City Council - Regular Meeting

Where do you start?

Green Street, a vibrant community space in the heart of downtown, is where Lee Summit comes together. Its three dynamic areas have something for everyone. Green Street Market is a modern event venue and home to the downtown Lee's Summit Farmers Market. Green Street Lawn is a covered performance space hosting live music, family activities, and more. Green Street Grove is a mixture of gathering spaces, an immersive playground, and bold architectural features. And all three areas host community events year round. So the next time you set out to enjoy the city you love, remember, meet at Green Street.

Hello Lee's Summit, I'm Jordan. Here's your flash briefing for the week of August 31st. The public is invited to the Joint Operations Center open house tomorrow, September 1st at 2pm. The address of the new facility is 1001 Northwest Main Street. The ceremony begins at 2.15pm with tours and light refreshments provided. City Council will meet for a regular session Tuesday night at 6 in Council Chambers and City Hall. Meetings are open to the public or watched live on the City's YouTube channel. If you can't watch, catch the recorded meeting on demand on the YouTube channel or by subscribing to the Council Debrief Newsletter, which breaks down three to four key agenda items. Subscribe at citylls.net. Get ready to welcome autumn and support your favorite local shops at the Fall Open House in Downtown Lee Summit, September 4th and 5th. Over two dozen businesses are excited to unveil their brand new seasonal decor, apparel, and gifts. Learn more at downtownls.org. And a reminder, city facilities will be closed Monday, September 7th for Labor Day. Thanks for listening and have a great week.

Keeping Our City Beautiful is a collaborative effort for all citizens. The City of Lee Summit supports these efforts with a set of guidelines or ordinances. And the City's Neighborhood Services team helps put those guidelines into practice. These guidelines ensure grass stays trimmed, fences are maintained, home exteriors are kept up, and much more. We can all help out by first making sure our property meets these guidelines. If you notice potential violation on a neighbor's property, first check the guidelines on the city's website. If it is a violation, the next step is to communicate with your neighbor directly. If that is not possible or if the problem persists, it can be reported through LS Connect. LS Connect is an online platform for submitting issues to the city. You can access it on the city website or by downloading the app through your mobile device's app store. Once you submit an issue, it is reviewed by the neighborhood services team. A neighborhood services officer will then visit the site. For any violations found, the neighborhood services officer will leave a notice and speak with the property owner if possible. The officer's goal is to help the property owner solve or abate the problem as quickly as possible. After a 10-day period, the officer will inspect the site to see if the issue has been abated. Normally, by this point, the issue has been resolved. If not, depending on the type of issue, an extension could be granted, or the city might fix the problem at the owner's expense. In rare cases, if all other measures have been applied, the issue will be resolved in the municipal court. Neighborhood services officers work hard to resolve problems quickly and positively. They are here to support the community as we work together to keep our city beautiful.

Want to know what's coming to Lee's Summit?

The Development Minute is here to help.

Meadows 3 North is coming to John Knox Village. The five-story apartment building will have 47 units and includes an underbuilding garage. Meadows 3 North is targeted to open in summer 2027. Country Club Estates Villa 2 is permitted for construction in John Knox Village. The four-story building contains 15 dwelling units and an underground parking garage. Villa 2 is scheduled for completion next summer. ProDeo Youth Center is under construction at 9th and Douglas. The 6,000 square foot facility will double the nonprofit's capacity to empower local youth through academic support, mental health resources, and community engagement. ProDeo Youth Center is on track to open in late December. A brand new Bank of America building will replace the old one on Northwest Chipman Road. The new 5,000 square foot facility will feature a contemporary design of brick, stucco, and aluminum composite. The new building is set to open in spring 2027.

All of the city's storm system end up either in a creek or a lake. We have five or six lakes in the city. We have numerous creeks in the city. All of that is open conveyance, which means there is no treatment. If it goes into the curb inlet, it will end up in a creek or a stream or a lake with zero treatment. Things that people don't know they should not put down the storm sewer system. Grass clippings. We cannot be blowing grass clippings off of your lawn, into the street, from the street, into the storm inlet. Yard waste. leaves, trash, washing your car. If you have a commercial vehicle, the city, by code, requires that you wash your commercial vehicle at a commercial car wash. If you're washing your car in your driveway, your personal vehicle, you can wash your car in your driveway by code. Keep in mind, though, that all of the soaps, the detergents, everything you use, the waxes on your car will discharge down into the storm sewer, so we would recommend that you use an actual car wash to just get all of that captured properly and it will then be discharged and managed properly as opposed to potentially impacting the streams that are nearby. Fourth of July comes along. People shoot off their fireworks, they leave them at the edge of their driveway, which is a good place temporarily, let them cool down. But at the end of that, they do not belong in the street to get washed down the street, swept down the street into the storm system. If you don't want to swim in a lake full of trash, we don't recommend you discard your trash that way.

Every time you turn on a tap, high quality water is ready. But where does it come from? In Lee's Summit, water flows from two trusted sources, the Missouri River and its surrounding aquifer. This water is collected and treated in the cities of Independence and Kansas City. In Independence, the Courtney Bend Water Treatment Plant operates 42 water wells. These wells reach 85 to 125 feet underground, drawing water up from the Missouri River Aquifer, an underground water source that naturally filters water through layers of soil and rock. The facility filters, cleans, and softens the water before pumping up to 7.5 million gallons a day to Lee's Summit. In Kansas City, the KC Water Treatment Plant draws water from the aquifer and the surface of the Missouri River. It then filters, cleans, and softens the water before pumping up to 25 million gallons per day to Lee's Summit. In Lee's Summit, Water Utilities controls the flow of these sources into the local system. Advanced software monitors the entire system, including three pumping stations and eight water storage tanks. which maintain the water's pressure as it moves through 639 miles of water mains, carrying it to your home and the homes of more than 100,000 citizens. Water utility staff collect samples from throughout the system and send them for extensive laboratory testing, ensuring your water is safe, meeting or exceeding state and federal standards. When you turn on a tap, you're accessing a vast system spanning hundreds of miles, each foot carefully planned and strategically maintained. A system that leverages innovation to harness nature, turning a vital life source into an ordinary convenience, bringing you safe, reliable, high-quality water 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. To learn more about Lee's Summit Water, visit lswater.net.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you

Please rise for the invocation and the pledge of allegiance.

Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together tonight and for the opportunity to serve our community. As we listen to those who are willing to step forward and serve District 3, please give us wisdom, discernment, and open hearts. Guide us towards the person who will serve that district and our entire community with integrity, compassion, and dedication. Please bless our meeting tonight and help us remember that we are here to serve our neighbors. Amen.

Hello, everyone. I'd like to call the City Council meeting regular session number 12 to order, please. Can I please have roll call?

Council Member Frazier? Present. Council Member Pryor? Here. Council Member Cravens? Here. Council Member Adkins?

Here.

Council Member Carlisle?

Present.

Council Member Funk?

Present.

Mayor Pro Tem Shields? Here. Mayor Lopez?

Here. Thank you. Now we will have to approve the agenda as presented. We'll get a motion for that. Motion has been made by Council Member Funk, and we have a second by Council Member Cravens. Any discussion? If not, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Motion passes 8-0. Thank you. Takes us to the consent agenda. Motion's been made by Mayor Tim Shields and a second by Council Member Frazier. Any discussion? If not, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Consent agenda is approved, 8-0. Thank you. All right, it takes us to Council Roundtable. Yeah, Mayor Tim Shields.

Thank you, Mayor. Well, first I wanted to give a shout out to the free community yoga that happened this past weekend. One of these days you guys are going to join me for it. I'm going to keep inviting you. But they did it at City Hall because Green Street was having the vintage market takeover. So there's lots of great activities going on. This weekend will be the fall open house downtown. So hopefully everyone can come out and support local for Labor Day weekend. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you. Council Member Pryor.

Thank you. So I know this will make everyone on council happy, but Medi's, the progress that they're making, they're moving quick. So I'm excited to see that. And then also, this has been a few weeks ago, but downtown Lee Summit finally has a grocery store again. I think it's called Brooks Family Farm. So they're at the farmer's market. They serve, it's pasteurized, but it's non-homogenized milk. So that makes my family happy. But yeah, so you guys should visit them. They're open every day, I think. Thanks.

It's good to know. Thank you very much. Council Member Funk.

Thank you, Mayor. Congratulations again to Chief Forbes, Chief Snyder, and city staff, and of course you too, Mayor, for the ribbon-cutting today of the Joint Operations Facility. Congratulations, guys. Thank you, Mayor.

Excellent ceremony. We'll hear about it later, I'm sure. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Funk. Council Member Carlisle? No? I'm okay. Sorry. All right. Council Member Atkins.

Following up on what Council Member Pryor said, we saw the Costco ribbon cutting coming for October 2nd.

That's all.

Okay. One second. Council Member Carlisle.

Thank you, Mayor. I want to say that hopefully tomorrow, well, Thursday, we're on Tuesday, right? Thursday, we will have our parks groundbreaking for the new field house. Fingers crossed. It doesn't look like it's going to rain, but hopefully we won't all burn to death.

Great. Thank you. It's exciting. Yes, Council Member Pryor.

So I feel like this is probably the most important thing, but Costco already has their pumpkin pies, and we can now buy pumpkin pies local as of October 2nd. So thanks.

That's great. It's holidays will be here as soon as you, before you know it. So yeah, today was definitely, the weather's been really hot. So I'm sure you guys are all cooling off in here today, tonight. We did have the ribbon cutting today for the Joint Operations Center. And thank you chiefs for making that indoor. And we were only outside for a few minutes. So thank you guys. That takes us to proclamations. We have one proclamation. I love doing these. I'll meet you guys up front if that's okay. Thank you.

On September 11th, 2001, four commercial airliners were used as weapons of terror to target innocent Americans. 25 years later, we honor the victims, first responders, and volunteers whose bravery and compassion unified our nation during its darkest hours. Their actions continue to inspire our commitment to freedom, democracy, and resilience.

Thank you very much. So now I, J. Bethel Lopez, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor for the city of Lee Summit, Missouri, do hereby proclaim September 11th, 2026 as Patriot Day and encourage citizens in Lee Summit to join the Prairie Chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution to reflect and remember the 25th anniversary of Patriot Day and display the flag of the United States half-staff on September 11th. We respectfully show our reverence to the 2,977 innocent souls who lost their lives and others who were injured. We also remember the families and the first responders who served that day and those that continue to serve and protect us each day. Thank you for being here. What's your name?

I'm Kathy. I'm Kathy Carter.

I'm Kathy Carter. I'm the vice regent of the Prairie Chapter for the Daughters of the American Revolution. This is a very important anniversary, and we just wanted to make sure it was recognized. And then I have a little pin to give you to remember September 11th.

Thank you.

Thank you, and we'll take a quick photo. Here it comes. Step back here a little bit. From the podium.

Thank you again.

So that takes us to the next item on the agenda is the public comments. So we've put these in alphabetical order, and we'll go ahead and proceed with that portion. The first one is, I always have a hard time reading that name. Michael Boswick.

Okay, thank you. Can you make sure the little projector's on?

I have an email to show.

So originally tonight I had planned to talk about facts and evidence that resulted from the previous meeting on how specific judiciaries had misrepresented facts in order to achieve financial gain. Only one judge had done it, only one a specific set of facts were relevant to that. If you actually pull the city's reporting on crime stats, you can see exactly what that data is. However, tonight's also gonna be talking about thought cameras, and I thought that bringing up that research that I had been starting on that would be important and meaningful to this group. So you can see here is an email. I found that a school in Lee's Summit School District had been shut down and I was curious as to why. I thought it was very suspicious. They also closed off the jurisdiction and I wanted to figure out the research for why because there's some real complexity there into why that could happen. Now the official answer I got it's kind of blurry for some reason, is shown up on the screen. And I'll give you guys the email here so you guys can pass it around and read it if you want to see it later. The main thing is to make sure that it's on the record. Part of the facts that I also found are not on the record because it's a recorded phone call I had with Jackson County. Because Jackson County actually controls access to the flock cameras. And one of the things that I have been researching a lot of is understanding how the city is using data and information in its legal spaces. Because I find that area very important. I find that area very easy to prove and show facts. And that's really one of my central goals. And in this email you can see that essentially a deputy outside of Lee's Summit was the one that actually was responsible for the investigation and was the one that closed the schools down. And she also indicated that she wouldn't give me any information as to why, because of who I was, because she looked me up in a database and said, you're in no position to question me. Even though I was trying to understand why Lee's Summit schools were closed down And I asked the school superintendent and they said, well, ask the police department. And then I called that police department and I literally called every person I could to get the answers available to me. And I found out that according to Jackson County, there was a person who had a child in one of the schools and they tracked him with the flock cameras and they knew he was going to be there. but Lake Wana Wana stated that the reason they closed down the schools is because there wasn't a credible threat. Now I'm not able to discern which of the two was true because of what Lake Wana Wana said in this email, because they refused to provide that answer. And I think it's really important to understand when you're looking at flock cameras especially, you don't control how that information is released. You don't control that information once it's recorded. And if someone is going to do harm with data, like let's say for example any one of the council members If you pull their flock data, you'd be able to figure out who they're associating with. You'd be able to create crimes based on the knowledge of where people are going to be. And if you don't think that would happen, I can talk specifically about perjury that's taken place in Jackson County.

Thank you. Next is Samuel Eames. Eames, Eames.

Hey there. I'm a little tall. Hopefully this is picking up. But he seems like he's way more on the ball about this than me. I first noticed the flock camera thing kind of happened during the No Kings kind of gathering that happened earlier this year. I noticed that they had one of those sort of mobile centers set up, and I was like, what is that? I mean, obviously I knew it was some sort of surveillance device, but I thought that was kind of nuts. And then as the year's gone on, I've seen more and more information come out about what Flock is as a company, what kind of information that they collect, how it can be misused, and just wanted to make my voice heard on this and like try to get people to realize like that this is just not a good direction to go down. Like as a society, the idea that we're gonna be constantly surveilled all the time is like crazy. And I think if I talked to any of you 25 years about this, probably you would think the same thing. I know it's kind of slowly been adopted over time, but I do think there comes a point where we just kind of have to say like no collectively. And I think this is absolutely one of those moments and I'll yield the rest of my time. Thank you.

D.J. Goode.

D.J. Goode, 5212 Northeast Holiday Drive, and I want to address the funding of our courts. I'm fully aware of many of the issues. I'm not sure why it's taken so long or why we haven't funded. court system. I think it's a disservice to the residents of Lee Summit because we're not funded and keeping our employees properly paid in the court system. Thank you. Thank you.

David Grady.

My name is David Grady. I grew up in Lee's Summit, moved away for about 10 years, and I came back and I was shocked. I'm not going to lie. I thought Lee's Summit was better than flock cameras. I didn't realize everybody else was here to talk about this, but everywhere I go, there's a camera, and it's disgusting. Like, you guys have got to do better. Every one of you have got to do better. I don't think we should wait until the Supreme Court rules on it because we know that's coming. We know the Supreme Court is going to strike them down. And at that point, why do we wait for them to do it? Why don't we just get rid of them now? Let's go ahead and cancel the contract. We need to do better than this. And I understand law enforcement likes them. And that's great, but I think our least summit police do a great job. They don't need to surveil us all the time to know exactly where we are and what we're doing. They don't need that. And frankly, it's unconstitutional. And you all know that that's coming. You all know that the Supreme Court is going to rule on this. They're already inching toward it and they're gonna. And so why don't we just get out ahead of the Supreme Court, why don't we get out ahead of what's actually right and what's actually constitutional, why don't we get out ahead of Josh Hawley and the folks that are tracking this stuff down at the national level, and let's go ahead and just cancel our contract and stop violating the rights of individual citizens in our city and people that pass through it. Thank you.

Mr. Floyd?

Hello, Mayor. My name's Chip. If you're younger than 35 years old, this is about 9-11, you might not have a vivid memory of those events as they unfolded when they happened, or you might have been too young to realize the significance of what it meant at the time. 9-11 is the reason why many patriots of my acquaintance either enlisted, stayed in, or re-enlisted. I speak for many of us that it means much more than just a day on the calendar to be marked, and now I know that the Mayor likely shares my sentiment. People who are fans of history often have certain events that they attach a certain meaning to. One of these for me is the assassination of President Kennedy. It happened four years before I was born, but over time and for different reasons, I attach a personal connection to that event. A president was brutally killed in public. It was a national tragedy and it changed the course of history. When the anniversary of that event rolls around every year and the specials come on TV and you see the events leading up to the assassination, I watch the same footage that you do. The same footage from the same camera, the same 26 seconds as the limousine rounds that corner. And you think maybe somewhere in the back of your mind, maybe it's going to turn out different this time. Maybe he makes it this time. But he doesn't. It's always the same. I feel that same way about 9-11. As you watch and rewatch the media coverage of this event, there's that little part of you, maybe, that's hoping this time it turns out different. Maybe today the towers don't come down. But they always do. And you get that same gut-punch, sickening feeling as if it's happening all over again. It was Tuesday morning in New York, beautiful blue sky, another beautiful day in corporate America. And maybe you just got a Starbucks and you're just about to sit down to work. The biggest decision you have to make today is where you're gonna go to lunch. An hour after that, the only decision that you have to make is whether you're going to burn to death or jump out of a 90-story window. Because you know you've seen your family for the last time. 2,977 killed, including 343 firefighters and 72 police. What we owe, what we owe is competent service, pride, and remembrance for days like 9-11. If we don't, we lose our history and we dishonor the sacrifice of those who died as a result of what that day set in motion. 9-11 Memorial, if you don't know, there's a 9-11 Memorial in Overland Park at the Fire Training Center. Mayor, your proclamation is appreciated.

Thank you. Daniel Hardin.

Daniel Harden. Good evening, members of the council. I stand before you tonight to present an exciting, cutting-edge new technology and public safety initiative called Project Shepherd. We know the heavy burden our city leaders carry every single day. This is why we are proposing a 24-7 satellite-guided drone surveillance network engineered exclusively to monitor every city official and every active police officer. From the second you step out of your front door in the morning, high-resolution orbital cameras and thermal drone fleets will track your exact vehicle movement, your parking spot, and the precise velocity of your daily commute. Everything you do will let us capture a timestamped searchable data point archived for 30 days. Now, before anyone raises any objection, let me put your mind completely at ease. This is entirely for your own safety. We've all heard the tired debate that modern surveillance should never be feared by law-abiding citizens. If you aren't breaking any rules or laws, you have nothing to worry about. Only those with something to hide should ever feel uncomfortable having their very movement track recorded and analyzed. So if we're your flock, allow us to be your shepherd. And just saying that the license plate readers is just like saying my cell phone is only for making cell phone calls. That's it. That's a lie. We all know that. Because when I did the Sunshine request to look at the records from the flock data that I had received, I didn't bring it with me here today. I didn't know if somebody was going to do that or not. You could search by modifiers, and one of the modifiers that was in there was SUV white. I mean, on your drive in here or your drive anywhere that you go, how many white SUVs do you see? I mean, that's just crazy. If you look around, there's just white SUVs everywhere. That's just like throwing a big net out there and going, oh, we're going to catch a soccer mom. I mean, everybody has a white SUV these days. One of you may have one. I don't know. So are we just going to violate the Fourth Amendment rights because somebody has a white SUV? Anyway, that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Sarah Hutcherson. I'm a local Lee's Summit resident. It's my first time coming to one of these meetings. I'm excited to see the community come out and share our thoughts with you. And in support of how we run our community and help each other as neighbors, I have a few succinct reasons why I feel we should part ways with flock camera surveillance and other similar subscriptions. Financial ROI. Ask yourselves how many incidents were resolved with these data systems versus the expense. Where can that be reallocated? I do support our police systems and their tools, but I don't think it should be at the expense of our personal liberties. We would rather that budget be redirected to area safety and law enforcement measures. These cameras are recording essentially more useless but invasive information than actionable data for improving public safety. Something to think about. Number two, questionable business practices. We're not the first community to address these memberships and surveillance systems, so I do think we should take this seriously. I believe something such as this should have been brought to a public vote for our public resources as it is our personal information being accessed, leaked and or sold. This is not such as our phones, our laptops and different contracts where we're able to read the terms and conditions. It's been predetermined that our movement in our community can be searched. So I don't think that that's a proper use of those decisions. So at least a re-evaluation or re-vote. for further pursuing this type of expense. Lastly, quality of life. I got about a minute left. Surveillance is a part of our daily lives, but like I said, this is a different type. This type of surveillance puts the burden of proof onto the everyday citizen. When a crime is committed, it's more on us to determine that we were innocent rather than, you know, they have our movements, they can put the pieces together. And I believe that burden of proof is being violated. Thank you.

Grace Kitzman.

Good evening, Council. My name is Trace Kitzman. I live in Lee's Summit, and I'm speaking for myself. Three weeks ago, I filed a records request because I wanted to know how many cameras we had in Lee's Summit. I'm not an activist. I'm just a guy who reads the paperwork. which I haven't really gotten any back yet, unfortunately. The police department publishes a list of things this system cannot be used for. Traffic enforcement is on that list, in writing from them. Their own search log is full of traffic searches, 15 in one week. An officer typed the reason in by hand, truck meet group. Another one was truck meet group organizer. Some of these lookups reached past 6,000 camera networks. That is 6,000 different cities we're searching. Why? There is also a standing hot list in the system named traffic. I'd like to know what that is about. And on August 18th, from this podium here, Chief Forbes told you this system is used for criminal purposes only. All of that came from City of Lee Summit. I didn't dig up dirt on anybody here. I read what you already wrote down. One month of that log, 2,699 queries, 89 different accounts, 25 convoy searches. That is a tool that identifies which vehicles habitually travel together. Not where a car went, who a person is with. 119 searches by description alone. No plate, everyone automatically approved. 697,000 vehicles scanned within 30 days. There are only 106,000 of us in this city. I have filed nine record requests since August 7th. Nine, and I still have not got a single one back. Every single one came back the same, 25 business days, 25 to 30, or no responsive records. State law says three days, and if you need longer, it says you owe me a specific date and reason. I have asked for that date nine times, and I have never gotten it once. That's not a backlog, that's a wall. I'm one resident with a public records form, and if I can't get a straight answer out of this city, why should any of you believe what they have to say? And also, who is watching this system? I'm not asking for an audit. I'm not asking for a better policy. I just showed you that policy does not hold. End the contract. Take the cameras down. Do not renew it. Thank you.

Hello. I'm Taylor. I work down here. I'm a bartender at Lou Ellen's and I'm a tattoo artist at Iron Rose. I've lived here for 33 years of my life. In these years, I've never worried about politics really. I've never felt the weight of the current political climate. But with flock and ice here, I do feel the weight more than ever. This is the first time I've ever been to something like this, you know, so also that that's why I'm here. I feel more than ever that is my civil duty to speak up about the current status. Surveying us like lab rats and using these cameras for petty crimes like weed and health care has to be unconstitutional. This is not freedom. There are a few instances across the US that have made me come to this conclusion. In Florida, a woman was stalked and pulled over by a sheriff's deputy who saw her at a TV shoot. In Texas, a sheriff's deputy used 83,000 flock cameras to find a woman who had allegedly had a medication abortion at the heads of her abusive partner. In Georgia, a police chief tracked his ex-girlfriend and her teenage daughter roughly 600 times. We the people are speaking up, and it's time to take control of our government. They do not care how it affects us, and AI can be used for good. And it's our job to police it before, or I'm sorry, it's our job to police that from the beginning before it's too late. This is a fight for our rights and against the 1%, and I beg you to join the fight and not be the problem. Thank you.

Thank you. Ray Mayfield.

My name is Trey Mayfield. I live in Lee Summit and I'm speaking for myself. I'm here to ask you to end the city's contract with Fox Safety and shut the cameras off. I've spent 20 years building data collection systems from robots on the bottom of the ocean to turning an icebreaker into an autonomous vessel. I'm a named inventor on a patent for a visual monitoring system. I build things like this for a living. So let me translate three things the chief told you two weeks ago. First, he said, any of you could sign up for a consumer off-the-shelf AI system and look at a license plate. That's true for one photo. That's not what you bought. You bought 54 cameras that record over 800,000 vehicles every 30 days, keep them for a month, and let 89 people search through them. The camera is the least important part. The database is the product. Second, he said the private sector does not have access to your data. Flock is the private sector. Flock holds the data. Your own contract says Flock is the one who deletes it. In section 4.3 of the contract you approved, let's Flock keep a stripped down copy of the data forever, including to train its own machine learning. Third, he said every keystroke is logged and audits are run regularly. A log nobody outside the department reads is not oversight. It's a diary. The audit goes to the chief's own office. The old policy, send it to the advisory board. The new one doesn't. And in the board's published minutes from 2023 through this year, the audit never comes up. Retention here was always, here was 30 days by your ordinance, now it's a setting on the vendor's page. You don't fix that with a smaller number, you end it. In 2023, you asked, him whether the department could change the rules without coming back to you. His answer, theoretically, yes. We could change it to do whatever we wanted to. You asked how many people accessed the data. One person. You repealed the ordinance in under one minute. Then one person became 89. He told you what could happen. It happened. Every car, every day, searchable by 89 people That's what your vote pays for. Five communities ended FLOC last month. Gardner, Kansas shut theirs off two weeks ago. Tonight, direct the city manager to do the same. Then don't fund the contract. It has a non-appropriation clause and FLOC weighs every claim if you use it. In 2023, you handed this decision to the department. You are the only body that can stop this. Take it back.

firefighter.

Oh.

Teresa Vollenweider, 5201 Northeast Maybrook Road. This is from March 13th, 2018. We're going to have to have the sound up.

Is it a legal lot? Does it exist? It was what grandfather did. They focused on the... We're going to have to have the sound up.

The complaints that came in to our neighborhood service division... Is this... Like I said, the problem is that we don't have a place right next to it, and they could also be doing that after hours when we're not able to be out there and to be policing.

Is this, the 3.85 acres, is this a legal lot?

Is this a legal lot? Can you restate?

Is it a legal lot? Does it exist? It was what grandfathered in under the new development code.

His eyes are moving.

So at under four acres, the current lot does not meet either a current standard or the standard that existed immediately before the UDO. Like I mentioned before, before the standard was five acres, it's now up to 10. So it doesn't meet the new standard. As it currently sits, it did not meet the old standard, but we can't speak as to when the lot was actually subdivided to its current state.

And how could they get a building permit for a house?

There currently is no permit so that's part of the process the reason why we're here to rezone the property so that the property does now would bring it into compliance with zoning from a lot size standard and Notice this person right here.

We can't speak to when it was divided why not? You did it with Jacqueline Maloney. You did it with Paula Deal. Forced them to do things. Why can't you speak to this one? He says there was no building permit. The gal next to him initialed one on September 8th of 2017. This is 2018. And then it proceeded that there were nine more permits issued before that lot was platted. It was a meets and bounds legal description. He knew, Hector Soto knew that that required a plat.

Thank you.

You can't use a 5621 plat for an address that is 5261.

Ma'am, this is your last chance. Thank you. Okay, before we move on from public comments, the people that addressed that topic tonight, there has been information that's been sent out. We had a presentation as was alluded to earlier by Chief Forbes. We do listen to you all, and we, I think, have all been bombarded with emails the past week or so. And one thing I know I can speak on behalf of all of my colleagues is that we're listening, we want to be responsive, and we will talk to city administration to try to get some answers for some of the questions that were asked this evening. So we will try to do that for all of you. I don't know for sure in what capacity, whether maybe we have a discussion about that at a public meeting or in writing. So you have that promise that we will do that. All right, so thank you all for speaking tonight. So we're going to move on. We have three presentations tonight, and our first one is a topic we've been discussing for quite a while now, Mayor's Task Force. And I see we have Ms. Tracy Alvarez, our Director of Development Services. We'll kick it off. Thank you.

Good evening. Tracy Albers, Development Services. No formal presentation this evening. Staff is just here to outline next steps for the appointment of the Mayor's Housing Task Force. Last month, the City Council and Planning Commission held a joint work session focused on housing, where direction was provided to staff regarding the task force composition. Task force is proposed to consist of 12 members, including the mayor who will serve as chair, the chair of the planning commission, one additional city council member who will be appointed by the mayor, one additional planning commissioner who will be appointed by the planning commission chair, and then eight community members with each council member making one appointment. Appointments are due to the mayor by September 15th doing so will allow staff to return to City Council on the 22nd as part of your regular meeting agenda with a resolution for council consideration that formally creates the task force memorializes its membership and and provides a framework for future meetings. Six to seven meetings are anticipated for the task force, the first being held in early to mid-October, with two meetings each being dedicated to the topics of housing supply and choice, housing affordability and attainability, and housing production. These overarching topic areas are meant to provide a framework for discussion while allowing for some flexibility to explore related issues and develop recommendations for consideration by council in the future. There is no formal resolution to be considered by the council this evening, but rather staff is seeking direction to proceed with the formation of the task force as outlined in your staff memo tonight. If mayor and council desire a different composition or approach, this is the time and place for those discussions to occur. Otherwise, staff will be back on the 22nd with a formal resolution for consideration.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Any questions or comments? Yes, Mayor Pertone.

Thank you. I just wanted to thank you for the update. I think we had a really good discussion about this at our joint session with Planning Commission. That composition sounds fine to me, and it's kind of fast to get folks appointed, but I think it's important work to get going quickly. So I would support the current proposal and bringing forth the resolution. So thank you.

Great. Thank you. I think we have discussed this quite a bit. I think we're all on the same page. So I think no communication means we're all in favor. So let's proceed. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Takes us to the next presentation. We are also forming a group, a task force, for review of our economic development incentives, our policy. So Mr. Elam will speak to that.

All right. Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. So in August, we had a conversation with the CEDC on a proposed process for doing a thorough, in-depth review and update to our Economic Development Incentive Policy. Our original incentive policy was originally adopted in February of 2015, and it has been a living document essentially this entire time. It's been amended by ordinance five times and had three administrative updates along the way. So every couple of years we review the policy, make little tweaks here and there in order to make sure that it's still meeting the needs of the community. Since it's been a little over a decade now that we've had this policy in place, The thought process is it's not a bad policy. It's a good policy. It served us well. But maybe it's time to do a deeper dive into that and do a more methodical approach to ensure that the policy is still that adaptable framework that we are looking to achieve. And so, again, this effort really is focused on the overall policy. It's not specific to any specific project, but it is just to ensure that the policy is still meeting the needs of the community and the council as a whole. So this is a proposed 12-month framework, so it is kind of a long process, but that is intentional in order to ensure that the time necessary in order to have a deep dive and a all the different topics that it can go into is provided. So that thought process is not to take any longer than 12 months. That would be the maximum amount of time that we would be wanting to do this. So again, the purpose is just to establish transparent, disciplined and community informed framework for the review of this process. So how this has been discussed about being set up, there's really four or five main groups that would be a part of this process. They each have a very distinct role. A smaller stakeholder working group really meant to be made up of technical experts, practitioners, those that are in the market in the industry that are utilizing these not only in Lee Summit but in the Kansas City Metro and regionally and nationally as well. to help bring a technical and market lens to our policy. Essentially, is this an effective tool for the development community in order to achieve the community outcomes overall? And then a separate community advisory board. That community advisory board is the board that would provide the community perspective overall. That community advisory board is a group of non-technical experts and they're meant to represent a broad representation of the community as a whole. Essentially, that opportunity is for them to not be the technical expert, very specifically not to necessarily be the technical expert so they can provide that feedback to the technical group in order to help shape the policy. that all is informed with policy oversight provided by the CDC, uh, with final authority being provided by the city council as a whole. So that stakeholder working group, uh, intended to have roughly nine to 11 people on it at max, uh, a mix of individuals, uh, that are representatives from the school district, the EDC commercial building industry, small builders, uh, large employers, small employers, uh, again, practitioners, technical experts. The advisory board set up currently to have four members per council district appointed by the council, and then two appointees from the mayor. And then we'd take a look at what that makeup is, and if there's any areas that we felt was maybe missing from representation, kind of reserve the option for staff to appoint a couple of individuals to that as well. So this 12-month policy update roadmap here, you can see it's broken up into two-month chunks, essentially here, launch and diagnose, go through a really detailed process. I'm not going to read this as a whole. Everybody can see what's on the slide. But this is intended to be the starting point that can be adjusted along the way. And if we're able to get through a few of these items a little quicker, we would accelerate the schedule based upon the workload of of the committee as a whole, but the intention would be to make sure that all of these are being hit as we go forward. Again, a lot of these would be focused around key policy questions that the stakeholders, that we'd need input from the stakeholders, various stakeholder groups on, to ensure that, again, everything is outlined and methodically looked through. So tonight, what we're looking for is confirmation on the direction from a process standpoint, as well as the appointment process timeline four members from each council district looking to be appointed, and then the stakeholder working group. It's currently proposed that staff and the EDC work together to propose names for that small group for consideration there, and we would like to bring that back as soon as possible, but some of that is going to be dependent upon how quickly your recommendations can come through on that. And then if there are any changes to the process or any discussion at this point, that is what we would like to seek.

Great. Any questions, comments? Mayor for Tim Shields.

Thank you. So first I want to say thank you to Mr. for putting this together. And also thank you, I don't think he's here tonight, but Joe Perry at the EDC, I know that he had some input into this process. And I think it was, oh, I'm just blind. He's there. Thank you, Joe. In terms of recommending this kind of two-group structure that would allow us to both have technical experts, because I don't expect everyone in the community to know the difference between a Chapter 100 and a TIF and a TDD and a CID and a, you know, the alphabet soup goes on and on. We need folks who understand the kind of real technical details, but then pairing that with the citizen group to make sure that the recommendations that come forward are matching our values as a community and that we're really getting that kind of input. We like that in CEDC and like the idea of kind of this larger group where each council member would get to appoint two members to it to be that kind of citizen focus group. So to me, this makes a lot of sense to do kind of a deep dive and make sure that we're getting both perspectives. But I would love to see this move forward. It seemed like we had good consensus at CEDC on it. But if anyone else has any questions, comments, I would love to hear them too. Thanks.

Yes, Council Member Atkins.

Thanks for the presentation and thanks for putting this together. I'm very interested in having this program go forward and having the analysis. I don't know if it's already built in here. It may be your intention that it's built in here, but my biggest concern is education as 90% of the whole thing. Educating not only the members who are assessing it, but later educating all of us about the status of past projects that have had incentives. And I've talked about this many times individually with many staff members. We've talked about it ad nauseum. And I love the charts that we already have that explain what's about to happen with our new incentives, but we don't have any charts that show what has happened with the projects now that they're up and running. And we've talked about this many times. I hope that that fits into this project because if we can't come out of it with data like that that's showing this is how, you know, we've got 20 projects right now and this is how we're doing until they all expire, that's the kind of data that we all want to see because there's just not, there's not staff time to put the charts together. It's very difficult because it's antiquated, like this, you know, our software doesn't go back that many years, so it's difficult to find those PowerPoints and bring them forward and find the slides. Like, I know it's a very time-intensive process, but I think it is crucial to begin the process. And I hope that that can be built in. I hope that that is not looked over because I just, I think that we can't solve something that we can't see or else what are we solving for? Like, I want to see the, you know, Are they ending ahead of time? Are they ending early? Are they ending late? Are the projects turning out the way that we thought they would? And I want to see accuracy of all the incentives that we've done. So that would be my request, that you can slide that in there in your workday. I know it's a really, really big request, but I think for me it's the biggest barrier to all of the discussions. So thank you for the work that you're all doing on it.

Thank you. Council Member Frazier.

I'd like to echo what Councilmember Adkins just said. But I do have a question, and I think we touched on it when we met previously. Is it your thought or anticipation that these meetings would be public? As in, even though we can select four per council district, if someone wants to sit in and listen, would you anticipate that they would be able to do that, the public?

Yeah, I don't think that we have any indication or any rationale as to why they would be necessarily closed doors or anything like that. This is meant to be a transparent and open process.

Absolutely. I think that's important. And with that, I think we could bring some aspect of education and, you know... information as far as what is an incentive, what's CIP and those sort of things. So I think this is a very good idea. I think it takes a cross section of our community. I think the challenging part I think for us on the dais here is to determine, to solicit information and to determine, hey, Who can come? Who's interested? Who do we think is interested? Do you think, you know, are you interested? So I think it's incumbent upon us to be able to get the word out should we decide or how we decide to move forward in selecting those individuals that we think would be good for the advisory committee. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Pryor.

Thank you, Mayor. Can you please go back? Maybe one slide, maybe two. Yeah, right there. So as I stated at CEDC, I still do have concern that just staff and EDC are getting to choose the people in the first group. I kind of feel like it's going to be people that are very fond of giving away a lot of incentives in that first group. So I do kind of worry about that. I do really appreciate Mr. Perry's idea about us getting to appoint two people each. So I do think that will help, but I still do have the same concern about the stakeholder working group. So thank you.

Thank you. Yes, Council Member Atkins.

I WANT TO CIRCLE BACK AND CLARIFY WHEN I TALK ABOUT EDUCATION THAT WE HAVE TWO VERY DIFFERENT BUCKETS OF EDUCATION. ONE BUCKET IS EDUCATING ABOUT THE GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND HOW EACH OF THE THINGS WORKS. AND I THINK THAT THAT'S SOMETHING THAT COULD BE HAPPENING WITH OR WITHOUT A COMMITTEE. AND THE SECOND BUCKET OF EDUCATION IS ON OUR SPECIFIC PROJECTS IN THE PAST AND MAYBE EVEN what they do or don't have in common with other failed projects in the region, as an example, like really educating and understanding how our projects have been structured. So two buckets of education, like just one is what are they, and two, how do ours work? So that's what I'm hoping to see, but I also want to put a plug in under the communications bucket. Can we please make sure that this committee is collaborating with our communications department, because the first bucket that I talked about could be starting now without the committee. Having the authority to be able to communicate with the public, whether it's, I don't care how, videos, social media, extra web pages, whatever. I don't care. That's the department's job. But can we please authorize them to start a campaign, an education campaign, about how they work in perpetuity, just evergreen campaign that's going to be true today just like it's true next week and just how you know next year because the terms are still the terms and the way they work are consistent so if we could raise that to the top of things that people do generally want to know about and and then as the committee goes on focus on how ours work specifically in this city so if that that would be my request is that we get that into circulation. Thank you for doing all of it. It's going to be great.

Yeah, thank you. So I'm not seeing anyone else wanting to speak. So before I kind of address some of the points that my colleagues have made, I want to just kind of reaffirm the selection process of the citizens that will be participating. So in order to keep it consistent, we have two pretty important task forces that we're working with here with the city. And this is in response to what our citizens are asking for in both cases, the Housing Task Force and this Economic Development Policy Review. So they're very important initiatives. With that being said, the selection process, we're going to keep it as consistent as possible, not reinvent anything, right? And at the end of the day, I think us up here on the dais are going to have a little bit of work to do in identifying interested and talented citizens, right? We have our work cut out for us. We have quite a bit of people We need to look for so I just am I getting that right the selection process will be similar. Yes All right, great. So that's important to point out. Secondly as far as education Council member Atkins. I agree with you. I think that incentives are very confusing and very complicated and but the different programs that exist we've all known that for for a long time staff understands that we understand that appears the elected representatives so i'd i would agree i think As Councilmember Atkins referred to it as two different buckets. I think initially, I think we don't need to wait until we form this task force and start this process. I think we can start communicating and educating our citizens about how incentives are used here within our community, how they have been used, and just in the most simplest manner. We've talked about this before. So I think that's something we don't need to wait a whole year to get that going, right? So that's one. And then as far as the... you know, comparing projects that we have approved and measuring their rate of success or where they fit maybe on a timeline. I know that's a big monumental kind of workload for you all, but maybe that's something we can start kind of addressing already as well. I don't think we necessarily have to wait for the task force to to kind of start their process. And so just a couple things to keep in mind. And then as far as Councilmember Pryor, your comment about the smaller group, the stakeholder working group, you know, that's something that's up for discussion. I mean, if you all feel like, I talked about it with Mayor Pro Tem earlier today, I think that's something that, you know, could be viable and realistic. It could be one, maybe one representative from us, from the council, to serve in that group, or at least maybe not have any kind of voting. It's up to us how we want to figure that out, what we want to figure out. I'm just throwing that out there if you guys are interested. That's something we have an opportunity to have input in. And if you want to make that suggestion or request, we can gauge that from all of our colleagues. Yes, Council Member Pryor.

Sorry, thank you as this will there be a liaison from council or are we just going to? How is that I guess kind of along the lines of communication? How are we going to know or maybe maybe we're not supposed to know I mean Maybe it's not within our purview of knowing what's going on in the group like where will there be a liaison from?

I guess real quick, so I think The idea, the objective is CEDC is going to be very much involved in the process. They will get reports from these committees on a regular basis. So that's one way of making sure CEDC and the council stays in the loop on things. So if you want more than that, then what you're asking for could be another recommendation.

I don't know how everyone else feels, but I wouldn't mind. I mean, I know it's another meeting that people are going to have to attend. But maybe a liaison? I don't exactly, I do feel like there would be more transparency with a liaison from council in one of, like, in the first group.

Perhaps someone from CEDC?

Well, and not even, I mean, I don't even, it doesn't even have to be CEDC. I don't, I mean, but...

So if I may, the original thought process on this and the discussion was that those working groups would essentially prepare information to be presented to CEDC on a monthly basis with CEDC providing the feedback and kind of chewing through that in that setting overall. So that was the original intention, but that doesn't mean that there couldn't be a liaison associated with this or however that wants to look.

I wouldn't mind having a liaison or maybe somebody that council appoints to be on the group, be in the group. But I'm not, I will do, I mean, I'm not, I don't know. I don't know what everyone else feels is best. I don't want to, I know being a liaison to the group, it's going to be pretty time consuming. So I don't want to say, I don't want to make that suggestion if there's not anyone that feels like they could dedicate the time to being a liaison for the group. So I guess I'll just go with whatever council consensus is.

We have more council colleagues. Do you want to make comments? Let's see if we can come back to your question. Yeah, Council Member Atkins.

And my comment, my third comment is about education. So I don't have an opinion on that part. I don't care. I trust the process, whatever way we choose, whatever we choose. My third comment on education, just to reassure you, is that, Mr. Elam, you've already prepared a really good PowerPoint presentation about incentives. It's a really good presentation. And I've seen it twice because I'm in private meetings like with the chamber or onboarding EDC. Yeah, wherever I've seen it, I've seen it a few times. but 99% of the public has not seen it because it's not been videotaped and it hasn't been distributed. And something as simple as sitting down and videotaping yourself, working with the team, videotaping the presentation and attaching transcript notes and disseminating that would be a huge deal because it's a really good presentation. You don't have to recreate it. It's just there's a barrier between what we know versus what is made public. that would be a great step. And I bet the communications team could break down 20 more pieces out of that. I mean, they could spend a week talking about each slide because you've created the information and it's really good. It's just that mindset shift of like, here's the presentation. Now let's make it go mass communications. And you don't have to recreate anything. Just get it out there. So that's my train of thought with what I'm asking for, that mindset.

I see you nodding your head. You're soaking it in.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, the first two months of this process are all about education. Okay. All right. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Shields.

Thank you, Mayor. As far as the makeup goes, I appreciate Council Member Pryor's comments about wanting to make sure that it's not just folks who are looking for the biggest incentive package possible. And Mr. Elam, when you talked about the actual makeup of that group, in terms of that it could be, like, school board, that it could be not just folks who, like, folks from the EDC, but also, and then in addition to that, builders and other folks that have more technical expertise. Like, I appreciate that, because, like, the school board, the school district, they have very particular thoughts about making sure that the development is done in a responsible way that can continue to support the, you know, the great public schools that we all appreciate. So, like, For me, making sure that that kind of balance is there is good. If council wants to have a liaison, that's fine, but I kind of would trust that group to work through it and then come to CEDC to report out. But I wonder if maybe we would feel more comfortable if prior to the final appointment, if that slate of industry expert group was brought either to CEDC or to full council for sign-off approval. Would that be maybe a good middle ground just to make sure that we know who's on there and that we kind of see that there is kind of a mix of not just developers, but also folks from those different stakeholder groups?

Yeah, and let me clarify, to follow the same process that the Housing Task Force is doing, we can bring forward a resolution that appoints the members to both of these groups, which would have the opportunity for discussion there, and that can be sent out ahead of time for feedback as well from the council prior to adoption on that so You know with with direction here and knowing kind of where where things want to be and as outlined in the memo I'd be we began working with EDC to propose names for for councils consideration on that okay, I think with with that structure like like the destruction that's on the screen

But knowing that it'll come to us for a vote to approve the final slates, that's something I would be comfortable with. But if folks feel like that's not quite the level of oversight, I'm open to other ideas.

I'm getting some head nods, so I think that's a direction we might want to head. But there's a couple of people that want to speak still. So Council Member Cravens.

So kind of echoing everything, because I think we're all trying to get to the same resolve. What I like about this plan is that we have multiple buckets, and all these buckets are going to feed into each other. I think the whole reason why we are creating a task force is because there is an apparent issue that needs more clarification or to be solved. And so with us having all of these checks and balances, if you will, the way I envision it, and I think this is kind of something we talked about in CEDC, is the reason why we want participation from so many different places is for that whole checks and balance, transparency, making sure that we are focusing on the right information because I think that that will kind of solve some of the concerns Councilmember Pryor has because That is a concern of the community and, you know, quite frankly, us as well. We want to make sure that we are being as transparent as possible and that we aren't creating an environment where the feel is that there's certain entities getting more because of connections. And so I am very adamant about involving our community because our community is who we serve and who needs to be the most comfortable with the things and the decisions that we're making up here. And so with that being said, part of the conception of this is so that the community can give the input of the direction of information that is needed. And so I take that portion very seriously because As we see, our community is not shy. So they're quick to highlight concerns. And I think this is a space for it. So if anyone in our community has some serious concerns or need more information on how incentives are used in our community, this is the platform for that. And I appreciate us having that type of platform. And so I would just encourage us to kind of see how this process works, because obviously, You know, none of us up here has done this before. And so we can tweak as we go. That's the whole benefit of us creating a task force. It is so that it can work for our community the best way that it can. So that's all I have. Thank you.

Thanks for putting this together. Thank you. Council Member Funk. Thank you, Mayor. Not to go around with what everybody has said, Council Member Atkins on her educational piece, I think it's a great idea, but this stakeholder working group, as we talked about on the housing task force, these meetings would be held publicly. That during those meetings, the public could sit in, they could understand being, they can hear what's being talked about in that work group to maybe not necessarily have a liaison on there, but it is a public meeting that if someone wanted, if a council member wanted to sit in on the meeting, they could sit in on the meeting, however that works. But is that your, I think that's a question. These are going to be public meetings. Yeah.

The intention is that these will be open public meetings. I don't know about filming because of logistics and things like that at this point. I probably wouldn't count on necessarily filming all of these as well as times. I don't know what time of day these meetings will occur. A lot of that is going to be dependent upon the membership and the commitments that folks are able to make.

I mean, I think it would be important to drill down the times of the meetings. That way they're consistent and we had an opportunity to be transparent and say, hey, the public meeting, they're going to meet this day of every month or so on and so forth.

Absolutely. I just meant at this point since we don't know who the members are. Sure. I appreciate it. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Funk. So to that point, I did have the opportunity to speak to Mr. Elam earlier today as well. And just like we don't want to reinvent anything, we've been consistent in how we are transparent and include the public in the past, like with the CIP list. The street strategic plan those kind of prop that kind of process and cadence I think worked well for those kind of you know procedures or situations and So yeah, we'll stick to that kind of process and format and they are all public with a lot of public and transparency participation so So, yeah, I mean, that's kind of the idea. We want to be as inclusive as we can with this process. But we have to be efficient and, you know, we can't have, you know, people, public comments and those kind of situations. So, okay. Council Member Frazier.

uh... just one more at the one last thing uh... i want to encourage because i don't know each of the twenty thousand members of my district at twenty five i want to encourage for especially for those who are not present tonight that are watching online email us call us whatever it is you need to do, if you are remotely interested in being part of this. If you know someone who you think would be good, you have to let us know because we won't know. I mean, we've got folks and we've had a couple that have already reached out, but I can't know and won't know who unless you all let us know. I was just having this discussion with Council Member Carlisle and say, who do we know? We know some, but... We're trying to engage, and it's easy for us to talk to the folks that are here tonight. It's fine, the folks that are online, but again, if you think someone may be interested, let us know. Call us. Our phone number or contact information is out there, and we want to be available for that. I don't think you want my mother here, so, you know. But seriously, just let us know, and we definitely want to bring everyone in.

Thank you. So Mr. Elam, you see you pretty much have the green light to proceed and move forward. You see how passionate everyone is up here about this topic and just being inclusive and transparent and communicate as best we can. So with those marching orders, let's proceed.

So one question slash request. for your appointment process.

Do you think that... Yeah, we talked about that earlier. So, like I said, we're going to have a lot of work the housing task force. We're going to get a presentation here in a few minutes by Mr. Dunning regarding the other issue we're going to be addressing. We're going to need a lot of help from the community. With the housing task force September we're going to choose some people. We can do it as soon as Wait a month have a like a lag in between the housing task force formation and then this one. It's up to us Y'all want to do it all at once in September Yeah, they're pretentious go for it

I guess I was about to ask the same question. Because you talked about bringing forth resolutions. Will those resolutions actually list the membership? Do we need to start sending names to the mayor or to you? I guess that's sort of the question. To me, by the end of September would be great, although I think for the housing one they were saying...

A little bit sooner for the housing one. The housing deadline, I believe, was September 15th.

Okay, so maybe by the end of September for the incentive one?

Yeah, I think if we could have a couple weeks gap.

We could set a couple-week gap in between them. I mean, I'm not opposed to it. It's up to you guys.

I assume everybody needs to actually reach out to people and ask them if they are interested and available. So if we want to try and do that by mid-September, that's fine. I was just wondering if we all need to be emailing somebody names or what we're doing.

I think just to keep a buffer between both different task force, I think a couple week gap or lag would be probably better or beneficial. Go for it. No, it's two per district. The housing task force. Per individual, sure. Okay.

15th and then two weeks later then do the the EDS the incentive one Thumbs up We will yeah we will set help you.

Yep. Yes. Yes sure does and we'll plan on being back with resolution for the Appointments the first meeting in October.

All right. Thank you. Great job. Yeah mayor pretend

Just what I was kind of hearing from Councilman Radkins, we have a schedule. After this, can maybe you send us a recap of the appointments we're being asked to make? And also a blurb that we can share with prospective appointees of here's how often this is expected to be. If I ever talk to someone about are you serving on a commission, it's always, well, what's the time commitment? So if you can give us that, I'm sure that would be super helpful as we start to find folks in our district that want to serve on these.

Yep. Awesome. High level. Looking for probably six two-hour meetings over the course of a year every other month. And I'll send you an email on that as well, but in case anybody's listening right now as well.

Okay. Good point. Thank you. All right. And we'll proceed with the agenda then. We have one more presentation. Mr. Dunning, something that is pretty critical and also time is of the essence. District 3 vacancy. So if you want to kick that off for us.

Sure, Mayor. Happy to do that. Mark Dunning, City Manager. As you all know, the application period for the Council District 3 vacancy has closed, and we have six candidates that have applied for that vacancy. And per the process, this meeting is identified as an opportunity for you all to have dialogue about those candidates and whether or not you are, through the process... This evening is one where you, if you so choose, to narrow the candidate list down to no more than five so that on the following meeting on September 8th, we'll have a candidate forum. Mayor, I know you're soliciting questions from the council members for that candidate forum whereby the candidates would respond to those questions. and have dialogue and express their desire to be on the council and those types of things and this is all outlined in the process but that would occur on September 8th and then after the council voted on the candidate then the process lends itself to one where Ideally, you want that candidate sworn in to be in the seat as soon as possible. We wouldn't do it at the meeting on September 8th, but we could work with that candidate and have the clerks swear them in at their earliest convenience. And then the meeting on the September 22nd would be more that ceremonial swearing in here at the council meeting. So that's kind of a Looking forward, but this evening is purely for you all to have dialogue if you so choose to narrow the field to no more than five. That's your opportunity.

Thank you. So before we open it up, to add on to what Mr. Dunning has already expressed, obviously full transparency, I emailed all of you, my colleagues up here last week, requesting two things from each of you. to provide questions that we would, like Mr. Denning said, that we would use during the meeting next week for all the candidates. So I've gotten some from some of you and you have until the end of the week to give me the rest of you to give me some questions. But the other the other point the other question I asked was for you all to either send me a ranking or your priorities or top choices amongst the six applicants. Obviously using criteria that we've already made public to all of the people that have responded. So based on the responses that I received, I did not receive responses from all of you up here, but based on those responses, there were three primary names that were consistently brought up by each of your responses. So I can share those with you and use that as a starting point for our discussion. But there were three of the six that were consistent, again, with each of you that responded to me per my email request. So I'll stop there and I'll open it up for discussion if you all want to chime in. I can give you the names if you want them now, sure. In no specific order, not alphabetically, this is the way the list came in. Arth, Frederick, and Young are the three that were consistent on the responses that I received. I don't have all the names in front of me. Please, yeah.

I believe it's Dana Arth, Christopher Frederick, and Andrea Young. That's it.

That's it. So, yes, may I pretend?

So... I would be comfortable with inviting three folks to the final forum. I think we've had a chance to review their written applications, which had a lot of information in them. And I would like to give each of those candidates as much time as possible to answer questions and make sure that we have a chance to really get to know them that night. So I think when we originally wrote this policy and rules committee a few years ago, the idea was we never know how many applicants we'll get. And if you had 50 applicants for a position, you couldn't have all of them at a forum. It would just take all night, and that's where we kind of said at most five. I think three is a good number that we have still a good selection to hear from, but get to dig a little bit deeper with them. So those names would be acceptable to me, but I'm open. But I think just kind of balancing the need for broad slate but also getting to drill down with each of them. So thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Council Member Cravens.

So I am taking the opposite position of that. I wish we could have all six of them because I do think that people who have taken time out to apply for this vacant seat deserves to be heard and deserves an opportunity to present themselves. I don't like narrowing things down, especially if it's a matter of going from five to six. I don't think that that's too big of a number, especially since we know that the questions are timed anyway. So we kind of can anticipate how much time we'll spend. I like to just hear everyone as well as know make a decision not only on what they presented on paper because you know we have limited space you know that you can use but I also like to hear people in person and I think that I mean you know that's the right thing to do that's the fair thing to do to consider everybody who's taking the time to to sign up for this because I think that if you are taking the time for this seat that you're pretty serious about the work that you want to contribute to, which is to our community. And so for me, I wish we could have all six of them. I don't think that that would be taking too much of my time to hear everyone out and make a decision based on what they have to say in front of us.

Thank you. Council Member Pryor.

Thank you. I agree with Council Member Cravens. I wouldn't mind hearing from all six of them. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Council Member Carlisle.

I concur as well.

Okay. Yeah, I'm open either way. So it's up to you guys. You've been through all six? Okay. And then we'll figure out alphabetical order or whatever, how they present. Okay.

Yep.

Mayor, I mean... Mr. Dunning, are you, staff, okay with where we're headed with this?

Yes, we can accommodate that. And as we have those questions come in, I know the process outlines, I think it's six questions, a total of six. So yeah, we can assist with calling it the candidate forum so that we can methodically move through that process.

Okay, excellent. then we have the six applicants, and they will all participate in the forum. So I appreciate your guys' feedback. Send me your questions. Can we get the other three names? All right, thank you. The information is all public. So thank you. That's it. So we'll move on with the agenda. Agenda item number seven, proposed ordinances first reading. Mayor Patem Shields.

Thank you, Mayor. I move for second reading bill number 26-153 an ordinance vacating certain easements located in 900 Northwest Ward Road and 1131 Northwest Innovation Parkway in the city of Leesaw, Missouri.

Great, thank you. We have a motion by Mayor Patem, Shields, and a second by Councilmember Funk. Any discussion? If not, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Motion passes 8-0. Thank you. Mayor Patem?

And these ones, these ones are just for first reading, so I just go to the next one, right?

Yeah.

Okay. I move for second reading Bill number 26-154, an ordinance reading the City of Lee Summit's procedure for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest and substantial interest for certain municipal officials pursuant to Section 2-75 of the Code of Ordinances for the City of Lee Summit, Missouri.

Thank you. We have a motion to advance to second reading Bill number 26-154 by Mayor Pro Tem Shields and a second by Council Member Carlisle. Any discussion? If not, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Motion passes 8-0. Thank you. Mayor Pertem?

Move for second reading of Bill No. 26-155, an ordinance authorizing the City of Leisaw, Missouri, to make certain changes with respect to the Chapter 100 bond documents to be executed in connection with the Lakewood Business Park Project Building 2.

Great. Thank you. A motion made to advance the second reading of Bill No. 26-155 by Mayor Pertem Shields and a second by Council Member Cravens. Any discussion? If not, please cast your vote.

Could we have staff come up and just briefly explain what this is? Yeah, David Martin.

This has David Martin on the presentation.

Good evening, David Bushack. I'm not David Martin. I'm pinch-hitting for David Martin tonight. This is an ordinance that would amend a Chapter 100 plan that you previously approved for one particular building. And I will put this on the overhead to show you where this is located. This is a page from the Chapter 100 plan that the City Council approved back in 2023. And then in March of this year, 26, City Council approved an ordinance for the bond issuance for Building 2. Building 2 is located here. That is the first building that the developer's proceeding with. City Council approved an ordinance authorizing the issuance of nearly $10 million in bonds of the $78 million in capacity. The City Council is approved for all of these buildings and the developer is now sizing down the building leading to this request So if you approve this ordinance tonight, it will do two things It will Go to the right page It will decrease it will authorize the decrease in the size of the building from 60,000 square feet to 44.5 Thousand square feet and it will approve a new pilot schedule associated with the smaller building So those are the two action items that this ordinance accomplishes and the location of this project just for your Awareness if you to go about this distance over here To the west that is the runway for the the north-south runway for the airport Independence Avenue is on the side and the interstate is right next to it and The sky zone, for example, is just kind of off over here. So that's the location of this nestled in amongst the airport runways.

And you mentioned the bonds. The city is not on the hook for those at all, correct?

Correct. Those are not city general obligation bonds. The developer incurs the private financing And the bonds are purchased by the developer using their private loan money. And then the developer pays down those bonds over time. That's the rent payments they make under the lease for the Chapter 100. So it's not city general obligation bonds.

Okay. Thank you for clarifying. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further discussions or questions? If not, please cast your vote. Missing a couple. All votes are in. Motion passes 8-0. Thank you. Takes us to agenda item number 8, proposed ordinances, second reading. Mayor Pertem.

Move for adoption of bill number 26-152, an ordinance approving the award of RFP 2026-083A to David E. Ross Construction Co. for the CMAR services for the Giacomo Pump Stations Enforcement Project in the amount of $52,378 and authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement for the same.

Thank you. We have a motion made by Mayor Pertem Shields and a second by... Councilmember Cravens, for bill number 26-152, any discussion? If not, please cast your vote. Motion passes, six yes, two no's. So, thank you all. All right, takes us to the next agenda item, committee reports. Oh, that may pretend.

I probably should have brought this one up in council comments, but we had Lee Summit EDC had their monthly reception yesterday. Mayor and I both had a chance to speak briefly at it and talk about the proposed task forces that are coming forward, so I'm really glad that we all came to consensus on those tonight, because otherwise we would have been, I'm not going to say making big promises, because we didn't promise anything, but we were telling the community about these exciting opportunities.

I saw a few people here.

Just wanted to mention that. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Funk.

Thank you, Mayor. September 21st, 1130 via Zoom, we will have our legislative intergovernmental relations meeting, and we will be working on our draft outline for our legislative priorities for 2027, as well as wrapping up our RFP for the lobbyist. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Carlisle.

Thank you, Mayor. I also should have brought this up during council whatever earlier, but I attended a parks and rec board meeting or park board meeting, sorry, park board meeting where they discussed many things, including our hopeful groundbreaking on Thursday, but also on what to and how to name that building. And so I just wanted to get on the record that I do think Carlisle Courts is a great name. So thank you.

On record, huh? Got nothing. Council Member Atkins.

Thank you, Mayor. I went to Visitors Bureau.

We're technically on committee reports. Is that committee? Yeah. Okay.

Oh, I guess I considered it a committee.

Yeah, we're on committee. Yeah, so hang tight for a second. Any other committee reports? None? I didn't see any. So we'll go ahead and proceed to council comments. Prior to Council Member Atkins, I apologize. If you can hang for one couple seconds. I've asked Mayor Pro Tem Shields to read off all of the applicants that have put their name in for the District 3 vacant position.

Sure. For the record, the candidates who filed for consideration include Andrea Young, Christopher Frederick, Dana Arth, Garrett Denzer, Jared R. Williams, and Jothan J.D. Schiller.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Now, Council Member Atkins.

Thank you. I'm sorry. I guess I thought it was a committee. Visitors Bureau is where I liaison with that committee. Okay. Okay. Well, there's lots of them. So they had, they're kind of kicking off for the year and they had their, the marketing consultant Trezolo came and presented how wonderful their campaign has been the last year because the visitors bureau is brand new. They are in their second year. They're approaching the end of their first three years, which was contracted, like the funding came for their first three years. So they're kind of getting ready to go into their third year. They had consulted with this Trizolo to launch Explore Lee Summit and to spread awareness, tourism awareness of Lee Summit outside of the region and just had phenomenal results in terms of exposure outside of the region, which is fantastic. And I know they were really happy with the results. But it also crossed over Football Fridays, which was, of course, just World Cup-based. And so the feedback they're getting is that Football Fridays was amazing, which I think I think we all agree that it was amazing for five weeks in a row and everybody in Lee's Summit was downtown and enjoying it. But we're not going to have World Cup again next year. And so everyone is wanting to know who's going to be in charge of whatever we do next year. So we're going to, I don't know the answer to that. Nobody knows the answer to that. But I know there's a lot of decision making for all the departments to figure out how we're going to collaborate and what we'll use Green Street for at this time of the year next year. Probably just Parks Department. I don't know who, but it's just a lot to figure out. But they did a great job, and they're happy about their year. They're excited. Thanks for everyone's collaboration.

Thank you, Council Member Atkins. I didn't mean to cut you off, so thank you for the report. Good stuff. Council Member Frazier.

Comments?

Yes, we are now on council comments.

Okay, third time's a charm. That's right. If you know someone who is interested in becoming, in participating in any of these task force, please reach out. I know you can because you have before to reach out to us on all things pertaining to city council. So please, even if it's not you, if you know someone else, volunteer them to reach out to any of us. I think I can speak for everyone up here, any of us. so that we can have representation. Thank you. Thank you.

Appreciate that. Not seeing any other comments or the phone, the thing light up here. Staff roundtable.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I've already mentioned the Joint Operations Center ribbon-cutting, so congratulations to all of you, the prior mayor and the council that were certainly a part of that process as well, and of course both chiefs and many, many staff that played a part in delivering that community asset. It will be impactful, and I know many of you were there, and for the public's awareness that we have some critical infrastructure in operations now within a I'll say a rated shelter to withstand some pretty significant weather events. So we're thankful for that asset and the trust and confidence in the community to deliver those types of projects. I will share with you Jackson County has today delivered us their assessed valuation data. I will shoot you an email on this so that you have this information. Overall, our assessed value decreased by 17.5 million, which is basically a half percent decrease compared to last year. So as we tie that back to how we went about our budgeting for this year, assuming it was going to be pretty flat, we're in line with that thought process. So that plays a role in us establishing our tax levies. I know the Finance and Budget Committee will be hearing this information at their meeting on the 15th of September and then that information will come forward on September 22nd in a public hearing here in front of the council That will be an emergency ordinance because we have to have the tax levy set by the end of this month and so receiving the numbers kind of late in the process it does trigger us to do some quick work so that we can get those levies established. And then lastly, a couple of work-aversaries, as I call them. Crystal Weber celebrating 13 years with the city on the third of this month, and our own Chief Forbes celebrating 12 years tomorrow with the city. So we appreciate their service to the city. That's it.

Is that it, Mr. Dunn? That's it. All right, great. Thank you. We have a little bit more business to take care of in closed session with council. So thank you all for coming out tonight. And Mayor Pro Tem, can you read us into closed session?

Pursuant to Section 610.21.1 of the revised statute, the State of Missouri pertaining to legal actions, causes of action, or litigation involving a public governmental body and any confidential or privileged communication between a public governmental body or its representatives and its attorneys. Pursuant to Section 610.21.2 of the revised statute, the State of Missouri pertaining to the leasing, purchase, or sale of real estate by a public governmental body where public knowledge of the transaction might adversely affect the legal consideration. Therefore, in pursuant to Section 610.21.12 of the revised statute, the State of Missouri pertaining to this yield. bids and related documents until bids are open and sealed proposals related documents or any documents related to negotiated contract until a contract is executed or all proposals are rejected. I move to enter closed session.

Second. We have a motion made and a second. Please have roll call.

Council Member Funk.

Aye.

Council Member Adkins. Aye. Council Member Pryor.

Aye.

Council Member Carlisle. Aye. Aye. Council Member Cravens. Aye. Council Member Frazier. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Shields. Aye. Mayor Lopez.

Aye.

do do you