Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd have to put a door in the back though, okay? Because I don't want I don't want them coming through my house, you know.

I don't I don't want anybody. Sorry. No thanks. Isn't that amazing? I got

I got 3,000 hits on that one. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. It's the It's time. Good evening and welcome to the planning commission for the city of independence. And would you please first stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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.

Thank you for being here tonight. It is Tuesday, March the 10th, 2026. And for the record, I will state it is the last meeting at the city hall on Maple Avenue. So cry or cheer, either one.

If you have not attended a planning commission meeting before and you wish to speak tonight, we do ask anyone that thinks they might speak to go ahead and stand at this time. So any applicants, any person that wants to testify, you will need to stand at this time. All right. Would you raise your right hand? Do you promise to tell the truth to this planning commission tonight? If so, say I will. All right. Thank you. You can be seated. All right, I'd like to call the role.

Commissioner Nesbet here. Commissioner Ferguson, here. Commissioner Ashva, present. Commissioner O'Neal, present. Commissioner Torres, present. Commissioner Young, here. Chairman Wy here. All right. Has everyone had a chance to look at the minutes from the last meeting? Chair. Yes. Commissioner Nazbec, I make a motion we approve the consent agenda. All right. I have a motion to approve the consent agenda in the in a second. Any discussion? All right. I will call for the vote. Commissioner Nesbet, yes. Commissioner Ferguson, yes. Commissioner Ashbaw, yes. Commissioner O'Neal, yes.

Commissioner Torres, yes. Commissioner Young, yes. Chairman Wy. Yes. And the motion passes seven to zero. All right. We had a case withdrawn. No action is needed at this time. Um so we will move on to our agenda for the evening with the first short-term rental on Fuller Avenue. If we could get that staff report, Gabe. Yes. This is case number 26412. an application for short-term rental for the property located at 202 South Fuller Avenue.

Here's a notification area map as required by city code. A zoning district map for the subject site and then the surrounding neighborhood shows that the surrounding neighborhood is predominantly zoned single family residential with several different land use types including uh multif family uh uh apartments to the west converted single family homes in the surrounding neighborhood and uh predominantly single family homes uh compose the rest of the neighborhood. The subject site is approximately 6,500 square feet in size. The dwelling is newly constructed. The building permit was issued in 2023. The dwelling encloses approximately 1300 square feet of living area. The driveway is a single car wide driveway that can accommodate one car. A total of three off- streetet parking spaces are available for guests. Excuse me, there's a typo in the slide. Two off- streetet parking spaces are available for guests and one on street. Here's a picture of the front facade. Northbound looking up the street and southbound. It's a floor plan of the dwelling showing the living room, three bedrooms, a master bath, and a second bathroom. and at the garage. The parking plan for the proposed short-term rental, the driveway can only accommodate one vehicle without encroaching into the sidewalk. So, uh the operator will need to ensure that guests won't encroach into the sidewalk for pedestrians.

The nearest short-term rental is over 500 feet away from the subject site. So, this uh proposed short-term rental falls within the density limitations uh required by city code. Staff does recommend approval of the application with the standard conditions. The maximum occupancy of the dwelling shall be six and the maximum number of bedrooms shall be three. That concludes a presentation for this application. If you have any questions, I'm available. All right. Thank you very much, Gabe. Any questions for staff? Gabe, you went fast. Did you have any pictures of what it looks like right now? Yes. Is this one a new build? Yes. Yes.

Okay. So, that's not a two two car wide driveway. It's only single. You know, it sort of looks like that. So, uh it's my understanding that the driveway is approximately 14t wide. So it may be a little too narrow to squeeze two cars in. The concrete panels I believe are about seven seven foot wide. Okay. Thank you.

Any additional questions for staff? All right. Seeing none, I will call the applicant up. All right. Please state your name and did you stand and get sworn in? Okay. Could you raise your right hand? Do you promise to tell the truth to this pointing commission? If so, will you say I will? I will. Thank you. Go ahead and state your name and your address to begin. My name is Jordan Brandsteader. My address is 2003 North Panka Drive. All right. What do you want us to know about your project?

Um, this was a long-term rental that we moved into our short-term rental due to um you have a lot of tourism coming this year. We kind of want to see what that market's like here. Um, adding this house wouldn't, you know, really affect the area based off of kind of the audience we're trying to bring in, families, sports teams, things like that that kind of limit the party or the craziness that we want, you know, to be invited. All right. Anything else? I think that's it. All right. Any questions for our applicant? I do have two. One is you understood that there's only three parking spaces for your guest and you'll need to make sure that they know that. Yes, I did see that.

All right. And then the second thing, you mentioned it already was visitors to the town um that you believe will preclude any parties or things like that. What how far away do you live and what is your plan to avoid that situation?

Right. So, I live about 10 minutes away. I build homes here in Independence, so I'm here all the time. I actually own another rental down the street. So, um, my plan here is we we use that app that that censors any the crazy noises. It alerts me. Um, another thing is I have a friend that lives right across the street. So, if anything gets crazy, they told me they'll give me a call, let me know. Um, seems like everyone around seemed pretty nice, too. So, I don't think there there should be any problems with that. One of the rooms are designated just for kids. It's got a little basketball goal, you know, a couple twin mattresses with basketball themed stuff. Bunch of games, not necessarily like anything for partying or anything like that. Definitely designed for like teams, maybe uh companies coming. Just need a spot. Nothing crazy.

Okay. And then you know that only six people can stay there, correct? That's okay. Six adults. Okay. Six adults. Does that What about children? Uh it's up to 10 people. Okay. I thought so. All right. Any additional questions? All right, I will call you back up if we need to. Thank you very much. Thank you.

All right, anyone present tonight that'd like to speak in opposition of this case? Anyone present that'd like to speak in opposition of this case? Okay, seeing none, anyone who would like to speak for this case? Anyone like to speak for this case? All right, seeing none, any final questions for staff? All right, I'm going to close the public hearing. Yes. I make a motion we approve case 25 26 412 short-term rental 202 South Fuller Avenue.

Second. I have a first and a second. Thank you. All right. I will call for the vote. Commissioner Nesbbit, yes. Commissioner Ferguson, yes. Commissioner Ashbaw, yes. Commissioner O'Neal, yes. Commissioner Torres, yes. Commissioner Young, yes. Chair Wy,

yes. And the motion passes 7 to zero. Case number 26. What was that number? 26412. Thank you very much. All right. Give you a minute to switch sides here and we will move on to case number 26413, a short-term rental on Vermont Avenue. this case applicant Robert Petoff um is a short-term rental for a property locate or a request for a short-term rental for a property located at 3115 South Vermont Avenue as you can see on the vicinity map where that is uh not far from Sterling and 35th Street. So, um, here's our short-term rental map showing there are is just one nearby short-term rental and is well beyond required, uh, uh, distance. So, this is an area zoned single family. Uh, the surrounding uses are all single family. So, um the characteristics of the property, um here on Vermont, um it's a parcel that's roughly 9,000 square ft. The dwelling was constructed in 1950 and um it encloses uh

has 1,152 square feet of living area. And that's um should say single family there and a single uh car garage and a driveway. So they have enough room for three vehicles off street. Um short-term rental requirements. The applicant must address of course the following uh topics. noise monitoring and trash removal. They've indicated um um a company for that and um provide all the uh business operations and security information and their short-term uh rental checklist. Uh they'll and the fire safety and inspections and parking land have to be provided. We have examples of those um ahead here. Um this is the street view of um the property. This is looking northbound up Vermont Avenue. And this is southbound um in front of the home. So, we have the escape plan for the main floor here um showing um where um exits are available and then the second floor plan going to the steps to get down to that main level and uh the escape plan for the basement. So, uh the main floor has a master bedroom plus uh the main living area and bathroom and uh dining area and of

course the garage. Uh the second floor has the two other uh available bedrooms at the top of the steps. And then here is the basement area, but it is not used for um sleeping. And we have a parking plan here uh showing uh uh the driveway availability. um parking on the street for one car possibly and uh the onecar garage. Um the maximum occupancy for the premise will be limited to six persons total. Um that's what they requested and uh maximum number of bedrooms shall um be three and I'm ready to take any questions you may.

All right, commissioners. Any questions for staff? All right, seeing none, is the applicant present? All right, love to hear from you. State your name and your address first. Evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Rob Pcooff. My address 254 Northeast Ridge Creek Court, Blue Springs, 6414. All right. Tell us about Vermont Avenue and the your short-term rental.

I bought that house after the crash in 2008, and it's been a long-term rental ever since. I only do two-year leases with automatic extension because I like my tenants to be there a long time, and it's worked out. I've had two tenants there since 2008. Uh, but they moved out and it was just in time for FIFA. I've never done other than the house that I live in in Blue Springs, which I do short-term rentals there, but it's a closed system. I don't use Airbnb. It's a word of mouth thing. That's my only experience at short-term rentals. So, instead of Airbnb, I specifically said I will use VBO because it's a whole house. You get a whole different customer base. And that's kind of my goal is to get people that aren't going to cause problems because as you can tell I'm retired. I don't want to deal with problems. So my goal is to do short-term rentals during the FIFA and then I'll probably push it back to long-term rentals. I've never done it like this and I'm just like, "Hey, this is something new and different. I want to try it. See if I like it. Maybe do it going forward, but probably not."

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you very much. I'll call you back up if we need to. Great. Is there anyone present who would like to speak in opposition of this case? All right. I do need to swear you in first. If you could raise your right hand. All right. Do you promise to tell the truth to this planning commission? If so, say I will. I will. All right. Go ahead and step forward. State your name and your address. Um, my name is Deborah Charlene Wood and my address is 3117 South Vermont Avenue, Independence, Missouri. What would you like us to know?

Um, I have concerns about the short term. Uh, we are a familyoriented neighborhood and with all I'm not trying to be paranoid or anything with all the trafficking, child trafficking and stuff going on in the world today. I'm raising my grandson at my residence and I have issues with short tterm people coming in because they come and they go, you know, and it being we're family oriented neighborhood, I would like to see the house be rented out to a family that is going to be there for a prolonged amount of time. Okay. Have you had a conversation with the owner? I have not.

Okay. All right. Anything else we should know? Um, no. Thank you very much for your concern. Thank you. Anyone else who would like to speak in opposition? All right. Seeing none, anyone who'd like to speak for this case? Anyone present like to speak for this case? All right. Not seeing any. I'm going to invite you back up, sir. you have anything you want to share based on your neighbor's concern? I

I would just like to alleviate her her concerns really because um in the VRBA I thought about I looked at the schedule and my intent is to rent it out by the week, not by the day. So people take it for the whole week. And that's part of getting families and and good citizens instead of people that are just coming to town, party for one night and then split. You know, I I I share her concerns. I don't want people causing problems. Can you talk a little bit about um what you do to mitigate parties?

Um you know, I've never really dealt with that in my long-term rentals. That the one issue I had was another house over on Kiger and that was a lady with a bunch of teenagers and I went over and we had two conversations and I gave her notice and said, "Fix this or move." And they moved. That was it. That's the only experience. I I apologize. That's all I got. I get it. All right. Thank you very much. Any additional questions? All right. Seeing none, I'm going to close the public hearing and I will entertain a motion. Chair. Yes, Commissioner.

I'd like to make a motion we approve case 26413 short-term rental at 3115 South Vermont Avenue. I have a first. I second. And I have a second. All right, I will call for the vote. Commissioner Nesbet, yes. Commissioner Ferguson, yes. Commissioner Ashbot, yes. Commissioner O'Neal, yes. Commissioner Torres, yes. And Commissioner Young, yes. And Chairman Wy,

yes. And the motion does pass 7 to zero. um for case number 26413 at 3115 South Vermont Avenue. Thank you very much for coming, ma'am. Thank you very much for sharing your concern and I just encourage you to chat with the owner. Thank you. All right, Brian, you up again? All right, we move on to case number 26414. short-term rental on Cedar Avenue.

Yeah, this um case is on Cedar Avenue at 2319 South Cedar. As you can see from the vicinity map, it's just north of 23rd Street or south of 23rd Street in Cedar. Uh the notification area puts it uh on the the property is located on the uh east side of the street about halfway between Westport and 23rd Street. And you can see all of the properties that were advertised that to that were within 185 ft. Um some on Maywood, mostly on Cedar uh adjacent the neighborhood zone, single family residential, the houses um surrounding are that use R six zoning. Uh the parcel is 7,45 square ft. Dwelling was constructed in 1941. The single family home um is 810 square feet in area with a singlecar garage and a driveway for two vehicles. Uh the property um rental requirements same as before as listed. Street view. This is looking northbound on um Cedar and then toward 23rd Street and then to the right southbound on Cedar toward a Westport Road. Escape plan shows the two fire exits um from the living room and from the kitchen in the rear. You've got two

bedrooms there on the main floor and a garage there as you can see on the left. Uh here is the floor plan. And then here's the parking plan with um the onecar garage and room for two vehicles in the driveway. Uh plus, of course, there's the possibility of parking one vehicle on the street. Um the maximum occupancy for the pre premises would be uh four persons total. The maximum number of bedrooms is two. So two adults per room. Staff recommends approval of the short-term rental with those conditions, those seven conditions listed.

Right. Thank you very much. questions for our staff? Any questions for staff? All right, I will invite the applicant up and state your name and your address. Uh, my name is Joseph Ortiz and the address is 2319. Can you move up or talk just a little louder? Thank you. Uh, my name is Joseph Ortiz and the address is 2319 South Cedar Avenue. All right. Tell us about your short-term rental.

Uh me and my wife purchased this property as a investment property. We actually live on the same street that the house is on and we walk up and down the street all the time and this house came up and we saw it as a good opportunity and when the notices went out, it made us closer with our neighbors. We've got a chance they they've stopped us when we're walking down the street and they all seem pretty excited for us. So, we just want to make a nice place for people to stay when they come visit Independence and the surrounding areas. All right. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Wait a minute. Yes. He needs to stay his address he lives at. Oh, sorry. It's at 2322 South Cedar Avenue is my address. Great catch. Thank you, Commissioner. Sorry about that.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone present that'd like to speak in opposition of this case? Anyone present like to speak in opposition? Not seeing any. Anyone that'd like to speak in favor of this case. Anyone to speak in favor? Seeing none, it will close the public hearing. Madam Chair. Yes, Commissioner. I move we approve 26400-14 2319 South Cedar Avenue. All right. I have a first second

and I have a second. Any final questions, concerns? All right, I will call for the vote. Commissioner Nesbet, yes. Commissioner Ferguson, yes. Commissioner Ashbaw, yes. Commissioner O'Neal, yes. Commissioner Torres, yes. Commissioner Young, yes. Chairman Wy, yes. and uh case 26414, a short-term rental at 2319 South Cedar Avenue passes. Thank you very much and good luck. All right, we are on to our final short-term rental for the night. You again, Brian?

Yes.

Alrighty. Lucky you. Okay, this is um a case uh by Eric Erica Peterson uh for action for a short-term rental for property located at 3840 South Chrysler Avenue, basically at the northeast or northwest corner of Chrysler and um 39th Street. As you can see from the notification map, that location and all the nearby uh single family homes that abut um that got notification as well. Um so as you can see all four corners of the intersection are zoned R six single family residential and our single family residential in use. Of course, um the parallel is a rather large one at 18,295 square ft. Um the dwelling was constructed in 1958. Uh the house encloses the single family home encloses a 1,440 square ft of living area. It has a twocar g driveway at a rather short one, but um large enough that they can get four vehicles in. So, uh they can get that off the street mainly because they can't have any on street parking for one thing given the two busy intersections and they need to be able to ensure that they're not hanging um out over the public sidewalk. Uh the the driveway is

approximately 37 feet deep, so deep enough you can park four cars um on that two-car driveway. Um so here's a picture of that driveway down below. That's uh the 39th Street side of the property. Um the the front of the home faces Chrysler and that's what you're looking at above. So this is the northbound of South Chrysler Avenue in front of the home. And then this other picture is actually standing at the driveway there at the southwest corner of the house looking westward down 35th Street. So, um, here's their, uh, main floor, uh, escape plan, as you can see. And the second floor, um, escape to the stairway to get down to that first floor. It's just another, um, picture of that. um main floor. And again, the noting what it says on the plan, you know, the applicant or the customers will not have access to that garage. And this is the second floor plan again. And also uh the customers will not have access to the basement and that will be kept locked. So, so here's the parking plan that um

provides access to four vehicles within um that defined space. Um maximum premises of course is uh 10 persons, but they can have up to two adults per room. They've got four rooms. So, chair, eight adults. Chair. Yes, Ryan. That's got to be wrong because they're only asking for eight. Two per room would be you only have four bedrooms be eight. So, it can't be 10. So, is that you got to

It says two adults per room. The 10 is the maximum 10 we allow with children. Okay. I want because usually you guys put down this maximum adults, not with the children. Okay. That's why you usually do it. So that's why I'm saying that's Yeah, I put persons there, not adults, but I I should have been more clear with that. So Okay. Can we get that changed to say that? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Were you finished? Yes. So staff does recommend approval of this short-term rental with those seven conditions and as with that one amended as as he's he's asked.

All right. Thank you very much. Any additional questions for staff? I have a question. Yes, Commissioner. On that driveway, there is a street sidewalk there. There's a street sidewalk along Chrysler, right? Along Chrysler. You said it was deep enough to provide four like two cars parking one behind each other. Right. And not approach encroach the sidewalk. You mean 39th? Correct. Yeah, there's there's no driveway onto Chrisa. So, you're speaking of 39.

Okay. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong place or my No, there is a fifth parking spot there. And then the concern is there's there's really not room on that little concrete Okay. area to the west to actually park a vehicle. You're talking 39th Street. There's enough room. There's a driveway on 3. There's a driveway. That is the driveway. looking at. Okay. So, she's got two driveways. Two driveways. I don't know. I'm just looking at a picture, you know, maybe. No, that's the right picture. Yeah. Yeah. There's no So, the question is, is the driveway long enough to

have a car back to back and then not encroach on the sidewalk? Yes. that that driveway is 37 ft deep from the sidewalk from the sidewalk to the garage door. See the picture? Yeah. So, is the picture wrong or No, because the street Chrysler runs north south. The house is facing Chrysler. The driveway's going on to 39. Um 39th.

Well, Brian, I know what he's looking. We're looking at our Google maps and there's two cars parked in the driveway and there is not enough room for two more cars the way this looks on this picture. I know what they're talking about. So, I don't know where we're getting 37 feet from because they got two cars parked in there and it looks like there's not enough room. So, we'll have to have the applicant probably explain that to us. Okay. Yeah, we're all looking at the same thing. Not crazy. Brian, while we call the applicant up, do you want to look at this?

I'll let you come look at it. All right. Are you the applicant? All right. Were you sworn in, both of you? And are you both going to Okay. Um, do you swear to tell the truth of this planning commission? If so, say, "I will." I will. Thank you.

All right. State your name and your address, please. My name is Alicia Gibson and my address is 19405 East 78 Highway, Independence, Missouri 64057. I'm here on the behalf of the applicant. I represent her property management company. So, I know a little bit more about the plans. Um, starting off, I can tell you that I measured that driveway from the garage doors. I didn't take it all the way to the street because there is that sidewalk. Um, and she did just confirm she's had four cars in that driveway back to back. So, I don't I don't know what picture you're looking at to confirm if it fits, but does it not encroach on the sidewalk at all?

Okay. Okay. Um, so like I said, I uh represent a property management company here in the Casey Metro Bear BNB. Um we manage over a 100 properties here and we are very um knowledgeable about how to screen applicants. Um we have multiple customer service representatives. We have maintenance technicians and we have the ability to respond to any issues that the guest would have or any neighbor complaints um within under an hour. So we could be out at the property because we have multiple employees that could address that. and I'm just here to answer any questions you guys have.

All right. Any additional questions. So, go ahead, Commissioner. Yeah, thanks. Um, this picture is only a year old. So, is the property just been recently acquired by somebody different? It was acquired last year. Yes. She purchased it last year and renovated it. Okay. And all that stuff's out of the driveway. In other words, it's Yeah. There's the stuff worth seeing that is from a previous owner. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Okay. All right. Anything else, commissioners? All right. You can be seated. Okay. Thank you.

Right. Is there anyone present who would like to speak in opposition of this case? Anyone who'd like to speak in opposition? Okay. Anyone who'd like to speak for this case? Excuse me just a moment. Tornado warning or thunderstorm warning. All right, I think we're safe for right now. I will leave that up to our fire and police chief. Should we continue?

All right. Thank you very much. All right. Seeing no opposition, I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing. Madam chair. Yes, commissioner. I make a motion we approve case 26415 short-term rental at 3840 South Crystal Avenue. All right. I have a first. Second. And I have a second. Thank you. All right. Any final discussion? All right. I will call for the vote. Commissioner Nesbet. Yes. Commissioner Ferguson. Yes. Commissioner Ashbaw. Yes. Commissioner O'Neal. Yes. Commissioner Torres. Yes. Commissioner Young. Yes.

Chairman Wy. Yes. And the motion passes 7 to0 for case number 26400 and 35. Short-term rental at 3840 South Chrysler Avenue. Thank you very much for being here. No. All right. Oh, 4015. Yes. That is case number 26415 for the record. Thank you very much.

All right. This concludes the hearings for the evening. Do we need a short break? Yes. All right. We will take a short five minute break. Thank you very much.

order.

All right. First of all, I just want to thank all of our department heads and or their assigned deputy to be here to talk about the capital improvement projects plan and introduce it to us. Just to remind the public, this is a night of presentations only, not a public hearing. Our scope of work tonight is to learn about your projects and then recommend if we believe so that they meet the agenda for the strategic plan of the city and the imagined plan for the city. So we look forward to hearing about your projects and your excitement for the future of the city of independence. And we will go ahead and begin first with our assistant director of development, community development, Rick. Thank you again. This is our capital improvements program for um the 2026 to 2032 year. These are six-year programs. Um, and I know you guys have gone through this before, but I'll just kind of go over the highlights of what the intentions are, what the capital improvement project is. Uh, essentially, this document is a document that staff uses, finance uses as well for a funding source for projects that we know have needs. And so, this includes public infrastructure, uh, new equipment, um, any of the actual capital assets that we have for maintenance of items, etc. These projects are essentially projects. There is a criteria for that. I did create handed out like three copies of this. It's a CIP planning policy. So, we do follow that policy. Uh that's what we use when we go through and look at these projects. Um they meet $100,000 or more.

They can be projects that are also maintenance projects that go year by year. uh departments obviously for this year we have police, fire, power and light, parks and wreck, municipal services and technology services although they won't have a project for this coming year. Um understand that municipal services does cover many different things. They cover water, sewer, streets. Um and so it's not just one thing. Um they also understand again we talked about this as being a six-year plan. Um, we do the best. I mean, I know we have a lot of people that put a lot of work into all these projects and I do want to give a handout for all those staff that have to go through and look at all these projects and get their budgets for them and estimate what they're going to be in the particular plan years. So, they do the best they can to try to predict that six years. U, but keep in mind it's a fluid document. Uh, we don't make any guarantees that these projects will be built. Um there's no guarantees that they'll be built in the order that is shown in the CIP. Uh funding sources do change and um as those funding sources change, sometimes these projects will move forward, sometimes they'll get pushed back and sometimes based on the economy, they change in terms of scale and amount. And so that has to be adjusted. And again, um, as you mentioned, Chairman Wy, this, you know, the goal here for, uh, the planning commission is to review these projects. It is part of what's required from the charter, number one. But number two, the goal here is to make sure that these projects to the best of our abilities meet the comprehensive plan and is following uh, what the city has set out for that plan. And so, we'll go through kind of just a summary. This year's CIP contains 180 projects. Total project cost for uh that entire

six year is 763 million. Uh municipal services because they are they do cover such a wide variety of different um fields and projects. Uh has in the past and even this year has the most projects at 93. Uh for the next fiscal year, there's a projected $104 million um planned for those capital expenditures. And then for the next following year, 371 million. largest projects um for this next fiscal year and again each department will kind of talk about some of this is the replacement of fire station 5 and uh AMI software integration um of $8 million for power and light uh from the pie chart here. Um, unfortunately some of my numbers for the sales taxes didn't come out on that, but uh, essentially this is a pie chart that shows you kind of how the funding sources break down. Uh, essentially, you know, we get funding sources from various taxing um, departments as well as some grants, CMAC, raise grants, STP, TAP grants, those types of things. And so what this chart shows is where a lot of those funding sources are coming from. Typically the largest source does come from our sales tax funds. Uh and then power light again as this year as it has been in several past years is one of the largest um funding sources. So with that staff does approval that does recommend approval of this capital improvement projects to be uh recommended to the city manager. Um with that we do have representation from each department that can speak on their particular projects. Typically with this we start with police and fire and um

move on from there. So I would probably start with police chair. Yes. Hey Rick, where's the uh GEO bond money? Where's that at in this funding? Uh what do you mean when you say geo bond? Where is it? They got approval for the GL bond for the streets. Where's that at? So that's going to end up being part of municipal services projects. But shouldn't that be under the funding source? So when Let me see here. So there is bond under there.

I mean, I didn't get that pie chart to look at, but I'm looking at my paperwork that I got. I didn't see that anywhere. That's why I was trying to figure out where that comes into play at. I mean, it's a great question. If you wanted to talk about the specific projects, there are obviously some projects for bridges that are specific to the bond, the geo bond funds. Okay. So, basically, it's just they're still it's still just going the streets. We just haven't Yes. They're just not Yeah. I mean, it's not put my paperwork where the funds are coming from. That's why I wanted to try to clear up where it might be coming from.

Yeah. I mean, that'd be a good question to ask. Um, in terms of municipal services, I know, um, obviously we talk about bridges, you know, is that part of the street? Is that part of the storm? Because some of these are coverts as well. So, okay. All right. Are we ready to invite the police department up?

All right. Come on up. And, um, thank you once again for giving up your night with us. We greatly appreciate it. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jason Peterson. I'm deputy chief over operations support for the Independence Police Department. And I will have a very short presentation. We have one item on here and it's site work for demolition of the police building which is still occupied. So, we will not be demolishing it. Um try to get everybody out before we do those types of things. the uh that demolition was predicated upon passage of the bond for the further development of the justice center. Obviously, that didn't pass last April, uh which was immediately after the last time I spoke before you.

So, that's all we have. We don't have anything else in projects. All right. Any questions for deputy? Yes, commissioner. So, we have no new cars need to be bought in the next couple years or vehicles or anything like that. So those would be capital outlays that would be below the threshold. Okay. I thought we had that. I mean I guess we've had that here before on capital improvements on something like that. So okay. So basically you guys have nothing except for like say the demolition of that building and that's not just for next year is what you guys had two years from now. But correct.

Okay. Okay. Thanks. So, is there a plan for the next over the next two years to find places for those still in the Memorial building? No, it it depends on funding sources. I think there are still a lot of things in the works um to try to figure out if if maybe we can phase that plan in or u there's another route that we need to attack. All right, any additional questions? Well, that was short and sweet. Thank you very much. Thank you. Right. I invite our fire department.

You are not Chief uh Jimmy Walker.

You are correct. I am very clearly not the fire chief. Um I am Melissa Carrera. I'm the director of finance. So um happy to answer if you have funding specific uh questions towards the fire department projects. um they are pretty status quo at this point. So you might remember last year that we issued some bonds uh to go towards uh rebuilding several of the fire stations, building an additional station um and then also the remodel of the IU building for the police department. Um those were all issued together. So, the fire department essentially has about $49 million, including $7 million in uh their reserve fund or unreserved fund balance that they're going to uh put toward those three projects for their stations. Um, and then in combination with the revenue bonds that were issued. Um, and then the remainder of their projects are pretty status quo, just maintaining their equipment replacement program that they have. um that is funded by that fire sales tax that was uh increased in I think uh fiscal year 2022.

Can you go ahead and give us a lowown on the three main projects, the station five, station 8?

Sure. So um station 8 um is the first project that's currently underway. Um, so earlier this year they issued an increase to the purchase order with Turner Construction, um, who is managing that project and it is, I believe, just under $21 million, um, is what it's estimated at. And then, um, I believe they have $18 million, um, for, let me see, they've plugged 18 million in for the remaining stations. Um, so that is an increase to what was in the original project budget. Um, so we'll we'll have to just review that and keep an eye on it and make sure that they stay within those revenue bond uh amounts that were issued. So,

and station five, I'm sorry. Yes. So, following that is station five. Um, I'm not particularly sure. I'm sorry. I don't have their their which comes first. I get confused whether it's five or 11. Um but station five um I I believe is the next project and then station 11 will be their third and final um project and that would be the brand new additional station where they're not um rebuilding the prior stations and those are the only three buildings over the next six years.

Three buildings. Yes. And then their other projects going forward um that it looks like they forecasted out for the next five years are the equipment replacements. Uh it looked like they had about one and a half million dollars a year for pumper for a pumper and then um probably ladder trucks and things like that. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Any questions? All right. Thank you very much. You're welcome. All right. Where would you like to go, Rick? All right. How about we go to municipal services.

All right. I so want to say you're the next contestant.

Good evening. Uh my my name is Mike Jackson. I'm the director of municipal services. Um I brought with me this evening uh Matt Mclofflin, our deputy director. Uh, as Rick said earlier, we have over 90 projects in the next six years. So, um, it's a lot to keep up in your brain. So, I need some help. Uh, might be, uh, doing some tag team during this Q&A. So, uh, this next fiscal year of 26 and 27, we do have 40 uh 40 or 41 projects scheduled uh, for that fiscal year. So, with that, I'll open it up to any questions you might have.

All right. Can can you just talk a little bit about what you think the priorities are with the It's a lot of projects.

Sure. So, it it depends on what area of the department we're looking at. Obviously, we have the the water and the wastewater utilities. So, huge priorities there um in keeping keeping the uh toilets flushing and water running. Um and then on the other side on the street side, which are a lot of our projects as well, we do have the geo bond. So, uh, the recent passage of the geo bond, we have streets included in that. We have, uh, bridges in there and then, uh, sidewalks, specifically sidewalks to schools in certain areas of town to supplement what we're already doing with our street sales tax.

So, the bridges, corrections, or fixes, um, how many are there again, and how far along will the next six years get us on addressing those? Well, there's a slew of bridges um that need some help for this next fiscal. Actually, this current calendar year, I should say, not fiscal. We should be be completing two. Um we'll have the Chrysler Bridge just down the road over here where it goes into uh Lexington Chrysler right there, Winter Road. Um and then the Kentucky Road Bridge over Mil Creek. That should be completed sometime in late summer, early fall. Um what was slotted for for the the bridges was about 15 million is roughly what we were shooting for of that total 55. Um just to give you an example, these first two bridges are hitting us around sixish, six to seven million. So we're not going to get as much bang for the buck as originally thought. So we're we're looking at other grant funds. We're talking to to Representative Clever's group. We're going to to Mid American Regional Council asking, you know, for certain grant funds there to assist, but we think ultimately we'll probably be able to get, let me back up a little bit, a little bit here. Not all of the bridges need a complete, you know, tore down and rebuilt. Some of them just need the facade taken care of them. Some just need to be um milled and filled, we say, so basically put a whole new top on. Um so we can get a little more bang for the buck later on. But these these first two are pretty expensive. Um, so, uh, we have two others in in design right now. Uh, the Kentucky Road Bridge over Rock Creek, which is the extreme northwest corner of town. And then Matt, help me out. What was the other one in design right now?

Oh, you're fine. the Valley View Parkway, the one that's heading up towards um from Nolan Road South going all the way up uh or I'm sorry, Nolan Road, I7 south going all the way up to 24 highway. Um there is one other one that was in design. Sorry, can't that's Lake City Valley Road. All right. So, that's the streets and the uh some of the geo bond money. What about water, etc. You said there are I'd like to just hear some priorities from each of those areas. So, let me look here. What's the most exciting? Um,

Matt, off the top of your head, what's most exciting for Courtney Ben?

Okay. Emergency power generation um was one for Courtney Ben. As you might recall, back in early December, we did have a boil advisory. Um perfect storm, I know you you probably heard of how this kind of went about, but we have we have two transformers. One was down for repair. So, we have a redundancy in place, but again, perfect storm happened. One was down for to be repaired, the other one shot craps at the same time. So, we have a a an RFP out now currently to do a study uh to figure out how can we limit that in the future. We're thinking possibly to have three transformers and when one goes down the other ones kind of go in line so you always have a backup. We're also going to explore the possibility of of getting backup power generation like true like a true backup generator. Um I'm not sure if you've been out to the Courtney Ben plant though, way too large for just one giant generator. um it would be in the neighborhood of probably 1012 million dollars. So we're going to have a study done to to look at what's the what are the core areas that need to be run to need to be run and what what areas of the plant require what type of you know power. So and we can't really just have that in necessarily one spot. We might have to kind of move them around. So we're going to do that in conjunction a little bit in conjunction with the wastewater treatment plant too because there's obviously needs there as well. Uh the benefit to to the wastewater treatment plant is we have storage that we can divert to. So depending on if there is an event going on where we lost power in the city and we have a dual feed there as well, we can divert the waste water into our storage tanks for uh for a certain amount of time depending on how much is coming in. So that's a big one uh for for those two. So we're doing the same thing same study um for for Rock Creek wastewater treatment plant. Um, we're doing a well field. Oh, see that's the next year's, excuse me.

We're doing some sanitary uh sewer main relocations for the stream banks. So, over time, the streams will kind of meander and wander a little bit. We have infrastructure in those areas. They start getting close to the edge to to the bank. It becomes exposed. We have to move it back back over. So, we that's kind of an ongoing uh CIP that we put money into. If we don't do it every year, we do it every other year. So, as these things come about, we can take care of them. Uh, another really big one, and this is really across the board. This is for all of municipal services, including Central Garage. Um, again, I'm not sure if you've seen our facilities, but, uh, Central Garage and Street Maintenance is there on Chrysler. The building is, uh, very dilapidated. Uh, I'm going to say 100ish years old, maybe a little older than that. Um, our sewer maintenance facilities pretty pretty worn down as well. Our our water distribution facility for the field folks worn down. We're going to combine those into a complex. That's the intent. We're going to call it the Spring Branch complex is what it says on here. It's actually over by the old animal shelter, the K9 unit where that is now. We call that area Massman Farms. So, we're going to combine everything there and call it uh a big, you know, a big complex, have the administration there as well, but have everything operated out of there. Keep the salt domes and and everything that's currently there. U but it's a really expensive project. Uh if you know that area, it's a steep slope up the hill. A lot of earth's going to have to be moved, a lot of infrastructure put in place. Estimating it to be around $55 million. We've been putting money away for the last I think five years if not I know for sure four um from the water fund, sanitary fund, street maintenance sale or uh street sales tax, uh storm sales tax, general fund. Um am I missing another one? And then it's pretty much it. Uh and we've saved up around 15

million so far, 15 and a half, which we know will pay for at the least at least the design. we will likely have to go out and bond out to to get the money for the rest and have some debt service for those those funds over the next I don't know 10 15 years to pay that back. Um as you know the cost of business keeps going up. So it's as we're saving we're not really making leaps and bounds to get to that magic number. When we first started looking at this four or five years ago I think the magic number was 30 million and now it's gone up to 55. So something's got to give. Um actually to the point that one of our uh buildings out at street maintenance um is in such bad shape we're going to be renting a trailer to come out and house our administration uh administrative staff out there because it's just not safe to be in that building. So something's got to give.

Chair. Yes. Commissioner. Okay. On that subject I was told that what So you're going away from Spring Branch. You're not going to build down there now. No. Once the they did they finished the study and it would be too costly to bring it out of the flood plane to have to bring too much soil in and to to get it to the point where it was actually um doable. So the consultant looked back at Massman again and decided that was the much less expensive route. Okay. So what are we looking at? We're looking at a butler building to house construction equipment, right? Is that what we're looking at?

Multiple buildings. So we'd have one specific for water. I mean, we've got to keep things a little separate here because we've got multiple funding sources. We've got two utilities and we don't want to intermingle some of that equipment with with the street uh maintenance equipment. Why? Why not? Because we're all under one thing now. We're all under

Well, we're under one thing, but we're but those are two enterprise funds. So, we have to make sure that if it was all general fund. Yeah. And if the sales the sales taxes, they can kind of intermingle a little bit, too. But we have we have rateayers that are paying for those items. And we have wholesalers that we're selling to paying for us to keep things working um with water and with waste or water specifically and not the wholesalers for waste water. But we have to keep those separated. So I'm not saying that we're not going to you know if there's a a shared area to air up tires. No, I'm not. No, I'm just saying because basically we're looking for a building to do the maintenance on the equipment, right? Yeah. And house the people. That's all that should be all one building.

You're right. That that Excuse me. You're you're correct for the for the central garage portion where we actually do the maintenance of the of the vehicles. Um that will be one location, shared location. However, the water our our water distribution folks work on their own vehicles. It's part of their union contract. They actually don't go to central garage. Um so they got to have they're going to have to have their little area to work on their vehicles, but they can be still in the same building. Sure. Yeah. Sure. But there'll have be kind of a designated area, but everyone else will be in a shared space. You're correct.

So I I don't So how big of a building are we looking at then? I thought I mean I I talked to Lisa about this in stent a couple years ago and I thought we were only talking about $20 million for a building that was could be built up and they were supposedly almost having the funds. So now you were talking 55. So see, we keep dragging it on. So I'm trying to figure out why are we not moving ahead with this project? and we are and that's we hear you and that's what we finally decided this last year. Let's get going. It's going to keep getting more more and more expensive. At one point um we were going to try to do a thing holistically for the entire city. It was about the time that we moved over to or bought the new building. So we weren't sure if that was going to go if how that was going to shake out. Um so now we finally you know it's gone out to um not full design but like just kind of the preliminary multiple buildings. We're looking at probably six buildings. Um the footprint is well that property there I believe is 17 acres.

Are you talking on the top of the hill? The whole the whole area from the fence all the way to the top. But to build that large of a complex, we're going to have to cut into the side of the hill and remove a lot of soil because it it's pretty steep, right? Um we and you know we have that salt dome there. We've got a bunch of infrastructure that needs to be moved. So, um, that said, that's that's why the prices have continued to go up.

Well, one thing I don't like is that you have several different projects that say Spring Branch, and I don't understand why we could not combine all those. And then like um each one of them are there's several of them in there for $280,000 a year. And then there's one that's there's two of them in there for like $1.3 million a year. So, I'm trying to figure out what's going on here. Why are these not all combined into one?

Well, they're not combined because they're different funds and that's how finance has us organized these to make sure that they're not they're going to be going to the same project, but we're not intermingling them into the same account. And we have to do that. And I mean, that's that's a finance best practice, I would say, um to make sure that we're we're showing that everything is separated. So, um the first the one that you said it was 280,000. Yeah, 280,000. And I think you got four of them. Yeah, that well that one specifically is going towards um the design portion and I think that's the general fund portion. You got you got four of them. I mean they all got different numbers. We have water, streets, storm and sanitary. Okay. Storm, you got this.

So that streets one is also general fund and and sales tax, right? Okay. You got garage complex. That one that's and that one's uh like I say 280,000. Like I say, there's there's several of them because I'm sitting there trying to figure out why do we have so many. See, we got another one here. It says garage complex streets. So that's why storm water streets. So that's what you're that's why you got them. Well, but what's the one the ones that are $1.2 million a year? That's same thing. It's we No, sorry. I'm reading wrong. $2.1 million. And that's from sewer.

Yeah. We're we're roughly trying to base it on who's going to use it, how many people are going to be there. And we have kind of essentially a percentage that says if there's 30% of this of the facility is going to be taken by sanitary sewer, they should fund 30 30%. I mean, so we're we're again, we're early on right now.

I understand where you're coming at, but I think this is all wrong about doing it. I mean, it's the city of independence. It's our municipal services. It's going to be the same building. They're all work for the city. I don't understand why it can't all be under one thing. I mean, because you're going to go out and ask for one thing in a bond. You're not going to ask for four different bonds for different four different things. So, I'm thinking they got a problem here that somebody needs to figure this out and work it out and come back with the correct number that you need per year.

Well, I will tell you though, you're right. When we go out for a bond, it'll be one bond. But when we have the debt service, it'll be just like this. It'll be divided amongst them. So, it's very clear what's who's paying what, what funds are paying paying what and how much. So, we'll keep it it'll it'll be this script, so to speak, that we'll be following when it comes to the debt service as well. Okay. Amen. I'm ready for another one. I see you guys.

That brings up a good question. Finance, could you come back up? I I'm pretty sure we all understand what he's saying, but can you kind of address because I know in the nonprofit world that many of us are in, you know, a grant can only pay for what the grant says. Any other costs have to be divided out, etc. So this the projects are written away in which the total cost would never come from one fund. Sure.

And they have to match the projects have to match and be divided up among every funding source if there are multiple funding sources.

Yes. Yeah. Okay. So this I mean this document serves a couple purposes. I completely understand why it can be why you see it from a different standpoint, but when we're putting it together, we are working to identify like where the budget is coming from. And so that's why we do see it split up and into so many different areas. And I do think maybe we can work on a better way to communicate it so that you can see the overall project total for something like Spring Branch and then we can break out each of those funding sources. Um, so something that we could work on for next year. But yes, exactly like what you're saying that when we go out and apply for a grant, there might be something like a 50% match. And so we would need to identify where um, you know, in the city funds that that that match might come from, whether it's one funding source, multiple funding sources, how we would come up with that match just depending on what the project is and the allowed use of the funds that we would we would need to use.

All right. Any additional questions now that I have her up here again? All right. Thank you very much. All right. Didn't mean to cut you off, but I just thought that was an important point. So, I don't know that you're the right person to ask, but my biggest concern every year is kicking the can down the road for preventative maintenance. Where do we stand and where in your wheelhouse with m municipal are any uh preventative maintenance cost projects? So are you are you referring to like streets or you utilities or just holistically

um your will your particular um area okay of concern? So obviously I mean we agree um we we do a lot of seals and um crack sealing um for and crack filling um to extend the life of our of our pavement and our asphalt. So we don't just wait till it's so far gone that we need to do a complete overlay. Um that was a shift in philosophy um six seven years ago. Uh so that accompanied with the geo bond is enabling us to that philosophy with street improvement sales tax and the geo bond is enabling us to really uh tackle a lot more than we used to. The geo bond if you might remember is specifically for overlay. It is it is not to be used for um any of the crack sealing and crack filling. So we are using street street sales tax funds for that. We're also using street sales tax funds for uh additional overlay. So, it's not just the geo bond money that's going towards overlay. We're kind of shifting our focus a little bit for geo, not shifting it, but I guess reinventing since we never had the geo bond before. The geo bond specifically is going to be more targeted towards overlay in neighborhoods and residential areas so we can get u kind of clusters uh around town. And then with the street sales tax, we're looking at more uh main thorough affairs. you know, your your Sterlings, um, your Nolan Roads. We feel that's the probably the best approach.

Is that because there's more money on the sales tax side? No, there's a lot less money on the sales tax. There's less spent. Yeah. Okay. So, we're we're putting and you can see in here um roughly 4.85 million total uh from the uh street sales tax to overlay and seals. So about 5050 50 about two and a halfish million um 2.4 million for each and then the geo bond actually is giving us $6 million a year for overlay. So we're I believe this next which we're starting here in about a month we're going to be getting around 51 52 miles of of overlay um with the geobond. So we're getting a lot of bang for the buck there.

Okay. And then question. So on on that geob we don't get it all up front. We we're getting it. Okay. So, is that why you got three years from now $11 million for streets? I mean, correct. Is that what that means? Correct. Yeah. And if you see what what is not there for the FY2526, right? There should roughly be that same amount of money listed there, but because it had already gone through, it didn't pop I guess it didn't populate in this um report. But we already have what number? What page do you have that one up right now? I'm I'm on page 11, I think. But what mine says Okay. So, I just want to answer a little bit about the funding.

So, when we issued this these, we issued them as taxexempt bonds. And when we do that, we have a three-year limit on how quickly we have to spend the funds. And so, when we were going through it, we chose to break it up just based on what we actually were expecting to be able to uh complete within that first three years. um otherwise it causes some significant tax issues on the back end if we weren't to spend it all. So we issued about 29 million um to cover the first three years of projects and then you know once they give us the go-ahhead and they say they're ready to start on the next round then we'll go out for another issuance um up to that $50 million that we were allowed.

Okay. So we're not getting it all at once. We're going to sp spread it out over look like what five years. Um I think it was five to six. Yeah about five years. So, okay, that that makes I mean I didn't know that. That makes better sense. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. The added benefit questions. I was just going to add real quick. The added benefit to that as well is

if we got it all up front and did $30 million worth of overlay in 15 to 20 years, all those roads are going to be deteriorating at the same time and we're going to need another 30, well, by that point $80 million to redo everything. So, it's best to space it out over time. Um to touch on another preventative maintenance item that we're asking for. If I can find it in here. Um can't remember what page it is. We have a uh water mane replacement program we're trying to start up um to get ahead of all these main brakes that we have all the time. The problem is we have about 775ish miles of main in the city. Um to replace uh seven miles, it's about $7 million. So if we do 1% um per year, it will take us about a hundred years to replace everything, which is okay because the life of of a lot of these mains can can can go that far. We have some mains around town that are that are pushing that already. But it just kind of give kind of shows you how expensive it is to to get a program like that. So if you see in here again I apologize I don't remember what page it was on here but uh we were putting I think next year this next fiscal I believe two or four two or three million and then after that we were doing 7 million. So trying to get it off the ground.

Chair. Yes commissioner. Um okay I'm gonna go to sidewalks now. We had several years ago we had some sidewalks on programs but they never did get done and I don't see them anymore. So I didn't know that. Did we drop them off? How's that happen? I know we had there was one supposed to be scheduled for Phelps Road off of between 35th and 39th. I mean you weren't here so I know. Yeah. I don't I'm not I'm not sure. I can't speak to that but I can speak to I can speak to the geobond portion though for sidewalks. So that seven main I see for improvements. Is that Yeah. So, so right now what we have is uh for page 141 if you actually have this um for sidewalk improvements related to geobond. So you see that 7 million2829.

Yes. So right now we have 2.9 2.98 because the total amount is around right around 10 million for from the geobond for sidewalks. So we've got uh 2.98 right now out and we're doing design build for that. Um, I believe the RFP is about to go out or just went out and we're live reviewing.

Okay, we've already got it back. Um, but we're doing Castle Park Elementary around there and Mil Creek Elementary. We've already worked with the school district and they've helped identify, you know, the schools that they want to focus on. Um, and so we're moving forward forward with that. Um that is now and then that'll probably be worked on in 26 27 and maybe the other one 27 28 and then when like Melissa said when we give the thumbs up to get that other 7 million then we're good to go. Are we looking at any major thorough affairs for sidewalk improvements like 35th 39th?

Not with this money. I mean possibly if it's on the route but this is this is really for schools to get safety. So yeah. So if there are some that you know that front close to a main thoroughfare then yeah potentially. Now are we just improving them or are we replacing them? Are we building new? Uh building both but mostly building new I believe. I mean unless it's in perfect shape then we're not we're not going to tear something up for no reason. But for the most part uh building new. Okay. And you know there's that a little area around Castle Park Elementary just to the south that we did I think two or three years ago with with uh some grant funds. So that there's some infrastructure already over there and that side of town.

Okay. Sounds like we got a tornado warning out there. Okay. So tornado warning going on. Okay. Then we will adjourn. Pause. There's tornado warning. This is a secure room. Yeah. It it shows it's up north. So it still shows it north of the river. All right. We are going to continue then. Okay. Any additional questions? Yes. All right. Commissioner,

I don't know if this is something that you know about um or more of a planning commission. It's about storm water. I've heard um that Mark has put out some recommendations for developments to hold try to hold more water on their own property

instead of shedding it. And I think that we're one of the communities that was in on some of the planning for that. And so, uh, supposed to hold like an inch, like 1.3 something inches of water on on developments and properties before, you know, hopefully it won't be released to where you guys have to deal with it. So my question is do you do you see that is that something we're actively requiring now? Is it something that we've required some of this other bigger developments like the data center and other

places like that to do? And how much will this benefit you guys as far as in dollars? Do you see it doing anything like that? So that goes through the normal planning process through uh community development. So Rick just put his hand up and he said he wants to speak on

I can I can help answer some of that question. So what you're talking about APWA had um a series of discussions about updating their what they call 5600 standards and specifications for storm water mitigation on development sites. And so yes, we were part of those discussions. um it was pretty fruitful discussions about some of the things that needed to be changed. We have not adopted those yet. So we are still using the 2011 uh 5600. And one of the reasons you know there's a lot of changes there that can have a big impact on the cost of developments and um some of the standards that could um be in conflict with some of the things that we're currently doing. And so to answer your question, yes, they've they've gone through I believe they have updated that on their website. Uh but we have not adopted that. I'm not sure of what cities have adopted that yet. Uh but yes, that does go through it. It kind of takes an entire um different look at how storm water mitigation should be addressed on new development sites.

And that wouldn't only just be commercial, it would also be new residential. It would be basically for everything. Yes. Not just commercial. Um it would be Now again, you know, the city could look at that and adopt certain portions of it. Um which again we haven't done that yet. Uh but assuming you were to adopt it in whole, yes, it would have an impact on single family residential, multif family residential, commercial redevelopments, commercial new developments. it would have a pretty significant impact on how we look at how those developments account for their storm water runoff.

Okay. So, as far as uh the infrastructure for storm water, are we okay with with what we have or I noticed there's a couple projects in there that are addressing some of the needs probably, but how how is that coming along? We uh say it like this. We're we're putting band-aids on a lot of of the issues around town. Um we have the storm sales tax uh which helps of course uh but not nearly enough um to to take care of all the issues that we've got around town. We have a lot of corrugated metal pipe that's deteriorating. Um we're we can't replace it fast enough. So something's got to give at some point. uh cost of business continues to go up. We're not getting as much done as we would like. Um not through any fault of staff um or or uh planning. It's just a finite amount of money. So, at some point, we we'd like to explore other opportunities, other possibilities to get more funding for storm water, for sure.

And if you had it, you'd be mostly replacing culverts and things like that or pardon me. If you did get more funding, what would you be using it for? Pipe. Yes. Culverts, inlets, piping really is a lot of our underground our our storm pipe is needs to be taken care of. Um, again, like we, you know, we're we're responding as quick as we can with the money that we have. So, uh, those guys are are, uh, magicians out there getting as much done as they can with, uh, limited resources. So, Okay. Thank you. All right, additional questions. All right, seeing none. Thank you.

Thank you. Hopefully, the good thing about these discussions is you see the complexity of the need versus the funding. Yes.

And it's not just a matter of how much it costs to get a project done. There's also a very specific, probably more complex than most people realize in terms of city budgeting and how we have to do that to make sure our funds are kept in, you know, separate for what divisions that they're supposed to represent. And so, good exercise to go through to see that it's on top of the the cost and the needs and the lack of funding and the funding sources, there's a complexity behind how it all gets accounted for. And um we also you know all these guys have to forecast that's six years out then try to put in a inflationary factor to try to get their numbers right and so this is why it's a very fluid document but I would probably say maybe parks next. Any questions for them?

Good evening. Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the commission. Morris Heidi, director of parks and recreation. Uh, I'll just uh make a few comments. We don't have near the projects that municipal services does on our list. Uh, currently we have 32 total for the entirety of the uh, period listed for the CIP. Nine of those are actually for next fiscal year FY27. So, I'll just briefly talk about those nine. Uh so we're we have on to replace a ride a tractor, excuse me, for rideaway mowing. Uh we also have several building repairs. Trim memorial building roof repair is on our list. There's also the repair for the Missouri model railroad museum. Uh replacing a large uh Toro mower that's has about a 13 and a half foot cut large commercial mower. Uh one of our bigger mowers for parks. Uh also playground revitalization. Many of our playgrounds, as you're aware, are are 15 20 year lifespan. Uh so they're in need of replacement. Uh also looking at replacing our recreation software have funding for that, as well as some asphalt work at George Owens Nature Park. Another roof repair at the Palmer Center, uh Palmer Senior Center, and then lastly, uh replacements at Municipal Commons for some HVAC rooftop units. So, I know that was fairly brief, but I think most of those are several se uh you know, reasonably explanatory as far as the description, but happy to answer any questions you may have.

All right. Any questions, chair? Yes, commissioner. Okay. I know this year you're not spending much, but next year you want to spend a bunch.

Well, that's actually we what we typically do is we uh roll things. If if you remember from last year, you would have seen the same thing. So the directive several years ago with from finance was to actually put everything on the list that's needed and this is not by any means everything on the list. We're just wrapping up a parks and recre parks and recreation master plan that'll be uh finalized here in April. And so that has a much more robust list but at when we put the CIP list in in December this was using our 2010 master plan. So really those out years those are things that need to be done but there is no identified funding for those. That's what you're saying. Okay. So, you're saying just I'm just going to read down the list. So, you're saying

the maintenance for the log the one million we don't have you don't even have funding if we want to do maintenance on it. Well, these are capital project maintenance. We budget maintenance. Well, but you guys got them down as maintenance. That's why I don't know what capital project you'd be doing. I mean 1.2. It's not like you're rebuilding the whole log cabin. This is the log courthouse. 1827 log courthouse. Yes. But I mean I mean we also got four million. I'm not. They say you got four four million for signs. I thought the city made their own signs. It's going to cost us four million to make signs. So, this was a uh a a citywide project wayfinding signage. If we recall,

oh, late 90s what we referred to them as the walking Truman signs. Kind of the blue and red had Truman on one side and you know, say Veil Mansion or the Square. Those were scattered around mostly around the square. those had deteriorated to the point of I want to say four years ago we had to remove those. So about two years ago we started a project to look at wayfinding signage for the entire city. So this is on I7 291 24 highway. So you're talking probably what 200 signs 3,000 signs.

Uh I don't have the number in front of me but this would be the total amount for that. Uh we did a study session, our consultant, excuse me, did a study session presentation about a month ago and city council is very interested in moving forward on that. Again, there's no identified funding. Uh but that is a need that uh is on our list. Okay. Um the sermon center, what's what we got to do there? What's is it a maintenance item or uh that would be uh new roof, new HVAC rooftop units, uh a host of issues there. That's a 125 year old building long past its usable life. If you see right below that, you see a community center complex for 93 million, right?

So, uh, as you recall, that was we tried to get that on the geo bond and that didn't make the final cut unfortunately. But yeah, so that is there in case we absolutely have to put some money into the sermon center. It is long past its usable life as a rec center. Okay. What uh I guess the we closed and or we did we sell the the water park or No, we still own that property. Okay. We just didn't have funds to keep it up. Uh we were losing about $55,000 a week. That was not sustainable. So, we did not open that last summer, right? Yep. Okay. Um the the trails, Front Trail Trails Museum.

Are we getting bonds for that? Are we getting something grants or what? Nothing. Those are all great questions. Don't have answers for those. uh the latest uh we had proposed doing a feasibility study for that project and that was put on hold by the city council. So we're waiting for direction on that. Okay. So basically just maintenance items what we're looking at for this year. Uh yeah, a lot of those are are replacement or maintenance items. Correct. Now are you actually going to spend 800,000 on playgrounds this year or is it just putting in a fund? I mean

that is a great question. Uh so we put the capital items in in December long before we know our actual costs for the budget for the operating budget. Uh in all actuality typically we don't have the funds available to spend fully this amount. So again these are placeholders. Hopefully we do. I think everybody's aware we have probably for the last 30 years been underfunded in parks and recreation. Our current master plan is stating just to be to the median for the National Recreation and Park Association for the Midwest area, we would need $4 million in our operating budget just today to be at the median level. Most of our comparator cities are spending, you know, several million dollars a year on capital. So,

do we I'm I'm guessing we have people go around inspect our playgrounds, make sure they're still safe. So, we do that twice a year, spring and fall. We have certified playground inspectors that do we have a checklist that we go through uh from the National Recreation and Park Association. Yep. Correct. Thank you. Mine might be a silly question, but July 1st is the new fiscal year. I was surprised not to see anything where we will spend money on our 250th birthday. Uh that would be more of a citywide initiative and so far we haven't um you know that may still be something submitted in the operating budget but that's yet to be heshed out wouldn't be capital that would be more operating. So

okay I didn't know if there was any capital funds to spend on something but just not that I'm aware of at this point but okay good question. Any additional questions for parks and wreck? Just moving in your chair, Commissioner Young. No question. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So, with that, I think that leaves IPL. Joe, IPL, step on up. So, the best for last.

There may be some folks that have have not met you, so make sure.

Good evening, commissioners. Uh I'm Joe Hegaduffer. So I'm the director of Independence Power and Light. Good to see you all this evening. Uh happy to present the capital uh projects that we have for scheduled for the next five years. I'm going to go and kind of hit some highlights and some of the really big numbers because we have pretty big projects and pretty big numbers and kind of talk about those real quick. Uh I kind of marked some on my sheet. uh if you want to talk about preventative maintenance and things that we do to keep reliability and keep the lights on, which is the most important thing that we do is reliability and affordability. So, I'm going to start. We have uh $6.5 million for the construction of new substation S. So, that's to help us facilitate uh powering out at the Eastgate Commerce Center. So, we're not talking data center. We're talking everything else that's going to be developed out there that'll take distribution power. Um, so that substation has been on the books for a few years. We purchased uh some new transformers that are going to come for that substation, but those take three plus years for delivery. So, while we're waiting for those, we'll start getting the site ready and and preparing that.

Uh, next big one. Sure. Question. Yeah, certainly. Go ahead. Uh, now are we getting a new You said substation, but what is that? A generator. Is that how many? That's just transmission. So that takes that takes uh 69,000 volts or 69 KV lines, transmits it down to our 138, which is what runs through backyards and runs to to actual businesses. Uh so that's to help uh bolster the the eastern side of our city and help power the little blue valley uh for future expansion. Okay. So there is not a generator being on the books here at this time or not for the not the for the substation S. No sir, I thought we were talking about putting in some new ones.

So that new generation is for the data center and that's a totally separate Well, I know last year you came back and said we're looking at maybe getting six or seven new generators or something for doing stuff. Is that not correct? So we're not we're not owning and and building any new generation. Okay. So we're not going to do any of that stuff no more. So, okay. Okay. Well, I mean, so I'm not building new generation. No, we're not. I mean, I mean, not not for the data center. I'm just saying for the public. I thought we need some more generation. So,

we do and I have other solutions other than us building generators right now to expand our capacity availability in order to help expansion within uh within independence outside of the data center conversation. Yeah, cuz I know you're buying other KCPL and stuff like that, right? And is that? No. No. So, I'm not buying any energy from KCPNL. Oh, okay. That generation is outside of capital improvement programs. It It is. So, those would be other agreements, purchase power agreements. Uh there may be a Dogwood expansion, but we don't know that yet. So, we're looking at that. Um but those are years out and years down the road.

Okay. So, right now we killed building generators. We're just going to redo what we have. That is correct. Okay. All right. Go ahead.

Okay. Um the next one, large one on my list is for $4.8 million and it's a 161 uh line terminal building uh at sub A, which is the Little Blue Valley Power Plant. So that is to help that new battery that's being installed north of our power plant attached to our grid. Those dollars are 100% reimburseable through our generator interconnect Q, but we have to we get reimbursed as payments through that. Uh but we have to put it on our capital books because we have to spend the dollars to uh make that happen.

How long of a a timeline is that usually to get reimbursed? So that battery is looking to come online in about 2028 and I would say about around that time frame is when our work is completed to hook up that battery and we should be fully reimbursed at that time. Okay, great. Thank you.

Uh next one is $4 million to replace 400 MVA 161 substation transformers. So this one I would call in the preventative maintenance type uh work that we have aging transformers at substations uh and we need to start methodically replacing our older ones so that again we can keep reliability and keep the lights on and not have a failure drive us to replace that. Uh some of those are 50 years old so we need to just start replacing those one at a time.

Do you have them in stock yet or they just on order? No, those will this this is to get those on order. And again, it's the three-year delivery time. So, I'll order them this year with the $4 million, get them in three years. Next, I have it for several years in a row. So, next year, we'll order some more, you know. So, we're just pushing out those jobs because they take a long time to get into stock. Gotcha.

Yep. Uh, next big project I have on the books is SubR Country Meadows, a new 13KV feeder. If you guys remember, we had a winter storm where Country Meadows was down for a pretty sustained period of time. Uh, this is to help reliability and feed a new feeder along the south side of that subdivision and actually on the south side of uh, I forget the other subdivision there. uh to help us be able to feed those neighborhoods from the southside and the north side so that if we have a future event uh we'd be able to keep the lights on for those neighborhoods. Uh so that's a big reliability project that I'm looking forward to getting completed. Uh next one I have is $4 million for a 161 line terminal at subm. Uh we've talked a lot about the battery installation going on north of the power plant. There's actually another battery installation uh that is going to hook up to the southwest power pool at subm. Uh so this is another one of those reburseable projects that we just talked about. Uh kind of the same time frame 2028 uh is when they're looking to be online. Uh some of these projects they go through the generator interconnect queue and they'll get to a certain point and with our uh hookup costs and the amount of money that we require uh and then the other transmission costs that Southwest Power Pool says they need to pay, you could see uh projects be canled and then we just wouldn't move forward with it at that point in time. But we're getting them on the books uh in case they want to move forward. Uh, next big project uh was already kind of mentioned, the AMI project, $8 million. That is not the price tag. That is a placeholder. We've just brought uh hired uh the program manager to help us kind of facilitate this whole project and will help us understand the dollars in the future and how much they're going

to spend and how much the payback is on that. So, we that's a placeholder for now. We know that there'll be a big equipment purchase at the front end of it. I know that was one project that had a lot of um conflict in the past. Yes. And I think the second time around it's it's definitely been better, but can you um just for the record explain maybe the benefit of the AMI project?

Yeah. So, I wasn't around for the last time, but I can tell you that this time, um, we're going to concentrate on the customer benefits because that's really where where they lie. Um, the the customer benefits are going to be things like if you if you got turned off and you call and make your bill your pay your bill after hours with the click of a button, we'd be able to reconnect you. If you wanted to question your bill, we could go back and look at actual usage on an hourby- hour basis uh and be able to see if something in your house is using a significant amount of electricity. uh there's a lot of u payer type u benefits but uh to your question madam chair really we want that program manager to help us uh define those benefits and then also discuss with the public what kind of programs they would like to see on the back end of this project and then we can build in and pick the right equipment to install so that we do benefit the customers to the greatest amount but uh to be able to see minute-by-minute usage page is is very uh a very good benefit for the customers as well as being able to see your bill turn on turnoffs. You know, one of the big things for IPL is safety and I'm trying to get people from traversing dangerous yards um and being out of the public as much as we can uh because it's one of the highest injury rates in in IPL just due to the nature of the job itself.

Thank you. So there will be much more meetings about AMI and communications uh coming out from that for sure. All right. I believe that Commissioner O'Neal. Yeah. Yes, sir.

Um obviously it's going to take a period of time to replace these meters in the field. What is your estimate as far as I understand that's a big number? Um this $8 million includes purchasing X number of these units. So, so again, this is a placeholder and I don't know the actual dollar amount yet. Uh, until that program manager gets on board and we actually pick the technology, then we'll have a more refined price of the actual equipment and what it'll take to install it. Uh, but the $8 million and the future costs was kind of based roughly on the last time we tried to do this project with some escalation and just our best guess right now. But until we get the pro program manager on board and redo the costbenefit analysis, which is kind of the first step, and understanding the cost and the cash flows for that, it's hard for me to say what's included in that $8 million and how many meters that'll actually buy.

So, do we do the actual installation of the units or are we going to subcontract that out? I would imagine we'll subcontract that out to a project manager. And who's going to pay for the units? Uh, IPL will pay for the units. Thank you. And water because this is a automatic metering infrastructure which is part electric, part water, right? We don't get the benefits of of the meter readers uh going and doing different jobs or getting out of yards if they still got to go yard to yard to read water meters. So, this is a combined municipal services IPL project. Thank you.

Yep. I bet you know this. I bet you know this. How many households? How many households? We have about 59,000. 59,000. All right. Meters. I'm just adding up in my brain. 59 59,000. 59,000. All right. Go ahead.

Okay. Uh we'll move down. Subh gas compressors. So those are really aged. Uh up there at SubH we have two combustion turbines. Uh they can run on either diesel or natural gas. In order to run on natural gas, we have natural gas compressure compressors to bring that gas pressure up enough to run those units. They're pretty aged. They're pretty old. They're getting harder to find parts for. Uh so we need to at least get a critical spare on hand. So if one of those were to go out, we could replace that and still run those units. Those units uh do a great job of of creating reliability within Independence and then also when they run and they're called on by SP, they're actually revenue generators for the city as well and help us offset our costs for the load. Um next one down is joint use audit. Uh it's $2 million. That one's uh an estimated from a contractor that will help us. uh joint use is where we have power poles that have Comcast, AT&T, and all kinds of other uh uses of it. And this will create kind of a dual uh dual purpose. For a long time, we've had a lot of utilities being put on these poles. May not have done the greatest job of tracking that in the past. And we need to kind of reset the benchmark, figure out who's where and who's on what poles. But also some of those things were installed um maybe incorrectly, maybe too close to our power lines, which is a safety hazard. If you send a Comcast, you know, cable guy up to work and he's too close into our power area, uh that could be really hazardous. So, they're going to audit not only what's on what poles, but make sure and identify any uh safety features as well. this could be have a payback if we have other utilities that are on our polls that we don't have a joint use agreement with the right number of poles with them. So just trying to reset the the

benchmark on there. Well, I got a question on that one. Yes, sir. Uh this is why would they call this a capital improvement project because there's no capital I guess I'm saying not an asset that I'm seeing. Or is it an asset? Well, it's it's all our polls are considered assets. Okay. So, it's just really So, basically, it should be a I didn't know when I saw audit, I didn't know it's for polls, and I never saw anything in here said for polls. That's why threw me on. What's this audit for? I question that. I had a question mark on that one. Yeah.

So, I mean, might if we might say joint use audit poll or poll audit or something might be better sense than because that that threw me there. What this audit's for? That makes me wonder. So the vendors that contract on these polls with us, is there revenue from them for IPL? There is. Yes. Okay. So it is an asset. Okay. Yes. Okay. I didn't know we creating.

Yeah. We have we have joint use agreements and leases where they actually pay us to utilize our poles. Uh nice Google and all the other people who attach other things to our poles. Uh 5G network, you know, repeaters and all kinds of things. uh they have to pay us for the use of our polls because they are Independence's assets. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Yep.

Uh those are kind of the big ticket uh items and I hate to say it like that when you have other things that are half a million dollars, but I would be happy to answer any questions. I would say that any of these projects where you see rebuild or improvements uh in the title uh inspections, you know, those are preventive maintenance items on some of our more critical assets. So, you know, we have several line rebuilds in the future uh 69 lines to to bring those uh up to up to new standards and and again keep the reliability of our system.

So, are we good with our turbines or Yeah, all of our turbines um have been running. So, I mean, I know you're going to bring them down for maintenance and things like I see that price in here. So, we're good on getting that done yearly. Yes, sir. We have uh actual a couple of uh projects for H6 combustion turbine inspection, H5 combustion turbine inspection. So, we do regular inspections on all of our combustion turbines and make sure that they're ready to go, especially for the summer run for the Southwest Power Pool when they're called on so that they can again those those revenues help offset our costs. Right. All right. Any additional questions for P&L?

Those inspections happens also on the older transformers that you said 50 and older up on environmental impact.

Yes. So um probably two two to three years ago uh I worked with the TND department and we instituted an oil sampling program. So those transformers are are now getting sampled on an annual to three-year basis depending upon the size of transformer and that tells you kind of the transformer health and can identify if you have some breakdown of insulation or any other things happening. And so, yes, we we are continually monitoring those, not only from their performance and the voltages in and out of them, but also we're doing oil samples and continually monitor them. Yeah. Question. All right, Commissioner, go ahead.

Um, I'm looking at the cost for an inspection at $2 million. Is Is that a reasonable price for inspecting a turbine? So typically we will put um some dollars in there. It's depending upon the type of inspection. If it's a boroscope or something, it's probably more like a half a million. We put extra dollars in there just in case there's some million dollars. That's still a lot of money for an inspection. I'm assuming that they have to tear them down and put them back together. Yes, they have to open them up. There's a lot of work to do an inspection. It's not it's it's a little more complicated than just shining a flashlight in there. that we bring in the OEM.

It cost me 100 bucks to have my car inspected. So, this is a really big car.

Yeah, it's uh there's a little more measurements than uh than than your car inspection, but I appreciate the question, but but there's dollars in there. Usually, there's some kind of findings that have to be taken care of from those inspections. So, this dollar just helps us make sure that we're going to cover that. I don't like dealing in hypotheticals, but I would be remiss if I didn't ask about the Blue Valley Power Station um and its relationship if the data center is a go in what four years. Um, will IPL have any projects that are currently not in here related to that?

Have any projects related to the data center that are not in here that are not a part of this plan currently? there. Um there is one capital project that'll be coming forward uh but it's coming this year and that's why it's not in the future plan to to build because I have to build a switchyard out there to serve the new data center. Um and that's the only project I can think of that's not taken care of either by the data center or by the independence power partners that is building the generation. So over the next six years starting in 2067, you don't anticipate any additional projects related to that?

No. Okay. I say things for the public. Understood. There you go. Thank you very much. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. So I stand corrected. We do have one more technology services. Um Jason Newark is here and he has a project not necessarily in this next fiscal year but can talk about some of the stuff that they are working on

and I missed your name.

I'm Jason Newkerk, technology services director. Um, yep. So, we, as Rick said, we don't have anything this particular year, but we've got three different projects planned for the next uh few years. Uh, first two are both security related. Uh, Checkpoint and Artic Wolf. Those are both a combination of hardware, software, and services um that basically give us an all-encompassing set of tools to keep the city's network safe. Um, and then our last one is server infrastructure replacement. So that'll be next year. It's $2.6 million. Uh, that's just to keep our current server infrastructure on a good age. Those usually last about six or seven years. We're on year six now, so next year it'll be year seven. So we'll be looking at replacing that. And that's really just the infrastructure that all the the city's software and systems and data resides on. I'm happy to answer any questions.

The security, how much was that? Six million. Is that related to the unfortunate incident that has happened at many cities, many hospitals and is this a fail safe?

Yeah, so both of these tools, so the first one, checkpoint, um it really focuses on endpoint protection. So, um, individual computers, network switches and server infrastructure. So, just basically having tools on there that prevent bad things from happening and if something's looking looks suspicious, letting us know. Um, and then the next one down, Arctic Wolf, that is um is a security operations center as a service. So that is a little bit of hardware that's on our network that allows for monitoring, but also is a 247 service that is provided to us where they're monitoring our infrastructure and then bringing alerts to the attention of the city's security team.

All right. Any questions for technology? It is the future. You're not going to spend $100,000 next year. No. Okay. Got that in writing, guys. but the next year. All right. Thanks. All right. Thank you. All right, Brick. So, with that, that takes us to the end here. Um I would ask if um you would have a vote to recommend this to the city manager's office. So, do we make a motion to the city manager? Yep.

Okay. So, any further discussion before someone makes a motion? All right. I will entertain a motion. Anyone? Madam Chair? Yes. Commissioner, I make a motion we we approve the U capital improvement plan and send it forward to the council. All right. Second. And we have a second. Any final discussion? All right. Commissioner Nesbet. No. Commissioner Ferguson, yes. Commissioner Ashbaw, yes. Commissioner O'Neal, yes.

Commissioner Torres, yes. Commissioner Young, yes. And Sher Wy, yes. And our recommendation to the city manager passes with a vote of six to one. And um once again, nice to meet you if we have it. And thank you so much for giving up so much of your time this evening. All right. Anything for the go to order? Rick, you want to remind everyone, take take the mantle and the last whatever with you tonight.

Take what you can grab. Yes, this will be our last one. So, we will be setting up in the um Santa Fe room, I believe, at uh our new Independence Commons. Do they have a place outside? Yes. Yeah, you'll be able to come in on some It's on the first floor. Um I'll probably send out a map or something before we do that just so you guys are familiar where to go. But yes, I just noticed this letter has my name misspelled. Does it really? Yeah, we will fix that. You want me to sign it or do you want me to wait to get another copy? We will fix it. I'll get you another copy.

That is all I have for tonight. All right. Um, so we will have access to yummy snacks. I hear what we for the first time there we'll probably we'll do something special. All right. All right. Thank you very much and I am adjourning our meeting tonight at 8 on the nose. Everyone drive safely and if you hear an alarm get out and jump in a ditch.