City Commission - Regular Meeting

are present citizen our first item the order business is a consideration of the minutes from May 14th 2026 questions changes or comments on then those will stand as presented then next will be citizen comments for items that are not on the agenda this evening Okay, nothing on the consent agenda. Next should be the legislative update from Representative Wassinger. I believe she's on her way. So we'll circle back to that. We'll move on to the 2026 Water Line Project Awarded Bid.

Good afternoon, Colin Belzer, Deputy City Manager. So the 26 Capital Improvement Plan did include a project to upgrade the water line along 23rd Street between Lincoln Draw and 4th Street. This is the location of the water line, just south of 27th and west of Vine. A little bit closer up picture. So the improvements that would be planned include the replacement of the water line, upgrade of fire hydrants in various locations, installation of new meter cans and meters, and replacement of a third of the concrete street along the route. You can see circled in white, those white circles, that's where some known breaks have happened. There are a minimum of nine breaks that have occurred along this stretch, and staff has spent significant time working this area, particularly in the last two years, and it always seems to happen in the winter. The bids were- At two in the morning. Huh? At two in the morning. Yeah. They're dedicated, good guys. Bids were opened on April 28th, 26th, and all bids were reviewed by city staff and project engineer Drake's Design. Low bid was from Jake Gore with about $511,411. Work would begin towards the end of the summer and be completed by December. There was a budget of $600,000. There were roughly $99,000 under, or $89,000, excuse me. City Commission has the following options to accept the low bid, direct staff to enter option, or do nothing. And this would be the action requested.

I move to authorize the city manager to enter into a contract with J Corp in the amount of $511,411 for the construction of the 2026 water line project to be funded out of from water capital.

I second. Go ahead. I second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion or comments on this one?

Good project. I know we kind of talked last week.

We appreciate the engineers being under budget, and then this being under budget even further, and fixing something that had 12 breaks in the last year or so.

One thing I could add, we have these guys go out in the middle of the night when we're having these breaks. It adds a lot of hours to those guys. So overall, it could be a good savings if we take care of this.

Absolutely.

Continued maintenance is a good thing. All right.

Then I will call for a vote on that one. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Opposed?

Passes 4-0. Okay. Next up, the 2026 Water Plant Influent Mag Meter Award.

The 2026 Capital Improvement Plan also included a project to hire a contractor to replace the Influent Mag Meter at the Water Production Distribution Plant along Vine. water plant is obviously on south vine near the public works facility and the railroad tracks and here's a closer view of the water plant and uh interesting view here to include all the infrastructure from rgs that's in there so you can see there's a lot of various lines in the area so includes water leaving the plant water between the underground reservoirs raw water coming into the plant from big creek and smoky remediation water being sent to the pre treatment on South vine, and then the remediation water being blended into the plant for treatment. So all that is going on in that area. So this project does include hiring a contractor who specializes in installation of such meters and confined spaces. The current flow meter, which is circled in red on the main 20 inch line has served its useful life. It's a paddle style meter that does not register correctly at lower flows. An accurate flow measurement of influent raw water meter gives staff more accurate real-time information to make process adjustments and decisions. This also has the potential to save money on chemical costs as it gives plant more flexibility to run the chemical feeders more efficiently. Bids were opened on March 24th and we received two bids. The low bid was from CASCON Constructors in the amount of $38,570. It's been determined to be the valid low bid. The current schedule calls for construction to begin in the late fall to coincide with lower water flow and be completed by December 31st. Cass Constructors has not worked for, since we've implemented the evaluation forms for contractors, but they were involved in the new wastewater plant build, and we were very happy with their work. So this was listed in the capital improvement plan with the budget of 90,000. Installation, the low bid was $38,570. And then the mag meter was under city manager spending authority, so we've already purchased that for $14,530, which bringing a total project cost of $53,100. You have the options to accept the low bid, direct staff to another option, or do nothing. And then this would be the action requested to enter into a contract with

I move that we authorize the city manager to enter into a contract with Cass Constructors in the amount of $38,570 for installation of the meter for the 2026 water plant and fluid mag meter from the water production distribution operations budget.

Second. Motion and a second on the table.

Questions, comments on this item? I just have a question on this meter. I apologize I wasn't here last week. Was this replaced when we rebuilt the wastewater? Or is this?

This is water. Oh, this is water.

Everything leaving the water. It's about 30 years old. 30 years. Wow. OK. That makes sense.

And I will call for a vote on that one. All in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Opposed? Passes 4-0. OK.

Thanks, Collin.

Next up, rezoning request from Agricultural District AL to Light Industrial District I1 for 1375 East 41st Street. Jesse.

Good afternoon. Jesse Redore, Director of Public Works. So my first item I'd like to do today would be to have you consider a rezoning request that was received This is for a rezoning of 1375 East 41st Street, and the rezoning is from Ag to Light Industrial. So the subject property is north of I-70. It is on the east side of Vine Street. As you can see there, it's just north of 41st Street, kind of north of the Home Depot area, and just east of the current city limits. And we'll talk about annexation in a little bit, too, for the next agenda item. This site, again, although it is outside the city limits, it does fall within the extraterritorial jurisdiction, or the ETJ for the city of Hays. So that's what allows us to perform the zoning and annexation as is desired here. So the current zoning, as you can see in the areas on the green, is agricultural. It is adjacent to some commercial areas to the west, and then you can see some industrial areas just to the south and slightly west of the property as well. So there is a mix of commercial and industrial in the area. The other map that we always like to show you, this is a visual from the comprehensive plan, and it's a visual of the feature land use map found in the comprehensive plan. So as you'll notice, it does show it as this particular area is medium density residential, excuse me. However, the other tool we use within the comprehensive plan is called the compatibility matrix table. And what that does is tells us how compatible the different zoning districts are to each other. So the medium density residential and light industrial or even commercial, they rank them on a scale out of five. So they rank a four out of five, which means they're highly compatible with each other. meaning this is still along the intent of the comprehensive plan. With this one too, since it came up during the Planning Commission, I wanted to show you a visual of the floodplain areas. During the public hearing for the zoning at the Planning Commission, we had one adjacent property owner present, had no concerns with the request of zoning, but his only concern was to make sure they were addressing any floodplain areas that might come up. as development of the property. So within the red boundary here of the rezoning area, you can see the blue area. That is 100-year floodplain. However, the developer does not intend and is designing around the floodplain. So the floodplain will be protected. And by annexing this into the city, it allows for us to have enforcement of the protection of the floodplain, the stream buffer. This is actually the waterway that enters Chitola Creek that cuts through the middle of Hayes. so we'll have the stream buffer requirements enforced and they will also have to do stormwater management and mitigation as they develop the properties just like any other property development hay so that being said and the that was mentioned at the planning commission and the one adjacent property owner present was satisfied with that answer and was okay with with the project moving forward If rezoned to light industrial, these are the types of uses that could be on the property. There's actually three different classes of uses, the first one being uses by right. So this list here provides uses by right, which means once they're rezoned, any of these uses are fair game in a light industrial zone property. This is just a continuation of the list of those uses by right. This never changes. This list only stays the same for light industrial properties. The second type of uses are called limited uses. These are still allowed if chosen by the developer. However, each of these has a certain criteria that must be followed. So for example, if someone were to choose a place of public assembly, there may be requirements in our UDC on parking or access or different things like that. However, it's still approved administratively by staff. And here's just another four of the limited uses a continued list. And then the final group are uses by exception. In light industrial, the UDC only has four uses by exception. If any of these four were to be chosen to go on the property by the developer, it would require a public hearing at the Board of Zoning and notification of adjacent property owners. So there is a process to go through Uses by exception are pretty rare. We don't see those. It's pretty rare we see those, but not totally out of the question if rezoned. So since this is a zoning, as dictated by state statute, you have these three specific options. You could approve it, which was, Recommended by the Planning Commission by a unanimous decision. You could send it back to the Planning Commission with specific basis for further review or you could overturn the Planning Commission's recommendation and if you do so that would require a two-thirds majority of the City Commission. This would be the action requested.

I move to adopt ordinance number 4099, approving the rezoning request from Agricultural District AL to Light Industrial District L1 for the property located at 1375 East 41st Street, as further legally described within the adopting ordinance.

Second.

Motion and a second. Any questions or comments on this?

I just like that we've got something else going in there besides housing with that floodplain going through there. I think the light industrial is a better fit than the medium density residential that was the second option.

Yeah. We'll call for a vote on that one. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes 4-0. Thank you. Representative Wassinger, I wanted to ask your

blessing.

If not, would you want Jesse to finish his section and then have you come up? Okay. Okay, wanted to give you the opportunity.

It's a quick one.

We'll move on to the annexation of the same property.

Okay, so we are talking about the same property. However, rather than rezoning, we're talking about the annexation of the property. Again, here's the same visual showing the area just north of 41st irregular shaped property mostly bounded by the, because of the floodplain on the west. So besides the rezoning, city staff did receive an application for consensual annexation. There's lots of types of annexation. The most simplest and the most common and the one we like the most are applications that we get because the landowner is requesting annexation of those. It is currently contiguous with the city limits, which allows us to do this type of annexation. I already talked about the rezoning in the last item. And one thing I didn't mention during the rezoning item is There are some, besides the floodplain that was mentioned here, there's also some constraints because of sewer, sanitary sewer that's not readily available there. So the developer's fully aware of that and can develop accordingly and maybe not have to deal with the sewer as some other types of development may have to.

So with this one, you have two very simple options.

You can annex the property as requested or do not annex the property. This would be the action for approving the ordinance for annexation.

I'll move that we approve ordinance number 4100, annexing the property at 1375 East 41st Street as further legally described within the adopting ordinance.

Second.

Motion and a second on the table. Questions or comments on this item? I'll call for a vote on that. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes 4-0. Thank you, Jesse.

Thank you, Jesse.

And now we will have a legislative update from Representative Wassinger. Welcome.

Thank you for inviting me. Excuse me. I apologize for being late. I got caught with some financial discussions that I had to take care of for personal reasons. And I apologize. It's not good. First, I want to thank you for having me. Thank you to all the city commissioners and staff for allowing me to be a part of this today. I love this job. I've been very blessed that the constituents have given me the opportunity to do it. And I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be right now, and I'm glad to be there. So I want to thank all of you and everyone at the meeting as well. It was a busy year. We had a very short session. So I heard 26 budgets as chair of general government budget within three weeks. Which meant I spent a lot of time prior to that trying to figure out what the heck they were wanting and why I should tell them no because We're trying to cut government spending. In the last few years, we've been doing it by 1.5%. So I did talk to someone and said, you know how hard that is? And I said, yeah, we do. We hear from everyone. And we understand. And personal budgets have to be cut as well when you have so many expenses. So I don't think it's any different having the state do that. The biggest thing was... property tax relief, which we tried three bills and each of them were defeated. There is there's a group of people that are doing another idea. And I'm not familiar with exactly what they're doing. But we are working on property tax relief. The state does not collect any property tax. We are the repository for counties and cities that collect property tax, and then we send it back out to whomever it is that is supposed to have it. So when we're asked to fix property taxes, my response is usually, you have to talk to the local officials. And that the advantage of having been a city commissioner like you and a county commissioner is I know only too well that when we tell you what to do, it causes you problems and it causes problems in your budget as well as other things. So I believe the new idea is a lot more inclusive in trying to get city and county governments to be a part of this discussion. But you wouldn't believe the emails that I get. So every day I respond with, that's not my job. We did pass a cell phone bill ban this year in schools. It was fairly easy to pass. There's all sorts of studies that show how difficult it is for teachers in schools to take care of kids and teach them while they're on their cell phones. And they say they can't use them, but they I don't know if you've done this at dinner with your kids, but I've seen a lot of this. So I think they kind of sneak some things in. We did do a Second Amendment resolution that allows for the purchase and holding of ammunition. The Second Amendment obviously allows us all to have firearms. We have the right to do that. But there was apparently a loophole in that that didn't say, yeah, you can have the gun, but you can't have any ammunition. So this bill sort of filled that hole, which happens on a regular basis. And I know this happens to every governing body, that sometimes you pass a bill and you think you've got it all right. Yeah, we've got this all taken care of. And then you get in there and you realize,

This doesn't address other parts.

So we took care of that. We passed some Kratom restrictions. I knew nothing about Kratom, but I believe it's what they produce fentanyl with. And so they're trying to get, we're trying to get a handle on, for law enforcement so that they can put it in the right categories and they can arrest for it and they can take the kratom that they find. It was a very interesting debate and a very interesting area because there's so many things that we don't know. And when you're in the state legislature, you can go anywhere from the state grape, to something really big. So it takes a while. Let's see. We did some PBM reform, which is pharmacy benefit managers, which are allegedly are the reasons why we pay so much for pharmaceuticals in the country. So we passed a law to try to limit their abilities to take on as much as they do. So we'll see how that works. That seemed to me to be wishful thinking. I think we have to get more specific, just FYI. Let's see what else we did. Oh, we did things like the recess bill saying each school had to have a period of recess. We've all learned, I think, and we've all read about the fact that when we keep kids in the school classroom for so long, it causes more problems with their behavior. So we wanted to make sure that schools will make sure these kids get out, get fresh air, run around. I have a grandson who is very active. So if you can have him chasing his friends all around the playground, he is much easier to deal with when he can sit still. So we kind of like that. So you can ask the school board member, state school board member about that and see how they felt. That kind of gives an overview. We all talked about, of course, I spent most of the last year after I got done with all of my budgets. I am the chair of general government budget. I'm on the commerce committee. And by virtue of my 26 budgets, I get to be on appropriations, which is There are some heavy committees, but I really spent a lot of time on the local control bill, 2433, which gets a ceremonial bill signing tomorrow. But I have asked for years, what can I do? What can I do to help? What can I do to help? So this past year, they finally said, we think we want you to do something. And by golly, I was gonna make that pass or I was gonna die trying. So I spent a lot of time, I thought it was funny that the Senate said, why are you always over here? I said, because you're voting on my bill. And they said, are you a lobbyist? And I said, I am for the city of Hays. I appreciate that. I was able to get into a lot of doors that maybe even we had wonderful lobbyists. We worked in tandem. It was... People said, why are you still doing this? I think it's going to go fine. And I said, as soon as you think something's going to go fine, what happens?

It doesn't.

So I just kept going, and kept asking, and kept talking to people. And I had a couple of, one especially good surprise, ranking Democrats in committees that this is a good bill. This needs to pass and her voice in the house made that really and she went up and spoke in the house when we went to vote on it. She really took care of that. But I don't know if y'all know about what you have to do to pass a bill. You have to come up with a bill. And then you have to go and have the revisers draw up a bill. The revisers are the attorneys. And then once you get that done, you have to make sure leadership wants you to run the bill and you have to get their permission to run the bill then they decide which committee it goes in so then you got to go to the committee chair and talk to the committee chair that they will hear the bill and their committee they have to have a hearing and then they have to vote and then they have to pass it on to the floor then it has to be read the bill itself is read out three times three days in a row And by the third day, you can bring it to basically a hearing on the floor, and then you can bring it to a vote the next day.

And nothing is, government is, you know, hurry up and wait.

So you try to get everything done, and then you gotta wait for the process. So I got it through the house with only two no votes. And that's out of 125 people. That was pretty exciting for me. Then I had to start working. In the meantime, as I got closer to the house, I was over in the Senate trying to talk to Senate leadership and trying to talk to all the Senate committee members and trying to make sure that they were OK with the bill. So it was a lot of hurry up and wait. And we spent a lot of, Eric and Sue and I spent a lot of time with heads together. Now, who have you talked to today? And who are you having a problem with? I can go talk to this person. I kept going back and forth to people. They kept going back and forth to their contacts. So it was a great day for the city of Hays and Russell to be able to get their water. And I am deeply honored that I had the ability to help with that. I'm excited that we have a long-term water source. Not quite yet. We still have to wait for the Supreme Court to finish up a bill that's really moot, but they won't say that. In any case, I'm not really allowed to lobby the Supreme Court, but I did talk to the Chief Justice, the last one who unfortunately became ill, and the new one eric rosen and i did talk to them i said i want to i don't want to ask you what you're doing on the bill i just want you to know it's very important and it's something we have to this should not this should not stop us and so it's been it's been a great year for me because being able to get that done meant a lot to me so Is there anything else you have questions with? We had lots of vetoes of Governor Kelly as we went along, because we did the Charlie Kirk bill, which meant you could speak about whatever you wanted to on campus. I'll just mention two other bills that I think you would be interested in. One of them was on medical associations, allowing them to be treated more as insurance. They're not insurance, but they should be allowed, such as MediShare. I know a lot of you have heard the ads for those. They were not given the same rights as other health insurance programs, and we made sure that they were included in that, and that was important to me. Let's see, there's something else I was gonna tell you that I just saw. We did do the bathroom bill, which means you need to use the bathroom that corresponds with your biological gender. I, in particular, got a lot of heat on that because I was part of, I'm the one who ran Fairness in women's sports in the house. This was simply to make sure that we were protecting our young women. And whether you agree with me or not, you can certainly tell me that you don't. A lot of people call and leave messages and tell me that they don't. But I think it's very important to protect our young women. I don't want to worry about my granddaughters going into bathrooms and finding out there are other people in there that I don't think should be in there. That was part of it. But it's for public buildings. It's for government buildings. It's not overreaching on everyone. So we wanted to be able to take care of what we could when we could. And we were pleased to be able to get that done. We took care of the pregnancy resource centers. That was good. We overrode her veto. And then one thing that I never really even thought about, they regulated those low electric fences around construction sites where you could get, you wouldn't be electrocuted, but it would stop you from going in. They were so overregulated, that we had to pass a law to allow them to get that done. So anyway, I could go on. I could keep going. It was an interesting year. I think it went really well for the most part. There's always things we want to do next year. I would like to continue trying to stop bureaucrats from passing laws by regulation. Rules and regulations are the bane of every state's existence. And it's the bane of every work, anyone who works in the state because you have to follow so many silly rules. I want to be able right now we are not able to do this, but I want to be able to go to the house and say, this is this is wrong. And I'll give you one example. The Department of Labor came and changed workman's comp law by regulation. And They brought it in front of my committee because I'm chair of Joint Rules and Regs. I said, you should not be doing this. This should be done within the legislature. This should be in the statute book. And at the time, and now that's going to be totally changed probably no later than September 1st, now it will be online. But does everyone know to check all those? How does everyone know that? I did get them through a lot of phone calls to the Attorney General to back off on some of the new regulations, but that was a perfect example of why we need to be able to stop certain things in order to go back and look at it as a legislature. Do you have any questions?

I have a couple comments. First, we keep thanking you, and we don't thank you often enough for what you did for our bill. I think that we all knew you were pretty powerful down there, but we found out how powerful you really are. So we really appreciate everything that you did. Persistent, not powerful. Yeah, persistent. That word works.

Sometimes people just say, OK, fine.

And I was listening to one of the no votes in committee that day, and she almost apologized for having to vote no, but it was in her county was the reason that she had to. So that really was outstanding. We fully expect you to be there again next session. So one of the things you and I have talked about in the past and you probably even, it's so new that I'm not sure there's anything out there, but I read the other day about Johnson County Schools are suing over special education funding. And you and I have had that conversation before, and you tried to get it in my head about, and I'm still not there, but I work on it all the time. Do you see anybody jumping on that bandwagon? Do you see it being any problem? Or do you feel like you have fully funded special education the way you're supposed to?

We have fully funded the public schools. And that was through the Gannon decision. We have done that. We spend over 60% of every dollar we get in the state on schools. It has to do with the special education equation And so there's an interim committee that's working on it right now. They are getting a lot of money, but we're not able to count that. When you start adding up all that money, they're not able to count it. And I know I'm going to get emails about this, but I believe that the school districts are spending the money that really should be going to special ed.

How do they get away with that representative? How do they get away with it? Could be a long discussion. Maybe that's over a cup of coffee.

I'm not sure that that would be the safest discussion for me to have tonight, but you know that if there's a will, there's a way.

Thank you.

Barb, I also want to thank you for what you did on the water bill for us. I mean, I watched all that, and it was just awesome to see it come together. And for you to stand up here and say how you keep stuff local, let us have our power and stuff. And it's nice to have somebody like you that's been through what we go through on a daily basis. And very much appreciate it. We know you have Hays and our area in your best interest.

I will argue, not argue against you,

I'm a special ed. I'm married to a special ed teacher. And she's very passionate about it. I have no idea how the spending.

I love them. I'm so glad they do it.

Absolutely. And I don't know how the spending's done. But being married to her, she now teaches at college. I'll argue that they do need more. But I don't know how the spending's done. So I'll leave it at that. But thank you for what you do.

I agree. I think that they've been cheated by not the state of Kansas because we've been giving them billions of dollars. I respect that.

Thank you.

Barb, it was so much fun to watch you this session when we were running there for the bills. I know Toby lived there for a couple months alongside you. You know, talking to our lobbyists and the legislators that were up there, they're like, yeah, persistence is an amazing word. Oh, yeah.

You have to be persistent. If they don't see your face and they don't hear what you have to say, it's not going to get done. Yeah.

And in, you know, the kind of divisive governmental structure we have right now, to be able to get – your bill through the house and senate with almost overwhelmingly bipartisan support was phenomenal um so we greatly appreciate your help with that i mean it's it's a huge win for for hayes and russell so we greatly appreciate that thank you um on the the uh the property tax that you guys will take up next session um the only thing i would i would ask is uh continued engagement with us on someone who knows what's going on. You're the perfect bridge between us and the state to provide that opportunity for identifying ways to provide relief without a blanket measure that could hurt smaller communities over larger ones. Having us involved in that conversation would be great. I'm not worried about reaching out to you and getting answers. So as long as we continue to have that conversation, we're lucky to have you. Anything else, commissioners?

Thanks for coming.

We appreciate you.

Sorry I'm late. And if anyone wants to know anything else, feel free to let me know. It's hard. I did get an email that talked about there were almost 700 bills introduced in the House. You can't hear 700 bills. You're only there 90 days. It's expensive. You have to have a lot of people working on things. So I have a lot of those statistics, too. But I was afraid if I just started droning on the statistics, everyone would go to sleep. The eyes would blink, yes.

That's the best part of government.

All right. Thank you for having me. I'm pleased to be here. Thank you. Thank you, Barb.

Thank you so much. We'll move on to the next agenda item. The ordinance to authorize the issuance of industrial revenue bonds, Grove Community Center. Chair.

Jared Kuckelman, Assistant City Manager. today we are talking about two ordinances that would authorize the issuance of irbs for two different projects the community center at the grove and serves i'm doing one presentation here for both items but they are two different ordinances so just keep that in mind we do have dominic eck from gilmore bell the city's bond council on zoom so if there are technical questions we can definitely get an answer so first i'll just give a little bit of background on the community center As we all know, Grohaze has been working on the Grove as a residential development north of Hays Med. And as part of that development is the Bob and Pat Schmidt Community Center, which includes within it a childcare center and the senior center. The facility was opened in August of 2025, which has led us now to talking about the next and final steps in the IRB process. You might recall that the IRB resolution of intent for a sales tax exemption was approved back in June of 2024. And this was just a sales tax exemption. There was not a property tax abatement. IRBs are basically a two-step process where you have the resolution of intent, which is done before the project starts, and then once it's completed, an ordinance is passed to issue the bonds, and that's what we're talking about today. On the left there, you can see the aerial of the Grove property and you can see there that the community center is there on the kind of bottom of the red box. On the right is the rendering of kind of the full build out of the Grove. I think it's a bit of an outdated image here, but it gives you kind of an idea of what the plan is. And I thought it might be useful to show the impact of the project. So this is a before photo of the site before anything was done. And then now here's the final product. Now we'll talk a little bit about the second IRB project we have, which is for serves. I think we're probably all pretty familiar with serves as well as they currently operate for convenience store and gas station locations throughout Hays. This does include the location at 3701 Vine Street, which is the subject for this particular project. As part of the project, the previously existing store was replaced with a more modern updated facility while the gas station layout was modified to allow for better traffic flow and then various site improvements were also made. The new facility was opened this past November. And if you may remember, the IRB resolution of intent was passed for this project back in October of 2024, which was right before construction started. And then once again, this resolution of intent was just for the sales tax exemption. There was no property tax abatement for this project. So here's an aerial image showing the location of the site being discussed. And then again, here's a couple images to show what the site looked like before with the previously existing store. And then here's a couple images showing the location today. So for IRBs, I know we talk about them a lot as an incentive granting vehicle where the city is the conduit. These do not affect the city's debt limit or rating, and they do not require taxpayer commitment. Again, for these projects, only sales tax exemptions on materials were utilized as part of that incentive. So there was no property tax abatement associated. Again, the IRBs do not affect the city's debt limit, and they do not require the taxpayer commitment, as it's solely up to the developer to make any payments associated with the bonds. So as I always like to say, IRBs are a bit of a unique and complicated structure. State statute does require that the bond issuer, which is the city, to have an interest in the property. This is done by creating a site lease and a project lease and then the lease payments are then used to pay the debt service on the bonds. Since this project only used the sales tax exemptions, the bond process itself doesn't really last all that long. It only lasts through this year. And the developer basically buys their own bonds and then kind of pays themself back through the process. Once again, the city is never responsible for the repayment. And if there's any sort of default, there are remedies that can be taken, including terminating the bonds and ending any outstanding incentive. So again, the developer is solely responsible for all payment obligations that are associated with the IRBs and there's no impact to the city. So on both items, these will be the options before you. And these will be the actions requested. And again, two motions will be needed since it is two different ordinances.

I move to adopt ordinance number 4101 to authorize the issuance of industrial revenue bonds for the Grove Community Center.

I second.

Motion and a second on the first item. Questions or comments on this one? Call for a vote on that one. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes 4-0 for 4101. Next up.

Move adopt ordinance number 4102 to authorize the issuance of industrial revenue bonds for serves.

Second.

Motion and a second on that one. Questions or comments? Okay. Now I'll call for a vote on that one. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed?

Passes 4-0. Thank you.

Thank you, Jared.

Next up, CDBG for 1012 Main Street.

Okay, this next item is an application for a Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG, through the Kansas Department of Commerce. We do have Brett Wagner from Governmental Assistance Services, who is the grant writer for the project on Zoom. So again, if there are any technical questions, we can definitely get into that. Just some background, the CDBG program is a common and established program and funding source for cities and counties that's been in place since the 1970s. The program does receive funding from the federal government through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. For small cities like Hays with a population less than 50,000, CDBG is administered in Kansas by the State Department of Commerce. Each year, Commerce develops some specific program areas to target what sorts of projects the funding can go towards. These can include housing, sidewalks and trails, water and sewer infrastructure, et cetera. City of Hays has received an application from a developer 127 investments Which is owned by Tim Spino to apply for CDBG through the commercial rehabilitation program for the site at 1012 Main Street in downtown You may recall this particular project from a year ago, as the same developer did seek to apply for this program in 2025. Unfortunately, they were not successful at that time due to a lack of funding that was available at the state level, so they have decided to try again in 2026. The CDBG Commercial Rehabilitation Program is designed to assist private property owners in redeveloping properties that could be considered blighted and helping prevent the spread of any blighted conditions. In 2026, a max of $300,000 can be awarded as part of the commercial rehab program with a minimum 25% match being required, which would be the responsibility of the developer for this. And for this project, the developer will be providing that $90,626 for that match as part of the program. So while commercial rehab grants go towards private projects, cities and counties are still required to be the official applicants for the grant. Just a little bit more on the project itself. The developer plans to renovate the second floor of the building that currently sits at 1012 Main Street. This building was first constructed in 1917 as the Hayes Building and Loan Association. and has since been the home of many retail and service businesses over the decades since. The ground floor is currently the home of Eclectic Threads Quilt Studio, which I believe will remain over the course and then after the project. Instead, this particular project is focusing on that second floor of the building to create three rentable Airbnb units that would be available to visitors and travelers. Here's the location of the building, which is right off of Main Street in downtown. Here's a view from the outside on Main Street looking towards it. This is a view looking south from off of 11th Street. You'll notice there on the very far left a side entrance, which is an entrance for the second floor and would provide a private entrance for the units upstairs that is separate from the quilt studio. Here's a couple photos of the interior to show the current state of the building. Couple more. Here's a proposed floor plan. There would be two one-bedroom units and then as one two-bedroom unit. there are several required steps to be taken as part of the grant process there is a little bit less for us to do than might be typical because we did approve several things last year and they can be reused but we must do a new public hearing to allow any residents to offer comments on the proposed project as well as a resolution that certifies the legal authority of the city to serve as the applicant for the grant So as the official applicant, the city would receive the funds first, should the grant be awarded. The developer would then be responsible for requesting the funds from the city, which would be dispersed pending approval by the city and the Kansas Department of Commerce. No city funds would be distributed for the project, and the required 25% match would be the responsibility of the developer. These will be the options before you today. And these will be the actions requested. There will be multiple motions here just due to the nature of the different items. I will say the plan is to submit the grant. I think the waiting period is, I can't remember, 15 or 45 days after your approval today. And then we await notification of the award, which would probably happen by maybe early July.

I will, excuse me, I'll move to open, or I guess I'm not moving. We will open the public hearing at 4.48 p.m. If anybody would like to come up and speak on this project, now is the time to do so. Slow down. Okay. Then I will seek a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Second. Motion and a second to close the public hearing. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes 4-0 for the public hearing closure.

I move to approve the interlocal agreement and personal guarantee and sponsoring the CDBG application.

Second. Motion and a second on the table for this. Questions or comments on this portion?

I got some questions. Who actually came up with the estimate for the amounts for the work that's going to be done and who's going to do the work?

So there'll have to be a public bid because it's federal funds. So there will have to be a process for that in terms of who does the work. So that won't necessarily be decided until the grant actually would get awarded in theory. And then you'd have to go through the process that's required by the program to do the bids for this particular portion of the work. to answer your first question about the estimates. In this case, this is just doing a specific amount of work on this part of the project that is allowed by the CDBG program. So there's $300,000 that's awarded. In this case, the project will focus on the exterior work of the building, like some of the masonry roof work, I think. And then the approximately $90,000 that's supported from the developer is that 25% match that's required as part of the program. So this portion of the work that you're approving today is just based on the grant portion of the funding. There would be interior work and other portions of the project that would be solely the developer's responsibility and won't involve the grant funds at all, if that makes sense.

I see Mr. Spino is present here. I do have a question for him.

Please. Yes, sir.

Hi, everyone. Tim Spino. How's it going today?

Good, David.

Good. Hey, my question is, have you thought about the long term of this property? After the three years the grant's up, is your goal to turn around and sell the property? Or are you going to continue to own and maintain those Airbnbs?

Yeah, and actually, Brett, you might be able to help me because I think the CDBG requires me to own the property for a period of time.

That's right. It's a minimum of three years. If the property is sold within the first three years after the grant is closed out, then the building owner has to pay back a prorated portion of the $300,000 grant.

So required three years, not going anywhere. And if things go the way I've wrote up the business case with the tenants, I don't plan on selling it.

Do you anticipate this creating any jobs, or are you going to manage Airbnbs yourself?

Give you some background, so probably more information that you need. So I took 50% of my retirement, my personal retirement, and took it out of the stock market. And I decided to take that out of the stock market and invest into Hayes Real Estate. Because I believe in Hayes. We're living here. We're not moving for as long as my wife has a say in it. So essentially what we did is we took that, all the 50% of my retirement into Hayes, put it into an investment vehicle here. When I hopefully am alive at the time where I'm able to actually get it from the retirement essentially vehicle, then I'll be operating it essentially as a business owner. One day, one thing I hope to have is my own restaurant in one of the properties. I don't know if 1012 would be it, but that's my retirement plan.

And who put together the numbers for you for those estimates? Our architect out of Manhattan.

What's the name of the architect? Brett? HTK?

The architecture firm is HTK Architecture.

So I'm just going to voice some thoughts on this. I appreciate you trying to reinvest in those. I did a little bit of research on you. I know you live in a house that's appraised at almost a half a million dollars. You own almost a half a million dollars of property in town. Did you attempt to go to any banks and seek out funding through the banks and sell it like a business plan and acquire funding elsewhere besides the taxpayers?

Yeah, so I essentially don't have any equity left because I put as much as I could to buy 1,100 Main Street. It was a great opportunity, great time, probably severely overpaid for the property because I love the property and I love what it stands for. So right now I can't go to a bank. Physically, I'm tapped out. they at any point maybe even recommend that you sell that property instead of reinvest into it um no no if anything you know this i think we talked about the first time this money is going to be used somewhere so i was here last year and we didn't get it because we were later in the application process so that literally From what they tell me is whether we were the next one up or the next, you know, the second one up, money just run away. So it went to another town. I'm hoping that this grant, even though it's taxpayer money, comes to Hays and possibly not another county or city because it's going to happen. And last year, we didn't get it. We didn't get the opportunity for the money to be invested here locally. And I'm hoping this year, since we're going to be actually, from what I hear, we're going to be one of the first, the first application for the CDBG for the state. And I'm hoping that that money goes to Hayes and not to another city.

That's everybody's defense is that it's going to go somewhere. my thought process on that. And I know a lot of my constituents thought processes are is if we would stop paying for rich people to get rich for, then maybe we could start saving the taxpayers some money. Cause at the end of the day, this is a huge investment plan. You're investing 25%. And in three years you can potentially flip that property and make a 75% return on your investment. That's huge. That's better than any stock market gig. Uh, that's better than any, bank account. So I appreciate you wanting to make Hayes better, but I don't like it at the expense of the taxpayers.

I can appreciate your perspective, really do. I don't feel that rich based on having four kids, right? But I will tell you, this is essentially investing in our retirement. So I decided not to go to 401k, all stocks. I decided to diversify my portfolio. And 50% of my entire retirement of my family, wife and four kids, is based on investing in Hayes.

I completely understand, but I'm 44, retired, and I can live off of what I got. And yeah, I don't live in a half million dollar home.

Yeah.

I don't really think it's, I mean, we're voting on whether we approve the grant process.

I mean, it doesn't matter. I don't care what kind of house you live in personally. I mean, I do like that you're investing in Hayes, and yes, it's taxpayers' money, but it is a fact. If we don't get it in Hayes, it's going somewhere. As far as I know, that's what we've always been told. And if you can make downtown Hays even better, I'm all for it because there's a lot of people that come to Hays because of our downtown, and I hope we can continue that. To me, that's what we're voting on is whether we're allowing the process.

and not oh i'm sorry go ahead jim the um i just want to say it's not not an issue it's every everybody is entitled to their opinion so i appreciate it david absolutely it is not lost on me the amount of investment you've put in this community and i think that if everybody stood up and did exactly the same amount of investments to their capacity and you know a lot of people don't have the capacity to do what you're doing

But I have a great respect for it. I also am excited that it's downtown. I have talked since the very beginning 25 years ago when we started developing downtown that one of the greatest things we could accomplish to make it successful is have a residential area.

And that's what's growing and growing and growing and we appreciate that.

You know, I can make the case all day long and somebody's going to get it. I'm not thinking about that side of it. I'm thinking about your personal investment. I respect the fact that it's your retirement. You know, you're kind of rolling the dice on that. But probably no more, some people in this room would agree with you, no more than the stock market would be doing. So I wish you the best and I hope there's more opportunities for you.

How long has the top floor been vacant? I think since probably 1960s. So for about 65 years. There's no electricity. There's no HVAC. It's still the old, I don't know what you call it, Jesse, the knob and tube electrical. So yeah, it's ready to get that back into circulation.

And then the updates you're wanting to do on the outside, you know, tuck pointing and bringing that back up to.

It needs it. It needs it. It needs it, yeah.

Yeah, and it's one of those pieces that, you know, if we're paying into this program as taxpayers, goes into this program at the federal level, comes back to us through the State Department of Commerce at 50,000 person or less, group. Yeah, you can be mad.

I'm not.

What I'm meaning is we can be mad at what the federal government does with their money and how they get it back to us. It'd be nice if we could keep more of it.

I don't agree with a lot of what the federal government does.

But what I believe in here is our local reinvestment. These are dollars that will be seen and tangible immediately. It comes back to you. I work with small business owners every single day, and it's always trying to find a way to make something cash flow, and everyone's, well, let's find some grants, let's find some grants, because somebody's got to have them. Well, the only people who do grants are nonprofits, if they have the funds, foundations, or the government. Banks aren't giving away money with no return on them. And if you're going to want a construction rehab loan from a bank, 6% to 8.5% that you'd have to pay on top of that, that you're going to have to charge into the business owner downstairs or raise the cost of your Airbnb units to cover that. By allowing this program to come back into our community through this process, we've got a... It's been vacant for longer than both my parents.

I'll tell you what.

So, I mean, no one in my family, immediate family, has been alive with that being used.

So to have something actually come about from that is something great. I'd rather have my tax dollars come right back into the community that I love from somebody who lives here and is doing it. on the back of their retirement rather than some developer from Nashville coming in and doing it because they can flip the property quickly. That is where I probably have a little more concern.

Knowing what you've done in the community and what you continue to do, I appreciate that.

So I have no problem offering my support for this program. The longer I talk, the longer your application gets pushed down the line, so I'll keep talking to you.

And the people that would be staying in this Airbnb are probably not from our community and hopefully they'll be spending money, you know, eating, drinking in our town. So I think that's a win-win if you get it.

Since you brought up the Airbnb, I just did a quick Google search or search before coming in. And if you book out a couple months, there's 60 open Airbnbs in Hays, Kansas. If you try to book this weekend, there's still 10 of them open this very weekend. So I can't say that we don't have plenty of Airbnbs.

Yeah, yeah. And that's for the market to decide that point. But having that one downtown will be special.

I will tell you that you take a look at it. I don't have it in the business case, but the Airbnb is within the bricks. We're talking eight. And it's a different level, right? So it's more essentially it's an upgrade to the Hilton Garden Inn. So that that competitive that competitive set of an upgrade to the Hilton Garden Inn

maybe 10 ish airbnbs it's an it's an enhancement to what we already consider a great destination in our community it's not a me too airbnb right yeah it'd be something that i would utilize i usually lean towards more airbnbs and hotels one i feel like i got more space and privacy um and two with the location it's at um right in the heart of downtown you got restaurants and whatnot around you and then My wife and I love to go to the concerts at the Fox.

That'd be a perfect place.

I won't have to rent it now because I live here. But somebody will. It will happen. Because we're getting a lot more people coming into this community every single day.

All that we hoped for when we started 25 years ago is happening now. And it just continues. So I say it often. Downtown is at a tipping point every single day. And if we're not nurturing it and taking care of it and enhancing it and growing it, I think we're missing the boat. So I consider this a real enhancement. Thanks, Tim. I would agree.

What about the Good Book Store mural on the side there?

There's a lot. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just worried if I cover it up, it's just bad mojo. Maybe you should just frame it up and clean it up. Could be bad, could be good. We're going to do something. We're not going to cover it up and we're not going to destroy it because that is a, it will be shown somewhere. It will not go away. Just don't know in what form. Perfect.

You'll like with that. Wonderful discussion. Great. Any other questions or comments on this first one? OK, we'll call for a vote for the interlocal agreement. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed?

Aye.

Passes 3-1.

Next up would be the next motion approved.

Move that we approve resolution number 2026-008, certifying legal authority and authorizing the mayor to sign all necessary documents.

Second.

Motion and a second on this one. Any additional questions or comments?

I'll call for a vote on that one.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Aye.

Passes 3-1. Thank you, Jared. Thank you, Jared. Thank you, Tim. Appreciate you being here.

And the guys on the phone.

Yes, and thank you guys on the phone. It's hard to see invisible. Progress report.

Mr. Progress. Good afternoon. Colin Belzer, deputy city manager. So the service division used 69 yards of concrete to widen the eastbound leg of 13th Street at Commerce Parkway to allow for a dedicated left turn lane. Final pavement markings will be applied in the next few weeks to complete the project. 37 yards of concrete was used by the service division to repair the intersection of 41st and Country Lane. A new drainage culvert had to be installed as well. Yeah, it's very nice. Unfortunately, there was a water leak on Main Street, but they use 11 yards of concrete to repair that area near 10th and nine. And then last week was National Public Works week. And to show appreciation for our dedicated staff. They celebrated by having meals, treats and throughout the week. fire department hosted a three-day confined space training with certification testing on day four by the task force seven tech rescue team members and then the southwest kansas fires we were able to send a few uh firefighters down there for specifically lieutenant tyler brungardt lieutenant detry firefighter grady keith and firefighter trevor sherman in the picture are lieutenant brungard and lieutenant detry Director of Parks Jeff Boyle presented Mayor Mason Reuter the Tree City USA flag. The city has been a tree city for 47 years. The ceremony was held on the Fort Hays State campus this year.

No, I did ask the kids if it was going to be six or seven feet tall. They thought it was hilarious.

Our park staff did repair holes in the safety servicing and then apply to rejuvenator or the entire surface. The rejuvenator binds any loose rubber granules while putting moisture back into the surfacing. The park did have to be shut down for five days though, to allow the prod product to properly cure future repairs and rejuvenator will be applied as needed. And then staff also groomed the turf at the art playground and this process cleans up debris while lifting matted down areas. Jana's campaign was awarded a grant focusing on crime prevention through environmental design, and so working with the Parks Department, it was determined that a solar light at the Stepping Stone water crossing would be a great addition to the park. The light was purchased by Jana's campaign, and then park staff installed it.

I love that. That is nice.

Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks stocked the vineyard pond with 175 pounds of channel catfish. That's my kind of fish.

Yeah.

Staff have installed shade covers along with many other maintenance tasks to get the pools ready for this summer. I think Saturday is the opening day. It is. Members of the Hays Police Department attended the Kansas Law Enforcement Memorial Ceremonies in Topeka. And then members of the Hays Police Department also attended the Ballard Awards Banquet, where many received awards, for instance, that occurred in 2025, including the Blue Alert Arrest in Ellis and the Downing Avenue Call. And then lastly, they also participated in events in Washington DC for National Police Week. Sergeant Scott Hyman's name has been added to the National Law Enforcement Memorial Wall. And if you ever have a chance to go there, Definitely pay your respects. This panel shows his name is in the middle on the top part. I was hoping maybe it would be visible from here. Winning water posters were displayed at Tri-Central Office Supply in time for the Spring Art Walk, and they will remain on display throughout the month of May. Here, staff repaired a water leak at 26 and General Hayes on the left on May 2nd. And then on the right, staff installed a new tap at 508 West 32nd. Environmental Process Equipment Company was on site during the week of May 18th to perform the 10,000-hour recommended maintenance on the centrifuge, something that you guys voted on earlier this year. This vital piece of equipment spins liquid sludge and removes as much liquid to create cake biosolids that are then hauled off to agricultural fields. Yeah, you don't want that cake.

Not that kind of cake.

On April 29, Janet Coon and Kristen Fike assisted with registration for the Kansas Infrastructure Summit, which brought approximately 200 participants to Hays, and they were welcomed by Mayor Ruger and Governor Kelly. At the Kansas Science Festival in downtown Hays on May 2, the CVB sponsored drawstring backpacks for attendees, and Melissa Dixon delivered meals to volunteer stations.

Colin, we weren't here for that. Were there as many kids involved in this as there was last year, or more?

I heard more.

Because I think last year they thought there was 1,200 kids down there.

Do you know the number? That big? Yeah. That is really amazing. Let's go with that. Yeah. So our CVB marketing intern, Sydney Madison, helped recreate the Stored Churches of Ellis County brochure, which had been previously printed years ago by Hayes Daily News. The updated piece allows visitors to take a self-guided tour of the historic churches of Ellis County. And upon receipt of the new brochures, about 2,500 were shipped out to the future churches and Kansas Welcome Centers. Two billboards on I-70 have been rewrapped with the Committee of the Year artwork, as well as the installation of the, oh gosh, banners along Vine Street. Fall grass phase four project is progressing nicely. Sewer installation is well underway with storm water and domestic water soon to follow. This project does have a scheduled completion of November 1st. The new police station project is about 50% done and it continues to take shape. Final painting and cabinetry installation is underway in the basement and flooring will begin soon on this level. The carbon reduction path is making great progress. The section from Hall to Vine Street is complete with only seating, signage, and striping remaining to be completed. We hope to have that portion open soon. And then progress is now being made on the east side of Vine headed quickly towards Sternberg Museum. And this project is scheduled to be completed by the end of summer.

You know, as much as we've done with that multi-use path over the last term, my term as a commissioner anyway, nothing has gotten more attention than this last section. It's just been constant people calling and saying it's wonderful and we just can't wait for everything to be finished. So it really was a big enhancement to the path.

There were quite a few people going around the sidewalk close sign. Yeah. I didn't see that.

Wasn't me quick question. You said striping they're striping that well for like the road crossing.

Okay Great project Good question, though. Yes, the path won't be strapped itself. That was a two-lane.

I didn't imagine there would be that much traffic. Right. Nice. Some places do do that, though.

But anyways, the Exit 161 project is moving along as scheduled. The sewer sleeve has been bored under I-70 with the water bore next in line. And then sewer line has been partially installed along Commerce Parkway. Airport staff extended the underground drainage system adjacent to the north parking lot expansion. This allowed staff to level off the ditch next to the newly installed sidewalk, making the area much safer. They've also painted the islands and refreshed the speed bumps in the parking lots, as well as the crosswalk markings in front of the terminal entrance. Any questions?

I love how we keep expanding and it keeps filling up out there.

We had our highest boardings of April.

Best April ever.

Unreal.

That's great. Keep it up. Fantastic.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Hayes Happenings Upcoming Events. Melissa.

Hello, Commissioners. Melissa Dixon, Director of the Hayes Convention and Visitors Bureau. With some things I want to let you know that are happening in June. The Sternberg's new exhibit, this should run through the fall, so you've got plenty of time to go see it. So much time that we are dedicating one of our billboards to this exhibit, because I believe it's going to pull people off I-70. Under the canopy, animals of the rainforest exhibit, and it even has some special live animals. Rainforest animals are here in Hays.

Excited about that.

Our downtown market voted best market in Kansas two years in a row has started, and it will be going every Saturday under the downtown pavilion. And there's also a Hayes Fresh produce market two, three days a week, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday down at Bomb Cars. The Hays City Band has four performances in June. This first one at Hays High Performing Arts Center will actually include the 35th Infantry Division Band, which is the official musical unit of the Kansas Army National Guard. Definitely get to some of these. Three at Hays High, and the last one of the month will be at Beachman Performing Arts Center. Fox Theater has two shows in June, Moms Unhinged, which is a good one, and Citizen Soldier Secret Songs Tour 2. The first Hayes-Larks home game will be June 8th, 7 p.m., thanks to all the generous sponsors that make those games free for all. And if you're familiar with Lovegrass, they do a big, cool bluegrass festival out at Wilson Lake. They're also doing free concerts in downtown Hayes. The first one will be June 11th under the downtown pavilion.

If you missed those last year, get out and see them. They are really, really fun. I'm really excited about this one.

then citywide garage sale you wait all year for it june 12th and 13th the welcome center will have printed maps though this is not our affair we support it because it brings a lot of people to town thunder on the plains car truck and cycle show will be the same weekend june 13th and that will be down at municipal park And there's three big tournaments out at the sports complex. Baseball softball and another fast pitch softball. And these will bring, the first one will have 53 teams. Second one, 47 teams. And that last weekend in June, that one will have 58 teams. So we, at the Convention and Visitors Bureau, we are sure to let our restaurants know that they are coming and they appreciate that. Hayes Arts Council Summer Art Walk will be June 19th, and that will be one in the evening, downtown Hayes. And IMCA races will take place out at RPM Speedway on June 20th. And then the Father's Day special, June 21st, Father's Day weekend, dads swim free with a paid kid. So take the kids out to Hayes Aquatic Park. Thank you very much.

Steph, Melissa. Hey, Melissa.

Just curious, have you talked to any of the restaurant owners or hotel with the graduations all on the same weekend, how that worked out?

doing a little report for Fort Hays State on that at our office to just see, is it possible to fill up the hotels two weekends? That'd be great. Instead of one. It sounds like the conflict was no moms wanted to be run ragged on Mother's Day doing graduation parties, but could it be Saturday? I don't know. We'll talk to them. We'll see.

conversation conversation has started good thank you the problem is with that so many there was not a hotel room between ellis and celina i don't think everything was full well like the restaurant owners you can only do so much you can only serve something spread it out yeah my servers and cooks were either in high school or college yeah and they're all off for their friends who they work with so it's me and three other people adults are like okay we're gonna run Run the restaurant. See what happens. Pray for us.

I was going to check with the chief, see if we had any accidents in the roundabouts. Because there was, I haven't heard one.

There has been an increase in tornadoes in the east of us. Yes, sir.

Don't run. All the Seanabouts. Seanabouts.

Anyways. The commission inquiries and comments. Commissioner Velasquez.

Oh, I guess I really don't have much more than I've already said. I do look forward to the large scheme starting up, and there's something else up there that I saw. Lost my train of thought, though. I know everybody was for giving away those taxpayer money, but I'm a firm believer in it's got to be a good business plan, and if there's another way, then we shouldn't be using the taxpayers' funds. That's all I've got to say.

If you remember what you got, plug me down before I hit the gavel.

I'm just excited for spring and summer. Spring's over. Summer's basically here. We have so much going on in this community. It is just really exciting. And I get more people contacting. Even my grandkids, who are older now, are talking about coming back to Hays for things this summer. So really appreciate it. Appreciate everything that CBB does. Melissa, you do a great job. Thank you.

I just want to add on the Airbnb discussion. I had somebody call me today, wouldn't have worked in your situation, that they're, somebody's having heart surgery or whatever, and they had a group of five, and they were needing something with handicap accessible, and, you know, called around, and all the ones that were, that could happen were full.

So it's, you know, there's people always looking for those, and I, I,

i don't think it hurts our community i think it actually helps just you know i will tell you i talked to a business owner downtown and their concern is the parking but the concern for parking has been like that for how many years forever since we've had a downtown yeah technically i don't think it's a problem it's just the walking is a problem for some so i i but i make that case that they'll walk Long way to get inside Walmart. But technically the only people complaining are the locals. Out of town people never complain.

I think it's a good thing.

I think it's good for our community. Yeah, got a lot of good things coming up. We got some rain. How awesome is that?

Awesome. Representative, thanks for being here again. Appreciate the update.

Always great to see you.

And it's really exciting that we get to do the ceremonial signing of that bill tomorrow.

That'll be really really pumped But it'll come

Thank you again I Wanted to share what had the picnic at the parkless last weekend That was so much fun a lot of fun a lot of people came More than last year I'm lucky enough to live right over there. I had a lot of people say you should start charging for parking.

Now I'm going to keep it free for the public.

We had people, I think, Melissa, you said there was a family that came down from Grand Island, Nebraska, just for this. And it was great. Had music and food trucks and bouncy castles. Midwest Energy supplied power off of one of their electric trucks for the bouncy houses. super interesting i didn't know they had that kind of output um yeah lots of good food lots of fun stuff my kids were exhausted by the time they were done and then hayes pd fire were there with a truck and a couple cars and the bike and ellis county ems was there with their ambulance just cool seeing the community come together like that just have a good time everyone brought some lawn chairs sat and had had fun that's what hayes is for so Other than that, I don't think I have anything else.

Remember what you had? Okay. No executive session.

We'll adjourn at 522.