligation note. I think an attached in your packet that you guys received was the agreement, the performance bond, the payment bond, the project certification bid documents, and the certificate of liability insurance. If you have any questions about them, myself or city manager Quinde can help with them. But our recommendation today is to approve the low bid from the APAC Kansas for that dollar amount that was listed for the $1.377 million. By getting this project underway, that will then start our meetings and we can have scheduled meetings with the local business owners, get everybody online for what's going and get the project underway. With everything that's signed and agreeing under KDOT's approval, we'll then be looking at still having a completion time before winter, before the end of the calendar year.

So from start to finish, we're done by the end of the year?

Yep, that's their plan, yeah. I think APAC's ready to roll. They're just waiting on everything to get wrapped up, and then we can get going.

So after the, I guess after this bit is approved, what would be the next steps? Obviously you're going to have, still going to have engineering meetings and work through the. Yeah.

Other than just wrapping up the finals on the, it's all about the phasing plan now and getting the actual move in start date and getting everything ready to go.

The agreement, uh, Something that commissioner approves it will issue a notice to proceed and acceptance of bid. And then Brad and his team will have a pre-construction meeting. That's what I hash out all the details meet with the business owners that will be impacted and then mobilize and get it done. Yeah. I should have said pre-construction, not engineering.

Yes.

As far as on the ground, Brad, do you know about how long it's going to take them once they get mobilized, fully mobilized from start to finish?

If everything rolls accordingly, I'm guessing they're going to go hard and heavy this summer. And hopefully, if weather cooperates, be on the wrap-up into things by the time fall hits, hopefully well before the winter. I mean, that's the ultimate deadline if we get going here. We don't want to be trying to mess with any road and then –

generally the asphalt plants shut down by the time it starts getting too cold in winter time so I'm sure they'll be on a schedule and the only other thing I think we were about ready to go to last week except for attorney review and everything I think looks like it got worked out is that correct

Yes, I appreciate the opportunity to review the agreement and the bonds and the general conditions. And I completed that review. We had one minor change, but otherwise they met the legal approval.

Any further questions for Brad or staff? Further questions, I'd entertain a motion.

I make a motion to approve the low bid from APAC Kansas in the amount of $1,377,727.30 for the KDOT C-CLIP project number 21 U2501-01 Buckeye K-15 overlay. I'll second. Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any further commission discussion? I think I'll just echo to Brad what we've

I guess the course we've beat just making sure we're working proactively with the downtown business centers to minimize that impact. And I know that's going to be the case through that with ABAC actually coming on site as well, which is helpful during this meeting.

So, yeah, I think they're going to do their best to not do any interruptions, but there probably will be at some point when they pour the brand new directly in front of there. Just a reminder that the reason they're all getting done, there is not a single sidewalk downtown that is AD compliant right now as they stand. So as part of this project, bringing it up to the new standards because we're configuring corners and drainage and stuff, now's the time to do it.

Thank you. Any other commission discussion?

Okay.

Seeing none, I'm going to roll call vote. Commissioner Meisenberg? Yes. Vice Mayor Taylor? Yes. Commissioner Lytle? Yes. Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item is 8B, consider approval of the purchase and installation of a flow meter at the water treatment plant for a total cost of $25,733. Public Works Director Anderson.

Commissioner, we're revisiting the flow meter at the water treatment plant that we put out for bid in three phases, being the electrical, the SCADA, and the flow meter. Funding source is going to come from the water fund. We did receive multiple bids on each one of them, and narrowed it down to who we feel comfortable in the best pricing, and this was with the engineering backup because it's a KDHE-mandated project. So the bid for electrical went to Linder Electric for the amount of $10,620, the SCADA from Utility Health Net for the amount of $5,830, and the flow meter and equipment itself from Axiom for the amount of $9,283. I was asked last meeting to see if there was any other funding opportunities. I did contact KDHE. They did let me know that for this particular project, there was no other funding sources available. The one option that would have came into play would have been another opportunity for an SRF funding loan, which technically would have been a loan again. But for this particular type of project, it only would have qualified for engineering purposes and not the actual work and purchasing of and paying for the electrical, the SCADA and everything intact. So in short sense, there was no other funding agreement. The next phase of that is since we're still on a timeframe from the August deadline that we're supposed to meet, if we look into any other funding opportunity at this point, which I honestly can't find any, we're gonna be just pushing the deadline So we're asking today that we approve the three bids that were presented so we can start moving forward to this project. Any questions for Brad?

No, I think it's pretty well covered. I did a good sense of homework putting this bid together in the first place. So the request of looking for additional funding, I think, pretty much leads us down the road to get this approved.

Any other questions?

I'll make a motion to approve the purchase and installation of a flow meter at the water treatment plant for a total cost of $25,733. With the bids included, with the recommended bids from Lender Electric, the SCADA, from Utility Health Net, and the flow meter from Axiom.

I'll second.

Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any further commission discussion? Seeing none, I'm going to roll call vote. Vice Mayor Taylor?

Yes.

Commissioner Lytle?

Yes.

Commissioner Meisenberg?

Yes.

Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item under Heading 9, New Business, is 9A. Consider approval of Ordinance No. 26-3482, an ordinance authorizing the consumption of alcoholic liquor in a specified portion of the public alley between North Broadway Street and North Spruce Street in Abilene, Kansas, and approving the temporary closure of the alley in connection with a special event hosted by Rackett's Taphouse, Inc. on June 4, 2026. City Clerk Moore.

Mayor and Commissioners, this is an additional event that Racketts is putting on on June 4th that wasn't included in the ordinance. It had several events that we passed earlier. So this is just required by the state to be able to close that alley.

So just the addition of that date?

Yes.

Any questions for staff on that one?

No. Okay.

You ready for a motion? I'll make one. I make a motion to approve ordinance number 26-3482, an ordinance authorizing the consumption of alcoholic liquor in a specified portion of the alley behind between North Broadway Street and North Spruce Street in Abilene, Kansas, and improving the temporary closure of the alley in connection with a special event hosted by Racketts Taphouse, Inc. on June 4th, 2026.

I'll second.

Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any further commission discussion? Seeing none, I'm going to roll call vote. Commissioner Lytle?

Yes.

Commissioner Meisenberg? Yes. Vice Mayor Taylor? Yes. Myself, yes. Motion carries. Heading 10, department reports. Do we have anything to add that wasn't already included in the packet to those? No. Okay. And next up is a motion to adjourn. We will have a study session. We've covered our 430 requirement. Do you guys want to give 10 minutes? Let's get over there and get started. Does that work? Okay. I would make a motion to adjourn the May 26, 2026 City Commission meeting with the study session beginning in City Hall at 4.55. I second. Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any Commission discussion? Seeing none, I'm going to roll call vote. Commissioner Meisenberg?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Taylor? Yes. Commissioner Lytle? Yes. Myself, yes. Motion carries. We are adjourned.