Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Thank you, Jessica. Good girl. You're trainable. I try.

Okay.

That's what my wife tells me. You've got potential.

Yeah, after 35 years. 42. Oh, 42. Okay. Wow. I'm 43 this year. Okay, well, we will call the meeting to order and we will stand for the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I would make a motion that we go into Executive session. At least 45 minutes.

Second, it's been moved and seconded to go into executive session for 45 minutes with the County Councilor.

I'm more gonna to discuss.

Oh, I'm sorry to discuss the master agreement with the Chamber.

Yes, KSA 7543 19 B2. Okay.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye. How about a move?

Yeah.

Okay. See, I can go ahead and adjourn. Donor turn. Yeah.

He is the potential guy. We haven't conversed with any other people, so that's why I felt good recommending it.

If it was a competing matter, I would have been like, we're back from, I don't know, executive session, and we will recess in that regard. You know, I'm being to come back in session at 7 o'clock.

Cool. Yeah, of course.

So I'm actually taking. And I'm going to sit over there so I can plug my stuff in. The very long agenda for today. You sit there and I'll sit here so I can plug my computer in. I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off today, let me tell you.

. . . . Yeah.

We've done every year. Has everybody taken the comprehensive plan survey?

What's that? That's good.

Thank you.

I mean, that's 400. Is that great?

That's OK.

This is not the first or last time I will be placed upon the group W bench. I understand the kids table. Hey, we got pizza. I didn't see her in the back. She was out there unless she.

I know Kelly's sick. I don't know if Pat's coming.

Have you looked through that yet? Did you see our

I missed the MPO meeting yesterday.

I think whatever they had us for lunch at the .

No, no, no. I see. I was worried it was something contagious, but then I woke up three times today.

Usually when he gets sick and I get sick, it's his first time.

I don't have to theorize the salads they gave us at that Capitol event. My kid's volleyball game.

I watched one match.

I don't know.

I know that Kelly's definitely not coming. Thank you.

I just heard she wasn't coming. I didn't know.

and i just carry i just .

. . . . Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I'm a little particular. I keep a couple of them on my shelves mostly because I lose my glasses. Hi, Mr. Oskar, how are you? Do you get a haircut? It looks good. I don't know if my heart. Good. I got his number, I'll call him right now.

Yeah, I was going to email you about that.

Yeah, I'll call him right now. I've been tasked with calling to see if you'll be joining us at the meeting. I will let them know. Thank you so much. Bye. He is three minutes away. Landis. I've had a lot of caffeine today.

Sam, do you have any more of this? I printed out 20. Are they already gone?

I've got it on my Facebook.

that's pretty cool i mean i paid two dollars at the library Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, you don't want everybody to hear you. I don't know what kind of sickness she's got

Sorry, I was not paying attention.

No, I don't think you want.

He wants your stuff. That's all this time. Oh really?

Yeah, thanks girl.

He said he's about three minutes away.

Is Kelly joining us remotely? Does anybody know?

She's supposed to. She has a link.

If she joins, will she show up somewhere? How will we know?

It's 7 o'clock. I'd like to call the meeting to order.

I need to call the meeting to order, and then I'll turn it over to you. Thank you.

So yes, we will now call the meeting to order the joint city-county meeting to discuss the master agreement. At this time, Mayor,

Butler, do you want to get started with your?

I'll go ahead and get started. So we're going to go ahead and begin just by sharing where the city is, and it would be an opportunity for the county to step in and just a little review and where we're headed tonight. So as probably everybody is aware that on this past Tuesday, the commission voted on a new proposal for a chamber of commerce discussion. And the vote is as follows. The Chamber of Commerce and membership will go its own way. EDC is assumed and absorbed by the city. And MAC is assumed and absorbed by the county. And so... Mr Spites sent out an email to the County and share this information. Following that, Mrs King had asked if we could maybe try to meet as soon as possible with community and County with the County and City and then also Commissioner Giordano had requested that we consider getting a meeting together ASAP and so I think the approach needs to be agreed now by the county as a possible path forward. And so tonight we are coming together to determine what the next steps are. There has been lots and lots of discussion about the past and so I think the emphasis today should be on next steps on moving forward. I do need to preclude this by saying there will be no voting tonight and subsequently no public comments. And these will be referred to a future city and County Commission meetings and and so I don't know if you want to step in now.

All right, well, I'll just add that you know, I think it was. I think I could probably speak for all of us. I think we were blindsided by what transpired on Tuesday night. We've spent months, months working on these things with the city manager, yourself, and several of us getting stuff together and worked very hard on it. But that being said, you know, I think our goal amongst all of us is moving forward for the best of our community to, you know, we can't dwell. It's been said and we've gone over the past. The past is the past. And we need to work together to see how this is going to benefit everyone and however that's going to work.

Kelly, just a text to say, because somebody let her in the meeting.

Jessica, can you help us?

But I think it's very important. I guess I was blindsided in the sense that... Is it okay to pause? Or should we keep going?

Is it okay to pause, you think? I would prefer to pause. Pause, thank you. Okay, thank you.

The court and Jessica worked on that. I think that's the Jessica. I think it's been the first time is there any. And if you have any input on it out to do that.

She's in the meeting.

She's in?

She's in. I don't know what meaning, like, you have.

Like, differently. If you join that meeting there.

Let's enjoy it. Sorry, you guys are sitting at the kitty table. No, I'm good.

Do you want me to set this over with you guys? Do what now? Do you want Kelly over with you guys? Yeah, she's all right. So we should be able to hear her. Is it going to come out on the laptop? Yeah. Okay, cool.

Thank you.

Kelly, are you able to hear us okay? Folks, maybe you have to do so.

Oh, this sounds turned off. I got you. Okay, Kelly, can you speak real quick?

Yeah. Can you hear me? Yep. You're good. Beautiful. And just so you know that you're on a laptop computer at the table with the four city commissioners. Okay. Okay. I can barely hear you guys. Oh, okay. Well,

I'll figure it out.

It's on YouTube and it's on Facebook.

Yeah, it's on the Geary County YouTube and the Geary County Facebook. I shared it on my page as well. So I will note there is a slight time delay. So depending on what we navigate, Kelly, you may need to call out in the chat that you have commentary so we can yield and provide space. Well, we'll make it happen. I'll advocate on your behalf.

So you got this.

Okay, thank you. I got you, girl. Okay.

So anyway, what I was saying is that I think we all are in agreement that we need to move forward as to what's going to be the best for our city and county. One question that I have is who's the ultimate accountability for all of this? I mean, if the chamber becomes independent, the EDC goes the city, the MAC goes the county, you potentially then go back to having the three separate organizations structured. And, you know, if you have the three independent operations, then we create silos, which everybody's been wanting to get away from having silos. I think we're wanting to create one coordinated effort amongst all these entities to, again, to work to make sure we're doing the best for our communities. And like I said, Ashley, Justin, you guys, Ron, all of us that have been working together, Jamal, we've had counselors involved in all these conversations and spent much time. And so, again, to be taken the total opposite direction,

um we need to get back on the same page whatever that whatever however that takes so um hopefully we'll have some creative positive conversations tonight and um mayor i don't know where it was a three to two vote yes it was yes yes i also forgot to add something um i'm supposed to say that the discussion is limited to the city and the county and the chamber i apologize i forgot to say that and so at this point i i think we'll just open it up to representation from chamber and city and county to we now know what's out there. And the question is, what's next? What is next?

How do we comment on this? I was going to request actually, since I did provide papers advising my points of concern and commentary, I was going to offer to read it out loud. that people may choose to comment oratory as they see fit do you have one uh there was a stack over there i didn't think so many people would be interested we ran out uh here you go madam commissioner this isn't a comment this is a work session that we're going to work together to find out to

come up with a solution. The two bodies will have their opportunity to make decisions on their own. But we're not voting on anything tonight. I think we've got a lot of work to do. So public comments are going to be held by the wayside as far as tonight. And then once we decide on what route we want to go, then the county will have their time for public input and so should the city.

So at this point, we're going with next steps. What's next? Now that the decisions have been made, what is next?

Personally, I will vote to say no for the county to take military affairs. I don't think, I think the military affairs should be under the, or with the economic development. What happens at Port Riley directly affects everything. Our businesses, our housing, our employment, our tourism, our population growth. I think that, and I don't want to put Rob on the spot, but I mean, I think everything that most of the things that you do are directly with the city as far as I mean, you take care of the whole county military wise, but you're probably day to day issues are with city with economic development stuff.

is that correct okay and i believe i'm correct in that i i do think that the chamber should have the opportunity as well as uh as the mac and um well we don't have a ed's justin and ron are representing EDC. But, you know, we do want to hear the pros and cons of what you choose. You people are the ones who are going to have to do it. And you best know the working relationships. And that's what the end of the road is. We want people working together. And that's, again, what we

Well, I think they've already given their issues and what they're wanting to do. The first thing I want to get out there is it does not matter what kind of structure, whether it's separate, together, or not. If you have the wrong person in that position, it is not going to work. It's not going to work. If there's not accountability, it's going to fail. those are the things that you know everybody's so against the the structure well the structure wasn't even the structure that they have in place now was not even followed there were a lot of people failed because nobody was paying attention and and and so you know i i am not against what the what the uh uh chamber has has uh presented um i am very i very much think we need to get the right people in the position. And we also need, as elected officials, we are the ones that are responsible for these monies. And if they're not being spent right, we need to be holding people accountable.

And the way that I understood all this or where I thought that the county was a month-ish ago whenever we had our meeting, we voted to move forward with the structure. Our counselors have been working on this. I know Betsy has and has sent stuff to the city. And that's where we thought that this was going to land. And you guys were supposed to be coming up with accepting of that and going forward with that. And I understand that's never happened. So, again, that is a... We sent it over a month ago, I believe. Well, so, you know, that's what, so we've created a structure. It could be changed, but where we left it in all the conversations that all of us have been meeting with for eight months, when we come together with all this, we had our meeting, and it was in public meeting that we have come together with this agreement with the structure we would like to see and that's where our the ball dropped so the city needs to be able to answer why that didn't conversations didn't happen in the meantime quite frankly has it ever been on your agenda well yeah i i didn't i didn't hear you has it ever been on your agenda has what been on our agenda to talk about the master agreement has it been our agenda we've we've been

We've had executive sessions to discuss the matter.

That's not open to the public. Ours has been open to the public.

Yeah.

I just want to know if you've had open discussion about what direction you guys wanted to see it going. That's what he was asking.

Since the joint meeting we had with everybody a couple months ago, we were tasked, everybody within the city, the county, do your homework, decide what you think is best, provide it to your legal counsel. They work together. The intention from there was that it would come back to us. They're asking if that did not happen because they do not believe that happened. I do not believe that happened because although we have had some executive sessions and we did our own personal homework,

it was never brought back to us we never had an open discussion since the only thing that we have had was the most recent proposal presentation this week correct thank you i'd like to start with apologies for my statements the other night and they're the reason that the windshield is much bigger than a rear view mirror and uh there again like everybody stated looking for the positive way forward As I was thinking about this the other night, the relationship with the city and Fort Riley is a very strong one. When there's a road issue, when there's a bridge issue, when there's a traffic issue, I truly believe in my heart that the relationship, the retailer... We did.

I don't know if you guys can hear me. We can hear you, Kelly. You did what?

Let's see...

Oh, Kelly, I think you muted yourself.

I think it's the delay.

Yeah, there is. There is a slight delay. If she's watching through Facebook, it's about 30 seconds. I'm getting interference.

I don't know if you guys can hear me. We can hear you.

Do you think we should let Mr. Johnson finish and have you respond? Or do you want to go ahead and respond, Commissioner?

Oh, sure. I do have quite a lag. I'm sorry.

Okay. Okay. Sorry. Do you want to go ahead and finish?

Sure. The relationships with Junction City and Fort Riley, they're an integral thing and I really do in my heart believe that's where military affairs, although it's funded by both, truly does belong in the city when it comes to housing the soldiers, when it comes to dealing with the roads. I just can't imagine how that would fit for the county, even though the city is in the county, but that's the focus in here. So I really struggle with that part of the proposition and understanding that how the businesses affect things and how many of our businesses are veteran owned are military owned spouse owned the need for that connection that really is what brings in the chamber into that equation um working with with everybody else downtown and main street as well i mean there's there's such a tight connection between us and fort riley i really don't see how we can place that in the hands of the county and then secondly um the relationships with the chamber there i mean To me, it just seems so painfully obvious the need to all be in the same building and pulling on the same rope. We're all working for the same thing. The EDC business, that is part of this.

Can you assure me that Commissioner Nimzick says she doesn't have too many things to respond to? I didn't want her to lose track of everything. Are you going to keep going? What do you think?

I would like to finish my thought before I lose it. As far as EDC goes, in this structure, I mean, that does need its own silo, but it also needs help and works hand in hand with the chamber in what's going on in the military. How many of the job proposals that we had recently, or RFPs that have come to us, there's one that we're currently working with that's looking to have 70%. RETIREES, VETERANS WORKING IN THEIR COMPANY. THAT'S THEIR GOAL. AND THERE AGAIN, THAT'S WORKING CLOSE WITH MILITARY AFFAIRS. THAT'S WORKING CLOSE WITH THE CHAMBER. THAT'S WORKING CLOSE WITH EDC. AS WE CONTINUE TO GO FORWARD, to me, seems like such a waste of our efforts and so much increased energy and increased cost when it's all said and done. Yes, the chamber could stand on its own and has for years, and it hasn't done great and it hasn't done poorly. But when you straddle things like everybody paying their own rent or one doesn't pay rent because they're in the municipal basement, one does pay rent because they're in this building, and then you're back to multiple copier leases, you're back to all kinds of things that are truly, in my opinion, a waste of taxpayer's dollars. and and i don't want it to be a waste of energy and i don't want it to be a waste of money and i i really do want to see this work this out because i know we can do better we know we can do better and what we're asking for is a 12-month trial to do this we put all these checks in place we're talking about uh doing all of these uh i might i might let her have a chance to respond commissioner nimsic do you want to go ahead and try to capture some of what you want to say

I think you're on mute.

Maybe it's best if she gets on the phone. I was just going to say, we're going to lose time here doing this, and Rob's going to lose his train of thought, so I think you need to, I mean, that's part of the... I'm just going to call her and see if she answers. Go ahead Ron and finish please.

Thank you. I just there's everybody has limited time, energy and resources and it's just so much better when we can focus them and whatever we can.

Hey Kelly, it's Sam. I'm calling you on my phone so you can hear me live instead of dealing with this audio lag. So I'm just going to lay my phone on the table. Yeah, so I've got you on my phone. I'm going to mute it so that we don't hear you through my phone. I'm going to ask that you still speak through the team's meeting, but this will at least let you hear audio live.

So besides being delayed all these times. Can she not watch it on YouTube and relay her message to you over text? And maybe you could relay it because we're going to spend a lot of time here. Well, she's advised that she can barely hear.

Well, I don't know if anyone else has tested the live stream.

I don't know, but it's a difference in the way between me being able to speak and what's going on on my phone speaker and what's actually going on.

And you're on speaker right now on the phone, okay?

Okay.

She's going to have a hard time hearing anybody that talks.

I just work here, man.

Do you want to go ahead and proceed around? I think you finished, Mr. Johnson.

Kelly, do you have any commentary at this time?

I didn't hear anything of what Mr. Johnson said, so no.

Would you be willing to reiterate, sir?

No, we're not. You have a quorum. You have a quorum. Sorry.

Yeah, that doesn't say.

No, no, I'm not referring to you.

Oh, no, not you, sir. So, Kelly, we're going to go ahead and proceed since we have a quorum, okay?

All right. I think we need to have discussion. Okay. I think, you know, we have... Is Kelly talking? Mm-hmm. Okay. You know, there needs... People need to understand that there's a lot of overlap between the Chamber, the MAC, and economic development on how they deal with businesses coming in, how they deal with people coming in to talk about our community. I think one of the major things that people are not getting or not understanding is when we say chamber, we're talking about the whole and all three entities. We are not funding, the taxpayer money is not funding the Chamber of Commerce membership. And that's what, when we say the chamber separating, you guys are talking about the chamber separating, you're talking about the membership that is paid by the businesses. They can stand alone. Now, Are they sharing costs? Yes. I mean, technically, they're probably saving taxpayer money because they're using private money to help pay for staff, for supplies, for utilities. We're not funding with taxpayer money the membership. And I know maybe if we do a new structure, we need to separate that so people understand because I think that's been one of the biggest people things complaining is, Why are you guys paying, like the other day when we released the funding to the chamber, it was to the EDC and MAC and over for all that, not we are giving money to the membership. So I do want to make that clear because I think that is very confusing.

Well, I think the other confusing part is you have the chamber and then you have the membership. It should be one and the same.

I agree. That was part of the homework I proposed.

As far as what do you mean?

It's confusing to the public.

Yeah, that was my point was that when we say chamber, it's not just the membership that they're talking about. They were talking about all three entities.

Counselor Edwards brought that up at the meeting the other day, and we're open as part of the restructuring. We can change names. And like I said at the commission meeting the other night, we're guilty of saying chamber when we need to specifically say member engagement.

It was confusing when I first got on them. I didn't understand what that was all about.

20 years ago when we did this, that was the confusion because we're all brainwashed. You know, like my parents still refer to Sandy's as what was Hardy's when I was in school. I mean, it's just how things change.

You guys have a salary structure for all these employees from the head of the overseeing chamber head and then EDC director, MAC director, membership director, and then ancillary staff. Do we have all that?

so we're in the process of that um you're untangling quite a mess um at the chamber level i mean just doing like surveys of chambers around the state or whatever yeah oh yeah yeah that's what i mean yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no for sure we've been working on that in fact we're working on because typically your edc person is the most high paid

I mean, relative to everything else, as far as getting what you're going to get. And then I had some concern about that position versus the overall chamber director. You know, if they're going to butt heads because, I don't know, they make close to the same salary. I don't know. I don't know.

That has been talked about, you know, salary-wise with directors and then what you can bring in someone if we're doing a president of operations versus what you'd easily see.

And then does the EDC director have to do everything the chamber boss says, or are they more about the advisory board or the chamber executive board or whatever?

It depends. If it is like the structure that we're presenting, the president of operations is in charge of the director of economic development.

But the city and county have say in the strategic plan that the economic development follows, and it will be closely followed by the advisement that they receive from you. But everyday management would be by the president of operations.

The president answers to the board.

Yes.

Right.

I got that.

And we want it to be where each of the independent boards. So, like, for instance, military affairs is answering to that board. but the day-to-day processes and everything are managed by that same chamber. They're gonna answer to the membership engagement, the membership engagement committee will answer to their board. But things like who's in the office, who's answering the phone, who's assisting with what, that's the kind of thing that we're looking for.

And I think we also wanted to see, Either our CFO or the county's CFO have a bigger hand in oversight as well. Because I'm not a money person.

I know how many people are that are on the boards. We have contracted with the CPA. The problem with the county or the city CFOs or CPAs happening is the chamber itself is a not-for-profit entity, and it cannot be ran through a governing body.

But the ADC and the MAC could. They could have some oversight. Accountability.

I mean, accountability, maybe.

That's what I mean. You're not saying do the books. I'm not saying do everything. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, and that's what we're proposing.

Audit, review, whatever you want to call it.

Yes, and we love the fact that Tammy from the county right now is sitting on the EDC. That is exactly how it should be.

It doesn't matter to me whether it's county or the city. It doesn't matter to me.

Yes, and that is – and it has been – very beneficial having her on it the last month or two because she's asking the hard questions that we don't know. And so I would just say that we've come so far since July and how we have looked at finances, how we have, I mean, we have a strategic plan. We have hired the chamber pros coming in at the end of November to do a strategic plan for our chamber. We have never had a strategic plan for our organization. They will come and spend an entire day with our staff, interviewing our staff, asking what works, what doesn't work. And then the next day is an entire board retreat. Our board doesn't know what we don't know. We haven't been educated on what our roles and responsibilities are. So it's board training. It's helping us do a strategic plan. So those places have already been because we know change has to happen, but we just need all of the entities to have the accountability too. If we need to come every month to the county and report every transaction item and the same thing to the city for the EDC and the MAC, you know what, we can do that at a drop of a hat now because we have systems in place that allow that to happen. And I think that is where it has lagged is that there hasn't been the accountability and we're well aware of that. We understand that. We're seeing it now. And so it is important for the accountability piece. And we need the city and the county to sit at the table and say, this does not make sense. And that's exactly what Tammy's doing. She's like, explain to me what that is or how does that work? So those changes have already occurred before we even get into. And I would just like to also point out, which our legal counsel had advised us of, we had to go to the attorney general to get permission to bring all entities under one roof. They had to sign off on it because it's taxpayer monies coming to. If we dismember that, we have to go through the same process again. And we're talking it's September 16th. And we're at a December 31st. So I just, that to me was news that I didn't know that we would have to go back and restructure through the Attorney General because it's taxpayer funding and has to be all of the appropriate channels.

Commissioner Landis, that's what we have had lengthy conversations, and I think, you know, with us, our commissioners have fully agreed, and the counselor was there as well, to leave Jamal, their city finance president. Jamal. Jamal, sorry. Gosh, him and Tammy. together to have that oversight and so to get us and that's why Tammy will be one of the two that we will leave on the board until we get this all ironed out just so she'll help with that the oversight so that when though we know that when those those things receipts and expenditures have went through the finance part and they come to report to us that we will feel more comfortable in knowing what we have because they've dissected it before it gets to us is what our talk was and at the top of this before it gets to the governing bodies because we felt like that was a good avenue to have.

I totally appreciate that. There was some finger pointing by Mr. Johnson the other night about passport members not doing the oversight they should have, you know, Again, I've been on there, and I'm not that guy. I'm not the numbers guy. You go through the checkbook guy. I'm the treasurer, and I'm not either. And that's what I'm getting at, is the oversight is the key issue. Yes. And also, again, everything comes down to people. It always comes down to people. And I'm fine with your plan. And hopefully maybe some of our other members feel more comfortable with it now. Because I think the synergy with Mac, Mac does so much for the city. City managers call him every week to, hey, we've got this going on. Can you check this out? Which office do I need to talk to? Rob is a huge resource for us. So if he becomes just a county employee, we can't touch him. And we're reaching in the dark.

And the one thing I want to reiterate, what we've talked about, we put all this energy in, we're talking about a year. We're talking about one year. There's a lot that we're proposing to do in that one year. And we could revisit this in a year and it could all be for not, if everybody's unhappy, then pull the plug. But I guess what we're asking for is the opportunity. A lot of time and energy is going into putting this positive motion and taking advantage of the positive energy coming out of this. On the EDC front, we're even talking about It's time for maybe another capital campaign. You know, people are excited. People want to see change. There's been a lot of challenges, but I think there's enough excitement to rebuild.

Yeah, and Ashley, I think that you've had some communication with other counties and chambers and stuff, and I don't think, again, that's anything that's under the table. We can't all go as a group to listen to these meetings, but you guys are the gathering people to come up with best practices. And so the expectation is, you know, that – I mean, that's – Justin, it's wonderful you're on there. I know – busy guy and have to work so it's appreciated that you came on board you've got a lot of good good insight too but it still takes time out of people's their working time to do that so it's appreciated but we need to understand that they're not anything being handled under the boards or anything else they're you're reporting and finding fact finding and then and so it should be reported back to the board as to what's that what what is happening with that so i think and we have had

probably for at least a decade, not a good relationship with our neighboring partners as far as Chamber or MAC or EDC. And we have had numerous meetings, our accountant, commissioners, and so forth with Riley County, Potts County, Saline County, and they are willing to come and help. And they have been an amazing resource. Just an example, when you have a budget line item, our Chamber is, had 264 categories that were being categorized in our books. 264. Manhattan Chamber has nine. So we just weren't doing things correctly, and they're so willing to help. Wamego has reached out. Their board is wanting help telling their director, go help them. They're our neighboring communities. We have to feed off of each other. Let's do this. And like Ron said, it's one year, it's one year to get our to prove that this works, we just have to have the right people. And we have great staff that are going to make that happen. And we have plans in place. It just needs to be done. And I would just say that we have four lives in our chamber that that have been thrown through the ringer. And Not knowing if they have a job December 31st is not something we should take very lightly. We also have our leases up December 31st. We have to give a 30-day notice. It's September 16th.

That's why, you know, that's what we've been working on since February.

We're stuck in September and trying to, you know, I don't want to hurt, you know, and that's a conversation, too. We're not going to hurry through this, but I'm not sure what the ramifications are.

My question is, all right, number one, the city took a vote the other night. And I don't know whether that is gospel, final, final. It was a proposal. Okay, a proposal. Thank you. So if you go by that proposal, now what do you do with housing everybody, funding everybody? And the original concept was, to have everybody, I don't care whether you say under one umbrella or not, but it was supposed to be a one-stop-shop. Everybody was in the same building, so if the chamber got a call, they could direct them to the right person. And yes, we pulled the CVV up, but the CVV still is in that building, still works with the other groups. So My question is, how do you rectify? And I'm open-minded. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate you thinking a little bit outside the box. But my problem is, if you went with that concept, how do you do the logistics? And we talked about sharing copiers and utilities and rent and all that. I want somebody to answer how that's going to work.

I also work in a lot of communities and the ones that have EDC under municipalities are almost next to none. You know, as much as you know, we absolutely love our city and county partners. There's a reason that some things are separate and you know that it needs there needs to be research done and what that how that affects now our economy or our community. But having these separated, what does that does? Is there a system out there that we don't know about that could work better? You know, there's a million other communities out there. You know, do we have to reinvent the wheel and try something new? You know, we talk about this and, you know, how it's the same. All these chambers that Ashley's mentioned has tried to work with us for five years, for five years, two and a half years. I tried to get us to work with them. Now that we have the opportunity to do it and we have people with the right people in the right place, those relationships are already happening. And how exciting is that to have that future of development and those relationships that can only help our community grow?

Commissioner Panera, I believe you were about to offer some commentary.

Yeah, I'm concerned about process, first of all. I got two days after the city commission voted, the majority vote, to propose a debt alternative thing to consider. We had a meeting called. I called Mr. Stites. I said, is this meeting being called properly? I said, don't we require three votes to do that? I'm not sure. I asked him. I said, we only have two. And I asked him who they were. And I said, well, is that correct? She had three votes now. So, number one, I'm concerned about process. Number two, I'm concerned about you making decisions or talking about your view without considering the three-to-two vote that the city commission made. The majority rules did these things, and we made a vote to look at a different approach. And I think every city commissioner has an equal vote. And the state that was a proposal and was only three or two vote is actually anti-democratic. Then you come here tonight without any consultation and you say, we're not going to listen to the community. Why don't we listen to the community first and then talk about these things? I think it's a mistake to have this meeting even potentially. I don't know if it's appropriate. I assume that the city attorney is not going to let any city commissioner sitting here do something that's inappropriate. So I'm here. We made a vote, a three to two vote. And that should have been the subject of this meeting. And the mayor should have respected that. I have seen. I've sat back. I've sat back and watched other people, and no solution has come for many, many months. I did propose this as a solution at our joint meeting. If someone wasn't listening, so be it. I said I propose that the chamber stand on its own. I talked to a chamber board member that said it could. I proposed that the MAC go under the county and that the EDC be under the city. It was discussed. Now, was it a quiet voice? What happened was we were not coming to a consensus with this proposal. So you're sitting there watching people unable to agree to a proposal that's been on the board, been explained, and been discussed for months. I made a good faith motion to get the accountability of these entities closer to the elected officials and closer to the citizens, not farther away. My friend John Montgomery has proposed this combination years ago, and he finally got his way after a big struggle. It hasn't worked. Look how long it took to unravel what didn't work. It took a long time. And I know we voted 5-0 with the support of, we were told by our city attorney that if we did not want to renew, we needed to give the notice. We gave the notice, 5-0. We haven't come to a consensus, so I made a motion, the motion that I thought was reasonable. And then the next thing I know, I'm here two days later disrespecting the majority of the commission vote.

You guys literally said after the vote that it was just, it's not set in stone and that it would... No, it's a proposal to you, but that's not the point.

The point is...

I asked her to call this meeting and really, we could have called it and maybe we should have. So you wouldn't be offended. But I'm saying we need to get this taken care of. not only because we need to move on with our economic development, but we have four people whose lives are on the line and don't know what they should do. So yeah, I think we need to take care of this and we need to take care of it ASAP.

Well, and I'll add to Commissioner Pruner, this isn't an overnight deal that we've been having this go on for, and I'm all for listening to the people and getting public input. If we can't agree and we've got this mess going on amongst ourselves, then why should we spread it out to everybody else and then get... all this other our intent was to get some sort of constructive proposal together to propose to the city has come together to to put that together then have public input and we could change the structure and we could tweak it if we need to that was the intent but i don't believe that you could you were going to have 50 different opinions here and how constructive is that then we've got we're supposed to have done this We've been working on for eight months and we've done our due diligence and it was presented to the city. And why should we be put in the position that we are now?

Let me finish, please. I saw that the city commission did not have a consensus to go with this proposal.

How did you have a consensus? You guys didn't talk about this in public. So how would you have a consensus?

Let me repeat. I saw that there was no consensus. And I made a motion, and it passed.

How do you know about it? How did you guys know about it?

We had two executive sessions. If you watched the meeting, we were discussing the concept of this proposal. And I just listened, and I saw that there was not going to be any consensus at all. People had different thoughts. And so I made a motion that I wasn't sure it was going to pass. And it passed. And we had three to two votes.

Now we're here talking about it, so I think that's what should be happening, is all of us sitting here talking about it.

Like I said, it was left in other hands, and I was trying to respect the process, but nothing was going to happen. This meeting wouldn't have happened had I not made that motion.

That's my point. So why are you upset that she called a meeting?

Because the meeting is about, we implicitly rejected... by the motion taken. The meeting says discussion of chamber of commerce master agreements.

What are the next steps that you would propose then? Was the cities going to do that now?

Where are we at?

decided five oh yeah i understand i read them so you guys are gonna have to reject a proposal i mean that's what it gets down to so well we're not gonna i i i'm gonna reject it that i know i am i i i don't know if they are and we're not gonna take an official vote yeah we'll have to do that

But, you know, again, you know, September and we've got until the end. And, you know, people, you'd like to make sure you do your due diligence making these decisions. And I thought when the groups, working groups that we had, the players that were in place, we had city attorneys here. We've had the opinions of three city. attorneys and everyone that has been part of this process that, again, the structure is not the problem. It's what was taking place in the interim, the players in that puzzle. If you take them out of the equation and leave the structure empty and fill it in with good people, it should work. And the accountability, transparency, and all those things are what we were trying really hard to make sure we're doing our due diligence to the citizens of Junction City. Because I believe, and, you know, when you talk about city input and community input, that's been on the forefront of what I always have said I'll vote for the city, because I'm a little offended with that comment, because I think we all have the best interests of any citizen.

You're not giving much time for it.

then you're not giving any time well because we're not making any decisions today the time for public comment is when it's on your agenda and our agenda and then our the public comes and gives their opinion right it's been on the county agenda multiple yeah yeah we've had it on the agenda numerous times we've had open discussion and we're not conducting our business and executive sessions

One thing that I think that really needs to be said out loud so that everybody really understands, there's a lot of talk about accountability. When you get down to it, the reason that there was problems with accountability was because of one individual. That one individual is gone. And the reason there was stymied talks with all of these other individuals with the EDC groups and other commissions and things. Because of that one individual, that is all gone and it's freed up business. And that's gonna change the whole landscape of how we conduct business.

And when we talk about accountability, we're not just talking financial. There needs to be measurables and goals and people, every single one of those departments need to be reporting on what their goals and where they are in those goals. And that's what accountability is.

If you go back, you'll see that the EDC has reported numbers, but they weren't believed, you know, and for good reason. You know, but they have reported numbers, employment numbers and things like that. But people didn't believe the messenger on that, you know, because there was an accountability issue. But that's taken care of now.

Yes, Mayor, are your concerns addressed, what you've heard tonight?

Not holistically. I'm hearing planning, which leads to metrics, KPIs. Love that. Measurability is important, otherwise we're just spitballing to the moon.

That comes in the strategic plan, so you'll have all the metrics.

I think they've done, they've worked very, very hard. I know that, you know, the city and the county, Commissioner Tremont and Mayor Butler and our finance people, the city manager, they have been working, I guess, since February and talking about that. And then the chamber board stepped up and they have, you know, a lot of these people are doing this for free and they've stepped up and they have put together a plan to show that they have improved everything. And there's not any question that each one of these could be, each one of these entities could operate on their own. There's no question about that, but are we getting a greater return? I mean, we're gonna be fighting for different, they would be fighting for different monies from other places, people, volunteers, having them work together, I think is the best possible scenario. I understand people are upset about the structure, but they're putting that structure in because the bad person, they're against that structure because the bad leader was in there.

That structure has never ran how it was intended to, ever.

Okay, I'm going to ask two questions then. My first question, partially hypothetical, partially not. What's the worst that could happen in one year?

You can't get any worse than we were in July. Okay.

That's what I'm saying. Could that happen again? Objectively on paper, I used to work in project management at the formation of a project before we have a plan, we have to start identifying what are the risks and how will we mitigate them? What is the worst case scenario? What is the worst that could happen by taking this one year risk? That is something I feel I must consider. My second question is highlighted through your conversation. You've made a great point. The person responsible for these things is gone. Love that. So genuinely happy we accomplished that this year. The system allowed it. Even if we bring in a wonderful person, and we've already started bringing in great people. I see that. I acknowledge that. I love that. As I was saying, we have great people in that same system now. That could change. Terrible things could happen. People have change of hearts. People take new careers. People pass away. So long as that system exists in a way where it won't be adhered to or can potentially not be adhered to, as long as someone has the opportunity to play that system, I will not sleep at night regarding this proposal. I do genuinely believe we have wonderful people in our hands.

believe that i really do but i do believe the system could still be played i think any structure that you could say that about any structure you could say that about anything yeah you could say that about any any structure of anything that is going on in government you can say that

But when faced with something actually happening, you have a due diligence to identify how that came to be and change it.

I am a volunteer, and I have spent hours. I have risked my relationship with my family to do what is best for this community to get the toxic person gone. She's gone. That was the problem. I would love for any of you to talk to our staff that is here that is in the trenches of this every single day. This is embarrassing that we are this far into it and we are at the 12th hour and we can't make a decision. We have done our due diligence. I have spent hours. Working with other chambers of commerce. How can we make this work? What looks best for the city? At the end of the day, it's $150,000. That's what we're really complaining about right now. We spend $150,000 on a new car for the police department. I mean, like, at the end of the day, give it a chance.

Not my police department.

Well, I'm just saying, like, this is really embarrassing. It's really embarrassing and disheartening to the people that have been working for months.

You said, how are we going to mitigate the risk? Well, we have the chamber pros coming in. Education is a really big piece. So when you bring in people that understand how to run a board, the things that you need to be looking out for, redoing the bylaws. So we're also working with the Manhattan Chamber to talk about bylaws. We've also been working with the people that previously cleaned up the person that we fired's mess and looking at their new policies and procedures and what they did after she left so that way it didn't happen to them again either. I've had the pleasure of working with all of them at Chamber, and they have all these systems in place now that make it so it doesn't happen again. Okay.

I don't know if Kelly came off mute to say something or not. I'd like you... It's Ashley. It's me. I think she's listening to the live stream. I don't know if she came off mute to offer a report or not. I'd like to ask you to consider a perspective because I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying. I want you to imagine me as the vice mayor. I'm not on the EDC board. I've not been in these meetings. As a city leader, I have to operate with the information that is provided to me publicly. I have no visibility into that. I have no visibility into these things. I'm operating off the proposals brought to me. I'm operating off what has been discussed in these meetings. So if that's happening, cool. Love that. But I can't operate off assumption. I can't operate off hearsay. I, as a city leader, must operate what is brought to me objectively on paper. That is not brought to me on paper.

What do you want to see? I mean, what do you want to see?

If we're having these meetings that I'm not a part of, I'd like to see a report, perhaps, of this is what was discussed.

These are the intentions. The commissioner that is assigned to those should be giving you are. I agree. So it's not their fault you're not getting that.

And there's commissioners that sit on every advisory.

I apologize. Kelly would like to speak. Go ahead, Kelly.

Go ahead, Kelly. I've got a super long delay here, so I'm not sure exactly where you're at. But I'd like to talk about the fact that we did have these meetings for seven, eight months working on the structure to change this. And never, ever, ever did we talk about keeping the same structure that we had. So this was all a surprise that they came back with, we're not changing anything. We had the finance. We had Jamel in there. We had Tammy in there. We had direct contact with the city and the county. We had a limited number of board members. These were all the things that we discussed for seven months. So this is what they came back with, that they don't want the structures to change at all. And they may not think that it's a big deal, you know, it's $150,000, but it is a big deal because it's the taxpayers' money.

The Chamber was not in any of those conversations until May. the first time that the chamber was brought into those conversations. And I said from the get-go, when our attorney was with us at the table, the structure was not broken. I have said that from the get-go, and I have never steered away from that.

I have never steered away from that. We need to add to the structure. It needs to have a separate president of operations. We need to have oversight consistently. Somebody cannot do effective EDC work while also running the chamber. They cannot run the membership division while also running the chamber. They cannot effectively run MAC while also running the chamber. You know, you can't wear two hats and expect an outcome that is going to be as observant as one person doing each job.

And I'd like to say everybody in this room is also a taxpayer. involved taxpayers, invested taxpayers, and investing more than anybody else. That goes for everybody that's sitting here in the gallery. They're taxpayers as well. So we're talking about the representation or those that chose to represent or chose to get involved and helped lead this community, obviously for the betterment of this community, because this is where we choose to live and stay.

What's the harm in giving this one year? Actually, yeah, we're holding back. Go ahead.

It's me. That's me. That's the line. She asked a good question. What's the harm in one year? People say they can't sleep at night.

I couldn't sleep at night if I knew four people lost their job.

She's on our executive. She's our vice chair. I'm sorry. Okay, thank you. What is the harm in giving us one year?

That's all we ask.

We cut out the cancer. Kelly, were you trying to retort?

Yes.

Proceed.

The chamber wasn't included because the chamber wasn't invited because we were trying to figure out what the city and county were going to do to try and make things better and how we were going to approach that. So that's what we were working on. And Ashley wasn't called in, she's right, until the very end. But I don't... I don't see where we've had any chance to really talk about the fact that this was never on the table. This was brought to us. This is what we want. And I think there's more discussions to be had.

Well, I'll disagree with you, Kelly.

I'm not sure what...

I'll disagree with you, Kelly, because we sat through many meetings with doing that. If you recall the whiteboard and structure and doing all that stuff, we really hammered that out for several meetings to where it's almost getting redundant. And at that time that we decided that it would be beneficial to have Ashley in place was when we chose to get her. input on some of um some of those things it wasn't that which she was being certainly left out of the conversation but um again you know even with us people that were visiting together um we were trying to pull things together to be able to even approach with the chamber with some kind of consolation as to how to keep everything intact that it's workable and uh and gonna be suitable for the whole community. Again, that's where we're striving to meet the needs of our community. And again, Ashley, I do recall your conversation when you came in and because you said the attorney had specifically said that, and many times we had talked about that. Structure is not broken. What has happened, if you leave the skeleton there and put it in with key people that are responsible, accountable, got your transparency in place, then it should work. But you have to take out the others that have been left out, and you've got a skeleton there that the blanks need to be filled in.

I would like to ask on behalf of the city what we propose next steps to be. So there's been a significant amount of discussion. We seem to be at it.

I get the sense that the county has potentially been presented a little more information than the city was. Would I be correct in that assumption?

I would request that. Yes, our attorney has given us tons of information.

I would request at our next meeting, which I believe is October 6th, I'd propose next week, but we're both out of town in that instance.

I would propose at our next meeting, October 6th, check me on the date, whatever, that we receive that information from whomever so that we as two governments... We were just talking about the conversations that had been happening with our attorneys and Mayor Butler and Commissioner Tremont.

I think that

the county commission has had this on the agenda several times and has had meaningful conversations uh we have public comment every uh meeting at noon and uh i feel like there's a general consensus that was discussed an open session at county meetings where they gave me framework um and i think at this point it would be uh the only commissioner who i've said who I've heard tonight say they just love the new proposal that was voted on and passed by a majority of the city commission is commissioner Panera. And so, uh, I think at this point, the city needs to probably have some discussions over, uh, what they would like and, uh, whether that's commissioner Panera or whoever else is, but, um, What we want and what we're gonna vote on at our meeting, they've kind of given me those things, but I think that you guys have to make those decisions and then we can come together. The chamber has decided what they would like to propose.

I agree with everything you've said up to this point. It's not necessarily the specific information or conversation. It is the framework of the action that you're speaking to. It is, we need the person within our municipality who's responsible for collecting that information as a member of the board to work with the staff, help them finalize the collection of that information, and finish having those open conversations. Because outside of the recent executive sessions post-chamber proposal, that hasn't happened. I was expecting it to happen. I thought that's why we did our homework and that we would.

Who specifically are you talking about?

Kelly Nimzik is our board member that sits on that. And it's my understanding is that as a board member, we sit on behalf of the city,

And then during typically commissioner commentary is when we say, Hey, when I went to my board meetings, this is what I observed, or this is what I wish to share that we had shared in an open manner.

And it's not a violation of the coma act rather than example, I'm on the ATA bus. board. If I go to their board meeting and I want to share information, if I share it with just Madam Butler, I can't share it with Panayer because then it's an open-endings issue. But if I share it in the open environment of a city commission meeting during my commissioner commentary, then we are aligned in that perspective. And I feel that that piece is missing at this point and potentially what has led to our misalignment and our lag in properly formed consensus.

Let me just say, so if you're proposing October 6th, we have to give notice by November 1st, our lease is up, and we have staff right here that needs to know they're going to have a job January 1st. What is your timeline looking like?

I'm working with reality. Candidly, I don't want to sit here and give you a guarantee. I'm not going to do that. That would be improper of me. I would propose next week if I didn't know for a fact that two of us would be out of town. And I know that a virtual environment would not work given the nature of our travels. Otherwise, I would try to accommodate this in a very expedite manner. I didn't learn until this week that we would both be out of town. Otherwise, I'd be like, hey, you know, if one of us are, we can make it happen. So being, I wouldn't, Well, the other caveat is what's going to be on the agenda, as we all know, a short agenda and a long agenda, the winding of it.

I digress.

There's two meetings in October, October 6th and October 20th. And today is September 17th. That gives us... One, that gives us two and a half weeks, approximately almost three weeks until our next city meeting. So hypothetically, quite a bit of information through Commissioner Nimzik, through the various city staff could be organized. It could even be potentially communicated to us. We just cannot speak to each other about it. And then we have that open discussion in October 6th. Perfect world scenario, and I'm not going to say this is what's going to happen, but hey, perfect world scenario. If we are aligned and equipped in this information and enabled to have a productive conversation, would I see there being a chance of another consensus being reached October 6th? Potentially.

Do we want a special business meeting on another Tuesday?

I'm just saying it's been eight months and we're not to a decision.

What's three weeks going to be?

Commissioner Nimzik, would you like to offer your insights?

Yeah, I just want to say this is not the first time we've addressed it. We passed something else that we all agreed on. I think we all agreed on. I don't remember the vote now. A month, month and a half ago. Maybe longer. where we all decided, you know, what we wanted to approach this. So this is the second time. And we have to use it. We've discussed it numerous times.

County commissioners are requesting what that decision was. I'm not sure if you're able to speak to that.

On July 21st.

Mr. Stites is going to speak to it one moment.

The City Commission voted for the three divisions of the Chamber of Commerce. However, the City Commission at the time was not in favor of an overarching CEO, CEO, president. That was the vote. And then also, I think, a seven-member Chamber of Commerce board of the umbrella organization, two from the county, two from the city, and then one chair from each of the EDC membership. That was the vote on July 21st. And then

this last week, we have nothing else happened after that July meeting to follow up on any of that.

Correct. And that is the gap I'm ultimately calling out is it's not an eight month gap, but it is a two month gap. And that's a lot of time in this timeline that that is the gap that we apparently need to navigate.

So basically, you guys are you voted, I know you did another vote, you know, to remove the Mac and and give give you know, give it to us without asking us. But are you guys open? You know, I think that, you know, maybe, okay, it doesn't have to be exactly what the chamber presented, but that we as the city and the county could agree if we keep that, you know, if we keep everybody under one roof and keep them, you know, all together, which, I mean, I think that we should. I mean, I think they complement each other. I think it makes our community stronger when they're together. But I do think, honestly, I do really truly believe that somebody over all three entities needs to be there.

Why do you guys have 12 or 13 members on your board? Yeah, that's a lot. You had, like, 17. You couldn't even get half of them to show up. Why do you need that many?

Well, it's so that everybody has some stake in the game, right?

Well, everybody could be just one or two people from each board.

And we're okay if that is what's holding up. We will definitely trim down the board.

You want to change the structure and stuff, but you still have people on the structure that were part of the problem in the past. You went from 17 to 12 on your board. So you're not addressing what some of the issues might have been. So they were. But I think that's part of the public perception is you're not addressing some of the issues that were part of the problem in the past. And having that many people on the board doesn't make sense. I mean, it just doesn't make sense to me.

Well, but I think that that is the discussion that, okay, that's holding us up. If that's holding some people up, I mean, that's the discussion that we should be having. Okay, we want to keep everybody together. How are we going to find common ground to do that? And I think it needs to be done sooner than later. And if we have to have another special meeting.

Well, actually, we're here now and we are discussing and you're asking for a counselor.

Decide we had the 17 and we chose to reduce it down to the part of our. Yeah, then part of our discussion is in our proposal to reduce that.

So we're waiting for.

Yeah, I'm pulling up the.

What could I provide you, Vice Mayor, this evening that would help you understand or more knowledge for this structure, I guess? We have staff here that can comment on it so that maybe we don't have to wait another two weeks for more information?

Not saying I'm not open to that, but we can't as a city form a consensus in this meeting. I'm not asking you to form a consensus. Just noting that regardless of what is ever discussed, it will have to wait until the 6th before a piece of paper produces the finalized consensus.

Putting that out there.

So it sounds like we all potentially agree the 13 representative point needs to be discussed, which is fine.

hold it in front of me. I think, ironically, we all can agree relatively on that.

Allow me to move documents. Apologies. Normally, I have two screens, so I'm having a little bit today, folks. Oh, I am good. Thank you. I appreciate that.

While they're looking at that information, does anybody from the chamber or Mac or anybody want to add anything? Because you're the players and involved. And I think that you should get an opportunity to speak. I have nothing to lose at this point, guys.

Sure. I mean, I'll say so. So everybody keeps talking about structure. Structure is not broken. A broken piece of that structure is gone. As long as you have someone that's in that position to provide direction, purpose and actually provide the staff with what they need to do day to day. That's what matters. You guys are getting caught up in we need a new structure. We don't. If the structure was never followed, and it was not, so you can argue that point all day long, it was never followed. So if you put someone that understands the baseline structure and how to run an organization, it will thrive, hands down. When you talk about how do we get our information, there's a commissioner on every one of our boards. So it's the lack of communication that's not getting pushed back because we provide all the stuff that is necessary to everybody that's on our boards, everyone. So if it's not being communicated back, providing that information, that's not on us because we're providing it. So if we can just learn how to communicate what is happening, the structure fixes itself if you want to call it broken. because the information is there. If you want to separate us, think about all of the stuff that happens in this city. Who do you think runs it? Four individuals. You separate us now, guess what happens? All of these functions that happen in the city will not happen. Who are you going to get to do it? We can't even get people to volunteer to help us. So how are you going to now, all these things we've gone through for 30 plus years of all of these events, who's doing it? It's four people behind the scenes that are doing it, day in and day out. No one's taken that into consideration. So you guys can make your decision. I'm not going to force the hand, but I'm telling you, structure's not broken. The thing that was broken was the person that is gone. We need to get over it. We need to get moving forward and come together. We all talk about we want to be a part of a team. We need to collaborate together. All you're doing is pushing us apart because we're not coming together as three entities to move forward to make Junction City what it needs to be. That's all I have to say.

Very well said, Mr. Wilson. Appreciate that. Stephanie, Nikki, this is a good time to communicate.

Okay.

Thank you.

But I will highlight and I will dovetail slightly one comment. So there was commentary made regarding, well, we didn't bring this up in our commission meetings in the public forum this time of year. Rob just conveyed, there's a commissioner on all the advisory committees to include a board. And so just like we try not to air out our internal dirty laundry, I feel as though the commission just aired out their internal dirty laundry because you do have a commissioner that sits on the board that can publicly convey all of the information that's already conveyed in our own public board meetings. And so across each entity, everybody has their issues. But internally, there is a lack of communication amongst every separate entity. And all we're trying to do is combine. It seems as though the county and the chamber are on a similar page. I won't necessarily say the same. And the city is the one that's pushing back on two entities, because there are three parties involved. Regardless of what the county wants specifically, regardless of what the city wants specifically, the chamber has a say. All three parties are involved. And so, like Trish had said earlier, it's three entities involved. But when you talk about the Chamber of Commerce, it's as a whole. When we talk about the monies specific to county and city funding, that's specific to MAC and EDC. What nobody has actually answered or asked is, does the county support MAC and EDC staying consolidated with the Chamber? It's either a yes or no. It's very simple. Does the city support MAC and EDC staying consolidated with the chamber? And it's either a yes or no. And regardless of which entity says yes or which entity says no, what the chamber staff and committees and board want has been very clear. When we get to the no's, then it turns into a different discussion as, Well, we have two entities that are involved, minus the third, that want one thing. Now, how do we then best support as a chamber of commerce either just the city or just the county? Because that would be a latter discussion.

Is there anything else you want to share from the chamber staff?

I'll just say that, again, it's about structure, right? So it is the same structure. The chamber structure is the same as slime. The funding question comes up, and I don't know if you guys have looked, but the reason we don't function the same as Manhattan is because they have more people. Why do they have more people? Because they're funded better. They go to the city and they ask for $1.6 million and they settle for being given $1.2 million. Abilene has a large budget. Salina has a large budget. We're talking about the fact that we just got rid of potentially a $350,000 to $400,000 problem. We're talking about, I know it's just $160 or whatever, but the reality is, I said it at the last joint meeting, the right person can do, a small chamber can do everything. Because there are other small chambers. There are other small chambers. The reality is it becomes a money issue. If the city and the county can't come together, in my opinion, It's a failure for the businesses in town, for sure. We just came from a business after hours where we were literally trying to recruit a gentleman that owns a business here from California to buy more business, more property in town. We spent two hours with him.

And that would be a game changer.

that individual. So the fact that we're talking about $300,000 to $400,000 when our neighboring counties are getting a lot more money than we are, and Mr. Wilson is right, we work really well together, all of us that are here. All of us, most people in here that run a business can come over and run the chamber. This isn't hard, it's about integrity. It's about being honest. It's about being useful and the monies that we're in charge of. The best part, I think, for Mr. Wilson and I is the fact that Tammy has been on the EDC, as Ashley stated earlier, because it literally validated the same thing that Mr. Wilson and I have been asking for the last two and a half years. I've been in charge of a lot of money and a lot of things, even in my previous roles, as I said earlier, in a joint meeting. And I knew in the first meeting that I had two and a half years ago that things weren't right. So to have Tammy look over the books and ask the same questions that Mr. Wilson and I have been asking for two and a half years is valid. That should tell you guys something. We do know what we're talking about. We know how to run the structure. We know how to run the And it's tough to watch and stand and recruit businesses. We also found out this week as well, Manhattan's always ready to poach businesses. We were told today, right, that Manhattan City Commission, they offer What were the incentives, Ashley? What were the incentives they offer the new business to come over?

They did rent-free and tax abatements and the business went there instead of here.

They're also hundreds of million dollars in debt. They're currently going through a 2008 Junction City moment financially.

That's correct.

Sure.

That is correct.

How many people go over to shop from here to Manhattan? I'm just saying I'm Yeah, we're funding that part. Shaky that people who leave here and go over there all the time and shop there. They're funding man.

I want to acknowledge. A couple points.

Thank you Kelly in a positive manner.

I do agree with points that have been shared by Chamber staff. I believe that things have been called out for awhile. I don't know that anything that changed this year was new information. That's where my points of concern are rooted in. Sorry, I have doctor's handwriting.

The difficulty when you serve on a board though is that when you're provided information, And you think that the information is valid. I mean the numbers look fine. You can't tell that the numbers aren't correct. You have information that shows you the check register and you think that that's all legitimate. And so you're asked, well, is there any wrongdoing here? Well, you can't tell. It's only when you see that the check register wasn't right, when you see that money was being moved around, when you find out that there's things going on behind your back that you that you really find out that, okay, there's wrongdoing here. But now if you have a system where you have a trusted financial individual that is taking care of the books and there isn't any monkeying around with changing receipts and changing line items and moving money from the Med to the EDC and all different entities, then, you know, it's... then you know, okay, there was wrongdoing that was done. But when you don't have the information, you can't make a judgment. And we're not going to be in that position anymore.

And staff couldn't raise concerns without the entire

Yes. So I'm glad that you both made that commentary. I'm going to start with his first and then defer to yours. So you spoke to a great point about lack of insight, which chamber staff also called out. Perhaps they put it as airing dirty laundry. I would argue that it was not within the last two months since our last open meeting about chamber that I didn't realize we were not being provided insights on what was happening within that board. I focus on my boards. I focus on my initiatives. If I'm wrong to call it out in this meeting, I'll accept that. But if I'm observing a realization that we were not provided information as we should have, I will vocalize it. I don't know if it's, I don't know that I would call it dirty laundry if it's simply a matter of fact. I won't pretend everything is so shiny and rainbows, but at the end of the day, you make a great point. We can only work with what we are informed in. And that is what I'm advocating for at this point is that we are adequately aligned and informed with all of the same information. Can you mention your point one more time, Jordan? My apologies. We couldn't raise concerns. Yes. Thank you so much. When I talk about concerns that a structure cannot hold someone accountable, that is the root that I'm speaking to, is we all know this was an issue for a while, and I know and trust that many people tried to call this up for a while. I know when I was campaigning, I talked to people who were like, just so you know, this has been an issue, and if you get in, you don't have to deal with this. Here we are dealing with it. It's exactly that, is... Space was made to allow people to be scared of working through this. There was no way that this could have been navigated until recently. That is what I fear.

Because, one, we had an in-house finance. So now we have a trusted bookkeeper that when she makes a mistake, it's her license on the line. It's not somebody that the president of operations is controlling and telling to do this and move this there. It is she is following the law, and she does it very, very meticulously. So that's a huge change as well. The second thing was, I just lost my train of thought.

You just spent a long night, girl.

Oh, yeah. There's no whistleblower policy. I have a very interesting perspective. I am the only person, I think, ever to work at the chamber, but then now also serve on the executive board. And I can tell you that there you risked your job. And Rob was proof of that. And you spoke out and you raised concerns because people We all know our budgets. We all know how much money we raise. We all know how much money we get paid. So when money isn't there, we can see it, even if they cook the books as much as they want it to. We still saw errors, and then those concerns were raised. But then that also comes to the multiple point of now you have a president of operations wearing two hats. So there wasn't that oversight that there needs to be when you have one person doing two things. So that was a huge... issue that we had was there wasn't enough president of operations things happening. It was strictly economic development.

There was something called out during Mr. Wilson's early circumstance. And I don't know if what you've spoken to will address it, but I think it in that same way addresses what we're speaking to, which is the inability to have a safe workplace in court and thus support safe practice, proper legal practice, what have you. HR, legal, that realm, who owns those things moving forward? Who owns setting the tone for a workplace that is proper, that is legal, that is compliant?

already started working is that a current board so so the board would own that is it yes our governing board okay so a city and a county commissioner should be on and also being attentive to that because here we were it wasn't until we had new people on the county commission and new people on the city commission that anybody ever did anything about and so i and you know i know people were offended but what rob said And I'll call everybody out that was the city and the county should have taken care of this problem years ago.

I'm going to be doing the HR stuff, the chamber of body. That's resident of operations.

Okay, because that's what I'm asking.

Should that be an outside entity as well?

Thank you.

If we have the extra funds for that.

Well, I appreciate you calling that out, Commissioner Landis. My concern is if it's the responsibility of the board, I see that getting... It's the responsibility of someone employed in that same work environment.

Can that be dovetailed into the city or the county? In the work sessions that's been discussed, the possibility, kind of how Ms. Robles has been helping out with some of the finance thoughts, Mr. Wilcox can as well. He's my favorite finance director. And so, but also things like HR, things like fiscal policy, things like personnel policy have been talked about and try and at least give them some aid, even if they don't want to adopt it, but some of the aid because it's already done. But I know our city of personnel policy has a whistleblower policy and a lot of other things.

And that's what we've been working with the other chambers with as well to align with their policies because they know it. It's really hard. And Jason from the Manhattan Chamber is, an open book and would talk to anybody who would want to do it because they are the same way. EDC, MAC, membership, it's all one division. It's really hard. It's complicated because you have city funds, you have county funds, you have membership, and you have donors. And so it's a very... What's the word? It's very complex because we're a not-for-profit. The chamber is a not-for-profit at the end of the day. And so the accountant that we have specializes in not-for-profit. There are so many things that even our board that we did not know that we couldn't do. I mean, and, and again, it comes back to, you don't know what you know until you know. And I feel like that's why the structures have been in place. The chamber pros, they're coming the November 18th and 19th. They have to train our board. Our board needs board training. Those are all things that have lacked, you know, and, and, I don't know. I think we're just kicking the can down the road.

In an earlier conversation, you asked if the finance person dies tomorrow. Everything's online. She has staff. It's no secret. The things that she complies by, any CPA, competent agency could pick up.

That's why I asked. We've been highlighting we have great people. Again, don't disagree profoundly.

Before, when it was a locked computer in a room, had access to that wasn't online in two decades old. That was a problem. Today, everything's backed up. It's redundant. She's complying with every legal obligation that a licensed provider has. And so I have great confidence that she struck me with lightning. We have somebody else to pick it up.

I'm going to make a bold assumption here that the city commission is expecting us to have something on the agenda continue the city parts of this discussion. Publicly, so I feel comfortable requesting now that we have approximately 30 minutes in this meeting. I think multiple entities in this room have requested to further discuss the 13 board member hierarchy slash structure. I'd like to get a temperature check on our ability to pivot to that conversation because I do believe that will come up.

As far as like, I think it should be smaller. I do. I feel it should be smaller. I think there needs to be at least two representatives from the city and two representatives from the county that actually work for elected officials, just because I, I feel that as a staff. It could be staff. I mean, there can't be two county commissioners there. I'm just throwing this out there, and I think that we need to have discussion on that. I would like to see it smaller. I think we can find common ground and be able to move forward. know if if there's something totally that you don't like about the proposed structure then yeah i'd like to hear and see what you guys would want to do so we can find that because we cannot drag this out for months this has got to happen asap um can somebody explain

JC First role is there at our meetings?

Yeah, so let me just say what I can say. JC First was established in 2014 as some donors that donated some money for economic development into the community. When it was set up, it was set up under the Chamber using the Chamber's EIN number, even though it was supposed to be separate. That is where that has all started. What I will say is JC First, there is JC First that is currently at the Chamber where we house grants, I guess you could say, and now a JC First Inc. has been created with the same investors, per se. So, it is a separate entity, but it has been using our Chamber EIN number since 2014. Our staff has been doing the books. Our staff has been doing the minutes for the meetings. And that is all I can comment on that because it is under investigation, but it is a separate entity eventually.

So let's stop now. They're not doing that through the Chamber anymore, correct?

Correct. No, there are still people paying their grants through the Chamber.

Yeah, but they're not functioning is what your question, right? Yeah, they're not to our knowledge. No, they're not functioning. No, they're not functioning with the chamber. That's his question. They're not. Yeah.

Well. The other one is, period of 76.

I don't know how many people. But is that the phone that's closed?

Yeah, except I'm going to be started on your audit report. There is an account still open, but there's nothing in it, correct?

No, there's still something in it. Okay, so we're trying to get that thing closed.

TO MY COMMISSION ON OCTOBER 6TH. SOUNDS LIKE YOU WANT THIS ON THE AGENDA. SO IT SOUNDS LIKE WE HAVE AT LEAST ONE COMMISSIONER REQUESTING THAT. WE ONLY NEED ONE AT LEAST. SO I'M GOING TO PUT TOGETHER INFORMATION. I WANT TO PUT TOGETHER INFORMATION THAT WAS FROM THE PREVIOUS JOINT MEETING BECAUSE WE HAD ALL THE NICE PRETTY SLIDES THERE OF DIFFERENT IDEAS. ALSO GOING TO BRING UP THE STUFF THAT THE CHAMBER BROUGHT THIS LAST MEETING. to be getting with miss edwards because she did provide me a draft one of the things though is that got delayed because of the chamber presenting and then making sure things lined up and then schedules became schedules we're going to get together and have that um done as well as i'm going to have give other staff and get staff suggestions in terms of that as well as letting you know how close or far away these suggestions are because you might all have a similar structure or not but then if we're thinking 1397 when We want quarterly reports or biweekly reports. Those are things that we can do. One other thing I'm going to put in that packet is going to basically be a proposed document. Just because I've drafted it doesn't mean you have to adopt it. It would be a rescission of the previous notice to terminate or looking at something that would at least give that 12 to 18 month, basically the December 2027 trial period, if that's your will. That way you have all your options in front of you, and on October 6th you can look at those and do it.

would love that in our in our county would have to vote on it as well if there's any adjustment because it's now effectively been dissolved correct the agreement yes so um by serving that notice our council told us that's effectively poisoned it or killed it or whatever so then would it have to come back to the county

Well, we're going to have to. I mean, I think we're all going to have to agree. So yeah, it's going to have to. But we have our meetings every week, so.

Right. So if this was happened by the 6th of October. And all these documents, I'll make sure Ms. Edwards and Mr. Munch's statistic could have been following you guys, which would be.

I would urge anybody with concerns, especially with our commissioners, city commissioners, that if you have questions, if you want more information, set up a meeting with one of the board members and get your information. before the board meeting so you can have everything. Again, like Ashley said, we have four lives that don't know if they're going to have a job in four months. And, you know, they've been put through the rigor this year, and we've got to find a way forward, and it has to be swiftly and effectively.

Yes, I was going to request that Mr. Stites do work with our board member to make sure that his information is aligned with anything they may be privy to as well.

I want to make sure that the agenda item is broad enough to encompass the discussion about what the City Commission voted on last time. Let the public comment on that. Give us time to percolate. This meeting has been positive because I think a lot more people will be paying attention. One of the things that happened early this year, even last year, we had a grand consensus from a lot of people that the structure wasn't working. The person was not being held accountable. And that was one large consensus that I knew of. So where that consensus has resulted in a change. And what I'm hearing is everybody, including those inside and outside, think that change was positive. The question is, where do we go from here? Where can we fall back into the same thing? So I just want to make sure that the city commission's vote of three to two is respected. I think it has been disrespected in a way.

I can deal with it. You are contradicting yourself. Oh, I'm not. You said you wanted to get things. You didn't think it was going to pass. I really didn't. And you wanted to get people talking. And here we are talking. I didn't expect it to be two days. So nobody's not saying that we didn't respect that.

I didn't expect to have an emergency meeting held in two days on a matter that was implicitly rejected.

Because there's four lives on the line that need no job.

And that's the reason why I asked for this is because we need to get these. Those people, we owe it to them. We owe it to them. I mean, I care about employees. I don't know about you, Dick, but I do. I care about the democratic process. I do, too. And that's why you can have special meetings. We have all the authority to call a special meeting. And I'm telling you right now, those four people are the main reason why I had that. We could have waited until Monday to talk about this.

Like I said, the vote that occurred has resulted in a meeting called it two days to actually undermine the Democratic result. That's my view.

Yeah, I'm sorry. So if and when we vote next week, why we are going to vote and we vote to say we're not taking back. Is that undermining your vote?

No, exactly. The process would move forward appropriately and people would have a chance to talk about it.

Yeah, but we can still have a conversation. This is all just conversation and that we need to get this moving.

Personally, I think. You're stimulating the conversation. Yeah, I agree. Hey, I'll tell you what.

I can certainly agree with that, Commissioner. Well, and I'm glad. I'm glad. Because we should have already sat down already. We should have already had this pounded out.

Well, we've got 21 minutes left. We just put 9 o'clock because we didn't know. Well, I'm asking.

I've got no idea how personal work to do.

Usually my pajamas by now. Well, I'm asking because we've been overdue to have this conversation knowing we have approximately 21 minutes left. Are there any other points, topics, or perspectives that we need to prioritize knowing we have this time?

Why don't we knock down this board thing real quick? I mean, you want nine members, and who do you want on there? Well, our proposal was seven.

It was seven. And I think that's a good number. Can you break down that seven real quick? Yeah. It was two county, two city, one from each advisory board, and then for the sub boards of MAC, we did five. Five on those boards.

It could be a commissioner or staff. Yes.

Yes.

But there are going to be times that maybe all the commissioners are working and can't go to the meeting.

Right.

So they need to have people to sub in.

Yeah. Well, we have it to where we will work.

I mean, amongst us, that's three.

Right. But I mean, there might be changes over time. It's not personal jobs.

Here's the other thing. All right. First of all, let me say, if we come to an agreement, and it's a one-year trial, that's fine. But how do we write this supposed master agreement for a one-year trial? And how long does that take to get approved by the state or whoever? But at the same time, we need to be like our forefathers, and we need to be looking down the road to the future. I don't want to leave this chair and it all falls apart. Whatever we decide, we need to make sure that we're doing justice to the community.

You're going to know in a very short time. You're going to know in a very short time that you made the right decision. So it's not going to take you long. And people will be saying, let's continue this. I mean, there's people that are ready to be turned loose. Because there's things that happened that destroyed information. There's a reason why we didn't have bylaws. There's a reason why we didn't have a lot of stuff. Well, it was destroyed. You know, you can talk to former people that were serving on the EDC, you know, and say, well, we used to have my laws. But where are they now? They're gone. You know, because somebody got rid of them. And we know who that somebody is.

Could you comment on the legal process that Commissioner Asher was speaking to as far as the timeline of things?

And that's why I'd recommend looking at December 27, because that would give us more than enough time if we iron out an agreement. Because the thing is, if you were doing that, you'd be— You said December, I think. Yeah, December 27. She's asking how long does it take. Yeah. Yeah, so that's why I gave that, because— No, she's talking about 18.

She's talking about the attorney general approving— They can be between 30 and 90 days. Which is first of the year, if we turn it in today. I mean, since we already have – I mean, they've already approved something similar. We're not going to – if we start it January 1, we're not violating anything. They'll just – I mean, they probably would tweak it more so than say if they don't think it's right.

If they do, because one of the realities is under the current attorney general, they've been – turning some what formerly were interlocal agreements that required AG approval and saying, we don't need to approve these. Like for instance, the EMS agreement. That used to be an interlocal agreement that required AG opinion. Then we set it up and they said, no, we don't need improvements. contract. So but this will probably be more one that would still require that. That's why I say, let's look at a way of maybe we will my commission and everybody can agree to maybe send that prior notice, find a way to continue flying under current one, or a way to do that. And then because you're gonna get the point of we agree on the general body. And there might be the tweak here, the tweak there. Otherwise, we go back and forth. That'll take what you think would be a three-day fix into a one-week fix or something. It just eats a little bit of time. So that's why you need to get to have the AAPG approve of their governmental group there.

Are you saying during this...

There's going to be different details in the one moving forward. So that's going to have to

I think that we should probably rescind if that's what each commission votes on and if they'll accept the rescission. And then I think as soon as we can get something in writing that everyone agrees on, then we submit it right away to the AG.

And all this is hypothetical based on whether we

Would it also be of assistance? Miss Rodriguez, we have phenomenal notes taken of every meeting. So when you have minutes of meetings, would that be of assistance to have them forwarded to you so you have accurate accountability of what happened in our meetings?

I wonder. Okay. So

As we used to have we have a quarterly meeting. I don't we we literally the chamber is set by monthly. We have been having every two weeks having a meeting. So there has been lots of information that has been shared with going forward.

I think all that all those minutes should be sent to all the commissioners because I'm not perfect at seeing everything that happened in the meeting that I went to. Especially if you're digging around for four hours at a meeting. Right. I want to get out of there. You know, I forgot that we talked about blah, blah, blah. I mean, it's human nature, right? So we have that information. I think that would be terrific.

That's easy. We have one next Thursday, and you'll have it Friday. I guarantee you, Seth will have it.

I think, and I said this last month, we need to be more transparent with the public so that when the public that does show up to our meetings, doesn't matter what board or whatever, They should be able to see our packets or whatever agenda, all that stuff. Because it's only it's taxpayer dollars. They have a right to see it.

I would ask that once the amendments are approved that the next meeting that you guys go ahead and publish what the county does and the city does and that way it's available.

Are we good?

Is there any more discussion? Any more questions? Anything else that we can take care of now that could move the process forward more quickly? Any more questions? Any more thoughts?

Any more sense of urgency I feel?

I just want to commend the public that's here tonight. Thank you for coming. Thank you for being civil about this. It is a stressful time for all of us.

So if there is nothing else.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, we spoke earlier and she mentioned I was, but there must have been a change. I'm sorry. We're in their house. Thank you.

If there's nothing else to come before the board, we will stand adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you.