City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Don't complain. Yeah, all right. Welcome to the wedding. You wear that new dress. You're small. Oh, I'll be. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Here, give me that one. . . . . . Oh, yeah? Sure. I was going to sit here. Oh, okay. Yeah, this one's hard.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Hey there.

That's what I said. Thank you. Okay, it's 7 o'clock.

I would like to call the May 21st DeSoto City Council meeting to order. We'll start with roll call, please. Patterson?

Here.

Bradley? Here. McCracken?

Here.

Saban? Here. Lane? Here. All are present today. Okay. I would invite you all to please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Right, our first item tonight is our consent agenda. Tonight on the consent agenda, we have approved the minutes from the May 7th city council meetings. Item B, approved pay ordinance number 1019. Item C, approved easements and right-of-way for the Mount Sunflower project. Item D, approved donation requests from Learnature. And item E, approved contract amendment with Lochner for the 83rd Street Bridge project. Is there any item anyone would wish from the consent agenda for further discussion.

I'd like to remove item C. Okay.

Anyone else? We have a motion to approve the consent agenda as revised to eliminating item C. I move to approve the consent agenda removing item C.

Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion of the motion? Roll call, please. Lane? Yes. McCracken?

Yes.

Bradley? Yes. Patterson?

Yes.

Sabo? Yes. Motion carries. All right. Any thoughts on where we would put item C? You want to do it now or you want to do it as the first or last item in the regular agenda? May or may not impact people that want to comment on their call to public.

All right.

Let's do it now then. Item C, approve easements and right-of-way for the Mount Sunflower project.

Yeah, I may just note that, you know, the statutory process here is, of course, if you have an issue with, you know, an easement on how it appears on the plat or the right-of-way, that's something you can address or discuss. simply is to approve the easements and right-of-way that are set out on the plan.

Yeah, and that's really what I was wanting to make sure that we know and that everyone knows what this is and what this is not. So that helped as well. I don't know if anybody else has anything to chime in on that. That's why I wanted to take that. That was just, again, just to reiterate and confirm what it is and is not.

Yeah, I may also add, Final Plan is really just a division of property, and the council does have to accept easements and rights-of-way, but in this instance, there are no easements and right-of-ways to accept. The mayor does sign the documents, and we've always brought it to the council for approval. In this case, there are no easements and rights-of-way. The Planning Commission did approve the Final Plan, by the way.

I have a question just for clarification. In part three, which I think if you scroll up, I think it's two pages up above there. Oh, man. You're going to have to zoom in on that one. So part three is down below. All the boxes are empty. Is that something that the acknowledgment's been provided? Is that done? Just could you go into some detail on why that is?

Okay, yeah. Typically on something like this, there are no... deed restrictions or anything like that. And these are things that all happen in essence after council's approval and signatures are required. As I mentioned, the planning commission chair, mayor, chair signs, the fire chief, which is also our building inspector, city clerk verifies all these things. So typically those happen after The council accepts the easements right away. The planning commission has approved the document. So before any of these things can actually be recorded with the county, they have to be on flat.

Thank you.

Any other questions? All right, we need a motion to accept easements and right away for the Mount Sunflower project, even though there are no easements right away.

Yeah, the statute sets out a process. goes the Planning Commission then it comes to Council for that limited purpose of approving the easements and right-of-way and essentially approving acknowledging the plat so if there's not any rights aware easements then it is simply a ministerial step that needs to be taken for the statute but it's still true that this would not be the time to to make decisions based on, you know, whether you like the project or not.

It sounds to me like it's, uh, I think you said ministerial, uh, in the role of our role as city council, because there is no actual easement or right of way contained in the plot. All this is doing is recording the, I'm assuming the, the layout that they have requested for their property.

Yeah.

I guess what I think I might add, this has happened a few times before where we've had the decision where, well, as staff, do we really need to bring it to the council? But our policy, our position's always been, you know, it's something that because the mayor does sign it, council needs to bless that, so to speak. So even when there's no easements or rights in way to accept, we've always brought it to the council for approval. So it is rare, but it's not unusual. It does happen occasionally with a final plat.

Yeah, I think just approve the plat.

There's a motion. Just make a motion that the city council accept the easements and right away for the final plat.

I move that we accept the, approve the easements for the final plat for the project.

We have a motion, do we have a second?

Second.

Thank you. Any discussion of the motion? Roll call, please. Patterson?

Yes.

Bradley? Yes. McCracken? Yes. Savo? Yes. Lane? Yes. Mayor Walker? Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you.

Item two is call to public. Members of the public are welcome to use this time to comment about any matter relating to city business not listed on tonight's agenda. The comments that are discussed under call to public may or may not be acted on by the council during this meeting. There is a four-minute time limit. please stand and wait to be recognized. When you take the podium, please state your name and address.

Who would like to address?

Come forward.

Marsha Sossman.

Could you repeat your name?

Marsha Sossman. It's for the... S-A-S-S-A-M-A-N. Marsha. And I have a petition that I have sent around and I'll give you this. I didn't spend a lot of time on it, but what I want to address is I would like to have you do a something to stop having any kind of ice facility built in our community. And there is a reason I'm bringing this up. It's because of Flint, which I'm sure you all know that they were tagged for selling Flint properties to ICE at multi millions of dollars. And one of those properties happens to be in El Paso. And it's real interesting that it's three buildings, 296 square feet, and it will be the largest of the jails in their county. That sounds exactly like what we're getting right here in our, and I think a moratorium of at least 10 years to not allow anything like that to come into our community. We do not want that here. It would never, you think the data center's bad? This would be even worse.

And I think you can do that.

I know you said you couldn't, but you can. Okay. Comments? Anybody else?

Thank you, Marcia.

Steve Marcotte, 8629 Primrose Street. I just want to know if anybody on the council listened to the last minute, what you guys talked about in the last meeting. How people got up here was opposing the data center and their main concerns is water, electric, and the noise it's going to make. And then out of this, there's supposed to be transparency to this. I want to know if anybody listened to what the public has to say about it. the other part of it is is the planning what goes on i said i sat in here and i watched the part where a survey was put out 400 people took the survey but what i didn't hear was in that survey for a community center or a rec center was is how many people said that they wouldn't use it then you want to put it where we already have a problem with traffic because of a roundabout want to put it in a high traffic area that calls for a stoplight, not a roundabout. There's four lanes there. And we talk about planning, and there don't seem to be any really good planning how things are done. Just like when the roundabout first took place, there were sidewalks put in, eight wheelchair ramps were taken out to put in a roundabout, and then they were all put back. That's just a waste of taxpayers' money. On top of it, after that, there should have been a right-handed lane so you could turn off on 10 to go on west. That's still not done, and it's poor planning. And I'd like to see where we use our heads about what's being built, where it's being built, and how it's done. Because there's a lot of... construction going on that it doesn't seem to get inspected by anybody to make sure it's better for the city, better for the community, or anything. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm gonna go really fast because I'm gonna go Maybe over that four minutes. But I've got some thank yous too.

And quit having this on my yoga night. It makes me grouchy. Marie Caldwell, 8412 Corliss Road. First of all, I'd like to thank those who have taken the time over the past few weeks to answer my questions, Zach, Joe, and Patrick. I truly appreciate your willingness to engage, especially Joe and Zach for stepping forward to respond to questions on social media, which can be challenging to say the least. While I understand the council may not support this approach, it has been the only accessible form of communication for many of us. Two weeks ago I came before you requesting a moratorium. A temporary moratorium is not an anti-business, it is not an anti-growth, rather it provides necessary breathing room to understand and manage growth before it begins to control us. especially a development moratorium which is a temporary pause on building permits or project approvals. It can and should be considered when existing infrastructure zoning or public services are not adequately prepared to support new development, thereby posing potential risk to public health, safety, and welfare. Don't let the build out get ahead of the planning. The BO project has not yet received final approval. You will retain authority over key components such as site plan, franchise fees, and permitting. Additionally, if the end of them is not considered as a justice agreement was intended in good faith, it may not be fully binding. Furthermore, newer members of the council should not be presumed to be bound by decisions made prior to their tenure. In addition to requesting a moratorium, I'm also asking for specific actions if this development is allowed to move forward. First, I urge you to reduce the project to its original scope as presented in the initial meeting, specifically a plan for four smaller buildings over a seven-year period. This aligns with what was communicated to the citizens of DeSoto and is reflected on your website. Scaling the project back would help limit overall usage as well as reduce potential environmental and public health impacts, and we can determine how this will happen at a slower pace. Also, Mayor stated in the August 21st meeting that this plan would be a much lighter use on the area, and both Rob and the Mayor stated the lighter usage, smaller footprint was a large factor in this seeing a benefit to the data center. Go back and watch those video meetings. For a future, I ask you to eliminate the use of non-disclosure agreements that prevent early and meaningful communication with the public. While I understand the need to protect legitimate trade secrets, that should not come at the expense of transparency. Residents deserve to be informed and have the opportunity to provide input. In this case, there was little to no meaningful public engagement. The agenda was released only two days before, and while it may have been published in the legal register, most people don't even know what that is. The proposal was introduced, discussed, and voted on at the same meeting, which does not reflect true public input or transparency. Yes, there was some zoning stuff that came out beforehand. There must be a greater clarity regarding energy usage and infrastructure. While it is often difficult to obtain information from Evergy, more concrete data is needed, including where transmission lines will be placed. These decisions have real consequences, including the potential impact on private property. The ongoing disruption and the damage to personal property should be a serious factor in your decision-making process. VEO can insist averaging move that substation elsewhere, but buffer zones, site compatibility, and planning are things you can control. If this goes forward, it was stated on August 21st meeting that the future council would vote on IRBs, so now we are here. The original plan was for one IRB for each building. What is the plan now? This is an area you can control. You can limit what you give them or don't give them any IRBs. Franchise fees, 3.75 versus 5% fee and a yearly cap. Come on, I say no to 30% discount and a cap. Tax impact can be significant, but it depends on how this deal is structured. Another good reason for a moratorium is to answer how the water is handled. Where will that stuff go now that, will they put the proper chemicals in there so we are not polluting our own water treatment plant or the river? We don't know what we don't know. Did you take all this information as good faith from Beale? Because they have not shown good faith in us. Where are they? Did they set up any meetings with any citizens ever? No. Did Hanley take it to the next council? No. Make them stick to the original plan with the regulations they should have in place. Not in good faith, but they will do them. Your job as elected officials is first and foremost, the citizens of DeSoto and their safety and their transparency is to them, not developers. Thank you.

John Marinkovich, 34486 West 84th Terrace. I moved here six years ago. And in that six years, I don't remember anybody asking me if I thought it was a good idea to have a battery plant here. I don't remember anybody asking me if it was a good idea to have two data centers here. I don't think that there has been very much input from the people who live here and have to live with this, the traffic and the problems that the data centers will bring. I hope that you're prepared for some real lawsuits because since the people didn't have anything to say about these things, it's all on you. And I think I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna talk to all the people in Clearview who are really gonna be impacted by those two data centers. And I'm gonna get them some free lawyers and we're going to sue the heck out of you.

Anyone else? Max?

Go ahead. Yes. Musical chairs? I'm Cheryl. Oops, I should wait. Sorry.

Okay, I'm Cheryl Ragland. I live at 8635 Penner Avenue. Been in the community for almost 30 years and owned about three houses in town. So I'm very committed to the community here. I just kind of want to reiterate what I asked for last time, just to make sure that's on the top. That's not on the top of the agenda, but that is still included in the agenda. My background's in health and also education. So my concern has been the proximity, excuse me, of the school. Yeah. The proximity to the schools for the work that's being done. And I know there's the DAB or whatever it's called, um, maybe in our, the range we want it to be in, but the other vibrational is that kind of talked a little bit about it. And I talked a little bit about it last time and you were here virtually, um, about what we can't hear. That's the vibration that's happening. And that, um, I don't know if Sarah's here. I was lucky enough to catch on social media two speakers who were going to be in Sedgwick County and put on a symposium. I really would love to get that. I think it might help answer some questions for many of us. And the two gals were, I think they were published. So I feel like they would be a great resource along with that community as well. Because I think they're going through some of the same struggles that we're going through. Struggles? Growth opportunities. Let's use that. So I wanted to put that out there. Again, just concerns about the water. I know I think Tony and Marie talked about that. The clean water, the clean air. Anything else? Nope. Thank you. And I want to thank you guys and ladies. I know that we're all here for, I think, our own whys, right? Why are we here? Why? Me, I want to help with the kids. I've advocated for kids all my career, whether it was in health care or public education. And I know that with some of the vibrations, the other concern is with our kids who have unique needs, how much more sensitive they're going to be. And I know that, you know, that's a big thing for parents, right? Big thing for parents, right? So I thank you. I thank you for being here. I thank you for listening. I know you're giving your time, many of you, and I do want to acknowledge that. I thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Max Atwell and I live at 8475 Kill Creek Road and been in this community since 1948. We moved out in the northwest bottoms. The data center is kind of perked my interest here lately. I didn't pay much attention to it to start with and then then they just started. They're kind of like mushrooms. It just popping up everywhere. And I went on the internet tonight and they had, there was 34 data centers in the United States that are either working or in the process. That's not counting anything that's new. That seems like a lot to me. And I'm concerned about the water usage and I think you probably got plenty of electricity because of the battery plant they upgraded that quite a little bit but it also i also wonder what happens if you run short electricity or if it goes off whatever uh i i feel confident that the battery or that the data center has priority and it's going to kept being run this whatever and it's going to be the people live in this area that's going to be short of if there's any shortage. Water seems to be a problem. It takes a lot of water to cool it. I don't know about the data center or about how it operates, but a lot of water. We're in conditions west of here, not very far, that's drought conditions. And I don't know that we have, we've got new water systems and stuff in, but I don't know what we've got to run these things, you know, for years. And I don't know what to do with the water when they run it through, whether it goes back to the river or it goes in the ground air and soaks through or how that works. But anyway, my point being, I don't fully understand it, and I'm not sure how many people do, but it kind of reminds me of the wind turbines and the solar collectors. That was such a big deal. for a long time and finally got it sold. And so we've got these towers that don't work well out everywhere. It's scattered all over Kansas. And what happens if the data centers go kaput or what? Why do we have so many data centers? Look like you could have, you know, like in a region and maybe half a dozen of them or something across, but Having the gardener turn theirs down, and I don't know who else did, but I think we ought to really look at it and make sure that it's a better deal that we really need and better than the battery plant. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you, Matt.

Alan Meckley, 8955 Oak Country Lane. Moved to DeSoto about 13 and a half years ago. Really enjoyed the peace and quiet. It's a wonderful place to live. After the last council meeting, I reached out to the best expert that I know, who's my son, He has a PhD from Arizona State University and specifically working with computers and sounds. And so I reached out to him and asked him what he knew about data centers and the infrasound that is emitted from them. In less than 12 hours, I had at least 15 emails, several text messages with links to YouTube videos, uh papers that have been written on the subject and i can tell you what i've read i absolutely would never want a data center in our city i hope that all of you have taken the time as council members to educate yourself and read what's out there and watch youtube videos that are from people who are recording sounds near data centers. It's mind boggling to me that we would even consider it. If I can get this to open up, I just wanna read you one portion of one of those papers that he sent me. noise pollution and its impact on nearby communities, which becomes, I'm just reading a portion, which becomes excessively difficult in urban environments. This presentation will explore the issues faced by data centers in urban environments and discuss potential solutions to create quieter facilities. Key points include physical challenges, Every site design faces numerous physical constraints, including limited rooftop and equipment room space. And that's going on about trying to build a wall or something to keep the sound down. But that doesn't work with infrasound. Infrasound is a low-level sound, and I see some nods, so hopefully you've studied this and understand what I'm talking about. You can't make it go away, at least to my knowledge from what I've read. But this article and several others talk about the damage to people. It could cause asthma, believe it or not. That's beyond my knowledge and understanding, but this is what I'm reading. Animals including our pets and wildlife are going to be affected by this because this is sound that they can hear. And I just want to urge the Council to do your due diligence. If anyone would like any of these articles that my son sent me, I'm happy to share those with citizens, Council members, anybody who would like to read them or watch videos.

Anyone else under call to public? All right, I'm not seeing any takers, so we'll move on. Item three is old business. We don't have any tonight, so we'll go to item 4A. Consider presentation and acceptance of 2025 audit of city financial statements.

Yes, Mayor. Thank you. As we do each year, the city has an independent auditor do an audit of the city's books, the intent of openness, transparency, but also as a check on the financial systems, checks and balances here. Here at City Hall and here tonight to present this year's audit is Emily Sheldon. She's with Swindoll, Janssen, Hawk, and Lloyd. If that name's unfamiliar to you, it's the same firm as Berber, Trahan. I think there was an acquisition maybe. Correct. But it's the same folks generally that have been doing our audits. The past several years, I did include the full audit in your staff package, but Bonnie has hard copies. If you want to have a hard copy, those are available. Emily, Mayor, with your permission, I'll turn it over to Emily to present the audit.

Thank you so much for the introduction. Again, my name is Emily Sheldon. I'm a partner, Swindle, Jansen, Hawk, and Lloyd on the City of DeSoto's audit. It's my pleasure to present the results of the city's fiscal year 2025 financial statement audit. Along with the financial statements that you received, you should have also received a letter to the mayor and city council, and that letter summarizes the matters that we are required to bring to your attention about the financial statement audit. So my presentation this evening is going to be a run through the key points in that letter. We start off the letter by addressing our responsibility to perform an audit in accordance with specific accounting standards. Those standards require us to perform procedures to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statement is free from material misstatement. Our procedures include examining on a test basis evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the financial statement. I am pleased to report that as a result of our audit, we determined that the fiscal year 2025 financial statement is presented fairly in all material respects in conformity with the financial reporting provisions of the Kansas Municipal Audit and Accounting Guide. And we have issued an unmodified audit opinion on the regulatory basis of accounting, which is the best kind of opinion that the city can receive. We would bring to your attention in the letter anything identified in the procedures we performed relating to significant alternative, adopted, changed, or controversial accounting policies, significant accounting policies in emerging areas, or significant unusual transactions. For fiscal year 2025, there's nothing to report in those areas. The city had one significant estimate. That estimate was the net pension liability, which is disclosed in the notes to the financial statement. As a result of our work, we concluded that the estimate did appear reasonable. Audit adjusting journal entries were recorded as a result of our audit and are included in an attachment with the representation letter at the end of the packet. Those adjustments were report related entries and included entries provided by management after the receipt of the initial trial balance. There were no uncorrected misstatements identified. For the departure from the auditor's standard report portion of the letter, we describe how the auditor's report includes an adverse opinion on US generally accepted accounting principles that simply results from the city's adoption of the resolution that waives the requirement for application of GAAP and allows the use of a regulatory basis of accounting. So that's standard procedure. For the observations about the audit process portion letter, we would like to inform you that during our audit, city management and staff were responsive and transparent with our team members, and we encountered no disagreements, significant issues, or difficulties in performing the audit. Finally, we attached a copy of management's representation letter. That letter puts into writing matters that are required by our standards to be represented to us by city's management. We provide that letter to you because we believe it will help you better understand the city's representations about its financial statements and help you fulfill your fiduciary responsibilities. The achievement of an excellent audit result such as the city's is a testament to both the city's preparedness for its audit, as well as maintaining good processes and controls in place throughout the entire year. As such, we'd like to thank Bonnie and the rest of the city's team who are fortunate enough to go through the process of audit for their assistance. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions for Emily? Any comments?

Yeah, no, thank you, Mayor. I did want to recognize and appreciate Bonnie for all her hard work during the year. All the department heads, this doesn't happen just by itself. So a lot of hard work went into that. As is customary, I think this is, you see Bonnie once a year, and this is her required once a year, and we promise not to make her speak. It's not her strength. So appreciate it. So thanks, Bonnie. No action to be taken, just receive the audit. and uh so yeah no actions necessary okay thank you very much oh okay no uh

Item B, discuss 2027 community development block grant project.

Thank you, mayor and council. We did have a discussion on this at the previous meeting. And at this point, we are having a public hearing on this as required by the terms of the community development block grant application process. Just briefly, we did talk about several projects that staff brought forward, which were sidewalks along Weah Street and some others in the Old Town area, and also improving water lines in the Lakeview Heights area. I did have a discussion with Chief Maxson about if there were any other concern areas that he had. He did concur with the Lakeview Heights area as being an area that... but also put in your staff report that you've got a water main along Penner Avenue that also has been targeted or has been in our plan that should be a proposed eight inch water main. And so that's the project that did put on there as well. Unfortunately, it's also the most expensive project. I did do some basic cost estimates, got some information from Joe as well on how much these might cost. Got some information from some engineering consultants also that work in monitoring installed water lines. And then lastly, Joe suggested that we look at some stormwater drainage improvements on 82nd and Weah Street. Apparently there's a storm inlet that goes right underneath that person's house and then connects over to WEA. So came up with a fairly basic plan to reroute that so it doesn't go underneath their house anymore and move that so it does drain down WEA and then over to WEA Terrace and then into a ditch, then ultimately the Kansas River. so at this point these are the projects that i understood that the council was interested in looking at pursuing once again we do have two hundred thousand dollars that we can apply for you can put a hundred thousand towards one project hundred thousand towards the other where you could spend it all on one project so with that i get council input and then also you need to as a requirement have a public hearing

I have a question for Joe then on the storm drainage project. Would that could possibly qualify as a smack project as well? No, no. Good question. You know, with the new emphasis toward maintenance.

Yeah, we could probably submit it. I think the existing pipe is corrugated. There's concrete pipe underneath the house, but we probably could make a submittal for replacement of the CNP pipe. Yeah, one of the issues that really drove it is because the corrugated metal pipe that kind of runs behind the house is failing, and one of the residents' driveway sits on top of it. Right. So we would take a year process probably to go through that funding process.

Might get there quicker than the CDBG project. Right, with the timing. Thoughts from council before we open up the public hearings? All right. I will then. Officially open to public hearing. Anyone wishing to offer a comment regarding our 2027 CDBG projects, please approach the podium. State your name and address. I'm not seeing any takers on that. I'LL JUST START WITH A COUPLE THOUGHTS. WE FOCUS A LOT ON SIDEWALKS LATELY AND MAYBE IT IS AND WE STILL HAVE A PRETTY ROBUST SIDEWALK PROGRAM. MAYBE IT IS TIME TO FOCUS ON GETTING SOME WATER PROJECTS DONE. I KNOW THAT PENNER AVENUE WATER LINE HAD COME UP IN SOME DISCUSSIONS WITH THE BFW PERHAPS A WHILE BACK AS NEEDING SOME UPGRADE. I would be open to either one of those since we have focused and we'll continue to focus on sidewalk projects, but that actually that 83rd street waterline might make a lot of sense in advance of the 83rd street bridge over the railroad tracks. Let us do a little bit of utility relocation advance of that bridge project and, or a lot in court, COORDINATION WITH IT AND GET SOME OF THAT PAID FOR. MY THOUGHTS. BRAD, WHAT DIRECTION DO YOU NEED FROM US TONIGHT? DO WE HAVE TO ISOLATE THE PROJECT OR

Well, I guess they are. We'd like, if possible, a decision tonight. Now, there is enough time for the next meeting before the submittal date, but that puts a little more pressure on it.

Yeah, we're somewhat under the clock to provide some guidance as to how we'd like to go with our CDBG application.

I have a question. Sure. which the water projects obviously need to be done for a lot of reasons. And I think it was said that it's been needed for a number of years now. Is that correct? Yes. Right. So how can we afford it now that we couldn't before?

Well, one thing I, as I mentioned that there's a $200,000 block grant, they've doubled essentially. The other thing is, you know, the previous council just chose to spend the money elsewhere and, AND IN THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROCESS, THERE ARE OTHER, AS YOU KNOW, YOU HAVE TO JUGGLE FUNDS AND CHOOSE WHAT LOCATIONS AND PROJECTS GET FUNDED AND WHILE THESE ARE IMPORTANT PROJECTS, THEY JUST NEVER There's always something sort of leapfrogging over them.

We also had a change in eligible zip codes for a while as well. Then we lost eligibility in parts of the old city. So there were a number of years where it was areas south of K-10 was all that really qualified.

That's a good point, Mayor. I'd forgotten about that. There used to only be three block grants or census tracts in the city. And the only area eligible for a while was around Clearview City. So that also... kept us from using these funds in the older parts of DeSoto.

Thank you. Anyone else with some thoughts on it, Joe?

Yeah, echo my statements when this was brought up two weeks ago. I believe, you know, our failing water lines should take precedent. You know, When Todd was here and spoke to the fire chief last time, non-working hydrants, that's a problem, right? I think something that should be addressed are residents deserve full use and service of the wonderful fire department we have. So The hydrant and two inch water line that's currently along Oak Drive. And I also think. The line along Penner is is. Something that that needs to be addressed as well. How would we approach?

the costs. So the remind me, Brad, what was their, we'll scroll up to that two inch, but what was the total on that? I think one 10 and three 50. So combined projects about half a million dollars. Yeah. 200,000. I mean, it would be a matching project then, or we do the whole, the whole thing and then apply some part of the, $200,000 toward the 8-inch line?

Yeah, it's a reimbursement program, so we had to spend the money first and then request the grant money back. One thing about the area in lakeview heights is you know i did think about well maybe we could just do that little stretch along where the valve needs to be replaced and the hydrant needs to be upgraded to functional status we could just do a short small project there probably be a fourth of the third of the 110 000 versus doing that and the extension up to oak street one thing also that's a little unclear after looking at some of the information is Oak Street might have a four inch line. We're not totally sure. I spoke with Billy Briggs about that. I know there's a two inch on the next street over on Center Drive. So that's why I changed the staff reports as repairs in Lakeview Heights because I wanted to get If we turn in an application and we find out that maybe Oak Street isn't the right one, it should be center, we can do that. Or we can, like I said, just do that short piece along 83rd Street and then focus on the upgrade to the line along Penner Avenue. So that's why I was, one of those things is what do you do first, right? get the bigger main in first to serve the area, or you start doing some of the smaller projects. Because the main along Penner is functioning. It's working. It's just if there were a major event, there could be some issues supplying that type of water. But once again, we haven't had anything significant in that area. We did have a fire recently not too far from City Hall, and our department put it out pretty quickly, so it wasn't. as far as not having water pressure.

All right. Mike, can you remind on the CIP, what did we have for, do we have an allocation for distribution?

Top of my head, Mayor, no. There isn't such a thing.

Since it's more of a water department.

Yeah, so we do have a water improvement fund that revenue streams go into that it kind of set up to do handle things like this that come up. Good example, a couple of years ago, we used the sewer development fund, the sewer improvement fund, to replace a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of sewer line along lexington avenue that was you know it collapsed and sort of emergency type repair that's a good example of things that pull resources away from something like this you know that immediately rise to the top longer term i think we we have an opportunity in the coming years to implement a true asset management program And Joe's begun work on that already where you inventory your lines, you condition assess, and you prioritize them on a system-wide basis. We're not quite there yet. So what we rely on are areas of known, you know, poor water flow or lines that have caused late breaks in the past. So, you know, I think we're coming to a point where we can be more proactive than reactive. We're just not quite there yet.

Rhonda, any thoughts?

I actually agree with Joe. I was going to bring up the fire hydrant situation as well, just to make sure that they're able to be used. So with these, is it then deciding what percentage of those funds are sidewalks? We're not deciding like that.

I think what we would say is we want to go for water projects in the older and identify... How specific do we have to be in the grant application?

Ultimately, you do have to call out the project and request a certain amount of funds. So if you put $110,000 towards this project here, you have $90,000 that you can put towards another one. If you don't request anything for that other $90,000, you lose it. So it's either you request it and...

And the other thing to keep in mind, the council's discretion, the CIP fund does exist. And we lay out a five-year CIP, but we haven't programmed every penny of that. So a couple hundred thousand, you know, you could counsel, get a discretion, decide to go ahead and do $400,000 worth, use CDBG money to supplement that.

My thought is that the eight inch along, like upgrading the eight inch long pinner to make sure that you would have adequate fire flow to the area. If you get bigger lines further out, you still might not be able to get all the flow that you need, would want there to like say this area. And so. I don't have a clear picture of what that water distribution model looks like.

It seems like a nice sidewalk in front of a burned down house is kind of a waste. So I would say the water would probably be the Priority, right?

Yes, I think whether or not we just would propose a Pinner project and then ask that we would maybe look at adding this one in as a CIP, the smaller one as a CIP project, knowing that the Pinner project would require a greater match to make that happen in 2027 for that.

It was mentioned at last meeting I don't know if it was Brad or if maybe it was Joe, that there's also possibly other non-working hydrants in that area. Do we know which ones those are?

Well, there used to be the standard where we would paint the black when they were a non-functioning hydrant. And we have replaced a lot of those. So I've got...

So Chief Maxson was here at the last week. I apologize. I wasn't here at the last meeting. I don't know. But they do have a pretty extensive program that they do annually. Largely, it's to do two things, to flush water mains to make sure that they're not built up with sediment. So it's a flushing program, but it's a hydrant maintenance program. So they want their firefighters to go and know where the hydrants are and how to work them. And part of doing that, they identify ones that aren't working and they need help. So they have a system, a GIS system that tracks those very specifically. I don't have the information right now, but I think I can report with relative confidence that we've done a really good job at decreasing the number of non-working hydrants. There's always going to be some of those that it takes them a couple of years to get through the whole system. So one hydrant that worked four years ago might not work now. So there's always some of these that pop up. And they have a pretty robust database. THOSE GENERATE WORK ORDERS FOR US SO WE KNOW WHICH ONES ARE INOPERABLE AND WE CAN PRIORITIZE THOSE AND GO OUT AND FIX THOSE. SO THERE'S THAT. THAT PROCESS IS ONGOING AND I'D LIKE TO GET YOU SOME INFORMATION ON THAT. I DON'T THINK THE PICTURE CAN BE PAINTED THAT WE HAVE AN INORDINATE AMOUNT OF NON-WORK HYDRANTS AND IT'S A DANGER TO THE PUBLIC. THAT IS NOT AT ALL THE CASE.

NEW SPEAKER THAT WASN'T WHERE I WAS GOING.

NEW SPEAKER SORRY.

I was going for just the overall well-being of our water system working hydrants. And so I don't know, Mike. It'd be good to understand the CIP that we have available to tap into. So if this is just 200,000 and we want to do Penner, that's 350,000. So, and then Oak Drive and that hydrant and the valve is 110.

Sure. I think the thing to keep in mind, yes, there's a CIP. It's not fully programmed out. We only really approve it on an annual basis, so in five years. The other thing to keep in mind is that the projects we're bringing you here are among those that are eligible for CDBG, fit within the framework of an order of magnitude of the type of project that we can implement in one year. and those that would score high on the CDVU's ranking, because it is a competitive process through the county. Other cities are also applying for the same money. So the list that we have in front of us now is tailored toward those specific things. When we looked at the overall CIP, we had a broader perspective in mind. We were prioritizing based on overall community standards and budgetary impacts and taxation and all the other things. So I'm not sure these particular projects were thrown in the context of the overall wash within trying to figure out which CIP project to do. I'm not sure these would raise, necessarily raise to the level of that community priority. Am I making sense? Not to say that you couldn't do these, but that's just something to keep in mind.

I understand really this discussion is focused on the grant portion This is what we're talking about. However, secondary to that, we do have funds available to address the problems with fire flow and undersized man. Sure. Yeah, that's true. What do we need to do to increase that? Is there a way to do that? I think to what Joe was asking, outside of what could be funded in the CDBG, What can we do now to address those problems? We don't want to double pay for something else.

You do have discretion to spend those funds that are in the CIP. But I would want you to do that with the knowledge that it might take something else away maybe in the down years. So I would want you to do that in the context of that. And I don't have the number off the top of my head, but the CIP does have significant fund reserves right now that we could implement something like this for you.

I mean, I think I asked the question about certainly in Longfellow, didn't VFW want to put in the water?

Yeah, they talk about just sprinkle their building. They needed a larger main to add sprinklers in the VFW building.

Yes, and we talked about that.

Oh, we did. We were going to implement this pinner project several years ago, and we got to the point of starting that process when the VFW said, never mind, we'll sell our fireworks outside the building.

So they just put that on the back burner, not that they're still wanting it, but the lines. So that was two years ago. Time gets away. I hate to say that.

Of all the things that a city does, I think fire protection is probably pretty high on the list of things that citizens want to see done. So I would think that that's something we should prioritize over perhaps other things on the CIP that aren't emergency funding. And I'm not sure how to, if there's a way to make a motion for that or whatnot, or if this is even the appropriate procedure.

Pick this project and say, maybe we pick it and say you do a combined project, Penner and the Oak Drive that would be a $450,000 project might even help us score higher and knowing that we will have to match those. We're only going to get $200,000 from the grant. The remainder would come out of our CIP fund. I like that.

And we haven't kept up with the trucks because the trucks we used to have here to fight the fires were only two-inch pumps. Well, now we have pumps that pump a thousand gallon a minute and we haven't got the lines up with support of that but that's just something that happens with innovation with new equipment and since the fire department took over and they have the equipment now we have to try and keep up

I just had a quick question. Have we received this grant before? And what was it used for? We use it for sidewalks.

We've used it for water lines. We've done sewer lines.

We get it almost every year since at least 1998.

Yeah. I mean, I can think of, we did a, I think it was a CDBG project. We did a water line down Weiss Street. Yeah, we did a sidewalk and a water line. And then the sidewalk after we did the water line, near where that storm sewer issue is right now. Yep. That was probably five years ago. So it's just a variety of projects.

Do we motion for approval? Sure, if you'd like. I'd like to motion we approve this agenda item.

Direct staff to apply for the combined project on water.

Yes, the agenda item directing the staff to apply for the CDBG grant and that we consider, have staff consider the expenditure of CIP funds to address the fire flow issue as noted in the discussion. Super. Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Lane?

Yes.

Sabo? Yes. McCracken?

Yes.

Bradley? Yes. Patterson?

Yes.

Motion carries. All right. Item C, consider agreement with Confluence for comprehensive plan update.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. We've gone through the consultant selection process. Obviously, there's so much going on in DeSoto, the growth, the strategic planning. We did the Southwest growth area. Yeah. done a corridor study on 83rd Street. So there's a lot of things happening and staff gets caught up and we focus on projects and our daily tasks. One of the good things about a comprehensive plan is to step back, take a breath and look at the community from a 30,000 foot level. and try to figure out good planning. And there was a mention about planning earlier in some public comments. We have not updated our comprehensive plan with a full blown study since 2019. And I think where DeSoto was in 2019, Sunflower area was still under cleanup. So there's really no big projects, no mega projects, no water lines, sewers, things like that being discussed at that point. We were still waiting for the, go ahead from the core mentioned here, Steven, open up property. So really it was a fairly simple confined plan on the older part of DeSoto with some fairly basic assumptions for growth. But now that there's a lot more happening, Mike had instructed me to go ahead and let's start the process for doing a comprehensive plan update. So we did go through that process. It was the mayor, myself, Mike, Chairman Templin, and Whitney Lang were on the selection committee. but i've been got shortlisted and interviewed two firms for the uh the comprehensive plan confluence was unanimously chosen they're also the ones that did the southwest growth area plan amy nasa is also here in the audience tonight she represents confluence so if you've got some specific questions on their thoughts on de soto i'm certainly going to call her up to the voting if you'd like. Also on the team was HDR, who's done a lot of the work. Both consultants know the community very well and have been really good to work with. Just a couple things that I took away from the whole process that went through when we were looking at scope of services and things like that is just obviously the research and data collecting. It's changed quite a bit since the the 2019 plan and how we go about interacting with the public and where we interact and how we try to collect that information. So there's a public, there's data collection, there's public outreach, which really in this case, a lot of times you used to just do the public, the data collection, the public outreach right up front and everything based on after that was based on the two months that you went ahead and gather that information. Now it's a fairly continuous process that can be updated and rolled through the process. One thing also was a focus on our downtown, our planning. We've got fire station, the old fire station, the scout house. And you really want to focus on some economics, not just, you know, let's do some bump outs, put some trees and, you know, pretty it up a little bit. I think there needs to be a little bit more economic approach to what the downtown area, what that core can become. One thing that I talked to a confluence about was planning commissioner training. I think that's something that needs to be, continuing on the forefront because once again, we have a lot of things going on and planning commissioners are now as witness tonight, a lot more well attended, public's getting more involved, public's being much more educated. So it's time that we also put some emphasis on our planning commissioners as well to get some training also. Then, of course, looking at the utilities, street networks, also very important. We've got a lot of potential growth areas, especially the area north and west of Evening Star. That's probably the one sort of big question mark that we have, what's going to happen out there. So that's something else we wanted to study. And then of course, there's, as I mentioned, a workshop for the city council as part of the adoption process, but there's a lot of process. There's gonna be a lot of meetings that council and planning commission will be involved in throughout this journey that we'll be on over the next nine months or so. Anyway, with all that, We did negotiate a scope and a fee with Confluence for $164,300. If you have any questions, I will certainly be available. And then once again, we have a representative from Confluence here tonight.

Questions from council?

All right.

Are we ready for a motion?

Make a motion to approve confluence to complete the DeSoto comprehensive plan update with a fee not to exceed $164,300. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion of the motion? Roll call, please. Patterson?

Yes.

Bradley? Yes. Savo? No. McCracken?

Yes.

Lane?

Yes.

Motion carries. Okay. Item D, consider ordinance 2688 rezoning 14.8 acres at 34570 West 95th Street.

All right, thank you, Mayor.

I have an application that rezones property on Lexington Avenue and 95th Street. 3.7 acres is R1 and then 11.1 acres is RA. There was just one application turned in since they're wanting to zone in both tracks to commercial or business general in their code. So with all this, we went through a standard process, notified neighbors, put up the signs, talked to a few calls on this project. One person did request a protest petition, but never heard anything back from that. Also, the applicant has held a public meeting or a meeting with all the residents in the area, and I didn't have a sign-in sheet I could have included in the packet, but apparently it went pretty well. We didn't have any CONCERNS OR QUESTIONS AT THE PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING ON THIS ITEM. AS YOU CAN SEE, THERE'S THE TRACK, TWO TRACKS UNDER CONSIDERATION. THEY ARE RIGHT ON 95th AND LEXINGTON ALSO ON THE OFF-RAMP FOR K-10 HIGHWAY, SO IT IS A PERFECT SPOT FOR COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS, WHAT WE'VE HAD IN OUR COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AND RECENTLY COMPLETED SOUTHWEST GROWTH AREA PLAN ALSO SHOWS THIS AS A COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT AREA. so going through the staff report uh don't want to belabor it too much this is the ones that really fit and at least in my opinion the pre-hand and glove with what we've been looking forward to in desoto for uh business development against on a major interchange along a arterial route we are showing ultimately improvements to 95th street that was the one negative that i did have or neutral on the scoring sheet is 95th hasn't been fully vetted on how we want the improve that road but we've had some previous studies actually did about four or five years ago and then we've had some upgrades lately but to have 95 to be a three three-year lane road with a turn lane this development could impact that but when we get to the site planning stage we can we'll request traffic studies and A lot of information itself as far as how this actual use will play out. Just briefly, they're looking at a convenience store, maybe some hotels and restaurants in this area. So it's something that would benefit the community as far as all the business development that we've got going on in DeSoto. So with that, I'll stand for any questions you might have, but it does fit, like I said, with the Southwest Growth Area Plan.