City Council - Regular Meeting

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 tonight we have joel reese across the point church coming to give us the prayer

Let's pray. Dear Jesus, thank you so much for every person who's here, for those who have dedicated their time and their attention to the welfare of this community. I pray that you would just be with everything spoken and decided on tonight, that you would grant wisdom, that you would create peace, that you would create unity, and that through the decisions tonight, the community would be blessed. I pray that you would just be with each person as they think through what they're going to say, that they would have the words come to them easily and they would communicate clearly. In your name I pray. Amen.

Thank you, Joel. Item number four is the approval of the proposed agenda. Anything on the agenda that council members would like to have amended or moved, that would be what we'd do at this point.

I would move to approve the proposed agenda as presented.

Second. Truen? Yes. Garza? Yes. Goss? Yes. Bass? Yes. Magers? Yes.

Next item, Murray.

Item number five, petitions, remonstrances, and oral communications from the audience.

This is part of the agenda, oral communications from the audience. Any person wishing to address the council shall first be recognized by the mayor. Come to the microphone to state the person's name, address, and subject should be discussed. And of appearing in a representative capacity, whom the person represents. Remarks shall be limited to five minutes. Comments during this portion of the meeting shall relate to matters not on the agenda and within the business and jurisdiction of city council. All remarks shall be addressed to the city council as a whole and not to other speakers, members of the audience, or city staff. Rebuttal statements, back and forth exchanges, and debate are not permitted during general public comment. The portion of the meeting is for city council to receive public comment. The council will generally not engage in discussion or debate with the speakers. To avoid repetition of presentations, the mayor may require a spokesperson for each group. Audience members may address items on the agenda when those items are taken up by city council, and comments relating to those items shall comply with city code. So at this point, if anyone has anything that they would like to come up and speak in public comment, now would be the time. Thank you.

Duke Duvall, Hutchinson, Kansas, 2501 Canterbury Drive. I'm here again tonight because I drove past the parking lot at Elmdale tonight before I came here to make sure what I'm saying is correct. I like to do my homework, so the potholes are not fixed. And it's been two weeks. The weather is perfect to be fixing potholes. You don't want to do it when it's 20 below zero. So if we could, we don't want old people falling and hurting themselves. And it would be on your conscience if they did. And I hope you people do have it in you to make sure this gets done before the next Council meeting. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Duke Thank You mayor Meagher's and members of the Hutchinson City Council for the opportunity to speak this evening My name is Carla Kenyon and I live at 2507 North Meadow Lake Drive here in Hutchinson The group behind me is called Earth Earth Matters. I We are a nonprofit, multi-faith, ecological group of people who are doing all we can to preserve God's creation in our community. We represent First Presbyterian Church, Trinity United Methodist Church, Grace Episcopal Church, Holy Cross Catholic Church, Plainview Mennonite Church, Faith United Methodist Church, and First Mennonite Church. The citizens of Hutchinson are interested in doing what they can to improve our Earth, as evidenced by a recent Earth Matters Facebook post about a new e-waste recycling option. This post experienced 68 people not members of our group sharing it out to everyone they were connected with on Facebook and over 17,700 views. Clearly, there's a demand for environmental solutions in our community. plastic in our environment is no less a problem than electronic waste. We come here today to discuss the single-use plastic bags that shoppers get at Walmart or Dillon's or other retailers here in Hutchinson. Plastic bags are made from fossil fuels. They take up to nearly 1,000 years to decompose in landfills and blow away easily to pollute waterways, clog urban storm drains, and travel all the way into our oceans. As plastics break down, they turn into toxic microplastics that harm wildlife, livestock, and enter the human food chain. Toxic microplastics do not biodegrade. They instead photodegrade under sunlight, breaking into smaller hazardous particles. These microplastics absorb toxins and eventually contaminate the soil, water, animals, and human beings. It is for these reasons and many others that we come to you today asking you to place a citywide ban on single-use plastic bags. Many states and cities have seen the wisdom and possess the courage to ban single-use plastic bags. In fact, 12 US states and hundreds of local municipalities currently ban or restrict single-use plastic bags. Because there is no federal plastics ban, policies are decided at the state and local levels. House Bill 2446 was passed by the Kansas State Legislature in 2024 but was vetoed by Governor Laura Kelly. The bill sought to block all Kansas cities and counties from independently prohibiting, limiting, or taxing auxiliary containers, which includes single-use plastic bags, straws, cups, and other packaging. If it had become law, it would have immediately nullified local plastic bag bans such as the one enacted in Lawrence. However, Governor Kelly vetoed the legislation, citing her strong support for local control and home rule, meaning municipalities in Kansas still retain the right to independently regulate single-use plastics. As part of a grant from the Hutchinson Community Foundation, we purchased 1,400 canvas bags to distribute at various locations around Hutchinson. We encourage you and every citizen to please use reusable bags and not accept one-use plastic bags. We are delighted to offer you each an Earth Matters reusable bag and hope you will do your part to protect our planet by using it the next time you go shopping. May we present you each a bag?

Yes.

I just brought along as a PS, all these are already nationwide gone, only the paper. Thank you.

And so has Trader Joe's. My daughter works there. Most importantly, we ask for your serious consideration to implement a single-use plastic bag ban in Hutchinson, Kansas. Let's leave our grandchildren a habitable planet, and let us be bold and do the right thing. Thank you for your time. And we have more bags for anybody else that would like them.

Thank you.

Anyone else would like to come up to speak in public comment?

Good evening. Thank you council members for the work you do and continuing to have this public comment time. Today I want to get up and acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ and the blessing this country has enjoyed for the past 250 years. Psalm 3312 says, Blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh. Let us return to the truth, Jesus Christ. Jesus said, if you hold to my teachings, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. May God grant us repentance and forgiveness for our sins and bless the United States for another 250 years.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?

Hi, I'm Steve Garza, and the second.

That is my son.

I don't know if you guys were talking about having data centers or something like that. I'm not the only person that's against that, because I'm worried about my kid's future. And I know how bad it is. And that's another way to get, I see in my eyes, communism. And that's not a good thing. I believe in freedom and flock cameras. That's a bad thing too. Getting lost more in the system and everybody just, I don't like that shit. That's more communism to me, in my own eyes. And I'm not the only person that thinks that. It's a bad thing. And I hate, it's supposed to be freedom. And we're America. And I don't want to be like China and be like that in our water, have to worry about all this stuff. But that's all I got to say, you know? Thank you. Can we have a vote for this? If we do decide it, you know what I mean? We're working towards that. Okay. Thank you.

See, I'm not the only one that's laughing. Anyone else?

I was impressed by the former speaker. My name is Duke Duvall again, and still. The former speaker, I was really impressed because my whole thing is we have too many secrets, and we don't need that. We need to want to know the facts about these institutions. It's very funny that everybody in America is against these. So where do they turn to? Well, we can put them in Kansas. How about Hutchinson, Kansas? And cameras in the streets and things like that? No. It's not good. If you people have not ever read the book by George Orwell, 1984, please do so. And the whole theme of the book, what I saw, was trust no one, especially corporate America. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else? OK, if not, Mary, next item.

Item number six, consent agenda.

Council had a chance to look through the consent agenda. Anything need to be amended or comments, questions?

I have no questions. I've read it.

If there's no questions, I just need a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented and authorize the mayor to sign.

Second. Truen?

Yes. Garza?

Yes. Goss? Yes. Fast? Yes. Magers? Yes. Item number seven, public hearing. Public hearing regarding levying and assessing special assessments on certain lots to pay for cost of certain improvements. Plum Creek Lift Stations and Drainage Special Benefit District.

I move to open the public hearing.

Second. Truen? Yes. Garza? Yes. Goss? Yes. Fast? Yes. Magers? Yes.

Angela Richard, Director of Finance. There are two pieces to the Plum Creek special assessments that we will hear tonight. The first one is for the lift station and drainage at Plum Creek. In 2024, we had issued temporary notes of $340,000 to pay for the lift station and drainage improvements at Plum Creek. The tent notes are due October 1st. and the infrastructure part of the project is complete and it is now time to permanently finance the project. Notice has been published in the newspaper and certified letters have been mailed to the owners of the properties. The owners now have a chance to pay their share of the cost before we assess them to the property. The intention with this property is that the owners will assess it over 20 years. A letter of credit for this part of the project has been provided by the developer and tells the properties how 35% of the properties have certificates of occupancy. I'll stand for any questions regarding this portion.

I have a question about the letter of credit. In other projects we've had like a bond presented and this is a letter of credit. Can you tell us what's the difference and why did the developer choose to do a letter of credit for why that?

They're both different types of financial reassurances for us. I think there's different criteria and probably different costs associated with getting each type. I don't know if Cody Smooth has any more understanding of that or not, but the letter of credit for these special assessments would help us cover any paid special assessments that might eventually lead to a tax sale. So if those specials go unpaid, we would be able to call on that letter of credit and be reimbursed by the supporting bank. Okay, thank you.

Any other questions for Angela? Any questions or comments from the audience on this item?

Again, my name's Duke, and you guys aren't, so that's my just bit of comedy there. I drove out to Plum Creek last week. It was Wednesday, the day after the, or two weeks ago, the day after the city council meeting. I saw two homes that were not completed and a bunch of weeds, and my question is, Why are we building this, and there's nothing there to use? There's nobody, there's no houses. I don't quite get the logic in this. I witnessed the rambling of the representative a couple weeks ago, and it was sort of ridiculous, but it's just, It's just, to me, people trying to get over on the taxpayers and the city of Hutchinson. And we've got to stop giving these people all these special tax abatements, for lack of a better term. And if they want to build something, let them build it. do everything, or at least pay about 90% of it because they're the ones who are going to benefit from it, the builders, not us. And as I say, there was two houses that had been started but not completely finished. No other cellars being dug, no pads, concrete pads, nothing. No workers, no anything. So maybe everybody needs to start asking the hard questions about why. And I hope I can stir things up a little bit and get people thinking. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All right, any other comments, questions?

I have one other comment about the letter of credit. So the letter of credit was $300,000, is that right?

It was for $75,000. And it was to cover just the lift station and drainage portion of the project?

OK. And so did some of the other projects have a separate letter of credit?

I believe for the next item that we're going to discuss that there wasn't a letter of credit. Instead, the developer contributed his own cash towards the project as an negotiation part of that.

Okay. Thank you.

All right. I guess if there's no other comments or questions, I just need a motion to close the public hearing.

So moved.

Second.

Truen? Yes. Garza? Yes. Goss? Yes. Fast? Yes. Magers? Yes. Item number 7B, public hearing regarding levying and assessing special assessments on certain lots to pay for cost of certain improvements, Plum Creek Phase 1 Special Benefit District.

I'll make a motion to open this hearing. Second.

Truen? Yes. Garza? Yes. Goss? Yes. Fast? Yes. Magers? Yes.

for this item it covers phase one of plum creek and it covers all of the streets that were installed and the basic infrastructure for just that phase one and so again back in 2024 we had issued a temporary note for 1.25 million that note is coming due along with the other note, October 1st. So we are going through this process as part of permanent financing to assess the cost to the property. This part of the property would be covered by the RHID incentive. And so the hope would be that the property taxes that those houses are paying and the owners of them would go towards paying the special assessments on these properties. And that would make the city whole in this process. Like Stacy had asked, we do not have our letter of credit with this part of the project. Instead, the developer had put in his own portion of a share of the cost in accordance with what the feasibility study allowed. The feasibility study looks at how much property taxes they think that RHID will collect over the span of 20, 25 years, and matches that with how much of the infrastructure that we could bond and pay off in that timeframe. So, occurring with that, the developer did put in a share of the cost, and that left us with the $1.25 million, and we will be bonding that to pay that off by October 1st. So I would stand for any questions regarding that portion of the project.

How much did the developer put towards?

The developer contributed, he wrote us a cash of $306,000. some change. And then he also said that he did, well, I know he paid for sidewalks out of his own pocket, and I believe he had additional expenses for the lift station, which he could submit to get reimbursed for if the RHID pays off the bond amounts. He could get reimbursed that at the end, but I have not seen those invoices.

We'll get into this a lot further on in the agenda, but those items that Angela just listed are reimbursable through the RHID. So while it came out of his own pocket, I mean, there's the back end of him getting reimbursed.

But the $300,000, is that... he, he doesn't get that back. Like that was a basically like he bought down the specials that away at the end of the RHID if it pays off.

So that, that 306,000 is a reimbursable expense. It's an eligible reimbursable expense.

Any more from the audience? I'm pleased to remember my timer's working now. Just limit your comments to five minutes, please.

Yes. Thank you. Chris link 3,506 North Lorraine. I forgot to say my name last time. I agree with, uh, Mr. Duvall there that it shouldn't be the responsibility of the city to reimburse this gentleman for his development. Uh, it seems like if it was a worthy cause, he would have, uh, invested his own money and done that. Uh, I think we need to find better ways to incentivize, uh, developers manufacturers than giving them, uh, all of our money. deregulation, whatever it may be. I know I don't have great solutions for it, but it seems like we just keep adding heavier burdens to our people by adding more things. And as he said, there's not very many people living there. So we're footing the bill. We're hoping for property taxes, but who knows how long that'll take. So that's all I've got to say about that.

Thank you.

Let me get this straight now. I'm probably one of the ones that I have to understand what's going on. Is this the gentleman that we had a certain date to get the properties done by? Yes, correct.

And I'm trying to give you enough information to make a decision, but not try to get into what we're going to get into later on in the meeting as well.

OK, I'm just trying to figure out where we're at here now. I'm figuring this out. Okay.

And this item doesn't require any action. This is just a hearing.

Right. And then after the hearings, we'll approve the ordinances that will assess the cost to the infrastructure.

And I would just add, I mean, these actions are protecting the city because it's assessing the property right now. The developer owns these properties except for some that he recently sold. So the actions before you today would help protect the city with respect to the investment it put into the infrastructure.

Thanks, Cody. Any other comments or questions from the audience?

I'm sorry, guys. You're just going to be a regular tonight, aren't you? And I'm not running for office either. But anyways, we lived in Blue Spruce Edition. And when my wife bought the house, it was the second house built out there. And for a long time, it was dirt roads until it got almost fully developed. And then they put paved streets in out there. And the houses were built, and people were living in it. This development has no houses. built, completed, and we've already put in streaks for this guy. What more can we do for him? This is horrible waste of our money. And I just, I'm, And I was here two weeks ago, and I heard it all, and I was pretty disgusted with it. And I only had two people ask hard questions of him. And he rambled on for probably 30, 40 minutes just trying to keep it going. I guess I could do that too, but I only get five. Thank you. Thanks, Duke.

Anyone else would like to make a public comment?

I move to close the public hearing.

Second. Truen? Yes. Garza? Yes. Goss? Yes. Fast? Yes. Maynard? Yes. Item number 7C, public hearing regarding levying and assessing special assessments on certain lots to pay for cost of certain improvements. Spyglass Hills Waterline Special Benefit District.

I'll make a motion to open the hearing. Second.

Truen. Yes. Garza. Yes. Goss. Yes. Fast. Yes. Makers. Yes.

Angela Richard, director of finance again. We're going through the same process that we just went through in the prior two motions with this public hearing. But this one's a little bit different. This is one where the homeowners are already living there and they came to the city saying that they need water. So they filed a petition with the city to have us install water for their area. Everyone in that area signed the petition. And so we went through the process of installing the water line. Originally we had a budget of $330,939 that was going to be assessed to the property owners. We went through that process and we didn't use all of the contingency money that we had in that budget. It didn't cost us the full amount and also we did not temp note the process. So a temp note is getting just a short-term loan basically to cover the cost until the project is complete and then we move on to financing the project so because this project only took like three months to install we didn't go through that process it lowered the cost for the property owners and so the total assessed to the property owners is two hundred and eighty six thousand four hundred forty six dollars and So if anyone is here to speak on this item and they notice that the petition was about 19,000 a lot and now it's about 16,000 for their letter, that is why it didn't cost as much as we had budgeted, which is a great thing. And so now we're at the part of the process where we're going to assess the property taxes to the owners. At this point, they will be either able to take no action, and then we will assess the property taxes over 20 years with interest, or they can prepay that and avoid paying interest over those 20 years. So this is the point where the home owners can make that decision before August 24th. And then after that, we will go forward with bonding this when we bond other projects so that we can lower the total costs of bonding all of our projects. So I'll stand for any questions in that process.

Council, any questions for Angela?

You mentioned that every home signed the petition, right?

Yes, they did in this case.

Any other questions? I'll take comments or questions from the audience on this item. Okay. None. Then I guess you have anything. Go ahead.

I was just going to say I move to close the public hearing.

Second. Truen. Yes. Garza. Yes. Goss. Yes. Fast. Yes. Yes. Item seven D continuation of public hearing to consider Meadows on Monroe, RHID and development plan. I moved to open the public hearing. I'm sorry. I moved to continue the public hearing.

Second.

Truen. Yes. Garza. Yes. Goss. Yes. Fast.

Yes. Yes.

Um, next up, Matt, are you going to say anything on Meadows on Monroe? No. Okay. Item eight, ordinances and resolutions. Consider an ordinance regarding levying and assessing special assessments on certain lots to pay for costs of certain improvements, Plum Creek lift stations and drainage special benefit district.

So if there are no further questions regarding the public buildings, I would recommend adoption of the ordinance for the Plum Creek lift station and drainage special benefit district.

Anyone have any additional comments or questions about this item? Audience, any questions, comments? If not, just looking for a motion.

I move to approve an ordinance regarding levying and assessing special assessments on certain lots to pay for costs of certain improvements, Plum Creek lift stations and drainage special benefit district, and authorize the mayor to sign.

Second.

Truen? Yes. Tarza? Yes. Goss? Yes. Fast? Yes. Magers? Yes. Item 8B, consider an ordinance levying and assessing special assessments on certain lots to pay for cost of certain improvements, Plum Creek Phase 1, Special Benefit District.

I have the same recommended action of approval of the ordinance as stated for the Plum Creek Phase 1.

I move to approve an ordinance levying and assessing special assessments on certain lots to pay for costs of certain improvements, Plum Creek Phase 1 Special Benefit District, and authorize the mayor to sign.

Second.

Truen?

Yes.

Garza?

Yes.

Goss? Yes. Fast? Yes. Magers? Yes. Item 8C, consider an ordinance regarding levying and assessing special assessments on certain lots to pay for costs of certain improvements by Glass Hills Waterline Special Benefit District.

I recommend approval of the ordinance for the Spyglass Hills Waterline Special Benefit District.

I move to approve an ordinance regarding levying and assessing special assessments on certain lots to pay for costs of certain improvements. Spyglass Hills Waterline Special Benefit District and the author is the mayor to sign.

Second.

Truen?

Yes. Garza? Yes. Goss? Yes. Bass? Yes. Magers?

Yes. Next item.

Item 8D, consider an ordinance repealing sections 19-1301 through 19-1304 of Article 13, Stormwater Utility of the Code of the City of Hutchinson, Kansas.

Paul Brown, City Attorney. We made a promise to the citizens that if they passed .75% sales tax, we would repeal the storm water utility. This charter ordinance is for that purpose. It will take effect October 1. The sales tax that was passed takes effect October 1. I would ask that the council approve this ordinance.

Any questions, council?

It'll be a promise kept.

Yes, it will.

Okay.

Any questions or comments from the audience? If not, oh, sorry.

Good evening. Bruce Miller, 1804 East 26th. I just have a couple of questions and maybe somebody can help me answer it. I'm in favor of that. I think, you know, double dipping like that probably isn't a good idea. Saying that, how much money is left in that stormwater retention fund? Do we have an idea? Yes, Andrea.

Approximately $7 million.

Saying that and knowing the situation that I'm in, I'm going to look at you, Scott, and some of you others I've already sent a letter to. That money can be utilized in this particular situation that I'm speaking of without bringing that situation up in public. And you have an idea of what I'm talking about.

Yes, sir.

Seven million dollars will cover quite an expense and really probably help you in a lot of other areas. But I think in my respect, when I look at that, it's not going to take seven million dollars to take care of an issue out there. And I think that even the ability to take maybe a million of that and set up a program without having to go through funding through the state, through the county, or trying to find some kind of a grant or issues that we can work with, I think it's obviously needed. We're still having little issues every time I go out in New York, saying that I would encourage you. I'm not opposing the repeal of these things but i think the money itself uh rather than just what do we have an idea of what we're doing with that seven million dollars yeah we're gonna use it for stormwater infrastructure we did make it and so we protected those funds yeah so those ditches behind my property would be a part of that That's something Cecil would probably be the one to talk to you about that so and I know we've had that conversation as well I'm looking at you gentlemen up here you folks up here to handle that for the citizens of Hutchison and myself And I know I've talked to Cecil a number of times about your property as well so Saying that Cecil has done a fairly good job, but he's assured me that he'd come out and try to remediate some of that fence line And it has not been done yet. So that's why I'm here today. And then, oddly enough, when I find out about the ordinances being repealed, I think it's a good solution. But when you talk about $7 million being rolled somewhere else, I think it's not going to be a big issue for the city of us to take care of some of these issues along those property owners' ditches. So I'm asking the city to look into that before you turn around in October 1, roll those, if we haven't rolled those funds over.

We're not rolling. I mean, they're going to stay in the stormwater fund, which we use for stormwater. Good.

Well, then that would be one of the things that you could use it for then.

Yes, because those funds have to be used for that.

For that, yes. I agree. That would be a legal use for those funds. So I'm asking that you look into that and see if that can be done. And then, like I said in my letter, set up a program and let me know what you guys come up with. But $7 million, sounds like you guys got the answer. Thank you.

Thank you.

I move to approve an ordinance repealing Sections 19-1301 through 19-304 of Article 12, Stormwater Utility of the Code of the City of Hutchinson, Kansas, and authorize the mayor to sign.

Second.

Truen? Yes. Garza? Yes. Goss? Yes. Vass? Yes. Magers? Yes. Item number 8E, consider an ordinance adding section 23-103, approved restrained environments for certain DUI sentences.

Cody Smith, Assistant City Attorney. Mayor and Council, this matter came up through municipal courts regarding DUI sentencing in our municipal court. Defense attorneys have brought this issue up, I believe, in the past as well, essentially what is being requested by the attorneys. And I did speak with Judge Dower and with Mr. Robinson, the city prosecutor, who neither one have any objection to this and say it could actually help administratively through court, which I'll explain. There is, for a first offense DUI, there's a minimum, and this is the way our particular judge reads the current statute, 48 hours in jail that has to be sentenced. A program that's been in effect, and there are more than one, but generally there's one out of Wichita that I've had experience with in my prosecution. in defense work in the past but essentially it stands in place of The 48 hours in jail. It's an intervention program where the person sentenced to it Would would spend a weekend's it's generally at Like a hotel type setup, but it's locked down for that particular group of people and it adds you know varying degrees of Education in relation to alcohol and things of that nature That otherwise they may not be sentenced to or have to do Normally on a first offense. So the idea is to try to You know provide that education and things of that sort to to prevent any further issues with with driving out of the influence and In order to do that, the law says that, or to even get to the point where it can be approved, the law says that the governing body of the city must specifically approve the program. So what this is doing first here, it's not approving the program I just spoke of at this point. This is just amending our code to where it kind of opens up the availability to do so. And so in the future, if this is adopted, a resolution would be prepared for any particular program. It would be brought before you all, again, basically outlining the program's rules, how the participants are supervised, what happens on noncompliance, which law enforcement agency is prepared to retain custody and control of the defendant. These are all things that are required by the law. So essentially, this is just creating that availability. If someone proposes a program that I do not believe fits the law, then I would not bring that resolution forward. However, I do believe the particular one that's being asked of does fit the legal standards. But we will have all that for you to decide at a later date. In terms of how it helps administratively, If the judge doesn't order it because he doesn't believe he's able to because the governing body here hasn't approved it yet, they'll go through the regular sentencing. And then for municipal court cases, the defendant can essentially automatically appeal it to the district court de novo, meaning basically a fresh start from the beginning. And then district court will actually order this particular program. So essentially, by not allowing it, it does create more work on municipal court staff because then they have to do all the appeal stuff to get it to district court. It creates more administrative work for the district court as well. So aside just from the underlying reasons for it and whether or not the governing body thinks that's an acceptable thing to move forward with. Administratively, it would help as well. So I would just ask that you adopt the ordinance before you. And like I said, if you do that in the future, I'll bring a resolution to you all for consideration and approval in the future.

I guess the question I have is that In your opinion, you prosecuted this. Is that making the law much easier for a DUI conviction? I guess what you're asking, in my mind, is it more of a deterrent not to drive drunk, to spend 48 hours in jail, or to know you're going to have to go for a class?

Well, it doesn't automatically make it to where the judge has to order this to. So the judge ultimately still has discretion. So in cases that are more aggravated, it's going to be something probably the judge is going to say, well, I don't think this is something that is warranted for this particular case. But if it's something that's, you know, The facts of it weren't so, you know, to give an example, it was out in the middle of nowhere. You know, there was no damage or anything. First time offense, the person has nothing on their record, you know, considered a mistake. Then The idea behind it is this program provides certain education resources to the individuals that they normally wouldn't get on a first offense, generally on a first offense DUI. Folks are getting a diversion anyways, which avoids the jail time if they qualify for it. Or if they are sentenced, they're usually immediately sentenced to probation after the minimum time. Some courts, they have changed this particular law. Some courts actually read it to where the 48 hours is no longer required. I've been in courts where that's been the case, but Judge Dower reads it a different way, and that's totally his call, and I respect that. So this is the way... If we move forward with it, we can do so in a legal way and a way that satisfies Judge Jowar's concerns.

I mean, I understand and read all the background, but I did not see about the administrative costs for the city and the city prosecutor. What more costs would we save by doing this, potentially? You mentioned that. Like there's more administrative costs because then they have to go to district court or whatever to get this approved. Isn't that on the offender or is that on us?

You're going to be paying overtime. You're going to be paying the prosecutor.

So they retry it in district court?

Yeah. If it gets moved to district court, it becomes a complete new trial.

Yep. As far as Costco, I mean, every case has court costs. It's a set amount, but it's, you know, there's no way to really quantify how much each particular case takes in terms of the time. And so with respect to the appeal right, it's set by statute. I mean, they just have that right to do so. And so under that, I mean, it just unfortunately does just create more time because they have that legal right to appeal it. And so it mostly falls on the court clerks that are having to do that work. And so it just takes more time in terms of gathering. Normally they could just, that case is complete, once it's sentenced they can move on from it, but this keeps it open, it goes to district court, because it could actually come back to municipal court as well. There is the possibility of that too. So that's where it would save administratively.

But just to clarify, Judge Dyer still has discretion.

Correct, yeah. And this isn't even approving anything yet. I mean, we could bring a resolution. And that's going to answer, I think, more of the specific questions you might have, because that's going to show what they do at these programs, what they're for. All this is doing is just making that. And this has to go into effect before a resolution can be brought. That's why it's not being brought at the same time, because this has to be published first. So, yeah, I think you'll get a lot more information once a program is actually brought before you. And at that time, if you decide, well, I think it's better that we have 48 hours and not this program, then you could certainly vote to turn it down then.

And our city prosecutor, Mr. Robinson, is okay with this?

Yeah, he was fine with it. All right. And again, he has prosecutorial discretion when recommending it to the court as well. So if he thinks a particular case doesn't warrant it, he can argue to the judge, you know, judge, don't order this. Let's do the jail time instead. Thank you.

Counsel, any more questions for Cody? Not any comments or questions from the audience? I guess no more comment.

Chris Link, 3506 North Lorain. Does the restrained environment appeal Can you appeal the restrained environment sentence like you can appeal the 48 hours?

Are you saying appeal or repeal?

I'm sorry. Yeah. No, not repeal. Appeal to the district court for a new trial.

So you're saying if someone is sentenced and they don't like the way in which they were sentenced, can they appeal that? Yeah. Well, yeah. In municipal court, you can appeal. I mean, you don't even really have to have a reason. You just get an automatic appeal, right? 48 hours. Yeah, so that's what they've been doing is because the judge, who's not necessarily against these programs, doesn't believe the law as written allows him to do so, he goes ahead and he orders the minimum sentence, at least what's required, and then after that is done, they turn around and appeal it to district court, start it over, and the district court judges do allow it, so then they ultimately get what they want sentenced.

So do you think the appeals will go down with this type of sentence versus 48 hours in jail?

In talking with municipal court staff, yeah, they believe the appeals would go down.

The point you brought up, my name is Duke Duvall, and the point you brought up about prosecutor has discretion whether or not to invoke whatever, so does that mean that The rich and shameless would have a better chance of getting off than a common citizen. See, I'm all for drug rehab, alcohol rehab. We do not want to put people in jail. It does not work. We need to educate people and go on from there. I don't agree with Judge Dower's assessment that if you just want to slap people in jail, yeah, I'm going to appeal it, but I've never been arrested for a DUI. But who's to say? who gets prosecuted and who doesn't. That's my opinion. And the way you worded it, that it's the prosecutor's discretion whether to give them diversion or not, which to me is a law against the little people. And so, You guys have to make decisions about this. How much does it cost to keep a person in jail for two days? How much does that man stand to lose from a DUI conviction, a first timer? He can lose his job, his home, everything. And do we want this kind of justice in this town? I don't think so. I think the courts, if anything, need to be a little bit more lenient. And it goes back to the flock cameras again. And nothing's secret anymore. Nothing is secret. They know everything. It's too bad. But that's my opinion. Before you do anything, think about what I said. Who gets off and who gets found guilty? It's simple as that. Poor people lose, rich people win.

I would just say on the prosecutorial discretion, there is a diversion program, and there are factors outlined in that program required by state statute, and it gives examples of what the prosecutor takes into consideration. For example, a person's criminal or traffic history, the severity of the particular facts before him. So, I mean, they're looking at it on a case-by-case basis when determining. And that's just the recommendation to the judge. The judge ultimately has the say.

Hi, Katie Lane, 3506 McElroy. Just from a parenting perspective, and no disrespect to Mr. Duke, but I strongly disagree. We don't need more leniency. I have seven children, and if they have an option of having me just lecture them to death in a nice air conditioned place, or give them a good spanking, or even better, send them outside to pick weeds or do some hard manual labor for the sins that they've committed, that's going to stick with them more. I don't agree with the way that we run our prison system, but those first-time DUIers, if they get off with a slap of the wrist or stay at a nice hotel where they get free classes, and I'm assuming food will be provided and everything else as well, that's not going to deter them as much as a scary night in jail. If you're talking about someone out in the country or a cute little sorority girl who drinks too much at a party and gets caught DUIing on the way home, they're more likely to go and get another one because they got off. If you scare them or you provide a punishment where they are embarrassed to have some kind of public repayment for the cost of the police having to come out there, any of the court costs, that is actually going to benefit the city and might make a difference. So I don't know if you guys are voting on things tonight, but this sounds a lot like gentle parenting, which doesn't work. So thank you.

I'm Steve Garza. I'm a recovering addict myself. You know, doing that kind of stuff, you got to want it. You know, if you want to be sober, you got to want it. You can't just make them go and take classes and this and that because it ain't going to work. Jail time, let's shoot. We got to have more, I'm sorry, excuse my language. We got to, here, we don't have enough Substance abuse places to go, rehab. I had to go out of town to go get it. And we need more of that. And if people want it, they can go get it. You know what I mean? That's what we've got to look into. Because we've got real bad substance abuse here. You know what I mean? We've got to worry about the people that are wanting to get help. That's what I had to do. And that's all I've got to say.

Thank you. Anyone else? Comments?

Well, the only thing I can say is I think we need to just go ahead and approve this and then get the actual resolution and study that. I mean, this is just preliminary. And our city attorney is absolutely right. 24 years on the department here, they're just going to appeal it to district court. And at least this would give our judge some leniency. not leniency, but discretion to hopefully make the proper decision. So I think this is something we need to pass. And then down the road when we get the actual resolution, we'll make a final decision.

So in the final resolution, does that kind of give the detail of how much leniency the judge can give in that? Or how does that ‑‑ sorry.

The final resolution will outline in detail what the particular program looks like in terms of does it meet, and I'll have a memorandum attached with that as well that outlines all the specifics of what the law requires. It was mentioned in the one in the packet. It basically gives all the information about that particular program to decide whether or not you all believe it's one that complies with the law and is one that you should approve. So it'll give the name of it, where it's located, what is included in the programming, how they make sure that the folks that are sentenced to it can't leave or anything like that. It'll have all of those details for you.

if you decide that it's not it doesn't qualify um or it's not something as far as just a matter of policy um then yeah you can you can deny the approving the resolution so if we didn't so say that one comes through and we deny that one is are we going to get another one come after that is that i mean is it going to come to the point where we finally get it towards like we're okay with that uh resolutions coming forward or i'm kind of curious where it goes after that if we don't like you know how that presentation comes through

I mean, this would, as far as my experience has been, there's only one of these programs in the area that is available. I think there are more elsewhere in the state. So really, this would probably be the only one that you're going to get. It's not like if you don't think this program is worthwhile or meets the law that then a different program from somewhere else will be presented to you. And if you all, I mean, I guess it depends on your reasonings for denying it. If there's something that changes one of those factors that you rested your decision on, then I suppose it could come back at a later date. But I'm not going to present something to you all that I know you've already turned down.

Yeah, because it's something that I'm not sure I'm 100% on board with, but I guess I would be okay with having that presented to us to see what that is and then make a decision at that point.

Another question, when the judge would sentence, if he would order this, then it goes back to the point that was already made. I assume that person is going to have to pay for this and pay for their night at the hotel. I mean, it is going to, but it'll relieve... our jail, which I think it's $200 or $300 a night to house somebody overnight in jail. So I'm assuming that if a judge, I'm just trying to talk this through. I'm going to support this, but I just, I'm curious. I assume that then gets put on the offender to pay for that and go down the road. Yes. Hopefully they learn that way.

That's correct. He... The offender is paying that fee and they know that when they request it as part of their sentence.

Do you know, is that assessed by the city or do they just have to make arrangements and pay it themselves?

The program that I'm familiar with, they pay it directly to the program. The program will not, you know, you made a comment.

You didn't know what the conditions were like. I recall back early 2000s when I started here, we had a private company that wants to every couple of months would rent a building at the fairgrounds and people would serve their DUIs in that building because the jail was overcrowded. I heard about so. They'd bring in cops and whatever. So I think we need to figure out exactly how this organization operates and we can make a better decision from there.

There's actually an attorney general opinion that talked about that program. And that's kind of what led to a lot of these types of programs being found. You know, okay, they have to do this, this, and that to be able to be determined to be a restrained environment. Right.

Well, to tell you the truth, guys, I think we ought to table this. I agree with Mr. Scott. I've got to talk to my federal taxpayers, who I represent. I just can't make that decision here. There's a lot of good things about it getting it done. But I think we should table it without making any decision tonight. I need to talk to my people who put me in here and see how they think about it.

That's my point right, you know, but but we're not really making a decision tonight Steve all we're doing is basically authorizing Cody To continue with this process and then we'll make the final the actual decision later if I understanding right But if we tell him to do it, it will go into action won't it if we say yes tonight No, all this all we're doing is giving him the authority to Start the process and once we go back to our citizens. They say they don't want it And then when the actual deal comes we vote against it

Yeah, the important part of the ordinance is Part B, approval by resolution. The governing body may, by resolution, approve a restrained environment constituting imprisonment for purposes of Section 30. Those are the DUI sections of the standard traffic ordinance. Each resolution shall identify the environment or program approved and the entity administering it and may impose any conditions the governing body deems appropriate So all this is doing is saying it's mending our code to make it something that you can consider. Because at this point, if I just brought a resolution to you that approved it, we wouldn't have anything in our code that specifically states that it's allowable. And so in my opinion, that would create an issue for municipal court. So therefore, by passing this ordinance, amending the code, specifically stating that the governing body has the authority as is set forth in the standard traffic ordinance to approve it, this gives you the ability to do it. But again, it is not approving any program. once the program comes before you, if, again, you talk to your constituents and they say, I don't want you to vote for it, then that's the time to not vote for it.

Do you know when you'll bring this back to us?

I don't know if it'll be the next meeting. It'll probably be the next meeting or the meeting after that.

Well, I'd like to even do it if we could. Council don't mind I do it after that because I'll be gone the next meeting. This concerns me, a lot of you. Okay. Next meeting, I won't be here.

Okay, that's not a problem. Okay. That'll give me more time. I got other things to do. Okay.

So in that case, I'll go along, we'll go ahead and do the procedure, and within two meetings we'll make a decision. Am I right? Are you making a motion? I'm making a motion, yes. How about that? I made a motion.

Did you finish the motion?

Okay.

All right. Where is it at?

This is not the right agenda.

It's much more.

I'd be happy to read it. All right, I'll move to approve an ordinance adding section 23-103, approve restrained environments for certain DUI sentences and authorize the mayor to sign. I'll second that.

Druin? Yes. Garza? Yes. Goss? Yes. Fast? Yes. Magers? Yes. Item 8F, consider a resolution authorizing the sale and conveyance of property to Hutchinson Entertainment Project LLC.

Angela Richard, Director of Finance. In 2014, Hutchinson Entertainment Project LLC issued two series of taxable industrial revenue bonds, totaling $6.5 million for the purpose of building an equipment, a bowling alley, and entertainment center. This is the alley at 1221 East 23rd. The IRBs have been paid in full by the LLC. As we know, through issuing IRBs, when we issue them, the city becomes the owner of the property and the issuer of the IRBs becomes the leasee. So once these IRBs are paid in full, then the city will deed back the property to the business. This also means that the business will be on the tax rolls and pay property tax again, if applicable. So they are at this point in the process where they would like us to approve the resolution authorizing the sale and conveyance of the property back to Hushiston Entertainment Project LLC. I'll stand for any questions.

Councilor, any questions on this item?

Just a comment. This was the alley, the bowling alley.

And the lot in front with the restaurants, right? I believe so. It's like that whole area that goes down to the energy part.

Any questions or comments from the audience on this item?

Who are the people who own this? I'm just curious. Who owns Family Eric Hutchinson Entertainment Project?

I do not have the names. I know this came from Gilmore, though. I'm sorry. I apologize. That's OK.

I was just curious.

Now the questions are comments. I've seen a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve a resolution authorizing the sale and conveyance of property to Hutchison Entertainment Project LLC and authorize the mayor to second.

True. Yes, sir.

Yes.

Goss? Yes. Fast? Yes. Meggers? Item 9, new business. A, Emancipation Day proclamation.

So I'm going to be reading the proclamation for Emancipation Day, so if anybody's here to accept this, if you want to meet me behind the podium. Whereas Emancipation Celebration in Hutchinson is the, oh my gosh, comment, oh my god. I can't even, sorry, I can't even say this word. commemoration of Libertarian enacted because of the Abolition Act in August of 1834. The Emancipation Celebration has been maintained in Hutchinson for over 135 years, and whereas a constant struggle has been ongoing to accomplish the goals of that proclamation to bring true freedom, freedom to the oppressed people, and give life to the possibility that freedom for all could be achieved, and whereas in 17... In 1936, the Emancipation Proclamation Day Celebration Committee, a nonprofit organization, was organized in Hutchinson to arrange proper and fitting activities in honor of emancipation, and whereas Emancipation Day is a celebration of freedom, recognition of identity, commitment to solidarity with any whose pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness is intrigued. Now, therefore, I, Scott Meggers, Mayor of the City of Hutchinson, Kansas, do hereby proclaim August 1st, 2026, as Emancipation Day. In the City of Hutchinson, I urge the entire community to help celebrate the important occasion.

I'm nervous. So we just want to invite everybody out to the celebrations for that weekend. July 31st, we've got a three-point shootout that's going to be at the new YMCA. It's open. There's different age groups that they've got. There are prizes included. And then that evening at the Stringer Fine Arts Center, we have got a evening of jazz. And I cannot remember the gentleman's name that's going to be here. But it should be a very good show. Saturday starts with the parade downtown starting at 10 AM. And then we've got a free community picnic and food trucks and vendors and things to do out at the Knights of Columbus. And then that night is the old school dance. 20, no, 15 per person, 20 for couples, and 21 to enter. So everybody's welcome. Thank you.

Item 9B, National Park Service presentation.

Good evening. Justin Combs, Director of Parks and Facilities. Back in May, we did a joint presentation with Public Works and the Water Department about a water reuse project in Cary Park. In that presentation, I mentioned that we'd been accepted into the RTCA program, which is Rivers, Trails, Conservation Assistance Program, through the National Park Service, which essentially gives us access to their park planners, landscape architects, to do some sort of projects. within the city the application that I submitted was for a master plan or a legacy plan of Cary Park so we are accepted into that program over the last month we've had several meetings via zoom and teams but this week the team from National Park Service is here they've been here They got here this morning, and they'll be here through Thursday. Really getting to know our community. Today, our focus was purely on Cary Park. Tomorrow, we're going to look more at the river and river access. And then Thursday, the focus will be more on the community at large. And at the end of this, then we'll have some community engagement, some surveys. And then later on in the summer, we'll do some actual in-person public engagement. So this is their first look at our community. So they've been here. a full eight hours and 12 hours, something like that. But I do want to introduce Kat with the National Park Service. She's the project manager and landscape architect, just to give you more information about the program.

Thank you so much for having us. So as Justin said, I'm with the RTCA program, Rivers, Trails Conservation Assistance Program of the National Park Service. My colleagues and I are coming to you from different places in the Midwest. I'm from Lincoln, Nebraska. That's where I'm based. Ashley is in the Ozarks of Missouri. Keely and Joseph are student interns of ours from Kansas State University. And John is from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. So we are a team of landscape architects and community planners, recreation planners who work within a community assistance wing of the National Park Service. So instead of working in Yellowstone, I work in iowa kansas nebraska and the dakotas helping assisting communities plan and design trails parks river trails and other recreation and conservation amenities so we're really excited to be here and kicking off a year-long pro bono this is a free service of the national park service we are kicking off a year of focus on kerry park looking at creating a master plan with justin and his staff and other relevant community stakeholders, designing a community engagement process where we can gather community vision and opinions about Cary Park specifically, and looking at things like neighborhood connections to the park. And today we had a really productive meeting with the representatives of Hutch Rec, YMCA, the school district, and I'm forgetting one active... the community college. And we were talking about active sports and recreational uses of Cary Park to understand more about that space as a recreation amenity for the community. So as Justin said, tomorrow we're floating the river with Kansas Wildlife and Parks and Kansas Lions of Wetlands and Streams to understand the place of Cary Park as a river access point for a larger regional water trail. And then we're excited to ride the Jim Martinez Trail, look at other city parks, and meet with some representatives in South Hutchinson about further connections to that community. So that being said, I'm here to answer any questions about our community assistance program of the National Park Service, and I'm really excited to get to know your community.

Greg, are you going to run the trail with them?

Do what?

You're going to ride the trail with them?

I'd love to. Well, except I have a booked day tomorrow.

Let us know when it is.

Thanks for being here, Pat. Appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Thank you.

In all seriousness, I am very excited about the master plan. I think it's amazing, and hopefully we're all still up here when it comes back up.

Next item, Mary.

Item 9C, adoption of Hutchinson Fire Department's community risk assessment standards of cover.

Evening, Council. Jeremy Hunter, Fire Chief. I've got three updates for you tonight and then ending with a recommendation. Firstly, our firework season. I'll give you a brief overview. We have 30 been the normal trend. We had three outside fires, two dumpster fires, a couple brush fires, and one severe injury. Like I said, this has been the trend. I'm rather happy with the trend, minus the critical incidents. The one structure fire we had was directly related to fireworks, and that has been a common case. We usually have a structure fire a year around this time. We did a media campaign this year, as we usually do. This year we discussed on how to dispose of fireworks properly. And what we found from that was we had a decrease in the trash can fires, which is great. However, we had a couple of dumpster fires behind the quick shops. People were trying to dispose of their fireworks correctly, but again, not letting them cool off, and they decided to use the dumpsters behind the quick shops. So it is somewhat taxing on the firefighters. It's more taxing on our inspectors. There was 13 fireworks this year, and those get inspected twice a day. So that's about five man hours a day just in the inspection of the tents. We were building questions this year, and they were due to the sales and discharge dates. This year, people could purchase the fireworks before they could discharge them, and that was causing some issues. Just to reference that, the State Fire Marshal Office sets the date that cities can sell fireworks. However, you guys can adjust that as needed, which we have. We tend to match the county and South Touch and try to keep things even across the board to discourage any outside play. But again, my job is for community safety.

Are we going to discuss this later?

Yeah, we'll talk about that.

Yeah, hang around.

Okay, moving on. I have an update on our strategic plan. To start out, I believe it's important to understand what kind of plan we went with. And that was a community-driven strategic plan. And this is strictly because we believe that understanding what the customer's desires are is vital, and that keeps us, keeps the community our main focus. This is our second strategic plan, and these are going on five year cycles. We started our first community driven strategic plan in 2019. So we're midway through our second one. So we're three years within our second strategic plan. The first portion, we invited 28 community stakeholders to our training center over one afternoon, and we asked them to accomplish quite a few things. The questions revolved around, from their perspective, what should we change or should we not change? We asked them what their expectations of us are, what concerns they had with us, and what they thought our strengths were. We asked them to provide definitions to what they thought the definitions of our programs were and this is mainly for communication we deliver 19 different programs on the fire department and a lot of people don't understand what all that is so that was a communication piece and then we asked them to prioritize those programs and services the next three days after that involved our hfd members we had a three-day work session and they were asked to accomplish rather lengthy list of things. First, we took the results from the community. We ran that through a SOAR analysis. A lot of people may be familiar with a SWOT analysis. A SOAR analysis is strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results. So we ran all the community's results through that. We ran our ideas through that. And then we asked our guys to revisit our mission statement and values. We asked them to determine if we need to adjust our vision for the department. We asked what our guys thought our challenges were, where our service gaps were. And all that information, we developed six strategic initiatives and later outcomes that we can base off of. Some of the results from the community, these are somewhat ranked in order, but the expectations of the community obviously were quick responses, more community awareness, our fire suppression, and to maintain talented and trained personnel. Some of the concerns from the community were our funding, staffing, recruitment retention, all the wildfires we have, and responder safety. Some of the items that the community thought we should change was provide more public awareness, make communication more accessible, and advancement of our medical treatment. And that specific one right there was our basis for our advanced emergency medical technician program that we have that's been going on for a year and a half now. Some of the things they thought we should not change was our community engagements, the quality of service we provide, our ISO class, and our standards and ethics. And then the last one right there is the ranking of the programs in their eyes, and they thought that fire suppression was first, our EMS services second, wildland fire was third, and so forth. So taking all those into consideration and all the information from our three-day workshop and running through that SOAR analysis, the fire department developed six strategic initiatives, and they revolved around the training, health and wellness, human resources, internal communications, community outreach, and technology. So with those initiatives, we turned those into goals with obtainable outcomes. Goal A ended up being to reinforce and improve training internally and externally. Goal B was to improve members' mental health and well-being. Goal C, develop and implement a transparent workforce or sharing of information. Goal D, enhance effective internal communication. Goal E, develop public education and community outreach programs. And goal F, build technology programs that improve our service. It's probably kind of hard to read for you, but since we are midway through this five-year strategic plan, we've had many great outcomes already. Goal A, which was reinforce improved training internally and externally. We've made some great partnerships with One Oak and Evergy. We've done some great training with Kansas Gas. Phillips 66 has offered to make us some props. We have a great partnership built with HCC. We do quarterly training with our counterparts on the county. We've built policies with them to help because we respond with them. And all of this section, all the training section, is reviewed and adjusted by a committed training committee. Goal B, which is mental health and wellness, we instituted live scan wellness checks. These are very critical to our guys. It's a head to toe. wellness check by a specific company that each of my guys get their, every organ, lost the word, but they scan our body top to bottom, do all kinds of blood work. There's an unofficial tally done on our retirees and roughly 70% of our retirees have some sort of cancer. So this fits into our cancer initiatives that we have and gives our guys an early point to find issues and act upon it. We have a mental health professional that's on staff for public safety. That's been outstanding. She's got her hands full. Our guys have been able to see a lot and have to deal with a lot, and she's been a great help. Our peer support team is bolstering. It's growing and it's been great. Our members probably make 25 contacts every two or three months. So that's internally our guys being comfortable enough to talk to somebody else about issues that they're having with mental health or what they've seen on department and so forth. Goal C, this is the transparent workforce and sharing of our information. We've gone a long ways with this. Information and communications always are downfall, but we've committed to union and management discussions. We do that every two months. Every quarter we have company officer days where we bring every captain in and discuss information once so everybody gets the same information. We have quarterly staff meetings. That's my command staff. Make sure that we're on the same page. We talk about succession planning often, our mentoring programs. Task books. Task books have been a really cool thing for us to do. Every position on the fire department has a roadmap built into a task book. So if somebody wants to promote up, they can get this task book and know exactly what they need to do. Let's see here. Goal D, enhancement of internal communications. I think with any department, there's going to be guides that don't read their emails and so forth and always question, well, you never told me that. But the way we get around that is we have digital dashboards in each fire station that scroll information 24-7 of what's going on, any new policies and so forth. We do a weekly update email. We have software programs that are very readily available to them to get to all the policies, procedures, and training programs. We've implemented continuous improvement forms. This is so every voice is heard. So even the very new rookie, if he has an idea, he can complete a continuous improvement form, and it goes all the way up to the top to me to make sure we're not leaving anybody out. There's new things going on, new ideas, and so forth. We even built a phone app, an HTTP phone app for you guys to have this communication. Goal E, development of public education and community outreach programs. This one's exciting. I just hired a new position, the community risk specialist. His sole purpose is going to be all the community engagements. He's going to go out into the wildland areas and give wildland talks. He's going to be the one doing the fire and life safety talks. He's going to be the one doing it in the schools. A dedicated person to that is very important. On top of that, we've increased the number of talks and programs that we're doing out in the public. Some of the programs that we're currently doing, they're creating a program for the unhoused, squatting fires. Goal F, technology that improves our service. This is a fun one. It's usually an expensive one, but it's a fun one. We developed a tag group. This is a technology advancement group. This is a group of guys on the department that kind of your IT guys, but we share that committee with outside people. We've got our city IT members on there. We've got some outside businesses that can share information and new ideas for us. Our records management system has put us way ahead into the future. We've got drone programs. Another one that I'm really, really interested in is wearables. So firefighter health and safety is big. When our men and women go into a fire, they're not always seen by people in charge. We want to find a way to have something that they can wear that can keep track of their heart rate, their blood pressure, their temperature, and all that so I can keep them safe. So that's something that's in the works. We've even done a study with Kansas State University on that. But this is a... small list of the many things that we've done because of our strategic plan. Again, we're three years into a five to five year cycle. So any questions on our strategic plan?

I would like to interject and brag a little on the fire department as well. So with the new Evergy plant that's coming in to Reno County, our firefighters in preparation for that toward a similar facility. And so they kind of know what they're getting their hands into and looking at things from a firefighter's perspective on how they would approach the facility, how they would put it out, you know, if a fire did erupt, things like that. So I really do appreciate the attention that they bring to this. and especially on their training grounds. It even goes into the small details of homes that were built in the 60s, that when you go to cut the roof, depending on how the rafters were installed, that when you go to vent it, it kind of gives a little when the firefighter's standing on it. So they've simulated those types of things in the training grounds, so when they encounter that in the field, they know how to stand on the roof before they cut into it. And so the attention to detail that our firefighters provide is really outstanding. So I just wanted to put that in there for you.

This amount of results within this three years of this five year cycle, it definitely shows me that this needs to be a continued thing. And when 20, 20, 20 comes around, I would love to do this again, get a new fresh set of eyes, get the new new community members in and give us some ideas and proceed on again. So

Thank you. Do you counsel any questions?

No. The thumb drive that you gave us is that I haven't looked at it yet. Is that the presentation and the booklet?

Thumb drive and the book that Mr. Garza has the two 500 documents I'll be talking about next. Oh, okay. The strategic plan is available on the website. Yep. So yeah. Yep. Okay. So moving on. Your fire department is internationally accredited. And we're gonna be discussing the two documents that we've built and at very end have a recommendation for you. But we, this goes on a five year cycle as well and that's ending this month. Next month we'll be going in front of or having our hearing in front of a board of 17 professionals to give us the final yay or nay on our next accreditation. So we're going up for a reaccreditation. But all the hard work has been done. We spent the last five years collecting data and building the programs. We've built these two main documents that I'll briefly go over here. But the one statistic that I'd like to brag about, and you'll hear me talk about how I feel like we're a premier department, is this specific statistic. So out of 27,000 fire departments in the US, 336 are internationally accredited. Of those 336, only 128 are an ISO Class 1. Your Hutch Fire Department is one of those 128. So that's the top half percent of all fire departments in the United States. That's one reason why I believe we are a premier department. The first book I want to go over And it's large, so that's why I gave you the thumb drives, is what we call the FESM. This is the Fire and Emergency Services Self-Assessment Manual. And this really is the basis of our continuous improvement model that we follow. It's a 500-page document. It took us nine months to write using five years of data. Within this document, there's 11 categories. And briefly, it's governance, it's assessment and planning, goals and objectives, financial resources, community risk reduction, physical resources, human resources, training, essential resources, external relationships, and health and safety. That seems manageable, but within those 11 categories, there's 251 performance indicators that we had a right to. So 251 specific topics that we had to write to with the format of we reviewed what we had done in the past, what we're currently doing, and how we're going to improve on it in the future. So it took us a while to use all the data and get that written. 39 of those are what we consider core competencies. If we aren't squared away on those first 39, they won't even look at us for accreditation. The next document, and this is the document that I would like you to, that involves my recommendation at the end here to adopt, is the Community Risk Assessment Standards of Cover. This basically comes down to how the fire department understands the risk in the community. It also describes who the fire department is, how we assess, prepare, and respond to our risk in the community, how that risk specifically drives the response and deployment of what we call the ERF. Our ERF is our effective response force. You may not know, but we have over 300 different types of calls that we've got programmed to run within this city. Each one of those has been dissected and measured, and we've got a specific amount of personnel and units that respond to that. That's what we consider our effective response force. We measure performance to the 90th percentile. So I live in a world of seconds, not minutes. Seconds count. So we're very critical on how we measure things. Measuring to the 90th percentile means it's not an average, it's how good am I doing 90% of the time. So it's much more difficult to obtain. This book reviews the last five years of data, how we are improving, and how we govern that continuous improvement. More inside of that book, there's 15 different sections. Again, it goes over the area characteristics. So your fire department here responds to 108 square mile area. That's a rather large area. We have 19 different programs which have what we call analysis built in with that. So every year we review those 19 programs and build an appraisal, basically. It's a roadmap to success. It shows who's in charge of that program, the funding for it, the outliers, the issues that we have, goals and objectives, and it keeps us on track. So that's in there. It describes how we actually respond to calls and the evaluation of that. So we measure everything, starting from when dispatch picks up the phone until we get on scene. We've got metrics and measurements for all that. And then the most critical part, or I say it's the most critical part, is that's built into the fire management zones. So again, we respond to 108 square miles. That is broken down into squares. There's 277 fire management zones. Many of those zones inside the city limits are a quarter mile square by quarter mile square. And within those zones, I've got maps that list the population, where the hydrants are, past incidents, the businesses, the amount of homes, any critical infrastructure, any hazmat, any hazardous situations. And why that's so critical is, Our two largest possible incidents in the city are severe weather and wildfires. So let's say that we have a tornado that goes through part of the town. I can flip to the affected area and then the fire management zone and know exactly the population, exactly how many homes I need to search, exactly the critical infrastructure that I need to get going, any other hazards. It's critical data. But this turns out to be, it's our primary planning and performance management document. It's a comprehensive analysis that identifies the risk within our community, evaluates the department's ability to respond to those risks, measures our performance against established benchmarks, and outlines how we will maintain and improve the service moving forward. With that, Whether or not we get reaccredited here in August, the data's been collected and we are currently using this data. It's been peer reviewed. We had a team come in, review all our documents. They recommended us for reaccreditation. It is one of their recommendations that the city council adopt this document for us and it'll show you, it shows your support and our mission to provide the community with a premier service. So my recommendation for you tonight is for the staff to make a motion to adopt Hutchinson fire department's community risk assessment and standard of cover as an official planning document for the delivery of fire and emergency services within the city of Hutchinson and fire district. And I'll, I know that was a lot, but if you have any questions, thank you for all of that.

You guys have any questions, any questions from the audience?

I move to approve adoption of the HFD's community risk assessment standards of cover and authorize the mayor to sign.

I'll second.

Druin? Yes. Garza? Yes. Goss? Yes. Fast? Yes. Nagers? Yes.

Thank you. Next item.

Item 9D, traffic light update.

I just wanted to come up tonight and give you a quick update. We are moving forward with a project that we had brought to you months ago. We are removing three more traffic lights that have been deemed no longer warranted. The three traffic lights are at 11th and Baker. Bigger and Maple and 23rd and Tyler. These three lights are currently, they were put into position years ago. They are aging. They were put into an area because of school zones that were there at the time, but with local traffic changing the way it has, school zones changing slightly, and all of these lights typically don't even have sidewalks to them, so they're really not areas that people are crossing. The one at Bigger and Maple does have a sidewalk in that area. But numbers of that, and that's not a fully active school anymore. So the number of students walking to that school is dramatically reduced. And we are currently looking into the parking lot that was added to that school. I don't remember exactly how many years ago, but it was sometime after the lights were put in. It's mid-block with a crosswalk there. We did have a traffic study done that looked at the crossing pattern there, and teachers crossing that street, but the traffic amount is so low. Right now, we're not even looking at putting anything else through there, but we will keep monitoring that and see if that needs to have a flashing beacon crosswalk sometime in the future. I just wanted to come up and give you an update. Those have all been put on signages and put up that we will be bagging those and shutting those off as of August 11th. We wanted to make sure we got this done before school went back fully into session. That way we weren't trying to interrupt traffic patterns after school had already started. Parents get used to how the drop off is. So I know we kind of cut it close. But we did have these all day. They will be shut off before school starts. That way we kind of have that traffic pattern set. And that'll start the clock for the 90 days that we'll have them bagged. And we'll continue to monitor and see how this is deemed needed or not. And I will stand for questions.

Have you received any calls so far?

I have not received any calls so far. And I try not to look at Facebook.

Don't do it. It's a trap.

Any more questions for Cecil?

I do want to state that I support, as I've mentioned in your previous presentation about the traffic lights that we took out earlier this year. And when we broached the subject of these three additional lights, kids don't walk to school nearly as much as they have in the past. 11th and Baker, 11th Street is actually um boundary um so it would be unlikely that kids would be crossing right there anyway and um honestly 23rd and tyler i i live over there and that light every single time i come up to it i'm like why is there a light here it's so out of just out of the blue um and there's no sidewalks in the neighborhood anyway so it i don't think it's helping anybody cross the street um and that one is by north of wiley um But yeah, I think that people were going bonkers about this on social media. And I don't think that they understand the total concept. I do think maybe there's some value in the one on bigger, but I think that that could be addressed with, like you said, with an activated crosswalk signal. I think the concern is the pickup times and then the staff that are crossing from that parking lot on the corner. I do support the removing of these. Is there any recycling of the units that are being taken down, the poles or the signals themselves?

If anything, it would be the signal heads. The poles would not be able to be reused. The poles are outdated enough that the bases that they would go on don't meet new specs. KDOT's changed the specs on what those poles would require, and there's really no way to update the pole itself. And then the cabinets and stuff, depending on what controllers in the cabinet, whether we can reuse that somewhere else. But there again, these were also some of our more aging ones. So typically there wouldn't be a lot to recycle out of them. But we do make sure if there is anything that we can, we do keep.

Any more lights you're looking at in the future?

We are producing what we'll call our plan for traffic in the future. So we're going to be looking at what our traffic counts in other areas and how these roll in. But we're going to kind of take some time to get this done and then do some data before we bring any more back to you.

Okay. Thank you. Any questions from the audience?

Well, I have a comment. I'm the old traffic signal technician in this town, and I don't believe we're taking lights out. It makes our town look like we're falling apart and we're putting stop signs up. I am a city council member, the old traffic signal technician for 33 years. I don't like taking lights out, but that's my opinion. But I'm on both sides. I can understand some of these signals aren't being used as much. But to me, if our town starts getting bigger and more people in here, we're going to have to put them back. So there's ways to do that traffic light. You can program them different, make them shut down on a certain time of day, and reprogram without destroying them. But I have to say what I have to say because I was the old traffic signal technician in this town. And those traffic lights, once you start taking them out, it looks like the town is falling apart, like the town is going down. that's my opinion as a travesty no technician so I don't like it but you guys made the study so that's well I guess we're gonna do there's big intersections that I don't like you to touch and we'll see if you go that route but I don't like it and I mean I tried not to say anything I tried but I have to say what I think and that's my opinion You start taking traffic lights out, and traffic lights, the electricity part of them, you can do the program, shut them off, but they won't operate certain times. But to me, you're making the town look at what's happening to Hudson, Kansas. The lights are going down. Are they dying? Is Hutchinson dying? And that's my opinion. I'd love the heck out of you, Cecil, but I'm also very honest. Am I not?

I appreciate that. Okay.

But that's my opinion. Okay.

I'm Wednesday Wagner, and I live at 1003 West 23rd. I'm very disappointed that the light is coming out We have three new families that just moved in the 1,000 block of West 23rd. All of them have children who will be walking to school. We have quite a few kids that walk to school in that neighborhood. And people do not stop. They speed up and down that street. They run the stoplight at 23rd and John like it is nothing to them. It is very, I've lived in that house for 42 years. It's a very dangerous street and I don't see why, I don't see why it's coming out. Is there anything that's gonna be replaced there?

so on that intersection it will have it'll have stop signs put back in it will yeah yeah we're not just going to open this intersection with nothing there okay the lights will come out the stop signs will go back into their place okay as a four-way stop uh that will be that was going to be a two-way stop okay so um north and south now we'll have the stop sign east and west across 23rd would be open how did you determine that because it seems like there would be more traffic on 23rd street i don't have the exact numbers with me but um i believe actually 23rd has more traffic than north and south on that section um when they did the traffic count for the full week back in march um and it took into account left turns right turns everything and pedestrian traffic and all these studies were done while school was still in session

I'm confused. The stop sign will be north and south. You will stop north and south traffic? You will stop north and south traffic. Okay. That's what I thought.

Would you not, would, okay, so I'm also confused now. Because it seems like you would wanna stop the traffic on 23rd. Because 23rd becomes, if that stoplight is, when that stoplight is removed, you have a pretty good stretch of not having any traffic.

So 23rd Street's what we call a collector? So in that neighborhood, 23rd is the collector that goes through and it has the most amount of traffic. So typically you would stop the side street, not the collector. Um, and that's within a block or two, then there's another stop down the way. So it's not every other block. There's a stop facing that way. Typically you would stop the side streets and not the collectors or the arterials.

So there won't be any stop between Monroe and there won't be a stop at all from Until you get to Monroe.

No.

From Hendricks to Monroe?

I think so. I'd have to look at the map.

From Hendricks to Monroe. That's dangerous. That does sound like a... That would still... Considering that there are a lot of intersections in that area or a lot of streets that the pattern is, there's a stop sign every other block. And it's in both directions.

And that's what we would typically do in a residential, not collector streets. It'd be the same, like we wouldn't put the stop sign on 11th and Baker at 411th because that's the main thoroughfare. So that's why it would be for this neighborhood that way. We're going to be monitoring while we do this. And if it looks like it doesn't work, we always have that option of making it a four-way stop. Okay.

Yeah, it's not all the way to Hendricks. It curves at Swearens.

Yeah, there's only that one stop. It curves at Swearens. I couldn't remember what street it was. Straight shot, so.

Margaret Young, 119 West 9th Avenue. I have a question. If anybody is going to review the crosswalk at 9th and Main, Right now, if you're stopped at 9 and you're going to turn left to go north on Main and that crosswalk light is on, you can't see it. So many times, I hear people all the time in that block say, I almost hit a pedestrian coming across to the library because you cannot see those lights. I don't know if the light cover needs to be opened up so you can see it when you're stopped. Because if you stop before the stop sign, which is where you're supposed to be, you cannot see the crosswalk sign. It's very scary. And I've pulled out myself and thought, oh my god, I almost hit that person, because you just don't see them with that light not visible. So if you could look at that, that'd be great. Absolutely.

And that's the kind of stuff we need to know. That light was put in before I was in this position, and if the public doesn't let us know, it's not something we're necessarily looking for.

I don't know why they moved it even before. It was right there at 9th and Main.

They eliminated it, so it was a full stop for the whole intersection, and they made that to what we call an ad hoc crossing.

Yeah, if you go east on 9th Street from Adams, when you get to Main Street, you look, you can't see that crosswalk light. I'm afraid some little kid on a bike's going to get hit.

I'll have our city engineer look into that. Thank you.

Evan? Thank you.

Anybody else have any comments or questions on these lights? No, thank you.

Eleventh and Porter, can you take that one out too?

We'll edit the list and look at it. Thanks, Cecil.

That one does actually stop 11th Street, which would be the busiest part there. Sorry.

Do we have a break? Yes, we can have a break. Take a five-minute break. All right. Mary, next item.

Item 9E, adopting a public funding accountability policy.

Cody Smith, Assistant City Attorney. Council, this is for discussion and possible adoption of public funding accountability policy. In the packet, I did include a memo with respect to this, as well as a proposed resolution and a proposed policy. The resolution would adopt that policy. Just kind of going through the main points of it. Purpose of the policy. It establishes a uniform citywide framework for accountability and oversight whenever the city provides public funds to outside organizations. It ensures public funds are spent only for legitimate public purposes as required by state law with measurable public benefits. Why this policy is being proposed? The city currently funds a number of outside organizations through the annual budget process. I believe existing expectations have developed over time, but there isn't anything that's contained in just one consistent policy. So this proposal creates one set of standards that applies to, or applies equally, I should say, to all recipients. public purpose requirements it requires the city council to document the public purpose and anticipated public benefit before proving funding this is important and it's spelled out a little more detail uh... in the memo but case law does state that governing bodies do have pretty wide discretion in determining uh... feel what what is uh... provided for in terms of a public purpose. However, that discretion only attaches to actual findings or actual decisions made on that matter. So if it's not set forth clearly what the public benefit was before approving funding, that's what kind of opens up the door to potential objection of that. It also clarifies that funding does not create an entitlement to future appropriations. Application standards, applicants must provide basic organizational and financial information, requires disclosure of governing boards, funding sources, affiliated organizations, and organizational good standing before public funds are awarded. Funding agreements, if funding is over $10,000, it would require a written funding agreement. Agreements over $100,000 would require city council approval, basically to kind of help fall in line with the purchasing policy that is being looked at currently. Every agreement identifies permitted uses of funds, reporting requirements, audit rights, and repayment provisions. The use of public funds, as I stated, must be used only for approved public purposes. It's pursuant to state law. Prohibits use for political campaign activity, lobbying, private gifts, bonuses, or other unauthorized purposes. Prevents recipients from transferring city funds to affiliated organizations without city approval For the reporting and transparency aspect of it. It requires annual performance and financial reporting larger funding recipients would provide additional governance compensation and organizational disclosure and organizations receiving more than a hundred thousand annually must provide audited financial statements to ensure that the organizations that are receiving this money are capable of maintaining it and doing what they need to with respect to their accounting procedures. Conflict of interest protections require disclosure of affiliated organizations and related party transactions, require city officials with interest in recipient organizations to disclose those interests, requires recusal from participation and voting when appropriate. Audit enforcement provisions would give the city the right to inspect records related to city funding funded activities Requires records to be retained for at least five years allows suspension of funding repayment and clawback of those funds if Those policy requirements are violated the annual review provision sets forth that Funding requests continue to be considered each year during the budget process. Continued funding is based on demonstrated performance and compliance rather than an expectation of continued support. And it goes into a little more detail on what that demonstrated performance looks like. There needs to be some metrics there that actually tie to the money that was provided by the city to ensure that money was actually spent on that particular item that the organization might be promoting. something that was a benefit to the community the question is whether or not the money that the city provided was actually used for that particular benefit or if the organization really did create that benefit to begin with Bottom line, the policy is not intended to reduce or eliminate funding for any organization. Its purpose is to ensure that all organizations receiving taxpayer dollars are subject to consistent expectations for transparency, accountability, and stewardship of public funds. It also provides clear expectations for applicants, for staff, and for the city council moving forward. So the requested action would be to adopt the proposed resolution, adopting the public funding accountability policy as presented in the packet. And of course, you know, we can discuss any questions, any revisions that might be necessary. Happy to work on that as well.

Thank you, Cody. Any counsel have any questions on this item?

I've read it. I think it makes sense. It's one more step that we can adopt to protect ourselves and outline expectations of staff and leadership.

I agree. Questions or comments from the audience? No, I think this is a good thing, Cody. This is a good thing to keep things in check.

Thank you again. Bruce Miller, 1804 East 26th. I think it's a smart thing to do. My question is, we didn't have any checks and balances in before this for these organizations. There wasn't anything set in place, do we know?

I believe it was kind of ad hoc, a case-by-case basis. The request would be made and the council would make a decision based on the information provided and they would ask questions.

Have we always had an ability to audit the nonprofits if needed? no not not necessarily i mean unless unless there's some state law or something that would subject them to that um you know with non-profits we don't really have an ability to to demand that unless we have an agreement were they were they held accountable at the end of the year uh did you get a chance to look at their their budgets i mean because we give them money don't we have the ability to uh ask for an audit so to speak if we're if we're funding

Well, that's what we're trying to make clear here with this because I haven't been here in this position for long. I can't speak too much to the history, but I know somewhat just from the budget process right now. So one of the reasons why this topic came to mind. But yes, that's what this policy would do is just to ensure there's no misunderstanding or disagreement in terms of if the city would like to look at that information that we have the right to do so.

Well, then I have a few recommendations that I think the council needs to consider. Knowing that we fund, I think the last time we saw it was maybe 30% of our budget goes to nonprofits and things like that and we're struggling with our budget as we are trying to find money millions of dollars here and there I would recommend that we look at these nonprofits and we begin to see if they can actually fund themselves rather than sustain themselves on the taxpayers dollars 1992 we had a mayor that sat behind there with Scott where you were at her name is Francis Garcia Prior to that time, this is a little history lesson, they funded these types of things on an annual basis. 1992, about 92 or 93, Francis and the council voted for some of those things to be permanent line items. I would propose that you change that ordinance, whatever that regulation is that was passed back then that requires the city to fund some of these nonprofits. I don't believe it's part of our responsibility. Nonprofits have a responsibility to the community, but they shouldn't look to us to pay that unless they want to come to us personally and ask for those donations. I think that's been the problem over the course of 20 or 30 years that we've done this in such a manner that we have alleviated responsibilities of those nonprofits to go out and work the people like they used to in the school systems. Businesses, they used to come in the United Way, really pumped that pretty hard that way. So that has subsided. And I believe that if you guys – this is an opportunity for you guys to look at this budget a little differently. And maybe – I'm not asking anybody to turn around and just absolutely not fund these things, but I think that some of these need to be looked at seriously this year and maybe cut back on some of that funding rather than give them what they're asking for and see if they can sustain themselves. If they can, then maybe next year we look at it again. But if they can't, then it needs to go away. Thank you.

Bruce, did you say 30% of our budget goes to nonprofits? That would be like $20 million.

I don't know the answer to that, Stacey. talking with a few people and and city employees I used to work for the city in talking with a few people I would I would guess I mean that's what they kind of say that he kind of gets around to a talk about the total budget not just the insanity that would that would put us in like a Give me an idea, Stacey, if you know how much do we fund non-profits and non-essential services?

Well, you can have my copy of the budget if you'd like.

Well, I've got a copy of it. It's awfully hard to go through there and pick out all that stuff.

I would say we're still far under $200,000, way under $200,000.

For all of our non-essentials, including the Chamber and the Hudson Foundation.

But they're not... We have different funding mechanisms. We have what you saw if you were here for the budget piece at 4 o'clock. I don't know if you were here. No. It'll be on YouTube. And then we have some that we have to fund because they're a part of lawsuits. lawsuit funds and then we have some that are funded through like the Reno Coral Society and the band and those kind of things. But they're like a couple thousand dollars a year. We're not giving them millions of dollars. Or they're funded through a partnership like an MOU for services, like for interfaith housing, who's facilitating a program, that kind of thing. So...

They're incentives. I realize we've given incentives out quite a bit lately.

We gave a lot of ARPA money away, but that was...

That's a whole other discussion. I applied for ARPA money, Stacey, and I was told that they ran out and it was like about three months later we found a million dollars to tear down the hospital. So I wasn't a part of that ARPA money. I asked for it, applied for it, but somehow it was, from what I understand, those funds were overinflated on the projects and the excess was swept into a fund and then it was used to take care of other issues the city had. Now, I would have liked to access that. that are money but saying that I think that some of the we definitely overspend and I think we've got a lot of places where we can cut and I think that if we if we turn around and and I think it's a good resolution I'm not doubting that one bit but I think there's a this is just It puts more responsibility on the city and more responsibility on you to be accountable to that. We don't have the time for it. I mean, we don't have the access for it. And even if we come in here to do it, I'd have to ask for permission to get the, you know, what do you call it, the standard, the act that gives you the ability to access. Yes. So, you know, that's a lot of research. That's a lot of stuff done. But they're asking you guys to do that. And I'm looking at you and I'm asking, can you do that? If I come and I ask you these questions, will you have those answers? And the answer will be no, but you'll have to do the research.

Right, and my interpretation of this memorandum and the resolution is that this empowers us to request those.

That's correct. That's why I agree with it. I do agree with the resolution. I just think there's other answers in addition to that. This is not the answer to our funding right now. This is one of those things where we've got to dig deeper than this. Everybody's changing their budget. Every taxpayer in this city is having to look at their budget this year. And I know it's getting ready to go south again. So these are things you guys have an opportunity to take care of now or look at in different ways. I believe you can too. So thank you.

Thank you. No one else?

I move to approve a resolution regarding adopting a public funding accountability policy and authorize the mayor to sign. Second.

Druin? Yes. Garza? Yes. Goss? Yes. Fast? Yes. Magers?

Yes.

Item 9F, Hutchinson Phase WWTP Study Engineering Agreement with HDR Engineering Incorporated.

Good evening, Council. David Gwynn, Director of Utilities. I'm here tonight to ask for approval for HDR to do a facility plan for the wastewater treatment plant. This is not something that is part of their current scope in the master plan for water and sewer. And the reason it's not, because when we started diving into that, we started them at the wastewater plant. And some of that direction was, are we OK there? Is there something that we can salvage, or do we need to go now? The consensus was, after we've talked amongst ourselves, was we can save this for a little while. But how long can we save it? We don't know. We know a new plant's coming at some point. It's inevitable. We don't know when. So kind of like what this gentleman was talking about spending money, we know we're spending millions of dollars out there to get this where it needs to be as far as Safety, the absolute emergency things that we need to fix that are in the year one and then all the way out to five and 10 and all that stuff. So what we've discussed is how long does that buy us, right? So that we're spending the right money at the right time. This is the answer to that. So we're gonna dive in a little bit deeper to the plant and find out exactly when that is. So what we're gonna talk about tonight, I'm gonna go over a little bit the existing conditions, the near-term improvements that you guys probably already know about, but we'll kind of go over them a little bit more. I'll talk to you about the planned milestones, schedule, and the city council updates, and then of course questions. So the existing conditions, the one-year CIP, like I just said, the emergency rated assets and safety items, that stuff's in there. That's stuff that has to get done. Then we've built the other stuff out all the way out to 10 years of, hey, we can do this. And we're going to build it out even further when the master plan is completely done. And that's our roadmap that we kind of talked about when I first came up here and started talking about this whole plan that we wanted to do. But again, how long does that buy us? With all this money that we're putting in there, when does that new plant need to happen? So with all of that, and of course staying in compliance with KDHE, the wastewater treatment plant facility plan would identify out 10 to 20 years, and the big things in bold right there, process redundancy, that's something we do not have out there at the moment. We have buildings, and forgive me for not remembering the name of the specific building, but we have one pump, one motor in there, and we don't have the room to add another one. So if it goes down, it's just down. The treatment plant capacity, that's something that we really need to look at. This plant was put in in 1950-ish, 58, 58, 70 years old. when it was put in i think the growth i think evan put that in the memorandum the growth was exponential or at least high enough to where we put in an eight and a half million gallon plant so we're going to look at this and we're going to say well do we really need that if we don't then why build an eight and a half million dollar plant because that's a ton of money but we don't also don't want to completely Handicap ourselves by not having something that's big enough, so I can't read that bottom part But that should say something to the something to the effective investment of the community and affordability Whatever we do out there We also have to consider that because there's only so much that people can pay for and these things are extremely expensive so What we're going to be looking at and the biggest thing for me on this slide here is the greenfield plant new versus phased approach. So when we're also looking at whether or not this needs to be an eight and a half million dollar plant or million gallon plant, it also, if we do build, say we build a four, say we build a six, something like that and this is what we need to do, what I would like to do with that is what can we add as we go if we do grow so that we're not handicapped on that side but these are all things that they're going to dive into so for me this is something that's pretty important as far as it's the next step in that stage again it's not part of their original scope for the for the master water plan but it is the next step for this as far as when is the next when is the next big build that we have to do out there. Do we need a new plant? Where is that out 15 years and all the other things that we're doing as long as well with it? Are we are we doing the right things because we could we could get through this? And I think I think we'll have this done. What is the time frame on this?

Okay. Perfect.

So we may get to this right here, and we may decide that, OK, some of this stuff we don't need to do because we need to do something different. So this is kind of marrying the two together as far as what we're going to do long term, if that makes sense. Hopefully it does. And that's basically all I have.

Now, are we going to be planting this plant where the water goes? We discussed that we're going to take some of that water and take it down to the golf course to water the grass.

All that will be in consideration, yes.

So we'll build the lines going that way, right? This be part of the new, right?

Well, we plan on doing that reuse regardless. I mean, that is something that we're going to do. We're going to take water up to the plant because that takes pressure off the RO. So that reuse that we're planning on doing from the wastewater plant, yeah, we're planning on doing that regardless of this. That's a different project.

That's an entirely different project.

Yeah, completely different project.

But don't the pipes got to be put into while you're putting in the other pipes at the same time?

No, because that's on the back side. I got you.

So the not to exceed $246,000, this is for the study and the design This is not for any actual, like...

Correct. That's not for any of the actual installation.

And this is in addition to the other contracts that we have entered into with HDR.

Which one is... It is into...

Yes, it is in addition to... They did the pricing study and the... Or maybe that's the only thing that they've done.

Yeah, this this is in addition to. Yes, it's not.

This is this is the study that we've been talking about for the past year.

This is. Yeah. So if we that's what I was kind of saying at the beginning, if we would have got into checking out the wastewater because that's the first place that they went with the master water plan, that was the first thing we looked at was, hey, do we need a new one? And the general consensus was not right now. We can get some life out of it, so let's do these things. But we need to answer that question of when does this new one come? And that's where this comes into play. This was always something we were going to do. It's just when does it fit in? We're trying to fit it in now so that we can get those answers to that.

So this is also going to run the analysis of piece we need, I guess. And then do we need to set it up for future expansion?

That's correct.

So, and I know, I mean, we've been out there, we've been, we came out and looked at it. The place is a mess. Yeah. And I'm glad to see we're looking towards getting something.

This is not an ad, an abnormal ask at this age of, of a plant that's been actually kind of maintained. Ours has been neglected. We know that. Um, so we're not far off on this there's a lot there is a lot of wastewater plants out there that are this old it's just the nature of ours and the the way that it's held up over time i'll just say it like that it's not as good so we need to find out exactly when that comes when does that new plant come and how big does it need to be and everything that we're doing right now Are we spending the money the right way? Are we getting that payoff of those funds? Or do we need to do this? And that's why we want to do it now. Do we need to step back and punt now and change some of the other things? Because they've dove in a little bit deeper and here we go, which is why we're talking about doing it a little sooner.

So considering that we have so many things happening at once with the wastewater treatment plant, with the water plant master study, et cetera, what I want to avoid is basically change orders that are going to lead to fees. that as we're working both plans you know one thing may happen that then causes a change order in the other contract um so do you feel comfortable with the way that the changes are worded in the contract that we won't incur additional fees won't add additional time and be a burden to the city my comfortability on that

Deals with Evan more than anything because I hate to put him on the spot, but he is, you know, Aaron and Evan both know what they're doing when they're looking at those kinds of contracts. So I do have faith in them that they're going to make sure that we're going in the right direction. Now, of course it is my decision, but yes, I trust them.

And is there a dollar sign attached to any type of change orders associated with this?

The contract rule stuff. That's not something I'll be able to answer. Yeah. Sure.

That's one of the reasons that we're taking a phased approach. Evan Patterson, city engineer, by the way. That's one of the reasons we're taking a phased approach with this study as well. Because one of the things that a phased approach lets us do is work through the cycle of asking and answering questions at the right time before we launch into the next phase of a project. So we could have set this up as a whole multi-year study, roll into design. project but then you really are stuck with having to manage the scope and changes throughout so our plan is that nine months from now we'll have a completed report from HDR that lets us figure out what do we want to focus on for the next phase and instead of managing through change orders to those specific contracts, we're just doing one contract for each phase, so we've got a better idea. And if we come to it and we've got the answers we want, we can focus that next phase rather than having it potentially really broadly described in the scope before we've narrowed it down.

That's what we... How many additional phases do we anticipate having?

So this is a big project. So this is a scoping study. This is when we ask the really big questions. What do we want it to look like? What do we think we can get out of our current plant? And what does the financing look like for the options that we're evaluating? So the next phase will be a pre-freezability, which will take our decisions often, because HDR's gonna make recommendations based on the cases that we've had them evaluate. We're gonna collectively make a decision on what we want to focus. So that pre-feasibility looks a little more in detail at the couple of options we've selected. After that, we do a feasibility study, which really is looking at the plant that we want, whether it's a new plant or substantial refurbishment of the existing one. We're looking in detail at, okay, so we've decided it's going to be 6 million gallons a day, and we're going to replace this part of the plant and this part of the plant, and we've got to have this one done by 2034 and this part done by 2036. We can get detail at how all of that works together so that we're then ready to launch into the final project. But, you know, the permitting for this goes through regulatory agencies that have their timelines, and the financial structure that we're going to have to build for this is going to take time because this is, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, and that's going to require us talking to agencies for assistance that require their whole application and review process. So this is, at best, probably 10 years away. I would say minimum. This whole sequence of subsequent projects is what we go through during that period.

And the biggest part of the whole thing is what we're doing is we've got to keep the plant running.

And that's why the spins before that, the emergencies and the have-tos and the life of safety.

Well, we just put outhouses on every citizen's backyard.

I sure wouldn't like that. Is this money already budgeted? No, this is a new ask. Okay. Yeah, so I got to get with Angela to figure out exactly how we're going to move that.

And so phase one is, we'll just say $250,000. I understand this is a $75 to $100 million project, but just for the planning, the study, studying the planning, the feasibility and the design, is that $6 million? Is that... $10 million?

That's a better question.

So all the way through design, we're probably looking at $10 million, something like that. Estimates for the plant itself run anywhere from close to $100 to maybe $300 million for a new plant. And we would be in probably in the $10 million amount for the overall design for something like that. So again, we're going to scale this up. The pre-feasibility is going to be more than $250,000. It's going to be probably half to three quarters of a million. And then after that, we'll have a more expensive feasibility. And all of this is ratcheting through those regulatory agencies, ratcheting through the various stages of financial planning. And it sucks, but it is something. We don't get to that plan without going through these steps

Well, like I said at the last meeting, I think we made it. I think I said it was like 14% of our budget was going to this over the next five years. So this is a significant investment. I'm not trying to downplay that at all.

This is something that, I mean, I... This is a lift. I mean, the whole thing is a lift. It's a lift for you guys to decide on some of this stuff. It's a lift for us internally what we're having to do. But every community has to go through it at some point, which is ours is getting it right now. And these spins are something we're going to have to figure out how to do, because at some point, that plan is not going to be fixable. And this is going to help us determine when that is so that we can kind of next step. Next step.

It's going to give us a roadmap of where we need to go.

This is the next kind of what I talked about when I talked about the overall study that we're doing now. This is that second piece to that for this plan.

Yes.

That's exactly right. And that's a lot of this is. Because what's the next step? Because if you miss, there's so many funds that it's going to take to make all this happen, you don't want to miss when you're trying to spend this out. Because you miss, and that's millions of dollars. We can't afford that. I don't want my name on it. I don't want to miss.

So if you want to think about it, the big study we're wrapping up right now helped us answer where are we. This next study will help us answer where do we want to be. And then the subsequent answers are going to tell us exactly that path, navigating that path. So all important questions, but because it's big money, we want to put the right amount of work into it.

Right. I mean, that's the biggest piece to it because we can go out on a whim, but... I certainly don't want to do that.

And the thing that I don't want us to do over our five-year CIP is to spend millions of dollars on something that's only going to give us, say, eight years of life. And then was that a wise investment over that five-year period? So that's what I have been pushing for us to not do. And so if we can, whatever money we do spend over the next five-year CIP, if that buys us 20 years, That checks out. At least the math will math. So I'm very confident in staff and HDR to give the council the proper advice on how to move forward.

We have to bet. Yeah, we've got to bet it and bet it and bet it and make sure that the amount of conversations that we have internally is – Drive you crazy probably. Just with, I mean, everything that we're having to try and figure out and, you know, moving this forward because those millions that we're spending, how long does that buy us, you know? So all these conversations are putting a little more gray in my beard. I can tell you that. But so that's what we're asking for. We're asking for you guys to sign off and say yes to this so we can move on to the next step.

Any more questions from the council? Any questions from the audience? Okay. I'm not looking for a motion.

I move to approve the Hutchinson-based WWTP study engineering agreement with HDR Engineering and HDR Engineering Inc. and authorize the mayor to sign.

Second.

Truen. Yes. Garza.

Yes.

Goss. Yes. Fast. Yes. Meagher. Yes. Item number 9G, consider approval of staff recommendations concerning agreements associated with the Plum Creek subdivision in Hutchinson, Kansas, and authorize the city manager to execute any related documents necessary to implement those recommendations.

Good evening, Mayor and, oh, that's not the right one. Just give me a second here. good evening mayor and council so the item before you tonight cody and i will be sharing with you a lot of the challenges that we've been experiencing with the plum creek subdivision proposed or under construction here in hutch and specifically we also intend to advise you on routes and options to move forward with, potentially depending on the questions asked, because this may not be the only venue that we talk about this. We may have to have an attorney-client executive session in order to properly advise on any of the nuanced legalities behind this. So to start with, there is There's a lot of jargon in here that has spurred a, you can say a cottage industry, around these types of financial tools. So at a very high level, I will try my best to explain how all of this works, because I do believe that for those that once they learn what we're saying, then they can better follow along. So a special benefit district was established for the Plum Creek subdivision. And a special benefit district is an area created by the city to finance public improvements, in this case for housing development, whether that's streets and utilities and where the costs are assigned to the properties that are directly benefited. The Reinvestment Housing Incentive District, or RHID, and I have the dates in which it was signed and then also the monies associated with it. But the RHID is an economic development tool that uses the increase in property tax revenue from new housing development to pay for the eligible public infrastructure or development costs. So think of the, in this case for the RHID, if you just imagine vacant land that's just grass currently, and say that the property tax value is $100,000 just with bare land. And then once you put houses on it, and as the construction starts to develop, say now it's now valued at $1 million. That 900,000 is what would go towards paying off the infrastructure costs. So the city would still keep the 100 while everything else is going towards the infrastructure or depending on how the RHID agreements are laid out, which I'll get into. But that's the RHID. The moderate income housing, or MIH grant, in this case is a grant, but it could either be a grant or a loan. And that's used basically for gap financing for households whose income are too high for traditional low income housing assistance, but not high enough to afford market rate housing comfortably. coupled with this the city has issued temporary notes general obligation bonds and have levied a special assessments so temporary notes are short-term debt instruments the city may use to provide upfront funding for infrastructure and the way I distinguish between temp notes and general obligation bonds think of a temp note like you're using your credit card to make a purchase you're gonna have to pay that off sooner. Whereas if a general obligation bond is like taking out a mortgage on a house where you can spread that out over a longer duration of time. So hopefully that is helpful for everyone in the audience as well. And the general obligation bonds are debt backed by the city's full faith and credit, meaning that repayment is secured by the city's taxing authority rather than only by project specific revenues. And then these special assessments are charges placed on specific properties in a housing development to repay the costs of public improvements that specifically benefit those properties. And so the RHID in this case was for phase one, whereas for the special assessments is then tied to all of the lots within the proposed subdivision. And then there's the Kansas Housing Investor Tax Credit, or KHITC. And that is a state of Kansas tax credit program that encourages private investment in housing developments by providing tax credits to investors or developers who help finance qualifying residential projects, including projects intended to expand housing supply in Kansas communities. So for the Plum Creek subdivision overview, and I'm only going to talk about, at least in this case, the issues that will impact us immediately. So for the MIH grants, while that was something specifically awarded to Jim Straughan, We are the applicants and there's been a lot of things that we've kind of stepped in just to keep it going. But the KHITC down at the bottom, number five, that's something specific to Jim and not us. I just wanted to clarify that. The city issued temporary notes of approximately 1.71 million. So please keep that number in mind for when Cody comes up because that is at this point in time, the total financial exposure that the city has relative to this project. The developer has contributed $306,642. That was the number that was brought up earlier that I said was a reimbursable expense pursuant to the developer's agreement. There was also $10,000 for establishing the RHID district, which is also a reimbursable expense. The city anticipates issuing GO bonds in an aggregate amount which can be supported from the RHID increment in the amount of around $102,000 annually. The city anticipates issuing temp notes $302,650 for hard construction costs. GO bonds will cover the permanent financing. And that's actually baked into the 1.7, but I thought I'd break that out a little bit. It would be a 20-year term for the special assessments, and the RHID agreement actually does go into the priorities for reimbursement, and so I thought I would include these here. One is to pay the expenses borne by the city, like the administrative fees associated with that. Pay the special benefit district phase one debt service. reimburse phase one debt service from funds other than the RHID increment, and then finally reimburse Mr. Strong for the cost comprising up to the RHID cap, which in the developer's agreement is 600,000. So think, for example, the lift station that was mentioned by him. That could theoretically be a reimbursable expense pursuant to this agreement. And then the RHID will expire after all phase one debt service is paid. Some of this admittedly was pulled out to highlight the work that we've contributed to this project just to keep it going. There's a lot of other things that either staff has done to assist with this project behind the scenes or items that were brought forth to the Planning and Zoning Commission like, hey, we want to vacate this 10-foot utility easement or whatever the case may be. While I appreciate those items and the work that was done there, these are things that either had direct results to improving the construction schedule or, in this case, saving him money. So I do plan to read all of these off. So the city has managed the administration of the MIH grant. We have done quarterly and annual reporting. income verification, applicant screening, and created a city web page for residents to learn more about the project. So honestly, with that in mind, I'm not really sure what that fee was for, that Mr. Strong had mentioned that $2,500 fee. That's extremely confusing to me because I feel like we've done a substantial sum of the work. And so I'll also say that the city may be held responsible and subject to the state audit. So with the money in our possession, the state would look to us to see how we've been handling it, even though this was something that was to benefit the developer. We've approved the initial set of building permits without first having the road installed. staff has not charged the developer for inspection services, which is approximately $30,000 in value. We granted a variance for a sewer main to not have to be designed and installed at the lowest level of elevation, saving time and money. The city council granted a sidewalk variance by only allowing the sidewalks on one side of the street. The SCADA connection to the city network for a lift station cost was borne by the city, which was approximately $100,000 in value. We have adjusted the original RHID to account for a lift station and storm water facilities or the detention pond, also saving time and money. then finally i did want to say that we've negotiated these agreements and they were approved by the council in good faith even though the risk and financial exposure against the city was high that was in an effort to at least encourage much needed housing development sometimes you take risks and it pays off and in this case it's not very good With the original timeline that was proposed to the city and also within the MIH ARPA application that was submitted by the developer, If you look at the original timeline for RHID and platting, Jim proposed May of 23. Infrastructure would begin in June of 23. And then if the MH ARPA were to be approved, the home construction would begin in October of 23 with the final homes being sold in the first quarter of 26. And this is for phase one. And as it stands right now, we don't even have two finished homes. And we're nearing the end of the third quarter of 26. So here's the timeline through the eyes of staff. On 8-6 of 24, the RHID and MH development agreements were executed and the special benefit districts was authorized On 1-14 of 25, the infrastructure construction began mobilization. The first and second building permits for the two homes that are there currently, one was pulled 470 days ago. That's when it was approved. The second one was 275 days ago. And then the last inspection on that one was July 1st of 26. The phase one residential units required to be completed according to the RHID development agreement. And like I mentioned at the last council meeting, that expired. So we have two homes when it was originally promised that we were going to have it all built by now. And we did approve the building permits for the six new homes that Liberty Communities, when they purchased those six lots from Jim Strong. This is to also establish part of the excitement around this project. This was presented to not only in a lot of their submittals, but also to like the Housing Commission all the way back in 2023, in January 25th of 23. That specifically by funding it in this manner, meaning all of the incentives that were a part of this package, that there would be no special assessments on the homes. Somehow we went from no specials to there are specials. And that there were going to be eight three-bedroom duplexes. And we just learned that there weren't going to be any. And that there would be a neighborhood pool with play equipment, a restroom, a dog park, a covered patio area, etc. And as I move forward, I'll touch on those, but I thought I'd highlight that this is what got people excited. This was a letter that was sent from Jim Strawn to the Reno County Commission in August of 24. i highlighted the the part specifically but i suppose i could have also highlighted why the city capped the rhid at 1.15 million part of that was also to limit our exposure to make sure that we can pay back the infrastructure but that was known at the time to not only jim but ross vogel his business partner and so that was not a surprise but here i just thought i'd call that out it was not that was not a surprise number at all so it says here i've convinced the city to allow us to put the lift station on a special assessment and a little bit of the detention pond work which brought the cost to less than four hundred thousand but then i found it peculiar that then i told the city we would not be able to put in a pool as projected because there isn't money there for it but when asked at the last council meeting if he's putting in a pool he said it would go in in phase two so which one is it in one instance you say that there's going to be one there's not going to be one and then there's going to be one so i'm confused and then it also says that in that same letter that there will be slab construction and duplexes but again as we were just told recently that there's not going to be duplexes and this is something that I feel like is important to highlight a pattern so here is a typical overview of construction documents that would highlight the roads and then all the rectangle or square pieces. Those are where proposed lots are. So this is Ashton Estates. So if you look at this, this is what was promised. This is what was delivered. So if we go back, this is what was promised. This is what was delivered.

Where is that at?

Ashton Estates. It's actually just south of Plum Creek currently. So Plum Creek is, if you can see the mouse, it's up here.

What street is that on the bottom?

What is this? 36th? Robert. Robert. Okay. And then here is Oxford Point. So this is what was promised. This is what was delivered. And I'm gonna go into a little more nuances on the homes that he built. But again, this is what was promised. This is what was delivered. For Plum Creek, where we're at present day, this is what was promised. This is what we have. So when I asked at the last council meeting, is this going to be a rinse and repeat, that's what I was trying to get at. But I feel like in this particular application that seeing is believing in certain cases. And so that is what I was trying to press at. And then as we go into this, the relevancy of why I'm going to bring this up, one is that it's in our policies for our special assessments, our RHID policy, and in the developer's agreement that you have to be up on your taxes. So specifically within the agreement that was signed between the city and Jim, that one of the conditions of its condition to be current along with each member or manager of the developer on the payment of all taxes to the state and its political subdivisions, including the city and the county. So in this case, and I last checked today at 1251 PM, so unless it's changed, that's why I put a stamp there, that he owes currently $317,000 in delinquent property taxes. And that delinquency matters, again, because that affects the nature of the RHID reimbursements, because pursuant to the same agreement that we signed, that if he's not up, then he won't get paid back. So theoretically, he'd want to pay that. And that also kind of interferes with the good faith partnerships, where if you're asking for city tax money in exchange, are you being a good steward as well? I want to show you guys a map, had a little bit of uh fun doing this i want to thank our phenomenal phenomenal i.t staff as well so i thought i'd show kind of a little bit of history and this is taking all of our building permits going all the way back to 2009 because that's how far back we could go in our software and i used 17th as the delineation Some people say if you build south of 17th, that's the south side. Some people say 11th, but it seems like the majority of people say 17th, so I picked 17th as the cutoff line. Where you can kind of see where most of the development occurs. I'll kind of take that here, but specifically here are the parcels to which there are delinquent taxes. So that's kind of marked on here. The Punk Creek phases. But I want to go to the Oxford point, because this is something that is important. So the green squares here are the lots that in 23 were let go to the tax sale. So money that was rightfully owed to the city was never delivered to the city. When Council Member Goss had pressed on the history of this, we did not get an answer, but I did want to call out specifically those lots. And within the, I'll actually kind of mute that, but these are the builds for the permits for the homes that he did build. The rest were done by the school. Um, so I wanted to make that known that as you say, here's what we were promised. Here's what we were given. Uh, we're only given three from Mr. Strong.

Um, can you go back? I want to interrupt for a second. If you go to the north west, actually just straight west, um, you have that empty field there, which is also owned by strong. Is that right?

I can look into that. Or is it?

It's before Hendricks. I don't know which direction it is.

You're talking this? All this vacant stuff?

I can't tell. Maybe it is the Oxford Point.

You're talking about the houses?

Yeah, so you're talking this stuff. You're talking right here?

Is that the only vacant...

There's a field there off of Hendricks on the left.

Well, and then if you go here, that's the field. But if you're referring to this, these are the lots that were proposed.

That's the one I was thinking of.

Yeah, so these were the lots that were proposed to be built, but we don't have that. So let me get back here. So that actually kind of wraps up my part, and then I'll be turning it over to Cody to advise a little further on the legality of some of the agreements.

Cody Smith, Assistant City Attorney. Mayor, members of the council, the city manager has already walked you through the timeline, so I'm not going to repeat that. But my job right now is to tell you what that timeline means with respect to the contracts and what those contracts say come next. The city asks for one thing tonight, to authorize the city manager to sign notices of breach and noncompliance under the two contracts, the RHID development agreement and the MIH development agreement. That is all. A notice terminates nothing. It forecloses nothing. It fires no one. It forgives no one. It does exactly one thing. It starts the formal process that both parties wrote into these agreements for the day one of them stopped performing. That day came and went on June 30th. The only question before you is whether the city may now do what the contract says comes next. You have the whole timeline in terms of what the city manager presented, but I want to point at three dates in it because those three dates are essentially the case here. December 2023, before a single shovel of dirt turned at Plum Creek, Mr. Strawn's company filed the form claiming the state's investor tax credits. On that form, the builder investor of the same company, that's his, It certified that $540,000 in cash investments had already been made, and it requested every credit in that award. The credits issued, construction did not begin that March, as promised. It did not finish by June 2025, as promised. To this day, the state's schedule has never been met. Then on June 30, 2026, the city's deadline, the one he signed in August of 2024 alongside his own petitions asking the city to finance the street, the sewer, the water, and the lift station against these lots. I think it's important to remember that or to highlight that, especially with respect to the comments that Mr. Strawn made at the last meeting in terms of he wasn't aware of some of these things. He was the one that filed these petitions with the city, and the city moved forward with them. 29 homes were due complete, each with a final certificate of occupancy. Two have been started, zero are finished, zero certificates exist, zero affordable units exist. July 2026, another builder, Liberty Communities, pulled six building permits in the same subdivision in a single month. Six permits, one month, same streets, same market, same interest rates. The ground is clearly not the problem. It's the developer. Everything in between those dates, the 1.59 million the city borrowed, the infrastructure it built and accepted, the early permits, the waive fees, the variances, the staff who took over as grant paperwork, and the city manager has already shown you. I'll come back to what that is up to, but if we're first looking at the law, It's pretty simple here because the parties wrote these contracts or worked on them themselves. Kansas courts enforce unambiguous contracts as written. They do not rewrite bargains for parties who made them with open eyes and they do not relieve a sophisticated commercial actor of a deadline because performance turned out to be harder or less profitable than he had hoped. Section 501 of the RHID Development Agreement sets the obligation and its objective, complete the residential units on or before June 30th, 2026, completion evidenced by a final certificate of occupancy for each home. There's nothing to interpret. Either the certificates exist or they do not. And obviously, in this case, they do not. Section 801 of that same agreement defines the consequence. Any noncompliance with a provision of this agreement, including the time limits for completion, is a breach, not a delay, not a misunderstanding, a breach in the contract's own words. Section 802 supplies the process the city invoked tonight, written notice, and a cure period. 14 days to begin the cure, 30 to complete it, 45 is the time period under the separate MIH agreement. And that same Section 802 also contains a cross-default provision, basically states that a failure by the developer or any affiliate under the agreement with the city is a default under the master agreement. And that's important here because Mr. Strawn, he has three different entities that he's worked into this program. They have strong development, strong homes, and strong contracting. And so the obligation set forth here, they follow him, the man. They don't follow just the letterhead. Section 601 of the developer agreement contains one more promise, whose first test will arrive in December, that the developer agrees to pay the taxes and assessments on this project promptly on or before the due date for as long as he owns it. His Plum Creek bills have not yet come due, but I would say you're entitled to ask how he handles the bills that have become due. And the county's records answer it, and that's to the tune of roughly $317,000 in delinquent taxes on his other Hutchinson properties. And under Section 401C of the same agreement, that alone has teeth here because being current on taxes to the state, the city, the county is a condition of every RHID reimbursement. So he is not current, and not a dollar of increment could flow to him anyway. Now the development agreement does contain a permitted delays clause, and I do want to be upfront and candid about that because if we get down to it, I'm sure Mr. Strawn will surely point to it, but it excuses delays caused by events genuinely outside a party's control. So this would be disasters, fires, strikes, epidemics, wars. But in reading this definition to the end, it seems the drafters of this clause kind of saw this coming, or this particular developer coming, because it does expressly exclude by name conditions related to the economic resources of the party. It excludes failure to obtain financing. It excludes, and I'm quoting, a business decision to delay or withdraw resources to a project and similar acts related to monetary circumstances. So now let's think back to what Mr. Strong told this body on the record in this room just a couple weeks ago. He said he came in way over budget. Well, that's economic resources excluded. He said he waits to pre-sell homes rather than build them because building to the state's accessibility standards adds about $15,000 a house. That's a business decision to delay a project in almost the exact words of the exclusion. He said the market is slow, the interest rates are high, the buyers cannot qualify, monetary circumstances excluded. And his one excuse that even approaches the definition was that a subcontractor had health problems on the electrical work. He answered himself, though, on the record and in his own words that that wasn't anybody's problem but his. In two years, he has never asked this governing body for an extension. He has never presented a permitted delays claim with facts. So while there is a clause for delays, there are no facts that fit within it. The harm, one question could be, well, where's the harm in all of this? And we can count it because none of it is abstract or hard to determine. The community has lost the intended use of the $1.02 million for the moderate income housing, or it will so here pretty soon, because federal rules require that grant to be spent on work performed by September 30th of this year. Because the homes were never built, now that is impossible. The money was state money, so the city didn't write a check, and it doesn't owe any of that. But 24 families who would have bought affordable homes with it will not have that money, and that loss traces directly to Mr. Strawn's schedule. The families the program was built for were charged for the privilege, as the city manager discussed. He confirmed this to the governing body on the record, that applicants for the moderate income housing program are charged a $2,500 fee to recoup, in his words, what pays the consultant who obtained the grant. The program's beneficiaries are being billed for the developer's own obligations. Nothing in any agreement authorizes even a penny of that. The taxpayers are carrying 1.59 million in short-term debt against lots that generate nothing, while the man who promised to make them generate something misses his deadline here and lets his own tax bills go delinquent across town. City staff, meanwhile, They perform his contractual duties without compensation because the contract specifically states that the developer was taking over all the program requirements. Yet somehow the city ended up doing a lot of his work. I suspect one reason is because, as was mentioned, the city is the one that's held accountable to the state. And so I am sure staff at least wanted to make sure the reporting was done correctly because it didn't seem like Mr. Strone was doing much else. As far as the calendar goes, there is another harm, and it compounds. Every month this drifts. The city's leverage decays. The assessments get bonded for 20 years in September. The federal grant dies September 30th. The notes mature October 1st. The first assessments come due in December. Most of them on his lots, and his record on paying what comes due is now a matter of county record. Delay is not neutral. Delay is a wealth transfer from the public to one party who's not in this chamber today, but was a couple weeks ago, and he is someone who's not kept his word. So why not just give him more time? I suspect that's one question that will be weighed. It's taken this long. Why not take longer? You know, what's the harm in more patience? Well, first, more time is not a neutral act because time has already been given in quantities that, frankly, embarrass a request for additional time more so than he's already been given. Thirty-one months since he took $540,000 in credits on a certification investment of his own project, 23 months since he signed the city's agreement, 13 months past the state's completion deadline, and three weeks now past the city's or more. So at what point, I guess we have to ask the question, at what point does patience stop being a virtue and simply start being a policy of just pretending like he's going to do something when history shows he does not? As an example, no one would tell a landlord whose tenant is eight months behind that, well, notice seems a little bit premature right now. And quite frankly, no one should tell this city and the taxpayers three years now into this record that any notice today is too soon or that we should give them more time. Second, with respect to the cure period, because I know probably what some people in this room are thinking is nobody builds 29 homes in 30 days. If the question were whether Mr. Strawn can erase this breach inside the cure period, I think the answer is most likely no. But that is not what the contract asks. Section 802 does not demand 29 finished homes in a month. It demands that he begin a cure within that 14 days and then pursue it diligently. A begun diligent cure looks like what performance generally is supposed to have looked like, but in this case it's never been. A construction schedule with a signature on it, permits pulled by his company. It's not an unreasonable risk. It's pretty much a modest one in this case because it's exactly what the contract requires of him. uh so to understand what the cure period is actually for it's not there because the city actually expects he's going to build these homes within the next 30 days it's there because the contract requires it before any remedy and because it converts three years of real ambiguity into a 30-day answer in writing on the record if he can show you know that he's he can have some real performance this notice would give him that documented path to move forward with that and the city would honor it. But if he cannot, then 30 days from now, the council will know with certainty instead of suspicion. Third, as far as the last reason for patience, the harm of waiting falls on everyone except for the man asking it. The taxpayers carry the debt. The staff carry his program. The families carry his fee. The neighborhood carries the empty lots. Meanwhile, he carries essentially appreciating land that's going up in value at this point. It's been improved by the city, and he's the beneficiary of it at this point. free money to install the infrastructure he needs to eventually build houses and sell them and make a profit. So in this case, patience is not a plan. At this point, patience would be subsidizing this individual for work that he promised to deliver and continually, not only with respect to this project, But the previous projects that city manager showcased, it's just been a pattern of not following through. Big promises, but no follow through. So if there are any hesitation, such as if the notices will kill the project, the project's finances do not run through Mr. Strong. The assessments and the September bond, the October note retirement all proceed on their own track. The covenants and the liens run with the land. The infrastructure is built and permanent. Six permits were pulled by another builder, as mentioned last month. I think that tells you everything you need to know that this this ground, I believe, does have a future. And so the project itself does not need protecting from the notices. It really needs protecting from continuing on like we have for the last couple years. As far as some of the comments he made about the city, trying to just place blame on city for a web page error or parking lots, even taking those at their worst, they're essentially marketing grievances. know come down to it nothing the city did or or allegedly failed to do stopped a single foundation from being poured and quite frankly some of that was was work that he was supposed to be doing himself but the city ended up essentially doing it even though the contract required him to do so so it's a little bit difficult to to try to blame someone who's doing the work that you're supposed to do and complain that it wasn't done properly As far as his investment, the agreements don't measure how much performance, or it doesn't measure the performance and the amount of dollars spent. I know he made complaints that he's put a lot of money into this property. But again, the measure is in certificates of occupancy, and the number is still zero. He has two structures up. That's it. We don't even have one house at this point. So in terms of why the city must look at cutting ties, and it may be an uncomfortable matter, but in looking at the future for this grounds, it simply cannot run through him. And that's not out of anger. It's simply out of just the math. and out of a pattern. The pattern's evident and consistent. He collects the tax, the tax credits before construction, the infrastructure, city finance, the county's reservation, the grant award, the variances, the way fee. The performance does not come, but the explanations do. The engineers he was blaming, the pandemic, the subcontractor, the website, the market, the parking lot again. It seems like every explanation he was giving at the meeting two weeks ago was someone else's fault. But meanwhile, essentially every dollar for the benefit that the city was willing to give him was already banked in what he has. So mayor, council members, the city signed these agreements in good faith, performed its side in full, and then went further. I mean, we issued the early permits, waived fees, gave them variances, staff doing developer's own work. In return, again, two incomplete structures. a fee charge to working families and a calendar of deadlines arriving in a wave. 29 promises came due on June 30th. 29 remain unkept. So the notice is again, it's not the city losing its temper, the city trying to attack Mr. Strachan at this point. It's merely the city keeping its word to the taxpayers to move on from this project or at least try to find other ways to get houses built on this land. So please, authorize the city manager to execute the notices. Those can be prepared in a short amount of time. so we can at least get the process started in terms of putting him in that period to cure, and then if he doesn't, moving forward from there. Thank you.

And I do have two final points. So a lot of the convenient cuts that were made, whether it was the pool or potentially the sidewalks, depending on which section of the contract you're looking at, the sidewalks could be reimbursable. But in some instances, they're not. But a lot of the items that were cut were items that weren't going to come from the RHID. So essentially those would have been items that would have come out of his pocket. So I do think that is important to note that a lot of the things that got people excited about this development were removed. And then finally, in the same letter, that was issued to the Reno County commissioners, the one that I referenced earlier. The previous section had suggested at the time, and this was in August of 24, that the city was competing with his development. And so by, for lack of better words, using my likeness, since I was specifically mentioned in the letter, he got a payday for it. Under that agreement with the county, he would get $9,000 for every lot or for every home that was built. And there was a few strings attached in order to get the $9,000. But we were not competing. That was an open bid process on that project. He could have put in for the bid, but he didn't. As we've demonstrated, whether with this project or others, the city is willing to take a risk in order to get homes built, in order to get traction, to get people excited about coming here. Part of the 11th and Hendricks, a lot of the things that I've been told since I've got here, since I've been here, and then as council, I know you've heard this many times as well, that the city doesn't appear to care about the south side. And so part of that project being attractive was that it was that we were pursuing development in an area of town that has been deprived of that. And so as you can see from his track record, he doesn't build on the south side. That's not a shot. That's just the facts based on the permits. So I wanted to wrap up my conclusion for that, but I did want to touch on we weren't competing at all. We're just excited about getting homes built and we want people to live in Hutchinson. So that's it. Cody and I can stand for any questions if you have any. Again, depending on the nature and substance of the questions, it would be best to actually go into executive session for that. So I just want to, we do have language prepared, but I do want to offer that up, especially for those that are listening, that there are certain strategies that we want to divulge publicly.

um why don't we move to approve and prepare and send the notices and if we need to discuss something further i have so many comments that i probably shouldn't say one of which is i'm highly offended that it's all our fault these houses didn't get built i don't appreciate that at all and i walked out of here not real happy last time it's all our fault What? So I don't know the path forward we need to go here, but I think maybe to keep this with attorney-client privileges, we go ahead and move to do this, and then, I mean, unless somebody has a different idea.

I would agree.

Okay.

There's a lot I think all of us want to say, but on the chance of it impacting some kind of Future legal case between everybody, I'm willing to not say any of it.

Pardon my opening statement that this is probably not the only venue we'll be discussing this in.

I'll move to authorize the city manager to prepare and send notices to Mr. Strong about the Club Plum Creek subdivision development agreement and right to care.

Second. Second. Trewin?

Yes. Garza?

Hell yes.

Goss? I will join you with a hell yes. Goss?

Yes. Vast?

A very offended yes. Yes.

Item number H, fireworks discussion.

Yeah, this is fireworks discussion.

No, probably not probably not on that topic we've kind of made a motion before that so

You can. just go ahead and talk about this fireworks?

Yeah, I was going to give you the language. Oh, okay, go ahead. He's asking about the fireworks. I was going to give you the language for Punk Creek. Oh, okay. But... We're going into fireworks.

Did you want to have a session? Did you want to have a session right now or after?

It's up to you all.

Let's go ahead.

Why don't we go ahead and get this all finished out, and then we can go to the executive session with that.

Okay, let's go.

So I don't think you had a formal presentation for some fireworks. This is kind of so just so everyone's clear, I kind of got into the fireworks sales issue. So this has nothing to do with selling fireworks on my behalf. This has to do with talking in the fire department, with staff, et cetera, in regards to What we're doing as a city, basically the length of our sales, how we go about when they can start shooting them off, the length of And then just basically some of the stuff I talked to, like, I'm trying to figure out how to say that, to where just some of the stuff I was trying to figure out is this an additional stress on our current fire department on this time of the year by maybe shortening the time of sales and when people could shoot them off, if that would help, because I know you guys have a lot going on, and then to add this on top of it. And so I just wanted you to kind of come to kind of give us your insight on What we should do as a city, because if you look at communities around us, what they do and what we do are very similar, but there are some differences as well. And I just want to make sure we are going down the right path.

Sure. So I kind of jumped the gun earlier, but we'll start with what the state sets. The state fire marshal sets the basic times that fireworks can be sold in the state. And currently that's June 20th to July 7th. The city has established the sales between June 26th to July 7th. And then discharge of fireworks is June 30th to July 4th. So there's an issue there of people being able to go and buy these fireworks and not be able to sell them, or be able to shoot them. That creates problems of us trying to enforce the code and enforce the rules. I will say that when we started this, say, eight years ago of letting everybody shoot every kind of firework, we were running 30 fireworks complaint calls a day, multiple grass fires a day, multiple trash can fires a day. That has trended down quite a bit. This year and last year was very similar to where there was 30 fireworks complaints for the whole period. We had just two dumpster fires, three outside grass fires. We regularly have a structure fire involved. Fireworks or not, the structure fire that we had this year was due directly to fireworks. So for extra pressure on the guys to to to perform during the firework season, it's trending down However, like this year we had 13 Fireworks tents that were selling fireworks. So that's that's that's time our inspectors go out inspect it twice a day It's roughly four to five hours a man man hours a day just for the inspection side of it Our structure fire That was a three-hour structure fire and another three hours of investigation. So there is significant time put into the fireworks portion of this. Even with our campaigns, media campaigns to teach the community what to do and how to do it and all that stuff, there's still people that are not going to follow. I'm rather happy about how it went. Most people did follow rules. I mean, the complaints are down, the calls are down, but there's still those people out there. I think in order to make it easier on the fire side of it would be to restrict the sales and restrict the discharge dates, shorten them down. I know the city of Savannah, I believe, only allows the discharge of fireworks on the third and fourth. So two days compared to the six days or so that we have. And then restricting the sales to around the same time period. So people aren't tempted to break the rules. However, a foreseeable issue with that is currently we're in line with the county's rules. So the Hutch Fire Department will respond outside of the city limits as well. So there's going to be conflicting codes to follow there. If a city resident goes outside the county or in the county and buys fireworks, they're going to expect to be able to shoot them. So there's that issue of mirroring the areas around us if we decide to restrict or change those dates.

So I basically want you guys to hear this to see if there's anything that the fire department would like to see us change or modify. Again, I want to kind of stay a neutral party to this. But I hadn't had involvement before, so I just didn't know. And so after being involved with it, I just wanted the fire department to give us their perspective to see if that's something we should look at or not.

I mean, I would just say what I've said before on other issues, are we trying to fix a problem that we don't need to fix or doesn't exist? You've said that the stats are slightly going down. Didn't we have more fire work stands this year? We did. I believe two more than prior year. I mean, I don't know. And I hear what you're saying about the county. You know, go over and buy them in South Hutch, and then here we are. We're doing the same thing. I don't know. I mean, I'd be curious. You can talk about your sales and how, I mean, because you said you want to stay out of this, but I'm curious, somebody that has a stand, how's that going to affect them?

So being the first year doing it and kind of talking to some other operators in town, so the first weekend came basically uneventful. I mean, sales were quite honestly terrible. You don't really see any sales until probably, you know, we had 4th of July was on Saturday. You didn't really start seeing any sales until Tuesday or Wednesday. So you probably could shut it down for five days prior to Friday. Could eliminate five days off at the front of that, depending on when it falls, when the 4th of July falls. That's just my observation. I'm not trying to dictate anything on that parameter. But that's just kind of what I saw and just talking to people as well and just asking questions.

What is the, I'm pulling up our thing, our code. So what is, like, is there a fine if you have illegal fireworks what i know hpd goes out to calls as well and i think a lot of what they've told us when we had this conversation two or three years ago about allowing sales because we didn't have sales right well i think we tried to line it up with the county we kind of worked together with them i think we actually expanded the sales maybe a little bit or um and i think HPD talked about most of their calls are alcohol-related and people being disorderly, that kind of thing. But when you guys go to a fire report, you're not writing a ticket, right?

Our line personnel are not allowed to write tickets. If we go to a firework complaint and we find that it was improper fireworks, improper location, or misconduct, our fire marshal and inspector can write tickets as well. We can get PD involved. So there is a ticketing process. After a citation is issued, I'm not sure how far it travels after that. I know it goes to

Because I know for a minor, I pulled up the statute here. Well, this says 2007. That can't be right.

I don't think there's a set fine if that's what you're looking for.

Well, it's a misdemeanor, so there would be a fine. It would just be whatever it is for a misdemeanor.

Assessed by the judge?

Yeah. And we go chasing these calls, and it's very difficult to pinpoint. Like, you know, there's debris in the street, but who did it? Or somebody had the improper firework, but whose was it?

Well, yeah, because if it's in the street and there's six houses in the vicinity and it was lit, seven minutes ago before you got there, you're not going to.

Now let me ask this. The 30 complaints you're talking about, that's just what your guys responded to?

Correct. Not involving PD.

Not involving PD because you guys.

We stopped at 11 o'clock.

At 11 o'clock, which is then when all the violations occur.

Pretty much.

Yes. You used to be able to set your clock by the 911 calls because at 1101 they were coming in.

I mean, I remember when I was a kid, they didn't allow any sales in the city. And you'd go to the county, and you had to shoot them off there. But I lived in the county anyway, so we did whatever we want. And I think that's what, like, when you can't. And current law, state law, is if there's a permanent retailer, they can sell year round. We just don't have any permanent retailers in Reno County. But if we did, they'd be able to shoot them off in the county at any time, right?

Don't believe so. Okay. I think there's still timelines. Okay. First, the discharge of them.

So is our timeline the same as South Hutch?

Same as the counties. I believe South Hutch is different. It's different. Yeah, I think South Hutch was longer. Yeah.

I guess that would be something I would say maybe we look into is how we could work with all three entities and... either the city managers or the fire chiefs and say, hey, is there any way we could, we would like to shorten it, but what would be the compromise?

I agree. I think right now the conversation's timely, but action, I would like to see more collaboration and to have input from HPD and South Hutch and the county also and have a joint meeting that we can talk about this because Yeah, I mean, even if you guys aren't responding in Hutch, you're going to be going wherever the calls are. And if they're shooting off in South Hutch, you guys are just going to go to South Hutch or wherever else. So I do want our stuff to align. Where I lived in Missouri, we had tons of fireworks tents. It was crazy. And that's what our little town was known for around the 4th of July. But it was always sold to people as it was a revenue. It was a moneymaker. I don't think that we see an actual uptick in our sales tax because I think a lot of sales are cash. But I think the thing that we definitely have control over and I would encourage us to think about is how we're allowing the retailer's permit to be distributed. Do we want to put a cap on how many? I don't know what legalities are around how we could limit that. But, you know, if we limited the number of retailers that were allowed in town or how close they could be or why would we do that? I don't know.

I will add that the permit has to be with the $2,500 for the permit fee, which I think goes towards our

Fireworks display, yeah.

Yeah, well, and if he's saying that there's 13 and they have to be inspected twice a day and that's so many people who have to be out there.

Yeah, I don't know if the math masks are not.

Yeah, and they're not getting $2,500 of benefit. It's going to...

fireworks display which is I'm just saying why would we interfere I guess you've answered that why would we interfere if if 100 people want to have a fireworks stand that's not our problem but it could be if we need to yeah I mean I think that if we're asking for input from

The chief that's a piece that yeah, no or if we could limit the size of them or whatever if you guys had input on the things that make them hard to inspect like the way that they're I Don't know stocked or whatever.

So, you know, I know your inspections like that first weekend. It has to be done by 3 30 on that Friday, you know like this year and then you'd still get from what I understand still get You'd be like, okay. And so you'd make those, you don't want to make those exceptions, but I know it happened a little bit, so.

Yeah, we try to make it happen for everybody, so. Yeah. The rules are out there, and sometimes people don't get to them on time, and we'll still make exceptions to that, but.

So do you think if we could coordinate with the city or with South Hutchins County, maybe to limit a day or two, if they would be willing to, would that help you? Yeah.

I think, yeah, I think we all have to be on the same page. Maybe shorten up the sales a little bit. But on the other hand, like I said, the calls are turning down. You know, maybe doing a better media campaign to get the rules out there and so forth.

Yeah, and I think that the you know, that $2,500 retailer's fee, we could break that up differently and we could contribute to the marketing campaign for you guys, or we could, careers, Bruce, we could help fund that nonprofit that lets the veterans go down to Stratica. You know, there's, we can get creative with that because if that's, really just money that we're literally going to blow up anyway, then we could make sure that it does some good.

I guess, do you guys have the direction you need? I don't know.

Well, I just wanted to see, I guess, if there was any discussion point that we wanted to have in the future before next year. So that's why it was kind of fresh in my mind. That's why I was like, I'd like to have it at some point just to see if there was any interest in looking at it. If there's not, you know, it's no big deal either. And I know that, I know there was maybe one that wanted to comment from the public.

I just wanted to say.

You come to the podium, please.

I live on the south side of town, and I will tell you.

Name an address, please. Margaret Young, 119 West 9th and Hutch. It was a war zone down there for six nights. Went on from 2 in the afternoon till 2 in the morning. And it seems like this year's the worst year we've ever had with the size of them. They were just like M80s going off all over our neighborhood. So any consideration you could take to include the community, too, on what you're selling, the number of days you're selling, would just be real helpful to the community. Cause it is not fun when your dogs won't even go outside. And my father has PTSD, so it was rough for him. So thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Since you got your red, white, and blue shirt on. That's right.

Chris Link, 3506 North Lorain. I do appreciate all that you guys do, but I do think the sales time frame should match the discharge time frame because uh maybe a little bit on the front side if as you're preparing but somebody who's buying after the time you can discharge the fireworks aren't going to be worth a whole lot the next year so it doesn't make sense but i do think the uh the time frame for discharge should not shrink And I definitely don't think we should regulate how many people we have here selling. If there's only a certain amount of people buying, it doesn't matter how many vendors we have, there's still going to be the same amount of fireworks sold. So that's not the government's job. So that's all.

Thank you. Anyone else? If not, thanks a lot. And thanks for what you guys do. I know that's a very time-consuming job for those 10 days, and so I appreciate all you guys do.

I'm glad the numbers are going down, but how do we fix the one house a year that gets burned up? Because I heard that call, and I thought, uh-oh. And sure enough, I did never know if it was fireworks or not, but assumed as such.

Yes, sir.

I think the interesting thing with that is the statistic was, if I understood correctly, that it doesn't matter what our ordinance is, it's one a year, right?

It's been averaging one a year, yeah.

So it doesn't matter what we do. As long as there are fireworks, that's happening.

Okay. All right. Thanks, Chief.

Next item, Mary.

Item number 10, report of city officials.

Mr. Trewin.

I do not have anything.

Mr. Garza.

okay two things first thing i wanted to say is that uh it's really um first time i see my oldest son come to the city council member and i knew something was up he's the oldest and i didn't realize he spoke so spokeful but takes after his dad so i was proud of that he spoke and got up there and spoke and the second thing I've been having meetings every two months for the last eight eight years that I've been in the council members my attendance is going down I think we had eight people my last meeting meetings before then I had 20 to 10 to 15 of them And I'm sitting here thinking whether I should have any more. I gave the opportunity for people to come to my meetings and sit down and talk. And I'd buy the donuts and I'd buy the coffee and I got a place to do it. And whether it's worth it. But I went out there and tried. I went out there and tried to get people to sit down and talk. and uh the young man right there is at my meeting i appreciate it he came to the meeting and i want to thank the city staff that goes to my meetings they go and they help me out they volunteer i point them they volunteer and tell me that's engineering department that's the uh Our engineer goes up there and people come to the meetings. And I thought it was working out, but I don't know what's happening. So people just say that we don't inform them. I give them a place to go every two months to go to sit down and have a cup of coffee and sit down and talk. So I think I'll still do it, but I don't know how long I'll do it because I've got to get up. Thank God I have a great wife. She puts the chairs down and does all that stuff. So I'm really kind of disappointed in the community on that action. I'll make a decision. And not to say it bothers me, but I spend money on that. It costs me about $50 to do that every time I do it, but I don't care about the money. I want to care about getting with people. So we'll see what happens. Other than that, Mr. Manager, you did a great job, sir. You stood up there. I think our city is changing because we have good council members, and we have to put forth the laws of the city. And you went there and just get a big old speech, and that's why we hired you, sir. Keep doing what you're doing, and our city will change. Okay? And the guys who did the public, the gentleman who did all that waste water treatment plant, we'll get our city going again. We'll get that plant going again, because that plant's in bad, bad shape. And as a city council member, I'm going to tell you, I'm proud of you guys. You're keeping it going, and we'll get there. So everybody can say I'm tired. You can see that. Sometimes I work for the prison. I work a lot of hours there, and that's why I get tired. I'm out in the sun. So you see me get my paperwork mixed up? That's because I'm tired. But I'm glad I'm a city council member. With that, that's all I have, sir. Thank you.

um a couple things uh just shout outs to staff um the fire department i just want to reiterate top one half percent out of 20 almost 28 000 fire departments have the iso one that is that is quite an achievement um i do appreciate Cody, Paul, and Enrico for your efforts in trying to put the city first and trying to follow through with what we say and what we do. Thank you for that. And I did get a text from, he's a friend, he's a competitor. He said, is there any way to give an honor to a city employee? I have no clue what his name is, I just remember them for the last 30 years working there. Every time I see him, he's working and seems happy. He was a trash man back when we had a trash crew. He was a hustler then. Now he runs a tractor and bush hog. He should be about ready to retire. He never disappoints me when I see him. He wears a blue bandana, and he's always happy doing what seems to be a thankless job. So...

I know who you're talking about.

I don't know who it is. Yeah, no, as soon as you start describing it, I'm like, okay, I think I know. Well, people out there notice. That's my point of that. Thank you. That's all I have.

Yeah, I know who you're talking about, too.

Okay, I guess I must be living in a hole.

I don't even know what a bush hog is.

Oh, you don't know what a bush hog is?

I'm lost. So, Enrico, thank you and Cody for the presentation you guys put together. Really did a great job. As well as all the staff at the presentation, too, they did a great job as well. I went to a deal at the fairgrounds last week, basically in preparation for the fairgrounds. Probably here in another week it'll be done, so I think I'm going to go take a peek at it, I think, next week. But exciting things happening with fairgrounds. I think that's all I have. Now, Mr. Garza, I know you're tired, but I do need to make a motion to go into executive. That's fine.

Before you do that, are you really going to do an hour? Or can we do like 30 minutes and then extend it?

So anyway, I've got to see if you have any comments first.

I don't have any. I was trying to just brush my teeth.

I was going to ask the same question. Can we do a half an hour and see where we're at and come back in?

We can try it.

Okay. We'll try that. Give us some hope. So nothing else. I move the City Council recess into Executive Session pursuant to KSA 75-4319 for a consultation with the City's legal counsel, which would be deemed privileged in the attorney relationship to discuss legal issues or receive legal advice concerning the Plum Creek development. The open meeting will resume at 947. Seeing second. Motion. Second.

Second.

Truen.

Yes.

Garza. Yep. Goss. Yes. Fast. Yes. Yes.

Bye.