City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. I'll call to order Elizabeth Town City Council regular meeting for January 20th, 2026. And I'd like to ask Council Member Marty Fulkerson if he'd lead us in the invocation, please.

Let's pray. Father, we're so grateful for the blessings that you give us, the blessings of living in this great community, for the men and women who wear the logo of the city of Etown and strive to provide quality services to all of our residents. And Father, during this time, we're reminded that there are those in need as the cold weather we experience are those are here in our community that may not have a place that's warm to lay their heads at night. And so, Father, we thank you then and pray that we'll be a community that will do outreach to provide those services. And some of them are just basic needs during this time. And Father, thank you as we are blessed and we continue to be able to prosper in this community. We pray that all we do will bring you glory and to the benefit of our citizens. It's in your son's mighty name that we pray. Amen.

Amen. If you join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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.

Madame clerk, if you would please call role. Yes, sir. Council member Bishop here. Vulkerson here. Issac's here. Jones here. Springsteen here. Tyler here. Mayor, we have a quorum. Thank you, ma'am. And I will take a motion and a second for approval of minutes of January 5th, 2025. Second. Have a first and a second. All in favor? I

opposed. Seeing none, motion carries. and I would like to take this opportunity to introduce to you Heather Cochran who's a partner with RFHPLLC who's going to talk to you all about our annual audit report. Welcome.

Thank you all for having me. Uh you should have in front of you, I believe, a bound audited financial statement and probably a secondary letter um that we issued to you all. So, I'm going to take you all through that. This is your June 30th, 2025 audit um which we just finished up. Uh, normally we would probably have presented in December, but due to some federal guidance that we were waiting on in order to do your uniform guidance or single audit on your federal funds, it was delayed just a little bit. So, so that's why we're kind of here in January this year. So, I'll start with the greenbound booklet. Within that report, these are your audited financial statements. So, what that means is they're your numbers and we give you all um a couple of different letters within this report. So page one, two and I believe three is what we call the independent auditor's report. The second paragraph of the very first page. So page one will basically say in our opinion the financial statements referred to above present fairly in all material respects the financial position. Basically what that means is a clean opinion. It's as good as it gets. Doesn't get any better than that. So that's what you're looking for on page one. That second paragraph there, it's a clean opinion because you all are a government. In the back of the bound booklet, this is on page 6768 and then up through 6970 and 71, there's two other reports. So there's a report what we call in accordance with government auditing standards. And this report starting on page 67 basically talks about internal control and compliance. And then the second report which starts on page 6970 and 71 is the report related to what we call the uniform guidance. So this past year 2025 because you all had a federal project going on you all spent more than $750,000 in federal money that requires you to have this other compliance audit every year.

So when you do that you have to have that audit. So if you look at page 69 on the second paragraph, you'll see in our opinion the city complied in all material respects with the compliance requirements referred to above. So basically that means we did this federal audit. We didn't have any um issue issu is issuing a another clean opinion on the federal audit. Now we did have a few matters that are in those two letters and I'll point you to where those are outlined. That is on page starting on page 73. So page 73, 74, and 75. We did have some recommendations. It didn't it didn't mean that you didn't get a clean opinion. You still got a clean opinion, but we did have some recommendations on things that you could do differently. So the first item relates to um what we said, audit adjustments. So we had a few audit adjustments related to federal grants. Um, and what that means is it wasn't that you were doing anything wrong. It just didn't quite meet um, generally accepted accounting principles in regards to the timing of when things should be recognized. So, for a federal project, if you spend the money and you have a grant that's going to reimburse you, regardless of when you're getting that money, it should be recorded as revenue in the same year the money is spent. In this case, it was happening where it was recording more on a cash. You know, the money's coming in, we're going to record it when the cash comes in. And for generally accepted accounting principles, you need to match those up. So that very first recommendation is just to say you all need to do that. Okay? Because it related to a federal a federal grant, we also had on page 74 a recommendation related to what's called your schedule of expenditure of federal awards. So because you didn't put that money back into the year that related to the project, it didn't end up getting onto your schedule of expenditure of federal awards. So, we're saying you need to make sure that the secondary piece of

that is you put that money on that schedule. That schedule is the schedule you all put together to see how much um federal money you spent in any given year. So, that's what that second one is. And then the third one on page 74 at the very bottom is related to procurement policies. Um, what this relates to is because we had to do a federal audit this year for the uniform guidance, there are very specific requirements in regards to your written purchasing policies. So, you're supposed to have very specific things in there in accordance with the federal guidelines. It doesn't mean you didn't comply with those federal guidelines because you did. Um, but you're supposed to have very specific things in that policy um to make sure that it's written. So, we're saying there is just to beef up those written policies to ensure that it complies with the federal guidelines. Again, you were complying with the federal guidelines. It just wasn't written in your policies, if that makes sense. Um, and then that was the last one. So, 75 just kind of continues on with that recommendation. You all already have responses in here on what you're going to do on those items. Um, I think those responses are very reasonable. So, I think you'll already have a plan in in in response to making sure that doesn't happen again. But in my mind, in the grand scheme of things, like this particular finding, it wasn't that you were spending money incorrectly. That's the big kind of no no, you know, like you spent money that you shouldn't have spent um in the wrong way. It wasn't anything like that. It's really just a generally accepted accounting principle saying you're matching up those monies and making sure it gets into the right place. Okay. The rest of this 70 70 what six page report is your financial statements. I know it's a lot of information. you know, we have um a lot of notes in there that talk about all the all the numbers. Um pretty much all of this information is required in accordance with

[snorts]

um generally accepted accounting principles. Um it keeps getting longer I think every single year. So um a lot of lot of good reading there for you. There's a secondary report that's like a uh loose leaf um communication. This is a required communication. Most of the information in this is required per our standards. we are required uh to tell you certain things. For instance, if we had difficulties in dealing with management or in performing the audit, that would be in here. There's nothing like that in here. Um there is some mention of making that adjustment related to the federal program. So, there's some mention of that in there. Um there's also some mention of because you all were handling that money that way, we did have to go back to 2024 and make sure that you also dealt with 2024 the right way. So um we did end up doing a uniform guidance audit related to 2024. Had to go backwards and do that um just because of the timing of everything. So um that is mentioned. Um we had a couple of little minor recommendations on the next to last page under other matters. Nothing um nothing too too uh strenuous so to speak, but a couple of um minor recommendations there as well. Uh but the important thing in my mind is to know you all did get a clean opinion. Um, as I said, that's kind of as good as it gets in the auditing world can't get you any better than that. Um, so having these recommendations, um, you know, I know Jeff and Cheryl and your team will will make sure that they get taken care of in the future. Um, as always, you know, they're they're always great to work with. I just always want to say that. Um, not every city is quite so accommodating with making sure they get our requests as quickly as we would like, and you guys do a great job of that. So, I just want to show my appreciation of that. It does make a big difference for us.

Any questions? In regards to self insurance? Yes. I don't know how you do that. There's things when you go generally accepted accounting practices. The fact that you have to count income that you don't have makes no sense to me, but that's government. Okay. [laughter] In regards to that self- insurance, you know, you don't know how you're going to end up at budget time. We try to make an educated guess based on Jeff and M's experience to do that. I don't know how you're going to ever fix that.

Yeah, you you do the best you can, right? I'm required, you know, on that recommendation that you're kind of pointing out is to say, you know, at the end of the day, you guys were about $2 million short of what you transferred over. So, we're required to kind of point that out to you and maybe reassess for the next year to say maybe those rates need to go up. Um, I'm completely with you. [laughter] It is hard hard to uh to to determine, but just do the best you can. We did Can we get an A for effort? I a forever [laughter] effort. And I also agree there's some things in governmental accounting principles that maybe I wouldn't do that way, but it's not my call. [laughter] Anybody else?

We thank you very much. We're very proud of our finance department and Jeff Hawkins and Cheryl Burr and they do a great job and probably out of all the departments that we have, they get uh the least amount of recognition because they're back there crunching numbers and and we don't brag on them enough, but they do fabulous and they are very much appreciated and just like every other department and everything we do throughout the year, there's always lessons to be learned and things we could do better, but they're pretty good. So, I just want to thank you and definitely thank our finance department. So, thanks. I know my team always has great things to say about them and that's been my experience as well. So, um they are very responsive. I think coach Senetti would call them the special teams.

Already coming off with IU references after the big win. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you all. Okay, we will start with the first reading by motion of ordinance number 3 2026 amending the official zoning map for 614 through 622 Pair Orchard Road. If I can get a motion and a second to read. Motion. I'll second. All in favor? Opposed.

This is a first reading by summary. This ordinance amends the official zoning classification for the property located at 614 through 622 Per Orchard Road from suburban residential or R2 to urban residential R3 to allow for uses such as single unit homes or zero lot line duplexes. The change was approved by the Listown City Council as it was found to be in agreement with the city's comprehensive plan. The full text of the ordinance can be found by contacting the city clerk. Again, this is a first read.

Any discussion? Seeing none, we will go to municipal order number three, 2026, approving contract with the airport board for a promisory note. If I get a motion and a second to read, please. So moved. Second. All in favor?

Opposed? Judge Howard. At a regular meeting of the city council held on the date set out below. After first being read, a motion to adopt the following municipal order was duly made, seconded, and approved. Whereas the city believes that partnerships are the best way to address community projects. And whereas the city has provided financial support to the Elizabeth Town Airport Board for many years by providing the required public funding for numerous projects for grants from the Federal Aviation Administration. Now be it ordered the city approves the promisary note with the Elizabeth Town Airport Board for a bridge loan to cover expense expenses for the completion of construction of a tea hanger building to [snorts] be utilized for the benefit of providing enhanced public services at the airport property off of Kittyhawk Drive here in Elizabeth Town [snorts] in an amount not to exceed $600,000. The promisary note shall be paid in full without interest included no later than January 1st of 2028. Be it further ordered that the mayor and his designate is authorized and directed to take all steps necessary to perfect this order including signing the promisary note and executing copies read adopted and approved this 20th day of January.

Any discussion with that? I'll entertain a motion and a second to adopt. So move second. All in favor? I opposed. Seeing none, motion carries. Judge Howard, that brings us to municipal order number 42026 authorizing contract with Nolan Royal Electric Cooperative for the installation and maintenance of street lights on Commerce Drive. If I can get a motion in a second to read, please. Motion. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Judge Howard.

At a regular meeting of the city council held on the date set out below, after first being read, a motion to adopt the following municipal order was duly made, seconded, and approved. Whereas the city believes that partnerships are the best way to address community projects. And whereas the city and Nolan RACC have historically partnered on the installation and maintenance of street lights in the city. And whereas the city has budgeted funds for the expansion and extension of Commerce Drive from Executive Drive to its terminus at Springfield Road. And whereas the city desires to have decorative street lights along the Commerce Drive corridor to provide safety for vehicular traffic and pedestrians. Now be it ordered, the city approves the contract with Nolan and RECCC for the installation and maintenance of decorative street lights along the entire Commerce Drive corridor in an amount not to exceed the current budget for such project. Future maintenance of the street lighting will be performed as agreed on a time and material basis. Be it further order that the mayor and/or his designate is authorized and directed to take all steps necessary to perfect this order, including signing all contracts, documents, and form read, adopted, and approved this 20th day of January.

Discussion, questions, comments. Need a motion and a second to adopt. Please make a motion. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. Which bring us to municipal order number five, 2026, authorizing the purchase of property at 607 more drive. If I can get a motion in a second to read, please second. All in favor?

Opposed? Judge Howard. At a regular meeting of the city council held on the date set out below. After first being read, a motion to adopt the following municipal order was duly made, seconded, and approved. Whereas the city has for many years worked toward the redevelopment and stabilization of the Glendale Hill neighborhood. And whereas through property acquisition efforts, the city desires to create housing opportunities and to create public open space. And whereas the city has offered to purchase property at 607 more drive for the expansion of the existing housing stock and the potential for the creation of future open space in the neighborhood and the owners of said property are willing to sell. Now be it ordered by the city council that the city purchase the property located at 607 Moore Drive from Michael Miller in the amount of $12,000. Be further ordered. The mayor or his designate is authorized to sign all agreements, contracts, deeds, closing documents, and forms to perfect this order, including have a title report and phase one environmental review of the property to be purchased completed, read, adopted, and approved the 20th day of January.

Any discussion? Seeing none, I need a motion and a second to adopt, please. So moved. Second. All in favor? I I opposed. Seeing none, motion carries.

And that went quick. That'll bring us to the public comment section. Seeing none, we will go to city council information items. The next city council meeting will be held on January 26, 2026. And I do want to comment on a couple things. First of all, Christmas in the park. I know that we always wonder every year how many cars went through there. Our count is right around 30,000. And if you figure that at 2 and a half people per car, you're at 75,000 people went through our Christmas in the park this year. And our donations are even up and they were around $45,000. So pretty successful year. Proud of the job that parks and wreck and everybody that's involved with that does because I think there's people not only in Elizabeth Town, but from all over this region or parts of the state for that matter that really enjoy driving through there. So that includes me and my family. It's pretty nice. The other thing I wanted to talk about, and we're still a few days off, but we are amping up, gearing up uh for winter weather this weekend. We've seen predictions anywhere from 2 to 12 ines. We don't know which version we're going to get yet, and it may be over a couple to three days. And so our public works guys are getting ready and they've already uh gotten some equipment ready to go and there won't be uh any issue or hiccups. If we do get the weather that hopefully we won't get, which may be 10 12 ines, we we don't want that. But if it does come, our folks will be out there and they'll be ready to uh clear those streets and get it get everybody available and ready to go for the weekend. A or D. Anybody else?

Hey, mayor. I would like to uh selfishly but wish a happy 81st birthday to the friend of the city, Mr. Michael Bell, today. Brother Bell. Uh made it through 81. Uh he said in his sermon yesterday he wasn't sure if 82 was in his future, but he was hoping. I've heard of him once or twice. No, he's uh he's the de facto mayor of Glendale, as a lot of people like to say. Mike Bell, who's been the preacher down there, I don't even know how many years,

over 50 years at uh the Christian church down in Glendale, and he's a fine fine guy, and he's been a wonderful friend to me. Uh just on a personal note, and I appreciate you saying that, Tim, but whenever you need it, or whenever I need it, it seems like there's always a text comes through from Brother Bell of encouragement, and it it it's pretty special and means a lot. And I know I'm not the only person around that he does that to. He's he's thinking of others at all times. So, thanks for bringing that up. And happy birthday to our friend, Brother Mike Bell. Anybody else?

Actually, mayor, um, talking about the cold weather and in Marty's Prairie touched on helping other people, um, with shelter. Uh, y'all know me. Uh the Harden County Animal Shelter has vouchers for bales of straw if folks cannot bring their animals inside if they're too big or whatever. Um but bales of straw are great nesting for shelters and windbreaks. Um and the animal shelter give you a voucher for at least one. Um but also entire bales are $67 at the most at Lowe's or any other place around here. Um, and so straw is really, really good and can save an animal's life if you like that animal, which hopefully you do or you wouldn't bother having it. And I'll get off my soap box now.

Noted. And thank you for that. I appreciate it. And you're correct. We're going to see some bad weather before we see good. So, let's not forget pets and and everything else. With that, if anybody anybody have anything else, we will go close meeting pursuant to KS 61.8. 1810 section 1 to conduct deliberation on future acquisition or sale of real property by the city. If I can get a motion in a second, please. Motion second. All in favor? Opposed? Seeing none, motion carries and we may have action coming