City Council - Regular Meeting

Call the meeting to order.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Roll call, please.

Mayor Larkey.

Here.

Council Member White?

Here.

Council Member Davidson?

Here.

Council Member Thompson? Here. Council Member Bryan?

Here.

Council Member Lawson? Here. Council Member Richardson?

Here.

Council Member McCallum?

Here.

Council Member Johnson? Here.

We have a quorum. All right, we're changing things up for a second, so we're going with item E, presentation, employee recognition, years of service. Are you reading that or am I? Did you want to say something? No, you go.

Go, go. We're here this evening to congratulate Joe Don on having 25 years of service. You know, it's a long time to work in public works. It's a lot of hard work. He also works in sewers. And so, you know, it's not always the cleanest, nicest job that there is. I'm not in it for the glamour. Clearly not. But we do really appreciate the work that he's done, and we're here to honor him this evening with a 25-year certificate. Now, his whole family's here, and I offered to bring them all up and take a picture of him together, but they all shook their heads like they're scared. So did you want to come and have your picture taken? The mayor could mandate it.

Come on up.

It would be a perfect time for that speech you prepared. Since it has been 25 years, I always jokingly say when I first started with the city, I had dark hair and a flat belly. Those days are gone. Come on up.

Thank you, Jonah.

You have to stay for the whole meeting, though.

We need the numbers. That was nice. That was nice.

Seriously, you don't have to stay if you don't want to. All good. All good. Trust me.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any personal appearances? Each person listening to the agenda address, City Council should step up to the microphone, state your name and address, and limit your remarks to five minutes. Item one, Megan Washburn. Washburn.

I don't know if she's arrived yet. I'll go ahead.

You're not on the agenda.

Yeah, I'm still going to make a public comment.

You can't make a public comment.

I sent an email ahead of time, and it just wasn't responded to.

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm saying you're not on the agenda.

So you're going to deny my freedom of speech?

Yes. Not your freedom of speech, but your freedom to talk at this meeting at this time because you're not on the agenda.

So what about the public comment section?

That's what this is.

Yeah. You don't have to sign up from what I was told. You can just come up and state your name. So we're going to rewrite the rules now?

It is the rule. We're not rewriting the rules. It is the rules.

Can someone clarify that please?

Yes, the existing public comment section has a limited public forum, has been designated only that you have to provide the mayor with written notice and the mayor has to agree to be presented on the agenda on something that is before the city council for that agenda.

So what about the public speaking where you get three minutes? Was I just hallucinating that?

That is not during this portion at least.

Okay, well I'll wait.

Item F, unfinished business one, motion approving final reading of Bill 2026-32.

An ordinance approving a cooperative agreement for public infrastructure with Cass County and accepting funds relating to design and construction of North Cass Parkway in Cass County.

Present. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, roll call.

Councilmember Lawson? Aye. Johnson? Aye. White?

Aye.

Richardson?

Aye.

Davidson? Yes. Bryan?

Aye.

McCallum?

Aye.

Mayor Larkey?

Aye. Motion passes. G, new business. One, motion approving the final reading of Bill, first reading of Bill 2026-33.

An ordinance approving the vacation of the subdivision plat of Spanish Villa, lots 128 through 212 in the city of Belton, Missouri.

Present. Second. We have a motion and a second. You're up, sir.

Yep. Thank you, mayor and council. Before this evening is a request to vacate the undeveloped portion of the Spanish Villa subdivision, which includes lots one 28 through two 12, which is generally located south of Mill Street, west of Lacey Lane, and north of West Sunrise Drive. This undeveloped subdivision was platted in 1972 and includes 22.67 acres, which were acquired by the city in 2021 for regional stormwater detention. Vacating all undeveloped rights-of-way easements and lot lines will allow for a replat of the property, which is the next item on the agenda. Staff coordinated with public utilities on rededicating utility easements on the replat that will be vacated with this request. The Planning Commission held a public hearing on June 16th at which eight residents spoke in opposition to the request to vacate the undeveloped subdivision. Residents were concerned about future development of the property, including impacts to traffic, privacy, schools, and wildlife. The Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of the vacation request, citing that no development plan is being brought forward and that this vacation allows the area to be replanted to match the existing conditions. And staff recommends approval, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Any questions? Go ahead.

Outside of the floodplain, given the plat that currently exists that we're talking about potentially vacating, if an owner of the land came in, well, I know we're the owner, but if somebody wanted to come in and develop that and they were the owner of that land, could they do so?

Based on where the current stormwater detention is, it would be almost impossible to work from that plat. You'd have to rededicate additional right-of-way and realign the lot lines and easements to essentially put in cul-de-sacs at the end of the current streets at dead end.

Go ahead. I may be ahead of the game here, maybe for the next question, but... Could we, instead of having the two plots, could we not just make it one plot and have it recognized as a conservation area instead of putting houses there?

So that is on the next item. Hold that for a minute.

Any other comments on the vacation of the current subdivision plot? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Item 2, motion approving first reading of Bill 2026-34.

An ordinance approving a final plat for Mill Valley, a two-track subdivision on 22.67 more or less acres, generally located south of Mill Street, west of Lacey Lane, and north of West Sunrise Drive in the city of Belton, Missouri.

Present.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. You're up still.

Before the scene is a final plot for Mill Valley, a two-track subdivision on 22.67 acres located south of Mill Street, west of Lacey Lane, and north of West Sunrise Drive. The two-track subdivision includes Tract A, which covers just a little over 10 acres on the west side of the property and includes a drainage easement for the regional stormwater detention facility. And then Tract B covers the remaining 12.5 acres on the east side of the property and is eligible for disposition if the City Council chooses to do so. The designation of both parcels as tracts indicates that they are undevelopable. At a minimum, tract B will need to be further subdivided into lots in the future if development is allowed. The Planning Commission reviewed the final plat on June 16th and recommended approval 7-1. Staff also recommends approval. I will note on the final plat document that was included in the packet, it is missing the ownership signature block, which the surveyor has added, but no other...

Pertinent information on the plot will be modified, but we will that will be added for the recording purposes And I'm happy to answer any questions so back to your question I think if that's what this body wants to do we could do that, but I still think we need to split them into two parcels I I still think... Because one is the drainage area and the other one is something else. I think if this body chose to do something with that extra land, we could do that. I still think it would be better to have them in two parcels.

That's what I'm saying. In my opinion, I think one plot because, and leave it as a conservation area, floodplains, They change. I wouldn't want to build a house that close to, I'm sorry, a drainage area. I just think it makes more sense one plot.

Go ahead. All right. Now that we have vacated the previous plot, what happens now if we do not approve this new one now that we vacated the last?

These are generally tied together, so if the final plat is not approved, then we shouldn't vacate the easement. Otherwise, we just have land that's just floating out there unplatted without any easements on it.

Okay, so there is still an impetus for us to do... a platting even if we were to do one platting or any platting just based on easements and that type of thing.

Yes, because currently these drainage easements that have been installed are not within an actual easement. So we at the very least need to plat the property to dedicate the formal easements for long-term protection of those.

Is there currently a developer that's asked about this property or anything of that nature?

No, that is a discussion that needs to happen with council on guidance on whether or not you want to, what you want to do with this property.

Okay.

Anybody else? I had a question, but I forgot now what it was. Go ahead.

So if we went ahead and did the two tracks, we could still do whatever we wanted to with track B, and it could still be used as a conservation if that's what we decided we wanted to do with it. It doesn't change what we can do with it in the future. It's just setting out the easements is what I'm understanding. Is that correct? Correct.

Your member? So we're not locked into any particular... I'm trying to think of the word I want to use. No, I can't use that word. Designation? That's a good word. We're not locked into any designation about this.

Correct. They're just being plotted as tracts, which indicate that they are undevelopable. So essentially they stay in their current condition unless council wants to do something additional with tract B, and then it goes through the entire process to further subdivide or develop that property.

Go ahead. At the planning and zoning, I remember talk on the second plot of putting 10 to 12 houses.

That was just a speculation. If there was an RFP out approximately, there was a question of approximately how many houses could potentially fit on there, and that was just a rough estimate.

Anybody else? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Item 3, motion for you to proceed with Bill 2026-35.

An ordinance approving a rezoning from C2 General Commercial to M1 Light Industrial for a more or less .85 acre portion of a 5.04 acre lot and approval of a preliminary development plan for Freedom Flex, a 63,750 square foot commercial flex space and mini warehouse development at the southwest corner of East 171st Street, 58th Highway and South Prospect Avenue.

Present. Second.

We have a motion and a second. You're still up.

Before this evening is a rezoning and a preliminary development plan for Freedom Flex, a commercial and mini warehouse flex space development on 5.04 acres at the southwest corner of 58 Highway and South Prospect Avenue. Of the 5.04 acres, approximately 4.19 acres is currently zoned M1 Light Industrial with the remaining 0.85 acres zoned General Commercial on the Prospect Avenue frontage. The applicant is requesting to rezone the C2 strip to M1 to match the remainder of the property for cohesive development. This development plan includes a 13,750 square foot commercial flex space building on the front with 10 units. Each unit includes a storefront on the front of the building with an overhead garage door on the rear of the building. These units are intended to accommodate small businesses, including contractors, small retailers, small logistics operations, service-based businesses, and similar uses that need front office space for employees and customers with operations and storage space in the back. Uses are limited by what is permitted in the M1 zoning district, as well as the building and fire codes, which may further restrict those uses. Behind the commercial flex space building are two 25,000 square foot mini warehouse buildings. These are designed to have similar uses, although without the storefronts, which would limit customer interactions. These uses are more likely to be for contractors, personal or business storage, personal hobby shops, and similar uses that are allowed in the M1 zoning district and further restricted by building and fire codes. Personal storage is considered the most intensive proposed use, which requires a special use permit, which is the next item on the agenda. The Planning Commission held a public hearing on June 16th at which one resident spoke against the project and a second resident submitted an email in opposition to the project, which is in the packet. Both residents expressed concerns regarding adding more warehouse space in the city. The Planning Commission recommended approval of the rezoning and preliminary development plan 6-2, and staff also recommends approval. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Any questions? Go ahead.

The warehouses are different than, say, what's at North Point. Is that correct?

Correct. So the size of these are similar to more of a storage facility. So Chief Storage near the Water Tower on 173rd Street is a good example of the size of the many warehouse spaces. So they generally accommodate... The reason for the special use permit, which is the next item on the agenda, is because the personal self-storage requires that, but a number of the other potential uses here are allowed by right in the M1 zoning district.

And the office space that's going to face the residential area on Prospect, that's not going to be giant either, and that's going to have landscaping and other things?

No, they're single-story, and from the exterior, especially on the front, they're going to look just like a commercial strip mall.

So they're not going to be the issues with lighting and all of the things that the residents behind North Point have experienced?

No, I mean they would just be the typical strip mall parking lot lighting, and they may not even need that just because it's only one row of parking. So just the building lighting and some additional security lighting.

There is an extra large right-of-way in front of this. Do you remember how wide that is?

Yes, so when Simcoe was developed and platted, they had an additional 100 foot of right-of-way that they dedicated for future improvements and expansion to Prospect.

So it's back an extra 100 feet.

Yeah, so it's about the actual development area is probably 100 feet back from the current edge of pavement on Prospect.

Go ahead. Did the city put out an RFP or make any kind of request for this proposed rezoning? No, this is a private development. So this is just someone that came to us and you know, owns property and wants to make this change. Okay. Um, but that commercial corridor that is presently there, it's looks like a, I mean it's relatively narrow strip. What was, what was the intention for that originally?

So looking back through the record from 2004, it seems like it may have just been kind of a compromise between residential on the prospect side and then the light industrial on the railroad side. But the 100 foot deep property is not deep enough to fit anything on there. Simcoe's development has the same thing and it's just that their building sits right up to that edge and the rest of it is just additional pavement for them. So the actual intent may have been that there was gonna be room there for additional commercial businesses, but in reality and practicality, it does not fit in that setup. Which is one of the reasons why we worked with the applicant on doing the commercial storefronts to meet the intent of what would be facing the homes on prospect.

Okay, and then, If we were to vote in opposition to this rezoning, it's really about that commercial space primarily, that strip in the front. Would the owner or applicant, would they be able to still move forward but just move their project back essentially? Is that what you described SEMCODE doing?

Potentially, yes. That would be their option. They would have to move the building further back. The other option that they have is they could reduce. So we do allow a minor commercial flex building in the C2 zoning district, which is under 10,000 square feet. So they could potentially reduce the building size down a little bit to make that work. But I believe the applicant is here. If there's any questions for them on, if they looked into that or if there's any feasibility to that.

Okay. I don't have that specific question at this time, but maybe somebody else does. What does Simcoe zone?

They just have the C2 strip, but their entire building is also light industrial.

Yeah, it's like the same setup essentially, yeah. No, I'm just trying to understand that zoning piece. I may have some questions on the special use permit on the next portion, but I think that...

This may be something that's later, but if we approve this, can we make sure that we set up to where we don't have to keep going back and forth on making sure the housing and stuff is not interfered like we used to with another? We had to put fences, we had to go back and check berms, we had to do all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, just making sure that everything is installed as approved. Is that what you're referring to?

Making sure that we check to make sure that the lighting isn't interfering, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, and this is just the preliminary development plan. The final development plan, we'll get into that additional level of detail where we look at the lighting. There's a landscape plan already in there, but generally... Aside from what's on the prospect side everything else is adjacent to either the railroad or another light industrial user So we're less concerned about screening on those situations Anybody else Hearing that all in favor aye any opposed Motion sorry did you get that she's opposed.

Thank you motion carries. I Item 4, motion approving first reading of Bill 2026-36.

An ordinance approving a special use permit for a self-storage mini warehouse use on a 5.04 acre lot at the southwest corner of East 171st Street, 58 Highway and South Prospect Avenue.

Present. Second.

Motion to second. You're still up, sir.

Yeah, before this union is a request for a special use, a special use permit to allow a mini warehouse storage use in the M one zoning district at the Southwest corner of 58 highway and South prospect Avenue. Um, the proposed freedom flex development includes two 25,000 square foot buildings that have multiple land use options of which the most intensive is the mini warehouse storage use, which requires a special use permit in the M one zoning district. All other proposed land uses are allowed in the M1 zoning district, either by right or with conditions such as no outdoor storage of supplies or materials. The mini warehouse storage use also covers hobby shops, man caves, and boat, RV, or vehicle storage for personal use. The Planning Commission held a public hearing on June 16th at which one resident spoke against the project. A second resident submitted an email in opposition that's in the packet. And the Planning Commission recommended approval of the Special Use Permit 6-2. Staff recommends approval, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Any more questions? Go ahead.

All right, so if we approve this Special Use Permit and the developer decided to, or applicant, whatever the appropriate term is here, decided to change their plan, instead of going with the flex space, they decided to put something in larger warehouses, something of that nature. would that require further approval from this body?

Yeah, so if the preliminary development plan is approved, that is the plan that they have to be in substantial compliance. So they can't do any drastic changes to those footprints or the building sizes without coming back through the rezoning and the development plan process.

Go ahead. All right. Are there any other places within the city right now that already exist with this type of like office slash warehouse space?

There are a few smaller kind of strip centers on North Scott that function in this manner. Specifically, Stacy Business Park, which is located just kind of the first building south of Markey Parkway on North Scott, has that same setup where it's a strip mall on the front and they have garages on the back. And that's been there's been a it's kind of been a business incubator space for small contractors to go in there. And some of them, like SMC Electrical, have outgrown and moved across the street. So it's an opportunity for smaller businesses that are getting started or trying to grow their business to eventually get established in the city and move into a bigger space.

Are those, do we know, are those relatively, like are they pretty used, like are they full or do we have any data on that?

They seem to be full. There's also, you know, they're outside of Belton. There's a lot of them also in kind of the Martin City area in South Kansas City. And so they are, it's definitely a type of business that's particularly a lot of interest in our area because we're close to state line. So Specifically, contractor businesses can easily work on both the Kansas and Missouri side, have convenient access.

Okay. Sorry, phone is bugging me. And then just regarding the privacy provided to the neighborhood, you kind of already addressed this, but, you know, I can't not bring this up being in Ward 1 because we still even, I don't know, a couple of months ago had some issues of loud noises in the middle of the night from dumpster uses. It took us a while to get things like light shields and just visual barriers. Can you talk through how this will impact the houses across the street essentially?

Yeah, and I think the applicant may also be able to speak to a little bit of kind of their idea for the business model. Typically, though, this, unlike a larger warehouse logistics distribution center that may have overnight shifts, don't really foresee that being the case in this type of an environment. But the applicant may be better able to answer that based on their experience.

Okay. Can we?

Yeah, go ahead.

You got something, Brooke?

It's the same line that Councilman McCollum is going through.

Did you want me to come up?

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Thank you all very much.

Patrick Meisner, um, the one that owns property and planning on developing it. So we really are. And even on that front flex building, the front building called building one, the one that's going to be the flex retail building. I really don't foresee us even, um, it's going to be a business, more businesses in there, uh, maybe a training facility, a workout facility, yoga studio type business. Um, maybe a contractor who wants to set up a little office showroom space in there. Um, And then, yes, as Matt had said, trust me, I live just west of the whole I-49 industrial development and the cold storage building that they erected there. I live and I get the lights from them. And so I get it. I get it. And then furthermore, so we will not be putting lights on anyone that will be on the east side of Prospect. And I did present something to Matt the other day. that we're looking at that retail flex building, and we're actually planning on lowering it two feet. we're going to bring it down a couple of feet. So it's hopefully, I mean, hopefully you don't consider that a bait and switch or anything. It's going to be better. One of the commissioners, I think at the planning committee had said, you know, I had envisioned these large warehouses as you see out on 49. And no, that's not what they're going to be. We, we, we're going to have, you know, awnings out there, steel ornamental awnings with wood beams on them. My architect had mentioned, he's like, did you really want to do that? It's going to be an extra maintenance. And, I come from a construction background. My first project was actually framing down here on Pacific. I was a framer. So I have an appreciation for it, and we're going to do a quality project there. So yeah, that's another thing is I was out there, and I'm literally looking at the sunset, and I'm like, and then you look at the front of the building. So I went back to my architect, and I was like, you know what? I want to see more glass. um, other material in proportion. So we decided that, and that's going to lower our garage doors on that unit, um, by two feet. So we are even planning on doing that already. So it's not going to be a big, uh, intrusive. And then as the mayor had said, I think eventually park, uh, prospect, they have plans on making it a little bit wider. And so, uh, um, that'll be an all, you know, it, it does. We do sit back a little ways there. And then, yeah,

Yeah. Again, my main main thing I'm bringing up is, um, likely, uh, larger warehouses, that kind of thing. And I understand this isn't that, but, um, still important to keep in mind, like I said, the, that the lights are appropriate and not, you know, keeping someone up at night or, um, you know, undue noise, that kind of stuff. And that's, you know, with landscaping and the building you're describing, hopefully we can avoid those things. And that's really where my question is coming from.

Yeah, and maybe, I don't know if this will help on the noise, but imagine that the front retail building will have When you pull into it, we have a shared access. It's called Simcoe Drive. So we won't have an entrance right there off Prospect. We'll come in off Simcoe Drive. And then our first point of entry, you'll access the front side of the retail flex building. And then the second point of entry will be a little further west. And that will actually be gated code. You won't be able to get in there after hours. And then the gates will be closed after hours and then on the weekends. So we're not looking to have people going through there in the evenings. Hopefully we keep that out. Again, I live three miles away. I'll be pretty active in the area there. Trust me, you'll see me out there cutting the grass. I will be. I cut the grass out there right now, everything, you know. So I'll be on there, you know, doing snow removal, everything, all hands on.

Would it be okay to say that the potential for the front of it to look like the front of Simcoe's building?

You know what, Mayor, that's exactly, that's why we're trying to incorporate a little bit of the wood in there to kind of give us that kind of maybe a rustic kind of look that they had. Because I love, they did a great job with that property whenever they built it. when the original owner built it.

The drawing of the front building looks pretty nice, I think.

Thank you, thank you. But as you can see, I'm hopefully not getting ahead of myself by telling you that we're going to lower it or it's going to cause a problem, but we have to get everything submitted by the July 28th for the elevation change. the footprint if it changed would be a issue. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But, but for me, you know, two feet, if you can see the sunset even more, you know, it's the, you know, those little things I think that people appreciate. Yeah.

My concern was just the impact upon the citizens. That's making sure that we minimize that.

Yeah, no, we're really, you know, I mean we're anything that they, you know, if within reason we're absolutely gonna, you know, take care of it. It's, it's, it's my community too. So I, I plan on doing a good project there.

Anybody else? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No. Motion carries.

I have it. Thank you.

Item 5, motion approving first reading of Bill 2026-37.

An ordinance approving a special use permit to allow a vehicle repair minor land use in a C2 general commercial zoning district at 116 Wilbur Parish Circle.

Present. Second. Motion and a second.

You're up. Before this unit is a request for a special use use permit for a vehicle repair minor use and a C2 zoning district at 116 will repair circle. On the proposed site is the west unit of a three tenant building at 116 through 118 will repair circle and access to the proposed repair spaces through a single overhead garage door that serves three interior service space. Based on the limited size of the business, the site is required to have six parking spaces. Due to the existing conditions of the site, the access point between the street and the overhead garage door functions like a driveway with limited space to allow vehicles to turn around on the site as would be required for new construction. The applicant has provided a site plan and staff has confirmed that there is sufficient space on the site to accommodate the minimum of six vehicles. No site or building improvements are required to accommodate the proposed use And the Planning Commission held a public hearing on June 16th at which one person spoke in opposition to the request, citing concerns about traffic and vehicle parking on the street. The Planning Commission recommended approval of the Special Use Permit 8-0. Staff recommends approval, and the applicant is also here this evening if there's any questions.

Any questions?

Go ahead. Is the applicant aware of our recent change on Wilbur Parish with the extended no parking available on that street? Yes. Okay.

I asked them during planning commission.

Anybody else? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Item 6, motion to approve first reading of Bill 2026-38.

An ordinance authorizing the appropriation and revision of the City of Belton fiscal year 2027 adopted city budget.

Present. Second. Motion and a second. You're up.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Before you tonight is a budget amendment specifically for the golf fund. Some of the golf projects and purchases that were budgeted in FY26 We didn't get finished, so we need to reappropriate into FY27. And actually, one of the asks on here is to increase the asphalt project from $500,000 to $600,000. So that would be an increase of $100,000 for that particular project. But other than that, the other two projects are being reappropriated from 26 to 27. Any questions?

Any questions? Go ahead. That increase in the funds, that is essentially $100,000, can you talk about where that's coming from?

The golf fund has an extremely large cash balance. They definitely operate as a business, and they've been doing well over the past few years. So revenues are exceeding expenses.

So it's not coming out of a general fund?

No, it's coming out of golf fund, yep. They are putting money back into the golf course.

Anybody else? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Item 7, motion to approve the first reading of Bill 2026-39.

An ordinance accepting a Mid-America Regional Council contract and grant for services to individuals at the Belton Senior Center.

Present. Second. I have a motion and a second. You're up.

Thank you. The Mid-America Regional Council Aging and Adult Services provides reimbursable grants each year towards supporting senior centers and senior programming. For fiscal 27, Mark has awarded the City of Belton up to $22,500 toward the operating costs of the Belton Senior Center. This is the same amount that was received last year. It is approximately 18% of the operating costs of the Senior Center.

Any questions? Go ahead.

Considering that the state is cutting the budget for a lot of services, including some for senior services, have we budgeted sufficient money to cover in case what's been allocated by Mark has to be cut back as I read the contract? They can't do that.

I know that it's a reimbursable grant, so the full amount is budgeted for the senior center, the $124,000, but Casey may have more information on that.

Yeah, I mean, the revenue does come from the grant, so if we don't receive it, like Andrew said, it is reimbursable, so we do need to spend it to get it, so we would have to cut expenses.

Just wanted to be sure we were covered.

Yep.

Anybody else? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 8, motion approving first reading of Bill 2026-40.

An ordinance determining and declaring the necessity of acquiring for public use temporary construction easements, permanent easements, and right-of-way for drainage, utilities, and roadway improvements for the construction and maintenance of certain improvements to the city street system generally located on Markey Road from North Scott Avenue to Guerra Road in the city of Belton, Missouri. authorizing the city and its designees to negotiate for the purpose of acquiring the easements and property acquisition by contract or condemnation, and authorizing the city attorney and his designees to institute condemnation proceedings if such interest in land that cannot be acquired by purchase through good faith negotiations.

Present. Second. We have a motion and a second.

You're up, sir. This is an ordinance allows Public Works to go ahead and start purchasing property and easements for Markey Parkway the next phase so this goes from North Scott to past Westover so Included in the in the group is actually a map that shows in the black areas the areas that we'd actually purchased right away and in the yellow or gold areas areas that we'd have easements and so This will authorize us to go ahead and start negotiating with property owners. If property owners decide that they refuse to work with us, then we have no choice but to go through condemnation to get the property that we need to build the project. Be happy to answer any questions that you have. Go ahead.

You I think you well you answered it. I just want to make sure I understand it My big question is because I didn't see a key. I was looking at that map trying to understand what those colors were specifically So the black we've already Gone through the process and acquired.

No.

No, we don't have any of it This is this this author that authorizes us to go ahead and start acquiring this product Okay, so that is those are the ones so the black are the ones that we would property we need to acquire and yellow are easements we need to acquire or already have? Correct.

Those are all the easements that we need to require. So that's basically where we grade out to match existing. Okay. Some places we have to adjust parking lots or do other work in that area. So those are the easement areas.

Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Nine, motion approving resolution 2026-66.

A resolution approving a contract for services with SAK Construction LLC for the 2026 Basin 7 inflow and infiltration project.

Present. Second. Motion is seconded. This is our annual contract where we go through and we issue a contract to prevent inflow and infiltration into our sanitary sewer system. Just as a reminder, this is where groundwater gets into our sanitary sewer system, which adds more water to our treatment plant and Little Blue Valley Sewer District treatment plant. And so what this contract does is go through and seal lines to prevent water from coming in. We've done it for three years in a row, and it's been a very effective program where we used to see up to 7 million gallons a day at our treatment plant. We've been able to seal it up where we're averaging during rainfalls between 2 and 2.5 million gallons per day. And so our average has come way down because of this, and we need to continue doing it and sealing up our system to prevent water from getting in there. And... really it hurts our system and hurts our process to treat the water. Um, so normally what we do is we issue an RFP, which is a request for proposals. We don't do low bid only on do low bids on federal jobs. We do proposals for everything else. So normally most of the cases, the person who has the lowest bid is a person we select. However, we do look at the other factors between their previous work experience, how they work with us and other items. The lowest bid was actually Havens Construction, which we did approve a contract with last time, but this time it's a different type of work, a different type of thing, and SAK has done this work for us for three years in a row, and there's only about $9,000 difference. We found from just the level of experience that we got from the other contractor and the experience they gave us, and their proposal versus what SAK has done for us over the last three years, we felt a lot more comfortable going with SAK to build this project. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have about this.

Any questions? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. I have 10 motion period resolution 2026 dash 67 a resolution determining the population of the city of Belton present. Second motion in a second. You're up.

Yeah. Before this union is a resolution, except the 2025 population estimate from the U S census Bureau. The 2025 population estimate for the city as of July 1st, 2025 was 26,193. The Census Bureau releases annual population estimates of all jurisdictions in the U.S. in May every year, reflecting the population estimate of the previous July 1st. Since 2020, the official 2020 census, the city has added over 2,200 residents, representing over a 9% increase during the first half of the decade. Recognizing the population increase allows permits licenses land uses and other approvals tied to the city's population to be adjusted accordingly Currently this recognition only impacts fireworks tents which are limited to one tent per 4,000 residents Accepting the latest estimate provides the opportunity to increase the number of permits according to population growth Staff recommends approval the resolution to accept the population estimate provided by the Census Bureau Any questions?

Go ahead. All right. I know you just said this. I listened. I saw it in the packet. Okay. I just want to be abundantly clear with this. The only policy ordinance resolution, whatever, et cetera, et cetera, that this is going to affect is specifically the fireworks tents?

Yes. That is the only current permit license or any other special use that has a restriction based on a population.

All righty. Anybody else? And I assume we're going to change the sign then.

Two things.

There's only one city limit sign that has a population on it. We're probably going to change it and not have population on it anymore.

For what it's worth, I asked a similar question not too long ago to our city manager, and he looked into it. Those are all done by MoDOT. So we can request MoDOT to do that, but they are, well, I don't know if you want to chime in at all.

It's my understanding they're getting away from the practice of putting the populations because they change so much, and again, it's just an added expense, or it gets outdated within a year or two, and

Because I had a very similar thought process. Now we can put it on our web page and watch it flicker. Watch it flicker. Go ahead.

So this doesn't necessarily require a change in the fireworks. It just allows a change, correct? We still have to discuss that?

Mr. Attorney? I do not believe. So I think what we're doing now and then bringing it back every year is the proper process.

So we did discuss that, right? We had a work session on that or whatever. I assume that's administrative, so we don't need a resolution to change that, but I'm making an assumption. Can you clarify?

As of right now, I don't think you guys have designated exactly what process you want us to follow. Typically, there is a resolution brought every year just for you all to recognize it. But if next year or if you want to amend this resolution to state that in the future city staff could administratively approve.

Sorry, let me clarify because I was, Council Member White's point of do we need to then further discuss how we will do the firework tent thing?

You could. I believe there was some very basic discussion on that. So that could be brought up.

I just want to ensure that because I don't think it's in writing, could be, I don't remember, I'm old, that those who have a current license keep their current license.

That was the discussion at the last meeting, was that current people would keep their license and then there would need to be a process for the additional license.

So, but would we need to develop that process then, or is that administrative?

Not as of right now, you would not, but there could be some further discussion. That could be, again, administratively approved. I don't know. We would need to look. There would need to be some investigation as to the last time a new license was submitted due to population growth and just see potentially what occurred there. But staff can do that. We can figure out exactly what was already done.

Are you going to say something?

Well, I do believe that all exists in writing currently within it. We are looking at, there's discussion on changing the area of the code that it's in. So I do believe that it already says anybody with an existing, as long as they don't change, as long as the organization is the same, they keep it. We've added one. within the last 10 years, and that's why the question comes up now about setting it, because what's in writing now is that the number of tents is determined by the population, and the population has been creeping up close to that next step, but it's not to an official census. So we felt it safer that if you guys were going to go ahead and set a preliminary one each year based on the estimates that were given, then that opens up that opportunity, which is a whole other new thing to revisit on how that new...

Because it really wasn't clear in the ordinance of what population we went by, whether it was every 10 years or the estimate. Go ahead.

There's also some amongst those who do fireworks tents, those current ones trying to get a second license so they can have a second tent. And I don't know if any of that's ever been said.

It's already written that it can only be to one per group.

Yeah, I guess my only two, Council Member White's position, I know this is adjacent maybe, but I guess I would just ask that our fire team, whoever is responsible for that, if it needs to come back to us now that we have officially updated the population because we may then have an increase, you know, just I guess I would ask that we have further discussion then.

I think that opportunity is coming because we are going to do some changes on where that's located in the code. Okay, perfect. Those changes will be coming to you as well.

Then that will take care of that.

Okay.

Anybody else? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 11, motion approving resolution 2026-68.

A resolution approving an agreement with ever strived solutions LLC to assist with client advisory services related to general fund shared services expense allocations.

Present second motion is second. You're up.

Mr. Mayor and council this evening before you, this resolution is a consulting engagement letter with a ever strive solutions as a firm, um, that has done some work in the Metro area before on, uh, doing some background on allocations, for instance, and that's what we're essentially bringing to you. There was a previous action, I believe in 22, to do a time allocation study to determine whether our overhead allocations were, you know, well managed, well dispersed, kind of reviewing that process. And we asked for the pause on that because of the changes that took place in administration, the changes in finance, the getting behind in the financial reporting that took place previous to the current administration taking shape. And we had to go back and redo a bunch of financials just to make sure they were accurate. And then, of course, we had to catch up on audits. And so we caught up on all the audits. Now we're in our regular audit cycle. Now is the time when we also, in that same process, during that same timeline, we also updated our finance software. So it just wasn't a normal operating, you know, situation for our finance department or really a lot of the departments that are involved in that. And so this is essentially just seeing through what the intention was originally to do the time allocation study. It's a very reasonable price. They're going to charge us $200 an hour for hours actually worked with a not to exceed fee of $15,000. The amount is actually within my purchasing authority, but I'm bringing this to you for two reasons. One, it's a contract, so you have to approve the contract. And two, I think it's worth sharing with the public in our continued efforts for transparency that we are doing this as we said we would. Any questions?

Go ahead.

And I don't have a question, but I just, I do want to say I appreciate the fact that, you know, I mean that was, I know some council members may have been here, but not all of them. And so I know the previous council was interested in making sure this got done and I appreciate the fact that you are ensuring that we are following up even if it's, you know, a couple of years later.

Yeah. The intention was never to not do the study. It was just to ensure we got to a point where we were having a normal operating procedure in our, in our departments. And so the time allocation study can actually mean something. And so they're going to review time allocated by all the shared services, you know, finance, IT, you know, HR, legal, those types of things, admin, and see how much time is being allocated in different areas and come back with the information.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last company we engaged with left the space. They're no longer doing it.

Yeah, we could not get them to reengage. multiple attempts and I think they actually switch people and then they switch people again and so I don't believe they're even doing this any longer.

Anybody else? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. H, consent agenda one motion not available to approve the recommendation that any member of the council may ask for an iron to be taken from the consent agenda for discussion and separate action. Present. Second. The motion is second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Reports and information, boards, commissions, community development, court board, city council, council member Johnson.

I just wanted to report that the coalition, the Main Street Coalition had a good meeting with Missouri Main Street June 30th and got a lot of information to help us move forward. The coalition will have a meeting July 21st at 4.30 where we're going to talk about what we learned there and hopefully come forward with a plan to move forward with Main Street that we can share with everybody.

Council Member McCallum.

I am glad that I didn't have to take a bunch of calls or hear a bunch of calls about anything being on fire after 4th of July, so that's always a positive thing. I'm sure our fire team was busy, but I'm glad to hear it was relatively minimal. From the TD board, I don't have an update because that meeting is tomorrow. For our parks, And actually, I might put Kevin on the spot here for a second, if you so choose, Kevin, because I know July is Parks and Rec's month, so I don't know if you wanted to highlight kind of what you guys are doing there real quick.

I think we have been putting some stuff online, kind of highlighting the parks, not necessarily the employees. We're doing that kind of internally, kind of, you know, appreciating our staff as we do throughout the year. But we do want to recognize that we do have a large staff of part-time employees that we do appreciate all their services. So be looking for more stuff on Facebook.

Yeah, and so if you know somebody that works at the parks or from lifeguards to mowing lawns, whatever it may be, just let them know how appreciated they are through the month of July here. As a reminder, the farmer's market, that is ongoing every Thursday from 4 to 7. And then some of the upcoming events, and actually before I... go over all the upcoming events I'll just say I heard that the sound bath was a sold out and was a pretty big hit so sounds like there'll be more plans for those in the future but July 18th as a reminder is kids night out August 7th will be rave in the wave in adult adults only water party August 9th is pages in the park book fair and And August 22nd is the doggy dip day at the Memorial Park Pool, which will be the last day before that gets closed for the season. So that's everything with parks.

Council Member Richardson.

I was just going to talk about 4th of July. I put a post out on Facebook saying that I wanted Ward 3 to outdo all the other wards, and I believe we won that. because Ward 3 was lit the 4th of July, and I say we try to outdo next year, but well done.

Council Member Lawson, do you share his excitement?

My daughter does, and she contributed. I'll just piggyback a bit off Council Member McCallum shouting out parks. A little subset here, the high blue hurricane swim team this summer has been an awesome thing to witness. They've got kids 6 to 18. Some that can barely swim, but technically that is swimming, and some that are accomplished high school swimmers competing together with three coaches that are just doing a fantastic job. And our venue, I guess you could say, High Blue, other parents from Grandview, Butler, Woodson, which is just a neighborhood swim team. Anyway, point being, a lot of folks have been coming to town for these swim meets, and it's been a really positive experience, and my daughter personally has gotten a lot out of it. So shout out to the coaches that are wrangling all those little swimmers.

Remember crime nobody ever recognized the boss. So thank you Kevin for all you do for parks Councilmember Davidson I Enjoyed Saturday.

I wanted to say thank you to battle axes for the murder mystery they had 19 groups and And some of the groups had eight to 10 people in them. Kids with magnifying glasses going after the clues. It was a great time. Well over probably 100 people that visited Main Street. So thank you. And then hopefully I can ask, I had a question, Joe, this week about the baseball study. It's been 16 weeks and I thought it was going to be about 12 weeks, so any update?

Yeah, we're expecting to hear back from them fairly soon.

Okay, okay. One more question. Again, I don't know if this is, but can you explain the trashcan situation where They all got crushed instead of, I mean, I know you explained it to us, but I think it would be good. for the citizens to know.

You guys approved the contract for us to go to trash cans with GFL as part of the approved extension and that meant they were going to take the old cans. I know they had mentioned they were going to try to recycle them. I think they ran into an issue with that because of some resin or something that was used in the construction of those cans. Again, they take those cans. They're providing cans. They didn't increase our fee to provide those cans. the new cans, a lot of the old cans were starting to age out and reach the end of their useful life, which is why we engaged the discussion to begin with on replacing the cans.

Yeah, a lot of people were upset, especially since it was the taxpayers that paid for the original cans. And then I had another call from a citizen. They had noticed down where the end of North Scott Where lease signs are up on city-owned property.

Where what?

Lease. There's four lease signs.

It would be nice to have a heads up on what you're talking about and where because I really don't know.

It's the old trailer park that was Oak Park, Oak Hill.

For lease signs?

For lease signs.

We have not put for lease signs up. There's a commercial building. It's for that little blue building out in front.

Is that what it's for?

Yeah, that old campfire building out in front. It's not on the city property. It's on the commercial building there.

Well, if somebody asks me and I'm like, I don't know. Okay, that's it.

And I believe these comments are meant to be for you guys to make comments. I mean, if you have questions of staff, I don't think this is the proper venue to just have a, gotcha direct interrogation of staff on things. I don't think that's quite what this is intended to be. I would appreciate at least a heads up on if there's an issue that we need to bring and discuss in public that we have that formal discussion.

I didn't think it was inappropriate.

I will add to the trash can thing. Early on, they were going to recycle, but my City manager said there was something when they made them with the resin that they made him that the company they were contracting with couldn't recycle so they were just going to Dispose of them and then they stopped doing that and now they stored the rest of them down at their place in Harrisonville They're trying to find someone to recycle the rest of them now I don't know the process of that or the outcome of that, but that's that was the process for those cans.

Thank you for them.

You're welcome Councilmember white

I have not been able to finalize the date for a Ward 4 meeting. I will be doing that this week, and then I will be posting that, and then I will also mention it next council meeting because it will be a couple of days after the council meeting next time. So that way those, I'll have it on Facebook, and then those who listen to the meeting will know.

I don't have much other than, you know, had a good Fourth of July, and I think everybody else that I know did. We had a few issues in the city, but nothing major, so that's all I had to report. So, City Manager? Yeah, I don't have anything to report today, Mr. Mayor. Item M, Items for Review and Discussion 1, Cleveland Avenue Speed Study.

So we were asked to take a look at Cleveland Avenue, basically from the city limit. So we looked at it from the city limit up to the school to review the speed limit that's out there. So the current speed limit, if you're in the county, is 45 miles an hour as far as I can tell because there's not a lot of signs out in the county. And it's 45 miles an hour unless posted. There's nothing posted, so I would take it as 45 miles an hour. When you hit our city limit, which is just south of the plateaus, It goes to 25. When you hit Cambridge, it's still 25. When you go to the schools, it's still 25. But then at the schools, there's a sign that says when the schools are present, when the thing's flashing, it's 20 miles per hour. So we went out and took a look. And down by the plateaus, we look at speed limits at 85th percentile. That's been shown to be the safest speed to travel. It is 36 miles per hour. And then near sunrise, it was 33 miles per hour. And so looking at those two, it's pretty clear that the speed limit probably when you cross the city limit instead of being 25 miles an hour should be 35 miles an hour. And so we'd probably recommend doing 35 miles an hour short of the school than by a school doing 25 miles per hour. And so I just wanted to present that as the information and get some feedback whether you want me to go ahead and propose an ordinance that says that. Go ahead.

When you said one that was blinking, it was what, 20? 20 miles per hour. So is that going to stay? Yeah, that'll stay.

Go ahead, Drew.

Would it go to 25 at, like, Cambridge?

No, we'd probably do 25 at Sunrise, which is just south of the schools. Okay. Go ahead.

Um, do you know what the impetus for the speed study was did we just decide it was time or was there?

We had some some feedback from the HOA I believe the HOA president themselves reached out to like some council members asking if we could at least look at it

At the plateau. And was their point that they thought people were speeding or it should be higher?

They thought that it should be higher, that they didn't think that 25 was reasonable that far out of the school zone and on that stretch of road they felt like it could hold a higher speed.

The reason I ask is we have had residents reach out and say people are speeding like crazy and we do a speed study and we learn that no, that's not actually the case. I had a resident today reach out and said, oh, it's crazy over here on Lacey. We talked about doing a speed study, but sometimes those come back and provide a different outcome than what the resident anticipates. I do appreciate that the data we can get from these things helps us inform traffic flows that make the most sense.

Let's reiterate that the speed study doesn't say that people aren't speeding. Yeah. I'm on with you. I just want to make sure. Yeah, got it. Go ahead.

Yeah, I was actually going to say I was one of those people reached out and contacted to, and I appreciate us looking into this, and it turns out that it'll make a difference based on resident requests. I think that's a good part of the process, and it seems like the data supports it.

Is everybody okay with this? Yes. And I'll prepare it and bring it to you. Item two, Odessa Carvana expansion.

Yes, staff has received a preliminary development plan application for building expansions at the Odessa Carvana facility off of 155th Street. I did provide a copy of the site plan and elevations at your seat. The plan includes a 93,444 square foot vehicle maintenance facility on the east side of the building. It kind of shows up kind of in a burnt orange color off to the east of the existing building there on the north side of the property. Building elevations are on the second page which include insulated metal wall panels with concrete block rainscoat The this facility includes spaces For approximately 90 vehicles inside the shop to accommodate a variety of services to prepare vehicles for sale or auction other site improvements include a little over a thousand square foot car wash addition on to an existing building that's located southwest of the main building and And then the remaining improvements include reorienting the entire parking lot and restriping more than 12,500 parking spaces. So all the existing 90-degree angled parking will be converted to angled parking, and the drive aisles that are currently oriented east-west will be reoriented north-south to help with the workflow through the lot. I will note that the three westernmost parking lot aisles that are on the site plan are actually in Kansas City city limits, so those aren't under our review, but just wanted to point that out. On that side of the facility, they are proposing a maintenance canopy with shipping containers because we told them no, that they couldn't do that in Belton, but they are going to do that on the Kansas City, Missouri side. So you do see that. That's out of our purview, but just wanted to let you know that that's on there. A public hearing will be held for the preliminary development plan at next Tuesday's Planning Commission meeting at 6 o'clock and this item is scheduled to become before City Council in August. Go ahead. Is this going to increase the number of vehicles coming and going from that facility? The overall number of parking is staying the same. It actually is probably going to decrease a little bit because of the maintenance facility. In terms of the actual increase in vehicles, I don't know. They might be able to process them quicker with the expanded maintenance facility.

Okay. Move them out quicker. Anybody else? All right. Item 3, Events and Memorandums of Understanding.

Thank you. On June 9, the mayor asked staff to create a new policy outlining how the city council will handle requests from organizations to close the city streets for events and associated costs of the city services. In the agenda packet is staff's proposed revised memorandums of understanding. There are two MOUs, one for nonprofits and one for for-profits. And I'll start on page 380 of the agenda looking at the nonprofit MOU. And I'll go through the proposed changes. Roman numeral number two on page 380. Insurance continues to be a requirement for the event. Staff added the business license requirement. There is no cost for a nonprofit business license, just the license application and the Secretary of State and the IRS registration paperwork. There weren't any other revisions on the nonprofit MOU until page 385. which is exhibit A. Exhibit A and exhibit B work together, but I'll start with exhibit A. The first bullet was added. In consideration of city services provided to support the event, the city requests the nonprofit to show the city as an event sponsor. Toward the bottom of that page, under public works, staff added that the city will empty the Main Street trash cans prior to the event. under Police Department staff added that the additional no parking signs will be advertised on Main Street three days before the event. These two items were specifically requested by the City Council and through a Belton downtown event survey sent to the downtown Belton business owners and property owners. Exhibit B, which is the next page. This revision shows that the city will provide services to support the event in exchange for the nonprofit providing the three bulleted items at the top of the exhibit. Specifically, a statement of value for the event, a budget for the event, and a profit and loss statement within 90 days after the event. This eliminates the nonprofit from needing to request a waiver of the fees. If a nonprofit would rather not provide the city these three items, they would be allowed to fill out the for-profit MOU. A statement of value for the event would still be required, but the fees wouldn't be waived, the fees for city services. I would draw your attention to the bottom of page 386, which is exhibit B, on overnight security. Overnight security has an additional, it is an additional service, and it has historically been arranged separately with the police department, and it is a paid service. This was left at Exhibit B as a paid service, and if you'd like to have a discussion on that or have questions, Chief Lyons can speak on that. Those were all the revisions in the non-profit MOU. Are there any questions about this one, or do you want to go to the next one and then talk about both?

Go ahead. Questions. Go ahead.

You're fine. Forgive me for not knowing this. What exactly is a statement of value?

I will defer to Mike. He and I talked about this last week. Showing that the event has value to the city of why the city's council is closing the street. What value is that in turn to us in the city?

This really was just more a narrative about what the event is, what the event plans to bring, do they have anticipated attendance numbers, do they have vendors, carnivals, like something that kind of shows that this is what we're as part of this event. I think a good example is we have recently been approached by, I believe they're a for-profit group, or maybe it's a not-for-profit group, wanting to do a for-profit event. They're an out-of-town organization. They saw our Main Street. They thought it looked really nice. We've had a hard time kind of getting our arms around even what kind of event they want to host on Main Street. And so one of the things that we've really, Andrea and I have really kind of gone back and forth with this event organizer is, can you provide us just a narrative? Just tell us what you want to do for this Main Street event and what what are you, are you anticipating thousands of people coming to this event? Are you anticipating a couple dozen diehard in, you know, fans to come to this event? Can you give us a little bit of value as to what exactly is going to be happening? Cause I think one of the things that we really kind of got, or we really kind of cautioned on with through the city attorney was, you know, for us to sponsor event, we have to show that we're receiving something of value in return. We can't, provide a sponsorship just with no value. And so we were trying to really use the same language of the value of the event is you're bringing X number of people to Main Street. This is the type of event you're going to have. This is what our sponsorship is worth by waiving the fees for city services, security, kind of all of these other things that we're budgeting for and using taxpayer dollars on.

Is statement of value a typical term for that? I'm just unfamiliar with it. What you just described sounds great, but I just don't know if statement of value is the best term. Let's put a better term. Do you have another recommendation? No. That's what I was asking. Is that a typical term for that?

You might want to expand it more rather than ending at statement of value.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if we just say statement of value including event description or something.

Council is more comfortable with a, you know, event description within some specific bullet points on things that council will be looking at to evaluate. Because I,

I think you're going to, or whoever, Andrea, somebody's going to have to be explaining what that is potentially a lot, unless that's like a common festival term. You know what I mean? Unless that's a common term that I'm unfamiliar with. I don't know, just two cents, my two cents.

It's certainly not anything worth, I think, getting hung up on, if simply us asking for a description of the event.

If you come up with a better idea. Well, I gave it.

Yep, and that's, yep. Go ahead.

But it's also value to the city, value to the citizens, correct?

It's not just value to the citizens, you know, as a whole.

So it isn't just what they're doing, but it's how is it going to benefit the city of Belton, or the citizens of Belton, I should say.

And ultimately, us trying to gather as much information for you as council to make that policy decision. and how we frame that best, I think, that is going to be something that you as council are going to want to give us some feedback on. There'll be some subjectivity in there, right?

Um, you mentioned in the statement of value or whatever we're going to call it, I'm wanting to know an estimated attendance for long running currently existing events. We can pull place or AI data and get a sense of how many attendees came the year before. Correct?

Absolutely. And I don't think it would be staff making that judgment. I think ultimately it's just more information that for council to make a determination. And so if it's a long standing event, I mean it made the, the number of individuals who attend that event may be less important as part of the overall determination. And once again, it's a policy decision by council, and so we are simply trying to provide as much information to council as possible to make that decision.

That's my point. I would rely more on the PLACER AI data than asking them to estimate in advance if we could just pull it up and say, you know, year over year, you're holding steady, you're growing, whatever the case may be, because we do have that data.

Yeah, thank you. And like I was saying, subjectivity, right? Like, Even if they're not pulling large numbers, it still may be a sense of community or some other value, right? So it might not be all just based on attendance. That's an eye of the beholder. It would be a good thing to put in the statement of value. Exactly.

Go ahead. I guess two things. What's the reason for the 90 days after the event profit and loss? And if they don't provide it, what happens?

CHRIS RODGERS. Go ahead. JAMES CAVANAUGH.

That was me. CHRIS RODGERS.

OK. JAMES CAVANAUGH. If they're claiming to not make money, but yet are charging for things, I want to see an estimate of what they brought in, what they paid out. And was it true a washout, or did they lose money? If they say, hey, we're not going to make any money on this, and they brought in $10,000, and we're waiving all the fees, then, and obviously if they don't turn it in, they're probably not going to get approved the next year. Well, I just didn't know if there was reluctance from some organizations when we asked for that.

And I'll back that up. Like, you know, at some point we may want to adjust this to not, not, you know, I don't know. I'm dreaming. Okay. This may be, you know, 30 years down the road or something. Uh, but you know, at some point of this, these, you know, a lot of, a lot of this can be true economic drivers for not only the city, but the festival host, whatever that is. You can be a non-profit and be a festival host and make a ton of money off of it. There's nothing that's not, in fact, that's encouraged or at least from my perspective. So at some point we may want to go, Man, I don't know. We need to tweak our language so it's not every nonprofit or we need to do something. I don't know. I think having this information would help us look in 30 years from now and know, okay, now is the time we should probably look at this again. That's my two cents on it.

Anybody else? Do you want to touch the overnight security thing then or later?

Oh, yes. Do you want to have a discussion on the overnight security?

Yeah, thank you for the reminder. I did have a question on that. Has that been used by nonprofits?

It has.

Oh, okay. So this is still going to be a cost then?

Well, that's up for discussion.

Well, the way it is currently.

The way it's currently written is that is a separate contracted service. agreement you make with the police department. However, that's why we're having the discussion.

And has historically been a paid court service.

Oh, so even when we were historically not, when we didn't have the fees that we, whatever, this still was?

Correct, yeah. So it's not something that is new just to this MOU. I mean, the MOU overall is new, but it is historically that fee has been paid as for that, specifically to that overnight security.

but Chief Lyons may have more information on that.

In the past, when it was filled by BEMA volunteers, there was no charge because there was no expenditure. But when we had a police officer there, we did charge. So it was based on whether or not the event was by paid personnel. Go ahead, Brett.

Which I believe is not an option any longer. That's correct. That is correct.

We did have an expense when it was BEMA because we did pay the BEMA volunteers, but it wasn't at the same rate as it would be for a police officer, obviously.

What's everybody's thoughts on this? I mean, I'm okay with not charging for the overnight security in lieu of what we're trying to do.

I think that's kind of where I'm at, too, is not charging for the overnight security, even though I understand it's historically been there. If the point of this is to try and be helpful to the event organizers, then I don't know. I can go either way, but that's kind of where my thought is.

Everybody good?

Okay. I'll make that change. All right.

Go on to the next.

Okay, so on to the next MOU, which is for-profit. It starts on page 387 of your agenda packet. And again, I'll highlight the revisions that were made. Roman numeral II on page 387 is the same as the other MOU. Business license is required for an entity coming in to do this. There were no other changes, so we'll go to page 391 to Exhibit A. The first bullet was added, so whatever term we decide to use, I'll change this one as well, that we would also like to have a statement of value for this event because even though they're paying for it, we are still closing a city street. Under public works and police department at the bottom of this page, same thing as the other MOU, we're adding those two items, the no parking and the emptying the street, emptying the main street trash cans. And then Exhibit B on page 392 is a list of city services and costs. This has not been revised from what we started using middle of last year. So this is exactly the same. And those are the only changes in the for-profit MOU.

Any thoughts, concerns, questions? Go ahead.

Now that I've Looking at this, if we're not going to charge for overnight, why do we charge for medical personnel?

That's just during the thing, and that would be waived too, wouldn't it?

Yes, that's all included in Exhibit B of the nonprofit MOU, that it sounded like the council was in favor of waiving all the costs associated with a nonprofit MOU. Got it.

Any other questions? Everybody good with that?

Okay. The plan is to have these come back as a resolution so you can formally adopt them in substantially similar form.

All right. Number four, Belton Railroad Days, September 18-19.

Yeah, if the intention of the council is to likely approve some sort of updated events MOUs, then number four is probably not even a necessary discussion. point out that there is planning to be an event. The railroad is planning an event September 18th and 19th. At this point, they're planning it on their grounds. There may be more to it than that. It may grow from that, but at this point, that's what they've done.

Go ahead. I guess I'll talk a little bit about that. If you didn't know, I'm on the railroad board. So This is still very much a work in progress and probably will be until the day it happens. We have a committee put together of not just the railroad that is working on a belt and railroad days. There are various events that we are looking to have, but primarily we're going to be wishing happy birthday to our engine, which turned 70 this year. We will do things like mini rides for a very small fee, just down to Memorial Park or maybe Mullen Road, that type of thing and back. Um, we'll be doing, um, touch a truck and, uh, just a lot of fun things for the family to do. And yeah, the, the plan up until this point has been, uh, to, to utilize the railroad grounds. Um, but, uh, I, I, I'm actually not on that committee specifically. So, um, I will leave it to them to provide more updates. We will, if you're interested, the railroad will provide, um, updates on this, our social media when the time comes.

Any questions? I don't know how to say this. I think the railroads is a great asset and anything we do is great, but I would expect a member from their board to present this.

What are we presenting?

Pardon? There's nothing being presented. Other nonprofit groups come in and they explain what's going to happen.

That's when something's been presented. That's when something's being presented and approved, not necessarily just giving us information that this is coming.

At this point, there's nothing confusion that the city managers listed as the presenter for a local nonprofits proposed event that may or may not close mainstream.

There's been discussion that to involve many nonprofits, not just one. And so that's why there was discussion that the city could potentially get involved. But if we're going to do something with the MOUs for nonprofits, then that's going to make, you know, this discussion moot.

If it's on the railroad property, I mean, would Loop Road have to be closed?

If it stays on railroad property, it wouldn't, no.

I just can't picture, I guess, families, children. I guess I could see an accident happening, waiting to happen.

I mean, we have insurance. I mean, we have insurance. We have a lot of property.

You don't want to use your insurance.

I understand that, but I guess I'm not sure why there would be a concern with our ability to host an event on our property.

I just, I mean, Luke Road is right there, I mean.

Well, so is Commercial, right? Commercial's right there as well. And there's various streets that we go over. I guess I don't understand that point.

I mean, Lake Road is used for parking for Main Street too, so.

Yeah. Anybody else? Item in motion to enter an executive session to discuss matters pertaining to legal actions according to Missouri State Statute 610.021.1, pertaining to leasing, purchase, sale of real estate according to Missouri State Statute 610.021.2, pertaining to negotiated contracts according to Missouri State Statute 610.021.12. to individually identify personnel records, performance ratings, and records pertaining to employees or applicants for employment. According to Missouri State Statute 610.021.13, that the record be closed and the meeting adjourned from there. Present. Second. Motion to second. Any discussion? Hearing none, roll call.

Council Member Bryant.

Aye.

Davidson. Yes. White. Aye. Johnson. Aye. McCallum.

Aye.

Lawson. Aye. Mayor Larkey. Aye. Richardson.

Aye. Motion passes.