Director of Aviation - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. I would like to call the transportation infrastructure and operations committee to order. My name is Melissa Robinson. I'm the vice chair of the committee and will be presiding over the meeting today. Can my in person colleague introduce himself?

Eric Bunch, 4th District. And online.

Betsy Crunch, 2nd District At Large, and I am crawling through traffic on the 169 Bridge through a backup. So I'm going to get there as soon as I can. Made it to the downtown airport.

Be careful and be safe. This is the transportation area.

Like, two miles an hour.

So

Okay. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for joining us. And our

Kevin O'Neil, first district at large.

Chair of the committee. Alright. We'll go ahead and get started. There are no holds for today. So, madam clerk?

Who can introduce the staff? The

staff. I'm sorry. Our wonderful, awesome staff. Yes. Mister Martin, you wanna start?

Thank you. Go ahead, clerk.

Bertha Ross, the city clerk's office.

Jeff Martin, city manager's office.

Andrew Bonkowski, city attorney's office.

Melissa Cooper, aviation.

Ken Morgan, water services. Jaime Guillen, creo.

Cynthia Jackson, public works. Are we ready for the agenda? Okay. Madam clerk.

260086, authorizing the director of water services to execute a $9,994,000 construction contract with Kissick Construction Company for the water main replacement in the area of Brooklyn Avenue to Hardisty Avenue, East 9th Street to East 24th Street project authorizing a maximum expenditure of $10,993,400 and recognizing this ordinance as in having an accelerated effective date.

Alright. Good morning, vice chair Robinson. My name is David Poirier. I'm division manager with water distribution case and water services. Today, ordinance number twenty six zero zero eight six is, part of our water main replacement program.

It's a project for that water main replacement program. It replaces about, five miles of obsolete and break prone water main on the East Side in the 3rd District just east of the Jackson Curve. We bid this project and had, I believe, six responsive bids and awarded because of construction the case. I the And nine of of a slate of 12 projects we have, for this fiscal year twenty six. So we are in the process of wrapping up the, fiscal year twenty six construction slate of water main replacement projects.

This will put us up near 20 almost 22 miles to date, and we are on target to hit about 27 miles for this fiscal year. This is a map of the, location, indicating, you know, we have about 27,000 miles water main replacement and the location. And, you know, this is part of the, older parts of town. It's it's ripe for water main replacement. A lot of that infrastructure is well over a 100 years old.

We published eleven eleven goals, and the awarded contractor did submit eleven eleven WBE goals and WBE goals. And I believe there is somebody from Kissick Construction here. I'd be willing to take any questions you have on this particular project.

Any questions from the committee? What's the timeline for completion?

They generally run about a year, so, we'll start up construction here in the next month or so, and, typically, they're around three hundred sixty five days.

Okay. And

this This one actually is a little bit over the year just due to the nature of how how many littering your people. There is, I believe it's four hundred and twenty days.

And this comes with the standard out public outreach.

And Yeah. And I'm sorry. This slide. Oh, yes. That's the next slide. I apologize. We do so what we do is we we do the standard public outreach. We send out mailers through our, communications group to all the property owners, indicating when we're gonna hold a virtual public meeting. We, we do hold that meeting and answer any questions that the public might have. Typically, well, the contractor will, join that, and and it's a great opportunity for the public to talk to the contractor and ask any questions they may have.

Wonderful. Thank you. Any other questions from the committee? Is there any public testimony? No public testimony. Thank you. Is there a motion?

Yes. Madam vice chair moves that order number two six zero zero eight six be reported out of committee with recommendation in advance and do pass.

Second. Alright. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Is there any opposed? Right. Thank you. We will hear this on Thursday. Thank you.

260097 accepting and approving a $1,869,274 grant award from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources for financing through the Missouri State revolving fund for construction project to comply with the environmental project agency and MDNR safe drinking water act revised lead and copper rule requirements giving the director of water services the authority to accept the grant estimating the appropriating $1,869,274 in the water fund authorizing the director of water services execute a $1,699,340 construction contract with ace pipe cleaning for the drinking water services line inspection project authorizing a maximum expenditure of 1,869,274 authorizing two successive one year options to renew with further city council approval in recognizing this ordinance as having an accelerated effective date.

Good morning, madam vice chair Robinson and council members. Again, my name is David Poyer, division manager of the water distribution. And to my right, I have Blake Anderson, who's a division manager of our facilities, Casey Water. I'll just briefly introduce this project. It's this is in response to EPA's clean water requirements with regards to the lead and copper rule. This allows us to accept about $1,800,000 in state grant to continue that project that addresses the requirements under that rule. I'll like

to discuss further about that.

Thank you, David. Chair members of the committee, Blake Anderson, water services. Start with so far in our inventory inspections we have found no lead lines within Kansas City. Also, I want to thank Jeremy with mdnr. He's helped us basically get through this grant.

Initially we were actually denied a grant but then we were able to basically submit a split grant application that broke up the census tracts in the city into disadvantaged and non disadvantaged census tracts which is how we're able to get the $1,800,000 grant. First, I just to talk about general public notification on this program. So every single resident every year that has either an unknown or galvanized or a lead line we've obviously sent no lead lines was sent basically this form letter on the left to kind of notifies you what your service connection is of those types. And then some of the state requirements are that we basically to anyone that could potentially have a lead line talk about the warnings and dangers of lead. As part of the reach out from something a little something that's strong, we have a separate phone line with partners and associates to answer these questions as they come out.

To basically assist people, we also offer sampling of anyone's water that basically has questions about those. So in general, what we're doing is we're looking at basically the material types of the service line. So that is that's the line that goes from the water mains local water mains that David generally works on replacing and maintaining. And then over to the homeowner's house. At the curb stop which is typically where a meter is or where the shutoff is from the water main to that curb stop the city owns that.

And then from the curb stop to the home is the homeowner's responsibility. So we basically have almost 180,000 service lines within Kansas City, Missouri. We found zero lead lines in there. 153,000 of them we basically reclassified from the records. MDNR requires us to sample 10% of those to validate our record inspection. This contract will be doing the inspection of those. Also, 25,000 unknown lines need to be basically validated. So next slide. So one of the ways we can validate that is customers can reach out to us. We have online, basically a service line tool.

All you need to do is basically have a magnet and a car key. So you basically test your service line with a magnet. If it sticks, it's galvanized. If it is not if it's not magnetic, you can scratch it, and then you can basically see if it's basically copper, if it's orange, or if it's basically dull metal and not magnetic, then it would be a lead line. And so one of the reasons why we're pushing this, particularly through Parsons, is that next slide.

If someone basically uses the service line that service line tool, then we do not need to hydro excavate in their yard to basically validate what that material is. So we look at the curb box, and then we're required by regs to do a second validation step either inside the house where the line comes in or hydro excavation. We decided not to use excavators or any other more invasive methods that could damage things. It's basically just use a jet of water to go down where the service line is. We check what the material is, then we restore where people have yards.

Next slide. So the first two neighborhoods we're starting with are both Columbus Park and Lichen Neighborhoods. So these are within the disadvantaged census tracts where we can use the grant funding. That's part of one of the big reasons for those areas. Second reason is they have both have very strong neighborhood organizations.

They can help us basically develop best practices and get quick feedback from residents to make sure that we're in people's business and just how to have that be the smoothest way possible. And so in the case of Columbus Park, because there's not as many yards, we will be having to do some basically cutting some plugs in the street and putting those back in after we've replaced them. After we validate what the inventory is. CREO has approved a contract utilization plan of 15% and being 40% wb on this contract. With that, any questions?

Thank you so much for getting state funds because while we appreciate federal regulations to help keep everybody safe, when they come with these unfunded mandates, it makes it very hard to implement and make the changes and the shifts. And so we really appreciate your hard work and not walking away when the state said no the first time and also emphasizing the importance of data and making sure we are taking an equitable approach. My question is more around the public education campaign. As we were preparing for this piece of legislation, I shared with you some of what I have experienced with the outreach. And so will you all be doing a public education campaign, and how much of the $1,800,000 will be going towards letting people know that they can do this at home, if you will, somewhat in terms of understanding what type of pipes they have.

But I am more curious about how we're going to educate folks on this project.

I mean, what done so far is reach out to local media. We've done several stories with them on it. We've also done the flyer and letter process. In general, as we've kind of experimented with what gets the best hit rate, strangely enough, it really is just letters tend to be when we get the most hits on our online reporting tool. So the way we're intending to do that is when we go to a neighborhood, we'll put door flyers.

Then on the on those door flyers, we'll have the online reporting tool, and then we'll reach out to the neighbor organizations to find better ways to do that. The $1,800,000 is a construction contract to do the service line inspections. We have an existing contract that has all the communications portion of that that has already been approved by counsel. We're going to use that until we basically get to the point where we need to come to you guys for renewal.

SPEAKER Just one follow-up and then open it up for questions. Can you send us more information about your approach to community engagement Oftentimes, on especially in this vested or disadvantaged neighborhoods, you're getting letters from the water department. These are the same neighborhoods in which there is more individuals who have shutoffs and have economic challenges. And so when you receive mail, you oftentimes tend not to pay attention because you're not able to afford if it's a bill, etcetera. So just making sure that we have a multivaried approaches, that we're on channel two, that we're on social media, and that we're educating folks comprehensively about what we're up against.

We'll get you a one pager summarizing the efforts we've done so far, the results of those, and what our plan going forward is. Is that what you want?

Yes, please, sir. Any questions from the colleagues?

Yes, madam vice chair. Blake, thank you. I think this approach is innovative and great. I also think I like that you're focusing on some strong neighborhood groups first to help you kind of beta test this. My question is because I've met with your team regarding when we first were doing the inspections for the for the lead pipes. And just to clarify, is it unusual that there aren't that you didn't detect any lead in our pipes?

I would say we're lot luckier than, say, Chicago or Denver. We did go back we did when we did go back in our records, we did find about 100 lead lines that were identified around 1990, just after the lead ban that water services went through and proactively removed. So I just think that whatever developers we had here just lean they probably leaned heavier into galvanize in the early twentieth century and then basically switched over.

How likely do we think and I'm just asking for other municipalities. We might be lucky on our end. What do we think ballpark numbers percentage wise of residents do we think could have likely have lead lines?

I just don't have the data to make a guess on the number of lead lines. The thing I would say is because of the way our water treatment processes work, we tend to have fairly high pH water. It also we also since we use lime and have basically a system to keep that pH stable and high, any lead lines that we do find are probably going to be prescaled over. So it's unlikely that the lead would have diffused out into basically the drinking water. So I would say I'd be shocked if we don't find some lead lines. I really have no solid guess about what that number is. But I think because of the way our treatment processes work, I think even if we sample those lines, we probably wouldn't find any lead in there Or an actionable level. Two more questions.

Can I add to that additionally? One of the things across the country is when the regulations change for the removal of land as a service line. They didn't really cut it off. They just said that if you wanna improve your service line in this lead, you have to replace. So that's why you see the numbers begin to dwindle in terms of the presence of lead service lines across the country.

What didn't change, let's say, you inherited a home from a relative. You had the option of not changing your lead service lines. If you sold that home, then it was required that you change. And so you still have areas where that still is the case to where and that says Blake mentioned, that's the result of some of those unknowns because some of those properties just were were handed down and they were not registered from the standpoint of what before the requirement came came into being. And so, you asked the range.

The percentages vary to minimal two to three to five. And some of the older communities across the country going east, a lot of them, up until, nineties and mid two thousands could be 40%. But now those numbers are dwindling way down because of the requirement to replace lead if you build, if you renovate, if you sell, and all those things are what changed the regulations.

Thank you for that. My my final question is regarding multifamily.

Mhmm.

So in multifamily homes, apartment complexes, if I'm a tenant, one, how do I how how are you communicating to tenants who represent 50% of Kansas City residents? And then if they find that they have lead, what are the requirements? Coupled on to that, I know we have a great healthy homes program. Is this something that they could also be checking when they're already checking, responding to other things within a healthy homes complaint?

So I'd say we've had some discussion with neighborhoods about how to coordinate our common activities. I would want them involved in kind of telling you exactly what their plans and their intentions are on that area. When it comes to notification on multifamily homes and other areas, so the notification requirements are pretty onerous in this reg. So we email the address, we email the property owner, and then we also tell people within the complex to share that with everyone. So we while we have 150,000 service connections, I think we're closer to 200,000 letters go out.

So we notify pretty extensively. That notification does have that online direct sorry, does have that dedicated line. So if someone is thinking about a lead thinks they have a lead line, they reach out to us. That's happened several times. We followed up.

We've been lucky enough to find out that they have them in. Say it's a line that comes into the house that's really heavily painted with multiple layers and didn't quite scratch deep enough and just thought one of those paint layers was the pipe material, service line material. So, I mean, I'm sure that we have notified basically all of the multi family property owners we certified at the feds every year that we are notifying everyone with an unknown galvanized if we had a lead line, lead line, that we are notifying all of those people, including all the residents in multifamily homes.

I would just reiterate that Health Department.

Health, sorry.

Just sorry. I think they should be looped into this.

Right. Chairman O'Neil, you unmuted. Is there something you would like to add?

No. I just wanted to say how nice you look today.

Oh, thank you. Okey dokey. That is there any oh, one last thing I wanted to ask was how long do we feel like it takes will take for the implementation of this?

I think requirements are ten years to finish this inventory and basically replace all lead lines and potentially galvanize requiring replacement. We're negotiating with the state on exactly what galvanized requiring replacement is. Depending on the definition and some very precise language, that can be between a zero and a $500,000,000 hit to the city. So that is something yes. So that's 23,000 service lines we would potentially have to replace, or depending on the definition of upstream, that could potentially and the amount of recordkeeping associated with that, it could be zero.

Oh, your job is so fun, mister Anderson. Our I can I talk to

you next?

Pipe cleaning with us today. Alright. Hi. Thank you so much for being here. I this seems like it would be a great, like, Boy Scout, Girl Scout project going into homes, helping homeowners understand how to do this. I look forward to a robust report as it relates to how we're going to democratize this project and make sure that folks understand and are aware of what we're doing. Is there any with that public testimony?

No public testimony.

Alright. Is there a motion?

Yes. Madam vice chair, I move that order number 260097 be reported out of committee's recommendation in advance that you pass.

Second. All right. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, gentlemen. Next item.

260,087, estimating revenue in the amount of $145,000 to the grant from state of Missouri account and authorizing acceptance of the state aviation trust fund grant offer from the state of Missouri acting through the Missouri highways and transportation commission for the purpose of providing funds for air service promotion and marketing.

Justin, it's still Good I

think everyone looks really great today.

We do all look very Thank you.

Good morning, Vice Chair Robinson and committee members. My name is Justin Meyer. I'm a deputy with the Kansas City Aviation Department. And one of my roles is working with our airline tenants to grow air service. And while passenger levels were down slightly last year, we did have some success in terms of air service with several new route announcements. Allegiant started a completely new route to Gulf Shores last year. We've had Delta add a few new routes, including Austin starting just in time for World Cup in 2026. Southwest is starting Punta Cana in March. United just announced a new service to Los Angeles starting in April. And Southwest will reintroduce service to Boston next summer as well with daily service.

It is the expectation of our airline partners that the aviation department and all airport partners are engaged in the promotion of air service when new routes are added. This is essentially allows us to receive from the state of Missouri 145,000 to reimburse ourselves for an ad campaign that we just ran November through January, air service through digital, out of home, and other means. So this is essentially spending or the funds are coming from the state of Missouri's aviation trust fund, which is funded by jet fuel sales tax and aviation fuel sales tax. So we applied for and received $145,000 and this is a resolution that allows us to accept those funds.

Okay. And what's our total budget for this activity annually?

Annually, the aviation department budgets $500,000 for air service promotion.

This is very exciting, especially ahead of all of the World Cup and people understanding that they can go wonderful places from here once they get here. Any other questions from the committee? Is there any public testimony?

No public testimony.

Council member Butch, I think this may be appropriate for the consent agenda if everybody's okay with that, Seeing that it's not one of the normal millions of dollars that you are bringing in from state funds, but every penny counts. It

does. You.

Is there a motion?

Yes. Madam vice chair, move that order number two sixty-eighty seven be reported out of committee with the recommendation in advance and you pass. Be placed on the consent agenda. Second.

All right. It's been moved by and seconded. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Is there any opposed? The motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you for

your support.

Congratulations on the big announcement about the economic impact from our MCI Airport. Really appreciate you all. Keep up the great work.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. And the next one is a committee substitute.

Committee Sub 298 authorizing the director of aviation department to enter a $5,100,000 amendment number eight to a tenant reimbursement agreement with Treymel Crow Chicago development for the commerce center development at Kci Airport for a total contract of $34,300,082 and appropriating $5,100,000 from the unappropriate fund balance of Kansas City aviation fund.

Good morning, madam vice chair and members of the committee pete fullerton deputy director of properties and commercial development for the aviation department. This ordinance 20 six-ninety eight is an amendment to a tenant reimbursement agreement that was passed back in 2007. You may recall this is actually a follow-up to an ordinance that we had in front of you in early November of last year revising and updating our development agreement with the trammel crow company and then mentioned that we would be coming back to kick off the next phase of the development. So you've seen this particular screen before. It shows kind of the process.

At the end of the day, really there were four goals that the aviation department was looking at at the time. One was to facilitate viable development, stimulate investment in the area, diversify our aviation revenue stream and also then of course generate new revenue for the aviation department as well as the city. I should mention on that diversify the revenue stream that became apparent in 2020 during COVID when we had empty planes and empty parking lots but the revenue from this particular activity was coming in because it' independent so that' a good thing like your portfolio of your investments. So this is what happened over the last twelve to thirteen years. Eight buildings 3,000,000 square feet now and 10 tenants.

Employment is currently over 1,000 employees. We' actually leased through these eight properties at over 200 acres which in a comparison from 1972 to 2012 the aviation department did a total of 65 acres. This was a pretty significant move on our part. I should mention that the terms of the ground leases are sixty years so these are very long term investments, real estate investments. This leveraged up to this point over $150,000,000 in building investment for those eight buildings by tramall crow and that doesn' include the equipment that' in some of these buildings that are quite significant as well.

Diving in a little bit into the actual reimbursement agreement that first reimbursement was for $15,100,000 that was very big of a chunk because you were taking rolling Platt County ground and making it flat. And then subsequent to that as we would hit other phases we added another $14,000,000 in this tenant reimbursement. Today we're sitting at $29,200,000 So what does that investment pay for? What's our reimbursement? We pay for grading roads, engineering services, streetlights, utilities, sidewalks, public infrastructure for that.

Over time we' grown our rents in that to last year being over $1,400,000 in revenue. To date from 2012 to current we' a little over $9,000,000 that we' gathered. I would say there' also other benefits of course and almost $1,000,000 in what economic activity taxes be it earnings tax or utility sales tax are also being currently worked and come through. I worked with our finance department to give me a couple of other numbers and they reported back that in this last year, we were at 5.1% in positive ROI. And over the sixty years, is hard to say, it's a long time.

And look at me. That's what sixty years looks like.

We hear every moment.

Yeah. And so we'll get triple our revenue in revenue than what we have expended there. So let me move on to what we get, the good news of that. So trample is committed to going with two buildings that this investment will leverage. Logistics Center 9, which would be on like 37 acres, half a million square foot, as well as Logistics Center 10, which is a single loaded facility, 238,000 square feet.

So another 750,000 square feet. They' committed to investments in excess of $68,000,000 for that. Selfishly from our anticipated rents of the new buildings we' got about $250,000 a year just in ground rents. In addition, we expect about two fifty jobs

to

be created by these two buildings. Our partner in this long development Josh Udelhoefen with tramble is here today to answer some questions about some of their activities. I'll stop and overtalk most of that.

Great job. Questions from the committee?

Thank you. I think as as the the event yesterday illustrated, you know, the economic impact of our of our airport is is much broader than just people on planes. Right? I think it's because of of the diverse there's diversification of of your revenue stream, and it's just nice to see logistics hub being used for its proper

use. Are

there already tenants teed up for these spaces?

Josh, you want to get that? I know you're the one talking to me.

Okay.

Josh Eudlehoff from the Cherry Mill Coral Company. We are actively pursuing tenants at the moment, but we don't have any leases in place today.

Thank you for your partnership in this.

One thing that has been fun being a participant observer of this from the very beginning is of the eight buildings seven of them were fully leased by the time they got their certificate of occupancy. There' only been one that had that and they filled that within the first six months of actually being facility. Definitely they've served a good market niche for us.

We know you won't have any problems. Your track record speaks for itself.

Thank you. We're excited for the next phase.

SPEAKER Wonderful. Thank you. Is there any public testimony?

There's no public testimony.

Is there a motion for committee substitute?

Yes, Madam Chair. I move that committee substitute for ordinance number 260,098 be reported out of committee with recommendation in advance to pass.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Is there any opposed? All right. Thank you. We'll see this on Thursday. Thank

you.

All right. Madam clerk.

260,129 estimating revenue in the amount of 1,500,000 in a capital improvements grant fund appropriating that amount to the Cliff Drive bike pedestrian facilities to River Market connect connector project designating requisitioning author authority recognizing the acquired local grant match and recognizing this ordinance is having an effective accelerated

date. Alright. Wonderful.

Good morning, madam chair and members of the committee. My name is Nicholas Postonedo, city engineer. And today with me, I have Aviv Nouri,

very

we we pleased One of the it was called the progress riverfront connectivity study. It included Berkeley Riverfront and Columbus Park. And one of the projects that came out of that was the trail connecting Cliff Drive to industrial traffic, where you see it there highlighted in red a little bit. So this project here, we have received $1,500,000 in federal funds through mark. We received a tap grant and c mac grant and on top of that district four put in some funds.

So we have about $1,875,000 to proceed with the sign and construction of this project. So this ordinance here just appropriates those grant funding. If you want to add anything, Levine?

You covered it well. Thank you.

Do you have any questions?

I have questions from the committee. DSR, councilman Duncan.

Yes, madam vice

chair. So this

is actually, you're gonna actually be able to take the clip drive trail and connect it to that's awesome. Do we have any this is too early for any type of renderings or anything, what that would look like.

Design just to start after this is all confirmed, and it's in review with MDNR to contract Burns and Mack to do the design work.

We did discuss in preparation for this item the construction phase and that coming back to council so that we could look at the renderings to know if these are gonna be protected or what it's gonna look like, all of the things. I'm assuming that there will be some public engagement throughout the process and the design process as you all do a really good increasingly good job of that. So, hopefully, we'll get to see those before alcoes is installed. Absolutely. Alright.

I do have a quick question. Remind me when design will be complete.

So the schedule is to start it was supposed to start sooner, last month or so. Just a little bit stuck with MDNR and I'm sorry, MoDOT. Why

am I

saying it's my previous slide? So MoDOT is in review. Then I want to say at least four months going into summer to conclude design or at least have preliminary design production at that time. So and going into fall, we'll be be put in the project out for bidding. We do have public engagement tasks on the design team, too.

All

right. If there's no further questions from the committee, we'll check for public testimony.

No public testimony.

All right. Is there a motion?

Madam Vice Chair, move that warrants number 26000129 be reported out of committee in advance and you pass.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Is there any opposed? The motion carries. Thank you so much.

Thank Very

excited about the project.

Last item. Twenty six thousand thirteen, reducing the appropriation in the amount of 500,000 in the capital improvement fund for the I-thirty 5 Shelto Drive Levee Trail project estimating revenue in the amount of $3,121,892 in the capital improvement grant fund appropriating the amount from the unappropriated balance of the capital improvements grant fund to The U. S. One Hundred Sixty Nine in Madison to Metro North Mile Drive Trail overpass project recognizing the required local grant match and recognizing this ordinance as having an accelerated effective date.

Good morning, madam chair and members of the committee. My name is Nicholas Bosonetto, city engineer. Today I have mister Todd Lantarella, assistant city engineer, and Randy Alwine, district engineer. This this, ordinance here today, is regarding the pedestrian bridge over 169 up there in the Northland. This bridge will connect the two sides. On one side, you have the old Metro North Mall, which is being redeveloped, little golf tee shots, I think it's called, that's right there. And then on the West side, you have some development coming along. Twin Creeks development has just been approved for residential office buildings. So there's a lot of development. We're very excited about this project.

This ordinance here today just kind of make sure that all the grant funds are appropriated and put in the right place. We are so one of the things about the TIP, the transportation improvement program at MARC, is it is fiscally constrained by year. So sometimes, if we don't use the funds, we lose the funds. Not only do we lose the funds, but the region can lose the funds. So we do our best to to, you know, try to keep those funds in place.

One thing we did that we did here was $500,000 which was in the show to trail project. We're about to future. Strong And foundation TAP funds. And we then, of course, we have have city match funds for of the about 2 millions. So we have $5,000,000 over $5,000,000 in total for the 169 Bridge.

Now with the show to leverage trail, again, we are working with the universal TIF to get 1,500,000.0, and then we have $453,000 in there for a total of almost $2,000,000 for the Show to trail. So both projects are moving along. All this does is make sure the grant money is appropriated and put in the right place. Like I said, Mr. Randy Alwine is able to answer any questions about the Show To Trail Levy Trail, and Mr. Todd Lathorella can answer any questions about the Bike Pet Bridge.

Any questions? Sir.

Two. What's the I know we checked in on this about three months ago on the show to. What's the timeline for the Show To Levee Trail?

The corps of engineer has requested that we submit for a section four zero eight permit, which was a little bit of a surprise to us, but we'll go ahead and get that done. Probably knock that out in four to five months. Once we get the four zero eight permit, then we'll be able to move forward with construction of the trail starting mid calendar year twenty six.

When you say that's a surprise, what's any indication as to what?

No. We were working with Morton Water Services, who's our levy district engineer. He thought we would probably be able to get by without submitting a formal permit. That didn't occur. It took a little time to get an answer because of the shutdown late last year with the federal government, but we'll go ahead and get the permit knocked out and move into construction after that.

Okay. We'll check back in soon then. And then the other question was, the 169 Ped Bridge, there will just be now a small gap from the 152 Trail to the Shoal Creek Trail, I think it is. Is there a plan for closing that gap?

I I don't know if we have a project plan for that section. You're talking to the east of

the Yeah. East of

Metro North Yeah. Right now, it kinda just dumps you out into the the mall area there. But I'm not aware that we actually have a project on the books right now for that section of trail.

So it would be a big, good gap to Yes. Fill

I was saying, we've been talking about it, you know, in the Northland with the council, but no project or anything or any funds allocated or signed or anything for that yet. But it's definitely needed, and so is this pedestrian crossing too. So I'm really excited about that and just really excited about the use of funding to be able to move this forward. It's something that's really well needed and development there and the development of Metronome Crossing and just the amount of activity and people that are up there that are using the trail and just the way this is going to make this a lot safer as well.

And we do work with the developments, like we said, with Twin Creeks, they actually gave us an easement. We worked with the developers to the North to get an easement. And then the connection through that Metro North, as it gets redeveloped, we could work with the developers to continue that. So we'll keep an eye out as always.

And then we'll make one. Since you brought up development, I'll bring up one more comment and suggestion. As we've talked a lot about the traffic impact fee districts, there is also we've done a nexus study for trail impact fees. I'm not suggesting that we need to implement that immediately, but I think it is worth looking at. The planning department, I think, did that project maybe ten years ago at this point.

But that's something that I think a lot of cities are successfully building out their trail networks partially because they have a robust trail impact fee program or parks impact fee program that helps build trails. Anyway, just a suggestion. I don't know where that impact or that NEXUS study went. So it would be something that I think would be worth looking at as we investigate the traffic impact fees going forward.

Again, thank you for all your hard work in attracting dollars to the city. All the bullet points indicate that many hands make work light, so the more bullet points and investment that folks are willing to support the project, the better. We really appreciate that. Okay. If there's no other comments from the committee, we'll ask for any public testimony.

There's no public testimony.

Okay. And a motion.

Yes, madam vice chair. I move that order number two six zero one three three be reported out of committee with recommendation of advance and

pass. Second.

It's Moved and seconded. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Alright. This motion carries. Thank you. And we do have one item for additional business today. Will the clerk please read that item?

EAT will present an update on their return to fares initiative.

Good morning, counsel. Good morning, staff. I am Tyler Means, Chief Mobility Strategy Officer at KCATA. I'm with A. J. Ferris, who is our Director of Planning and Scheduling. He has been the PM, the project manager, on this project as we've been overseeing it and preparing for launch. I'm going to hand it over to him for him to walk you through our presentation and update of the fair collection process thus far.

Good morning, Vice Chair Robinson, Council members and staff. My name is A. J. Ferris, Director of Planning and Scheduling at the KCATA. We're here to give you an update. Essentially, this project is being broken down into two phases. The first phase is primarily focused on implementing a fare collection system that is ready to go by June 1 in the World Cup. That first phase will include open payment implementation. This is essentially the ability to tap to pay through your virtual wallet or your physical card. The mobile link app, which allows riders to store value on that app and tap it against the validators and the ability to load value from that card onto the account.

Continuing with phase one rollout, we want to make sure that people understand that there will be reduced fare capabilities in place and that qualified individuals will be able to take advantage of these reduced fare programs through the mobile link app or preprogrammed limited use tickets that we are in the process of acquiring now. Those preprogrammed limited use tickets will be able to be purchased from an administrative point of sale system that is staffed and housed on KCATA property. And those limited use preprogrammed tickets are really there to make sure that we're bridging that equity gap to allow for cash riders and non smartphone riders to make use of the fare system. The other items, these are basically just ensuring that in the contract with our selected vendor that we're making sure that installation and integration of all technology required for phase one is done prior to the rollout. The training on the technology is done prior to the rollout.

The back end portal that allows us to collect data and do fare reciprocity with our other regional partners is set up. We'll have technology on the buses that allow for our operators to make use of operator control units or driver display units. And then paratransit integration is starting with our partners as well. Phase two rollout, the data is TBD on this because we are really focused on that initial rollout in phase one, but in the contract with our selected vendor. The other things that we will be receiving before the project is fully closed out is the complete setup of the Genfare link, that's back in administrative portal.

A complete rollout of a retail network. This is essentially a way for people to go into stores like a Walmart or a CVS or a seven eleven or any of these other stores and load or digitize cash and load value onto a reloadable smart card, which is the next item here. Again, this is for cash riders or riders that do not have access to a smartphone to be able to buy a reloadable smart card that's from an point of sale system, a retail point of sale system, or the retail network can digitize cash and load value onto that smart card. And then of course complete testing and set system acceptance. So, our next steps are we're coming before you to give you this update.

We've already begun the procurement of those limited use programmed tickets, so we can have those before the rollout in June 1. We have Genfair, which is our selected vendor on-site actually today, looking at all of the vehicles, making sure they know what they need to know to install these, as well as visiting our regional partners in Johnson County and Unified to basically inspect our fleet. We're continuing coordination for past programs with employers, students, social services, etcetera, for that phase two rollout. And then of course, we're reengaging KCMo health department in regards to the KCMo fountain card. So I'll pause there for questions and then we can kind of get into the right KC fair policy.

Councilman Duncan.

Thank you, madam vice chair. One, AJ, thank you for the presentation. Can we get a copy of this?

Yeah. Absolutely.

Thank you. Three main questions. How are we determining who qualifies for free fare? Who's going to manage that qualification process? What will that process look like, and what is going to be the

cost

of installing these programs? One, the cost for installing it and to get it operational on your buses. And then two, the cost for the other infrastructure to load up cards.

Sure. I'll start with kind of the first part of that question, then I might let Tyler answer the question about the costs that are in the contract. Starting off from the beginning, we understand that we want to start getting this going as fast as possible. So we're looking for all these different systems that are already set up and eligibility is already verified for us to take use of. So examples of those could be people that already qualify for SNAP benefits, individuals that are already over the age of 65.

We'll get into that a little bit more in this next half of the presentation on those categories and potential programs. But essentially, it's something that KCATA staff will be managing, but really leaning on programs that already exist, that already verify eligibility for these programs because it is a very staff heavy and time consuming process. And I'll let Tyler kind of answer those cost questions as well.

Okay. Tyler, before you start

with the cost.

Sure. Yeah. To your point, A. J, there are we do have other folks, you know, in the city who kinda meet have beans tested some of these other things, such as I know United Way being one. Are we how are we how how when I say we, how are you coordinating with our other our other local partners on that?

Yeah. So we actually have staff at the KCATA who's begun reaching out to all of those different people. People that we've used in the past when we did have a fare system, so our universities, our employers, people that made use of our opportunity pass that we had back in 2019, and getting those conversations started. They've already begun, but until we had a fair vendor selected and really knew what technology we could make use of, those conversations kind of had to be put on hold. But now they're restarting back up again because we know the technology that we can make use of. Thank you.

Yeah. Costs is kind of the other question you had, right? Okay. So costs, we have about 7,800,000.0 over ten years. It's what the estimated cost for this is. That's the hardware, it's the oversight, it's the back end office, the mobile app, all that's inclusive. Any additional costs that you may see on this will come from the fare collection itself in the ranges of 3% to 5%, and that is that retail network that is an opportunity for us to get past this program to mom and pop shops, CVSs, Walgreens, etcetera, to increase the accessibility of getting the reloadable cards and putting cash into the system. It's through a program called InCom or direct Vanilla Direct. They're kind of co owned by each other now. They're going through a merger. But ideally, they would take 3% to 55%, one for their profit share and then also to pay the various entities that are willing to participate in the program.

Do we predict that there will be any federal assistance for that infrastructure cost?

Oh, yes, absolutely. So we've actually had capital funds set aside to do this. They are sixtyforty funds, as opposed to eightytwenty. So the feds will cover 60 of the costs of this initial offset in capital installment, which is probably a little over $2,000,000 and then 40% will come from the fares collected to pay down the remaining.

Councilman Woman French.

Yes. Thank you for this information so far. Excuse me. You went through this information pretty fast, and so what I didn't see in here is what is your plan for an educational campaign, engagement campaign around this?

Part three.

Is that cutting my That's part.

Yeah. That's coming. Yep. So the bus fare communication is part of this presentation. If you'd like, I can get into that right now to answer your questions. Please. Thanks.

Yes. It just it This is gonna be extremely important and just knowing how this is coming and how this is rolling out and making sure that people are very well educated. Yes. The timing around when we're launching this is a little concerning to me just around the World Cup as well, and we're encouraging people to use our transportation system, our bus system even more robustly around that time

Yeah.

And for them to be really set up and and ready to go and and understand.

And council member Fritz, do you mind if they go back to the policy part and go, like just so just so we don't

Just don't order. Yeah.

That's

Is that okay? Alright. Go ahead and finish your presentation and then we'll yes.

And we'll we'll get through these first couple slides also pretty quickly. This is basically just our fair policy that was adopted by our board. The fair policy is simply a governing document that sets out goals to make sure that all regional transportation providers are making sure that our operations are seamless for individuals and that there is no difficulty in coordination. So this policy encompasses the four providers that you see here, KCATA, Johnson County, Unified Government, and Streetcar. These regional fare principles are the similar ones that we had back in 2014 when we reupdated this policy, except we have added the promotion of regional access again to make sure that there is seamless integration.

Transit service types are broken out here between our local service, max services, express services, on demand or flexible, streetcar, and ADA complimentary paratransit. We're federally required to break these out into different services. So, if down the line we decide we want to charge a different fare for a different level of service, we have that ability to do so. As of right now, we don't have it indicated that there will be different fares for different services as of now. Rider categories and fare levels.

This is also something we're federally required to be broken down. Specifically, there are three categories that we have to have listed in order to define applicable fare levels for those categories. Those three categories are disabled, Medicare cardholders, and low income populations that have to be categorized to take to make use of different fare levels. Those fare levels are identified as full fare, reduced fare, and potentially free fare, depending on the programs and partnerships that we can make. Again, we want to make it known that reduced fare or free fare riders may be required to enroll in program to access those reduced and free fares and potentially go through an eligibility process.

The fair products, we want to make it known that in the past we did have free transfers. We're now going to be moving towards what is the industry standard and best practice across the nation with using fair capping. This is essentially the ability that if a person purchases a daily pass, once they have made that second ride, they're no longer paying any more for that. They have hit their fare cap, and so they're just riding. This basically allows people that when they get their paycheck, if it's somewhere in the middle of the month, and they potentially didn't have enough to buy that full monthly pass, they can basically work up to it as they get to it.

So there's not an eligibility or equity concern there. Pass programs. We wanted to make sure you understood and knew that we were coordinating. That we are coordinating with institutions to be able to purchase and subsidize fares on behalf of riders using the system. These will be agreements between the transit providers and the institutions, and that we all agree that these pass programs are supported by all the transit providers. Fare technology and media. We'll be having mobile ticketing, open payments, and smart cards. We got through this and covered this in that first part of the presentation. The proposed fare levels. I know this is an important one for you all to see.

In 2019, our single ride full fare was 1.5 It has been approved by our board and an agreement with the city ordinance that was passed here in Kansas City, Missouri that this will be a $2 full fare for a single ride and $1 for the reduced fare. And then we also have the daily passes, weekly passes, and monthly passes outlined here as well. So for the bus fare communication, we agree that this is this is a very expedited timeline. This is a priority to make sure that we're educating people as well as we can. Our marketing and communication staff at the KCATA have already begun identifying and developing a communication strategy.

Our goals are really we want to acknowledge that the change may be difficult. We want to prepare riders for payment and method and fare amounts because this will be new and different. We want to provide clear bus fare frequently asked question resources and rider guidelines. And we want to make sure that we're providing riders with additional resources through all of our different means of communication. So, these are listed the different communication channels that are specific to the KCATA.

We obviously want to make sure that we're partnering with our local jurisdictions, Kansas City, Missouri, Johnson County, Wyandotte County, and taking use of all the different avenues for communication that we have. But currently, the Ride Casey website page, the social media post toolkit that is being created, local radio ads, interviews which have already begun, email SMS sign up platforms for us to be able to give live updates to people, and the Transit app mobile integration. The Transit app is an app that a lot of riders have, essentially similar to Google Maps, that allows them to plan their trips. And we're allowed to do push notifications, banners that let people know that service changes are coming, as well as this change in our fare collection. On-site communication, we'll be having updated bus signage inside of all of our buses.

That includes both visual announcements, basically scrolling banners on the buses, as well as audio announcements that will play. And so anybody that is riding our buses will be able to either see or hear that these changes are coming and be directed to more information. We'll be holding rider information sessions at East Village as well as our other transit centers in our system. We'll be having printed bus fare materials and educational signage at all of our transit centers. And as I stated, automated scripted bus announcements.

We basically have a four to six week, a three to four week, and a one to two week plan that we're gonna be attacking. So we're basically gonna be starting in this four to six weeks four to six week period with formal press conferences, basically just making sure that it's out there and all the media have captured it. We're gonna be updating websites. We're gonna be doing countdown announcements. We're gonna be doing additional social media updates that will ramp up as we get closer and closer.

TV interviews, radio announcements, and then those on-site public engagement events will start at that four to six week timeline. When we get to the two to three week timeline, we'll be talking about posters and signage installed at all stops that have shelters, kiosks, marquee markers, as well as installing non rip rider alerts at key stop locations that may not have a shelter or amenity. We'll be having additional KCATA leadership and potential community partners doing more radio and TV interviews. We'll be providing community partners with a media tool kit that they can use to easily ingest into their social media to make sure that we're getting that out as much as possible. And we'll be holding at least one virtual town hall opportunity, but most likely more town hall opportunities that are both in person and online.

So then we get to one week before that June 1 deadline. We'll be continuing with the scripted bus PSA announcements. We'll be doing additional TV interviews and town halls. We'll be formally providing media press releases with updated fare information and printed bulletins and physical copies that are placed inside all of our buses that people will see when they're on the bus and they can take the bulletin and go along their way. Then we have the launch weekend.

Post launch, we're looking internally about what we can do with a grace period. That's still not assigned yet and understood yet. There's some technological things that we need to understand there and understand how that impacts fare recovery, especially during the World Cup. We'll be having extra staff to support key locations our team. Working with also

And

team working

the our

to support We'll be monitoring feedback and complaints and reporting that to our board and community partners. We'll be adjusting messaging if needed, and we'll be sharing early results and improvements with our community partners and stakeholders. I know that was a lot. Hopefully I answered some of your questions, but I can stand to answer any more.

Yes. No, thank you for that. That was a lot more robust rollout than I anticipated. So I really appreciate all the detailed education and rollout that that's gonna happen within, you know, the four to six weeks, two to four weeks. What I didn't see, though, that's a lot of getting information to the people, which is great, like getting information out there.

What are we gonna do to be able to help and educate those that will need to apply for reduced fare for for no fare, for free fare, those that might not have access to a lot of the social media and a lot of the, you know, radio transit apps and, you know, all the big flashy the rollouts. They may see, you know, some sign at some bus stops or on the bus themselves, but they they might feel a little overwhelmed or maybe a little agitated about adding a fare and then just not knowing how to go about or knowing that there is a possibility of a reduced or free fare?

Fantastic question. We're going to be making sure that our transit ambassadors are fully available to answer those questions to direct people. All of those frequently asked questions documents, that's where people will basically be directed on how to apply or verify eligibility for any certain program that could make them eligible for reduced fare. But we understand that if they're on a bus, might be trying to get somewhere overwhelmed. We want to make sure that when they're on the bus, what they're hearing is this is how you access the information, not everything because

Right.

So we really wanna make sure that those scripted announcements and those visual announcements are saying things like the frequently asked questions are on our website, they're at our call center, our transit ambassadors have them.

The other part that's not included in here, this is very external focused in engaging customers, riders, etcetera. There'll be an engagement process around our operators as well in educating them, and that's where a lot of that conversation is going to happen. So it's really important that they understand how the programs work so that they can tell folks where they can go to find more information or to grab a registration sheet off the back of the seat there so that we can make sure that they have the right information as well.

Okay, great. That was my next question. So thanks for asking that. And then are we planning on doing any sort of kind of a gathering affair or anything where people can come and they can, I guess, learn about the cards or the passes or how to load and then just kind of like tutorial or just companies that can come and the pass program? And so schools, companies, things can kind of learn more and kind of opt in and buy into that.

Yeah. Absolutely. What we want to get back to, especially as we're rolling these fares out, is getting back to how to ride events, which are very similar to what you just described. Once we actually get the the hardware, the validators installed on the vehicles, we'll be setting up what's called a testing lab, which is essentially the ability for us to have essentially a fake credit card, a reloadable smart card, show an app, show people how they can use all these different tools and how they do it. And so in the past, we've gone to back to school fairs, we've gone to open school nights. We've gone to employment fairs. Any opportunity we have to engage and go out and meet the people and bring a bus that has this validator on it to the people, that's what we wanna that's what we wanna be able to do.

That's great. Let go to the people approach.

Chairman O'Neill? Yeah.

I just had a my my own yeah. I just had a quick question kind of in relationship to the same topic. If I guess my concern is there there could be some serious escalations, you know, at the door of the buses. Is there escalation training for I don't wanna see, you know, fights and stuff like that coming out over this. Is there definitive escalation training for the drivers as we go forward? And is there a is there a point where it's like, just let them on the bus if they can get them, you know, settled down and, you know, one or two times, you know, before So they they understand.

Well, councilman O'Neil, you hit the nail on the head. You you're looking for if you're looking for a job post council, feel free to come over to the ATA because that's that's that's pretty much how you do it. You you you described it to a tee. AJ does the op talks. He can tell you a little bit about some of the de escalation training we go through with our operators.

Yeah. So, you used escalation. So, there's two things. It's focusing on de escalation and making sure that in continued training and in their initial training when they're onboard, they go through de escalation training to help people calm down, make sure that there is no issue. As far as escalation goes, once they have identified that there is a potential safety concern,

that

is where they would escalate it to road supervisors or potentially if there's a violent a threat of violence Security cops. Yeah. And then we have our Titan Security that also coordinate with KCPD as well and other regional police departments in the area. Our operators are incredible at understanding this. They do understand that if there is a, altercation that they can see happening, to just let the person on the bus and then radio into a supervisor or Titan Security to come and help de escalate it.

The other thing that's beginning is, again, our transit ambassadors, which are also trained in deescalation and can provide help in deescalating that and then provide, information on potential social services, for these people to take advantage of.

And how many ambassadors do you have?

It's 60 currently. I think at any given time, the most we would have is 45 out there, though, based on Okay.

My hope is that we're treating our regular bus riders as VIP right now in terms of they should be getting advanced information. They should be getting a soft launch so that they don't have to wait till June 1 to start converting over to some of these so that we're making sure that, you know, a lot of our education and outreach is for people who are entering the system, but those who depend upon the bus every day already to get to work, to get school, to get to their doctor's appointments. We should start to begin that education process with them. Curious about if there's any impediments to starting to educate them now and starting to make sure that, again, there are VIP treatments. Then further, it was very interesting to learn about the District Of Columbia where they have functionally free fare because they socialize paying for and investing in your transit.

So they don't have any car people get on, they pay, but a lot of people don't pay. But it's because people know that if they don't invest in their transit that their bus line might be cut. And so in visiting and doing benchmarking in D. C, it was really about the socialization and making sure those folks who depend on the system really understand how the system works and so that you don't have a lot of the, you know, challenges at the Fairbox because people know how it works. So but my inquiry is more around can we start to educate those who are frequently riding the bus now?

Yeah. I think the biggest impediment we had was the fact that we were trying to get this policy passed because that fare rate was sat in that, and that allows us to start to see what the cascading effects and fair costs are afterwards. We've done a lot of work up to that point beginning to build up the list, pull the old databases so we know who are the employers that use it, who are the universities, who are the frontline organizations that we coordinated with. So we're pulling all those back, and we're updating those and beginning outreach with those in more earnest now that we know rates, we can begin these relationships again. One of the unique things is that we reach out to organizations, we're able to kind of cascade and catch more people.

But then the challenges can be how do we get those individual riders who are not affiliated with a houseless organization or a United Way or whatnot. So making sure that we can reach those folks as well. And that's going be the issue where we're trying to work really hard to touch base with them on the vehicle.

Yeah. Well, it's great that you have the transit ambassador program because those people are gonna be on a bus stop

Oh, yeah.

Trying to get on the bus. And so it just seems like the natural place to start to have those conversations with them

Yes, ma'am.

Versus waiting until they get on on the system, but that we're, you know, there on those stops along the way. The only other question I had was, one, please post this online, the actual give it to our clerk so that our public this is, you know, transparent in terms of the the presentation. And then is there any discussion at the KCTA board, and we have our commissioner here, about giving the city of Kansas City clear guidance around the subsidy. We are responsible for bringing in zero fare. There was a clear amount of what that would cost.

And so as you are starting to work with nonprofit organizations, and then allowing people to really kinda put into the system, whether it's a large employer, whether it's

a school

system, but I anticipate there's also going to be a cost to the city of Kansas City. So is there any clear guidance yet around what that cost might be to help to subsidize so that everyone has access to functionally free fare that needs it?

Don't believe we have enough conversation around it yet to kind of put a number to that. What we have had with conversations with the city manager's office is reinstituting an employer pass program with the city. So that's one kind of approach, ensuring that the employees have access. But when you talk about a subsidy for low income based fare programming, that is a different number that we'll need to do some calculations around before we can really have a robust conversation with the admin on that.

That's unfortunate only because our budget is going to be introduced here in days, so I would have liked to see some definitive nature around how we could be supportive of that. We Because wanna be able to say as elected officials, especially those of us who support v zero fare and especially looking at the difference between if you ride the streetcar, it's completely free, but if you ride the bus system, it's not. While the diversity of incomes are different because the streetcar has expanded, so you have not just tourists that are riding the bus, but when we looked at zero fare, we saw that the, you know, average income was up there, like, over $90,000 people that were riding the streetcar. So why is it that people who are depending upon our bus system have to pay fare? And so we decided to make this huge investment in zero fare and I believe that while we can't it's not sustainable and we can no longer do it and we need to bring fare back for multiple reasons, we still have to say we did want this to be functionally free so that there is a fairness across our transit system.

And so I don't I mean, I don't like to fight at all, but oftentimes it makes it a harder fight if we're not synced into the city's systems in terms of how our budget cycle and our budget system. So hopefully, I don't know if you guys have had any conversation at the board, but it's important that we invest in this program so that people have access at the end. Off the soapbox I go. So I don't know if you got if you have if you guys have talked about the city investing at all.

There have been a few conversations I

Regarding the next city conference. So

few things. One is that the one thing that you've mentioned was syncing up of the budget cycles, which is very difficult because our budget fiscal year starts May 1 and ATA is a calendar fiscal year. And there's been some talk of and I think it's still unclear whether or not the fiscal year is part of and you may know if it's part of the compact or if it's something else. But there's been some discussion of possibly moving that, but there's no serious conversation about aligning the budget fiscal years. But that is one issue that comes up oddly, and it is kind of awkward having those two different fiscal years.

But a bigger challenge is the what we may call the cadence of conversation between the two entities, especially as it relates to changing of service and reduction of service in this case, unfortunately, sounds potentially imminent. And so we're trying, and I say we, both parties, the city and the ATA, are really trying to get back in sync and get caught up over this got delayed. Last year, as we know, we didn't find out until like while we were approving the budget that we were headed towards this fiscal we weren't heading towards it. We were at the precipice of the fiscal cliff and all of the challenges that were coming with that. We're hoping to avoid that this year, and so there has been some discussion around providing some detailed, like, here's how much the service costs per whatever unit, service hour or what have you, and here's how much we anticipate budgeting for that.

What how do we how do we create a system within that budget constraint understanding what those what that cost of the service per per service hour actually is? And so that's something that has to happen right now. And so the brilliant minds here are the ones who know this stuff so well, presenting it to us in a way that makes it clear as to what when we go to approve that contract, what we're actually getting out of that and what we can get out of the budget. And there are going to be trade offs. And I do we try to cover the greatest amount of ground as possible?

Or do we concentrate and to the other end of that spectrum, do we concentrate it in on higher frequency and areas where the transit is in higher demand? I think they have some great ideas on how to do that. And I think like putting that faith into them to some degree, but also like the policy level decisions that have to be made and that sort of like, what do we get out of this and how do we deal with those trade offs, understanding that there's always gonna be financial constraints. And so that's coming, and I don't know if you have an update. I had that conversation with city manager recently about bringing this to council members and kind of talking about what the future looks like.

Well, we certainly need to get in front of you to discuss that further. We've taken the conversation we had with you in the room with the city manager's office, what was it, a week and a

half ago? A week ago? Not long ago. Yes.

It just seems like forever. What we've done is internally is added in additional numbers on what those cost changes need to be modifications to be internally in order to fall into what that gap is. So conceptually, we need to come back to you all to show you future. Future. Excited

And And

we're we're we're

review process to get kind of stamps on it from all of our departments and the different experts to ensure that you are getting correct information and we're not having to come back

to you

to Yes. And do anything and I've even suggested going as far as having some exercises where we all like just you know, individually or some some some different groups or something of council members to kinda walk through what best practice is in terms of transit planning. And if we move this route here, what does that cost change look like? How does service there's all sorts of really fantastic tools to show like, well, this is where you're going to get the biggest bang for your buck in ridership versus, you know, here's what happens if you if you, you know, add a new route somewhere else that may mean not carrying so many people. And and having those kind of just, like, walk through, like, here's why we're making these decisions on reducing service on this route, you know, reducing it less on this route, hopefully at some point expanding service on routes again.

So I think that that's vitally important to understand what those trade offs look like, but also putting it within sort of the best practice seeing it through the best practice lens so that we kind of understand like, well, these are why we're making these decisions in terms of One of the things that

we need to do with you all regarding that five year CSA is the baseline. And so part of these conversations would be part of that baseline conversation, saying this is where you are today, and this is what it could look like with various investments or switches or trade offs, as you discussed. So that is something that we definitely are already in conversations with, with our consultant teams, and that is something we would like to get in front of you and as many council members as possible to participate in that effort.

And one last thing I'll add is that I just want to acknowledge that we've seen KCATA in this room more often over the last few months than what I think we had in a while. And that we've been clear communication with the city manager and other staff. So I just this is continuing. This is a work in progress. This relationship is a vital relationship and one that I think is continuing to be strengthened.

But it has to come from this open communication and transparency. And I really appreciate the work that you two and some of your colleagues are putting in over there. I'm getting to see a little bit more, and I sometimes forget, like, the I get information over here, but may not be shared with all of you because you're not in all the ATA meetings. So I'm always an open book if you don't feel like and I'm trying to kind of relay that information back to you all, and I could always do a better job of that. But if there's ever anything that you want to know more about, I'm around. You know how to get a hold of myself.

That's Councilman Duncan.

You Thank teed that up perfectly, questioner. Where is the board? At what stage is the board on, the new ED search for KCATA?

Good question. So right now, so many things happening between budgets elections and all of that stuff. So what happened this this last time? There was a special session in just two weeks ago, three weeks ago to discuss the next steps on the national search. Then you all may have a sense for kind of timing on but where the RFP we did officer elections last week.

And so now the team the commission wanted to get through that first before issuing an RFP for a search firm. So similar to the process that you've been participating on with Mark. That's actually informing us a lot, which is really good because I think it's a really solid process. 100%. I would say it's a few a couple months behind Mark's.

If you haven't received an e mail yet, the the commissioners will be receiving emails to have a special session soon to approve the scope of work so we can put out a bid to get a search agency that can then go out and do a national search for a new executive director. Yeah.

Yeah. And so the our some of our officers are kind of working with staff on making sure that everyone is on the same page with that. So we Mark has been fortunate to have a really strong leader and our Board chair over there, commissioner Hanzlik, from Johnson County. In this case, it'll be a mix of of probably, of one or two of the commissioners as well. And so we'll be looking for that RFP to get out on the street pretty soon.

So we're going follow a similar process, but it is 100% clear that we will be following we'll be completing a national search and engaging with a national search firm and following that process through to the end.

Okay. Wonderful. Well, thank you for your presentation. Again, I encourage you to please talk to the city manager about some support in the city budget to help with zero fare so that there is balance as we look at, reductions. So I would look look forward to hearing more about that. If there is nothing else that comes that needs to come before the committee, it's 10:29, and we are adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank

you.