City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the May 18, 2026 city council meeting in our new city council chambers. So, thank you for being here tonight. Our invocation will be provided by Reverend Michael Jones of the Grace Connection Church. Please stand for the invocation and remain standing for the pledge of allegiance. The residents of this city. We pray God that our minds will be unified, our thoughts will be connected to what is best for the citizens, the community, and the families that exist in this city. We thank you for all things that you've done for us. Thank you for the grace of life for those who are downtrodd. We pray that you, oh God, will continue to rest upon them, your angels of grace and mercy. Let us move forward in this meeting with unity and with a spirit of grace. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

At this time, I have a proclamation. Whereas emergency medical services, EMS, are vital public service. And whereas members of EMS organizations are ready to provide life-saving care to those in need 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And whereas e emergency medical services embody the true concept of teamwork by recognizing the interdependent relationship among the trauma centers, EMS system hospitals, emergency physicians, emergency nurses, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, firefighters, educators, administrators, and others who are dedicated to saving lives. And whereas the members of EMS organizations routinely engage in thousands of hours of continuing specialized education to enhance their life-saving skills. And whereas the city of Independence Fire Department has been providing emergency medical services at the emergency medical technician level since 1993, augmenting their level of service with paramedics beginning in in 2000. And American Medical Response has been providing emergency medical services including transport at the paramedic level since 1994. And whereas National Emergency Medical Services Week is observed May 17th through the 23rd, 2026 with the theme improving outcomes together, honoring the collaborative efforts of EMS professionals working with partners across the continent of care to improve patient outcomes and strengthen

community health. And therefore, I, Kevin King, mayor of the city of Independence, Missouri, do hereby proclaim the week of May 17th through the 23rd, 2026 as Emergency Medical Services Week. I would like to call up Battalion Chief John Burrell and AMR Battalion Chief Ashley Welchard. at this time. Madam City clerk, please call the role.

Council member Dorman here. Council member Perkins. Council member Stewart here. Council member Atkinson here. Council member Wy here. Council member VA here. Mayor King here. At this time, u we have citizens request. I would like to entertain a motion to amend rules of procedure to allow nonit nonitizens to speak. So moved. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Madame city clerk, please call the role. Council member Dorman, yes. Council member Perkins, yes. Council member Stewart, yes. Council member Atkinson, yes. Council member Wy, yes.

Council member VA, yes. Mayor King, yes. Our first speaker of the night is Phil Lavoda. Please state your address

and city of residence. My name's Philota. My I I really appreciate you uh letting a noncitizen talk. I'm born and raised in Independence. I actually live in the city of Kansas City, 1601 Sro, Kansas City, Missouri. I appreciate giving the opportunity to talk to you. Uh my name is Phil. I'm your Jackson County executive, but I'm not here as your Jackson County executive only. I'm also here as a neighbor and a property owner invested in the success of the Independent Square. I have sent you all emails of just three pictures. I don't do a lot of words. Did everyone get there? I can I have copies if you didn't print them off of your emails. Why don't you give any anybody does a copy? But Jackson County owns several properties around the square, including the historic Truman Courthouse, and we take great pride in being part of this community. We want the square to thrive. We want it to be vibrant, welcoming, accessible, and successful for residents, visitors, and businesses alike. In fact, one example of that partnership is our decision to provide the county-owned parking lot for the city council festivities and the carnivals for free. That's what good neighbors do. We support one another because when the square succeeds, the entire community benefits. When I took office, people constantly raised two concerns with me over and over again. The first was taxes. The second was parking around the independent square. And tonight I want to briefly focus on that second issue. The Truman Historic Courthouse serves many purposes. It's a destination for tourism. It's a center for county services. It's part of the identity and history of independence. Every day people come there to pay taxes, to conduct business, to attend meetings, to visit shops and restaurants, or simply enjoy the square. But the reality is the parking around the courthouse have become increasingly difficult. The streetscapes and the improvements with this the seats and tables are amazing.

I'm talking specifically about the parking on the south and east side of the Truman Historic Courthouse. I sent each of you information earlier and I brought some handouts tonight if anyone else in the crowd wants to see it. But I wanted to come directly to you respectfully and collaboratively with what I believe is a very simple and solvable problem. The current street design around the courthouse is simply not functioning as intended. While I'm sure the changes were made with good intentions and again the streetscapes are amazing. The end result has created frustration for residents, business owners, visitors, and taxpayers. We went from approximately 41 parking spaces down to just 18. That is a major reduction in parking capacity in the very heart of downtown Independence. I've heard from residents who struggle with the parallel parking configuration, particularly spaces that are located away from the curb and toward the middle of the street. And I've heard concerns from seniors and individuals with mobility challenges about the loss of convenient handicap accessible parking directly in front of the courthouse. I've also heard confusion about the bike lane configuration and why it exists only in one section around the courthouse and not throughout the surrounding downtown area. At the end of the day, this is a low-speed traffic environment centered around pedestrian activity, touris, and tourism and public access. and I commend the progress of that. Right now, the design of the parking is limiting accessibility and reducing convenience for people trying to visit the square and support local businesses. The good news is that it is not a complicated problem to fix. By returning to traditional nose in parking on the south and east wind end, we can restore many of those lost parking spaces and dramatically improve accessibility for residents and visitors. This is not about tearing out infrastructure or starting over. In many ways, it's relatively simple adjustment involving

restriping, re repositioning posts, and restoring functionality to the area. And I want you to know Jackson County is willing to be a partner in that effort. We'd gladly offer county resources to support those improvements because we strongly believe in the future of the square and working, sir. I'm sorry. You have one minute.

I I got it. and working collaboratively with the city of independence. And I hope anyone listening can give some input to the council. This isn't about criticism. It's about listening to the community and making practical improvements to help businesses, residents, taxpayers, and visitors. Uh I also want to congratulate the new members of the council, Mr. Mayor. And I want to thank the veterans for your service. I appreciate the opportunity to come before you directly, government to government, neighbor to neighbor, to discuss an issue that I truly believe has a reasonable and achievable solution. So, thank you again for your time tonight. Be happy to any answer any question with you, but it's my position to come bring the issues that I've heard to this body. Thank you.

Next speaker is Jarvis Sackman. Mr. Sackman, please state your address and you have five minutes to speak.

Good afternoon. Excuse me. Good evening. My name is Jarvis Sackman. I am employed by the Independence Chamber of Commerce, 210 West Truman Road, Independence, Missouri. Honorable mayor and city council members, thank you for the opportunity to come before you tonight and for uh allowing me to help christen this new space. On behalf of the Chamber of Commerce board of directors, I am here to provide support for the proposed redevelopment of the Noland Fashion Square by Triand Properties. The board unanimously voted to lend our support for this project at a board meeting on May 13th. For many years, the Nolan Fashion Square site has remained largely vacant and underutilized, creating challenges for surrounding businesses, nearby neighborhoods, public safety, and overall economic activity along the 40 highway and Nolan Road corridor. The redevelopment project represents a significant opportunity to transform a long-blooded property into a revitalized commercial destination that will generate new investment, improve infrastructure, and strengthen community confidence in the important area of independence. In this important area of independence, Triland Properties has demonstrated a strong commitment to the independence community through various, excuse me, through previous successful redevelopment efforts, including the Hub Shopping Center located at 23rd and 291. Their experience with revitalizing underperforming retail properties combined with their willingness to engage openly with residents and stakeholders throughout this project process gives us confidence in both the vision and viability of this project. The proposed redevelopment represents approximately $100 million in private investment and includes significant improvements to traffic flow, accessibility, and the corridor's

overall appearance. In addition, the financing structure includes contractual protections that help limit financial risk to taxpayers while enabling a transformational project of this scale to move forward. This project represents more than redevelopment of a vacant property. It is an investment in the future of independence. We believe this initiative will help drive economic growth, encourage additional reinvestment in the corridor, improve public safety conditions, and create positive momentum for the community. The Independence Chamber of Commerce fully supports this project and encourages its advancement. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker is Mary Wilcox. Mary, please state your address and um you have five minutes. Thank you. I live at 18707 East 28th Street South 640517. I mean 07. I am not right. 64057. My name is Mary Wilcox, better known to the city leadership as a serious problem for this city. Yes, I was labeled a serious problem by city perpetrators. Yet, I'm the only one who has done nothing wrong in this scenario. To this date, I have done nothing wrong. And I am outraged. So, I have to read this so I can keep my emotions in check. I have not broken a law, a code, an ordinance. I missed no deadlines. I did exactly what I was told to by the city pers despite the city's admin administration's unlawful actions

against me. These unlawful shenanigans that have now cost me almost $30,000 just so they could play retaliation games. This is all while they initiated the cover mode in these two years that they have been harassing me. What I this is what I say to you tonight is 100% factual and most of the irrefutable evidence is created by the city themselves for two solid years from June 2024 to April 22nd, 2026. I have been subjected to retaliation, discrimination, and malicious unlawful treatment by these city perpetrators. They violate state law, federal law, and local law. All readily provable. Okay. Um, they lie under oath, they bully, they harass, they gaslight. And the standard of ethics, there is none. Oh, I'm sorry. It has been that way for a long time under Zack the Zero Walker and Tom Scanel. There's not time in these five minutes to unravel the trampling of civil rights, the abuse of seniors with disabilities, the unethical actions, the incompetence, the negligence, and the blatant violations of state and federal laws. It's a continuum of cover your ass mode. And that's what they did to me throughout all their harassment over two years. They don't follow policy. They don't follow law. They just do whatever the

hell they want to do at the expense of the citizens. Ma'am, can you do me a So, I'm Ma'am, can you do me a I don't even know. It's me. Oh, can you do me a favor? Please refrain from uh some of your language that you're using. I would greatly appreciate that. It's not written. It's emotion.

Now, I don't know where I'm at. Perfect. So, I am requesting a meeting with the mayor and less than a quorum of the city council members in the next two weeks. You need about an hour of my time to clue you in on the immoral, unethical, and violations of law that are transpiring in this city still to this moment. And please don't think you can just talk to the per cuz that will get you nowhere. They lie. They say and do whatever they want to. And I can clear it all up for you because most of the evidence is created by the city itself. I am calling for the termination of employment of Tom Scanel.

He promotes uh ma'am. You cannot cannot be council. Excuse me. You're not allowed to name allowed to name individuals. Individual perpetrators. Okay. Well, the boss the boss man perpetrator. How's that? You can talk about the city as a whole. You can talk about city administration generally. You cannot name specific you cannot name specific people.

He knows who he is. I'm calling for his res I mean termination because he promotes and fosters a hideous, unlawful, deceptive culture in the city administration. Laws, rules, morals mean nothing to him by his actions. And that's what he portrays down the line. Ma'am to the m city manager if they didn't me mention to you in your interview that this city is chalk full of corruption they did you a disservice you indeed have big problems within your team I hope you'll come to the meeting that um is going to be held hopefully this is happening in many departments four of which I had to deal with and ultimately survived the unlawful actions of these corrupt minions all under whoever's watch his direction and participation. He participated in it at the expense of the citizen. So, Mr. City Manager, you can either be a hero or a zero. You you have the ability to clean this mess up with the aid of some integrity on the city council. We can do it on a local level if you choose. But I've already talked to the assembly. I already I thought since you're breaking state and federal laws that maybe we should go to the state level, but I've since changed my mind to say I'm going to give everyone an opportunity here to stand up to do what's right and and we'll get the trash weed out. We need this city administration run with some ethics.

Your time is up. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. This brings us to our consent agenda. Mr. Mayor, proceed. I move to I move for the approval of the cons move for the approval of the reports and recommendations of the city manager. I second. Okay.

Uh pull items for special consideration. Mr. Mayor, proceed. I would like to make a motion to postpone item 26725 until June 1 and also 26726 until June 1. Got a motion to pull items number 26-725 and 26-726. Do I have a second? Got a second. All right. Okay. So, pulling 26-725 and pulling 26-726, we will vote on the rest of the consent agenda. Madame City Clerk, please call the role.

Council member Dorman, yes. Council member Perkins, yes. Council member Stewart, yes. Council member Atkinson, yes. Council member Wy, yes. Council member VA, yes. Mayor King, yes. Vote is seven eyes, zero nays. Consent agenda passes. Um, council member Perkins, would you like to talk about uh items 26725 and 26 26? Just postponing it to June one. Correct. No discussion, just postpone it to June one. All right. I have a motion and a second. Madame city clerk, please call the role.

Call the role on both. Okay. Call the role on both. I'm sorry. Okay. So, this is for 26-725. A motion to postpone to June 1st. Council member Dorman. Yes. Council member Perkins. Council member Stewart. Yes. Council member Atkinson. Yes. Council member Wy. Yes. Council member VA. Yes. Mayor King. Yes. Okay. And then this is a vote to postpone 26-726 to June 1st. Council member Dorman, yes. Council member Perkins, yes. Council member Stewart, yes. Council member Atkinson, yes. Council member Wy, yes. Council member VA, yes. Mayor King,

yes. 26-725 and 26-726 pass seven yays, zero nays. This brings us to our regular agenda. We have a few public hearings. Madame city clerk, would you please read the first public hearing? A full public hearing for a retail selling of intoxicating liquor license application for Truman Stop located at 11715 East US 24 highway. Full public hearing.

Good evening, mayor, members of the council. My name is Tom Skinnel. I'm the director of community and economic development with the city. Uh the applicant is seeking a uh intoxicating liquor license in the original package for the Truman stop which is located at 11715 East US 24 highway. That's the southwest corner of 24 highway and and Forest. This location um has been a convenience store that has had alcohol sales for many many years. It operated for many years as a minute mart until uh 2023 when Casey's acquired the property and operated their cases at that location until they closed down in March of of this year. The g the applicant has come forward uh filed their their application and is seeking a u liquor license to sell u alcohol in the original package. This property is located uh within 300 ft of residential. Thus, it requires city council approval. Uh there are no other u establishments that have a liquor license within 1,000 ft of this establishment and I'm available for any questions. Any questions for Mr. Scanel? All right. Thank you very much. This will open up the public for any comments in favor of or against any public comments in favor of or against. Any public comments in favor of or against? All right. Discloses this public hearing. Madame city clerk, would you please read uh number two? A public hearing regarding Nolan Fashion Square tax increment financing

redevelopment plan redevelopment area and redevelopment projects. Full public hearing.

Good evening. My name is uh David Martin. I'm with the law firm of Gilmore and Bell in Kansas City. and I've been serving since about 2018 as bond and economic development council for the city. What you have before you in the first of three public hearings related to this same project is the tax increment financing plan and projects related to the Nolan Fashion Square tiff redevelopment plan. And to start the hearing, I need to offer onto the record exhibits 1 through 8, which include all of the notice and tiff commission proceedings related to tax increment financing that are required by statute. And Mr. Mayor say clerk, can I have someone acknowledge that they're being accepted onto the record?

So noted.

Thank you. So, I'm going to start off with a description of this project and um a general highlevel view of all the incentives that are part of this request. And then in the subsequent two hearings, we'll focus specifically on the C component and the chapter 100 component. After I speak on the generalities, we'll have the developer provide a more specific presentation and show some pictures of the current status of the development. And at any point, if you want to stop me and ask questions or the developer, feel free and we'll come back at the end with some time to answer questions as well. So, this project, you may have seen some of the pictures that were up on the screen or be generally familiar, relates to what's known known as the Nolan Fashion Square. It's located at the intersection of Highway 40 and Nolan Road. It is currently in a very dilapidated state with uh trees and other greenery growing through many of the improvements. And the plan is that these buildings, uh, three main buildings and then a series of satellite outlots will be evaluated on sort of a buildingby-building basis to determine whether or not they can be refurbished or whether they'll need to be demolished and replaced as part of this redevelopment plan. uh redevelopment project one which is the old Toys R Us and inline retail. they do have a use for that they are moving towards uh finalizing their agreements on that use and that purpose is to bring the price chopper that's located just up the road at 42nd in Noland relocate that business to the larger space that's within redevelopment project one and then build out the retail based on uh retailers that'll be able to gain interest due to the fact that there's a grocery store

anchor located in that redevelopment project. The plan calls for 11 different redevelopment project areas that are within the redevelopment area as a whole. The reason for that is with these types of projects where it's not all going to come together at once, you need the ability to implement tax increment financing at different times when your project is complete or near complete and your uh generators of sales and property tax have located to those project areas. So tax increment financing has a 23-year uh capture period during which it produces revenues that can be applied to the project within each redevelopment project area. That time frame can be triggered at a different time. So you can stagger those periods for the greatest amount of collection of those revenues. The total development costs in this project are just over hund00 million. Some of the materials that you've seen show a 97,500,000 number. The reason for that difference is the sales tax exemption on construction materials that we'll talk about in a second under chapter 100. One of those numbers includes that and the other takes into account that that savings will be approved. So the total um and there's there's two kind of components to this. there's uh the generation of sales tax and property tax and increment and then there's also abatement of tax and so the total of those two concepts in this project as contained in the plan is about $49.8 million worth of reimbursement to the developer which comes out since we're dealing with $100 million at roughly 49% of the total project costs. This is uh a series of different

incentives that make this up. So, it is a tax increment financing project, which means that 50% of the property tax increment will be captured and applied to the project. It's 50% uh because the developer has agreed to a rebate of half of that property tax increment to the taxing jurisdictions, which is part of the city's economic development policy, part of being a good steward and neighbor to other taxing jurisdictions such as the school district. Under the statute, 100% is captured and on the city's recent transactions, that's been reduced to 50%. By statute, 50% of the increase in sales tax revenues within the redevelopment area is also captured. The next item is CD sales tax. A 1% sales tax will continue to be imposed within an area that's slightly larger than the redevelopment area. And a special assessment of a dollar per square foot on completed leasable space after the project components are complete will also be added. Additionally, a transportation development district will be laid over that same area and it will have its own 1% sales tax. And then a chapter 100, which is the third public hearing that we'll get to, will be laid over again that same property. And the sole purpose of that is to exempt from sales tax the developers purchases of construction materials for this project. So those components are the same components as were approved and implemented in the hub transaction that some of you are familiar with. And so the comparison here was it's the hub deal plus some additional incentives that were required by sort of the severity of dilapidation that exists within this particular redevelopment

area. So the additional items are two components. One is there's a concept in Missouri law that if you relocate from one area to another area a business that already operates within the same county that if the uh governing body that's approving TIF finds that that business was a direct beneficiary of tax increment financing their sales tax base transfers with the business. So what that means is if you had X dollars in sales tax generation at your old site that would continue to flow to the taxing jurisdictions at your new site and would not be subject to this 50% capture. In order for this transaction to work the developer has requested that that be waved. Essentially a finding not be made that that price chopper is itself the beneficiary of tax and rent financing. The justification for that being they pay market rate where they are. They're going to pay market rate in their new location. They're not the beneficiary essentially of that incentive. The other additional component is what we call a sales tax rebate. And that goes back to the 50% concept. So the new sales tax revenue is captured at a 50% rate for all sales taxing jurisdictions. The city then as a charter city has the ability to add on its own sales tax collections that are not captured. So the other half the other 50%. And the developer has requested and based on their numbers and we'll talk about uh the city's financial adviser in this circumstance Piper Sandler has verified the developer's calculation on this. they find that necessary to be added on top of these other incentives in order to create a reasonable rate of return. And so that

component adds up to and these are all the numbers you're going to hear tonight are estimates andor projections that's projected to produce $9.3 million over the tiff period. the transfer um waiver, if you want to call it that, is projected to produce around $5 million during that same period. So all of this results in uh as I mentioned approximately 49% of the investment coming from public funds with approximately 26% of that coming from the standard local TIF generators and the the remainder coming from those C and TDD overlays. There is a blight study in the agenda packet and they'll show some pictures uh providing evidence of blight as well that will provide backing for the city's blight finding. In this circumstance and in all of the tiff transactions, the new tiff transactions since I've been working with the city, they are structured differently than what we'll call the older tiff transactions. There was quite a number of them that were done on an annual appropriation basis, which means you anticipate that all these revenues I've described will be sufficient to pay back the bond holders. But if that's not the case, the city has agreed to consider annual appropriation to backs stop any shortfall. What that has created in situations like Bass Pro is underperforming revenues leave the city in a position where it has to consider those appropriations. taken in a vacuum, that wouldn't be a significant problem. The city would have a legitimate choice to say, "We're just not going to cover this back stop." Brought into the overall uh financing plan that the city utilizes, it's a significant problem because the city has

many bond issues for economic development transactions, for uh utility transactions. Most of the city's debt is annual appropriation basis. So, if an event of nonappropriation were to occur, it would be very harmful to the city's credit and affect the city's ability to borrow for those other uses and also to refinance its existing bonds to achieve debt service savings in future years. This project does not have that concern. So, the way that the redevelopment agreement is written and the way that any bond documents for this project will be written has no annual appropriation backing. If the revenues defined do not provide sufficient coverage, it will be the bond holder that ultimately takes a hit on their investment and not the city being asked to supplement those revenue streams. The last thing I'll mention on uh this hearing is that this does come with the recommendation of city staff and the approval of the tiff commission. And I'd be happy to take any questions before we move on to the developer or we can wait till the end.

Any discussion? All right. Thank you. This is a full public hearing. I'll ask anybody that's in favor of or against to please come forward. Yeah.

Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor, council members. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Most of you know me as the president of Triand Properties Incorporated and the developer of the Hub Shopping Center and proposed developer of Nolan Fashion Square. So, as David Martin just said, if I if you have questions throughout my conversation or presentation, please stop me and I'm happy to uh happy to uh answer any questions. So without that I just introduced who I am. I'm here with John Hansen who is the director of IRR corporate and public finance. John has been instrumental in Triand's projects throughout Kansas City for the past 18 years. David France who's a partner at Stinson has also been involved with Triand for approximately the same amount of time. So I'm going to move on to our background of our company. what the square fashion square looks like today, what our vision is for the future, the benefits and the repositioning statement, and then John Hansen's going to get up and go through some of the numbers that uh David Martin talked about in more detail. So, we're based in Chicago. We employ about 25 people. We're priv privately held. I own 100% of the stock. We've completed approximately 50 shopping centers approximately in eight states in the Midwest and that represented about $670 million of investment. So reinvesting, repositioning shopping centers is what we've done for 47 years. That's where we started our company and that's what we've committed to do as the company has grown. We're a full-ervice organization with acquisitions, leasing, construction, finance, property management, accounting, and human resources. These are the six projects that we have redeveloped in Kansas City, both on the

Missouri side and the Kansas side. We'll start with the hub which you all obviously know. Cherokee South over at 95th and Annioch was our first project that we purchased in 2004 and we just recently sold that March 16th of 2026. So we're long-term holders when we have the right uh right project. 10 quivera, Devonshshire and Blue Springs, pardon me, Dead Quivera, Devonshshire and Brywood were bought as a package by our company. 10 Q was a price shopper that was part of the Ball family. The hub is, as you might know, the McKver family. Devonshshire was an unimproved I mean unanchored small center that came in the package. And then Brywood over at 63rd and Blue Ridge was the Kazantino family that we redeveloped that project. Blue Springs we bought and ultimately put a tiff package on but sold it to HY who is presently operating in that in that unit. So from 2004 until today, that's our history in Kansas City along with what we've done in other states that surround the Midwest. This is an important slide from the standpoint that it's really the lynch pin to the redevelopment of Nolan Fashion Square. The three circles represent the existing Price Chopper network. On the left on the screen is the 23rd and Sterling uh Price Chopper store. On the right top is the hub shopping center. At the bottom there are two arrows pointing in. The first arrow towards the top of the circle represents the existing Price Chopper store and Marketplace shopping center and the site identification in red is the relocation approximately a half a mile to the south at Nolan and Highway 40. And the key here is that as I got to know the McKver

family over many years of dealing with them to structure the right uh lease at the hub, they are the ones who encouraged me to rich, we are going to close that store at the marketplace in 2028. We'd like to relocate in the city of independence. Can you deal with trying to get that property under control? That was their request of me to do that, which we have done. And their commitment remains that they're just not going to continue to operate at marketplace. It doesn't serve them anymore. The store is outdated. The location is outdated for a supermarket primarily because it has a single as access point off of Nolan Road which makes it somewhat inconvenient for the consumers to be able to come in and out of a supermarket location that needs a lot of convenience in order to satisfy the customer. So here's what Nolan Fashion Square looks like today. It's a very brief video that uh shows the condition of the property. There's no sound with it. It's just pictures. These were taken in the early fall, just before fall of 2025. So from this point forward, it it hasn't gotten any better.

So our vision obviously that's quite a quite a series of pictures. So the the reason we like it besides the McKvers asking us to become part of the project is when you take these developments and we strip away everything that you saw on the inside and we put the new roofs on it and strip back the interior. There's no mechanical systems left. There's no electrical systems left. There's no plumbing left. But you end up with a structure series what we call in the business the bones. So we end up with, in our opinions, anywhere from $50 a square foot to $70 a square foot of a structure that we can reuse, which as expensive as it is now to bring this property back into production, is still a big savings over if you had to tear this entire property down and start new with new foundations and obviously the cost of demolition and then obviously going vertical with the building. So there is a significant savings of of cleaning this up and starting with just a structure that you're left with which is solid in this case. So our vision for the project going forward, excuse me, is similar to what we did at the hub and there's a reason for that. We understand the building materials that we used at the hub. We we like the way it looks. Price Chopper enjoys the way it looks and it's going to help us understand how to manage the cost. The cost of these projects when you start to use materials that are different and they adhere to the buildings different it can it can create a very difficult situation to keep your budgets under control. So these are just some various photographs. This is project area one that David referred to. And as I get through another slide, I'll show you what project area looks like, but it's primarily the price chopper on the on the very east side of the site. And then there's the shops that go further to the west towards Washington Street. That's what these particular renderings illustrate.

This is the redevelopment area that David Martin talked about which includes from Nolan Road to the west. And I will just point out again that in the center is project area one in the big block over on the right is the proposed Price Chopper store. That's the former Toys R Us and and Kids of Us. By way of history, this building was built as a supermarket but never opened as a supermarket. So there's certain savings that the Price Chopper folks when they went in and established their budgets for what it would take to bring this property back into a productive supermarket. There's things there, not including, I mean, not the least of which are the loading docks that are at the back, which are not inexpensive things to build new from the ground up. Then moving over to the west and very north is building number two, which is the theater project or the former theater project. Building one up closer to Nolan Road is the former Gourman's building. And then you have as you go from west of Washington Street and I'll go towards Nolan Road, there's an unimproved vacant outlot west of Washington Street. Then two more outs that are owned by the present ownership. Two outs that are not owned. Another outlot owned by ownership. The uh the restaurant on the corner, Olive Garden, is not owned. And then two buildings, the bank and the building north of the bank are what is being purchased from the existing owner uh of Nolan Fashion Square. David referred to these project areas that can be um activated as we go through and select and get tenants for the project. So as you can see he referred to 11 project areas with project area one being the price chopper

and the stores adjacent to price chopper and various RPAs then as you can see on on that slide. This is just a characterization of what is happening out here. So the the beige areas represents the outlots that I just talked about that are owned by the ownership. The blue or turquoise areas are the outlots not owned by the existing ownership. The yellow represents a traffic signal that the city of independence has tenatively approved through a traffic study that we had done many months ago. That particular traffic study then went to uh MODAT and they have also approved the traffic signal to be installed uh between the uh existing H highbe store and the Price Chopper store along Nolan Road. So, this will go a long way towards not only enhancing the the uh ingress egress to Nolan Fashion Square, but it's going to help those folks across the street at HY where people want to go and and turn left out of that lot if you will or go to the south on Nolan Road. It'll be much easier for them to do that and to cross the properties which will enhance the traffic and the shopping experience between the two properties. Then the red circles or I think they're green circles up there just represent the three pylon signs. Two along Nolan Road and one along I mean pardon me, two along Highway 40 and one along Noland Road. So those pylon signs will be remain refurbished and and redone along with the rest of the property. So building facads, we're going to do something similar that we did at the hub. We're going to rip off all of the uh canopies that form, if you will, a a uh you know, a walk space outside of the

elements, but it also doesn't exactly enhance the safety of the shopping centers. So, the more recent types of uh redevelopments and developments of new shopping centers have gotten rid of some of these overhangs that create more susceptibility, if you will, for crime to be committed. So, that's coming off. And there will be some awnings in various projections that give it a good appearance and will hide you from the hide you from the rain, but it won't uh it won't keep you quite as dry as what it is today. So, that will help us create a higher sign band and therefore more visibility for the entire project. We'll replace the roofs, the parking lots, and the sidewalks. Organize the traffic flow. Add high impact landscaping. Add two new outlot buildings. at highintensity LED sight lights and of course I just mentioned the Nolan road traffic signals. So in synopsis, it takes a 50-year-old project and we're going to breathe new life into it so it can it can be alive again and an active member of the independence community for another 50 years. These are just some statistics. I won't bore you with all this, but it just puts into perspective the difference between the hub and null and fashion square. So if you just look at the size of the amount of buildings at Nolan's 280,000 ft, hub was 160,000 ft. The main building at Noland is three. That's the feeder Gordon's and the uh RPA number one where Price Chopper will be and the hub had two. It had what was the large Price Chopper and then the adjacent stores to the uh to the north. Noland has five existing outlots. And I just want to correct that because I counted things up today. It's really six outs because there's one west of

Washington Street that the existing ownership had subdivided before we put this slide together before that was done. So, it's really six existing out lots versus the hub that had two. We proposed two new outlots. At the hub, we proposed four new outlots. The main building at Noland, as you saw, is 100% vacant. Uh the hub shopping center had only a 5% vacancy rate, so it was almost 100% occupied. When we started this project in the first presentation to the city in April of 2025, the outlots that we have shown on the various slides were 20% vacant. That has now grown to 65% vacancy. The hub shopping center without lots which was a Burger King and a Firestone building had no vacancies. So Nolan Fashion Square no tenants and creates a greater development risk. Attracting tenants will be much more difficult. But with the anchor of McKvers that's that's the key. It's the lynch pin that I talked about earlier. They are they are going to be the reason this will come back. It's that type of traffic that will create the interest by the other centers, both users of retail, medical and other services, not to not to exclude sit-down restaurants and quicks service restaurants. So, the building conditions poor. We've seen that the complete interior demolition of the building is extensive uh and required and is significantly more expensive to renovate this project than it was the hub. This is our timeline. Now, I will I will say this is our this is an aggressive timeline for us, but it starts with if the council tonight approves the first reading and proceeds on June 1st to uh allow this project to move forward on the second reading and therefore put

into effect the tiff at Nolan Fashion Square. We expect to sell the bonds in early 2027. We expect to start construction in early 2027 and we could open the price chopper before the holidays in 2027. Now, that's aggressive and we just want to say that there's many things that we have to come over to achieve this this schedule, but it is doable, but it is aggressive. So, that's our plan. That's what we plan to do. We think it it is a big benefit to the city and I would welcome any questions that the council has at this point. Any questions? Mr. Mayor,

proceed. Thank you. Um, sir, you said you your company's been in business 47 years. Is that correct? Yes. Um, have you owned the company that entire time? I have. Yes. Okay. I had a partner for 40 years who owned 20%. When he retired, I took the other 20% of the stock. Okay. Okay. Uh, what would you consider your success or failure rate in those 47 years?

I think our success rate is well in excess of 95%. We've had we've had failures. I mean, there's no question about it that, you know, you can't be in business 47 years without tripping somewhere along the line. So, we've learned that, you know, managing the risk is the big is the big issue. And so for us, that's why we use the economic tools that we have without endangering the city's um situation, but convincing others that with our track record, they can invest in these bond issues which they find uh accessible and which they find uh good for their investment future.

Okay. Um in the 47 years, how many properties have you re rehabilitated? I think I think I had up on the slide there in excess of 50 properties representing about $670 million. Okay. Have you ever asked for an a tax incentive this large before on any of them?

Uh yes, we have. And that was in upstate New York uh that used to run a similar type of project uh incentive package called the Empire Zones. And we took coincidentally a Price Chopper store. We bought a mall. We bought a 470,000 foot mall and demolished about 80% of it and then repositioned a Price Chopper. It happened to be the Gold family owns that Price Chopper name. It all started here in Kansas City, but there's two Price Choppers in the country. One out east in New York and one here in in uh Missouri. And that particular uh project was a little a little over $und00 million. If you counted the same type of u um development that we did here and you fast forward to take those dollars into today's into today's dollars, it's about the same $100 million.

Okay. Just a couple more questions. Um and you haven't purchased the property yet, correct? That's correct. So you're purchasing the property as dependent on what its pass is. Is that right? Correct. Okay. So, the current owner of the property, would the current owner benefit from this tax incentive of any way other than he gets to sell the property? No. Would Mckver family benefit from the tax incentive from any other than they get a new a newer building?

Well, I mean the uh the McKvers through through their investment and through how these dollars are going to be invested. Sure they would. Yes. Absolutely. I'm just um I think this is more a question for the city manager. Does the city have a policy or something in place formally give for incentives? Yes, we do. Does this exceed it? Yes, it does. By how much? Do you know?

Boy, I'm not great with those percentages. Uh correct me if I'm wrong. I'm going to lean over my shoulder here. Somebody's going to stand up and correct me if I'm wrong. Well, let me just say this that John John Hansel is going to come up and talk about the numbers and I I think John can can help u put some light into that particular question and and an answer. Okay. Then I will uh answer your question though more spec yes our policy is 20%. Um but there are uh opportunities for city council to wave that policy in certain conditions. This particular request is about 48 49%. Okay. Okay. Uh I think that's all I have now. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Proceed. Um is it your company's intention to hold and manage this property long term? It is. Yes, it is. And um how common is it to have grocery stores operate in close proximity to one another? Very common. Okay. And the very commonality is that when they do that, they expand the trading areas. They that a standalone supermarket might have a two and a half to three mile pull. If you put two of them together, that can grow to three and a half or four miles. So the extra population creates volume for both both supermarkets.

Okay. And has there been conversations or interest from potential tenants from other potential tenants at all? Yes, there has. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, proceed to inquire of the city manager. Can you give me an overview of some of the things that we have done in the past years to sort of remedy what's going on at Nolan Fashion?

Yeah. Uh I'm I'm looking for Chief Walker. Chief Walker was uh hilarious uh has done some uh research and has some numbers on the call volume that we have received out there. Um I'm going to call on Walker to come and share some of those numbers with you. Thanks.

Uh good evening, Mayor Council. So uh we uh we looked into some uh response data that we had from and Nolan Fashion Square. Uh since January of 2025, we've responded on 20 incidents directly inside of those structures. Uh nine were fires. Uh and in the area immediately surrounding the area of Nolan Fashion Square since in the year of 2025, we had 250 incidents. Uh and in this year alone, approximately 65 that have been in the immediate vicinity of Nolan Fashion Square. And why I am bringing up the immediate vicinity is because derelict properties often do pull in uh homeless vagrants uh people who uh for lack of a better word nerd dwells uh who will come in and do uh nefarious acts in the structures. So, uh, those structures, while we have had, uh, structure fires inside those structures, and while the fire load is not great because they're vacant properties, fact is is there is still a fire load in those uh, buildings. And we know people are in those, they pose a significant hazard to not only the people who are inside them, but to my firefighters as well, having to go in and search for for people who are inside these structures. So this area is sort of a unique safety situation for for I think fire and for our our police officers. Is that is that correct?

Yes, that's correct. Uh vacant structures pose significant hazards to the public uh to anybody who might be around them but to the firefighters as well. So it is uh it's it's a dangerous situation when we have vacant structures and when we have a concentration of vacant structures in in an area like Nolan Fashion Square whereas if you have a vacant structure that's in a neighborhood or around other occupied businesses you'll have people who will report to the authorities that vacant that that vagrants or people are going inside these structures with take the null and fashion square we can actually see that there's no one around to report that. So what you'll have are we have homeless coming and going uh on their own on their own with with zero accountability and uh just poses a very dangerous situation for the public and uh for the fire department. Okay.

And then c can I just get an overview of of some of the things that that we've done to try to get tenants in there or um um get get the building demo. just kind of an overview of those kinds of things. Yeah, I know. I'm going to call up our community development at Toms Cancell has got some background on some of the dangerous building stuff.

Good evening. Yes. So, uh the city has um two of the buildings are currently tagged as dangerous. We have we have paused the enforcement of those dangerous building cases as uh trial land works through the incentive process. Um going before that um we had started uh an emergency demo of the theater building uh but we were served with a uh suit by the current owner to to stop that. Uh going a little bit further back, uh at one point we had the Gorman's building was originally tagged as a dangerous building. Um but the owner at that time um made the bare minimum repairs to take it off the dangerous building list. So released that that one. But as it currently stands, the retail building uh as well as the theater building are the only two that are tag dangerous. um on some of the parcel lots. Two of those um have been tagged dangerous or had been and the city demolished those those buildings. So

So we've been in active litigation trying to to solve this issue for years. Is that right? Correct. Going back to at least 2023. Okay. Um so let's so let's say um this doesn't pass in two weeks. Um what what are our recor what's our recourse to to to to work on this area? Uh one of the things that uh staff will do uh will reinitiate our dangerous building cases.

Uh work those as as best that we can through the normal process and uh see where that goes. um as well as working with them to work with the property owner to try to um get a developer in in here. And one thing I forgot to me mention um in I believe it was 22 or 23, the city put out an RFP uh with the permission of blocking company to seek a developer. This RFP went nationwide and was pushed out um by several brokers regionally to seek a a redeveloper to purchase and redevelop the shopping center. At that time we did not have any responses to the um RFP and after that we had the fire at the theater as well as uh stepped up in enforcement uh because of the vagrancy at uh the shopping center.

Thanks. Any other questions? Mr. Mayor, proceed before Mr. Dubie, please. So, I just wanted to reemphasize something you said. There's been a lot of concern by uh folks reaching out, I'm sure, not just to myself, but others uh with uh you know, kind of the state of retail in general. Um but you did say that you were going to also seek tenants who weren't uh retail specific, maybe, you know, medical services, something like that.

Uh yes. I mean, there's there's a lot of different uses that make up a retail shopping center today versus 30 years ago. It's a different environment. But the key is the key is the supermarket that retail throughout this country has been extremely extremely sought after not only by investors but the environment of the growth of the supermarket especially now with what we see in inflation is uh is big. It's it's it's a sought-after investment.

Awesome. Um, and then during the construction phase, I I think we were all pretty takenback by the uh level of deconstruction done within the building and on the roof. Um, which obviously you should bring up the concerns about safety during the construction phase, the expensive equipment you'll have. Um, all of the various copper wiring, plumbing, anything like that. Uh just wanted to see if you could touch on kind of the precautions that you take during that phase to make sure that um everybody there stays safe and all of the new assets that you're putting into those facilities stay in those facilities.

Yeah. I part of our business plan obviously in this particular case starts with security. I mean how does how does that work? So clearly there'll be videos that will that will start. There was some question at one of I think at the community meeting if we would partner with uh with the Independence Police Department uh to do something. We've done that in a suburb in Atlanta called Conjurs, Georgia. We partnered with their uh their police department. Now, in that case, they actually ran the cameras so and viewed the cameras. So, it was we participated financially and allowed them to put the cameras all over our building so that we could we could have somebody live looking at what is happening out on the out on the project. In this particular case, that's probably where we're going to start. I mean, we thought about what we can do and what it takes to monitor it. We'll do that with our general contractor and on our own. It's a big piece that has to be uh that has to be viewed obviously every day. And one of the things that I didn't mention that I should have mentioned is that our present intention and this plan that we've presented and that David Martin has talked about in the in the redevelopment agreement at this point demolishes the show the theater building. We do have some interest in the theater building not from a theater use and in fact they are going out to visit this property but our likelihood is that that building will come down. the government's building will remain and so it will make the u the uh monitoring of the entire property a little bit easier. It's it's a big part of our initial plan. There's no question about when you take it over, we buy it. Security and and beginning to just clean it up is a big part of our first step.

Yeah. All right. That's all I have. Thank you. Anything else? If not, I have John John Hansen with the numbers. Thank you, John. Mhm.

Thank you, Rich. Mayor, members of the council and city staff, thank you for your time this evening. My name is John Hansen, managing director of IR corporate and public finance. We're public finance consultants to the developer. I'll do my very best not to reiterate things that Mr. Martin already uh touched on. Uh but we do want to reiterate that the estimated investment in the project before sales tax exemption is about $und00 million. The project's estimated return without incentives is a negative 3.8% and that of course results in a significant financial gap to financial feasibility. The tools needed to fill that gap were described by Mr. Martin. So I'll skip those uh and move on to some other details that we have in the presentation but happy to answer further questions if there are any. Using the combination of those requested tools, the estimated return on investment of the project is 8.79% and that is a return that on a projected basis we would be prepared to move forward with. looking at the numbers in a in a slightly different way. And this goes to uh one of the questions that just arose is how do the percentages of the various tools stack up? The project net of sales tax exemption on materials is $97 million. We group the tiff, pilots, eats, and sales tax exemptions together in this chart to uh describe them as redirected taxes. So, we are and we were very direct uh from the very beginning of our conversations acknowledging that we're requesting 26% of redirected taxes on this project whereas the policy of the city is at 20%. The rest of the project, 74%, and I'll

have a little bit more detail on the next slide as well, is a combination of private investment and the special districts, the CI and TDD, which are user fees or special assessments to the property owner, um, and are specific, not redirected taxes of the project. And so 74% of the project falls in that category. Breaking down each of the specific tools by specific dollar estimated dollar component provides this chart tiff 17% or $16 million and sales tax rebates at $9 million. That number was referenced by Mr. Martin earlier. So the combination of those two are the 26% that I just described from the prior prior chart uh that pie chart. Then 22% of the project is funded by the CI and TDD special districts. And the balance 52% or a little over $50 million uh is private investment by the developer and other third parties. Within your packet tonight, uh there's a detailed costbenefit analysis. I have some highlights that I'd like to share because they are really significant numbers. So over a 30-year period, uh, starting today going out 30 total years, the costbenefit analysis looks at each of the individual taxing jurisdictions and looks at what they have to gain from direct tax revenue benefits if we're able to redevelop the project as anticipated. Uh, delivering the vision that Rich described for the project. Uh the city has a benefit with redevelopment of approximately $20 million. Uh that's about 20 mill $21 million with redevelopment or less than a million

dollars without redevelopment. So the net benefit to the city is approximately 20 million. For each of the other jurisdictions, we've done a similar analysis. The county nearly $25 million. The independent school district about 5 million. Raytown School District which has property on the west side of this project about 2.7 million and the other taxing jurisdictions are described on this chart as well. The year after tiff expires on this project the uh uh the tiff of course will be gone. the tax revenue will acr to the taxing jurisdictions in full and those numbers are described on an annual basis on this slide. So there are significant upside to the city and other taxing jurisdictions once the uh tiff has uh has expired $2.6 million uh for the city about $1.3 million per year for the county and the other taxing jurisdictions are described as well in this chart. There are many benefits to the redevelopment of Nolan Fashion Square, but I would like to just state for the record and highlight a few of those. It's a $97 million investment in the project. That is a big project in any community and we're very proud um to bring the prospect of that investment into this community. We believe we can reposition Nolan Fashion Square to have another 50-year useful and successful life for its projects. Other projects that Triand has redeveloped in the Kansas City area are testaments to what projects can look like even 20 years after they've been redeveloped. We have other projects that we're very proud of what we've done and they're positioned to be in good shape for a long time. This project preserves and revitalizes a

Price Chopper store in Independence south of I7. Price Choppers indicated they are going to close uh the store at I70. And we believe this project at Nolan Fashion Square is the most viable location to keep a price chopper south of I70 and in the city limits of Independence. It's quite possible that if Price Shopper does not relocate in Nolan Fashion Square that they would locate uh they would either not no longer have a store in this trade area or they could relocate just across the city limits from Independence. We're going to improve uh dramatically the appearance of the shopping center, enhance the appearance of a major entrance to the city of Independence. We're going to create a more appealing environment which we believe will be attractive to new tenants, anchored by the price chopper, provide additional businesses at which to shop, eat, and work, produce new businesses that generate increased sales and sales tax revenue for uh many taxing jurisdictions including the city and increase the real estate tax revenues to the city and other taxing jurisdictions. So we believe this will set a new benchmark for other development project and act as a catalyst for future investments in other properties in the immediate vicinity. And then this I I will repeat, Mr. Martin did uh touch on this uh in detail in his comments, but I I think it it bears repeating that the incentives that we're asking for tonight have a number of features, a number of risk mitigation features for the city of independence does not call for the city or any other taxing jurisdiction for that matter to be responsible for any payment of debt service for the financing. Mr. Martin went into detail

about some financings that have had backing by taxing jurisdictions. This one absolutely and unequivocally does not. It does not create any payment risk of any kind to the city or taxing jurisdictions. Does not require the city or any taxing jurisdiction to guarantee any revenues. somewhat three different ways to say the same thing, but it it really is truly important to us and we really want to uh emphasize it. Does not call for the city to issue any TIFF, CD or TD bonds. Bonds would instead be issued likely by the industrial development authority. That's what we did for uh the hub shopping center. Uh if the IDA were not interested, we could find another issuer as well. So with that, Mr. Mayor, we respectfully request city council's approval of the items before you tonight to allow us to move forward with the redevelopment of Nolan Fashion Square. And our team uh stands for any uh further questions, whether financial questions or others about the project as well. Thank you,

Mr. Mayor. Proceed. I understand that um you're telling us that we are not responsible for this debt. Correct. Does us issuing this have any um potential risk to our credit rating like where we would have an impact a negative impact on our credit rating if this project did not go well? Our opinion would be no. Uh but your financial advisor is here and your bond council is here as well and I invite you to uh seek their counsel on that.

John, I can I can answer the question. So the bonds will not be issued by the city directly. So, they will not have the city's name on it in terms of uh being the issuer. They will likely be issued by the Industrial Development Authority or the IDA, which does bear the city's name as well, but doesn't have a direct connection to the city's credit rating. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. We'll continue item number two on the public hearings for the tax increment financing redevelopment plan.

A public hearing regarding I'm sorry. We we do need to allow for public comment. Yes, that's what I called for. Okay.

Yep. That's what I said. Continue. Any anyone anybody want to speak in favor of or against the tax increment financing redevelopment plan? Anybody want to speak in favor of or against? Hi there, mayor, members of the council. My name is Lee Williams. I live in the district proposed um district 4 that is. And I would really like to see the blight gone from this area. It's a big problem, I think. Um, I know this probably isn't the redevelopment agreement that any of you really want to, you know, bless, give your approval to. It's a lot of city incentives, no doubt. Um, but I think it's important. And one of the reasons I would tell you that none of the other people mentioned up here was that it takes blocking company off of this corner and that's a good thing. Okay. Um they have not been good corporate citizens within independence and it's it's time for them to be gone. Um they pro I don't know but at least what I've heard is that their asking price is the price and they wouldn't come down. Um, so you know, it's it's just time for them to be gone. They do own about 20 plus properties still in Independence or they represent people on those properties. So I encourage all citizens if they see high weeds, if they see broken glass, if they see trash, anything like that on any of these other properties to please report it to the city. and you know you can do so anonymously on the city's website because you know they just they need to be better citizens within our city.

Okay. Thanks very much. Thank you. Last call. Anybody in favor of or against to speak on this tax increment financing redevelopment plan? Seeing none, it is closed. Madame city clerk, please read the next public hearing. A public hearing regarding Nolan Fashion Square tax increment financing redevelopment plan redevelopment area and redevelopment projects.

Sorry, I already read that. I apologize. A public hearing regarding the petition for the amendment of the Nolan Fashion Square Community Improvement District full public hearing. Pardon me, I needed my other exhibit list. Uh, so to start this public hearing, I offer unto the record exhibits 1 through five. And this is the petition itself and then the uh statutory notice requirements of mailing and publication that are required in order to call this hearing. So, as mentioned, this particular hearing deals specifically with the Nolan Fashion Square Community Improvement District. This is a district that already exists within the area that was shown in the developer slides and it was implemented in 2015 to try to alleviate some of the blighting conditions that have since become exacerbated with time. It originally, as proposed, would have terminated in 2040, being on a 25-year term. It uh imposed a sales tax within the area and funded those uh renovations that were supposed to prevent today's condition. The amendment proposes that the 1% sales tax be extended uh for 27 years, which is the statutory life of a uh CD at this point. So it would now terminate in 203. Uh special assessment be added at the rate of a dollar per square foot of leasable area and that the purpose be adjusted so that it can fund components of this new renovation project. 50% of the sales tax will be captured as uh eats or economic activity taxes by the tiff which will then allow for

application generally to the redevelopment costs and as part of that a blight designation is being sought which piggybacks on the blight finding with tiff uh by virtue of evidence being provided in the tiff plan. I'd be happy to answer any questions on the C specifically. Any questions? All right. Thank you. As for this is a full public hearing. Ask again for anybody that wants to speak in favor of or against the community improvement district. Anybody to speak in favor of or against the community improvement district? Seeing none, madame city clerk, please read number four.

A public hearing regarding the plan for an industrial development project for the Nolan Fashion Square redevelopment project. Full full public hearing.

This is the final component that requires its own individual public hearing. As mentioned, it's just for the chapter 100 component which is being utilized simply for sales tax exemption on construction materials. Chapter 100 does have other capabilities, but they conflict with tax increment financing collection, so they're not being requested in this circumstance. The dollar amount is $75 million, which relates to uh the construction costs um that aren't funded from other sources. And it is anticipated to provide a approximately $2.8 8 million res uh reduction in overall cost by virtue of the developer not having to pay sales tax on construction materials purchased for the project. I'd be happy to take any questions on the chapter 100.

Any questions?

Thank you. This is also a full public hearing. So, I call for anyone that wants to speak in favor of or against the IND industrial development plan. Anybody want to speak in favor of or against the industrial development? Seeing none, hearing is closed. This brings us to ordinances. I'm sorry, need to go back. This is my fault. Need to go back to number one on the public hearing. Um, madame city clerk, can you read the council action?

Council action is requested on the application received from Truman Stop for retail selling of intoxicating liquor of all kinds in the original package that will be located at 1171. A motion to approve. So moved. Got a motion. Second and a second. Any further discussion? Madame City Clerk, please call the role. Council member Dorman, yes. Council member Perkins, yes. Council member Stewart, yes. Council member Atkinson, yes. Council member Wy, yes. Council member VA, yes.

Mayor King, yes. Passes seven eyes, zero nays. Okay, this brings us to our ordinances. Madame city clerk, will you please read ordinance 26037? 26-037, second reading, an ordinance adopting amendments to the fiscal year 2025 2026 budget, which was approved by ordinance number 19682 and authorizing the city manager to issue the purchase order for a total amount of $769,817 to design mechanical and authorizing future change orders of up to 10% of the authorized amount. Second reading.

Do I have a motion to approve 26-37? Any questions? Any discussion? Mr. Mayor, proceed. Let me just get a little explanation. Um, I feel that that is justified given this dollar amount.

Yeah. Honorable mayor, uh, members of council, this is the acquisition and installation of two additional HVAC units, uh, here at Municipal Commons. Uh, the building is equipped with four HVAC units. The there were two that were replaced prior to acquisition uh, with a recommendation replace the other two um, as soon as possible. And so this gives us the ability to go and get those two replaced as soon as possible. Any further discussion? Madame City Clerk, please call the role. Council member Dorman, yes. Council member Perkins, yes. Council member Stewart, yes.

Council member Atinson, yes. Council member Wy, yes. Council member VA, yes. Mayor King, yes. Ordinance 26-037 passes seven eyes, zero nays. This brings us to our first readings. Madame city clerk. Okay,

please proceed. 26-038 first reading an ordinance adopting amendments to the fiscal year 2025 2026 budget which was approved by ordinance number 19682 first reading 26-039 first reading an ordinance finding determining and declaring the necessity of acquiring general utility easements and temporary construction easements for the 33rd and Willis emergency storm water project number 13180 02-19. Authorizing the negotiation and eminent domain proceedings if necessary. Approving the plans and specifications for the project. Authorizing the use of experts as needed. Authorizing and directing the execution of documents in the payment of funds to property owners or others holding property rights in conjunction with the project. First reading. 26-040. First reading. An ordinance approving the Nolan Fashion Square tax increment financing redevelopment plan. Establishing a redevelopment area, designating the redevelopment area as a blighted area, making other required findings for the redevelopment plan, designating a developer, approving a redevelopment agreement with the developer, and directing staff to implement the redevelopment plan. First reading 26-041, first reading. an ordinance approving redevelopment project one for the Nolan fashion fashion square tax increment financing redevelopment plan and initiating tax increment financing within redevelopment project area one first reading 26-042 first reading an ordinance approving redevelopment project 2 for the Nolan fashion square increment tax increment financing redevelopment plan and initiating tax increment financing within redevelopment project area 2 first reading 26-043 first reading. An ordinance approving

redevelopment project 3 for the Nolan Fashion Square Tax Increment Financing Redevelopment Plan and initiating tax increment financing within redevelopment project area 3. First reading 26-044, first reading, an ordinance approving redevelopment project 4 for the Nolan Fashion Square Tax Increment Financing Redevelopment Plan and initiating tax increment financing within redevelopment project area 4, first reading. 26-045 first reading an ordinance approving redevelopment project 5 for the Nolan Fashion Square Tax Increment Financing Redevelopment Plan and initiating tax increment financing within redevelopment project area 5 first reading 26-046 first reading an ordinance approving redevelopment project 6 for the Nolan Fashion Square tax increment financing redevelopment plan and initiating tax increment financing within redevelopment project area six first reading. 26-047 first reading. An ordinance approving redevelopment project 7 for the Nolan Fashion Square Tax Increment Financing Redevelopment Plan and initiating tax increment financing within redevelopment project area 7. First reading 26-048. First reading. An ordinance approving redevelopment project 8 for the Nolan Fashion Square Tax Increment Financing Redevelopment Plan and initiating tax increment financing within the redevelopment project area 8. First reading 26-049 first reading. An ordinance approving the redevelopment project 9 for the Nolan Fashion Square tax increment financing redevelopment plan and initiating tax increment financing within redevelopment project area 9 first reading 26-050 first reading an ordinance approving redevelopment project 10 for the Nolan Fashion Square Tax Increment financing redevelopment plan in initiating tax

increment financing within redevelopment project area 10 first reading 26-051 first reading and Ordinance approving redevelopment project 11 for the Nolan Fashion Square tax increment financing redevelopment plan and initiating tax increment financing within redevelopment project area 11 area 11 first reading 26-053 first reading an ordinance supporting the formation of the Nolan Fashion Square Transportation Development District and approving a cooperative agreement. First reading 26-054, first reading, an ordinance approving the petition for the amendment of the Nolan Fashion Square Community Improvement District, making findings and authorizing certain actions related thereto, including the execution of a cooperative agreement. First reading 26-055 first reading. An ordinance approving a plan for an industrial development project authorizing the city of Independence, Missouri to issue taxable industrial development revenue bonds in a principal amount not to exceed $75 million in connection with the Nolan Fashion Square redevelopment project and authorizing certain documents and actions in connection there with first reading. All right, that brings us to council member comments. Council member Dorman, the floor is yours.

I don't have any comments tonight.

I'm sorry, council member. I'm sorry. Okay. Uh, Council Member Stewart. Um, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I just want to say, Madam City Clerk, that was very impressive. I'm glad that me. Um, all right. I have a couple of things. Okay. The first one is, um, a few, Mr. City Manager, a few months ago, the council passed a resolution to offer an AMI smart meter opt out, and that we had asked that that be start worked on. Do you know where staff is on that at this point?

I I do not have an update for you tonight, but I'll be more than happy to pull one together and get you something. Absolutely. Thank you. Um Mr. Cover, I'm back to gaming machines. Uh do you have any update on that? Whether or not we have what we need to enforce it? The the the attorney general's all over the radio saying they're illegal. You know, Kansas City, Missouri Police Department's enforcing them. Jackson County Sheriff's Office enforcing them. What are we doing with them?

That's a good question. Uh, this has been an evolving topic as I think you're aware. Uh, we've been trying to figure out. There has been a recent uh, federal court case with uh, Torch Electronics, which is the main supplier of these machines, but not the only supplier. uh that as I understand it, the torch the the torch machines that are in uh retail operations in Missouri have at least been unplugged and are not operational uh and are attempting to be removed, but that's a a slow process. Uh so in if if the city is now with with a little bit more uh stability in where we are uh wants to uh move forward, I can get you options on what that looks like.

Okay. Thank you. Uh one more thing. U I've heard the complaints just like everybody else has about the parking on the square and I know the county executive was in here earlier speaking of this. Um, is that even something that could feasibly be done since we accepted federal grant money on that or do you know? If you're asking me the answer is no. I don't know the answer to that. Okay. Well, Mr. City Manager, I'm assuming the the federal grant money we came with conditions on how it was supposed to look or what we were supposed to do up there. So, if we were to even consider redoing the parking up there, would the federal government come back looking for their money? I guess that's my question.

Yeah, generally speaking, I I'd have to go back and verify, but generally speaking, uh yes, there's a lot of uh strings that are attached to those federal grants, right? uh there's a lot of compliance that has to occur that if all of a sudden we decide to uh revise the scope of work and change what was imple if it was somehow tied directly to those federal funds then in all likelihood yes we would be required to return those federal funds uh and in essence bear the cost of those improvements and any changes. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you, Council Member Atinson.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Um, so over the past couple of weeks, I've had um a lot of meetings, as you can imagine, but two really have stuck out uh to me. The first is uh touring Hope House here in Independence. Um it is a really truly incredible nonprofit uh amongst incredible nonprofits we have here. Um this is a an organization dedicated to helping women who are experiencing abuse. Um so if you are experiencing abuse um your children are experiencing abuse, please reach out to them uh because they are uh going to readily be able to help you uh no matter what your situation is. Uh the other is I was able to meet with the director of artist helping the homeless. um they provide transitional living spaces um and are interested in doing something here in Independence. And what I mean by that transitional housing or living space um they kind of fill that gap. Um often times if you are street living homeless and trying to get an apartment, it's probably going to be out of your price range. You also probably don't have your paperwork, you don't have a deposit, you don't have a job. Um, this allows folks to take that first step into a more permanent living situation. They also provide full wraparound services. So, counseling, um, a space to exercise, meals, transportation. Um, really truly remarkable. Um, the next up uh that I want to talk about is the in-depth now app. Um, so mention was made about um, some code enforcement issues earlier. Um, I often get emails um, concerning code enforcement issues. I'm happy to file those. Please don't stop emailing me. That's totally fine. Uh but you can also uh take it on your own accord. Download that in-depth now app, take pictures, send them in, do a full report. Um there's all sorts of other cool stuff, but just in relation to code enforcement. Uh and then the Missouri

State Legislature, they closed up business last Friday, uh thankfully. Um and there are two pieces of legislation that I wanted to draw. um some attention to. So HB3080 concerning historic tax credits. Uh that is really going to expand the ability of various organizations to revitalize uh our city and our historic sites, opening it up to uh nonprofits being able to take part in that program. I believe uh the maximum is 35 cents on the dollar. I'm looking at Mr. Shawner back there. Uh he's shaking his head. Yes. So I'm going to say 35 cents on the dollar. Um this is uh just to emphasize a state umrun program. So we don't have any say in those tax credits. Uh we are not administering that program. Uh the second is HB 3231 concerning uh the designation of innovation zones within a city. Um some really cool stuff that can accompany um that designation, some state incentives. So looking forward to working with the city management uh my fellow council members and the mayor on identifying paths to um utilizing that bill. Thanks

council member Wy. Thank you mayor.

So since our last meeting um a few things have happened. We celebrated employee appreciation week last week. Um one of the highlights was for me was the picnic at the uptown market. Uh it was a really good chance to recognize employees. We celebrated some anniversaries. And I just want to thank the staff. We have staff members um for the city of independence that do the work of three or four people. Um we have staff members who consistently miss time with their family like the staff members that we have here tonight in order to do their jobs. So, thank you to all their staff and a week isn't enough, but um we hope that you env en enjoyed the uh appreciation week. And then two weeks ago, I was invited to career day at Mil Creek Elementary School. If you want to be humbled, show up to career day as an elected official. It was a very lonely afternoon and IPD was also handing out yo-yos, so that made my desk even more lonely. Um, but I did have a few students that were really interested in public service and being an elected official. So, I had some really good conversations. So, I want to thank Mil Creek for inviting me. And next year, I'll have things to hand out. Um, and then last Friday we celebrate we had the annual police memorial. It was a really beautiful day. It was a really meaningful service. It's always such a beautiful service. So, thank you to all those who organized it and um it was a really good um time, a really good afternoon to to remember those who who have who we've lost. And then lastly, um, several of us, including council member Atkinson and a few folks from the animal welfare committee, put together

a, um, non nonforprofit to support the shelter called the independence, friends of the independence animal shelter. And we had planned on having a celebration event on June 7th called Paparazzi. um we have struggled to get um funding and and sponsors and we've only sold I think four tickets. So, we're going to shift that event um and have an animal welfare town hall. We're inviting those of you who are interested in animal welfare to come and we're going to introduce our nonforprofit and talk about what how we can support the shelter and some ideas that we have as a group to help with animal welfare and independence. That's all. Thanks,

Council Member Vot. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um I also just want to say um what an honor it was to attend the police memorial last Friday. It's a very emotional experience honoring the officers who gave their ultimate sacrifice. And I encourage the community if you've never attended this yearly event. Come if you're able because it's it's so moving. Um and we never want to forget our officers who gave their lives protecting this community and to remember that they have families who also sacrificed. Um, and to the officers serving today along with your families, thank you for all that you give serving this community. And that's all. Thank you,

Council Member Perkins.

Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I want to say um this is probably nice um council chambers. It's nice to have some technology up here to where we can watch presentations and some clarity and not having to stare on the big screen and all that. So that was really nice. Uh also wanted to acknowledge the um county executive that was here. I want to thank him for his comments and I know there's already some internal discussions taking place to to see what if any modifications can be made. Um, Councilman Stewart, there was not only federal funds for the skate streetscape, but I believe there was grant funding also for the Truman Connected, which would bring the um trail holistically from the Truman Library through the square to Inglewood for the first phase. And just for the record, and this is no fault of uh County Executive Phil Lavod's fault by any stretch, but during this whole process, we had reached out to the county uh multiple times for input as we did community engagement for years, reaching up to this point of construction. As you can imagine, there was no response to the city of Independence regarding that. um to the parking on the square. There's approximately 1,400 public parking spaces within two blocks of the county courthouse and that's um also on street parking as well north side of the pharaoh cinema while Bill Hickcock lot on no sage spaces in the uptown market. So, as we're moving forward with making our district and entertainment district and walkable, bringing people in there so they can walk and look at our shops and not to mention the numerous um community engagement meetings that we did have, not only for the square streetscape, but also for the Truman Connected. I bet if you put them all together, we're looking in the u I don't know probably close to 8 to 10 community meetings throughout the years. So definitely appreciate the executive coming here and we'll work internally to

respond back to him. Thank you, mayor.

So just a couple things for me. Um last week I uh attended the ribbon cutting ceremony for the renovated rehab and skilled nursing unit at the Groves. Obviously, the Groves has been a long staple here in the city of Independence, and I was really appreciative of the invitation um to speak at that ribbon cutting ceremony. Uh I also attended the uh the police memorial Friday and and I echo the sentiments and the com, you know, the comments from other council members. This is humbling. Um, you know, uh, coming from a a father of a police officer as well. Um, so I want to thank all the police officers for everything they do for us day in and day out, but I also want to say thank you to the firefighters and and the dispatchers, all of our first responders. And I want us to remember this next weekend and what it's about with Memorial Day coming up and and um just keep that in the back of your mind. I would appreciate that. The other thing I attended I I got asked to um attend the 160th year anniversary of St. Paul Church on the square. Um that was quite interesting. Um I had a great time. I really appreciate uh their invitation. Um but this this church has been around for that long. Um and uh just finding out some of the history of that church and how it began and and where it was from the beginning was was really nice to find out and know. Um so I appreciate them inviting me uh to that. I just have one thing I want to ask the city manager

if I could. Um, you know, we've had a lot of discussion here tonight. Um, is it possible, can I ask for a study session to review the economic policy? Uh, absolutely. It's we'd be more than happy to bring back the economic development policy, put it on a study session here in the next couple months, have a more robust conversation about uh where we're at and where we're headed with that policy. For sure. All right. Thank you. Uh, city manager Anderson.

So, building on some of the sentiments, um, congratulations on completing your first, uh, successful city council meeting in your new council chambers. Uh, looks really good from this end. So, yeah, thank you so much. All right. Well, I thank everybody for coming out tonight and adjourn the uh, city council meeting. Thank you. You can do that.