City Council - Regular Meeting

June 1st, Blue Springs City Council meeting. If you would stand with me, I will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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.

Thank you. You can be seated. I'll now call the meeting to order. First item on the agenda is confirmation of a quorum.

Councilmember Kaler.

Present.

Boland. Present. Brummel.

Present.

Erickson. Present. Markward.

Present.

Rowan.

Present.

Mayor Levesay. Here. We have a quorum.

Next item is a consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion? I want to highlight two items on the consent agenda. First is item E is establishing our population. Right now, the estimated population of Blue Spring is 61,632. At least for now, that continues to keep us ahead of St. Peter's as the 10th largest city in the state of Missouri. So we got a few more years to maintain that status for the next census. We're outpacing them for now. Also want to highlight item C, which is the contract to develop our 2027 preventative pavement plan. And this is important for two reasons. A, as we always talk about with our street maintenance, we're in June of 26 and we are starting now the process to plan for next year. And so by the time they're already putting pavement on the roads, there's not really time to change the plan. The other thing is, because the message still does not seem to be getting out, we are doing 100 miles of street maintenance this year. That combined with last year I saw in the meeting materials today is 27% of our entire system. So in two years, we will have done a fourth of all of the Blue Springs responsible roads. So it's a big process. It's going to take a while this year. They are doing curbs right now, which is what we keep seeing information on. But the pavement is coming. We hear the feedback. We've already done the work. You just got to let the bulldozers do their work now. So give us some time. By the end of this year, you'll see lots of black pavement on the road. So we're excited for that. With that, let's roll call.

Councilmember Kaler.

Present.

Solon. Present. Rommel.

Aye. Yes. That would be a more appropriate vote on the aye.

Sorry, I was rolling along. Roll call, okay.

Your Honor?

Yes, Council Member Kaler. Is that an aye that I heard?

Could I change mine to aye? Yes, you absolutely may.

Okay. So far, aye. Erickson?

I am present.

Aye. Aye.

Mark Worth.

Aye.

Rowan. Aye. Mayor Levasse. Aye. Motion carries.

Next item is item four has been withdrawn from the applicant. We do not need to take any action on that. We have two public hearings that are going to be continued. So I'm going to open the public hearing for item five. And then I will give a moment to see if there's anyone in the audience like to speak on item five, iconic Blue Springs rezoning. Seeing none, I will accept a motion to continue to the July 6 City Council meeting.

Your Honor. Yes, I'd like to continue it.

Got a motion. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed, no. Motion carries. We'll continue that to the July 6th City Council meeting. Same thing on item six. I'm going to open the public hearing for the wind water conditional use permit. See if there's anyone in the audience like to speak on the wind water conditional use permit. Seeing none, I'll accept the motion to continue to the July 6th City Council meeting.

Your Honor. We'd like to make a motion to continue that one also.

Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed, no. Motion carries. We'll continue that to the July 6 City Council meeting. I don't have any speaker appearance forms for the items on the agenda, so we'll move on to second reading only of the Ford Park Storage Annexation. Do I have a motion for second reading?

Your Honor, I move we approve on the second reading

and sign the proper ordinance and annexation numbers all right is there a second second any discussion okay uh city clerk has some items to read for the record the second reading only bill 5403 an ordinance annexing 4.81 plus or minus acres of property located at 3110 southwest eastbound 40 highway into the city of blue springs jackson county missouri

I already have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Then we will roll call.

Council Member Tholen. Aye. Rommel. Aye. Erickson. Aye. Markworth. Aye. Rowan. Aye. Kaler. Aye. Mayor Levesay. Aye. Motion carries and given ordinance number 5499.

Next is item nine, introduction and reading of bill 5404, ratifying a grant for the Department of Justice related to domestic violence. Is there an introduction?

Your Honor, I'd like to introduce that.

First reading of Bill 5404, an ordinance ratifying the acceptance of a grant from the Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women for the purpose of improving criminal justice responses to sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.

I move to approve the first reading and proceed with the second.

Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion?

Yes, Your Honor. Could we enumerate that for the public? The amount of money that that goes to, because this is, in my opinion, is an incredible process, Hope House and all that. I think we all agree, but I'd like to hear the number if we have it.

Yep. Staff, are you prepared to do that?

Which would be the appropriate person? Oh, I should have asked.

This is a three-year agreement for a total of $500,000. Thank you.

I agree with you, Council Member Erickson. It's pretty exciting that we continue to have the opportunity to provide these funds for that purpose. Any further discussion? On first reading, then all in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed, no. Motion carries. Second reading.

Second reading of Bill 5404, an ordinance ratifying the acceptance of a grant from the Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women for the purpose of improving criminal justice responses to sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.

Your Honor, I move we approve this resolution and assign the appropriate resolution and or ordinance number, because I'm confused whether it's an ordinance or a resolution. I just want to prove it.

This one is an ordinance, so you are correct. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? Roll call.

Councilmember Brummell. Aye. Erickson. Aye. Markworth. Aye. Rowan. Aye. Kaler. Aye. Folan. Aye. Mayor Levesay. Aye. Motion carries and given ordinance number 5500.

Then item 10 is just a resolution as a memorandum of understanding with Hope House for that grant we just approved. I need a motion to approve that resolution.

So moved.

Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? This is just a voice vote. All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed, no. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is the visitor section. I have two speaker appearance forms. First one that we had come in this afternoon is from Will Smalley. Mr. Smalley in the audience would like to come speak. You've got three minutes to tell us what you're thinking.

Mayor Levise, council, thank you for this opportunity to speak to you guys. My name is Will Smalley. I grew up in Blue Springs. I went to Omaha for four years for college, and I'm back here starting my job. Super excited about that. What I'm here today to talk to you about is the city's usage of flock cameras and all of the flock technology. I think this is a great thing, and I'm very excited that we've taken these steps to protect the residents of Blue Springs. But I have a few concerns with accountability and transparency to the public that I'd like to address. So a couple examples across state line in Kansas. There's three things that I want to highlight. First of all, in 2023 in Keechai, Kansas, a lieutenant pleaded guilty in computer crime and stalking after using Flock, the Flock database, to track his estranged wife. We had another similar case in 2025 in Bonner Springs, and then another one in 2023 where the police chief actually resigned because he used Flock over 200 times to track his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend. we've seen very close to home and then also across the country instances where there has not been that accountability people have maybe misused the platform and that's something that i've heard other people voice concerns about again i think this is overall a good program i know we've already solved some cases in blue springs with this technology and i want to commend the council for signing that deal last year to get on top of that but i do think that it would be good to try to prevent misuses I would also note that these are three examples from Kansas where the people were prosecuted or they resigned, but that's also a bit of, I'd say, survivorship bias in that we maybe don't know the ones that haven't been caught. So I would come to you guys today with three asks. First of all, to turn off the federal and out-of-state sharing. It's a simple thing in the settings from what I understand in the flock database. That way only our local police department can access that sensitive data for our community. and then second also to mandate published search audits that are reviewed by this council so that way there's transparency as to who is searching things in the database what they're searching and when to prevent those misuses and third and finally to put alpr and that's automated license plate reader oversight as an official future agenda meeting at a future city council meeting so that there can be more of a resident voice in this matter. I would love to hear your guys' thoughts, ideas, on how we can continue to improve this system. I think we have a great foundation, but I just think the best case scenario is we can have this accountability, this oversight, so that everything runs smoothly, we can keep protecting people in Blue Springs. Thank you.

Thank you, Sonali, for your time today. Next, then, I have Aaron Volk. You have three minutes to tell us what you're thinking.

Mayor, council, I want to thank you today for letting me speak on behalf. I have also grown up here in Blue Springs with all these wonderful people here. We've been part of the community since I can't tell you when, being through scouting, getting an Eagle Scout here, having my brother make his own flag box, and contributing back to the community. I've been formally taking my degree over the past four years at the University of Missouri, get my nursing license, and it's been nice to come back and be able to see how Blue Springs has prospered and grown. My concern is with how Will stated with the cameras. I've seen how in Columbia, Missouri, there has been a high increase of crime rates, not only from shootings downtown, and how the introduction of the flock cameras helped. What my concern with it is coming here back to Blue Springs is what is this gonna take with it? What are people gonna be able to have access to? I've seen how back in Columbia, Missouri, It has its concerns with how people have searched through the databases and used it against their disadvantage. And I'd like to approach on this idea as well. With the idea of kind of like going through with people's understanding of their personal information, we kind of have the system in healthcare called HIPAA. That's kind of the idea of being able to disclose your public information through the healthcare records. And I could see how going through and being able to look up people's information through the Kansas state area could rise to concerns such as Like the healthcare system, there's penalties in place for it and there's fines and jail time. My concern is being able to have a system where we feel safe in our community as the next generation coming here in Blue Springs. We want to keep people in this city and keeping strong. But I love the idea of keeping our community safe and just going forth with that.

Thank you for your time. I want to commend both of you for coming to the council meeting and speaking tonight. This is obviously a popular issue right now, and we're always evaluating the appropriateness of programs and how we can make them more accountable. We'll continue to have that conversation with the police department. And thank you for coming with not only concerns, but also an ask as well that helps us to evaluate those things and see how they fit in with the program. So thank you for the time tonight. I would just encourage you to continue to reach out to us. And also, if you are still residents of Blue Springs, we do have a public safety board that does help provide some oversight with our public safety sales tax and the many things the police department does. And so I encourage you to maybe apply for those positions as well. directly involved in that so thanks for coming tonight thanks for your comments and we'll continue to be in touch those are only speaker appearance forms i have we'll go then to council member comments does any council members have anything that's been going on you want to let the residents know about anything exciting that's uh happening or you've been involved in or worth talking about Councilmember Brummel.

A week from this Friday, we are doing our watch party here in downtown Blue Springs for World Cup. It'll be the first USA game, so we're excited to have everybody come out a week from this Friday.

Yeah, the World Cup task force meant today to kind of go over that. It's not just a watch party. There's a lot of things going involved, a lot of vendors and events that are leading up to it that night, in addition to just watching the game. And so lots of exciting things that downtown Blue Springs especially put a lot of effort into, and so we're looking forward to

that being successful is everything downtown blue springs does yes sir appreciate that your honor yeah uh today's today was also the uh first day of summer school um for a lot of kids so uh georgia my youngest went to uh school today i know that can be a little bit of anxiety for those that are maybe coming in as kindergartners so um just the best of luck to those kids for the next four weeks. So we like to call it fun school in our house because it's kind of not the real thing, but it is the real thing.

Are they still doing the zoo curriculum? Is that the big thing? I couldn't tell you for sure. I'm not sure, but I do know that Georgia enjoys it. Yes, not only summer school started, but summer camps as well. I took a kid to band camp and basketball camp today. So lots of exciting things going on. Kids are still staying active, even though it's summertime. So important to do that as well.

One more thing, Your Honor. Oh, yeah. Today also marks the first day for the month of Pride. So I just want to tell those that are in the community that celebrate this month to have a safe month and know that you are seen and best of luck.

All right. Any other council member? Council member Rowland.

Speaking of camps, Girls on Fire also started today. I believe Councilman Brummel and my daughter are participating in this round. The second round starts.

It's in July. I don't know. Deputy Chief probably knows. I don't know. Yes. Lots of exciting things going on right now.

It's an amazing program so far. I mean, the first day was great.

I do have an incoming sixth grader looking forward to her session of Girls on Fire as well, that's right, in July. All right, the only thing I would add to that then, in addition to the watch party on June 12th, after the game is almost over, you can go to our first movie in the park, which is also June 12th, will be Rocky IV. It doesn't start until 9.15, so it's, you know, the game will be, I don't know, it'll be well on its way by then, so go do that. Also, Concert in the Park continues on June 14th on Sunday night, so continues to be lots of exciting things going on this summer in Blue Springs. That is all the comments I have. Oh, and also worth mentioning, over the weekend, our eagles had a little bit of excitement. It was all information on comments in the community this weekend. So one of our eagles was, based on the information we can find out, knocked out of the nest. on I think Friday night, but we have had some people out there observe that the eagle is uninjured, seems to be trying to fly around on the ground, which is not unusual as they begin to fledge and get out of the nest. So he just was knocked out of the nest, a little premature, probably would have flown out of the nest this week anyway. So eagles are okay, eagles are good. They're being observed and they're fine. honor and valor are still healthy and on the way. So we're excited to report that. Also, as we've talked about from the very beginning, this is National Geographic. This is just a camera on nature. So things happen in nature sometimes. They're not always pleasant, but we're glad this one had a happy ending, and hopefully that will continue to be the case. And I don't know if the collective community is going to handle another round of eggs next year. We'll have to see how that one goes. But we're excited that the eagles are doing well. With that, I will have the city clerk read a motion that somebody can so move to go into closed session.

Mayor, a motion is in order for the council to go into closed session pursuant to section 610.021, subparagraphs 1, 2, and 12, revised statutes of Missouri for the purpose of privileged communications between a governmental body or its representative and legal counsel, including litigation, real estate, and contracts, and that any minutes, documents, and other records discussed or taken during the closed session remain closed, and that this body stand adjourned at the completion of such session.

So move.

Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Okay, roll call.

Council Member Erickson?

Aye.

Markward? Aye. Rowan? Aye. Kaler?

Aye.

Boland? Aye. Brummel? Aye. Mayor Levesay?

Aye. We are adjourned. Or no, we are in closed session.