City Council - Regular Meeting

It's like, okay, can you find out when your deferment has been, you know, set? Because it's covering this much, but then we're going to get this much to help cover for your this. And then it's like, have you walked to all your classes yet so that you don't show up late? I mean, so my things aren't even, oh, how's it going?

I miss you or anything like that.

I'm just like, did you get this lock for your closet?

So, yeah. My mom said something, she called me, like on my way, home from an appointment a little bit ago, and she's like, I tried to call Eli, he didn't answer his phone. I'm like, that's pretty typical. I talk more, sometimes I talk more to my, I have a son in the Navy in San Diego, and I feel like I talk to him sometimes more than the one that lives within the state.

But, you know, I know he's wanting to strike out on his own, and I'm, hey Ron. Hey Sarah.

I am okay with that, you know? As long as he can get his way, you know, move his way through things and understand that, you know, there's a few things like he had, he uses a desk that will raise and lower like it's the most adjustable desk. And for some reason, if something happened in the move, it's not working. So that's kind of frustrating. And I suppose those are very typical things that happen when you move. If something breaks or... I mean, it's so hot in Wichita, and he's used to parking under trees here at our house, because we have an area we pull off. But anyway, at my mom's house, there's no shade, so his rearview mirror fell off. The glue got too hot, and it actually released. And he takes a picture of his rearview mirror hanging. So my mom felt really bad and she cleaned out like another portion of her garage so that he could park in the garage.

That's nice of her.

Yeah, it was, it was, it's really, he's got a sweet setup. I mean, so anyway, but yeah, we're also dealing with the fact that like that was like now we have a 16 year old and a 14 year old and they don't drive yet. So getting them to all the marching practice and to the, you know, to this and to that, it's been... Yeah, I don't miss those days.

I think it's just... You want some energy about the Wi-Fi, then?

You hear this guy.

Yeah. She's coming up.

So she lives in Wichita. This week she's been...

It was a bad week for her because she had to do that murder-suicide family.

City Council meeting?

Oh, yeah.

Oh.

Yeah, so she was down there. She worked for the KBI.

Oh. Is this your daughter, Danny?

She was down there all week.

Oh, man.

So she's coming up anyway.

She obviously needs some kind of little celebration. Yeah, this will help her out.

Yeah, she's kind of in a depressed kind of situation. But her wedding showers this weekend, so through the adults. So I forgot all about it. Yeah. No, no. That was a harsh no. It's over in Olathe, so I'm going to be there anyway.

So I'm going to be close.

I like that shirt, Cheryl. I can't imagine why.

Tracy Leach. I think they live a little more west of San Francisco.

Their house got on fire.

Fred's house got caught on fire.

He's got it, the walls up now. Yeah, he's got the new foundation and the new walls.

Were there a lot of changes because of the fire department space?

Oh, but the car, I mean, it's a car. Yeah, they're bringing, they're bringing additional, yeah, they're bringing this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this. Yeah, they wanted to know exactly because there's one they're looking at.

And so I'll get the name of the exact equipment, which is what you really need. It's so much cheaper. And it'll work just as good. It's just that you don't get to talk over those.

But you don't need to do that either. I've been on the phone getting that. Yeah, I know you.

And Cameron sent me a message, and I told him, I said, well, I'll get it all back out. But I've been tied up so much in the church, we're doing stuff in the church. I'm the slow one.

Trying to get things done.

Kind of had to get some stuff done at the church so they won't be able to show the bad things. Watch the people get dumped. Get worse.

Yeah, I saw one. Exactly, yeah. What? This is a typo, right? Absolutely. It's stilted by two. Oh. Oh, so that.

That's why I was like .

Thank you. Brandon, you just got an email from me.

Yes, sir. I thought I would find you.

I'm sorry if I didn't. I got you on the list. Oh, okay.

Yeah.

YEAH, I DIDN'T KNOW, AND I DIDN'T LOOK AT ANY OF MY EMAILS BEFORE I CAME OUT HERE.

NO, YOU'RE GOOD. WE HAD THAT COMMUNITY CENTER MEETING, AND I HAD THAT ON MONDAY AFTER TODAY. OH.

And he would start talking, and he would say, you and we had the same thing. No, no worries Oh

There's a new And the central officers were the old ones. And he says, you know, we've used a lot more of this wire and secure acid and that kind of thing. But he says, you know, but the information and the beating and cooling and the buzzing and the sound. Yeah. Still switches on. Yeah. As such, he said, of course, the inside switch, we had that constant. clickety clickety clickety clickety clickety then we went to the newer system when we got away from the step office and we went digital then there was just steady inside the building because it went from clicking remains to computer so we said we went from clicking down but he said exactly he said So he said, it's like looking back in time. Yeah, it was interesting him talking like that, telling me all about it. He said, I know, I've heard all the stuff. He said, we're real good at that.

He said, we invented disease.

He said, we invented decimals, which they do. And also they invented transistors.

He said, the world wouldn't be anything without what Bell Labs is already at.

And I remember changing down all my tubes back there to HENS, which is called Hybrid Integrated Network. And they were tubes, glass tubes, and we pulled them out. And then we put these little cans in there. And they were just, they looked like a thimble with a bottom. And they had pins on it, just like a tube. But they were cans because they were transistors, hybrid, integrated network. And that replaced the tubes. And then in the next four years, we replaced all those pins with transistors. So I got to be there from tubes to ends of the transistors. So I got through the whole gamut. And then at the very end, I got to go from microwave to fiber optic. I got the whole gamut. Burnt my fingers on many a tooth. And those can of cans, those hens, they got hot too. Yeah, they burned me just as good as a tooth.

Oh, really?

Oh, that's a good one. Really?

That's a word.

How are you? Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

That's better. Oh, no, I'm trying to stay out of it.

especially when I come to this building. I have so much trouble. Every time I walk in the door, it reminds me. I've suspended a lot from this building. That was a good reason. You don't do that. It's been a lot of bad things.

I met her in high school actually. The new high school out there. That's where I first met her.

I thought you said Lana. Lana I met her in third grade.

Rick was ahead of me, so I didn't get to see Rick.

He wishes he was behind. Of course, Rick didn't do anything bad.

I mean, I can still remember the principal's names, Mr. Braley and Mr. Brantley. He had a son.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, my God.

Too much time. Yeah. It was so funny. His parents aren't dragging him.

They're like, I don't know. I mean, I'm sure it's going to be a good choice.

Yeah, too much time in that office. Yeah. Well, you do pay attention when you're on the back. I know. It's just as funny.

five pounds of hamburger around that

I had to walk with five pounds of frozen hamburger around the block. Really? Yeah.

I got in trouble with Sean Clapp.

So they gave me five pounds of frozen hamburgers on the block, around the block, like penalty terms. And Mr. Bradley looked out the window out front and counted it. I walked up 2 o'clock in the afternoon, right? But I did not raise your temperature. Well, a hamburger.

It's better than getting thrown out first.

I think Joe's gone.

Mm-hmm. Let me. That one's slow. Yeah, that's a minute slow.

It's an atomic one, isn't it? Chinese, probably.

Well, T-Mobile says it's 7 o'clock. Okay. Good evening. I'd like to call the August 20th DeSoto City Council meeting to order. We'll start with Earl Paul, please.

McCracken? Here. Blaine? Here. Bradley? Here. Sabo? Patterson?

Here.

Mayor Walker, it looks like Councilmember Sabo is absent today. All right, thank you.

I would invite you all to please rise and join me for 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.

All right, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Tonight on the consent agenda, we have approval of the August 6th city council meetings minutes, approval of pay ordinance number 1025, ordinance number 2695, adopting the 2026 standard traffic ordinance for Kansas City, ordinance 2696, adopting the 2026 uniform public offense code for Kansas City, Acceptance of the emergency response plan for the water treatment plant, approval of an order for additional office furniture, and approval of a request for a special council meeting on August 22nd. Is there any item that any council member would wish to remove for further discussion? If not, I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented.

A motion that we can approve the consent agenda as presented.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Edgar, roll call, please.

Lane?

Yes.

McCracken? Yes. Patterson? Yes. Bradley? Yes. Motion carries.

All right.

Our next item is call to public. Members of the public are welcome to use this time to comment about any matter relating to city business not listed in tonight's agenda. The comments that are discussed under call to public may or may not be acted on by the council during this meeting. There is a four minute time limit. Please stand and wait to be recognized. State your name when you get to the podium.

Marie Caldwell, Mayor, council members, staff, and fellow residents. There are moments in a community history when the decisions being made are so significant they outlive every elected official sitting on this council tonight. I would like to begin with a quote from Nancy Thielman of the Douglas County Data Center Watchdogs. She says, we see these little communities all around us really in the midst of the fight of their lives now. The quote resonated with me because it perfectly captures what many residents in DeSoto are feeling today. Many are too timid to appear before you, but believe it is the silent majority. Recently, I visited the Ad Astra Enterprise Park website and came across a statement that I found deeply troubling. Abundant land without neighborhood constraints. When I read those words, I had to stop and ask myself, what does that say about the people who already live here, the families who built their homes here, raised their children here, invested their lives in this community? Whether intended or not, the message seems to be that residents are viewed as obstacles to development or not important and are not stakeholders whose voices matter. I am really struggling to understand the vision behind approving such a large concentration of hyperscale data centers in our community. These are not ordinary developments. They will fundamentally change the character of DeSoto, affect our resources, influence future growth, and shape how our city is perceived for decades to come. Looking through public records and information available through CORA requests, it is clear that these discussions and acquisitions have been taking place for many years without public knowledge and developers asking for things to be hidden. Along the way, many long-time residents were forced to sell their property. They never really wanted to leave. Some accepted buyouts because they felt like they had no alternative when faced the threat of eminent domain. Regardless of how it happened, families who were once part of this community foundation have steadily disappeared from the landscape. I am also concerned about the role of organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Council. Taxpayer dollars help support these entities, yet residents do not elect their leadership and most of their members do not live here. It appears that our development is being driven by these organizations whose priorities may not reflect the priorities repeatedly expressed by the residents. When I reviewed the most recent comprehensive plan survey results, I found something that should matter to every council of this member. In 2022, the residents expressed strong opposition to additional industrial development, high-density housing, and large apartment projects. What residents consistently supported was a smaller single-family homes, cottages, and neighborhoods designed for long-term residents and families. The message from the public was clear, and yet the direction of the development appears increasingly disconnected from that vision. My concern is not just what happens during construction, my concern is what happens afterwards. Construction crews will eventually leave, incentives will expire, ribbon cuttings will be forgotten, rental properties will be vacant. Mayor, will you be living here after your term or moving closer to your grandchildren? Mike and Patrick, will you leave when the mayor leaves? The new city council and residents will be left with your mess. The developments to be approved today may create what you think is a legacy, but so will the decisions you make about who the city is intended to serve. I urge you to remember that your first responsibility is not to developers, not to corporations, not to staff, and not to outside interests. You make the decisions. Your responsibility is to the residents of DeSoto, both present and future. Twenty years from now, when a young family has decided to buy a home and raise their children, what will they see when they look at DeSoto? Will they see a community known for its neighborhood, schools, parks, and quality of life which we have now? Or will they see a city increasingly defined by industrial development and data centers and empty transient properties left behind? My ask is that you consider putting developments like data centers into stricter special use permit. These hyperscale data centers are not light industrial and we have more industry coming. I ask that you quit giving billionaires incentives. My final question to the council is simple. When future generations look back at the decisions being made today, will they say you protected the character and the voice of this community, or will you have ignored it? Please make sure residents' voices remain at the center of every decision you make.

Thank you for your comment. Anyone else on the call?

Good evening, Sarah Vandecreek, DeSoto resident. I actually did not prepare a written statement, but I brought something with me to show you and remind you. In, it says November of 2024, there was a strategic plan that was put in place. We had a big fancy company come in, do all of this research, prepare these big fancy colorful slides, And this is some of the things they said. The city of DeSoto is experiencing historic and transformational growth. Harnessing opportunities from that growth while preserving the small town character of the community is a driving force behind the DeSoto strategic plan. Three priorities that were listed. Community, built and natural environment, and the economy. Okay. So then I looked at this page that has the values. And it says, trust and accountability, act with integrity, be honest, open and transparent. Safety, never compromise on public and personal safety. Community engagement, champion involvement and embrace input and feedback. Employee enrichment, value our people. service excellence, deliver quality services the community expects, and attract people and investments, and collaborate, build partnerships to find solutions, create opportunities, and enhance services, stewardship and sustainability, responsibly use natural and economic resources, enhance our environment today and future generations. I just wanted to read you just that brief piece of the strategic plan to remind you that this is what just two short years ago, not even quite two short years ago, we said, we set out, these were our core values. These are the things that the people of the city have said. These are the things that the people that served on the councils before you and our current mayor said, They know about. It's been there. It's part of who we are. It's part of what makes us who we are, is the people that are here and the natural resources that we have. And we cannot squander either of those things. Thank you.

Anyone else under call to public? All right, seeing none, we'll move on to old business. Tonight, we don't have any, so we'll go to item 4A. Our first item of new business is consideration of an agreement with the Secretary of Transportation for Kansas Infrastructure Hub Grant Assistance Program.

Yep, thank you, Mayor and Councilmembers. So we submitted to the state for a grant for... $99,230 to help fund Safe Streets for All project, hopefully. So we submitted a grant to the state, and we also submitted a grant to the DOT. The DOT is about $300,000. And so we're still waiting to hear back from the DOT. But this grant would allow us to move forward in getting things set up, and then the grant from the DOT would cover the majority of the rest of the cost of the grant. What the study would look at would be all transportation modes, so cars, pedestrians, cyclists, look at areas where we have issues that we need to address, identify different types of improvements. This also helps us set up for seeking federal aid down the road to help implement these projects. So tonight, asking for approval of the council to approve this agreement with the state and authorize the mayor to execute.

Any questions from council? All right, are we ready for a motion?

I'll move that we approve the agreement with the Secretary of Transportation. Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Edgar, roll call, please.

Bradley? Yes. Lane? Yes. Patterson? Yes. McCracken? Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. Our next item is a discussion of several development related policy proposals that were previously brought forward for council consideration tonight. We have three proposals, one for environmental health oversight for large industrial development. Number two is a regulation of non-disclosure agreements and the third is a city permit or regulation related to private wells. So Patrick, you gonna start us off?

Yes, council. So the ordinance on the environmental health oversight, as we discussed I believe at the last meeting, it essentially would provide city regulations that would enable the city to request information from large industrial developments for information about their compliance with federal environmental laws. As indicated in the ordinance, the city doesn't have the authority to enforce those laws. So it would essentially be the city, either with existing staff or an additional employee on board with the city, having oversight over large industrial developments. The definition of a large industrial development is contained within the ordinance. It would be any commercial industrial manufacturing development project exceeding 100 total acres or utilizes chemicals that are subject to the federal emergency planning and community right to know act or is projected to consume more than 50 000 gallons of water on an average day we did we have in the last few days received emails and concerns raised by some of our businesses in town that they would like an opportunity to study and provide input on the ordinance. So I think that's probably appropriate, but leave that up to the council if that's an opportunity you want to give to our businesses to have some time to study this and get their feedback on the proposed ordinance. And I'll stand for any questions you might have.

All right. Well, I'll start off with... questions or council discussion. Zach, do you want to lead us off?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. So I also received some of those concerns from some of our businesses and I think it's fair that we have both residential citizens and corporate citizens here in town and I think it's important that we take everyone's view into account and opinions. Now, how we do that can be discussed, but one of the things that two of the people I spoke with were fairly positive about was if we did work sessions before council meetings. I think a couple of those would be useful. We would like everyone to attend all of them, both residents and business interests. At the first work session, we could open it for citizen concerns, residential concerns and ideas. At the second one, we could have the businesses present their stuff. And then at the final third one, we could have the work product combination of what was discussed at those meetings. incorporated into as a work session, incorporated into revisions to be worked on by staff and presented to the council. And I think that would allow us to take into consideration the views that you mentioned of the other, both residents and businesses. And I think that it would be a fair and open way to do that. without compromising any of our plans or anything like that. I think the timeline is suitable for the next few council sessions to do that, if we have work sessions there. I'm just proposing that as something that we've discussed. I have discussed with various residents and business members of the community. So that's what I have for now. I think that's probably a fair way to do it. I'm open to any suggestions, though. And of course, pending any questions or comments, that's all I have for now.

I think that's fair to incorporate both views like that. I was curious, reading through it as far as it talks about the construction of everything, I couldn't find much on after construction, like where that ends, if it ends, timeline, ongoing monitoring.

The way it was prepared would be

at the time of applying for building permit or site plan, but otherwise it would be by complaint. If someone had a credible complaint of environmental health concerns at one of these large industrial developments that fit the definition in the ordinance, then that would be something that would trigger the city doing some of the things

That's similar to what we do now with code enforcement, correct?

Yeah, complaint-based. Yeah.

Yeah. Thoughts from the side? Anything to...

I have a question.

Okay.

Okay. I was approached by a neighbor, and this is different than the well digging and...

On the environment, we'll take them one at a time. So let's stay focused on the environmental one first. I think that's the only one we've approached so far.

Okay.

I guess the thing that I want to make sure we all understand is, is there really a regulatory gap that we need to fill? I know that we have KDHE, you know, we have solid waste permits, we have air quality permits, we have water permits that are all administered by KDHE and our current environmental policy. EPA then is ultimately responsible through the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, all that stuff. What role do we as a city need to fill? I mean, we have our nuisance regulations relative to noise, and if we need to provide additional monitoring or implementation of our... citizen corporate citizens, uh, relative to, to noise. I think we can, we can address that, but, um, is it, uh, appropriately a city responsibility, uh, to take on these things? Does it bring liability and, and, uh, uh, uh, risk of lawsuits to handle functions that maybe are not strictly in our purview? Um, yeah. I have also heard from a number of businesses, so we need to do make sure that we give our business community a sufficient opportunity to review and provide comment. And, you know, do we need a new position? If there are additional tasks that can be undertaken, can't we simply train and assign those to folks that are already in our codes and building department relative to monitoring the noise emissions from a suspected someone that is exceeding the appropriate limits, or do we really need that additional staff person. So I think a lot of the questions that I have that are still yet to be answered. So certainly appreciate the suggestion of a work session to focus on and provide adequate time to walk through a number of those. I think I need to hear from everybody on here what everybody's thoughts are relative to where we want this ordinance to go so that we're making sure that we're hearing from everybody and that we have incorporated the will of the council in the ordinance that might come out of this.

Mayor, can I just add one thing? Certainly. And I didn't include my initial memo, or I don't believe I included any of the prior memos I prepared on this. But in those memos, I did raise the specter of by taking this on, this could open us to additional litigation that we don't have right now. And I would say without... naming names, but in some of the feedback we've received from businesses, they've also raised this factor that this likely would be challenged in court. And I do think there's a good question to be discussed as to whether this really is needed. I mean, you guys are the policy makers. I just throw that out there that, you know, as city attorney, I do believe this is, you know, something that you should consider could result in, you know, legal action. But, you know, whether that happens, that's for another day. But I think it is a fair consideration when taking this up.

If I could just ask, what type of legal action do you anticipate as a possible outcome given Kansas home rule authority for cities?

Well, the city clearly does not have the ability or authority to enforce environmental laws, federal environmental laws.

I don't think the ordinance proposes that. I think it says that they will review those, not enforce them, but monitor them.

Right, but we are introducing other laws mechanisms, other hurdles for these businesses to jump through that are not required by federal law. The ordinance sets out that they'll have to be certain submittals. So we are introducing additional regulation And part of any ordinance, we never really deal with it, but any ordinance that any city adopts still has to have a rational basis for passing that ordinance. So, you know, people can challenge an ordinance as to what is your rational basis, what is the factual basis for adopting this ordinance when, you know, all of these environmental laws are already, you know, Again, it may never happen. I just want to make sure that the council has eyes wide open going in that that definitely is a possibility.

I may be flushed out more as we converse with the business community and hear what concerns they might have from their perspective that we don't see sitting on our side looking at it. To that end, Zach suggested a work session and a kind of a calendar. I think maybe before we move on from this, maybe we should look at when we would like to get a... A work session, the first work session in place on this.

Mayor, if I could, I love the discussion of the process, right? So one process could be a series of work sessions before council meeting. I recommend maybe that we don't nail down a particular problem.

There's a couple of other items here that we're going to be thinking about.

Maybe a series of work sessions that combine them all. It might be best to make a committee of some sort. You have representation from a planning commission, a council. Normally when we do something like this, it's sort of a committee thing that goes and brings back recommendations. So that's another possibility too. So maybe it's best maybe after we get done talking about the other two initiatives, maybe then we'll have a little better idea about that effort. That's okay.

I like that suggestion. And it's definitely, I think, more work when you take it as a whole than one work session would accommodate to receive those views from both residents and

corporate yeah and and I think obtaining valuable input from the corporate citizenry is maybe a different process than obtaining valuable input from residents you know if it's an evening meeting or during the day or just format might make a difference in how that how that plays out how effective we can be there's a lot going on this council has a lot of work on your plates, and I just, we want to make sure that we're not overly focused on one thing to the detriment of others. Good point.

I had a quick question, and I should have asked this before. I was just curious, like Zach, are there other cities that have adopted a similar plan like this? Not to our knowledge.

My bad, I haven't looked, so. Yep. We looked for a job description, right?

Yeah, I didn't search nationwide.

I tried to keep it narrow to kind of the Kansas, Missouri region.

I did not find any that existed. The salary and the job posting that I pulled is from an engineering firm. I believe it's Black and Beach has a position similar to this.

The only community in my research on it, the only community I found that had something environmentally related was the city of Wichita has taken over administration of stormwater pollution prevention plan part of it. The erosion control permitting issues are issuance related that KDHE does for much of the state. Wichita has taken that element of the environmental And it indicated there may be some other environmental roles that they have, but I didn't talk to anybody at Wichita to determine that, but I am certain that they do the permitting for the land disturbance permits that KDHE would normally do.

Yeah, not locally, but obviously the larger cities have their own environmental departments and their own. But as a city this size, no, I haven't. However, we also are a city this size with... oversized influx of things happening that other cities this size, I mean, if you ask that question, then the question becomes, well, have you found any other cities the size of DeSoto that have these type of projects coming? And the answer is clearly no. So a unique situation requires a unique answer, I think. Thank you.

Thank you. So... Then I guess we'll circle back kind of on a process once we've gone through the other two so we don't lose track of where we want to go with this item at future meetings. So we'll move on then. Patrick, could you walk us through the non-disclosure? Yes.

This ordinance, I know, and I, again, would applaud Zach for the work he's done on all of these items. It's not really fun to sit up here and be viewed as running down your work. That's not it at all. That's part of my job as city attorney, to make sure there's full disclosure. But with the NDA, the way I approached that was sort of a compromise approach. What it would involve is any, first of all, any economic development opportunities coming our way would be notified that before the city could be bound on a nondisclosure agreement, that would need to be discussed with the city council in executive session. And that would serve two purposes. The governing body would be aware of any NDAs that had been presented to the city. And then secondly, that would give the city council the opportunity to come out in open session and vote that they essentially are prohibiting the city to be bound by the presented NDA. So again, just and obviously none of this has been solicited. But again, yesterday, I believe, we did have concern from a business interest, just from the standpoint of, unfortunately, this is how economic development opportunities operate. That it's very standard fare that any opportunity that comes to the city, that's usually one of the first things that is requested. And it's not, I mean, keep in mind, anything involving an economic development project, it's not like that project can do anything without public votes, public disclosure. And I know Mike kind of studied this, and he's more in the line when opportunities first come to the city. It has been raised that this would be a serious drag on economic development opportunities presented to the city, because a lot of companies will not even talk to a city unless an NDA is signed. And of course, the process that I set out in the ordinance also, there's delay. You could either hold a special meeting an economic development opportunity may need to wait a couple weeks before a council meeting before they would know if a nondisclosure agreement would be signed by the city. Another objective here in the ordinance I prepared would be it would serve to discourage companies from asking for an NDA if they know that they need this hurdle of going having the NDA presented to the city council. So this was my understanding the council seemingly was supportive of having some regulation on NDAs. So this was my approach at still allowing the city council to entertain some fantastic economic development opportunity But at the same time, you could simply say no, and obviously this would preserve your ability to not be foreclosed from any and all economic development opportunities because of this stance on NDAs. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

All right. Thank you, Patrick. Questions from council?

I have a quick question. NDAs, are there expiration dates or is there like a certain time frame where it's like, okay, by this time we should be able to share or is it just, it's just indefinite?

Well, most of them have within them that once things are disclosed, you know, the only things kept confidential are things that are not you know, in the public forum. So once materials or information is in the public forum, it no longer really falls under the NDA. And as we've talked previously, the Kansas Open Records Act, if a request was made for a nondisclosure agreement, the only information in that NDA that can be withheld from that request would be trade secrets identified by the company. So the NDA doesn't, you know, provide any non-disclosure beyond what CORA does. I mean, Kansas Open Records Act clearly says that if a company tells a city that there is this information as they consider trade secret and tells the city that we're not to disclose that, we have to abide by that. That's within CORA. That's a privilege that they have of trade secret. you know, other confidential information that they believe they have, they don't want in the public, that doesn't, there is no exemption under CORA for that.

Like if it was a specific, like, industry. This is an industry looking, we just don't know what that might be. Or, I mean, specifically, say, manufacturing, automobile, or whatever it might be, that's not, falls under the NDA that we can't say That it's that.

Right. That would be a hard sell that that's trade secret. But I know there's been a lot of discussion about all these redactions, for example, with the Beale. That is not the city determining, hey, let's redact it. That's the company telling us that this is trade secret and you're not permitted to disclose it. And again, we don't have the discretion or ability to say, well, look, we don't think that's a trade secret. We're going to disclose it anyway. When they tell us that we can't, you know, they consider it a trade secret, and they're telling us we can't disclose it, we're bound by that.

So what limits do they have, then? Couldn't they say anything's a trade secret?

Review it?

They could take that position, but, I mean, with Beale, you know, we had discussions about that, that, you know, we need to be doing this in good faith, and I was comfortable saying, and I know Mike was involved as well, don't feel like they, you know, impermissibly marked a bunch of stuff that there wasn't a, you know, good faith argument to say it's trade secret.

Right. So the NDA covers documents going forward as well, correct? So once you sign it with, say, Coca-Cola, you sign your NDA. After you sign it, Any new documents are also covered by it, correct?

What do you mean new documents?

So you have an ongoing relationship. They send you documents after you sign the NDA, new documents. Those are or are not covered by the NDA?

No, they would be, clearly.

So how can you say that the redactions in the following documents are okay if you haven't even seen them yet? You said that they can choose what to redact, and we don't have a choice then.

Oh, no, we get the documents unredacted.

I understand. But what you said was that bills were not impermissible or inappropriate, and that we don't get to decide what's a trade secret or not. So a document that arrives after the NDA is signed is covered whether we like it or not. Correct? Correct.

Yeah, but I'm not really sure what you're getting at. What I was saying about Beale is we got unredacted copies. We still have unredacted copies. And what I'm telling you is seeing the unredacted copies as compared to what was redacted, I never, never had the impression that this is impermissibly being covered up to keep it out of the public eye. One issue that was a little puzzling was the level of water that they would need. And initially, we thought, well, really, is that trade secret? But they explained that, yes, that the level of water use, if that was out in the public before they had any development agreement with the city, that their competitors could tell. from that level of water use, who their tenant would be. So that's an example of something that maybe at first blush you'd think, well, how can that be trade secret? But the company explained that, yes, it is. And again, that's not for the city really to quibble with.

And I understand that. Bill was fine afterwards, but we're talking about ordinance for the future. And so contemplating not knowing what future developers may or may not do, if they submit a document and we have no review authority and they say all of this information they consider trade secret and we don't get to say whether it is or not, the NDA is still bonding on us and we still can't release that. Correct?

Well, ask that again. I'm not understanding your question.

The city cannot determine that a redaction or a requested redaction is permissible or impermissible. That's what you said, right? Like, we don't have the authority to review it.

We don't get in that role. I suppose we could challenge a trade secret designation by going to court. Because the whole trade secret, what the statute says, that there's an evidentiary privilege that any person or entity holds over trade secrets. And if they have that privilege and instruct the city that what they contend is trade secret cannot be released, yes, we're bound by that unless we go, for example, to court and argue that, look, this XYZ company is trying to claim all this stuff as trade secret, and it's not. You know, a court could get involved. But why would we even consider that opportunity if we know that they're completely abusing, you know, marking stuff trade secret? I would think we'd say no thanks.

We don't want to do business with them. And I would say that trade secret protection for the company exists whether there's an NDA or not.

Well, it prohibits a citizen from demanding release under CORA.

Correct.

But it doesn't prohibit the city from voluntarily releasing information under CORA.

Correct? I think we couldn't. If it's trade secret.

No, I'm not talking about trade secret. So there's 56 exemptions in CORA. Yeah. Not trade secrets, but any one of the other ones, just in general. Those exemptions prohibit the city from releasing information on demand by a citizen inquiry. Like FOIA or CORE or whatever request, you don't have to release the information.

That's correct. It's a discretionary that you don't have to. Well, with exceptions like personnel. Well, yes, of course.

Not counting the exceptions, we could choose to release non-accepted information that are under the exemptions. Even though a citizen can't make us do it, we could choose to do it. And that's where the NDA would come in, right? To protect those exempt items. But what I'm saying is, the original intent of this was not to prohibit all NDAs, which some seem to have the idea of. The original intent was to only allow NDAs that are protect those 56 exemptions under CORA, being as the state legislature has decided that's information that should be protected. So the intent is to protect that information. In fact, I would say, and I told businesses this, it would be probably irresponsible for us to not sign an NDA for those 56 exemptions. Outside of those 56 exemptions, I don't think we should be hiding anything whether they want us to or not. The other problem I have is if the consideration is economic development, why do we pay the Economic Development Council and the Chamber of Commerce a quarter million dollars a year if we're doing all the work? If we're doing all the meetings, if we're providing all the information? It seems that... And I know why, there's some history with personnel turnover and changes and things that required the city to be more involved than perhaps other cities might or might not be. However, what I'm saying is I would like to see the organization that we pay a quarter million dollars a year to take more of this responsibility on. Because if it's questions for the city, like how much water can you provide, then that should be something that Tim, or Tim primarily, I guess Laura, could come to us and say, I would like to know how much water you can provide. And then they can be under any number of NDAs, because they're a private organization. but it would keep the city's business in the light, and it would allow us to still respond to those inquiries, and it would allow us to still, only protecting those 56 exempt items would still allow us to keep protected information protected.

And just to add a wrinkle, you understand that if someone makes a core request, whether or not, regardless of some NDA the city signed, we have that request, The requested information has to be produced unless the company says it's trade secret. So what you're saying about...

Unless it's one of the 56 exempted items. Not just trade secrets, but the list of 56 exempted items.

Right, right, right. But I guess what I'm saying, again, the NDA doesn't give any more protection than core to the company.

Well, we just talked about it and you agreed that without an NDA, the city has discretionary authority to release that information. So the city can't be forced to release the information that's protected by CORA, but we have the discretionary authority to do so. So the NDA protects the company's non-trade secret but exempt information from being voluntarily released by the city, correct?

Okay, but I'm talking about a CORA request. That's not... The city doesn't get to decide that, well, we... we're not going to vote. We have to produce what's requested in the core request unless it's trade secret.

Unless it's one of the 56 exemptions.

Or the 56. But primarily what we're talking about is trade secret. There's not a whole lot of, you know, there's all these exemptions, but, I mean, there's security measures. But primarily, but all I'm saying is, I think what you're saying is that the NDA in a way protects a company from the city releasing you know, any of this listed information. What I'm saying is if someone makes a CORE request, that goes out the window. We don't have a choice.

The 56 exempt items aren't exempt from release? We have to release the 56 exempt items?

No, no, no. That's what I'm saying. Okay.

Is that those 56 items are things that we do not have to release, correct? That's why they're exempted by CORE.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

But we can release them voluntarily.

Yeah.

There's nothing prohibiting that.

We've never done that.

But an NDA would prohibit us from doing that because it's exempt, and we would no longer have the voluntary discretionary authority to release those items.

Yeah, I suppose.

So it's to protect the company from having those exempt items released. That's what I'm asking, and I think that's the case.

Well, I can just say that... As long as I've been city attorney, the city council has never decided that, you know what, there are items protected under CORA that we are not required to release, but in this instance, we're going to go ahead and do it. That's never happened. I don't know if it's really realistic to me doing all this NDA stuff, too. to prohibit the city from doing something that the city has never done, and I don't know why we haven't. It just seems like another...

I think the concern raised was that businesses would be concerned about not having NDAs.

I think that my perception is not that... Because the ordinance that you had presented or suggested, and then the ordinance that's prepared, both of them ended up with the city still being able to do an NDA. It's the NDA process, but there's a question about it. And in the marketability of, in the real estate world, in the marketability of a property, if there's a question about whether or not a project or a community is receptive to, a site's receptive to an NDA, then perhaps they'll move on. I mean, that's what was expressed to me, was if there's another layer of uncertainty or challenge protecting confidential information in an early stage of a project investigation. then they just move that side out of contention and move on to the next side.

But that's not what was contemplated. What was contemplated was those 56 exemptions should always be allowed to be signed as NDAs.

Always. Yeah, which was my puzzle with your original ordinance suggested is I don't see that it changed anything because CORA, those exempt items, anything other than those exempt items has to be released by CORA anyways. It can never be protected. Right.

Right. I just want to clarify, you keep saying 56. So under CORA there are six, or actually the Open Meetings Act, there are 16 different things that can be discussed in closed sections.

But CORA has 56. Yeah.

But I just...

Pretty sure. Yeah.

Well, that may be, but I just am trying to make the point that if you are... you have a concern about NDAs and you're obviously concerned about you know records being not here but records not being available to the public and what I'm saying is a core request can be made and you're right if if if they don't meet the one of those exemptions, then that person, the requester, is going to get those records. So it's like having all this stuff about it. I do think for people, for members of the public that aren't aware that, hey, we can do a records request and get what the company's trying to keep confidential or what the company's NDA says that the city won't release, All of those NDAs have in them that it's the open records law. It's subject to the open records law. So my point is a member of the public that is aware that they can make court requests, they are going to get essentially any records that they want. other than if they're trade secret. I know you keep saying the 56, but in these, everything we've been going through, it really comes down to confidential company information or where an opportunity wants to locate. I can't even think of any records that someone might want that would fall within all these 56 exemptions you're talking about. I don't know what that would be. So I think we're, you know, and again, I don't want to argue with you, and it's not fun, but, you know, as city attorney, I guess it's more, you know, I've prepared an ordinance that I think would work, but I think it is important that you listen to others outside of the legal realm. legal issues like Tim or you know Mike or you know is this going to you know put a big drag on opportunities the city gets I don't know the answer to that but I think there's definitely opinions out there that would say yes and I think we also have to remember This isn't just the city. A lot of times we get opportunities through KCADC. And they get them through the Department of Commerce. And I've seen Department of Commerce has, before they'll even release anything to KCADC, they want a non-disclosure agreement with KCADC. And then KCADC wants a non-disclosure agreement with the city. So it's not just like the funnel of where we get opportunities.

But see, KCADC has the role regionally that the EDC has here. So it should go to the EDC, not to the city.

And does. That's what I mean. And it does. Yes.

That's what I mean. Yeah.

But, I mean, there are things that we need to be able to provide input on as a project evolves as to, you know, suitability of the site relative to zoning or potential incentives that might be available on the site for

We have a published incentives matrix though, right?

We have. And another thing, just sorry to interrupt, but we have to be careful. If we are farming out, it sounds like you'd like to farm a lot of this out to the EDC then. The Kansas Open Records Act and the Kansas Open Meetings Act would say they are subject to it because we are having them do city functions.

See, I don't think that that's necessarily a city function. I think that there's a reason there's an EDC that is separate from the city and not a part of the city. If it was a city function that the EDC did, they'd be part of the city.

Right, but ultimately, no project is going to move without the city being involved and approving the project. Sure, I agree.

Well, anyway, we've proposed – I mean, I think we've – I don't know. I feel like I've talked too long on this. We've gone back and forth. But we did talk about the work sessions, and that probably would be something that I think people would be interested in commenting on.

More discussion, yeah. Mayor, could I offer a perspective? Just in a broader sense, I think it's important to recognize that NDAs are – Typically, I can't think of an example when, and I have limited exposure to them, but for the most part, companies want NDAs not to hide information from anybody except their competitors. It's a competitive thing when... When a big company is looking at a big project and you don't get NDAs for the housing project going in or the small duplex or the small stuff, it's really only the big stuff. And typically, Department of Commerce or KCADC is involved and, of course, Chamber of Commerce involved. The intent is not to hide from public scrutiny. The intent is to hide from competitors so that landowners don't inflate prices. And there's legitimate business reasons to do that. They're very common. They're standard practice. They're appropriate. I'm not saying every NDA ever written is gold-clad, but this is how economic development and business gets done in this state and almost every other state in the country. uh... was with these tools and uh... you know if they've been demonized here to a degree and i don't mind the scrutiny and thinking about how we want to address them and the process by which we want to consider them and who's authorized assignment that's all very good discussions that i think very uh... but it is important to realize and and uh... case in point is the MERC expansion And I'm not going to go into too much detail, but Merck was seriously considering an expansion to their facility here and an expansion in another state. And whoever didn't get the expansion was going to lose out. And they had existing employees here, existing employees in the other state. that it was extremely important, that the information didn't get out, that it was a competition between the two because that would cause them internal problems. And if we were not able to sign that NDA, Merck would be decommissioning their facility.

What information did the NDA cover that's not in the 56 exempted items?

The 56 exempted items, my knowledge of them is... Generally, they're like personnel information, personal information, HIPAA laws, like medical things, 9-11 call logs, criminal records, things like that. I don't know. I'm not familiar with them all. But the general thing was the information that they didn't want disclosed was just the simple fact that they were considering a major expansion. of a particular production line at this location in Kansas. And I don't know that it was necessarily anything more than that. And again, I can't remember exactly the details of that NDA, but it's a good example of one that was used for a very good reason, for an appropriate reason. We had a very robust conversation about that. Um, and it wasn't at all to hide, uh, from the general public or to take away from any sort of, um, process that we might have in terms of zoning or neighborhood impacts or site planning or building permit, any of the other administrative functions that we would go through, uh, or, or the incentive negotiations, but you know, the incentive negotiation part of that too. So I just wanted to. You know, again, you know, I like the policy discussion is good. You know, how, when, you know, let's take a look at these and let's all come to an understanding about their use. But I did think it was important to just point out that um they're legitimate um and and they're not inappropriate for municipality to to consider yeah i know you're no no form of this proposal ever has eliminated them from consideration so thank you mayor okay i think for me it was even just more so that um that we're more involved in the process you know like and even like what that flow chart is you know when it comes in you know who signs it

there's this assumption that we all up here physically sign every NDA that comes through. I was cornered a hand bolt different times. Why did you sign? And I was like, I don't even know what you're talking about. And so I think the understanding of where it comes from, how it operates, where it goes, and I think that opportunity that you suggested as far as maybe just a little more understanding when things are coming in or happening a step sooner than normal, maybe? That process piece?

Fair. Very fair.

For the work session, too, I'll provide the list of, or maybe Zach can, of the 56 items so you can have a look at those. All right.

New permit requirements for private wells. Yes, sure.

Essentially in a nutshell, this would just implement a new requirement in the city of DeSoto relative to any water well. So if anyone wanted to drill a new well, they would, in addition to getting the permit through KDHE, which KDHE does have a robust permitting, but then they would have to come to the city and get a separate permit from the city of DeSoto. For any existing wells, there would be a requirement that those be registered with the city, so the city would have a full inventory of any wells within the city. haven't really heard any, you know, feedback on, I'm not sure, you know, if everybody's aware that this is being considered, but I certainly haven't heard any, you know, pushback from the business community.

Did you hear, Danny had, somebody had a comment on, comments on the well.

I had two calls.

Okay. Do you want to start off then?

Yeah. I want to make sure that I'm in agreement with letting the business address that also, and also the private residents also. The question I got was on two wells that have been capped already for 10 years. And now are these people that have these wells, I mean, I understand that if they want to, according to what, because I read this to the people that called me, and I wanted to make sure I understood. They asked if these wells have been capped and they're not in use right now, and they haven't been in use for some time, they still need to be registered, is that correct?

They would be. Under the current language of this, they would be.

Yes, that's what I understood, too. Also, if they register this, now, if they plan to reopen, then they've got to come before the city, is that correct? Yes. And ask for a permit to do so, right?

That's right.

And these wells were put in over 10 years ago for cattle. and to produce water for livestock and stuff. They weren't used for the public drinking water, and I don't know, and they say that they don't think they're connected to the aquifer that our wells, the city uses, but who knows that? And that was a concern too, if they consider that just because they're two miles from the river area, are three miles from the river area is that still the same off word that we're using for city water so they asked about that too because that was mentioned in here and that it was connected to the same water that the city has which i couldn't tell them that or anything about that so i think that's why we also need to listen to these people that do have these capped wells and explain to them and let them You know, if they want to maybe think sometimes they need to reopen these, what they have to do.

Yeah, I think the original proposal was more aimed at commercial properties drilling wells. But the problem with that is there's really not a rational distinction between, you know, if we're talking about protecting the city's, you know, water system, There's really not a solid basis to say that, well, we should exempt all residential wells because, you know, they're...

It didn't, I don't think. I think it said if you're within 400 feet of city water, you had to use it. It didn't exempt residential wells that were within 400 feet. And I think that the purpose in exempting businesses was because of the quantity of water that they would be drawing from the... Well, then you've got to also consider that when these wells were dug,

there was no water there. So, you know, you can't say, well, you're within 400 feet of the water main. Well, you are now.

I agree. This would be permitting for new wells. If you're within 400 feet and you wanted to put a new... Well, it doesn't say new wells in here.

It says existing wells that are not in use or capped or what they had to do. So, you know, they've added water since then, you know, and They didn't have a choice back then. But, you know, now it's different, so we need to make sure that we say any new existing wells within 400 feet, not anything that is capped and not used. But they're still going to have to go through with the way this thing is written that they need to go apply for if they do want to open that well back, they do have to come to the city for a permit. And they agreed with that.

The part that I did like was the 400 feet, right? That if a water, public water is available, we'll use public water. Right. Yeah. Much like we have in the sewer requirements. Yeah. I know KDHE has a database of, well, all wells they've permitted and then also plugged wells that you can get map coordinates so you might verify whether, because there's also a process to decommission or to close a well if you're There's actually a permit to close the well through KDT as well, or at least a form to fill out.

And there are also exemptions in there specifically for agriculture and farming and ranching.

Yeah, one of them did say that it was because of agricultural that it went through. Yeah. But anyway.

I don't have any problems with regulating new wells. Again, the process largely controlled by KDHE, but I like the provision that we would ask if you've got public water available that you would use that.

And would just, as we're talking about that, would that apply, because right now agriculture is not exempted from, so if you had an ag well within 400 feet of the city main, would you want to exempt them, the ag use from that?

I think it was exempted in the original proposal, maybe not carried over, I don't know.

Yeah, I would want them exempted.

Yeah, yeah.

That's all the makeup. Thank you, Dan. Sorry.

No, great. Any other thoughts on the wells? So I think other than including an exemption for ag on new wells then, we're probably pretty close on that.

I'll bring back revised ordinance. Is everybody comfortable with just sort of the idea of the city's going to permit the wells and Because that's pretty much the ordinance that we have in front of us with some tweaks that this would implement that system.

Yeah. It doesn't strictly define how that, I mean, that permit may be presenting your KDHE permit to the building official along with an application for a city well, right? Yeah. Yeah.

I want to make sure that my intention was not to simply create more bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy. It was to make sure that we protect the city's investment in our water systems and protect the city's access to the wells and the water that we get with our wells, not to just be a bureaucratic process, but to actually protect the city's water interests.

So along those lines, for the So just focusing on the agriculture, would the justification be if they are already drawing water from an existing well, then they can continue to do that? And that's not really the city's concern. It would be if they wanted to expand that the water they're drawing or drill a new well, that would be something that they'd have to get a permit from the city. Or are you just saying just wholesale exempt ag from any of these requirements?

I'd have to go back and look at what I submitted before, but generally I think it was, they still have to have a permit, but it's included as an approval. It's really just more like for them to register their use and make sure that the place they want to drill it wouldn't negatively impact the city's water. That it's not gonna be detrimental to our water service.

So they just, they would also, So if we have ag uses, I don't know how many we have, but if there's an ag use out there with an existing well, that's one they would need to register with the city. They wouldn't necessarily need a new permit, but they would need to register that with the city. So we would have a comprehensive list.

And there's several pivots down in the floodplain along 79th Street that are, you know, drawn from, I'm sure, from wells that are in that same aquifer that we're pulling our... They're in that...

Yeah, all of our wells pull from an alluvial aquifer, which doesn't really even extend bluff to bluff, but it's within a mile or two of the river. It goes in now, but it wouldn't surprise me if there's...

I think the pivots that are right down there that are along the 79th Street or near the end of the vicinity of the wastewater treatment plant are probably pulled from that same alluvium. Right.

Yeah, let me see what I can come up with that, and obviously we can discuss this more at the next council meeting. All right.

I just went back and looked, and the agricultural exception was property owners verified by the planning director to be operating as legitimate agricultural users are exempt from the automatic 400-foot proximity ban but remain fully bound by the special use permit requirements outlined. The section follows. And it says, the mandatory connection, all commercial, industrial, and residential users within the connection proximity zone are required to connect to and exclusively utilize the SOTO public water supply system for domestic manufacturing, processing, cooling, and irrigation functions. And it does have an exception, an absolute prohibition, except as explicitly provided for agricultural users. And that's what it basically says, what we talked about. So pretty close.

Enough direction, we'll go on then. Item 4C, Joe, And maybe Rhonda, as well, asks that we move our next council meeting to Wednesday, September 2nd, since DeSoto days will be kicking off on September 3rd.

Mr. Mayor, point of order. Could we discuss the work... Oh, yeah, yeah.

So, the process. Sorry, thanks for pulling me back on task.

Okay. Yeah, so I guess I had the suggestion that we kind of hold the discussion until we've talked about all of them. Yeah, there's several ways to do it. I don't mind the work sessions before the council meetings. We all kind of have the evening blocked out anyway. It helps with the scheduling of things like that. We do have these three things that are on the plate. We'll soon have a fourth with the noise ordinance process that we're going through. Um, and then we, we have a couple of things that planning commission that are working their way through. So there's several of these policy, uh, things. So it might just make sense to think about kind of the workload of all of those. If there's any of those that could be combined into a single workflow, uh, you know, for say, you know, the health compliance, the health code stuff. seems pretty unrelated to the NDA. Maybe they won't be a great match, but maybe the health code and the forestry stuff and the light and light, maybe those things could be bundled. That could be a committee that works through a process together and it comes to a work session, maybe one with the full council. So I would suggest that. And I don't have all that formulated yet, but it just kind of came to mind. Maybe if you'll give me some latitude to give me a week or so, maybe until the next council meeting, where we can kind of have a discussion about what those get bundled into and what those processes look like. Just a general framework for that. That's okay? I could ask for your...

I don't think that amount of delay is going to change much of anything. We're still quite a ways out from needing any of those if they were to come into effect anyway.

Yeah, good point. Yeah. Okay, so if I could, yeah, if I could just have a couple weeks on that.

And I think that also gives us opportunity to allow notice for the public and businesses to attend those or at least plan for it and get the responses.

The thought would be that whatever committee we're looking at has a community engagement that would include public, which means folks and businesses alike. Yeah. Okay, good. I think that's a good direction. Thank you, sir.

Now we'll move on in our agenda. Item 4C, consider rescheduling our September 3rd council meeting since it falls on Thursday at the start of DeSoto days. It's been requested to move that to Wednesday, September 2nd. So I guess I'd like folks to check your calendars and see if that works for... All of us? Good? And since Joe suggested it, I'm going to assume it's good. If everybody's good with it, I could entertain a motion to reschedule our regular city council meeting on September 3rd to Wednesday, September 2nd.

I move we approve the request to reschedule the regular scheduled September 3rd city council meeting to Wednesday, September 2nd. Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Edgar, please call roll.

Lane? Yes. Patterson? Yes. Bradley? Yes. Yes. The motion carries. All right. Thank you.

Okay, our final business item tonight is continuing our 2027 budget discussion.

So, Mike. Yes, counsel. I feel obligated to start each one of these discussions, but I want to give you as much or as little as you would like to engage with. So, if I sense people nodding off, I'll try to move it along. I had a little trouble with the control here. Just yell at me. I'm going to try it for now. Yeah, just yell at me. um so i wasn't here august at the at the previous meeting but i did provide a memo in your packet for that that essentially took all of the recommended enhancements and i listed those out and we had a number of them that we discussed previously and the ones that were recommended for implementation and that memo kind of firmed up that list and so what i've done since then is i've taken those recommended enhancements and have incorporated them in to the 2027 budget and obviously to the five-year projections that now go all the way out to 2032. Where we're headed is on the calendar, Exhibit A to the staff report there shows the calendar for this year for the budget adoption. I think this is the same as last year. We have to have the full budget adopted, and to the county by October 1st. And so working back from that date, we're proposing a public hearing at the second meeting in September, which is September 17th. Technically, that will be two public hearings. That will be the one relating to exceeding the revenue neutral rate, and then the second one regarding just the regular, the 2027 budget. And so working back from that, you get August 20 of today, presentation of the budget document itself. But at the end, I think before I forget, we do need your approval. The only action item that we need tonight is approval of the budget notice because the way calendars fall and with our publication process, we have to get that in the newspaper before the next council meeting. And so that budget notice, Brandon, can you scroll down any further? I thought I had it. It's the very last page.

Where's the last page? It's one page after that one you just had up.

I'm sorry. It's in the hard copies, right?

I'm going to try to blow this up a little bit. There it is. There we go.

All right. So this is an arcane-looking... spreadsheet, essentially, that the state gives us that calculates the mill rates from the revenues that are combined in the budget. And this is the official notice that will go in the paper. And essentially, this is just, say, on September 17th, we're going to have a public hearing on the revenue neutral rate in the budget. Importantly, what this shows is that the city, this holds us to the mill rate, the overall mill rate of 12.17 mills. which is a slight reduction from the current rate of 12.94. It still doesn't quite meet the revenue neutral rate because of the growth that's happening largely in the Panasonic facility. But as you remember, we do this whole analysis and we look at the average increase in home value for residential properties and we take that as a flat mill rate and adjust it accordingly. This is what I'll ask for your approval on at the end of the discussion tonight, is to publish this document that essentially sets for the public hearing date. So now I'm going to see if I can scroll all the way back up to the top. Okay, Brandon, I'll let you do it. I'll do my part. Yeah. So some of you or all of you may have seen the city's budget document. You know, it's this several hundred, maybe 150 page long thing that lays out general overall policies. We drill down into, you know, policies about, you know, revenue projections and policies about personnel and taxation. And then we address the you know, the general fund, the law enforcement fund, the debt service fund, and then we move on to the revenue-supported funds like the water and the sewer and the refuse. We talk about, you know, the state of those funds and the services that will be supported by the revenues and projections and that. It's a pretty hefty document. And so I generally kind of break it down into two parts, you know, try to formulate that document. Half of it, the draft version, is presented in your packet. essentially it covers I was able to get through the general fund law enforcement debt service some of the water and sewer but there's also there's blanks in there for the rest I'll have a full document at the next meeting for for consideration but for tonight I just wanted to hit just show you the framework of that that just hit some highlights of of that document and generally where those happen is in the section under policy directives on page five of that overall document. The three most general policy statements that we're trying to make the 2027 budgets. And this is similar, but it's slightly different to the past few cycles. First one's capitalizing on industrial growth to reduce the residential tax burden. Second one's targeted mill levy reductions via economic expansion. And then the third is a self-sustaining enhancement and operational discipline. So essentially it's the idea that we are increasing our services, the demand on services is increasing. The clearest example of this is in the building inspection department where permits, the volume of permits and the size of these projects are growing. So we need to staff up there and we have been. A good example is we do have in the budget the health code compliance officer position is in the budget. There's an offsetting revenue that fully offsets that, so essentially it's kind of a net zero impact in terms of the budget. But that's a good example of big stuff happening, demands on services are increasing, so our service is reacting to that. Making sure that those decisions are sustainable long term, that they're not just a reaction to, current, you know, projects or building permits that might be coming in the next six months, but they're sustainable long-term. And a big part of that is this five-year projections that we do. You know, I always look at it from a five-year perspective. Fund balances right now, you know, we have this fund balance policy. Just look at the general fund that we need to make sure at the end of each year that we maintain at least 30% of the operational cost in that given year. We have to have at least that amount of buffer at the end of the year. from a planning and budgeting perspective because, you know, what ifs that could happen. That's a pretty common policy among cities of our size to have it 30% level. And so when we look at long term, so the last several years we've had these revenues that have come in that are kind of one-time hits. You know, we've had a million dollar excise tax that just came in from the Beale project. That's a one-time thing. You know, that's That's a big project. We're not counting on a million dollars every year from now on. So our fund balances right now are many times over that 30% level. And we could make the bond buyers and the financial advisors feel real good and just maintain that forever. But if we do that, then you're collecting taxes you're not spending. And so from a policy perspective, we need to be looking to mitigate those and reduce those balances back to a reasonable level. And that's what our five-year fund projections kind of do for us. Go back up to the second page of the staff memo. That's what these do. So this chart shows The big blue bars are the fund balances in the general fund at the end of, I think we went back to 23 and out to 32. The yellow bar there is what we project our fund balance to be at the end of this year. And the orange bar down there, the orange bar is in dollars. And it represents 30% of the operating revenue for this year. So our fiscal policy says that the yellow bar should be down there where the orange line is. you can see it's higher. So what these projections do is it shows a reduction of the fund balance over the next five years so that by the out years, 2031 and 2032, you can see that the blue bars are equal with that orange line, and that's where the 30% is. The crystal ball gets foggier every year. We've always taken a very strong position that we're going to estimate the revenues conservatively, which we absolutely have done. We've talked about franchise revenues and building permit revenues and sales tax revenues moving out, not assuming that these big projects, data center or otherwise, those are eggs that haven't even been laid yet, not to mention chickens that haven't hatched. So this is a pretty conservative, but you'll see if you look through past budgets, the curve looks much like this. Overall, that's it. So then back to the policy directives then, starting on page 5, I guess, of the budget document there. We have this chart that shows policy directives. We talk about the revenue, a picture there and how we project those. We talk specifically about sales tax revenue and franchise fee revenue. These franchise fees are... you know, started to become a big deal when Panasonic said, hey, we're going to use a whole bunch of power and your franchise fee revenues are going to go up. The initial estimates were that we would get about $4 million annually from Panasonic when they're at full production. Currently, they're at about half production. And even within the five-year projection period, we're still under $3 million. dollars conservative projections from that. So we still remain conservative. We talked here about the capital improvements plan that we just approved this year. So it's a nice piece. We're able to just take that and just plug it straight into not only the CIP, but the debt service fund, importantly the debt service fund. Talk about assessed valuations in here and how we come to our revenue, the DeSoto-specific revenue neutral rate. Brandon, if you'll help me scroll down just to the bottom of that page. Thank you. That's good. We talk about here about that 2.17 mills and how for the average homeowner in DeSoto, your city tax is going to be the same in dollars that it was last year in city tax. And we also talked about how it's difficult for us to meet the official statutory definition of the revenue neutral rate because Panasonic is increasing in value. And we collect those taxes, but it's TIF, so those taxes go back to the developer and we can't use them. So we talk about that in there. I won't belabor that.

Quick question. Yes. Have we explored anything about getting with our state representatives to have that fixed so that the TIF money doesn't count against our R&R?

Yeah, we're going hand-in-hand with the school district because the school district has a worse problem because their state funding formula incorporates some of that as well. So, yeah, we're kind of taking that. I don't know if it will go anywhere. Yeah, it's a good point to make.

I'm having a conversation with Representative Turk actually all through the last couple of weeks kind of over this, and we're going to sit down and meet and go through our budget and try and bring him up to date on the effects that this large valuation TIF has on revenue neutral and why it's not going to be attainable.

Yeah, if there could be some statutory mechanism where we could calculate that in. Yeah.

I think we're doing a pretty good job managing it.

No, I agree. It's weird to see. People don't understand.

The messaging is almost impossible. Yeah, the messaging is impossible. I did want to talk a little bit now about staffing. So we have a couple of new positions that are included in the 2027 budget. So we do have the one FTE for the Environmental Compliance Officer that we talked about. We also have one FTE, full-time equivalent employee, for parks maintenance in the parks department. This isn't actually an employee, but number three there is that fire prevention officer, the shared position with Northwest Consolidated. You'll remember that we have elected, the initial proposal was it's going to cost about $100,000 a year. We're going to split that with the fire district. We decided for 2027 that we would fund that position entirely to help with their mill impact But then in 2028, it would go to a 50-50, so that's the plan for the fire prevention officer. I've listed the water department really kind of for my own benefit. There's 11 positions in the water department. They're not currently all filled right now. We're not adding another one for 2027, but just kind of restating what those positions are and that we will be filling those as the year goes on. No new positions in the water department. Sewer department, we are adding one sewer plant operator to that in 2027. So those, I think, are the main things I wanted to just touch on briefly. did talk about, again, the sewer fund projections and water fund projections. They suggest needing minimal, I would say, inflationary rate increases for both of those, just a 1% or 2% just to keep up with inflation. But as we always do each year, we look at those. In the last several years, we've not seen a need to implement those. I can't even remember the last time we raised 1%. It's been a while. I should know that. But the story here is that we're starting to see the increased usage from Panasonic and the increased revenue from Panasonic. And that does wonders for your five-year projections, if you'll see the five-year projections there. Rather than the general funds is high and going down, the water and sewer funds are low and they're going up. You know, having that big user on the system that has a lot of demand when they've just got done paying for all the capital improvements needed to supply that demand without any cost to us is a fantastic thing. So we're starting to see the benefits of that. Keeping an eye on those closely as this year ends that... The revenue that we have projected for them looks like we're going to be on target for this year and next year. More and more confident each month is those numbers. The debt service fund, important to point out here, talked about incorporating the CIP into all of our budgeting activities. Now, I don't have the CIP fund in this draft version yet. We'll have it next week or the next meeting. But the debt service fund does show the results of the CIP. And if you'll remember, we've got $8.5 million in bond funding contemplated to fund the projects that are in the CIP. And the first one happens in 2027. So there's a $4 million bond issue included in the debt service fund that accounts for that. And also, obviously, in the projections for 28 and 30, we're showing additional, a three and then a $1.5 million fund for that. Also in the policy directives section, I've listed out these 27 budget enhancements. I won't go through all those again, but those are listed for just, I kind of consider this sort of the executive summary of the budget itself. And so then we start into the section where we're showing the five-year financial forecast. I've indicated or shown those in this document. I don't plan to really go through the rest of this document, but other than just structurally, there's a section on the general fund revenue. Before we really get into the expense side, which in the general fund breaks it out and all the departments, so the admin department, communications, the streets, and all the other departments. And then later on, there's the revenue-supported fund, the water and the sewer, which you don't have yet. So I'll stop there. With that, we are nearing the end. I think we've made all our policy decisions in large part. As I mentioned at the start, I would like I would like the council's approval of the budget hearing notice, which sets the mill levy at $12.17.

I would just comment that... point the mill reduction is pretty significant it's more than even though it's less than a mill it is still I think our assessed valuation average rise was about five point nine percent and I think this represents about a six and a half percent reduction in our mill rate so I do feel pretty confident that most of our existing homeowners are going to see a pretty flat city tax bill year over year, and I think that's significant that we've been able to maintain that for the last couple years after our initial two years. I guess that's our second year after our initial... Yeah, three years ago we cut it by about a third. Right. Any questions for city administrator regarding the budget presentation tonight or the budget form that we need to take action on?

Just one. We had previously talked about, um, there's a breakdown by a department in there and it's like 125 pages. So I don't remember which one it's on, but, uh, somewhere in there, there's a breakdown like which each department wanted, but it wasn't, I figured it was called not discretionary, but, um,

There's contingencies?

No, it was like additional things, like extra things each department wanted. Oh, yeah.

So those were the budget enhancement requests. Enhancements. Yeah, yeah.

I noticed it worked. Now, I was wondering, though, because I know we sort of mentioned it, that it's not only fair to have council-directed stuff included under admin or any other department since... Really, those are for them to decide, and then we have our own sort of things that we can put in there as enhancements that we would like. Is there a way to, like, I don't want to take away from a department's budget that they're wanting stuff for.

Well, yeah. Well, it's a good point. I appreciate that sensitivity. You know, if the council directs, let's say, we want to add, you know, we want a program to replace all the stop signs in town, and we're going to allocate... $50,000 to that.

Flashing school crossing signs.

A flashing school crossing sign. I don't think any department head is going to be opposed to having an additional budget within their department. I think it makes sense to put it in the department. It kind of qualifies for it. But I appreciate the sentiment that we're not, I don't think we'd be taken from, you know, unless the council says, we've got too much in road maintenance, I'm going to put a little sign program in here. Fair enough.

Okay.

We're all on the same page. No, that's all. Yeah.

I just want to make sure we're affecting, you know, this stuff.

Yeah, I appreciate, yeah, thanks for that sentiment. I appreciate the thought.

Other thoughts or comments?

So the...

Yes, if you could have a motion to approve... We need a move to approve publication of the budget hearing notice.

Make a motion we approve the budget hearing notice.

Do we have a second?

Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion of the motion? Roll call, please.

Patterson? Yes. Bradley? Yes. McCracken? Yes. Lane? Yes. Motion carries. All right.

No executive session, so we will move on to advisory reports. Administrator. Administrator.

Nothing this evening, Mayor, thank you.

City Attorney. City Engineer. I don't see Planner, Assistant, City Administrator. Brandon?

Two things, I'll be brief. I want to put something on your calendar. Today we had our final steering committee for the community center. The public meeting for that that will kind of go over the whole plan is on September 29th in the senior center from 530 to 730. September 29th. Because I'll forget if I don't talk about it today. And then the other thing is I think Mike had sent an email about it. We received a KDOT transportation alternative grant to finish that stretch of trail. from 87th to 91st Street on Sunflower Road. So we'll kind of get working on that. You'll see some consent agenda items on contract. Outside of that, that's all I have.

Time scale, time frame on that. I mean, much like the last one, they're probably like late, Next summer construction then?

So it's a 14-month bidding before you go out to bid. Okay, so it's even later then. Yeah, ours is actually already designed. When we get a consultant on board, that's the first question I'm going to ask is, since we've already designed and done most of the environmental, can we expedite it?

Yeah.

It's ultimately KDOT's discretion.

And it's tied to like... Fiscal year. Fiscal year funding.

So I was just curious if... That's my first question to KDOT when we sit down.

Okay. See what we can do. All right, thank you. Congratulations on the grant.

Oh, thanks. Joe helped quite a bit on that, so Joe gets some credit too.

All right, council comments. Danny, I'll start with you.

Nothing to add. All right, thank you. Lindsay?

Zach mentioned it briefly, but I was just going to mention an email that we received requesting a flashing school zone sign on 91st Street, and I just want to make sure that was in the works because I think that's an important addition there.

Joe's got that in the work plan. Okay. And I see you get to say something on it.

Yeah, I mean, we typically don't budget that. We just bought the new flashing signs there for Lexington this year. So if we have money toward the end of the year where we can buy, it's about $8,300 to buy those signs or the lights. So if we have something toward the end of the year, we'll get it. Now, after the first year, when we start the new budget, we'll be able to do that. I've talked with the school district, and they're in agreement, too.

Great. And I don't know if it's possible or best practice, but I do think it helps like when you cross the bridge and you can actually see how fast you're going. It's one thing to see the flashing sign and it's another thing to be like, oh my gosh, I'm going 52 and it's 25. That would be nice if ever possible.

Oh, you mean in the school zone as well? An additional speed feedback sign.

Okay. Yeah, we can take a look at that too.

Okay, that's just an easy road to get going on.

Yeah.

Perhaps. All right, thank you. Rhonda?

A couple things. I don't know, have we heard what the next conference plan meeting potentially might be?

There was a whole calendar within that initial kickoff meeting. Off the top of my head, I don't know.

We can get that information out.

I don't think anything's been missed.

Yeah, it's about a year-long process.

And they were just about every four to six weeks, I think. Yeah. Yeah, they're supposed to be sending out, I think, calendar invite or placeholders for that whole year's worth of meetings.

And then for the meeting Saturday, is there an agenda, not necessarily an agenda, but topics? Yeah, I sent out an agenda. Does it have all the topics on it? It sure does. Okay.

Yeah, and it's got links to materials. All right.

And then just a couple things. Hi, Bradley. at this meeting, but I'm hoping that we will discuss these things next meeting about the moving hyperscale data centers, or data centers in general, to M2 zoning, based on their large use of resources. I know that's something involved with planning commission, but I brought it up. a couple weeks ago, and just wanting to hope we can move forward on that. And then the pause on economic incentives for data centers for future applicants, just to pull that off for maybe 18 months to two years or so, just to see where we are with what we already have, and help begin to navigate, define more what we want here.

All right. Thank you, Ron.

Zach? I said a lot already, but thank you for entertaining that. I want to mention that we've been talking about the stuff with the fire department stuff coming along and progressing in talks, and I appreciate that that's happening. I know that there's a lot of complicated things that go into that. either merging or whatever's going to happen with the fire department. I appreciate all the work that's been done on that. And I know that the fire department seems pretty happy with how it's going so far as well. And I thank all the city staff for putting the effort in there.

That's 90% Brandon. Thank you, Brandon.

There's more Patrick than 10%.

Oh.

Definitely more than 10%.

Yeah.

Thank you all. And that's really all I had. I look forward to getting the report back from Mike on the plan on how we're going to do the work groups or whatever we're going to do. And thank you again for addressing that. That's all I have, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Thank you, Zach. So I do want to throw a couple reminders out there for some upcoming things. The final Rhythm and Roots concert is scheduled for next Friday, August 28th, 6.30 downtown. Hopefully we get good weather on that to evening. And then we have an upcoming city hall open house on Wednesday, August 26th from five to seven to show off our renovation. So hopefully we can get everybody out for that as well. And then Zach, just a personal thanks for the work that you've done, the efforts that you've been put in on this. I do appreciate, and I appreciate the debate and the dialogue as well. Thank you. So with that, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Well, first, thank you, Mr. Mayor. My wife does say I like to argue a lot. I'll make a motion that we adjourn.

Second.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye. Opposed?

We're adjourned.