City Council - Regular Meeting

Call meeting to order. Pledge allegiance. Council Member Prine.

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 Thompson. Here. Council Member Davidson. Here. Council Member Pryan.

Here.

Council Member Lawson. Here. Council Member Richardson.

Here.

Council Member McCallum.

Here.

Council Member Johnson. Here.

We have a quorum. D, presentations. One, employee years of service.

Come on up, Ron. Get up here. It's all about you.

It's not about me.

I was waiting for you to say something.

Come on down. You're the next contestant. Tonight, we're really honored to have Ron Raines with us. If you don't know Ron, you're probably not a developer here in town because I think every developer probably knows who Ron is. He gets to inspect all their jobs, and he holds them exactly to what's expected. Nothing more, just exactly what's in the plans is all we expect. So Ron goes out and inspects them, and sometimes they're excited, and sometimes they're less than excited. Not so much. So, but Ron has got 20 years in with the city. We're really proud to give him the award tonight. And now, Ron, take it very slowly so we can give a nice picture. Smile if you can. And thank Ron for your years of service. I really appreciate it.

Well, I asked him if he wanted me to give a speech, and he said no, actually. Well, I know him.

Item two, Robert Van Boorst, 20 years.

Well, likewise, we want to honor Robert for his 20 years of service now to the fire department. Robert serves as a captain over at Station 2 on C-shift. He's been doing that in three years, right at three years, Captain? Seven. Seven, seven, time flies. I think I've only been to the city for six now. No, it's 29. So we'll represent him in dog years. So he also serves as the e-board rep for the union. So Robert and I have lots of conversations. Sometimes they go well. Sometimes they don't go as well. But pretty good most of the time. We try to work together, do the best for the employees. So I want to congratulate Robert for the good work that he's done and for the continued work that he's going to do. I'll turn this.

As everybody knows, they've probably heard enough out of me.

Is that the same time when it's public speaking? Yes. Lost half our audience.

Yeah.

All right. Item E, personal appearances. We have none. Item F, unfinished business. One, motion approving the first reading of Bill 2026-43 proposed from the July 28-26 City Council meeting.

An ordinance approving an amended development and maintenance agreement between the City of Belton and RPNT Autumnwood Holding LLC for public and private improvements in the Autumnwood subdivision.

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

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Before you this evening is the amended development and maintenance agreement for the Autumnwood subdivision. After postponing the agreement at the July 28th Council meeting, staff provided an overview of the discussion with the developer. The developer is requesting to proceed with the amended agreement to continue the single water meter for the build-out of the development, which will ensure that the development remains under one ownership. Keeping the development under a single ownership provides a better guarantee of uniform and consistent long-term maintenance and enforcement of the provisions and conditions of the agreement. Staff also agrees that the multifamily developments under single ownership provide easier notification and compliance with code violations as we're dealing with a single point of contact rather than multiple contacts that may or may not be responsive. on the developer is here this evening to respond to any questions if there are any, um, on these proposed amendments and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Any questions? Go ahead.

So if I'm understanding this correctly, the entire thing is going to go into one single meter, even the buildings that are already separately metered. Is that correct? Am I understanding that correctly?

So currently all of the buildings are under a single meter. Um, so they're requesting to, keep those as a single meter and add to those with the, uh, remaining, uh, remainder of the subdivision as, as it's built out. All right. Thank you. Yep. Go ahead.

Um, and our last conversation, Matt, we talked about the rental inspection for, and this wasn't just about this complex, but about future rental inspection, which we've worked on. Has that been resolved at all?

Yeah, so this property has been registered. The developer also owns similar multifamily properties in Grandview and Kansas City, which have similar inspection processes, so they are aware of the inspection requirements. We have coordinated with utility billing. We now do have a shared document that they update every time that there is a change in water service, so we can cross-examine those addresses to make sure that they have been inspected. or we'll follow up with the, uh, registered, um, applicant to get those inspected. And then legal has submitted the, um, documentation to Evergy to request those service reports. And, uh, we're currently are currently in discussions with trying to obtain, um, the minimum information that we need to be able to determine when service is turned over.

Patrick, how long does that typically take?

This is the first time that I've ever had to ask Avergy for that information. So uncertain, but they have been pretty prompt in getting back with us. So I would not think that it would last past the construction or build out.

So in other words, we have a way to track it either with water or electric, correct? Yes. And that... We can't be the only city that asks for that from Evergy, I wouldn't think, correct?

You're the first city that I work with that has. Most cities, when it comes to their rental inspection program, do attempt to seek compliance. And with some of these multifamily with single meters, it does rely pretty heavily on the developer or owner providing notification. But when that doesn't occur, some cities just aren't as active in seeking that compliance.

I have no problem with the development itself and I appreciate you following through on the questions I had. I just want to make sure that the rental inspection program that we worked on diligently does do what it needs to do. I appreciate it. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Patrick.

Go ahead. The previous discussion was related about an impetus for going backwards on the ones that are already built as that could be very cost prohibitive, putting in multiple meters there. I don't know if we ever had a fully fleshed out costs or understanding of why it couldn't be done for the future ones. I think that was the big reason I was in favor of postponing from previous discussion.

Yeah, if the developer wants to come up and respond to that, we did talk about about that potential that that was a request. So I don't know if the developer wants to respond to kind of their reasoning for keeping on the single meter.

Hello, Brandon Lofridge. We don't know the costs entirely. We just know it's not going to be nearly as expensive to continue on with the current infrastructure. And from our perspective, there's not really a benefit to individual metering. We have a private individual meters. So we sub meter on our side, which I checked up front and that was okay. Um, so we pay the city and then sub meter our residents. So in terms of achieving what we want to achieve, those sub meters achieve that. And going backwards is, I mean, certainly going to be more expensive than just continuing on. So, uh, and then I think from the perspective of our goals, it's one, continuous development, not something that we want to chunk out and sell individually. I think the original amendment was because that developer was kind of grasping at straws and wanted other exit opportunities and we don't want to piecemeal sell off individual buildings.

Thank you for the explanation there. Although I'm a little confused about the submetering. If we have that or if that's going in place, I guess I'm not sure why single metering would be problematic. I mean, sorry, I said that backwards. Why single meter for each house would be problematic? Because we're not talking about an apartment complex, right? We're talking about houses. That's, I guess, where my thought process is. For the record, this development is long overdue. I see an impetus for getting this done. We have a lot of need here in this city for that. I'm not at all faulting in that. I just know from a future, I'm just trying to think from a future perspective, we have a requirement to have meters on all the houses, right? Not one. That's just where I'm at.

Anybody else? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Nay. Motion passes. Item two, motion approving final reading of Bill 2026-45.

An ordinance levying and fixing the rate of tax for municipal purposes for the park fund and for the debt service fund for fiscal year 2027.

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

Council Member Lawson? Aye. Johnson? Aye. White?

Aye.

Richardson?

Aye.

Davidson? Yes. Pryan?

Aye.

McCallum?

Aye.

Mayor Larkey?

Aye.

Thompson? Yes.

Motion passes. Item 3, motion to approve the final reading of Bill 2026-46.

An ordinance approving a preliminary development plan for a 93,440 square foot maintenance facility and a 1,050 square foot car wash addition at 15511 Odessa Drive.

Present. Second. Motion to second. Any discussion? Hearing none, roll call.

Council Member Pryan?

Aye.

Davidson? Yes. Thompson? Yes. White?

Aye.

Johnson? Aye. McCallum?

Aye.

Lawson? Aye. Mayor Larkey?

Aye.

Richardson?

Aye. Motion passes. Item G, new business. One motion to approve the first reading of Bill 2026-47.

An ordinance authorizing the appropriation and revision of the City of Belton fiscal year 2027 adopted city budget to cover additional costs for the water meter infrastructure replacement implementation project and construction at the public works facility.

Present. Second. Emotion in a second You're not Casey, but you'll do no, I'm not Casey.

I'm filling in tonight. I want to talk about This budget amendment it's basically covering two projects and I'd like to give you an overview of these two projects as they're They will be coming later in our agenda here tonight first of all is where you have a changeover coming for a my program basically there any my program the first thing that we did was go out and count all the meters to verify the sizes and verify the number of meters that were out there now we knew our inventory was over and over 50 years old since it was actually started in the seventies and is just added on to overtime many different people had their hands on it through many different systems if you think about it wasn't even an excel when they first started it was just a paper inventory. So after going and do the inventory, we found that, um, there were a lot of meters in our system that was written down as a five eighths inch meters, which are pretty small meters. It's just a little bit bigger than a half inch meter. And it turns out they were actually larger meters out there. There were, it turns out there was about 200 of them out there that were either one inch, inch and a half or two inch meters. And so when we actually categorized and found all these meters, What happens is we have to now put bigger meters back in their place. Well, the problem is that the smaller meters cost about $200 each. The bigger meters cost between $2,000 and $4,000 for each one of those meters, increasing the amount of cost that it costs us to actually install the meters that are in the city. There's one other thing is that there were 20 meters that were unaccounted for when we did the inventory. These meters are primarily fire meters, fire line meters. So these are the meters that if a place were to catch on fire, there's a separate fire alarm. It's a fire line, not the normal water line that runs the sprinkler system inside the buildings. Each of them also has a meter. There's about 20 of those. Those meters range between about $6,000 and $15,000 a meter. And so when you add up all these different meters and then we have to change out all the lids, not the lids, but the transmitter that's on the lid because the transmitter fits the exact lid, that comes to an increased cost of about $370,000 to make this upgrade. in the switching out our meters to the right size meters. Now we always knew that there's going to be an increased cost because we knew that the inventory wasn't right. And we allowed the company to go through and do it themselves, get it exact. And so that's what that change in that program is. The other item that is, uh, that we' re adding doing a budget amendment for is for the breezeway at the public works facility. If you remember back when we bought the facility had one building where all of our field workers worked but we didn' t have a big enough room for them all to meet in. Initially the builders told me that I could add that building on to the side of that building and make it a longer building. It turns out that' s true except that they have to replace the rods that go between the beams in the building. Since we had finished the building they said, all we gotta do is tear all the walls and we can, we can put the rods in and, and make their building larger. So instead of doing that, we built a building that codes allowed us to build and had to be 25 feet away from the existing building. And that's where the meeting room is. So now we're just building a breezeway connection between the two buildings. So in all weather conditions, you can walk from one building to the other building from where they have their locker rooms to where they actually meet in the morning. And that's what that $52,000 is to build this connection between the two buildings. And so Casey, you wanted me to let you know that it's all coming from the water fund, 662 and the cash balance and the water fund now is a $9.27 million as of yesterday. Happy to answer any questions. Go ahead.

The breezeway is also coming from the water phone, right?

So all the buildings that we did building work that we did out there came out of three accounts that came out of the sewer fund, the water fund and the streets fund. She said this is the strongest fund to take the money from and that was her recommendation.

Just probably based on I'm assuming based on the Cash available cash balance. Yeah One of my questions is gonna be a process oriented one here, which is Because I'm a little unsure as to the best appropriate time to maybe ask some questions about the potential about the exact projects and And I guess is there trying to figure out why because we have a resolution adjusting the projects but then we have this ordinance adjusting the actual, you know, funding for said projects.

You can think of this similarly to when we do a budget. Every year we do a budget, and when you do a budget, it's not an appropriation. So you can say you can spend up to this amount, and so if you have a specific issue with a specific project, yes, you can address it during the budget time, but you can also address it during the actual item itself.

Okay.

Because that's when the appropriation takes place, when you discuss the specific item.

Thank you for that. That's a good explanation. I think I will hold off on questions then for the moment. Go ahead.

Now that we're up to date on all the meters, have we implemented a process to make sure that they stay corrected in case we have to go through this process again?

So that's exactly what this whole AMI project is doing. It's making it all updated. It's all in a new computerized system called Eclara, and it keeps track of all of our meters. And actually that's where all readings come through, and so that way it won't happen again.

So every new meter we get, that's going to come into this system, and we'll stay up to date.

Absolutely.

Perfect. Thank you.

Anybody else? Brett? Oh, I saw you hitting your thing. All right. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Item 2, motion to approve the first reading of Bill 2026-48.

An ordinance amending Appendix B Traffic Schedules Table 4 Speed Zones of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Belton, Missouri to establish certain speed zones.

Present. Second. A motion and a second. You're up. So as we discussed in the work session earlier, we were requested to do a speed study along Cleveland from the South City limits up. And so we did two different speed studies and determined the appropriate speed limit isn't 25 miles an hour, it's actually 35 miles an hour from the South City limits to Sunrise. and so based on this we're making a recommendation of raising the speed limit to 35 miles an hour now I've had a couple questions where exactly that sign would sit we would make that sign be south of sunrise so as you're approaching it probably south of the entrance to Cleveland Lake so that way as you're approaching from the south because on the north side of sunrise is the school speed limit sign that says 20 miles per hour. So we'd put this sign further back. So it would be just south of the entrance to Cleveland Lake. So as you're approaching, it would say, uh, 35 miles an hour. Well, it would change the 25 miles an hour before sunrise. Happy answering your questions that you have.

Go ahead. Um, Between Park Avenue and Sunrise Drive, there are still a lot of residential houses. There's also the park entrance there for Cleveland Lake. The Park Board had expressed some concern regarding speeding in this area as well as some residents that have reached out and I'm specifically talking about the area between Park and Sunrise not south of there. So I would like to make a motion for an amendment to have the new 35 mile per hour zone on Cleveland Drive from South City limits to Park Avenue as opposed to the current Sunrise.

We have a motion to amend on the table. Sir, go ahead.

Do I have to? It needs a second person?

Yes, to debate. Second. We have a motion and a second to amend item 2026-48. Go ahead.

What's the distance between what you're proposing?

Oh, I don't know. I mean, I could pull up Google Maps if you want me to or if someone knows off the top of their head. It's not great. It's not a huge difference between Sunrise and Park. Like I said, if you look at it, there's the difference. Technically, the school zone ends actually just south of Sunrise. If you look where the sign is located, that is also just south or just north of where the entrance is to the Cleveland Lake Park. So it's close enough and like I said Park Board had expressed some concerns there And I had some residents reach out specifically for that area So I just I think we're gonna think we're gonna net the same request that ultimately this is coming from other residents I live south of there, right? I think we're gonna ultimately reach the same request if we have it at Park as opposed to sunrise Go ahead

This is on the motion to amend.

Well, I'll hold it.

Okay. I'm not saying you can't talk. Go ahead.

So are you proposing that it remain the same between the entrance to Cleveland Lake and Park? Or what are we talking about?

The amendment is specifically for the south city limit to Park Avenue.

Okay.

So there would be no change north of Park Avenue. Okay.

So would we run into a situation like with Lake Winnebago where enforcement gets to be a concern because you have different speed limits in such short spaces of time and the Missouri Supreme Court had a problem with that? Are we going to run ourselves into an issue with that? I'm not necessarily opposed to your motion. I just want to be sure we're not getting ourselves into trouble.

I'm obviously not as familiar with the area as everybody else here is, but I do share the concern that when it comes to the legality of enforcing speed limits with those short changes in between, the Missouri Supreme Court has had some hesitancy.

Where's the multiple changes? I'm missing that part.

Well, you're changing from one, whatever it is currently, whatever, I don't know what it is currently.

25.

25. 25, and then you're going to jump to 35 on another one, so coming a different...

But it doesn't jump back.

Yeah, he's just moving this point that it... I'm sorry.

It doesn't jump back.

I'm just shortening the section that is currently on our docket. But if someone is running at 35 and then they hit the 25, which is just a short space between the two, that's where the concern is. Because on Lake Winnebago, it went from like 55 to 45 to 35 within 100 feet. That's not happening here. It'll be 35 to 25, done.

Yeah. And if we left it at the current diet of what's currently not within the amendment, it's still go from 35 to 25. It's doing that either way. I'm just shortening the length in which it's 35.

Go ahead.

Um, you were talking, putting that sign before sunrise between parking sunrise.

Correct. Excuse me. I'd put it south of the, Cleveland Lake entrance.

So we're talking you're wanting to move it back probably about another half a block because there's a block between Park and Sunrise.

Yeah, exactly. It's not a kind of back in the middle. It's not a huge difference. I would agree. That's why I think this is a relatively good. Yeah, easy request because it it's going to meet the requests of the residents that initially brought this study up because they're the ones that live south. But it's also going to, you know, do well for the the park as well as the residents that live between park and, well, there's a lot of park here, but residents that live between park and Sunrise.

And I initially said park when we first had this discussion, but I thought a decent, you know, put it in the middle or wherever, but I mean, I'm good with either one, so.

Go ahead. So you're saying it's about a block difference?

It's 10 houses. 10 houses. All right. Anybody else on the motion to amend?

Sorry, I just want to understand.

Go ahead.

It's currently 25. We say, hey, between here, the south city limit, and we'll say the Cleveland Lake entrance, we're going to increase it to 35, then 25. The school zone, is that the other change that you're worried about being hard to enforce?

I'm worried about we have multiple speed limits in a short space of time, even though I understand what everybody's saying about it's kind of directional, so I get that. But it becomes an enforcement issue, and the Missouri Supreme Court has come down pretty hard on a municipality in Cass County for exactly the same thing.

With what you're saying is the 20 is only during school. I understand. So it's technically still 25 through there when the school's not in session? Correct.

Correct.

All right. Go ahead. Is that an apples-to-apples comparison to the issue with Winnebago? Did they have a school zone in play, too?

No, they did not. It was different. I will agree. It's different because they had three different speed limits in a very short space of time with the idea that they were basically setting up a speed trap.

Go ahead. Maybe I'm mis- Maybe I'm looking at this too narrowly. Are you suggesting then that this whole proposal of the change at all would be a bad idea, whether it doesn't matter which street it's stopping at?

I just have a concern. I don't want us to get into an enforcement issue and then we're backed up in collecting fines that we shouldn't be collecting, that the Supreme Court has said we shouldn't be collecting.

Yeah, but I guess I... I feel like if anything, the change that I have suggested as part of this amendment would help that concern, alleviate that concern as opposed to the opposite.

Well, and I also think that the concern, while noted, due to the differences with Winnebago, and Winnebago did go from 55 to 35, I think, in like two blocks, which I don't know if anybody's ever tried to go from legally being able to drive 55 to legally being required to drive 35 in that short of a time span. It basically just means the only way to comply is to slam on your brakes. That was kind of the issue here. If we're just moving it back, and the speed limit is still the same on either side of the proposed, uh, area. I think that we could probably, we'd make sure that we wouldn't end up in a Winnebago situation.

Anybody else on the motion to amend? All right. Uh, hearing none. All in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. So now we're back to motion approving first reading of Bill 2026-48 as amended. What? Oh, sorry. Mr. Mayor.

Since this is an ordinance and this is the first reading, if the council would like, we could take some measurements of the distances just to hopefully maybe point out how it compares to that similar situation that was brought up with the Supreme Court ruling. And we can get you that data back before you have to vote on it the second time.

That'd be good. Yeah, that'd be great. Go ahead.

What I was holding on to, the thought, just curious about the plans for the Dryden Nature Preserve. Any entrances or changes to the traffic flow on that street? Are we thinking ahead? And how will that play together?

I mean, eventually there'll be an entrance there, I think, just north of the driveway on the east side. I think that's where the scheduled drive drive entrance is supposed to be. But the other concern I had was if we did do a trail crossing, um, kind of across there along that Creek area, if that would affect that.

So since we're taking measurements and checking things out, what if it changed at Cambridge?

Yeah, that's a good thought.

Could we consider that as well? Yeah, I would like to. That's what I'm saying.

Everybody good with that? Yeah. All right.

Just to note, was that a motion to amend?

Do we need to amend if we're gathering more information before the second reading?

No, I don't honestly think so. I think that right now, if the more the direction is for city staff to investigate whether or not it should be extended and then bring that back at the next meeting, I think that that is also completely fine. Okay, thank you. That's good.

Go ahead. So we're looking at two different measurements, one his and one Cambridge?

Yes. It sounds like we need to take into consideration what parks plans may be for Dryden and the trail crossing so that we know what we're talking about. So I think we would have to know.

Is this needed in a hurry? Should we just table this until you guys get us more information?

I have one more.

Go ahead.

I have one more. wrench to throw in this when they, when they rearrange all the school entrances and line everything up, will that affect, that'll be affected by all that too, or it's no, that's, that's further north 15.

Are we good moving with the motion as amended or should we table it until you get more information? We can go with the amendment and change it in the second reading. I'm good to move forward because we can always change our minds on the second reading. Anybody else on the motion as amended? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Bill number 2026-49 is being removed from the agenda and may be brought back for consideration at a future meeting. Item four, motion approving the first reading of Bill 2026-50.

An ordinance approving the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission Service Transportation Block Grant Supplemental Agreement for the Markey Parkway Connection.

Present. Second. We have a motion and a second. You're still here.

I tried to get away. I didn't know this. You didn't get a reprieve from me. So... Last year we passed an ordinance signing an agreement with MoDOT for the Markey Parkway corridor. This is going from North Scott to just west of Westover. We signed an agreement where we're gaining $5 million from the federal government in order to construct that segment of roadway. That roadway was scheduled to be done in 2028 or 2029 and so we signed that agreement. Well, this last spring, every time we meet at MARC, we meet monthly to discuss where the projects are at, other cities were unable to deliver their projects, so the money became available earlier. And so they were looking for people who could actually design and get a job done on time and be able to deliver the project. So we said we could do it and we've actually designed it and we have submitted it, got approval for it. But it does require supplemental agreement. So MoDOT came to me about three weeks ago and said, we need you to sign a supplemental agreement, which I hadn't really thought much about. And they said, oh, by the way, we need you to sign it in the month of August. It can't be beyond the month of August. So I bring in front of you this evening an ordinance to sign the supplemental agreement with modot so we can get our five million dollars for this project and I am gonna request that we Have two readings of it tonight. I know that's not a popular thing to do I know there's probably not any public opinion because we've already signed an agreement to do the job this is just advancing how quickly we build the job and to get it done. It's MoDOT's demand that it be done in this month and this is our last meeting so I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Go ahead.

to be clear for us layman or whatever, um, this would straighten the wonky, um, intersection that is currently at Markey and, um, North Scott, correct?

Correct. You'd go straight across it and then you'd go between the poles, uh, basically through comfort solutions, front yard, and then back into the, uh, back into the right where the road is where the railroad tracks are at.

And this is to get us, you know, funding that is not going to cost our city tax dollars. This is to get it state funding for that.

It's 80 20. So we get 80% federal funding, 20% local.

Thank you for that clarification. Um, so yeah, I don't, I'm, I know that we have received a lot of concerns about that intersection. So, um, this may be a rare time. I vote yes on a second reading.

Okay. Anybody else? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Motion for a second. Second. We have a motion and a second for a second reading. Any discussion on a motion for a second reading? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Motion approving second reading of Bill 2026-50.

ordinance approving the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission's service transportation block grant supplemental agreement for the Markey Parkway connection.

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

Mayor Larkey.

Aye.

Councilmember Johnson. Aye. Prion.

Aye.

White.

Aye.

Richardson.

Aye.

McCallum.

Aye.

Lawson? Aye. Thompson? Yes. Davidson? Yes.

Motion passes. Number five, motion approving resolution 2026-83.

A resolution approving a parade permit submitted by the Belton High School Student Council to close a portion of Main Street and surrounding side streets as noted for the Belton 2026 Homecoming Parade.

Present. Second.

I have a motion and a second. You're up, Chief. This event is scheduled for October 8th. Again, it's the Belton 2026 Homecoming Parade. The road would be shut down between 4 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. The parade starts at 5 p.m. There's no direct budgetary costs in regards to this event. And you and there is indirect cost with Public Works and police providing security the new city approved route Reduces the number of police officers from ten to six and the applicants will be five providing the police department the liability waivers of those that will participate I Know we've had some

issue with the new route in terms of getting people to follow it, but if I remember correctly, last year's homecoming was the first one to use it and did a great job following the new route. Is my memory correct there?

I think we went the wrong way, but we're correcting it.

Oh, we went the wrong flow of traffic, but otherwise it was okay.

It'll be commercial to Hackberry, Hackberry to Maine, Maine down to...

I only say that just to, you know, I know, like you said, from a police force, it's an easier flow. Yes. Okay. Okay. Sounds good.

Anybody else? Hearing none. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Item six, motion to approve resolution 2026-84.

A resolution approving change order number one for the contract for services for the water meter infrastructure replacement implementation project with Utility Service Company, Inc.

Present. Second. Motion to second. You're back. I'm back. I know you probably missed me. This is the change order authorizing our change order to adjust the number or the type of meters that we have after we did our inventory. Some of the numbers went up on larger sizes and then the smaller sizes went down causing a change in the price of the contract and Also change the price of the transmitters as there's different transmitters for different size meters and so this corrects our inventory that we have and We'll get the right meters in the right spot for everybody. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have Any question go ahead.

All right, so can you just generally especially the ones you noted that were like fire lines Where are those located at?

where the fire on the city is really commercial buildings that are that are large enough or have enough people in them to require a fire line.

So the people I guess specifically sorry to interrupt but just specifically what I'm just looking to understand is where the ones we didn't have accounted for that.

Well, Where the trick comes in on fire lines is that fire lines don't get a separate billing because the person gets a bill for their water line, but they're not getting a bill for a fire line because you're not buying water through it. So we only charge for the actual water line. So when people are keeping track of them, this is the best I can figure out, that no one actually kept track of those meters because we're not billing those meters. And so we're billing the other meter, the meter that goes and gives services to them.

So then let me ask the dumb question after that is, do we need to upgrade those?

So to get them in our system, to have one system on it, yes, we have to upgrade it because those meters will not be on our new system.

Yeah.

But I guess if they're not being used for billing and they're not, if they're not, they don't get a monthly bill, but they will get billed if they use the fire in the, in the event that they have to have a fire, we're going to give them a water bill.

Congratulations. Yes.

All right, hopefully there's good insurance, I guess. Then, so just a little further on that, you said, if I remember correctly from earlier, you said there was approximately 20 that were unaccounted for?

Those were the fire lines.

Oh, okay. Are there... There was, shoot, what was, I'm sorry, Council Member Johnson, what was your question earlier?

Because I had a... My question was, how are we correcting this moving forward?

Yeah, thank you. So my only follow-up, I had a similar question to that. I understand we now have a system that will account for everything, which is seriously great. It's unfortunate it took this type of event to get there, but hey, I'm glad we're there. That new system, though, is not owned by us. That's ultimately external software. Do we also have an internal account then? You know what I mean? Do we have this on a spreadsheet as a backup, I guess, is what I'm asking?

It's a kind of complicated thing how it works, but yes. So it actually goes from their Eclair system to our Central Square system. So we bounce the information back and forth. Now, if you want an explanation of how all that computer works, it's Andrew back there. And knows how that works. Because as they're installing it, they're doing it on an iPad. And it goes from one to another to another to another.

Since we don't own Central Square and we don't own Clara, do you have a system in your computer that shows?

Just in the event, I don't know. Something happens with Clara and Central Square and we lose the data.

Yeah, exactly. Who owns the data, I believe. Exactly. We own the data. It's just that it's housed in their network.

We could export a report of all of them.

Absolutely.

As long as we're the water company, as long as we're the water utility, we're going to maintain that data anyway. So if there is a change in the software, to your point, we don't own Central Square, we don't own Clara, but we're would own the rights to whatever new software we'd be changing to, and there'd be a transition period either way. So yeah, I mean, the cool thing about AMI is it's digitizing all these records and our ability to access all of this system.

Yeah, I just want to, my question, thank you, Mr. Mayor, for helping out, was mainly around preserving that data for the future, right? And I saw, for those of you not in the room, I saw our IT guy gave the thumbs up at Lawson's question there on we could just download a report and have all the data. So that was really where I was going with that. So thank you.

Anybody else? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Item 7, Motion to approve Resolution 2026-85.

A resolution approving a travel, training, and economic development policy for elected officials.

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

Mr. Mayor and Council, here's the fruit of our labors on the travel training and economic development policy. Obviously, we had the committee that met. We had the work session last meeting. Essentially, everything that was in the memo during the work session was transmitted to Exhibit A under this resolution that's before you, including the changes that were recommended during the work session. So I'd be glad to stand for any questions at this point. Anybody got any questions, thoughts, concerns?

I just have one.

Go ahead.

Just for clarification, I think when we discussed it in work session, I think Council Member Lawson had a concern about multiple council members attending one session during a conference. And so I was looking at the MML conference for this year, and one of the sessions is about data centers. So in my opinion, it would be valuable for as many council members as possible to attend a session like that. Would you have a concern about multiple council members attending a session that had to do with a topic as controversial as data centers?

Thank you for asking that. I was just about to say it's not noted in the policy, but I think it is worth pointing out if a quorum of council members is attending any out of town conference, um, to that point, no, if, if it's a really juicy topic and multiple people want to attend, that's great. Um, I, because this process is gonna better align who's going to what, um, I would maybe just call out if we have a quorum and, hope to avoid any conflicts in sending a quorum, but no, I mean, something like that, yeah, there's a lot of value there.

And I would think that if there's a quorum, we would notify Ms. Cummings anyway, and she would put out the proper notices.

I do want to note that whenever there is a quorum of the city council present at one of those conferences, we do post a notice of quorum at city hall and essentially notice that there could potentially be something that could be construed as a meeting, but there are no votes taken. There are no motions passed during those timeframes and accidental attendance of a quorum at especially like MML conferences. is an incredibly common place. That is why most cities do post a notice of quorum.

Andrew, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we posted notice even when we don't have a quorum for these events.

I do. Okay.

If it's going to be close, you post it. Okay.

I have a reminder to post it next week for you to know.

There you go. Anybody else? Hearing none, roll call, or all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Consent agenda, one motion, none available to approve the recommendations and under any member of the council may ask for an item to be taken from the consent agenda for discussion in separate action.

Present.

Second. Motion is second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes. reports and information, state annual reports, new development reports, municipal court report, communication from city council. Let's go back the old way. Council Member Johnson.

I attended the state of the county luncheon last week. It was kind of interesting to find out the things that we're still waiting on court decisions for before the county can move forward, but it was good to get the information and have a chance to talk with some of the county officials.

Councilmember McCallum.

Also attended the, speaking of attending things, also attended the State of the County luncheon and it was nice to hear from our county officials. And it's always, you know, especially nice to hear from the commissioners when one of them is a Belton resident. I also want to take this time, and I'm probably stealing some thunder because I'm sure multiple people are going to say this, but just remind people to apply for the Charter Review Board. and all this talk about speed limits, school is in session. I've already seen the police pulling over multiple people in school zones, so thank you for that. Good work, Belton PD. And just want to remind people to just plan for extra time on your commute. Switching to the parks, a couple updates from there. First and foremost, a lot of their lifeguards have gone back to college. They are, of course, always in need and looking for lifeguards. If you know anybody interested, please, as a reminder, look into being a lifeguard at the park. It's, my understanding, a very rewarding job. Just a couple upcoming things with Parks. They will be putting out an RFQ for an additional call on HVAC services and their hope is to focus on controls and also speed up response time in general when they have an HVAC issue. They're working on updating their org chart to better match reality and their needs, so that's just something they're going through, process they're working on. In terms of events, the farmers market is still ongoing every Thursday from 4 to 7, but that's getting close to being over for the year. So if you have not made it out there yet this year, don't miss your opportunity. Okay, upcoming events. I think I have mentioned those ones. I'm trying to get to the ones I haven't mentioned. So September 27th, the Cardboard Boat Race is back at High Blue. October 10th is a Ladies Night Out at Memorial Station. And October 24th, the Pumpkinpalooza is back at Memorial Park. And one thing to note, if you are an organization that would be interested in sponsoring any of these events, they're always looking for sponsors for that type of stuff to help out with our kids and just the community in general. So it's a really good opportunity to get your name out there if you haven't. So just something to consider. So that's everything I've got.

That's member Richardson.

It's good to be back. As I was swimming in the Gulf of America a couple of weeks ago on my Eagle float with the grandkids had a lot of fun. I also want to bring up a few events that are coming up through the Belton Chamber in September. First, they're having the BioLife ribbon cutting on September 1st at 10 a.m., followed by First Friday coffee on September 4th from 7.30 to 9 a.m. The Chamber's having their luncheon on September 8th from 11.30 to 1. They're having Glow Up September, which includes Trap and Skeet on September 10th. music bingo on September 15th, and golf on September 24th, which is a lot of fun. And then on September 23rd, the Kansas City Symphony's mobile music box will be at Wallace Park for a free community event. So that's all I got.

Council Member Lawson.

Yeah, just quickly going to echo happy back to school season. Thanks to all the teachers and folks that are going to interact with our children. And also shout out to Public Works, the Lacey and Mill intersection looks great. Thank you.

You stole my thunder. I got to do the rubbing cutting for that. Thanks to the mayor being out of town. It looks really nice, and unfortunately we didn't have a big crowd, but it was still pretty hot then. So great work by everyone involved, and now the citizens in the area can get through with no delays. And planning commission was canceled, no new business there. So it was refreshing to have a Tuesday off.

Council Member Davidson.

This past Saturday was another car show and it was a very successful one.

Council Member Thompson.

I went to the state of the county as well. It was nice to know what it costs to build bridges. That was a very interesting tidbit that he brought up and how many they build a year. Appreciate Foxwood Springs having us there. And I'm just tired of mowing. If we could have just a little off time now, I'd be good to go.

Council Member White.

I don't have anything. Thank you.

I will add to the intersection down that they were just talking about. The principal at Hillcrest team thanked me for getting it done before school started. She was worried, worried, worried, but it was all good. Just so you know, she appreciated it getting done. So that's all I got, City Manager.

Mr. Mayor, I have one thing. I know it's a topic of conversation and has been for a few months now, but we're supposed to be, we have a meeting with some staff members and the folks who are doing the baseball stadium and event center study. So we should have some information on that to report back to you guys in the public pretty soon.

All right. Item M, items review. one current condition of City Hall and annex. Uh-oh. I would say something, but I'm going to remain quiet. Oh, he's got more.

So I've been looking at, uh, along with a consultant looking at the condition of city hall and the annex, a lot of employees and probably residents have probably brought up the condition of city hall is not an annex is not always in a satisfactory condition for everybody. If you office over in City Hall and even the annex, you know there's places where when it rains, the roof leaks every time. There's a place where the water comes through right above my head, and so every time it rains, someone calls me and says, do you know the roof's leaking? I go, absolutely, I know the roof's leaking. It's leaking right above my head. It goes ding, ding, ding on these ceiling panels. So I worked with a consultant to come up and go through the buildings and figure out what would it take to actually fix the things that are wrong in the building? Because there's a couple ways of looking at it. You can fix the building, you can improve the building, or just do other things. But right now, we're just looking at what would it take just to fix the things that are wrong? Not making improvements, not make this room bigger or fancier, changing the equipment out, renovate the whole bathrooms or anything like that. What do we need to do to just fix it? So on the first page, it's got a long list of all the different things that the consultant went through and looked. It's basically the roof of both buildings that have to come off, and they list the four different portions of the roof because there's the top membrane, there's the insulation, there's the roof edges, and there's also the metal that's underneath it, and who knows how good of condition it's in. There's exterior wall repair. If you're not familiar with City Hall, when we have removed drywall from the outside offices and it's dark inside the office, you can actually see through every one of the blocks of the mortar around the blocks and you can see light to the outside. There's actually no insulation behind the drywall. It's just drywall glued to the brick that you see from the outside. And so that's another reason it's very cold. This will not add insulation or fix that. That just literally was going to fix some of the blocking that's out there. There's ADA things that need to be fixed on every one of the, on both of the buildings. Um, there's exterior window repair. You've probably seen where it's rusted out. The windows don't work very well. Um, there's the LTV servicing needs to be fixed. There's the water closet. Over there, you probably walk by it. You can smell it in City Hall. There's dampness, rotting, and problems with it. There's problems with almost every one of our toilets and urinals. You know that in this building, we still have sewer problems. I have to jet this line out every month that's squirting water through it to make sure everything gets forced out so we don't back up into here. Because if you come here, you notice it has a unique smell to the building that it comes because of the the sewer is not in the best condition. This occurs in both of our buildings. We have HVAC that still needs to be replaced in the buildings that haven't been. So the cost the hard cost of the actual construction is 1.2 million Then you add in the other construction the bonds insurance contingency you have some materials handling Design engineering it comes out to be one point seven seven three million dollars to just fix the things that are currently Poor condition in these buildings And, uh, and one of the keys that you want to look at in this is that on the right side, it has estimated cost per square foot. That's an important number because, uh, as you start doing construction maintenance to buildings, uh, there is a threshold where you're just wasting money trying to fix a building. And that occurs somewhere between 150, $175 a square foot. So right now, just to fix the things that are wrong, not to, improve things in the building just to fix what's wrong. We're at $117 a square foot. And so we're already coming to close to the point where, you know, if you get up to $175 a square foot, you're looking at, is it really worth investing much more in the building? It's a building worth saving. So, uh, that was my presentation for tonight. That's kind of short and sweet. Happy to answer any questions that you have.

Any questions? Go ahead.

So I know, I believe it was codes that was coming around that there were some buildings had some water leaks and they were going to tell them they couldn't be in business. They were going to revoke their business license. Can codes revoke the city's license? Because you guys are having leaks in these buildings. Just throwing that out there. Yeah. The city does not obviously have a business license. Uh, we are not a business, but cause you're kind of given that away with the water leaking in the building. So

I'm trying to remember and I'm having a hard time right now. Is any of this already slated to be having some fixes take place in our current budget? Because I feel like we were working on a few things.

We have money in the budget to replace one HVAC unit, and I usually wait on that until the end of the year to see which one goes out. I don't like to preliminary guess that this is the one that's going to go bad and replace it ahead of time. I usually wait for it to fail and then replace it. But other than that, we have no money in the budget to replace the roof. When you go up on top of the roof to try to fix it, the whole thing is scaled. And so you can try to hit spots and guess where it's coming in at. Usually it's coming in at where the connections are at the AC units because that's where it has the mount up. And so we reseal those and we stop it for a while. And then maybe six months later, well, I got another leak. So we go back up there and try to Determine where it's coming out and just stick more stuff into it. The roof is beyond work. You can just say it's going to last forever. They don't.

Go ahead. You're bringing it up in a work session. Are you going to be bringing something forward?

We also have preliminary discussion on whether we want to upgrade the buildings. We can start looking at that as well. Obviously, we want to make sure everybody understands where the situation is with the buildings. To Council Member Richardson's point, is it fair for the city to require businesses to hold their buildings to a certain standard when ours aren't at that standard themselves? That's a question we all have to answer as a city. These aren't problems that have been created overnight. These are problems that have been created over time and where. At some point, we do have to address them in one way, shape, or form. We have to decide, do we want to spend $1.7 million just to make it up to code, or do we want to go another step and do a bigger project, whether it's a redevelopment or even, I don't want to scare everybody, but a new city hall? Is that something that we need to look at?

That's what it's boiling down to. Do we want to continue to dump money into these buildings? I just didn't know if they were planning on bringing something in two weeks. Ultimately, that's our decision. Or do we want to look at building a new city hall? So that's ultimately where we're at.

So to answer your question, yes, I am working on the numbers and being able to present that in the future whenever it's determined to do that. Go ahead.

And that's not really Greg. That's not really bringing it up to codes. It's just fixing it.

It's just fixing what is broken today.

I mean, there's no bringing it up to codes involved in this money.

It's just, it's just fixing.

Go ahead.

Uh, you might know this. When was the annex built?

This, 1961. Okay. The only reason why I knew that is I looked at it today because somebody was here.

All right, historian, when was the city hall built?

Probably 72, 73, 72. I remember when I was a little kid, the roof tee things looking thing, I remember them hauling them in on a semi. I remember them coming down Scott and then coming down Main Street when I was a kid sitting on the front porch.

Believe it or not, I remember that. I will tell you one interesting story that I did find out in doing all this research on this building and the city hall and city hall was constructed. It was constructed with a federal grant actually through Moda to build that building and the grant was allowed to have so much money in it. There's a top cap. We couldn't spend more than that much money unless the city just poured the money into it. So, uh, they built the building, but they ran out of funds to actually put the windows in to put insulation in the building. to do proper air circulation in the building and all those things were left out because they simply ran out of money back in the 70s. And so there's one window in the building and the mayor has it. But that's why the building is the way it is. It took some interesting...

It was originally designed to have a second floor on it as well.

There's a whole bunch of interesting things.

Go ahead. Do you remember when the city took this over from the post office?

Probably 95, 6, something like that, probably, roughly. Somewhere in that neighborhood. What? Well, that's why I know it's 1961, because I looked at that plaque out there today, but I didn't look at the other plaque. 2001. 2001, okay. It's a little longer. Okay.

Just going from a budgetary standpoint I Mean do we have funds to make repairs?

I mean where you know Well, of course, that's the biggest question is where do we come up with the money regardless of what we do? And so that's something we're working on so we don't have it earmarked at this point But we have some ideas and we're gonna track them down and make sure that we know what we're talking about before we start You know throwing things around

So this isn't something that's going to happen in this budget year. Anything else? Anybody else? Good with them proceeding with more information? All right. Item two, code enforcement nuisance items.

All right to try and keep this is concise as possible obviously nuisance doesn't include inoperable vehicles we discussed inoperable vehicles kind of a lot last council meeting at your at the dais at your spot there's kind of a six page hand out which it which is directly from our code okay so I you know there's nothing in here that's new it's just all again just directly from the code I just took some of the some of the the definitions and some of the code and I highlighted it so everybody can you know be aware of it specific things I'd like to point out is like on the first page. You know any condition or use of private property or building exteriors which is detrimental to the property of others or which causes or tends to cause substantial diminution in the value of other property in the neighborhood. In which such properties located or offensive annoyances which are discomforting or detrimental to the health or public welfare of individuals or the public. and this includes but is not limited to the keeping or the Deposting on or scattering over the premises any of the following junk trash debris abandoned discarded or unused objects equipment are not in progress and in an area not properly zoned for such storage these are all part of what are called nuisance it' s not highlighted but if you go above the number two is where the highlighting is started on the first page but if you go above that under 14-3 enumeration you see the following are declared defined and deemed to be

Just from a probably a legal standpoint here on this one, because I've seen this elsewhere in our, I believe I've seen something like this elsewhere in our codes. It starts out so incredibly vague, right? It is like so much subjectivity on what I consider to be a nuisance versus what you consider to be a nuisance and all that stuff, but then it gets more specific. So the only way that I can personally interpret this, uh, is when I look at it and I say, Oh, well it must be referring to these specific things then because what else? Cause I mean it's so vague from, is there a reason for that?

Yeah. And I think the best way to view that is if you go to page four, bottom of page four,

With the abandoned ice boxes?

Well, no, you'll see all the updates.

Code 1976. So it's been amended in 76, 89, 99, 93, 2013, and 2015.

So basically what you always see with nuisance codes is everybody across the country has the same about 20. Junk, trash, and debris, and the first five or six of them are just the statute, statutory language, but instead of just being a list, it's into numbered paragraphs. Then as you go further in, what you will typically start to see, and this is not just you guys, this is everywhere. Once you get to numbers like 15 through whatever it might end at, you start to notice that there was probably a specific situation that occurred. And somebody went, is that can we catch that in one of our previous enumerated nuisances or instead like the privy privy vault cesspool or water closet? I guarantee you there was a situation here in, we'll guess, 93 where that came up and somebody was like, that might not fit cleanly underneath one of the other ones, but it's a situation, okay, let's add it. So that's why they get more specific is because your last 15 or your last 10 are usually something that was put in specifically because of a situation or situations were arising involving those exact, Yeah, it's just like again, the maintenance upon the maintenance upon any premises in this city of a building structure, other condition to cause injury to the traveling public or to obstruct, injure, destroy the public ways of the city. Guarantee you that a building in town was getting close to collapsing and they threw this in there to add on to the dangerous building process so that they could go after the property owner two ways.

Yeah, it's just that. I guess that's just the legal ease way to deal with it because it's just so open for interpretation prior to the enumeration.

Yeah. And I'll just say like a, B, C, and then I guess it gets a little bit confusing, but, uh, Those three, those first A, B, and C, those are straight from the statutory section. The statutory section reads junk, trash, debris, abandoned, discarded building material.

Those are a lot less subjective. That's my point.

Honestly, I think that the one that we always run into as the most subjective is junk, trash, or debris. Well, sure.

But it's still less subjective than substantial diminution of the value of other property.

Well, that's just a, that is, because you can't define every nuisance, right? That is the definition of nuisance.

Okay.

Like so the legal definition of nuisance without getting into particular things that cause the nuisance is an act or condition on private property which causes a substantial diminution in the value of other properties. That is just for 300 years. That is the definition of nuisance.

Okay. So that probably answers my question. All right. So it's really just because we're using a specific legal definition to start with because, because nuisance is a legal term, public and private nuisance.

I understand it predates zoning. This is how people zoned property until the, or this is how you got zoning adjacent things until the twenties with the zoning enabling act was public and private nuisance. All right. Sorry.

I just didn't. Anyways.

All right. Okay, moving on to page two, you'll notice I didn't highlight everything. Obviously, you guys can go back and read through it. I'd invite the public, if you're really interested, to go back and read through it, especially if you need something to help you sleep at night. But number seven, accumulating, storing, piling, stacking, or placing of paper, magazines, rags, sawdust, debris, dirt, rocks, boxes, straw, or other similar substances or leaves for more than 48 hours on a residential or business property. in the form that they may by natural causes caught causes such as a wind or storm escape the property where there so stored so I guess they' re just saying it' s saying and this isn' t we didn' t create this has been in our code saying that if there' s a pile of things that could be blown into your neighbor' s yard that would be considered a nuisance as well. I'm highlighting these things because these are the things that I am anticipating are going to come up as we go through this process moving forward. You can skip forward to page four, any pond or pool of unwholesome, impure, stagnant, or offensive water found upon any lot or piece of ground, and number 20, any water accumulating and remaining, continuing or stagnating upon in or about any lot, tract or piece of ground or any barrels, buckets, kegs, tubs, cans, bottles, jars or vessels of any kind. So again, I'm just trying to help us put our arms around what are all these things that are considered a nuisance as we move forward so we all have at least a shared understanding of what the code says. And then disposition of nuisance properties Where we're gonna run into the issues is not in the defining of it I mean we'll run into some issues with the defining of what junk and trash and debris is obviously there's that's in the eye of the beholder sometimes Luckily, there's a lot more a lot more add-ons as as Patrick said later on to help us try to define that stuff and But even later, disposition of nuisance property under Section 1410, miscellaneous personal items that appear to be readily usable, reasonably repairable, including but not limited to lawn care items, yard decorative items, car parts, furniture, children's toys, clothing, household items, appliances, or building materials. This is getting into stuff that we would have to store if we decided to do an abatement. So the process... to do to handle this situation is obviously we are going to go out and and and try these You know dumpster days bring out a dumpster. We're gonna highlight what's going on in the neighborhood Give everybody kind of a warning beforehand. Hey, this is what you've got on your property That is defined by this nuisance issue If you want to have, you know, some help getting it thrown away, we're going to provide these dumpsters to help you get it thrown away at no cost to you. But if there are those that and there will be those that do not participate in that, then that's going to lead us to the other side of the coin where we have to enforce and we'll do, you know, we'll do the continue notices. the notice is not a citation the notices are just a you' ve got a problem here can we figure out a way to fix this and then the citation if nothing' s done to fix it and But when it comes to nuisance, there's also another tool in the bag that we haven't used a lot of because it can be very unpopular with the people that we decide to use this tool. And that's the abatement process where we could go on their property and clean it up for them, essentially. If we do that, we have to follow a strict process that's defined. We have to get an administrative order. to go on the property and then we have to store I mean if it unless it's you know obviously trash we have to store it for like 90 days cars have to be hauled off to a by someone who can store it to themselves and then you know essentially then the property owner has the ability to appeal and say hey that's my stuff you don't have the right take you shouldn't be taking this this isn't a nuisance because of whatever reasons the property owner might have so they have some ability to to have their say and then the whole process plays out but you know we have to store it for 90 days and then at the after the expiration of the 90 day period then and it says this and see on page five you know the city has the ability to to sell the items to the highest bidder and that stuff's included on the next page on page it goes on page six talks about terms of sale those types of things so that' s the process if we want to deal with nuisances in that way and again we haven' t pushed that very hard we haven' t pushed the abatement side when it comes to nuisances and I believe that our neighborhood improvement staff would love to have the guardrails Set up by you guys the council on whether we want to push to that extent more consistently and if we do that's something we also might want to take up during the budgeting process because the storage of these things is not going to be cheap and Chances are we're not going to get yes, we can bill the property owner for the storage and for any of the abatement costs, but the the time that money is just spent. We hardly ever get it back if we decide to go down the abatement path. That' s the guard rails behind this specific work session is what say the council on how far we want to take this when it comes to abatements.

I thought we changed the way we did that bill and then we put it on the tax bill and not.

We can put it on the annual real estate tax bill for some nuisances, nuisances that we are utilizing our authority under 67398. But for some of our larger nuisances, specifically for dangerous buildings and things like that, we cannot utilize the annual real estate tax bill. I would also note that the annual real estate tax bill is the best method, and this is unfortunate, but if the property has a mortgage. Because if you have a mortgage, your bank is paying your property tax. And so if that large nuisance abatement sort of situation gets put on there, your bank will pay it and then charge them back over the 12-month period to increase their escrow so that they can pay it the next year. And realistically, a lot of the times it also will trigger the bank tax. reaching out to the property owner to figure out what's going on. Because if the property is in the state that it has to have a significant real estate tax bill on it, then the bank is most likely looking at, is our collateral and our security in this loan still solid?

All right.

Go ahead. Going back to page two on number seven. accumulating, storing the dirt and rocks, stuff like that. That would also the, the piles of dirt that are kind of behind city hall that would class in that, wouldn't it? I had a neighbor wanted me to ask about that. That's it.

So yeah, that's a temporary storage for whenever the demolition of that property takes place. We needed some fill to ensure and that's coming very soon. So that's one that'd be, you know, we don't generally do permits for our own stuff, but if we were there, it'd be a permitted thing, right?

I just had a neighbor want me to ask about that. Understood. Anybody else?

Yeah.

Go ahead. Sorry, I didn't.

If I get a bunch of dirt dropped off or mulch dropped off or whatever because I'm doing yard work, how does that factor in?

You have You have a not insignificant amount of time in between the notice to do your yard work.

Okay. So I got to get noticed. So I might have a couple weeks before I actually get caught, right?

I mean, realistically, when the dirt gets dropped off in your driveway out of the dump truck, you would need a neighbor or codes to drive by. Then codes would send you a notice. Then you would have, I think, what is our... Matt, you want to... Is it 10 days? 10 days. You have 10 days and then you can finish it and you can call Matt and say, down with my landscaping, got the dirt and the mulch and it's all set in place.

Typically a neighborhood improvement officer is going to be able to identify if that's for that purpose. And I understand. And they're going to let it be there to give you the time to do it. If it's there for longer than a week, then maybe they give a courtesy and we go through that process.

So if grass is growing out of it, that's a problem, right?

Yeah, that would be a problem.

On that same vein of thought though, am I in, I mean you alluded to this, am I incorrect in thinking that we're really not following or holding the public accountable to a lot of this?

There's the abatement side of it we have not pursued, let's put it that way. Again, it's a tool in the toolbox. We've take, we've done the enforcement with the citations and, and there are fines associated with that. Um, so it's not that the city hasn't followed the code, it's just, we haven't utilized that, which is available to us.

I wasn't suggesting we were, yeah, that's what I mean is that we're not utilizing it, right? We're not. And so, That in and of itself can create consistency issues, and then it begs the question, well, why do we even have it if we're not going to be utilizing it?

You don't take a tool out of your toolbox? I mean, I don't use my shims very much. I don't use my wood planer all that often, but it still sits in the toolbox. Fair point. Realistically, I do remember, and again, I was talking to Joe about this, I think. I might be the last staff member that was really around for a lot of this, but in 2018 through 20, the city did get very, or attempted to increase code enforcement and specifically went after a lot of the high, the big problem properties where there would be, like I'll always remember, it was on the news. You guys cleared out a backyard of somebody that just had a bunch of junked cars and a bunch of just trash piled up so that their neighbor could see it over a privacy fence. And you went in and you abated that, and that was one of the first abatements I think the city had ever done. Took almost an entire day, but I think 41 News was out there, and they were interviewing everybody as they were pulling out old cars and stuff out of somebody's backyard. So again, it's always there, we don't, you're not going to use it in some situations, but in some of the bigger ones you might, and you guys do abate on mowing. Do you guys do the frequent frequent flyers stuff? So like if somebody lets their tall grass and weeds and they get a notice one time and they don't fix it. And then that, that gets to be above seven inches or eight inches by the next week, two weeks later, you don't have to send another note. You can go out there and just cut it. Um,

No, it's a solid point made on that front. I guess I go back to the consistency piece. I know that's my favorite topic. In terms of that, maybe that makes sense from a consistency standpoint that we have some type of grading so we focus on the most problematic property.

I will also say from a litigation standpoint, Is that a problem? No, it's not. Oh, okay. The selective enforcement thing is litigated in the state of Missouri basically strictly and solely in the nuisance context. And every single time a court is like, that's not, it's not illegal. unless they're based on a discriminatory purpose, the latency of a law and the city's non-enforcement of it does not trigger any sort of liability on behalf of the city.

And that's, you know, I understand that point, but there is a perception that goes with that, right? And there is sometimes legal or not or the right or wrong, you know, whatever, however you want to look at it, sometimes it's still important to... to at least attempt to be consistent, even if it's not illegal, just from a standpoint of making sure that we are not making people feel undesired.

The only way to be consistent in code enforcement would be for you guys to increase the budget by a million. for code enforcement.

Well, or I mean, what about, like I said, focusing on specific problem, you know, the worst offenders.

You'll still miss because there'll be somebody else who points to another problem that's in another part that you didn't.

Oh, I understand that there's always a word, but that's, but that's a good thing then, right?

Then if we're getting to the point where we're now nitpicking, then, then, okay, then why do we, then we're not. Well, so, so you will never, I will tell you this right now, you will never get above selective enforcement accusations ever. No city ever has, no city ever will.

Sure, but I'd like it not be a focus, and I'm going to stick by that.

And I think we can draft something up, but at the end of the day, there has to be some discretion. Matt was just talking about the mulch and stuff in people's front yard. The first time the code enforcement officer drives by, he could write a ticket, but they need some discretion to be able to be like, all right.

Well, no, and I appreciate that about our codes. I mean, that's been a huge... you know, plan that we've talked about for the last couple of years is, is having a softer approach where we don't just mail a letter. We go and talk to the people. We, you know, we do these things that we're doing, which is good. Um, but doing that, that automatically leads to the selective enforcement.

Yeah. So that's why if we, if we want to avoid selective enforcement, I will say, and I've tried that, we've tried, I've tried this in other communities where it's like, no, We just go as smaller ones, not ones of this size with this many properties and this big, but where it's like, no, we handle everybody the exact same way. At one city, we had like the city manager was driving around noting property so that we weren't missing anybody on like weeds and limbs and stuff like that. And without that sort of discretion, then non-discretion is how you get past selective enforcement. Because if everything is the same way every single time, that's the only way to avoid it. But then it just made the citizens really mad.

Sure, but again, where I'm going with this is the discretionary piece on smaller... nitpicky things makes a lot more sense than discretionary on what you described to start this with, which is piles of trash in a backyard.

And we can end it on this one, but I've never, every time, like even that guy, I remember him. He pointed to other properties in and around downtown and adjacent to it that he was like, those are worse. Why aren't you there? And then valid question. And then but so then even with going after the biggest problem that one we had every neighbor around sending us complaints constantly. He was the most complaint about property. It was still I think he even told 41 Action News that it was selective enforcement against him. So I know that we try and we don't selectively enforce. We just enforce on a complaint or notice basis. But I don't know, there is no good way to get to a place where there is, we're above the selective enforcement sort of argument.

Go ahead. Just curious, why 48 hours? Versus 72? I'm just thinking of the recent storms we've had and the amount of limbs and stuff sitting in people's yards for more than 48 hours just because of We didn't get stuff there.

Are you proposing that we change that in our code? I'm just asking why 48? This is the guardrails we need if you want to change the time frames, and that would be, this is where we would start that.

And again, I'll say nobody, there's no legal document that's original anymore, especially when everybody's codes are online. There are a lot of these provisions that are pretty common in the 48 hours after a storm to pick up as a leeway for, that's Kansas City as well. I know that's also Gladstone and Raytown. So if those four cities all have it, I'm guessing that that's somebody came up with it 30 years ago. Now that's just what everybody has.

I remember driving by with seeing limbs on houses for several weeks because they're waiting for insurance.

You're referring to the tornado?

And that's where I think that we need to be careful to not go too much away from the working with property owners, right? We have a tornado that, you know, that's a, that's a huge event. Even some wind storms have knocked big trees down and yeah, same thing. Go ahead.

I'm with councilman McCollum over there. I just think consistency is the key here. I've lived through a nuisance property and the, and the city was really willing to work with us about that. It took a while. but they were willing to, once we started having a conversation, so I'm just with, I like the consistency.

Anybody else? Hearing none, item three, cradle to Crayons Learning Center, supplement 8009 East 171st Street.

All right. Waiting for presentation.

You got so many, you got a PowerPoint.

I do. Um, the first item is for cradles to crowns learning center. Uh, this is a special use permit proposed at eight zero zero nine East 171st street, which is a former state farm office building. It's located on the East side of I 49 next to churches chicken. Um, this is for a commercial daycare center. Um, And their planning commission public hearing will be next Tuesday on September 1st. And then they are scheduled for the September 22nd city council meeting. The applicant is hoping to open in early October. And so in their written request, they have requested a double read. So just want to. Make everybody aware that that is what has been requested staff has reviewed the site plan and all requirements have been met in terms of parking pickup drop-off areas those things As well as a screening the dumpster and they'll also be putting it in a playground at the southwest corner of the building The applicants hope to have about four to six employees and serve about 15 to 20 children out of this facility Happy to answer any questions you may have on this item.

Any questions? Item for Cunningham place.

Um, this is the 173rd and Cunningham vacation of right away and utilities mints. This was, I believe we did a work session on this last fall. Um, and then it went to planning commission last October. There were some concerns from a neighboring property owner, so we postponed that public hearing to be able to work out some additional details on that. That's been worked out, and so we are moving forward again with this. Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on September 1st for the vacation of the northeast and northwest corners of the old right-of-way there at Cunningham and 173rd. They're highlighted here, outlined in orange. And then we also have a replat of the properties that are impacted by the right-of-way vacation, as well as the dedication of the street realignment of that property, which impacts the Deanco Farms properties here, and then two lots that are owned by Rockbrook Church. With that, this northeast corner is now owned by the city. It will be plotted as tract A and will be utility easement with an access easement that will provide access to this lot here that has minimal street frontage. Happy to answer any questions on that item. Any questions?

Go ahead. You two planning commission liaisons might know better, but is this ultimately essentially doing what that gentleman wanted done?

Yes. To my knowledge, that's what this is correcting, yes. Anybody else? I am for D and C contracting through 31 County line road. Yes.

So DNC, um, acquired the former, uh, Klaus Rose farm up at two 31 County line road, which is almost completely surrounded by a desk at Carvana. Um, it's zoned in one light industrial and they have proposed, they've already done some improvements to the existing building and are operating their office space out of there. But they would like to expand their facility and also add some additional contractor storage slash flex spaces for contractors. Not unlike the Freedom Flex development that came forward last month to the council. This would include a 12,000 square foot addition. to behind the main building to allow some additional contractor spaces for the actual contracting business that operates on site along with an accessory car wash for their vehicle cleanings and then a salt dome. They specialize in concrete asphalt landscaping work but they also do snow plowing and other things in the winter months. And then the remainder of the property is about 68,000 square feet of contractor office storage spaces on the backside of the property. This item was scheduled to come before the planning commission next Tuesday. However, we're still waiting on some revisions for their site plans. And so with that, we have requested to postpone that to a date uncertain and we'll re notice that date when they're ready to move forward.

Go ahead.

If I'm remembering the site correctly, the majority of this is not really visible from the road.

No, the, yeah, the only, and even from 155th street, you can kind of see the tops of the buildings. Um, but really everything that is proposed, you will not see unless you go up on County line road, which this is the only property that is actually served by County line road with the exception of, um, the former sheriff's annex property.

Anybody else? Item 6, Dryden Nature Reserve.

And the last item is an application to rezone the Cleveland Lake and Dryden Nature Reserve properties, which encompasses a little under 120 acres, to parks, recreation, and public use. The Cleveland Lake has been zoned agriculture since it was developed, and the Dryden property was also in agriculture, so this would bring that into compliance with the zoning for the intended and existing uses of the property. Along with the rezoning, there will be a preliminary development plan. On the screen is the latest site plan that we have. Included with the preliminary development plan will be a plat of the entire property, which will also dedicate the future right-of-way needs for future improvements for Cleveland and Cambridge Roads. We are working with the designers, engineers, and architects for the site, and we're working on some revisions for that and some additional information. So with that, the September 1st Planning Commission, like with the last item, is requested to be postponed to a date uncertain, and we will re-notice the public hearing when that item is ready to come forward.

Anybody?

You guys ready? Yep. Motion to adjourn.

Second. We have a motion and a second to adjourn. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion to adjourn. We'll stand adjourned.