City Commission - Regular Meeting

in the March 24th City Commission work session. Will you please take the roll, Jerry?

Mayor Adam Schak. Here. Commissioner McCullough.

Here.

Commissioner Fox. Here. Commissioner Morrison. Here. Commissioner von Lennel. Here. Mayor, we have a quorum.

Thank you. Will you please rise and join me in saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you Commissioners any items of interest or news you would like to comment on There's a couple of things that I thought the public might want to know one is that The city was recognized by the Arbor Day Foundation as a 2025 tree city. So we are one of communities across the whole country that appreciate the importance of trees and maintaining them for our environment. We also were recognized by Site Selection Magazine as one of the top 10 tier three cities. This is a magazine, a source that is used for citing economic development projects. And it recognizes that we are in the top 10 in the country in recruiting new businesses here. And the announcement cites the collaboration between the city, the Department of Commerce, Department of Commerce, our Chamber of Commerce, sorry, our Chamber of Commerce, the city, university, and other governmental and educational entities. Before Director Johnson makes a comment, I would like to just note that I received a compliment from local citizens who live west of Lee School, and their streets were recently swept and apparently the street sweeper made three passes over the street and even climbed down out of the cab in order to check that storm drains were indeed clear. So again, we frequently hear more negative comments about our streets and street maintenance team, and I'd like to acknowledge the positive work that's being done as well.

Thank you.

So, Brian, just before you start, we... Commissioners, if we wish to allow public comment, is there a motion to do so?

I'll move.

Sorry.

Okay.

Jared?

Commissioner McCullough? Yes. Commissioner Fox? Yes. Commissioner Morrison? Yes. Commissioner Von Linel? Yes. Mayor Adamczak? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you.

All right. Our first item will be an update on the pavement condition index and... ideas for future street maintenance.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor, Commissioners, Brian Johnson, Director of Public Works. Before we jump into the streets, I just want to remind the public and everyone that spring cleanup is coming. It's right around the corner. It's about a week and a half away. Monday, April 6th, it'll start, run through the week through Friday, April 10th. We do have the city broke up into five quadrants. You'll actually see these five quadrants when we look at our street maintenance also, because we have the same five quadrants. Got a couple of slides of what we will pick up and what we won't pick up. We always have some issues every year with stuff that's not close enough to the curb, so we won't pick it up. But from last year, our 2025 totals, 514 dump truck loads, 325 tons of debris. Total cost, about $150,000. That's about what it runs every year. I'm anticipating that to be much higher this year because diesel is our biggest cost, and that's starting to get close to $5 a gallon. We have 30 vehicles involved, four skid loaders, 11 dump trucks. We actually borrow some dump trucks from our friends in Parks and Works, so I want to give Aaron a shout-out. He also loans us a grapple truck, as well as about four to six people. So it is public works, but it's also the entire city, so we have lots of departments that help us out on that. So that will be April 6th. Couple of things, this is stuff that we won't pick up. You can see here, somebody's parked in front of that pile, so we won't go up into the yard and get that. Same thing if it's boxed like this, we won't pick it up. This box actually had some asphalt shingles in it. We can't pick that up. That's actually garbage debris. Here we have some bags that are up by the house. Again, they need to be down here by the curb. And then here we've got some piles up by the deck. Our employees do not leave the street for liability issues, broken sprinkler heads, broken sprinkler lines, broken sidewalks, broken driveways. They will not go past the curb. So make sure you get everything to the curb so we can pick it up and haul it off. One other item this year, the transfer station is under construction. They're doing quite a bit of work down there. So we're anticipating some delays. We hope that it doesn't go into the second week, but please check our social media sites. We will be posting nightly on the progress of the cruise and if we're gonna keep on schedule through that week. The other day, we dumped some stuff down at the transportation. It was about a 30 minute wait for that vehicle. So we're talking with the county to see if there's maybe some workaround we can do so we don't have to stop and wait each vehicle. They're looking into it. There might be some workarounds, but as of now, we're anticipating some delays on that. Any questions? Okay, thank you.

Brian, just to be clear, you say you won't go past the curb, but yet I see piles of debris right on the curb. Yes, so this machine here... You'll go past the curb three or four feet.

Yeah, this machine here will actually reach into and over the curb, grab it, and pull it out. Correct. So street maintenance, here to talk about that tonight. We just recently got the Pavement Condition Index report back from ISS, a company in Dallas that has done our street maintenance condition in the last 10 years or so. We just got that back and we're gonna give you an update on it tonight. Some good news and bad news in that report. We're doing some things that are pretty positive. There are some things that we are having some funding challenges also. So lots of information, lots of data, but we're going to go through it tonight and then get some direction. So here's our agenda. I do want to talk about the gas tax and the funding that has remained flat for the last 25 to 30 years. Some review of the remaining street maintenance items from 25. We do have some contracts still from 25 that we're working on. We have a couple of contracts that we've let in 26. I do want to review the final year of streets, what we anticipate doing. Then we'll get into the PCI and the report, and then we'll look at a one to three year and a five year strategy, and then also a funding strategy at a .5. Just a quick index of terms. Like all reports, there's lots of terms that I wanted to make sure everybody was up to speed on. PCI is Pavement Conditioned Index 1 to 100, 100 being the best. Deflectometry, which is a type of test that is run for the pavement. Special Street Maintenance Fund, SSMF, Special Street and Highway. Special Street Maintenance Fund is solely sales tax. That's the .2. Special street and highway is gas fund tax. General fund obviously is a fund whose revenue is derived unrestricted property tax, sales tax, and other revenues. Lane mile is a measurement of a street that consists of one lane in width by a mile long. backlog, so that's the streets whose PCIs are less than 40, and those are the ones that require a complete repair. They're also the ones that are the most expensive to maintain. Those are the ones that are putting the most potholes down and doing the most patching, easy for me to say. And then we have arterials, collectors, and locals, so measurement of a street's hierarchy in the transportation network. Arterials are Blumont, Anderson, Kimball, Collectors would be Hudson and Reith, and then locals are what you drive on to get to your neighborhood. So street funding background and gas tax. So for decades, federal, state, and gas tax generated enough revenue to pay for new roadways and maintain the roads we had. The first gas tax was about 1930-ish. It was raised about every five to 10 years. The last time it was raised was 1993 at the federal level and 2004 at the state level. 1993, it was 18.4 cents at the federal level. Since then, just the CIP inflation has been 124%. So your buying power with that gas tax is about 40% of what it was in 1993. 2004, the state of Kansas raised theirs to 24 cents. That's about a 72% factor of inflation since 2004. So you've got about 60% buying power. Both of those have not been raised since then. There's not even a lot of talk about it being raised, so I don't see that as a viable option. Cities cannot impose gas tax. That's only a state and federal entity. So in total, when you go to the pump, you're paying about 42 cents in Kansas for gas tax. And that rates us in about the mid-30s. We're about 32, 33. 50 being the lowest gas tax, one being the highest. We're about 32, 33, 34. We're right in that range. The issue is more miles are driven every year last year was no exception to that But gasoline use is flat or has been lowering because of better miles per gallon in vehicles We also have the electrical vehicle issue that's out there also so due to flatter declining gas tax funding dozens of cities lots of them all around the country have turned to sales tax to support street maintenance and 65 cities actually in Kansas and counties have implemented a sales tax for streets. This is just a swath of them that I pulled from some research that Wichita State has done. Similar sized cities, similar sized budgets, but this is what they charge. The one thing to notice is we're actually the lowest at a .2. Everybody else on this list is significantly higher. So from the 2015 pavement study, that study recommended about $4 million per year in repair, about 49% coming from sales tax at $2 million, about a million from the general fund to fund our people and materials, and then about 1.1 million out of Special Street Highway. Just with CIP inflation, that 2015 is about $5.5 million today, just to keep up with CIP inflation. Yes?

You're saying CIP, but is it CPI? I'm sorry.

Yes, it is CPI. I apologize.

No, that's right. I just wanted to make sure I knew what you were...

Oh, I did put in CIP, I'm sorry. Yes, it is CPI, I apologize. And for 2026, our expenditures as of now, what we budgeted is about 3 million out of special street maintenance fund, about 1.1 million out of special street and highway, and then about 1.3 in general fund for personnel. So these are the streets that we completed in 25 and some streets that we have left. Orange is what was completed. We have some blue up in Candlewood that just has recently been completed. We have some more touch-up work to do there. Allen Road, some work over there yet to be done. Some cul-de-sacs down in Miller Ranch. Browning, or I'm sorry, Hudson has just recently started. And then a little piece up at Vanesta. Any questions on background to yet? OK, I'll go on to 2026 then. So for this year's maintenance again, we've kind of broken the city out into five zones and kind of what we are estimating to do this summer. With $3 million out of sales tax. We have some work. I showed you this map a couple weeks ago. Got some work down in Miller Ranch. I got some work up on Juliet 11th St. as well as Highland and Browning, and then some work up at Butterfield. So we're anticipating that to be about $3 million. We have not set work yet out of Special Street and Highway because last year we didn't get our check from the federal government till October. So I'm a little cautious to bid that until I have the money in hand. I'm hoping we get it, we typically get it about April. I'm hoping to get it about April so we can do some work this summer. But again, last year we didn't get it till October.

Brian, I have two questions. Do you mind if I?

Oh, yeah, jump in.

So there's a lot of work being done on these residential streets up and off Amherst. Amherst itself is in pretty rough condition right now. Yes, it is. Is that going to be part of this project, or is that?

No, we don't have the money to go that far.

Could we at least get some patching done?

Yeah, we'll patch it and try to band-aid it along. You can see all the red in here and all the red throughout the area. I don't disagree with the need. I've been up there and looked at the streets too. There's no argument with that. And it's actually in the one- to three-year plan. As we get farther along in the presentation, we do have quite a bit of work done in that area in that one- to three-year.

And then you just mentioned being reluctant to put projects out to bid right now given the current. financial situation. Can you give us just an overview of what tasks is our street department doing versus what is contracted out and maybe proportional

sure no that's a great question so our street department is going to be working up in the state streets so up in this area this summer last year they did all of Hobbs Road in front of the elementary school and they're going to work in this area this summer those are all concrete streets they'll be doing concrete removal and replacement again this year as well as some patching Last year, they worked in that area over the summer because when schools come back or when university comes back, the area gets really crowded, so we try to get out of that area. After that, we'll probably head to some locals. We got some work up in Tataracs we're looking at doing this fall, as well as some work towards, oh, this area out here around the wreath, between the wreath and such child. That's the plan for the summer. They just sent me a list this afternoon of kind of what their schedule is. But typically we'll go around the university, in the info district, all of those areas during the summer when the kids are gone. So here's a quick graph of the total money spent per year on all funding on the streets, on street repair. Started in 2016. Obviously we didn't have the sales tax then. 2017 we'd only had about a half a year collection and then 2018 we had that first full year. So you can see as we go along 2021, 22, 23, 24, 25, you can see how that special street and highway is getting smaller as we go out because our buying power is less. And then also the general fund reductions throughout those. Sales tax covers about 80% of all of our street repair today. So here's a 10-year completion map back to 2015, kind of what that last map was showing, 2015 to 2024. In total, it's about $51 million. The orange is what was funded out of special street and highway funds. So that would be your gas tax. The blue is what was funded by sales tax. And that's the entire 10-year process or 10-year program from special street maintenance fund. Then yellow, it's kind of hard to see, but yellow, that's what our street divisions have done here, here, over here, here, in this area, quite a bit down here. Did quite a bit of work on casement down in the infro a little bit. The yellow is kind of hard to see, but quite a bit of work around the city also. Again, When school's out, we try to get around the school in Pro District, West Campus, those areas, and then during the fall, we'll go out, get into the local residentials quite a bit more. So one thing that has really been a problem for us is our cost increases throughout specifically the last four or five years. The first five years from 16 to 20, costs were pretty flat, and I think everybody would kind of agree to that. Pre-COVID inflation was pretty low. Since then, obviously, you can see it's skyrocketed quite a bit. 2021 was the first year we saw some big growth, 22, 23, 24, and 25. We started at about $110 a ton for asphalt, about $58 a square yard for concrete, averaged about a 7% growth rate for asphalt and about a 9% growth rate for concrete, while our revenues have grown about 2.5%. So obviously, as time goes on, we're able to do less and less while we're spending the same amount of money. Any questions on those before I go one more, start talking about the report? Okay, so this is the report that we just got. Pavement condition index, numerical index between 0 and 100. It's used to get a general condition of the pavement. Statistical measurements requires manual survey of the pavement, calculate type, severity, and density of deficiencies. The city contracted with ISM to review our PCI and recalibrate our model. The draft report is complete. We have reviewed it. Final report indicates somewhere between six and eight million per year is what should be spent on the street repair to increase the PCI. And I got some more information on that as we move along. So here is our pavement service quantities, so this is the miles of roadway we have out there. 66% of our lane miles are local, about 335 lane miles total. Collectors are about 66, that's about 26% of our overall, and our PCI on our local is 54, that's what this number is here. PCI is 66 on collectors, so that's our 26% of all of our lane miles are collectors, and the PCI on those are 66. Have about 129 lane miles of those total. Arterial PCI is a 78, and that's about 8% of our total network. Total is about a 60 on the PCI. We have about 500 lane miles total. In 2015, it was like 465 lane miles, so we've added about 35 lane miles in the last decade. But you can see the corresponding PCI, 54, 66, 78, gives us a total of 60. Now the good news in this graph is arterials and collectors are incredibly more expensive to fix than locals. So the higher PCI on those shows that we have been dedicating some resources to those roadways, and it's showing up in the PCI index with a 78 and a 66. Locals are less expensive to maintain and repair, but there's a lot more of them. So it's kind of a way scale there. So our definitions and standards, PCI values versus road conditions. So 100 to 85 is excellent. 85 to 70 is very good. 70 to 60 is good. And this is the area we want to be in, is the 70 to 60. 65 to 70 would be very good to be in that range. Again, we're at about a 60. Below that then you get the fair and marginal, and then again anything below 40 is poor and very poor, and that's in that backlog report that you'll see here in just a second. So again, definitions and standards. Your backlog here is your 40 and less. These are the rows that you get all the calls about. They're hard to drive down, lots of potholes. We spend lots of time patching them. Putting asphalt in them trying to fix them keep them passable This backlog is what really drives a lot of the phone calls and a lot of the complaints It's also very expensive to fix because it's a full rebuild Got 25% here in the 40 to 55 25% and fair 21% and satisfactory and 10% and good So overall in that fair category being the highest is good. That's a good information and that's a good sign that the highest bar chart is in the good category. And then here's some examples of what those ratings look like. So here is under 40. This would be a full replace and rebuild. This would be under 40 backlog. This would be a 40 to 60. You can see some pitting. some alligator cracking, but overall in decent shape. This would be good. And then this would be very good. So that gives you kind of a visual of how you see, again, the under 40 backlog is what really drives the complaints and it drives the cost. You can see how many times we've patched and repaired this one. We've got patch all over the place, trying to get it to stay. Whereas these have very little work to them. The maintenance is a lot cheaper on those.

Did you go back? Yes. Is that Grandview?

This is Grand Mirror.

Oh, Grand Mirror, yes. But Grandview's not a giant hole. Yeah, I see.

Yeah, it's actually looking better. I think we just opened it about a week ago. Okay, so for 2025, our PCA data, again, this is network-wide, so this is the whole 500 lane miles. Arterials, again, are 78. Collectors, again, are 66, and the locals are 53. These were driven in June, and we did about $4.5 to $5 million of street repair last year. I think that these numbers are going to bump a couple when we run our new model January 1st, but that's what these were on June. So again, locals, lots of locals in this poor and very poor, lots of collectors moving more to the right in that fair and satisfactory category. And then arterials are in pretty good shape here, quite a bit in good and quite a bit in satisfactory.

So when you say it's going to bump, is that a good sign or a worsening sign?

No, that's a good sign. That PCI will come up, I think, a couple points because we drove them in June. So this is a breakdown between asphalt and concrete. Asphalt's about 40% of our network. Concrete's about 60%. So when you look at the global network, about a 40-60 split. Currently, asphalt network is in a 60 condition with an 18 backlog. Concrete's a 59 with an 18 backlog. So comparatively speaking, they're both in pretty decent shape, and they're both at about the same point in the scale. One has not been favored over the other. Questions on that graph?

Could you just discuss the differences between asphalt and concrete and what makes some of them good because it seems to me usually asphalt it's quicker when you have to fix things up and concrete you know and So like Grandview Terrace they put in all that concrete would Asphalt not have worked So asphalt is quicker

It's cheaper only if you're doing a mill and overlay. If you have to do a full depth, they'll weigh out about the same price. Asphalt usually just a touch higher.

But if you put in a concrete street instead of an asphalt street, in 15 years when you have to replace it, you can't just do a mill and overlay. You've got to take all that concrete.

Your asphalt street should make more than 15 years, or your concrete street should make more than 15 years. You should see 30 to 40 out of those. Well, Grandview. When was Grandview? 1960s? So that's 60 years old?

Yeah.

You wouldn't have made that with an asphalt street.

Okay.

A lot of it depends on... They're both a tool in the toolbox. They both have their pluses and minuses. If you're... Going back to mill and overlay, it's a lot quicker and a lot cheaper, but if you have to do that full-depth, full-base repair like we did on Anderson west of Seth Child a couple years ago, that's pretty expensive, because asphalt typically is thicker than concrete, typically three to four inches thicker, and asphalt street will be 12 inches, 12 to 14 inches, and then it'll have a thicker rock base, because asphalt won't carry weight like concrete will, so you have to have more support for it.

It just seemed like Anderson constantly, they were taking out little patches here and little patches there and making everybody drive, you know, not what we're doing there right now, but it just seemed, you know.

Yeah, and that's not because of the concrete, that's because of utilities. That job, the Anderson job that's underway now,

No, I meant what we'd done in the past. That was definitely replacing the concrete, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But you did put asphalt in by Denison.

Correct, yes. Denison was an asphalt street. We milled it and overlaid it. Did some base repair on it and then overlaid it, yes.

Okay. Ryan, are there – Any efforts to do joint replacement on some of the streets? I'm thinking of points coming down from the high school. The pavement's generally in pretty good shape, but the joint down the middle is growing deeper and deeper.

Yeah, so we did some joint replacement on Kimball and on Anderson and on Vanesta within the last 10 years. The cost to have those redone is the same cost as doing the entire panel. so at vanesta we did went ahead and we did the full panel uh what we found was that those joints don't hold together real well when you cut them real narrow the the joint starts failing on anderson and vanesta we might have got another five or six years out of it but we didn't get that long You could look at maybe doing some joint repair and then doing an asphalt overlay, but by the time you pay for that, you probably could do a full depth anyway. So we have looked at that in the past. We actually had our crews do it, do some night work several years ago on Kimball, doing those patches and it just didn't seem to last very long. They only made it about four or five years. So I want to talk about this graph for a minute because It's telling us several things, and I want to make sure we understand this. This is our five year post rehab PCI analysis. So what this graph is telling us is how much we spend per year and how much higher we can raise the PCI. So if we spend $4 million a year for five years, our PCI will be about a 60, which is about where it is today. spend five and a half, spend five and three quarters, spend seven. And that graph goes up accordingly. Now, the one thing I do want to notice, though, is that even at a $7 million range here, our backlog is still 17%. And I'll get into that in a minute, because that will help explain how the model works. This is our backlog results. 4 million is about steady state, 5 million, 6 million, and then 7 million keeps us about steady state. Again, about that 17%. So what are these two graphs telling us? Well, a couple of things. Historically the model has underrepresented the cost of what it's going to take to repair the streets And that's kind of what your backlog is telling you here Because our backlog is growing even though we're spending seven million dollars a year and our PCI is getting better our backlogs are getting worse, so That's kind of giving you an indication that the model is Maybe under representing out years to Backlog should be about 12 or less. So because it's 17, it's telling you that your future costs are gonna go way higher because that backlog is growing. Anytime that backlog is growing, it's telling you that you're doing deferred maintenance. Three, general fund and special street and highway, this graph doesn't take into account those two funding sources. And as those two go less in out years, as they drop in value in out years, this was going to get bigger also, which is what that's telling us. The other thing it's telling us is the model's number one purpose of the model is it's trying to raise the PCI as fast as it can, as cheap as possible. So what it's doing, the model is picking cheaper streets to repair, and that's why our backlog is growing. So if we want to attack our backlog, we're going to have to generate more than $7 million. That's what these two graphs are telling us. You can, but your PCI will go down then. And Commissioner, that's the decision we make every year. Do we attack backlog or do we attack PCI? And that's why as accurate as the model is, remember the model's number one goal is to raise the PCI. So it's gonna pick streets that are in this area to rehab, because again, rehab is much cheaper than a full rebuild. It's picking streets in this area to raise for less money, and it's letting these go to zero. Does that make sense on how the model's working?

We need a new model, maybe she's outdated.

Well, the model either focuses on PCI or backlog. the blend would be our interpretation and yes that's why no matter what the model tells you that's why you have to understand how the model works and then you have to make recommendations based on how that model's showing you how it works which is why when we pick streets every year when we pick these streets Yes, we look at what the model's telling us, but we also look at what the backlog's telling us. We're doing both things. We don't let the computer pick every single street that we do every year. Does that make sense now?

So which one do you tend to lean towards, the backlog?

We tend to lean towards the PCI, but we always make for sure that we have reserve funds for backlog, because your backlog's not going to get better if you don't address it. But that's why you don't let your model pick your streets every single year. The other thing the model does is it doesn't care where it's at in the city. So the backlog, the model might pick one block in Miller Ranch, one block in the Infra District, one block in Northview, and one block in Grand Mirror. It doesn't care where it's picking because it's picking segments. We don't let it do that because it costs a lot of money to move people all over the city. Does that also make sense? Okay. Any questions about either one of those two graphs? They are telling us a lot of information and there's a lot of information in there, but I want to be careful with if we just generate $7 million, life is good.

So what percentage is going towards backlog? I mean, do you have like a rough?

No, we don't set us a percentage. We pick it every year.

Bryant, could you just explain the terms you're using in the box? I think I got it, but I would just like some clarification.

In this box, Commissioner? Yeah. So yeah, so just take the $7 million budget with the dashed red. Here's our dashed red. Maintain current backlog of a 17. Annual budget is $6.96 million. Our final PCI goes to a 67. It's about a 60 now. which is what this graph is. This is your PCI graph. So this graph tells you how your PCI is gonna go up based on the amount of money that you spend. But I wanna make for sure that the public and the commission understand that even though your PCI is going up, your backlog is getting bigger.

So basically are these, the lines that are represented here are the variable models that you've put into?

With funding, correct. So we ran million and a half, which is basically just special street and highway. That would be if we had no sales tax. We ran a four million, which is what we spend today. We ran a five and a half million, which is what the CPI is today for that four million in the original budget. Then we ran a six and a seven.

Cut to the chase. What do we need to really be doing to get us somewhere in the next 10 years where everybody's at least acceptable?

It's coming. I got some slides down below. You'll see a recommendation in just a minute.

I like shortcuts.

I want to make sure everybody understands the background on how the model works. Okay. So again, we've got our 60 PCI as of June 2025. It's probably a couple points higher than that because we did work on Walters, we did work on Vanesta, did work on Scenic, several places around the city. But it's showing us 60 as of June. Again, here's our five street maintenance zones, and those are gonna be important in just a minute because I'm gonna explain why we divided into five.

Why is this labeled as potential? Is it a change from your current map?

Because I'm looking for a direction in just a second on if this is the plan.

Brian if I'm correct, this would be a potential street maintenance plan If there's an opportunity for us to renew that sales tax and moving forward in the next three to five years or so So that's why it's potential.

Yeah, I interpreted it as potential Zones not potential maintenance. Oh, okay. So I thought you were altering the map No, I understand.

Yeah No This would be a potential program. These would be the zones that we'd use that program in. So our recommendation for a possible funding split at 0.5, 0.5 would generate roughly $8 million a year. We take 2 million of that, we do maintenance on our arterials and collectors, keep that PCI and those up into the 70s. We take 6 million, what's left of that 8, We take six million and we attack the locals with it. So we would take six million, we divide it by five zones, and every year we do a million and a quarter in each one of those zones. That does a couple things. One, we're not overlapping construction zones. Two, we're not flooding a neighborhood with three million dollars of construction. keeps it much more sparse so that it doesn't look like your neighborhood's getting attacked. So in Zone 1, we currently have about a 61 PCI. You can see all of the red. And this is what we're building our recommendations on that you're going to see in a second, what's on this map. Zone 2, which is the northwest part of town, Again, a 61 PCI. So they're very close in need. Zone 3 is a 63. This is the area up by the stadium. Again, very close to 61. Zone 4 is a 57. Again, I think this one would probably be a 60 plus now because you can see how much of Walter's Drive we did last year. That's going to really raise that. And we did some work down here on Casement also. So those two, I think, would raise that to about a 60. But again, we're building our recommendation off what's on these maps. Zone 5, obviously, is the Ward District. We did some work on Yuma last year. So this would now be green. Bluemont was also milled and overlaid last year, so that also would be a green. So our three-year plan. to get to the shortcut. These are the areas we would attack in that three-year plan with a .5. That looks like this. So this is your project list. These are the areas that we would hit. Again, real close to $6 million a year among all five zones. These are the locals that we would hit. You can see how much more work would be done there because those are about $6 million a year, about $18 million total. And then this is the list. Again, right at $6 million a year, about $3 million in asphalt, $3 million in concrete.

So is there any calculation where the disaster zones are in each one of these? How much is the 40 and below or the 50 and below?

Yeah, so these we really hit the 40s and belows pretty hard, Commissioner. See these full depths? All of those full depths are the 40 or below. Full depth asphalt here. So these first one, two, three, four, five, six, seven projects are full depth backlog projects.

Brian, you've got... Juliet to Pierre Brick.

Yes.

What about the other two brick streets we have? 16th Street from Leavenworth to... It's impossible. It's horrible, yeah. And then 17th on Fairchild going up.

North, yeah. You'll see an MLK in here in a five-year... Is there any thought to...

Not having them be brick? I mean, I hate to lose the charming old bricks, but those are not charming.

Let me explain how the bricks, so this obviously you see a grant, a KDOT grant we're going to apply for. So brick streets are about twice as expensive to build as concrete, but we get a 90% cost paid for through KDOT. So that's why we leave Juliet in bricks, because we're only paying 10 cents on the dollar. 16th we're not sure if we could get a grant for so we didn't include that in here because it doesn't have the historic buildings like juliet does 16th might come back and be a fold-up asphalt street that's probably the the route we would go we'd probably apply for a grant but the chances of getting it are pretty slim both of those are almost impossible yeah they're horrible yeah don't disagree You'll see MLK in here, 17th, Fort Riley Boulevard to points, full rebuild. So we do have that scheduled. So again, our local replacement plan. I don't believe 15th Street made this list. I'm pretty sure it didn't. No. We could apply for a grant for it, and if we don't get the grant, it's probably gonna go back as full depth asphalt. Because it's hard to justify paying twice what an asphalt street would be.

Yeah, Noy 16th is in there for 2028. You did see it? Yeah. Zone 5, the top one.

Oh, yeah, right there. Thank you. Oh, full-depth concrete, we got it listed as.

Yeah. But I didn't see the Fairchild one, which is equal.

Yeah, I didn't either.

Should be in Zone 5, too.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, you know, they're just yeah, they're bad.

I didn't know no argument at all on that. So this would be our five year replacement plan. All of the stuff in the three year plus the extra two. Again, our five year locals. We can look at 15th and see if it. Wouldn't qualify for that list. 1415 16th right there.

Yes, when you get them a five-year are we 50 way 50% of the way caught up to Acceptable standards.

I think our PCI would be close to 65 to 70. I think our backlog would definitely go down I can't tell you how much it would go down right now I'd have to have them rerun the model I would guess at that you'd probably drop your backlog to 12 to 10 if I was guessing So that we need to have a 10-year plan

Truthfully, because it doesn't sound to me like you're going to get done in five for sure, and we don't know what will happen to what's marginal now.

We need a five-year funding plan. I get really cautious about trying to predict which streets in five years I'm going to have to spend money on, because after about three years, you're really down to a 50-50 guess.

A little bit. I'm not worried about picking out streets now in the year 5 to 10. I'm worried about picking out money to cover whatever streets show up.

Don't disagree.

And we need to have a 10-year financing plan, it seems to me. This all looks OK for how you're going to attack it.

For the near term, yeah. We do need a long-term funding strategy, without a doubt.

And so that may not be our 0.5.

May not be.

A lot of different ways to kind of talk through what our funding strategy can be. Commission has a couple different levers that they can pull right. So we can have a dedicated sales tax, which is what we currently have with our 0.2%. And we send it out to voters for approval and having it sunset in 10 years. And then right now, we're having the conversation about renewing it for another 10 years, potentially. Lots of different ways that that can look. uh we can go longer uh we can go for a you know we can go up to a 20-year sunset or we can even look at a permanent um sales tax however those there are other implications that come into play when we talk about going longer or if we talk about making them permanent and so when we do have our sales tax renewal conversation we can certainly get into all the details of that Another conversation that we can have, of course, is the other lever that the commission has the ability to pull when it comes to funding things like streets, which would be mill levy. We could always talk about having a mill levy that is dedicated to streets, if that's something that the commission would be interested in. And then, of course, that is in place and permanent. until another commission decides to make a different policy change and go in a different direction. So lots of different funding strategies that we can use. The two that we've talked a lot about and that we see used a lot are your sales tax and or a dedicated sales tax and or a dedicated mill levy for streets.

Well, we can also do bonded indebtedness and then dedicate the sales tax. Can we not help expedite one minute the cost as well as the repayment?

Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner, for bringing that up. I wanted to come and address you from the podium and not from the dais on that particular topic. That is a conversation that we've talked about is what would it look like if we were to use tip notes to speed this along and go a little further? We've started having those conversations internally as staff of what that would look like. A couple things that we're thinking through, particularly with our contractors. For them to take on that additional workload, what kind of additional investment would they have to make in their equipment, capital investments that they would have to do? We haven't had a whole lot of conversations, but just brainstorming Brian, Jason, and other folks that we have on our team, understanding that if they were to gear up with capital improvement, one, they would need a little bit of notice, but also, think, and we could continue having more conversations, that they would prefer to see more steady work versus a peak in work and a decline in work because they're going to have to make a lot of capital investment and then also staffing up, right? So those are concerns that we have. The other concern Brian alluded to it a little bit is if we were to pop into one of these zones and do about three million three to five million dollars worth of work there's going to be a lot of orange cones and while we hear the two things that people complain about most in the city of Manhattan since I've been here is how bad the streets are in and also road construction right so when we go in we understand it's inconvenient it's difficult to have to drive around orange cones and so trying to balance making improvements but also not wanting to create a whole lot of inconvenience and looking like our entire town or an entire neighborhood or a zone is torn up for a period of time. So those are different conversations that we have to balance. One of the other conversations that we've been having as staff, and you all know that this conversation is coming at the end of April, but just really taking a look at how we have been issuing debt and how we are repaying debt and how we have been structuring that, and we have a conversation that we need to have heading into our budget conversations, sales tax renewal conversations, and we will be having that at the end of April.

Commissioner, I think that one of the other models we have recently is the work that's been done through Parks and Rec through that sales tax with each of three rec centers, all the changes and improvements to Seco Park as well as the park and trails. That was all paid for as we went. We did not incur debt. And I think that that is a useful model that we might want to dive into a little bit further. For example, and I'm just off the top of my head, were there any times when general funds had to be used in order to get a project through a certain period before sales tax had accumulated enough, or was it difficult to pace the projects to match the resources available?

I would defer to Jason, Rena, and Brian to talk about their experiences on how we did those projects.

2017 park and rec sales tax we we accumulated cash along the way as you mentioned mayor there were twice where we issued temp notes and that was at the start of both of anthony and eisenhower rec center we knew we forecasted we'd have enough revenue in that three-year period to accumulate cash and pay those temp notes off so we were able to leverage some early financing to get those projects started under construction uh with ceco we accumulated enough cash when we never did issue temp notes and that's obviously you just did change orders or an amendment to that contract 60 million dollars so there is there are ways you can pass taxes and allow those revenues to accumulate and go out and not have to pay that temp note interest or that permanent bonding interest For the .2 and the money that Brian's been managing for the last 10 years, we haven't issued any temp notes or debt. That's been cash payments along the way. And that's given us the most flexibility.

And it's got the most work done.

Yeah. And, you know, I think Daniel touched on a couple things that we're just going to have to keep reiterating. Relationships with contractors, volume. brian has dealt with a lot in the last 10 years from an east west north south perspective in this community of things under construction he's also had a lot of focus on arterials and collectors and you saw that in some of the graphs he showed you our focus has really been when you think about seth child kimball total creek boulevard fort riley boulevard anderson avenue when you think about those main five arteries within our community yes there's hiccups and there's bumps and bruises there but there's a lot of really good pavement it's getting into the neighborhoods like we did at sixth in yuma with a new water line or storm water and we came back with new streets we were asking people to walk a half a block three quarters of a block and we heard about it So we do need to pay attention to how we're impacting our neighborhoods. It is very impactful, and we don't want to really get ourselves in a situation where That is such a negative experience, but yet you see the PCIs, the backlogs there. There are a lot of side streets just in really bad shape. But to get back to your point, cash management, doing those projects, it really helps us on the bottom of the interest and debt side.

The only disadvantage of the cash management imbalance is back to Jim's point about going past five years. If I have one bid that's 30% over my estimate... I have to move everything back six to nine months so I can generate more money to pay for my next one. So imagine at your house you're remodeling your kitchen. The cabinets come in 30% higher. What do you do? You either don't go remodel the living room or you wait until you generate enough money that you can go do the living room. That's what makes it difficult. The streets are easy to pick. We know what streets are going to be bad in three to five years because they're bad now. The difficulty is are you going to have the money to go do it? And that's where the cash management gets incredibly difficult because each bid is up, down, sideways. You don't know where they're going to go.

Brian, could you also speak a little bit, you did mention KDOT in terms of this grant that we were able to use for Juliet. what kind of cost share or complimentary allow spending is typical for some of the state roads that go through Manhattan and our partnership with Riley County on some of our common roads?

Sure that's a great question so actually this whole area here was done under a KDOT grant an 80-20 grant and and what you just approved the other night for down by Westwood. Both of those were done with grant money. That's through a program called C-CLIP. It was developed back in the 70s. It's for highways that run through cities. And they just had another call for projects. We're actually going to apply for a couple more projects through that program in May. but it's only for state highways. So I can't go fix Claflin with state KDOT money. I have to fix TCB or another state highway. Seth Child is 100% KDOT maintained. We don't spend a penny on Seth Child. So KDOT does that 100% whereas Fort Riley Boulevard is a C-Clip cost share. Marlatt, or as far as the county goes, we partner with them on projects where we interblend city, county, Denison, Marlatt, college, where we have those overlaps. We have partnered with them in the past, but we don't save any money doing that. I shouldn't say we don't save any money. We save money because we're doing a project at the same time. but the county's paying for their piece the city's paying for our piece the county isn't paying for our roadway we're not paying for their roadway we divide at the city limits and then we we do a joint project together thank you yeah that was a good question actually and the one thing i didn't actually have on here was uh we had got about seven or eight million dollars in grants over the last 10 years which is not included in Dollars that you're seeing here because their grant money we got about eight million over the last ten years eight nine Are those funds still We're actually gonna apply for a couple different Grants, I think they're doing may so we're gonna chase a couple more grant opportunities

We leveraged about $7 million just on Kimball alone. Yeah. Two different phases up there over the last 10 years, so your number might be a little bit higher.

I'm just saying street maintenance. Just maintenance is about $7 to $8 million, yeah. Kimball's another $7. Yeah, so we've... US-24 corridor plan, we've got another... Three four million dollars in grant money on that on the u.s. 24 corridor So all of those things, you know, they all roll in together.

They're not money out of our pockets So I don't this presentation, but I'd be happy to come up with a list if you'd like to see it So my thoughts are I Would like to see us renew the point two and then when the point two five expires so I would like to see that become street money to Come back

I believe that expires it into 27 correct the 0.25 So I just threw out personally I think we need to avoid incurring debt to do this As you said it would impose hardships on the contractors to do that extra work I think this has to be a gradual process as you've been doing and I certainly don't want to impose more costs on the ad valorem property taxpayers through that funding mechanism. So, I mean, the sales tax seems to be the fairest way to get it done and have the folks coming into town that are using the streets help pay for it.

Are we still at about a .35 poll factor?

Yeah, when you look at Manhattan with both Pott and Riley County, we're hovering between 1.2 and 1.25. We have been as high as 1.3. And that's a factor that the state puts out in terms of how many people live in your community and shop in your community. If everybody stayed in Manhattan and earned the incomes that we earn and we didn't shop anywhere else, our factor is 1.0. If you are over one, you're attracting, you're netting an import gain to your community. So having a 1.2 to 1.25, we actually realize more revenue as a community than we earn in terms of income and you would spend in your community.

And we are just slightly positive on the gas tax, right, like a 1.02. So we get more money back than gas that's sold in Manhattan, but it's negligible what the difference is.

personally I would I would throw out that we have the two special sales tax you know coming up here sunsetting in the next couple of years and perhaps we look at combining those two into one bigger sales tax may be increased by a couple percent you know point two or point three percent and calling it more of a quality of life and and allocating those funds between streets and all of our Repair projects, you know the parks and rec projects the the city the CIP projects Just looking at how we allocate that money amongst all of those Various areas that we need funds for and not look at the property taxpayer to pay all of that Andrew could you repeat your?

I'm a little bit confused.

Sorry. Uh, so when the The point to when that Sun sets I want that to come back again to be Which point to are you speaking about the street sales? Okay, and then and then the point to five the quality I would like I think that we could take that and use that for streets, too If we put that to the voters So it would it would turn into point four five in 2028

So it's the 0.25 that you're talking about, the quality of life, parks and rec?

Yes.

So you're talking about not having a sales tax to support parks and rec? Correct.

I think that would be a little short-sighted. Quality of life is an important part of what we offer people and how we get that 1.2 or 1.5 people coming here, along with the people who live in small towns around here and that kind of thing. It would be remiss, I think, to not have some special dollars for special things. You also, I would just think that the best idea for any kind of sales tax, having seen some go and some not, is to have a sunset because people don't like the idea of this is a tax in perpetuity even though they may not be around in 10 years. They may be moved away or something. So that would just be my suggestion.

Well, my consideration in doubling up, whatever it is, is sales tax is going to pay for whatever this body says it's going to go to with staff recommendations, whether that's quality of life. I would like to see what we extend to be dedicated, at least for a period of time, whether it's 10 years, to the streets, because that's always the one when we run out of money, well, we run out of money and let streets go, and that's where we are now, and we're not going to get out unless we quit digging the hole. And so the city commissioned with staff's recommendation can use any of the sales tax money for anything it decides is appropriate, whether that's quality of life or whether that's for fire department or whatever. Assume we're a few some sales tax money to pay for the fireworks Improvements out there for the tower. I I mean, I don't know but if we're going to dedicate a sales tax It ought to be the street only and the rest would be left to staff and the Commission's inside work in my opinion I'd like maybe some clarification from Jason or Danielle Bryant did note that general fund money has been used to

support streets is... General fund has been used to support personnel.

Correct, okay.

So when general fund monies have been used to support parks and rec, is that also covering personnel charges?

Yes, that is correct. Thank you.

Any other questions for me? Appreciate the input and the feedback.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, director. We will move on to the second item on our agenda. Oh, sorry. Thank you. I meant to write my sign. I forgot. Is there anyone who would like to make public comment on the presentation that we just heard? Maybe we quote you on that? All right, seeing no one else approaching, we will move on to an update by the Riley County Police Department.

I know Good evening commissioners members of the public Brian Pete with the Riley County Police Department I'd like to just go over some some just general information talk about our monthly statistics for February of 2026 give a little bit of general information and numbers and data as it relates to fake Paddy's Day and then move into Some of the strategic priorities that we've been looking at to include any behavioral or criminal-related incidences or complaints, as well as community partnerships for homelessness and task force and vagrancy, and then talk about human sex trafficking. And then finally, just... do a quick general roundabout regarding rcpd's budget and what our next steps hope to be so for our crime for february our part one crime we were 16.5 below the five-year average uh when compared to february this time of last year unfortunately we had a 30 percent increase in part one crimes as compared to last year. So that would be in February of last year, we had 56, which was a five-year low. This year, we're at 73. Last month, we were at 76. So there's no necessarily rhyme or reason for that. It's just things like part one crimes, violent crimes, are fluid in nature. For those violent crimes, we were, unfortunately, 63.6% above the five-year average for violent crimes. For the month of February, we had 12 aggravated assaults or batteries. Unfortunately, no rapes. Unfortunately, five robberies and one homicide that was reported during February of 2026. This is the highest number of Part 1 violent crimes that we've seen over the past five years. In looking at whether this is a trend or something, we're very confident this is not a trend. This is just, again, one of those things that you have the wrong people at the wrong time doing the wrong thing. You'll see those ebbs and flows of crime or violent crime. For robberies, there were five robberies reported in February of 2026, the highest number in the last five years of those five robberies. Two were from one specific incident, and they were drug-related. The other was a drug-related, a separate one. Then we had one that was domestic-related, and one was unknown as to who the suspect was. And again, this was five for the month of February. In January, we had zero. Again, robberies tend to be... one of those types of crimes that it's, for our community, we would be looking at one or two individuals who would be committing these different types of robberies, whether the motivation's money, drugs, something else to that effect, that's, again, something to be seen, but there's, again, this unfortunate situation, but I don't see any concerning trends that would suggest that we're seeing an increase that's going across the entire board. for aggravated assaults or batteries. I'm sorry.

May I interrupt for a second? Yes, ma'am. Just because you mentioned a very small number of individuals committing these things. Today's paper listed seven vehicle thefts or attempted thefts. Five of them were Kias. Do we think that there's some kind of ring? Kia ring. Kia ring. Do we think there's people looking for specific parts, or do you have any idea if this is an individual or a small gang of people who are targeting this particular?

Our investigators are working on that. The detectives are working on that. so whether normally and things like that it would probably be something like a catalytic converter so it could be like a theft and then a chop and then something to that effect but as of right now i don't have any information that suggests that is it could just be one of those things that wrong place, wrong time. However, with newer cars, since they're computerized, they're chipped and everything else to that effect, it may be one of those things that we'll reach out to the KBI or as well as KHP or nationally and try to find out is there something going on that we're seeing an increase that somebody has an inside or technology that allows them to crack kia's codes that makes it easier for theft so i will definitely get that information and get back to you these weren't yeah these weren't brand new cars so they were all 2019 three were 2018 one was 2019 and one was 2020 so within you know a pretty comparable range Sorry for interrupting. Oh, no, no problem, ma'am. I'm here to answer questions, and I will get that information back to you when it's just possible. When the crimes have been solved.

Brian, do your robbery statistics include Internet thefts?

No. Right off the bat, I'm going to say no. I think those are categorized differently. For robbery, we're thinking of the more traditional, I've taken something physically from someone. But it's a very interesting statement or question to ask that. We may want to look at that type of categorization. Just today, the Region 1 Kansas Chiefs were meeting, and we talked about new bills that were coming out of legislation as they relate to internet crime, as they relate to increases in cryptocurrency, things to that effect, and how we're seeing targets. Like again, for example, there was one very sophisticated one that came out. I can't remember which jurisdiction it was, but these individuals went and they got a sergeant's name, and then they got a judge's name. And they would send out notifications to folks and saying, hey, Sergeant so-and-so, Judge so-and-so said if you don't pay the city $1,000 or something to that effect, then by Venmo, then we will come after you or put a warrant out for you. And that's one of those things that we've realized that, hey, we need to make sure that we're putting more information out to the public to contact us. What we do know about internet theft and crimes like that is it's an embarrassing thing. and less people are more likely to report that to us, so we have to come meet people where they are, let people know what that potential threat is.

Well, I know from personal experience, they can happen through banking processes, and one of your officers helped me through a situation a couple years ago to get the situation corrected, so.

I'm happy for that.

They happen.

It does, unfortunately. But to try to correct that, we have been partnering with and getting more training, but partnering with fusion centers and, again, with KBI and federal resources and federal agencies so that when these types of things happen that we're looking at freezing accounts. I think, again, one of the legislations that's out there is freezing accounts for cryptocurrencies so they don't immediately go to somebody else's wallet. They have to be on a hold for a while. And normally, if we're able to get people's money back, whether it's cryptocurrency or whether it's online fraud, it could take a year or more. And people need their money that they've been, unfortunately, stolen from them.

I noticed that Landmark Bank has a little sign. And when you come in, do a deposit or take out saying, you know, warning people about... you know, did someone ask you to do this and that kind of thing. So I think it would be well advised to make sure our banks are reminding people because you get somebody, you know, who has been told that they need to send X number of dollars someplace and if the bank just says, wait a minute, I know I took a person to, I didn't know what I was doing, I gave her a ride, she said she needed a ride to Walgreens and she was gonna buy you know, cards. And I said, what for? You know, and she really was going to send off these, you know, scratch them off and send the numbers to somebody on the phone. So it can happen to...

It can happen to anybody. And it happens to police officers and investigators as well. And again, one of the legislative bills, I think, that's going through the various committees and sessions right now does talk about... having banks be more proactive in doing that because also the banks are gonna lose out on money as well. So I think there's a lot of good movement to that and we will have to do a better job in pushing it out to the community and letting the community know more of a bigger push to that and we will.

Yeah, I don't know if the banks have a monthly meeting or something like that, but it might be good to just kind of push them on that, because if they get some person not even, don't have to be elderly, coming in and wanting to withdraw $10,000, then they can at least say, what are you doing?

Yeah, I think the new bill requires almost a cooling-off period kind of thing, a secondary that, hey, we want to verify, get somebody else to make sure that this is what that money is going to, whether it's they contact the other person on the other end, like if it is legitimate, we need to contact Riley County to make sure that these are going to your taxes, things to that effect. Yeah.

I do think just helping people to hesitate before they act on those kinds of things could really help, just having them take a deep breath and say, well, I don't really own IRS any money or that kind of thing. Thank you.

Definitely. Thank you. So for our aggravated assaults in batteries, there were seven aggravated assaults, five aggravated batteries. Aggravated assaults are the actual threat. The battery is the actual physical action. They were reported during the month of February. This was about 54% above the five-year average, unfortunately, of the 12 incidents. And also keeping this in perspective, last month we had eight this is 12. So the percentages, statistical numbers can be pushed any way, but the reality is it's just 12. But we also keep in mind that we can say, hey, crime's low, but those who were victimized, it's extraordinarily personal thing to them. So we're very cautious in how we talk about it.

I do think it's important to do numbers and not percentages, though. You can say, you know, we had 100% more fatalities or something, and if we went from one to two, that's...

Exactly. So of the 12 incidents that we had in February, four unfortunately were domestic related. As of the ninth of this month, there was an arrest of six of those 12 incidents. For our part one property crimes, we were about 28% below the five-year average. For February, that included five burglaries, five larcenies from motor vehicles, three auto thefts, one arson incident, and the rest were incidences that were categorized as other larcenies, whether it's petty theft or something to that effect. So for the month of February, there were 55. In January, there were 66. February 2025, we had 50. Structural burglaries, we were about 52% below the five-year average of the, there were two burglaries of businesses. We haven't made any arrests of these burglaries as of the 9th of March. Again, we don't see a discerning pattern to that. For the number contacts, there were five for the month of February, four, which was our five-year low of February of last year. For vehicular burglaries, we were about 71% below the five-year average for the month. There was one firearm and several prescription medications stolen from two of the vehicles. Again, I want to take this opportunity for those who are listening in the public, please lock your cars. And more than 50% of these, I would say, are crimes of opportunity. It's a shame that we have to live in a society anywhere within the country that You need to kind of hide what you have in your car, but that's the reality of trying to not become a victim of vehicle burglaries. So force entry was utilized in only two of them. So for the month of February, there were five. January of last year, there were eight. And there were three this time last year for February. For motor vehicle thefts, compared to the five-year average, we had a 25% increase. Again, for the month of February, this is four. Last month was five. At this time, three of the four vehicles have been recovered. Two of the thefts were from unknown suspects, and we haven't identified them. As of March 9th, I'll have to double check to see if we've got any leads. One of the great things, again, from the technology that we've been developing with the Real-Time Crime Center is these types of incidences. We've been able to locate or identify subjects relatively faster than if we didn't have the technology that we have now. And then for DUIs for the month of February of 2026, we were about 41% below the five-year average. That was 11 DUIs for the month of February. We had 21 January. And then February of last year, we had 14. So as the commission is well aware of, our law board and the county commission, Traffic crashes, distracted driving, DUIs were big things that we're moving forward to with strategic planning. Again, we want to hold people accountable, but at the same time, we don't want to lose legitimacy by going out there and punishing people. It's an educational campaign, and when we have interactions with folks as they relate to traffic infractions, So for traffic accidents for February, we were about 6% above the five-year average. 111 traffic accidents in February, the same number of February of last year. For preventable traffic accidents, we were about 12% above the five-year average. That was 79 for February. February of last year was 70. And then finally, mental health-related calls for service. And this is something that we're looking at as far as, again, like with budgeting. We're looking at the numbers and while we have calls for service, there's different ways that they get categorized. Sometimes a call may come in and there's a disturbance or there's a theft. And then when officers arrive on scene, then they realize that there's a mental health component issue to it. So these numbers are not necessarily accurate reflections of calls that are mental health related, but it's just something for us to try to make sure that we're tracking. So of those incidences, we were about 4.3% below the five year average. This is again, something that we're still trying to hammer down because we've only been looking at mental health numbers for about a year and we're still trying to clean it up on our records management system of what how many calls are actually mental health related calls for service so it says for the month of february 71 i would venture to say we were that's probably on a on a conservative side because i think at least uh 40 probably to 60 of our calls will most likely have a mental health related nexus to it So outside of any, I stand ready for any questions that the commission may have regarding monthly statistics. If there are none, I can move into just some general numbers for Fake Patty's Day.

What's the status of our mental health co-riders from Pawnee? Do we still have those people helping us? I know it's been hard to find people to employ.

So Pawnee has upped the game. As a matter of fact, one of our... law board members has asked about the mental health and what we're doing. So we do have the Corresponder Unit, but Pawnee actually now has a 24-7 unit that does answer on these different types of calls for service. So we're looking at how that mental, ensuring that we don't have mission creep, but looking at how are we wisely using those who are within the department who do have mental health related responsibilities there. So that's a very, very.

So are you using the stabilization unit?

We have been. We have been reaching out to them for those notifications. At the same time, we've also been using Tiffany with the department. But I think we've come to a point that we're seeing a drop in numbers where officers are calling for mental health related, you know, to reduce crisis. There's a lot of different factors that could be. We do have a lot of officers who are, of course, CIT trained. Pawnee has that 24-7. There's a crisis line. There's 988. There's Pawnees with their own outreach programs and responders to these. So it's one of those things that we are looking at.

Does the fact that the jail is so crowded have any impact on your sort of philosophical approach to arresting people? I know, like, 15 years ago, we had this thing called ROPE, which was returned, trying to, people who constantly came in for minor, minor, minor, you know, check, Cashing and that kind of thing, but they wanted to kind of make it a harder Sentence because it took up, you know, you have to pick somebody up 20 times for passing bad checks it takes a lot of police time and that kind of thing but then the the number of people in jail kind of pushed that away because they needed that for the people who really Needed jail

Yes, and so for those particular instances, when we do see – when we do start sneaking up to – higher levels of folks that are in the jail getting close to where our capacity is at. We reach out to both the judges as well as to community corrections, all other partners, as well as the county attorney's office, and kind of look at, hey, here is, is this something that we can kind of negotiate whether this person, that we're able to bond out X person rather than keep them in because of the issues that we're having with overcrowding, but also because of the costs that are related to it.

Yeah, so I know the women's part has been very crowded, and we had to send people to Washington County. How does that work? Do you send a policeman with them, or do you have somebody who drives people back and forth in those cases, or like to Osawatomie?

Yes, so in those cases we'll have, we will, we want to make sure that we have very good relationships with those who are helping us out because of classification. So if we have, say for example, if we have 20 females but we only have space for 15. In certain cases, like the last time we had it, we actually reallocated an entire pod and moved folks, moved male prisoners over and then had, you know, women in one pod and then one or two and the one that we had to reallocate for allocation. But in those cases, yes, we would contact another sheriff's office, see if we can get someone over there. And the thing is, we would not send an inmate that has more needs than someone else. So we're not going to send someone who has a lot of mental health issues, who is combative, anything else to that effect. We're going to send more pleasant inmates over there where we work with individuals who have more challenges.

And so how do you send them?

A transport vehicle from Corrections, yes.

Okay, so the Corrections people have a transport vehicle.

Yes, we would drive them.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. So for Fake Patty's Day, the basic numbers, the statistics we look at just Friday 7 PM all the way to Sunday at 6 AM for Fake Patty's Day numbers. what we have in looking at all calls for service whether there are officers initiated that officers see something we call it into the radio and say put me on this call or whether it's a citizen initiated call for service for 2026 we had 489 and this is total for both of them for 2025 we had 503. So the 10-year average for Fake Patty's Day has been 497 calls for service. So we were close to that 10-year average. Historically, traffic stops were the top nature call, followed by minors in possessions and open containers of alcohol. But for this year, open container was the top call nature, followed by traffic stops, parking problems, and minors in possessions were number five. now again statistics can be this is how many we wrote we may not have had enough people to cite all the people that we've seen with infractions so i don't want uh anyone to think that hey you know the numbers are down fake paddy's day is going away well if you ask anyone who's dealing with it it's not and i'll just say for the record uh even though We didn't have any significant incidences that happened with Fake Patty's Day. Still, I want to commend our officers 100%. They have worked extraordinarily hard in a lot of trying circumstances. So I'm not putting this on them. I'm not putting this on anyone. But I'm still not satisfied with the level of our inability to control that situation. I wish we were able to control it a lot more. From my perspective, I think that there were more people out there. I don't have the numbers exactly for that, but it seemed a lot more people this year than it was last year. So I just want to put that out there. out for the record. For our citizen-initiated calls for service, our 10-year average was about 216. In 2026, we had slightly less, but a similar number of citizen-initiated calls. So we had 2025, there were 177. In 2026, there were 168. Again, numbers can be their baselines. They're only meant to help us realize what's on the ground. I'm not by any means up here saying, hey, you know, we were down calls. Maybe sometimes people just get sick and tired of nothing's going to happen, why even call them? So we still are working on those instances. So of our hot spots for citizen-initiated calls for service for Fake Patty's Day, between 14th and 11th Street, up from Bluemont all the way down to like Freedmont, that was where the majority of the calls for service happened during Fake Patty's Day. Of the reports filed excluding alcohol violations, there were 600, or I'm sorry, we had six or five offensives that we did for, I'm sorry, that's the top five. We were at 46. for those different related calls for service. So the five top offenses that we've had were battery, non-injury accidents, deprivation, you can imagine what that is, and then drugs and found property. So what we're seeing is kind of a small trend that we want to look out for for deprivation. for folks being acting deprived out there. We're kind of seeing that sneak up. So again, statistics can be any number that you want to hold to, but it'd be wise to keep an eye on that. For our citations, we...

Sorry, Brian, I'm sorry. What is deprivation?

I'm sorry, I'm... Yeah, it's been a long day. I would say anything that's going to draw offense to someone else. So whether you're out there, lewd conduct, just acting like the village idiot or showing your bodily parts or anything else to that effect, it could be something to that effect.

I wasn't sure if it meant depriving someone of their ability to move around, if it was not kidnapping per se, but obstruction, deprivation of freedom of movement.

Yes, sorry about the lapse in articulation on that one, but no, we're not looking at it from that. Again, for our citations, we had 296 compared to 290 of last year. Historically, open containers are the most cited. Again, open containers of alcohol was still the most cited, followed by stopping and standing in prohibited places and parking on private property. So of the arrest summaries, we had 30 arrests. And again, we're working not just on the ground, but looking also at a KHP, Kansas Highway Patrol, coming in to assist. So there were 30 arrests made, which was about a 33% decrease from the 10-year average of 45. this was about 15% from last year's total so we had 26 last year and we had 30 this year DUI's is historically a top arresting offense and the same thing was similar here after that we had simple batteries and then warrants Brian I'm sorry yes ma'am so one of the items listed under the arrests is minor in possession

or I'm not sure if that's an open container MIC, but that number is quite a bit smaller than the calls for service for minor in possession or MIC. What distinguishes when do you arrest someone versus give them you know, a warning, a citation, or something?

So typically, it can range from we've got so much going on, you run into somebody, you see it, and you just pour it out, or I ran out of tickets, pour it out. Or it could be that you actually get the citation. I think in other cases, as it relates to, normally it's just going to be a citation. If it's speaking without knowing, going into debt, I would say in a lot of cases, especially in Fake Patty State, you kind of almost have to talk yourself into arrest. We just don't have the, we exercise more discretion because of the lack of staff that are out there. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Unless there are any other questions, I can move on to talking about the Homelessness Task Force in our next.

do you know how many people ended up in the ER this year no ma'am I do not but I will find out I know a couple years ago I had a citizen tell me that she was in the ER because she had a stroke and they were so busy they didn't sort of notice she had a stroke for quite a while it was kind of serious so I mean you know I don't think the public understands that this kind of general mayhem also affects citizens. People say, well, I don't go anywhere near a fake St. Paddy's Day, but sometimes it comes near you.

Yes, that is unfortunate.

I was gonna ask about traffic real fast. Is there like, what parts of the city are the most dangerous to drive on?

As far as just overall yeah, I'll have to get you that number We do have heat maps that show again where we're seeing the majority of traffic crashes.

I will have to get you that number Is that something that's available on the RCPD website I

I think so. There are different area maps, but we can just as soon as just get that to folks who inquire. That way they don't have to go through any bureaucracy or we want to provide the white glove treatment or service.

I would just comment I'd commend your officers for controlling the mayhem as much as they do. Anybody that drives through east of campus in the middle of Saturday afternoon and That is a crazy place to be. And why would you do that voluntarily? To see the mayhem. But your officers are in there circulating and just kind of keeping a lid on things.

I think it's really good for commissioners to experience the joys of facing it. I've been there a couple times and decided I'd seen enough, thank you. I will say I live on the west side of the park, and it was very, very, very quiet in my neighborhood. I thought maybe I had the wrong weekend. So thank you for that. Sort of driven them all over.

Yeah, they're staying out in that whole area over at Raton and all that. I almost wish, from the history since I've been here, my understanding was it used to just be in Aggieville area. And I think that there's, you know, if you're gonna have it, you're gonna have it. You might as well benefit the community with it, you know? I mean, it's isolated, businesses are making money, things are going well. But then the department cracked down on it, and then it forced it back out in the streets. It's just gonna be that never-ending battle. If I could, I'd try to force it back in. I'd rather try to get rid of it altogether, but now I'd rather just push people to go into Aggieville and have fun. I mean, there's security there, there's a lot of other things to do, but I'm preaching to the choir, obviously.

I will say that it was big in Aggieville earlier but also they walked back and forth a lot from there you know in fact it was kind of like constant green people going back you know and often then they got you know stick in your front lawn and that kind of thing so so I'm pleased that they're over on the other side of Aggieville thank you

I know you've got more to do, but you sat here through all the road and street issues and money. The city staff is starting to wanna talk about budgeting, and I think you mentioned you were gonna mention your budgeting process, so I'd much rather hear about that, because the sex trafficking one, I know the law board is talking about looking at programs. Once they're going to do something, I think then it'd be a good time for a report, but it could be more edited, and I'd like to hear where you think you are on the budget, because I'm being asked as a commissioner

I think we can have a minute for sex trafficking to hear the numbers.

Thank you. I can do that very briefly. But yes, sir, that was one of the reasons why I know, because even there, there's a lot that's going on. There's a lot of need. And we want to make sure that we're not contributing to problems.

Well, our city manager reminds me, particularly brevity is brilliant. So let's be as brief as possible.

Sure. So for human trafficking, it is, we're just, again, just want to let folks know that we have, we're working on getting officers, specialized training for officers, and then partnerships with the KBI, Department of Homeland Security, and moving forward. So I can't, it's brevity on this one because I can't talk much about it. but I can let you all know that we are working very, very hard in conjunction with the KBI in looking at how we're going to tackle this particular problem. So for really briefly with the Homelessness Task Force, we did get a grant, a skip grant funding through the state that allowed us to purchase a technology system that's almost a case management system where all stakeholders and partners are speaking back and forth so no one falls through the cracks. And then RCPD, we have a game plan in conjunction working with businesses, stakeholders, community resources, and then reaching out to individuals in need to let them know we're coming to help, but we're also coming. If that makes any sense so finally with the budgeting We you already know what my framework is unfortunately. I wasn't at the last law board meeting I understand that there were some some discussions revolving around looking at various Percentages numbers as I relate to it what I plan to bring to the board is so my my focus is Anything that's internal. If I need it, I'm gonna try my best to find a way to take it internally and reallocate it, whether it's positions, whether it's programs, technology, policies, anything else like that. So working through that. Looking at, in certain cases, we may have We have 113 sworn officers, but because of some of the things that we have, whether we're with the county court or the city court, does it have to be a sworn officer? Can we reduce one position to add two civilian positions to be able to hold those and then also save $40,000 or $50,000 to the budget? So nothing's off the table, what we're looking at, but for the budget, again, my initial plan is to reduce to heed what the law board wanted me to do or what was relayed to me as far as look at COLA or any other different types, but the one that you're gonna hear coming from me is going to be, unless I can't find it internally, I'm going to potentially look for options to do merit pay, but I do not want to go anywhere near increasing the budget to the best of my ability.

Brian, I hope you adhere to that. I've heard you make similar comments in the past two years that I've been on this board or on this commission. We'd like to see that, I think.

Well, and you know, and I respect that, and I've said this in staff meetings, and I know it'll get me in trouble with the FOP, but I'll come frankly out. There's been a lot of places and other jurisdictions that I've been into that COLA is not an automatic given. I think merit is a contract, so I think there's an obligation to merit, but COLA's not an automatic given. And when we look at things like how we're doing COLA, when we look at things like salaries, for example, one of the law board members had talked about it last year, that if I look at merit increases alone based on the route we're currently going, I'm coming to you every year to support Merritt's asking for a million dollars. Every year, just to meet the Merritt, I'm gonna be coming to you. We don't do anything else. If you help me with Merritt, I'm coming to you and I'm asking you for a million dollars. It's frickin' unsustainable. So we have to look at processes internally. We have to look at salaries. We have to look at how many steps that we have, because it may not be a popular decision, but if it's a decision that has to be made, it's a decision that has to be made. We've, I think all of us have heard the community loud and clear as it relates to budgeting. So again, When I come to the law board, it's not going to be, hey, this is just what I need and this is where it's going for. It's going to be a whole discussion on what we've looked at and where we've reallocated what we've done so that when I tell you there's no meat on the bone or there's only a little meat on the bone, you at least know. And then if you see something that's like, hey, have you tried to do that? great more than willing to listen to you but it's not good when i come to the the commission and to the law board it's not going to be a pat on the back here's what we cut thank you it's going to be this is everything we thought of and this is how we're doing it thank you i think that attention to detail would be appreciated yes i have a question for city manager a couple of

Months ago on the consent agenda, or recently on the consent agenda, we approved some guard service, did we not? And what is that for? Is it security for the municipal court?

Or the library.

No.

No.

Mayor, are you talking about the merchant guard license?

Maybe.

That's a that's a license that is issued by our customer service Among other licenses like tree maintenance and refuse haulers things like that And so it's I'm sorry. It's issued by who a customer service issues those licenses. I believe an annual license and Then I defer to Reno on describing exactly what a merchant guard does security guards. I

And we're just various businesses that would require a security guard. Throughout the community. Yeah, throughout the community. So someone who is serving as a security guard for, let's say, Walmart or the library, they have to get a license from the city to be a licensed security guard to serve in that capacity in our community.

Got it. Okay, I was confused. I thought it referred to guards at municipal court or something like that.

And if I can also clarify that one for the municipal court. So it is the responsibility of the Riley County Police Department to ensure the municipal court as well as the county court. The question is, do we have to pay an officer to do that? I understand. And so when we're looking at taking one position and then civilianizing it, it's much cheaper to pay someone who's a civilian or a retiree or something to that effect without paying the full salary benefits of an officer, but then it also reducing one sworn position may help us at two positions that can handle it, put officers back on the street, and then put another $40,000, $50,000 back into the budget. Those are the types of things that we're doing.

Thank you. Commissioners, any other questions?

The one thing that I've heard from various people is that the warming place at Douglas Center was really well received and good, and now it's closed because it's not so cold, obviously, but they're very concerned that we may see a lot of homeless downtown, sleeping in doorways, that kind of thing. with no place to really take them. Some people may call you and say, I've got this guy setting a tent up in front of my house. jewelry store. What do you do in that situation?

We, in working with, so there's a select group, Deb Nuss, several other folks that are leading the group. We're looking at opportunities to do something like that. Now, folks are going to get real weird when you say, hey, we don't need a 24-hour shelter, but we need a place where people can go to. And so we're trying to figure out, I think, the messaging and the politics that surround that, but without Everything is still in draft and early preliminary discussions, but we're looking at opportunities to see if there are places that we can get private funding to establish something like that. But then again, where's the caution of if you build it, they will come. The good thing is that apparently Junction City is looking at establishing their own task force, if you will, of what we've done here. that would be the biggest pool of resources that would be going through Junction City. So I can almost imagine, well, we don't have it here in Junction, go to Manhattan, but with Junction looking at this type of opportunity, I think we would be able to.

And I've heard another thing is if there were some place to put their stuff, because many of them acquire quite a bit of stuff, and I know the library has problems with them bringing all this stuff inside, you know, but if there were some place that they could lock it up and it would be safe,

Commissioner, there are lockers at Be Able. The question is, are people able to access them out of normal hours? I've also provided some materials to Director Norris at the library on Other communities use of things like the rolling trash bins that we all put at our curb on a regular basis. Some communities have used those and attached locks to them such that the individual, they're accumulated in a certain central location. The individual can have access to that amount of space, but they're secured so that they're not dragging these bins through the neighborhoods as well.

And the goal for any work that we do through that is going to be looking for projects.

Well, I applaud you for working with Deb Nuss and the other people. And Susan was on that committee, too. And I really think the city manager, I thank you for finding this place for them to be warm in the winter. Of course, winter has been winter and summer all year or so. But thank you.

And it's unfortunate. I happen to be aware that MISAI is full right now, and that's a challenge. So I've been having calls from a citizen who has been very vocal about us trying to figure out more things that we can do for this population. So I'll keep you apprised as I hear.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you all.

Thank you. Is there any public comment on Director Pete's presentation? All right. Manager Doolin, do you have any comments for us? I do not this evening. All right. Do we have a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. Thank you all.