City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order. I want to welcome our friends and guests from the Planning Commission and Dr. Henry and Dan Baxter from the School District. Appreciate you all being here this evening. Tonight, Corey Derver will lead us in the pledge and the invocation.

Thank you. What 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. Pray for me in prayer. Lord, thank you for this evening, and thank you for this opportunity for our community, our city, our council, and our schools, and our planning commission to come together, give us the opportunity, and please just watch over us, help us make good decisions, and be responsible for your glory, and just please watch over everyone with the severe weather out there, and just pray that you could protect us all. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

I believe before we get super short, we do have someone here in the room that's kind of keeping an eye on the weather for us. And thank you for that. So if the weather gets close, we'll just... cancel or stop the meeting at our point, give everybody a chance to get home before any storms would hit. Nobody likes to dodge hailstones trying to get to their car or something. With that, I'd like to make an amended motion to approve the agenda and remove the executive session item L tonight. So I'll make that a form of a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Amanda seconds. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Thank you. Citizen comments? Item D on the agenda. Anyone like to speak for three minutes on a topic of their interest?

my name is linda giesemann and i live at 201 fine and i want to start with thanking everyone the city city planning commission and the school district being here tonight i thought it Very exciting to me because, you know, I've been here for, I don't remember how many years now, for three decades at least. I have sent three kids through the school district. I had a grandson graduate last year from the school district. I have a lot of time and interest invested in this community and the schools. I am excited that we're together tonight. What I would like to say is, you know, when I came here, I learned who Goddard was then. I was fortunate to have a neighbor whose husband had been the principal of the high school years ago and told me about Goddard then. So I know the past. I know who we are today. I have a rhetorical question. Who do we want to be? Where do we want to go? When somebody says, I'm the daughter, what is the other person going to think? Oh, okay. Is Goddard so-so town? Is Goddard a moving town? They've got wonderful things going there. You know, we moved here because we've heard wonderful things about Goddard. And when we told somebody we were moving to the Wichita area, we've got to go to Goddard. There's no question about it. So we did. And so again, who do we want to be? And it's going to take all these people, the community, to get us there. And the question is, who do we want to be, and how do we get there together?

Thank you, Linda.

Thanks, Linda.

Anyone else? If not, we'll go ahead and close citizen comments and move on to item B. It's a chance to see if there's any conflicts of interest that any of the council members have with tonight's agenda. No, no, no, no, no. We're good on that. We don't have any appointments or recognitions. Consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda. I second. Krista seconds. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Very good. We're down to item H, unfinished business. This train is moving fast because there's bad weather on the horizon. Okay, item I, new business. Credit Crescent or City Manager.

Honorable Mayor and City Council, it's my distinct pleasure to lead off with an introduction of Dr. Justin Henry. I don't have his full biography in front of me, although I'd say he's born and raised in a community that creates really awesome city managers. That's Sterling, Kansas. So, super excited to have him here today. I just want the community to know and to share with you all something we already know. The city, we try to do what we can to take advantage of every collaboration opportunity there is with the school district. Dr. Henry and his team, they put together wonderful events at the schools that they welcome us to, whether it's the state of the district so we can go be updated. Dr. Henry and I are communicating quite frequently on things of high importance to the school district and the broader community. And I think it's important that folks know that we're not two ships passing in the night. We are working together. And I'm really excited to introduce Dr. Henry and have him come up and share with you an update on some of the things that they have going on this evening.

And hopefully they put a new battery in the clicker because it's been a little slow the last few months.

So it is true that where I grew up has great city managers. When I lived there, Craig wasn't the city manager, so I can't speak to that. And he doesn't do this with you guys, but when he talks about his formal counsels, I can give him a lot of insight because most of those are my high school colleagues. So I could likely talk to them. He never had me call him. So all seriousness, Craig's done a great job since he's been here of reaching out to the school district to find out what's important to us and try to align with the growth of the city of Goddard. So quick aside, let me take you back. Some of you probably know this, but school districts in Kansas are all from the 1960s, when you went from tens of thousands of school districts down to, at that time, I think 306. So in order for a school district to be formed, and it's a question you get especially from people on the East Coast, why is a school district not the same as a city? Because if you're the superintendent or chancellor of New York Public Schools, you're answering to the city council. Kansas model is a lot different. Not only are you not answering to that council, you have your own board, and it's not congruent with a city boundary. So mid-1960s, consolidation is forced. You had to hit two of three measures. Either you had to have a certain amount of square mileage, a certain amount of property value, or a certain enrollment. So you think about our USD number. This wasn't in the slides I sent. 265, Mays 266, Renwick 267, Cheney 268. So most of those are geographical because that is the order that the state board approved them in the 60s. So communities had to get together with all these one-room school homes or school houses out in the country and figure out how many places have to combine and who are we combining with to form a school district. So when the however many school districts that currently make up Goddard Public Schools, those individual boards had to get together, get an enrollment, get a property value, and hit a square mileage, two of those three. So when you think about why does our boundary go from the airport to Lake Afton, that's the little individual schools they took on to become a school district. No magic on where your boundaries are, just where did those leaders come together in the 60s and reach agreement. Quick aside on where we've been. So presentation tonight, Craig had asked me To follow up, we did this at the first meeting a year or two ago, a year and a half ago. Our CFO presented about the upcoming bond. So it made sense tonight to talk about what have we learned since the bond. So we work with a company, Discovery Works, out of St. Louis. And hopefully many of you got the survey. And when you see that last line, results are shown by voters and others. So when we look at this data, others means you didn't vote. So the URLs that you received, either a letter or a message, the URL is different for somebody that voted in the election and somebody that didn't vote in the election. so as we go through this information you're going to see feedback from those that we know that voted and then interesting enough 1100 and the 1600 that responded to the survey likely were no voters there could be error but generally speaking that's the url you got then likely the one you responded to so the goal was get a thousand surveys for our district our size so they were very happy with the response from the community to begin with So the question was, sometimes people get so busy or on vacation or not registered that they're unable to vote in an election. Were you able to vote in the May 13th election, knowing that each URL is different? So the voters, 94.6% said yes, I voted. The interesting piece, and I thought this was interesting, they said no, this is common. 72% of the people that got the non-voter URL said yes, I voted. That was my only question in the original presentation was, do I understand that? And they said, yes, you understand that correctly, and that's not uncommon. Because when people are asked, did you vote or did you do your public service, you might have had the intention to vote. So you say, yes, I voted because I think this URL is mine, which it was, but it was specific to voters and non-voters. So as you look at that data, keep that in mind. So reasons for voting no on a proposal. Blue is the URL that we know went out to voters. The green is the one that went out to people that didn't vote or most of them that didn't vote. Tax increase was too much. That's the real takeaway. So remember this bond election was ten and a half mils. Huge. Nobody said it wasn't going to be a big investment. But part of it is what we'll end the presentation with. George, you were on some of the previous bond committees, right? I've seen your name on all those plaques. So the battle cry always was, you didn't know you had all this in school. I saw one of them once my kids pointed it out to me. I want to take some pictures and send them to Craig. But many of the bonds in the past, it was buy two, or buy one, get two free. So Eisenhower campus, that was part of the slogan. Buy one school, get two free. And what that meant was, because we're so low, and we'll show you these slides, in property value, that state aid always paid for 60% of our bonds. Now it pays for zero. Not because we've grown, because they've changed the formula. So that $196 million that cost 10.5 mils 10 years ago likely would have been 4 mils. So would it have changed the election if you could have got $196 million worth of investments for students for 4 mils versus 10 mils? Don't know the answer, but 4 is significantly less than 10. So that's nothing the district did. It's everything that was changed in the funding formula. Too much devoted to athletic facilities. That was a big ding. Trying to do too many projects at once, which probably ties into tax increases too much. Unhappy with short bond timeline. Didn't get a lot of feedback, but interesting enough, this is the longest timeline we've ever had to do because there was an extra step in getting the legislature to approve this. If it seems short, that's an individual's perception because it absolutely took us about four months longer to jump through hoops than them before. Our reasons for voting yes on the proposal, the need to address enrollment growth. The plan included safety and security, so that was a big one. And I'm not sure it's one that, we actually included enough of or promoted enough. If you go back and look at the 17 bond, $60 million, so less, two and a half mills, I believe. But that entire 17 bond was safety and security. It was taking all the schools that weren't the three newest and making sure you had a, as we hope we don't need tonight, tornado safety area. And it was making sure you had ADA accessible injuries and really hitting safety and security fees. And while this bond did, Maybe not enough of it was focused on safety and security. So prioritizing district facility needs. Again, really strong in the safety and security piece and enrollment growth. Replacing aging roof systems. So schools aren't designed to have general operating dollars. can replace large pieces of equipment. Just on Eisenhower High School, there's 240 rooftop units. So if we dedicate a large percent of capital outlay to Eisenhower High School heating and cooling, we might be able to replace 10 of those in an annual budget. And if each one of those lasts about 15 to 20 years, you're never going to replace 240 before they break. Primary sources of information. So remember, blue is those that voted, green is likely those that didn't vote. 55% mailings from those that voted, district website 38, 32, word of mouth, social media from the district, 31% from those that were May voters, 45.6% from those that fell into the other category. So a good summary slide. So those that voted, the 532 that filled out the survey that matched with the county's record that they voted, 27.8 said yes, bring back the original proposal. So for reference, I wrote this down. Our largest special election. And typically, any election we have, if you have over 2,000 yes votes, passes. So that was kind of our target. We received 2,117 yes votes. So more yes votes than in the 17 election, and I think more than any Eisenhower election, but that was before I was here. The difference was 2,500 no boats. So while we had large boater turnout and we hit our target on yes boats, 411 were no votes so even those that voted for it don't favor the original proposal 46.6 a targeted approach for renovation only which would make sense with the feedback on why did you vote no and that was it was too big so I think it was too big then it would seem to make sense that I would favor more targeted renovation only approach so of the 1144 survey respondents that percentage-wise didn't vote in the election in their feedback 43.8 that likely didn't vote said yeah we favor bringing back the original proposal so does that mean I felt guilty because I didn't vote which was part of it we've received excellent feedback on voters saying well I didn't go vote because it always passes so if in fact that's true maybe that's what that option one summary says is we favor you bringing that back because I should have voted but it's May 13th and it's into school stuff and my kids are going everywhere and I just didn't vote Targeted approach, 67.2 in favor. Renovation only, 49%. Don't do anything, 27.3. So now I'm going to switch gears. And Linda did a great job of teeing me up for some of this. So this line, while you can't see it great, the top line is guttered. And this is 2007. So our entire budget is predicated on assessed evaluation per pupil. So it's not just about property values growing. That's divided by the number of students you serve. And then it kicks out the ratio. And the lower your total valuation is, it's that right column where it says 42,000, The lower that is compared to the other 286 districts, the more state aid you receive. Because what the state of Kansas has said time and time again in courts and in the 90s in the legislature, if education is a state responsibility, which it's in the Constitution, then it doesn't make sense that somebody in Godden is paying 100 mils and somebody in Burlington, because I have Wolf Creek, is paying 20 mils for similar opportunities for students. So first we're gonna go to 2007. Our assessed evaluation for pupil was $42,000. And that is, I think that says 230th out of 296 or 86 at that point. 296. So property value for people, because you're a suburban district, you're poor. So when I talked about that bond costing ten and a half mils, and ten years ago it would have been four mils. So just picture a line of 286 districts, from the richest to the poorest, which I gave you the top ten here. So in 2007, the wealthiest district in Kansas had assessed evaluation for pupil of $507,000 per pupil, and got its 42. I'm sure Burlington's on here, so I have Wolf Creek. They educate 800 kids. Their assessed evaluation was $379 million. We had 4,800 kids in those seven. Our total assessed evaluation was $200 million. So if property taxes are going to be fair across the state, the system has to be equalized. On the bottom, you can see, or maybe you can't see.

Does this thing have a pointer? Yes, it's like a trigger on the back, I think, or there's a green dot. There's a green line on the front, on the top.

Okay.

Here's your comparative. So there's Mays. Everybody wants to know how do you compare to Mays. So surprisingly, really close as far as assessed evaluation for people. They were 48,000 per pupil. Andover was 52,000. State average was 67,000 per pupil. So most things, when we're thinking about demographics and number of students that are at risk, et cetera, we're always exceeding the state average. The one place we're well below the state average is in property value for people. The state average was one and a half times greater than us at 07. So then I polled. So skip up to 2023. So what happened during that time? A lot of growth. And did we move the needle as far as property value for people? So we moved to 70,000 people from 42. But we were, instead of 230th out of 296, 233rd out of 284. So relative to the state, we didn't move the needle. Mays. Was it 84,000 per pupil? So they increased slightly more than we did. And over, was it 74,000? So really, from 07 to 23, if we just want to compare with other like districts in the Wichita area, the growth per pupil was similar, which is a good thing. State average, almost unchanged. We're still about, the state average is still about 1.5 times greater than our assessed evaluation per pupil. So there's a reason I confused you. So that was 07 and 23. Anybody in here own a house in Goddard in the 80s? So Linda owned a house in the 80s. She was paying 90-some mils. So remember, 92 is when the legislature came together, and Rick Bowden, who was the teacher here, who was in the legislature, helped move this forward, so it is tied together. They had the debate, and there was a court case that gave them pressure, but they had the debate of, if it's a state responsibility, is it okay that we have some districts levying 14 mills, Other districts levied 131 mills. The answer was no. Why should Burlington only levy 14 mills and Goddard's levy 14? So when you get your tax statements, the mill that says USD upper, and it used to be 20 mills, it actually was 32 at one point, That's the state equalization aid. So that tax comes from the state, and that 20 mils that every school district is assessed goes into a pot. So theoretically, if I'm in Burlington, a lot of my taxes is coming back to reduce people's taxes in Goddard. Because it's a state obligation. Because when it wasn't, this didn't work. So here's specifically Goddard in 87-88. That's the last page of the highest mill levies in the state. So at that time there's 300 and some school districts and more like 10. So if I was a homeowner in USD 265 in 1987, my mill levy was 95.4. So my point is the legislature is in the process of rewriting the funding formula. It passed legislation a few years ago, well 10 years ago after they lost the court case, and said in 2026 we're going to sunset the current funding formula. Seemed like a great thing 10 years ago. Now we're there. And you guys feel it, the legislature feels it, our board feels it, people ask you about property taxes. So as we think about planning for the future and when this question of what does the future look like, I think everybody in suburban districts that don't have a nuclear power plant or a coal plant, Need to be mindful of this because my fear is When you're 40 years removed and you're a legislator and you're getting pressure lower property taxes What's the easiest way for you to say you lower property taxes? to lower property taxes So the legislature right now can say well the new funding formula. We're getting rid of that statewide mill levy That's 20 mills and then they can tell you the only property tax that we could control we eliminate That doesn't change the needs of a district. We already know that. We looked a lot different in 1987, but our mill levy was 95.4. Andover, 96.27. Newton, 96. Olathe, Missoula, Spring Hill, Blue Valley, Piper. Bonner Springs, all the suburban districts that rely on households. So as we think about the partnership of working together and what does growth mean for us? Our annual operating budget is 100% driven by the number of students we're serving. But our property taxes and mill levy are 100% determined by whatever the funding formula is. For as complex as school funding is, the actual process and what the board goes through to approve it, it's plug and chug. You put your numbers in, it spits it out. You could choose to cut, but there's very little of any places in a school funding formula that significantly you have local control. So if we decided we should be able to replace 240 rooftop units without asking for a bond, The only place to do that would be cut something to be able to do it. The board doesn't have the authority to say for two more years we want to levy X amount of mills. You can levy eight mills in Capital Outlay, we levy eight mills in Capital Outlay. You can levy 30% of your general fund in LOB, we levy 30% of our general fund in LOB, as does every other district. A lot we've learned in the short term about how do we plan and what are the needs, but I also want to take advantage of talking to you guys tonight because you have good relationships with legislators. And we all need to be mindful of the temptation to think something looks really good because we're going to cut taxes at the state level. But that's what happens. Burlington will be levying 15 mils next year, and we'll be levying 110. And people will say, how could you double our taxes? And it will have nothing to do about a decision or increasing services. Only where do the taxes get exchanged. So that's what I got. Good news. You guys have a great rest of the meeting. Questions?

There's been a lot of talk up in Topeka as well, putting limits on cities' property tax growth. In fact, there was legislation that the governor vetoed, which would really hamper our situation when we're one of the few counties that is experiencing growth, 105 counties and probably eight to 10 actually growing. And that, you know, some of the conversations we've been involved in, I'm just dealing with them on the same issue, but from our side of the table, I just really hadn't heard that much about the fact that the funding for it was gonna sunset. It seemed like a good idea. 10 years ago. Well, it's kind of late for them. They've already left the session to deal with it.

So what we would anticipate with a new governor, next session is when I really start digging into this. They've had some ad hoc committees that really haven't. They've met with no recommendations the legislature's really going to take action on, nor really should they. I mean, if you know the governor's in their last term and you have a big decision that could impact the next 40 or 50 years of the state, Should that be for the new legislature and governor? And the answer is yes, and that's what they're going to be doing next year.

So what does enrollment look like over the last, let's say, five years for Goddard?

It's went up. The question is, so you guys saw the demographic study that was done 18 months ago. Well, it's going to be two years ago this July. So it was 52 or 56 active or planned subdivisions. And I think that's accurate. You guys see them. You're approving them. The city of Wichita is approving them. Anywhere you drive around our district, there's things being done. Across the board as far as houses and price range. For the first time in 36 years, so our count day is September 20th. It's a two-week window. We went down 40 or 50 students. When the demographic study says, if in fact all these subdivisions are going to be built, you're going to be up, was it 2,000 students? 2,000 students in the next decade. They halved our birth rate. So 20 years ago, 15 years ago, you could pretty much figure every front door in Goddard was one student. The demographic study took that down to 0.48 for us. National average is 0.36. So we're really interested in this September. And when people ask when we're running a bond again, that's one of the reasons we haven't went forward with anything at this point. Because we need to know this September, with being down 40 or 50 students, a one-time thing, or are we flat? Because if we're flat, then we need to be reinvesting future dollars in maintenance, safety, security, things like the 07 bond. If our enrollment spikes this year and next year, the demographic study appears to be cracked, and all these homes that are being built do have kids in them, Then we need to decide, because that doesn't change safety, security, and reinvestment, but then we have to decide where should we put it. Apollo and Earhart right now are full. We should never have an elementary school for 500 kids, and they're both 525 plus. But Explorer, which used to be our largest, is now down to 380 or 400, because they're Explorer serves more of Highland Springs and Auburn Hills. And what's happened there is all the people that live there start to look like me. And your kids aren't living with you anymore, but you're staying there. So we see the new development, which is hopefully we're not just breaking even, we're going to increase. that nobody sees the hidden empty homes of those school age kids. So birth rate and people being really happy with where they live and to your credit and the whole region's credit, investing in quality of life, people don't want to leave. So when your kids leave, well, I'm not moving anywhere. I like being here and I have my friend group and I have a lot of entertainment and opportunities. So I think that is impacting too. Without the new subdivisions, we would be like 99.9% of the other districts and we have dramatic decrease in enrollment.

Do you guys watch the trends in like other districts? I mean, are they kind of have any of them gone down? I just wonder with, you know, 2021 COVID hit, like all of these kids started homeschooling, they started doing different things. Like if that maybe has an impact on some of our districts as well, it can't just be ours.

No, no, no. It's the statewide trend. And part of... And you see Olathe and DeSoto, and at that time it was called Southeast Johnson County, but that's Blue Valley. For years, they've grown and grown and grown and grown. Johnson County schools, for the first time over two years ago, except for Spring Hill, which is much smaller, they all experienced a decrease.

Well, in Spring Hills like us, I mean, they're rapidly working on their development as well.

So it's absolutely a state and national trend. But luckily for us, not every other school district has 50 subdivisions being built. Because if you don't have that, we just finished negotiations and we settled that 2% increase for staff. So less than inflation and less than we had the last few years. But other districts aren't having the discussion of can you increase pay to recruiting teachers and staff members? Their discussion right now is how many staff members do we have to let go to just get back to even? And that's not a great conversation for anyone.

So you said that some of these elementary schools are over capacity right now. I mean, how do you guys combat that with the no on the bond vote? Obviously, it sounds like you guys are gonna be working towards potentially putting another one together or what that looks like. But what do you do in the interim? Cuz I mean, I think that's also like a national thing. There's never enough parents to go around or staff to go around. And so what do you do when your schools are over capacity?

Right now with it being two, you continue to adjust staff in those buildings. Because while there are 100 different, if you think about Apollo and Explore on the Eisenhower campus, both serving the east side of our district, the problem is if you went into one subdivision and took half a subdivision and tried to flip that, all of a sudden you just reverse the problem. Right. So we try not to just for fun anger people. So we're not really interested in going into a subdivision and split it in half to just flip it back. two years later, because if we would have done that eight years ago with Apollo or Explorer, Apollo would probably be at 600 now, because we would have thought we were really smart moving where there wasn't kids and not know six years from now there's a bunch of kindergartners. So you're trying to balance it the best you can. If they got too far out of whack, then you would have to adjust boundaries, but when they're within 100, that's probably reasonable.

And I'm guessing with Oak Street and Clark Davidson, other than the new development that Clark Davidson has now, most of that is kind of like old Goddard. So that doesn't shift too much other than, again, kids moving out.

Especially with Oak Street, it's pretty city center. But with Oak Street, you can only hold 350 kids. And then you think about part of the stuff that changes. Somebody could say, well, I remember that X, Y, and Z elementary used to have 400 kids in 1987. But think about the specialized programs that schools have invested in to serve all students. Maybe I used to have a classroom that would hold 23rd graders. Now it has five students that have high needs and need a lot of support. The other thing, as you think about facilities, sometimes it's not just about what did the original footprint of the building look like, but how has that building evolved over time to serve learners? And that's challenging. Other thoughts or wisdom for me? Anything for Danny? George, anything for Danny?

Keep up the good work. I appreciate, you know, the time, Dr. Henry. Is there anything, from your perspective, I know time's running close to the storm hitting, but is there anything? And I need to go on the record that after work, I went home and mowed, and I showered and got ready to rest. Thank you. But is there anything, from your perspective, that we can do to help get your...

I think this is really good. Craig gives me good information when we need it to know that, like the other day, I don't know how long ago it was, but I drove down 167th from Pawnee to Kellogg. I'm sure I had done that recently, but then I saw these roads being built. So just to be able to reach out and understand how these four roads are going and what's going on around them, houses, to have that information is helpful. Thank you guys. Appreciate your time. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay, moving on. Before we go to Rachel Berks of States, if you'd like an opportunity to just give us a summary on the Planning Commission. Summary? There they are.

Did you want something in particular to talk about?

No, I just thought maybe just kind of a summary of what's happening in the water in the last 90 days or so.

Well, I mean, as Dr. Henry would be happy to hear, we're continuing to grow. Obviously, I2 is more of the same, so... We've been meeting, I can't say with who or about what, but we continue to meet with developers predominantly about residential development. So we have been meeting with some developers that have talked about commercial, but we still are seeing a lot of our just In-person conversation, come meet my office, come meet Craig's office, come meet over here, let's talk about this. Largely, it's still residential. And a lot of that residential is going to be, you know, how can we introduce housing that's more affordable? How can we introduce rental properties that the Council of Planning Commission will approve? And, you know, what other types of housing typologies can we introduce? That's been a question as well. They asked me, you know, would they like this? Would they like this type of housing typology? Does this make sense? What if we raised it up a little bit? What if we moved it back a little bit? What's that look like? A lot of it has been just conversation related around residential growth and development. And I think the commercial will continue to follow. We are actively reaching out to different commercial developers and different national chains and international changes to see if anybody will be interested. Obviously, the same thing we hear over and over and over and over and over and over again for the last seven years since I've been here is, yeah, you guys are close. but we would like to see a little bit more. They're always waiting for somebody else to break the ice. And then they go, oh, if that person can do it, then great, then we can do it. That's kind of what we hear continuously. And so they all have their own metrics. There are special metrics that we can't break. And so at some point, one of them will give and be like, yeah, we'll do this. Or we'll give that a go. We'll try this out. But the conversation has picked up, I think, a little bit more recently, just my personal experience. 2019 was crazy. That's when we had a lot of development happening. And in 2023, we really kind of kicked off new solid building permits. We issued a vast number of building permits in 2023. And so I'm hoping that trend continues. It would be nice if the Federal Reserve dropped the federal fund rate, and then obviously more people would be getting mortgages. And then of course, then the housing permits would come in a lot faster. We see that home builders are saying that when mortgage rates drop, they start introducing more custom homes. When mortgage rates go up, they switch back to spec homes. And so I think some council members, council member White can attest to that, that rates go up, people are like, well, we're gonna put out more spec homes, cuz those ones will sell faster. They're already built, they're moving ready. When rates drop, people are like, hey, I can afford more, and I'm gonna go ahead and build my special house. And so that's a lot of what we're seeing right now. So any questions about growth and development, demographic trends? We obviously, we always have the school district, anytime Davis Demographics reaches out to us, we partner with them. We help them put together their numbers for the justification for the bond and the writing. So we always have a partner with the school district, obviously, in providing the economic data. We always do that. We did that for the last two Davis Demographic reports, and we will continue to do that.

Okay, great. In the interest of time, we'll move on. Briefly, just a couple comments from the city perspective. In the last two and a half years, we've been very fortunate with our relationship with KDOT. We received $2 million to help put the streets in over the Galleria. That whole area should develop soon. We're starting a group of another apartments with a retail base. retail space that's going to be built up here on the main street retail space and industrial space behind Casey's. We might be reaching that tipping point where, you know, it's kind of the old if they build it in their space, I think we'll see an uptick in those types of things. The other thing, we're receiving a million dollars for the 183rd Street turn lanes. We're working with KDOT. They're almost done with the proverbial study of 199th, so we'll be in conversation with them about hopefully getting some help and funding to get maybe some turn lanes put in and however else we work those intersections. The last thing, it's not a gigantic thing, but they've agreed to partner with us on three of the end cuts on the north side of Kellogg. They're by Casey's and some of those things where my wife's previous can fall in that hole and disappear. Hopefully we can get those dug out. so you don't have to be driving my truck all the time to go get gas but in all seriousness we've had a great relationship with kdot and and when you have a major highway you know going through our community that's another one of those relationships that we've cultivated you know with the planning commission the school district that we continue to receive their assistance and their help. We could talk more about different things. I'll give you a chance if you want to throw anything out there. Anybody from the Planning Commission side would like to make a comment? Everybody's pretty quiet right now, which is fine. How close is the storm now? Did the Chief go out with his two iron to check to see if the lightning was close? Bad golf joke. I'm sorry. Thank you, Michael. We'll go ahead and move on.

All right. This item, I.J., is the Registration for the State's Edition Re-plot and Final. Hold on, Michael.

We're going to call a recess for 30 seconds so that the school district folks or anybody else would like to exit and get home before it rains. But they're kind of used to cutting recesses short, so we're going to make this a short recess.

I never get yelled at. If you said, is a snowstorm coming? That's a different story. Then I would hold a straw pole when I don't catch snow. All right.

Next time we have snow coming, I'll call. Thank you, guys. Thank you. All right.

MKDC has submitted an application for a replat of a portion of the Ridge Borough Estates. The purpose of the replat would be to redirect a road around the tree to maintain the steady nature of the development. The replat would not add or remove any logs from the development. The city doesn't have it once that planning process and the Planning Commission approved this replat on May 11th. The City Council is considering the final approval today. The City Council is reviewing the final replat of the Ridge Borough Estates addition. That's what it looks like. the tree was like right over here so they're really just shifting it around just a pretty predominant tree that they had in the sixth section right here and that's on the east side that's opening up onto the central yeah so it's going to be on this kind of one to central and it almost looks like there's six slots here but this is just one really long lot and this is a one really long lot so okay financially i leave considerations there are done Okay, thanks. It is recommended that City Council approve the final reply to the Rachel Brook Estates Edition.

Any questions? I entertain a motion to approve.

I make a motion to approve the final reply to the Rachel Brook Estates Edition.

Second. Nobody makes a motion. Corey seconds. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Very good.

Next item is the Rachel Brook Estates Edition private laundry system project. Next one. So I'm going to kind of skip through a lot of this. This is a community improvement district for Richburg Estates for the financing, Central County Electric Co-op, electrical infrastructure. So part of this, and we did publish a resolution on, sorry, we were going to publish a resolution on this, and we failed to publish a resolution, and so now we're asking that this new resolution that would be adopted tonight would overwrite the previous resolution since it wasn't published in time, and we didn't make that deadline. So if you guys adopt this resolution today for the electric infrastructure, it would set the public hearing for June 1st for that seat of the infrastructure.

Any questions?

There's a lot of details in that. It's all in your agenda packet.

All agenda motion, no questions.

i make a motion to approve the corresponding intent resolution for the project the intent resolution will amend restate and repeal previously adopted resolution number 26-18 on this matter and calls for a hearing date on june 1st 2026. second we have a motion in the second all those in favor say aye aye motion carries by zero very good this item i for this is a resolution of two family structures and there was a joint conversation that we had a previous meeting

So as the city grows, the question about too bad a structure comes up on occasion. The conversation tends to revolve around percentages, quality of the construction, facade coverings, etc. We went through all this on May 11th. There were some questions that came up, concerns, ideas, revisions. City staff feels like we addressed some of this in the new revision that is in your agenda packet. Some of the key points that did get amended was the number one, the requirement to require a private amendment to be public was removed. Simply allowing developers to install a private amenity that meets the standards provided in the resolution. Number two, the resolution now also has language that allows the government by the way and in part or in whole provisions of the resolution in the event that is deemed impractical. And as an example, if a developer was rezoning several lots downtown, it would be impractical to require a neighborhood park at the same time. If you only have two lots and rezoning it and you have to designate one, then obviously that would be considered impractical. Language was included that required a walking trail around a pond, establish an active amenity, and expressly state that a stocked pond doesn't constitute an active amenity by itself. So just because you have a detention pond that's stocked with fish, that is not an active amenity. It would require a walking trail. The pond language also reduced certain language related to irrigation, lighting, and others in an attempt to prevent it from inferring stinging bees. items that constitute amenities. So as a way to kind of prevent any loopholes or poor development, certainly navigate the provisions of the resolution by simply saying, hey, I have irrigation, or hey, I have one bench. That considers two amenities right there. So this language now says you can't do that. City Council has reviewed a resolution that would effectively control certain barriers to demonstrators and presenters allowed to propose developments as long as certain requirements remain unamended. So, moving on. It was drafted and approved by LIHPAC, so the attorney who is in attendance today It is recommended that City Council either, one, approve the resolution, two, approve the resolution, any modifications discussed in any tonight, reject the resolution, or take the resolution for another date. So at this time, I'll open up for conversation and questions.

Honorable Mayor, City Council, I hope you allow me to jointly present on the tail end of this here. So pretty late in the afternoon today, I received some correspondence from, I think, a really important stakeholder to this discussion. The Wishfire Area Builders Association had inquired with me about the city's policy direction on this item. I felt like it would be prudent if we had an opportunity to engage with them on this matter to get some of their professional advice on maybe some of the more practical elements of the restrictive covenant. I don't want anyone to get the impression that we're having cold feet on the spirit of the law as it is. But more so, we think it is important to have a lengthier conversation with them and get some of their feedback. And perhaps we might have council consider tabling this until a council meeting in June so we can gather a little bit more information. If council would be comfortable with that, that would be staff's recommendation at this time. Again, I want to reiterate that no one's getting cold feet. We still think this is important. We still think that we have good policy here, but we think that maybe some extra due diligence just to ensure that it is some of those design standards are administrable in the field and of practical nature, we might want to engage with them a little bit further.

I think we've always kind of talked about when it's appropriate not to rush some things and I think we've been really prudent in that regard. I think this is just an opportunity where someone's come and addressed us that is involved in that business and I don't think it'll hurt us to wait another week or two and get some more additional feedback from them and then we can continue on.

will we be making a final i'm going to ask this to our undersired colleagues but will you be making a final decision on the 15th or are we going to hear from them on the 15th and make a final decision at our last meeting of the month

that's a great question and again this kind of came in late today yeah um so i think as you as you share it out loud it would make the most sense to engage with them on the 15th we could probably do a little bit of a workshop style as we just did with the school districts have an opportunity for some two-way dialogue with them and then should the council want to make any changes within the margins again i don't think anyone's interested in wholesale changes at this point but if they shared something that motivate us to make some small adjustments, we could do that and then come back the fourth Tuesday of the month and adopt the resolution and the restricted covenant.

And will we be inviting the Planning Commission to this one as well?

Should they like to come? Yes. Yeah and we're getting into a lot of evening meetings and we realize that we want to respect and value your time but obviously you're welcome and if a majority of you wanted to come we would notice it up as a as another joint meeting.

If there were changes, wouldn't it have to go back to them anyways to be approved or no?

No, this is approved unilaterally by the City Council.

I'm glad to mention, because I've also heard from a couple of constituents about some things that maybe we missed, and so I'd actually like to, maybe when we have that discussion, talk about some of those things or not, anyone, but...

It's fair to reiterate to people who are listening that we also care about being healthy, that we take this very seriously, but we want to make sure that what we're putting into place is fair but also feasible for our community.

It would have been nice for the Wichita Area Builders Association to be more present along this path since we have been working on it for a while, but we're not unreasonable and I'm happy to hear what they have to say.

Madam Councilwoman, I want to take some accountability for that. I think it would have been appropriate for me or our community development staff to have reached out with them and engaged on the front end. And when they reach out to me today, I did feel like I personally missed the mark by not having this conversation with them earlier instead of a few hours before our council meeting. So for what it's worth, I wanted to share that.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor and Council, if you have some smaller, or quite honestly could be any different change or addition you wanted, send that to staff during the week and we can add those in and have a discussion about them on the 15th. That way if we need to do some research between now and then on whatever your ideas are, we'll have adequate time to do that. There's only one development that I know of that is really kind of waiting in the starting blocks, so to speak, for this to get passed and is eager to move forward. But I think even they could appreciate some additional due diligence because it could be to benefit them if there is something we're missing that we learned from WABA.

This may be unreasonable, and I'm just not thinking of this, but I think if we're going to have another conversation on this and we're going to talk about changing zoning, is it unreasonable to make sure that all of this communication that we're going to have on the 15th kind of gets over to Olson as well? I think they've got a pretty big hand on where we're moving forward, so just making sure that before we maybe vote on it on the fourth Tuesday, they've also maybe seen it and They do this in a lot of communities, so I would love their input or feedback as well.

Absolutely, we'll get that over to you.

I think that it's two of the good things that I heard just in case you want to start working on it now is what is the feasibility of creating storm shelters in some of these locations because there's some concern that like this one storm shelter that we have won't be enough. for all the new developments. And I don't know how feasible that is, but just to buy. And also there's some newer homes that have been built that doesn't have room for water songbirds. And so there's a lot of like, hey, can we at least maybe talk to them and see if there's some room for the water softener just because of the way that our water is regarded for those to be in the house somewhere.

I think the water softener, I know we're thinking about adopting a ordinance to require the sound separation. that's actually exclusive of the R2 resolution and covenant and maybe the water softener could be something that we adopt in the local code as well rather than just in this covenant and because of the timeliness I do want to mention and I don't think a lot of people in the community know this so please listen the storm shelter while it is open to the public and if you would like to drive to to use it, you are more than welcome to, it is not sized or intended to be a storm shelter that everyone living in Goddard converges to during a storm. It is sized and designed to be there for people who may be in the park when a storm comes. So I want to make that clear because I think that there's a misperception out there that That's the shelter that everyone should drive to in the case of a storm. That's not what it's designed to do. It's designed to be there for park goers. Not to say you can't go, that's just not what it's for.

I know personally, I have a crawl space and I just called Thrasher and had him encapsulate some of it.

The storm shelters that we're starting to see in some of the two family homes, could be required for even the single-family, zero-entry homes. And it's just that kind of cop-in style. I've seen some two-seaters or three-seaters too, the big metal ones that get bolted in.

It's not uncommon to put in flat homes. We do it a lot in developments where they go either in the master closet or just in the garage, like off the mechanical room. I mean, that's not an uncommon thing to do.

Yeah, so these are things that could be adopted in the local city code as well.

Thank you.

Mayor, our recommendation would be to table to the June 15th council meeting. Thank you.

Can I make a motion to table a resolution for another date, June 15th?

Let's just make the motion. Let me have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Next ballot.

Honorable Mayor and City Council, I'm super excited to put this one on the record with you all. I think it's been a while since we've discussed it. So Chief Beagle is here, yeah there he is, to assist me in this presentation. So this is the intent resolution for the Justice Center, also known as the police station. So the reason that we're bringing this to you this evening is because staff would like to incur some additional expense in refining the preliminary concept. during fourth quarter of this year when we are seeking competitive requests for cost and qualifications from architectural design firms, we have a much more realistic version of the preliminary concept of floor plan as to what this could actually look like. Right now, in my opinion, what we have from Hutton is kind of like This is what our dream scenario is. If we could have every single thing that we wanted, if we could build this out to last for the next 50 plus years, I think that in an era where we have to be cost conscious and strategic in how we're investing our dollars and some of the things we have learned from touring several police stations and meeting with several architectural and design firms, we can deliver the first phase of this project that should last us at least a few decades for a much smaller cost. And to be able to recoup the dollars that we expend over the next few months refining the preliminary design concept, we need to adopt an intent resolution. That way when we do issue temporary financing in the years to come, we'll be able to reimburse ourselves for those costs. Here we go. I mentioned some of this in great detail in the agenda packet, but you guys probably remember we had a $20.6 million price tag in the 10-year CIP. From these tours that Chief Beigley and I have been on and meeting with the multiple design firms, we've learned that we could deliver this project for a much smaller cost. We're asking for $11.5 million in this resolution. Our intention would be to build the police station and incur all the design fees within that $11.5 million. That number could change, it could be much less, it could be a little more. We could always come back to you guys once we get the design refined. Real quick note, so as you guys know, the future source of funds for servicing the debt on 11.5 million will come from the sales tax revenue that's currently tied up in the Starbond District. The last report we got said that the Starbonds will amortize in June of 2029. I got an updated report today. I haven't had a chance to look at it real closely, but I think we're hopeful that it would be an even more aggressive timeline because we are seeing sales tax dollars just continuing to ascend rapidly within the district because people are shopping at Walmart. We entered the sandbox into the equation this last year. We have more retail coming online within the district. with compensated use tax collection that will occur within the 160 plus apartments that will be built. So hopefully it'll be paid off by 28.

So comprehensively looking at... Just quickly, I did spend a little time looking at those numbers and it does appear without any increase in the sales tax revenue over the next three years, I think that would be closer to the end of 2027, as soon as possible. Well, 2028, I'll say that. Thank you, Mayor, and I haven't had a chance to look at them yet.

I'm glad you did. And that aligns really well with the project schedule that Chief and I envisioned, and we hope the council will share in that vision with us. But refining our programming this year, hiring an architect and engineer to do the full design in 2027 and get into construction in 2028. Remember when you issue temporary note financing, you're not actually servicing that debt for two to three years. So we may not be making the first quote unquote loan payment until 2031 or later. Of course, if the project gets over and we're early and on schedule, we can mature that note into permanent financing and save costs and capitalize interest. But at any rate, that's the project schedule. We hope to be in construction in 2028. And I would anticipate, just speculating, this is probably at least an 18-month build because police stations are a little more complicated than some of the other things we build. So we'll see how that goes and hopefully sales tax collections will just continue to soar within the Sarbon district and that thing will pay off early. We'll have this source of funds to service that on the police station and any other capital projects that it needs to go towards. So again, tonight we're simply just asking you to adopt this authorizing resolution so we can be reimbursed for the fees that we're gonna incur within the next couple of months.

legal is approved into form is prepared by our bond council kevin cowan with gilmore bell chief beagle would you like to add anything i mean other than i actually don't have much time to spare because we have thunderstorms coming but i have started to shovel myself a little bit to get the project going a little quicker but yeah i like those numbers in that timeline

Any advice on the storm? Should we need to adjourn or should we carry forward? It's just started.

I make a motion to approve the resolution authorizing certain police station and municipal court facility improvements to serve the city of Goddard, Kansas and authorizing the issuance of general obligation bonds to the city to pay a portion of such costs. Second.

I made the motion and second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Thank you.

I'm here to ask for approval for the purchase of water and main materials. As part of the 5 in 5 program, we're working on Spruce and Timmy Street to preempt the street full depth reconstructions of those streets for 2027. So I'm asking for the approval of that. We have gotten three bids, but only two came back that we could actually utilize. I'm trying to add in a 10% contingency as situations have happened, the price of pipe has been going up due to oil issues and such. Staff developed the materials list with helpful department, and they did a pretty good job on this one. I know they got a lot of experience from that previous project, so it went pretty well on this. Here is the breakdown. The total from wind water was $85,471, and then add in that 10% contingency, and that gets us to the $94,084.54. We will be doing this as a 5-in-5 project. This will be funded.

Any questions at this point in time? And this is first from 3rd Street on to the North? The 7th. And the 7th Street and then to... And those streets will actually be then...

Pulled up for construction in 2027.

For next year or so.

We're trying to get ahead of it so that we don't cause any delays in the process. And this will be some of those done in-house as well.

Having a motion that the City Council authorize budget authority to purchase materials for the Spruce and Timi Water Main relocation from Wichita Windwater in an amount of $94,018.54.

I second. Krista seconds.

All those in favor say aye. Aye.

Mr. Mayor, if you don't mind, in the interest of safety, after conferring with Chief, we've got some pretty good size weather that's rolling in. It's moving a little bit slowly, but we want to give everyone adequate time to get home. So if it's okay with the council, I'd like to recommend that we table the rest of these agenda items to the Tuesday, May 26th council meeting in June.

Okay, so that's item 7-10. Yes, Mr. Mayor.

Craig, did you want to take just a moment before we close to go over to him?

I don't think so. I think we'll be okay. In one week, we'll be fine. Thank you, though.

Can I make a motion to adjourn? Can I do that?

Sure.

I'll make a motion that we table early and everyone go home before your apartment's at 1 p.m. Second.

Second. Say aye. Aye.

And then, Mr. Mayor, if we could get a motion to adjourn, too. I'll make the motion to return.

Second.