City Council - Regular Meeting

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. Hello, Lisummit. I'm Jordan. Here's your flash briefing for the week of March 2nd. This week is severe weather preparedness week. Everyone is encouraged to participate in a statewide tornado drill. Wednesday, March 4th at 11:00 a.m. It is important to have a plan in case of a severe weather incident such as a tornado. Shake off the winter blues and jump into spring this weekend in downtown Lee Summit for the spring open house Friday and Saturday. Shop new home decor, plants, apparel, gifts, and more. City council will meet for a regular session Tuesday night at 6 in council chambers and city hall. Meetings are open to the public or watch live on the city's YouTube channel. If you can't watch, catch the recorded meeting on demand on the YouTube channel or by subscribing to the council debrief newsletter which breaks down three to four key agenda items. Subscribe at cityofls.net. Thanks for listening and have a great week. 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. 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 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 Allison. 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? 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 like, "Oh, I'm so glad you came. This made me feel so much better."

Our main goal as a 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. Please, please, how can I help you? My husband 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. I have always volunteered in the community and I was always really involved." But um then I ran for school board. Whenever I got done with my with my term, I just felt like I had more to give. It's always been my goal from day one is to get everyone in the community connected and working together. And I always called it a spirit of community. Well, mayor's 247 and I have a job. I've had to work really hard at compartmentalizing is what I call it. So during this time I'm going to do work. during this time I'm going to be mayor even though I can get a call at any

moment about mayor stuff. And so I've had to even work that much harder at setting aside time for myself or for family. So I like to exercise. I like to work out. Hillary's my wife. She actually goes to work out with me as well. And we do like to go downtown to the shops. We make sure we we maximize our time together. I mean I've got two kids as well and we spend a lot of time with them or whatever time they will give us these days. and I have a dog. I think most people kind of know that know me know I have to have a dog. We have so much development going on and we're growing fairly quickly. So, um we have a lot of infrastructure needs and sometimes we have gaps in infrastructure and we've always managed to get by. that with this kind of growth, we're really having to be creative and look at our options and just have a good plan for um water, sewer, roads, and more. If we want to grow the most healthy way, we need a diverse economy. We do have a lot of retail that's opened up here. Um and there's been new construction for retail. We really need to focus in the future on um bringing some, you know, well-paying jobs here, good, strong employers that want to be located in this this incredible community of now 101,000 people. A lot of our workforce does commute to work still, so they leave Summit to go to work. And it'd be nice if we could keep some of those citizens right here in our in our community. The times I feel most proud are actually when I'm in the community and I see the community come together.

We have buddy in the house.

The tree lighting is always very fun. I always feel very proud. It's just a great warm feeling. The same thing goes for when this the council will do something and we come together and make a good decision together. There's been a few of those that I just you go home feeling like a winner. And one of them was when we put together the downtown uh farmers market when we bought the land. Um and and it became real, you know, all that hard work. but also the diversity inclusion commission. That was months and months and of discussions and conversations that were really hard to have and we went ahead and moved forward and as a council all together and I was very very proud of that and there are a few things that um the citizens have done that have really uh helped us tremendously. First, uh, in the middle of the pandemic, they passed a use tax, which is a way for for us to collect sales tax whenever someone purchases online. That helps shore up our revenues so that we can continue provid quality services that our city provides, and it helps us take care of our employees. It helps us with our public safety and more. So, I can't be more thankful to the citizens for that. Le Summit has the opportunity to be have a major impact on the economy in the Kansas City area. We already as an economy are rolling along with such a high median income. We have an amazing workforce here that are paying taxes. They're paying property taxes. They're paying sales taxes. They're keeping our economy rolling. and we really are um getting the attention of all our neighbors. And I think that what's going to happen is you're going to see the opportunity for us to really um get everybody's attention when um businesses start moving here, bigger businesses and and more.

you should try to find a way to give back to the community whether it's at the city level, you know, citizen committees or um just have, you know, part participating in some of our community conversations when whenever we have those opportunities. It's worth coming out of your shell or or taking, you know, that that leap of faith and and just showing up and saying, "What can I do?" or "How can I help?" The more that we do this together, um, the more wonderful the community is Hey, hey, hey. Hey.

baby. Hey, baby. baby. Hey

Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. All right.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey.

Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat.

All right. Hey, Hey, Heat. Heat.

Hey, hey, hey. Do it. Hey, hey, hey.

Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat.

Hey, be care.

Hey. Welcome everyone. Sorry for the delay. We had a closed session that's that took longer than we expected. Uh so I apologize. Um would you please rise for the invocation and stay standing for the pledge of allegiance. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of this day and the chance to serve. Help us appreciate the small moments that matter and remain grateful for the trust our community has placed in us. Give us wisdom and humble hearts as we lead. And in your name we pray. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Again, welcome everyone. I'm calling to order the City of Lee Summit amended regular session number 65. Can I get a roll call, please? Council member Carlile, present. Council member Shields here. Council member Hodes here. Council member Rder, present. Council member Prior. Council member Funk present. Council member Levelville here. Mayor Portm Lopez here.

Mayor Baird here. All right. The first item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. I have a motion to adopt the agenda by Council Member Funk, seconded by Council Member Carlile. Discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote. Mayor, I'm an I. I'm an I. She Okay. Thank you all. All votes are in. Please record the vote.

Passes 80. Thank you. Next is the approval of the consent agenda. The first one was the agenda. This is the consent agenda. I have a motion to approve the consent agenda by council member Carile. Seconded by council member Rder. Discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Please record the vote. passes unanimously. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is the council roundt. Items of general interest, things going on in the community.

Council member Shields. Thank you, Mayor. Um, we have downtown the spring open house and the Emerald Isle pub crawl this weekend. I'm looking downtown to make sure I'm getting those dates right. They're giving me the thumbs up. So hopefully we'll see folks out there to support local and um enjoy hopefully some good weather. Fingers crossed.

Thank you. All right. Very good. No other comments then we will go to public comments. This time is set aside for on the agenda for citizens to address the mayor and council on items and the agenda or items related to the operations of the city. Speakers will be restricted to three minutes. Minutes may not be transferred from one speaker to another. The mayor may declare a speaker out of order if it's not related to an item on the agenda. It's not related to the operations of the city. If it has to do with the public hearing that we're having, if it's disruptive of an orderly and fair discussion, no profanity or threats of violence and no attacks on private citizens. We have I think about four speakers here. So, we'll start with Mr. Al Shawish. A couple days ago, I received a troubling letter from a Lee Summit firefighter and he asked me to share it. Um, and it caught my attention immediately and I believe it demands your immediate attention and action as well. I'll read portions of it here and post a full letter to my page. He writes that in just the last two years, two of our firefighters have tragically taken their own lives and two more have been forced to medically retire due to the effects of PTSD. Uh and unfortunately, these aren't isolated incidents. They reflect a deeper crisis for first responders all over uh the world. Now, Missouri took meaningful step forward with Senate Bill 24, which recognizes PTSD as an occupational disease for first responders, and it was meant to ensure access to treatment without any barriers. Yet, he says in Lee Summit, the opposite is happening. Instead of embracing this law, the HR department has required firefighters to burn through their own sick time for mental health care and has routinely denied claims for PTSD treatment. He said the problem doesn't stop at HR. Inside the

department, a culture of silence and shame persist and the firefighters fear ridicule from management if they openly ask for help. And the pair support team they have is unfortunately underresourced and under supported. Now officially the department encourages documenting all injuries. But in reality when someone reports even a physical injury like a hurt knee the captain's question are you really hurt and is this necessary? And people are shamed into staying quiet. He said, "If that's how physical injuries are handled, imagine the barriers when someone admits that they need help with their mental health, which is one of the hardest things for anyone to acknowledge." Now, the the neglect extends further. The city also denied a firefighter's work in comp claim when he battled was battling cancer, forcing him to use his own sick time and denying him basic accommodations. And I've actually heard a similar story from a former city employee with cancer who was so mistreated they felt forced to resign just so they could focus on their cancer treatment. And you know this toxic culture is no accident. You know for too long the city has failed to prioritize people. And it's not just the residents they failed to prioritize. It's the first responders and employees too. Instead you p prioritize institutions and focus on placating to unions, developers and special interest. Our first responders and city employees deserve better than a system that turns its back on them when they need the help the most. And our residents deserve better than leadership that prioritizes special interest over the needs of the people. But in regards to the firefighters claim, I do want to call on the city council, HR department, and department leadership to implement Senate Bill 24 fully, strengthen peer peer support, end the stigma on PTSD and Lee Summit, and provide real accommodations and fair claims processing for first responders and employees that serve Lee Summit. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Kaufman.

Thank you again for everything that you do for the community. It's so important to have people that care about this community and up on this dis and taking care of the people and the community as to the best of their ability. Every meaningful change in our community starts with someone willing to step up, get involved, and together, study the issues, and turn ideas into action. In 2008, I was invited to join Lee Summit 360 Strategic Planning Commission, a 20-year vision project that included over 100 community volunteers. Through that process, we crafted key performance areas and a collective vision that reflected the city's values, inclusivity and highest standards. Later, I became chair and then co-chair of the human services advisory board from 2010 to 2016. During that time, we united nonprofits together in the community and and we united nonprofits that once operated in silos, allowing them to collaborate on fundraisers. This not only strengthened each organization, but also made it easier for the community to give to multiple causes at once. After six years, I stepped down knowing the board was ready for new leadership and continued success. If you see if you wish to see positive change in our community, it's completely possible by be getting involved. There are numerous focus groups, city boards, and com and committees where you can make a real difference. These forums are designed to empower citizens involvement and and whether through school district committees or city boards, if you want to make a change, all you need to do is step in and become part of a community's future.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Good. I'm here to address the misinformation that has been shared by one particular council member, Cinder Rider. She represents me and more than 20,000 other residents in the third district. She had said the schools are in decline. They are not. As she heard from Dr. Buck last week, the schools are not in decline. She has claimed that crime is rising in Lee Summit. It is not. as if we've heard as we're about to hear from the police chief that crime rates are down. She has said that she wants to freeze all incentives and new developments. Yet last Wednesday, she proposed incentives for affordable and attainable residential housing. At that forum, she agreed with her political opponent like that. Like any other organization, from time to time, you must re-evaluate goals and plans as situations change or goals have been met. However, this weekend she posted on social media that we are way past any sort of re-evaluation process and that the shi city should freeze all new commercial development. She has no plan on how to pay for undefined housing incentives unless unless following her suggested freeze on commercial development, she plans to raise taxes on lease summon homeowners through sales, use or property tax. She has also wanted she has also said she wanted the market to decide on development. Which is it, market or incentives? Eight years ago, we did let the market decide and as a result, nearly 80% of the tax burden fell on the residential property owners. That's not balance. A healthy residential to commercial tax base should be close to a 4060 split to ease the tax burden on lease summit homeowners. I say it again, she has no plan. In the recent years, our city has turned the corner. Developers are now coming to us instead of avoiding us as they did in the past. Every new commercial development helps

broaden the tax base and re reduce the pressure on homeowners. She continually talks about transparency. Yet, she was the only one as a self-described black sheep of the city council against letting the voters vote on trash service. She claimed that overwhelmingly opposition to the single hauler system. She told she told me that 50 people had called her in opposition. 50 people do not constitute overwhelming consensus. She was elected to represent the entire district and the entire city, not just the loudest voices. This also speaks to her leadership skills and her ability, or lack thereof, to bring people together. She has repeatedly promoted misinformation and never denounced the divisive personal attacks against her political opposition or fellow council member. This kind of rhetoric does not build trust. It erodess it. She has also publicly aligned herself with Zach, a city council candidate, despite his repeated attacks on council members, city officials, developers, and our dedicated police and fire personnel. Leadership requires discernment, accountability, and a commitment to elevating, not undermining those who serve our community. In my opinion, council member Rder has de demonstrated a lack of transparency, integrity, and ethical leadership expected as someone serving on this dis following the April election. I believe her actions warrant further review and the residents should consider whether she should continue on this das to represent the interest of the third district and all of Lee Summit. Thank you.

All right, Miss Bellen wider. So this is what Teresa Volenwiter 5201 Northeast Maybrook Road.

This is from 11:22 2022. Let's see what's up. is uh so when you have a right like that roadway where that road comes through over there and probably even going over to wherever that dang little pin is at over there. That roadway I mean that's on her property. Mhm. But of course the city has right of way on it for public use so the public can use it. Right. Okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah.

That makes sense. So she can't have stuff that's in that right of way that's for public use. and the city has finally asserted their authority on it and said, "No, we're not going to allow stuff to be here." You know what's really sad too is and and I mean this completely is that I said to the city a long time ago when this all cuz I said you better make sure that driver can go there because if it isn't supposed to be there she is going to make our lives miserable and I said

so that was officer Eisberg and Stephanie Mullins Stephanie Mullins and Derek Collins are my neighbors. If we could stop the clock so I can get the other video up, I'd appreciate it.

Miss Fallen Wider, we waited quite a while while you got the one going. So, we've seen these but before as well. Get off of their property right now. You're trespassed. It's just that it takes off the property.

You want me to go get the survey so you can look? I don't care. Get off of their property right now. This is not their property.

I said, "Do you want me to go get the survey so you can look at it?" It was that survey right there. Her response was, "I don't care." How can that be? How can that be that a police officer doesn't care to to look at a survey? They would rather escalate the situation and they've already said that they use the parcel viewer. They've already said that and there is a disclaimer on parcel viewers. I don't care if it's the city's parcel viewer or if it's the county's parcel viewer. There's a disclaimer on that that those are not survey accurate.

Thank you, Miss Volwwater. Okay, we've got quite a few people here tonight that are going to be uh part of different presentations. So, we're on agenda item 5A and it's these are updates from all of our public service agreements uh the recipients that is. So, we have different partners that the city works with and uh it's able we're able to uh to work with these partners and do things that the city really shouldn't be doing on its own. um they should be doing with the collaboration of um our stakeholders and uh a great example of that is the very first one downtown Lee Summit Main Street.

Good evening.

Good evening. Thank you for allowing us to come speak tonight. Um, my name is Donnie Rogers. I'm the executive director of Downtown Lee Summit Main Street. Tonight with me from my board of directors, I have Ben Wine, our board president, Corey Norris, Secretary Clint Haynes, and Hillary Graves. And I want to thank our liaison as well, Assistant Fire Chief Jim Eden, Assistant City Manager Crystal Weber, and Council Member Shields for their service to our board. So, what is downtown Leummit Main Street? Um, from day one, we were have been focused on creating a welcoming and inviting atmosphere to draw members of our community and region to downtown to support our local businesses. We were founded in 1989 as a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Organizationally, we've worked closely with Missouri Main Street Connection and Main Street America. Since the beginning, those organizations have helped um with vital resources for us for trainings, leadership development, networking, and best practices. We're proud next Tuesday, we'll actually be hosting the quarterly training for Missouri Main Street Connection right here in downtown Le Summit at Green Street. We are annually accredited by these organizations and consistently achieve full accreditation. I want to also um make note that we are only one of only nine communities in the state of Missouri to achieve this level of designation and this annual accreditation process or the on-site process for accreditation happens by annually and looks at all levels of the organization. From the very beginning we were um volunteer driven. This is those group of heroes that came together in 1989 and rolled up their sleeves to do something impossible. and I'm proud of the work we've done over the last 36 years to transform Downtown Lee Summit. Of course, everything we do is not possible without an amazing support of volunteers as a nonprofit. Um, our

volunteers this year really stepped up and answered the call. We saw a 34% increase in volunteer hours this year, up from the year prior. Our volunteers logged 2,960 hours in service to downtown at a value of over $103,000. Of course, part of those volunteer services, those um volunteer opportunities are part of hosting over a 100 free activities and events downtown. Almost every event and activity we plan downtown is free to attend and is familyfriendly. We hear from a lot of people how our events have become part of their family traditions. This last year alone, we welcomed 3.2 million visitors to downtown. On average, someone visiting downtown spends 95 minutes in downtown Lee Summit. So that means they're shopping, they're dining, they're doing multiple things. I like to highlight this. Um, you know, there's no question downtown has truly become the place to be in Lee Summit. These are the top five Saturdays to be downtown in 2025. Our top visit day, of course, was June 7th, downtown days, 43,800 visitors. Number two, um, September 27th, October Fest, 3,7100 v or visitors. You see December 6th, holiday season, full in progress, 12 bars of Christmas pub crawl, 22,000 visitors. August 16th, the opening day of Green Street, that was our fourth busiest day downtown in 2025, and that was 21,500 visitors. And then the Emerald Owl Pub crawl rounds out that last busy Saturday at 19,200. Of course, with over 100 free activities and events, here's some of the other

ones that don't um get as much um visitation, but I think are just as important in building community in our downtown. Um our art walk, our Fourth Ready Art Walk that runs April through August, featured over 137 artists over those five months and gave opportunities for those artists to set up in our downtown businesses and on the sidewalks to display their local art. activities like what if puppets um that we hosted in sponsorship with a grant from um the culture arts department at Equity Bank. Um Shamrock the Block which is one of our events coming up. It'll be moved to Green Street but coming up on March 14th. You can see there. Um last year we hosted that on Southwest Maine and Southeast Maine and filled the street with bubbles and vendors and all the fun activities. Um my favorite event though of course is booze barks and badges. um that is an event we partner with police and fire to turn downtown over to the cutest goblins and four-legged creatures that you've ever seen. And so, um it's a great opportunity to kind of celebrate the holiday season in a safe and fun way. And of course, even in the rain this year, the mayor's tree lighting, we drew over 8,400 people to downtown to see the twinkling lights come on across all of downtown. A big thing of what we do is reminding people um to come downtown. Um marketing promotion um is a major part of what we do in getting the word out. Our social media reach for 2025. We reached 4.7 million post on or post reach on Meta platforms and that's Facebook and Instagram and specifically looking at just the downtown Lee Summit Facebook page. Um, we have over 35,000 Facebook fans, over 11,000 Instagram followers. Our website serves as the

destination for all downtown information. We saw a 14% increase of web traffic over this last year. Um, our top five pages give an idea of what people are looking for when they come to our website. Number one is business directory. They're looking for local businesses. Number two, farmers market. Three, events. Four is available space. and squeaking out Green Street was Oktoberfest at number five. We also worked to sell downtown gift cards and in 2025 we kept $85,000 here locally in our downtown economy. We also do postcard mailings to over 12,000 households during the spring and holiday seasons. Of course, the support I have from my staff is just amazing. Those three ladies in that photo are Julie Cook, our events director, Jenny Gail, our assistant director, and Rachel Finch, our creative content and um communications person. Um the longevity of my staff is something I'm quite proud of. I've been with the organization now for 12 years. Julie just celebrated 10 years this month. Jenny has been with us four years and Rachel's been with us almost 10. So that means out of the four of us, we have an average of eight and a half years serving our community here in downtown Lee Summit. And some of the favorite headlines of this past year, I mentioned the my three staff members there, but we also got the ability to add in a part-time um position this year. Um these are three of the my favorite headlines. This is we posted hiring a farmers market assistant manager. We hired Chris Spangler. She has been an amazing addition. She's the face you see most Wednesdays and Saturdays at the farmers market. We submitted two awards to Missouri Main Street for their state award program.

And we were honored for Dave Ames, past board chair, to receive the spirit of Main Street award for his not only volunteerism and commitment to our downtown but many downtowns across the state. We also were recognized for the best new promotion for our Mary Swift Miss event in 2024 that celebrated our 35th anniversary. In the same time, I believe Miss Taylor Swift turned 35 as well. Um, and then of course Green Street. Um, we were featured on Main Street America's website in early January. Um, and we were honored to be able to share our story about the development of Green Street and what it means to this community, to a network of downtowns across the nation. And of course, I can't not talk about Green Street. It has been the culmination of so much work and I'm so appreciative of council's support in making this happen. Um, the corner photo up there is from our farmers market in 1995 and then you see the farmers market this last season. Um just the transformation has been astounding. I'll kind of go through some statistics with the farmers market, but um it's been a great season. We're looking forward to the market returning on April 4th. So I I love all numbers. Um this is taken from Placer AI. The red line is the farmers market from Saturdays at the farmers market from 2024. The blue line is Green Street starting with the move over the farmers market moving over there. These numbers are taken from 8 to noon. Um you can see that opening day spike when we moved to Green Street. We welcome nearly 6,000 shoppers to Green Street, the farmers market that morning. We welcome nearly 50,000 shoppers for the 2025 season. And I anticipate um this year we'll see

attendance spike over 100,000. You can see um how huge those attendance numbers are over the previous year when coming to uh Green Street. Um we saw the increase of attendance o over 300%. We had over 72 farmers market vendors join us. Um the average length of stay at the farmers market went from 31 minutes in 2024 to we saw people joining us for 52 minutes at Green Street. So almost uh 21 minute almost doubling um with that average household income for farmers market shopper is 118,000 and on the average Saturday we see about 2500 shoppers. That's up from about 865 shoppers at the previous location there on the parking lot next to Lee Summit Elementary. We also were able to expand our holiday market offerings from one market with about 20 vendors inside city hall to four markets featuring upwards of 50 vendors per market. And that's on average attendance of about 1,600 shoppers each Saturday. highlighting the work we've done since 2009. Our volunteers have logged 61,871 hours. We've welcomed over 109 net new businesses downtown, um creating over 833 and a half net new jobs and almost 80 million in renovations in these private development downtown since 2009. This past year in 2025, we saw our taxable retail and restaurant sales hit 57 million, doubling in 10 years. Um, we saw eight new businesses open, creating 53 net new or creating 53 new jobs, 20 building permits representing 6.2 million in private investment downtown, and 26 new

housing units opening at Ellis Glenn. Of course, we're excited for what this year holds. Um, we are so looking forward to welcoming the world to Lee Summit in June for the World Cup. We're proud of our partners, LS Goal, Explore Lee Summit, LSADC, and the Chamber for working together to really transform our place in the metro. Um some of the things that have been possible the direct connections to FanFest um planning for the five football Fridays working with tourism on pedestrian wayfinding downtown. We'll add community banners and everything. And so the highlight of we are exactly 100 days away today. So from the World Cup, it seemed like it was forever ago. We were like three years out. So and with that, that's really all I have. Um I'll just leave you with a fun fact. This is one of my favorite things to see this last year is a new um Christmas tree, the new mayor's tree at Green Street. Um fun fact, I know exactly how many light bulbs are on there. We had 5,280 light bulbs. I know this because our volunteers screwed in each and every one of those light bulbs and fluffed each one of those branches. So, um we're looking forward to that be a long-standing holiday tradition moving forward. So, and that is it for me. if there's any questions.

Yeah. Um I'll open up to the council questions or comments. Council member Prior, thank you. So, this is um kind of just generic, but I hear so often that people are excited to have the um farmers market open year round. So, I was wondering if you could maybe like like give your plans on that. And I get I hear so many people asking if we can extend hours and I always tell them to reach out to you but extend Saturday hours on the farmers market. Are there any plans for that?

So two questions there. So yes we we do want to go year round and so we have our new vendor and returning vendor meeting next week and part of that we're going to start surveying them to make sure that we can get enough vendors for that January, February and March time. Um if we do anything, we want to make sure we do it right and we have the number of vendors and quality of vendors um the customers expect. Um so yes, we are hoping in 2027 to go at least with some Saturdays in those three months. um with extending hours and everything, the struggle there is our vendors work so hard and pull together everything they have and so extending hours I think sometimes could be a challenge for us to making sure they have a product because a lot of our farmers market vendors, well all of them, they're raising crops, animals, you know, they're preparing um baked goods, jelly, all of that takes time and a lot of them return to their farms afterwards and and take care of livestock, take care of the crop. You know, they're getting up at the market opens at 8. Some of them are getting up at 3:00 a.m. to load up for the farmers market. And so, I think that's the struggle we always face is just like we'd love to have longer hours, but from a a sales point from the farmers market, it's just we don't have the capacity, I think, for them to be longer. So

yeah, I know they work hard, but and then selfishly since I'm a soccer mom and I have soccer all day on Saturdays, I would like to see it open later, too. But I think Council Member Hodgers and I Huh. got to go Wednesday. Yeah, I know. Yeah, Wednesday. And we are adding a number of vendors to Wednesday. So definitely Wednesday is something to check out. I like I like the Wednesday one, but the Saturday just has so much more. And there's that really good sourdough on Saturdays. but they run out really early. All right. Thank you, Council Member Shields.

Um, don't really have questions. I just really appreciate what you guys could do and I wanted to say that I I appreciate when you come and speak to us. Um, you know, as you mentioned earlier, I'm I'm the leazison at your board meeting, so I see how hard all your volunteers are working and um I just really appreciate it. Like, I I live downtown. Council member Prior lives downtown, and it it it's great seeing the data. It's great seeing, you know, the increase in sales and tax revenue and new businesses and all that, but it's you can't quantify the level of community building that it is like that. It it makes Lee Summit more than just a town like it's a community and I really I appreciate all the work that goes into making it happen. So, thank you. Definitely. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council Member Funk. Thank you, Mayor. Just to echo what Council Member Shield said. Thank thank you to you and all the volunteers that put on all these events and do all these things. But you mentioned fun fact about number of light bulbs on the Christmas tree. If you can answer a fun fact, there was a viral video of maybe the president of downtown Main Street during this process. How many hits did that video get?

He asked if we were going to share that tonight. So he's quite proud of that viral video. Um over a 100,000 on Facebook. I'm pretty sure it didn't do so well on Tik Tok. Now, um Dave, our passport chair, had the bigger Tik Tok hit last year of over 164,000 views on social media. And so, um yeah, no, we're thankful for our volunteers. I mean, we come up with some crazy ideas and they just nod their head and yeah, like I mean, and that was I will be fully honest that Ben's video with the Christmas tree was something when I was out of the office. So sometimes my staff does even amazing things when I get the heck out of the way. So

thank you guys. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Rder. Thank you, Mayor Donnie. I just want to tell you, thank you for Thank you and your team for everything that you do. You've made our downtown beautiful. All the events, I try to make them all. I love your quarterly meetings because I learn a lot at those meetings. So, I just say good job. Keep going. So glad that you're here and you're doing what you're doing. Thank you so much. Welcome. Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you. Okay. Um I'll I'll throw some kudos at you, too. I mean, um you guys, the staff, you mentioned your staff, the stability, the consistency, the longevity, the the welcoming crew that you have. Uh just thank you for them and for keeping them happy and not overworking them but yet pushing them as hard as you can at the same time. Um getting the most out of them. Um but uh numbers, you always share numbers at this when you do this presentation, which is really what this is supposed to be kind of about as well. It's it's return on investment. And I think you showed some really great numbers tonight that I'm pretty proud of as far as uh people in our spending more time in our downtown. I mean, that's what we're looking for. Um, and they must be having a good time if they're spending that much time in our downtown. So, that's a great thing. Um, and then, uh, thank you for putting up with crazy board members that, uh, um, probably you have to reel reel in sometimes. And then lastly, just you're doing a great job. So, thanks for, you know, the relationship here. That's what we want. We want a relationship with uh, our our community partners. So, thanks for uh facilitating that.

Oh, thank you so much. And we are so appreciative of your support. Having the support of council makes our job so much easier. Um and so it it's great to have um you in our corner. I mean, and city staff as well. I mean, everyone is very supportive of everything we do. I mean, I think that's what sets us apart from any of our competitors in the metro or even the nation. Yep. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. He set the bar awful high. He always does.

Yeah, he's got some experience. He knows what we like to hear. So, um, now we'll bring the new girl up. Um, the next is I thought it was interesting that you put explore LS, which that's great. You're trying to brand right on our agenda like that, but it's it's the visitors bureau. Are you going by the lease summit visitors bureau? Is that what you call? Uh or do you sometimes inter you know intermingle tourism and what what's the official status and what's your name?

Um so um good evening mayor and members of council. My name is Corey Day and I have the privilege of serving as tourism director for explorely summit. Um our doing business as name is explorely summit and our official name is Lee Summit investors bureau. All right. Thank you.

Yeah. So, I am joined tonight um by with uh by by a few board members. So, I'd like to say thank you to Crystal Reman, Tina Rockhold, and Donnie Rogers for joining me tonight. So, we are here um to talk with you a little bit about what's going been going on with um Explorely Summit. And I will get to um get to that and how we how we got to that point. So, um, since we last spoke, um, we've been busy implementing, um, our strategic plan by creating new operating procedures and continuing to ensure the organization is being good stewards of the resources that you have entrusted to us. Some of these include establishing new financial and budget policies um, including our reserve amounts. Um, as we just mentioned, we accepted Explore Lee Summit as our doing business as name for the DMO or the Lee Summit Visitors Bureau. Uh we applied for fictitious name registration with Missouri secretary of state which is something you have to do whenever you have a DBA um like explorely Summit. And then we were also um able to establish an agreement with the city of Lee Summit finance department to um provide financial services to us um which has been um very um very beneficial and we're very appreciative of all of the city services that u we are able to use because we couldn't do it on our own. Um, most of 2025 was spent cultivating a plan to tell the story of our amazing community. Not only to those outside of Lee Summit, but also our own community members. Not because they didn't know how great we were, but just as a way to remind them of all the amazing things we have to offer and get them on board to help us spread the word. Building a loyal group of community ambassadors was and is a huge goal as we set out to create this new marketing campaign. It took a lot of prep work to make sure we were doing it justice and telling the story in an authentic and genuine way. So after all the work that is listed here on the screen, we were able to bring you the completed project in

January during the presentation um that we that you saw um regarding the marketing campaign. The official launch of the campaign happened in early February and we now have some analytics on how it has performed the first 30 days. So, I wanted to bring those to you tonight just as a way to kind of give you um your your return on investment and and what we've been doing with the funds that you've trusted to us. So, just as a recap um we did talk a little bit about this on my presentation in January, but just as a recap on what media we've invested in and what key performance indicators we're using to gauge return on investment. In the upper funnel is where you will see media that is in the market to create awareness. So just uh TV, radio, billboards, print and others that grab the attention of a large pool of people. The middle funnel is a little more targeted with paid search and paid socials. So it will reach people that are on those platforms and are searching using certain keywords. The lower funnel is where we hope to drive our conversion and will target those people that have shown interest in Leummit and or have shown interest through their related searches. The result results we hope to see through all of these media outlets are the number of impressions we see, an increase in website traffic, and those that search for Lee Summit specifically after seeing an ad or being served up something on their social media feeds. And I'll explain a little bit uh more in detail of some of that as we go on. So, this is just a quick snapshot of what the campaign has seen so far. Um, some of these have been in the market longer than others. So, some of the paid search has been in the market um a little bit longer than connected TV has, but as an overall, everything is within the last 90 days. So, from December through February. So, I won't read all of these to you, but there are some very impressive numbers on here. And just as a point of clarification, I just wanted to clarify a couple things on this slide

on this slide. CTV refers to connected TV. So, that is internet that is a television that is connected to the internet. So, smart TVs, um, streaming devices such as Roku and Amazon Fire, and then even gaming consoles like your PlayStation or your Xbox. Um, the other one that I wanted to draw attention to was PMAX, which is a it's a Google product. Um, and it uses a person's search history to determine their interest and then uses AI to configure the messaging that is served up to them about Lee Summit. So, that's where they start following people around based on what their interests are on the internet. Um, so if you show interest in Lee Summit, we're going to live in your feed for probably 3 to six months. So, um, that's that's what good marketing does, but that's that's kind of the the the back the background of some of that stuff. So, I just wanted to, um, show you kind of a snapshot of what we were seeing so far. Um, we're really proud of these numbers and and I think it's really exciting that um, we're reaching so many people. So, as far as geography, just so that you can kind of see who we're who we're talking to right now and who is showing high engagement, um we're seeing a very high engagement in our connected TV and our streaming audio um 10 to 30 miles out for day trips. So, the top performers, not not overly surprising, are Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Kansas, and Overland Park, Kansas. The one that is really interesting is a little town um east of here that is Smithden, Missouri. Um it's a location that we are monitoring because we've seen a spike in traffic and um more than likely it's because it sits at the perfect intersection of three counties. So we believe that is contributing to the added traffic. This is the perfect example of why we say we are in the learning phase of our campaign. We have only been in the market for 30 to 90 days depending on the media outlet. So we will continue to monitor things like this so that we can continue to invest our resources strategically and gain the most ROI.

So, Facebook, um, again, I won't take you through all of these, but, um, this was the 15-second spot that I hope some of you saw in your Facebook feeds. Um, and we saw over 400,000 impressions. So, that means that's how many times the ad was seen. Um, and then the uh the clicks were um the the CTR stands for click-through rate. So, those are the number of people that clicked on the ad to go to our website. Um and then CPC is cost per click. So we that's how we um the money that we invested that's how we u re um determine the return on investment. So um and on the right you'll see our top demographics. So we're reaching men ages 25 to 34 and women 55 to 64 are the top demographics that we're seeing for through Facebook on our paid search. Um this one has um the the click-through rate is really impressive on this one. um good or average is considered 5 to 6% and we're seeing over 13%. So um paid search is obviously something that we're going to um continue to invest in until we until it tells us something different. But um down in the bottom lefthand corner you'll see some of the top keywords. So if people type in things to do, trips to Kansas City or activities to do, we pay to be at the top of that results. And so um they are seeingly summit and they're clicking on it. Um so you can see the top clicks by city and then also what our top demographics are on the right. Um PMAX which I mentioned a little bit earlier. Um this is another um example of of um a way that we are reaching folks. Um you can see the top keywords down in the bottom lefthand corner. And then the the people that we are reaching their interests when they are searching the internet are travel lifestyle and hobbies food and drinks. So not overly surprising that um we would be following those people around considering we want them to come and do those things here. So um the click-through rate on this one

um good is considered.5%. So the good news is in all of these examples we are exceeding expectations um which is very exciting. It's also important I think on this u to talk about demographics. As you can see, the top demographics are are different in the three slides that I showed you. Um, so we're definitely um there's a a that's the reason that we diversify all of our media outlets. Um, in order to reach everyone that we want to engage, we have to be in many different outlets until we figure out which ones are giving the best return on investment. So, we will continue to um move our dollars around where we're seeing the the highest return on investment. And this just shows a little bit about our website traffic. Um, driving people to the website is the goal in all of our media outlets. We've seen an incredible response when comparing last February when we didn't have much marketing beyond some social media posts to now when we have a complete marketing campaign running. So, you can see the increases. And this is February of 25 versus February of 26. And this is just another way to to to see the the really great um website traffic that we are seeing over the past three months. This graph compares December of 24 through February of 25 to December of 25 through February of 26. Um it does take in the holiday campaign that we had um in in some um uh various media outlets as well as when the campaign went live. So as you can see we have seen an incredible traffic to the website over the past three months and certainly a major increase over last year. And again this is just a year-over-year snapshot. Um, so sessions are people that get on the website and actually click through to another part of the website. Views are people that see our landing page. And so you can see that um from February of 25 through February 26, we've seen an incredible climb, which is

very exciting again because our our goal is to get our story out and we feel like we're doing that. So from a PR and communication standpoint, um we've been very active. Um we've had a the opportunity um and the good fortune to be asked to do a lot of speaking engagements over the past year at a variety of community um community events um Rotary Chamber Lunchon um Optimus Club many many that uh Rotary I said that um many of them that we um were able to tell our story and what our goals are as far as tourism is concerned. Um, another um, engagement and another partnership that we're really proud of is the work that we've been able to do with the hospitality, restaurant, and tourism management program through LSR7. Um, I have had the the privilege of going over and working with those students um, a lot this year through client- centered programs. They they worked on some itineraries for us. Um, we're currently have two interns that are working with us that are helping us with some um, an exciting uh, new thing that we want to roll out in summer that I'll hopefully be telling you about soon. Um, and so we're really fortunate that we get to work with the with the students that are wanting to become hospitality professionals and um, I feel really privileged to be able to help them through that and um, it's just been a lot of fun. We've done some mock interviews and different things. Um, that has been a lot of fun. Um, one of the other things that we able we were able to work on this year and and partner with was the Green Street grand opening, which we all know was an extremely successful and exciting four days. Um, but one of the things that we did from a tourism perspective was we invited four influencers to come and cover that um those four days. And so we we um we asked four people to come. Um, and these are just a little bit of what we saw from that engagement. Um, they were they posted on their stories. They most of this wasn't they were all on Instagram. I think there were a few on Tik Tok. Um so there were 32 posts and a

total reach of almost 100,000 people. Um what EMV means is earned media value. So we invested 4,600 but we got back over 9,000. So we like to we like to show that as a way to again um the return on investment that we have of the dollars that that you've trusted to us. One of the other um fun things that came out of Green Street was a feature in Casey Parent magazine. This was a full page six-stop tour of Lee Summit. Um their editor came out and toured Green Street. And after that tour, uh this this appeared in their October um magazine and this was completely earned media just by showing them Lee Summit and getting them excited about what we had to offer. So they sent um a reporter out and um this was um in their October issue. Um another exciting thing that we do and we will plan on doing again in 2026 are all of the fun community events. Um our board remains extremely engaged. I am very very fortunate to have a board that really enjoys what we do. Um, we were able to participate in eight community events this past year which involved volunteer hours from each and every member of the board totaling over 50 hours of time invested in promoting Lee Summit to those in our community. One of the amazing community events that we were able to participate in was the draw day event at Green Street on December 5th which was held by LS school 26. It was a fun evening that welcomed over 800 people and it was an excellent way to kick off our summer soccer celebration. One of the events that we have coming up and we've been doing a lot of work with LS Goal. I have the privilege of serving on that board and um one of the things that we are planning and I know that you're aware of this but football Fridays are coming this summer um June 12th through July 10th. So you can see on here and we did leave um those rat cards for you at your um up on the dis as well. But each one of our Fridays has

a really fun theme and our amazing group of volunteers is already busy planning all of the familyfriendly activities that we'll be doing each each of those days. So, I'm really excited for our community to uh get to come down to Green Street and have have fun with us um during our summer full of soccer. And last, but certainly not least, and just a way to wrap it all up, we updated our visitor guide in 2025. Um it is currently in the works to be updated again in 2026. We'll actually have two different versions this year. Uh we are doing one that includes a World Cup spread and then in the last half of the year that will come out and um something else will go in its place. But um we are trying to make sure that we're serving those visitors that are coming to our community and happen to get a visitor guide so that they know what's going on and how we're celebrating um that event this summer. In addition, we continued to supply our hotel partners with our tariff maps of the city and we also participated with Amtrak and the Missouri Riverrunner team to promote train services here in Lee Summit.

So with that, I am happy to take any questions that you might have. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you. All right. Open up to for discussion. Yes, Council Member Rder. Thank you, Mayor. So, I had some copies of the visitors guide and I need more. Okay, I can help you again. You're gonna get to some brand new ones. Okay, great. Because I've passed them out to clients and they Thank you. They're great. Of course. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you.

Um, before we go around, I just want to clarify something. You you were talking about influencers and then you weren't like double dipping and using the board p the downtown Main Street board president and past president. You're you're not calling them influencers, are you? Oh, okay. No. Okay. Council member Shields,

um, hard to go after that. Uh, I just want to say thank you also for this. I appreciate the presentation you gave to us, um, not too long ago about the marketing campaign. It's great to see some followup with additional data and um I just think it's really clear that that you're very serious about being good stewards of taxpayer money and and the um dollars that you're receiving through the PSA to try to do a great job marketing our community and and really focused on that ROI ROI that we're concerned with. So, thank you and and it all all the materials look beautiful and um just love seeing this rolled out. So, thanks.

Thank you so much and thank you for your support. It's very much appreciated. Obviously, we couldn't do it without you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Levelvel. I'm interested in Smithton, Missouri. I know. Me, too. Right. Data center there or never until they until we started getting numbers back. I had I hope I don't offend anybody. I'd never heard of Smith, Missouri. Well, I've been researching it. There's town about 500 people. The only thing, honestly, the only thing we can determine is that it sits right at the intersection of three counties. And so, I I don't know, but we're going to watch it. I mean, if they're coming to Lee Summon and they're interested in this company have any data like

that's what that's what that's that's all they can target on it right now and so that's why it just we saw a huge spike um recently like within the last couple weeks and so I just I wanted to bring it to you tonight just because it's it's things like that that we see and we we may not know exactly why so we have to watch it and kind of see where aren't there billboards there are there's one in Sidelia I was wondering you know you see that billboard maybe you do something there but well anyway Okay. Maybe it uh encourages further exploration. I'd be careful spending a ton of money in exploration, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not I'm not sure how many dollars will be spent there.

But in general, I think this is something I know the mayor brought this. I don't remember. I was early on in my tenure here and really kind of championing a a DMO and or whatever, you know, whatever we call it. And um it has been very nice seeing our name and uh brand out there. I think you've done a great job with the branding and um communication and you know I mean we anybody we talk to outside of Lee Summit everybody talks about our downtown Lee Summit and just our city in general. So I just think it's great what you guys are doing and keep up the good work. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you Mayor Pet Lopez.

Thanks Mayor. Um just kind of what they've already said. Thank you for what you've done. Um I'm so we're so fortunate that the board selected you. I know you're all over the place as well and like council member Levelvel said, I know just a few years ago when this whole idea was just a thought for it to to to come to reality and be where we are today is just uh super exciting for our community. And the fact that all of our community partners, you all are working in t tandem um especially with the upcoming activities this summer, um I think bodess well and and just is further proof that there's good things going on with our community partners and you all are very transparent and we're seeing metrics. We're seeing a return on investment which is critical for us as we make these decisions. So, thank you all for that. Uh, as far as Smithson, Smithson though, um, is there are do they people like from Kansas City, are they coming in on the rail line, the Amtrak or how are do we have do we track any of that?

We do. I don't have that data for you, but I am more than happy to get that from our friends at Amtrak, but um I mean I I certainly can, but Smithson doesn't obviously Sadelia sits on the on the Missouri Riverrunner line and so there's always that possibility that that's also another reason why they're recognizing Lee Summit. But someone was telling me that people from Kansas City are coming from downtown uh Union Station coming out here for the day. I don't know what the hours are for the different trains that come through here, but uh maybe that's something to capitalize on. Absolutely. So, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Okay, Miss Corey Day, a few things. Um you we've always talked about up here uh for years and years. Um, we just we wanted the DMO, destination marketing organization, tourism, whatever, convention bureau,

um, to tell our story. And so, um, we're super excited. It's just been a really fun year, um, in so many ways. And you were thrown right into the fire with Green Street. And you can blame Mr. Brennan for throwing that all on you. Um, and you took on so much. and then right into um the uh the World Cup and working with community partners and of course Main Street you're working with great um and you guys have a great relationship and then seeing you on a panel recently with EDC. I mean, it's exactly what we want from tourism, from this community partner is bringing everybody together and collaborating and um, you know, thank you for for being so, you know, so easy to work with with on their part and putting up with uh other people. Um, and I'm really I think I'll echo the expertise that you have. I think that, you know, you can you've really brought a lot to the table and what we've been looking for for a long time, but it's the liaison and the relationships that is really making a huge difference as far as just making us feel a part of it cuz yes, you're doing all the work and you get all these great community partners that you're working with and uh and such, but we we feel a part of it as well. So, that's that's really important to us. So, thank you for that. And I'm not sure how we survived all these years without this uh organization and and you here. So, um, so thank you so much for presenting tonight and, um, I'm sure you could stick around and watch this next presentation, too, cuz or the next couple ones cuz they're right up your alley as well. So,

all right. Right. Thank you. Thank you guys so much. We appreciate you.

All right. That's uh that's explore LS. Next, we're going to go with the Lee Summit Economic Development Council. Gosh, what a year of change. We had When When did you start, Miss Day? January of last year. All right. And when did you start, sir? What's your name? April 1st. April Fool's Day. So, you're really the new guy. You're you're even newer than she is. So, lots lot's gone on in the last year year and few months. Mr. Vanbuskerk.

Thank you, Mayor, Mayor Baron, and members of the city council. Um, Mike Vanbus Kirk here tonight uh in my role as chair of the LSEDC. Um, it's always great to follow our community partners uh in the in the presentation that's going to come after this as well. U because we are out all doing the same thing. when you really get down to it, we're all selling Lee Summit in our own special way. So, um the collaboration that we have is really unbelievable. So, who we are uh the Lee Summit EDC is a nonprofit public private partnership. Um we foster uh our mission of sustainable economic growth and prosperity in Lee Summit. Um, our funding, as you know, comes from the city through our PSA as well as our partnership with Lee Summit R7, the Blue Spring School District, our other community partners, and our over 75 private investors that we'll touch on later. Um, this slide, you've seen this before uh when I was in front of you last time, but I I think this summarizes economic development pretty quickly in one slide, and this is literally what we do. attraction of new business, retention, expansion of existing business, workforce development, and then marketing and communication that we do. Uh, and it all interrelates with the other things that you've heard this evening. Last year, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the LSEDC. And as you all know, we went through a full organizational reset that we completed with our community partners, some of you on the DAS as well. And really, it has been a a year of change. um our but our organization at the end of the day is focused is what you see on this slide. Um I'll touch on briefly the current officers. Um, one thing I will mention is that, you know, this this group plus the board that you're going to see in a minute, and I know you heard this

earlier about the boards, but we have so many great folks in this community who volunteer so much of their time to do these things. And I think that's something that sometimes gets lost of how many hours are spent u doing uh participating in these organizations. And and I've got to say that this group has really stepped up as well. Um, you'll notice that one thing is vacant on here, vice chairperson. I'll explain that to you. Um, as many of you know or may know, Bobby M Shipman with St. Luke's East um was promoted uh and he's still here in Kansas City, but now he's over the whole St. Luke's system. Um, so Bobby u because of this additional responsibility resigned from our board at the first of the year and we've kept that uh space open. John Ellis, who's here with us this evening, is our secretary and Jackie McCormacku, treasurer. Um, we have a standing finance committee, uh, per our bylaws that Jackie as treasurer runs. Council member Shields is on that as well as Doug Bates. Uh, and then this year we started a programs and events committee uh, that John Ellis chairs along with Megan Liki and Erica Miller uh, with the LSR7 Board of Education. That's our board uh, as it currently sits. Um what you see on here is a real cross-section of governmental representatives, education partners, community partners. All of our community uh groups uh have leadership are represented on our board as well as our private investors. Um two other things I'll mention. Well, two openings are coming up. In addition to Bobby, um we have a member of the board who's terming out at the end of our fiscal year. So, we've actually already started the process of uh filling those two open seats that will start with our new fiscal year uh this summer. Uh so, the nominating committee has been formed and uh over the next 60 days, we'll be taking applications from our investors and then the board will select those two members to be introduced at our July annual meeting.

Um I've shared this with you before, but last year our board approved our new vision statement and core values. I'm not going to read them. I know you've seen them. But I I will say this. Um in addition to that, one of the things that we spent a lot of time on over the last year is policies and procedures. Um with an organization has been around 40 years. There was some policies and procedures, but we're reviewing all of those. Uh part of that was we actually created a code of ethics. So we didn't have them before. Uh and all these policies and procedures, we use these core values as part of our review process. Another thing u as part of our PSA, one of the deliverables uh was a new strategic plan and I I have to highlight uh Jackie McCormack Henu and Council Member Shields for really their leadership and leading that process um because they really advanced it um they took the ball and ran with it and I really appreciate that. Um, so that board, our board approved, actually I should back up. Our board shared with uh you all, city staff and city council at the beginning of the year the draft of the strategic plan. Then we informally adopted it as our board and then submitted it as an approved strategic plan uh January 31st of this year. what you see in front of you, those six goals, they align with the city's Ignite comprehensive plan, um, and other policies that we reviewed as part of, uh, implementing our our, uh, plan. Um, and similar to some of the other documents I've mentioned already, including the bylaws, one of the things that the board has has decided is that we're these aren't static. I mean, we review these things on a regular basis, and that that of course incorporates uh, this plan as well. So, with that, um, I'm going to introduce Joe Perry, uh, who has been here, as you heard, since April 1st of last year, and then, uh, I'll be available to answer questions at

the end.

Thank you, Mike. Uh, delighted to be here again this year. When I spoke to you last year, it was about three weeks before I started the position. So, it's, uh, delightful to be here, uh, this many months later. the uh what we're showing you here is basically a funnel of the projects that have come in the door and the and the the ones we've looked at uh as a a project. Almost all of the 30 projects that were presented to the Lee Summit EDC um have been in one way or another brought to the city staff for acknowledgement or review. Of those 30, 21 of those came from the KCADC or the Missouri Partnership andor the Missouri Partnership. Nine of those were more organically brought to us by stakeholders in the community, business owners, uh, real estate brokers, um, and or other stakeholders in the community. Of those 30 projects that came here in the last 11 months, we submitted on 18 of those. 12 of those just weren't good fits. Um, I would send them to city staff and saying,"I don't think we want this kind of heavy industrial or I don't think we want this kind of uh animal rendering plant in Lee Summit." And and it was easy to say no to those that just don't fit with the strategic plan for the city. Um, of those 18, they were split. Nine, nine were organically brought through to the community to the Lee Summit DC and nine came from our uh statewide and local partners. Of those 18, we're still in the running on 12 of those. Six of those either they said we're not going to come to Kansas City, period, or we've been eliminated for consideration. Um, of those 12, three of them have already made their way to some level of adjudication by application or request for some action at the city level. Um, a

good example of one of those would be the Midstates expansion. That's one of those three that's in the process of becoming a real project. Those three projects uh have a net worth of about $125 million. One of the ways I was able this 11 months to really hone the messaging and the narratives of how to sell Lee Summit was talking about Lee Summit from month one. Um here's a list of about uh 17 or 18 uh projects about a little more than one and a half per month. We've had the opportunity to go out and talk to regionalwide uh forums of people. Some of these are as few as 25 people and one of them that Mayor Baird and I talked to my first month on the job was several hundred people. Uh one of the ones in the last fall was about 400 people. So, we've gotten to hone the message of what this at least some advantages are by these um opportunities to talk to to people that know about real estate that want to invest in either businesses or into vertical development. One of the messages that it comes down to, and we talked about it at our last city uh LSEDC lunchon, is the word certainty. It really often comes down to certainty. We often hear with people making big investment that certainty is as important as cost. And there is certainty of process. That's the city staff. They bring certainty to that process. They're efficient. There's very little friction in the pipe. They adjudicate projects according to the good plans and procedures and policies of the city. Um, no one does it better in the metro. There's certainty of outcome. really that's largely you. You're the elected body. You're the one who listen to

these. You you measure them against your stated plans and policies. And what's good about Lee Summit, and it's been good for a long time, but I would suggest that it's never been better than right now, is that when you get a project that is consistent with your policies and your procedures and your incentive policies and all those things that are important to a city, you look at those favorably and and you give them a fair shot. There is certainty of service provision. This is good roads. This is delivering on good services and good parks and clean streets and a vibrant downtown and good social services. These are the things that so many places you don't have the certainty that these things are going to be good for you once you've made those investments. The final one that I think maybe is underrated too often is the certainty of the financial stability of the city that you're making the investment in. With a Moody's AAA bond rating, there's no higher bond rating. You deliver that with um excellent reserves that the city has. very few people could give you certainty that you can make it through a a economic cycle. So these are things that um I've been able to hone and I I give a lot of credit to city staff when we we met um for our last um presentation. Tracy Alers helped me hone in on the the words to better articulate those last two by the way. So, um, with that, I'm going to talk about, uh, investor engagement and really just start with how we engage with our investors and stakeholders. We have four lunchons a year and in our spring quarterly investment meeting, we

talked about collaboration. We had the chamber, the Lee Summit EDC and and the downtown Lee Summit Main Street. And then we also um had uh explore Lee Summit and the four of us talked about how we could uh create a better economic development ecosystem in Lee Summit and we have worked together in so many ways since then. In the fall meeting, uh we were that was our annual meeting and we were able to have Missouri Department Economic Development Director Michelle Hathaway be our speaker and we had lots of our 40 years of Lee Summit EDC uh board uh chairs and presidents there. And we also were uh delighted to have Speaker of the House John Patterson there. In our um spring quarterly meeting, we uh we were able to have uh an emphasis on workforce. And then in our last one, I just mentioned those four points that we really honed in on how to talk about the sit the certainty of investing in Lee Summit. Um, with that, I'm going to ask our board secretary to talk about further engagement. Thank you, Jackie.

Good evening, Mayor City Council. Thank you for having us. Jackie McCormack. I'm the current board treasurer of Lee Summit Economic Development Council, and I'm here to kind of talk with you uh not only about the finances, but a little bit more about our investor engagement to make sure that we're communicating about all of the different opportunities that we have for our investors within the community. Um, as Joe mentioned, we not only have all of the quarterly um meetings, which include lunchons um and our annual meeting, we also have receptions on the off months that we're not having those quarterly meetings. Um those have ranged in design from just an informal reception where we're up on the Stanley rooftop um you know socializing and talking with one another to uh a little bit more formal in uh environments kind of like the EverG seminar that we had on January 28th held in downtown Lee Summit. Um it was entitled powering the future Everg's energy demand approach and we had a speaker from EverGee um talking about the energy programs that uh energy electric resiliency seminars that um that are available and in fact that uh seminar is now posted on the YouTube page for the Lisman econom economic development council. So if you're interested and you didn't have the opportunity to participate you can certainly go out and watch that. Um, one of the other really great things that they mentioned in the earlier parts of our presentation is the new events uh, and programs committee that is chaired by John Ellis, um, our current secretary, and is supported by Erikica Miller and Megan Lateki, um, who are both on our board. They are working very hard to plan the remainder of those events for our investor receptions this year, and we're really excited about the opportunities for community engagement that we're going to participate in. Um, we also engaged professional services earlier in um, 2025 for assistance with our website, social media, marketing, um, all of those opportunities. Treasure Advertising was

very helpful when with all of those uh, endeavors. And our office manager, Ella Phillips, has been taking on the lead role of all of our social media since that time. She has also worked very hard to get our YouTube channel up and running, make sure that all the communications are getting out to our investors and the community about the opportunities that we have. So, we thank her for all of her hard work on that. So, now we're going to talk a little bit about finances. Um, as you can see, our topline budget for 2025 2026, which we are a July 1 fiscal year, is uh right at $555,000. We worked very intentionally when we were establishing that budget last year to be mindful of our current situation which is one of regrowth right u we're trying to make sure that we are being good stewards of all of the funds that we receive a little bit uh right about half of our funds come from city of Lee Summit you uh city council and the Lee Summit R7 school district the remainder of our funds are generated from our investors so we try very hard to make sure that we were being responsible with those funds and the expenditures associated therewith. We in fact in establishing the budget for the year set aside almost a third in what we would call kind of contingent expenses where the finance committee actually undertakes a review of the proposed expense before it is finally approved for um for expenditure. So, it's been working very well and I can tell you that at this point in time, we do expect to be um well within positive net revenues at the end of our uh fiscal year this year. So, we're very proud of that and we recognize that we still have great reserves uh from previous leadership in the economic development council, but we want to make sure that that continues. So one of the other policies as Mike was mentioning earlier uh that we established is a reserve policy to ensure that we do have funding

to carry on the operations of the organization in the event that unforeseen circumstances occur. So um another policy that we established is what we call an inkind policy. It allows some of our private investors who may not otherwise have the opportunity to invest at a higher level to make inind investments in conjunction with their financial investments to not only in advance the cause of uh the lease economic development council but also provide um resources and opportunities for those investors. So examples of that include um providing space for our events and um uh receptions um providing catering or beverage services those sorts of things. Finally, we also increased our investor levels. So the levels of at which you could invest in the Lee Summit Economic Development Council had not changed for quite some time. As we all know, inflation and those things occurred. So we made some u adjustments to those investor levels to better reflect the benefits that are being conveyed as a result of that. This slide um provides you with kind of an overview of all of those investors that we were speaking of earlier. Mike mentioned that we have both p public and private investors. Currently the public partners as we mentioned are at the top are grand champions. The city and the two school districts do make up about 50% of our uh funding. The remainder of the funding comes through not only financial investments but also some of those in-ind contributions that our um pace setters leadership partners benefactors and patrons provide. So coming back to the strategic plan doc uh that we discussed we do believe that the KPIs and the short mid and long range goals that we established in the strategic plan are of the utmost importance and we are working very hard to ensure that we are accountable to those responsibilities and that we are delivering on them and to make sure that we are clearly defining what those

objectives are for all of our investors including the city of Lee Summit. We realize that those are fluid moving documents, goals, objectives, and that we have a lot of work to do in continuing to make sure that we're achieving those things. Um, one of those things is ensuring that we have adequate staffing and support to make sure that that happens. So, one of the things that we are working on um very diligently is trying to identify opportunities for that. We are of limited funds. However, we do have a lot of resources within our community. We have uh strategic partners in the education sector. We have opportunities with respect to some part-time staff and we are looking at some of those creative opportunities to secure the talent that we need in order to make sure that we're able to deliver all of those promises that we have for you. So with that, I believe we are ready to answer any questions that you have.

Okay. Thank you. Um I'll open up for discussion. Council member Hodes. Thank you. So, um, I was wondering, so on one of your slides, you said three city submissions on that. I was curious, you mentioned one was the Midstate expansion, but what were the other two? One of the other two is protected by a non-disclosure agreement, so I wouldn't be able to answer on that one. Okay. And the other one is a project that is also an industrial type expansion.

Okay. And then um in regard to I know your other what we do page um on retention. So what can you just kind of explain what that looks like? And I mean because I think of midsates I'm thinking my first thought would be oh they're just coming to us because they're already here so why wouldn't they come and ask to expand? So what does that look like from LSAC standpoint?

It's it's my favorite part u because it the job creation is the super majority of job creation are the businesses you already have. So keeping them really important. That's the retention part. The expansion part is like mid-states. When they come to us before they bring that to the city, we can talk to them about what other companies have done to make that happen well and and what the processes are. So I immediately will always call the city staff. And the exciting part looking forward on how to do more and better is we're just getting our new contact management software put in place this very month. And when we have that, we're going to be able to pull and work with I believe it's 85% of all the businesses in Lee Summit hold a business license with the city. And there are gaps in the data. And we believe with working with Mike Weisenborn and others in development services who have control of that data that we can contact all of those using our new systems, fill in some gaps and also identify needs. There are state jobs programs. There are local other types of programs through the full employment council and others. And that's just in workforce development. There's also ways to get people into tax credits at the state. and we'll be able to answer or ask questions by using that database and bringing that data back in that used to require about 1.5 full-time employees at the Lee Summit EDC that we think we can do a lot of that work by using tools

and I'm very excited in that. Um, I just I just think that's a that's something that is how we use the tools that technology has given us.

Okay, that's awesome. I was going to ask that. Um, how you know who to reach out to and making sure that you're staying on top of everybody that's here. Um, what was my other question? Um, so I'm thinking back to previous LSDC and I know one of the issues was we constantly ask what are they bringing? like what are you you know other than this slideshow that's you know you present to us but is there a way or is it on your website like once it's secured and it's through so that way you can be like you know what have they brought to us in case you know just for updates and there's like a list of like here's what we've brought and here's what we're you know you can't say necessarily what you're working on but things that have been completed just so it's like we can be reminded like hey this is actually working totally agree

yes exa exactly thank you council member for bringing that up um that was something that was definitely missing in the past. Yeah. And as Joe said, I mean, there's projects that we're working on that we we can't disclose. City staff knows who they are. Joe knows I some I don't even know who they are. I just know it's a project name. Um because of the confidential audio agreements, but um but at the appropriate times, yes, we all need to do a great better job of of really publicizing the wins. For sure. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Could Could you all pause the video? It's It's too much for me. Sorry. It's good. It's a good It's good. It's just I I can't focus.

Yeah, I had stopped the one on the right, but the others are Yeah. Thank you. Um, Council Member Rider.

Thank you, Mayor. So, I just wanted to tell you that one of the favorite things that I have seen come out from the EDC is the Evergy. I learned a lot from that and I'm going to tell you there's a lot of negative stuff going on about data centers and it opened up my perspective my mind as to wait a minute we shouldn't be negative about that we should be exploring if if that could work here um it sounds like they have done a lot of work around that space to try to you know take that negativity away and then make it work so that it people don't feel like they're burdened by uh the electricity in the water. But anyway, I would love more of those kind of educational things. Um Joe and everybody, that was really great. I mean, it just again, I think these are things that are important to take to our community so that they are aware of the opportunities that could be out there for us.

Thank you. Thank you, C. Yeah. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Shields.

Thank you, Mayor. Um well, first of all, thank you especially to the board. Um, it's a it's very much a working volunteer board and I appreciate um the service, especially the folks who have been speaking with us tonight. I know they put a lot of hours behind the scenes. Um, I think Council Member Hodgeges brought up some really good points about wanting to know um about especially the successes when when a project comes to fruition. So, I I do appreciate kind of hearing some of that and seeing the the slide about kind of the project funnel. Um, I know there's been some discussion about how the EDC may going forward kind of endorse specific projects that may come before council. Do you want to talk a little bit about that and what you guys are are thinking there?

Sure, I'd be happy to. Um, and thank you for bringing that up, Council Member Shields. Um, yes, we actually have a draft policy, another policy by the way, uh, that, uh, someone behind me helps draft um that, uh, we are bringing forward uh, for consideration in our next board meeting. We introduced the topic at our last board meeting, but amazingly the previous LACDC iteration didn't have a policy to this effect. Um, so what this will do is lay out when a project comes forward if the LSCDC board would like to support that project and and then let you all know that they are in support of that project. Um, we'll have a policy how that will be done. I will say that does take a lot of communication. Um, and Joe and staff have a great communication going on, but sometimes, you know, things line up with your your meetings that we need to know that they're and and there is sometimes, as I said earlier, projects that are confidential that we need to make sure that we're all on the same page on that. So, um, but yes, we are laying out that policy because I want to make sure that it was very clear when we do come forward in support of something that the board has considered it and and voted on it to be in support or not, whatever the case may be.

Right. And so those could be either things that um a project the EDC was actually instrumental in bringing if it's something that's been worked on or something that you look at that's coming and you say that that fits in with our strategic plan of these are the kind of businesses that we know the EDC wants to promote that the city wants to promote and then kind of to be able to to give some voice to that. I I just think it'd be helpful for us to see especially if it's a project the EDC has been involved in like oh this this is one that that investment that we've made has brought a return on investment to us. I think it's great to to see that. So, thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Levelville.

Thank you, Mayor. Wow, look how far we've come. Uh, feel like, uh, as I'm coming close to the end of my tenure here that this has been something we've been working on for the better part of the four years. Um, you know, I think it's a great testament to, um, what can come out of extreme difficulty, right? Um, you know, sometimes you got to tear something down to rebuild it. You know, maybe It wasn't as easy as it as it could have been. Um, but I know we're in a better place now. Um, I really feel like the organization has a chance to really elevate and a couple of things that I heard tonight that I think are important and I know this is something the mayor and I talked about early on because we're kind of sales, you know, when you mentioned the CRM, right? I mean, just one of the lowest hanging fruit things that we could have been doing. And what that does, and maybe you I think you may have undersold it, so I'm going to oversell it. The ability to have in our database all the business owners and the key stakeholders of those business and have a constant contact with them is immeasurable. Um, you don't have to look I mean, you could go look in the news and see how competitive it is right now to keep businesses. And that state line war is going on every day. Um, and there are types of businesses that we want. They don't they don't come here overnight and they're very and it will be, you know, we've always said class A office, all these things. There is so much that goes into bringing these business. But I will just say like that step right there is critical. It also will allow us to uh create outreach outside of our city. And so one of the other things that we, you know, always um wanted to do, and I think Mr. Perry does a great job of this about being out in the city because you are talking to the people that make a lot of decisions and so think of I know sometimes we get hung up on the EDC of like well what did you bring us like what wasn't already

here and I think that's a fair criticism sometimes but understand the EDC is a connection to the business world it's connection to developers it's connection to real estate and business and industry not just in this town but around the country and that that gives us the ability to have conversations that we may not be able to have otherwise inside the city through a development services or something like that. The connections that this group can make with Mr. Buskerk, Mr. Perry and other stakeholders, board members around this community and outside of it is immeasurable. We've got a rockstar team and we have rockstar members. The people that are members of the EDC can get we can get anything done with that group, right? And that is what development is all about is connecting the right people. I mean you've got financing components, you've got developers, you've got users, you've got, you know, all these different things. And so I'm just very excited and proud of where we are today from where we were, you know, even four years ago. And so that's a testament to, you know, I was a, you know, I was not I was maybe not for a lot of the changes, but I just want I want give props to a lot of my fellow council members here that really push to see through some of these changes and and where we are today is really good. And so I'm just I'm thankful um for the direction that we're going and um I would just say um keep up the good work and and again like I think it's important to um you know where we can show those wins but like however those deals come in like that having that touch point you know is really important and we may not generate it you know it's like you didn't we didn't produce it like a salesperson where but it came in and we had the right people there to make the right connections to get the things going in the ction and we haven't had that for a while, right? So, we have a center point to go to and know that we've got a group that that can handle it um and get it going in the

right direction. So, um I thank you for the presentation and Mr. Buskerk uh just what you've given to this organization. I I mean, seriously, I mean, you deserve a round of applause. Like, most people would have turned away. You're a very busy man. You've got a lot you got a lot on your plate. you do a lot for this city, not just here with the EDC, but all that you do um for our development community and and even even more so, but um I really appreciate you. Um you've done a you've done a great service to the city and for the EDC. So, thank you. Thanks, mayor.

Thank you. You know, he only got to serve on the EDC board for one year, so we got to find a way to keep him involved. Totally agree. And you know, I can do it remotely from a beach somewhere. I'd be happy to.

We need we need this kind of passion and expertise. And I love I love the changes we've made with regard to the board with regard to you're really super diversified. You got a we've got a pretty big board. But um you know, he's right. He's so right. I'll say it a different way. He kept saying immeasurable with regard to um what I consider your your gold mine of businesses and people and stakeholders and such. I always call it a gold mine because you're mining it. You you have to constantly take care of it and protect it and and so retention is really important. I think a great place to to focus and because that's where you're going to get your referrals and that's where people are going to tell your stories and and such. And so we are of of s such a similar mindset when it comes to that. But um and and and I love the opportunity to recruit um businesses to our community and jobs to our community. However, for me, the EDC has always been about, you know, I can I can live with, you know, a lot of things as long as there's a relationship. And I've been talking about the, you know, Explore LS and the relationship that we have that they have with everybody and Downtown Main Street and the relationship they have with, I mean, they just work. So, and then, you know, EDC is is now working collaboratively with all of these organizations. And nothing could make me, you know, happier than to see that because I know we're going to be okay. And I know that uh obviously you've already built up some reserves and I appreciate the dedication and commitment to that. Um the leadership uh that you have with the board is phenomenal. Thank you. Thank you all. Like Michael Vanbusker, yes, you know, we we wouldn't be here without you, but you've got some great people that are right beside you helping forge this path. So, thank you to your to your leadership team and to the board members

themselves and yet I mean all these kudos and yet I mean my bar is still really going to be high. It's just that's who I am and so please continue this path and um you know keep engaging the council. That's the key is this is a relationship too. Not just with the other partners but with the council. Talk to us. Help us. You know, there's going to be a new council. There's going to be help me help you. Yeah. There's going to be a new council, pretty pretty new council here in 30 days. And you got to start over. You got to build these relationships. You got to help them understand what it is you all do. Um because it takes a while to figure out what you do, especially if you're not doing it really well. So, you're you're in a much better position at this point. And um I think that uh I just want to I don't know. I'm not sure who else to thank, but um with that said, I'm going to just say thanks for the presentation.

Thank you all.

All right. All right. Well, we've been forging along. Do we need a break? Yeah, we need a break. Um so sorry, World Cup. We need a break. Um you probably do, too, though. So, you can go out and stretch your legs for a minute and we'll be back in uh 15. 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 pay in property tax, the city receives 18 cents. 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 and 50 highway interchange, third street, warden, pursel 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 cityofls.net back/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 Leisum Animal Control. So, as you can see, we get all sorts of animals here. You have 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 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 us 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 citizen one time that had over 200 reptiles in his basement. Cayman's and alligators in here that are four or 5 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.

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 five-day hold. And then after the five days, if the owner doesn't show up, then we can put them up for adoption. Adopt an 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 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, 1479. 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 ideiations 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.

Hey, hey, hey. You can make the difference in somebody else's lives. 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 a incredible task. So, we trying to keep it relaxed environment. As a new person, you are constantly on edge learning. 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. But 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 apparent other lives involved? that adrenaline dump 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, swiftwater rescue, EMS, car accident, technical rescue,

tactic team. The equipment the fire department offers us is topnotch. From ring cutters to extrication equipment, state-of-the-art stuff, great trucks, tablet, 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 to 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 seeing 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 Summit Fire Department. Every fire academy knows it. Every other fire department knows it.

If you're looking for a job in the fire service, Lee Summit's the place to be. Fire department. That's who you want to be. Somebody who can make positive change in other human beings life. 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 the 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 blind. 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.

I'm going to bring this meeting back to order, please. And we have made it all the way to agenda item 5B, which is the presentation for LS goal 26, an updated funding request. Uh oh, I see Miss Donna Lake is going to start us off.

Good evening, uh, mayor and councel. Donna Lake, assistant city manager. I'm here to introduce the board members, couple board members for LL School 26 that will speak to you about, uh, an updated funding request. If you recall, we were here back in January and presented uh did a presentation. At that point in time, we heard your feedback uh coming back with a little more refinement on um the budget for LS school 26. And uh a couple things I want to note. One, I would say that at that time in January, we were very unaware of where the licensure for showing games was going to be. We were taking estimates based off of uh club World Cup um licensing fees and kind of the things that we were hearing in the community about licensing fees. And then abs absolutely the very next day after our presentation, we found out that the floor dropped out on the cost of license fees to show games um publicly for for the soccer event. And so, uh, that really significantly caused, um, or was actually very, we went from about $25,000 per showing to $1,000 for the entire time frame. And so, that is a huge drop in what we estimated that we thought, um, this event would cost. But, uh, as I said, I'm here to introduce the group LS Goal 26. Uh, as you can see, many of the people that presented from our partners with the EDC and uh, Lee Summit, our downtown Lee Summit Main Street and tourism uh, are part of the board or represent represented on the board of directors as well as over 100 plus volunteers that have come together wanting to promote our community and provide a safe venue for showing games and giving uh, visitors the opportunity to experience erience a little bit of Americana and um and what Lee Summit has

to offer. So without further ado, I will introduce Laura Maxwell and John Ellis who will continue with the presentation. All right. Thank you. Just push the down button. Yeah.

All right. Thank you, Donna. Thank you, council mayor, for letting us be here tonight. We're super excited to be back. And uh as Donnie shared the the number a while ago that we are as of today 100 days out from the actual start of World Cup competition. Um we looked up just a moment ago and and thought you might be entertained to know that our first World Cup community meeting was 475 days ago. So, uh, it seems like we've been on this journey for quite some time and we had, uh, the opportunity to share with you a conceptual framework in January. Um, you asked for some more specificity, so we're here tonight to share some of that. Um, as Donna said, many of the community partners that, uh, have already either spoken tonight or been referenced tonight have played a significant role in bringing this all to fruition. And so what you see before you right now are five um logos that are um our thematic elements for each of the five football Fridays that we're hosting in June and July. John and I are going to toggle back and forth uh just speaking a little bit about each of those very quickly. So, our first celebration uh is Champions of the Heartland. And our intention is to celebrate not just soccer, but all of the sporting um teams that we have in our city in the metropolitan area. And we'll encourage things like uh wearing your favorite jersey that night and uh just kind of celebrate some traditional American tailgate food and beverages. Um, we've shared previously that we want all of our activities to be kid and family friendly. So, you look at the the team um and the ideas that they have here. Um, we're considering yard games and the the pop-up soccer, maybe the inflatable soccer balls where you roll around and

and and it's quite entertaining to watch u those take place. Um, adult activities, maybe a Ted Lasso lookalike. Uh we do have the benefit of having uh Jason Sedakus' high school teacher living right here in Lee Summit. And so if we wanted to do some Ted Lasso trivia, we've got some conversations started with him. And then our band um each week will be the Crossroad Sound. They were with us for draw day and they have committed to uh providing us with different styles of music each week. So this would be your kind of traditional tailgate party music. And then um our decor and theme, we would be able to capitalize on all of the local and regional mascots and and photo ops and things like that.

Thank you. Uh I'm going to just feature a little bit on the next event which is Boots on the Pitch. And uh I'm going to start out just with a food and beverage budget item where you see a zero. You might be wondering why that is. And that's because we're bringing in people partners that will actually supply all of that. And uh and Like we've said before, our goal is to really break even on this whole thing and make it to where it's an event that we're showing off downtown, uh, especially Green Street Marketplace, and show all the different things that can be done down there. Uh, so again, more of a western theme here on that. I will point out with the kids activities that the ax throwing, the axes are not real. They're velcro. So, as a safety precaution, uh, with it, if you didn't get a chance to see those at, uh, at draw day, uh, it was a big hit. And that was also a sponsored activity uh from parks and wrecks. So that was a wonderful thing that they were able to do. Other inflatables and things like that. Again, more of a western theme that we'll be doing. Line dancing lessons. We fully expect all of you to be a participants in that. And uh and I think uh just having it where it's a good fun activity for everyone. Uh the beauty of having Crossroads Sound uh with this to have them as a consistent partner is going to be uh they they've been involved. Jenny's been on on the planning committee. Uh she's actually heading up the entertainment committee now and uh and is going to be able to really kind of take it wherever we need it. And so we felt like we could be moving around on different bands uh and entertainment uh people, but we thought it was better to have something that was consistent that could really kind of change with it. And they have a lot of different flexibility with that, too. Uh and then uh the finally just uh more the theme with the the decor and all that. Being able to have a budget for some of those things uh to give to the uh the committee to work on is going to be a key with this. And you can see a theme of us basically having a $10,000 budget

every week.

So similarly, uh the budget for the following week is is uh just like the prior and those to come. Um, we do look forward to finding additional ways to partner with our uh, organizations like Downtown Main Street and the Fourth Fridays. And so you see the theme of goals, galleries, and great vibes. And, uh, the food and beverage will have a little bit of a a different flavor there, doing some fun things with different cultural uh, food types, shakuderie, crepes, and and so on and so forth. Um, we'd look forward to also partnering with organizations like uh LS Creates and the History Museum to be able to bring in some live art and just really kind of capitalize on the creativity that our community likes to showcase. And then the Crossroads Sound again with their u more mellow music and our um art theme that will be fully developed by that group's um organizing team. Thank you. And then obviously it's a big deal this year with Fourth of July and we know that there are a lot of other activities going on there too, but we we plan on really participating with that of being an all-American uh celebration as well. Uh really kind of taking everything with it from the yard games uh all the way through uh the the red, white, and blue and possibly classic car show. Uh we know that um that uh Legacy Blast is uh the day before uh I believe on the 2nd. Um and we know that there's a lot of u speculation on great things going on just with the 250th anniversary with it.

And then last but certainly not least is that Friday, July 10 event kicking it on Route 66. And we know that there's a special anniversary there. Um all kinds of anniversaries this year. And so being able to capitalize on um some of the other events and activities that are happening in the community and and really try to engage our um partners with doing some some fun throwback type things, uh bouncy ball races, maybe a box car race. Um, and just for the record, all of these ideas that you've seen for each week have been um, cultivated and pitched to us in the last month since we last met with you. You asked for that specificity. So, we brought back with some detail what we're hoping to execute each week. And um, so that's and the one other thing that I did want to say, Corey mentioned the rack cards that you each have. We were able to share these with about 140 um individuals who came to Lee Summit to Green Street um at a Casey 2026 meeting just a few days after we last met with you. So, we're super excited to be able to offer these events for our community members, but also to really show off our community to some of those regional partners and and folks even from Smithton that would like to come and join us for these events.

Thank you. So really the total event budget that we're asking for uh on this to to apply towards the the five different football Friday varieties is is a grand total of $50,000. We do have other funds from our first events from sponsorships uh that we've got that's helping bring a cushion. We do have requests in for a few private partners as well. One thing about the private partners is they have to be approved by FIFA and um and they can't conflict with anyone else. So, we're we're hopeful that those are going to come in. Uh the big deal with this is that this really solidifies us to the point where we know we can uh we can facilitate all of these events uh with the funding that that you you would approve. And uh we're very thankful that you I did see that you had the ordinance on right after this uh to to for consideration. So, I think we'd like to go ahead and answer any questions that you've got at this point in time.

Right. Thank you, Council Member Hodes. Thank you. So, um, thank you for this presentation because I know when you came last time, I was a little skeptical like, do we want to spend money on this? But having brought back more details and just the vision that you guys have has really helped. So, thank you for doing that and just kind of spelling things out for us because it helped me see like, man, that would be neat to have that. Man, there's so many things for kids. There's just it's very interactive. Um, so thank you for presenting that and putting a lot of thought into it. um that I just had a comment about that. So, thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you, Council Member Shields.

Thank you, Mayor. Um well, first of all, I appreciate this uh presentation as well. I think this is going to be a really fun series of events, a really great way to showcase um Green Street as well as, you know, promoting visitors to Lee Summit. So, I think especially with that space being so new, it's really important that we program it fully and show what it's capable of. So, I think this is going to be a really great partnership. Um, I did have a couple of questions. Um, so for the $50,000 potential budget, would that be reimburseables for specific expenses? So, like if if your decor comes in lower, then we only reimburse up to the amount that's required and then would that also be offset by any sponsorships? How's that?

Yeah, I I think we can definitely work on that. Well, obviously, this is all kind of a guide of where we think we're going to end up on the expenses. If we come in lower, uh our m our needs may be much lower and and we probably need to talk about how to handle uh that if there's anything left over that we don't use uh with that. Uh I think we've been really uh efficient. I know on the first event that we ended up doing uh we had raised u over $10,000 I think uh for that and I believe we ended up around 6,500 or something like that. I I guess in the in the ordinance language it says an amount not to exceed $50,000 as opposed to just 50,000. So I wasn't really sure just the mechanics of that. I guess I sort of was curious about I don't know if that's a staff question or

So thank you for the question. Um just in looking through what has been drafted and as the exhibit with the public service agreement, there's a provision saying at the conclusion of these activities that there'll be an afteraction report and that any funds remaining would be um uh and is there another PSA because the one that was attached to our packet I think has the old $100,000 ask for the licensing fees, but I didn't see one that was

cover those two things. So, one that in the PSA it does say that any funds the expense will be sorry the PSA does have a scrier's error because we pulled it forward but before it's executed it'll be reflective of what's in the ordinance which is uh not to exceed the 50,000 but what it does say is that in any funds that are remaining from the budget would transfer to the visitors bureau.

Okay. Okay, that makes sense. Um, and then I guess for me the the $50,000 budget is reasonable, especially if any excess is going to go to the visitors be. I sort of assume this would come out of the business and industry fund. It to me it makes sense to come out of that fund balance and and that those funds are intended for tourism anyway. So yeah. Yes, that is where we are looking for those funds to come from. Okay. Um, you know, I look at this and I I think that's pretty close to what we spend on Legacy Blast every year. Why don't we spend about $50,000 on legacy blast there thereabouts? That's what we've been budgeting. Uh but recognizing this is the 250th, that's something that we're considering. Okay. I'm fair. But I guess 50,000

just as as I think about whether it's a reasonable expense, I think about we're we're willing to spend that much on community events to promote our community and serve our residents. And to me, this feels similar to that that hopefully will also promote tourism and and do lots of great things. But um it seems like a reasonable amount to spend to um celebrate this amazing event and then hopefully have some really great added on benefits of promoting regional visitors and that kind of thing. Like I think with these I know we've talked about our our how we're trying to position ourselves in the metro is to be the familyfriendly destination for people who don't want to drive into FanFest that this is a great place to come if they're coming from Pleasant Hill or Smithon or uh you know wherever

on the train. We're never going to drop that. Um but that that will be like a I think this this really fits that vision of being the family-friendly alternative to trying to go into the more um large scale events in Kansas City. Yeah. And we and we were also trying to figure out ways to you know for people to take a break from all of that FanFest and you know the the hysteria from downtown and and all of those things and have a place that can they can bring their kids enjoy the day um or evening. And then also um you know wanting to make sure that we're we're allowing our residents to have that experience as well if they don't want to travel into FanFest or or whatever, but they can still feel that excitement about um the events.

Okay. Um well, I I appreciate that. I appreciate the presentation and um I'd be happy to support this and then hopefully once you have kind of a guaranteed budget, you can really start to drill down on exactly what all those entertainment I was I was at the brainstorming session. There were a ton of great ideas and I think once once those groups know how much budget they have to work with, they can really figure out how much of that they can implement. So, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Funk.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'll just echo what everybody has said. Um, bringing this back and the detailed presentation. Um, I would be in support of this and I would also be in support of maybe coming up with some sort of food wager with the city manager. Um, if we could convince council member Levelville to grow his mustache back and be a part of the lookalike contest. Good idea. I'm in. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor Patim Lopez.

Thanks, Mayor. I don't know how I can top that. Um, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You all, uh, I know you put so much time, effort, energy, you all and the whole committee. I was there early on and I left you guys hanging. I got a little preoccupied with other stuff, but um, you know, all everything that was presented today before you all came up and did your second presentation. Um, just all fits in very well. You know, all the collaboration. We've used that word. I've heard that word like maybe 10 times tonight. uh the all all the community partners when I look outside and I have to have I have a confession, Mr. Dunning. Uh last week I came in early and was trying to find the light switch and I opened all the blinds and so it's hard not to look outside and and look at the neon lights uh and the signage. But when I look back at when the committee and everyone that was involved in in greeting the marketplace, all the cheretses that were put together, that's exactly what we were looking at looking for. And this is a perfect opportunity for us as a community to showcase what in a lot of commercial areas or retail centers, that's an anchor. It's like a major anchor tenant for the city that will bring people from all over, hopefully all of our residents, but people from all over and come and spend time in our downtown. That's what it was all about and that's what this is all about. So, thank you guys for your efforts. Uh, definitely I'd be in support of this. So, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Levelville. Um, did I miss um do we not have to do that licensing thing anymore or what what's the deal with that the TV? So it we thought it was going to be like $50,000 plus potentially, but it came in at $1,000. Okay, great. And the reason for that is Fox and Telmundo are doing a good thing. In today's world, you don't hear a lot about positivity, but they're taking um instead of charging exorbitant amounts, they're charging um organizations like ours just $1,000 to show them all, and then they're taking all those funds raised and get distributing it to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, which is pretty cool.

Oh, wow. That's great. Um and then I would like to announce that I'm I'm leaving Lee Summit and moving to Smithton and we'll be running for mayor in 2027. Nice. Three wins the legal contest. All right. Thank you. It does have my curiosity up now. Yeah. All right. Council member Rder. Thanks, Mayor. I just wanted to tell you guys great job and give you a thumbs up and go. So, that's it. Thanks.

All right. Thank you. The the events look very fun. I mean, can't wait. I'll be right over there hanging out with you. So, and yard games. I mean, come on. You know, that's what that was built for. So, it's going to be so fun. Line dancing is for Hillary, not me. Council member Prior, thank you. I actually just thought of something because I somebody asked me just a few days ago. Do you guys, and I think you've discussed this before, do you have a place where people in Lee Summit can sign up to volunteer?

Yeah. Yeah. Actually, if you go on the website right now, um I I got to give that committee a lot of accolades because they've done a great job uh on on getting everything pretty pretty much organized around there. So, you can go on, you can register. Uh yeah, there's a QR code on there uh that takes you right to it. And then um a lot of the the information that's on there not only talks about this, but it has links over to even explore lee summit and all the other attractions that are in the area. Perfect. Is there a link from the city's website to this website?

I don't think there's a a current link right now, but given that we're entering into a PSA similar to our other community partners, we can absolutely make that connection. Okay, good. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Um, you know, I being out, you know, around the metro and stuff, I always hear really nice compliments about how um, other communities sometimes want to be Likely Summit. And here's another example. You guys have really role modeled how to do this. Everybody's talking about how well you've done this. So, thank you all. All right. Um, we will go ahead and read the ordinance and discuss it and vote on it. Thank you. Um, this would be uh, Council Member Funk. I'd ask you to read bill number 26-035. Thank you, Mayor. I advanced to second reading bill number 26-035, an ordinance approving a public service agreement between the city of Lee Summit and LS Goal 26, Inc. for the services to be provided to the city in the amount not to exceed $50,000.

Thank you. Do we have a motion to move to second reading bill number 26-035 by Council Member Funk, seconded by Council Member Shields. Discussion. Seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Please record the vote. And it passes unanimously. So, thank you all very much. We'll read it the second time um next week and we'll uh look forward to the World Cup. Um we're on pres uh presentation still. Um we're on 5C which is a city of Lee Summit 2025 crime data trends. Chief Travis Forbes is here. Hey sir.

Thank you Mr. Mayor, council members. Um, this uh started uh with a conversation I had a couple few weeks ago with Mr. Dunning about um uh we got our final uh crime statistics for the year 2025 and uh oh I'm losing part of my audience unfortunately. This is good news folks but uh it it was rather startling to see um uh a significant drop in our our crime statistics. So I was pretty happy to see that. We normally don't present crime statistics every year, but uh Mr. Dunning thought it's nice to share some good news every once in a while. So, that is the reason why I'm here. Um, and there's uh I I tell people all the time that there's lots of reasons for crime fluctuations. So, it's not the police department spiking the ball and saying, "Look what we did." It's it's it's much more complicated uh than that for why crime rises and falls. Um, I do believe we play a role and I I do I'm super proud of the women and men who work for the Lee Summit Police Department who contribute to keeping this community safe, but I also realize there's lots of factors that go into it. So, um, I'll just uh show some of what uh occurred over this last year. This was put together uh by my crime uh analysis team. They do a great job. Uh, and but they they focus quite a bit on u uh what we do in the police department and how we try to address crime. We're really focused on using uh criminal intelligence information to drive what we do. We're big on evidence-based practices and using what works. Uh and um uh really crime analysis has become the engine for our police department and in the future it's going to be even a bigger engine because we're going to uh use the real-time crime center that we hope to open uh this summer once we uh

move our dispatch resources to the new joint operations center uh to really uh increase that to a greater degree. But we use the information that we gain from analysis to uh uh target enforcement to certain areas where we notice crime trends occurring. Working with community um members and our partners and we really have leaned in heavily to technology which has been uh um the council has been a great help to us in helping find resources for us to utilize that technology. and and in fact you'll see some more of that coming before council here in the next few weeks um with some council packets too. Uh crime statistics changed uh across the country here um in the last decade. Used to be uniform crime reporting through the FBI. Now they changed it to national incidentbased uh reporting systems or NYERS which is a different way of reporting crime much more accurate than UCR which had actually been around for decades and was a bit dated. Uh this is actually much more accurate but we can only go back so far and kind of compare ourselves to ourselves to see how it's trended. But um uh person's crimes uh kind of falls into the category of violent crimes trended down 2%. Now we're uh thankfully don't have a significant violent crime rate in Lee Summit anyway. Uh so a 2% drop was pretty significant but then property crime we saw a 17% reduction which kind of floored me. Um we uh we've been pretty flat. Um, we did see a slight decrease in a couple areas last year. Uh, and I attribute a lot of that to efforts with the community to um, make them aware of issues with the autothefts and things of that nature.

Uh, we had the Kia Hyundai problem where some of those vehicles were easy to steal through widely available electronic means that you could look up a YouTube video on how to do it. It was really a big problem across the country, but uh we worked with our community to get that information out there and uh last year that continued down. The the one area where we've really um been focusing in the last few months uh and I'll talk about that more here soon is our retail theft and trying to address that too. So I'll talk about that in a little bit. And then society crime is an odd sounding category, but it's really um uh drug offenses is probably the biggest one here. And uh here's where I'll I'll compare to nationwide crime has dropped significantly as well. So thankfully Lee is not alone in sharing this. Uh but uh the one area where crime did increase in the last year across the country was in uh drug offenses actually went up 7%. And these are still preliminary numbers. They're still collecting data, but this is what they're estimating. It's going to go up. Violent crime was down 9 to 10% and property crime was down 12% they're estimating across the United States last year. So, we uh kind of uh beat the trend in property crimes and we beat the trend in drug offenses as well. So, that was uh refreshing to see. Uh but I do think that uh there's been a good shift across the country. Uh but Lee Summit thankfully is included in that. So overall crime was down 13 1.5%. So some of the other factors that I believe uh helped us was our community. I mean uh people uh don't hesitate to work with the police department and call us and and let us know when something's uh a skew and that's something uh we we uh try to maintain that relationship. It's

very important to us. I will uh do a special call out for the the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office. Uh Melissa Johnson has uh been very responsive and uh has worked with us very well uh since she's been in office. Uh I'll tell I I'll see her Thursday at a meeting and I'll I'll make sure to tell her that. But she's done a very good job, too. We have great community partnerships, for example, with rediscover and our mental health co-responders, our safe passage partners with Lee Summit 7 and our SRO's and our impact program there. So they're a big part of that, too. So that's all part of this equation of different factors that impact crime. And so I think each of that those has a little bit of slice of of what made a difference this year. But looking specific to the police department, uh some of the technology that um has very much helped us and contributed to some significant cases. Uh uh for example, our our license plate readers, our flock system. Uh we um solved a shooting over the last year and several other high-profile cases. In fact, uh there's a pretty famous case that's in the news significantly this year, and I I've read up about it, and I did a little bit of investigating myself, and it sounds like they took down some some uh LPR systems that could have helped there. And uh that's very disappointing. Um, I'm thankful uh that that hasn't happened in our community, but if it if something like that did happen in our community, I feel like we'd be better prepared. We also have uh a drone program currently that um we're looking to expand in the future. We use the heck out of these drones. In fact, one of our drone operators is a canine officer and he gets the uh drone out probably as much as he does his dog. And I think

sometimes the dog looks forlorornly out the window wondering when his turn will be because the the drone's very effective uh to get up when somebody runs from the police or we're searching for a missing person or something like that. Uh and so we're looking to expand that and you'll probably hear about that in the future here too. Uh we also have uh trailer mounted cameras that we've deployed. We deploy them during our festivals downtown, but we also use them out in the community in areas where we uh have been uh advised that there could be construction theft or other issues going on. So, you'll drive by probably sometimes say, "Oh, there's those trailers that they're talking about." And uh I talked about the retail theft issues and our concentration on that. It was just a few months ago that we started our retail theft unit. These are uh right now two uniform officers. We have plans to expand that in the future. Uh that work with our loss prevention folks, some at Bear, Summit Woods, Walmarts, and uh they they formed u a great partnership. We also have detectives who are part of that effort as well. And it's gotten to where loss prevention actually is mirroring the officers schedules because they know when the officers are working now. So they'll they'll put a heavier presence of loss prevention officers on those times that our officers are working in order to uh work collaboratively. And so it's it's been a great success and uh probably has contributed to some of those property crime drops that we've seen and uh just again heavily leaning into additional investigative tools. Um uh it's again I'm I'm never spiking the ball. Our job's never done. We're we're constantly worried about what's coming next and there certainly are some concerns. I've seen uh and heard through intelligence debriefings with our regional partners about terrorism concerns with all the world events that are happening today. The fact that with

the World Cup is getting ready to spin up in this region has our ears perked up significantly to that. We have an evolving landscape of synthetic drugs that we're dealing with. I know some have been been mentioned uh to try to figure out some sort of legislative solution, but I I just attended a meeting Friday where I heard about a couple of new substances that I've never heard mentioned before that are showing up in our schools and other places, too. So, it's going to be very difficult to keep up with that. And as much as we invest in technology, technology is being used to victimize people, too. So, that's a significant issue, including artificial intelligence and things of that nature. So, you know, as always, our our role, I believe, in the the police department is to make our community um uh as resistant to crime as we can. I always say it's like water running downhill. It's going to find the path of least resistance. So, I want to make Lee Summit uh as resistant to that as possible. And uh sometimes we can be a bit of a nuisance because we're always just so safety focused in the police department and the fire department too that we're always looking at things at those lens and and saying this is why we have to do things this way and and we we want to keep people safe. I just never want this community be to be known for some sort of significant crime or event and have that label stick to us because it's it's a great place to live, work, and play. and uh we take that role very seriously and I'm blessed to work with some good officers and and uh civilians to to uh carry that forward. So any uh questions you have about that? I'll take those now.

Okay. Thanks. Thank you, Chief. Um yes, we've got some questions and comments. Council member Shields. Thank you, Mayor. Um I mean, first like thank you. I really appreciate um the hard work that you guys do, the presentation as well, the information. It's um it's very helpful and and I know everybody up here really appreciates the work that you and all your officers are are doing. Um I did have just a couple of questions. Um when you had the statistics, are those like total number of incidents per year or per capita? Like what are what am I looking at in those different bar graphs?

That's a great question and they're actually just total raw incidents compared to last year. And typically I will ask our crime uh analyst unit to do per captive because I think that's actually a fairer way to assess things because as you know the city grows every year. We have more residents moving in. But this that's just flat numbers. So they actually would be better if we applied a per capita formula to Yeah, that's that's really impressive that we're actually we've got more people and less crimes. That's Yeah. and our calls for service actually went up too, but the the crimes didn't follow. It was just calls. Okay. Well, I mean, hopefully that means that folks are engaged and and trust the response and Yeah, absolutely.

I hope so. Um, I guess the other things I want to say weren't really questions, just more comments. I appreciate um a lot of the proactive work that you guys do. Um, I know when I've been like liaison at downtown Main Street, the officer liaison will come in and give little presentation educational stuff about, you know, how to prevent theft out of your car and stuff like that. I know you guys are kind of deploying that all over the place, which is which is great. You know, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? Absolutely.

Um, you know, and then I look at things like the um the retail theft unit that I think that's great. It's both kind of it's reacting to an issue that you see and and responding to it, but also being proactive to try to prevent future issues. So, I think that's a really great thing you guys are deploying. And obviously, I'm a huge fan of the mental health co-responders. So, I'm glad that we're able to have those out there helping you guys. So, um, thank you. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Thank you, Council Member Funk.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, couple quick questions, Chief, and then a couple comments. Um, in your statistics, can you differentiate like crimes committed by people that live in Lee Summit or is it crime people coming from other areas into our city and being the retail theft and things like that? Is that something you guys track?

We can and um I don't have those statistics with me. We have looked at them in the past though. It's it's it's always an interesting breakdown. It's usually about 5050. Uh um and so I don't know what that tells you really. Um, but I don't know if I've looked at them per category of crime or crime type uh to that degree, but our our retail theft officers specifically, they are uh and I I may have talked about this with some of you before, so I apologize, but they they are really specifically looking at uh these targeted groups that are out there uh stealing from not only Lee Summit stores and businesses, but all throughout the metro. It's it people would be kind of surprised at the level of sophistication some of these groups have and and how organized they are to uh both steal and fence and sell goods uh that they'll go to uh certain businesses and know exactly what the most expensive item they can steal is and and uh easily sell on the street. So that's that's what they're looking for. And uh again working with loss prevention we've been able to identify those folks. We're not looking for the teenagers, you know, who steal a pair of earrings on a dare with their friends or something like that. Not that, you know, those folks might encounter some problems with the criminal justice system, too, but that's not what our retail theft folks are after.

So, the landscape, um, there's been a lot of talk crime's way up and it's all caused by multifamily. We're developing too many apartments. Do you see? I mean, obviously, we see the trend that's going down. So, multifamily is not creating an issue. It's just crime in general.

We we haven't noticed that at all. Uh we work very closely with our um apartments and our multifamily areas because we know that just the concentration of people creates a target-rich environment. just like anything, you know, um uh there's more cars, more victims, potential victims who live in an apartment complex. So, we really encourage our rental property owners and we have a good amount of participation in this community in our safe rentals program. We think that's key. Uh we form partnerships with our property managers throughout the community. We let them know when incidents occur. Uh we also work collaboratively collaboratively with them on uh things like good strong lease uh agreements um evictions if necessary for problem tenants. So uh that's a good strong partnership we're pretty proud of and uh we'll continue to work at.

Well, thank you for the presentation and Captain Doo is back there. Absolutely. I I I learned how somebody told me they always said his name wrong and they said just remember Doogie Hower. So they got Doo. So that's all I told them how to remember. But him and his team and the things they do educating our youth on on these synthetic drugs is just amazing and I'm I'm glad I get to play a part in that and and thank you very much for your presentation tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Chief. You know, these uh presentations are really great because um you're engaging with us and you know that we're a public safetyminded council, but it just takes continue continued engagement like this, educating us, letting us know where the numbers are, you know. Um it helps us understand that, you know, hopefully our support helps you do your job and you know, we want to continue that. We want to continue that in the future. You got a new council coming. I'm gonna give you the same speech I gave the the the PSAs which is uh just keep working with them the same way and um we really we really like this brand and we like you know just how much you've made us proud as a council and a city and community. So thank you sir.

Thank you very much. very important to us that we have your trust as well that I know you've invested a lot in technologies that we've used and pay for our in fact you have a a work agreement that you'll vote on tonight um and and adding personnel the public safety sales tax all of these uh we really appreciate it from this body and uh we want to show that we're using the resources that you give us to good effect so hopefully we have done that all right thank you sir

thank Okay. Um, we have one more presentation. Excuse me. This is a called a Southway South Gateway Monument Options. This has been in the works for, to be quite honest, years. Um, I don't know when it really got serious, but it's been serious for some people for years. And so, it's finally here. I'm I'm excited to see this presentation. Mr. Elim. All right. Well, good evening. Ryan Neil, assistant city manager, and uh just like Mayor Barrett said, we're going to talk a little bit about the uh Lee Summit Gateway projects, uh and particularly the Southern Gateway. Uh the goal tonight, what we're looking for tonight is uh we're we're looking for feedback on the final concept plan to take that final concept to final design and into construction, uh ultimately. So, um, tonight with me, you're going to hear from Abby Brown and Lance Johnson from Bartlett and West. Uh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, uh, John Persing, who's with our public horse department, has been kind of leading this project, as well as the work that Sean Marshall did, our our graduate fellow intern before he left us to go, uh, serve at the at Jackson County, has been working on this project as well. So again, tonight very brief overview in history, the location and the next steps, but again, the primary purpose of tonight is to get the council's feedback and direction on the final concept to move forward to that construction phase. Uh so as Mayor Barrett said, this has been around for a while. Uh this is a screenshot from the 2008 Gateway Master Plan. Uh so again, yeah, 2008, um coming up on 20 years that we've had a plan in order to put monuments in place. uh first monument really came on in 2015 and that was this monument here and then we have uh another monument that came on in 2018 that is in this general area

here and now we are looking at one down here uh on the screen here you can see these are the original uh artistic renderings uh from 2008 uh and then as well as the current monuments uh the one right here is the I'll call it the original monument ment I470. Uh that is eastbound at Vuehigh. Uh that was done in 2015. Uh this monument here is the southbound monument southbound 470 at Lakewood Boulevard. That one was completed in 2018. So now as we go to the southern gateway monument, this will be located northbound on 291. Uh you can see this aerial photo here. This is 291 and 150. Uh the generalized location of the new monument. There's what it looks like today. Uh, and again, another image of where this is at. So, um, at at this point with that brief background and introduction, I'm going to turn it over to Abby Brown and Lance Johnson to talk about the public process that has gone in and then start getting the feedback associated with uh with with that. So, with that, I'll turn it over.

Thank you,

Mr. Mayor. Council members, thank you for your time. We'll try to be brief. I know you guys are wanting to get out of here. Uh Lance Johnson, this is my colleague Abby Brown. She leads the the design on this. Um appreciate the time. I'm with we're with Bartlett and West. We're an engineering, architecture, and construction company. We are celebrating our 75th year in business uh this year. And I just wanted to tell you our passion or at least what we enjoy is being your trusted advisor and help helping people design and build things. So, we're we're glad to be here and we're looking forward to this. And uh I found it kind of ironic sitting here watching the other uh digital or the presentations and it's all about social media and branding. And here we are, this started several years ago. We're we're here the same night. We're talking about branding and signage uh for your city. And I did Google to see if Smithton has a monument sign and from what I can tell, according to Google, they do not. So, you're way ahead of the game. But, uh we held a public meeting back in the fall uh to get some input. We wanted to, as you can imagine, trying to come up with something and and see uh what the community and try to get the community's voice on to on on a gateway monument sign uh the challenge and or at least the opportunities that that can present us. Uh we had a public meeting, had good attendance, and we had six boards, six different uh design concepts, and we asked uh everybody that attended if they would take sticky notes and essentially vote uh on the boards and not only just on the concept, but just materials and then anonymously be able to provide their feedback and their input. and we collected those as well as

social media comments through Facebook and and we're here tonight to go through uh a I'm going to turn it over here to Abby here in a minute to kind of go through some of those comments and then how we culminated really in the two that we've got before you tonight. We did meet with the uh Industrial Development Authority board last Friday, presented uh the same presentation to them and received their feedback as well. So, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Abby and then I'll I'll stick around for any questions you might have. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. So, um right here the slide that we're looking at are diff six different concepts that we designed to get feedback on um in the fall and we tried to make them all different to give a variety to show people and get a feel for what direction we should head in for this monument sign. I'm not going to necessarily walk through all six of them, but I'll just point it out a couple of them. In particular, the one on the top left that says Lee Summit and it has the peak and the slope. Um, that one had the most green votes, which were good votes. And a lot of the consensus on that sign was that people like the mix of materials and the modern look. And this is actually one sign that we will be taking forward to another concept. So keep that in mind. You'll see this again soon. The next sign that I'd like to talk about is the one on the bottom left. That is the existing sign. And we've been calling this one the replica. So we'll also be keeping that one in mind as we move forward. And we have taken our own spin on that one. So, it had 18 green votes, four red votes, and a lot of people liked it for the consistency, but maybe thought it might be better to modernize it. The last one in particular that I'll talk about is the one on the bottom right. It was the most fun conversation starter concept that we had. Um, it also had almost the most no or red votes, but again, a lot of people liked it because it was a conversation starter, but maybe not this design in particular. We did not move forward with this concept, but um, it was really great to have people come up and talk about it and get their feedback on it. Okay. So with the concepts that I had just walked

through, we are moving forward with two of them. And we are calling this one the summit. The representation of the summit would be the fact that Lee Summit is the high point between Kansas City and St. Louis. And so we tried to depict that in a modern way in this monument sign. So on the top is a day rendering and then on the bottom is a nighttime rendering. And we're thinking of making sure that we have um good lighting um representative of kind of responding to what's existing at some of the monument signs but upgrading that and then um maybe with some more modern material and some plantings. Um the monument sign does have to be 50 ft away from the road. That's a um requirement that we've been given. So this is the second version of this summit. Um it's just a flat top. So there was feedback that we should have either option and so this is literally the same concept but flat top. It kind of defeats the purpose of the summit but you know for consistency we're keeping the name. I'll move on to the next concept which is called the replica. So you can see we've taken some of the same elements of the existing sign and there is an image of it on the right and we've extorted some of the um I guess massings in it but kept the same sign. The idea with this one is to potentially maybe have that LS logo be able to be replaced as the logo might change in the future if there's any updates along that. So then the monument sign can stay the same with the option of interchanging the logo out. And again, you'll see on the top is the daytime rendering and the

bottom is the nighttime rendering. This is the next version of the replica and we're calling this one without the arch. So it's literally the same thing but without the arch on top. Um, just to note on all of the concepts, we do have landscaping around the bottom of the monument to kind of protect the lighting um, from mowers, etc. Um, so that's something that we've been thinking about as well. Um, I guess the next and final slide is this one. You want to hit on that one?

Yeah. So I think at this point before we start talking about the timeline moving forward um like to just have brief conversation on any preference for moving forward on these options here and we can flip back and forth through this. Um I will say the IDA's comments uh the the IDA really seemed to as a whole prefer the consistency aspects of the replica with the arch. Uh there were some comments about making sure that Lee Summit was maybe a little bit bigger so you could it was really important that you could see Lee Summit uh kind of throughout there. Uh and then I'll say the second would have been the the summit with the peak. They really like the idea that Lee Summit was so bold as well as the way that the lighting interacted with it at night because of how it was set back. Um but on a whole I would say that the IDA's feedback was generally consistency was important. Um, okay. And just one more detail just for we we mentioned the IDA and I forgot to mention this, but the IDA is a funding partner in this. Uh, back in no, uh, gosh, I forgot the date. Um, back earlier this year, we did enter into a funding agreement with the IDA and the IDA is funding a quarter of this project.

All right. Thank you. All right. U, I'll open it up for discussion. Council member Carlile.

Thank you, Mayor. So I would say that I have to agree with IDA. I do like um the replica the consistency of it. My concern um is that the the Lee Summit with overgrown vegetation or what have you might disappear on that. Um, the other two are kind of way up high on a hill, so it's easy for that lease summit to not get covered up, but I think, you know, something that's not so far up um might have a little more issues. So, that that would be my only concern with this one. Um, but out of the rest of of everything that you have, that that's my favorite. So, that's my vote. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Shields.

I agree with Council Member Carlo. I like the replica with the Arch. It's nice to kind of keep consistent with the other ones so that we have sort of a consistent brand. Um, if they want to tweak it and make the Lee Summit bigger, that's fine. Um, yeah, I like that. Nice. Thank you, Council Member Hodes.

Yeah, I would agree with my fellow council members. Um, I think that the replica with the arch depicts more of who we are. Um, whereas I feel like the first one is, yes, more modern, but I don't feel like that depicts who what we look like once you're in our city. Um, I like that we stuck to brick on this one, which depicts a lot of what our buildings are. So, I think it just looks more classy. So, that that too would be my vote. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Rider. Thank you, Mayor. Um, on the vegetation, uh, Council Member Carlile brought up a good point that that will have to be maintained.

So, so I would say I I I like the replica a lot. That's my favorite one, but I I don't know about the vegetation. I'd be a little worried about that because it's it's just going to be hard. It's one more thing we have to take care of. So, I would say cut that. Which one do you Which one do you prefer, Council? Oh, I'm sorry. Same one. Same one. You You chose the arch. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. Mayor Bar can. Yes.

Sorry. Since we're on the the vegetation discussion, I thought I'd add a little uh insight. So, with the the north monument sign, um we have an arrangement through I want to say it's a license agreement. And I'm going to look at Michael Park to allow for us as the city to enhance the level of maintenance on MDOT rideofway. So we do take and mow that more often than MDOT's typical is it three times a year, Michael. So we'll do that monthly uh through this arrangement um to keep the vegetation down. That is something we could do in this instance as well just working through MODOT and the appropriate approvals. So I just wanted to mention that And one thing that I will add is that comment with the um possible weeds growing up to cover the sign or the text that says Lee Summit has been brought up in previous meetings and we've discussed that we would probably make the text that actually says Lee Summit a little bit bigger and off the ground a little bit more um to keep in mind the height of some weeds that could grow. We were thinking of having the minimum bottom line of those letters be about 3 feet plus off the ground. And then if we do put some um accent plantings, we can make sure that those don't grow to a certain height. Um that is something that we are being very aware of.

Yeah. Yep. Thank you, Council Member Levelville. I agree with everybody. Um I do like what you said. I I do I thought it was cool. Um, I didn't like the summit. I thought it looked like the Golden Gate Bridge, but I did like how that Lee Summit popped there like when you're driving by it at night. So, if there was a Yeah. I mean, obviously not that big. So, I think what you said there, if we can make that and then I love the idea that we can replace that logo at some point. Good gracious. Not my favorite. Our logo. Yep. Yeah. Very free up here these days. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Funk.

The replica with the arch. Sir, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Prior. Thank you. Well, it's kind of pointless that I even say this because I'm the odd man out, but I like the first one the best, but I like the arch one is my second favorite. So, thanks. Okay. Thank you, Mayor Tim. Just for the record, I'll do the replica at the arch. So, I'm good. With native planning, all right, there's quite a bit of consensus there. What do you like, man?

I I like the I like the peak, the summit, but that's I just think that's symbolic. But I understand the consistency. I just think that uh being a sign person cuz my living depends on that kind of stuff. Um you want to be able to see the name and so even if even if you don't have the like even if there's not um landscape that covers it up overgrown that it doesn't you know lease summit doesn't it's it's it's going to be challenged to see driving 55 to 70 miles an hour. But it's it's a cool sign.

All right. Well, I think the the feedback's pretty good. I think that you've probably got enough to go on for the final design. Uh and so with that, I'm just kind of recapping replica with the arch. Uh keep the landscaping trimmed up. Uh and signs going to get a little bigger. Uh letters are going to get a little bit taller. So you can make sure that you can see that moving forward. Uh just a little bit more on the timeline. Tonight we're here at the wrapping up the design process. Uh but now the project's going to move really quickly. Uh we're going to move essentially we'll have a a GMP price to for final approval. Uh and then we'll look to go into construction and um coming up here in April, May uh in construction over the summer. Uh not expect anticipating a very long construction time frame. So this will be completed uh early this summer moving forward. So thank you.

Thank you. And thank you Mr. Johnson, Miss Brown for your hard work. Okay. Uh, please read bill number 26-037. Thank you, mayor. I move for second reading. Bill number 26-037, an ordinance approving the 2026 labor agreement by between the city of Lisum, Missouri and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge number 50 and authorizing city manager to execute the same buy and on behalf of the city. Thank you. Have a motion to move to second reading. Bill number 26-037 by Council Member Shield, seconded by Council Member Carlile. Mr. Mr. Dunning, what it's kind of a big deal. What should we say?

Well, so uh this is a renegotiated uh collective bargaining agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police. And it's a three-year agreement establishes the the new wage tables and pay for our uh represented members. And so this is something that uh occurs as we enter into these agreements as they come up on uh their expiration and we go back into negotiations. So this is a fully ne negotiated and we understand that the FOP has ratified this. So it's all set for approval. Okay. And what's the what's the terminology? Attraction, retention, and attraction, retention, and equipping our our uh public safety folks with the tools that they need.

This is both the the attraction and the retention part. Hu hugely beneficial in that. And if we're going to be a public safetyminded council, this is this is how you how you do that. Yes. All right. Thank you, sir. Any discussion? All right. Seeing none, please cast your vote. All votes are in, please record the vote. And it passes unanimously. Goes to second reading. All right. Committee reports. Council member Shields.

Thank you, Mayor. Um we had finance and budget committee yesterday. We had a really great kind of um health insurance 101 presentation and some good discussion just generally about um how our insurance policies have been working, what kind of loss ratios they've been seeing, what some options are going forward. And I believe the plan is to bring that to full counsel for um as we looked at sort of like level setting sort of make sure that we all are starting with the same base of knowledge as we kind of go into these discussions and what's probably going to be a multi-year process to slowly transition towards more of a self-insured style. So I think that'll come back sometime in April or May maybe to the full council. Yeah, there was a discussion I recall about, you know, uh getting through the elections and then kind of starting fresh with uh where we at and where are we headed and what's what's the what's the plan

and to provide the same education to any new council members that we might um have. That's correct. So, um, so that'll be coming forward. And then we also, um, had an ordinance on the agenda that I guess will be coming to council maybe next meeting about the municipal court audit to, uh, slightly increase their scope of services so they can present their findings directly to the council. Am I quoting that correctly? That's correct. Okay. So, um, I know we've all been interested in that topic and and they should be coming, the audit firm would be coming to present their findings directly to us and help walk us through those. Correct. That's correct. Okay. So, lots of exciting stuff at finance and budget as always. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.

Other committee reports. Council comments. Okay. Staff round table. Thank you, Mayor. A few items to share. Um, so we are proceeding forward with the Douglas Street improvement projects on the north side between Chipman and Second Street. And so as part of that project, it involves um taking care of some trees. Uh and if you may recall, there are certain times of the year where tree clearing shall not occur. So uh that that comes upon us sometime in April. So this is kind of advanced awareness that there will be some tree clearing that will be taking place uh on that North Douglas uh project uh in the in the coming days and weeks ahead. Um let's see. And also seemed I had one other item. Lost my train of thought. Oh, um just listening intently to the public comments regarding um the the claims that uh the city is not supporting um you know employees and seeking attention when they need them with regards to health. And and I would just say that uh I take that very seriously. I I and I know that our uh fire department takes that very seriously even to the extent that we're proud of our peer support groups that we have in place and I know that Chief Snyder represents us very well at the state level in the critical illness pool and in many other areas and we're very very keen to those needs and so I I I guess I would just say I don't uh agree with some of those statements as your city manager. With that, mayor, uh that's all I have.

Thank you. Um, Council Member Carlo. Thank you, Mayor. Um, just real quick, Mr. Dunning, about the trees on Douglas, what are we going to do with those? I'm going to phone a friend. Thank you. As to what the uh what takes place with with that?

Yeah. Thank you, Michael Park, director of public works. appreciate creating the community awareness because you will see start to activity, but the project's not starting yet. And it's because we have a seasonal um limitation on when we can take trees down. So, it's not just happening on Douglas, but you may see tree removals like out at Warden Purscels or on other development sites. We're all under the same uh regulations. And what we will do is we will cut them down on Douglas in this case. We'll cut them down. We'll grind the stumps. We'll remove everything uh so it's a cleaned up site. and other areas of town where it may not be as visible, the requirement is just to literally cut the tree down and sometimes it will lie there until the the construction begins. So, as long as the tree is is not vertical, it's cut down, we have eliminated the habitat that's of concern and allows us to then continue work during the other seasons uh when we're not allowed to cut down trees.

Okay. So, after we cut them down and either lay them or don't lay them, then what happens to them? Well, in this case on Douglas, they will be ground up, removed from the site, taken to a landfill or other acceptable location. So, we don't we don't turn them into mulch and sell it through our or let our parks use it because mulch is expensive or dump it in a landfill somewhere. Well, some of the brush we do go through recycling, but uh in this case, our contractor will cut it down. It'll grind out the stumps, remove those wherever they take them. I would not be surprised if they take them to a resource recovery park operation where it's ground up made into mulch, but

Okay. Well, you can just if I see them, I will ask them. So, you can let them know that I will be asking. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Uh we're going to read into close session. So, all of you have a Thank you for sticking with us tonight. Um, council member Shields, would you please?

Yep. Uh, pursuant to section 610211 of the revised statutes of the state of Missouri pertaining to legal actions, causes of action or litigation involving the public governmental body and any confidential or privilege communication between a public government body or its representative and his attorneys in pursuant to section 610219 of the revised statutes of the state of Missouri pertaining to preparation including any discussion of work product on behalf of public governmental body or its representatives for negotiations with employee groups. I move to enter close session. Second. Thank you. We have a motion to go into close session by council member Shields, seconded by council member Carlile. Discussion. Seeing none, could I get a roll call vote, please? Council member Funk. I, Council Member Levelville, I. Council member Prior, I. Council member Carlile.

Hi. Member Rder. Hi. Council member Hodges. Hi, Council Member Shields. Hi,

Mayor Prom Lopez. Mayor Baird. Hi. Everyone, have a good night. Hey, do Hey, Hey everyone.