City Commission - Regular Meeting

We'll now call to order the July 27th, 2026 City of Abilene, Kansas City Commission meeting. Shayla, may we please have a roll call?

Mayor Ryan.

Here.

Commissioner Taylor. Here. Commissioner Kohlhoff. Present. Commissioner Lytle. Yes. Commissioner Meisenberg. Here. Roll call is complete.

Okay. Please stand for the pledge. All right, and our first item is the approval of today's agenda.

I make a motion we approve as written.

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 Kohlhoff?

Aye.

Commissioner Lytle?

Yes.

Commissioner Meisenberg? Yes. Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item is the consent agenda, which consists of those multiple items in there. We'll make a motion. We approve as written.

I'll second.

Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any commission discussion? Seeing none, I'm going to roll call vote. Commissioner Koloff? Aye. Commissioner Lytle? Yes. Commissioner Meisenberg? Yes. Vice Mayor Taylor? Yes. Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item under Heading 6, Public Comments and 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. If you could just state your name, address, and there is a three-minute time limit.

My name is Cindy Peterson. Address is 709 Northwest 11th, Abilene, Kansas. We are going to put up a map for you on the property I am looking at. This is good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. I'm requesting consideration for the purchase of the city-owned lot at 800 North Vine. We currently own the property immediately in the front of that lot. and acquire this partial would allow us to improve and maintain the property while creating opportunities for the development. Our plan is to clean up the lot by removing the dead trees and eliminating the poison ivy that continues to spread throughout the property. We have obtained estimates and expect These improvements to cost approximately 15,000. We are prepared to make the investment ourselves because we believe property has potential and would be an asset to the neighborhood and properly maintained. Looking ahead, we own the property on the north and have discussed the possibility of constructing a duplex on the combined properties. The current lot does not have significant frontage in the particular manner on its own. By combining the two partials, we would have adequate frontage and a more functional building site where still maintaining appropriate space around the function structure. I would ask the commissioners to consider the economics of the project. An estimated value of frontage that we own is about $6,200 and we anticipate spreading about 15 just to clean up the dead trees and the poison ivy. That means an investment in the property would be about 21,000 before any future development takes place. In addition, comparable usage lots areas have land value on the south side of 19,900 on the north side and 910 North Fine is $19,500. The cleanup cost and loan combined with the current estimate value of the property would exceed those values before any construction or additional improvements are made. Given that significant upfront expense, we would respectfully request consideration of a reduced purchase price that recognizes The current condition of the property and substantial investment requirements to be made it usable. We believe this purchase would benefit everyone involved. The property would be cleaned up, maintained by private owner rather than maintain an unutilized city own lot. It has also returned the property to a tax rolls, generate property tax revenue for the city and other tax. taxes and entitlements. In the future, any residential family and the property would further increase its taxable value and property additional long-term revenue to the community. I thank you for your time and consideration, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Cindy. And I think Interim City Manager Quinda, you said you guys have already discussed this a little bit.

Yes, sir. City staff discussed the potential future use by the city of that parcel, and we do not anticipate any future use. It's landlocked, so there's nothing we can do with it. What we're looking for is I invited Ms. Peterson here to make their desire known, and if it's the consensus of the commission, then staff will start to work with her on a possible solution. offer and the whole process to sell the lot.

What is the current policy on selling city land?

It's any real property. Transactions require commission approval. That's it.

I'm all for it. Me too.

Thank you, Cindy.

Do we have anyone else in the audience that would like to address the commission on an item not on our current agenda? Okay. Seeing none, we will move to item 6B, Abilene Public Library 2027 Budget Presentation. Director Moulton.

And I think they're going to put my PowerPoint here I just have a little I didn't know how much information you all wanted this year it's been kind of sporadic and different over the years so. i'm happy to listen to feedback to what all information you want for future years from the live very, but I think. The manager quinde included the copy we sent to him for the library budget for 2027. And a lot has been involved with the library board and the finance committee of the library board developing this budget. I'm just gonna give you a brief overview for that. A little mission statement here.

Oh, I can change it myself.

Just a little mission statement there. There we go. It said on, but it wasn't. There's a little overview about library tax funds and other library funding. And you can see our other sources of revenue there listed besides the tax levy, but For next year, our percentage is 89.8% will be from tax revenue and 10.2% from other funds like our endowment grants and any fees we charge for copies and printing and faxing and things like that. Um, and just, uh, some brief overviews of what it went into putting together this budget and changes from last year. Um, like we use the same employee benefits plans, the city. So the same increase supplies for our budget. Um, and this year. To kind of offset that we decided to cut benefits for our part time employees that we will hire in the future. So we don't have to have that budget cushion and the total for the employee benefits. Is 2.45633 of the mills that with the 8.22 mills that we have that much is just to cover the employee benefits. And the budget has a 2% increase for staff salaries. And as you know, we did zero last year with you all. And that total amount of money to get the 2% is $8,674. The other line items, any increases are for maintenance, utilities, and then we're really trying to make sure we have all those reoccurring expenses calculated correctly for software, the phone, internet, insurance, and we just got a new copier, so we're still trying to figure out what the actual cost of that's going to end up being, so it might go up or down. We're not sure yet. We've only had one bill so far, so it's hard to calculate. We should know more in a few months, but Just to make sure those are all in there and pretty much every line item is budgeted as like our actual expenses that we anticipate. And besides reducing the employee benefits, we supplemented with $8,000 from our endowment fund to keep the mill levy at 8.22, and that required eliminating our Hoopla app that patrons use for e-books, audio books, videos, music, and magazines. We'll have to cancel that for 2027 to get to the 8.22 mills. I wonder if the battery's dying. And just a little bit more about the budget. In 2025, our cash balance in our general fund was $24,458. So that's what we have to carry over into 2026. And we didn't budget any in 2026 to increase that at all. And just a little overview of some of the budget issues that We're all facing the city faces the same thing where if people don't pay their property taxes, we don't collect that money. So we're anticipating to collect that amount, but we don't. Um, and with like limited other sources of income, it's hard for us to make up that difference. So these are the amounts of, um, money we had anticipated for those years that we didn't receive because people were delinquent in their taxes. And then, so it's about 4.95% just for property tax. And if you offset it with people who paid their past delinquencies, brings it down to 3.55%. So for 2027, our projected shortfall will be between those two numbers. And so incorporated into the budget, we got it to $17,800, which probably won't be quite enough. But that's what we were able to get that number to. So we're anticipating not having that revenue. So we budgeted that in this year. And just some fun things, I was looking at some stats. And from January to June of this year, I compared to last year, and we have library visits are up 15.5%. So 15.5% more people are coming in here than last year. Circulation of physical items is up 6.6%. And the digital circulation is up 16% over last year. And so far this year, we've gotten $55,000 in grants, which of course we can't spend for like operating expenses or utilities, but for other special projects that we're able to do since we got that grant money. And that includes children's literacy. This year, adult literacy projects will, my training will start this year, but the projects will probably start next year for adult literacy and computer literacy for adults. I think we all know the age of AI is kind of scary for especially our older citizens, even the younger ones, to determine what's real and what's not anymore. So we're going to focus on some digital literacy skills next year and also some building projects. some automatic door openers for our restrooms because they're not, the doors are, the bathrooms are really nice for any person in a wheelchair, but getting into them is hard because the doors don't have openers and they're really heavy. So we're hoping to add those with one of our grant projects as well. And I love my quote from President Eisenhower, don't be afraid to go to your library and read every book. So take you a long time. And this is just myself and my assistant director chair. And those are all our library board members currently, if you all have any other questions for any of them at any time. Like I said, I'm happy to answer questions. If I don't know right now, I'm happy to find the answer for you. And if you want specific things for this kind of presentation in the future years, just let me know. I'm happy to put whatever information you're looking for in there. Do you have any questions now?

David Price- You did have a reference to an attorney general's opinion 2006 dash for. David Price- wasn't in our packet I just kind of glanced at it and just wanted. maybe to make everyone else aware of that attorney general's opinion, specifically our city attorney. If we are going to have a discussion later, that might be that specific attorney general opinion was a county requesting funding, not a city. And there are some relevant differences between the two. So I just want to make sure that we're aware. And, you know, frankly, from my perspective, as long as you're within the mill levy budget that the city has set, You can do whatever you want. And so I think if you are needing funding beyond that, that's where I think you really need to maybe communicate early and often because that would require changing that. I believe I'm not sure about what the attorney general thinks, but I think we'll have to change that ordinance if you're going to need funding beyond that.

Yeah, like I said, the board got it down to the 8.2 by cutting those few things for next year. But we'll have to look at what that future holds next year about what we can do then. So I think they're comfortable either way if they really feel like because we've considered next steps would be cutting hours and cutting other services and programs. But we made it work for next year.

Any further questions for Director Moulton?

No, I appreciate your PowerPoint. And I've only heard good things about the library. So I say that every time, but it's true.

Well, we left our tables here. We have Rodeo Queens coming to read to the kids in the morning. So we were trying to get set up a little early. Last Tuesday, Cinderella, we had about 108 people, I think. So we're expecting a, we always have a big crowd for the Rodeo Queens. So that's what these tables are here for. So excited about that.

Yeah.

Thank you. Might actually work now. Moving on to heading seven, unfinished business. First step is 7A, consider approval of a Kansas Department of Transportation airport grant agreement. Interim City Manager Quinday.

Thank you tonight. Staff is asking the mission to consider approving the K dot airport grant agreement so that the city can accept the state funding and move forward with the tea hang a replacement project as you remember the commission has discussed this project funding strategy and the replacement of the tornado damaged. Hangers for more than a year tonight's action is simply to approve the grant agreement to those funds can be a part of the overall project financing. This grant, as you know, is just 1 piece of the overall funding package. The project is funded through 3 primary sources, the federal aviation administration. The K dot grant that's before you and then the city's required local contribution. Um. The agreement establishes KDOT's participation in the project. Under the agreement, KDOT will reimburse 50% of the participating costs up to a maximum of $333,700. You'll see in your packet that the estimate that we're going with is around $292,000. But if those prices increase, we can get up to $333,000. The city is responsible for the remaining participating cost once KDOT's maximum participation is reached. And we're also responsible for any non-participating cost. Their standard grant provisions, they're outlined in Article 2 of the agreement. That's on page 42 of your packet. And also in your packet is an updated funding plan, which provides for the overall financial picture of the project. an estimated project cost is 1.65 million dollars and combines federal state local funding over multiple funding years. The FAA remains the largest funding source approximately 940,000 a dot providing funding. Worse it estimated 292,500 but up to 333,000 and then the city's local share would be the 292,000 dollars. The agreement allows the city to leverage significant federal and state funding to replace that infrastructure that was lost in the tornado. One question that's come up in the year that I've been here is whether the airport will construct six or eight hangers. Commission has had a lot of discussion, the grant application, and then the agreement addresses that directly. The project will be bid with a six-place T-hanger as the base bid, eight-place T-hanger as the alternate bid, but the grant application was written at the cost for the eight hangers. So that way, if the engineers are close on that cost, then we can do the eight hangers if they come in significant. It is for replacing eight of those hangers. So our intent is to construct the largest project completed with the available funding. That's on the application on pages 56 and 63. The application also explains that replacing The hangars helps the airport maintain its minimum number of based aircraft needed to preserve future FAA entitlement funding. It further notes that there's currently 11 aircraft on the hangar waiting list, demonstrating that demand already exists for additional hangar space. Replacing the hangars not only restores the infrastructure with loss, but also helps protect the airport's long-term eligibility for federal investment in the future. We recommend that the Commission approve the grant agreement and authorize the mayor and staff to execute the related documents that we can accept the grant funding and continue moving the project forward.

Any questions for staff on this one?

Your page numbers aren't lining up with the online one here, so I'm having trouble finding that. But you said that there is no obligation to build an eight-place hangar with either this or the federal grant?

Correct. The project is being bid for six hangars and eight-place or eight hangars as an alternate bid. The grant application was written at the estimated cost for eight hangars.

And I guess that's exactly what you said, I think, previously that I wanted to clarify. So if the estimated cost was for eight, there's not an obligation to build eight. It's just we might get less grant funds if we build six. Correct.

Thank you. And approving this grant agreement tonight does not obligate you to six or eight. That'll be when the bids come in and you authorize the construction contract.

Yeah, and that was the only thing I had on there to note was I think our stated preference is aid if we can make it work financially.

That's how the funding was written in.

Any further questions?

I'll make a motion to consider the approval of the Kansas Department of Transportation Airport Grant Agreement.

I'll second.

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

Yes.

Commissioner Meisenberger? Yes. Vice Mayor Taylor? Yes. Commissioner Kolhoff? Aye. Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item is 7B, Consider Ground Lease Agreement for Fairgrounds Concession Buildings. Interim City Manager Quinday? Aye.

Yeah, this has to do with the concession buildings that are on city-owned property at the fairgrounds. The item tonight was originally prepared to ask the commission to approve the lease agreement that's in your packet as to form and set an annual rental amount for the buildings. But since that agenda was prepared, the owner of the 2 concession buildings that we often refer to as the gay with buildings. They're the red ones and in the poor shape. Those have since been sold by Mr gay with to. A family out of Chapman and. The owner of those buildings has looked over the lease and is acceptable to it, depending on what the. the annual rental amount is for the city. If the commission were to approve the lease as to form tonight, we would intend to use this agreement as a standard ground lease for the remaining concession building owners, with the exception of the central Kansas free fare that's already covered by them. Tailoring it only as necessary to reflect the applicable building ownership information, which is consistent with the recommendation in your packet. But what we will do is, if you're comfortable with it, is ask you to set a lease amount for the two buildings, since that owner is agreeable to the lease as it's presented to you, and then authorize the mayor to execute that lease. I don't think it has to be done tonight if you want to take a look at it. It might be better if you wait until the August 10th meeting because depending on what you said is the annual rent, that may change the building owner's decision. Also, there is a section in there, Section 9.4 in there. that requires the tenant at their expense to make sure the concession buildings are brought into compliance with the applicable city building codes and to obtain certificates of occupancy by June 30th of 2027 that gives them a year to bring specifically those 2 buildings that Mister gay with used to own up to code. And that you had a certificate of occupancy if by They don't. They accept the lease as written and they don't get it done by that date. The lease automatically terminates.

I would personally like to see this on a study session. I think there's, I'm not sure what timeframe the free fares range is that it covers the lease of that building or whatever it is they're paying back to the free fare. But I don't feel like there's any urgency to ramrod this through. And I think especially without any money, I think a lot of those other questions are up in the air. So I'd like to do a study session and maybe chat with, it seems like we have a new owner than we were even contemplating three months ago or the last time this came in front of us. So I'd like to get some input from them and potentially, I don't know if there's other building owners. I know the fair owns one of those buildings. I think maybe there's another private owner as well. Is that accurate?

Yeah, there's a private owner that I've asked the city attorney to send a letter to, because she's not responding to our request to review the lease. This is, Basically what we're asking for an air and can weigh in on this is but Mister gay with came to the city and said he want to sell those and what our permission. We can't find a lease there's not at least on record at the courthouse and then the people who say they own those buildings provide a lease with the city. So and Aaron maybe you can explain if absent at least how that the structures are treated.

Sure. As Mr. Quinday mentioned, there's no evidence that we were able to find that the occupancy has been formalized or that the structure has been severed in terms of ownership from the underlying real estate, which is clearly owned by the city as the record owner of the whole fairgrounds. So in Kansas, the default rule, if we do wish to recognize any form of lease, is that the the law will supply and imply the terms of it in the absence of a written agreement. And again, that assumes it's actually a lease in the first place. But if there is a lease and we don't have all the material terms, then it's deemed a tenancy at will. and terminable at any time by the landlord, which is the city, upon 30 days advance written notice. So the correspondence will advise that we wish to formalize in the same manner as this lease or whatever it is that you all approve. And if an agreement is not reached, then we have no choice but to treat it as a tenancy at will and possibly terminate it. That would be a decision to make as well. But those are the implied terms. in the absence of a written agreement that spells those out.

And I guess for the purposes of a study session, the lease describes the property being leased, the permitted uses, the maintenance responsibility, utilities, insurance, alterations, inspections, default provisions, and termination procedures. I guess for a study session, I don't know what additional information the Commission would like us to bring I guess characterizing this as a standard lease except for provision 9.4.

I think more than anything, I think it would be how much can the place support lease-wise, money-wise? Have these properties, any of them, been paying anything over the past prior years?

No, we've had no lease. We've had no leases with them. It's my understanding that they pay the fair board $300 to operate during the fair. But as far as a lease amount to be on our property, no, there's no record of it. And our recommendation would be Something that's a hundred dollars and that would take care of, you know, any paperwork that we have to do or inspections, things like that.

And a hundred dollars a month or per year per year. Okay. Cause I was looking at the insurance requirements too. Do you know if they currently have to have that level of insurance on it for to operate out of the fair board?

No, not what the fair board requirements are. I'm not aware of and that's why we think it's important to have an actual lease since it's on the real property owned by this. City to have those things spelled out within the lease.

I just didn't know what that a policy like that would would cost. You know, somebody to operate that over the year. So that would be my question is whether it be financially. Feasible for an operator to pay that level of insurance. to justify it throughout the year.

I thought our previous discussion was that they couldn't use it outside of the fair anyway.

I mean, that's what I meant. Through the fair, I mean, to justify it.

I think the discussions we've had previously when we've discussed those buildings, that may have been before your time.

Probably so.

But was that they weren't allowed to use those buildings for... Right, just three weeks a year, right? Running them something that they can't use. Yeah. I'm...

They do use them during the fair time now. Mr. Gawith, I believe, used them. I'm not sure if he did at the last fair. And the, what's the last name? Not Martinez. Lucero? Soria. Soria family out of Chapman plans on using them during this fair.

Okay. But they already have an agreement with the fair for those, for that period of time.

I think it's the same thing that any food vendor, whether you're mobile or in a building, would pay. Two different items. One, the fair charges food vendors to operate as part of the fair's revenue. Vendors pay that because they think they'll make a profit operating. This is, they have buildings on city-owned property. We have nothing that governs those types of things as far as their responsibilities, our responsibilities, what they can use them for. It's all up in the air. Yeah.

My only concern would be is I don't want to put anything in place monetarily wise that would hinder them from wanting to continue operating would be my only. Right.

Uh, the one building, and I couldn't tell you, it's the one closest to the carnival is the one they plan on using. They do not plan on using the one on the other side because they realize it needs to be fixed up. So, uh, getting these, this lease in place, uh, this family will, they say they're going to fix it up. They've already started working on the one and we'll give them a year to bring it up to code.

I guess my biggest question when I was looking through that lease was, you know, are there any comparable lease amounts from other, I know it's kind of a unique situation, but yeah, I mean, we're fine if it's a dollar it's our goal is to get the basic terms outlined.

So yeah, The building owners, if you will, know what's expected of them for being on city property. And then city knows what the building tenants or owners are responsible for. Right now, there's nothing.

Well, knowing that the yearly rate can be next to nothing, the only thing that I would be concerned about is how much they'd have to pay for that insurance requirement and whether that would be a hindrance to them or not. If we could find that out, then I would be definitely just pull the trigger and have them sign that lease written as it is.

I'm not sure on that amount, but Mrs. Correa brought the lease back signed. Okay. And I told her that We need to bring this before you first, make sure you're okay with it, and then we would ask her to sign it.

I'm okay with the lease that Ms. Galwith or Ms. Soria, did you say, has signed it already?

Yes, there's actually, they put two people's name on there, but we require that they provide us with a bill of sale, and there's only one name on the bill of sale.

Okay. I'd be okay with moving forward with the lease if they're okay with the terms. Sounds like they are based on the fact that they've already signed it. Signed it, I don't want to charge them any more than we need to then to cover the cost of processing the. Paperwork to do the lease, so whatever that is on a yearly basis for the admin fee 100 dollars a year.

Yeah, I mean, that's just the number we picked. Yeah, it could be anything that you want. But, like, you mentioned, we don't want to charge them something for a building that. They're able to use a couple of weeks. Right.

Same. Yeah. I don't want to stop to use some of it at all. Right. And that was my concern.

This would be great to get it formalized. Here's your expectations. Here's what you can expect from us. And oh, by the way, you have to bring it up to code or it goes away.

Do we have to agree on the amount today on the lease or is that something that you can negotiate?

That's completely up to you. But I'd preferable if you would set that because then when we get a hold of the third building owner, we already have that number set.

Okay. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I don't want to charge the story as something different.

Would there be a benefit to waiting until after this fair is over?

A benefit. Unless you there's something that the commission analysis study something you want us to bring back for you to consider chew on, but not commissioner call off. I think he said he would like the potential. Lessees. The Soria is to come to a work study and walk through this with you.

Not necessarily them, but anybody else. It sounds like we're maybe not reaching out or we're not finding any of the other owners, but if we're going to have things that apply universally, I don't think one person's signature should dictate their neighbor's rent or terms for a lease.

Well, we've reached out. Several times, even twice by letter 1 of them, I believe was certified, but I'll have to confirm that. The other property owner other building person who has similar buildings at other fairgrounds and she's just. Won't respond non responsive. Yeah. We've been trying now for several months. The last phone call I had with her was probably at the beginning of the year. Maybe at the beginning of the year. And her comment, if I remember correctly, was, I had a lease. I turned it into the city. I don't need another one. Well, we don't have it. You don't have it. The courthouse doesn't have it. We need a new one. It's basic, simple, and we can't get a response. That's why I asked the city attorney to write a letter saying, we'd like you to get ahold of us so we can discuss this before we move to the next step and ask the commission, what do you want us to do?

All four of those buildings serve the same purpose and aren't going to serve any separate purpose outside of their purpose of their serving now. Is that correct?

As I understand it, yes.

Yeah, then I'd say make it a standard dollar a month lease. Annual. Annual.

Would it help to have this in place before the fair actually gets here so you can hand deliver it to that lady that's not getting back with us?

I don't know that she's going to have one there. Oh, okay. But, you know, that's a good idea. If the commission were to approve the lease as the form, if she's open, we can have somebody drop it off to her and say, hey, and have another conversation.

I would imagine she'll be there.

Yeah. I mean, I've spoken to her on the phone a couple of times, long conversations. But yeah, reaching out another time.

That's a good idea when she's there working.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, she's not responding. Maybe that would be one way to get into it or something.

As a landlord, you have a standard lease regardless of who's occupying. Correct. I'm okay with a dollar a year standard lease. I'd approve it.

Did you say one?

A dollar a year.

Does that cover your paperwork and everything?

Probably not. One dollar? No, but that's okay. Just Aaron. It's okay.

It covers an hour of Aaron's time.

Pretty cheap lawyer. Awesome.

Or if there's a different amount, I'm open to it, but just keep it cheap.

I would think $100 a year would cover anything we have to amend.

I'll make a motion to consider the approval of the ground lease of the fairgrounds concession buildings at an annual rate of $100 a year.

I'll second.

That would include authorizing the mayor to execute those? Correct.

I'll second again.

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 Kohlhoff? Nay. Commissioner Lytle? Yes. Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item is 7C, continued discussion regarding the stormwater financial review and recommendations. Interim City Manager Quinday? Aye.

Jeff, the purpose of tonight's discussion is not to revisit the KMU stormwater rate study. The discussion is intended to be much narrower. We're asking the Commission for direction on how you would like to implement the revenue requirements already identified by the KMU study. The report in your packet evaluates three implementation schedules that all reach essentially the same long-term rate, but different when the customers experience those rate increases and when the utility receives the resulting revenue. What has not changed in the report in our presentation is the underlying financial analysis KMU with staff's assistance evaluated operating costs, maintenance, capital improvements, reserve requirements, future infrastructure replacement, and anticipated debt service. Based on that analysis, KMU identified the revenue needed to keep the stormwater utility financially stable over the long term. The report does not revisit those conclusions. What we're visiting tonight is at a previous work study or study session, the commission asked staff to evaluate different ways to implement those rates. The three that they asked us to evaluate were the KMU recommendation that minimizes customer impacts during the first two years, which would be a 75-cent increase per drainage unit in the first year, 8 cents in the second year, and then it has a significant jump in year three when we anticipated potential debt service, and we used $1 million as that number. That approach aligns with the increase when, if the commission were to say, go fix this drainage issue here, the timing it would take for us to get it engineered, go out for bids and get the debt service to you would be in three years. The other alternative spreads the increases more evenly over the first three years. It would be $0.76 a year. We talked about it at study session 75, but the math is about $0.76. So instead of one significant adjustment, customers experience a more gradual progression while still reaching the same long-term rate in year three. And the other alternative put forth by Commissioner Kolhoff was to implement the increases immediately. It generates additional revenue sooner, but also results in the largest customer increase in the first year. That would be going from our rate now to the 354, I believe is what that number is. So the residential impacts for residential customers, the analysis is straightforward. Nearly 99% of our customers are assigned one drainage unit. That means almost every homeowner experience is essentially the same monthly increase regardless of where they live. The only difference is when that increase occurs under each implementation schedule. Commercial customers are different because the businesses with larger parking lots and roofs generate more runoff and therefore are assigned more drainage units. Again, the rate itself does not change among the alternatives, only the timing changes. Likewise, all three alternatives ultimately generate essentially the same annual revenue at the end of three years. The difference is when the utility receives that. Alternate two, that would be doing it all at once, provides the strongest early cash flow. Alternate one falls in the middle. That's doing it over three years. And then the KMU recommendation delays the largest increase until the projected debt service begins. Ultimately, this is a policy decision rather than a financial one. The report concludes that all three alternatives achieve essentially the same long-term objective. All three produce essentially the same revenue. And the Commission's decision is really a choice between customer impact and the timing of revenue. Staff is not recommending one implementation schedule over another. What we're asking from the commission is to review the analysis, discuss the alternatives, and provide direction regarding which schedule you would like staff to prepare for for adoption or for your consideration. Should the commission elect to revise the schedule or choose AMUs, alternate one, alternate three, we would recommend an effective date of those rates of January 1, 2027 to provide customers adequate notice and allow sufficient time for public communication and implementation and also for those entities that budget annually to prepare for it. Are there any questions?

Have any thoughts on those three options? Another private discussion.

I think before we get to the money raise option, I've had obviously quite a bit of time to think about this since our last meeting. I really want a concrete plan for fixing the issues that we know about, preparing for the ones that we don't know about before we raise a single penny in taxes or revenue from our customers. It's all fine and good. We've got five years of runway if we don't do anything. So I don't think we need to approve this today or next week or next month. We need to get a plan for fixing the issues that we know about. They were brought to a head here. There's, what, a half a dozen areas that get water in their front yards, backyards, driveways. basements, including our own city building. And it's an issue that's been going on as long as I've been in town. I've been here 17 years and it's been exactly the same. Fourth Street floods, summit or whatever it is up northwest there's something northeast there's something in the south the people uh actually i had the privilege of talking with a gentleman over the weekend they don't even you're correct they don't actually tell us anymore when the south side floods they just expect it um so that's those those people aren't coming to meetings they just know that we don't care and so before we come up with a plan to raise the money i think we need to come up with a plan to fix it then we'll know how much money we need and then we can raise it appropriately

i can't speak for the commission but speaking for city staff i'm not sure i would characterize it as we don't care um We also do have a plan that was approved by the city commission identifying the top, I believe 5. There's a few more drainage priority areas that you want. Us to address the 1st, 1, of course, is the South part, which is anywhere between 16 and more than 20Million dollars. Unlikely we'll be able to do that without some significant federal funding grants. But there are also others that were identified on there. We brought those costs to the commission, those estimates, and they range between $1 and $2 million. And then the young man, I always keep on thinking Gary, but that came and spoke to one of the commission meetings and his neighbors. We asked the engineers to come on site when they were already here for something else, get twice the bang for our buck. Uh, they walk that area with, um. Public works and came up with a plan. And a opinion of that construction costs, which is close to 2Million dollars.

That was the void in the house. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Now that is just a. Okay, here's what we can see from available information. I told the. Olson folks and the people in that neighborhood that we will bring that back to the city commission and say, okay, here's what they have. Here's what they think it's going to be, but to move forward and get a high dollar cost or a high cost, they'd actually have to engineer it. So we, you know, enter into an engineering agreement with them, if that's the priority that you want. So I bring that up because we do have projects, um, that were identified as being priorities by the commission. And even without those projects being identified, yes, we have $600,000 in there. But the photograph I sent you of the hole over here by City Hall, the estimate for that is anywhere between $13,000 and $28,000 to repair. Now that $13,000 is repairing what's in the hole, the $28,000 or $23,000 is to go about almost a half a block farther. If that pipe, which is that vitreous clay, which is cracked, is cracked even further, that price will continue to grow. And at some point, it will exceed our capabilities. Okay. realistically, staff would be able to use that $600,000 to start fixing those issues that we have now. You know, in the past, and I'm not an engineer, and I'm not speaking to anybody's decisions that they made before, but in the past, to save money, they would wrap it in tin and pour concrete over and hope that it didn't break again. I can't find anybody in that part of the profession, engineers or other cities that say, cut out the bad pipe, slide in new pipe, put in some couplings and fix the problem. Don't pour concrete over it and hope that it works. So we'd have to start fixing the drainage issues or just pick them down the can again. Now that may sound counterintuitive because our recommendation is if you implement any of these schedules not to do it effective till January 1 of 2027. However, whatever implementation schedule you choose, if you pick one, as opposed to doing nothing, then that gives us time to plan, okay, based on this implementation schedule, the number of meters we have, here's the revenue we can anticipate that we can start planning on and we do these bigger projects. And we can show granting agencies that we have the funding mechanism in place to apply for grants. Does that make sense?

And that's where I was at, too, just from I mean, this spring and summer has been a good indication or indicator and a reminder of how bad it actually is. And that's got it in the front of everybody's mind. So now is the time to invest in this because it needs refill. We need action. We need John. I agree with you 100 percent. We need momentum on this. And I understand that. without a plan or purpose set forth before the money is in, it's kind of like the snake eating its own tail, in my opinion, on how that works. I came in today looking for alternative two, just like what Commissioner Kohlhoff mentioned last time on let's get the ball rolling on the funding and let's get the money in the bank faster so we can fix Gary and Andy's problem and whatever else we have on the list that we've prioritized as far as the $1 and $2 million projects. And that way, like you said, the bonding and the grant writing I mean, we'll have an idea of now we've got this much money to work with as opposed to, you know, having that hang in the balance as we try to figure out what we need and priorities and, You know, we got engineering to pay for all up front to get an idea of actual hard cost money on what these projects are going to spend as opposed to just best guess. So we're going to have to start spending money for design, engineering, and, you know, long before construction.

So to your point, we already have design and engineering from the project up at 15th Street that I don't even know what the tag was, but we decided the price tag was for that, but we decided that wasn't important. And so I want a plan. I'm willing to carry out a plan, but I want a plan before we come up with the money. I mean, it's the same way we did the baseball field. Get the plan for the baseball field, raise the money. Let's get a plan for the water department, water, sewer, storm. Let's get the plan and then let's go fix it. We can raise the money after we have the plan. I think we're putting the cart before the horse by just saying, hey, we're taking more and more money. I don't know if, I hope that you have. I think I'm not the only one who's gotten threatening emails from people about water and sewer rates. Ironically, not even in the city. But nevertheless, I think that we need to be judicious about how we are spending other people's money.

100% are, but we're so far in the hole that even this increase isn't going to be effective to cover all that's out there that we have now. I mean, this is just a small portion of what needs done. We know we need to spend it.

I don't have it right in front of me, but I think the five-year projection without any of the capital expenditures was that we would still have $600,000 after five years. So I don't disagree with you. I agree we need to do something and we need to do a lot of things, but I don't think that we need to do so much that we don't need to come up with a plan for how we do it. And I think we're going to, rather than playing whack-a-mole, which is what it feels like we're doing right now, whether it's southeast, oh, that's too expensive. We're not going to do that. Northeast, oh, we're not going to do that. Who knows? Now maybe the west side is what's more important. And I don't feel that we've got a good plan, number one, for assessing it or fixing it. I don't even feel that we know really what the problem is. I can tell you, I looked over at Gary Boyd's place when it was raining, and there's three unique water levels. If you drive up, that's Mulberry Street, right? There's one in the river by the, by the park. Right. And that's lower than the one that's on the right side, which is where there's some type of drainage structure that arguably the city, the city is maintaining or owns. And then there's Gary Boyd's property, which is like five feet higher. And so I don't think that the problem is, I don't think it's a million dollar problem. I don't think it's a half a million dollar problem. I'm afraid that we're going to spend a million dollars fixing something. That's probably a five or $10,000 problem. And I don't know if it's tree roots. I don't know what the situation is. But I can tell you that just looking at that situation right there tells me that there is an issue that, frankly, shouldn't cost $2 million to fix.

May I ask a question? Yeah. If staff says we think this is the issue and engineers say we think this is the issue and you don't believe it, who are you going to believe? So I guess what's the definition of a plan? Your current stormwater management policy requires Brad to come to you with a list of drainage area issues. He did that. You didn't accept verbatim what he suggested. You moved those around and said these are more priorities. So for me, that's a plan.

Well, I think there's a difference between saying $2 million will fix this and here's what's wrong with what you have now. I haven't seen anything from those folks other than this is the first I've heard about it is you telling us about it. So I don't know if that's real or not. But I think we've brought it up a dozen times here that we think that there's probably things in the storm drains and we need to go look and we need to see.

So can I ask another question then? You're saying that I'm telling you that, but you don't know if it's real. Does that mean that I'm making it up?

No, I don't think you're making it up. I think absolutely. If we spend $2 million up there, we can fix the problem.

I, I a hundred percent believe that if the engineering firm says, this is what we think it's going to be, then who else do we believe? If they say, we think it's going to cost this, you know, for example, the, um, C clip project, you know, at one point they thought it was going to be $1.8 million, 1.6, but they're in the ballpark. Um, You've got to start somewhere. And right now, what we have is opinion of probable construction costs from an engineering firm that's looked at these. And there's work for the city, looking at your drainage areas and all that. So to me, you have a priority list. The plan is, okay, now we've got to be able to pay for these. Once you have that mechanism in place and you know, okay, based on the $3,000 properties, whatever that number is, we know we're going to go from $60,000 a year revenue to $201,000. So then we can plan, okay, how much of that needs to go towards debt service? And if the commission says we can't afford south, that's $20 million. We want you to do this. Focus on that first. Well, now we know when we go to the granting agencies, the state and that, that, okay, we're not bringing in 60,000. We're bringing in $200,000. but we're able to service that debt as opposed to saying, you know, uh, well, we've got $60,000 and in five years, we're going to have $600,000 like we do today. It's not going to fix anything. I haven't come across the project yet in the year I've been here for a drainage that has been under $600,000. It just happened. Um, Yeah, you know, it's you'd mentioned and maybe I misunderstood the process for the sports complex. It was my understanding that the public voted for that quality of life sales tax. And the idea was to put some ball fields out there. And the city, I believe, bonded that amount. Well, you did because it happened right when I got here. Four million dollars for it. But it took several months before. The design was brought to the commission to say, yes, move forward.

I'd encourage you to look at the history of that. I think there's some people sitting up here can tell you the amount of planning that went into it before that ever went up for a vote.

I can just read what the, uh. The ballot question was quality of life and that.

Yeah, there's a lot of meetings that happened before that, though, and many of them in this room that happened before we ever got to that point. I think Kelly can speak to that as well. There were there was a ton of work. And frankly, if that same amount of work was done on the stormwater study, I would I would pass it today. If we had all the work that they had done before that had gone to a ballot question, I would absolutely sign off on this today.

And what kind of work was that?

Kelly, do you want to share?

I mean, you're telling me that the amount of work that they did. Yeah, they had a plan for seven. What that work is that you need me to do for stormwater.

I mean, you're coming up here and you're giving us what your perspective is. I'm telling you, I was in the room when we had plans and drawings for, I think at one point there was like eight or 10 ball fields. I mean, so there was a lot of work that went in before we went to raise money from the public, before we asked them to spend their money on public improvements.

Who gave you the drawings? I'm just curious now.

At this point, I don't remember. We've had six different people who had their hands in it. I think it was Mammoth, if I was guessing. I think they were the ones who kind of started the process.

I think they were the first ones, yeah.

So I think it's fine to raise rates. I think there's things that need to be fixed. I think I would like to see the plan first.

And I still don't understand what your definition of plan is.

Okay. So was that, you said you have an opinion of probable costs from the engineering firm on that project?

For the folks that came in last time? Right. Yes.

And I think we did have that discussion at that time. I don't believe, I can't remember if that was on our approved priority list or not at that time.

It was not.

But that was one that you're actually facing risk of loss for those two homes right there. So it kind of, I guess got elevated on that list. Is that something you can send that to us? I don't know how detailed it is.

It's a one sheet based on what they think they're going to need, whether it's a 48-inch pipe, RGB. It's a little bit technical on the details, but it'll tell you what the cost is. They also have, I believe, a map showing where they would build that. And it's not Gary, but the gentleman that came in and started it. The engineers agree with him that when a lot of that work was done up by Pizza Hut and stuff, where that water was going to go was not accounted for in there. And I've seen where our guys have tried to secure the manhole cover, but it won't hold. It blows up in the air because of that. But yeah, it's an issue.

So I guess if you could send us details on that specific one, because even if none of these are really going to go into effect until next year anyway, so we could review that and see if that's something that we want to prioritize first, since there is risk of loss to homes, which I think warrants rising up that priority list. Right.

We can bring that and the currently approved priority list to you. And if you want to readjust that, we're supposed to do it annually, but you can do it anytime you want.

But if we have that opinion of probable costs and then the mapping on it, too, to kind of show what exactly would be happening.

I think that would be helpful. I think that would be helpful.

Yeah, that would be good to have that list up in front. front and center. That way we can just look at the amounts and what we're talking about. That way we can get an idea about a plan and what's actually been engineered and what has a plan behind it and what is funded on it.

None of those on your list have been engineered.

Right. And we need money to do that. So we've got to get started sooner rather than later on this.

We'll have to have it... To get a grant... You'll have to have a professional engineering report. Most granting agencies now require that. It's not a full design, but they've got to come out and say, okay, we're not just looking at aerials and whatnot. We've been on the ground and here's what we think it's going to cost.

An actual survey. Yeah. They actually open the hood and look at it. Yeah.

Once you identify a project before we go look at granting agencies, we've got to get them going on that because they're required for most of them. Right.

I think that would be helpful just because it felt like that one kind of jumped up the priority list a little bit. And it's not even on the list.

It's not on the list. It wasn't on the list.

No.

I will say, if I can real quick, there's been a little bit of property loss on the 4th and District area with flooded cars and stuff like that that's been ongoing. My opinion in that area, it's all part of the southeast drainage project, but I think we need to look at the new drainage possibilities of more structures and stuff put in between downtown and Brady specifically before it heads on out into that area.

public interest in this project? I think one of the things I was told with the Northeast 15th Street project was that that was a private concern. How does this one on Summit differ from that?

Yeah, because I don't know where Summit is.

That's the Boyd-Hass one. Yeah, so that was more of a private. There was a little bit of a situation that was done years ago before any drainage study requirements were actually needed or implanted by the city at that time. So we had a facility they got built, and so all the water runoff went directly to neighboring properties without any type of a drainage control. And so there was a... I'll just say it a little bit of a situation between the two adjacent property owners that really did have nothing to do with what the city developed or put in for the structures of drainage that were needed from our side of things at that time. Of course, this is way before my time, but that's the history of the situation there. That's kind of why we did look into how we could improve some drainage up in that area, but it also basically started with two adjacent property owners. That's why that situation kind of got pushed to the side because I know City Attorney Martin got involved in a little bit of that and why we were making some discussions and ultimately we kind of decided that the main complaint wasn't necessarily a city situation.

How many homeowners are affected in this area?

Which area again? I'm sorry, the Summit Northwest area there. Specifically right in the corner that I know that it cuts through, I mean, probably at least three for sure, could be up to five. And I know part of the plan that you guys haven't seen yet was some drainage upsizing. Generally, they look at 20 to 30 percent upsizing of drainage structures and tubes for replacement to increase the flow rate. Uh, Mr. Boyd did come to my office here the other day when the, between the two days we got Abilene got the combined about five inches, um, about a week ago and last Thursday and Friday and, um, said that the manhole lid did stay on after we kind of, um, uh, rubberized it down and it stayed in place. And he said that it did flow through there pretty good on that one. So maybe it just wasn't the volume on that particular rain. So. But I would recommend that if we're going to look into this more, giving Mr. Quinday and myself the authority to get another probable cost of improving fourth and fifth, because that was one originally on part of the plan. And I personally do believe that we need more structures to carry that. But it's going to be a major project.

Do we have any kind of ballpark on that one?

No, I think there's an overall cost of the complete southeast drainage project structure. And I think that's maybe entailed into that a little bit. But to see the breakdown of what it takes to get everything over to Brady would be one thing. just as a reminder from everything about 13th street, I'm talking east. So east of Buckeye from 13th street, um, to about the fifth, fourth and fifth street area, there are no very limited drainage structures. Basically when the town was designed, it was designed for gravity flow downhill until it reached the plateau flat area of the fourth and fifth street. And then it makes its way on its own. Um, So helping guide it into structures would probably help take away some of the downflow that all ends up down in the areas of 4th and 5th. And I was told that those areas flooded the other night again. I don't know if it was Thursday night. Friday night. But I know that there was high water sitting down there again because I heard from a resident.

It was on 4th and 5th Street.

Yeah, around 1 a.m., couldn't get to their residence for a little bit. And it does reach car doors and everything down in there very easily. And I know that gets up into yards. Have we had any into foundations yet that I don't know, but I know it's been awful close.

So on that one, the fourth and fifth street, if we do put in more structures, will that Southeast drainage project, that tube that's perhaps undersized and is that going to,

It's all going to head to that area. So, I mean, you pick your poison on how much you want to do at a time. And maybe I'm wrong, but my initial thought is start a river and work your way backwards. Because if it's, you know, and of course, unfortunately, that's the largest price project. But if you can't get it to flow out at the highest limits, all you're going to do is continue to condense it. Can you carry it away a little bit better with local drainage? Probably, yeah. But ultimately, it's still all got to flow.

What's the timing on getting those opinions of probable costs? I don't know.

Jared got that last one to us within the two week time period or so. Yeah.

So I think it'd be helpful. Yeah.

I think it'd be helpful to have both of those, uh, just to kind of see. And if it's something that we want, I mean, you kind of mentioned just a little bit ago that you'd like to see some costs on several of the different projects on what it would take. Um, I mean, if we're willing to spend a little bit of money for investigation purposes without doing a full-on engineering, we can gladly just have them start working on all of them, in my opinion.

I think you've got to open the hood, and that's where it starts. I think you have to use a part of what we've got in the fund now, part of the $600,000, and open it up to engineering to figure out how to hatch a plan. We've got to start somewhere, and we've got to open the hood.

we're not qualified to do so so an engineer would have to be the one to do that right that'd be the uh the list that's been identified with the summit yeah yeah and uh like i said if you guys are good with that um however you want to handle it but and giving us permission to go ahead and and get all those

five slash six areas kind of an area of probable cost I guess at this point timing wise I mean we're at the end of July so it's not like we're in October November already where this would go into effect in you know a month or two we've got time still to get those

Guys, I just think $2 million is ridiculous. I mean, there's five homes there. I'm not sure those five homes are worth $2 million.

You got to open the hood up to see what it is. And if we get an engineer to actually do a legitimate study on it, and if it's $2 million after he does it and looks deeper into it, then that's something that gets deprioritized. But we've got to have a number on everything else though. At least an estimate, whether it's a $500,000 to $2 million estimate, at least we have an idea of how can we start knocking these things off the list. That's where we start making the plan We open the hood, we have an engineer look at these, get a cost associated with them, and then that's how we can prioritize our list, in my opinion.

I can see some of the things that can take place up there in that area. You've got a lot of backyards, you've got a lot of landscaping, you've got a lot of fencing. If you're excavating and placing in new, you're going to have easement costs. All the little things are going to add up. I think I I'd like to keep reminding that just because we've got a water line or a sewer line or a stormwater drain that needs replaced, when they fall within the street area, you're talking basically brand-new street replacement costs, and those costs... are extremely expensive right now with asphalt prices and everything else. So you're talking about the whole part of the plan just to get something replaced underground that you don't visibly see. You have to refix the surface. So, I mean, some of those costs can add up there. That's just a reminder for you.

We'll bring back those opinion problem construction costs.

For the ones that are identified as priorities by the commission. What's the summit 1 to you? We have the 1 on the South drainage area. They've already studied that. In depth, so I don't think we should ask them to redo that. Just the other ones, we're going to bring that back to you probably in a month. We'll ask Jared with Olson what he thinks. Is doable based on their schedule and timing. And then we can bring that back. Like I said, we're not recommending that whatever you implement, whether that be KMU's schedule, the over three years or the more aggressive all at once, we don't recommend that take effect till January so people can plan for it and budget for it. So you have some time. What we need to know really for planning purposes is which one you're looking at because yeah, they all get there over a different period of time. But if you, if the commission says, you know, we're going to do the alternate two, the one up front, whether we know starting in 2027, we can pretty much count on this much rent and we can start planning with those numbers as opposed to over three years, then we're limited by extra building. That's what we're asking for. It's just, uh, which route you think you're going to go, which implementation schedule is most valid.

And when you talk with Olson, you might have them not completely revisit the Southwest or Southeast drainage project, but see how it affects the others. Like I know the fourth and fifth street one is upstream from that. So how they affect each other and what their opinion is on.

We're going to do that. Is it going to cause more problems down there? We're going to put it up.

Right. Or does it at least get it underground to where it's not, you're not having as bad a surface flooding? I don't know. A little more capacity if you can at least get it underground.

Do we have an idea of which implementation schedule you're looking at? Or do you want to wait until you see all those costs?

I would wait to see all the costs. I would, I'd like to see, have an idea of what it's going to cost. And then we can have the engineer say, this one's going to be the most effective and then go from there.

Most effective to what though? I mean.

Value wise.

Okay. Yes. Okay. Impacting the most. Correct. Residents.

Yeah.

Okay. Most impactful to.

Citizens. Absolutely. Yeah. To alleviate.

Okay.

The most amount of potential property damage.

He may be able to get it done sooner, but we'll probably plan on a month. It'll probably be at the end of August, the end of September. But we've got plenty of time.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Okay. Our next item is 7D, discussion and direction regarding the city manager search request for proposals. Interim City Manager Quinday. Okay.

Yeah, the purpose of tonight's item is for the commissioner to review the responses received for the RFP for recruiting a city manager. Before you begin your discussion, I did want to briefly walk through the evaluation report that was included in your packet. It was intended to summarize the evaluation process, explain how the proposals were reviewed, and provide information to assist you in determining how you would like to proceed with the recruitment. Page one is just the executive summary. It provides an overview of the process, who responded, and the overall evaluation results. Then we have a background, explains why we did it and what was from staff's understanding from the commission important, the emphasis on qualifications, recruitment methodology, due diligence, and stakeholder engagement. Then we go into the responses received. It identifies the firms that submitted proposals. We did receive eight. Seven we considered response. League was the non-responsive one, and they did advise they could not provide the comprehensive recruitment services requested and instead submitted a limited recruitment assistance proposal. Because they did not respond to the requested scope of work, it was not included in the evaluation. The report also notes that Austin Peters Group declined to submit a proposal. If you turn to page three of the RFP, You'll find the evaluation criteria, and that was municipal executive recruitment experience, city manager recruitment experience, due diligence methodology, recruitment methodology, public engagement approach, project team qualifications, and cost. Then you have the evaluation summary. From those, based on those criteria, GMP consultants received a score of 96, Colin Basinger and Associates, 94, MGT, 88, Leonard Kerr Professionals, 87, GPS, 85, WBCP, 83, and then Bob Murray and Associates, 78. What was not included in the packet was the cost for each proposal that was put on your desk along with the composite scores. And then the proposed timing, the schedule anticipates the commission discussion this evening. Hopefully, you direct interviews with a short list of firms by the August 10th meeting, or if you choose just one, we can move forward as far as getting a professional service agreement. So what we're asking the commission to do is to have a discussion and eventually select a recruitment firm and authorized preparation of the professional service agreement. One thing that I did note in what I sent to the commission earlier in the week, so you had time to review all of those 498 pages that came, was that another option would be for the recruitment to be handled in-house using staff and... We've got pretty qualified staff.

Okay.

So that first one, the GMP, one of the things that kind of stuck out to me when looking through theirs was they're extremely heavy in the Pacific Northwest and they don't, I mean, I think the furthest East they've ventured is maybe one or two searches in Colorado. I guess what, do you have any insight into, does that really limit us on you know, I guess this area or.

No, cause I, I believe that most of them do their, um, advertising and their recruitment from the same fishing holes, uh, whether they're, they focus in, uh, the Pacific Northwest or the East coast. A lot of them will do recruitments in other areas. Largely they'll focus in those areas because they're familiar with those people in that area. That's where they're housed out of.

But, uh,

Ideally, if you have somebody that's from the Midwest, that's preferable because they're more familiar with the people that they're going to be trying to get here. I do know that John Gerdoff did spend quite a bit of time on the phone calling people, saying, hey, there's an opportunity for you. He just didn't put ads out in the paper. He was doing some calling and trying to get people out. He said no thanks.

Was that when they were doing the search or was that here recently? What's that for your dog? When did he make those phone calls?

That was during the last search. Yeah, I think what might have been missing and what. We added to this 1 was the, the bedding.

And the public engagement portion as far as my ranking, I went through and read a majority of the 437 page. rfp responses um colin basinger i had him as my had that firm as my number one they had a great warranty they really had a good price guarantee to a good search process they all had good search processes and they were all very But what stuck out to me with them is the fact that they were so staunch on their reputation and said they're going to get it done at that price, regardless of what it costs them. My second choice would be Clear Career Professionals. They're local-ish, Midwest, Oklahoma. Got a podcast. I think that's a unique avenue to recruit and find city managers. I liked GPS also. They have a former Kansas guy on their staff. They placed Salina Junction and have done a lot in Kansas. I steered away from GMP because they were all Pacific Northwest for the most part. Same thing with MGT. They didn't travel much further east than Montana. And I didn't really see much in WBCP or Bob Murray as far as compatibility with regionality or experience in our areas. So that was my list.

I guess when I was going through them too, my top was that Colin Bensinger, however you want to pronounce that. Yeah, that's my one. And then I think we just had our second and third flipped. I think I had GPS and then Clear Career. If I remember correctly. I didn't. I should have numbered them on here.

Did you say in-house is a possibility? Is that what you said? And what would that look like? Like we just have our staff find us a city manager?

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I kind of like that idea.

Okay. Yeah.

What do you think a timeline on that would be? Would that be something that we can give that a shot internally and save $30,000. And put a timeline on it if that doesn't turn up any. Good candidates, then we can revisit with. Interviewing using this existing results. In interviewing the 3 companies.

I don't know that we'd be able to give you, hey, we're doing great on recruiting folks because we'd have to come up with the same thing that these firms would be. What are your priorities as a manager? Maybe they haven't changed a lot. What's the salary going to be? What are the educational requirements? Is there a residency requirement? Package that up, send it out. And then how long do we give them? Then we give them 30 days to respond. And then we say, hey, we're not getting anything. I'm not sure these bids would still be good.

yeah that's what I was asking curious on

Yeah, and I kind of like having a third party involved just to, I mean, you had mentioned there's a warranty aspect to it as well. And I think they have the real-world experience of vetting these candidates and really digging into them. I'm not saying staff couldn't do that, but they do this day-to-day. And the network to find them. Right. That's huge. I think it would open up our pool a little bit. Yeah. it's kind of like publishing things in the, or putting notifications in the newspaper. It's a third party record and kind of the same thing here. You get a third party to kind of, I guess, weed through a lot of that for you.

Well, and they probably keep track of, you know, who's getting close to getting ready to move on or things like that. So, you know, who to go after.

Right. Yeah. They have a lot of inner, inner knowledge as far as the, that world, especially, um, you know, uh, gps i mean they deal almost strictly with city officials so yeah i think you mentioned that that one of them was a former city manager and right yeah yeah and i believe they're both attorneys now commissioner taylor um i think i had wbcp a little bit higher were they all did they make your list they did not okay i did not have a bcp on on mine i had um bain zinger one And you could probably put Clear Career and GPS tied for two. That was kind of where I was sitting.

I think WBCP was my fourth. And I think, honestly, I think the only reason they were my fourth was just because it was a lot of add-ons, which could be beneficial for not needing all of them. It could lower their costs a little bit. Unless we end up needing them all.

It's kind of like 50-50 on additional expenses and they were kind of the low cost out of the gate and it seems like they're very qualified. I don't think there's any question about competency. I was just kind of curious if you had a reason why they didn't rank higher.

I think no, nothing really. Stuck out I was, I was looking for a lot of regional. Experience just because I want them to know. I don't know, I guess who we are, I guess. So I was looking for that. That's why I eliminated a couple of those West Coast firms. And that's why I bumped up. Clear and GPS so high. Because I know GMP looked fantastic too, but then just being on the West Coast, I mean, that's just my internal rankings.

Yeah, it's no fault of them, but it knocked them down a few pegs for me, too.

Yeah, no, it's great for them. I feel like having local knowledge is important.

You think, I mean, I guess doing a Zoom interview with four of them, is that excessive?

I think three would be, like, I don't know. I'd like to do fewer if possible.

I'm going to say this. I'd have to agree with Commissioner Kohoff. Three would be the fewer that possible. Mm-hmm.

I did just pull up their list. I've got a bunch of states. WBCP has a bunch of states, but it's six people outside of the state of California. There's like one person in Idaho, one person in Maine.

Yeah, that's probably why they didn't make mine.

It seemed like Benzinger was definitely one that we'd want to consider. Yeah, for sure.

Would you want to do the interviews during the August 10th meeting or schedule a special meeting so that you're focused just on that and they're not back-to-back? For example, if you're interviewing all, say, three, and you schedule 30 minutes for each same regular meeting, it's a regular meeting. Well, I guess any meeting, but they could listen into your interviews. You can't interview them in executive sessions.

No, because they would not be employee personnel that we're hiring. They're independent contractors, so it would need to occur in an open public setting. And the rule is if any portion of our meeting is televised, the entirety of that meeting needs to be televised. If you wish to have a special meeting for this purpose so as to preclude interviewed candidates from seeing the responses from those who go before them, you could do that with the plan of not televising any portion of that meeting.

We could do a study session also.

Yes, if it would be a separate meeting apart from any other regular meeting that's televised, yes. You could call it a study session.

Well, I guess I'm saying our study sessions aren't televised. I guess I don't know why we wouldn't necessarily want this to be televised unless there's something that they don't want to be televised, I guess. I'm not sure if that's the case.

I don't think they'd have a problem with it, just if the other people were watching. So if I'm WCBP and I'm third to be interviewed. I might want to watch the other two.

I think that's all fair. Yeah.

I'd go Bay Zinger for sure. And then Deb, Amy, what are your thoughts on two and three? Like I said, I'm clear career and GPS. Those are my controls.

I'm good with those two.

Okay.

You want to set up interviews for those three?

i'd be fine with that yes please sounds good special meeting or during the august 10th meeting let's do i i don't actually i'm i have no preference was kind of having trouble just hit me that they're gonna go like one bang bang bang right so having that televised like arguably the third one might have some benefit like yeah so i think from that perspective i think study sessions study sessions way to go off camera

Yeah. So you just have it at our August 10th study session?

That's what we were alluding to. And not to say that's right or wrong, but that's a consideration for you if you're going consecutive interviews.

They noticed we were favoring this aspect over a different one. They could kind of tailor theirs real quick. Yeah.

I think that is going to give us better information too.

Study session then? August 10th?

Yeah, let's do it.

Do you want to just be a free interview, have them introduce themselves and their philosophy, and then you can ask questions based on that? Or do you want to have set questions?

We'd want to have it be interactive. Yeah. Are we assuming they're all going to be on Zoom? Are we planning for in-person or Zoom? I would guess Zoom.

I would guess Zoom, too.

Yeah. I think we should just set it up as Zoom and not give them the option that way. Yeah. They'll be in the room. The travel costs aren't associated with it. Yeah.

And then just have, just tell them that you'd like to interview them and they can start by introducing themselves. Yeah. Then you guys can ask questions. How long would they anticipate?

I would think, I mean, 30 minutes.

30 minutes.

We could leave a 20 minute interview with a 10 minute gap. Between. Yeah, we definitely want to leave a little gap just to.

Yeah, I would think that'd be.

Do you want to see what they, I mean, is there a. I'm trying to remember what we did on there. Industry standard pitch time, I guess I have.

Last time I met you guys, the last recruitment you just selected.

Yeah, we didn't interview.

I just didn't know if there was a... Okay, well, 30 minutes apart.

Well, 30 minutes with 10 minutes in between. So that way, if you guys want to discuss something, if you're done discussing it, we can pick up the phone and say, are you ready? And dial them in. Yeah, I think so. Just ask them to be ready in this window. Right. Okay. And just to be clear, Basinger, ClearClear, and GPM. Thank you.

Thank you.

Is this going to be at the study session after the regular meeting on.

Yes, and make that agenda light.

Okay, because we'll have to we won't have a definite start time, depending on how long the agenda is either to give them either if it's after a meeting.

yeah. I mean technically if they if we had to have something came up, they could adjourn. or recess, the regular meeting and come back if they had to okay.

That was a good thought too, Shannon. I hadn't thought of that.

Next item under Heading 8, New Businesses, 8A, consider scheduling a joint meeting with the Abilene Public Library Board.

Yeah, this is just to gauge whether or not the city commission would like to schedule a joint meeting with the library's board to discuss issues that have been discussed recently between city staff, library staff, and the library board. The beginning on pages 9899 of your packet, we summarize the recent correspondence between city staff and the library board regarding the interpretation of the 2011 lease agreement, the statutory budget process for the library, the ordinance which establishes the maximum levy and the respective responsibilities of city commission. You may ask, well, why a joint meeting? Well, the lease agreement specifically recognizes that issues concerning the application of the agreement may arise and provides that unresolved issues may be addressed through a joint meeting of both boards. The intent of the meeting would be to bring everybody together at the same table so both governing bodies have the same information, can ask each other questions, and develop a common understanding moving forward. A recommendation for it Joint meeting between the two governing bodies should not be viewed as suggesting that either party is right or wrong. Rather, it reflects city staff's belief that matters involving shared governance are best resolved through open discussion among all parties rather than continued written correspondence back and forth. Proposed topics, which they can be anything that you and the library board choose, but staff would recommend reviewing the lease agreement, clarifying the respective responsibilities of the city and the library under the lease, reviewing the statutory budget process applicable to the library fund, reviewing the ordinance, establishing the maximum levy, and then develop a shared understanding of these matters moving forward. So the governing bodies both understand, and then Wendy and I and other staff, Kara and Carrie, we all have a shared understanding. And since that's a 15-year-old agreement, I think it's good that it's revisited and the boards get together and decide how you want that to look. So our recommendation is, if the library board, I believe they're still all here, would like to, is for us to schedule a joint meeting at a mutually agreeable date, time, and agenda. And then we'll develop an agenda focused on those topics. That's something you'd be interested in doing. Yeah, that would be. Would you like that to be a regular study session or a special meeting focused just on that?

I'm curious what the library board might have in mind. Would you want to do that as part of a regular meeting, regular study session? I'm open to whatever works for you guys.

Yeah, if we do a regular study session, we'd have to wait until the 24th of August. Because the 10th would be pretty much eaten up with the interviews.

Is there a time limit?

No, there's no hurry at that.

I was going to say there's nothing. I would say a study session on the 24th. If you guys are open to work, works for me, my schedule, study session on the 24th. Does that work for you guys?

Yeah. Does the agenda topics, are they okay with everybody? Something we need to add? I envision that I would ask the city attorney to review the lease agreement. Then we would discuss the statutory budget process. Then discuss the maximum levy. Then we open it up to just a discussion between the two boards. The staff will step back and...

Does that cover everything that the library wanted to discuss?

Thank you.

We can always amend our agenda on the day of if something pops up. That works for me.

In a study session, it'll be a lot of back and forth and might bring up new topics anyways. Yeah.

It looks like November 11th, so if there's anything you want to add, I can let you know.

Yeah, I'm still going to OSU right now. Gotcha. I can't come. I'm hosting it.

And then on the 24th meet with the library board. And then in September we'll bring you some opinions on problem construction costs for, I believe it's seven identified plus summit.

Thank you. Actually 17th. Northwest 17th and Mulberry. Thank you.

I can only think of Gary.

It is Gary Boyd.

Do we have anything to add with the department reports that were included in the packet?

I did. I forgot.

We have nothing further. I'd consider a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

Second.

Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any commission discussion? Seeing none, I'm going to roll call vote. Vice Mayor Taylor. Yes. Commissioner Koloff. Aye. Commissioner Lytle. Yes. Commissioner Meisenberg. Yes. Myself.