City Council - Regular Meeting

good evening welcome to our city council meeting it's monday august 3rd 2026. if you join me with this flag salute Now, Pastor Trevor Rosene will lead us in prayer tonight to open the meeting.

Thank you, Mayor and council members, for letting me pray for you tonight. Before I ever talk to God, I'd like to hear God speak to us. And so I want to read just a few verses from Psalm 72. Psalm 72 says, Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the royal son. May he judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice. Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people and the hills in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people and give deliverance to the children of the needy and crush the oppressor. Let's pray. Lord, we're thankful for... the rulers and authorities and government leaders and officials that you have placed over us. We're thankful that in your good design in this world, you've structured it in such a way that authority is a good thing that promotes the flourishing of people. We pray, Lord, the things that are decided tonight from budgets to city decisions to other decisions, matters before the council and be done in such a way that would bring prosperity to Augusta, that would help alleviate poverty, that would promote welfare, that would sustain businesses and help families see that Augusta is a good place to live. Lord, we're thankful for all those that serve on City Council or serve our city, whether that be in these positions here tonight or the countless other city workers that are throughout Augusta, the public utilities, the Parks Department, even to the law enforcement, the Safety Department. Lord, we're thankful that you have given us so many wonderful men and women who serve this city. We pray, Lord, for those that are affected right now of sickness or trials or just seasons of discouragement. Lord, we pray that you would wrap your arms around them, that you send your spirit to comfort them or bring healing, physical, emotional, and mental healing to these workers and to their families. Lord, we're thankful in times of trials. You've not forsaken us and you have not abandoned us. And Lord, we're thankful most of all for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, Christ our Savior, who displayed ultimate authority by laying down his life for others. We're thankful that Jesus showed us sacrificial love so that we might be redeemed. We pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Pastor.

okay it's time to review our council million minutes from July 20th get them approved mr. mayor moved to approve the minutes from July 20 26 council meeting second got a motion on a second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries That moves us down to our appropriation ordinance number 7B. Look at it, get it approved.

Make a motion for approval of ordinance number 7B, dated July 29th, 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 visitors section and uh first item is an employee recognition and i'll turn it over to our city manager

Yes, Mayor and Council, shortly we're going to invite our public utilities director, Tim Johnson, up as well as Colin Hanson from KPP Energy. You're aware of this because I think I sent you an email a little over a month ago when this happened. But our utilities director, Tim Johnson, was recognized with a national award from the American Public Power Association. It was a nomination made by his staff supported by myself for sure. And it's an award that speaks to his impact on our organization. It's a Leadership Transformation Award, recognizes his efforts both to instill high standards in employees, but also just to encourage them to think bigger about the jobs that they're doing, to push themselves, to set their own standards and to go after them. And he's been an amazing leader for our organization, encouraging employees to go after their own professional development. He's been critical in the implementation of multiple large projects, including the base grant projects, the current projects that we're working on with the grid modernization. And he has always been active in his own professional development, probably the most active person I've ever worked with in terms of investing in his own knowledge and continuous development And I think he's instilled that in his staff. And I can't think of anyone more deserving of the recognition that he received. He traveled to the, I believe it was their annual conference in Boston to receive that award. And he's here tonight to officially get his recognition from the city council. And so Tim, Colin, if you want to mind, Colin, I know you're familiar with the award and work with Tim quite often. You might have a few words as well.

Yes, thank you, Josh. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. My name is Colin Hanson. I'm the CEO and general manager of KPP Energy, your public power provider. And it is my distinct honor to get to be in front of you today and to get to recognize one of Augusta's own in front of you and in front of the community. So Tim, as Josh mentioned, the Director of Public Utilities here was recently named a recipient of the American Public Power Association, or APPA, Marc Cresson Leadership and Managerial Excellence Award. And I had the opportunity and the great blessing to get to work with Marc Cresson over a number of years early in my career. And I can tell you that he was a very incredible man and worthy of being named for an honor. So as Josh mentioned, Tim received his honor at the national conference in Boston on June 30th, and he was just among three other public power recipients of that award. And when you, when you step back and you look at the fact that we've got almost 2000 public power systems in the United States and 118 in Kansas alone, it really is an incredible recognition, not only of Tim and his leadership, but of his staff. He's got incredible production and distribution and great team. working for it and also a great recognition of you and the investments that you've made in in the electric utility uh here as well um so the award as i think josh mentioned it recognizes managers who elevate their organization they lead by example they inspire their team to improve services and operations and i would agree with you there's there's no one that i've met that that captures those qualities as well as as tim and tim's Tim, it's a credit to the city of Augusta and to our partnership with you through KPP that I'm very honored to get to help present this award. So on behalf of KPP Energy, congratulations, Tim.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Colin. I truly am humbled and honored to receive this recognition, but I wouldn't be here without the more than 40 dedicated employees in our streets, solid waste, water division, wastewater division, electric distribution, and electric production divisions, as well as the entire city workforce. Their dedication and their professionalism and their commitment to serving our community are what make this organization and really this community such a wonderful place to work and to serve. And I'm grateful to be a part of such an organization and such a community. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

and mayor and council we don't get to hear very much from colin and kpp and uh if you're willing uh he said he'd be more than happy to give you a quick update on what kpp has been working on for us over the last yeah however long it's been since you've been here last it's been it's been a little a little while so yeah i i can give you a quick five minute update i can also sit down quietly and let you go about your business as well so

Yeah, so just a real quick update on KPP. I think you all know who we are. We're a not-for-profit joint action agency that provide 100% of the power to 24 cities across the state, including Augusta. A little bit about me. I've been in this position since February of 2022. Before that, I was the executive director of Kansas Municipal Utilities for 22 years. So I've been in this space working on behalf of cities like Augusta for for nearly three decades now. Four things I think I'll just mention real quickly, some exciting projects that we're up to right now. One is our PACE solar project. Number two is some capacity that we're working to add some new generation. Generator repair fund, which has some direct impacts on the city of Augusta. And then finally the member services piece. Everything that we do at KPP is viewed through the lens of affordability and reliability. Those are the two keywords that we want to, to look at with with every decision we make every investment we make um and you know as as we are not for profit there's not shareholders all we're worried about is that affordability and that reliability piece so on the on the solar side we've got seven communities we were we were awarded what's called the powering affordable clean energy program through the department of agriculture which is enabling us to build seven solar facilities in seven of our communities, totaling 18 megawatts of power. And so we are actually in the construction phase right now. We're estimating that it'll be powered up by the end of the year. By the time you look at the cost of the power and some of the tax credits and the program through the USDA, It will be a very affordable addition to our portfolio for not just those seven communities, but for all of our members, including Augusta. Secondly, I mentioned capacity. We recently purchased four, three megawatt CAT diesel generators and then went and put those out for an RFP process. Those have been awarded to two to the cities, two to Mulvane, one to Ellenwood and one to Greensburg. And so we are working to install that new capacity, which again brings value to those communities, but also brings value to Augusta because it's the cheapest way for us to get that capacity and actually have some steel on the ground for you. Generator Repair Fund. This is a new program that we initiated last year. It's our nod to how incredibly valuable your generation here is in Augusta and elsewhere. Of our 24 cities, 11 of them operate power plants, and we're finding it harder and harder to keep those running day in and day out. We've initiated a program that provides some financial assistance, both as a grant and as a loan to two cities that are making some substantial improvements to their power plants and actually have a couple of requests from Augusta that's on our board agenda for August. And then finally, just the in-house services. In addition to affordability and reliability, we pride ourselves on trying to provide innovative solutions and that goes everything from engineering support, project management, distribution support, rate studies, even cost of service studies and financial reviews. So we want to be the first call that your electric department or your city makes if you've got a question about public power and saying more than willing and ready to help at any point whether we can. So try to make that fairly painful and quick, but happy to entertain any questions you might have, happy to come back at a future date if I can provide any additional information for you.

I think you've done a good job, Coleman. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, are there other people here that aren't already on the agenda that have an item they want to bring in front of us? And I know Shelby is here, so...

shelby why don't you come up state your name and address and while you're here i'm shelby smith 720 state street uh you guys just recently scraped the two houses it's 609 in school i don't know just east of the play park i own the homes at 616 and 620 school i'm getting ready to get them ready to rent yada yada but i was thinking the other day with the city having that other piece of land also east of the play park, it would be an ideal location for the city to capture the two lots I have also for parking or whatever this last car show it was, there was no parking anywhere from Kellogg to the train station. It seemed like some people were parking at my church. So I'm just reaching out as an idea. If you guys have any interest at all, it's about 19,000 square feet directly across from what you just scraped. And it would be directly in line with the play park. You could do farmer's markets. I don't know, but it would be an ideal time to capture it before I got renters in it for the next 10 years. It's just an idea that hit me. I reached out to Shane. So if you have any interest, have him reach out to me and we could present it at another month's meeting. But I don't want to put a bunch of work into it and then talk about it. Now's the ideal time for me to at least talk about it, see if you guys have any interest. So that's it. Thank you, Chelsea. What were the house numbers there? 616 and 620. it butts up against the alley between there and Osage and to the north of it. There are no homes at all. It's that kind of alley that goes through. So it's, it would kind of just be one long stretch of city of Augusta. I mean, it's a decent thing to at least talk about. Absolutely. So that's all I have. Thank you. Okay. The group back here.

These are our children's creative signs.

Hello. A couple of years ago, I watched online as coach Terry, the high school wrestling coach and teacher of outdoor living came before the council and succeeded in waiving the fees for his classroom. Now students can learn to hunt and fish for free. I felt like this was the start of something great for Augusta. Sadly, my children's elementary school was closed due to low enrollment. I know that at least one family with young children left because of the chicken ban. Our family will soon follow if we cannot advance and make room for the younger generations and for families. Young families care about where their food is coming from and what's going into it. They also care about the environment. Nine out of 10 millennials say that they make an effort to protect the environment. In a 2021 Penn study of 10,000, 60% of Gen Zers described themselves as very worried about the environment and 50% reported that this anxiety impacted their daily functionality. A 2024 study found that this anxiety was associated with higher action for the environment amongst these young people. Chicken keeping has a positive effect on the environment, not only because they provide natural pest control, but they greatly reduce food waste. Cities in Belgium and France have enacted programs that give away free or low-cost chicken, feed, training, et cetera, in an effort to combat food waste. Dest, a city in Belgium, gave away 2,000 chickens, three per household, to anyone who wanted them. In the first month, food waste in the landfill was reduced by 100 tons. Food waste makes up 24% of landfill material. It's also the third highest emitter of methane in the US. Methane is the second largest greenhouse gas and is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide on a 20 year time scale. Food waste produces 58% of fugitive landfill methane emissions and about 14% of total US methane emissions. The average American waste about one pound of food per day. The USDA has a goal of reducing food waste by 50% by the year 2030. One chicken eats 1.6 pounds of food per week. A small backyard flock of four chickens can reduce 25% of their household food waste for a family of four. Chicken keeping teaches routine, animal husbandry, and biology. We actually have a teacher in town who teaches hatching eggs at Lincoln Elementary School. As opposed to violent movies and video games that give rewards for headshots, chicken keeping teaches responsibility and a respect for life. Yes, we eat meat. Yes, we eat eggs, but that doesn't mean that a life meant for nourishment doesn't deserve care, but suffering instead. Factory egg farms clip the hen's beak so they are unable to injure each other with excessive pecking. The hens do this because of high levels of stress. There's not enough space to flap or stretch their wings. Caged hens have sores on their feet and body from constant rubbing against the bars with no way to escape them. Even cage-free hens are packed so tightly amongst so many birds they will never find the two tiny doors hidden amongst the flock. They will never eat a blade of grass or a bug. They are denied their natural instincts of dusting and sunbathing. The cramped conditions and lack of nutrients lead to low immune systems that make them vulnerable to diseases like bird flu and diarrhea bacterias. The CDC recognizes that smaller flocks are the solution for certain sicknesses like bird flu, Those studies have shown that consuming two blades of grass a day would greatly reduce the disease as well. If one wishes to purchase pasture-raised eggs on adequate acreage, they can expect to pay $10 plus dollars per dozen of eggs. Local farmers have limited supply during the winter months. The environment and mental health are top concerns for millennials and Gen Z. I believe a large portion of Gen X as well. Roughly 75%, slightly more, of followers on my Augusta for Chickens Facebook page are between the ages of 25 and 54. They're families. Augusta families want chickens. They want to help restore their independence. Chicken keeping, bread making, sewing, gardening, they create healthy people physically and mentally. Many of you saw the short video online of my husband and I receiving an order to go to court for our backyard hens. And this will happen at the end of this month. I had a miscarriage earlier this year, resulting from a very complicated pregnancy. It completely wrecked me in ways I wasn't prepared for. My husband wasn't prepared for it either because I'm an overcomer and I'm typically very emotionally sound. We almost lost our 13 year marriage. One Sunday afternoon after a huge fight that morning, I was shut in my room. I'd been there most of the day wanting to be alone, trying to recover. I heard a commotion downstairs. It didn't pass, so I crept down to see what it was about. Before I could visually see anything, I heard their little peeps. I rushed the rest of the way to find my husband surrounded by my excited children. placing a big round heat lamp onto a brooder he set up for me. Inside were a handful of tiny little yellow fluff balls with orange feet scampering about. He knew that I loved chickens and hoped that caring for them would help me how right he was. The chicks completely distracted me with their daily little needs and the bitterness I felt toward him had vanished. We knew we weren't able to keep them in our town. So our plan was to sell them as soon as they were old enough to leave the brooder about six to eight weeks. But, um, but unfortunately six weeks came, seven weeks came, eight weeks came and they're now 24 weeks old. And, um, I'm still not ready. And I don't think that I'll ever be ready to sell them. My children love them. I love them. They cause no harm to anybody around me. And, um, their eyes, they're ours. We're called to be stewards of the land. And I believe that this is a great start for Augusta, that we need to just do away with some of these laws that are designed to oppress and keep Augusta from advancing. If we don't do that, we're going to find a ghost town. We're gonna find a town full of people who are retiring, no more children, we will close more schools. We have to focus on the things that the young families care about, and it starts here. Thank you.

Can I, before you leave, can I get your name and your address, please?

Yeah, my name is Kimberly Gia. It looks like Giet, G-I-E-T. And what's your address? 415 Country Hills Court, Augusta, Kansas. Thank you.

Thank you. Now, please state your name and address, and you have five minutes.

Okay. My name is Brianna White. I live at 912 East Kelly Avenue. First, I would like to thank the council for hearing us out on the matter today. A motto that Augusta lives by, Augusta, where the metro's edge meets the prairie serenity, offering the perfect blend of opportunity and proximity for living, commerce, and culture. One of the ways that we can meet this motto is by allowing hens in Augusta. So what does this proposed ordinance allow? Owner occupied single family homes with eight hens depending on the layout and size, no roosters, backyard only, sanitary coop standards, compliant based enforcement, Cities that already allow backyard hens close and around Augusta would be Andover, Rose Hill, Wichita, and Douglas. Douglas allows six hens. Wichita, they have a limit of three, but with the permit, they are allowed much more. public health safeguards, no slaughtering, no roosters required, coop setbacks, rodent-proof feed storage, odor control, cure period before penalties. What does this protect for us people that live here in Augusta? It provides property rights, food independence, responsible ownership, and neighborhood harmony. For those who want to have hens, they can have hens if we allow this. And those who don't want them, they simply don't have to get them. And

Bye.

I was made aware that we have to have a certain amount of signatures. I believe it was 380 signatures of registered voters in Augusta. We have collected, to my understanding, the necessary amount of signatures. However, if this is not sufficient enough for the council, I am requesting that there be an official poll and city vote, if that's something that we can do. But other than that, I'm just here to really defend being able to have backyard hens and meeting, you know, just like she said, the future standard, you know, I mean, it seems like such an old school thing, but it's something that if we see the way the world's going, backyard hens would be such a great opportunity for families in this area. And she wants to say something.

Beautiful day, isn't it? Well, some people, they don't want chickens. But I think we all should have chickens if we want to. Like, let's say there is a little person in my hand. They didn't agree with chickens. And then there was another little person in my hand. They also don't agree with chickens. And then there's a thousand more people that want chickens. These two can probably make a plan to let them get chickens and no chickens. That's what I meant. Sorry, I messed up my words.

We can have harmony between those who do not want chickens and those who do. What? We can have harmony between those who want chickens and those who do not want chickens.

Okay, we can have harmony. What my mother said. We can have...

IS THERE ANYBODY ELSE THAT'S NOT ON THE AGENDA ALREADY?

Okay, we'll move on to our first item of business, bid award for series 2026-1, general obligation temporary notes, and I'll turn it over to staff.

Clayton, you want to go ahead and come up? All right, Mayor and Council, this item is, as you recall, has been before Council in the past where you've taken multiple steps with previous resolutions to authorize us to move forward with the financing on this project. This is the low voltage grid conversion project, also the engine upgrades that were kind of grouped together as a one package the the next step that was in that process was for us to actually take the bids we discussed the financial planning the the modeling for that how we're going to pay for it in prior strategic retreats and work sessions and we recently shared with you the bond rating that we received and clayton can speak a little bit to that too as well but we have officially taking bids for our temporary notes and clayton is from our financial advisor. He's here to speak about those bids that we opened this morning. So Clayton, how we do?

Great. Thank you, Josh. Clayton Kelly, financial advisor to the city council. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. Hard act to follow. Definitely not as creative. We have brought with you some illustrations of the bid results. And so I hope that you have these in front of you to be able to review, but really good result today from the temporary note sale. There's been a lot of volatility in interest rates recently. We weren't quite sure how many bids we would receive based on that volatility. It's more headline news lately, just with everything going on with the Iran war. And so, Luckily we were very, very pleased with the results this morning for bids that were received on the temporary note sale for the project. And you know, it's sometimes a little difficult to understand if it's a good result or not based on the bids that are received in this case, what you're, able to notice is that all four bids are within 0.4% of each other. So even the worst bid that was received at a 3.8%, still a very good result for the city. We've been estimating throughout this process an interest rate of about 4.5% in interest rates. So coming in at the 3.4%, reduces your overall interest costs for the financing significantly, that amount is about $300,000. So $300,000 less compared to what we've been preliminarily running in our numbers, which is just going to go and further help the timing of when you pay off the permanent financing for this project. So just a reminder, as Josh had mentioned, This is more of the construction phase financing. The reason that we do the short term financing is allows you to come back in a year or two and only permanently finance your actual final cost. So not having it based off of an estimated cost today but basing it off of your actual final costs when you go to permanently finance. Um, I think when we preliminary rent preliminarily been running the numbers, we've been right around that 13 to 15 years, uh, in financing term, I think we're still in a good, a good spot to be able to pay these off within that time period, assuming about a $700,000 payment, uh, towards the future bond issue. Um, so that as, uh, josh and mentioned the winning bid northland securities at a 3.4 so tonight you're simply taking two action items the first action item would be the approval of this winning bid from northland securities the second action item is the approval and vote on the the resolution which essentially allows you to move forward with closing and having funds available by august 27th um so that's how that's essentially when the entire temporary no amount of six million seven hundred sixty five thousand uh will be deposited um with the city's bank account to be able to begin paying and starting construction for the project um josh had mentioned a little bit about the the credit rating that goes a long way long ways as well in uh getting the number of bids that we received so The SP1 plus rating on this temporary note is the highest credit rating you can have for an issuance for a temporary note for the city. This Josh and Erica do a great job behind the scenes, kind of getting everything ready for the credit rating call. We have to have that similar to like when you go and secure a mortgage, you go for a credit rating background. There's a lot more work that goes into that. from the city's perspective. So kudos to the both of them on the call and the questions that are required as part of that process to have a really good rating going into the bonds or the temporary note sale. But with that, I know it's a lot of information really fast, happy to take any questions that you have.

Mayor and Council, if I may have one more thing for you, Clayton. The temporary notes will have an annual payment as long as we're making interest payments. Can you speak with this interest rate received? How does our actual payment compare to the one you forecasted for us for the next few years?

Yeah, thanks, Josh. So we've been forecasting, I think, around $350,000 a year for the interest payment for the first couple of years on the temporary note. That was with that 4.5% estimate. So with coming in at the 3.4% interest rate on this temporary note, the annual payment is about $240,000 a year. So about $110,000 less a year. That's kind of how we get to that $300,000 figure I mentioned earlier on total interest cost. Thank you.

Okay. Any questions for Clayton? Then we could go down and award the bid. I said that you pick this one. I made a motion for that.

I move to accept the best bid with the lowest true interest cost for series 2026-1 general obligation temporary notes in terms of Northland Securities, Inc.

second okay i've got a motion and a second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries now let's move down and do the resolution

I make most approved revolution 2026-11 authorizing and directing the issuance sale and delivery of general obligation temporary notes. Search 2026-1 of the city of Augusta, Kansas, writing for the levy and collection of an annual tax necessary for the purpose of paying the principle of an interest on said notes as they become due, making certain covenants and agreements to provide for the payments and security thereof and authorizing certain other documents of actions connected therewith.

Second. Got a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Clayton. Thank you, Clayton. Item number two, request for reinstatement of 413 East 14th and 1118 Euclid into the neighbor revitalization program. and I will turn it over to staff.

Mayor and council, as you know, the city has a neighborhood revitalization program. One of the criteria for that program is that property taxes are paid on time. And if they are delinquent, those properties risk being removed from the program. Property taxes most recently were due May 11th and there were, we have two properties here this evening anyways, requesting reinstatement back into the program. after they received notification that they were going to be removed. Both of these properties are under the most current NRP program that the council approved, the 2023 one. And it looks like both of these properties, this is their first delinquency. There are attachments in the packet with their letters requesting reinstatement. And I believe the property owners are here as well. Yes, they are both current now. So I'm happy to sit for any questions or the property owners are here as well. We do this twice a year, so I feel like we're kind of familiar with the process, but I'm happy to answer questions if you have any. And it is the council's full discretion for reinstatement. So staff under the new plan doesn't have an administrative process to reinstate those.

They both are here.

Yes.

I don't have a question. I have a statement. I've participated in this and Butler County does a the county itself does a poor job of communicating with the property owners. In my opinion, I just want to put that out there. I like to see them try to improve that system so we don't have these situations because they do, in my opinion, poor job, my experience. It surprises you and you're like, ugh.

Yeah. Our plan, I mean. There'll be an opportunity to update the plan again. I believe it runs through next year, but we can start that process. There's definitely some pain points for staff as well from the administrative standpoint. I'm not sure how much of the county's processes we can influence, but I think there's definitely some wording we could put in there to help staff and the council administer this program better on our end.

Thank you, Kami. I appreciate that.

Are these two separate motions?

Yes, I would make him as two separate motions. I move to reinstate 413 East 14th into the neighborhood. Oh yeah. Into the neighborhood. Revite revitalization program.

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

I move to reinstate 1118 Euclid into the neighborhood revitalization program. Second.

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

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you all. And thank you for showing up. That means a lot when you show up. Okay. Presentation of 2025 audited financials. Staff?

Mayor and council, thank you. Sean Gordon is presenting our auditor. Gordon CPA is here to answer questions and go over the actual financials. I just wanted to touch on a couple of things. They've been doing our audit since 2021. We've been very happy with them. It's been... a lot easier to work with them being here on site for 24 hours. And then they get a lot of stuff in advance and then they follow up on a lot of things. So we've worked really well with them. This year was a little harder because we had brand new financial software after having one financial software for 25 years. And then I also had a longterm employee, 10 plus years who retired. and we brought on two new staff members that were learning not only the system, but our system. And so that made this last year a little bit hairier. And I think it was a little bit harder to get all the documents we needed and made that a little bit more complicated, but I feel like overall we did well. There is a management letter that was issued. We've not had anything mentioned in a management letter for a few years. So I just kind of wanted to touch on those. It's usually when they've seen something that doesn't follow our written policies and procedures. And so they identify something that we need to look at to see if we need to improve our systems or re-educate staff. And so there were three items listed on there. The first one was related to outstanding checks that could be considered unclaimed property. The four outstanding checks that we still have, they're not unclaimed property, and we had written all the others off. These four, we had reissued checks, hoping these people would cash their checks, and they still haven't. So we did write those off. So those are no longer outstanding. Anything out there now is less than two years. um the other one has to do with a statutory bond statutory bond compliance with our public works projects we are required on any project in excess of a hundred thousand dollars to get a statutory bond from the the vendor or contractor um this particular project was a little strange because it was a source well contract and they they excluded it specifically in their contract that they would not provide a statutory bond um and i don't know if we missed that or just weren't aware of it at the time but um i did reach out to our engineer about it and she reached out to the contractor and they are retroactively issuing that statutory bond so we are no longer out of compliance with that it's going to be i think i noted a thousand dollars and they reached back out this morning and said it might be closer to 1500 but that brings us back into compliance And so we're going to watch that a little bit more closely and make sure, especially on the source well contracts, that if it's excluded, that we amend it to request that they do include it.

And Mayor and Council, remember with source well, what that is, we've been using it for a few years. It's not very frequent that we use it for like large capital projects as much. We've had one building in the past. It was about eight or nine years ago. A lot of times we've used it for equipment. And so that statutory bonding stuff doesn't really apply in the equipment example, but in this case it was for the salt sand storage structure. The source will contracts are national purchasing contracts. They are bid nationally. And then if you're a member of those cooperative purchasing agencies, if you signed on, then that national process essentially covers all of your bidding requirements. But in this case, as Erica said, It missed out on a key provision that we have to comply with at the state level, and we missed that as well. And so that's why we're doing that retroactive fix on the statutory bond. The project is done. Those statutory bonds a lot of times are in place, just provide you additional protection as construction is going on to make sure that the project is complete if the contractor is not delivering. So our project is done. We don't have any repercussions in in that regard and we're going to get it into compliance at least retroactively but we did miss that at the source world contract and so we'll have to pay attention to that if we use them again in the future on those types of construction projects.

And then the last item had to do with credit card transactions. I think you guys identified six that were charged sales tax. Of those six, three were for the electric utility, which we are required to pay the sales tax on. So there were still three that were missed. And then there were three that we didn't have proper documentation, which is like the official receipt. Sometimes someone will lose a receipt and they will recreate the receipt or just write it on there. because of the change in staff there was some of that stuff that was being a little bit more lax or not paid as much attention to as in previous years so i've talked to my staff they're watching that a lot more closely and there's going to be pushback if receipts aren't provided that that escalates to me to handle to make sure that we are getting receipts for all the credit card purchases erica did you have a total on that that was discovered um the on the amount i don't think the dollar amount was very much i mean the three that had sales tax two of them were restaurants um for food for training like conferences yeah and then one was for um a tire lube change in derby it's that was maybe the one that we yeah that was one was sales tax i think so less than a couple hundred or a few tens oh yeah it was less if all the issues that we noticed were less than a couple yeah And I looked at the ones that were missing the receipts and they were all valid vendors that we've done work with. One of them was eBay. We do buy things on eBay sometimes, but, um, because it is cheaper and we usually do have to pay sales tax. And there are times we pay sales tax when we shouldn't, when their justification in that it's still cheaper than if we went to Walmart and didn't pay sales tax, if we can buy it from a different vendor for less, even though we have to pay sales tax. Um, but we do push back with vendors that we use regularly to make sure that we are exempt on their accounts. Um, the the three missing them they they were all valid vendors it's just that they didn't have the receipts and so we're gonna um we used to push back a lot more and make them go back and get the receipts and we're going to reiterate that to the staff that they're required to provide them and then like I said escalated to the supervisors so that if there's repeat offenders they may lose their purchase card if that's what we have to do to bring them into compliance so um but with that i feel like everything else went really well um i feel like this year we're much more prepared for next year's audit um so with that i'll just turn it over for you to talk about the actual financials sure yeah i'll just go through the audit report real fast we'll start with pages one through three this is called the independent auditor's report here we discuss the opinion that we issued the city's financial statements for the year ended 12 31 2025.

And that's the third paragraph down on page one. You'll see an italicized heading called unmodified opinion on regulatory basis of accounting. That paragraph right there at the top says that we've issued the highest and cleanest opinion that we can issue, which is called an unmodified opinion. So that reflects very well in the financial and internal control management by city staff during that year ended 12-31-25. The next kind of big section for it is pages four through five. This is the summary statement of receipts, expenditures and unencumbered cash. Here you'll see in the left-hand column all of the different funds that the city has, followed by for each of those funds beginning cash, receipts, expenditures, and then ending cash. At the very bottom of that right-hand column on page five, one page down, you'll see that the city is reporting a little over $36.3 million on hand, which is a slight increase over the previous year. So again, a good financial operations year for the city. The next section for it is called the notes to the financial statements and that's pages six through 15. I won't run through everything on here because there's quite a bit discussed, but this section is mostly the same as what you've seen over the past few years. There were no major changes required by the state to this section. So what we discuss is pretty similar to 1231.24 audits and 1231.23 audit as well. But here we discuss different accounting policies that the city follows. We also present items, information on deposits and investments, involvement in the KPERS and KBNF retirement program, long-term debt of the city, long-term debt activity of the city, inter-fund transfers that were made. Like I said, a bunch of items discussed in this section. And then the next section starts on page 17 and runs through page 44. These are just more detailed breakouts of those funds that we saw previously on pages four through five. Here we break out the different types of revenues and expenses that take place in each fund. So this presented here is the general fund. You'll see all of the different types of revenues that are collected and the expenses that take place. And then we also present the previous year financial activity column, which is 12-31-2024. And then that third column over is the budget that was adopted for the general fund as well for 2025. So you can see how this fund operated against the budget that was adopted for this year as well. And then the final section I want to point out is pages 45 through 53. This is called the government audit section. Anytime an entity receives and spends a million dollars or more of federal grant money, it's required to undergo what's called a single audit. This is required by the federal government. So for 2025, we looked at the ARPA funds to make sure that the city spent those funds according to state and federal guidelines and followed all requirements of those grant funds as well. And we issued an unmodified opinion on that as well, which means that the city met and exceeded those state and federal guidelines regarding that grant money. So again, the city did a great job of managing those funds. FOR 1231-2025. WE DID HAVE THOSE THREE AUDITOR RECOMMENDATIONS THAT ERICA RECAPPED AND MENTIONED IN THE AGENDA PACKET AS WELL. SO I WON'T GO OVER THOSE. WE WILL CHECK UP ON THOSE AUDITORS RECOMMENDATIONS NEXT YEAR WHEN WE DO THAT AUDIT JUST TO MAKE SURE THAT THE CITY HAS THOSE KIND OF ADDRESSED AND THOSE ITEMS IN PLACE TO CORRECT THOSE. uh with that i'll just leave you that we had a great audit um it was a new software year but it was it was a good audit again with erica and her team uh they did a great job of getting us the items requested and and the information that we needed for the audit so we appreciate that uh with that any questions for me on the audit report or the audit process

I have a couple of questions only because I'm getting beat up on Facebook, which is normal for me. So I'm getting used to it. Did you see anything in that audit that was a huge red flag that seemed like we are spinning something foolishly or crazy or anything like that? It's not that I don't trust you guys. I just want to say that anything fraudulent, anything that was used employees using for personal expenses that they shouldn't have, or did you see anything like that at all in your audit?

No, sir, we did not see anything like that. If we had, it would have been mentioned in that one letter that you saw that as the three auditor's recommendations. And so since those three were the only items that we noted, and I will say we can issue auditor's recommendations on three different levels, ranging from one to three, right, best to worst, if you want to look at it that way. And the three that we issued are called controlled efficiencies. THEY'RE NOT A SIGNIFICANT DEFICIENCY, THEY'RE NOT A MATERIAL WEAKNESS. SO THEY'RE JUST ITEMS THAT WE WANTED TO POINT OUT BECAUSE THEY MAY HAVE VIOLATED A KANSAS STATUTE OR THEY MAY HAVE BEEN AN ISSUE AGAINST THE CREDIT CARD PURCHASING POLICY THAT WE AUDIT AGAINST. NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU SO MUCH. APPRECIATE IT.

NEW SPEAKER TO CLARIFY TOO, YOU GUYS, I PROVIDE YOU A LIST OF ALL OF MANAGEMENT and council members. And you guys do look at utility accounts, payroll, things like that to look for discrepancies specifically related to key employees and council members. I appreciate that. So that is looked at every year as well.

Just to go back again with Shane still, do we do we even have do our employees have a debit cards?

So that's what we're specifically talking about. We have purchase cards, which are credit cards, and they're issued to specific employees.

A specific debit card where they can get cash or something.

oh no no they can't do any cash transactions they can't buy alcohol there's a certain exclusion on types of purchases that can be made on those cards and they all have limits on them too so right and that's what i understood is we have we have purchase cards but not debit cards there's no way for employees it's evolved it's evolved over time and there are a lot more employees with purchase cards now one of the reasons is um that there's an ease to it compared to some of the things we had to do in the past like we we might used to share like one Walmart card. And so if five departments needed to go to Walmart, every single one of them would have to go and pick up that card from the office here and then go to Walmart. That didn't allow multiple people to do it at the same time. So one of the ideas behind the purchase cards is it's a lot easier to tie it directly to a specific person's activity. and you also get a credit card report so i think even in those examples where you may not have the paper receipt let's let's say they had like a per diem meal at a restaurant from a conference they attended which is allowed under our policy they are required to bring back the paper receipt but if they didn't you still get a credit card statement that shows that it was made so like we still have a tracking of it And that's a different setup than if you're doing it on a reimbursement basis where they're paying for themselves and then having to bring in a receipt and then we're you know, exchanging cash for that. So that was some of the logic behind expanding that program in years past.

And I think from fraud as well, because they're specific to the employee and that employee signs something stating that they're taking full responsibility for that card. We're not sharing our cards with people like we used to or having someone else sign our name. And, you know, because of the fraud and because the way we have our program, we can dispute charges there's a clause in there that we have to terminate the employee if there's fraud and there's certain things like that in our policy and with the credit card company so um i feel like it's a lot easier than someone walking into ace and charging something because we know specifically who made that purchase what it was for we have the receipt we know when it was done and we have we have the additional documentation for that and something to back that up if there's something fraudulent i just i just want to reiterate to the public too that

every month we you know you guys go through and you do a check and balance on every single one of those and make sure that they balance to those receipts or you know we've got something to document that absolutely some way and do that so that they so we know what's going on what's being spent and why what is why it's been spent and then in your appropriation ordinance which you see and is publicly available in the agenda packets you see those purchases you get that credit card statement as well the credit card statements

And all those statements are online at City of Augusta?

We publish them in the packet for every meeting. Yeah, I'm just talking about for the citizens.

Please name for the purpose of that report and part of the card number. But they're there and you can tell what departments are being charged.

And sir, are we the only city that you do this for? Do you for other cities as well?

No, we audit. Well, we audit 60 governmental entities across the state every year. I would say probably 45 of those are cities or counties.

Very experienced. Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much. Any other questions?

Mayor, I'll make a motion to accept the city's 2025 audited financials. Second.

Thank you, Sean.

got a motion and a second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries thank you thank you item number four price amendment for the public works campus so staff yes mayor and council normally i have a bad habit of stealing people's thunder so since tim

Put the energy forth to walk up to the podium. I'm going to go ahead and let him take this item and then jump in if I have to for any reason.

There's a story behind that comment.

I'm happy to speak to it if you'd like me to.

That'll be fine. Mr. Mayor, Council, Tim Johnson, Public Utilities Director, tonight we're asking for approval of an amendment to the construction manager at risk agreement with Donlinger and Sons Construction for the Augusta Public Works Campus. The amendment establishes a guaranteed maximum price of $1,682,989 for the preengineered buildings, including the supplies and erection of those two buildings. as well as associated pre-construction, surveying and layout, insurance, bonding, permitting, and this actual CMAR fees. If you look at the front page of the staff report, you'll see a list of eight items right there on the front page. Items three through four you have already authorized under the CMAR contract. Those were real dollar figures that you authorized the expenditure of or for previously. The first two, which are bolded items, one and two, in the amount of $753,491, and $408,886 are the building supplies in erection. They are in addition, they're part of the project scope, but they're additional actual not to exceed figures on these first two items that are part of the project scope. The amendment that is attached to this report includes those two new expenditures, which again are already budgeted and taken into account in the bond, along with the previous six expenditures which you authorized when you agreed to the contract with Donlinger. doing uh we would we would prefer not to bring this to you piecemeal we would have liked to have brought the entire not to exceed figure to you at once however the economy being what it is and price fluctuations for steel in particular being what they are, Donlinger wants to lock in that price now while they finish up putting pencil to paper and locking in the prices on the rest of the project. So they're bringing to you this first amendment, which adds these two line items, numbers one and two to the previous six, and then they plan to come back to you in 30 to 45 days with the remainder of them not to exceed price for your approval. With that, I'll stop and offer to respond to any questions you may have.

Anybody? I understand it is it's like we've got to get this down payment down or the buildings could go up in price 10, 15, 20 percent.

Who knows? They they could have waited on these two lines on the supply and the erection lines until they have all the other prices negotiated and nailed down. Their concern is there's such big line items that these prices could change between now and then. And they would like you to go ahead and lock in these prices now before they do change.

Council, if I may, real quick. So just a reminder of that CMAR process. This is a different sort of relationship than we've done with other projects. And we are in partnership with our engineer and also with Donlinger. We are collectively on a project team. They are functioning as the general really for the construction purposes in a similar way to other contracts. But we have a lot more insight and involvement in some of the pieces along the way so that they have actually, in this case, they competitively bid these buildings.

They will bid all aspects of the project rather than your city staff bidding them. The CMAR lead, in this case, Donlinger, does the bidding.

And they shared those with us and I believe they recommended the low bid that came in on that. That's a level of insight we don't typically have. A lot of times you work with the general, you bid a whole project and then generals are competing and then you award the low price to the general. In this case, they are doing it with individual pieces and we have insight and review and they submit that. to us. And so in this case, they did recommend the low bidders. And as Tim indicated, the original plan is they do set that maximum not to exceed price based on our discussions and what we're expecting them to provide to us. We do expect that that's going to come in within our established budget. But that hasn't happened yet. but they have already proceeded with this process and out of concerns of wanting to lock in the prices and make sure that that doesn't fluctuate and go up on us. That's why they recommended that we move forward with this amendment to at least get this portion of the project locked down. And then as Tim said, they will bring back the rest of that contract that locks in the rest of the scope and the total not to exceed costs. But based on our conversations, that's tracking well with how we had it budgeted originally. Did I say anything incorrect there?

Nope, you got it. If I'd entertain a motion. Don't be bashful.

I move for the approval of an amendment pursuant to Section 3.2.6 of the agreement with Dondlinger and Sons Construction Company for the Augusta Public Works Campus project to approve a guaranteed maximum price of $1,682,989, subject to additions and deductions by change order as provided in the contract documents.

Second. Got a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. Okay, matters from and for council.

Josh, I'll just let you take your item. Thank you. There's actually two items, so Cami's going to speak to the second one. The first one is just have council officially schedule the public hearing for the CDBG grant application. It's been a while since we did CDBG, so just a reminder of the process. Community Development Block Grant is a program that we've applied for to get grant support funding for various projects in the past. It helped us do sewer lining in Basin A. It helped us buy our new fire truck. In this case, we are putting together a grant application to rehabilitate broken sidewalks in the portion of town that we recently did the income surveys on. We got approved to move forward with our preliminary engineering report. and so our engineers are actively working on that the next step in the process is for us to hold an actual public hearing and i believe that rosemary who's our financial consultant will be here i'm not sure if we have the results from that per report yet or not but i think that we may be speaking to some of that basically the purpose of the hearing is to get the public information about what the proposed project scope is they have a chance to take public comment And then those hearing transcripts get included in the application for the grant that gets submitted. So that way the state knows all the steps that we took. So it is a required process to apply for the grant. So that is the CDBG grant public hearing. If you want to go ahead and authorize us to move forward with that, we will get that on the calendar for our next agenda.

Tomorrow I'm going to schedule a public hearing for the CDB. G GRANT APPLICATION FOR OUR NEXT CITY COUNCIL MEETING ON AUGUST 17, 2026 AT 7 O'CLOCK P.M.

Got a motion and a second to schedule that hearing. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Motion carries. Thank you. Josh, aye. And then, Mayor and Council, the second item, as you recall, you approved us to move forward with our housing action plan. The steering committee recently did our kickoff meeting with the Public Policy Management Center from WSU. I thought it was a very good conversation. And we're just trying to outline the scope of expectations and game plan, how we wanted to proceed with that. And out of that meeting, the discussion was for us to have a preliminary discussion with the city council so that you can help establish your goals, objectives, what you hope for the steering committee to achieve out of that housing action plan process. And as we start incorporating all of the other stakeholders you can kind of set the parameters for how you'd like to see that process play out. So the date that we had picked out that worked for the PPMC was the last off Monday in August, August 24th, I believe starting 530. Is that correct? If you're comfortable with that start time, if another time works better, but we've been starting a little bit earlier with some of our more recent work sessions. So if you're good with that. That's the date that we recommended, 530 on the 24th, and it'll be right here, set up like a normal work session, and PPMC will facilitate and help us get our conversation on the housing action plan started at the council level. So I want to offer that date up to you, and if you're good with it, if you can make a motion to schedule that, then we will publicize it for anyone that's requested notice of our public meetings.

You guys all good with it? I make a motion that we schedule that seminar with PPP. Am I saying that right? PPMC. PPMC. Okay. On the 24th, August. At 530.

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

Council, real quick, I will say that Sean and Jake were both on the steering committee and were present at that meeting, so they're well aware of that date, even though they're not here tonight.

Mr. Martin, do you have anything tonight?

I have two items, Mr. Mayor. I had a complaining about the street Huntington, the north end of town. Between 2 and 4 in the morning, there's been a somebody on a motorcycle that's been blasting up that road loud enough to wake people up and i guess it'd be more for our chief than anything or direct to the police um but i was wondering if they could have some it's in the middle of the night and uh two to four in the morning i don't know if it's possible to take care of that or not other thing i had was uh a question i had a A CITIZEN TRIED TO MAKE A CITY PAYMENT FOR THEIR CITY BILL ONLINE, AND THEY SAID SOMETHING THAT YOU COULDN'T SIGN IN AND BECOME A YOU HAD TO BECOME A GUEST TO SIGN IN. YOU COULDN'T MAKE AN ACCOUNT. to pay your city bill with. And they were asking about a fee. Is it an $8 fee? Is that a normal amount of money for that service?

Yeah. So we use a third party vendor for our payments. We can't accept credit cards here in the building. If we do, we have to take on those fees for the credit card fees. And so a way that we've allowed the public to be able to use their credit cards, if that's how they chose to do it, they can use this third party vendor and they charge a convenience fee. So it's not a fee that the city charges or that we retain. This company accepts the credit card payments and they set those fees and then the payments come to us and they keep the fees for that service.

I understand it. They just thought that that was excessive.

and it's pretty similar with what other companies that do that kind of thing and it's it's per 500 so if someone owes a 700 bill it costs them that fee twice and we do have options for them to sign up for ach where it's automatically taken out of their bank account every month and then they can avoid any fees if they choose to do that and they still get a bill and they still get like 10 days before we take it out of their account so i would recommend that they look at signing up for that

if they don't like the fees otherwise they can still make payments in person or by mail i wonder the thing there's some potholes developing on the overpass on the westbound lane there's one there's some potholes that are developing on the westbound north lane of the overpass one of them is big enough to about sink your car into it i thought they were paving that today maybe they were at this morning they were still there anyway that's all i have mr mayor thank you okay so um

Staff has done so many projects on that overpass in the past year with the pothole patching. We reached out to KDOT and asked if we could get included in their schedule for a larger scale project. I believe that Anthony told me that they did respond back and I think that they were looking at doing a mill and overlay at some point. I don't know what the schedule of that is. I don't know that it's happening right now, but I know that Anthony told me that he got a positive response out of KDOT and that they were going to do a broader scale project. In the meantime, I will mention it to him. A lot of times he's watching from home anyway, so if someone mentions this, he calls me the next day and tells me what's going on before I even contact him. But I'll mention the potholes, but I just want to let you know that what's happening requires a bigger fix than what we're capable of doing and we've already had those conversations with kdot and hopefully can turn that into a bigger project we've been taking good care of it it's just that we're trying to keep up with it it's you're chasing your tail and it's working on that bridge deck it does not hold up very well never really has thank you that's all i have yeah nothing mr mayor bob nothing mr mayor okay

Yes, Mr. Mayor, I have just a couple things. First of all, I had a concerned citizen approach me about how I offended him two years ago in a meeting and because of my conduct in the meeting where I was harsh with a person that was talking and I was skeptical until I went back and looked at it and I was indeed harsh and I want to apologize for that, for my actions on that. That's our character for me. And i vow i won't do that again and i'm very sorry for that and whoever i offended second of all uh i want to thank you cammy for addressing that um vote for me on high street i appreciate that we need to get get that handled um third i want to thank the wfo guys for putting on in my opinion probably the best car show we've ever had downtown it was just fantastic weather was perfect a lot a lot a lot of hard work goes into that and Very beneficial for our town and then I want to remind everybody tomorrow's election day to go out there and vote.

I Just want to commend the car show guys for cleaning up the town so quickly. I'm always Proud of them the way they get it cleaned up by the next morning.

So Thank you guys Just a couple quick things We had any kind of movement or anything for the patrol cars at the that are set at the station. Yeah.

I just got back from vacation last week, and so I'm going to reach out to the vendor to see if we can get those scheduled for pickup.

OK, thank you. And then Friday night, we had a power outage here in the city. And I happened to be at the police station and stuff when it happened. And the dispatcher there was inundated with phone calls on the power outage to let them know. I know there's nothing I don't have an answer for right now. Is there something we can look at in the future of how we can get some of those things handled rather than inundate our 911 dispatchers with power outage calls? And just something to think about. You don't have to answer me now. If there's something we can think about down the road.

Sitting here in this moment, the best thing that I could think of would be investing in some kind of proactive communication tool. So adding a tool or a capability that we don't currently have right now. So for instance, you know how like the school district has an automated messaging system or something where they can put out messages. I don't even know if there's some sort of issue in the school district or if they're putting out an alert to parents. There's softwares and tools like that and things that exist. So that may be one option. If you could invest in something like that where we could post a message and then people that have signed up can get that notification so they don't have to call in. We're the ones notifying them. Outside of that, I don't know what else you could do to get out ahead of those calls. The reason they're routed through 911 is that's staffed 24 hours a day. That's the only location, that's the only facility in the city that is staffed like that. And they get those after hours calls and then they can route them to our on-call people in the related utility division. So that's the reason it functions that way. I understand it's not great. I understand it does inundate the dispatchers. But Tim, unless you, do you have any other suggestions or ideas?

Could we look at, maybe this is where we got it, but could we have a couple of phones or one phone that is designated as the on-call person's phone and it's handed around during the whatever, whoever's the person, so that you had one number, you call that number if you had a power outage. I mean, they're going to, the person's on call is going to get a call anyway.

Yeah, I can tell you that that will not work because the guy has to go start working and he doesn't have time to answer 50 phone calls.

And that's the same thing with our 911 dispatch. Yeah, they run to the same thing. You know, they're taking emergency calls and then trying to feel that, hey, my power's out. You know, why is electricity electric crews not here at my house right now? I don't see them. I don't see flashing lights as though.

So good.

Well, every division and public works and utilities has an on-call person carrying an on-call phone 24-7 that is rotated throughout staff on a weekly basis. So there's always someone, whether it's water, wastewater, electric, power plant distribution, who has an on-call phone. But the mayor is right. If we publish those numbers, those people will never get the problem fixed because they'll get those 20, 30, a hundred phone calls, the solution. And every conference, every meeting in state I go to vendors are hammering on me about this as a third party vendor. And not only can they receive the calls, but they can then communicate out to the community in a targeted way, not citywide. If the Kelly substation goes down like it did the other night, we don't need to be talking to people on the south side of Seventh Street, for crying out loud. There are vendors with the technology to do both the customer relation side of it and the communication out to the community and the staff side of it. We can look into these platforms, but they're not inexpensive. And if we do it for one of our utilities, we're going to be expected to do it for all the utilities because a resident out there doesn't understand why it works for electricity but doesn't work when a water main breaks. We can look into this and we'd be happy to do so but that's kind of the direction we'd have to take in order to provide the level of service that I know you all and we want to provide but also to free up the staff whether it's public safety staff or utilities or public works staff so they can get their job done. It's just a separate layer and it's not an inexpensive layer. I won't put a dollar figure to it because I don't know what that is. But that is something we'd be delighted to look into if the council is interested in that.

Tim, I know you probably don't answer to this. I know that, but I didn't know it'd be something like how our amber alerts goes to our phone if we get a message hey we realize you're you're out here alger we will take care of you shortly we are aware you know i think just didn't the public just knowing that we know would satisfy a lot that's not a one-to-one analogy but it is folks would have to sign up for it okay

in terms of getting the messages from us, or at least permit us to use their account information to push information to them. There are any number of ways or arrangements that can be done, and that would be part of reaching out to these vendors and having them evaluate what our values and wants and needs are out of it, and what it is that they can provide. But again, It won't come cheap and there will be a learning curve for the vendor and for the city organization and for the community. But it is something that can improve service response, improve the quality of service. keep public safety from not having to chase their tail on these outages, and get our staff in the right place quicker and without, what do I want to say, any distractions.

Thank you. I'd like to see us look at something like that. I don't want to spend any money yet or anything like that, but I think if we could just look at, ask the question, so that

it would be a contractual arrangement basically for a software service a computer service a very specialized computer service but one that is about providing better service to the community right exactly and if we wouldn't be back with you anytime soon right exactly in fact the first opportunity i'll have to talk with folks is probably going to be in in september or october at the KMEA state conference. There'll be a number of vendors there that can provide these services.

That's good. Thank you very much.

I'll start collecting information.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks Tim. That's all I have Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Alison. We really enjoyed the car show. So shout out to everyone that made that possible. Our family super enjoyed it. Maybe a note for next year. It felt like the roads that should be closed weren't actually closed. So like there was a bunch of little kids running around and cars still driving. And as a parent, you have this false sense of security of like, we're in a closed road, so I can let my kid kind of wander a little bit away from me. But that wasn't the case at all. So I know that has to be extremely hard to manage because... I mean, what are you going to do, set someone up by the barricade? Because people were moving barricades to then drive into the non-drivable spot. So people were breaking the rules to do this. I'm not saying the rules weren't set up. It was a wonderful event. I think it was really big. So some new protocols might be thinking about next year when it might be even larger, because it was so successful this year, just knowing how many little kids and families are going to be expecting that road to be truly closed and not being driven on.

okay that's it we really did enjoy our time it was wonderful make a motion to adjourn second got a motion and a second to adjourn all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries