City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to our city council meeting. It's Monday, July 6, 2026. And if you'll join me in the flag salute, we'll get our meeting going. I'd like to ask Pastor Philip Augustine from the Christ Lutheran Church to open us with prayer.

privilege to be with you here tonight and to lead you in this sacred duty not only to ask the lord's blessing upon your sacred duty but upon all of us gathered here let us pray eternal lord you have seen the rise and fall of many nations on the heels of celebrating america's 250th anniversary we thank you for raising up the leaders that led to the founding of this country Thank you for their courage, their commitment to the cause of freedom, because as the Declaration rightly states, all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Lord, may your blessing rest upon this nation, our state, and our city as its leadership meets tonight. Thank you for raising up these community leaders for Augusta. Guide and direct them by your word and spirit to do that which upholds justice and peace for the greater good of its citizens. Let your blessing rest upon this meeting tonight, that all that is said and done be according to your will, knowing that you work all things to the good of your people and the glory of your holy name. This I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Pastor.

Okay, let's review our meeting minutes from the... june 22nd council meeting uh that oh there's a june 15th council meeting the june 22nd work session and the june 29th work session american motion approved the minutes of the june 15th city council meeting june 22nd council work session and june 29th council work session second got a motion and a second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries That moves us down to our appropriation ordinance number 6A and number 7. Got any questions? Erica and the city manager would be happy to answer them.

I move for the approval of appropriation ordinance number 6A, dated June 17th, 2026, and number 7, dated July 1st, 2026.

Second. Got a motion and a second. all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries thank you that moves us down to our visitor section and we start out we have several employees here tonight that we want to recognize from the emerging leader academy graduate city manager josh shaw will talk about it

Yes, Mayor and Council, previously at a prior meeting, there was an inquiry about the Emerging Leaders Academy graduation that was held I think a little over a month ago maybe. And we were preparing our own little special recognition for our graduates. But Emerging Leaders Academy is a leadership, professional development, fairly intensive training. that is hosted by the University of Kansas. And they put together a curriculum that really forces people to kind of engage with all of those different types of leadership skills and qualities, kind of evaluate themselves as a leader and determine what type of leader they ultimately want to be. It's a way of developing those skill sets and ultimately to try to make yourself more valuable to your team. And we were fortunate to be able to host the Emerging Leaders Academy in Augusta this year. A lot of times I think that's held up in Topeka or Lawrence is maybe one of the first years where they've actually branched out and come to to outside communities. And so we, we jumped at the opportunity to host and there were graduates from other organizations, but the city of Augusta was the most well represented. I believe that we had, uh, I think there was 10 that were on our list that maybe, maybe more than that, but, uh, they, they come from, uh, throughout the organization, all different levels, but, um, This isn't something that they're necessarily made to do. They have a choice and they chose to be a part of this professional development program. And I think you have to commend anybody that's willing to put that kind of time into their profession, into their own development. And it's a good thing for the community to know that our employees are invested, how hard they work, how much they care about themselves getting better in that type of role to better serve this community. We just wanted to take a quick moment tonight to recognize all of the graduates for Emerging Leaders Academy. I don't think all of them were able to attend tonight, but I believe at least half of them are here. And Mayor, you have the list with the highlighted names to all of our graduates. Again, congratulations. And I already spoke to everybody at the graduation itself. We sincerely appreciate your efforts. We sincerely appreciate all the time you put in to professional development and what that means to your teams, to the organization and to this community. So for those that were able, for our graduates that were able to attend tonight, if you don't mind, if you want to go ahead and come up to the podium. Mayor does have the recognition plaques for the graduation. Mayor, do you want to read off the names and then maybe we can do a group picture once they're all done?

Yeah. So I have one for Stephanie Cole. Thank you, Stephanie.

Miss Angie Hicks. Thank you.

Yes.

Thanks for your hard work.

Levi Bell. thank you sir thank you last but not least tanner thomas who has served multiple roles already I just want to say that we have wonderful employees and they make The council and the mayor look good most all the time They're on top of things i might see anthony or michael and say hey you know there was uh some trash down there on ada street and they're like yeah we got that a while ago you know they're just on top of things so i really appreciate all of you employees because you're taking care of business and it makes us look good and most the time we don't have a clue what you're doing so we thank you Okay, the next item on the visitor list is the Augusta Department of Public Safety for a request. I believe Chief Ackerman will be up here.

Good evening. Good evening. The DPS is requesting a national night out. It's a national that they've been going on for many years. We've had different events throughout the summer and fall. And a lot of them have been declining over time. So what we've decided is we'd like to do a national night out at the swimming pool. And they'll be there. There'll be contests and prizes and stuff like that. I think we're going to bring in a snow cone vendor in again as well, like we did for our previous ones. What we're looking for is permission to do it and to do it for free for the kids so they don't have to pay admission to come do it via Sunday night, July 26, from 5 to 7 for two hours. What?

July 26th. Chief, do you know, have we confirmed that date with the pool that they don't have a party or anything?

Yeah, Matt set this all up with her there. So that was the one Sunday that she had open.

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to approve the Department of Public Safety's request to use the swimming pool for national night out on July the 26th from 5 to 7 and waive the fees. Second. Got a motion and several seconds.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you.

I'm sorry, who was one of the seconds?

The mayor.

Okay.

next item is uh go augusta has a request connie won't be here because she's broke her foot right correct so i'm helping her but we're working on go ahead and pull the mic down a little bit so you Thank you.

So what we'd like to work on is have a small event, do a farm and art market that doesn't conflict with other things, but brings people downtown. So we're looking at having it near the highway and the depot at the Victoria, excuse me, Veterans Memorial Park there. And already looking at some people from different events. El Dorado's was a shorter series this year. And again, this would be one that would bring people downtown. Do it on a Sunday afternoon. And I've already got more than a dozen that were interested from the Brick Street Bazaar. I've got a few from other markets that would be also interested in doing a Sunday afternoon. This would give us a couple of Sundays looking at the third Sunday in August, September and October. to bring people in, see what kind of interest there is and if it's an event we can build on and maybe add themes and that type of thing to it as well. So request to be able to use the Veterans Memorial Park for those dates.

Any conflict that you're aware of? Not off the top of my head, Mayor. It's not a program spaced outside of the Veterans Memorial, but you can see there's a lot of open grass area there. Just a reminder that the parking that's adjacent on the north and south doesn't belong to the city, so that will require coordination if you're planning on utilizing any of that for the public but I will say when we master planned the downtown park and have this kind of laid out as a plaza area those were the types of events that were conceived for that space is just additional opportunities to draw people into the downtown now granted we haven't built out the park but what you need to put up a bunch of tents is pretty much just space so If that's workable and they want to try to test a market out and see if they can grow that into something, then that's normally a popular activity that goes on in many towns. And we haven't had one like that in a very, very long time. So it's exciting to see it come back and give it a test run and see how it goes. from a now are when you say market these are it's a market where actual products are going to be sold to some type so there is some coordination that goes on at the state level with sales tax and other sort of things like that you guys are aware of how that works okay do i hear a yay mr mayor make a motion to approve the farm and art market request by

Go Augusta for August, September and October and third Sundays at the Depot and at the Veterans Memorial.

Second. Got a motion and a couple seconds. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Okay, are there any visitors here that aren't already on the agenda? I think so. so that concludes that we'll move down to our item for business items and the first one is our development agreement with redbud ridge reinvestment housing incentive district good evening

So if you recall on April 20th of this year, there was a public hearing and the city council adopted ordinance number 2265 to establish the Redbud Ridge Reinvestment Housing Incentive District or RHID. and approved the development plan for the project. The RHID was established pursuant to the Kansas Reinvestment Housing Incentive District Act to encourage residential development and facilitate the construction of public infrastructure necessary to support Redbud Ridge subdivision. Part of that RHID process and the development agreement and plan is to, sorry, part of the development plan is to have a developer's agreement. So we've been working with the developers on that for a few months now. And that agreement will outline the obligations of both parties, the city and the developer, for the construction of public infrastructure improvements by the city, construction of private infrastructure improvements by the developer, a reimbursement process for those RHID revenues, and procedures governing project milestones, reimbursement request inspections, default provisions, and long-term administration of that RHID. There were a couple sections I wanted to bring your attention to of the agreement, just so you So you can understand section 4.2 project milestones and schedule. There's not a. really detailed project milestone timeline that's been incorporated into this agreement. But the 42 months that is listed, that follows the schedule and the timeframe we have for temporary notes and to our permanent bond financing. So we have a certain amount of time where we're allowed to hold temporary notes before they need to become permanent bonds. And that's about three years. And so from the start of this project through the temporary financing in that three years, will end up being about 42 months. So we're hoping that this project will be substantially completed in that timeframe. If you go to section 5.1, the financing of the improvements, you'll see that there will be a financial guarantee or letter of credit for approximately 30% of the estimated cost of the city infrastructure improvements that the developer will provide. That's also part of the petition process that will come before you at a later date. um that letter of credit will automatically renew for additional two-year periods if that is needed um for the release schedule for those for that letter of credit um the city will upon written instruction by the developer release 50 percent of that letter of credit when the development has reached 50% of occupancy permits, and then the city will release 100% of that letter of credit when occupancy permits reach 70%. So that's letter credit side. And then we also have how the RHID funds will be used. So first as those, the city will be able to issue special assessments as well in addition to the RHID. But during this development period, the construction period, every time a house is built will be kind of bringing in some of that revenue incrementally and the city will retain those rhid funds during that temporary note process when it's time to go to final bonding the city will retain the equivalent of one year of bond payments, and then anything in excess of that we'll use to pay down the bond during that permanent bond financing. Anything in excess of that would then go to the developer. So every year after that we'll withhold what we need to pay our bond payment, and then the excess will go to the developer. But that first year we'll use any of the extra money to help pay down that bond so the city's not financing as much. I ALSO WANTED TO POINT OUT SECTION 6.3 FOR THE SUCCESSORS AND ASSIGN. SO UNTIL SUBSTANTIAL COMPLETION OF THE DEVELOPMENT HAS OCCURRED, THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE DEVELOPER UNDER THIS AGREEMENT MAY NOT BE ASSIGNED IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN APPROVAL OF THE CITY. SO I JUST WANTED TO BRING THAT TO YOUR ATTENTION AS WELL AS IF THIS DOESN'T DEVELOP OUT AS the way that we are planning and the developer um wishes to go a different direction they do need to receive written authorization also from the city and for anybody else taking ownership or obligation for that land i'm not sure i know i have the developers here tim and owen shigley if you guys have anything else you want to add or we're all available for questions if you have any questions on this agreement

Can we have a question? You gave us a timeframe. When does that timeframe start from the day they break ground or is there a certain time that that starts?

The way that RHID is written is it has started once the, I think once the ordinance was passed was when that timeframe started. The 42 months adds in the timeframe that we're allowed to hold our temporary notes.

Okay, my second question is, what else do they need to do before they can break ground?

That is in the staff report. So under next steps, we will have a petition process. There's another developer's agreement that will need to be negotiated as part of our subdivision regulations that are tied to the petitions, which the petitions are the cost estimates of the infrastructure that the city is planning to finance. There'll also be a resolution of advisability and authorizing work ordinance that the city council passes just saying that we're going to eventually have special assessments on this project and that you're giving approval for the work and by work, I mean engineering design work to commence and for the engineering design and the construction and commence. There'll be an engineering design agreement that needs to be reached between the city and the engineer that's gonna be designing the infrastructure. There's gonna be engineering design approval and authorization from the city council to put that out to bid and construct. There'll be a project bidding timeframe where the project's open for probably about a month while we accept bids. Because this is going to be a city infrastructure project, it has to follow all of our bidding requirements. So that does add some length to the timeframe. and there'll be temp note resolutions we'll eventually issue the bid award for the construction we'll have to also make a contract with whoever wins the bid award to commence the work so it'll be a contract between the city and that company and then we'll have observation inspection contracts with jeo to provide observation inspection during the actual infrastructure construction there'll be pre-construction meetings with the

selected contractor you didn't have to read all that to me i just wanted to know what what i'm trying to get to is when can we reasonably fair and reasonably expect to see some type of action

So we're working with the developer and their selected engineering firm right now to narrow down a timeline for them. I think it's a little premature to put that out right now. The bidding process is what is going to take probably the most time. The engineering design will take some time and then having that open for bid will take some time. A lot of these items, items we can do and have approved by city council together at one meeting. So like one, two, three, four, five, the first five can probably all be done in one meeting if we have all the legal documentation done. So We're trying to streamline it as much as we can and at least get our legal documents in place so when we're ready to go, we can go.

Thank you. Kimmie, does the stormwater from this development, does it go south or does it go to the lake?

It goes to the lake, I believe. Yes.

I'm sorry?

there will be a detention pond on the property. So that will hold the water and then it will drain into the lake.

Okay. Thank you.

But I will, I will say like the master drainage plan has been completed, but the actual infrastructure design is still hasn't been totally completed. That one's probably mostly completed, but it'll still go through our approval process as part of that infrastructure approval. Okay.

Thank you.

I feel like that was a lot of words, I'm sorry.

Any other questions? So, Kami, two quick questions. One, you mentioned the word hopefully. It doesn't take that long under the temp note situation. So if it does, then what?

for the project to build out. So we're allowed to hold temp notes for three years and then we have to take in a sale and make them permanent bonds. So the city would just be liable for those special assessment payments that would our annual bond payment so depending on how it's built out there could be enough homes that have already been built out to cover that annual debt service payment there could be an issue where there might be a shortfall we are allowed to also issue special assessments on top of the rhid so it's something we're going to have to analyze every single year to see if we're bringing in enough revenue from the rhid to where we do or don't have to issue special assessments to make us whole for that annual bond payment.

Okay. So then what does that look like from a disclosure to, say, somebody that purchases in that development, if it's that variable?

Yeah. I believe we had some conversations about that being in the paperwork when it's purchased.

Mm-hmm.

And then second question you mentioned I'm scrolling up 6.3, the substantial completion development, and this may be more of an Andrew question, but 6.3 section B it says until substantial completion of the development project has occurred, the obligations of the developer under this agreement may not be assigned in whole or in part without the prior written approval of the city. And then it goes on to say which approval will not be unreasonably withheld, conditioned, et cetera. But then immediately following on Section C, it said the city hereby approves and no prior consent will be required in connection with, and it goes on to say, the right of the developer to assign developer's rights, duties, and obligations. So are those two competing with each other or am I just misunderstanding what that's saying?

And we worked with Kevin on the developer's agreement.

So I think, again, off the top of my head here, first time looking at it, it's going to matter what the definition of related party is under C2 would be my guess. Because the assignment allowed in C2 only allows to a related party.

Okay.

And my guess is that's I'd have to find that definition in the agreement. But my guess is it's something that allows if the company has a merger or if it forms an affiliate entity, they can assign it to that affiliated entity, but not to an independent unrelated entity. Got it. That would be my guess. That makes sense.

So related party means any party related to the developer by one of the relationships described in section 267B of the United States Internal Revenue Code, 1986. Did you bring it up? Okay.

That's great. I just wanted to make sure those two weren't competing with each other.

Do you have anything you want to say to the council at all? I appreciate you investing and believing in Augusta. I appreciate that very much. Agreed. But we don't know how long it's going to be to get going.

I mean, right now I'm working to get their petition estimates from the engineering firm, and then we'll have to enter into a contract with that engineering firm and then do the actual infrastructure design. So most of the infrastructure, there's been a utility plan that's been submitted, but we haven't done the actual engineering to where we get all the bid documents together to be able to put it out for bid. So that can take some time, but that can't occur until after the petitions are accepted, or else those costs may not be able to be rolled in to the special assessments at the end. So it is very much a timing issue.

I'm just trying to figure out, are we halfway through the process? Are we 75% way through the process? Are we 90% through the process? 50% through the process. Okay. That's what I'm kind of going for.

Yeah, and for I mean when it's the city bonding and paying for the infrastructure there's kind of this trade off in the development, where the developer has been. leading the charge on the development they've been more managing the project. And then now. it's we're in this trade-off to where the city is going to be managing the project and it's the city's project and all of those contracts are going to be made with the city and not with the developer so you do see this trade-off and very much when costs are segregated to with the developer versus the city so our main thing is just to make sure we have all our legal documents approved in the correct order so the cost can be appropriately assigned

And recorded.

And recorded. Fair enough.

Fair enough.

I move for the approval of the development agreement between the City of Augusta and Ten Oak Investments LLC for the Redbud Ridge Reinvestment Housing Incentive District and authorize the mayor to execute the agreement on behalf of the city. Second.

We've got a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

motion carries thank you guys again appreciate you yes thank you okay item two professional services agreement safe streets and roads for all action plan staff yes uh mayor council brad do you want to go ahead and come up to the podium we got we got you for the next couple items um well and uh we'll invite brad chores or city engineer up to the podium real quick because uh JEO is going to be the contracting party for the next two items. This item is for Safe Streets for All. If you recall, we did submit a grant application for that program quite some time back. And the point of developing the SS4A plan, that's essentially where we're at right now, is it's developing a plan, is you have to do the planning process first before you're able to get to actual projects and construction and have the opportunity to apply for grants to supplement the construction. And the basic idea behind Safe Streets for All is to evaluate your community's transportation network. And that is not simply streets, that includes all of the pedestrian infrastructure as well. And it's to investigate all of that infrastructure and make determinations on what your vision is for the future of your community as it relates to those items and focus on addressing key problems, safety problems, just the movement of people. As you know, we're lacking in a lot of our pedestrian infrastructures. This will help us identify, plan for gaps, It'll help us look at our network and determine where the investments should go. But it really is going to look and help us identify those problems. And once those problems are identified, that may lead us to certain types of grant opportunities as well. So there's a lot that we laid out in the scope of services in our kickoff meeting. I kind of gave you like a really, really high level of our conversation, but we talked about a lot of pro... program areas, a lot of the problematic areas of town that we knew about from a transportation perspective. They're going to analyze that and help us put that together into a plan that will be a tool for us to get additional resources in the future. So Brad, I don't know if you can go into any more detail than that. I know you guys have worked on these in other communities And we're looking forward to the next phase, but we have to go through the planning phase first.

Yeah, not a lot to add. Maybe a key point is you guys are, I cannot remember your percent, I apologize. Are they 10% or 20%?

So we got the grant. I believe the grant was $160,000, and you all approved us doing our local match in a previous year's budget. So we have like $40,000 that's our local match, $160,000 I believe was the size of the grant.

And then a key component of this is, you know, we're studying, we're doing engineering now with the federal dollars paying for 80% of that work. And it's evaluating your entire system for safety, as Josh said, but we're also trying to position you for future grants. And this is really, for example, for Safe Streets for All, their implementation grants are very competitive. This is required to even apply for those. But the work done with this can also support other grant opportunities as well.

brad and josh just to clarify it's my understanding that this is a broader umbrella than the safe routes to schools that we initially kind of started the conversation under and so this opens up the doors for more of a community focused transportation plan for as opposed to specifically it's in that realm of kind of the types of things that you're looking at but it's a system wide review of that so i

I think it also puts you in a decent position regarding the Safe Routes to School type of thing in terms of having a planning document that could start progressing us in that direction for some of those types of grants as well.

Does it help set up a stage for those grant opportunities as well?

Absolutely. BELIEVE, BECAUSE SAFE ROUTES TO SCHOOLS HAS BEEN AROUND FOR A REALLY LONG TIME, I THINK THIS GOT LAUNCHED IN THE INFRASTRUCTURE BILL, I BELIEVE IT WAS THE MAIN FEDERAL BILL THAT CAME DOWN DURING THE COVID YEARS, LIKE FIVE, SIX YEARS AGO, AM I WRONG?

NEW SPEAKER I THINK THAT'S CORRECT. I THINK IT PREDATED OUR CURRENT PRESIDENT. THERE WAS SOME

dei language and things that have been changed in the new with the new term but the program itself is largely intact so the scope of services does contemplate a committee of sorts so we'll be working with um working with staff and council try to determine how to how to get people on that committee to help kind of talk through and guide some of these sort of conversations so we're still working on some of those details there'll be public engagement activities or be fact-finding information gathering and then ultimately come up with a plan that gives us some recommendations so you read through that scope document it covers all of the stuff that we went through in a in a pretty lengthy kickoff meeting so I don't want to go through every detail yeah I just know that the school pedestrian traffic is

is a longstanding issue that we need to include in that conversation.

And so we've been waiting for this.

We've been waiting for this piece for a while. So I'm hopeful that this includes that and begins the conversation to meaningfully look at that. Everything from the school zone to markations, to routes, all the things that go along with that.

Just for my information, high school or all schools?

All schools. Yeah. You've got kids of everywhere from pre-K up to, well, fifth grade for all the elementaries that are in traffic zones that need some help.

Yeah. This absolutely can encompass that.

Yeah.

It kind of has to encompass your entire transportation system, but the city has flexibility on areas to focus within.

Yeah. A MOVE FOR THE APPROVAL OF PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AGREEMENT WITH JEO CONSULTING GROUP FOR PREPARATION OF THE SAFE STREETS AND ROADS FOR ALL ACTION PLAN IN THE AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED 200,000 AND AUTHORIZE CITY MANAGER TO EXECUTE THE AGREEMENT. SECOND.

GOT A MOTION AND A SECOND. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? ALL THOSE IN FAVOR SAY AYE. AYE. ANY OPPOSED? MOTION CARRIES. Okay, that moves down to item three, the professional services agreement with JEO for our voltage conversion.

Staff? Yes, Mayor and Council, as you recall, make sure I get my date right, back on May 4th, 2026, you executed two action items. One was Charter Ordinance number 22. The other was Resolution 2026-07, both of which were related to a bonding process for our low voltage conversion project. Remember, the Charter Ordinance was tied to the general obligation. bonding option, and then the resolution was the backup option for electric revenue bonds, essentially. I believe that we are past the 60-day protest petition period now. So there will be actual rating call in the near future, and then you will have actual financial, the transaction of bidding and accepting the bonds from the from the resolutions that we had previously done. I know that we have a rating call scheduled with S&P, I believe, next week. and so once we get that back then we'll be bringing future action items related to the actual financing but the resolution approval itself authorizes you to start incurring cost for the work and so staff if you remember the plan was a combination of cash on hand plus the bonding so staff has already started putting together our list for ordering some of the equipment that we have to get. It could be poles, could be transformers, could be a variety of things that are just normal things that we buy, but we're buying them in quantity for that project. And then you're contracting with a vendor to install it. And that's where JEO comes in is since we aren't doing the work and we're going to be bidding out a process for the installation, we need help. comparing the documents so that a contractor knows what they're bidding on and where they're installing the poles, where the lines are going, all those sort of things. And so JEO in this agreement is going to be helping us with kind of laying out that system, getting all the stuff in our heads that we've been planning on, get that on paper, and then turning that into bid documents that can actually go out for bidding so that we can get our numbers back vendors for the installation on that low voltage project. They put it together as a not to exceed contracts for whatever reason. It doesn't take as long, then this price can fluctuate, but this is a not to exceed amount, but it can potentially go lower depending on the amount of time that it takes. We've talked about this project a lot in the past, so I don't know if you need any more detail on the low voltage project itself, but JEO's role is essentially laying out the planning documents to the point that we can bid it and then have a contractor submit their bid. With that, I'll turn it over to council if you have any questions. Brad can speak to any more detail that's in their agreement, or we can, at the staff level, answer any questions you might have.

Questions? If I could just tag on one quick comment. We really kind of work back and forth with staff on what should JO's involvement be from none to kind of what I would call full-blown design. And we're somewhere in between. If we had no involvement, you go bid this. If you had a great contractor, you would have said that was the way to do it. But you're really at the mercy of the contractor. We're going to be providing engineering specs, bid documents, provides good contractual language for you. And we're doing a lot of boots on the ground labor to prepare the bid documents. But I just want to clarify that we're not doing full-blown design. This is, Josh said it, your staff have been thinking about this for a long time. They've already purchased the equipment. They already know what they want to do. We're just going to make sure the plans represent that so the contractor can bid on it and you're protected if... you had it in mind that you wanted this transistor, I'm just making stuff up, but we will provide that kind of paper trail where we're protecting you with the contractor, so to speak. So I feel like this is a very good value engineered solution or just kind of finding that right level of effort where we're helping you, but not spending money just to spend money.

Sounds good. Make a motion to approve professional services agreement with J.U. Consulting Group for Engineering Design Bidding and Construction Administration Services for the South Augusta Low Voltage System Conversion Project in an amount not to exceed $77,000. Second.

Got a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Brad. Thanks, Brad.

moves us to item four the temporary alcohol permit for the wfo guys car show staff i'm mayor and council this is the third year that they have requested this approval for the temporary permit just as a reminder this is not for the sale of alcohol just the consumption of alcohol so byob if you will because technically it is against the law for them to byob downtown on any public property because it is part of the CCA. The last two years, the council has approved this temporary permit. They do have the necessary certificate of insurance that covers hosting alcohol. So with that, I'll just kind of turn it over if you guys have any questions. But they've provided all the information. They have not paid the fee yet, but I told them once it was approved, I would have them come in and pay that. So with that, I'll turn it over for any questions.

Any questions, council?

I move for the approval of a temporary alcohol permit for the WFO guys car show pursuant to the regulations of the common consumption area in downtown Augusta.

Second. Got a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Let's see. that moves us to matters from and for council so we need to schedule a city council special meeting at 5 30 p.m on june 13 2026 it's not just a work session it's a special meeting because we will have to take some action at that meeting

Yes, Mary Council, real quick. That's the day where you have to designate what we're going to publish on the county's form for the upcoming budget hearing. We have to determine if you're planning to exceed the revenue neutral rate or not. That doesn't mean that you will, but you have to publish something in advance and you have to notify the county of it. So as you recall from prior years, you're able to publish and you can always reduce from whatever you publish. You just can't exceed it. So it is technically an action item because we're asking you to decide what we're going to publish for the sake of a hearing, but you're not determining the final budget. Is that July 13th? July 13th. June 13th. Okay. Oh, sorry. Yes, that should be July 13th.

We assume. I didn't have a time machine, so I want to make sure.

Yeah, thanks for catching that. Make a motion to schedule a special meeting at the City Council at 5.30 p.m. on July 13, 2026 here at City Hall. Second.

Got a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

I will not be able to attend on that particular Monday evening. Okay.

Okay. But we need a minimum of five, so don't anybody else bail out. Okay, item number two, preliminary discussion regarding e-bikes and e-motos regulations. Staff.

Yes, Mayor and Council, this one we just wanted to have a preliminary discussion and kind of let you know what staff is thinking, not put you on the spot or anything, but the This question was raised in a prior meeting. We've seen social media comments. I've had several council members that have asked me about it. So staff has started reviewing and working on some ordinance adjustments to speak to the different types of I'm going to use big words. I don't know if these are the right terms for it. I'm going to call them pedestrian modalities. How's that different types of devices that people are using nowadays to get around? And there's a lot more of those that exist now. than used to. And if you look at our ordinances, our ordinances are drafted in such a way they predate the existence of many of these types of devices. And so our ordinance don't really speak to them at all. So for example, the only discussion that we have in our ordinance in the downtown areas related to bikes, but you have e-bikes now, you have scooters, you have all of these other electronic devices that can get people moving as fast as the bikes. And so we need to do an update. But in doing that update, we also know that there are other sort of things going on in the community right now that are getting attention with what I'm going to call e-motos. There are classes of vehicles out there. There are classes of e-bikes. They're not all the same. They're treated differently and handled differently. under the law and so when we do an update we're going to be recognizing some of those differences and one of those being is that there are emotos that are essentially like electronic motorcycles or throttle control devices other sort of things that technically are not considered the same way that a bicycle is which is like a personal device these are considered something different and they're treated like motor vehicles under law and you already have laws on the books pertaining to motor vehicles but what we're going to do is just go back and make sure that all of our other ordinances and things are done are in compliance with all of these these new devices so if something's classified as a motor vehicle it should not be zipping around on a sidewalk anywhere. It should not be zipping around on a playground or across our park land or anything like that. It's not treated the same way that a bicycle does. So similarly, skateboards, the e-scooter, all those other sort of things, they do fall in the classification of e-bikes. But if you're going to have ordinances that prohibit them anywhere or regulate them in any way, it's going to be good to mention them because right now your ordinances only say bicycles. That's all they say. And so we want to update those segments because you do have an ordinance that prohibits their use in the downtown area, but it only says bicycle, so we need to update that. One of the things that we did want to ask or maybe just share that we are planning on doing in our draft, and you can tell us if you think something differently, there are three different classes of e-bikes. And the classes speak to the speeds essentially at which they can be pedal assisted by the electric motor that is on them. And a class one, class two, and class three. We have found some cities where class three e-bikes are treated differently and they will prohibit them on certain types of trails or walking paths. That's going to be something that we'll recommend. It's something that I can tell you the RD group has asked us to consider, has come to us and talked about. for the class three bikes. I believe the class one and two are able to go up to like 20 miles per hour. Class three can go up to 28. So almost 28, 30 miles an hour. in an assisted way and that those types of speeds kind of exceed the normal speeds that most people are riding when they're on an unassisted bicycle. And so that's why some places treat the lower two classes similarly as a regular bicycle and they're able to go all the places that a regular bicycle does, but they look at class three and make some sort of determination if they think that's appropriate. Artie has asked us to at least think about whether class three should be allowed on the Redbud Trail. And as we're thinking about that, I should certainly consider it elsewhere in town, because I think it makes sense for it to be consistent, whatever you decide, just to treat it consistently. So our inclination, based on what we're hearing from the public, what we've heard from council in the past, is that you sustain the ordinance related to the bicycles in the downtown, but you update it to include all of the other types of devices that people are using. Our inclination is to treat the class three e-bikes differently than the class ones and twos on the multipurpose pass, which would be the Redbud Trail, the trail, the sidewalk trail, or I'm calling the multipurpose path that is on the east side of the lake. And then again the emotes are already regulated by motor vehicle laws, but we may do some updating and clarification and public sort of education documents about how all those things are classified one example chief and I know you did. some work and some research. There's tables like this that other communities have put together to help govern their ordinance to do the public education for people regarding the different vehicle types and where they're allowed. I think it would make sense when we're done with this to update a table like this and put it out there to the public so they can discern what device falls in what class and where can it go. because you do have an ordinance related to golf carts. You allow UTVs in some places. So we thought when all is said and done, having a table like this for our public education and posting it and distributing it will be useful. So just wanted to share our inclinations, Chief. Do you have any other feedback or thoughts or questions that you want to ask Council as we start our ordinance update on this? Because I know you've been researching other cities to this point.

Yeah, we're not the only city working on it right now. Every city around us is going through the same issues. Goddard and Andover are almost finished with theirs. They're about the same spot we are. But if like that flyer he is showing you up there, about halfway across, it's assisted motorcycle, motorized bikes. Everything from there on out, you've already got the ordinances for it because it's like Mr. Shaw said, it's all governed by motorized vehicle laws. Even the Emoto he's talking about is the second one from the right. fully electric there's no pedal assist system electric dirt bike you got to be 16 you have to have a helmet and you have to have a motorcycle license now we know they're already out there we're gonna have to educate them that sorry kid you can't write you know just it's what the law says so but something like this out i think would be perfect once we and you guys set the limits because i don't know if you can see them on your screen you'll get to set those limits on the left side There's nobody that could ever say that they didn't know because there's pictures of them, there's descriptions of them, everything. It's a good piece. It all came out of Overland Park. They did a great job.

So once we get to the point where council has passed an updated ordinance that updates all of this and you're settled on essentially this table, I think you do a widespread distribution to the community. Obviously we have the utility bills. We can find other ways, but we just do a widespread distribution and get the information out there. And hopefully folks will learn quickly from that and you won't have to do as many enforcement actions, but maybe folks will make some different choices once they know the actual rules.

You need to be thinking about if there's other places that you don't want bicycles, regular bicycles and e-bikes on sidewalks. Some places you don't want them on the streets. We don't want them going up Ohio Street very bad because they won't keep up with the traffic. Unless it's a class three, they can go 36 miles an hour. Yes. But again, a graph like this would tell you which is what you can and can't do. But be thinking about which streets, areas. We already know the downtown. You guys already decided that a long time ago. But they will have to keep everything in the street. Now, except what we call a baby bike. A baby bike, you've got it in your ordinance under definition already. It's anything under 14-inch wheels, like little children's bikes from walking with their parents. They ride those. Those can be on the sidewalks. That's it. Nothing else counts.

Downtown. Council, this is going to be totally subject to your feedback. My inclination is the downtown area is already spoken for in your ordinance unless you want to change that. That's where you have your prohibition. And then I think you should have your regulations regarding the class three bikes, if you choose, and designate a class three regulation that applies to all of your pathways in the city, just a regular four or five foot sidewalk or a multi-purpose path for the class three. Outside of that, my inclination is that you're dealing with lower volume sidewalks with a lot of visibility outside of the downtown. You don't have the issue with people coming in and out of doors unexpectedly and crashes occurring. So my inclination for any of those types of devices on regular sidewalks and stuff elsewhere in town, my personal inclination is not to ban them on those. In some places, you don't have many options between streets and sidewalks, or it's only street. You don't have sidewalks in a lot of locations, but I think there's enough visibility and a low volume of pedestrian traffic that people can navigate that. That's my personal inclination, unless you feel differently about it.

I think the Class 3 should be in the street. No matter where you're at in town, you don't need to be going 36 mile an hour down somebody's sidewalk.

Can you tell the class three by looking at it?

They have to be stickered. Every bike is stickered.

I know nothing about these, so.

I do have concern. I learned more than I thought. Yeah. When you were talking about class threes, you know, most of the lump like with the Bosch powered motors are 28.5 mile an hour bikes. Some have throttle, some don't. Some are pedal assist. Doesn't mean that they're going to ride at 28.5 miles an hour.

as you know it's kind of if i've got a ferrari that'll do 200 and i'm in a 65 mile an hour zone i'm obviously can't so um i don't know we'll just we'll just take a look at it and go from there i would agree with you that you're not just because you have it doesn't mean you're going to do it but i think you have to plan your ordinance to case they do you know i think it you still go by the class not by if and or they'd ever use it i'd go by class number

I think you also have to take into consideration, I mean, to your point, Josh, yes, visibility may be better density, maybe less on some of those multipurpose paths, but at the same time, it's not always about, uh, those factors. And sometimes it's just about the responsibility of the person operating it or their experience and something that goes 35 miles an hour as a class too.

Class two don't go 25. They don't go 35.

Yeah, one and twos are 20. Okay, so 20 miles an hour zipping on the sidewalk around the lake. I think there's still risk that just we've got to figure out what, it's not just, it has to be something more than just the class. It has to be something about an operator element to it.

The challenge I would say with that is a regular human being just pedaling at a good speed can be going the same 20 miles an hour versus... that. And that's, that's the hard part in trying to make it like a mile per hour enforcement that we do, unless you ban bikes on a multi-use path. But if you build them and get grant funding as multi-use path, they're supposed to be multi-use paths. So there's that challenge too.

But there's an operator responsibility that we've got to build into this ordinance in some form or fashion, because the reality is it's like that kick scooter that's up there. I mean, I've shopped for these recently enough to know that any given model, I might be going 25, 35, 45 miles an hour on a quote unquote scooter. Right.

You're going to go down the range of the kick scooters like the kids.

No, I know that's right. That's category one over there. But I'm just saying that the charts like this, they're a best effort. I know that we're not going to solve it. I know we're not going to certainly solve it tonight, but It's better than what we're at, but I do think there has to be whatever ordinance we draft. We've got to put some ownership on the operator as well as just operating responsibly.

And it may just be in the form of like regular reckless operation of anything. Like, and I don't know if we can find an example of that, but you know, let's say you're operating one of, any of these things and you happen to crash into somebody, is there any recourse or something like that?

What's different in today's world to your bicycle example is a five-year-old on any of these other devices can now go that same speed that you said that adult could go on a bicycle. A five-year-old's not going to do that on a bicycle. But in today's world, a five-year-old's going to do that on any of these and not have the same

Mental processing considerations familiarity with laws like like all the things I think that's just where I'm at with that So there was a lot of people on the sidewalks at the parade last weekend and I saw two of those little Bikes they were going down the sidewalk extremely fast and they almost hit some people and it scared the dickens I hollered at him to slow down and they

that it was crazy they might got a couple people downtown this weekend not to make it worse but you're going to i've seen just just recently i've seen things that you would call hoverboards yeah are coming into the marketplace so we ought to get them see the one right in the middle that is actually an electric rollerball in the middle of a skateboard like a hoverboard

Yeah. That also falls under scooter law. Not regulated by the state. The one wheels.

Look at that.

No, not that. It was actually driven by propellers like a... Oh, really?

I've not seen an actual true hoverboard.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's... Oh, boy. Are you sure you weren't... I mean... You weren't dreaming or anything?

It was in a... There's a couple people building them and trying to sell them. Anything's possible anymore. Yeah.

i will also say just for conversational purposes i have a son that has an electric dirt bike um it goes 14 miles an hour so are you going to classify it as the same as i don't classify anything the state of kansas how is it classified then because it's going to be smaller they're they come in all different sizes even the gas powered ones come in all different sizes so well gas power is already that that's that's motor

motorcycle period i don't care if it's a 50 cc or what it falls on the motorcycle now the e-motor which you're talking about even goes slower it's not pedal assist it falls under dirt bike according to the state of kansas because it's i mean it's when we purchase it was more of a kid's toy than well i've had a lot of parents already called they're mad because they bought things i went well yeah when i bought a car i researched it first

unfortunately i don't like to be the bad guy but i can follow state law says well chief on on most of the emotives aren't they more like like you said a dirt bike they look more like turn signals no tag no headlights tail lights heck you can buy them off uh amazon though you can put an age restriction on anyone you want

But I mean, that currently is there is no the state does not regulate those. That is up to us.

OK, I thought you said the age restriction, 16, 16.

Yeah, you can if you want to make them wear helmets. You know, that's what that's for. Or if you want, if you don't want to somebody under 16 on a class three, you can't be less than what the state says, but you can put more regulations on what the state says.

Well, I would be happy with The safety department making recommendations to us.

We can do that. And Josh and I had talked about recommendations.

And that's what we're doing. So we're just kind of letting you know that we're starting that process. There's enough moving parts and things that are going to be going on with this. You'll have to make some choices. We already got feedback from some entities and we already seen what some other places have done. So we were just kind of floating that so you guys could hear it. But ultimately, when it comes down to making those choices, that'll be your decisions. We can give you a recommendation. We'll let you know what other places are doing. We'll give you some of our suggestions, depending on what perspective we're looking at. From purely a safety perspective, it may be But if you don't like that option, it is completely within your purview to change it. So we'll bring back some drafts. But you can see with all the different devices we've got to deal with, we've got some updating to do because our ordinance only speaks to bicycles right now. So we'll bring it back as soon as we can. But we'll take whatever feedback we got from the night and produce something for you to play with. And then we'll probably be molding it for a while.

i think i know what all the cities are waiting to see what the other the first city done does so they can copy it but it's it's all coming to a head pretty quick everybody's dealing with it thank you thanks chief thank you chief mr martin do you have anything tonight no i'd just like to thank our crews that were working the high water when the rain came on they did an excellent job early in the morning all night

yeah you know they did a really really good job thank you mr that's all i have man now a big shout out to electrical department we lost power on the fourth of july crew came out real quick determined a frog had sacrificed itself on top of the transformer and then they were unable to fix it so they had to completely replace the transformer so a 10-minute job turned into a little bit more but they knocked it out real quick appreciate that yeah because it was hot too yeah

I just want to thank everybody who worked so hard and volunteered for the 250th. They did a great job. People talk about all over town. It executed well. The weather was off and on, but I appreciate everyone who worked so hard for that one day. And so, and happy birthday, America.

Yep. You know, and I know behind the scenes, it's been more than just one day of events and i appreciate all the work that the 250 committee has done i mean they were up against some odds because priscilla asked me back in december for some money and i said well you missed the budget you know like we can't do that

so you guys were handcuffed right off the bat so that's what i had to say kip how are you tonight mr so the only question i had and let's get this for josh i know we got the grant for the wayfinding signs when when do you think we'll get those ordered once i can put the budget behind me i believe we have like nine or ten more months or something to act on it so budget is my priority right now

I just also was going to say how much our family and friends enjoy the 250th celebrations, and they all just seem to go off so well, and I did some of the events as like a participant, so I got to see the behind-the-scenes organization, and it was just really well done, so thank you.

Jake? Nothing, sir.

I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting.

Second.

I've got a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Amen. Amen.