City Council - Regular Meeting

I don't have any community announcements to make. Okay.

Was that me or someone else? Okay.

There is one week left to support the Keechai Arts Council's art supply and entertainment donation drive for the Wichita Children's Home. Please drop off your donations at the box located in Jumpstart, City Hall or at the Keechai Farmer's Market and bless children who will love receiving some creative support. The next brush dump opening is August 8th from 8 a.m. to noon. On Thursdays, the best place to be is at the Keechai Farmer's Market from 4 to 6.30. The location is at the Keechai United Methodist Church parking lot. Check out what food truck is at the market each week for dinner options. Come shop local, eat local, and connect with locals. The noir comedy at Keechai Playhouse runs through August 2nd with Patsy Cline opening August 7th. Shows are Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 2.30. Tuesday evening community dinners continue at the Keechai United Methodist Church from 5.30 to 7.30. Enjoy a meal at no cost and connect with your neighbors or meet some new neighbors. City Hall will be closed on July 31st for in-service. I encourage you to vote on August 4th for primary elections and the state constitutional amendment before the voters. This Saturday morning, July 25th, is the second community conversations to be held in the community room from 8 to 10 a.m. Donuts, water, and juice are provided. Do you need hot coffee? Please stop at Jump Start and support a Keechai business. This is another opportunity for residents and business owners to ask questions and have conversation with the mayor and up to two city council members. These meetings are held quarterly on Saturday mornings. the cops and rogers car show begins at 10 am so come by for conversation early in the morning have your car already parked at city hall and then cross the street to be one of the first at the car show i hope to see you on saturday that is conclusion of community announcements moving on to 6c addressing previous public comments does anyone want to address any previous comments Seeing none, we will move on to the public comment section. Debbie, do we have anyone signed up for public comment tonight? Cheryl, welcome. Just please state your name, address, and you have five minutes to share with the council. Welcome. I'm gonna ask you to do me a favor. Everybody who speaks, if you can pick up the microphone and hold it, we do have issues often with not being quite heard at the podium. And it sounds like we're turning it on as well.

thank you for doing so sure cheryl hobson 622 north shawnee circle good evening um i want to talk to you this evening about the park board bylaws i'm a member of the park board and after um looking at the the bylaws um first off we as a group i don't think that we even knew that uh what we had voted on originally was not in effect right we didn't understand that the council needed to approve those bylaws for them to be in effect um anyway um One of the things that I I wanted to bring up was The issue of the way I look at it is more of a partnership And I As I look at the older bar bylaws if you have I encourage you to look at both the older ones and the newer ones There there's definitely a partnership between in the older bylaws with the city administrator, the park board, the director of public works, and actually the residents here in Tichai. And if you read specifically under section i believe it's four duties and responsibilities of the board you will see that the director of public works has been dropped out of this section um several times and The the the issue I have with that is because In the older section it does say that And I'm just going to read a little bit of it the board will offer periodic advice regarding future park projects seeking the advice and approval from the director of Public Works or his her designee the board must first consult with and cite the Keechai Master Park Plan and Keechai Annual Budget in its recommendations. The Keechai Master Park Plan will guide the park board. The plan should address the needs and desires of the residents of Keechai regarding location, number, and types of parks and other recreational facilities and activities. Now if you compare that to the newer one, um it says the board will offer periodic advice regarding future park projects seeking input from city city staff which may include the city administrator city engineer planning zoning administrator it does say director of public works and other professional consultants or subject matter experts In developing its recommendations, the Board shall consider the Keechai Master Park Plan and the City's annual budget. The Keechai Master Park Plan is intended to serve as a planning resource and guide for the Park Board's recommendations while allowing the board flexibility to address changing community needs opportunities and priorities the plan should identify the needs and desires of the residents of teach i regarding the location number and types of parks recreation facilities and activities what's wrong with the old one why do we have to Why do we have to just have the Director of Public Works as just a mention? The Director of Public Works should be walking hand in hand with the Park Board. We should be using him or her as our subject matter expert for most things, especially if we're gonna spend you know, $600,000 on new park equipment. That person is the person that we need most of all. Now, I'm not saying that he has to be at every single meeting, because I understand that we all work way too many hours a week anyway. But what I am saying is that it pretty much just almost puts the Director of Public Works at the same level as anybody else. And that's really not what we want to do. We want to partner. want to partner with this person I mean they saw that in the last bylaws and I think that if we would have done that that we possibly wouldn't be in the mess that we're in today maybe we would be but maybe we wouldn't and maybe we would have been able to identify problems prior to so looking at these bylaws what I my suggestion what I would like to see is I would like to see us go back send it back to the park board let us take another look at this again and see if we can come to a better a better document that would partner with people and departments more so than what the current one is actually doing that's all i have thank you any comments council or response okay council member moreland do you have anything you want to respond no i just thank cheryl for her comments and we will um when we talk about it

in a few minutes i'll address things great thank you cheryl debbie neva welcome please state your name address and you'll have five minutes i'm sorry

So I did want to kind of address it. I saw some social media stuff that got put out, some other things that got put out. I heard some of the comments that happened. And I did share some information here recently with, that I have gone back and actually found on the YouTube channel that we have from We the People, where they record all the parkour meetings. Specifically one on July 7th, where we actually did take the biologue after we had it on it, if you go back and look at the minutes, the videos actually that are on that Facebook, or sorry, well, there's that YouTube channel. And even asking people to have comments, and questions, and all of that. Very much my friends. I'm not sure where the disconnect on that has come from. So from my view of that, we had a pretty lengthy set of discussions a few times. There's emails we sent out asking people to bring forth any questions, or add-ons, or things like that as well. the only person who didn't. And we did have the ability to have that motion in that second to approve them with that one change. And you're welcome to look at that . The video that's on there, the full discussion's on there as well as previous ones that actually help us having the discussion about specific things and broader questions like that. As far as the concern about, again, just having the public works person there, I get that as well. that Thomas had to have a discussion with his boss and see what they could come to, and if that's something he wants to do, that really has nothing to do with me. Again, we're just an advisory board. Our whole job is we're volunteers. We're supposed to be spending this time doing the best we can with our part, instead of spending our time having bad expectations and things like that. Right now, we're very similarly focused. I'm excited to move forward and get another board member so that we can have movement and people come in and volunteer. that we really want them to have. And I know that we've had people that have put their information in and saying, you know, hey, I'd be really interested in this. And so I know, for me, if I hadn't been chosen for the first set of parkour, I would have kind of wanted to say, hey, you know what, I would have liked it if I'd had the chance to talk to the city council, for the ones who are really taking the recommendation and saying, yes, this person should be on there, I would like to have the chance to talk to you and say, hey, I would like to tell you why I want to do that as well. So it's not really up to one person. You know, we talk to people all the time and tell them one option, they have an opinion, two options, there's a debate, and three is actually having real options and a chance to do that. And I would encourage you all to take the time to look at anyone who applied for it and see the person who is involved in the community on a daily basis, the people who are constantly having discussions, trying to make change, constantly out and doing things for us to be the one who's appointed to that. We need somebody who's gonna come in and hit the ground running with us and really put forth all that time. You know, we even heard from the last council meeting, there's a lot of time that goes into what you all do, there's a lot of time that goes into what we do, but we need someone who can work outside of the regular board meetings, who's gonna be out helping us through the fundraising and come up with the great ideas and do all that and have that really great . I hope that you take the time to kind of look at that, if you have the chance to review, everybody who's had the chance to sit at that and really kind of speak who you feel like is the person to move forward so that we have kind of a concise thing. Like you said, we wanna have transparency in who we're putting forward to serve our community. So we want someone who has got the ability to do that. I don't know the person that I saw on the agenda. I'm not certain who that is, and I don't have anything yes or no for them, but again, I don't know them. But I do know that you all will do your due diligence and kind of look into that. And then just asking for support. Yeah, we have the awesome Colorado thing that's coming up, which is fantastic. I know it wasn't mentioned, but the donations from that event are going to the playground. We've come a really long way. We're raising a lot of money for that. And we wanna just keep moving forward with it. I think, Joan even said herself in an email to the city a while ago how much she loved the idea of this type of playground being built, how she specifically liked this company and one that they had built in other places. Having the community involvement, all of those kinds of things. And so we know that that's something that's been put forward. We wanna do this. The city has screamed that they want this from us. So we need those supports to move forward. and everybody can come out, especially like on Saturday, you're gonna have the chance to go dump your favorite police officer. Why would you not come do that? Drink a couple of dollars, throw some softballs,

Council, do you have any response? I do have a question for clarification, please. Oh, it wasn't on? It wasn't on. Oh, gosh. Are you talking about the July 7, 2025 meeting? Yes. OK. I just wanted to make sure that was clarified. And was there anything that the park board brought forward to the council other than the time change of the meeting?

We had actually had a conversation of things that we wanted to do. We actually had a first decision that we had looked at. We went through, we made some red line changes on them and went back and asked those changes to be made. Everyone had a big discussion. We let everybody's changes be applied if that's what we agreed upon. It got racked to us after it was typed up. We all discussed it again. It was sent out ahead of time with the agenda as well, asked for everyone to review it. We brought back up in the meeting. We gave people time to review it during the meeting. And the only change that was brought up and requested was, again, the correction of the meeting time having been reflected at 7 p.m.

okay so there's been no other requests for the governing body to make changes to the park board bylaws other than time as far as who are you talking about the park board the park board having brought forward no other requests for changes to the bylaws have been brought to the governing body except for a time change no that's not the only tip what i said was i under i understand that because the question you're asking is not what i'm saying but what i'm saying is that we saw the original bylaws we went through them

We read through them. They were given out in an email. Discussed them. We said the things that we liked and didn't like. We went and looked at a new set drawn up. Then we went over the new set, looked at those, and said it offered any suggestions or changes from that new set that was given. The only change that was suggested was they move the meeting time on there from 7 p.m.

okay okay but i guess what i'm saying is like there's nothing else recorded in ordinance by the city of quichai that any other changes were brought forward to the governing body to consider approving the changes okay that's that's what i'm stating is that nothing but the time change no that my question was did you bring anything else forward to the governing body for approval other than a time change and nothing else was brought forward

yes you did it's in ordinance okay well the only thing that was submitted was just time that's fine thank you debbie okay i have a question okay go ahead um

When I looked at the minutes for the July 7th meeting, I did not see where a motion was recorded. And when I looked back at the website, the city Facebook, or I'm sorry, the city website where it records those, there is no record of the minutes from the July 7th meeting.

I don't know what's on the website. I do know when I went back and, like I said, watched the meeting itself, there was a motion that was made by Conley, and then there was a second by Patrick.

OK. So I guess. And did you vote on it?

We didn't have to vote on it. We were asking a motion to present it to City Council.

You would still have to vote for a motion. Yes.

We have to vote. Again, all we're doing is advising. So we can make the motion to say we'd like to give this to Council so they can look at it and back to it.

is is that andrew is that proper procedure okay okay okay any anything else council member moreland um i i did not hear andrew's response

You have to get the mic close to you.

Yes, thank you.

I'm sorry. I'd have to look specifically at the procedures of the part board in order to answer that in particular. It is probably best practice to vote on motions if they've been made and seconded, but as an advisory board, the formalities aren't quite as rigorous as they are for the council.

Okay, thank you.

Anything else? Council Member Moreland, any additional...

No, I just was, like I said, when I had looked at those minutes, I did not see the motion or that recorded in the minutes. So I didn't have that to refer back to.

Okay. Thank you. If we could follow up on that, please, to find out what our policy is, that would be great. Okay, there's no further public comments. We will move on to staff reports. First up, Thomas Bevan, Public Works, please. Welcome. Sorry, it's the echo in my phone for Teresa.

I think you guys can hear me, right? Okay. Before you is kind of what Public Works has done over the last month.

We did last week, me and Debbie spent three days having interviews. As you guys know, Vern took another position. Also this week, Noah has left the city also and taken another position with Jumpstart. So I'm not sure that I'm a big fan of them right now, but that's a different story. We did hire three employees. One started yesterday. He goes by Tavo. His name is Octaviano Nunez. So you'll see him around. We did hire. Two more that will start on Monday with the fourth that we're still waiting to show up and do some things. So we'll see whether he comes in or not. If not, we have two or three that we have backups for. Assuming that they didn't find jobs in between then and now. So basically mode we need a lot of that going on right now. The rain will help. I was kind of hoping it wouldn't rain, just so we didn't have to mow so many times the rest of the year. But mowed and weeded City Park twice, mowed right-of-ways and ditches twice, roughly 40 locates. Spent three days doing a natural gas audit with the KCC. There's some new rules. They kind of been going over everything with a fine-tooth comb. We had some OQ things they added too. I'm still waiting to get our completion letter back. I submitted our changes on Monday. Submitted them our new OQ plan. Anytime we add any kind of operational things, they need to look over the entire plan. Waiting on that completion letter. We didn't have any big glaring things with our gas. So for the most part it was just a controlling of the queue on what we're looking for out there when we're actually doing that and surveying our line and doing the leak survey and stuff. So hopefully we'll get that back soon. It'll be clear for the rest of this year and no fines or anything from them. Graded dirt roads once. We hauled out some rock up there. We had some low spots. Changed out about 30 water meters as you guys know we're in the process of changing over 400 so they take a little while. If your yard gets dug up as a resident, we're probably replacing those water meter pits. We're trying to get rid of the old felt pits, go with the more sturdy water meter pit, just because a lot of people are switching to riding lawn mowers. And those old pits just don't take the beating, the new ones will. met with usdi quite a bit going over that natural gas the final for that and that plan attended two council meetings me and chris sat through another meeting with a lot of officials with building code and how that's going to look throughout the state in the future with the new hospital that they're trying to pass. They're trying to make it to where I think the state does all licensing for all contractors throughout the whole state. There's lots of questions and who takes the money and who's going to keep the money and does it get dispersed. So lots of questions still on that. Had brush jump day. I guess there was quite a few people there for that. So other than that, it's just kind of been same old, same old. Keep making sure nobody calls us at night. That's the main thing. Any questions or concerns or anything you guys would like to see?

I just have a question. Do you know the house bill number for the state licensing? If you don't.

It was on the last report. I think it was like house bill 314 or 2214 or something. It was on my last bill because we attended one that day too.

Yeah. Was that the original house bill that was for state licensing of electricians originally and that now it's expanded?

yes originally it was so they're so they're trying to encompass everything now they're trying to figure out electrician so originally they had roofers so you come and get a state license as a roofer The tricky part about it is figuring if somebody is licensed, if they're insured, who's going to keep that? Who's going to notify people when their licenses aren't good? Because now we do it locally.

Right.

You have a list of contractors who come in who are licensed in your city that can do work. And if they're doing it through the state, who knows? Or if a contractor is not within good standing with the state anymore, who's going to notify those municipalities that that contractor is has failed to meet requirements. So there's a lot of things still up in the air and how that's actually gonna work. Who's gonna train those people? The reason why the electricians kind of came up is because they're required to have a journeyman master. They're required to have so many credit hours each year. It's the difference between if you're just an individual or if you're working for a union. So unions usually require higher credits for their journeymen and their masters than just your normal electricians. It's different between Sedgwick County and Johnson County. There's just a lot of variables there to try to figure out. I hope they don't just try to pass a sweeping bill, but you know, kind of not up to us at this level. We just get the rules and then they're like, hey, you figure out how to enforce them.

Do you know what the subject county's position is on this bill at this time?

um currently we would like to just keep it the way it is kind of and keep it in-house um i know that some of them brought up to where i think it was cedric county said that it would cost them between seven and eight hundred thousand dollars just in licensing fees um yearly so i mean that's a substantial number when that pays employees within your city or within your municipality you know a lot of those they rely on those wages to come in so And who would take those funds? If somebody wanted to get registered in the state, would they pay Sedgwick County? And Sedgwick County would send the money to the state. There's just a lot of variables in it. So it's a mess if you ask me, but they asked us to look at it, so that's what we'll do.

Yeah. Thank you, Thomas. Council Member Moreland, do you have any questions for Thomas?

If you ask me? They asked us. I do not.

Thank you. Thank you, Thomas. Okay, up next, Chief Moore, Keechai Police Department. Welcome.

Good evening. A lot going on in the police department. Man, goodness. So, as you all have seen the advertisements, cops and rotters, we're on the final touches of that. It's going to be a great time. We had over a dozen entries come in in the last two days. Most car show enthusiasts wait till the day of just due to weather restraints and things like that instead of internet before so I think we're gonna have a huge turnout a lot of community support a lot of volunteers a lot of people donating goods and services go create made us some some signs some awards that are massive I mean you're probably got to find a stud to hang them up inside your garage so and then we've got another set of awards that came from car guard as well so And again, just wonderful support. Valley Print did our t-shirts for us. So we have those for sale. Those sell for $20 a piece. They got the silly goose coop on the back with the goose and the hot rod. And so it's going to be a great time. We're going to raise as much money as we can for the park. And like I said, all the proceeds will then go over there and help push that project further on. We did postpone moving out with the PD with the handful of things that we're doing this month. We really kind of pushed ourselves pretty thin this month with the community events. But Officer Bolin, I can't thank him enough for kind of giving birth to this car show idea. It's something he's been talking about for six months, and I finally just took the reins off of him and said, go do it. He's done a fine job. Next month, I'll be gone for about 10 days. Sturgis Police Department confirmed my hiring. That is not permanent. It is a assignment at Sturgis Police Department to work the Sturgis motorcycle rally. So I'll be up there working for them. That'll be, my son gets married August 5th, and then I've got a report for duty August 6th at 5 PM, or 2 PM, rather. So I'll be up there through that time. Last week I was invited by WSU as a guest speaker for the Citizens Police Academy at the Law Enforcement Training Center. incredible opportunity to get in front of a bunch of folks that were pro-police, support us. When I tell you community goes beyond the city limit sign, it absolutely does. The amount of support in that room for the Kitchoff Police Department and for our community and what we're doing up here is wonderful. We're starting to see a lot of other agencies kind of loosen up and do some cool stuff in their communities too. So I'm not saying that's because of us. I'm just saying it's spreading. That model is getting out there and it's doing good things. So uh we appreciate that um the main talk was on bridging the gap in generations using facebook to do so uh some of our earlier generations you know were without internet some of us were born in time to uh be able to be out on our bicycles until midnight and run around and do all the things and be ornery and then you know the internet comes out and so we learned how to do both have fun being outside and uh And then, of course, the Internet generation that came through with all the social media stuff. Now we're able to bridge all those generations with social media. It's working well. So we appreciate that. I want to give a shout out to our officers. This isn't on the deal, but I've been getting some information via Facebook. I won't mention the... The convict's name. He's not a suspect anymore. He's convicted. He pled guilty to stalking a young lady here in our community. Our officers worked hard on that case. We were able to present it, and no court was necessary. He pled, and he'll be off the streets. So our officers worked hard on that, and then, of course, we've heard about the Jumpstart incident. Officers were able to get in custody on that rather quickly, and then... procedures in that I can't discuss it all because the juvenile case but They did a great job. So that case is on its way up Beat the heat we are reached out International drag strip reached out to us over at Mulvane or sorry not Mulvane Maze and asked if we would come be part of their beat the heat event. There's gonna be cop cars from all across the the county and the state. I've got a friend that's an officer over in Butler County. He's bringing his car over. It'll be a time for the community to come over and check out the cop cars and see what we got. And then if they want to line up, we're welcome to line up on the track with them and run an eighth of a mile. For those that wonder how far an eighth of a mile is, it's about three blocks. So we'll see what second gear feels like in a cop car. That's about it. But it'll be a good time. It's going to be a good outreach to the community. We'll obviously be there presenting the car show the next morning, so some of those hot rods may come out here and be on display. But it'll be a good time. So any questions?

Just curious, how many entries do you have for the cops and cops?

Coffs and Rotters right now on paper, we've got 12, but we've got so many other commitments. We've got a Volkswagen Club that's going to come out. We've got several motorcycles that are going to be there. You know, so we've got, it's going to fill up the parking lot over there. A couple food trucks, snow cone truck out there. We've got a couple businesses that are going to set up and hand out free donuts and I think free cotton candy maybe is another one. Edwards Jones down here, they're stepping up. Everybody, it's great. It's going to be a good time.

Anyone else? Council Member Moreland, any questions? It's silent, so we'll say no.

No, sorry. It doesn't always unmute.

That's okay. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Dustin, IT, Zoning, Stormwater, Code Enforcement, welcome.

Thank you.

Mine's not as lengthy as the other two gentlemen.

Planning and zoning the Planning Commission heard three different amendments to the zoning regulations on July 14th or around there They need more information to have a vote to actually have a public hearing so we're going through those steps right now IT we had cybersecurity training for all of administration that was here on Wednesday And we have it downloaded. So the rest of the employees for the city can go through that training as well. Lots of scary stuff out there. Be mindful of what you click on on your emails is the synopsis. Stormwater nothing to report at this time code enforcement people were contacted in person. and violation letters were sent out within the past few weeks, mainly for grass, things parked on their grass that shouldn't be parked on the grass. They need to be on a hard paved surface, things of that nature. One person I contacted today in person who received the letter, gave them a two week extension because they need it to cut grass. That's fine. As long as you're working with me, I'll work with you. That is the end of my lengthy report.

Council, any questions? I do have a question. Someone asked me this question. A car that is not operational, that is on the street... Is a police violation. Okay.

So it's... Once it gets pushed into the driveway, it becomes mine.

Okay.

In my jurisdiction. It's...

Okay. So it's like... We know what you meant. Okay. So if there is an issue with an ongoing car that does not run and it's on the street, they should contact Keechai Police Department?

Yes.

Okay, not you. Correct. Only if it's in the driveway.

Correct. The best way to contact the police department is to call 911. I know it is, but it creates that record that they got the call.

I understand. I understand. So, okay. Council Member Moreland, anything?

It is, but it creates... No, I don't.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Teresa.

Thank you, Justin. Okay. City Administration, Chris. I don't know.

Everybody has a copy, don't you?

Is there anything specifically on here that you want to highlight?

I really don't think there's anything. The rest of it, Thomas and police both hiring people, trying to fix their void there. Working on the budget. That's really about it. I think Turtle Creek, what did he say? All of the utility infrastructure is there. Evergy's maybe installing power lines or something now. So I realize it's been pretty quiet. OK. OK. Great.

Anybody have any questions for Chris? Hearing none. OK. We will move on to unfinished business, park board bylaws. I'm assuming you're not gonna talk about this, Chris?

I figured this was for you guys to talk about.

That's fine, I'll start with this. i realize that technically um according to city ordinance the governing body has authority to put through bylaws that have not been changes to bylaws that have not been formally brought to them by the park board so yes twice specifically the park board has talked about their bylaws as mentioned about a year apart um when they were recently discussed um there was concern about the bylaws brought up as there was even the first time and every time they've talked about them and a motion was brought forward and it died for lack of a second there's been no formal vote nor not even um the chair bringing forward the park board bylaws to be considered um i was at the july meeting and you can watch them all online and there was even a request for some language to be changed or added that is not reflected in what's in front of you um i would Encourage the governing body to consider sending them back to the park board for further discussion And them to work through the changes that they desire One of my concerns is that this is a citizen advisory board. This is not employees and that historically members of the advisory board have been able to make their decisions and make their changes before they get brought to the governing body for consideration of approval or denial and if you look at the 2020 park board bylaws on the second page what has been approved by the governing body says the board shall make its own operational rules and regulations and keep a record of proceedings and so there has not yet been full agreement um of emotion passing of course now we have this discussion about do they even have to vote so that adds more chaos to the confusion um i would ask the the governing body have you done a compare and contrast line by line what's been added what's been removed and um there's one there's a couple things that i have um it states that staff um in the new bylaws proposed bylaws resident staff or council members may recommend appointments most staff does not live here and this is a citizen advisory board representing the residents of key chai and so to me um i think it should be residents or council members which you're also residents and that's what it says in the original bylaws it's that residents would make the recommendation to the mayor or individuals can ask themselves and that is what occurred in the case of our vacancy now I appreciate the third paragraph in the proposed bylaws that was added in about people who live outside of Keechai assisting with projects, serve on committees or work groups and contribute their skills, knowledge and resources for the betterment of the community. There has been a lot of history in Keechai is my understanding that when we try to bring lot of outsiders other than a specialty project like the playground community build it's not always received well here that we've brought people from the outside in to help with community projects the playground's a totally different discussion that is a massive project and so i would expect that we would have people from outside of our communities um i i just don't know about having outside people serving on committees or work groups within the Park Board. I would like to know what do we need to do to reach our residents to build our community back up again. That's one of the questions I've wrestled with in looking at these bylaws, because we need to engage the people who live in Keechai to get more involved. And how do we do that? I'm not saying that people from the outside can't be a part of things, but I guess I'm concerned with the language that they could be part of the park board on a work group. or special committee, so I don't understand the language there. um the parks master plan which in the proposed now becomes they shall consider instead of the previous language said they had to cite the quichai master plan for any projects or recommendations that they're making a lot of money was put in for the quichai parks master plan to be created it is a governing body approved city document it's listed on our website as city plans so only for bylaws now to state that they would only consider them but they don't necessarily have to follow what's been approved by a governing body i just think that needs to be discussed where the governing body is on that issue um in general we don't pass city plans city documents by the governing body and then just say well you know we can just kind of refer to it you don't necessarily have to do what's in there additions can also not be made to the master plan um I mean it's it's a document it's a working document and so that would all any changes would have to again I would think Andrew would have to come through the governing body for any city documents yes yes that's that's i just want clarification for that um and so and i am concerned about balance of authority and power in the city of kichai our city administrator is overall employees I do have concern that we continue to have one person who is an employee and not an elected official who answers to the people of Keechai as the authority over a citizen advisory board. So those are my concerns and I would be open to any discussion that anyone else would like to bring forward.

may have some more comments but in regards to recommendations coming from council residents or staff I respectfully disagree and that I think our staff is they work out in the community every day there's some of the liaisons that help connect us to our residents and so I think that they are a voice to listen to so I I think that Council residents and staff should continue to be included in that and then in regards to The city administrator in our form of governance with mayor council city administrator The city administrator is liaison between us and the staff and so I think it makes sense for if the city administrator wants to designate a public works director or someone else to be the liaison with the parks board that that makes sense under our form of governance. And then I also want to just remind everyone that, and Andrew, correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, but the park board is an advisory board. They're not a governing board. So their role is to make recommendations to the city administrator, public works director if he's present, Mr. Dwyer, Councilman Dwyer if he's representing us at meetings, to be conveyed back to the city council. But they are not a decision-making board in the fact that they're not elected by the residents. They're an advisory board.

Correct.

And so I don't want to overcomplicate the role that they play, and I don't wanna downplay the value of what they do, because what they do is very critical in connecting us with the community. So I may have some more comments on that, but those are just my initial thoughts, Mayor.

The code states that they're an advisory board directly to the governing body.

Yes, and I've served on advisory boards. I've served on governing boards. And sometimes that can get very confusing, especially for advisory board members when they think that those lines can get blurred sometimes and confused. And so that's just why I'm making the clarification.

Any other discussion or comments?

OK.

Go ahead.

Okay. So based on some and I had already written some notes about that is I am interested in having a red line copy. What is what has been changed? What is the same? What is exactly being adopted here? I do think that even if we recognize that Thomas is The subject matter expert with All Things Public Works, having him as that appointed liaison as far as staff doesn't violate chain of command because he still answers to the city administrator. One of the other things that I'm struggling with on this is this body, this document does not identify what are the operational rules and regulations per se. And I understand that they are not a decision-making board, but if they are going to advise the council, I would hope that they would have consensus or we would have an idea of what the conversation was because for instance, on these, at the last meeting there was a motion which failed for a lack of second and i do think if we are considering their advice we want to get a feel for was there a consensus or is it just two of the seven people how how was that reached so i would really hope to see a little bit more on the making motions and voting to make sure that we are getting a true consensus. And I would like to kind of see that added to the document. And my feeling right now on what I'm seeing is I would wanna send it back to the board or to the park board. I would like to see the red line documents specifically that they say that that was discussed and that they created in their meeting, because that has not, shown up in any of the minutes or been shared with the council. Those are my concerns.

Any further discussion, council?

I guess maybe just some clarification of if this was voted on and approved unanimously at this July 7, 2025 meeting. And Cheryl, I think you made a comment that no, it wasn't. But I watched the video and it was. So what changed? What changed in this that you said it wasn't the same?

To the 2020 bylaws. Thank you.

I'm asking you though, because it's been over a year, but here's my question. Have you had a chance to go back and watch those TV shows?

All have.

I would recommend it, because that's what hurts all the different things that we've done, all the different things that we're supposed to do, and all the conversations that we've had. I would recommend it to clients if there was even specifically two and one of them that you would

Council Member Hedstrom, I honestly don't know the answer to this. I think there's a factual question in my mind that maybe only Matt can answer. I don't know whether the new version of the bylaws that you have in front of you is the exact same thing as what was in front of the park board a year ago. I don't know the answer to that. And maybe somebody knows. But in all these discussions, I haven't. That's not been made clear and I think there's some confusion on the bench is what I'm seeing That may be a question we should clarify with Okay

What is currently approved says and it was from the original 2013 because the only thing they changed was the

It went from a five to a seven member board. So the rest of this is like original from 2013 and it does state that the board shall make its own operational rules and regulations and keep a record of the proceedings. Yet they still have to have those approved that if the governing body did not agree, they could deny them. So, but that's currently what's approved.

Yeah, so we kind of have a hierarchy here, right? I mean, we've got a code provision that says that the park board was established by the governing body, and the governing body approves the bylaws and any amendments thereto. I mean, and then it's pretty much period from there. Then the bylaws that were previously approved say that the park board establishes its own sort of rules and regulations for procedure. So within those bylaws, to the extent it doesn't say one thing or the other, the park board gets to decide how they act and they go about their procedures. The governing body still has the ultimate authority to say, These are the bylaws you're going to operate under, and we're going to make this change or not. But policy-wise, it's not unreasonable to also say we'd like to know what the park board thinks about certain things before we vote on them. So that's a decision you can absolutely make. You do have the blanket authority to change the bylaws whenever you want, but it's up to you to decide how much input you want on those.

guess one of the questions i have is referencing back to july of 2025 where saying that at that meeting that that was all agreed upon um if that was the case why were the bylaws reconsidered july 6 of 2026 for approval to bring to the council so you now have a secondary And so at that meeting, the motion to bring it forward died for lack of a second. So.

I'm sorry. I didn't hear what council member has to say. Oh. Probably because it had been a year.

I'm looking to council for direction on what you would like to do.

Well. Go ahead. I would like to send it back to the Park Board for consideration. So with that, I make a motion to send the bylaws back to the Park Board for clear recommendations, redlining the current bylaws and giving us more direction and clear direction.

Is there a second council?

I'm not necessarily against it, but I think I would like to have Matt's input. We need a second.

Yeah.

I mean, you would have a meeting in between, park board meeting. So it's up to you. Is there no intention for a second? OK, motion dies for lack of a second. I would entertain a new motion.

I'd like to make a motion to table this for the following reasons. I'd like to have Paul Dwyer, council member of representative for the park board to be present and also for city administrator to be able to make clarification on the documents that have been debated tonight. Make sure that those have been clarified. And then I think this is a governing body decision at this point as to what the next steps need to be. So those are my reasons for tabling it.

motion by councilmember Brewer second by councilmember Baldrige all in favor all opposed 3-1 okay wait so there the motion was to table it so are you voting yes or no i want it tabled i don't i mean i so yes so it's a four zero to table it correct yes thank you for clarification okay moving on to new business 9b park board appointment miss b berkhalter if you would come to the podium please Tonight, I'm bringing forward Ms. B. Burkhalter to be appointed to the Park Board to fill the vacancy. She and her husband will celebrate 40 years of calling Keechai home in 2027. Ms. B's education and professional background was shared with the full governing body. Ms. B's volunteer service to her community in Keechai and beyond is a way of life for her. She is a servant leader. Recently, she sought out an opportunity to get involved in Keechai once again, and thank you for that. Ms. B served as a member of the target group for Keechai's 2015 strategic plan. Ms. B served as a member of the steering committee for Keechai's 2040 comprehensive plan. Ms. B was historically active with the Keechai Chamber of Commerce. Ms. B and her husband Paul were chosen one year as grand marshal for the Keechai parade. I believe Ms. B's appointment to the Park Board will be beneficial to our Quichag community as she brings a wide variety of life experiences and wisdom for collaboration with fellow Park Board members. For transparency, I have announced since April 9th, 2026 at the Keechee City Council meeting that there was a vacancy on the park board. To date, no other resident had contacted the mayor to ask about being appointed. After submitting Ms. B. Burkholzer's name by email to City Administrator Gensby, I received two additional inquiries. The first email arrived about 20 minutes after submission of her name, and the second email arrived that same evening. I had already made my decision and submitted my intended appointment for the vacancy. I replied to each of the additional applicants, thanked them for their interest, stated an appointment was already forthcoming, and encouraged them to consider volunteering with Keechai civic groups as well as Keechai Park volunteer opportunities as they arise.

miss b is there anything else you'd like to add to that

Thank you.

Council, any questions that you have for Ms. Burkhalter?

I just want to, Ms. Theresa, Ms. V, I just, if I was correct, were you not on the committee that helped get Sioux and Sioux Court and Chippewa streets paved back in the day?

I was not on the committee.

Well. And helped. okay because i thought that your name had come up with um miss mullins in the day that you guys um helped kind of spearhead that to get that going okay thank you

have a question where do you think you can see your immediate impact

Anything further council?

okay miss b what what uh involvement we've had a lot of activity with all the playground equipment and everything else how have you been involved in that so far you're right across from

Anything further, council?

I do have a question for Andrew.

OK.

So just because of all the confusions tonight regarding the park board and the governance, all that, just making sure that everyone understands that this is a mayoral appointment. Yes. And if it's a qualified recommendation, our role as a council is to ensure that it's a qualified recommendation, but it's a mayoral appointment.

That's correct. And so if the mayor decides to move forward with her appointment, then she submits it to you, and you will vote on whether to consent to that or not.

So as Mayor of the City of Keechee, I bring forth Ms. B. Burkhalter for appointment to fill the vacancy on the Keechee Park Board and seek a motion for Council's approval.

I make a motion for approval.

I second.

Motion by Councilmember Brewer, second by Councilmember Moreland. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? 3-1, congratulations, Ms. Beebe. You are now appointed to the Park Board. Thank you for serving. Thank you. Okay, moving on to 9C, Solicitor's License Discussion. My understanding is, Chief Moore, that you're going to address this. So welcome back.

It's trying it's probably gonna give up okay, okay so Like I said, I'm not sure what exactly we wanted on this, so I'm just going to do a quick clarification on how we handle these calls and how it happens. So if a solicitor comes to your house and you question whether or not they've got a valid solicitor's permit from the city of Keechee, call 911. It's that simple. We carry radios on us for a reason, and because dispatch directly contacts our officers in the street, we will go handle the call and make contact with the solicitors. Pretty defining articles here as far as how it's to be handled, the investigational fees, all the things that go along with that. The biggest reason for the solicitor's permit is for background checks to make sure we're not sending rapists around the community knocking on doors, going door to door. You don't want that? We don't want that. So we do a quick background check, make sure everything's clear there, and then they're free to go about and try to drum up business for whatever things they have going on I want to clarify a few things that have come forth as far as you know signage that says no solicitors it's a great piece of decoration but it does not carry any lawful standard it's good to have out there if they decide to be respectful and honor that so be it it's done its job if they still knock on your door you can remind them to read the sign and simply shut the door and go on about your day you know with with soliciting it's uh it's a freedom thing folks are free to walk around our community folks are free to walk around and uh and try to start uh start their businesses and get things going um soliciting is everywhere around us it's on every billboard that you see billboards are regulated by law and by uh by code just like anybody that would go door to door so um that's why we have that in place but again uh the answer is number one call number one officer respond we'll handle the call from there so Any questions on any of that? It's pretty simple, pretty straightforward.

Councils, anyone have any questions? No, thank you, Chief.

Oh, go ahead. I just would encourage residents, if anyone's watching or listening, to do exactly what has been recommended, and that is to call 911 and don't engage in anything else.

That's correct.

For their safety and for the safety of everyone.

Yes, and here's why. Any step outside of calling number one, you're taking into your own hands, okay? And so now we start getting into a point where suspect or victim is a blurred line. If you decide to, quote, unquote, perform a citizen's arrest, that's technically kidnapping. If you decide that this person needs to leave your neighborhood or leave the area and you follow them, That could technically be a seizure of a person. It could be stalking. It could be any of those things. It is a very slippery slope. That's why we're the professionals. That's why we study case law. That's why we study the Constitution. That's why we study state law. Government code is because we know how to handle the situation. 911, plain and simple. If you don't like what they're selling, you don't like what they're saying, shut your door, go in your house. They'll leave and give us a shout. We'll handle it.

for your safety as well and yes thank you council one of the things i'd like potentially for further future discussion is there are some other cities that create an actual photo badge for their city for solicitors who get a permit has their name and the date of their permit that it's live for or other cities are just like posting a photo in front of city hall like with the city clerk giving the name of the person their business and the length that their permit is valid it's just a way to let the community know when there is someone legitimately in the city that is permitted to go door-to-door so for further consideration in the future nothing tonight discussion only thank you so we currently don't have anything on our website as to who's licensed solicitors do we have anything on our website

So my question for clarification for residents is, is it still the policy of the city that the solicitors are issued some type of permit

identifies them and the length of time and what company they work for okay sorry to keep going on this so are they so are they required to carry that with them on person yes okay

So they can show that if they need to. Thank you. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right, and Keith and I have talked about it. If that was the case, they pull the kid in, they run us back. I've done a background check, you're good. Get in touch with the manager, whatever, all of it. Don't happen.

Appreciate the explanation. Thank you, sir. OK. Moving on to 9D, acceptance of petitions and developers agreement, Young Industrial Forth Water, Sewer, and Gas. Andrew.

Take this one. Thank you, Mayor. So first of all, I apologize that this is a late addition to the agenda and that documents well frankly we didn't have them ready until Tuesday but we didn't get the petitions until Tuesday now we've been working with Brad Young for some time speak talking with Brad Young for some time about the infrastructure that needs to go in this in this development but the the forms came about a week ago we had some comments we went back and forth and then the actual signed petition showed up I think on Monday with a request to expedite and so we did what we could to expedite, and that's why it's come a little bit faster than ordinary. But I'm going to go walk through this slower than I normally do so that we present all the information and you can ask me any questions that you have. So Dustin has put up on the board, and I think it's on your screens as well, this is Young Industrial Fourth. Probably familiar with this. It's the, oh yeah, he's outlining it with his cursor. Um so there's a a cul-de-sac that sort of runs north south there and what um Brad is requesting and and just orientation meter engineers is that building to the east Brad is requesting uh that the city install water sewer and gas infrastructure to serve this development Now, the costs of those three pieces of infrastructure he has petitioned to be completely 100% specially assessed against the 11 lots that touch the cul-de-sac. So there's like that long, skinny north-south lot. Don't quote me on what he intends to do with that, but that's kind of in the plat, but it's not included in the benefit district. So can you open the files? Well, he does that. So this is the ordinary special assessment process. So what happens is the developer, Brad Young and young properties is petitioning the city for these three improvements. There's a one petition for each of them with estimated costs. were determined sort of hand-in-hand with Brad's engineers the city's engineers PEC and the gas improvements the Costs were put together by Thomas we add some Contingency and we add some costs of going through the financing process and so we come up with with a number One of the petitions It's one of, or all three of them. Yep. And so these have been submitted to the city. The process, I'll go over it all in one big chunk so that you get the full picture of what we're looking at today, is if the city accepts these petitions, there's also a developer's agreement that is signed by Young Properties and Sealstone, because they own one of the lots. But that's also a BRAD entity. Developer's agreement that goes through and talks about Board of Trustees Meeting, how this process will move along. But the most important part of that is the provision of the 35% letters of credit that go to support the special assessments during and after construction until a certain number of certificates of occupancy have been issued for those 11 lots. And so the first item on this agenda is to accept those petitions and to approve the developer's agreement, if you decide to move forward with that the next items on the agenda are the standard resolution of advisability and work ordinance so the resolution of advisability as its name implies indicates the city's intent to go ahead and put these improvements in to have them special assessed back against those lots. And then that resolution gets recorded on the properties so that if a lot gets sold, the new owner would be bound by that just as the original developer would be. The work ordinance then is the official approval to go ahead and move forward with the improvements and the issuance of, not the formal approval for the issuance of temp notes, but it starts the process of issuing temp notes to finance those. And then finally, because we were requested to expedite this process, we worked together with Piper Sandler, the city's financial advisor, who we always work with on these financing issues, and put a calendar together. And the final item on here is the public sale resolution, which would authorize us to go ahead and get moving on setting a public sale. That would be set for your next meeting August 13. Of course, we just dealt with one of these last meeting. So it would be very similar, where notices will go out to the firms that generally buy these kinds of things and be published where they need to be published. And then on the thirteenth we would hope that we've received several bids, and you would select the best bid to do that, and then closing would on the temporary notes would probably be in early to mid September, given the way that the schedule went. But if all of that goes the way that it's expected, then we would have funding in September. The engineers are going through the bidding process during that same period of time while we're working on this financing. And so then soon in mid-September, whenever they can get the contractors out, be in a position to start getting those improvements put in. So I have That was all of us sort of a big chunk and happy to walk through anything and I apologize again that we're sort of seeing this for the first time now. But happy to answer any questions you might have about any of this.

Council any questions.

Just a general question. Do you know, Andrew, are they planning on selling most of these lots or retaining them themselves? I know it doesn't matter as far as this, but

Yeah, this is all secondhand hearsay, so don't hold me to it, but I believe I've heard Brad say he intends to hold on to them and probably lease them out.

Right, okay. But this would give them the ability to sell them if they wanted, and the specials would be in place.

And they would follow the lots if they sold them, correct.

But if not sold, there's no delay in necessity.

Oh, no. Yeah, no, we'll we'll as as soon when the when the construction is complete. Yeah, and we know all the final costs and all that process is done. Then we'll do the special assessment process, and we'll assess those lots. We, given the timeline, I would see no reason why that wouldn't happen, you know, sort of the early to mid next year. The county budget works, of course, if you want to get your special assessment proceedings finished prior to August 25th to certify them to the county so that they can go on to the November tax rolls. And so given my understanding of the schedule of this construction and how quickly they want to move, there would be no reason I would see why we wouldn't have those final costs and be ready to do the special assessments for next August 25th. Thank you.

So my question has to do with the, you said with the letter of credit, so it's a 35% letter of credit. Yes. If he does not intend on selling those, at what point is that letter of credit then released?

The letters of credit are released based on certificate of occupancy. And so they would stay in place. You're right. I mean, he may be the owner of all the lots, but it wouldn't be released. And let me back up for clarity's sake. The city's policy on letters of credit for special assessments says that the developer is required to provide 35% letter of credit for the total special assessment costs over the course of 15, 20 years, whatever it is. But that upon fifty issuance of fifty percent of the certificates of occupancy, fifty percent of that letter of credit can be released. And then, when seventy-five percent of the certificates of occupancy have been issued, the entire letter of credit can be released. And so yeah, it in the theory is that once you have enough construction and properties built on there, you know you have enough value, and you have taxable activity going on at the risk of a default is lessened. It is true if he owns all of them, there's a little bit more risk than like a housing development where you might have 25, 30, 50 different owners. But our policy doesn't make a distinction between those two scenarios. It runs off the certificate of occupancy.

Thank you.

anything further the motions are on the back of the summary for this item if you have it yes there's an agenda agenda memo for that covers let's see there's four separate one right D there's an agenda memo for de and F but it has four separate motions underneath there and then there's a separate agenda memo for the public sale resolution I don't know where that one is We can certainly bring them up. Let's find, no, go back to the folder.

So we have four motions in front of us.

I want to make sure you got the right one. Okay. I think you do, but let me make sure. Okay.

Yes, there's four. Got that. Yep. So you said there's still one more besides these?

There will be one more after that.

OK. That one I did not find. But I must have missed it somewhere. So I would entertain a motion.

I move to accept the three petitions for the young industrial fourth improvements necessary to serve young industrial fourth subdivision. Second.

Motion by Council President Hedstrom, second by Council Member Brewer. All in favor?

Aye.

Motion passes 4-0. Go ahead.

I move we accept the developer's agreement for Young Industrial Fourth Subdivision with Young Properties LLC and Sealstone Properties LLC and authorize the mayor to sign.

Second.

Motion by Council President Hedstrom, second by Council Member Brewer. All in favor?

Aye.

Motion passes 4-0.

I move that we adopt resolution number 26-803, determining the advisability of making Young Industrial Fourth improvements in Young Industrial Fourth subdivision.

Motion by Council President Hedstrom, second by Council Member Brewer. All in favor?

Aye.

Motion passes 4-0.

I move that we adopt ordinance number 1875-26, authorizing the construction of Young Industrial Fourth improvements in Young Industrial Fourth subdivision. Second.

Motion by Council President Hedstrom, second by Council Member Brewer. All in favor?

Aye.

Motion passes 4-0.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

A second, one more motion that should be on here.

2026-804. I move that we adopt resolution number 2026-804, authorizing the public sale of $170,000 of temporary notes. What? $1,170,000. There's an arrow block. There we go. Whoa. That's pretty cheap. Those are cheap and keep water lines. $1,170,000. Thank you.

second motion by council member brewer second by council member baldridge all in favor motion passes 4-0 thank you andrew for all that thank you moving on to council reports discussion requests council is there anything you want to bring forward council member moreland do you have anything Not at this time. OK. And I don't either. So we don't have an executive session. So I would entertain a motion to recess to budget workshop at 6 PM on August 13.

I move we recess until August 13 at 6 PM.

Second.

Motion by Council President Hestrom, second by Council Member Baldrige. All in favor of recess?

Aye.

We're now in recess. Have a good evening. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.