City Council - Regular Meeting

family away from home where everyone feels like everybody knows their name. A city that supports you. We see that with our benefits, a pension, vacation days, job security, being able to be heard. We feel valued. We feel respected. Lee Summit is a very progressive city. It's growing. It's thriving. We have this drive towards not just doing a job, but doing it with a spirit of excellence. I had the opportunity to continue to grow regardless of 30 plus years doing this kind of work. It's more than just dollars and cents. We're here really to give back. Providing a service to better a community, to go out and serve people, to be a part of something bigger than yourself.

If I would have known what I know now, years ago, I would have been here much sooner. Le Summit has lots of local destinations, but where do you start? Green Street, a vibrant community space in the heart of downtown, is where Lee Summit comes together. Its three dynamic areas have something for everyone. Green Street Market is a modern event venue and home to the downtown Lee Summit Farmers Market. Green Street Lawn is a covered performance space hosting live music, family activities, and more. Green Street Grove is a mixture of gathering spaces, an immersive playground, and bold architectural features. And all three areas host community events year round. So the next time you set out to enjoy the city you love, remember, meet at Green Street. Welcome to the Lee Summit sign department. We are going to walk you through our process from start to finish. We make signs as needed here. It's not like we just go out into the field and place a speed limit sign here. No parking here. Our traffic engineers, they go through and they'll do field studies. They'll send us down an engineering work order for us to go out, place new signs or remove signs as needed. Coming from the material, our blanks come in and they're just aluminum blanks. We can put our white, our red, our, you know, our fluorescent yellow, green, whatever. And basically what it looks like is just that there. throw it up into the the roller.

And once we got it covered, take it to our workt here and Tim will cut the corners, cut all the access off to where it's uh lined up. Right. As far as the plotter and the software that we use, there's a street name sign there and he's going to go ahead and print that out on the plotter so you can see the plotter and how it operates and runs. There's standards for the height even just on letters on the sign blank. Basically what we have on the computer there is it's pretty much set up to those and it goes through it's got a very small but sharp needle that goes through and cuts everything out letter by letter. Once that's done uh cutting, our next stage would be bringing it over here. Currently picking out the sign letters right now. We call it weeding or picking or however you want to call it. Next, putting it on the transfer tape. Then after it's taped, we bring it over to the roller. That's where we apply it to the actual sign blank. And we'll roll it through one time just to get the air bubbles out. And the last stage is basically just uh taking the transfer tape off the front of it. And there's a finished product of street name sign. We'll take you out to the field and show you our process that we go through. We're going to go out and follow our sign guys. get something installed for you. This is where we check our underground utilities. Tim, you got AT&T?

AT&T's back here. Everg Google. So, we should be good to go. We normally put all of our stuff together out in the field. Then once the base is installed, we'll go ahead and put the post in there. Come up to perfect. And that's how we do it. Simple, quick.

Keeping our city beautiful is a collaborative effort for all citizens. The city of Lee Summit supports these efforts with a set of guidelines or ordinances and the city's neighborhood services team helps put those guidelines into practice. These guidelines ensure grass stays trimmed, fences are maintained, home exteriors are kept up, and much more. We can all help out by first making sure our property meets these guidelines. If you notice a potential violation on a neighbor's property, first check the guidelines on the city's website. If it is a violation, the next step is to communicate with your neighbor directly. If that is not possible or if the problem persists, it can be reported through LS Connect. LS Connect is an online platform for submitting issues to the city. You can access it on the city website or by downloading the app through your mobile devices app store. Once you submit an issue, it is reviewed by the neighborhood services team. A neighborhood services officer will then visit the site. For any violations found, the neighborhood services officer will leave a notice and speak with the property owner if possible. The officer's goal is to help the property owner solve or abate the problem as quickly as possible. After a 10-day period, the officer will inspect the site to see if the issue has been abated. Normally, by this point, the issue has been resolved. If not, depending on the type of issue, an extension could be granted or the city might fix the problem at the owner's expense. In rare cases, if all other measures have been applied, the issue will be resolved in the municipal court. Neighborhood services officers work hard to resolve problems quickly and positively. They are here to support the community as we work together to keep our city beautiful.

Member level. Thank you, Mayor. Um, great presentation, Ryan. Thank you. Is there any indicator that shows are we supporting a need.

You know, they talk about like gym rats, kids that grew up with their dads that were coaches. Like I was a a city hall rat. My dad uh Tom Levelvel was uh hired as a parks administrator in 1978 and spent 40 years in public service here in Lee Summit. I would go up on the weekends when he was working and I'd run around and and play and do things and I didn't know what he was doing at the time, but I just knew that was part of uh our weekend routine some days was was to go up and hang out at city hall. Being part of a city from a young age to now in my adult life, you reap so many benefits from that. The people you know, you care more for something that you've been a part of. My wife and I knew we wanted to raise a family. Just trying to find a community that we thought we could raise our children in that was good to me. And it just felt like the right move as we were deciding on a on a city to come back to. Fortunate to have started a business in 2018. I founded Level Insurance Group and we are a business insurance brokerage. So we help businesses uh procure insurance. decided to throw our flag in the ground here in Lee Summit and it's grown. I also have this passion for learning and curiosity and I started a podcast series. So, I really enjoy this opportunity where I sit down with business owners and tell their story and uh get this out to other people in hopes that maybe it betters their life and gives them some inspiration or something. This is going to be a really exciting time and obviously this city for my my blood, my dad's been a part of it for a long time, so I'm really excited. Thank you all.

A lot of people would say I was crazy, right? So why, you know, why do you throw your hand up and subject yourself to um going into city politics? I think um especially as I've gotten older, I I just felt, you know, maybe a civic duty, like a responsibility to say, "Hey, this city's been great to me. Here's a way that I can give back and take some of my skills and put them to work for the people of this city." I wanted to bring a different maybe way of thinking and take some of my business acumen and see areas that it may apply to how we develop and grow this community and just give a different perspective. One of our biggest challenges but also one of our big biggest opportunities is how do we develop and grow this community? We don't want to grow too fast but we want to grow at a pace that helps support you know who and what we are as a community. So, you know, we've got a lot of opportunities, whether that be through development or parks. Um, we've got a lot of land coming on board. So, I just think it's important like it's a challenge, but it's also our greatest opportunity. And so, we just got to be smart how we do that. It's just asking some different questions. Like, I'm just I'm I'm one that I'm not contrarian for contrarian's sake. What I am is someone will tell me something and then I want to get to that position with them by just asking thoughtful questions along the way. And then if I can get there, then I feel like we've answered everything we can to move that forward versus, hey, here's kind of how we've done it. I'm never the this is how we how we do it. This is how we've always done it. This is how we'll continue to do it.

Office council member for district 2. All of my practical experience has put me in this position to serve. And I just raised my hand and said, I want to do that. Which I was elected on April 5th, 2022.

I feel this obligation to carry this legacy that my dad did. and my family did. And then giving my kids an environment to grow up in that makes them want to come back. My kids have started rec sports through the parks and recreation system. And I'm watching them play soccer on this sport field that, you know, my dad helped develop and my dad's sitting there with me, right? I mean, that's just that's the stuff that really matters in life. behoo Hey, hey, hey. Hey.

All

right. Welcome everyone. Uh would you please rise for the invocation and stay standing for the pledge of allegiance. Let us take a moment to pause as we gather for this joint session. We ask for clarity of thought, steadiness of purpose, and respect for one another as we do the public's work together. May our discussions be grounded in our experience and guided by our shared commitment to the people and places we serve. Help us listen carefully and honestly, disagree constructively when we must. We're entrusted with decisions that shape our community, its neighborhoods, its public spaces, and the daily lives of those who call it home. Let today's work reflect integrity, collaboration, and a long view towards common good. Thank you for this moment. Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.

Okay. Again, welcome everyone. I'm calling to order the city of Lee Summit joint session with the Lee Summit Parks and Recreation Board regular session number 60 to order. Could I get a roll call, please? Council member Hodes, Council Member Rder, present. Council member Prior, here. Council member Shields here. Council member Funk here. Council member Levelville. Council member Carlile, Mayor Prom Lopez here, Mayor Baird

here. Um so we did have a couple of council members and they were all three um urgent kind of matters. So um which is really rare because we hardly ever miss anybody. So but tonight it was one of those nights. So um so anyway, we'll forge ahead. Um with that we um we have a few items on the agenda. Um, but to be able to get started, I need an approval of the agenda. Council member Shields, move to approve the agenda as presented. Did you second? Okay. Um, I'll get to it in a second then. Um, we have a motion on the floor to approve the agenda. Uh, and a sec. Okay. We have a motion by Council Member Shields, seconded by Council Member Rider. Discussion.

Seeing none, could I get a roll call vote, please? Council member Shields. I. Council member Rder. I. Mayor Prom Lopez. Hi, Council Member Prior. Hi, Council Member Funk. Hi, Mayor Baird. I And then could you do a roll call for the park board, too? Uh, Lawrence Bivvens here. Katherine Campbell here. Wesley Fields. Mindy Alenbach here. Nate Zir here. Casey Crawford here. Treasurer Ellis here. Vice President Shepard here. President Huer here.

All right. Thank you. Um, so I do look forward to this. Uh, every year we've been doing this. It's a joint session between the park board and the city council. And I enjoy it because first off, it helps us communicate. No one know what's going on and we we do uh we get to share um we get to see each other outside of you know um events and such because we don't actually make it to your your meetings very often or we have to watch them online. Um so uh we do have a liaison that's right but um but this is a time to come together because you all have a separate charter than uh you have your own charter and we have a charter and we follow them but we are we mimic that each other we we emulate each other um with regard to how we do business and the type of uh decision-m that we do and so appreciate your service appreciate all the exciting things you guys have been working on uh that we're going to talk about. Um I think that uh I'm really proud of the park board and I'm proud of our parks. It's a big reason why people um love our city so much. Um we've got something on the school on the schools tonight on our agenda as well later and that's uh the other reason people love our city so much. So it's a it's a it's a really great night to to be able to um I call it uh collaborate with our stakeholders. So, uh, president of the board, Jim Huser, um, has you, how long you been president now?

This is, uh, the this is, uh, wrapping up my second year. So, it's a two-year term, and we'll be moving on from, uh, here later this year for that standpoint. Thank you, m uh, Mr. Mayor. Uh, good evening and thank you all for being here tonight. Uh, I want to start by recognizing Mayor B and his collaborative leadership style. uh his openness and willingness to work together is what makes joint sessions like this possible and we truly appreciate this opportunity. I also want to thank each member of the city council. Uh your continued engagement, strong support of the Lee Summit parks and recck department. That partnership matters and it really shows. Uh tonight I also is a great moment to acknowledge the growth of our park system. uh with the recent addition of Red Hawk Park that brings our total park system and facilities to 33. Um it's quite a system that we have and it's nice to take a moment and make sure that we share that so that people understand the the depth and breadth of our park system. Um finally, I want to thank you mayor and the council for your support in the recently enacted park impact fee and for your thoughtful engagement as we've explored uh developmental options and locations for our newest facility. Your involvement has been critical in helping us plan responsibly, strategically, and for the future of our park system. We appreciate all of your partnership and we look forward to tonight's discussion.

Yeah, I'm excited. And we got a fieldhouse coming and a pickleball complex we're going to talk about and uh the impact fee. What what's the other topic we get to talk about? The uh Oh, yeah. The Unity Village Park. So you you have a lot going on and uh so do we and we're going to share with you on our stuff, but thank you for those kind words and um I really do feel like we've got a great thing going. So um future councils need to continue this, I think. So um so would you all uh when you guys uh when we speak, we'll have to pass around the microphones and when you do talk really close into it. I mean I hate to say really close. It helps. And then um also realize that the speakers in the back of the room are what are what are um going to um what you're going to hear. So you may not hear yourself talking um like loudly, but I think the crowd can hear us okay tonight. So um and with that, I think I'll get us started. Okay. Um first thing on the agenda is the uh park board topic of park impact fee. And you've got the the guy that always uh builds things uh for the parks, Steve Casey, superintendent of park planning and construction. So, how are you,

Mayor Baird? Thank you. Good evening. Uh President Huer, pleasure to be with you. Of course, city council members and park board members. Good evening. I'm Steve Casey. I'm the superintendent of park planning and construction. Um got some uh good topics to present tonight. We want to talk about three projects and then give everybody a brief update on our park impact fee. I know most of you all at the table were were involved in the process either the council or the park board in the process that we went through to enact the the impact fee. It did go into effect uh July 1, 2025 with a city ordinance. Um essentially it's structured to ensure that new development through our community contribute uh proportionately a proportionate share um of the cost to provide parks and wreck facilities throughout our community. It also ensures that funds collected from new development are used to construct park and wreck facilities that serve that new development. So essentially the new development helps to pay for it but the new development benefits from it. So, um just a a quick overview again, um how it's structured. The non-residential portion of it, the fees are set at 20 cents a square foot. The residential fees are $250 per bedroom. Those fees um collected since July 1st total a little under 220,000 and are fairly equally distributed among non-residential and residential um uh fee collections. I would point out that this is structured in a way again to pay for park improvements that are associated with in close proximity to neighborhoods. So, it's divided up into five zones. So, monies that are collected through development um through the development process and the building permit process pays for parks and park improvements in very close proximity to where they're collected. So, you wouldn't see a fee that was collected on a project south paying for a park

development to the north. they are structured in a way where they're building we're building parks. We're we're acquiring land in the areas where there's development. So, um want to touch on three projects tonight. Um the pickle ball complex out at Long View. Obviously, there's a lot of anticipation for this. We know how popular pickle ball is in our community. Um the demand is very high for additional outdoor courts. We started construction on this project back in September. Um you can see generally kind of the layout plan there for the for the courts. Um here are some recent construction photos that we've taken. Um it is located south of the Long View Community Center. Uh we are going to uh have uh built 12 regulation courts with LED lights. Um there'll be some shade structures with seating. Um point out that this is these are free to use for the public. Uh we'll have a reservation system. Uh all the courts are available first come first serve. Four of the courts will be available for reservation through our uh through our website. Uh we anticipate the courts to open in February 2026 just in time for the snow to fly. Um but we'll spring is right around the corner. So we're excited for this. Um we know this will be a popular amenity. Um, we feel like we've got a very unique layout also that kind of fosters, you can see in the picture in the bottom right hand corner, we've got a very large shade canopy that's about a 60 foot wide shade canopy. So, we'll have seating underneath that opportunity for social. It's pickle ball is a very social sport. Um, and so it's opportunity for people, you know, to to uh socialize and gather in that location. and it's kind of centrally located um with the courts. So, we're really excited about that. We're very close to wrapping up. Sometimes the devil's in the details, but we're

getting there and we anticipate the courts to open very soon. So, I'm going to turn it over to David Dean. He's going to talk a little bit. He's our project manager for the indoor sports complex. Okay. Oh, can we stop there and ask questions about the pickle ball complex and and such? um questions from council or board members commentary um especially like that part about it is a it is a social sport so like I had to get used to that when I started playing like everybody really they you're supposed to have a good time. This is board members here.

Yeah. Thank you. Um I really wanted to actually make a comment going back a little bit just to the park impact fee. One thing that I think is just important for everybody to recognize about those fees is is because that that funding mechanism is being used in those zones and in those districts that allows for the maintenance and modernization of existing park systems. So that mechanism is really for building and developing new park space so that we're not constantly using the the park's revenue to create new. We're ensuring that all of our residents across the entire city continue to have really vibrant and sustainable park systems. And I just I thought that was worth noting.

Okay. Um any other questions, comments on this? Um I do I'll have questions. So were you there when like I remember a few years ago people were really excited about possibility of a pickle ball complex and you got you got um engaged with heavily in your meetings. I mean, you had you had people sitting all around your room, did you not? Can you tell us about that?

Uh, yes. The, uh, Pokéball community is a large and engaged community. Um, but they're very collaborative. Um, they wanted to they wanted to develop a complex that was going to be good for the whole community. It wasn't just about them. Um, so it was a great group of individuals who' engage us at several different meetings from that standpoint. always professional um always looking for the greater community in regards to that. Um so I think uh going to 12 courts um I think you know we kind of vacasillated around a little bit there but we really pushed it and uh 12 courts is going to be its destination um they'll have all kinds of good stuff going on out there from that standpoint. So um tournaments

from you know pickle ball tournaments and things like that. And if you notice, and if you're familiar, right now we have pickleball courts, but there's a few here, a few here, a few here. This allows for that gathering from that standpoint. Um, so it's going to be a destination. Um, it'll be very busy from that standpoint. So, very, very exciting time. I just wanted to point it out because you listened to them. I we didn't really have this in the works, per se, but you saw such big demand. And then they also made a really nice appeal as far as the benefits, the fact that they were leaving town and going to Olether or wherever and spending their entire day or weekend in another city. So I appreciate you listening to them and coming to this decision. So all right, back to you, Mr. Casey. I have some questions. Can I

No, you know, this is not public comments.

Okay. Good evening. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, President Huer, city council and park board. appreciate the opportunity to speak about the indoor sports complex tonight. This is obviously a very exciting project uh for us. It'll be the largest construction project that the parks and recreation department has taken on um in a number of years. So really looking forward to it. Uh currently we're we're in finishing up the design phase of the project. Uh so we hope to have this out to bid in um late March, early April time frame uh with construction to start uh late summer, early fall uh with hopefully opening in um late summer, early fall of 2027. So um just a few notes on the on the project. Again, this is located in the in the um Olden Village development project on the east side of it. Um the facility right now, it's a little over 98,000 ft is what we're looking at. Uh it'll have 10 regulation basketball courts, 14 regulation uh volleyball courts. Um it'll have a um grab-and-go concession operation, uh meeting space that'll seat up to 250 people. Um and then it'll have a office suite that will take care of the operations team as well as a new location for the parks and recreation administrative offices. Uh so something I want to share with you tonight. We'll do uh I'll be able to show you a fly through of the facility and um that our architects which is SFS architecture put together for us. So this is looking at the complex coming in Fieldhouse Drive into the facility. Uh you'll see a lot of the colors in the facility were kind of based off the oak trees. So you'll see green and the and the light oak colors and this is in the atrium as you enter the facility. And then another view of the atrium

looking from the welcome desk back to the front entry. A lot of great views of the facility. Again, one of the things that we did is separated um down the large hallway. will be it'll be all glass and that'll help uh minimize the sound going out to the lobby area. But great viewing for um spectators to be able to be seated along that hallway to look out into the gymnasium during during events. And then our meeting space there again will see 250. Also we'll be able to host our parkboard meetings over there on a monthly basis. Again, this is kind of the great shot of the the large hallway with lots of seating. There'll be some seating in the gymnasium, but a majority of it will be in the hallway. And then the uh plaza area out front. Now, some of this is still under refinement. But we're about 80 to 85% complete on the plans right now and kind of nice view as the facility goes to dark.

Happy to answer any questions. Yeah, it's gorgeous. Um questions from council or comments from anybody? Yes. Yes, member Ellis. Okay. So, I this this uh fieldhouse has been a great thing to watch over the last few years because we've had about five different locations that we've been trying to figure out where it will work best. And

being able to redevelop that blighted spot on 50 highway and 291 South where all of everything's going on right there is just a fantastic opportunity. I know that city council was very instrumental in helping that happen and park board's very appreciative of all the assistance that happened along the way because it's going to be an iconic space. You can see the building and what we're trying to put on the ground there and it's going to be a great thing that's going to be right at the heart of such a major transportation uh uh space in Lee Summit. So that and I will also comment that uh even pickle ball out at Long View was another one of those things where it took a while to figure out where it was going to go and by waiting it's really helped us find the most prime spots that we could do. So I just want to thank the staff for all their work that they put on that and and really researched all the different details in order to make that happen. Yeah, I know this one is one that also can do tournaments and you can do uh volleyball, basketball, you can bring people from uh the metro and I remember traveling all over the metro. However, this one, this fieldhouse is going to provide space for our community with regard to basketball. So, can one of the board members, park board members, talk about the fact that I mean you were you're still at this very moment probably having to negotiate with the schools on which half court you can get inside of a little teeny gym. Is that true? Is that true?

I will speak to that because everyone's staring at me, but yes, that is true. Board member Crawford.

Um, it's very challenging for youth basketball to get space. So, say you play through LS B LSJBA basketball, which is not part of the park system, they will give you anywhere from a basketball goal in an elementary gym or half of a elementary school gym, which is if you've got two teams, 20 plus kids, their parents, it doesn't really work then. Plus, you try to play all the games for girls basketball at Harris Park. It's just challenging from the years and years that we've done it plus volleyball and all the other sports. And so being able to have a central location not only for our youth programs, but for a central geographic location for those coming from south from whether it be Cass County, Lojack, Orland Park to be able to have a central location to a great fieldhouse is very key. And I'll be happy not to drive all over the city anymore and be able to play locally too with my kids. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it's beautiful. It's actually I was really curious as to the the design um because I've seen I have traveled and seen a lot of gyms and been crowded in places that had no places to see even the big fieldouses where you had no place to see and and I saw the gorgeous hallway where you could um be protected and uh you you could you even had the barriers up so you could you're thinking through the so the sound and the noise. I mean well designed and it looks it looks fantastic. So, uh, any any other comments or questions? Okay, I'm excited about this one. Thank you all. Thank you.

Okay, I take a minute to touch on um some recent master planning that we have completed on uh some undeveloped property that's been under um our ownership for a number of years. Uh just for context, this is the property is kind of wedged between uh 470 and Coburn Road. Uh but adjacent and linked to Discovery Park and also the Unity Village property. So just kind of give you some context. Uh it's 30 acres, heavily wooded, um pretty rugged terrain. Um we uh completed a master plan. I think the master plan was very much driven with the new development that's going on there with Discovery Park and of course the Coburn Road improvements which had just recently been completed. So there's been some impetus to get um move move this project ahead and has also been um somewhat let's get back to our slide here slideshow from current slide. Here we go. Um so we had a pretty robust stakeholder input process on this which is always good for us. We like to be collaborative in our planning. Um we involved uh the unity village um people. We involved R seven school district park and city staff. Um there's a potential here for partnership with adjacent uh an adjacent land owner for access uh land use and utilities which helps tremendously because I think one challenge with this property is it has very minimal frontage to Coburn Road. And so we were looking at how how we could really connect and link into this park property. Um so the outcome of the master planning I think we had to address this from a a very passive use standpoint. We're not going to be able to build soccer fields and baseball fields out here because of the terrain.

It's probably 95% wooded. So, we wanted to um be obviously very environmentally conscious and be kind of in a conservation mode with this development project. So, we looked at recreation more passive recreational opportunities, walking trails, hiking trails, mountain biking trails. We're looking at some bicycle improvements on the north end of the property. Um, and I'll give you some kind of snapshot visuals of some of the improvements that we're looking. But on the north end of the property, those colored in areas are designed to be more bike bicycle centric. So, there'll be bike paths, there'll be uh flow courses, there'll be um some opportunities for children and bicycle users to use some of these pathways. Um, and then of course we'll offer we'll offer uh paths and everything through the site where um you've you've got beginners uh intermediate and advanced riders will be able to use the site. Um, also looking at future connections to Unity Village. Um, there's an opportunity with that underpass um underneath Culin Road to connect to Unity Village. So again, a great opportunity. I know Unity Villages um has a lot of trails on their property. So, we've talked to them about making connections and expanding on the trail. Trails are the most popular thing we do in Lee Summit. So, um this is a very trail oriented plan. But on the south end, we're also looking at where you see the cluster of parking and um some of the development areas. We're looking at some traditional play. We're also looking at, and we've seen this in some other parks, regional parks, is this concept of this treetop village or treetop adventure areas um on the site. And these last couple slides will give you some visual representation of the programming that we're looking

at. Um very nature themed play, opportunities to interact with the stream that runs through the property. Um, of course, walking trails, uh, nature play, as I mentioned, discoverable art, shelters, restrooms, all those, um, standard kind of improvements we would we would bring into a new park development. Um, and I'll share some additional slides. Some of the visuals that you're getting up on the upper tier involve this tree village concept where you're connecting from tree to tree, but you've got these netted walkways elevated. Um, we've seen some of these parks in some other uh destination areas. We really feel like this is a a once in a, you know, a once opportunity to to do something that's really unique that we don't see in our parks. And it's really driven by the fact that the site is offers that to us. It's not intended to be developed with soccer field, like I said, soccer fields and football fields, but it's nature themed. it's oriented around the site and let's use the topography and the vegetation to um develop something unique. So, we're excited about this project. Um we've wrapped up the planning. Um we'll share it with the with the park board in a little more detail at our upcoming meeting here in January. And so, um that essentially wraps up her presentation and we would be happy to open up any questions. Um, okay. So, this one, we don't have anything like this and I know most of our parks I love Hartman because of the creek that you know you can have, but it is it's it's mostly open. And then, um, Legacy is fantastic, but it's not treated like this and and this is gorgeous. So, comments, questions? Yes, Council Member Shields.

Um, just really seconding what the mayor said, like this seems fantastic. This seems like such a great complement to what we're already doing in the city. really filling a gap, I guess, something that we don't see everywhere else. Like I think this would be such a great addition to Lee Summit and so great for our families and I hope it's done in time for my son to enjoy. But uh just purely selfish. Uh no, this looks this looks amazing. Thank you so much for sharing it. What is the time frame on this?

Well, I think I think we're looking at that right now. Originally, we had some funding in our CIP that was under our 5-year window, but again, um there's some things that are uh uh partners, adjacent land owners that are ready to move forward and that will assist us and help us getting the necessary infrastructure to the site. I think probably hear a little more about that tonight, but um I think we potentially could be looking at pushing that schedule up a little bit. So, um, perhaps in the next 2 or 3 years, we'll see some activity there.

Um, I think this is a great example of for me at least 6 years ago, I believe I had gotten a list of all the parks and I was like, what is this park? And Joe was like, okay, well, we can this is some land and they explained it and it's just basically trees and we're not sure what we can do with it yet, but it's something that's it's available to us. It's 30 acres. It's a sizable piece, but what will you do with it? And you don't know at that time how the city's going to develop and grow, what things are going to be approved. Um, and how fast this can come around relatively speaking. Um and from where I thought ah uh to this is going to be an unbelievable park system and the tree the treecape portion of it using the nature of it will really be a differentiator which will once again the park system will attract not only our residents but visitors from elsewhere and as they attract to that park they will then begin to use and leverage the surrounding shops, stores and etc just like we will see over at the new fieldhouse. house because if you've been involved in anything like we have with children, you've got a 2-hour break between the volleyball, what are you going to do? And then all of those people will be going right out into those parking lots and leveraging the facilities that are out there, the restaurants, which will just drive revenue and things back to the city. So, it's really neat to watch things like this come together. So, it's it's it's very exciting.

Yeah. Thank you, Mayor Pat Lopez.

Just a quick question. You mentioned the trails um you know for hiking, mountain biking and all that kind of stuff, walking. Will this be connected to any of the other trail system across the area? I I think obviously the you know the one sort of lowhanging fruit opportunities connect to some of the as I mentioned some of the unity trails um Coburn Road um with a a multi-use path we can make connections out there and then I think further there's potential for linkages on our trails plan to connect to the Rock Island little blue trace trail which are regional you know regional destinations so I think it's all about having worked on the our trail system for a number of years. I think it's all about opportunities and finding those linkages because people want to connect to those bigger trails, those longer trails like the Rock Island, like the Little Blue Trace. And I think this is an opportunity with development of this site and being trail oriented to to kind of further further provide those linkages. Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. Member Zer.

Yeah. just uh I this is something that I think um those of you who know people who cycle um and and ride bikes uh would know that they're going to be really excited about this development. Right now, most people I know uh who mountain bike, particularly at the kind of green and blue level of trail system that we're talking about here, um they will drive over to Kansas right now um to access kind of these early beginner level trails. Um so it's going to be a great amenity to have. Um I'm really excited to have it. I could already tell you that I would access uh the Lakewood Loop and then back end on Phelps under the Little Blue Trace from from where this development is. So, um now I have little kids, so I don't ride much, but uh this might get me out. And with green trails and pump tracks and um you know, just a progressive jump line, maybe I can even get my daughter on a bike out there. So, we'll see.

All right. Anybody else? I do think um you commented about how you go, you know, whenever people are between games or whenever they come to the community. I think that I spent a lot of time in other cities parks because of that. Um especially there was always a long time between baseball games and summertime and things of that nature. But I think this is going to bring people to our community like the bike riders and and the trail people because this looks really special. So I'm excited about it. All right. All right. Not seeing any other comments. So, Mr. Casey, thank you so much. Mr. Snook, do you want to say anything? You you just going to take a back row back seat in this or you

Well, I mean, how do I add to that? My staff did a great job. They great presentation and you guys had great questions, but um a couple things I would probably add. Um one, I appreciate Pro Tim's question about the trail system. uh um Unity Village was a stakeholder in this particular project and we talked they came to all the meetings. All of our stakeholders were very engaged and we're very fortunate to have people who are very engaged in these processes. But you think about all the people who will be living just to the west of this or east of this at Discovery Park. It was mentioned that the um uh Coburn Road has a multi-use path. Well, thanks to public work and all their efforts, um, you know, we have linkages between parks and the trails that we do along with the multi-use trails, but thank somebody will be able to get on a bike or walk from Discovery Park all the way to here. Then if we're able to link with Unity Village, then they have a plan to expand their trail system pretty significantly. You know, you could potentially easily have a a 10 or 12 mile experience out here. As a mountain biker, that's a that's a great experience, right? And the other thing I would just add as we're talking about trails and again through the partnership with public works and Michael and his teams right now we I'm going to go out on a limb here Steve but I believe we have surpassed 100 miles of trails collectively between the city's efforts and the parks efforts. I don't know any other community in the metro area that has 100 miles of trails linking their community up throughout. That's pretty impressive and something we all should be very proud of. I know we are proud of at the parks department, but the city should also be very proud of that joint effort to get us to over 100 miles of trails. So, appreciate everybody's uh questions and happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you. Well, that is something to be proud of. So, thank you for pointing that out. All right, I'm going to move on then uh to some city topics. Um we've got a a few of them on here. So, um the first one is the uh Oh, Mr. Park's up here. He's going to talk about storm water, storm water and sales tax.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Michael Park, director of public works. And I I don't have a presentation with a lot of pretty pictures, but it was very good what parks did and quite exciting. So, mine's not quite as exciting, but we did work on uh two city council priority goals throughout 2025, and we got some some additional work to do here in 2026 on storm water and solid waste. And um these were both initiated, two goals initiated by the city council a little over a year ago. Uh but they didn't begin with that initiation. In fact, I'll start with storm water and then we'll we'll move on to solid waste and ask questions as I go along. I be kind of flying at a pretty high level. Uh storm water, I think we really started around 1995. Give you some perspective. 30 years we've been working on solving our storm water um asset utility issues where we're woefully underfunded. Uh think of our other major assets like pavements or waters and sewers. We have programs for those, right? So you have inspections and you've got u proactive maintenance and you got capital projects. We we've not had that for storm water. I see some faces here that have taken part on citizen strategic plans. The most recent being Ignite. It has been a recommendation of each and every one of those citizen strategic plans to find a funding solution for our storm water uh needs. Um and storm water goes beyond just our permitting and it's got public education components to it. It's got capital infrastructure. It's got maintenance. And so we worked through and you may have been familiar with a few years ago we were working with park board or park department and park mitt board members with as one of our stakeholders in a rate like a a user fee basis as one of those funding sources. Um throughout the course of this last year we explored that as a solution. We also reopened other alternatives being property tax and sales tax. Um we said let's first figure

out what is the level of service we really want to deliver with this new utility and it started with just operation and maintenance and it grew. It grew to include some capital work. It grew to expand our um public education component to it. it grew so that maybe we can offer new programs for a public private partnership, whether that be just offering resources to inspect private basins to help them comply with storm water um requirements and and storm water quality requirements. Um we started to expand that and say, well, maybe it's more also to the landscape, you know, street trees and and a program because we've lacked any kind of program for maintaining any of that type of infrastructure. So storm water is very broad and it affects everybody in the city of Lee Summit in some way. uh whether you're at the top of the hill and and you're receiving that water or you're at the bottom of the hill or a lake community you're receiving that um and so working through what do we need to solve this issue and deliver that level of service we arrived at we need to add two new crews and equipment that includes you know the operators who are going to do the maintenance the supervisors the engineers the educators um potential partnerships with other organizations for for also not just the the people and the equipment and the tools tools, but the supplies, materials, and then as well for smaller capital projects we want to deliver with this fund. And we identified a need of about $6 million starting year one uh to fund that desired level of service. And each one of those uh funding mechanisms, whether it be a user fee basis, so you're looking at impervious areas, rooftops and driveways and and parking lots, and calculating their direct impact to a storm water calculation, or a property tax or a sales tax, the the city council arrived at a sales tax is really the preferred way. So, um there's a lot of benefits to a sales tax, a quarter cent sales tax, which is what we are putting on the ballot in August. Um

the the ordinance for that ballot measure were passed by the city council this last November. Um one of the benefits is that we don't really have a whole lot of oversight costs. There's no billing systems. There's no collections. Uh there's no debt that you got to go chase, no oversight board or policies for exemptions and um credits and such that you would find with maybe perhaps some of the other ways. And then we also didn't feel like the appetite for maybe a property tax would also be uh viable within our community. And a sales tax, even a quarter cent as being proposed, still keeps the city of Lee Summit's overall sales tax where you combine all those sales taxes right kind of in the middle of the pack where we are here in the metro area. So we felt like this seems like a very good solution to take to the voters, see if the voters will make a decision. Do we want to increase our level of service for storm water? And if so, this is a funding way to do it. Uh we've never got to this point before over our 30 years of chasing strategic plan recommendations to take it to the voters to finally make a decision one way or the other. And so uh we will be preparing some public education information leading up to that ballot measure like we do for any other ballot measure, whether it's a no tax increase bond issue or a new sales tax of any sort. And we'll be visiting different groups. Um, and so maybe we'll see you guys out there too as we we kind of talk about the information about what this tax will provide and what it means to the community. So with that, any questions on the storm water tax again election in August?

Okay, questions, comments? I know that um some of the most stressful council meetings we've had is have been involved around flooding and um over the years that I've been here. So, um, it becomes really difficult as a as council member, of course, as city staff when we don't have an issue to address an area that floods and it floods because of these issues that we're having with storm water. And some of them been around for a long time and they've just gotten worse over time. And um, so with that said, uh, questions or comments from

All right, Mr. Park, keep going, sir. All right, I'll I'll move into kind of the next priority goal that city council u initiated again and that's solid waste. And solid waste too has been around for some time. We we were looking back at least 20 years, probably 25 years that it too has found its way into citizens strategic plans including the most recent Ignite plan that I'm sure many of you are familiar with or maybe you you were even engaged in developing these recommendations. Um, and this is to explore how can we be better stewards in the community with regard to solid waste. Um, how can we maybe get lower prices for our residents and better service when it comes to sol residential solid waste collection. And so over the course of this last year, we really fully explored that of what those services would look like um, and how we could bring that forward to the community. It's a city council decision and and we have identified what that level service would look like and are is the basis of a request for proposals that eventually will go out for market competition to see what pricing could be delivered for a hauler. Now, we engaged with HOAs, we engaged with residents and had town hall meetings. We engaged with the haulers. We engaged with industry professionals and peer communities because this isn't new, right? So, um, contracting solid waste services, and this, I want to be clear, only affects residential properties, not commercial services. Um, it's common. It, in fact, more than half of the communities in the metropolitan area contract. Even our our neighbor nearby like Greenwood is our closest and and many others do. Um, so contracting isn't new. And what we did also find out is that about a third of our city already contracts through an HOA. And we saw in those discussions with HOAs, they they value that contract. And in this proposal, they would be allowed to continue

contracting. Uh they could also opt into the city's contract. As long as their contract is continuous, they could keep doing it, but if there's a break in service, there's no back and forth, if you will. Um, so roughly a third of our community will have the option to continue contracting with who they they continue or maybe a new contract. And I think that still achieves the objectives of what the city council was looking for, right? Reducing the number of trucks in the neighborhoods, um, increase safety by reducing the number of trucks, increase the aesthetic appeal of our neighborhoods by having single collection days, uh, potentially reducing price. We do believe that prices will be reduced. In fact, we've got that from our survey data of HOAs and peer communities who contract. It's substantially less than what uh subscription services are offered to individuals. And and we won't know that for sure uh with any certainty till we get proposals received and reviewed. And so in the end, we we gathered this, we assembled this um working with many stakeholders in the community um to deliver really a a proposal to the city council. do you want to proceed with this or not? And because there was a a lot of difference in the community, I the city council has put this also out to an election. Uh more of an advisory election in November is tonight the second reading uh for that election is on the agenda. Um and then following that advisory vote by the citizens of lease summit, the city council could then take action on a proposal contract that would then be implemented at some point between uh July of 2027 and July of 2028. So we've already given our required statutory notice to all the haulers uh within the city summit and we can't do those state regulations start service or start any implementation prior to that July 2027 date. But we can't do it also any later than that July of 2028 date. So that kind of gives you a time frame of if passed, if

supported by the voters, if then contracted by the city council, when that implementation period might occur and I'd be happy to answer any questions on that topic as well. Questions, comments.

Yes. Yes. Michael, I um this this was on the strategic plan so many years ago and is one one thing we never got done uh on it and it's great to see it actually come full circle and I know that a lot of HOAs have their own services and their own contracts with it. I think that's probably the biggest most important thing that to listen on is that when people have something good, they don't want to let it go. And uh I think this is really it sounds like you're going to be doing a lot of information factf finding from the people who don't cuz uh that's what I hear from people who don't have the service and they have trash trucks going up and down the street all week every day. Right.

And I think that's the the ultimate goal is to get it organized in every neighborhood like some of the some of the subdivisions have the benefit of having. So I'm glad you're tackling it again. Uh, and I'm glad that you're getting input and I I guess I would just continue to encourage that open dialogue so that uh nobody's really being feeling pushed out, but maybe a better organized way of of uh managing the solid waste.

Yes. And and leading up to that November election, we will similarly go out to the community and talk to groups providing information about what the service uh would look like, the implementation schedule, answering questions, uh providing information Yes. Okay. Yes. M member Crawford. Uh Mr. Park, can you go into a little more depth about the how it work would work with an HOA? You said if there's a break in contract, what what is that?

So, so roughly a third of our community is within an HOA that contracts. We have another um probably 20 to 30% of our community that is in an HOA that doesn't contract. And and what we would say is that if you contract, you can change your provider, that's fine. Or you can continue with your provider, that's fine, but you wouldn't be able to opt into the city and then change your mind and go back to contracting. If that makes sense. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. Going from a private provider to to the city and then back to a private,

right? because we have to provide some assurances to a contractor of what their base customer is and and going into a contract they know who's contracting and they would have the option to join into a contract and gain customer which is a good thing. What we don't want is them to lose customers because that could affect a bid. Thank you. Right. Thank you. All right. Um I think we're going to push on. I think we have one more topic tonight. Mr. Park. Thank you for providing the updates to us. And now we've got Mr. Head, our lead attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, President Huer, thanks for having me tonight. Um, just been asked to speak a little bit about where things stand with the charter commission presently. Um, I'll give you a little brief history before before we jump into that. Uh, section 14.8 of the charter u does require that every 10 years the city convene a charter review commission. Um and so that process started really over a year ago with our rules committee that established a process um for how we would go about appointing those individuals. We did utilize a pro the same process that we have for a number of times but we did set it out in an actual city ordinance now. So we have that instead of just a resolution. So early this fall um the commission was formally formed um and appointments were made by council members. As you know, each council member is able to nominate one individual for the charter commission and then the two council members for each district are allowed to jointly nominate an additional. So, we have three members from each district. Um, so back in October, we had sort of an introductory meeting, an orientation meeting to discuss with them about, you know, what it meant to be on the charter, what a what a a charter commission, what a what a charter actually is, how they work, those kinds of things. We had that discussion, and then just last night, we had our first meeting of the actual charter commission itself. Um, their first order of business was to elect a chair and a vice chair. And so I'm happy to report to you that uh previous council member Andrew Felker was elected as the chair. Um and uh Michael Van Buskerk was elected as the vice chair last night. So now the process begins where we we start to march through the actual charter itself. Uh in previous previous time 10 years ago I was here when we did the charter review. They sort of just marched through from from front to back. uh and

along the way we picked up some topics that were a little controversial and required more discussion and we paused and we discussed those. We settled those and we moved on to the to the next section. So I would anticipate that this group will be no less thorough than what we have done in the past. Um and for uh the parks board here as you all know uh article 8 of the charter is the parks and recreational board uh section. Um, so one of our processes is to reach out to departments and and we'll of course do that with parks to see if there are any tweaks, small changes that need to be made to that language. We always find things that maybe we thought were clear but maybe aren't as clear as we thought and and we try to correct those things. Um, also ch individual members of charter commission may have some ideas about how structurally they would like to change things across the board. I don't necessarily mean with with parks, so to speak. Um, and there will be opportunities for the public to provide input as well as to how they would like to see their lease summit, city council, parks, finance department, law department, all of us, and how we can operate and work together. So, that process is just getting started. Um, on the the the other end of this, they will continue their work uh from now kind of through the summer and early fall. I would anticipate in early to midfall we will probably have identified those items that need to be possibly amended or that they want to recommend for uh amendment. At that time we will be putting together ballot because any item that we change in the charter does have to go in front of the voters to be uh to be changed. So you should anticipate that ballot being finalized by the city council probably in December or early January around this time uh next year. Uh, and it would be uh an April 2027 ballot.

Questions, comments about the charter review? Did you all know that that was we were having those discussions and such? Okay. I figured you All right, Mr. Hit. Thank you. Thank you,

Mr. Dunning. Um, you want to add anything to tonight's conversation? Um, or any comments? Yeah, just uh real briefly, I know there's been a lot of good work going on by Mr. Snook and his staff and the park board uh with regard to World Cup. So, uh same thing with the mayor and the council and city staff. That's a lot of preparations, a lot of thought needs to go in that into that. And let's face it, right, we all we all can benefit from having visitors to our our amenities in the parks and to the city and the like. So, very much appreciate all the all the work that's gone into that. We know Legacy Blast, right? That's a partnership with uh with parks and that's going to be a big one with it being the 250th. So, a lot of good work going on in that space. And then I'd circle back to the storm water the um the storm water utility and that that quarter cent sales tax that will be going to the vote. And and I want to recognize and create that awareness that um there's a there's that a limit on uh parks and storm water tax of a half cent, right? And so we know that parks has a quarter cent and it comes up for uh renewal in 2033 I believe if I'm not mistaken. And then if right the the storm water goes in at that quarter cent that one is not sunset. So that's another partnership right with with those resources that we appreciate. And I know in the storm water space there's plenty of opportunities where our storm water conveyance systems can be used as parks and things like that. So I just wanted to mention that too just for everybody's awareness. Uh that's it. Thanks, Mayor.

Okay. Yeah. No, those great comments.

Okay. Um, President Huer, you want to maybe do a round table and see what anybody would like to say or comment on or you don't have to speak, but um I think that this night's important again because we get to come together. We get to talk about u commonality or things that we have in common. And we have so much in common and so much of our decision-m affects each other and uh it certainly affects our brand. We have we share the same brand, parks, the city, most of most of our community sees us as one. Um, and we certainly um share the same citizens. So, um, so I appreciate you working with us this way and working with, uh, Joe Snook that the way that you do, the way that we do with Mark Dunning. We're really fortunate to have two strong, uh, leaders that that really get the job done, whatever we ask of them. So, um, I'll I'll go around and then let you speak last. Yeah. Anybody want to make any comments this side? Yes. Tim.

No, I I won't repeat what you both already said. I I just think these sessions are critical and so helpful not only for us around this table, but for the community. Uh this is a perfect example of everything that's been presented of how when we work together in a cohesive strategic manner, we accomplish good things. So, it's just a perfect example of that. And I look forward to these sessions with you all as we do with the school board. And so, uh, yeah, thank you guys for being here. Thank you.

I guess I'm just going to repeat my colleagues that, but mainly just to thank the, uh, members of the park board, um, for your service, for your dedication to the community, and for all the good work that you guys are doing. Like, we're so so excited seeing all these projects coming forward and so much um, progress being made on them. So, um, I know you guys just do this because you love it, because you're passionate, and I appreciate you. So, thank you.

Thank you. But I do want to say um acknowledge the city council and thank you for tonight and Mayor Bar, you're such a great partner as mentioned, school board, you know, park board, these kinds of alliances to your point. Um Councilman Lopez really identify our focus on a better future for Lee Summit and for all the people that live here and enjoy all this. I also want to take a minute to acknowledge Joe Shnook and his staff who do an excellent job in executing all these plans and really making things happen. And I love all of our parks and all of the amenities that are provided. So many different programs. And I feel like when I hear about all the new things that are coming up in the future, it just identifies how there's something for every member of our community to enjoy and love about our parks. And that is exciting. You're right. And it makes it fun to be a volunteer as a part of this. So, thank you for tonight and thank you for the continued partnership because that's really important for our future and strategic planning.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you guys for being here tonight. And I mean, one thing got left out when we were talking about our parks was the awardwinning parks. I don't think I heard that tonight. So, I wanted to reiterate that. and this Unity Village project. I mean, that's a catalyst for our community. That's awesome. It's gonna be great and thank you guys for serving and keep up the good work. Thank you.

Yeah, just um to reiterate some things that have been said, I'm just really excited about the development and you know, none of this kind of parks development can happen in a silo without support from the city. Um I am a frequent flyer at the newest park, Red Hawk Park, and that has really become a cornerstone of our community down there. Um, I go down there in the winter and if it's over 50 degrees, there's probably 40 or 50 kids playing out there from two years of age all the way up to young teenagers playing basketball on the courts who could go be doing dozens of other things, but that's what they're choosing to do is spending time in our park. So, it really is a place of safety and security where we can let kids be kids. Um, and that doesn't happen in a silo. So, thank you.

Thank you. This is my 37th year in Lee Summit and I couldn't be more prouder uh selecting this community as my home for uh my wife and my family and sitting around a table like this with very ablebodied people who love this community just as much as I do. Mayor, thank you uh as well. And thank you to the city council and my co-bre uh labor with us on the park board. Again, thank you. And thank you for the dinner back there. I appreciate that as well. No problem. Yeah, just just there was hardly anything left after he ate though. This next guy,

man, just getting thrown under the bus. It's got to be a big bus, though. Um All right. Um thank you to the park board. Um I've been on parkboard for about eight or nine years now, and so I've appreciated all my time on there, and thank you to the city council for everything you do and supporting it. President Huser and Mayor Bar, thank you as well. And um to echo what you had mentioned earlier, Mayor Barrett, the the fieldhouse, I think, is going to be a a longtime staple for uh the community. It's centrally located. It's going to be in the heart of a of a new development of a area that's been I've been a lease for 15 years. That area has been blighted for that entire time. I think that is going to be very cool and I'm glad that I get to be a part of that. or something where people from around the metro come to our city. I think that's just a really cool thing. Um, so I I appreciate to be a part of that.

I'm glad you chose the location you did because you are bringing them to the right to the heart of this of the community.

Thank you, mayor, and thank all of you for being here. Um, I sit on the park uh parks as a liaison for the council and I just got to say this is a really great group of people. They are very dedicated to what they do and they're volunteers and so I'm thankful that they are helping us with our parks and staying diligent with what they're doing. I was so impressed when I went to the meeting and they talked about what they were doing for the World Cup. Um it's they they came up with so many things that I don't think any of us ever thought of. So I mean they are very very creative and diligent and um they're going to knock it out of the park with the Unity Village Park. So just appreciate everything that you're doing and continue the good work and thank you.

Thanks. Thank you, Mayor President. Thank you so much for continuing these um annual joint meetings. No matter how many times um I'm blessed to hear all of the plans and projects, it's still exciting every single time. And it's good for me to hear the city side, too, because while I can read about it and hear about it, seeing and being here in person is just that much better. So, thank you so much for this opportunity and look forward to more continued um good things. Thanks. Thank you.

No, we're good. Thank you. First, my family uses the park system probably at least weekly, if not several times a week. I love our parks. Um, and then I feel like you guys knew this question was coming, but water at the um softball fields and baseball fields and soccer fields to be able to fill up the water bottles at all the water fountains. I think that would be good. And then food trucks at um especially on tournament weekends at at the soccer stadium like at the soccer I would love and I know that's probably Mr. Snook's um thing but I would love food trucks. I hear that all the time during tournament weekends that we need food trucks there during tournament weekends. Um but I love our parks. I'm proud to when anywhere you go in the metro and you mention that you're from Lee Summit, they people know our parks. they come here for our parks. So, thank you.

Thank you. I'm gonna I I appreciate everybody's time here. I just want to say on behalf of the team and I see Corey and Donnie, you're here or on the leadership team for the World Cup preparations with LS Gold 26. The the draw day event was such a huge huge success and it I know a lot of you were there. Um it was great to see Green Street getting utilized the way that was. You're going to get more of a full report on that next week. But uh more than anything, I just wanted to say thank you to Joe and his team, Ryan especially, who was out there slaving away uh with those big inflatables trying to keep them put them away at the end of the night. Uh and uh and it was a lot of fun with everybody involved and to see the community engagement of uh not only people that are actively wanting to help with all the World Cup preparations, but to see them come out and be engaged with that kind of event. It it just is it's just a little little tiny indication of what's going to happen in June and July of this year. So, we're excited about that.

Thank you to the city for offering that space and help out with that. Absolutely. Thank you.

Wow. Oh, we've said a lot tonight. Um, I will talk to these people out here and anybody else who's listening online or whatever, but if you haven't been to one of our parks or one of our facilities recently, I would ask that you go and talk to your friends and family and go to go to one of the trails, go to one of the parks that we've recently opened or one that's just nearby you. Um, go on the website and look at all of the different things we offer because I think one of the things that we I talk about with uh Mr. Snook and our fellow board members is if the people in Lee Summit just knew all of the things that we have and all of the things that we do. If you would just go to one concert at the amphitheater in the summer. I mean most of these things are free if not really low cost and they are fantastic. So I would say to all of you, you know, if you've heard all the things tonight, if you do anything, just go to a park and just see it and then tell your friends. So but thank you so much. Thank you for everything.

That was good. Thank you. All right. Well, um I will say thank you again to the council members for your your support through the years. When I mentioned earlier that we have 33 parks and our facilities, they are woven through the community. And sometimes you all represent the parks department when your constituents talk to you about those because they're in their communities, which are your communities. And so I thank you for supporting us when those questions come your way. as well. I want to thank uh Mayor Barrett here because the communication in my time has increased dramatically between the parks department and the city itself and the individuals in your chairs. And I think that's important because as I mentioned, those parks are in your department or within your districts. And I think it's important for you to know that, hey, we're dredging a pond and we're going to move that all out and it's going to probably make some people go, what's going on? But it's important for you to be in the loop so that when Casey calls you'll be able to talk to him about that. But there are things going on and sometimes these parks are deep within a individual uh neighborhood that you don't even know it's there. Uh Red Hawk is deep back in there and it is wonderful. That that ribbon cutting had more people at it than any of the cutings we've had so far and we have a lot of engagement. So, I recognize sometimes the shoes that you fill in representing us because these parks are within your districts and I thank you for that. And I just want to end with saying to Joe and his leadership team who's pretty much sitting up here, they're the ones that make it happen. um they make it happen in the form that it's their job to execute on, but the amount of things that they do and their teams do uh as individual contributors in the development of parks, putting together equipment, helping do things as opposed to hiring it out is amazing. Um the engagement we have with our team and our leadership team within the parks department is fantastic and that's what

makes Lee Summit uh what's the co uh truly we're going to talk about that later tonight. We're going to talk about that later last time we hear that. So thank you very much.

That was good. He's he's sneaky. He knows what he's doing there. Um no it was wonderful you guys. Thank you for your comments um for work collaborating tonight um and keep you know keep doing your fiduciary duty like you have been and uh we do have great staffs but we need us to make decisions put the final approval on things transparency checks and balances. So thank you thank you for uh for this evening. Um at this point we will uh take a break and then the council will go back up on the dis and do the the conduct the rest of the meeting. Um so we'll just take a short recess so we can say goodbye to you guys and get adjusted on the count on the dis uh we'll we'll reconvene at um in 10 minutes 10 minutes. Thank you.

Ever wondered how the city budget works. The total 2026 budget is over $380 million which includes funding for daily operations, capital improvements, debt service, internal service, and enterprise operations. For example, the general fund is the foundation for the city's day-to-day services and investments like road maintenance, public safety, and fire protection. The general fund is supported by property taxes, sales taxes generated by local businesses, franchise taxes, and other sources like licenses, permits, and fees. For every dollar citizens paying property tax, the city receives 18. This means the city receives $845 a year in property taxes for a median single family house. These taxes provide public safety, park maintenance, infrastructure, and the best services to keep Lee Summit going and improving. One of the community's top priorities is infrastructure investment, which is reflected in the capital improvement plan. $113 million of the 2026 budget is invested into the capital improvement plan. The 2026 capital improvement budget includes investments like the 291 and50 highway interchange, Third Street, Warden, and Purscell's intersection, and Prior Road. The budget process includes guidance from the city council, citizen input, and critical success factors from the city's Ignite strategic plan. To learn more about the city's budget, visit city of lls.net/budget. When the person called on the phone, she said that uh that there was a dinosaur walking down her road. Of course, we had to go out check that out. We get out there and it was a big African tortoise, probably 60 lbs, walking down the road. When they walk, they really stand up tall. So, I could see why she thought it was a dinosaur. I'm Rodney Wagner. I'm the manager of Leama Animal Control. So, as you can see, we get all sorts of animals here.

You got has some guinea pigs off to the side. All the windows up here are animals that are adoptable right now. Every one of these dogs is ready to go and ready for adoption. And the same thing with our cats over here. A lot of cool cats in here now. So, so this is our 3acre lot we have out back and this is where we do all the walking of dogs exercise. We also have a sideyard off to the side over there so we can let them run loose. They can run together and then we have what's called playgroups. Kind of like having a bunch of kids.

Here's our our vet room. We have a vet comes out twice a week. This is our sally port where we bring the animals into. This is one of our animal control trucks and we can hold up to six animals. We have a lift on the other side to put big animals in. We actually have temperature gauges in here and in the truck to tell how hot it is. Once it gets to a certain temperature, we bring all the animals back here immediately. So, this actually has traps in it, but We do a lot of wildlife trapping. I mean a lot. So bats, pot belly pigs, horses, cows, emus, a lot of reptiles. We had a a system one time that had over 200 reptiles in his basement. Cayman's and alligators in here that are four or five ft long. You can't keep those. And people do and they're surprised when they can't keep them. I'm like, really? You're surprised you can't have an alligator in your house? Savannah.

Our main goal here is public safety and also the safety of the animals. And we have very dedicated people back there. And they definitely stay here for the love of the animals, which also includes getting them adopted out. We'll have about uh 4,000 impounded animals a year. Probably about close to 2,000 are dogs and cats. The cats and dogs when they get impounded here, they go on a 5-day hold. And then after the 5 days, if the donor doesn't show up, then we can put them up for adoption. Adopt the animal here is actually really simple. You just come in, look what forever animal you're looking for, find the right pick. You have you go to the adoption room up there and see if you get along with them. You spend as much time as you want to in there. From that point on, it's just a matter of uh making sure they're spay or neutered and all their vaccinations up to par and they're good to go. We have a very high adoption rate because we try everything in our power to get animals adopted out. We have Harve America Humane Society that we do a lot of adoptions through. And then we also have other groups. We have some people that literally will just look all over the country for somewhere for a dog to go and we sent dogs up into South Dakota, North Dakota, Washington State. So it's actually it it's a huge united effort to get all these animals home.

Tarzan, lots of energy. Hazel's got a weird bell. She wants nothing to do with the other cats. She'll kind of get her grumpy face going.

And the good thing about the people here is that they get all their friends to get animals, too. All of us have probably the limit of all the animals that we can have at home. You know, they are huge animal lovers. If it was up to the people here, we'd have 15 cats running around in here. We had a citizen one time out there and he was bathing his two uh 9 foot long boa constrictors in the front yard. Apparently I was I was garnering some some attention and so we went out there and had to talk to him about that. Why do I do this job? Oh dude, I love this job. I grew up on a farm and taking care of that many animals, you can't help but like animals. This is just like fancy farming, you know? You're just bringing animals in here, taking care of them and and find them homes and uh yeah, absolutely animal lover.

This is the best place to work. I love working here. I feel very blessed. I love it here. I look forward to coming to work every day, being a part of this team. Like a family away from home where everyone feels like everybody knows their name. A city that supports you. We see that with our benefits. A pension, vacation days, job security, being able to be heard. We feel valued. We feel respected. Lee Summit is a very progressive city. It's growing. It's thriving. We have this drive towards not just doing a job, but doing it with a spirit of excellence. I had the opportunity to continue to grow regardless of 30 plus years doing this kind of work. It's more than just dollars and cents. We're here really to give back.

Providing a service to better a community to go out and serve people

to be a part of something bigger than yourself. If I would have known what I know now, years ago, I would have been here much sooner. Traditionally, we think as police officers, those responding to law enforcement needs within the community. But honestly, we are there to serve our citizens and our citizens do go into crisis. They do have mental health crises and we're being called to those scenes on a regular basis. In order to help serve those citizens better, we did initiate the crisis intervention team program. These are officers that are specially trained to deescalate crisis situations. Recently, we've brought co-responders onto the scene, licensed qualified mental health professionals housed within our police department, and they respond with those officers directly to those scenes where a crisis is occurring, so they can interact with that citizen and get them the help they need right there on that scene. The co-responders are either a bachelor or master level in a behavioral health related field. They wear plain clothes. They don't carry weapons or anything like that. I have a police radio that I listen to all day. Listen for, you know, those key words, mental health, behavioral health, crisis.

There's a lot of officers that just call for me. I have my own radio number. I also have the ability to self-dispatch to them and say 982 is in route. Officers in route 914. So, typically I arrive after they've made it safe. I'll make contact and get kind of the rundown and then I just kind of jump right in like, "Hey, you know, my name's Alison. I'm a mental health professional. I'm here to help you. I'm not here to take you to jail or arrest you."

Sometimes all a person needs is a voice, someone neutral, someone outside that you know can listen. I do a lot of safety planning, including family, their support network, who's close to you. So, can some if they're home alone, who can come over and hang out with you today? Can we lock away your sharps? Can we put up your meds? Do you need meds? Can we get you over to the urgent care to get you assessed for your medications? Some of them also are like, "Oh, I'm so glad you came. This made me feel so much better." Our main goal as co-responders is to one get people connected to the services that they need and also divert from emergency rooms and jails

and they almost get a different view of the police responding. That lets me know you care and the officers care. Someone, please, how can I help you? My husband had

in 2020, we had 722 mental health related calls for service. 2022, by that time, 1,479. These mental health related calls for service are increasing. How we're responding to that is increasing the number of crisis intervention team officers we have available as well as the number of co-responders we have available to respond on these calls. So, what I think is important for the community to know about the co-responder program is that we're here. We exist. All you have to do when you call 911 is ask for us. You know, say, "Hey, I want a co-responder to respond to this this crisis." And we'll go. I was really struggling about 8 years ago. My personal journey with mental health, and I met some amazing social workers and amazing programs that have helped me get to where I am today. I really couldn't see myself doing anything else. We want to help and that's that's what we love to do.

So I had a client we got a call. She had some suicidal ideations and she really felt that she had nobody and you know and getting to know her story and getting to know who comes around and sees you. Well then we found a support person and they responded immediately and we made a plan. I called back and checked on her in an hour and then I checked on her in 2 hours. We were able to get her into additional services to where she talks to someone every week or more. I just took a person that really just thought they had nobody and nobody would show up for them and show them you do. And you'll be amazed who is in your corner if you just simply say, "I need a little help.

You can make the difference in somebody else's life. If you're trying to get in the fire and EMS service, Lee Summit is probably the top name on the daily basis. We are tasked with incredible task. So we trying to keep it relaxed environment. As a new person, you are constantly on edge learning. The morning will look typical coming in getting a report from the shift that's going off. We get our truck checks done. Our citizens trust us and believe in us by providing amenities like our gear, our stations. They build it to accommodate getting to a call but also having a home. State-of-the-art weight equipment, individual bunk rooms, downtime areas, breakfast and dinners together,

cook together, get to know one another, train together like a brother knows a brother and a sister knows a brother, banter back and forth, club. When the tones go off, they go to work. We are here for 48 hours, so it can happen at any time. You can be in the gym. You can be in the middle of night. You can be cooking. Stop what you're doing and listen. Wherever we are in the station, people will stop what they're doing and listen. Finding out which station it is. What is the nature of the call? EMS,

what apparition on the highway? The expectations gear. Are the lives involved? that adrenaline dump organized. Pants on, coats on, getting in the truck. We're mentally focused, geared up, paying attention to where we're going. Then we have a game plan that happens in the truck. The officer can give directions. The dispatcher will update you. The officer will listen, the driver listens, we get all on the same page, and when we get to the call, we can go to work. So many degrees of severity. structure fire, swift water rescue, EMS, car accident, technical rescue,

tmetic team. The equipment the fire department offers us is topnotch. From ring cutters to extrication equipment, state-of-the-art stuff, great trucks, tablets, Lucas device, battery powered pot, the right tools, the right training. The learning does not stop in the academy. Building blocks continue call after call. Opportunity just to grow. Started out as a firefighter, paramedic, moved to the rank of engineer, paramedic, most recently the qualification of acting captain. Firefighter, engineer, recently promoted to captain. Promoted to paramedic since I've been here. I'll be honest, it's scary. Sometimes you're the one back there, that person is having a bad day and they're counting on you.

We practice these scenarios over and over so when someone has an emergency, we can channel those energies, minimizing any more injury. And then when it's over, we'll say, "Hey, how did we do? How is everyone doing and we'll have frank conversations back at the station." The station assignment for us is a 48 on, 96 off. The 4 days off is probably one of the greatest things ever. Help us improve our sleep patterns, wellness, mental health. It gives you many, many options. I have a small little 15 acres that we like to hobby farm, but backpacking in the spring and in the fall, mountain biking when the weather's good.

I have a 21-month-old at home, so I feel like I get to work full-time job and then on the 4 days off, be a stay-at-home mom as well. Spend a little more time with my kids, travel around the world. I was able to take my oldest daughter in a trip of a lifetime. We went to Europe for 22 days. I got hired to help others. Helping others also helped me see my children grow, seeing my family grow, seeing my career grow and me grow as a person. People that are in the industry know the name of Lee Fire Department. Every fire academy knows it. Every other fire department knows it.

If you're looking for a job in the fire service, police helmet's the place to be. That's who you want to be. Somebody who can make positive change in other human beings lives. Okay. All right. Um, welcome back everyone. We're going to bring this meeting back to order.

Bringing this meeting back to order, please. Um we are on the uh agenda item um 4A. So that would be the approval of the consent agenda. I have a motion to adopt the consent agenda by council member Shield, seconded by council member Funk. Discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Please record the vote. Passes 6. So yes, we are short-handed tonight by three board uh council members. Um the next item on the agenda is the council round table. Items of general interest, things going on in your community.

Council member Funk. Thank you, Mayor. Uh tomorrow evening will be the first session of 2026 for the Lee Summit Youth Court. We'll start tomorrow evening. Thank you, sir. Council member Shields, I believe you may have a big event coming up this week. Is it the character breakfast on on Thursday?

That's right. Thursday is the mayor's character breakfast where we celebrate people doing great things in our community. Characters um characteristics that we want to shine a light on. Um, so we have role models that we'll be honoring with regard to compassion and integrity and generosity and more. So it's going to be a wonderful morning uh Thursday morning put on by Lee Summit Cares. Thank you for that. Okay. Uh, next we have public comments. We've got a few tonight. So Mr. I'll start with Mr. We got quite a few people in the crowd. We do three minutes for public comments for people in the community that want to talk about things that are on the agenda, things that are operations, things that are operations of the city. Mr. Ellson,

Andrew Ellson, uh 504 Northwest Timberidge Trail. As a resident of Lee Summit, I'm formerly raising serious concerns about the city's public comment process and the message it sends about whose voices matter. The escalation of public comment to police intervention at a recent meeting highlights a critical breakdown in our civic process. Regardless of anyone's opinion about that individual, the fact that public comment escalated to police intervention should concern this council. That outcome reflects a breakdown in process, not merely a breakdown in decorum. The underlying issue is a structural imbalance in participation. Developers and applicants are routinely afforded two-way dialogue with staff and council. Questions are asked, clarifications are invited, and positions are explored. Residents, by contrast, are often expected to speak without engagement or acknowledgement. In many instances, public comment is treated as a procedural obligation rather than a meaningful part of decisionm. This disparity see this disparity is noticeable and damaging. Equally troubling is a lack of clear accessible guidance for residents. The city does not plainly publish or explain the rules governing public comment, including how general comments differ from public hearings. Residents are left to infer expectations. A prime example being section 2-50 of the code of ordinances. It's confusing to say the least as it appears to only address video conferences. When rules are unclear or in inconsistently enforced, conflict is not anomaly. It is inevitable. A public comic system that is one directional, opaque, and unevenly applied does not support productive civic engagement. It breeds frustration. When that frustration leads to police involvement, it signals institutional failure, not simple individual misconduct. This is not a call for disorder. It's a call for clarity, fairness, and respect. I urge this council to refer these

procedural concerns to the rules committee for immediate review and public documentation. Specifically, I urge you to one, direct staff to create a digital public comment guide on the city's website that clearly documents the rules governing public governing public comment in public hearings. Two, ensure those rules are implied consistently and transparently. And three, following allowances in section 2-4-45 of the code of ordinances, evaluate reasonable structured opportunities for clarification or limited dialogue between city council and public commenter. So residents are acknowledged rather than dismissed. Simple changes would make measurable difference. A clarifying question, a brief acknowledgement, a signal that the comment was heard. These are not burdensome requests. They are basic elements of respectful conversation and good governance. Residents should not leave council meetings feeling ignored, confused, or intimidated. They should leave knowing their city values their participation. Improving this process is necessary to restore trust and ensure these meetings genuinely serve the public. Thank you for your time and service to your community.

All right. Thank you,

Miss Giddings. Debbie Giddings. I would like to inform the citizens of Lee Summit the planning commission will continue to review the proposed Milhouse apartment complex at 150 and Ward Road on January 22nd at 5:00 p.m. in the city council chambers. The applicant has requested this continuation. The proposal would have six three-story buildings for 180 apartments and one four-story building for 92 apartments. Additionally, there will be two garages in the h that house 20 cars. 200 in total 70 275 total apartments across the street to single family homes. A request to decrease the number of parking spaces versus the city code is included in their request. The view to the south will be blocked because the building heights and will be 8 ft above the ward road making the appearance massive. I encourage citizens to review the Milhouse Company's website and/or watch the original presentation by Milhouse to the planning commission. This would be the first time in Missouri they will be building in a suburban area versus downtown urban Kansas City. Of the eight apartments built in Kansas City, they have already sold four. Their website shows the number built out of state and the number sold. All of Tennessee and Wisconsin have been sold. The concern should be despite being told these will be operated and maintained by Milhouse, that doesn't always appear that that is the case. Could this happen in Lee Summit? The presentation before the planning commission can be viewed on the city's website. The website is difficult to navigate and find the meeting videos,

but basically the city government tab has the minute sub meeting subhead. Click on that and the meeting agendas minutes. Select and look for the planning commission on December 11th, 2025. On the agenda, scroll to the bottom and click on F 2025-7339 to find the video. The appearance of citizens at the meeting and or writing the council members of your concern do have an impact. The planning commission unanimously did not approve the Ward and Hook proposal last week. There were numerous people that spoke in this public hearing. They all opposed the plan. It might work that for the 150 and ward apartments and commerce and gas stations that were fast food at the previous one would work on the apartments at Ward as well. Remember, January 22nd, 5:00 p.m. at city hall. And I'm sure many people hope you can make it. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Elchawish.

Tonight, the city council will approve a $110 million subsidy and incentive package for Drake Development on the East Village project. Between this project, Oldm Village, and Streets of West Prior, that brings the total value to $25 million in subsidies provided to Drake since 2019. This means over 200 million in tax revenue has been devoid diverted towards a single developer and away from our police and fire departments and away from the basic services taxpayers are entitled to such as road maintenance and water management. And as much as the council wants residents to believe that these subsidies don't impact the taxpayer, the truth is they certainly do. This money doesn't come out of nowhere. It comes at the expense of our public services. This is evidenced by the fact that the city has levied several new taxes on the residents over the past few years, including multiple CD taxes on all grocery stores, the use tax levy in 21, public safety tax in 2022, and now the new storm water tax that you're putting on the ballot in November. These taxes hurt all of the residents of Lee Summit, but they are devastating to our most vulnerable citizens. I can't tell you how many retirees I've spoken to over the last few weeks that are on a fixed income and are being priced out of Lee Summit and priced out of the homes that they've owned for decades. And the lack of empathy that most of our city council shows for these residents is horrific. But it doesn't just hurt the residents of Lee Summit, it hurts the businesses as well. When residents carer carry heavier tax burdens, they have less money to spend with our local businesses. And this has been reflected by the lower sales tax numbers we've seen recently. Now, many on the council argue that you are approving these developments based on long-term benefits it will provide the community. The truth is you are doing this based on your own self-s serving short-term benefits. Bill, you vote for them because these developments benefit benefit your commercial real estate company. Betto votes for them because he has commercial development background and commercial development ties. Donnie votes for them because he owns a construction company and new developments mean new construction opportunities. level's conflicted as well, but at least he has

the integrity to recuse himself from the voting. And Bill, you should recuse yourself. Multiple sources have brought to my attention that you have a business relationship with Drake, that you've sold property to them, the third and grand building, and I did some research and it checks out. So, I want to know how did that building go from being under your ownership to being under Drake's ownership. How much did they pay you for it? And how much profit did you clear? Did that transaction serve as some kind of monetary kickback so that you would give Drake $200 million in taxpayer money? The residents of Lee Summit are more than aware that there are conflicts of interest and ulterior motives here. And to say they are fatigued of it is an understatement. The residents are approaching a boiling point and justifiably so. And while things may be appear calm to you now, anger and resentment is growing fast. And I believe a reckoning is coming for all of you that are involved in these corrupt practices. All right. Thank you. For the record, I have no business relationship with Drake Development. Yes, I sold the building to them. It was transaction many, many years ago. It was a typical transaction. And um as far as attacking people with no proof, the little boy boy who cried wolf um continues to do this and on social media and here. These people have unbllemished records up here, including myself. 12 years of service in public. Uh almost 12 years. Um we'll have to you'll have to think about how to be a role model uh a civic leader in this community rather than just going around pointing fingers at at people um accusing them of having conflicts of interest when we have a duty to to disclose any conflict of interest. And uh I have no conflict of interest to disclose because there is not one. Council member Funk. Mayor, just a point of clarification for the the public commenter. I do not own a

construction company. I own a demolition company. I build nothing. I have nothing to do with any of these developers. I tear buildings down. They build new buildings. Thank you.

Thank you, M. Melaner. You're up. Can you can zoom in with this wheel right here, Teresa? This wheel on the the mouse, right?

Terresa Volenwiter, 5201 Northeast Maybrook Road. That parcel that I've just selected from the Jackson County parcel viewer is Paula Deil's two pieces that were um combined zoned a uh with the county reszoned agg with the city. So the combination took place, but there's no plaque at the county in the records to indicate that that was to happen. And generally it's the city that provides that to makes the resident do a plat a minor plat and submit it and take it to the county and record it so that this can get done. But there is no plat. There is no minor plat that I could find. Here is the document signed by Michael Weisenborn indicating that the application has expired for that plat. There's the ordinance that was signed by Mayor Baird uh head over here um and the clerk. And it says this that this ordinance shall not be in effect until the subject property and the abuing 11 acre parcel

addressed as 34 3420 Southwest Prior Road are platted into one lot and said platt is filed in the office of the recorder of Jackson County. That I do not believe has happened. So my question is, how did the county combine those? Why are they still not two parcels? One without a residence on it and one with a residence on it. Why? I want answers. This should not be happening. And this is not the first time that this has happened. something's going on. And when you have experienced planners and experienced engineers that are not informing property owners that an engineer, a professional engineer that is not a land surveyor, is not a licensed land surveyor cannot do a plat. hat. That's what this is. This is an engineer signature and seal. Yet Hector didn't tell her. Jean Williams didn't tell her. Kathy Kramer, I think, is in the gist department, didn't tell her. Why? She spent money on this. All right. Thank you, Miss Meter. All right, we're going to move on with the rest of the meeting. Tonight, we have a presentation to start us off with the Lee Summit School District, R7

School District, regarding a purchase of property from Unity Realy LLC at 1901 Northwest Blue Parkway for relocation of Hazel Grove Elementary School.

Mr. Elim, are you going to start us off? I can give a real brief uh overview as I pull the presentation up and get the podium PC going. Uh and then I will turn it over to the school district. Uh and then we've got Mr. Bushek uh back with us uh to talk through a little bit more. Um, but so, uh, this is kind of directly related to a bit of the Unity Village conversation that you saw earlier this evening, uh, with a very specific request in a unique area. Um, with that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Buck and Dr. Shelton to walk us through what their request is. Thank you. I actually brought Dr. Shelton and Casey Crawford's going to come back up here, who you just had a a time with your joint meeting here a while ago. Um, I'm going to kick it off about partnerships. Um, we this this community thrives because we have so many partnerships. In fact, there was somebody sitting here earlier that I was at a meeting prior to to your meeting starting and we gave over $62,000 of grants um to 501c3s who help out those in need in our community. So, I I I'm so appreciative of being here in Lee Summit and I thank you for your service. Um, I just want to highlight a few of the partnerships we've had um in recent years. So the 291 North 50 interchange just this afternoon we signed papers both sides city and school district to transfer to land so that road can be done that was just done today and even sometimes we're working with city officials just on things that happen. So, a contractor, I don't know if you know, hit a water mane pipe and we had Yellowstone over there. Uh, Yuseite, I'm see, sorry, this is going up in the in the air. And so, we uh, you know, we it affected our cafeteria and we had to serve lunch a little differently, at least in the high school, but it's our partnership with the cities that got that back on by 11:30. And we really appreciate those partnerships. I think of our our partnerships with the fire department, the fire academy and all the good things that are happening there or the aerospace academy academy which we is a

celebrated earlier um last month and is a one-ofa-kind piece in our nation. Nothing else like it. And we have that with the parks department too and that's kind of what brings us here to you for today. Um, right now I can tell you the parks department and and the school district are exploring a a district cross country co course on a park service that the district would maintain, but then citizens have a 5k grass-based course they can run for all those who miss those days when they were younger. Um, but also we have this new park that you learned about today on Unity Village. So part of our bond issue which passed in April is 75% yes. Over 9,000 people voted yes. Uh, the one of the highlights of that was a new Hazel Grove. Isel Grove Elementary is a 1940 building. Um, and it has major ADA accessibilities and its backbones are are are something that uh, you know, from another era. It's I it's been a long time since I've been into a building that still has screw in fuses. They still have screw and fuses at Hazel Grove. So, we're looking to build a new elementary. Usually, we do not announce a site until we've closed, but there's something unique about this property. So, we're here telling you about the site we have a contract on. So, it's becoming public for the first time tonight because of this. And yes, I had press contact me today to ask questions about it. Um, so that's that's adjacent to your Unity Village Park. You'd heard about earlier. In fact, you saw they were talking about a future land owner. That's us. You can see that 75% of the mountain bike trails are on the property that we are purchasing that we would then um have a deal with the park service as well as there's no road access. Um, that's a safe way for the park service. So, they would come off the road we will build. So, we'll build a road and then they'll punch off of that to get down into the park. So, um, I just want to thank you for all the partnerships we've had. And at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Shelton to kind of go over a little bit what we got on screen and then Casey Crawford will talk about what the ask is and and then obviously um Dave Bush will come up and finish that ask up.

All right. Thank you.

Good evening. Uh, Steve Shelton, associate superintendent of operations with the Lee Summit School District. As you can see on the screen, as that as Dr. Buck mentioned this is the site the site plan for the brand new Hazel Grove Elementary. The current Hazel Grove uh is on a 6acre site. This is a 27 1/2 acre site roughly. Uh that is located just south of Coburn Road just to the east of Northwest uh Blue Parkway. Um the building itself, as you can see by by the drawing here, is south on the south portion of the property. gives us a great opportunity to tuck that building away from Coburn Road, away from uh Northwest uh Blue Parkway and buffer it from a lot of traffic. Uh speaking of traffic, because of the size of the lot, unlike current Hazel Grove Elementary, uh this will have capacity for 75 cars on the site itself in addition to about 10 buses on separate loops. As you can see, the cars would come off of Coburn, could double stack them, and then there's a third lane going out for them to exit. And coming off of uh Northwest Blue Parkway, you can see the buses come in off of Northwest Blue Parkway. And the bus loop is there. Behind the building, just even further south up against the boundary. That's where we have the hard play and the soft play. What's what's uh outlined in red here is what we have we have defined as developable land. So that's what we feel like we need to effectively operate a school. What you see in blue is what we feel is undevelopable land. On the east portion of this property, if you look, you're going to see what what is a retaining wall. We're going to need to build up this site some. There's a

spoil pile in the green portion as well as we're going to dig out another dep detention pond on this site and we're going to take that dirt build up and build a nice nice retaining wall on the east portion of this of this site. But then you can see everything that's in blue as Dr. Buck has mentioned that then becomes accessible to that adjacent park to the east. Do you have any questions? All right, questions. I'll just say this, this is bringing Hazel Grove into the city limits of Lee Summit. Currently, it's not and we're very excited about that opportunity.

That is exciting. Plus, Hazel Grove it, you know, it's a little little behind the times with regard to the electricity and a few other ADA things probably.

It's it's time. It's definitely time. Thank you. I'll turn it over to Mr. Crawford. Okay. Good evening, city council. Um, Casey Crawford, uh, legal counsel for real estate for the district. Um, so I will give a 500 foot view of why this the district is here making a request and I and if I'm incorrect in any of the the factual history, uh, Mr. Bushek will back clean up uh, a little bit on that. So the propo the proposed property here is in an existing redevelop is part of an existing redevelopment agreement um with multiple different parties um namely the the city of Lee Summit and the Unity School of Christianity pertain to some infrastructure improvements couple many years ago. Um so that land that is in red that we're mainly that we're purchasing uh as stated in the redevelopment agreement requires that in the event that there is a transfer of property inside that redevelopment agreement that a the city of Lee Summit has to approve that and B if that entity to to receive the property is the transferee is a restricted entity um there would otherwise be a fee accessible and payable by the transferey to the city of Lee Summit in lie in exchange for what would otherwise been received uh by that restricted entity. The restricted entity is in essence an entity that does not pay uh not subject to property taxes of which the district would not be as a political subdivision that don't pay they don't pay property taxes. Um the intent is my understanding is to of the redevelopment agreement is to be able to generate those property taxes in order to pay back for the infrastructure. Uh Mr. Bushek will go into more detail about the scope of that

redevelopment agreement and the CI and what now may be encompassing that. Um, but we're here today not only from a from a twofold perspective that as a condition of the redevelopment agreement and a condition of our contract with the Unity School of Christianity, we're required to obtain the city's approval. um it's pursuant to exhibit E of the redevelopment agreement to get your written approval uh to actually consummate that transaction that that transaction cannot occur without your approval. And the second request here is because that redevelopment agreement requires that if the property is transferred to a a restricted entity that restricted entity is required to pay the same fee to the city of what would be commensurate with the CI assess special assessment. I don't know what that figure is. I I cannot guess and I cannot I cannot make it make a make an educated guess as to what that may be. However, the district is requesting um in order to build Hazel Grove here um a full and complete waiver in perpetuity as only applied to the district and its successors and or assigns, not any unrelated party. meaning if the the district were to sell real estate to a private party, it would not apply to that private party. Um but the the the district is requesting a full and complete waiver in perpetuity of that annual payment as identified in the redevelopment agreement. Um so those are the two those are the two asks um from the the with the district to the city today. We'll be more than happy to answer any questions that the the city may have.

Okay. Thank you. We'll hear from Mr. Bushek and then we'll chime in. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. David Bush, uh, economic development council for the city. Thanks for having me back. So, I will give a brief history of how we get to this point and how we got to the school district's request tonight. I'll walk through a little bit of history. Uh for some of you, I may be just be reminding you of what you've already approved because this is based on city council approvals. So, I pulled a few slides from the presentation that I made to the city council for the Discovery Park TIFF plan and that's you'll see the notation at the bottom. So, first map just to orient you with property and you've been talking about this and it was just discussed in the school district's initial presentation here. The school would be relocating into Lee Summit. So, this map shows you the boundaries. And the other thing that's useful to to uh look at on this map, and then I'll circle back to this, is uh realigned blue parkway. The city funded the construction of this realigned blue parkway to the tune of um it cost about three I'm rounding $3.7 million back in 2012, 2013 that was completed. Um so this alignment here is the current alignment today. This next slide that I'm showing you, this is the original boundaries of the Blue Parkway and Coburn Road CD and the chapter 353 redevelopment plan. The way this works is the chapter 353 plan abates the taxes down to zero and then the CD imposes special assessments in the amount of 50% of the abated taxes and that generates revenue to reimburse for public improvements. It was divided into three phases. So phase one is this area here with the boundary line being uh the railroad tracks here. Phase two is everything over here north of the interstate and phase three is the area south of the interstate with the intention being of the original uh incentive package that the structure that I just described to you tax abatement plus reimposing 50% of the

abated taxes is designed to reimburse the city for the improvements that the city paid for to build this road that I just talked about that cost 3.6 six million. And then as this area, the original intention of this plan was as phase two and as phase three develops, the same structure would be used to generate revenue to reimburse whoever is doing the development in phases two and phases three for the public improvements that would be constructed in those phases. So to begin with, we have phase one which has already been activated and is generating a very nominal amount of revenues for the city. It's in it's in the range of tens of thousands. it has uh come nowhere close to reimbursing the city for the full cost of of this um blue parkway improvement that the city funded. Then fast forward to 2022, Discovery Park came along and this is the boundaries of the Discovery Park property. And then this final map I'll show you, this is a page from the petition that amended the CD and expanded the CD from the original boundaries I just discussed with you to include all of Discovery Park. So, the CD today includes all of Discovery Park in the original area I showed you. The arrangement under the contract is um is is fairly straightforward for the city. 25% of all of the CI revenues that are generated by this entire area would flow to the city to reimburse the city for the uh blue parkway improvements. And so then we get down to the request that the school district is making today, which is as uh Mr. Crawford just explained to you a twofold request. The first request is to approve the purchase of property by the school district u because it's being sold to a taxexempt entity. So that requires your approval to allow that to go through. And then the second part of the request as he explained is a waiver of the requirement to make the annual compensation payment to the city. So if we go back to the original

structure, the contract provides that if a taxexempt entity purchases any property in this area, they would make a payment to the city equivalent to what those that special assessment payment would have been. So the city is effectively receiving reimbursement even though it's a taxexempt entity. So the school district is requesting a waiver of that payment. Meaning if if you approve that, the city would not be receiving any reimbursement from the development of this property to pay for the blue parkway improvements that the city originally funded. The concern is heightened a bit because the interest that has been acrewing since the completion of the improvements was at um what we negotiated in the contract was prime rate plus 75 basis points or 0.75%. So when that went into effect, prime and and when the structure was approved by the city council in back in 2012, prime rate was 3.25%. Today it's at 7 12%. So it's a pretty hefty interest cost. Due to the inability to generate revenues in this area because it hasn't developed as originally projected and because of that acrruel of interest, the city today is owed about 6.14 million. So that's the amount that we're looking at to try to solve for. So the school district is requesting a waiver of any payment that would go to chip away at that 6.1 million that the city is due. And the interest will continue to accumulate until the city is fully re reimbursed. So that 6.1 million number today will continue to grow because we're not even covering the interest payments from the revenue that is being the nominal revenue that is being generated. Now, last bit of information. Um, in the Discovery Park um, contract, we negotiated an arrangement that I already described to you, which is the city will receive 25% of all of the CI revenues generated in the C area. So

what I did is I went back to the Discovery Park TIFF plan, pulled the original revenue projections and calculated what the city is likely to receive if Discovery Park actually develops as originally projected in the TIFF plan. Uh pulled out that data um ran the calculations based on the developers projections in the TIFF plan that you've already approved. And bottom line, if Discovery Park fully develops as originally projected by the developer, at the end of 23 years in the life of the tiff, the city would be reimbursed about $5.5 million. So to to summarize that point, if Discovery Park builds out as planned, the city would eventually receive 5.5 million and possibly more because these calculations end at 23 years, but the CD lasts until uh 2022. It was a 40-year CD when it was originally improved. So by the time we get to the end of all this, if Discovery Park develops as projected, it's likely that the city would be close to being fully reimbursed. But we still have that interest that's going to continue to rack up on the outstanding cost. So who who knows after three decades what what the situation will look like. But back to the main request, the school district is requesting your approval to purchase this property because they're it the school district is a taxexempt entity and they're requesting a full waiver of the payment that they would otherwise be required to make. Uh and that's the request. So there, if you're uh inclined to say yes to this request, there's a form of motion that's in your meeting packet and that motion would accomplish what the school district is requesting. So that's a lot of information there, but the school district request is very straightforward and hopefully that history helps you in your deliberations and your decision.

Okay, questions for Mr. Bushek or the school district? Council member Shields. All right. Um, so I'm going to admit this one's a little bit confusing. Uh, so just start right there. Um, this one's just a tiny point of clarification. Mr. Crawford, you're here in your capacity as council for the school district, not in your capacity on the park parks board. Correct. Correct. That is Yes, I understand. I've worn a different hat earlier. Well, and then we were talking about how this is next to the property we might develop for a park and I'm like just making sure I got all the roles straight. You are correct. I I am here in my role as a legal counsel for the district.

Totally fine. And Mr. Bushek, you're here in the role as the city's council even though you no longer work for the the city of Lee Summit itself, right? Yes, I am still your economic development council. You guys are just messing with my head tonight. So, okay. Um, so when we talk about Okay. So, first of all, you've got this this big C, the the red and the blue area equals the entire C at this point, right? Correct. Where is the school's proposed site on here? The school's proposed site is um this road here is is um I'll just kind of show you with the mouse. Right about here. And then I'll go back to their uh site plan.

Okay. But that's like that's like a it's just sort of hard to tell the the scale of this to that. So this is a pretty small section of that overall C. Right. Correct. So, just to maybe orient a little more, this stretch of road here, if you can see where I'm waving the mouse, uh, over here on this slide, that's this little stretch of road right here. Okay. Um, that's that's helpful. So, right now, if that area were to develop as a a superstore or whatever, it it would be subject to the um C tax reimbursing the city. Correct. But because it was it might develop as a school and that's tax exempt, that's the kind of concern of where we might end up losing out on some revenue.

Correct. And that is why we included a provision in the redevelopment agreement with Unity between the city and Unity that if it's purchased by a taxexempt entity, they would be required to make a payment equal to what they would pay if it was a taxable entity, which is basically 50% of of what the tax would be if it was taxable. Okay. Um, and is that the real property tax, not like a sales tax? Just the real property tax. Yes. Um, but it's the school district and so it's kind of a policy decision for us if we want to wave that payment.

Correct. You you're essentially presented with the policy decision to say yes or no to the school district's request to allow the sale to occur and then wave the payment that they would otherwise be contractually require unity and and the school district would be required. and they at this point don't know from it sounded like you guys don't know what that tax bill would be. There's not a way to calculate that right now. So, this this is actually an interesting issue and the answer is no. I don't think anybody even has a guess. But the way it would work based on how the contract reads is um the county does still value tax exempt property. Presumably, they would value the property and then we would calculate what the taxes would have been if it was taxable. 50% of that would be the payment to the city to reimburse the city over a period of years.

Yeah. But it would be pretty unusual for us to try to get money out of the school district. I mean, yes. I mean, I understand like it's a policy decision, but that's kind of what we're weighing is like we like to be good partners with them and Yeah. Yes, that's correct. Okay. Um, and so Discovery Park is mostly the area that's in is the area that's in blue on here, right? Well, so Discovery Park actually goes all the way over to this line here. So Discovery Park's phase one is is

not actually not up here. um the tiff. So now I'm talking about the tiff and um what's going to be generated from from a sales tax standpoint is project one is here, project two is here their project three is here and four is over here. Okay. So so a a good chunk of the rest of the C of the C is Discovery Park but not all of it. So it's possible some other things might develop in that area be subject to the C tax. Like when we're talking about how much revenue might conceivably be generated out of this, you would take the Discovery Park plus whatever other commercial stuff might come in around it, but not the school if we approve this.

Uh so to to be clear on that point, if you go back to the original structure and how it's set up today, the revenue generated just in phase one reimbures the city. The revenue generated, this is under the original structure, not as it was changed by Discovery Park. the revenue that would have been generated in phase two reimbures whoever built public improvements in phase two and then the same for phase three. So the structure today is the city's only going to be reimbursed from the revenue that's generated in phase one only. But with the amendment that we negotiated that I described to you, we're going to be getting 25% of the revenues that are generated by Discovery Park also.

Okay. Okay. So, so really but but basically Discovery Park is the only possible revenue source other than this land at this time. Yes. Um, and then when you say if Discovery Park develops fully, we could possibly see 5.5 million over the life of it. Is that is that nominal dollars or net present value dollars? Like is um because we're going to keep acrewing interest on Yeah, that I haven't gone that deep in the calculations. this is what I had time to do today to be honest which was go through the tiff plan

um look at their revenue projections and then just calculate a straight what those dollars are now when you start I mean it does get more complicated and there's a lot of variables here um what is prime rate going to do what's the interest rate going to do and then start to compare compare to what does inflation do to you know the time differential of receiving the you're thinking it'd be like probably $5.5 million But maybe over the life of this with additional interest and whatever it might be more than probably would be more than six million that the city would end up being owed.

Yes. And so it's it's very difficult with all these variables to predict when we reach the end of this whole sequence. Will the city be fully reimbured if Discovery Park fully builds out? I'm not sure, but we'll get much closer because that that's still a substantial amount of revenue for the city. Okay. Um Mayor, are you looking for opinions, consensus? Sure. Yes.

Okay. Um I mean it's a little bit hard to make like a really good informed decision because it seems like there is a lot that's just unclear. But my general instinct is to be a good partner to the school district. Um and that you know this this property over there hasn't developed yet. There's not any guarantee that would develop into something during the life of the C that generates a lot more revenue. So, I think I would approve the the sale and the waiver and and um you know, just try to be good partners and and bring that school into our boundaries and and serve the families of Lee Summit. So, thank you. All right. Thank you, Mayor Tim Lopez.

Thanks, Mayor. Um I know Council Member Shields already asked a couple of the questions I wanted to pose to you, Mr. Bushek. Um just understanding context. Um, so you you you stated 2012 was when the original C was created and the sole really intent was to renovate and improve Blue Parkway. Yes. As far as the city's concerned with this structure,

right? Knowing that uh there's planning, future planning to improve Coburn Road and open up all those arteries to improve access for citizens in general. um including I think much of a lot of the activity that happens at Unity Village for example I think they've benefited from that um and even though we've not seen the return to pay for these reimbursements to this point um nor will we will we with this what's before us today with the school district um the intent was still to improve safe roads and better access for our residents. Yes. And in an indirect way, it also has benefited other commercial areas, has it not? Would you say? Yeah.

Just having access to different arterial roads. Sure. And so knowing that there's a shortfall in the revenue with this current C as it was expanded and amended here recently, even with Discovery Park, we may or may not ever get the full reimbursement. That's that's correct. Yeah. So unfortunately, we can't gauge, as council member Shield says, you know, what the true future return is on that investment, but the bottom line is we're making street safer and the environment safer for all residents. Yeah, absolutely. These improvements have Yeah. So that to me has a huge value. Um and we're kind of the council in 2012 had the same vision that just been adjusted over the years and expanded upon.

Yes. And I think it was a known risk at the time when the decisions were made. Right. So I think that was considered when we considered the amendment here not too long ago. Yes. So okay with that being said, mayor, if you're wanting kind of a a perspective from us, absolutely. Uh the theme tonight has been partnership, collaboration, being strategic, being long-term thinking. And so this just falls along with that same concept. And so I would absolutely support, you know, this this what's before us today, supporting the school district and and offering the waiver that they're requesting. So, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Rder.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, Mr. Buchek, I just have this uh question. Have we had situations like this before where we've directly lost money uh via the with the school district in in these in these types of situation? or has there ever been this kind of a situation?

This is pretty unique. I mean, this this is a unique situation. The contract provision was written was negotiated and written into the document to protect against a potential array of scenarios, but each of those scenarios would be the property being transferred to a taxexempt entity. It wasn't written specifically for the school district. It was written in the event a a a private taxexempt entity comes into the area, we were intending to try to create an additional reimbursement source for the city through the contract provisions that they're requesting a waiver from. Uh wasn't known that the school district might be the purchaser, but the intention was to try to enhance the city's reimbursement from this structure um to the greatest extent possible.

Yeah. Ryan Elum, assistant assistant city manager. Uh just wanted to add that um to the best of our knowledge currently this is the only situation where we have front financed and installed the infrastructure in this manner. Um so typically a lot of our other uh incentive projects the developer would be responsible for that and um either do a pay as you go type basis or through a bond. Um but this is the only one where we direct finance that we can recall um over there. So that's another unique aspect of this particular piece as well.

So as uh um Mayor uh Pro Tim Lopez indicated, yeah, this was done prior to and it was just like we frontloaded this and said we're going to do it no matter what who comes come what may. And so I feel like um in a in in agreement with my colleagues here that probably it's the the best it's the best scenario to to move forward. we we we've got to continue to support our schools and help our kids be educated and go on to do better things. So, I would say that um I would agree that we need to move forward on this and agree to if I could add just one one more thing. Um

the uh projections that Mr. Bushek was talking about really were just the Discovery Park area. We did not add in any projections for the future development of the I'll say the west side of Blue Parkway there. Uh all of that ground still remains available as was originally intended. Uh so for that that piece of ground to the the west of Blue Parkway in between 50 highway and and Blue Parkway. So that will be additional revenue that's not captured in that that current projection um as far as the the payback if you will on this one. So just good to hear. Thank you, Mayor.

All right. Thank you, Council Member Funk. Thank you, Mayor. Um I think in the beginning of the discussion Dr. Shelton you mentioned or maybe Dr. Buck you did that part of the access that you're going to pay for school district's going to pay for is going to generate the access to what would be the new park property. Correct.

That's correct. So, when the park service was up here earlier, they showed you a road coming in that's not on their property, and then it made a a right-hand turn, if you will, down into the park. That road coming onto the property that wasn't theirs would be the road to the school. Um, so they would gain access from that as well as majority of those trails, um, they show mountain bike trails will be on the property that we're purchasing as well.

Okay. Thank you. That's just I wanted to be clear of that that was part of the discussion. But I think mayor this is a a great example of how our incentive policy works today as the way it works when we develop and pay as we go when we partner and do incentives and things like that. So I think it's a great program of what we're doing right now. Um with that being said, I think this is a great partnership with the school district. We've had great partnerships with them and we continue moving forward with this.

All right. Thank you. Um Dr. Buck, could you answer just a couple? Um the the land around there or Dr. Sheldon, either one or do you um the land around there is not fully developed. Um do you don't you for the most part find that uh activity follows whenever you put schools in. So what we see when we put elementaryaries, rooftops like to follow, but this is quite a commercial area. And there's other pieces of property for sale we looked at here. We looked at seven total sites in Kansas City, in Unity Village, and Lee Summit. Um, we chose this one because a lay is the best and b gets it farther away from heavy traffic. We want elementaryaries to set back. We want middle schools and high schools to be on major arteries.

Um, but there is land for sale there right now. Yes. Okay. Very good.

Um, I mean, I'm supportive as well. I think um gosh, we're we're all the we're all the time trying to figure out how to make things work and partner together and collaborate and I'm glad that we're in a position where we are where we have a council and school district or a council and a school board and a a school administration and a city administration that are working together and um finding solutions. So, appreciate you coming here tonight. I would be supportive as well. So um from the members we have here we have a consensus for the most part but Mr. Head or Mr. Dunning um or Mr. Bushek I guess since you're leading this um when to when to approve that and when to wave the payment.

So uh I thought about this there's different levels of formality with your approval. Ordinance is the most formal resolution is next level and then motion motion would accomplish it. So there's a form of motion that's in your meeting packet and if you approve that motion that would be your approval and we would uh move forward. Okay. According. Council member Prior, are you good with this? Okay. Um I think we've kind of voiced our our sentiment. Mr. Bashek, so I guess I'll ask Yes, please. Council member Shields, would you please?

Um I move that the city council approve the request from the Lee Seminar 7 school district to approve the purchase of six parcels totaling approximately 28.6 6 acres in the redevelopment area and wave the payment required by section 5.01b of the redevelopment agreement. Second. All right, we have a motion on the floor to approve the you did the um you did the waiver and did did you also do the um the sale the purchase?

Yes. Okay. For the sale and the waiver um with the school district by council member Shields, a second by Mayor Tim Lopez. discussion. All right, seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Please record the vote. It does pass 6. So, yeah, I appreciate you guys. You guys, it's We're partnering all kinds of stuff. We got this great airport thing going on. We've got um just numerous things to be proud of and this is just another I think another result of um building those bridges. So, thank you all. All right. Um, we'll keep mo moving forward. Um, another economic development news item. Um, we've got a presentation, the introduction of Grayson Capital. Mr. Elim, would you please?

Uh, yes. Uh, thank you, uh, mayor and council members. Uh, Ryan Ilum, assistant city manager. Uh what we've got before you tonight is really a brief introduction uh for somebody that is stepping into a project that's been around for a little while. Uh and uh just to get us oriented, I've got a couple of quick slides on here. Uh and then I'm going to turn it over to Grayson Capital and let them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about who they are as a company. But uh the situation that we've got is Paragon Star Village Apartments were approved by a PDP in 2019. Uh and this is uh these are slides from the original PDP presentation that was done. Uh and just to orient everybody uh you know here's 470 Paragon Star soccer complex uh all the roundabouts the diverging diamond and I think the existing building that is out there is in this area here. Uh but we're talking about specifically the apartment area that you can see right there. Uh again just another shot of where that was uh envisioned back in 2019. Uh and then in 2022 uh a group called Gold Crown and Altus Property, GoldCrown Properties and Altus Investment Group Equity, uh came and they received approval for a land clearance for redevelopment authority redevelopment plan solely for the purpose of sales tax exemption on construction materials. Uh and so that was approved uh through the process and they they went relatively far, but they never made it uh all the way to construction. Uh and now um Grayson Capital uh is coming in and preparing to step into those shoes and take over this portion of the the development as a developer there. Uh and so with that, we wanted to just provide an introduction uh to who they were and they will have to come back for formal approval uh and minor amendments to the LC redevelopment plan. uh just as uh the ordinance was

very specific in the developer itself. Uh hence the introduction and with that I'm going to turn it over to Michael Collins. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening Mayor and council. My name is Michael Collins um managing director and CEO of Grayson Capital. Uh we are a development company headquartered here in Kansas City. Um uh so one of the things I wanted to do is give a little bit of insight about um who we are. But first, I'll give you a little bit of insight about myself as well. Um, I'm not new to the Lee Summit area. I spent almost 10 years working for Senator Kit Bond, working on battery stuff and wastewater infrastructure in Lee Summit. This is a place that I've always, uh, uh, held dear, uh, near and dear to my heart. And so, uh, this is a humbling opportunity to be able to come to you today and talk to you about this project. So, a little bit about Grayson Capital. Uh, my team is over here, uh, next to Paragon Star. I will say that 50% of my my uh uh of my partners over there hail from Lee Summit. So um this is home for a lot of us. Um so about Grayson Capital uh we are a fully integrated real estate company. We are we work on advisory owners rep uh development management project management asset and property. Um asset classes we do a lot of public private P3 projects multifamily healthcare and hospitality. um healthc care makes us travel across the country. We do a lot of suburban areas. We also have um a medical office here in the suburban areas and the greater Kansas City metro. Also, um just a little bit about what we're doing in Kansas City. So, this so you know, this isn't our first project um that we're doing in the Kansas City metro. Um as you may or may not know, we're working on the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum campus with the Negro Leagues Museum in the historic Jazz District. Um six different projects there. We've already um pretty much um about 70% complete on the garage there, but then the other development uh the hotel and then multif family is coming next and actually not many people have seen that so I'm going to go move forward. Um um we also are in the crossroads uh

developing multif family in the downtown area. Um but then here's where we are. We are in Cleveland u building an ambulatory surgery center and medical office building around 70,000 square ft. So, one thing we wanted to do is really show you the differences and the um demographics. This is here in a suburb of Philadelphia um of a medical office ambul surgery center as well. Um we we do a lot of these projects across the country. U we want to know and get to know the um the people that make these communities and and develop the the right project for them. So, I know that you've heard a lot about Paragon Star and the development here. Um we are naming this the preserve. Um one of the reasons why if you've spent time there, the soccer fields or what have you. Um it's a it's an area that really fits u with what we wanted to do that really speaks to Lee Summit and the city of Lee Summit and not just build something that looks like what we're doing downtown, but build something that um you all will be proud of and also have the the the tenants there that want to be in um in Lee Summit. This will be somewhere that they call home and home for a long time. We want them to graduate from here um to possibly a single family home. We want them to be what we've been saying sticky tenants um for the city of Lee Summit and have them see them grow grow their family um and then then obviously grow within the within the area. Um so a lot of the things we won't really change from a design standpoint. Number one, we like the design. U we also know that it's you all have seen it. So we really want to understand how do we actually just continue the momentum in the development of the project. not really trying to redo something and say, "Hey, you know what? We know what's best." Um, also, we we know that um what's important or we're learning what's important um to those of you in the city of Lee Summit as to what needs to be there from an amenity standpoint. Um again, this is the development that you all have seen probably not at this ground level

before. A lot of it's been aerial views. Um but we've also um kept the uh the interior design as well to be the same. Um and so one more thing we're looking to do is just make sure that again the amenities, the development um is something that is uh that is a nexus to the city of Lee Summit. Again, we're going to be asking you all questions. Uh we want to know what's missing, what's being thought through. Um so again, this is what more of an introductory. I'm more than happy to answer any questions and if I don't have the answer, I'll tell you I don't have the answer. Um, but this was something that we wanted to do and just say, you know, uh, introduce ourselves as Grace and Capital, introduce myself, reintroduce myself to the city of Lee Summit, and inform you all that, you know, we're not new, but we have a lot to learn and we're really excited about partnering and working with the city of Lee Summit.

All right. Thank you. Thank you for uh coming and making the introduction. So, Council Member Prior, thank you. I just had a quick question. So, is this the same location as that's been presented before as apartment? So, this is Grand View School District. I know apartments like this don't add a ton to the school districts, but this is Grand View versus Lee Summit School District. Hickman. This is Hickman. Oh, Hickman. Okay. Oh, it is Hickman. Okay. Hickman. And then this is the exact same location that where the garage is being built correctly right now. Currently, it will wrap around the existing garage facility. Okay. Okay. Good to know. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Other questions or comments for Mr. Mr. Collins?

It is really nice that you've come in, introduced yourself. Thank you, uh, Paragon for, uh, making this introduction as well. and um keeping us up to date and we're excited about Paragon Star and everything that's happening out there, the development. Um the interchange and and of course soccer field's been a huge success already, but um we're excited about about the continued growth and this is a big part of it that goes hand inand with the commercial that'll that'll follow. So, well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. I think that's I think that's it. We'll probably connect again sometime. Yep. All right. We have one more presentation tonight. This is a tourism campaign kickoff and um we've got uh of course our executive director uh Corey Day here. Um Miss Day.

Good evening, mayor and members of council. I'm going to get set up here. Um okay. All right. Well, um, good evening. Um, thank you so much for having me. Um, as Mayor Barrett said, um, I'm Corey Day. I'm the tourism director for the city of Lee Summit. Um, I just want to start by saying thank you so much for the opportunity to present the new marketing campaign to you. Um, as well as the funding that you provide that allows us to tell the Lee Summit story every day, which is um, a joy in and of itself. Uh, we have many members of our board and marketing committee here tonight. I just want to say thank you to them and recognize them for their work that got us to where we are um in this marketing campaign as well as the establishment of our visitors bureau over the past 18 months. Um but before I get into the presentation and I know this is a lengthy presentation I promise it's not going to take what it looks like. Um many of these slides are very quick so we'll we'll keep it moving. Um but I wanted to take just a moment to explain the process that brought us to this point. Um, beginning in March of 2025, uh, we set out on a journey to present, uh, positionally summit as a prime destination, not only for visitors of all ages, but also a place to be explored by our own community members. Uh, during this process, we've conducted two research projects and countless meetings and presentations um, not only to um, the visitors bureau board, but also to many of our community partners. We wanted to make sure this was a collaborative process, and we believe that we did our level best to try to make sure we were getting plenty of feedback along the way. So, as we go along, I would welcome any questions or feedback that you have. We do have some representatives from Trazolo Communications, um, who is the agency that we um, asked to be part of this to help us with our three-year marketing plan as well as our creative campaign and our new, uh, brand identity, which we'll see tonight. So, they'll be helping answer any questions. There may be um, people coming up and down, but um, we'll try, like I said, we'll try to keep it moving. So the first um the first thing that we set out to do as I said was effectively position

Lee Summit as a prime destination um for visitors of all ages. We wanted to grow awareness um attract economic impact for visitors and obviously continue to maintain local support for tourism. Um so who are we talking to? Obviously when you set out on something like this you got to know who you're talking to and who your audience is going to be. So, um, young families or, uh, grandparents, um, friends, couples, empty nesters, um, locals rediscovering new things about our city. Obviously, we have a city that's constantly in development, constantly changing. We've heard so many exciting things, even just from our parks department tonight. So, we want to make sure that we are continuing to let our own locals know that they don't need to leave our city in order to see and do exciting things and and bring their own friends and family here to see what we have to offer. and then obviously visitors from nearby towns um seeking something different to do with um that is near where they're already living. So based on the research, as I said, we did a couple research projects as we were um as we were doing this and if you're interested in seeing that information, I'm happy to share it. Um it was not something that we needed to go through tonight. Um but we did find out that what people needed to know more about Wesley Summit. Um they just didn't know a lot about us in in many cases. And so not everybody is wants to go all the way to Kansas City. So many people are looking for a place likely summit that they consider to be safe and affordable um and that they can offer. Um in addition to being a place where in our brand promise that was developed out of this research uh we create a simple enjoyable moments of adventure, entertainment and wholesome fun without the hassle. So, it's important to remember that as you go through this and you see the campaign, we look everything that we do, we look at through this promise and make sure that what we're telling people or what we're saying to people is authentic, that we're being very real about who we are and that we can offer the kind of experiences that we're selling them um through the the creative campaign. So, u making sure that we're consistently telling the same story is very very important when we um launch um

a campaign like this. So, the next part was figuring out what is our personality. So if Lee Summit was a person, what would you describe as our personality? Um so after looking at our assets, we obviously know that our beautiful downtown core is the heart of who we are. Um it gives a very charming um experience every time you're down there. In addition to and again the parks being here tonight was perfect because the number of parks and trails and different kinds of offerings that we have also gives that sense of adventure that they can come here and get something that would please everyone in their in their travel party or their family. So um charming with a sense of adventure is where we landed on the brand personality just based on the offerings that Lee Summit has um for families and couples and any of the other target audiences that we are talking to. So the um in working with Trozo we learned this um G- Whiz idea early in our in the process but it's basically the big idea of the campaign. What did we what did we land on? what are we trying to sell when we're talking to visitors or even people within our own community? And so that we're talking about Lee Summit being the perfect escape. So as we went through this process, we also realized that um for tourism that we may need to look at the brand identity and make sure that we are um setting ourselves apart from others that are trying to get people to come to their destinations. We are not alone in this. Clearly, there's a visitors bureau in many of the cities, even in our own state. And so, it was important that we figured out a way to um define ourselves and come up with a mark that set us apart from other from other destinations. So, in that um we had to know kind of what was out there. So, we did a little these are just some other destinations. Some are near, some are not. Um but if you'll notice, it's always very tavy so that you're very clear on where you're asking people to come and visit. You don't want it to be confusing and you don't want it to be something that people don't know what they're looking at. So the first sketch that we landed on um there were many many many concepts

that we went through and this was the first sketch that we landed on. So after some tweaks and some cons uh conversation with the board um this is the final brand identity that we landed on. Um as we worked through the process we changed the M's up. Um, we felt like the the sharper M's, the smaller T with the exagger, excuse me, the smaller I with the exaggerated T really kind of gave that sense of adventure where the explore being handwritten gave that more charming um personal touch to the logo. So the colors on the right hand side of the screen um the blue, the purple, the orange will be used throughout the campaign and then the circle is actually an animated um an animated circle that will be used on most of our social media posts. So, um it just increases engagement with social media posts when things are active and um more attractive to people when they're surfing the web, looking on their phone, scrolling through their phone. So, um as the work began, um we started with our marketing committee for the the visitors bureau. Uh we were offered three concepts originally. um the marketing campa excuse me the marketing committee narrowed those down to two and then that was taken to our entire board to come up with the final decision um as to which campaign was going to be moving forward. So because the um the campaign was the it was the just right campaign. So there were three different each one of them had um kind of a a key tagline that we would have taken from them. Because the just right campaign was chosen we wanted to provide a relatable touch point. So, how could we tell the story without it being boring, keep it interesting um and relatable to people as um as they were looking at reasons to come and visit Lee Summit. So, in figuring out the relatable touch point, Goldilocks felt like the perfect voice to communicate all the great things that Lee Summit had to offer. Um at the same time telling people that they are if they come here, they're

going to avoid the typical hassle that they would find in a normal vacation. So by person personifying our Goldilocks as a young hip tour guide, which you're going to see in just a moment, we also gain credibility in the same way that influencers provide third-party um credibility. So we're not just us saying Wearly Summit, we're super great. You should come here. We're trying to give that third-party influencer endorsement um to have people um understand that someone else feels that way about us. So we believe the talent that we cast brought approachability. She brings warmth. Um, she's funny. So, her comedic timing, um, and her professionalism, it also allowed us to capture additional assets and takes out of the commercial that we'll be able to use later in our other social media posts. So, this is just what you're seeing tonight is just a snapshot of what's going to launch, what we hope in early February. Um, it is not um, necessarily the only thing that will ever come out of that. So, we did a two-day photo shoot um in no mid November of all kinds of different locations in Lee Summit. And this is this is what you're seeing um now is all of our new assets that we have. So, in keeping with the theme of being the perfect escape, we're not too big, we're not too small. Um and added as as an added bonus, we're just right down the road from many of the communities that we'll be talking to during the campaign. So, for families looking for a little adventure, Lee Summit is just right. So, we did some early testing over the holidays. I know that some of you saw these billboards um the billboards in particular, but there was some other um assets or excuse me, media channels that were used during the holiday campaign. So, we just wanted to run through these really fast and give you a few of the analytics that we got at the end of this to show you the impact we were able to make in just a few weeks of having this in the in the world and for people to see um what we were what we were all about and to get Lee Summit in front of people um during the holidays. So, um as

I said, you did see some of these billboards. Um this was one that was in Warrenburg. Um and if I'm moving too fast, let me know. But again, I I want to make sure we slow down so they can take them in. Let's that first one. There we go.

So, there's the Warrensburg um outdoor uh married times. No worries. Um obviously, this one was uh targeting more couples. Um you'll see that we don't use a lot of words. We use more the of the images. That's why they're so important in these um in all of these ads because that's who we're targeting. We want people to see themselves in in the ads um as we're going through. Um this is Sadelia. Um obviously making that connection with the train. Um we both sit on the Missouri River Runner Amtrak line. Um so making that connection with with the Sidelia. Um Lexington um targeting our families. Um no hassle, all joy. Um Lee Summit and Harrisonville. Again, back to the couples. So you will see that some of these um will look similar. Uh the colors may change, that sort of thing, but um very all all pretty similar. And then this one was actually um in Blue Springs um that was was on the um the digital billboard. This was the only one I believe that was digital. All the rest of them were static billboards. So this one was one that cycled through. Um we did some digital ads with Casey Parent Magazine. They they've been a great partner of ours. Um we actually have had some um kind of some earned media with them as well. They they did in the fall they did um I think the best some of the six best places to go in Lee Summit and they just did that because they love Lee Summit they came out and actually did a tour with um Ryan Elum for Green Street and did a big story on that when Green Street opened and so they've been excellent partners so um we will continue to partner with them and this was one of their eblasts that went out targeting families obviously um and this is a Casey parent is a publication that it's a free publication yeah that um has a a really big readership because of that and you'll you'll find it in

various places across Kansas City. So um again we were targeting families here with an Instagram ad um and those were those were the that's what we did with Casey Parent this time around. Um we will continue as I said to partner with them. Casey magazine we did a package um buy with them. So there were some a variety of different things. So this is a an Instagram ad that targeted couples. Um, as you can see, the text on the left is is um the copy that would be there along with the the Instagram ad. Um, if this was Facebook, um, same ad. Obviously, they're just sized differently depending on the social media channel. Uh, the e newsletter banner ads. Um, it also I should mention that anytime anybody sees this, if they click on it, it will take them to our website. So, what we're constantly trying to do is drive that traffic back to our website. uh leaderboard ads. These are much smaller so they don't um have the ability to have a a photo as as per se. So we we keep it very simple with the explorely summit and then um simple copy. And this is the only print ad we did um for this campaign for the holidays. Um so this was in KC magazine. Um it was a um this is not one of the new photos. We didn't have our new assets at that time, but we felt like it was appropriate with the holidays and people gathering and spending time together. So, that's the only print ad that you'll see. Um, Casey Daily was uh also another e newswsletter. Again, too small for a photo, so we leaned in on our copy and the new and the new logo. Um, ENKC is another publication that we're working with. We did their e- newswsletter. Um these were the two that that different ones that ran. One friends and couples and one targeting our families. And then um this radio spot there isn't

there is an audio on this one. This was a 15-second spot that was actually a live read. Um it went out on eight different stations. So this would more than likely um it would either be after traffic or weather. Um so Lee Summit weather or excuse me weather brought to you by Lee Summit. they read the ad and then go into the weather report or the traffic report. So there are there were eight stations that this um that this aired on. So some initial results that we got, we were pretty excited about some of these um most of these. So um when you see O, you'll see this when I come back to you with other campaigns. It just means billboards. It means out of home. So if you're not familiar with what that means, um so the billboards served over 1.1 million impressions. um they launched on 11-11 and we also um were able to get about 89,000 um added value impressions because we have some excellent relationships with the billboard um or out of home companies and so they actually left our vinyls up longer than we actually count contracted for. So they went in further into the holiday season um than we had anticipated and that we paid for. So, we had an extra um almost 89,000 um impressions because of those relationships that um Trazolo has built over their time working with these companies. Um which is great. Uh traffic radio, as I mentioned, was on eight stations with 1.7 million impressions. And when we say impressions, it just means people either saw it or heard it. That's all that that's that that word means is is that's how many people saw or heard the ad. Digital Partnerships. The Casey magazine print ad was delivered to um over 112,000 people in December. So those were the um people that got that magazine. And then the e newswsletters um were over 200,000 folks that were um subscribed to those e newslet e newsletters. Um and paid search, which is basically when someone searches for things to do, we're paying for our ads and for Lee Summit to come up um ahead

of other people. Um that launched on 1215. And when this was um when this deck was put together um which I think was only about these numbers are a little bit dated because we needed to get the deck out but about a week after they we had already um had over 5,000 impressions and 612 clicks to the website. So again as I said we're constantly trying to drive more traffic back to that website. So um we'll continue to show you these sort of um analytics. We just want um we want you to start to get used to seeing this from us because this is how we're going to gauge on how well we're doing and the best use of the the return on investment of the funds that you um that you give to the visitors bureau to spend. We want to make sure that we're showing uh the impact that we're having. So um before we um move through here, this is the um I apologize I got behind and um this is the February launch. So this is what we are hoping to um kick off at the beginning of next month. Um as I said um this is the first time that we have advertised in a lot of these media channels. It's the first time that we've been in a lot of the markets that we've been in because this is the first marketing campaign that this visitors bureau has put out there in the world for the everyone to digest and learn more about Lee Summit. So, um we will be constantly reviewing um all of these analytics and the performance of these media channels. Um we will give them some time to perform. So, you know, clearly we're going to be getting dashboard reports from Triolo. You know, I'll probably be getting them weekly, could be monthly. A lot of these things are going to take some time. So it may take three months for us to keep keep something out into the world to kind of see the performance and make sure that it's performing the way we want it to. However, I will say some of the media channels we know are not going to perform as well as others. So when that happens and we see that happening that

we have the opportunity to switch when we need to and get into lean into more of what's working and get out of what isn't working. We just don't know what that is yet. So, we appreciate the fact that um you know, you're in advance your patience for uh us needing to figure out where we need to be in order to have the biggest splash and to tell our story to the right audience. So, paid social will be a big piece of what we do. Um so, these are just paid social ads. This is um an Instagram ad. These are new assets. These are new pictures. So, you'll see that this lovely couple is having lunch or dinner at Roots. um the people at Lovely Summit will know where these are. You know, we do we know that many people won't see it, but it's kind of cool to see it all come to fruition after watching the um after watching the two-day shoot. So, um I will mention the circle, as I said, will move and then there is a a line that is animated that goes under the word worries. Um so, this is what the text looks like. Again, very simple. They're very quick. People are just scrolling. You've got to do something to try to catch their attention. Um this is a carousel. So if people click it will it'll go through to all three pictures. Um so obviously targeting couples, targeting families. Those kiddos were they had the day off of school that day and they got to come and play at at Sky Zone and uh be part of our photo shoot which was super fun. And then um you know obviously um a motheraughter shopping um coming down and enjoying um downtown. So, those would be the the carousel that we'll um go through on Instagram. Um paid social retargeting. This is where um marketers do our best when you're looking for a pair of shoes and then constantly you're just con getting served up nothing but shoes. This is what we're going to do to those people as well. So, if they have clicked on something or shown interest in Lee Summit, we're going to hit them with this ad again because they've shown interest and so hopefully they will click through and it will uh get them to

come and visit our community. So, um, this is another, uh, you know, again, these are all new assets as far as the photography and stuff. It's all brand new. Um, radio, I will play this for you. So, this, um, I will talk more about where we're going to be in radio. I'm not going to go into great detail on where we're going to be in media channels, but we just wanted to give you an opportunity to be able to hear the commercial that was going to be played. That is not going to be a live read. This will be an actual radio commercial that is um on the radio.

This is the story of Goldilocks and the three vacations. First, Goldilocks took her family to a small town, but they needed more to do. So, then she took them to the big city, but things there were so hectic that they got overwhelmed. Finally, Goldilocks took her family to Lee's Summit, and it was like a breath of fresh air. It had everything from shopping to fine dining, the Green Street Farmers Market. So be like Goldilocks and explore Lee's Summit. It's just right.

So we think that it will definitely catch people's attention, which is what we're wanting to do. Um it's will it will hopefully sound like nothing else that's on the radio and it will at least get them to stop and listen to to to the to the spot. Sorry. So the other piece that we're going to be going into is we will be on connected TV. um which is when you are and I again I will you'll see this on our on our media strategy but when you're sitting at home and you're streaming on your TV and then when you're streaming on your device those are two different mediums and we'll be our media channels and we will be on both with this um TV commercial. Hey Goldilocks here. Have you been looking for that perfect charming getaway? Let me show you why Lee Summit is just right. That is delightful. So chic. Oh, and the best part, it's a lot closer than you think it is. So, come explore Lee Summit. It's got everything you need to make your getaway just right. Takes a lot of video to get 30 seconds of a commercial, by the way. Um, so this was just I wanted you to see a little bit of some of the additional photography and how well it turned out. You can see, you probably recognize some of these locations. Um, this is five pictures out of thousands that were taken over the two days. Um, so anytime you see our our our campaign, you will see new assets. Um, we will be gathering some new assets for spring and summer. Obviously, everyone in these pictures has long sleeves, sweaters, jackets, boots, that sort of thing. So, we'll be getting some new assets for spring and summer when we launch our new spring and summer campaign. So this quickly I just wanted you to get a quick view of where we're going to be over the next few months um as we go into the February launch. Um those are

the um so the top um line there is where the where the commercial will run. Um audio where you'll hear the radio the radio spot publications. This is where you're going to see the digital pieces. Again we're partnering with a lot of the same folks that we did for the holiday campaign. Um digital will be our paid search and paid social and then we will um we will have some more um out of home in May which will do new billboards in May. Obviously they won't be the holiday billboards. So and then this just tells you we're active on Facebook, Instagram and um X. Um we do partner with our creative services department. Creative services is who is actually manages all of our social media channels, the paid social and the social media channel posts that happen two to three times a week. All of that works together. So, Creative Services has worked with the Traolo team to ensure that they look the same, they have the same feel, that we're using some of the same assets um so that again you get that consistent feel and it doesn't feel like you're disconnected on what you're paying on social and what you're posting um throughout the throughout the week. And that is what I have for you this evening. So, I'm happy to take any questions um feedback. I know I went through that pretty fast, but I wanted to be respectful of your time as well.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Prior, you want to start us off? Thank you. I love it. But how come you guys aren't doing Tik Tok? I feel like Facebook is kind of a kind of going to a thing of the past and Tik Tok, they do targeted, they do targeted influencer now. Location, targeted location. How come you're not on Tik Tok? I couldn't agree with you more. That was that is that is something that we're working on. Um we're working on through the city. Okay, good. I think that's a huge missed market by not being on there, but no, I I love all of this. Looks great. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Shields.

Yeah, mostly just second that. I think this is great. Um I'm so glad that you got all the new photos done. They look fantastic and and you need them for what you're doing. So, I think that's great. And I know you're going to share them with some of our um partners, I think, at like at EDC and at uh Downtown Main Street so that um we all rise together. Absolutely. We actually have the link. I just got it. So, I was going to tell you that tonight. So, I'm really excited we'll be able to we got so many that we're going to have plenty that we're going to be able to share and then keep some just for the campaign as well. So,

I just think it's it's great um collaboration and and great way to work together. So, this I think it looks great. Um I love the messaging. Like I I can tell a lot of thought went into it, but I I like that it feels authentic to Lee Summit, like about what I like about Lee Summit and it feels like um the right way to sell the community, the right audience audience to target. Um, and it doesn't it feels realistic like who we're going after. Um, like you know, we're not going to get international travelers with this campaign, but you know, focusing on our surrounding communities and locals um makes total sense and I think you really captured like the spirit of what makes us unique. So, that's that's impressive to be able to do in an ad this big. So, thank you. That's great. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Council Member Rder. I have some questions. Okay. Um, first of all, I I was just curious. So, it looks like you you did the you targeted in your in your billboards Warrensburg and Sidelia and Lexington. Was there a reason why you didn't go the other direction towards the West Kansas that direction? I mean, was that something that was just you were trying to target that those people coming to Lee Summit and and not those people? And I was just curious if there was a reason for one way or the other.

Sure. Yeah. And I I I will lean on Tammy a little bit on this one. I know that availability of billboards is one of the big reasons. Uh because you have to make sure that you have where you need them and where you want them and where it makes sense going the right direction which is also but yeah and we're targeting Kansas City. Can you come up to the microphone please?

Sorry it's first time. Hi Tammy Jennings. Um, we are targeting Kansas City area in other ways, but for our smaller markets, we had a limited flight for our billboards. So, we wanted to make sure that we were being consistent and being seen along those highways where people are driving along those areas. So, um, we think we have a better chance of capturing some of those smaller markets with our digital billboards rather than Kansas City where we're doing CTV, uh, radio, digital, and that sort of thing. So, So, you just tried to hit them all. Yes, exactly. And again, we're testing, so we want to we want to see where we're going to capture those audiences.

Thank you. And so, will this campaign run for a year or is will you be changing it up? I mean, I know you're going to be changing up uh basically pictures for holidays and different seasonal things like that. But is it Jo is it going to be Goldilocks for the entire year or forever? No. So, it won't be forever. Um, most of the time these campaigns are three years depending on how they Yeah, I mean, we definitely worked hard to create this. I need you to come up to the microphone. I'm sorry.

So, so more than likely it's going to be as long as it tests well and everything is going well. I mean, if we get into the market and I don't anticipate this happening, but I I think it's important again for you to understand that, you know, with this being our first one, we want to make sure that it's going to play well. So, if it doesn't play well, then, you know, we kind of we go back to the drawing board. But in my experience in the past when I have done these, we're looking at probably three probably three years where we would lean into and again as you can see we only use her in video and radio. You know it isn't like we're leaning into that for our socials and those kind of mediums that are on all the time.

Yeah, I know there's branding and it takes time to brand. I get that for sure. Um, I love the explorely summit that I really like the way you did the logo. And actually, I'm going to be honest with you. I had a conversation with Crystal this today and I was just like, "Oh, I don't know." And she she talked to me off the cliff and I will tell you that um I was very impressed when once I once I saw it here and you presented the uh the video and then the Goldilocks gal, that was really cool. So anyway, I I like it and I think you guys I know you've just worked your heads off and um I'm really hoping that it's going to be amazing for Lee Summit. I appreciate you guys.

Thank you. I appreciate you as well. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Funk. Thank you, Mayor. Um great job, Corey. I I like the fact that Goldilocks is a real person. That's that's kind of neat. I just have a question and and it's curiosity. So when you do billboards, how do you how do you capture that? I mean, how do you judge how many people are really reflecting from that billboard? Our vendors do this all the time, so they know the estimate of traffic of how many people go by. So it's an estimate. Yeah, just an Okay, that's just a question. No, great job. Thank you for presenting tonight. Um, this looks good. I like the Explore Lee Summit.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Mayor Tim Lopez.

Thanks, Corey. Appreciate it. A lot of the same comments that have been made already. Um I I'll be honest, when I saw this on the agenda, I didn't quite didn't know what to expect and like kind of it's already been said, um wasn't sure, but this was convincing. It shows that you all have put a lot of thought and effort into this. Uh knowing that a previous council had the vision and the wherewithal, this has been discussed for many years. Uh, this is perfect timing and I know that council, former council member Johnson back there, he's hiding. He's got his fingerprints all over this, his creative juices. Um, but um, no, kudos to everyone involved. Um, everyone on the, uh, on the committee and the commission. Great job. And, uh, this is exciting and it's something that we are something we can all look forward to for sure. So, I think you guys nailed it and I'm excited to see what's coming down down the line.

So, thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Prior. Thank you, Mayor. I forgot to ask. So, is this our new is this our new city slogan instead of yours truly? Does this take place of yours truly, or is it now it's still everything separate? Separate. Yeah. Okay.

We'll own this just for us for now. So, no. Uh, no. We we didn't intend on um doing anything other than giving um the Lee Summit Visitors Bureau a really a a name that that really spoke to what we felt like explained our destination and what we were asking people to do. And when we used the word explore, we really felt like it not only spoke to, hey, come in and explore our community, but also, as I said, all the community members that are probably missing some of the really great things that we have going on, we want them to get out and explore their own community as well. So, um, we're really, uh, you know, we we only did the the branding for the for the tourism arm. Okay. I like the explore summit a lot. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Funk.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, Mayor Prim, Mayor Prom Lopez one, he triggered something in my mind when he mentioned um, former council member Johnson. It is 9:02. So, it's way past your bedtime. That just shows you what a what a dedicated board member he's been. So, all right. Thank you. Um, I too love the graphics and the fonts and the the statistics that you showed, the impressions. Um, the diversity of the media from digital, print, social, radio, TV, e-letters. Um, and of course you're retargeting. As annoying as it can be, it works. It works. It

sure does. It works on me every time. I'm like, how am I falling for this? And um so no, that's great. Um I'm guessing um that you're going to do some geof fencing and um keep track you're going to do um are you going to be uh a big part of like I know Donnie in the downtown um does the placer data. You're going to be tracking all of that and keeping that information and being able to provide good feedback for us for events and such. Yes, I work very closely with Donnie on that. And so we we I if I need something like that set up um I always reach out to him and we make sure that's why we were even for the Green Street grand opening we were able to geofence that and get the numbers. So absolutely go

you going to for the World Cup are you going to be able to geofence areas in the community?

Yeah. Um, you know, I think it's just going to, you know, that might even be something that I'll reach out to, um, public works and see if we want to geoence the the park and ride area to see what kind of zip codes we're getting in in and out of our two areas that we that we have. And then obviously for our football Fridays, you know, we'll want to see if we're attracting different visitors. But there's also, I mean, I would assume we'll be geofencing downtown during that time as well. Um, I don't want to speak for Donnie, but we'll be geofencing downtown that way as well because we'll be pushing people to the to the core of our city and and hoping that we're getting, you know, because it it will be important. It'll be important for everyone's ROI so that that information will be invaluable at the end of all of this.

Okay. Um, you also in the presentation had like a it was only one sheet. I'm sure it's many, many, many, many sheets, but um, a media strategy. Yes. and sharing that with the council, you know, really helps provide um transparency as to what the board's doing. And I know it's a summary, but that's all we need is at least a summary of um your objectives, goals, and and you know, the results.

Um so, we really appreciate that. And then, um you know, I think we're all excited. Um, I'm sad that a couple we've got three missing tonight because I think every single person up here is really um a strong believer that this is a void we need filled um the tourism and we we've been looking forward to it. Um filling that void for you to tell our story and to uh to get our name out there. We don't want to be the best kept secret anymore. We want to be the the coolest secret. and I think that you're you're doing that with um with this great um planning and uh and all the great graphics and and such. So, just keep telling the story the way you are and keep, you know, keep us up to date here and there.

Um but we do like the the data. Um I mean, I'd love to see the data once you have, you know, three months. Yeah, that would be exciting. I know. I'm excited, too. Yeah. Um, I think the numbers are going to be really big if you're using all these strategies and using, you know, the traas and and uh your board obviously um is is really engaged. So, thank you for presenting tonight. Okay. And do you have any questions for us? No, just thank you. Thank you for your support and thank you for believing in what we're doing and we'll keep telling you the great stories about what we've got to show for all of our work. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Council, are you able to move on or do you want to break? A lot of people's ordinances. Oh, have you been? Okay. Yeah. Um, so thank you all board members. Thank you all for coming tonight. Appreciate you all. Okay. Well, we are on agenda item 8A. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Um, these are proposed ordinances forwarded from committee. And do you have all the ordinances?

Okay. Um, council member Shields, would you please read bill number 26-011? Thank you. Thank you. I move for second reading bill number 26-011, an ordinance approving the 2026 Jackson County Board of Election Commissioners P contracts for the level community center, Long View Community Center, and Gammer Center and authorizing the administrator of parks and recreation execute the same by on behalf of the city. Thank you. Have a motion to move to second reading bill number 26-011 by council member Shield. Seconded by Council Member Funk. Discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes written, please record the vote. That bill is moves to second reading unanimously. Council member Shields, would you please?

Thank you. I now move for adoption of bill number 26-01, an ordinance approving the 2026 Jackson County Board of Election Commissioners poll contracts for level community center in Gamber Center and authorizing the administrative parks and recreation. Execute the same by on behalf of the city. Thank you. Have a motion to adopt bill number 26-011 by council member Shield. Seconded by council member Funk. Discussion. Please cast your vote. All votes ran. Please record the vote. It's adopted unanimously. Thank you. Council Mayor Shields, would you please read bill number 26-012?

Thank you. I move for second reading bill number 26-012, an ordinance approving change order number four to the agreement for joint operation center migration plan between the city of Lee Summit Motorola Solutions Inc. for an increase in the contract by system infrastructure cost of $2,824,533 and additional increases in annual system life cycle maintenance cost of $317,490 and cyber security cost of $96,240 over a period of six years and authorizing city manager to execute an agreement for the same. Thank you. We have a motion to move to second reading bill number 26-012 by council member Shield, seconded by council member vunk. Discussion seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes in, please record the vote. It moves to second reading 6. Council member Shields, would you please?

Thank you. I now move for adoption of bill number 26-012, an ordinance approving change order number four to the agreement for joint operation center migration plan between the city of Lee Summit, Motorola Solutions, Inc. for an increase in the contract price of system infrastructure cost of $2,824,533 and additional increases in annual system life cycle maintenance cost of $317,490 in cyber security cost of $96,240 over a period of six years and authorizing city manager to execute an agreement for the same.

Thank you. We have a motion to adopt bill number 26-012 by council member Shield. Seconded by council member Funk. Discussion. Please cast your vote. All votes. Please record the vote. That bill is adopted. 6. Thank you. Proposed ordinances. First reading. Council member Shields. Would you please read bill number 26-013?

Thank you. I move for second reading bill number 26-13. Ordinance repealing ordinance number 10283 and approving an agreement between the city of Lee Summit and the Missouri Department of Public Safety for the city's acceptance of appropriated funds in the amount of 1,500,000 through the planning design and construction of an emergency operations facility pursuant to House Bill 8 section 8.133 fiscal year 2026 and authorizing the mayor to execute any and all documents for the same buy and on behalf of the city of Lee Summit, Missouri. Thank you. We have a motion to move to second reading bill number 26-013 by council member Shield seconded by council member Funk. discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Please score the vote. That bill goes to second reading unanimously. Thank you. Council member Shields, would you please read bill number 26-014?

Thank you. Thank you. I move for second read bill number 26-01 for an ordinance repealing ordinance number 10284 and approving an agreement between the city of Lee Summit, Missouri Department of Public Safety for the city's acceptance of appropriated funds the amount of $2 million for the planning, design, and construction of emergency operations facility pursuant to House Bill 8 section 8.13 fiscal year 2026 and authorizing the mayor to execute any and all documents for the same binding on behalf of the city of Lisum, Missouri.

Thank you. We have a motion to move to second reading bill number 26-014 by council member Shield, seconded by council member Funk. discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes ring. Please record the vote. That bill does move to second reading unanimously. Thank you. And that takes us to proposed ordinances second reading. Council member Rder. Would you please read bill number 266-003?

Thank you, Mayor. I move for adoption bill number 26-3, an ordinance approving a pre preliminary development plan for Olden Village Lot 18 and tract E on approximately 2.99 acres of land generally located at the northwest intersection of southwest PCEL's road and south M291 highway. All in accordance with the provision of chapter 33, the unified development ordinance of the code of ordinances for the city of Lummit, Missouri.

Thank you. We have a motion to adopt bill number 26-003 by council member Rder. Seconded by member Tim Lopez. Discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Please score the vote. That bill is adopted 5 to one. And next we have we have a bill on here that um in the first reading was passed six to three. We're short three people tonight, however. So, I'd like uh council to consider continuing this until we have um a more full council. Um so, we can continue it uh if if everyone is in agreement. Um council member,

what's that? Oh, because it's just that myself. So, you guys uh No, you have to have five to pass it. Oh, you Okay. Yep. But you could continue it. We can continue with four votes. Council member Shields. Um I would offer a motion to continue bill 26-4 to a date certain of January 20th. A second. Okay. I have a motion to continue um bill number 26004 second reading till what what date did you give? January 20th. Next next meeting.

January 20th by council member Shield. Seconded by member Tam Lopez. Discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote on the continuence. All votes are in. Oh, no. Yeah, six of us. All votes are in. Please record the vote. It's it's a continuence. So, it says motion failed, but Mr. Head, it does it does move to the next reading with a for continuence, not a not an adoption. Correct, Mayor. Procedural items only require a majority of those present voting. Okay. So, we'll see that on January 20th. Um, I think I've got the next

Yes, please. Council member Shields, would you please read bill number 26-005? Thank you. I move for adoption bill number 26- 0005 an ordinance approving the reszoning from district PI plan industrial district to district PM mix plan mixeduse district and preliminary development plan for east village phase 2 on approximately 50 acres of land generally located in the southeast intersection of southeast Bailey road and south M291 highway on accordance with the provisions of chapter 33 unified development ordinance of the code of ordinances for the city of Le Missouri.

Thank you. We have a motion to adopt bill number 26-005 by council member Shields seconded by rep Tim Lopez. discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Please score the vote. That bill passes. Five yes and one no. Council member Shields, would you please read bill number 26-006. Thank you. Thank you. I move for adoption of bill number 26-006, an ordinance submitting to the electors of the city of Le Summit, Missouri at the election on November 3, 2026, the question of whether the city of Lee Summit should provide for residential city solid waste service uh waste collection services.

Thank you. A motion to adopt bill number 26-006 by Council Member Shield, seconded by Council Member Funk. Discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote by council member Shield. Seconded by Council Member Funk. discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Please record the vote. That one also is adopted 5 to one. Thank you. Council member Funk, would you or who do you have yours? C. Okay. Council member Shields, would you please read bill number 26-010?

Thank you. I move for adoption of bill number 26-0, an ordinance approving a cooperative agreement among OldM Investors LLC, the Oldm Village Transportation Development District in the city of Lee Summit, Missouri to implement the OldM Village Transportation Development District. Thank you. We have a bill. We have a motion to out bill number 26-010 by Council Member Shield, seconded by Mayor Tim Lopez. Discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Please score the vote. That one also is adopted 5 to one. All right. Thank you. And that takes us to committee reports. Council member Brier.

Thank you. Council member Rder got to lead her first meeting last night and she did a good job. So anyway, um we had public works committee meeting last night. It was a quick agenda. Um few routine business items that we recommended approval. These will be in front of council next week for consideration. Um we also uh the bid award for the reconstruction of Olivan Orchard which is approved and the construction will start in early spring. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Shields.

Thank you. We had um finance and budget last week and had a good presentation about um contract delivery methods uh things like contract manager at risk versus um design bid build that kind of thing. So um some some great information and we asked to have some additional information brought back of um kind of a um look back on a couple of major projects to talk about what um bid process was used and the outcome of that. So, I think staff is going to be working on that. And did we decide for sure if that would come back to finance and budget or if that would come to full counsel since it kind of touches on public works as well as budget?

Right. We we haven't we're trying to figure out the the right approach to take there. Uh what we try to avoid is, you know, bouncing things between committees. So, I mean, if it's the desire of the body to just bring that back to full counsel, that would that would be one approach. Okay. Um and mayor may pretend I'd kind of defer to you guys how you want to assign that. The committee was interested to hear more, but whether that's in front of the committee or the full council, totally open. So, could it be transparent to the whole Okay. Okay. Bring it back forth to council maybe. Okay. Yeah, sounds great. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you. Okay. Um, council comments,

council member Shields.

Um, couple of items I want to touch on. One is um during public comment today, I think there was a good point brought up about um public education about the public comment process that actually when that gentleman was speaking I was trying to kind of go on our website and see what we had um publicly available and I was able to find it after hunting around a little bit and googling of of you know the three minute time limit and all that but it was it was a little bit hard to find. So, I think if we can make that a little bit more accessible, maybe do some better um communication on that that that would be a a great service for the public to understand kind of what they're um how that process works and and how they can submit those comments and and be a part of the process. So, any anything we can do to increase um part participation and transparency is is always great. So, I just wanted to to say that. Um, and then the other thing that I wanted to mention is um, we had a quick report on the charter commission tonight and um, I think we know that you cannot both serve on the charter commission and serve in elected office and I believe we have a couple of commission members who are um, running for office and so my understanding is that um, sometime one or both of them would need to step down however that kind of shakes out. And so I wonder if we might want to send that to the rules committee just to discuss um in the event that someone leaves that commission really for any reason because it's it's a big group and people may roll off of it. Um how do we replace those folks or how do how do they move forward on that? So I just thought it might be good for rules committee to to discuss that and see if maybe we want to assign it to them.

Rules committee to discuss how to replace a charter review member. Uh and that is all that I have. Thank you, mayor. Okay. Um, I can talk about I I'll make a couple comments on public comments, too. Um, Council Member Prior, thank you. I just wanted to piggyback off off of Council Member Shields also in like the education component on the public comments. A lot of people don't understand that public comment is separate from um commenting during

public hearing. Yes. And so I think it's important that we put that distinction and let people know that they can comment during both because I've gotten emails like, well, public comment is after after this specific public hearing and they were upset, but they don't realize they can public they can comment during the public hearing. So, thank you. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. You are you? Yeah.

Okay. I wanted to add to that, too. So, um, uh, I thought the speaker that talked about public comments did a good job and, um, all of his points were valid with regard to being as transparent as we can. We have these comment cards and they're they're descriptive of public comments and public hearings, the ones they fill out, but I do think that they're the font is really small that it's it's a tiny font. It's I mean I I have a problem reading it just because I my eyes aren't great. But um I think maybe this is um the front and then on the back or whatever we maybe a second sheet um that is easier to read maybe with um you know yeah I think it would look better on a page if it was allocated better and that would be a part of it. The website is one um Mr. head has provided um lots of scripts up here um numerous scripts at this point. I I mean they're all over the place, different ways to say um the rules of public comment and I don't always go into great detail. Um but maybe maybe I need to given it's um given things like tonight. Um, for example, one I have here is, you know, talks about, um, it needs to be regarding agenda items or or things items related to the operations of the city. It says speakers will be restricted to three minutes. Minutes minutes may not be transferred from one speaker to another. The mayor mayor may declare a speaker out of order if the speaker's comments are not related to an item on the agenda not related to the general operations of the city related to a specific public hearing on this agenda because then they need to speak in the public hearing like you're saying disruptive of an orderly or fair discussion and fair discussion and fair discussion entail profanity or threats

of violence attacks on another private citizen and um you know goes on to say council will not act on any item listed on will not act on any item not listed on the agenda, nor will it respond to questions at that moment. It's not a back and forth um type of scenario with our public comments. Um staff may be directed to respond at a later time, which we've done many times. Um so the thing is, Mr. said like I consider tonight um a character assassination of council members um a you know it wasn't even one person it was numerous even though I was included and you know when it comes to that type of things these types of things I understand on social media that we're elected officials and we are we don't have really the rights of of your ordinary citizen to be honest Um, but I do know that this when you're coming in here and saying untruth claims of wrongdoing, these things cause reputational, emotional, legal harm. That's the way I understand slander and and such. And when there is no conflict, when there is no um issue to be to be investigated, um that's what's happening. it's causing reputational and emotional and legal harm. And I could go into great more detail on that, but I just I just need um I need to know that, you know, I don't want to cause more of a commotion by interrupting those types of speakers. But like that's just it's not fair to just go one right down the line each each council member um and saying that we're

all um in conflict and they were all um you know doing something illegal. So Mr. Head

I I don't know that I have a lot of great advice right off the top of my head. um that that's a very difficult thing when you start getting into free speech, when you start getting into the fact that um as a public official, the standard for proving the slander and liel and the things you were just mentioning is really quite high. Um it it would be something we would need to think about as far as um how we might how we might be able to address that. Um it's something I would need to think about. I I don't have an answer for you off the top of my head tonight, mayor. I'm sorry.

Oh, that's fine. I I knew you wouldn't because I've been up here for eight years and I know that people can say whatever they want about you in social media as an elected official and there's nothing you can do about it. That's fine. Um but coming in here and you know is is just another level of um I'm not sure what the word is but inappropriateness when there are no there's no veracity to the claims and so okay um council member Prior are you was that from earlier? I'm sorry, Council Member Rider.

This is this is a really tough situation. Uh and nobody likes to be called called out on something when they feel like they're not guilty. I get that. Um, I wonder if I I just wonder if um uh Mayor, you were reading about the the responses that you have there that you can uh say to people. Um I mean there there sometimes there's just going to be people that are canankerous and they're just they're just going to do what they do and that's just how it is. And I guess we have to be thick skinned about it and if we know that we're not in the wrong then we must go on. But um I wonder if maybe I don't know how much information they have when they walk in the door of what what they can expect when they come in to speak to us. And we certainly want to we certainly want to be uh open and welcoming to have them come. Um, it doesn't feel comfortable for everyone, but I guess I'm just kind of saying this because um, I wonder if and and you may, Mr. Head, you may think this is legally not the right thing to do. I don't know. And I know you're thinking about this and pondering, but it's just like is there ever situations where we meet where we meet with these people outside of of council just to have conversation maybe to to um help solve some of those problems or make them understand that, you know, we're not monsters or whatever that may be. I mean, is that is that a is that something that we legally would look into? I mean, what I'm just wondering

um with regard to staff, I I don't know that there's a lot of I don't know what meeting staff could necessarily have. Um with regard to that sort of thing, um it it it has become a personal issue is what it appears for the individual who's speaking. Um with regard to other speakers, um one other speaker in particular we have met dozens of times, provided thousands of documents to um I was really negative is the problem. Yeah, I'm I'm sorry. I was really referring to the council pe the council person to meet with that person personally.

You're certainly I think able to meet with an individual uh personally if you wish to. I would remind you, however, that one of those individuals uh is actively engaged in litigation with the city. Yes, I understand that. Yes. Thank you. That's really all I have, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Prior.

Sorry, I just thought of one more thing. Um I believe a comment was mentioned tonight about um when developers are here, we get to have back and forth dialogue with them, which is true. But I will also say I know that there are several of us council members that our emails are our inboxes are always open to constituents and we have back and forth dialogue quite often with a lot of our constituents and if a developer emails us a lot of us don't even give them the time of day. We say nope we'll just hear what you have to say during the public hearing. So that is their only opportunity to really have any sort of back and forth dialogue with us. Um, now there of course there are exceptions. If a developer hasn't lied to me, then I'm more apt to to, you know, have a meeting if they request at city hall. But, um, yeah, so I will say that that's that's really the only developer opportunity to to engage with many of us up here on council and constituents have many opportunities. And I also want every constituent to know that we have email addresses and phone numbers and I don't know of a single one of us that don't love hearing from them and we don't know what we don't know. So our inboxes are open to constituents. So if they feel like I want them to feel like they always they they get our time because they deserve our time. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Council Member Shields.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I guess I would sort of second what council member Prior says and and to certain what council member said like like we do meet with constituents outside of here and if folks reach out and ask me to speak to them. Um, you know, I think a lot of us are always available for calls and coffees and that kind of thing. Um, and when the it's not that developers have a special line to us up here, it's that someone who has a particular matter of business does. So, we sometimes have private citizens who have are trying to do a lot split or get a an um like my neighbors got their uh accessory dwelling unit, you know, approved or, you know, like we if if a private citizen has an application, they're up there speaking to us, too. It's just the nature of right the format of the meeting, right? Um, I guess as far as like the particular comments that were made during public comment tonight, um, I didn't like them. Like I don't like seeing my colleagues attacked um, in ways that I think aren't fair. But I do think like being able to say mean things about elected officials is a like that's the entire First Amendment. Like that is the core of why it exists. I don't I don't like it when the elected officials are my friends, but um I don't as long as they're not making threats or anything like I don't feel like there's a lot that we can or or should do. Like there's a reason on the script that you read, mayor, that it says that they can't make derogatory comments about private citizens. They can't get up here and just say mean things about their neighbors, but they can get up here and say mean things about us because we're elected. So, I again I don't I don't like it, but I understand that it's part of our system and and I just

as long as as long as everybody understands, I'm not going to um interrupt and I'll just let them say what they need to say and what they want to say and um I will move on afterwards. So, because because what you're saying is accurate and Mr. Head obviously confirmed that. So, okay. You do you want more? Okay. All right. Well, um staff round table.

Thank you, mayor. A couple quick items. Uh more than the passing of John Van Gorham. He was an assistant fire chief here at the city for many, many years. Uh our Lisa Fire Department members are supporting the visitation and the funeral services uh for him and his family. So, I wanted to mention that. I know I sent you some email information on that, but just acknowledge that uh he was a long longerving member of the Lisma Fire Department. Uh, of course, the mayor's character breakfast was mentioned. Um, so this uh on on the heels of that the very next morning, we as an organization are having what we call our all hands meeting. So as many employees that can make it to a meeting where we as an organization recognize employees who have exemplified our core values of service, excellence, integrity, and service excellence. We will have uh nominations for each one of those uh core values and then we'll have an organizational uh winner uh who exemplifies those core values. We'll also have nominations and um uh individuals uh recognized for their leadership and then we'll have one for a team's effort. So that that celebration takes place uh this Friday over at Green Street and that's something that we do as an organization every year just to highlight good things going on in our in our organization. So I wanted to mention that. I will get you all of those names. It's secret right now uh intentionally, but I will get you that information so you have that awareness as well. That's it. Thanks, Mayor.

All right, mayor. Yes, one quick thing. In the absence of Council Member Carlile, I will just remind everyone we do have legislative intergovernmental relations committee on Thursday at 11:30. Our primary topic of discussion is going to be uh consideration of a uh potential potentially expanding our lobbying efforts to the federal level.

Okay. Thank you, sir. I think that's the end of the meeting. I need to adjourn this meeting at 9:34. baby. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey,

behind.